Bond of Blood

by Diane Whiteside

  Rafael's pace slowed as they reached the first house. Grania stared at him, perplexed, and held her tongue about how she prevented being hurt by owls. His bodyguards drew closer, encircling him. He came to a complete halt in front of the third house and revolved slowly, eyes searching everything in sight. It was a little place, one story with a single attic room above, and painted immaculately white.

  "What is it?" Grania demanded, following his moves along with his men. She could find nothing except a remarkably bucolic scene.

  "It's too damn quiet."

  "It's a goat dairy. You can hear plenty of goats and the dairy machinery. Plus the brook," she pointed out, watching him. She didn't mention the helicopters overhead. After all the time he spent with those mechanical beasts, he had to have filtered them out by now.

  "Sí—but there should be more."

  "Like what?"

  His face hard, Rafael looked over at his nearest bodyguard. "No other vampiro is here, Emilio, nor an enemy compañero. But something is very, very wrong. Check it out."

  Emilio nodded. He and another man sprang down from their horses, tied the reins to an old hitching post, and ran up to the house. The building remained silent, with every window tightly shut.

  "Get down," Rafael ordered imperiously.

  "What?"

  "It could be a trap. At least put the horses between us and danger." He started to reach out to her.

  Grania opened her mouth to protest but obeyed. The odds of him being correct were smaller than the chances of him turning violent if she disobeyed.

  "Ay, mierda, their dogs should be barking," Rafael cursed softly.

  Emilio rattled the door knob fruitlessly. "Señora Perez?" he called and pounded on the door.

  A pang lanced through Grania at the name. "Your relative?" she asked quietly.

  "No, an employee's daughter. Her husband is serving overseas with the Army."

  "Señora Perez?" Emilio shouted again.

  Still no answer.

  "Break it down!" Rafael shouted.

  "Perhaps if you tried the back door, or a window—" Grania began.

  A single kick sent the door swinging open and the two men disappeared inside, guns drawn. Well, at least Rafael had more than enough money to pay for the damages.

  It seemed forever as Grania and Rafael waited, although it was only a few minutes. Finally, Emilio reappeared in the doorway, looking puzzled.

  "All clear. They're all inside, Don Rafael, sleeping peacefully in the children's room except for the dogs in the living room. I couldn't wake any of them. The only oddity is a space heater turned on."

  Rafael tossed the reins to one of his men and headed up the path between magnificent summer roses, Grania a half step behind him. The bodyguards clustered around them, their guns all too evident.

  "Don Rafael," began Emilio, shifting as if to block the doorway.

  "Guard Doctora O'Malley with your life while I investigate. She'll want to tend the dogs."

  Grania's mouth fell open when Rafael disappeared down the hall. Rafael, who'd always accepted the need to be guarded, had put her safety first?

  She blew out her breath and started acting like a vet. She found the living room full of well-used furniture and overflowing with children's toys. Two big Border collies slept unmoving, sprawled between a slipcovered recliner and the hallway. It was incredibly hot inside.

  She started to examine the still-sleeping dogs, trying to remember canine basics from first-year veterinary college. Neither of the Border collies would wake up. Actually, she'd describe them both as being in a coma.

  Both dogs' normally fluffy black-and-white coats were badly stained with vomit. Her careful testing evoked an extremely bizarre set of reflexes. She peeled back eyelids and studied their eyeballs.

  Grania sat back on her heels and thought.

  Down the hall, Rafael sounded furious about how slowly the mother and children were waking up.

  Emilio was watching her closely.

  Grania came up onto her feet in a rush. "Rafael, get them outside. Now!" she yelled. The diagnosis wasn't one commonly taught in veterinary school, but she'd had enough first-aid training to recognize it.

  Glass shattered in the bedroom.

  "Emilio, call 911 and have the men start CPR. And bring oxygen, if you've got it. Don't just stand there, looking at me like a dolt—move your ass!"

  "Yes, ma'am!" He saluted and ran.

