“That’s why all the walls are bare and none of the furniture or really anything here goes with any of your personalities. Why did you want this place so badly?”
“It was heavily secured and Joseph doesn’t know about it.”
“I see,” she murmured as she gazed at the bare walls. “Did Baldric and Marta come with the place? And by the way, who is Marta?”
“Marta is Baldric’s wife; they’ve been married for almost thirty years. No, they did not come with the place. Baldric’s family has been with mine for over two thousand years. When the family member who works with me passes, a new one takes over.”
“So they’re your slaves?”
“Hardly,” he retorted. “It is their choice to stay and work. They are free to go at any time, as are their children. They know if they ever reveal anything, they will be slaughtered outright, but they also know few would believe them. I trust each one of them to uphold their family’s history. When Marta and Baldric pass on or retire, their son Lamont has already chosen to take over for them. He has been out traveling the world, but he will join us when he’s ready to learn about the estates and how things work.”
“Why do they chose to stay and be your help?” she asked.
“They are far more than my help,” he grated. “They are extremely well taken care of, as is their whole family, and they are as much my family as Killean, Lucien, Saxon, and Declan.”
“I see,” she murmured. “Why has his family worked with yours for so long?”
“The very first vampire king, my ancestor, saved Baldric’s ancestor from an attack by a Savage. Instead of the king changing the man’s memories, when the man asked to serve the king to repay the debt, the king agreed to it. It was only supposed to be that man, but his son stepped forward, and then the next, and so on. Over the years, many men and women have served the vampire kings who have risen and fallen. They have all had the option of moving on, but at least one member of their family has chosen to remain working with my bloodline until now they work for me.”
“Amazing,” she breathed. “And your bloodline leads the vampires?”
“That is the way it always was.”
“So you are the vampire king?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He contemplated his answer as she stared at him curiously. He shouldn’t be telling her anything after earlier, but he couldn’t deny that it pleased him that she wanted to learn more about him, and none of what he would tell her could be used against them.
“At one time, there was a ruling vampire senate and a king. All turned and purebred vampires who weren’t Savage were organized and ruled by that government. My father was the last king to rule. I was supposed to claim the crown when he died. However, the battle that took my parents also took most of the senate and the king’s followers. After the conflict, there were few vampires left to rule over.”
“How awful,” she murmured. “What happened to cause such a thing?”
He preferred not to think about it, but he found himself having a difficult time denying her.
“It was a battle no one saw coming until it was too late. A Savage vamp, one who had been a member of the senate and a purebred vampire before giving in to the bloodlust, organized the other Savages. They prepared an attack against all those who hunted them. When they realized what was happening, the senate and my father gathered as many Defenders and other vampires as they could to counteract the growing threat, but it was already too late. The ensuing battle left the number of vampires decimated, especially the purebred ones.”
He didn’t reveal to her that those numbers had never recovered in the nearly thousand years since the battle. Few vampires reproduced, unless they were of the royal line and required an heir, and that practice had fallen away after the war with the Savages. Other vampires found their mates over the years and wanted to have children with them, but mates were a sporadic thing and sometimes even mated vamps didn’t want offspring.
To this day, he only knew of a little over a hundred purebreds in existence. Their numbers were growing, but not fast enough. If there were other purebreds alive that he didn’t know about, they weren’t many. Ronan sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he thought back to the stark night that had forever altered his world.
“So much time has passed since then,” he murmured, “but I can clearly recall standing on that field and gazing out at the thousands of bodies surrounding me. Blood soaked the ground so much that the dirt no longer absorbed it, and it turned the green field into a lake of red.”
Kadence realized he was stuck in the past, haunted by the memories when his unseeing gaze focused on the wall behind her. Sorrow swelled within her as she watched him. She didn’t know how long ago it had been, but it was clear that battle had forged him into the man he was now, and it still haunted him.
“I found my parents amongst the carnage. My mother was decapitated, but my father had been torn to shreds, and bits and pieces of him were scattered across the earth. The stench of their blood stuck in my nostrils as I stepped over the bodies of the many vampires who raised me, yelled at me, trained me, and laughed with me.”
Kadence’s hand flew to her mouth as she stifled a cry over what he had witnessed and how much he had lost. He would not want her sadness, and she knew he would stop speaking if he believed she was giving him any kind of pity. And she didn’t pity him; she admired him and understood him far better. He’d survived something horrific, yet he continued to fight every day for his kind. Her heart swelled with emotion. Despite her anger with him for bringing her back here, all she wanted was to hold him against her and try to soothe the lingering grief she sensed in him.
“Everything I’d ever known before then was slaughtered on that field, my life forever altered, my hatred of the Savages secured,” Ronan recalled. Yet, he still teetered on becoming one of them no matter how much he despised them.
“Were you hurt?” she asked when he stopped speaking.
