by TIFFANY
CHAINS OF FROST
By: T. A. Grey
WARNING: The content in this book contains explicit sexual content. This book is intended for mature audiences only. It contains sexually explicit scenes that may be offensive. Please keep your file in a safe area on your computer and away from minors.
This book is not transferable. If it is sold, shared, or given away it is infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and scenarios are solely the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, though reference to actual events or locations may be real.
Any trademarks mentioned herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.
Stock image by: Marcus Ranum/www.ranum.com
Cover design by: Regina Wamba/www.maeidesign.com
Chains of Frost © 2011 T. A. Grey
www.tagrey.com
All Rights Reserved
Also by T. A. Grey
Breeding Cycle: The Kategan Alphas 1
Dark Awakening: The Kategan Alphas 2
Wicked Surrender: The Kategan Alphas 3
Eternal Temptation: The Kategan Alphas 4
Dark Seduction: The Kategan Alphas 5
Chains of Frost: The Bellum Sisters 1
Bonds of Fire: The Bellum Sisters 2
Evernight Anthology featuring “The Vampire’s Mate”
Capturing Jeron
Midnight Sex Shop
One Last Chance
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank LuMary for taking the time to help make this book shine and Mae I Design for creating this wonderful book cover. Also, congrats to the contest winners of this book!
Glossary
idummi – A bottom feeding demon from the deepest layer under the rift. They are aggressive, easily manipulated creatures with poisonous talons.
lilit – A demonic term for a succubus.
frimar – A vampire’s blood concubine, highly respected and honored among vampires.
host – A vampire whom uses a frimar.
new moon – The time when a succubus grows into sexual maturity.
Protector – A male in charge of protecting and caring for a succubus.
rift – The division between earth and the nether-realm where demons of many kinds reside.
Prologue
And to the eldest
my beloved daughter Chloe
I bequeath to you our home in Colorado
for I know you love the snow and cold winter nights;
Most importantly I
command that on the day of your birthday
in this year of 2011
you will be delivered to
Commander Tyrian en Kulev, Leader of the Atal Warriors,
Champion of the Vampires and Protector of Humanity,
to be Protected by
to facilitate a relationship with,
and to mate and breed with.
This I so order on the 8th of May 2010.
Signed, dated and ordered at the event of my death,
Sir Frances Jeremiah Bellum
May 8th, 2010
Chapter One
October 28
The copy of the will crinkled like dried paper in her hands. Chloe Bellum read over the lines for the eighth time, wondering if she could change the words on the page with enough passes. When she looked up at her two sisters, she realized she wasn’t alone in her complete and utter shock.
Her fraternal twin, Willow, wore an angry scowl that Chloe recognized. She was about to throw something. Leaning away from her twin, Chloe watched her younger sister’s response.
Lily looked confused but not nearly as outraged as she and her twin felt right now. Maybe the news in her part of the will was not so...unbelievable.
“Okay, who’s going first?” Chloe spoke at the same time her twin said, “What the fuck?”
“Lily, what does yours say?” Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled with a shake of her head.
“No way. You’re the oldest. You go first. I’m not starting this dig graving festival.”
Chloe looked down at the sheet of yellow parchment in her hands and winced. Was it too much to hope that it would just disappear from her hands? First Papa was killed in a terrible accident and now this, and by his own hand no less! It was insanity.
“Well?” Willow growled impatiently. Her toes tapped an incessant beat on the carpet floor.
Chloe put on her ‘big sister’ hat. “It says that Papa wants me to have the house in Colorado since I love the snow.” Her voice thickened with emotion and immediately her sisters’
eyes mirrored the emotion. “He also has commanded me to the ownership of Tyrian en Kulev.”
Collective gasps and curses sounded.
“The leader of demon slayers? The cold-hearted son of a bitch that would just as soon eat your heart if he was hungry,” Willow sputtered.
A cold knot was building in Chloe’s stomach. She felt torn between running to the
bathroom to throw up her dinner and falling on the floor in a fit of hysteria. With her sisters here, she was left with the mature choice—vomiting. Rubbing a hand over her stomach, she tried to soothe her uneasiness.
“Lily, do you think what they say about him is true? That he really did kill his wife and children? I heard that even his own army fears him.”
Lily’s big eyes widened. “I’ve heard all the same things as you two, but I doubt the rumors. What I don’t get is why papa would give you to him. This is so unlike him that I can’t even believe it. I never saw this coming.”
Chloe nodded. Lily sometimes “sensed” things in dreams. Her visions had about a 50%
chance of coming true.
“No shit,” Willow said, her entire foot now bobbing against the floor. “What’s the point in raising us to overcome the misogynistic, patriarchal ways of our kind if, when he dies, he literally gives us away to some random man?”
Chloe shot her a startled look. “He did the same to you?”
A tight nod was her response.
“Who?”
Willow’s hand tightened into a fist, smashing the will in her hand. “Someone who will never get me.”
