Bonds of Blood [Lords of the Expanse] (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

The relief that filled the room was palpable to his finely tuned senses. “We will let the Syndicate know of this latest term, my lord,” the first chancellor who’d spoken said quietly.

Turning, Andries left the room, his long strides carrying him out of there before he gave into his more primitive nature and he did as his normally deeply buried beast demanded and bathed in their blood.

“May the gods help us all,” one of the men whispered softly as he looked at his fellow chancellors, and, for once, there was no argument to that from any of them.

“They have agreed, my lord,” The bulky man said from his knees before his lord and master. “The Vampire Lord has agreed as you said he would.”

Dressed in garnet and silver, the lord nodded his head. “I knew that the old Vampire would see it my way.” There was a deadly gleam in the eye of the lord in question. “You simply need to know what to use as leverage and everything will come to you.”

“And your daughter, my lord, what is the leverage you use to steer her into this alliance?” The question shot out of the man’s mouth before he could pull it away.

The laughter that echoed off of the tapestry-lined room wasn’t of mirth or joy, it was of cunning. “That one is easy, Marcel. She will do as I tell her, or the thing she holds most dear is gone.”

“The stipulation is that he will not accept a bride who has been forced into the union,” Marcel said as he flinched, knowing the strike would come and felt amazed when it didn’t.

“He will simply not be told she is being forced. Xandra has learned not to cross me. That lesson was taught to her long ago. No, Xandra knows her place.” The lesson had been one that Lord Ripley had enjoyed. “And her lesson earned me my place in the Syndicate, because of the brutal murder of my beloved wife.” He snorted. “I am now the most revered and feared man in the cosmos.”

Marcel paled. He simply nodded his head and bowed in supplication. “Yes, my lord, that you are.”

“Go, bring my daughter to me. It’s time that the little bitch learns that she has to pay for the freedom that she has had all these years. Now it is time for her to do as I have raised her to do, or else.”

Marcel didn’t stand. He scooted out of his master’s sight before standing and racing through the halls to find Lady Xandra.

* * * *

Long lavender hair was caught in the breeze and impatiently tucked back behind small ears as the woman bent over the leg of the small boy screaming on the grounds. “Shh, I have you, Anaka, but you need to trust me.” The woman was young, but the sadness in her eyes told that she had seen far more than she ever should in life.

“We are almost finished here, Anaka, and then you can run off to your parents, darling. Be still.” Her voice was like that of the gentle breeze, soft but with the ability to turn strong, forceful at any moment.

“It hurts, Xandra!” he cried out again, hands gripping her arms, bruising the honey-colored skin of her body.

“I know, Anaka, and I wish I could give you a shot for the pain, but not yet.” She smoothed her long fingers over his hair. “Think about your puppy. You saved her from death, Anaka. That was very brave of you.” She looked to her personal assistant, who was even now treating the leg of the child, and nodded. “See, almost done.” One thing about the assistant, he was a more than adept healer. Too bad she couldn’t stand to be alone with him.

“It is done, my lady,” the man said finally in more of a sneer than not. What was clear on his face was that he didn’t understand why the woman insisted he treat a peasant. Xandra knew, though, that it was more information he could give Lord Ripley, and the lord was always very appreciative of information.

“Thank you, Diego. You can go now.” Xandra held her hand out to the small boy. “Come along, Anaka. We will get you home.” Xandra was unlike any of their people. She was that one rare being who was prophesied to be born, and her father made certain that all in the Syndicate recalled that she was the incarnation of their once Goddess Gaia, even if she knew she wasn’t.

Xandra’s long lavender hair, light-green skin, and eyes the color of the moon showed her as being more than just a human. They showed her as being something else entirely. She was her mother’s daughter, her mother who was a far-distant relative to the very Vampires that her father sought an alliance with.

Diego shook his head. “You know the rules,
my lady.
” The words were said with complete disdain for her. He didn’t like her at all. Her and her goody-two-shoes attitude, believing that there was more to life than constant war. No, someone needed to break the bitch, and he was glad that it was going to be someone as brutal as a Vampire lord. Too bad he wouldn’t be there to watch…or could he?

