Bonds of Blood [Lords of the Expanse] (Siren Publishing Classic) (31 page)

Xandra finished eating and just leaned back, watching him with his children, and smiled. “You have taken to being a daddy beautifully, Andries. Who would have known the man I first met who didn’t want to even touch me would be so giving, so open and loving to his children?” And to her, but no one else, and she knew it as well as he did.

Leaning in to her, he kissed her cheek. “Darling, I very definitely wanted to touch you, but the ideas running through my head were likely criminal.” Giving her a slow, hot look, he smiled. “And they still are,” he purred in her ear softly.

“Then you can touch me tonight after we put our children down for sleep.” Pushing her plate away, she smiled. “How about you give me our babies so that you can eat, Andries?” She paused. “Because believe me when I tell you that you will need your energy from eating, Andries.”

Pressing a kiss to each chubby cheek, Andries passed his children over and then leaned in to kiss her. “I do not believe I have ever witnessed anyone eat so much in so little time. You practically devoured the dish in the process,” he teased with a smile.

“I was very, very hungry,” she admitted and shrugged her shoulders. “Plus I wanted these two.” She hugged her children a little closer and breathed them in simply. “Eat, Andries. Eat so that we can later go for our little walk.”

Shaking his head at her, he pulled the plates closer and began to eat, his eyes on her and the twins more often than not. Nodding to one of the kitchen help who brought him a glass of blood, he waited until they were all back where they should be before he returned his eyes to them.

“You see that, Dalek,” Xandra said and smiled as she looked over their son’s head, who was watching everything his father did intently. “That is how a man acts when his soul tie and children are close. He protects them at all times no matter what, don’t you, Daddy?” Later she would tell Andria how to protect her soul tie without him ever knowing it, but that would be a talk for Andria and Xandra alone. No need for Andries to know her tricks.

“Yes, he does, including when his soul tie is trying to pull the wool over his eyes with her big eyes, bright smile, and coy looks while she’s got her own agenda on the go,” he commented as he drank some of the blood.

Xan laughed and winked. “We just watch out for those that are ours.” She kissed the side of Dalek’s neck and then Andries and smiled as they laughed and then sighed when Dalek began to nuzzle hungrily against her breast. “I think that you’re not the only hungry one, Andries. Can you hold Andria so that I can feed Dalek?” She was sure that he could hold her and eat at the same time or she wouldn’t have asked.

Nodding, he took his daughter and, kissing her until she smiled at him, he settled her in his lap with one hand settled on her belly to keep her still. “Our boy is a hungry little thing, isn’t he?” he commented with a smile. He liked that his children were feeding as they were. It was a good sign of their potential growth.

“He is an eating machine,” Xandra admitted as she caressed his little head and adjusted her flowing shirt to cover his head and her breast while he fed. She smiled over at Andries and added, “Poor Andria doesn’t get to eat quite as much as this little guy, but she doesn’t seem to want to either, so it balances out.”

“She’s tiny, but I’m sure she will make up for it soon enough,” he told her as he cuddled his baby girl closer. Shifting her up, he kissed her cheek. “She will be a little eating machine in good time, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure she will make up for it one way or another.” Xandra grinned as she raised their son to her shoulder and began to gently rub his back to ease the gas bubbles there.

Finishing off his blood, he eased his chair back and adjusted Andria up so she had a better view of the room. He knew that they both liked to look around even though they were still gaining the eyesight that was part of their species. Nuzzling her cheek, he smiled when Dalek let out a loud belch of pure satisfaction, his chuckle soft, but he felt Andria react to it, wiggling a little even as she put a tiny hand to his cheek.

Xandra leaned back and readjusted Dalek so he, too, could take in the room and smiled. “I have a feeling that our lives are going to be filled with adventures just ensuring that these two are safe.” She watched as Andria laid her head on her father’s shoulder and watched her brother intently.

“It’s keeping the rest of the world safe from the trouble these two will likely cause that has me not sleeping at night,” he told her with a small grin. He was only partially kidding. He knew that his two little ones were going to be troublemakers if they even were partially like him.

