Bound To You: Vranthian Vampires – Book 1

by K. A. M'Lady

  Then, when he reached behind her, turned on the shower and took the bloodied cloth from her hands, Leah didn’t know what to do. His touch was so gentle, his dark eyes filled with concern. “I’m going to put you in the shower. To wash the blood off of you. Nothing more,” he’d told her. There was no hint of command or censure. Just care. Her hands enfolded in the mass of his large fingers with gentle care.

  “I swear on my life that I will not harm you,” he’d whispered, and for some reason she didn’t understand, she believed him.

  He had been so gentle then, removing her filthy clothes, careful not to touch her in any way unbecoming. The sound of his breath catching as she stood naked before him, poised to enter the shower. A whirl of longing blazed through her. Long dead emotions burned through her heart. Her pulse trembled and constricted. Her body flushed. Then she was standing beneath the spray of water, and he was stepping away. Their link expanding. Her fear returning in bounds.

  He had uttered words about soap and linens, but a fire-driven fear knifed through her at the thought of his leaving her. She didn’t want to be alone. Not with her thoughts. Not with her memories. “Don’t…don’t leave me alone,” she whispered, tears mixing with the water. Her chest tight with despair. “I…I don’t want to be alone.”

  He paused and she felt the weight of it span the distance between them. Words unsaid. Feelings unknown. “I will stay,” he finally told her, and she was certain it was the worst idea in the world, but she didn’t have the strength or wherewithal to care.

  Chapter Five

  The shower had been a huge luxury. For the first time in weeks Leah felt clean, safe and utterly exhausted. All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and go to sleep for about twelve or sixteen hours. Suddenly over-tired, she yawned, then stretched beneath the warm water’s flow. That’s when she felt a strange inkling deep in the pit of her stomach.

  It wasn’t the sort of ‘someone walked over your grave’ sort of feeling. More like a presence, a knowing sort of thing. She knew Draven was close; she could feel him like a breath against her skin. The sensation was both alluring and confusing. Alarming and thrilling. His presence soothed her and frightened her all at the same time.

  She had asked him to stay, and he had. Now she was uncertain what would come next. Turning the shower off, she grabbed both towels he had left her and made quick work of drying off. Feeling a bit like a child dressed in her father’s dressing gown, she emerged from his bathroom wrapped in the black robe Draven had left her.

  “It’s a bit big,” she told him hesitantly, shaking the large cuffs of the sleeves away from her body. The robe pooled at her feet, and she’d had to tie the belt around her twice to keep it from dragging as well. She wasn’t a small woman, but still, Draven was a lot larger than she had realized, if the size of his bathrobe were any indication.

  She felt so odd now that she was clean. She still felt a little dazed. She knew she should be leery, but for some reason she couldn’t force herself to be. It was weird, really. This man looked so much like Kantella, but to the core of her, she knew he wasn’t.

  She paused just inside the main room, looking out and across its expanse into Draven’s dark eyes. He stood on the room’s far side, as far as a body could get from another, and gazed back at her. His eyes hooded. His secrets locked beyond their dark depths.

  “You are feeling better?” he questioned, his voice rough, almost strained. Leah could feel it rumble towards her. It rolled over her body, simmered beneath her flesh and pooled low in her belly. She stared idly for a moment, lost in his eyes as shivers of need worked their way through her limbs before her world seemed to right itself. She blinked, once, twice, and watched Draven smile at his effect on her.

  Niiice, she thought. No, definitely not his loser, freaky brother.

  Suddenly the smile was erased from his full, sultry lips. Leah instantly mourned its loss.

  I should have killed Kantella when I had the chance, Draven’s dark voice growled through her mind. Leah gasped, a million questions and uncertainties immediately burning in her head. “So it’s true then? Everything Latronda told me? It’s all true?” Her voice quivered at the question’s end. A knot formed so suddenly in her stomach that she needed to sit down. There was no chair close enough; the bed was too many steps away. Her legs buckled, and she knew the floor would soon catch her fall.

