Redeemed By You: Vranthian Vampires Book 3

by K. A. M'Lady

  Vividly her mind danced with his image as she desperately sought to block out her peril. With each moment that passed his image grew thicker, more substantial. A tremor of hope rippled through her. Her breath tight in her throat, his name whispered from her parched lips…Traegar.

  Onya clung to his name, released it on a sigh. His tall, broad frame bored into her mind, her very soul. She called to him, Traegar.

  A half a planet away, in the dark depths of a blood-club, the Elder, Traegar sat with a Darengy healer and a Prince to the ruling house of Vranthia listening, and learning of the path towards his fate. He knew the time had come, the dreams too many and far too vivid to be denied any longer. It was time to face his future and find his mates.

  The instant he’d heard her name, something inside him ignited; a slow, consuming heat. Onya. He repeated her name in his head and like a wind summoning the storm, his heart answered back.

  Traegar…

  Traegar blinked, and a miasma of memories flooded his mind. She was a child when the Great War came. Grave Warriors, even children, who possessed the gift of Reaping, as Onya did, were given to a guardian to hone their gift, to teach them the way to the grave. But the war had come, and her guardian slain. She’d hidden in a burrow like a rabbit, fearful, waiting for her demise.

  However, death never came for her. When the next day dawned and she crawled from her cover, filthy and shaken, she found her guardian bludgeoned, the whole of her people murdered, their blood washing the land in red. That day, Onya learned the darkness of rage. With that rage came the education of mercy as she stumbled through the bodies, taking away their pain. Releasing those she could to the lands beyond.

  They found her where she’d fallen, exhausted from days of consumption of death and carnage, face down in the middle of the field, surrounded by the dead. Her pale blue flesh shimmered like moon dust. Her gossamer hair spread around her on the bloody ground like a dusting of iridescent snow. Even as a child, she was an ethereal beauty.

  The Darengy healers gathered her up and took her deep into the hills. There they’d helped her to grow and to heal. They’d taught her to use her gift properly and to deal with her losses. She’d grown into a beautiful woman with dark, but necessary powers. Powers that, once again, caused those she’d grown to care for to be slaughtered. Powers that left her at the mercy of the Elders and their vain attempts to control what was not theirs to control.

  Chapter Three

  Acid quaked in the thin, intricate byways of his veins. A boiling, churning ache filled every limb, every organ. Even the mundane task of blinking lids grown weary with battle fatigue gave the effect that shards of glass scraped their tender orbs, the once feather-like edges of long, dark lashes more pinpricks than dusting. The thick scar along the left side of his face pulsed with painful memories to wear down a haggard soul.

  His brother’s name lingered in the dark recesses of his mind; part and parcel to his fate. He longed to go back so many mistakes ago, if only to change such a destitute providence.

  Draven, his twin. So like him, and yet so different; he sorely felt the ache. There was much that stood between them now. Draven would never believe the path his life had followed from that long ago time to this one moment. He would never believe how fate had betrayed him. Or, perhaps he would.

  Even with The Wasting coursing through him like fire, slowly driving him towards his death, Kantella clung, no matter how precariously, to the small hope that his brother would find it in his heart to believe him, and forgive him his folly.

  Truly, Katella had stumbled upon his course merely by blind accident and misfortune. And, as fate would have it, it involved a woman.

  Desidania was the only daughter of the Elder Garvik. She was young, darkly beautiful, and highly consumed with the desire for a place of prestige and power. Like her father, she despised anything that was not Vranthian. But her beauty was such that men overlooked her opinions. Even men like Kantella and Draven Balacjek.

  In those times there were many tales told in hushed voices behind closed doors of the battle for purity. Whispered rumors, breathed before fires when too much drink had been consumed and camaraderie or rebellion brought men together, told of the war for the cleansing of the bloodlines.

  Deep in their cups, drunkards and sages strung their yarns, reminding the old and teaching the young of the Great War; battle and the death, unity and peace. Stories became a remembrance, and history marked to the end to peace and harmony. They were a reminder, too, of the death of the one grave walker that had sealed an Elder’s fate and almost destroyed a kingdom.

