Cursed By Her Blood Read online

  Only the hitch in her breath told him how frightened she had been. “Yes. They wanted your cousin. For a brief moment, they confused the two of you. It is why they came for you first.”

  “I shocked them. My family. I always knew it would.”

  Barlaam slipped her out of her chair and settled in the seat himself, then pulled his female to his lap. Her young half sister continued to sleep a drugged sleep next to them. “You have kept secrets for many years. Secrets no child should have had to. Now you are in a world where you can be free to share those secrets.”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know what I should share now and what I should keep to myself. The visions are more here. I don’t know why.”

  “You have Nellana blood. And Dames Blanches fae, as well as Lupoiux from your father. There is a Nellanic temple two blocks over. No doubt you are feeling the effects of that now. Being amongst those of power will sometimes be enough to trigger a gift.”

  “I have had you with me. For six years. I’ve always known I’d have you.” She brushed a hand over his chest. Her fingers toyed with the medallion he had worn for centuries. “I could see you in my dreams every night. No matter what happened that day, I could count on seeing you in my dreams. I used to think I was going crazy. Until I got to college. I have a friend who says she’s a witch. But not like the kind you see on television. She does other things, and is constantly talking of the Fates. She told me they weren’t hallucinations. But visions. She helped me, with some type of meditation she said was developed by some kind of priestesses thousands of years ago.”

  He hesitated. “I am glad you had her.”

  “Me, too. I’m even more glad I found you. So…when are we doing this conversion thing?”

  Barlaam shifted her closer, feeling the inevitable result of having his female on his lap. “As soon as possible. I…it is safer for you to be Dardaptoan as soon as possible.”

  “And…then we can…do other things vampire couples like to do?”

  “Hmmm. Yes. But we do not have to rush. If you are not ready.”

  “I think I’m going to be ready. Especially if you kiss me.”

  “I can do that.” He looked over her shoulder as the female on the bed shifted. “But I believe your sister is waking.”

  Jade immediately tensed and climbed off his lap. She sat down on the bed. “Jordan, can you hear me?”

  Jordan’s eyes fluttered. “I—don’t know where I am.”

  “You’re in Dardanos. Colorado.” Jade wrapped her fingers around her sister’s. “I’m Jade. You were with my cousin Rebecca. She’s your…niece, I think. I’m both your niece and your half sister. But we can get in to that later. This is…my…fiancé Barlaam. He’s a…doctor here. How do you feel?”

  “I hurt.” She shot a level look at Barlaam. She really did favor her sister. They looked enough alike to be fraternal twins. Only she was far more vulnerable and afraid. “I…there was another woman with me. She said we were related. And that I wasn’t going to die out there. Looked like me but red hair.”

  “How did you get out there? That woman was my cousin Becca. Your niece. Her father is your half brother. Talk about weird, right? I mean, we are half sisters on our mother’s side and you are half sister to my father on your father’s side. So that makes me a sister-niece. Talk about a weird family tree.”

  “He is not my father.” Venom coated the words. “He is a monster.”

  Jade leaned closer. Her hand tightened on her sister. “We know. Barlaam’s brother had him arrested. He won’t hurt any of us ever again.”

  “He always hurts them. When I found out what he was doing, he gave me to those…monsters. Told them to kill me. That I knew too much. I don’t want to be around his family.”

  “I know. When you are better, then you can decide. I promise you’ll get to make your own choices. No matter what. No one is ever going to force you to do something you don’t want ever again. You have my word.”

  “And you have mine,” Barlaam added quietly.

  “I’m going to hold you to that.” Her eyes closed again. “I…found some of them.”

  “Who are they?” Barlaam asked, quietly. She was in and out of lucidity, he suspected. She was in the midst of the Lupoiux change now. There was not much she would remember when it was over. “Can you remember?”

  “My sisters. He’s made so many of us. And if they weren’t what he wanted, he gave them away for foster mothers to raise. I found a list of at least a dozen…separated, by gender. By power. We are all just freaks for his experiments.”

  “What did he do to you, Jordan? Do you have any nonhuman power?” If she hadn’t, she most certainly would once she healed. She was fully Lupoiux now. She would need Jade’s father to help guide her through that shift in her world.

  “No. Not anything. I’m just good at finding things in computers.” Her eyes opened again and she looked at Jade. “I was looking for how to contact you now that I’m an adult. They can’t stop me now. That’s how I found the first sister two years ago. But I can’t actually find what he did with her. But she’s out there. Being experimented on.”

  “We’ll search,” Jade said. “We’ll help you find them. No matter how long it takes.”

  But Jordan was back under.

  “I mean it. If they are out there, we need to find them. Before they are killed by whoever has the contract out on my family. But I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Rydere will. I suspect your father will. It is a task he might just be especially well-suited for. We will discuss it more on the morning.” Barlaam pulled his phone free. “Tonight…I want to focus on planning for us.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  Barlaam pressed his lips to her throat. To her pulse. He had waited long enough. His fangs erupted. She pulled in a sharp breath, her eyes widening. Focusing on his mouth. “I want to taste my female.”

  “I…ok, now I’m getting nervous.”

  As she should. She had been raised a human, after all. “I can guarantee you will come to enjoy it. Your sister and cousins all have, I am sure.”

  “Well, I never have been just one of the crowd. But I can do this. I mean, it’s part of being a vampire and all.”

  He laughed, but pulled back. There were ways to…entice…her to the act. And that would come with time. “I have texted Jannen. She will be sitting with your sister tonight. Come. Back to our suite. We have many things to speak about.”

  “I can think of a few.” She pressed her lips to his neck, almost causing him to drop her. “Let’s go.”