  Grania shook her head and hoisted a Border collie over her shoulders. She needed to get them both out of here as soon as possible, before they too succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

  An hour later, Grania finished describing how she'd made her diagnosis to the local sheriff and fire chief.

  The last ambulance had long since taken the small family to the hospital. More than that, the early prognosis for them had come back so she'd have something to tell Rafael.

  Much to his resigned disgust, he'd been bundled off by his body-guards before the first ambulance had arrived. She'd fought to remain with her patients, insisting that the local medical personnel would need an accurate account of their symptoms. Her head and heart were glad she'd insisted but, damn, the rest of her was exhausted.

  She glanced over her shoulder when steel fingers closed lightly around her elbow. Behind her, two more helicopters came in fast and hard.

  Emilio tipped his Stetson. "This way, ma'am."

  Grania raised an eyebrow and followed him into a small, purely functional helicopter. She folded herself into a seat and was totally unsurprised to see Emilio take the one next to her. Ever since Rafael had ordered him to guard her, the only time he'd left her side was when he'd run to fetch the oxygen.

  A hard-faced man, with a Kevlar vest barely hidden under his denim jacket, took the seat beside the pilot, a compact submachine gun across his lap. Her eyes widened briefly before she recovered. Good God, had the threat to her gone up that much?

  She barely finished strapping herself in before the chopper flung itself into the sky and hurtled west. The bird was flying really fast, in fact, damn fast—and low.

  She cast a suspicious eye outside, checking their altitude against what she'd previously experienced during helicopter flights. They were definitely flying at a far lower altitude than she'd expect for a commercial flight, even over private land. Much more like a military flight, trying to avoid being shot down.

  Emilio, of course, was totally undisturbed.

  Only a few minutes later, they flew up a small mountain, whose crest was covered by a beautiful, low limestone ranch house and outbuildings. A network of roads connected the buildings, pastures, gardens, and fields, even those in the valley below. Fountains danced in a rose garden and spilled into a swimming pool. It was a big estate but surprisingly, also a home. This had to be Compostela Ranch, the legendary but secretive headquarters of the Santiago Trust.

  Rafael's home. She wasn't going to be seeing him only in hotel rooms anymore. She wasn't just the well-guarded girlfriend, kept around to be played with. She was now important enough to be a part of his true life.

  Unexpected moisture touched Grania's eyes but she blinked it back fiercely.

  The helicopter touched down on a well-used helipad, near several other helicopters clustered under the watchful eye of a small control tower. Emilio jumped out and bustled her off, trotting her up a flight of stairs, then down a long porch. He entered the main house with scant ceremony and towed her across the great central room, leaving her no time to absorb its details.

  They paused just outside a very masculine office. Its windows were covered by thick steel shutters, blocking all daylight, so that artificial light focused attention on the men there. Inside Rafael's cold, angry voice was dressing down someone.

  Emilio held up his hand, but Grania didn't need the warning.

  "It does not matter what you thought, Ethan, or you, Gray Wolf. The enemy penetrated into the heart of my lands, something you said was impossible. He injured my people—innocen
t people, solely because of their likeness to me."

  "My humblest apologies, patrón.'" A Texan's voice, who sounded truthful but not the type to often apologize. "It will not happen again."

  "Bien," Rafael all but snarled. "And you, Jean-Marie, your networks should have done better than this."

  "Mille pardons, patrón." A Frenchman's fluid tenor.

  "Take the men away from guarding me and set them to hunting these devils."

  Good God, no! Ice crowded Grania's veins, as her heart choked her throat. If she lost Rafael now…

  "No!" The men shouted their objections, adding curses to their logic.

  "Yes!" Rafael roared.

  The others snarled and growled but reluctantly fell silent.

  "We must stop them, no matter what. The penalty for failure is death, mis hijos. You do not like my punishments—but you will hate those doled out by the enemy more."

  No! Grania took a step forward, her boot heel striking wood floor instead of carpet. Silence fell for an instant before Rafael spoke.

  "Doctora O'Malley?" he called. "Please come in."