Five years later

“I am taking the twins for a walk in the gardens, Andries.” Xandra spoke from the door of his den, a cookie-crusted hand in each of hers. “They need to walk off the cookies they somehow got ahold of from cook.” She grinned down at the cherubic faces and knew just how the cookies ended up in their little hands, not that she could blame cook in the least. “When you’re finished, come find us? We will be by the stream.”

Looking up, he smiled at the little cookie-crusted faces. “I will, love,” he told her softly. “Be good for your mother, you two,” he warned, returning the wave to his daughter, who wiggled her cookie-smeared fingers at him. “I shouldn’t be too long. Just one more call and I’ll be on my way, love.”

“Sounds good.” Xandra winked at her husband and turned the little five-year-olds toward the back door. She listened to their chatter and grinned as she walked and talked with them. Dalek was nearly twice Andria’s size. He was almost to Xandra’s waist at just five years old, and as they walked and talked, she once more took in the intelligence of her children and just how wonderful they were.

She stopped to allow Andria to pick a flower and had just turned her laughing face up to look once more for Andries when she felt a burning pinch in her side, then heard the shot fired. Gathering her children close, she tugged them in to protect them and heard another shot even as her vision swam and felt another pinching sting as she dropped to her knees.

Walking through the halls, Andries froze at the sound of the shot and then ran hard and fast for his wife and children, hearing the sounds of the guards hot on his heels. He watched as Xandra fell more or less on top of her children to protect them, listened even as Xan tried to comfort Andria who was screaming. Somewhere in the back of his mind he listened and saw the guards as they raced for the downed woman and children but his singular focus was on Xandra.

Pounding across the yard, Andries felt his beast clawing to come to the surface. Instead of letting it loose, he yelled at the guards to hunt down the shooter and bring whoever it was to him, alive. Reaching Xandra, he skidded to her on his knees and quickly rolled her over. Cursing, he pressed his hands to her wounds. “Xandra, look at me!” he ordered her sharply. She was too pale, her color slipping even more. “Damn it, Xandra,” he bit out and cut his wrist on a tooth to press it to her mouth as the guards surrounded them, two picking up the babies to soothe them. Andries couldn’t worry about them yet. Both were safe, if covered in their mother’s blood. He had to save her first. “Drink, baby.”

He watched as Xandra’s eyes opened first, blinked at him several times, and then finally took what he offered her. He forced her to drink until finally she said, “Enough, why do they keep shooting me? I want the bull’s-eye taken off me now please,” she whispered before she passed out once again as her body struggled to repair itself.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, he buried his face in her neck for a long moment as he held her close. Picking her up, he headed for the house, the guards close with his children.

Up in their room, he laid her down and turned to take the twins. “Thank you,” he told the guards as he cuddled them to him. “Shh, babies, it’s okay,” he murmured as they wound their pudgy little arms around his neck to hold him tightly. “Mommy’s just fine. She’s resting now to let her body heal,” he promised and sat at Xandra’s side so they could watch as she breathed slowly and evenly.

When her eyes opened, it was to two freshly scrubbed faces breathing on her cheeks, wide eyes looking intently at her in the darkened room. Smiling, she reached up and touched her children’s cheeks. “Hello, darlings.” Andria wrapped her arms around the hand that reached up to touch her face and Dalek wrapped his arms around her neck, both crying as they did so.

“Andries?” And then she saw him and smiled. He had obviously bathed with the children, his wet hair and the low-slung towel on his body making her momentarily forget her injuries. “Hello, my love,” she all but purred.

Sitting at her side, he leaned over her to kiss her gently. “Hello, my love,” he whispered against her lips. “You had me and the children scared, love,” he murmured, pulling back so she could see his face and the things he wasn’t saying, like the terror of seeing her bleeding, again, the horror of hearing his children’s screams, and how pale she’d been, his heart nearly stopping.

“I’m sorry, Andries.” She smiled and stroked her fingers over his lips when he leaned closer. “Did you remove the bull’s-eye that I seem to wear for those with guns and weapons?” She hated being shot, and now that made twice for her since she had met him. “Come on, darlings, let Mommy up and out of bed, please.”

