by K. A. M'Lady
Table of Contents
Also By K.A. M’Lady
Dedication:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
K.A. M'Lady
Published by Mojocastle Press, LLC
Haymarket, Virginia
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Bound To You: Vranthian Vampires – Book 1
ISBN: 978-1-60180-200-2
Copyright @ 2013 K.A. M'Lady
Cover Art Copyright @ 2013 Fiona Jayde
All rights reserved.
Excluding legitimate review sites and review publications, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Copying, scanning, uploading, selling and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission from the publisher is illegal, punishable by law and will be prosecuted.
Available online at:
http://www.mojocastle.com/
Also By K.A. M’Lady
Get Lucky
Song of the Wolf
Realm Book One: To Tell of Darkness
Realm Book Two: Shadow Slave
Realm Book Three: Illuminated Death
Faith Savage, Demon Huntress Series
Ramshackle Castle: Bent Poetry and Other Altered Verse
Rational Animals
A Walk in the Black Forest
Dedication:
For love.
For all the reasons that magic happens.
Because all things are possible
If only you believe.
Prologue
Vranthian Outpost – Sector Twelve
Beneath the hazy glow of Vranthia’s third moon, Draven stood alone in the alley. From the darkness, shadows rose like spirits from their graves. The oncoming storm clouds skulked across the skyline, dark swatches in a darker sky. Though the night was silent, the air subtly shifted, filling the night with the hollow memories of battles long since passed.
With each inhaled breath, he could smell the coming rain. Taste the fire-storm on his tongue. A slight breeze stirred the dry sands so that with each blink the horizon was awash in a tinge of crimson before the next blink sifted it away. The natives called the coming storm blood-rain. The title was apt; he’d seen enough blood in his days to know.
He’d come to this desolate wasteland of Vranthia’s Rebel Sector many times before, but tonight the gritty air that permeated the darkened streets felt coarse against his skin. The shadows were more ominous, the encroaching darkness more foreboding than the nights that had passed before.
In a hurry to be done with this ill-advised mission, he kept to the side streets, one destination set in his mind. His pace was steady, sure-footed. But like filth that sticks to a boot, he felt the loners, runners and thieves watching him from the darkness, following in his wake. Their hissing anecdotes were all the same murmur in the night – his infamy followed him well. “Darkness follows at his heels,” he heard them snicker. “Death is his sweet mistress.” They hummed like carrion in the night. Circling like scavengers.
Let them chatter, he thought, dismissing their comments. They were nothing to him. Weaklings. Petty vagabonds and fools. He’d killed enough of them to know.
A quick left turn brought him to a main thoroughfare. Through the crowded streets he briskly wandered, each stride filled with purpose. He looked at no one, yet saw everything between. His black duster skimmed the dirt on the roadway, stirred the blood-red haze. The duster’s flare left just enough room to easily draw the sword at his hip or the gun in its holster.
If one judged purely by size and demeanor, then his would send most fools and rabble to scurry in his wake. But as stories go, it was possibly the dark sheen of his ebony hair, the hard glitter in his stark green eyes that left most to believe that darkness walked upright as man.
Fools, he thought idly. Anyone with an ounce of wisdom would know that it’s all in the weaponry. When you carry deaths’ weaponry a breath from your fingers and know how to impose its finality with quick vengeance…well, then death is always certain.
He continued his efficient pace, his shadows scurrying to keep up. He lost them in the crowd as he cut through its center and took a side street. Three buildings down, he paused at a door, listened intently while he scanned the darkness and then pounded for entry. When the door opened, he quickly disappeared through its smoky recesses.
The doorman, Ook, was always at hand. Draven followed the large, blue-skinned Darengy through the main bar and into one of the back rooms. The immense grave-warrior strode past the storage room, through a secreted door in the cooler and into one of the many safe-rooms that the bar kept for runaway slaves or others in transport. With a curt nod, Ook left as quietly as he came.
Not for the first time, Draven wondered about the warrior. Considered the electrical rush his flesh felt whenever he was near. Wondered if he felt it too, but it was a thought for another time. The pulse of fate tugged at him.
In the pale, dirty light of the small room, Draven could taste the metallic hint of old blood, hard truths and desperation. Hopelessness clung to the dark, stained walls like the traces of blood that kissed the bruised flesh of the small, injured woman who lay on the pallet before him. Her wounds were rough, deep and tinged a dark greenish-purple beneath the uppermost layers of her flesh.
He stared at her in wonder, a fission of anticipation thrumming through him. It coiled in his belly, rushed through his blood and then was gone like a breath of the wind. Until this moment, her name and her life were unknown to him. But, like the wounds she bore, Draven had the oddest feeling that she would somehow leave their mark upon him and everyone whose path she crossed.
