Blood Domination (Blood Destiny #4)

by Connie Suttle

  "What is good for the race and good for Lissa are two separate things in this case," Merrill argued.

  "She will be treated gently and with care," Wlodek argued back. "I will make sure that Charles is available, whenever possible. Radomir and one of the other Enforcers will accompany them to keep her safe."

  "We'll be her jailers," Merrill growled. "We already are, only this will be worse. Are you saying that she'll never have any freedom? That she'll be under the Council's thumb from now on? That all her decisions will be Gavin's to make?"

  "I will not be that terrible," Gavin was now growling at Merrill's accusations.

  "This argument will stop immediately!" Wlodek thundered. "We will hold the ceremony here and now. Gavin, if you do not already have the ring, you will provide it when she returns. She will be brought to me and I will inform her of what her life will be. She already despises me. Nothing will change in that respect."

  "I already have her ring, it is at Merrill's home," Gavin muttered.

  "Very well," Wlodek said, reeling his temper in a little. "I declare your marriage to Lissa Beth Workman Huston active, Gaius Livius Montanus, now known as Gavin Montegue, for a period of one hundred years. I expect you to treat her well. My blessings on your union."

  Gavin had stood for the pronouncement, and now he bowed deeply to Wlodek. "My thanks, Honored One," he said. Merrill was still frowning and wanted more than anything to speak with Griffin about this, but his friend was not available.

  "You do not have anything to say, Titus Marius Merula?" Wlodek glared at Merrill. Merrill hadn't heard his Roman name in a very long time and wasn't sure he appreciated Wlodek using it now.

  "What can I possibly say? You have decided; I cannot gainsay it now." Merrill had his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Wlodek knew he was furious. "I know the race must be protected and I have never felt so angry over having to do so. I hope you are prepared for what will come," Merrill handed Gavin a grim look. "She may never smile at you again, unless you place compulsion." He went so swiftly out the door he lifted papers off the desk in a swirl and eddy.

  "We will do our best to make her smile," Wlodek said softly. Gavin was staring at the door that Merrill had just flown through in his haste to leave.

  "I'll need a ride, Honored One," Gavin turned back to Wlodek. Wlodek nodded.

  * * *

  "Attack me, Lissa!" Dragon was grinning as we sparred with wooden practice swords.

  "Honey, I don't want to hit you," I said.

  "If you hit me, maybe I deserve it," his grin widened.

  "Unbelievable," I said, blocking his blows. I could see them coming easily.

  "Come on; just give me a small attack."

  "I sure hope Karzac is in the mood to fix you up," I grumbled and went after him. When I whacked him the second time, he laughed and stopped the bout.

  "Until now, only my brother has managed to get a blow in," Dragon said. "Feel up to turning to mist and getting us both home so we can clean up there?"

  "Sure," I said. I'd already cleaned the dojo; Dragon had stuck around and rested a little so we could spar. The door was locked up and he'd had an alarm installed the day before. Things with Solar Red were getting a little strange; they were withdrawing from the public for some reason and nobody could figure out why. Perhaps it was because of the legislation that had been drafted condemning the religion, but I wasn't so hopeful that the current political climate was the reason. Yeah, I didn't trust those Solar Red guys. Not at all.

  We cleaned up our practice blades and returned them to the racks inside Dragon's office before going to mist and heading home. Karzac was just finishing some sort of stew that Dragon apparently liked; he got a bowl before going to clean up, even. I went to take a shower and drink a little extra blood; I wanted to go pay the temple a visit and see if I could tell what was going on.

  "Honey, are you okay?" I asked Karzac when I came out, clean and a little damp around my hair, which was growing out nicely. He was sitting at the kitchen table still, his empty bowl in front of him.

  "I am fine, but looking forward to this being over," he said, his green-gold eyes betraying a bit of concern. Dragon was now in the shower after eating two huge bowls of stew. "I never thought that returning to my home world would be so exhausting."

  "They just run you ragged, don't they?" I rubbed his back a little. He smiled up at me, and Karzac doesn't smile all that often.

  "If we could ask for the M'fiyah, I would certainly consider it," he said.