  Barlaam scooped her into his arms and carried her back to his own suite—where she belonged.

  Epilogue

  One Week Later…

  * * *

  Jade stretched once, her hand immediately searching for her lover. Her vampire. He had waited until the last bruise had faded before converting her. He had spent hours with his healer friends, experimenting with some type of demon chemical to come up with a type of painkiller.

  He hadn’t wanted her to feel even a moment of pain.

  She wouldn’t say it was a complete success. But she had had a much easier conversion than her sister or cousins.

  She’d been a vampire for two days.

  She’d been a virgin for one of those days.

  He’d wanted to make certain she was healed from the conversion before he’d done that too.

  It had been a pretty darned perfect honeymoon.

  But Jade had plans—she’d be having a full-fledged wedding someday, too.

  Perhaps in a year. That would be the perfect time to bring all of her family here, together. Including Uncle Gerald’s daughters.

  Her uncles and her father had made decisions that had shocked most of the family.

  They’d split them up. Uncle Gerald had taken his boys to Texas, to stay down there near his daughters Abby and Linsey. The three older girls were spread out around the country at various Taniss Industries’ properties. Her own father h
ad been in charge of transferring them to a Wichita Falls branch of the company within the month. Right now they were under heavy guard—and extremely confused.

  Marsh, her eldest male cousin after Rand, had taken off somewhere. Supposedly, he was searching out all of their grandfather’s laboratories.

  They were still painting a picture of exactly what her grandfather had done.

  But she wasn’t going to think of her grandfather today. Today was for her, and her vampire.

  She’d finally gotten her vampire right where she wanted him. And now…Jade was hungry.

  For what only he could provide.

  WHAT HAPPENS IN DARDANOS, STAYS IN DARDANOS…

  MAYBE.

  Not everyone in Dardanos is vampire royalty.

  Far from it!

  One of those vampires is little Jume Woald—Theo’s secretary. She has an up close look at what goes on in Dardanos.

  * * *

  And she blogs about it.

  * * *

  Check out her ongoing stories—and get access to free short stories and novellas—at

  www.IamJustaVampire.com.

  To check out her first blog post, keep reading…

  I’m supposed to write something here.

  It’s a blog, after all. By definition, that means I write something and publish it online somewhere. If this was a real blog, it would be online for anyone to see. But…we all know Dardaptoans don’t have real blogs.

  Too easy to be discovered that way. But I still have to do this, or I don’t get the points. So I should probably get started writing, right?

  Easier said than done.

  I’m not the writer in the family. That’s my sister Alaun. She writes steamy demon/Dardaptoan romantic suspense novels with sexy demons and heart-pounding action. You’ve probably all heard of her. She’s one of the best writers of our Kind. Of any of the Kinds, really.

  Everyone says so. Most people love the adventure in her novels.

  I have always thought that was ironic. Action/adventure is not Alaun’s thing at all.

  Alaun isn’t exactly the adventurous type. That’s our sister Kellis’s department. She’s the one who kept guard over all of us, even if that irritates the rest of us. Especially Alaun and Ambrea—who are both older.

  I’m younger. Ambrea is 123. Kellis is 83. Alaun is 79. I’m 68. Kellis and Alaun grew up together, so they’re closer.

  Like Riv and me. Riv, short for Riverr, is two years younger than I am.

  She acts older, though. Quiet and confident. Like she can conquer the world.

  She’s unlike anything I could ever be. Confident is not my ‘thing,’ as Julea says.

  Probably because talking is difficult for me. I have a speech impediment. From what the healers have said, I’m one of the few Dardaptoans to have ever been born with something like this.

  I have learned to deal with it, and my family can understand me. That’s what matters. And it’s not as bad as it used to be. I stutter, but not all the time now. Mostly when I am nervous or afraid.

  I am Jumena Kyrann Woald. My family calls me Jume. Like the ancient priestess of the goddess, Jueme, my mother once said. I am not sure how true that is—my mother never lied to me—but I have searched for information about this Jueme and have never even found so much as a mention of her name.

  In any record, anywhere.

  I’m the fourth daughter of seven surviving daughters. Our parents were lost eight years ago with the birth of Alleah, my youngest sister. I have three older sisters and three younger. I forgot to mention Julea’s age earlier. She’s twenty-six, forty-one years younger than Riv.

  She’s almost as quiet, as invisible as I am. Confidence isn’t her thing, either. But that’s just because she’s shy.

  We all are definitely introverted. Quiet. Every last one of us.

  We are Woald, too.

  We’re a part of the House that the goddess has forsaken, I’m almost certain of it…

  * * *

  READ MORE AT WWW.IAMJUSTAVAMPIRE.COM TO LEARN WHAT JUME KNOWS ABOUT THE WARS THAT ARE COMING…AND THE PEOPLE OF DARDANOS.

  About the Author

  C.J. Brookes lives in central Indiana with her husband of fifteen years, their ten-year-old daughter, four-year-old lump of a beagle, elderly but diabolically clever border collie, evil border collie puppy, four demanding ducklings, one garden snail who lives in her child’s bathroom, and a rogue cardinal named Carl and his wife Carla.

  Best known for her romantic suspenses, which she writes under her main name of Calle J. Brookes, she has been writing for more than twenty years, and has more than seventy novels and novellas published.

  In 2018, C.J. made the decision to remove all the paranormal titles she had published, revise them, update them, and expand them before sending them to her wonderful editor to make them better than ever.

  In 202o the first five titles were ready for relaunch. In that timeframe, C.J. added even more titles to the list. Watch for these Dardanos titles in 2020—including a brand-new book FATED TO THE WOLF.

  If you’d like to drop C.J. a note, she can be found at [email protected].