“Not yet, love,” he told her quietly. “You need to feed more before you can move. Your wounds are sealed over but they need more blood to fully heal.” He was too scared to let her out of bed and knew the twins were picking up on it, thus why they were hanging onto her so tightly.

“Have you fed enough for the both of us then?” she asked and rubbed both her children’s backs when she pulled her hand back from him. “Because you know my stance on bags.” She shuddered. “Yeah, not gonna work for me, and you know that.”

“I always feed enough for us both, love,” he murmured against her lips, kissing her lightly before pulling back. “You know I would never make you do anything you dislike with such a passion. Besides”—he smiled faintly, the emotion came and went in the blink of an eye—“it’s much better this way for us both.”

“All right, little ones. Daddy and Mommy need a moment. Will you go out and ask your uncles Emeril and Nolan to take you down to have milk and cookies from cook?” It was easier to call the guards their uncles because, all in all, that was what they were. They were family, no questions about it. She watched their hesitation. “Daddy will be down shortly to bring you back up.” She wanted to have a moment alone with Andries to feed.

“Go on, you two,” he encouraged, shifting to ease them both off the bed one at a time. Kissing their cheeks, he watched them toddle to the door and knock on it to gain the guards’ attention. Once they were gone, he turned to his lady wife and pulled her gently to him to hug her. “I was terrified I’d lost you again, love,” he whispered, tears in his voice. His wife could take him to his knees with such ease, and the thought of losing her hurt him so much.

She nodded and wrapped herself close to him and held him tightly. “I know,” she whispered because she did. She knew that she had been too close. “I never want to be there again, Andries. I never want to be without you. I’m so scared, Andries. Why would someone shoot me? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know, my love, but I intend to find out why and make sure that it never ever happens again.” His children’s screams for their mother still echoed in his ears and he knew that the nightmares and fear would be there for a lifetime. For that alone he would make whoever had done this and ordered it pay very dearly. “I thought I’d made it clear the last time, but obviously someone has forgotten what was pointed out. Never again, Xandra. I promise you this, never ever again.”

“Will you mind if our little ones sleep with us tonight? I’m worried because of…” Well, let’s see, the fact their mother was shot and fell on them, that their little bodies had been covered with their mother’s blood, yep, that would be it. “Well, you know.”

“Yes, love, I know,” he whispered, hugging her a little closer. “No, I do not mind in the least. I’d feel more at ease if they were close to us.” He was worried about the nightmares that were sure to come. “Feed, love,” he told her as he shifted his head to the side, giving her access to his throat. “You need to heal, my lady.”

She reached up and pulled him closer, her hands in his hair even as her lips found his neck. She kissed the side of his neck first and then allowed her teeth to slide free and sink deep into his throat hungrily.

Moaning in pleasure at the bite of her teeth, Andries cupped the back of her head in one hand, the other sliding slowly over her body, needing to feel and touch. It was his way of reassuring himself that she was safe and that she was there with him once again.

She fed deeply from him before finally sealing the wound with a lick of her tongue and smile on her face. “See, I will heal. I just now need sleep.” It was tugging at her. The way that the Vampires healed was through blood and sleep, and now that she had blood, she needed sleep. “I love you, Andries, so very much I love you.”

“I love you, too, Xandra,” he murmured as he held her to him. “Sleep, little one, and I will bring the children up to join us for dinner. We will spoil them this night and eat in bed with them and just keep them close.”

Ten years later

Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at their son, so adult-looking in his military uniform and the beast of manhood flaming in his eyes. She watched as he got onto the transport and turned her face into Andries and let the sobs take her. “I hate that our little boy is leaving us,” she whispered under the tears of anguish.

Wrapping his arm around her, he watched with pride for the man his son had become and sadness for the boy that was no more. “I know, love,” he murmured to her, softly stroking back her hair as he held her close. “But he’s an adult now, and it’s part of growing up.”

“I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier, Andries. It hurts that we are sending him off to be with the military during a time when he needs us most, knowing how they will train him and remove the emotions that he has. We are losing our laughing and mischievous son, and it hurts.”