Vampire Bonds (Darkbloods Book 1) Read online

  Vampire Bonds

  Darkbloods Book One

  Delia E Castel

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Delia E Castel’s Books

  Writing as Cordelia Castel

  Chapter 1

  Vampire at four o’clock.

  The wheels of the plane land on the tarmac with a bump that jolts me forward in my seat. I place my hands on the backrest in front and glance four rows behind and to the right.

  Despite the flashing seatbelt signs, the vampire rises from the middle row and climbs over the person to his right. Thanks to a series of tornadoes over the Atlantic Ocean, the Albion Airways 747 from London Heathrow is arriving at Jaeger International Airport four hours later than scheduled, and the first traces of sunlight are peeking over the horizon. Too bad for Mr. Tall-Dark-and-about-to-fry.

  It’s also too bad for Poppy and me because we’re the only supernatural beings in a confined aircraft filled with people holding smartphones. Neither of us wants to go down in history as the slayer acolyte and the mage-in-training who did nothing to prevent the exposure of vampires to the native world.

  “Brielle,” Poppy whispers from the seat next to mine. She’s my best friend and soon to become my conciliar.

  According to the treaty the Order of Theodora signed with the Mage Council, each slayer has a conciliar who guides their actions and provides magical assistance during hunts. Mages claim that they enhance the performance of slayers, but they’re here to stop over-zealous slayers from killing innocent creatures for having dark blood.

  Grandma has Aunt Clarissa, and Mom had Uncle Fred. As usual, the thought of the mother I’ve never met strikes a shard of pain at my heart, and I shove those feelings aside. I’ve got to focus on the problem at hand: the soon-to-be-immolated vampire.

  “Brielle.” Poppy’s harsh whisper cuts through my thoughts, and I turn to my best friend’s cornflower blue eyes. The ends of her blonde hair shine like spun gold, indicating that her magic is close to the surface, and a deep frown mars her pretty features. “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking of a way to save that blood-sucker.” My gaze turns back to the vampire, who leans away from the encroaching sunlight.

  Maybe it's the memory of the last time I pushed a vampire into the sun, but my brain conjures up a scent richer than burned hair and warmer than the stench of a rotting corpse. My stomach lurches in anticipation of the impending blaze.

  She leans across the seat and whispers, “We should call for help.”

  “There’s no time,” I whisper back.

  My throat convulses. We should have thought of what to do hours ago, but a freak weather storm had wrenched every ounce of our attention away from the vampire. Poppy exhausted most of her magic trying to ease the hurricane, and she drew on my power to bolster hers. After we got the plane through the worst of the turbulence, exhaustion pulled us both into unconsciousness.

  “Hold on.” She leans forward, reaches beneath the seat in front, and pulls out her bag.

  “What are you doing?” I frown into the bag’s depths. The enchantment her great-aunt cast on it means she always travels light.

  “Calling the Order,” she replies.

  My gaze drifts to where the vampire places an alligator skin coat over his shoulders. It’s huge, only one step away from being a cape, and probably won’t provide him with an ounce of protection from the sun.

  I tighten my lips. Could he be any more of a stereotype? It’s almost as if he wants everyone to know his species. A black-haired stewardess passes, asking everyone to return to their seats. Apparently, we’re in a line for the airport because another aircraft just landed before ours.

  I turn back to Poppy. “Any luck?”

  She scowls. “Something’s blocking the signal.”

  “Time to act, then.” I unbuckle my seat belt.

  Poppy raises her head, her lips parted in an unasked question, and her peaches-and-cream complexion pales to an ashen white. What I’m about to suggest probably contravenes some subsection of a paragraph of the lengthy document that is the Treaty, but slayers aren’t trained to pour over the rules. We act first. It’s one of the rules of slaying: delays and deliberations mean death.

  “Wait.” She wraps her hand around my wrist.

  “What?” I whisper.

  “Take him inside the airport. There are lots of hidden places—”

  “How will we get him off the plane in daylight?” I ask.

  Poppy reaches into her bag and extracts her foci-rings. They’re the real-world equivalent of magic wands, which allow the mage free hands to fight, and are immune to a Harry Potter-style expelliarmus.

  I slip a hand into the pocket of my jeans for the ring that connects with hers. Until a slayer bonds with her mage, the only way she can draw from our power is with the rings. Gulping hard, I brace myself for the transaction. After the amount of magic Poppy expended last night, she’ll need to pull even more on my reserves.

  Determination hardening her pretty features, Poppy grabs my hand and places her glowing palm on the window. She mutters something under her breath, and it starts. A wave of dizziness knocks my consciousness to my quickening heart, and my head fills with clouds.

  There’s a reason the Order of Theodora once wanted to destroy mages. While vampires feed on a being’s blood, a mage can feed on a being’s magical reserves. My chest rises and falls in time with my rapid breaths, and I force myself to calm. Poppy would never take too much, but we’ve never done a power transfer while so depleted.