  I had no idea what he was talking about, so I gave him an extra pat. "I'm going to mist over to the temple and see what those red devils are up to," I said. "Go to bed early, doc." I misted away.

  * * *

  Life is strange, even wondrous at times, but there are days when you experience something so horrible it leaves its mark upon you and the memory lingers, vivid and terrible, for the rest of your days. That's what I witnessed that night. I found a group of perhaps fifty priests, dressed in their finest red robes, gathered around a single man. He looked like a man. He just wasn't—he was Ra'Ak. I could tell by the scent. And he was performing some sort of ritual that would have made me gag if I'd been in solid form.

  A Ra'Ak, in humanoid form, still has the long, snaky tongue that they have in their other form—I learned that right away. And he was kissing those priests, one at a time, his tongue going right down their throats and staying there for seconds. Dragon, he's kissing them—the priests, I sent, still trying to quell a non-existent gag reflex.

  What? Who's kissing the priests? Dragon's voice came back to me.

  A Ra'Ak. He's sliding his tongue down their throats, I returned.

  How many priests?

  About fifty.

  Lissa, the Ra'Ak can only do this if they refrain from manufacturing poison for three weeks. This Ra'Ak is virtually helpless. Do not think him unguarded, though. Be assured there is another there, somewhere. Do not approach him. Come home now. We will deal with this. Dragon wanted me to leave. Honestly, I was glad to—I couldn't stay and watch this much longer. It took a few minutes to get home and I was heaving the moment I came back to myself.

  "Bend you head down," Dragon said, after getting me seated on the sofa. I got my head down to the vicinity of my knees and breathed for a few minutes. "Don't think about it," he ordered. I was trying. Really. That image was going to stay with me for a while, I think. A really long while.

  "It's the Ra'Ak's kiss," Dragon said, raising me up after I stopped gagging. "It's the way they create demons, who in turn can create other demons. They sometimes do this to the willing, who think they'll become Ra'Ak. The truth, of course, is that it will be survival of the fittest from this point forward. Perhaps one in ten thousand demons survives to become Ra'Ak. They stay in demon form for around twenty years before they make the final turn, and even then the Ra'Ak weed out what they determine to be weak or unsuitable candidates. Their chances of survival are very small."

  "But what if these schmucks go out into the city and just bite anybody they see?" That's what the others were trying to do that we'd killed so far.

  "A true dilemma," Dragon nodded. "However, I cannot help but believe they were trying to trap you tonight by doing this. Did you ever see the other Ra'Ak?"

  "No. I didn't smell him, either."

  "Then he was heavily shielded. They can do this, just as we can, but generally they do not bother. We can't sense them while we're shielded, and we know the moment we drop our shields they can sense us, not having their own shields up, as it were." Dragon was frowning as he sat beside me on the sofa.

  "You don't have a fun job," I muttered.

  "I can't imagine that you do, either."

  "You got me there," I agreed. "Maybe I'll go see Gabron instead."

  "What about Kifirin?"

  "He does what he pleases," I said. "It's not as if he left his phone number or anything."

  "No, he just left these." Dragon touched the marks on my neck.

 
"Yeah. I still feel like punching him for that."

  "I can't advise you, one way or the other on that," Dragon told me and rose from his seat. "I have to go to bed or I'll be worthless tomorrow." He yawned when he stood.

  "Goodnight," I said, rising as well.

  * * *

  "I feel ill, just thinking about it," I told Gabron later. He hadn't heard of the Ra'Ak before but he was hearing about them now. I'd described them, both as serpent and humanoid, and what they'd done to the priests earlier.

  "You'll be able to tell when you kill them," I said. "They blast out in these fist-sized chunks, like a giant sandstorm or something. Their spawn do the same, only their particles are more like normal sand and don't do so much damage."

  "Will they consume or bite vampires?" Gabron asked.

  "I don't know. I'll ask and let you know later."

  "The ritual is only a week away," Gabron reminded me. "The others are becoming restless; they want out of here and are counting the days."

  "I understand that completely," I nodded. I knew exactly how it felt to be confined or under house arrest. "The good news is that the whole vampire scare has died down, I think."