He tore his eyes away from the wall to focus on her. “My arm had been nearly severed by a broadsword and hung on by a thread of muscle. I had more cuts and stab wounds than I could ever count, but somehow, I survived. I left Ireland the following week, and I’ve never stayed longer than a week the few times I’ve returned to my homeland.”
“And the Savages who attacked you, what became of them?”
“They were all slaughtered in the war, but not before the number of vampires on both sides were wiped out to the point of near extinction.
“How many vampires survived?” she asked.
“Myself and fifteen others. Some of the survivors were turned vamps, and some were purebreds, but only one other purebred was a Defender, and I was the only one with royal blood who survived, so most of our old ways were lost after the war.”
“What happened to those survivors?” Kadence inquired.
“Some turned Savage and had to be destroyed, others were taken out by hunters, and some were killed by other vampires. Before they died though, those survivors turned humans, or had children of their own to keep the vampire race from going extinct. I am the only one who remains of the original survivors.”
Kadence’s heart twisted and tears unwittingly sprang into her eyes. Her life in the stronghold had been lonely, but so had Ronan’s. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be the only one who remembered such an awful event, or the time before it occurred, when things had been far different for him.
“Who was the other Defender that survived?” she asked.
“Declan’s father, Aengus. He’d been my toughest and most demanding instructor while I was going through Defender training. After, he became one of my closest friends.”
“What happened to him?”
“He left Ireland with me and we worked together until he turned Savage about forty years after Declan was born. I killed him so that Declan wouldn’t have to.”
Kadence bit on her lip to keep from gasping at that revelation. Ro
nan’s gaze was challenging as he stared at her, almost as if he dared her to condemn him for it.
“That must have been very difficult for you to do,” she whispered, feeling like she’d uttered a huge understatement.
Ronan clamped his teeth and gave a brisk nod as the memory of destroying Aengus played through his mind. He’d never thought it possible that Aengus would ever succumb to his darker nature. Ronan had believed him to be far stronger than that; believed Aengus to be a better man than him. He’d been wrong.
Killing Aengus had been the most difficult thing he’d ever done. Aengus had been his last tie to a life all but forgotten by the other vampires, his closest advisor and friend, but his death had been necessary. The destruction Aengus wrought before his death had caused a panic amongst the humans, and Declan hadn’t been physically strong enough to kill his father at the time, even if he had wanted to be the one to do it, which he hadn’t.
“It was very difficult,” he murmured.
“Declan doesn’t hold any anger towards you for it.”
“He understands it had to be done and that I didn’t enjoy having to be the one who did it. Now, I have a feeling history might be trying to repeat itself and that the Savages are organizing,” he said.
Her mouth parted and her eyes widened as realization sank in. “Joseph and those vamps who arrived to help him.”
“Yes.”
“Can you bring in more vampires to help fight him?”
“I can and I will, but there are many who have remained scattered over the years. Many who don’t even know their true heritage, or that there are Defenders amongst them, or that the ones who fall to the bloodlust are called Savages. As long as a vampire doesn’t turn Savage, they have no reason to know we work to keep them safe from the worst of our kind.”
He hadn’t helped with the lack of knowledge most vampires possessed. Because they had become so scattered over the years, he hadn’t bothered to regroup them or try to educate them. He simply hadn’t seen a reason to inform the turned vampires he knew, and the purebreds who knew all their history and their ways were Defenders.
However, those who did know of his existence looked to him as their leader. He was the eldest of their kind, the most powerful, and not just because of his age, but also his breeding and lineage. No other purebred such as himself had ever existed in the history of vampires.
“They know nothing of what you do, yet you still protect them,” she said.
“And I will until the day I die.” Or have to be destroyed, but he kept that to himself.
“You are one of these Defenders?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“From the time I was old enough to learn how, I’ve been trained in fighting and war and how to protect my kind. Defenders are the best trained purebred warriors who uphold the vampire laws, and they track down the Savages in order to keep the innocents safe.”
“So, you have sacrificed your freedom and happiness for the vampires, and they don’t even know it,” she whispered.
“I have sacrificed nothing; I have chosen my course in life. I may not be the king as my father was, but I will keep vampires and humans protected from the Savages. I don’t have to be king to fulfill that duty.”
“How old were you when the battle against the Savages happened?”
“It was less than a year after I reached maturity, so twenty-eight.”
“What do you mean by reached maturity?”
“When a purebred stops aging and starts to really come into their vampire powers. I stopped aging later than most vampires do, but I was more powerful than many of them before then.”
“I see,” she said. “How old are you now?”
“I was born a vampire one thousand twenty-three years ago.”
Kadence gawked at him. “You’re exactly a thousand years older than me!”
“I feel every one of those thousand years,” he replied.
“Amazing,” she murmured. “In all that time, you have never felt the sun on your skin without pain. Have you ever seen it?”
The sadness in her tone tugged at his heart. He opened his mouth to tell her he could walk freely through the day, but stopped himself. She would most likely still be going back to her brother. “I have seen the sun,” he replied, unwilling to lie to her.