  Kantella now knew that these fates were entangled, vividly feeling the reminder of the shock of events that led up to and following his and Draven’s great departure. Events that had set his fate in motion. They’d been sent on a battle mission. Beyond the outlands of the cloistered ruins of Sien, rebels had attacked a small group of Darengy healers that lived deep within its forest, their homes a hidden haven in the lush vegetation and thick forests.

  Pockets of resistance remained from the war but most recently, new ones had sprung up on various outposts. On the far side of Vranthia, rebel fighters, in league with the remaining rebelling Elders, desperately fought for a foothold against the current ruling house of Balacjek and the few of the Elders that supported them. In their desperation and hatred, the rebels slaughtered many.

  Blood filled the lanes. Huts burned, and many of the small group of healers lay dead or gravely wounded. The small unit of rebels they’d come upon fought like madmen, blades singing, firearms lighting up the darkness. One rebel in particular ranted continuously, desperately even, as he tried to stave off Kantella’s blade. “She said you’d brave the fire. Even he said you’d be foolish enough to unknowingly fight for her.” Crazed laughter followed, his words making no sense to Kantella as blade met blade.

  “Seeks your brothers, does she. You poor, sad fool.” He laughed, contemptuously, parrying each of Kantella’s rage-filled strikes.

  Anger fired through Kantella’s heart. He didn’t want to listen to the foolish words. Knew they were lies, but how could a lowly warrior know so much if he did not have the ear of Kantella’s woman? The one woman he longed to be his mate?

  True, there was no bonding magic that coursed between them, but Kantella didn’t care. It was Desidania he wanted. Craved. He vowed he would have her. Even if that meant he had to battle his own brothers to keep her.

  Kantella swung his blade low. The rebel countered, made to strike back, and Kantella swung upwards, the tip driving deeply into his belly, not stopping until it reached bone. He sliced to the right, nicked more bone on the outward stroke and silently watched the entrails flow free. He stepped away, the dying man forgotten, and sought his twin.

  In the heat of battle, words were exchanged, the slice of blades ringing in the darkness as brother fought brother.

  “You are mad,” Draven warned. “She has twisted your soul.”

  “No, Draven!” Kantella warned. “It is you who are mad. You seek what you cannot have. She is mine. My mate.”

  “Tell me brother, where is the fire of this mating? Where is the light that sparks the soul?”

  Kantella growled, swung angrily, for he knew Draven’s words rang true. There was no fire. No magic. Only need and madness where Desidania was concerned. She twisted everything to meet her dark desires, including the warrior who waged war against his kin. “You will never have her,” Kantella warned, his blade slicing upward.

  Draven countered, his own sword a whisper in the darkness, grazing Kantella’s cheek on its downward stroke. His brother’s words blazed a path of fire through his very soul, searing more than just mere flesh. “If you seek my death, brother, you will find your own at the end of my sword. Ask yourself, is she worth it? Is she worth your family and your life?”

  Kantella felt the shock and pain of his wound burn deep. “She is worth everything.” His final parting words were more growl of pain than conviction before
he vanished into the darkness.

  That same night Kantella sought out Desidania to soothe his soul, ease his pain and quiet the beast that dwelled in the recesses of his heart, his brother’s words haunting his plight. What he found was far more than he bargained for.

  He’d gone to her private quarters on the compound of Rhone, home to the kinsman of the Elders. Her door ajar, he’d paused at its opening, listening. He could still recall the chill that swept his spine. The certainty every warrior feels before battle that the path ahead would lead nowhere but toward great danger; the memory still harsh.

  He’d tried to shake it off, brush it aside as battle fatigue. But anger pulsed in his veins, stirring the fire of hatred and remorse for the parting he’d just endured with his twin. He entered, despite his turmoil.

  His life had never been the same.