  After a few moments, the light streaming in from the windows becomes less vibrant, and she releases my hand. My consciousness slams back into place, and all the tension leaves me in a long exhale.

  “This is an ultraviolet filter to stop him from burning up on the plane,” Poppy says. “We’ll escort him inside so no-one sees his true form, but you’ve got to slay him in the airport.”

  “Of course.” There’s only one thing worse than letting a vampire self-combust in front of a plane-full of humans, and that would be aiding and abetting his safe passage so he can prey on the people of Jaeger. “Let’s do this.”

  I twist around and glare at the vampire, who ignores the flight attendant to stare at us through indigo eyes. The vampire is about six-two, with short hair as dark as midnight with bangs that sweep over his sharp cheekbones and alabaster skin. He looks about nineteen or maybe twenty, but everything about him is designed to draw the eye, to make men and women weak in his presence.

  Tearing my gaze away from his full lips, I focus on something less mesmerizing: the alligator skin coat. He’s the worst kind of predator. Big cats chase their prey, bed bugs sneak through the night and steal what they need to survive, but not the vampire. Vampires are the peacocks of the supernatural world. Most of the time, they just need to preen and wait for humans to sacrifice everything to their beauty.

  “Done,” whispers Poppy.

  The vampire inclines his head in a regal nod of thanks, which makes me grind my teeth. We didn’t
do it for him, but in his warped vampire mind, he probably thinks we did.

  “Thanks.” I give Poppy’s hand a gentle squeeze.

  “What now?” she whispers.

  “Now, we wait for the plane to stop.”

  The wait is interminable, and the plane rolls forward at an alarmingly slow pace. We’re late for the academy shuttle, late for registration, and at this rate, we’ll be late for Presbytera Driver’s assembly. Driver leads the Order’s Jaeger branch, and she’s one of the many students Grandma taught while she was the Order’s American Arch Mother Superior.

  Poppy glances at her smartphone, and there’s still no signal. My heart sinks, and I wish Poppy and I had already bonded and didn’t need to use the rings. With a true bond comes the ability to use ether—the power in the universe that supernatural beings convert to magic. With more power, we could contact the Order and let them know we’ll be late.

  Even the vampire tires of the long wait and lowers his carcass into his seat. I can only see the top of his head, but his presence has burned through my senses since we boarded in London. He remained in his seat the entire flight, never standing, never leaving his place to feed. From what we learned in Supernatural Biology, Vampires don’t use the bathroom unless they consume liquids other than blood. They do this often to blend in with humans, especially in bars.

  The plane’s movement stops, and the seatbelt lights finally turn off. Relief escapes me in an outward breath, and I scramble off my seat. Finally!

  Everybody stands, and the aisles fill with people pulling luggage from the overhead bins, making their way to the exit, and blocking my view of the vampire. I can’t find him anymore, but it doesn’t matter. He won’t turn to mist because the extractor fans will separate him into particles. He won’t transform into a creature of darkness like a bat because that will only make people panic or attack.

  I weave through the crowds, stepping over luggage and bent-over passengers until I reach the seats closest to the door. They’re empty, and I stand in wait. Anticipation thuds through my heart with the intensity of a speaker box. The knife-points-spinning-on-the-nerve-endings sensation tells me he’s still here, and the trembling of my stomach lining tells me I’d better ready myself in case he decides to fight.

  My gaze skips the people waiting in line for the doors to open, landing on those tall enough to be him. An African-American man wearing a clerical collar with his black suit, a portly, middle-aged man clutching a battered briefcase to his chest, a long-haired model type checking her smartphone.

  The vampire stands behind a woman with the same vibrant shade of red hair as mine. She’s in her mid-thirties, has a baby strapped to her front, and is trying to stop a pair of red-haired little girls from jumping up and down. A lump forms in the back of my throat. That woman could be my mother.

  My gaze locks onto the vampire’s, who tilts his head toward the little family. He’s asking if I’m related, and a breath catches in the back of my throat. Is this a threat? As I shake my head, one of the little girls dashes between the seats, and the vampire’s gaze follows her.

  A hot rush of anger lurches me forward, and my heart thrums like the throttle of a motorcycle. He will not touch that family to get at me.

  “Hey.” Poppy squeezes herself through the crowded aisle, clutching our bags.

  “Sorry.” We’ve been friends for long enough for her to know I’m apologizing for rushing ahead and making her pack up after me. I shoulder my bag just as the doors open and the morning sun fills the exit.

  The passengers waiting in line rush down the stairs, where a bus awaits thirty feet away from the plane. I turn to the vampire, whose brows draw together. I’d bet my entire nail polish collection that he’s wondering how he will survive the morning light. Now it’s my turn to incline my head.

  I clasp Poppy’s hand and mouth, ‘You’re welcome, bloodsucker.’

  His brow creases into a frown that’s more concentration than anger, and satisfaction thrums through my insides. He’s worked out three things:

  One, we’re his only protection from self-combustion.

