Redeemed By You: Vranthian Vampires Book 3

by K. A. M'Lady

  Although dead might have been better. Having killed most of Desidania’s and her father’s guards on the way out of his cell, Kantella had fought like a madman to get out of his prison, despite his weakness. In the end, it became a stand-off. He managed to take out over half of Garvik’s personal guards and in doing so, gravely wounded the Elder, leaving him to bleed out where he’d fallen. From there, he’d stolen a ship and escaped in the night.

  Since then, he hunted for his mates, and hid from his brothers. Only the blood of his mates would ease the beast that boiled beneath the surface, screaming for revenge. So, he hid and he hunted, biding his time until he found them. That is, until he’d found Leigh.

  In the most unexplainable way, he knew her, but didn’t know why. His demons railed. His blood burned. He yearned for release from the fire. Finding her, he knew he was close to the riddle he hoped to solve. To the freedom from the nightmare that Desidania had wrought. Then everything changed the moment he’d tasted Leigh’s blood.

  She is not ours. The voice whispered through his soul. Silent for so long, since the moment of his escape, he’d forgotten how the soothing, dulcet tones comforted his demons. The sound felt like silk against his bones. It soothed the fire beast that had lived there far too long. The heart that had beat too rapidly since his abduction, and his escape, calmed as her words wrapped around him and quieted the madness that had become a part of his dark self.

  Visions instantly flashed in his mind: Draven and the dark-haired beauty. Draven and their blue-tinged warrior mate. Leigh’s friend Cyn, the warm-skinned beauty embraced by Kantella’s elder brother Kuthar, and a calm and fascinating Darengy with hair the color of ocean and sky all blurring together.

  Like a soft wind on a warm day, the memory of ancient rituals and forgotten history brushed his mind. With it came a caress. Help them find their trion. Heal your nation and yourself. Find us. It is the only way. The voice soothed and pleaded. It stirred the memory of his battle and his escape. It stirred his blood and his soul. He felt her hope, her weakness and her plea.

  Kantella knew then what he must do.

  He planted the memories in Draven’s mate, Leigh. For her wounds, he used his glamour. It was one of his gifts, a rarity among his kind. All would think she was severely beaten and dying. Even Draven would be fooled.

  Draven would come for him. Kantella would leave him no choice. Then they would all come for him, and together they would change Vranthia’s fate.

  For now, things had worked out tremendously. He’d managed to get Draven and his mates together. Kuthar was now with his healer and his human warrior. And he, unfortunately, was about to crash-land yet another family ship. His eldest brother might not forgive him for all of this damage to their fleet.

  * * * * * *

  Onya felt the link to Kantella burn through her like a branding. She’d known he was her mate without ever tasting his blood. It was innate, consuming and surreal. She’d known the moment they’d brought him. Once again he was a captive to their stronghold deep within the rocks, a hidden compound for Varnak and his followers. What Varnak didn’t know was that the years that they’d spent draining her, injecting him with her blood, only fueled their link.

  Over time, he became mad with need of her. It was the mating fire that burned through him. The innate, carnal need to complete the trion. He would not waste away as all the others had. He was driven to find her.

  When he escaped, the bond between them burned through her as well. She felt his loss like a blow to the soul. Yet, they continued to drain her. To use her to infect the nations. She staved off the dying as long as she could. Until help arrived, she was useless. Weak, alone and useless.

  The moment he crossed into Vranthian air space, she felt their link as though life exploded through her limbs. She knew that he was in grave danger, but could not stop his imminent arrival. Be careful, my mate, she warned, casting her thoughts to him. They wait for you.

  * * * * * *

  Kantella felt her words and the dire warning they possessed. He knew that to save her would be the most difficult mission of his life. He also knew he would die without her. Without a second thought he sent out a tracking signal, knowing that his brother’s ship, a royal cruiser, would alert Kuthar and Draven to his location. Help would come. He could only hope it would be in time.

  Chapter Four

  The air outside the club felt charged with impending circumstance, battle not far behind. Vranthia and its second moon stood out like a beacon of light against a gathering darkness. Traegar felt the shift of power in the breeze against his flesh.