  * * * * * *

  Draven had watched her step out of the steam draped in his robe, and his breath stilled. The sight of her soft, pale flesh kissed by the darkness of his garments stirred something inside of him. Passion and protection. Possession, even. He watched her dark eyes flash with violet mischief, and it stole his breath. When she spoke, the words danced across his heart.

  War, death and the senseless desecration of his people, his own family had turned him cold long ago. But this mere slip of a human woman smiled at him and his frigid heart unfurled.

  Draven forced away his wayward thoughts and moved to a safer subject, asking of her wellbeing instead, but the rush of desire between them spread. The spark was instant, the heat radiant. And through the blaze he felt her. Felt his effect on her.

  He couldn’t help but smile, the delight instant and gratifying. Then he heard Leah in his mind. Her words, at first playful, and then the moment her thoughts drifted to Kantella all he felt was rage. No matter the dissimilarities between the two of them, his blood boiled. With that rage, his renowned perfect control slipped his barriers, and his thoughts spread to her. Before he could respond to her questions, to the fear quivering in her voice, she began to fall.

  With a speed to match the encroaching darkness, he had her in his arms once again. Her wet locks draped over his arm as he gently held her head. Carefully he picked her up and carried her to his bed.

  “Breathe, Leah,” he bid her, watching her soft, full lips part. He felt the rush of air fill her lungs. Her lids fluttered open, revealing her deep violet eyes. Then she smiled.

  Lost in her beautiful eyes, desire coursed through his veins. Her scent filled him, and his hard-earned control once again spun beyond his reach. Unwittingly, Draven leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. He drank in her sigh of entreaty and the spark of their mutual need flared between them, each surrendering to the hunger that had been building since the first moment their eyes had met. The first moment he’d found her.

  Her soft lips parted on a breath and Draven clung to her, held her face in his hands, ran the tip of his tongue across the fullness of her bottom lip and reveled in the delightful feel of her body’s quiver. He couldn’t withhold his smile, and was briefly shocked when she took his moment of pause to take the reins easily from his control.

  With a need to match his own, she swept her tongue into his mouth; kissed him greedily. She met his tongue with a warm, sweet caress; clung to him just as eagerly.

  Draven groaned, pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, firmly relinquishing her control. He delved and tasted. Nipped and caressed. His staff hardened, pressed painfully against the barrier of his clothes. All the while she clung to him.

  “So beautiful,” he whispered between kisses before finding her lips once again. His hand parted the opening of her robe, revealing the flush of her soft, creamy flesh; the swell of full, ripe breasts. Draven’s fingers easily cupped one large, delectable globe, brushed his fingers against the taut peak and drank in Leah’s moan of desire.

  Their kiss deepened, his knowing fingers learning the curves of her body. He delighted in the images that coursed through her mind; erotic and wanton. He showed her, in vivid detail what he longed to do to her, with her, all the while touching and tasting with gentle persuasion. When the rich taste of copper filled his mouth, he knew she’d nicked her tongue on one of his canines. Knew that he was in danger of spending the last of his control. Knew this moment must come to an end.

  He suckled her tongue, his body alive, on fire as the first heady rush of her blood washed through him. This he shared with her so she woul
d not fear him. “I’ll never harm you,” he finally stated when he could breathe, pulling away from her desire-filled gaze.

  The caress of her fingers against his cheek warmed him as no other touch ever could. “I know,” she whispered.

  She looked so beautiful lying against the pristine backdrop of his bedding, thoroughly kissed and in disarray from his caresses. Possession stirred deep in his belly. He felt it so strongly. So violently.

  The com link’s interruption in the heated silence pushed aside his thoughts, stilled his hungers. Unwillingly it forced him back to his current reality. “My Lord?” stated the questioning voice.

  “What is it, Lieutenant Grange?”

  “We are entering Vranthian controlled air space.”