  "If they knew that you were the one dropping large boats from great heights and that you were also vampire, they might rethink that," Gabron smiled.

  "Hey now, I only go after the bad guys," I grumped.

  "I know this," Gabron chuckled softly and put his arm around me.

  "Someone I met recently told me about a world called Le-Ath Veronis," I said, settling into Gabron's embrace. "He said those words translate to Heart of the Vampire. He also says that the planet rotates on its side, so the southern hemisphere is in constant twilight. I was told that vampires lived on that planet in a symbiotic relationship with a race of companions that can only have sex with the bite of a vampire. They replace the blood taken faster than any other race and they taste good, Gabron."

  "That sounds like a pleasant dream," Gabron nuzzled my hair and then sucked on my earlobe.

  "What would you say if I told you I met two of that race? That I drank from them? It was as good as eating cinnamon rolls."

  "Some blood is sweeter than others," he nipped my earlobe now before moving down to my neck. I didn't move, even though I knew what was coming. He placed the kiss and then his fangs were in my neck while I writhed in his arms with the climax.

  Gabron got his, too; he took my blood, I took his, and he enjoyed it. Very much. I went home immediately after; I didn't want to hop in bed with him in a moment of weakness. "You'll allow the little King to do this and yet you hold me at arm's length?" Kifirin was in my bedroom (of course, where else would he be?) when I came in just before dawn.

  "We didn't do the run up the middle," I said, pulling the covers down on the bed.

  "You're using football analogies?"

  "You know everything, don't you?"

  "If I want to know it, I will."

  "Then you know I'd like to toss you in the bed right now and have my way with you," I grumbled. "Just to keep that shit I saw earlier out of my head."

  "I will accept any reason given to have sex with you." He walked over and leaned down to kiss me. How does he do it? How can he make me boneless enough to drop to the floor, almost, just with a kiss? I didn't have enough brain cells afterward to figure it out. Yeah, I didn't think there was enough time before dawn to do the nasty. I was wrong.

  * * *

  "The claiming is complete." Kifirin was smiling down at me when I woke the following evening. I slapped a hand over my face. How was I going to explain this to Gavin? It was bad enough that Gabron and I had done a blood exchange, now Kifirin and I had gone all the way and if I was reading the signs right, we were about to do it again. And I still didn't have any explanation for what happens when he kisses me and why it only escalates from there, until I want him to bury himself inside me. I was like a crazy woman, or some animal, the way I went after him just before dawn. Kifirin's smile was bigger, now.

  "It is the linking, your mind with mine. You feel my desire. It is primal. Did you not enjoy it?"

  "Honey, if I enjoyed it any more, I'd duct tape myself to you and you'd never get away," I grumbled.

  "Exactly what I wanted to hear," he said, leaning down to kiss me.

  * * *

  "Mr. Hancock, this is René de la Roque," Russell introduced René to Tony, Deryn and Paul. René's eyebrow lifted slightly; he'd never worked with werewolves before. After a moment, he realized he relished the idea. René had always been something of an adventurer at heart.

  "You're going to help us track Rahim Alif?" Tony asked, taking René's hand. René didn't mind contact with humans, as some other vampires did.

  "It will be a pleasure; his vampire associate had my sire killed and then murdered one of my children," René answered. "Anything I can do to hurt him, I will do gladly."

  "Are you prepared to travel?" Tony asked René.

  "Of course."

  "Good. Pack a bag; we're leaving for Paris tomorrow evening. My contacts report a sighting of Xenides, and we believe Rahim Alif is there as well."

  "Perhaps you would like to stay at my home tonight, then?" René offered the invitation. "You will be safe and undisturbed. I have human servants who can cook for you, if you wish."

  Tony looked at Deryn, who shrugged. "Sure. Thank you for the invitation," Tony said. "Just give us a moment to collect our things."

  * * *

  "Grand Master, we're on the move again," Paul informed Weldon. He was standing on the expansive marble porch that ran nearly the length of René's manor outside London. The lawns were beautiful; Paul could see stables in the distance and when the wind was right he could smell horses. "We hear Lissa is out of the country, so Tony has focused on what he should be focused on—the rogue vampire Xenides and the terrorist Rahim Alif."