  “Change is coming,” he said to no one in particular.

  Draven and Ooen glanced at each other. Draven felt it too, his battle senses keenly aware of the tremor in the breeze; the electricity on the horizon.

  “She speaks to me,” Traegar told them. His dark gaze searched the heavens. He felt the knowledge of time, the certainty of danger, eke across his senses.

  “What does she say?” Ooen questioned, searching the Elder’s dark and distant gaze. The warrior fascinated the healer. There was much they could learn from him, should they all survive the coming war. Ooen felt it too, the sharp-edged shift to time. The uncertain rift in the future.

  Traegar opened his mind and she was there, a simple thought away. He didn’t understand how she so easily came at his command, but he was grateful for it. Her beautiful pale, sky-hued flesh glimmered in his mind; light catching and fading against the shadows of his hands as he reached for her.

  Traegar…

  His name from her lips tightened his flesh. Aroused the darkness that lay hidden inside him. A darkness filled with hunger for her.

  There is much danger, she warned. Help us.

  “She warns of danger.”

  “It is palpable,” Draven agreed. “It waits close at hand.” He watched the night, seeing things in the darkness that most could not. He understood its deception and its seductive persuasion.

  “They will need us. We must prepare,” Traegar advised no one in particular.

  Draven looked at Traegar, then at Ooen and back. His eyes narrowed, watching the Elder mercenary with a dark dread. He knew in his gut that things were about to get decidedly bad, and his twin had much to do with it. He glanced skyward, his gaze locking on the nearest moon; its pale, fading glow resting against the sooty, cloud-filled sky. A growl escaped his throat without reservation.

  “Seeing with your eyes, no matter how wide open, does not always allow one to see what the truth is,” Traegar advised, his hand firm against Draven’s shoulder. “A warrior must look for the darkness from whence it began. Only then shall you be its undoing.”

  “Come. We’ve much to do.” Traegar led them into the night, his mind filled with plans. There was much he wished to discuss with Kuthar, but first he needed his target. He now knew in his gut that the little leech was chosen by more than just pure happenstance. The maggot was in deeper than just being a wretched blood junkie, and he’d been placed on his list for collection for a reason. Now he wanted to know why.

  “Where are we going?” Ooen questioned. He silently trailed behind, taking to the shadows in quiet strides.

  “To disrupt a dealer’s evening.”

  They made their way to the outskirts of the outpost’s shanty town. Here the sick, the disenchanted and the addicted lived in squalor and ruin. The metal boxes they called home reeked of death, old blood and desperation. Here is where he’d find Ren. As Elders went, Ren was low on the list of power and leadership. But among the runners and thieves, he was a king.

  His hovel blended with the others; rusted walls, rough-edged roof overlay dripping with the evening’s earlier rain. Its dirty rust-colored runoff spilled into the dark earth like pools of thin blood. The lanes overflowed with lost and wandering souls looking for their next rush or their next kiss of flesh; something to make them feel whole.

  Traegar knew the feeling well. Until he’d heard her name, felt her voice whispe
r across his soul, he hadn’t realized that the ache within him was loneliness. Now he knew he needed her, needed them to fill that empty space.

  He entered without knocking. The look of surprise, then anger, filtered across the guards’ face. He reached for a blade. Traegar stilled him with a wave of his hand.

  Four men sat at a rusty, wobbly table. A female, naked, lay across it like dessert. A limb in each of their hands, blood smeared across their lips. A fifth man stood between her spread legs, anger dancing in his red-rimmed eyes.

  “Traegar.” His growl of disapproval pinged off the metal enclosure.

  “Blood feasts are a crime, Ren. Have been since before the wars.”

  The gangly, blond-haired Elder with his strange red eyes wiped his fingers across blood-tinted lips, savoring every drop he found there. “Only if the donor is unwilling.”

  Traegar didn’t respond, knowing any other words regarding Ren’s so-called willing donor would be nothing but lies. He felt Draven and Ooen enter the small enclosure behind him, each taking up a position on either side. He had no question of Draven’s prowess. Some of it he’d taught the warrior himself. The healer would be a gamble.

