Running in Fear: Ghost Warrior (14 page)

Castor released his hold on Lissa, sealing the holes in her neck, and coming at the same time she did. His eyes burned red, and his body shook, as her blood made its way through him. Castor had just twined their souls together. His soul would not have to hide when on missions. It would always be inside Lissa.

Nikola had wanted to forbid this, but Castor demanded he be allowed to bond how he wanted to. He reached down, and pulled Lissa away from him, as Castor released her. Her body was limp in his arms. “Never again will you drain her like this. Is that understood?” He snapped, and glared at Castor before he left the bathroom.

Adonis grabbed two towels, while Pierre helped Castor stand, as he was drunk on her blood. “It was the only thing I could give her that I hadn’t given the others, Nikola. I wanted Lissa to know how much she means to me.” He whined behind him, which only aggravated him more.

“Pierre, Adonis get him in bed. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.” He only hoped she would forgive them for not telling her what was going to happen. He lay in the middle of the bed with her on top of him. Castor lay down next to them, and reached to take Lissa. “Don’t!”

“She needs to feed Nikola, before we all sleep.” Castor now curled up next to him, Adonis behind him, pulled Castor closer to his body.

“Nikola will feed her, his blood is powerful. You need to go to sleep.” Adonis’s arms were now wrapped around Castor, and he nodded to him and Pierre, closing his eyes.

Pierre pulled the covers over their bodies, and rested next to them, as he opened a vein for her, and commanded her to drink. Ever so slowly Lissa’s fangs sank into his skin, and she drank. Her movements were slow and weak. She winced when she moved and he cussed himself for not healing her instantly, but that was now remedied.

When she woke in the morning she would not be sore from Castor’s taking.

“She’ll be okay, Nikola. We all have to do whatever we can to protect her. This was his way.” Pierre fluffed up his pillow, and held his gaze. “Just as it is your way to slowly train her.” He grinned, and lay down.

Nikola snorted. “Have you seen the way your brother, Remi, has trained his submissive, Jaycee. If our Lissa is anything like Jaycee, I don’t see how she’ll make for the perfect slave, but it matters little. She is ours, and if I have to hog tie her to the bed, I will.”

He jumped, when Lissa pinched his own nipple. Nikola glanced down, and caught her gaze, before she once more closed her eyes, and relaxed, sealing the holes in his chest. “I will be anything you want me to be Nikola, just love me.” She whispered, and fell asleep.

“Always my little butterfly, always.” Nikola tucked the blanket tighter around her, and closed his eyes. Tomorrow his new family would meet part of his old family. He just hoped his mother…

Pierre grabbed his hand, and squeezed it. “Everything will work out. Quiet worrying about something you have no control over.” Pierre kissed his cheek, and lay back down.

Once more he closed his eyes, and tried to let sleep take him away. But before he knew it he was awake, but this time he was cold, and Lissa was no longer in his arms.

Nikola opened his eyes, the fire was out in the room, Pierre, Adonis and Caster were still asleep, but Lissa was not in their room. He flashed out of bed to the fireplace, and with a wave to his hand, the fire place was once more ablaze with warmth.

The morning light from the sun came up and hit him in the eyes, when he saw the lights from the ring they had given Lissa filter partly in the room from outside. “She wouldn’t?” Nikola glided over to the window to see Lissa outside with a cup in her hand.

She sat in the swing that now looked over a large pond, that hadn’t been there last night. “Are you out of your mind, out here by yourself?” Nikola demanded, as soon as he appeared in front of her, scaring her.

“Damn it, Nikola, I’m not alone. If you look to your right, and don’t scare the crap out of me like that again.” She snapped, and glared at him, as Dominic, Blair and Suzanne curled up on the other swing.

“Problems?” Suzanne asked, but he ignored her, and plopped down next to her. “It’s too early for this. Let me guess, you’re a morning person?” He grumbled.

Lissa nodded, curled her feet under her, and brought the blanket from the end of their bed up around her tighter. “You knew, all of you knew what Castor was going to do, but you said nothing to me. Why?” Her words chipped and frosty, she wouldn’t even look at his face.

Nikola really didn’t want to get into this now, when all he wanted to do was crawl back into bed, but it looked like he was up for good. He wrapped his arm around her, and picked her up, placing her in his lap careful of her drink. “First, let me get some coffee in me, since it looks like I’m up, then we’ll talk okay?”