  The men inside turned to face the newcomers, as politely as if they hadn't been fighting like wolves an instant earlier.

  Rafael, dark and coldly angry, was standing by the steel shutters. "Doctora," he began.

  Still dusty and sweaty, reeking of dog and horse, she tossed her Stetson onto the hatrack, went straight past every other man to Rafael, and wrapped her arms around him. He choked with laughter and hugged her close.

  The others started to file out quietly. Rafael lifted his head. "Gentlemen, another minute of your time for introductions."

  Under different circumstances, she'd have laughed out loud at how they promptly came to attention, like puppies at obedience class. But she had to comfort Rafael first. That was more important, even than thinking about these men's resemblance to the ones she'd seen in her vision at the graduation party.

  "Doctora O'Malley, may I present to you my adelantado mayor and heir, Gray Wolf? You've already met his partner, Caleb Jones."

  A Native American, tall and handsome, bowed. She nodded politely.

  "My eldest hijo and heraldo, Jean-Marie St. Just."

  Another tall man only an inch or two shorter than Rafael, with light brown hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a much too charming smile, bowed. "Enchanté, mademoiselle."

  "My alférez mayor, Ethan Templeton."

  So this was the Ethan who'd had her in the choke hold? He was blond, extraordinarily handsome, with cold hazel eyes. She'd rate him as intellectually brilliant and fully capable of killing at any time, in any place. He nodded politely, a salute she returned in kind.

  "And Luis Alvarez, my siniscal."

  Now this gentleman looked almost enough like Rafael to be his older brother, albeit a few inches shorter and without the scar. His hard, wise eyes searched hers, almost as if checking her intentions toward Rafael. Startled, she opened herself to his inspection, as if facing a new professor. He studied her for another minute before nodding. She relaxed, eased by his acceptance.

  Luis turned to Rafael. "I myself will go to San Leandro on the Fourth."

  Rafael stiffened.

  Luis shrugged, his eyes alight with a rueful triumph. "I am the best one to check the preparations, since it must be done in daylight, as you know, patrón."

  Grania's gaze shot back and forth between the two. If Rafael had had any choice, she was sure he'd refuse.

  "Very well," Rafael finally yielded. "The children cannot be risked at the picnic."

  Luis bowed and turned to go.

  "But I swear to you, Luis, as soon as this is over, you will receive El Abrazo, no matter what excuse you offer next."

  Luis spun, his mouth gaping open. An instant later, he'd returned to being the polite caballero and gave Rafael a sweeping bow.

  Rafael shook his head and hugged Grania closer.

  "Querida," he murmured, stroking her cheek. "Will they live?"

  "Every one of them will be fine, even the little baby, especially since you gave the hospital a hyperbaric chamber." She kissed her fingertips and touched them to his lips. "The fire department sent their thanks for the full set of the latest oxygen masks you gave them. Because they had canine oxygen masks, the dogs will make it through too."

  "Gracias a Dios," he murmured against her hair.

  "It was carbon monoxide poisoning," she added. "The space heater in the bedroom had been sabotaged."

  Ethan growled. "It will be a pleasure to destroy those devils."

  Rafael lifted his head. "You have your orders, gentlemen. Buenas ñochas."

  Rafael's men left quietly, closing the door behind them.

  She caressed his cheek. The grooves bracketing his mouth seemed to have deepened since that morning. "Did I disturb you too much?"

  "No, we were done. Our enemies will regret escalating the war in this fashion."

  The confirmation hit her like a blow to the stomach, knocking the breath out of her and tensing every muscle. She cursed under her breath and prayed she'd misheard him. She tilted her head back to look at him better. "War? This morning wasn't an accident?"

  He shook his head. His mouth was held so tightly, the skin around it was almost white. "No. Bianca Perez and her children—Fernando, Beatriz, and Inez—are the same names and ages as my family was, when El Abrazo was forced upon me. My greatest enemy, Diego Sanchez who now calls himself Beau, did this, as a sign that he's close and plans to kill me."