  Taking note of Ren’s table guests, Traegar regarded the company of his target. Close-up, his features were more remarkable than from his visions. “Keeping tabs on wayward marks, I see?” Traegar asked, cocking his head toward the man closest to him.

  “Sometimes it is the only way to stay the progression of runoff. As you know, these things must be dealt with at times.”

  The look in Ren’s blood-rushed eyes, glimmering with the high the feeding gave as well as the tiny hint of assumption that he held all of the cards, made Traegar want to laugh.

  “Besides.” Ren laughed, a slight waver in his voice as he took in the mercenary’s languid stance, the dark, calculating gleam in his opaque eyes. “It is against the Elder code to slay one of our own.”

  The flash of lights stung his eyes, and the sting of blade startled the rush from his fast beating heart. The cold kiss of steel against his throat settled his fate. Ren wasn’t certain how they’d done it, for it happened so smoothly, so effectively. But two guards now lay dead, slumped across the nondescript tabletop. Zaren, blood-junkie and ex-soldier, on the run and in hiding from the Balacjeks for the disappearance of Prince Kantella, now lay wounded and bleeding in the hands of a Darengy. The one species he’d helped to try to eradicate.

  Ren knew his fate was forfeit. Traegar answered to no one. He lived by his own set of rules. Followed his own code. Wrong was wrong in his eyes, and only he decided if or when you crossed a line that he did not agree with. He took contracts for money on lives of his own people and others alike, be it Outworlder, Darengy, Ruinese or the like. Ren knew that today, he would die at the mercenary’s hand.

  Traegar pressed the blade against the soft flesh of the Elder’s throat. The translucent skin was taut, his pulse thundering against the sharp edge with every breath he took. Traegar knew it would be so easy to glide the blade, to cease the drum of Ren’s hammering heart. Anger poured through him, none like he’d ever felt as looked toward the pathetic wretch that Ooen easily clutched, and he wanted to drive his blade deep into both of their throats.

  Easy, my mate. Her voice came like a soft breeze washing away the darkness.

  Traegar blinked and his beast quieted. Onya. Just her name soothed his soul. He needed answers before he dispersed with the garbage.

  “Tell me, Ren. Who gave you the contract on your friend here, Officer Zaren?”

  “Like hell you gave a contract to this madman.” They were the first words the soldier spoke, high-pitched and wavering between disbelief and fear. Traegar wanted his fear. Wanted him to pay for what he’d help do to his mates. Knew with abject certainty that he’d been there through almost all of it, and knew that Zaren knew where to find them. But first he needed a name to go with the orders, and he knew that Ren had one. Sure, he may be young as far as Elders go, but a thousand years didn’t make you stupid. Ren lived and learned the ways of the street. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “If I tell you, I’m as good as dead.”

  “We both know you’re dead either way. The question is, how you wish to go.”

  Zaren started to scream, the bite of Traegar’s blade piercing his flesh.

  Ren’s head jerked in his direction. The scent of fresh blood filled his senses.

  The healer had one hand out in front of Zaren’s chest, palm up. Light glowed above his hand like a luminary. The wound on Zaren’s chest, near his right shoulder, glowed as well. Blood seeped from the wound, the flesh opening, spreading until it resembled the width of a fist.

  “Tell him!” Zaren screamed. “Tell him, for fuck’s sake. We both know there is only one who could have ordered it. Fucking tell him.” Zaren’s screams increased, blood flowing down his chest.

  Ooen held the soldier’s body close against his chest, his limbs weak, trembling to remain upright.

  “Garvik.” The words were whispered, terror tightening his response. “The Elder Garvik.”

  Traegar tipped Ren’s head back, pulled the blade flush against his throat and drove it home. He let the body fall to his feet without consideration as he turned his dark, wrath-filled gaze directly at the only man in the room, responsible for the torture of his mates.

  “Where?”