  “Thank you. That will be all, Lieutenant.”

  The com went silent and even before Draven had turned back to Leah, thoughts on his brother, their people, The Wasting and this small, beautiful woman he would fully bind himself to all tumbled through his mind. A mind that had once been still, controlled, decisive. But, as he stared down into her vibrant eyes, and gazed on the lush, warm curves displayed before him, he wanted nothing more than to lose himself within her body, in the sweet taste of her blood and the willingness of her flesh.

  “You must leave,” she remarked, before he could even find the words.

  He was silent for many long seconds, thinking on how to respond. Wondering what should pass between them. All he could come up with were questions.

  Draven leaned forward and gently pressed a tender kiss to Leah’s lips, then pulled closed the sides of her robe, covering her from his view. With a sigh, he stated, “Latronda and you had become quite close in the short time you were with her.”

  “We became friends,” Leah replied, a glistening of tears forming in her eyes. “But she told me what you did for me, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “What do you mean, what I did for you?” His eyes narrowed with concern.

  “Well,” she began hesitantly, sitting up and looking directly into his eyes. “When I first regained consciousness in the little room at the back of her bar, I remembered pieces of what had happened to me.”

  Draven couldn’t hold back the growl of anger that brewed in the pit of his stomach. He was certain that he had wiped her mind of all of its dark memories. She should not have remembered anything. How is this possible? He groaned, agitation and anger coloring his thoughts.

  “What did you remember?” he rasped, the venom curling inside him while thoughts of his brother’s hands on Leah ripped through his mind. Tore at his very soul. Latronda had sworn she’d have no memory.

  The cool, tender touch of hesitant fingers on his cheek forced him to look beyond the darkness that filled his mind. “At first it was just little things; my job and my friend, Cyn. Then there were other little things as I started to get better. My singing, the bar I worked at, and then the date my friend Cyn set me up on with your brother. And then his…his abuse,” she hedged. “I’m not really sure of some things, but there are other things that I recall. Like being held tenderly in someone’s arms. My pain receding. That was from you, wasn’t it? Latronda thought it had something to do with your blood. That it had somehow healed me and my memories.”

  Draven stared into the soft pools of her warm, comforting violet eyes and considered her words. Could Latronda have been right? Was it possible that the mixture of his Vranthian blood and her human blood had repaired such damage? Including memories?

  “We will be docking soon,” he told her. “You can rest until final preparations are completed. I’ll have food and proper clothing brought for you.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked, her words hesitant. Draven could feel the stutter of her heart. The uncertainty that pulsed beneath her flesh. She was still unsure of him. Afraid, despite her desire. Her heart spoke one story, but her mind another. The two would war with each other until he could prove his trust to her.

  “Home,” he said with a brief smile. Then he rose from the bed. “Rest. I will come for you when everything is ready.”

  Returning to the control room, Draven spoke with his Lieutenant in charge and made preparations for landing. His ship carried a crew of twenty-five. They were all good men he knew he could trust. He’d trained most of them himself; the rest had come up in the ranks with him while his father had ruled Vranthia. The Wasting had affected every one of them at some point in their lives, be it mother, sister, wife or daughter. He knew that he could trust any of them with Leah’s life.

  Once their course was set, he left the control room and made his way to his private office. His thoughts turned as he considered Leah and their conversation. He wasn’t happy that Latronda had told her anything. That had never been their agreement. Then again, he had never used his blood to heal a human. Never considered being bound to one.

  When he had learned that Kantella was involved in the abduction and trade of slaves, that he was responsible…well, he couldn’t just leave things be. Then he saw her. Truly saw her. Beneath the dirt and the bruises, the fight and waning breath, he saw and felt her beauty like some lost piece of his soul, and he knew that he couldn’t allow Kantella to ever touch her again.

  It was with this decision firmly made that he had chosen to freely give her his blood. To willingly bind himself to the broken, beautiful waif of a stranger. A human he intended to come to know better than any other being in existence.