He continued to stare at her for some moments, watching her silently. Mesmerized. There was something elusive and alluring about her fragility. Maybe it was just the allure of her weakness that called to the beast within him. Maybe it was the blood that he craved. Either way, he swore when he got his hands wrapped around his brother’s neck, he wouldn’t stop squeezing until every last bit of air escaped him. There wouldn’t be enough of his brother’s remains left for even the Elders to scoop up and reformulate his DNA.
What the hell were you thinking, Kantella? Draven swore. You know that harvesting humans is forbidden. Have you grown so weak as to resort to this? So desperate?
Words interrupted his thoughts, the voice rough with age, yet smooth with time. “She knows not how she came to be here.”
“Are you certain she has no memory?” he repeated to sink himself back into this reality. If he recalled correctly, the woman’s name was Latronda. She owned the bar, and over the course of the past few years, had taken in many refugees. Draven’s own rough voice seemed to fill the shadows, stirring the darkness and ending the silence.
“As certain as one can be in these matters, my Lord,” Latrondra starkly replied.
Her truth hung heavy in the air between them. He wondered, for the first time, how many waifs Kantella had dumped at her doorstep. How many wounded she’d taken such great strides to hide and repair.
“Your brother dumped her here two weeks ago, beaten, broken. The girl is lucky to be alive.”
No soft words between us, then, he thought with an inward smile. Good. “What were his or
ders?”
Latronda glanced at the warrior beside her. His large frame filled the small enclosure of her safe-room with a silent, caged fury. It convulsed through the air like a small force field, but Prince Draven Balacjek needed no additional powers to display his fierceness. He was a man of few words and fewer friends. A man that, with his brother, Prince Kuthar, led the Vranthians and their army with a ferocity that few who’d crossed them would ever live to see the passing of another night.
She stood alone with him now off the back of her bar where she’d helped many like the girl who lay before; stolen from other planets. These were the used, beaten and left for dead when they were found unable or unworthy of bearing the Vranthians offspring. Yes, there was definitely something there in his silence, in his dark green eyes that gave her pause.
“Keep her or kill her, he told me,” Latronda advised, sparing no softness to her words. It was of little matter. They both knew his brother, Prince Kantella well. His brutality was legend, as was his bid for his father’s throne. They all knew that whoever planted seed first and gave their people an heir would be in succession. And Kantella intended to rule, no matter the cost.
“He also said that I could sell her to a damn Vega-drone for all he cared. That she was a useless, barren, waste of creation. Then he dumped her in the alley and left.”
Uninhibited, a growl rumbled past Draven’s lips. It stirred the hair at the nape of Latronda’s neck, her flesh pimpling with chill. It had been a century and more since anyone had caused fear to slink its way inside her belly. Not since their people had learned that there was no cure for The Wasting, that their women were dying and no new children were to be bred, had Latronda felt such trepidation. But this? The look in her Prince’s eyes while he gazed upon the broken, tiny human with anger, pain, and…want floating in their dark depths...these things made her fear.
“She will die without your aid,” Latronda told him plainly.
For several moments Draven stared at the small human woman, her breathing shallow, the pale light enhancing the stain of bruised flesh beneath her right eye, her swollen, split and battered bottom lip. The other wounds he could not see, but he knew that once he partook of her blood and gave her his own for the healing, he would know of them all.
“Once I do it, the initial binding will begin,” he stated, his gaze never wavering from the girl. “There will be no undoing of this.”
“I could have one of the others do it, if that is your wish,” she softly stated.
Draven growled his reply. In a blink he had the girl in his arms where she lay like a small bird, her raven dark hair a stark relief against the Prince’s pale flesh. Then, as gently as he could, he tilted her head, pressed his lips to her neck and pierced her flesh with his fangs.
Chapter One
Leah knew the date was over five minutes before it had even begun. Really, when was she going to learn her lesson? Never let your friends and co-workers set you up on blind dates. It was a rule. Or should have been. Or would be from now on, damn it. What the hell had she been thinking?
It was bad enough that the normal crowd that gathered at McKellon’s Pub on Wednesday nights was usually the business conference leftovers, or that they were mostly in their late fifties and on their third marriage or second mistress. But this guy…this guy just screamed slimy used-car salesman. He even had that comb-over thing going for him. Ugh! Was Cyn trying to get back at her for something or what?
She had just finished her second set--she sang four nights a week, mostly the blues, for tip money and the door fee to help make ends meet--when her friend Cyn told her that the date she’d agreed to was at the bar waiting for her. Then Cyn tilted her head to the left of the bar where car-guy, Bob, sat sucking an olive pick, poking it between his teeth like he was digging for gold or a new route to China. The nausea started after one quick glance.
“Cyn, you cannot be serious,” Leah questioned, her groan curling her lip in distaste.
“What? What do you mean?” Cyn quizzically responded scanning the bar, her dark almond eyes shining brightly against the backdrop of her caramel skin. Cyn was the loveliest woman Leah had ever met. She had a deep, rich skin tone that looked like milky caramels. Her eyes were like large, dark almonds, and her lips were a perfectly sculpted pout. In a word, beautiful. She even wore her hair shaved so short to her head that it showed her face to perfection. But, by the tone in her voice, Leah could tell she was completely bewildered by her statement. Not to mention a little hurt, as though Leah had run over her puppy, her Gucci handbag and her cell phone all at the same time. Drama!