  She stood in the center of the room; the henchmen of the Elders formed a sentry around her and a cloaked figure. Their voices were raised in argument. “You trifle, daughter, in affairs you do not comprehend. We have waited long to find her and because of you and your pettiness, your desire for your power, you almost cost us the loss of her.” The cloaked figure growled the last, his ire clear.

  “What know you of my wants, Father? Because of me, they feud with each other. They will destroy each other before the nights’ end. Then that will be one less Balacjek we will have to contend with. Trust me, you will both thank me when this is over.”

  Kantella’s rage imploded. His fury seethed from clenched teeth, bounced off walls, rattled the pictures and alerted everyone to his arrival as he roared her name. He stormed to the center of Desidania’s dwelling, blade singing from its sheath. “I will kill you and more,” he vowed.

  Her abrupt bray of laughter was startling within the dome of hatred that threatened to engulf all that stood in his path. “You pathetic fool,” she began, placing herself directly in front of her father; directly in the path of his lethal blade. “Can’t you just roll over and die like a good lackey?”

  “I will show you how it feels to die.”

  “Finish this, daughter.” The cloaked hood receded, the order falling from Elder Garvik’s pierced lips. Now that he was close enough to draw blood, he could see the resemblance. Memories and stories filled the dark, wrath-glazed places in his mind.

  Garvik was the brother to the renounced and imprisoned Elder Varnak. Varnak, the deranged madman who had killed his parent’s mate. Deceit obviously didn’t run far from the tree in this family. Though Desidania was beautiful and seductive, she was obviously spoiled and hateful. The dark streak that resided within her cold heart had caused her to pit brother against brother. Had she truly promised Kantella a love she never possessed? He briefly wondered what she’d promised Draven.

  Now, looking into the dark, fathomless pools of her eyes, he realized that he didn’t know her at all. His mind had been jaded by lust and need, just as she’d intended for it to be. She’d promised him a world with her in it, beside him, then taken those promises and her family’s hatred of the Belacjek’s and intended to destroy them.

  Not tonight, Kantella vowed. “Step closer, Desidania, and I will show just how good of a lackey I am.”

  She smiled her beautiful, empty smile. “Kill him,” she ordered.

  The Elder’s henchmen swarmed him en masse. When next he blinked, Desidania and Garvik were gone and he, no match for twenty warriors, no matter how skilled he was, was overtaken.

  In the haze of memories still available to him, he recalled how they’d drugged him, beat him mercilessly, and tied him up like an animal for the pit, delivering him to some unknown location. Still unsure of the length of time he’d remained a prisoner, he did recall the daily tortures Desidania wrought.

  She would have him beaten, drugged and drained, just so that she could do it again. Over time he knew that if he did not try to escape that he would die at her hand, for she had aided in his slow, insidious poisoning.

  The days passed, one leading into the next. Over time, his mind filled with darkness. Hatred and fire brewed in his veins. Desidania used that hatred to taunt Kantella with her tales of flirtations with Draven and any other she could to stir his ire.

  The daily draining of his blood left him weak, but the infusions of the drug she injected him with burned like fire in his blood. Stirred memories not his own: A child with gossamer hair and skin as pale as moon dust. Memories of a child with a great and difficult gift. The Great War had destroyed her kinsman; her family having left her to the care of her guardians. Even they had been slain at the hands of the Elders.

  In his dark and delirious state, he suffered her pain mixed with his own. Desidania’s laughter haunted him in the darkness of his mind. The beatings began to break him down. His blood burned with hunger and a yearning he couldn’t comprehend. The fire in his veins stoked the flames of need, and still the memories came. The child had grown into a beautiful woman with haunting eyes and a jaded, but giving heart. She stole the suffering from those who desired it and eased the pain of those whose time had not yet come to pass. Kantella knew that she was a Reaper; a child of the grave-warriors, born with the special gift of easing the passing of the dying.

  He wondered, in the hellish darkness of his hatred and pain, why she had not yet come for him.