He sniffed the air, and glanced at her cup. “What are you drinking?”

“Why Nikola, you should know what she is drinking, since every morning when you were a little boy I made it for you,” His mother, Lyda said, appearing at his side, and handed him a glass as well.

“When did you arrive? I thought you wouldn’t arrive to later. I’m sorry I wasn’t up to greet you.” He glanced at Lissa, and saw the small smile on her face.

“So you have met my mother, and my sisters?” Nikola squeezed her, and took a sip of the hot chocolate, caramel drink.

“I’ve shown your sisters to their rooms, and they are unpacking as we speak, but your mother wanted to talk, so we came outside to enjoy the new landscape.” Lissa studied him for a minute then she nodded. “Your sister, Karen, is right. You do take after mom.”

He choked on his drink. “You talked to Karen?” he moaned, and his mother laughed, but a frown marred her face. “Not to worry Nikola, Karen has learned, the hard way, about your brother and father.”

All of a sudden, his mother looked lost and old. Lissa moved next to him, knowing he needed to hold her. “I’m sorry mom. If there was anything I could do, I would.” Nikola couldn’t believe how thin his mother had gotten, as he held her.

“Mom, what happened? You’re so thin. Dad, well I didn’t recognize him, when he came here.” Nikola pulled his mother down in between him, and Lissa who automatically wrapped the blanket around the both of them, sensing she was cold.

His mother leaned against his shoulder, one tear, then two tears, slid down her cheek. “It started about ten years ago,” his sister Karen said coming to stand next to them, with his other sisters and younger brother.

Two more swings appeared next to them, with big soft warm cushions. “Please sit.”

Karen swung Teddy, up in her arms and sat down in the swing, next to their younger sisters Beth, and Elizabeth. “Vender became more withdrawn. He now kept secrets, and would disappear for days on end. One day, I caught him coming back from one such trip…” Her hands trembled, as she wrapped her arms around Teddy, and hugged him. His mother trembled in his arms.

“He was stoned Nikola, Vender was higher than a kite, and not from the human’s drugs but from…”

Karen couldn’t finish the sentence, so his mom did. “He had been harvesting. When your sister confronted him about it, he attacked her. Your father was the one who pulled him off of her, but not before he had tried to steal her soul.”

Nikola slid off the swing, and knelt next to Karen. “Are you okay?”

She brushed his messed up hair back, and smiled. “I’m fine now. It took about a year for me to finally get back to normal. I’m sorry Nikola. I was such a bitch to you, when we were growing up, and look at me now, three hundred years old, and I have to depend on you to protect me.”

He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You always were a stubborn one, but Karen, I would be in no other place then here protecting you. You are my family and any threat to you is a threat to me.”

“To us all,” Pierre finished behind him.

Nikola rolled his eyes, and stood holding out his hand. “Pierre, these are my little sisters, Karen, Elizabeth and Beth, and the little guy is my little brother Teddy.” Pierre nodded to each of them, and smiled at Karen.

“Don’t worry, little sister, you are safe here. We won’t let anyone hurt you.” He turned and nodded his head. “Yep, you take after your mother. Sho is very beautiful.” Pierre took her hand, and kissed it.

Lissa busted out laughing. “Enjoy that bit of manners, because in the past three days now, I’ve seen little of them.” She squealed, when Adonis came up from behind, and nipped her shoulder.

“I resent that little one. We have been the perfect gentlemen.” He kissed her soundly on the lips, and she melted in his arms, as he picked her up, and held her. “You should get dressed. It’s cold out here, and Castor is waiting in the bedroom for you.” Adonis let her feet drop to the ground, and turned her around, swatting her ass. “Now go, we’ll keep Nikola’s family busy till you get back.”

* * * *

Lissa didn’t want to face Castor yet. She still didn’t know if she was really pissed at him, or not. Sure it would have been nice if the four of them would have mentioned something about it, but the bonding of their souls only warmed her.

She didn’t flash to the bedroom. Instead Lissa decided to walk there, give herself time to come to grips with everything that was happening around her. She had awakened and seen that Suzanne was headed outside with Dominic and Blair, she had asked to join them. Then Nikola’s family had appeared. So Lissa had introduced herself to his family and showed them to their rooms. She’d had little time to think about things.