  “I….I can’t say. I haven’t been...” His words abruptly broke off as the burning started in his chest again. He screamed like a young girl, the pain instant and intense. “Okay. Okay. There…there is an underground labyrinth, a sort of base for the rebellion. It is not far from the outskirts of Rhone. It lies in the forests, hidden in underground caverns. There are secret entrances and exits from many of the Elders own lodgings. It is how so many of them come and go unseen.”

  “Where are they holding her?”

  “I swear I don’t know. On my life, I’d tell you. I left when Prince Kantella broke free. Right before he killed that psycho bitch Desidania, and half of her father’s guards. I haven’t looked back, either. Been hiding ever since.”

  Draven’s growl filled the structure. Traegar knew it was imminent. Knew he needed to learn of the pieces of this puzzle on his own. As his mates’ memories were gifted to him, he knew that no matter the rightness of the story, even from his own lips, Draven had to hear of it from another source if he was to believe.

  His blade sung softly from its sheath, tipped the gangly soldier’s head upwards. “What have you done?” Draven’s growl reverberated down the sword point, and they all watched Zaren shudder.

  “Not me. Them. They did it. Elder Garvik and his brother, Varnak. Stole a Reaper and your brother. Garvik used her blood to infect everyone. Including the Prince. But he broke free. Killed Desidania. I…I ran.” He stuttered again, fear bright in his eyes. “I ran from the cell before he could kill me too.”

  “You should have stayed,” Draven advised, his voice edged like cold, deadly steel. “I’m sure my brother would have loved to watch the life fade from your eyes.”

  Ooen released the soldier.

  Draven barely had to lift his arm to shove the blade home, the tip piercing Zaren’s lower chin, finding its way easily into the glide and up into gray matter. Crimson spilled from his lips and Draven pulled the blade free. He tapped a com device attached to his ear. “We’re returning now,” he stated, turning anger-filled eyes toward Traegar.

  “Kuthar’s ship has picked up a locating beacon from his personal vessel that Kantella stole when fleeing earth. It has landed on Vranthia.”

  “I take it he is abreast of tonight’s escapades?” Traegar had to give the Balacjek ruler his due. He certainly stayed on top of things.

  “He has his ways.” Draven smirked, knowing that he would appreciate his elder brother’s thirst for knowledge. It is what made Kuthar lethal and unpredictable.

  “Then lead on, warrior.” Traegar couldn’t withhold his grin. Adventure always brought out the best in him, and the bro
thers Balacjek didn’t seem in short supply. “Our fate awaits.”

  Chapter Five

  His body ached from the landing. Limbs felt battered and muscles bruised. Fire scorched his wrists and ankles where the chains of pure silver shackled him to the slab of rock he lay upon. Daggers pierced each shoulder and heavy pools of blood welled above and below.

  He tried to lift his lids but they were just too heavy; it didn’t seem worth the effort. There was a scent that brushed his senses. A memory that called to him, stirred his desire and awakened a piece of his soul. Her name whispered to him through the darkness and he knew that she was near.

  Onya.

  She could see him from her place of captivity. She’d been chained against this wall for so long she knew each crevice and every curve almost as well as she knew the lines of weariness and pain marked upon her mate, Kantella’s face; though she’d never touched him.

  “Be strong my love,” she whispered.

  Hearing the sweet cadence of her voice, live and real, was almost Kantella’s undoing. He knew he’d done all he could until help arrived. He only hoped he could bear the pain of separation just a little while longer.

  “They are coming,” she assured him.

  He prayed her words were true.

  Gathered in Kuthar’s office on Vranthia, the castle grounds bristling with controlled chaos, Traegar met with the ruling leaders of Vranthia and their mates. As he’d imagined, Kuthar was mercurial grace contained. Fair, where his twin brothers were dark, each was equally fierce by nature. Kuthar held an air of learned, deadly intent. It was a striking combination in one so young. Traegar had no doubts Kuthar would age into an amazing leader.

  “My guards have already overtaken Rhone. All Elders are currently being held as guests in our prison...until proven otherwise, of course. We’ve currently narrowed it down to four lodgings, besides Desidania’s and her father, Varnak’s, where the tunnels ran to the forest. One you’d already discovered as Ren’s. The second belongs to Elder Cjek, the third, his son, Dreg.”