  And yet, he had to wonder if the mere joining of his Vranthian blood and her human blood were what had healed her. If so, what would the mixing of their bloodlines do for other Vranthian woman? Could it reverse The Wasting? Could it cure the disease? Was it possible that it could end the curse that lingered over his people? Was this what Kantella was seeking to find by stealing human women? By harvesting them? Or was it only that the male of their species could heal an out-worlder with their blood? Draven wasn’t certain, but he intended to find out.

  Chapter Six

  Kuthar Balacjek sat calmly behind the gleaming wood of his rich mahogany desk of his private domain. It was the one piece of furniture in the austere room that truly spoke of the man behind it; sleek in appearance, bold, seductive and soothing. Yet despite his composed demeanor, beneath lay a man of strength, unerring fierceness and utter loyalty to his people.

  Yes, thought Draven, this is why Kuthar must continue to lead our people.

  Kuthar’s brow furrowed, his striking pale eyes ripe with frustration as he uttered, “Twenty-three more women have succumbed.” His voice sounded distant. “The health wards are filling faster than our physicians can run tests on their blood. Our men grow angrier with every passing day. We will have war in the streets if we don’t find answers soon.”

  Draven couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his lips, knowing his brother sensed his presence before he’d even made it known. A King but a warrior still, he thought proudly. “I have some news,” Draven replied, stepping fully into the room and shutting the door firmly behind him.

  “Tell me,” Kuthar stated, looking out across the distance that separated them, watching the first hint of hope spark in his brother’s eyes.

  Draven felt the weight of his race bear down on him. Briefly he wondered if all of their hopes rested on Leah. Wondered if even one small blood exchange could prove anything? He wasn’t sure, but he shared this news with his brother anyway.

  “So she remembers?” Kuthar questioned cautiously.

  “Pieces,” Draven replied, taking the chair opposite the large desk. He watched the play of thoughts pass behind his brother’s eyes. Possibilities and calculations. Hopes and horrors. Inadequacies and probabilities. Despite his bearing, his role as attending ruler to their people, the responsibility wore heavily on him.

  “Is it too late to have her blood tested?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then you will have to complete the binding. See that your seed takes root.”

  “And if it does?” The silence st
retched between them.

  Kuthar knew Draven had no intention to lead. That he had no wish to be King. Draven was happy standing at his brother’s side, guarding his flank as a warrior did. “It is the way our parents intended it,” he sternly advised his little brother. “It is the way of our people and our Elders. Even you and your rebellious ways cannot rebuke this, Draven.”

  “To hell with the Elders,” Draven growled, rising from his chair. He paced a hard path toward the open balcony. “You are our King, Kuthar,” he snarled, facing his brother with grim determination in his eyes. “That is as it should be. I have no intention of taking your place. I am not Kantella,” he gruffly remarked.

  Kuthar smiled wanly at his brother. He knew Draven’s heart. Always had. His was the true heart of a warrior, loyal, proud and unswerving. Kuthar sighed, shaking his head. There would be no swaying Draven once the decision was made. “Then we must find another way.”

  Thoughts ricocheted through Draven’s mind. A maelstrom of possibilities. “There might be one way,” he advised.

  “I’m listening,” Kuthar smiled, knowing the ruthless mind his brother possessed.

  Time passed quickly while the two brothers formulated their plan. They had agreed on several accounts, the most pressing of which was that Draven needed to complete the binding with Leah before Kantella became a problem. Once she was fully bound to him, there would be nothing that Kantella could do to her. She would be safe. And if his seed took root in her body…The thought of her bearing his child thrilled through him.

  Draven strode through his brother’s compound with one purpose in mind: to reach Leah, take her to his quarters and claim her as his own. Tonight, he would bind her to him forever. The thought caused his pulse to thunder in his ears. Desire burned through his limbs and hunger blazed in his belly. He quickened his stride.