“Who is it, Willow?” Lily asked.
“It says Alpha Lyonis Keelan, Leader of the Shapeshifters.”
Chloe gasped. “Let me see that.” She had to pry the crumpled paper out of her sister’s fist finger by finger, but she finally got it. She read over the will with wide eyes. “Oh my God.
That’s the Alpha. Like the leader and all-powerful shapeshifter in the world. Can take multiple forms, has never been bested in a fight.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you like him so much why don’t you take him,” Willow said.
Chloe understood her sister’s anger and even her reticence. Inside Chloe felt a deep fear that would have her trembling if not for the company of her sisters. Willow was untamable—a rebel in every sense of the word. To partner her with an Alpha shapeshifter, a man bound to be dominating and controlling, well, Chloe felt for her sister. She also wouldn’t mind being there to see it happen. Front row tickets, please!
“What does yours say, Lily?” Not only was she dying to know, but she really wanted to give Willow some breathing room. She was about to tap a hole through the floor.
Lily cleared her throat, opened her mouth to speak, then blushed. Chloe nudged Willow who turned to glare at her, but when she nodded towards Lily, they both broke out into grins.
“Dish now,” Willow commanded. It was good to hear laughter in her sister’s voice. Since Papa ha
d died, none of them had been laughing. And now with this...
Lily lifted paper to cover her mouth and muttered something.
“What was that?” Chloe inquired with a grin.
“Speak louder!” Willow said, her lips twitching with a smile.
Lily lowered the paper slowly and visibly swallowed. “He has ordered that on my 29th birthday, I am to be given to Telal Dumuzi. He is my Protector.”
Absolute, stone-shocked silence filled the room.
Chloe recognized the name. Who the hell didn’t? But trying to wrap her mind around it was an entirely different feat. Willow recovered first and came to a stand.
“A demon! The demon? Papa has given you to a demon. This is...this is insane. Pure fucking crazy. First the vampire killer, then that stupid Alpha, and now a demon. I can’t believe any of this. He’s not going to get me. He’s not going to get any of you. Dammit, think of something you guys. Are we sure Papa wrote this? This is not the Papa I knew that’s for damn sure. This can’t be right.” Finally tired of her tirade, she collapsed back onto the sofa.
Chloe scooted next to her sister and wrapped an arm around her. “These came directly from Papa’s lawyer, Frank. We’ve known him since we were kids and Papa trusted him. Plus this is Papa’s handwriting and the will sounded just like him.”
“All proper and stiff,” Lily agreed with a sniffle. She stood and moved to the other side of Willow; each of them put an arm around the other.
“Does anyone here want to abide by the will and do what Papa wished?”
Willow scoffed. “And be practically sold to some man we don’t know? No thanks.”
Chloe grimaced, she never could express her thoughts the way Willow did—with a punch and a bite, but Willow always said what she was thinking. Lily simply shrugged, looking contemplative.
Chloe shook her head. “I know this is apparently what Papa wanted, but I am not just going to give myself to some strange man because he said so in his will.”
None of this made sense. Throughout history, succubi have been a patriarchal race. But their father strove to change that. In other succubus families, it was expected that if the head of the household—always the man—died then all females in his family were to be given to a man.
Sometimes a brother became head of household, but in some cases where there were no living male relative, the females were given away to a man through a will. As Papa just did.
The succubi called it the Protector. A man whom they would use to feed off of and were supposed to obey in all respects.
Though why he did something like this after all the efforts he went through to make each of his daughters strong independent women free of men made zero sense. And he expected them to breed with the men they didn’t know. This was not the Papa Chloe knew and loved.
“Why did Papa have to die now? Why did all of this have to happen now when our 29th birthday is only two days away? It’s too much. First Papa, then this. I don’t think I can stand it.”
The pain in Lily’s voice brought a heavy weight to Chloe’s chest. She was right. On the 29th year of a succubus’ life, everything changed forever. The females peaked into full sexual maturity and from then on required sex to survive, no longer food.
Chloe had been dreading her 29th birthday her entire life.
“Listen, if we don’t want to go with some men that we don’t know then I say we don’t.
Besides, these men know nothing about us or even about this situation, probably. So I doubt they’ll be here knocking at our door on our birthday.”
Lily started pacing while wearing a determined look on her face. When this woman
started planning, great things happened. Suddenly she whirled towards them and clapped her hands. “I’ve got it. We’ll do a spell.”
“We aren’t strong enough to do the kind of spell it would take to ward off three powerful men,” Willow said. Succubi had some magical abilities in the form of spell casting; however, it was rarely good enough to knock a broom over by staring at it.
Lily’s eyes gleamed. “That’s where you’re wrong, sista. Tomorrow is
All Hallow’s Eve—the day on which magic is greater—more powerful—than any other
day on earth. If all three of us perform a spell to keep the men away then we may actually have a chance.”
