Heir to the Coven

by Melissa Leister

  Heir to the Coven

  Natasha Carmichael: Book One

  Melissa Leister

  Text copyright © 2009 by Melissa Leister

  Cover photo copyright © 2009 by Melissa Leister

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The characters and events portrayed in this publication are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN 1448648645

  EAN-13 9781448648641

  Acknowledgements

  To my grandmother who loved to read and instilled that love in my mother, who instilled it in me. Thank you.

  Mom, thank you.

  A big thank you goes out to my friend Tiffany aka FrenchMocha. You were my cheerleader and my sounding board for this novel.

  I also wish to thank all my friends at the soaps board who encouraged me to write. Without your enthusiasm for my words I doubt I would have had the nerve to try this.

  I also need to thank the Labines, who have no idea who I am, but without whom I would not know how to write a love story or a love triangle.

  Prologue

  “Will Natasha come back?”

  That was the question dozens of lips whispered. Some of those lips asked the question with dread, others with hope. At night, while I dreamed in a fevered sleep from denying my body what it craved, those voices pulsed through my veins and invaded my thoughts so that I could hear the distant worryings of my former family as clearly as if they stood in the next room talking about me.

  Would I go back? Did I want to go back? Did I really have a choice?

  I knew Rainor my former mentor was dying, his preternatural strength finally giving way to human failings, something no one thought would ever happen to me and I wanted to be there for him as he had been there for me when I was weaker. I knew what my duty was, but that city was full of things I did not want to fall back into. Some ties should not be renewed and if I went back…well, let’s just say some areas would not go smoothly.

  And yet for all my nighttime doubts, there came a morning when I awoke with my blood quiet and I began packing my bags to return home.

  Chapter 1

  I won’t bore you with the details of my trip home, I’ll only say that when I saw that house looming before me yet again, I was reminded of the first time I laid eyes on it and the differences in my status.

  “Out you go girlie. Stop your sniveling and grab your bag.”

  “I’m not sniveling you over stuffed halfwit.”

  “It’s a lippy little thing you are girlie and that won’t be tolerated here.”

  “I spent eleven years living with the vampires and three with the Elders. There is nothing in that house to scare me.”

  “Neither one of those lot wanted to keep you did they? No need to be so uppity about it then.”

  “Ms. Carmichael,” the driver said politely. “Ms. Carmichael?”

  “What?” There was a snarl to my voice that I did not mean it to have.

  The driver took a step back and bowed his head. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn madam.”

  “I’m sorry Max. I was lost in my thoughts. The last thing I want is people walking on eggshells around me.” He continued to stare at the ground. I sighed and said, “Please take my bags inside.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Damn! Home for less than five minutes and I was already screwing it up. I really was better off as a foot soldier or the lone hunter taking down my prey instead of as a leader who was equal parts general and politician these days. Just point me at what I had to kill and I was a happy woman, don’t make me have to deal with other people. With another sigh I stepped away from the car and went towards the house with Max trailing behind me.

  At the door stood two black leather clad guards. There were others just out of sight, but not out of sensing range, stationed all around the grounds. I did not recognize any of them, but when the front door opened and I stepped inside, a familiar voice called out to me.

  “Well, well, the Little One returns.”

  “Kain!”

  Kain had been Rainor’s enforcer since I gave up the post and he had called me Little One practically forever because at five foot four inches I looked like a doll next to his nearly seven foot frame. He was the only one that could get away with calling me that even though we both knew that I could take him out if I had too. We clasped hands and grinned at each other.

  “How’s Mercy?” I asked. Mercy had been Kain’s girlfriend for ages and if I was going to call anyone my friend, it would be her.

  “Fine. She’ll be happy you’re home.”

  “Scared you’ll wind up in charge?”

  “Scared I’ll end up dead.”

  All the muscles in my body tensed. So it was going to be a battle for the crown. Did I want to fight? Why not just let whoever wanted the coven have it and move on with my life of independent wandering? Because, I reminded myself, this is what I owed to Rainor. Later I could leave, but for now I had to do what was required of me.

  Kain put his hand on my shoulder slowly so I knew what he was about and didn’t tear his arm off. “Easy. No one will challenge you Natasha; they’re too scared. There has been a lot of talk about what you have been doing with yourself and for the time being it will keep them in line.”

  “That remains to be seen, but there are still outside forces to consider. Other people who will think they have a say in who steps into Rainor’s shoes. How are things with the vampires?”

  Kain sighed. “The truce holds a little firmer here than elsewhere, but with Rainor slipping away….”

  “You think they’ll try something.” It was not a question. Of course they would try something, vampires were always looking for an angle to exploit. In the name of the truce they would offer to help us in our time of mourning and soon any business they oversaw would never quite make its way back to us and any streets they looked after to keep “invaders” out would shortly thereafter be considered theirs.