  Grania's brain whirled at the names: Bianca, Fernando, Beatriz, Inez. The Christian names were very common but to have them combined in one family? Especially with this mix of ages and the names of the twins?

  All of the names from her dreams and her knight's face in front of her. Her heart stuttered to a stop. "Are you certain?" she asked faintly, not sure what she needed reassurance of.

  "Verdaderamente. I smelled him upon the bedroom's windowsill when I carried them out. How that devil must have danced when he found that family, with their names so close to those I loved."

  "No, there can be no doubt at all," she whispered, her stomach clenching as it never had during a college exam. But if the assassin had been so close…

  "What if he was watching us, while we tended the victims?"

  Rafael shrugged that off immediately, with complete and utter finality. "In all the centuries I knew them, Beau and his creador always stayed indoors during daylight, a habit he has continued ever since. He would never have stayed outside, in the harsh sunlight."

  "You are certain."

  "Completely. It is a very easy habit for vampiros to form as cachorros, when sunlight means death, and a hard one to break."

  Grania nodded, accepting his summary. But if Beau had attacked, as a reminder of Rafael's family, then that was verification that Rafael's family was named Bianca, Fernando, Beatriz, and Inez. Bianca was the Spanish form of Blanche, a French name. Rodrigo's wife had been Norman-French in her all-too-vivid dreams.

  She must be comforting Rodrigo.

  But if that were true, then what about those dreams she'd had, the ones with too much detail to be fantasy? Like the one in the cathedral or where the Princesse had attacked his wife? Rodrigo could not have known that the Princesse attacked his wife; only Blanche would have known that. It had to be a memory, and Blanche's memory at that.

  Reincarnation? Could she be the reincarnation of Rodrigo's wife, Blanche?

  "How did you ever survive so many centuries if you lost such a young family?" she mourned.

  He sighed. "I prayed regularly for them, for my children, and my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren."

  "But your enemies…" She stopped. She couldn't find words yet to speak of the dreams, especially to him. How do you tell someone you might be their long-dead wife? She needed to think about this some more. "You just said you were forced into El Abrazo. How did you keep yourself sane?"

  He laughed, not a happy sound, and shook his head. Then he gathere
d her up and settled into the big leather chair behind the desk, cuddling her on his lap. "I plotted and hoped and prayed to take my revenge. I was a sex slave to both men and women, good and bad. I never killed for blood. But there is no sexual act that a human being can participate in that I have not performed or assisted in, whether I enjoyed it or not." His eyes were resigned and bleak, slightly defiant.

  She caressed his cheek. "I don't judge you. You did what you had to do to survive."

  He kissed her hand. "You forgive more than you understand, mi corazón. These things are not easy for me to speak of. For so many years, I was alone with no one to trust, no one to talk to."

  Grania bit her lip. But she could share this with him, as she'd never shared it with anyone else. Her knight needed to know that she too had spent long years of bitter loneliness.

  She looked him straight in the eye, dropping all barriers, even the angry defensive ones, so he could see she told the truth. "I'm a foundling, Rafael. I was found abandoned as a baby, in a filthy drug smuggler's tunnel, screaming from colic."

  His arms tightened around her. "A magical survival."

  She smiled at his silliness. "Couldn't tell that by the legal record. The courts declared me a ward of the state, and sent me to a Catholic group home on the wrong side of Tucson. An Irish nun named me for the Irish pirate queen, Grania O'Malley, given my coloring and how so many law-abiding men didn't know what to do with me."

  Rafael chuckled, his breath stirring her hair. She smiled with him, then gathered her courage and went on.

  "I was unadoptable without known birth parents to sign the release forms. There were always so many orphans there, that assembly line was a better description than family life."

  He cursed under his breath, not in English or Spanish. "No one? No family at all? No love, no hugs?"

  She shook her head. "Very little. When I was a little older, the church was so proud of having one child with good grades that they shunted me from boarding school to boarding school, each chosen only for needing a student to show off. I attended a different school—or two—every year."