“Seriously, Cyn. Are you freaking kidding me? You set me up on a date with serial killer Joe over there? I mean, look at him. Mr. Comb-over? The dude picking his teeth?”
Cyan’s bark of laughter startled Leah so badly she jumped, and when she looked back at her friend she was bent over, holding her side, laughing so hard tears were running down her face. “Jeez, Leah,” she finally gasped. “What kind of friend do you take me for? I know it’s been a dry spell for ya, but ain’t nobody that desperate, girl,” she hiccupped.
“Glad I could be so amusing,” Leah huffed, blowing the length of her dark hair from her eyes. “So if it’s not Greasy Bob, then who?
Cyn stood up straight and taking Leah’s arm, pulled her over behind a column that had obviously been blocking her view. Sitting on the last bar stool, back up against the wall, Leah spotted Mr. Perfect.
“Wow,” Leah whispered.
“You ain’t a’kiddin,” Cyn agreed with a sigh. “He’s a right beauty, ain’t he?
“Where the hell did you meet him? 1-800-I’m-a-freaking-stud?” she laughed, turning toward her friend with a huge impish grin and a hug.
“I wish. I’d call the damn number myself if hotties like that would answer the call.”
“Then where?”
“He’s been coming in here for three weeks watching you sing. Finally screwed up the nerve to ask for your name about a week ago. Finally, tonight he asked if I’d introduce you.”
“Jeez, Cyn,” she hedged. “I don’t know. If you don’t even know the guy…What if he’s some sort of whack-job?”
“Seriously, girl? Look at that piece of a-prime rate man. Does he look like a whack-job?”
Leah peered around the corner again and studied the man in question. He was a whole head and shoulders taller than the creepy guy sitting next to him, who was really no slouch, so he was obviously a big man. He had wide shoulders, and extremely dark hair that he’d tied back away from his face showing off his strong, chiseled jaw line to perfection.
His clean-shaven face supported the contrast of high cheekbones, a firm nose that had obviously been broken at least once, if the small bump had anything to say about it, but the defect didn’t detract from his stunning features. His brow was set with the wide slashes of dark brows over the arch of his eyes. She really couldn’t see much more of his finer details, what with being at such a distance and the darkness that separated them.
Yet, even despite the distance, it was apparent that he was an interesting and intense man. He seemed to hold himself aloof, yet noticed everything that went on around him. He even carried an air of darkness about him.
“Okay, maybe I’ll have a drink with him and if he’s nice, then, well, we’ll see.”
“That-a-girl,” Cyn agreed. “Who knows, he might be amazing and you might even get lucky.” Cyn winked, then walked away, a big shit-eating grin plastered on her face.
Leah smiled even brighter. Who knows, maybe her luck was changing.
On a whim, she decided to stop in the ladies room to freshen up before meeting her date. It had been a long day and after working her day job in the admissions department of the local college and following that up with nights singing at the pub, she was sure she could use the touch-up.
Gazing into the full-length mirror, she wondered what was so wrong with her that she needed her friends to keep setting her up on these damn blind dates
in the first place. It wasn’t like she was hideous. She was on the taller side of five-seven, so it wasn’t like she was an ogre or anything. And she’d even managed to finally lose that last ten pounds and get back into her size eights. So, not too big or too small. Some would even call me curvy, she mused.
Then again, she pondered, don’t most of the men want some blonde, golden Barbie-doll with long luscious locks and bright blue eyes? If this is a competition on looks, Barbie is seriously kickin’ my ass.
Resigned, Leah gazed into the mirror. Despite all of the current trends, she really couldn’t find fault with herself. She worked out when she could, ate what she was supposed to and, in her mind, was fairly pretty. So what’s wrong with me?
Maybe being thirty-three and already a widow had something to do with it. It probably didn’t help her case much, but since she didn’t have any control over it, there was no point in bitching. Or, maybe it was the fact that she’d already had a child and lost him too. Tears welled in her eyes at the memory, but she quickly brushed them away. Well, didn’t most men not want kids these days?
With another sigh of remorse and longing, she squared her shoulders and stepped out of the ladies’ room. Here’s hoping that tonight will be a new beginning.
* * * * * *
Kantella had watched the dark-haired beauty for weeks, and now the time had finally come for them to meet. She was a small, ethereal creature with deep-set eyes, so dark they were almost purple, that sparkled beneath the lights. Her hair was cut short, but it suited her; the raven dark locks were so black they appeared more blue or purple in certain lighting. Her skin was also extremely pale. Her voice…when she sang…it was breathtaking.
Yes. He would have her. He would take her, and there would be nothing and no one to stop him. She would give him sons and the Kingdom of Vranthia would be his. A dark smile rode his lips while his mad thoughts wandered.