The more Chloe thought about it, the greater the idea seemed. Really, what did any of them stand to lose? Besides her independence to some horrible, woman-killer man. No, not a man. A vampire! What on earth had her Papa been thinking when he made that will?
“Lily, is it true that magic is more powerful along the Prime Meridian?” said Chloe.
“Absolutely! We should go there to perform the spell.” Lily’s eyes lit up with excitement.
She went across the study and grabbed a globe from next to Papa’s desk. Chloe remembered so many nights seeing her father at his desk working and writing for hours on end. God, she missed him so much already.
“Here it is,” Lily said excitedly. “The Prime Meridian goes from the Arctic all way down to Antarctica. Along the way it goes through England, France, Spain, and several countries in Africa.”
Chloe looked at each of her sisters. They each wore evil, excited smiles that mirrored hers. Rubbing her hands together she said, “Well ladies, it looks like we’re headed to Europe.
Lily, you gather everything that we’ll need to do the spell. Willow, you order the plane tickets for…immediately.”
“And what are you going to do?” Willow asked.
“Try to come up with Plan B in case this spell doesn’t work.”
“Don’t worry about it. I already got it figured out.” Willow shrugged, a cocky grin on her mouth. That grin had taunted and bested many people in Willow’s life. “We’ll run.”
The thought of running away from Commander Tyrian en Kulev sounded great. Though,
Chloe had a deep feeling that this man would find her easily. And she definitely didn’t want to be found by a man like him–the leader of the most vicious and renowned warriors in the world.
Chapter Two
October 30
Chloe found a spot to spread out their blanket behind a copse of barren trees that had lost their leaves with the onslaught of autumn. As she whipped out the blanket, her gaze fixated on the small statue of the Mother Mary that sat upon a short pillar overlooking a gravestone. She eyed the gravestone to make sure no undead thing was coming out to get her, then plopped down on the plaid blanket.
Being in a cemetery at night was not her ideal of a good time. She’d much rather be out dancing or flirting with the cute bartender she worked with.
“Hurry up, you guys,” she hissed in a loud whisper. Willow and Lily both groaned then started setting down their supplies. Lily carried a wicker basket that held candles, herbs, a lighter, and the spell while Willow carried a backpack filled with, as she called it, “emergency supplies.” Willow always carried that pack with her as if at any moment she was ready to take off.
“I’ve got the creeps being out here. Are we even allowed to be out here at night?”
Both sisters looked around, then shrugged.
Lily said, “It’s possible that England has some laws on this, so let’s just do this quickly and quietly.”
“Sounds good to me,” Willow muttered. Lily lit a thick rope of sage and waved it in the air while she and Willow started lighting white and red candles in a circle around them.
“Let’s do this before the wind picks up.” What she said was half a lie. She didn’t want the wind to pick up but actually her gut was telling her something bad was going to happen. It was that same I-might-possibly-hurl feeling she’d had when she read the will two days before, only worse. Much worse.
Lily handed them each a small square of paper with some gibberish written on it. “What is this?”
Her younger sister, Lily, always had more of a gift for magic and spell craft than either she or Willow, but since when did she start writing s
tuff in non-English?
“Don’t worry about it. I wrote it out phonetically from Sumerian so you’ll be able to pronounce it.”
“Sumerian?” Chloe couldn’t hide her disbelief. The spells they did always required one language—English. She knew she didn’t know squat about Sumeria or Sumerians and neither did Lily. “Lily, where did you get this?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Listen, we aren’t very powerful but performing this spell on the Prime Meridian, at midnight which is the Witching Hour, and speaking in an ancient language will only help our chances of making a successful cast.” Chloe and Willow exchanged doubtful glances.
“If you say so, Lily. Are we reading these all at the same time?” That stupid, hollow yet heavy feeling was still there in her gut. She put a hand over it to try to settle it. Nerves and worry, that’s all it was.
“No, each part is different. Since Chloe’s the eldest she’ll go first, then you Willow, and I’ll go last. While the person is speaking the others should hum, and then when we’re all done we’ll leave the candles and the sage to burn completely down.”
“What if the wind blows it out?” said Chloe.
Lily sighed loudly and threw up her hands in the air. “I don’t know then, Chloe. I suppose if you want to stay here all night and keep relighting them then go ahead, but I plan on getting some sleep tonight.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s get this over with. I have a bad feeling.” Willow and Lily cut her a hard look.
“You do?” said Willow.
“Since when?” asked Lily.
Chloe sighed and wished like hell that she hadn’t opened her mouth. Her sisters never took “senses” lightly.
“It’s nothing, just a belly ache.” The both looked at her as if they didn’t believe her.
“Listen, I’m just nervous, okay? How would you feel if you knew you were to be given to a cold-hearted killer vampire man? It’s like some horrible nightmare where I’m living in the 1400s and have no worth other than my ability to bare children.” She shivered hard while her sisters smirked at each other.