  Two, we’re not leaving until we escort him off the plane.

  Three, as soon as we get him into a quiet nook, Poppy will hold him with her magic, and I will slay him.

  As the red-haired family reaches the front, I step forward and tilt my head up to meet the vampire’s gaze for the briefest moment.

  Before I can get lost in those indigo orbs encased by thick lashes, I drop my gaze to the dimple on his chin. “There you are.”

  His lips curl into a sheepish smile. “You’ve caught me.”

  I slip around to his other side and clamp my hand around his. It’s warm, indicating that he has fed on live blood in the past twenty-four hours. Vampires aren’t cold like the paranormal novels would have us believe. A hungry vampire who has digested the blood of his victims takes on the temperature of his surroundings.

  He doesn’t pull away but instead says through clenched teeth, “This is awfully generous of the Order. A slayer and her familiar providing me protection from the sun.”

  “Hey,” Poppy snaps from his other side. “The word you’re looking for is conciliar.”

  “Mages are the Order’s pets,” he snarls.

  “Silence, bloodsucker,” she replies.

  I ignore their bickering. Vampires are just sore because mages were the last powerful supernatural beings to join the Order. Until 1882, they sided with the vampires, until their leader decided to power-up by feasting on the blood of his mage advisors.

  It’s our turn to step out, and the vampire’s steps falter. I squeeze his fingers like I’m about to give birth, and his pained grunt sends a thrill of satisfaction through my insides. It’s sadistic, but a lifetime with Grandma has been an education in hating the monsters.

  Vampires are the reason I’ve never known my mother, the reason I avoid mushy red foods like ketchup, and the reason I can’t fall asleep without pulling the curtains closed. When I was little and Grandma was out hunting, a flock of vampires would appear at my window and torment me at night. They rapped on the glass and tried to keep me awake, all because Grandma had once been the Order’s Arch Mother Superior.

  “Scared?” I narrow my eyes at the vampire.

  His nostrils flare, his hand tightens around mine, and he steps out into the sun. Light shimmers over the radiation-damping enchantment Poppy has cast over the vampire, and he draws in a whistling breath through blunt, white teeth.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen the sun?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, and we walk down the steps. Right now, he’s completely tame. Mr. Vampire knows that breaking away from our protection guarantees self-immolation, and he walks alongside us in silence. We cross the tarmac, which is so warm that it yields underfoot, and step into the air-conditioned bus.

  The vampire releases his grip, and I squeeze harder. “There’s no protection on those windows.”

  He sniffs the air above my head. “One would think you found me attractive.”

  “You wish.” Now it’s my turn to release my grip.

  He doesn’t respond, and I turn to meet his smiling eyes. Irritation flares across my skin. If this were any other location and a plane-full of natives weren’t crowding us, I would step back and watch the stolen blood catch fire in the sun and burn him from the inside-out.

  We stand in silence through the journey as the bus rolls through the airport. My nerves thrum unpleasantly from being in such close quarters with this creature, and every instinct in my body urges me to throw the first punch.

  I’m not the type to dislike a person because they belong to a specific group, but I make an exception for vampires. Poppy once confided that one of her mage ancestors created a tonic made of bloodroot that satisfied the vampires’ thirst for ether and could have saved countless human lives, but none of them drank it.

  The bus stops at a bridge, and the crowd swarms to the wide doors as they hiss open. Up ahead stan
ds the double doors that lead to the airport terminal. Anticipation punches at my heart, and I grip his unresisting hand. In a few minutes, Mr. Vampire will attempt his escape.

  As the last people step off the bus, I whisper under my breath, “Try anything, and I’ll end you in front of the natives.”

  He leans into me, filling my nostrils with a heady, intoxicating scent. “You won’t.”

  As expected, he smells exquisite. It’s a discordant mix of forest and sea and leather that forces me to take another sniff and another until my skin tingles. My slayer instincts slap me back into awareness, and my head snaps up to meet twinkling eyes, an expression of faux-innocence.

  My teeth clench—hard. He’s not taking Poppy or me seriously.

  I reach into the thin side-pocket of my jeans and pull out a stake. Contrary to the TV shows, a vampire stake needs to be thin enough to slip through the ribs and pierce the heart. Not all woods have the strength to penetrate the intercostal muscles, which is why the Order makes stakes from bloodwood and snakewood.

  We step off the bus and into a shaded porch of the entrance, and I tighten my grip, but the vampire’s hands turn to mist, leaving me snatching at thin air. He darts forward, jumps onto the banister, and races up the stairs through the crowds.

  “Hey!” I shout.

  Poppy huffs out an annoyed breath, and we give chase.

  By the time we push our way to the top of the stairs and reach passport control, he’s nowhere among the crowds. We weave through the throng, ignoring the shouts of everyone waiting in line to go through passport control.

  “Bree!” Poppy’s hand clamps around mine, and she mutters an incantation that renders us unnoticeable but not invisible.