  “It’s only a matter of time. Do you want me to set up a meeting?”

  “I’m not in charge yet, Kain. As long as Rainor is breathing this is his house and I am his servant.”

  “Of course Natasha.”

  “Will he see me now?”

  Kain nodded. “That’s why I’m here. He told me to bring you to him as soon as you were ready.”

  Would I ever be ready to see Rainor dying? They said it was cancer and that was not a pretty death. I had known him for almost 100 years and soon he would be gone. When I first arrived at this house, fourteen and miserable in a house full of what I considered to be noisy rude people compared to the what I had known, Rainor had looked like a well-kept man of forty, but time passed for him while I remained twenty-something in appearance. That was the curse of being half-caste; you could never tell what vampire traits were going to be inherited. Some got the fangs, others the claws. Some had preternatural speed or strength. Some aged slowly, like Rainor, others never aged past their first few years of true adulthood. Most of us had combinations of all kinds that made us a mixed bag of tricks. I had everything a vampire did except the fangs.

  A half-caste was an unusual creature in nature’s grand plan. The first vampires were a separate race that bred as humans do, but they were hunted during the daylight and soon there were not many left for all their power and cunning. To increase their numbers, they experimented with new ways to procreate. It was discovered the way to make more vampires was to drain a human to the point
of death and then to force them to drink the blood of the vampire that drained them. It was also discovered that if you fed a pregnant human woman vampire blood her child would be born normal, but come to have vampire powers and the ability to withstand the sun’s rays at puberty. Since no half-caste was ever quite as strong as a vampire or in possession of a full set of powers, they were deemed lesser and sentenced to be the daytime guards of their creators. Even our name, half-caste, was a slight. Vampires called their bloodline based groups castes and looked upon those not of the same blood with suspicion. They might let a wandering vampire from another caste join their “family” if they were deemed worthy because they were at least still a vampire, but we were always on the outside. The very name of our race branded us as not all we should be. But we were better and stronger than humans, so half-castes were key in helping the vampire population swell. Then one day we were key in cutting that population down to a manageable number.

  One particularly strong half-caste, named Soong, lead an elite group known as the Order. These were the half-castes you called when things were really dark. Most people feared calling for their aid more than facing whatever was challenging them. Soong discovered a secret, if a strong half-caste drank vampiric blood, their powers increased. Of course once the half-caste stopped drinking the blood they gradually went back to the way they were, but the vampires didn’t like this at all. It did not matter that anyone not strong enough to join the Order was usually destroyed by drinking the blood so it was not like all half-castes could be turned into killing machines, but the Order alone was enough of a threat without the blood that they needed to be stopped before they rose up and made the vampires slaves.

  The vampires tried to kill Soong and Soong wiped out their Council. His people were their personal bodyguards so it was a cakewalk. I wish I had been there to see it; vampires were an uppity group that needed to be taken down a few thousand pegs. Their faces must have been priceless when their guards grabbed them by their hair, yanked back their heads and drained them dry. A war broke out and it raged for centuries before my birth. My birth did not help matters in the slightest. By the time I was created, vampires were forbidden to caste any more half-castes, but the home team needed new players so they would capture a vampire and feed its blood to pregnant women and a new half-caste was born in due time. The vampire who made me, Lucius, had been born a vampire and he decided he wanted to make the ultimate weapon for his caste of vampires, the Hadi, to protect his pure blooded neck if anyone managed to get by his other guards.

  My mother, Melisande, was his dessert or human companion used for a quick sip of blood or a quick lay, and he made sure she got pregnant and he made sure he fed her his blood every day until I was born. Being a dessert has its perks, all the blood your Master feeds you keeps you young forever, or until they got bored with you and tossed you aside for the aging to begin, and you got to be dressed up like a chihuahua in Hollywood, but sometimes you got unpleasant tasks like this. Giving birth to me killed her and I was not what was expected. Lucius thought I would be like a born vampire of old, an infant for a few hours and then rapidly growing to adulthood, but I was just a baby. Like any half-caste, my powers did not appear until puberty. Boy did they appear, but he was disappointed and he had lost his favorite dessert so I was tossed aside like an old doll.

  “Tash!” Mercy’s voice broke into my thoughts.

  “Mercy, I was wondering where you were. Kain was all by himself to greet me.”

  Mercy smiled. “I know you aren’t big on family scenes so I waited.”

  “And you weren’t sure what mood I’d be in.”

  “Natasha I’ve never thought for a second that you would hurt any of us.”

  I wanted to tell her that was true, that I was happy she believed I was not a danger, but I knew what I was and so did she and her trust could get her killed. “That is not a safe assumption to make. Any half-caste entering this house is a threat until proved otherwise. I was a friend once, it doesn’t mean I am still to be trusted.”

  Mercy’s already pale skin turned a shade of white that almost made me look tan. “Then you mean us harm?”