“Would you like me to tell you about it?” she asked.
His heart leapt in his chest as he gazed at her. Despite the rod of steel going down her spine, she was achingly sweet and innocent. He had never imagined anyone could be like her. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her throwing his life into a tailspin, but he was suddenly thankful she had.
“Maybe someday, but not tonight.”
She crossed her hands before her, but he was not fooled by the demure gesture. There was nothing demure about this little hunter.
“It is only the five of you who fight?” she inquired.
“No, there are others who are not Defenders who also fight the Savages. Some of them train with us to become better at it, and others do it on their own.”
“Why has your family always led? Why were you supposed to lead?”
“Like your bloodline amongst the hunters, my line is the strongest and I am also the only vampire still alive who can trace my line back to the original demon offspring. I am the first vampire in existence that is fifth generation purebred. Most are only first generation purebreds, some are two, and a couple are three, but that is all.”
“I see,” she murmured.
Kadence moved away from the wardrobe and walked over to the king-sized bed as she tried to process everything he told her. She didn’t think that would ever be possible. At least now she understood better what drove him and why he could be so demanding and unbending. Now she also knew why he emanated such a vast amount of power.
“Would you let me come with you to hunt Joseph?” she inquired.
“No.”
“I have every right to be there.”
Ronan’s nostrils flared. She could see the outline of his fangs behind his lips as he watched her. “You are a mortal. You have no training—”
“I was taught to defend myself in the stronghold, and I can expertly handle numerous weapons!” she interrupted.
“Let me guess, you can kill a stuffed dummy with ease,” he drawled. “You have no training where it counts, in the field. The hunters failed you in that. You will be more of a hindrance out there than an asset, and I refuse to put my men in danger to satisfy your vendetta.”
Kadence opened her mouth to protest, but he was right and she knew it. She’d left the stronghold thinking she had the training to fend off any vampire. Joseph had proved her completely wrong.
“And you also don’t want me there because I’m a woman,” she said bitterly.
Ronan snorted. “I know women are just as capable as men when it comes to inflicting damage and death. This is because you are not prepared.”
“Will you… will you teach me? Prepare me?” she asked and held her breath as she waited for his rejection.
Ronan studied her as he tried to decide what to do. “I will until we find a way to return you,” he replied. “I’d rather have you actually able to protect yourself rather than just thinking you can. That will only get you killed faster.”
“Gee thanks,” she muttered.
“It’s the truth. I think you’ll find all you need for tonight. If you do need something else, Marta or Baldric will be happy to help you,” he said as he turned toward the door.
“Do you have any books?”
He stopped in the doorway. “Books?”
She smiled at him, an amused gleam in her azure eyes. “Yes, you know, bound paper you read from. My sleeping habits are much like yours and I often stay up all night.”
“There is a library downstairs. I will ask Marta to show it to you.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll send her up.”
“Ronan.” Her voic
e stopped him from leaving again. The light cascading over her lit her pale hair and emphasized the curves of her willowy frame. He found himself growing aroused as he gazed at her. “Be careful tonight.”
The words rocked him. No one had said those words to him before, and the fact it was her…
She’s leaving, he reminded himself. His jaw locked as he stormed out the door. Stalking into his room, he slammed the door closed with so much force it shook the frame, but it did nothing to ease his frustration.
Changing into a pair of black pants and a black shirt, he strapped on some stakes, a crossbow, and slipped two daggers into the holsters at his sides. He never wore so much weaponry while hunting, but after what he’d seen with Joseph and the Savages, he wasn’t taking any chances.
He slipped his coat on, effectively covering the weapons before he left his room. Kadence’s door was closed when he walked past it to the stairs, but her scent still floated to him.
Killean and Saxon waited for him by the door. “Where’s Declan?” he asked of them.
“Still in the poolroom the last I saw him,” Saxon replied.
“Wait here.”
He turned away from them and strode toward the poolroom. He found Declan leaning against the bar with a snifter of whiskey in hand. Declan rested his elbow on the bar while he gazed out the window. Ronan didn’t know all of Declan’s secrets, but he did know his friend had a special affinity for knowing or at least sensing things.
“Did you know she didn’t intend to return home?” Ronan demanded.
Declan didn’t look at him as he responded with his usual self-assurance. “I had my suspicions she was up to something.”
Ronan grit his teeth. “Why didn’t you try to stop her, or warn me about what you suspected?”
“It’s not my place to interfere with someone else’s life,” Declan replied. “Nor was it my place to clip her wings; everyone deserves a chance to fly.”
“Declan—”
“It’s too late now, Ronan. She’s here. I thought you would be happy about it.”
“What are you talking about?” Ronan snarled. “Why would I be happy a hunter is still in our house?”
Declan casually swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “If she had told her brother a place to meet her, would you have let her go?”
Eternally Bound (The Alliance, Book 1) Page 14