  Day after day, week after week, Kantella endured his prison. Despite his emaciated state and the misery of his mind, he lingered. Unsure of the passing of time, and knowing that Desidania would not keep him forever as her prisoner, he must act, and soon.

  “Still breathing, I see.” Her voice scraped against the inside of his skull as if she was digging at it with a spoon. “You are a pathetic sight; filthy, disgusting and vile. What I ever saw in you I’ll never comprehend. Do you know your family thinks you dead?” Her laughter was shrill and biting.

  Chained to a stone wall, Kantella watched her saunter into his cell through the veil of dirty hair that covered his eyes from view. “I know I will kill you for what you have done,” he replied, his voice a rough grumble.

  “You will do nothing chained like a dog. Bring me the syringe,” she ordered. “I will dose him myself.”

  Her guards came at her bidding. Three of them; short blades in their hands, side arms at the ready. Two restrained his upper body, holding his arms high above his head, the chains giving no slack. The other trained his weapon upon his chest.

  Desidania approached with confidence. Unafraid and certain in her power over him, it would be her single fatal flaw.

  Now, Kantella. The sultry voice whispered through his mind. Stirred his soul. A brief memory of comfort during lonely hours of despair whispered across his senses. He knew not where it came from, but it drove him to act. Fueled his desire to fight, and to live. He slammed his right arm back with the force of a battering ram, the guard’s head slamming into the unforgiving stone wall. Blood splattered the side of Kantella’s face from the blow. The guard slumped dead at his feet. In the ensuing chaos he reached out, the chain giving the slack he needed, and grabbed Desidania, squeezing the wrist with the syringe until fragile bones snapped beneath his grasp.

  Using his force and momentum, he turned the needle towards her and drove it into her throat.

  The second guard stood speechless, blade still inches from Kantella’s throat. He reacted, easily removing it from his slackened fingers and driving it deep into his belly.

  Wide-eyed with shock, the guard blinked twice, then slumped to his knees. He clutched his wound. Blood flowed between his fingers.

  The blast of the third guard’s weapon caught him in the arm, shocking him into movement. The second blast spun him; he turned slightly, shifting Desidania’s screeching, flailing body. The blade ricocheted off his chain, caught her in the chest and stilled her movements.

  The guard turned and ran from the cell.

  He dumped her to the ground at his feet. “My family will kill you for this,” she whispered. “With luck, you will die of The Wasting or your wound
long before they find you. If not, they will destroy each and every one of you.” Hatred loomed in her eyes, the shadows of pain and death trailing the demons the haunted her.

  “What have you done to me?” Kantella growled, ripping his binding from the wall, rage and adrenaline coursing through him.

  “The blood of death sings in your veins, Kantella,” she mocked. “You will die slowly.” Blood spilled from her lips. Coughing, the haze of darkness lingering, still she managed to taunt him. “The Darengy cannot save you. Only your true mates can.”

  “What have you done?” he roared.

  She blinked her dying eyes at him. Unremorseful and unafraid, she stared blankly at him. “The blood of a Reaper courses in your veins, warrior. You are finished. Your family is finished. Your people are dying. They will all waste away to nothing. You can’t outrun death.” The last was whispered between bubbles of blood, then her eyes peered into the nothingness of the beyond, and she spoke no more.

  He left her in the cell, and didn’t look back. Kantella wasn’t sure which hurt his pride more; the fact that he’d let Desidania ruin his life, or that he was crashing yet another of his family’s ships. Perhaps this time he would die in a fiery ball, if luck would have it. When his brothers found out the truth of things, they would kill him anyway. So what matter did it cause?

  He’d left the compound where Desidania and her father had held him for three years, draining him day after day, and then pumping him full of the Reaper’s blood. In all that time, he endured endless beatings wearing him down, mind, body and soul. His freedom found him on the run; hiding from both his family and the Elders. The warring rebels that had sided with Varnak had cooked up the rumor that he’d been stealing Offworlders for their blood. Seeking some blood-traded cure, or selling them or something. The story kept changing with each telling. At any rate, he definitely wasn’t dead as Desidania had insisted.