Marcel came tearing down the fields and was huffing and puffing when he reached Xandra and Diego. “My lady.”

“Take your time, Marcel. Go home, Ana. Go home and I will see you another time, all right?” She touched the child’s cheek and sent him on his way before looking at her father’s right-hand man. “Did you need me, Marcel?”

“Yes, your father has news,” he said with a gleam in his eyes that made Xan’s blood run cold.

“I will come straight away. I need to change and become presentable for him.” She had learned not to go without ensuring she was cleaned and properly dressed first. It only took once of having to walk through the palace naked to ensure she never made the mistake of not following his edicts to the letter again.

“I will tell him.” He looked at Diego, his gaze going hot. “I have room if you want to ride with me, Diego?”

Looking to his lover, Diego nodded and got onto the breeze mate, the small and compact vehicle open to the elements from the top, without so much as a word to Xan. Both men knew they were far superior to her because they were both fully human with no small trace of
Vampire
blood in them.

Xan watched the men leave and felt ill. Moon and stars help her, she didn’t know if she could survive another meeting with her father, not after the last one. Her mind turned back to that day, the day she had confronted him about Diego.

* * * *

The day that Xandra had learned the kind of man her father was, it had been a brutal and hard day. It had been a heated battle of words. Xandra had found that her father installed Diego as her personal assistant because he wanted to keep tabs on her. When she had demanded that Diego leave her, Lord Ripley sneered, “You are a woman. You have no right to demand anything of me.”

“I will go to Mother.” Her words had been the death sentence for her mother. She knew that now. “She is the only reason you are a lord in the Syndicate. Because of her and my grandfather.”

Her father’s eyes blazed. She had always known that her mother was afraid of her father, but until that moment didn’t know why. With a snap of his fingers he demanded that her mother be brought forward. His gaze never wavering from Xandra’s, he said, “This mother? You will go to this bitch?” His large hand closed over her mother’s delicate throat. Her pale citron hair was dull and lifeless in the lights of the hall. “She is nothing,” he said simply and then, eyes never wavering from Xandra, snapped the neck of his wife and threw her on the ground.

“You will see. I am far more than you will ever be. I am stronger, smarter, and I will always, always be the one to deliver death. Your mother served me in giving me my heir. However, heed me well, girl.” He pulled Xandra up by her hair. “Heirs can be sired again.” And then, in a very inhuman move, he bent in and bit her ear, biting off her left earlobe and laughing in her ear as she screamed. “Just a reminder, daughter, of just what I can do.” Throwing her across the floor, he turned, leaving her mother dead on the dais and a fear in his daughter that he had always wanted to be there, a reminder to her of just who ruled the Syndicate.

* * * *

Once she had changed clothes and pulled her hair back in a braid, she entered her father’s inner sanctum. “You requested my presence, Father?” She wished she could get away from him. She was desperate to flee from him, but there was no hope. There was never hope for her because there was nowhere for her. No matter where she went, she would always be found, and the thoughts of what would happen when brought back were enough to make her remain.

“Good, this time you remembered to pull your hair back.” His hands clasped behind his back and a feral smile formed on his face. He liked to see the damage he did to her. He appreciated seeing the lost lobe on her delicate ear. “You should thank me, daughter. I have finally found someone who is willing to take you to wife.” He rocked back and forth on his heels as he smiled. “He is a good friend of mine.” He didn’t even know the lord in question, but that was beside the point. “So keep that in mind when you decide to run your smart mouth.”

“Thank you, Father,” she whispered in horror. Moon and stars, he was going to wed her to a monster. “If you feel I am worthy for your friend, I am happy to be of service, Father.”

“Good, good.” He walked around. “You will be ready for travel in three days. You, my dear, are going to wed a Vampire Lord.” Without waiting to hear a reply, he simply moved from the room and stalked out, making sure she knew she was worth less than the fly on the wall.