Stopping at the kitchen, Cecil was there cooking up a storm. She smiled and waved her over. “Here, taste this and tell me what you think.” Cecil handed her some kind of biscuit and a glass of milk.

“I take it these are made from something we found yesterday?” Lissa took a bite of the biscuit, and it melted in her mouth. The caramel, chocolate biscuit was gone in three bites. “Okay, you better have at least six dozen of these, because if Jaycee, and the rest of the women taste them…well you won’t be going anywhere but this kitchen to make more.”

Lissa took a sip of her milk, and glanced down at the glass, as another burst of the flavor of the biscuit surprised her. “Yep, that is the same reaction I got. It seems that after eating the biscuit the milk, retriggers our taste buds, so that we again taste what we just ate.” Cecil turned to the counter and picked up a piece of the fruit, taking a bit of it, and then taking a drink of the milk in her hand.

“Shit, it’s the milk. It’s not the food, we got here, but the milk we got. Do you know where the milk came from?” Cecil asked, but she shook her head.

“Nope, you’d have to ask Castor. I tell you what, I’ll ask him, and let you know.” Cecil nodded and went back to work, but not before she handed her another biscuit on her way out.

“You have to eat. You are carrying four babies now,” Cecil said, and went back to making more biscuits.

Moving down the hall to their room, Lissa knew Castor was growing impatient with her, but he waited in their room giving her the time she needed.

“Lissa, may I have a word with you.” Granger asked as she passed the dining room door.

She nodded and moved into the room, which was empty except for him. “Please have a seat.” Granger nodded, to the chair near the table, where juice, decaf coffee, and milk were set up.

With the blanket now tightly wrapped around her, Lissa sat down and nibbled on the roll Cecil had given her. “What can I help you with, Granger? I’m afraid we don’t have much time. Your father is waiting for me now and I don’t know how long he’ll wait.” She smiled.

“You and my father combined your souls last night, didn’t you?” He poured himself a glass of coffee and sat across from her.

She nodded and popped a piece of the biscuit into her mouth. “Yes, but I’m afraid I didn’t know he was going to do it, until it was done.”

Granger nodded and poured a third cup of coffee, when Lissa glanced up to see Castor. “Please have a seat father, we need to talk.”

Castor picked her up and sat across from his son with her in his lap. Lissa sighed and rested her head against his chest. “What do you need Granger? Lissa and I have some personal business to discuss.”

His son got up and paced back and forth. “I wouldn’t ask this, but Lissa has a blood bond with one of Suzanne’s best friends and we’re worried about her and her mate. Dominic’s worried about Alex.”

All Lissa’s attention was now on Granger. “Suzanne hasn’t heard from Della or Alex?” She jumped up and clothes now covered her body. “When was the last time you heard from them?”

Suzanne came into the room with Dominic. She was pissed and glared at Dominic. “The last time I’ve heard from Della was three days ago, that was before the massacre in Dearborn. All phones lines to the south have been cut, and I don’t have a blood connection to Della.” Suzanne tried to move away from Dominic, but he held onto her.

“Suzanne is furious with me, as I am myself. I was going to make a blood connection with Alex before we left, but I was so worried about getting Suzanne out that I forgot. I want Alex and my staff here and we have tried all the normal routes, but nothing.”

Lissa moved to the window and glanced outside. She shook her head. “There is something blocking my connection to Della. I don’t know if it is the change of the island or something else, but we can go there and bring them back.” Lissa turned to Suzanne who smiled and nodded.

“That is what I was thinking. You know where the estate is and you could get us there and back in no time.” Suzanne pulled her into a hug. “Della is as important to me as she is to you Lissa. She saved me, too.”

“Lissa you are going nowhere. It’s too dangerous and I won’t risk you or our children.” Castor snapped and glared at her.

“Excuse me? You, the one who didn’t tell me shit about last night, are going to tell me what I can and can’t do? I don’t think so! This woman is important to both of us and if I want to go and get her, I will.”

Nikola pushed into the room with, Pierre, Adonis, Blair and Archer at his heels. “Enough! You will not talk to Castor like that. Is that understood?” Nikola snapped, as sparks of fire danced in his eyes, indicating just how pissed he was.