  "Has the Head of the Council calmed down a bit?" Weldon asked.

  "Yes, Grand Master. In fact, he was so appreciative of our efforts, killing the two in the pub, that we were invited to his home. You should see it, sir. Just one or two paintings off his walls and you'd be living like a king."

  "I understand he's had a couple thousand years or more to acquire all that," Weldon snorted. "I'd rather be where I am, thanks. Have you and Deryn found a place to run for the full moon?"

  "We'll be in Paris, Grand Master. If you could get us the hook-up there, I'd appreciate it."

  "I can do that," Weldon said. "I'll call or send a text as soon as it's set up."

  "Thank you, Grand Master." Paul closed his cell and sat down, propping his feet up on the chaise. The sun was out today and it was the perfect time to be sipping coffee and staring out over the English countryside.

  * * *

  "Your son and step-son are safe from the Council; they're going after terrorists and rogues, now," Weldon informed Lucas Alford over the phone. Lucas was back in Denver; he was Second to the Packmaster there and his presence was required for the run on the full moon.

  "At least that's Tony's job," Lucas growled a bit. "Any word on how long they'll be gone?" Deryn had taken a leave of absence from his job as a Lieutenant for the local police force.

  "No, he didn't give me a time frame," Weldon replied. "If I get anything, I'll pass it along."

  "Thank you, Grand Master," Lucas said, terminating the call.

  * * *

  Wlodek had to coax Merrill back; his eldest was still angry. Wlodek knew Merrill was the one who should place compulsion on Ilaisaane before he allowed her to leave the holding facility. Wlodek had her cell phone and knew Xenides had tried to contact her already. Wlodek allowed the call to go to voice mail.

  "Xenides will know something is up if he wishes to meet with her and she fails to appear," Wlodek informed his oldest child. Merrill was barely speaking to him and the situation was quite tense. "We should place compulsion not to turn over important information, including whom we currently have as prisoners here before allowing her to leave. She will
report to us when it is safe to do so, and once Xenides is eliminated, we can bring her in again. Charles already has the transcripts and the information will be distributed to the others once she is recaptured."

  "I will place compulsion," Merrill growled as he followed Wlodek down the long hall toward Ilaisaane's cell.

  "You will behave normally; you were merely here for a companion hearing, after which we allowed the companion her freedom," Merrill commanded Ilaisaane. "Ian will drive you home, Flavio has other business." Ilaisaane nodded blankly as Radomir and Ian removed the chains from her wrists and ankles. "You will contact us discreetly if you are asked to meet with Xenides or have contact with him for any reason. Under no circumstances will you betray any of us to him or give out further sensitive information. Do you understand?" Ilaisaane nodded. "Good," Merrill sighed. "Ian, you will not repeat any of this information to anyone, or release any sensitive information concerning Ilaisaane or any other member of the Council. You will not give out information on any Enforcer or Assassin. You will also not repeat anything concerning myself or Lissa," Merrill instructed the Enforcer. Ian nodded. He'd had Merrill's compulsion before; it didn't concern him at all. It was a way to keep them all safe.

  Wlodek handed Ilaisaane's cell phone to her; Ian and Radomir walked her out of the building and she was already chattering and complaining before they reached the door. "Will you share a bottle of wine with me or will you remain angry, child?" Wlodek asked Merrill.

  "I will go home, father. It's best for the moment," Merrill replied stiffly. "I'll see myself out of the bunker." Wlodek watched his eldest child walk away and sighed.

  Chapter 11

  Gabron was upset that I wouldn't allow him to bite me again and that I wouldn't bite him in return. The ritual was two days away and he and I were both tense. Dragon and Karzac were, too, as they fully expected the Ra'Ak to make an appearance, just as I did. I was also keeping an eye on the newscasts; I was waiting for someone or several someones to be kidnapped so the sacrifices could be made. Solar Red had to be planning something; the priests had stopped coming out of the temple, making me wonder what that meant. Dragon advised me not to go back; the boat I'd gotten and dropped had killed all the priests from the satellite temples—more than six hundreds of them, in fact—along with two hundred additional guards. There had been more priests in the outlying cities than even Gabron suspected.