As soon as she was certain she was alone, she raced to the bathroom and lost all the contents of her stomach. Tears falling from her eyes, she shook her head. “Oh god, he’s giving me to someone that he knows. At least with the devil I live with now I know what to expect.” How long into her marriage would it be before the Vampire snapped her neck as her father had done her mother?

Rising on shaky legs, she nodded, set her dress to rights, and moved toward her bedroom to pack for her death.

Their arrival at the spaceport had been a celebration. Music played and vendors peddled their wares. Xandra had been granted permission to move through the crowds with Diego, and as she looked at the things for sale in venders’ stalls, she was blissfully unaware of the people watching her, of the men, women, and children all giving her looks as if she were the very devil herself.

Lightly, she touched a moonstone tear drop and smiled. “You have beautiful merchandise. Thank you for allowing me to see it.” She nodded to the man and moved on to another stall and then another. She knew she would need to leave the small area soon to prepare for the first meeting with her betrothed, but in all truth she didn’t want to meet him. She wanted to put it off for all time, if only she could.

Stepping up to the vendor as the woman left the table, Lorn looked to what she’d touched and, moments later, had it in his pocket before he rejoined his commanding officer as they trailed behind her. Passing the package over, he lifted a brow. “An unusual woman.”

Glancing to his second, Andries grunted slightly. “Indeed,” he murmured. The crowds were splitting for them as they approached and then closing behind them. Thankfully they were far enough back from her that she had no idea she was being followed. Although he didn’t really worry about her seeing them, the man that was with her concerned him. He was much too observant for the mere assistant that Andries had been assured he was.

For another half hour they followed her through the market before his assistant joined them. “They are ready, my lord,” the smaller man said in a respectful tone.

Why he had to have an assistant he’d never know, but at times like this Andries appreciated the man. It saved him from any unnecessary contact with the Alliance. “Approach the lady in five minutes and let her know that her presence is now required and ensure she arrives there in one piece,” he ordered. Stopping, he let her and her “assistant” move out of sight before returning to the Grand Chambers, the place all first contacts were made no matter with whom.

* * * *

She paused and looked around. The feeling of being watched had been driving her to distraction, and she hadn’t wanted to look but couldn’t stop herself from doing just that. Seeing no one out of place or threatening looking, she shook it off.

“Come on, my lady.” The words were respectful, but Diego’s tone was anything but. “We need to get away from these godforsaken heathens, and you have to change. You know that you need to look your best.” He looked her up and down. “Well, as good as you can look.”

“Thank you, Diego. You are likely right.” She was about to turn to move back to her appointed rooms at the hotel when a small man approached them.

“My lady, you are to come to the Grand Chambers. If you will follow me please?”

“Who are you?” Diego asked with a sneer.

“I am Lord Mauricio’s personal assistant,” the little man said and pulled himself up to his full height.

Placing herself between the men because she knew the look that Diego was wearing, she said, “We will follow you, kind sir, please?”

She followed the little man, more than well aware of the wrath that was going to be brought down on her by Diego and not able to find it in her to really care.

Once they arrived at the Council’s Grand Chambers within the large and forbidding looking government building of Castitas, Xandra clenched her hands at her sides hidden in the folds of her gown and waited to meet the man her father was so fond of.

Rushing forward, the chancellor bowed before her. “Greetings, my lady, I am Chancellor Fernando. If you would.” He waved a hand toward the doorway, the large double doors standing open with guards to each side.

As she moved forward, the chancellor looked to the man at her side. “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but you will have to wait here,” he said as they reached the doors, the guards already having moved to bar his entrance. Smiling the political look that all chancellors used, Fernando continued forward with a nod to the lady.

Before the bank of windows at the far end of the room, Andries stood staring out them with a frown on his face. He’d received word back from the border about the continual arrival of more ships from the Syndicate. They were daring, to say the least, foolish for sure, dead a definite possibility.