  “Would I tell you if I did?” If this was what had become of Rainor’s coven then he must have been slipping for a long time. Once upon a time Mercy would have had her back lashed for slips such as these. But it was not my place to chastise her, yet. The vampires must be taking full advantage if things had gotten so lax.

  My head was starting to ache at the mess I was going to inherit. I looked at Mercy’s brown eyes, wide with fear, and remembered my younger days running around town with her and Kain, laughing it up amid a war. If I had a best friend at any point in my life, it was her so why was I trying to frighten her? Because, my calculating brain reminded me, in the not too distant future I was going to be Mistress here and the head of a house did not have friends; they had subordinates who did as they were told out of fear and respect. I was establishing both. Her brown eyes peered into mine, looking to see if mine had turned the blood red a vampire’s would if they were about to strike, one of my powers, but mine were their usual green and hers slid away. I could all but hear her thinking that if I were this tense when I wasn’t about to strike what was I like when I was? “Mercy, we’re friends, but things have changed since I left and things will change after…I need to get my feet back under me. I’ve been on my own for a while. The walls feel like they are caving in on me from the pressure of all the eyes.”

  “So the rumors are true?”

  I chuckled. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  Mercy was asking if I had joined Soong’s Order when I left this house decades ago. Membership was a secret. The story was if you knew someone belonged to the Order it was the last thing you knew because you were dead in the next second. The vampires’ elite guard was now the half-caste Elders’ group of assassins and their identities were kept a secret. The Soong, as members were called, drank vampire blood as their sole nourishment and had the ability to pass for full-blood vampires when the need arose. Since the war ended, there was a tentative agreement that the new vampire Council could call on the Order, but the Soong were no longer required to respond.

  “Nastasha, where have you been all this time?”

  “No place good Mercy.”

  While we talked, we had walked towards Rainor’s door. The guard bowed his head to me as I passed by, Mercy waited in the hall. I had faced some tough situations in my life, but I don’t think anything ever made me as nervous as walking up to that bed did. What was he going to look like? Would he smile to see me after all this time? Was he mad about what I took with me when I left? I walked to his bedside and knelt with my head bowed. It was the appropriate greeting to give the coven Master and it gave me a few more moments to steel myself for what I was going to see.

  “Rise, Natasha,” Rainor’s voice said. It was the same voice I had heard for years only slightly weaker.

  I got to my feet and looked down at him. The skin had withered and the hair had grayed, but I could still see Rainor in that dying body. “Why didn’t you send for me sooner?”

  “I tried, but you are not easy to find and what could you have done? You cannot hold back death my dear.”

  “No, but I could have eased your burden.”

  “You would have me believe you began the return process the instant you heard I was dying?”

  I smirked. “No. My blood heard their whispers, wondering if I would return, so I asked around and found out the truth. I had a decision to make.”

  “Good girl.”

  “Bad girl.”

  “Being both is not a bad thing Natasha.”

  “But the bad girl is more fun.”

  “Is it really? I think it’s just easier.”

  “Is anything easy?”

  Rainor laughed and it turned into a cough. I handed him the glass of water on his nightstand and waited. He said, “You’re not going to deflect me, my dear. I have a question that you will b
e required to answer before I turn the coven over to you.”

  “Some questions really are best left unanswered.”

  “Not this one.”

  Time to change the subject. “May ask about the situation in the city, sir?”

  “I’m dying, the vampires want to control the entire city and my coven is in a tizzy wondering if you’ll stick around to rule things or simply play clean up and leave once again.”

  “I plan to start by playing clean up. Do you want me to meet with the vampires, let them know your heir is in place?”

  “Yes. Take Kain with you, I know you don’t need him, but it will show them you are supported and protected.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Please Natasha, do try to behave yourself at the meeting.”

  I grinned. “I promise not to kill any of them unless they come at me first.”

  “That’s not exactly what I was talking about.”

  I was not getting a good feeling about this. “Is Vincent opposed to my taking over?”

  Vincent was the vampire Master in the city. He would have good reason not to want me in charge, I had killed a lot of his people and I had made a rather startling deal with his second shortly before I left that got me what I wanted, but made him look weak.

  “Vincent is no longer their Master. About a week after you left, he was killed.”

  “One of us killed him? Who?”

  “Not one of us, his successor.”

  Vampire rules of succession were a lot like half-caste ones. The next ruler had to kill the previous one unless the former Master died in battle. Oh, no. “Who took his throne?”

  “Anton.”

  Shit.

  Chapter 2

  Since the meeting with the vampires was set for the next night I spent the next day sleeping and unpacking. Kain met with me for an hour before the meeting to make sure I knew where things stood. Simple version: we ran everything to the river and they ran everything past that; no one’s people crossed that line without permission or a death wish. Things were going well, but could be going better since Rainor’s illness had kept his attention away from business.