Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (10 page)

At the same time,
Vampires and Stewards began to mate with humans. Many Vampire/human
offspring were abnormal and deformed causing their superstitious
human parents to put them to death. The Steward/human offspring were
much healthier, however. They were so healthy, in fact, that they
were found to be the perfect source of food for the Vampires. It was
discovered accidentally when the teenage twins of a Steward/human
relationship were being educated by a Vampire scholar in an Italian
monastery. One evening the scholar began to feel ill. He had been so
engrossed in his studies that he had gone without feeding for over a
month. It was the middle of the night when he fell to his knees and
called for the Steward half-breeds to get a human for him to feed
upon. The human donor they found, however, was insufficient to repair
the damage of his unintentional fast. As the scholar continued to
waste away, the twins, being of Steward blood and having the innate
nature to care for Vampires, offered their own blood. Each day one of
them would puncture their wrist and fill the scholar’s chalice.
Slowly, the scholar returned to his senses, but he had many
hallucinations while he healed. Each morning when he was fed, he
looked up and saw sun streaming in through the window to illuminate
the chalice and each twin. When he regained his common sense he wrote
that he had been saved by “the getter of blood” or “the
carrier of blood” which he wrote in a combination of Italian
and Latin; Sanguine Fare. He did not know that the twins had fed him
their own blood until he called them for his weekly feeding. When the
human donor did not satiate him, he asked them how many humans they
had used for his restoration. At first, the twins were afraid that
the scholar would be angry at their news, but they soon found out
that they had solved a problem plaguing the entire Vampire
population.

The Vampire Council
formed a society with the Stewards and the Sanguine Fare and
explorers were commissioned to find a place that was free from the
prying eyes of humans. At first they went to Africa and then to the
New World before settling on a small island near the coast of India.

Chapter 5

Tabitha had been
flipping through magazines the entire time I was reading. Watching my
reactions and offered looks of sympathy where she felt appropriate,
she offered support in the only way she knew how. When I finished and
pushed away from the table, she set her magazine down and started to
offer explanations.

“
I
know that your life has just turned upside down and I am sorry for
that, but it was hard to find you after you were adopted the last
time. Those boys on the bus, well, they were sent to take you to a
man that your mo…well, a man who wanted to use you for his own
purposes, so we ….”

Tabitha kept talking
but I was stuck on two points. If all of this was true, why was I in
the system at all? Why didn't Efia or one of the others simply adopt
me instead of allowing my adoptive mother to do it? And was Tabitha
about to say something about my birth mother? And did Tabitha know
where she was right now?

I didn’t remember
much about my mother, in fact all that I remembered were her eyes
being the same color as mine and the sound of her voice. My mother’s
voice would make angels weep. It was deep and sultry and felt like a
warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders. It felt like love and I
had never felt that way since. I was put into the foster care system
around the age of 2 and had been bounced from home to home ever
since. Like Tabitha had said, my life had been turned upside down.

“
Cheyenne?
Are you listening to me?”

“
Not
anymore. I want to know about my mother. What do you know about her?
And what does she have to do with the boys from the bus or any of
this?”

“
I’ll
tell her.”

We both turned at the
sound of a new voice and saw a short girl wearing the same black
military suit that Tabitha had on. She was followed in by the largest
of the three dogs and came to a stop directly in front of me.

“
This
is Zeus,” she said, introducing me to the dog as if it was the
most normal thing to do. “He's the father of the twins and very
sweet.”

I looked at the large
dog and his black eyes and didn’t see sweet. His head was
massive and I assumed that his teeth were extremely sharp, although I
couldn’t see them. Zeus and I stared at each other for a few
moments before he sneezed and walked away. Artemis and Apollo rose
slowly and followed their father out of the room without a backwards
glance. These dogs were starting to creep me out. Their human
mannerisms were a bit unnerving.

After the dogs
departed, my attention returned to the girl standing in front of me.
She looked to be about three inches shorter than me with wonderfully
curly black hair that sat on her shoulders. A headband held her hair
off of her face and I could see a strong forehead and intelligent
eyes; chocolate brown eyes. She had clear creamy brown skin with tiny
little freckles across the bridge of her nose and a perfect heart
shaped mouth. Without an ounce of makeup on, this girl looked as if
she could walk on to any movie set and be the next great teen pop
star.

“
Hi.
I’m Chloe St. Clair…your sister.”

Efia had informed me
that I had a sister in the house somewhere, but I hadn’t had
time to imagine what she would look like. Now that I saw her standing
in front of me, I couldn’t be happier. I fought back my
emotions and cleared my throat in preparation for my response when
she flung herself into my lap and hugged me. I lifted my arms and
held her there as if my life depended on it and cried.

We sat there crying in
each other’s arms for what seemed like an eternity when the
bedroom door opened and closed. Tabitha had left us alone. I pulled
away from her only so that I could see her face. Her nose was smaller
than mine, a little bit more turned up. She would have looked
snobbish if not for the tears running down her face. I grabbed the
corner of the comforter and wiped them one by one until she stopped
crying.

“
Hi,”
I said with my gruff voice. “I’m Cheyenne.”

“
I
know. It’s nice to finally meet you. Now I should take you on a
tour.”

Chloe led the way out
of the room, down the stairs and through the kitchen to a large
garden. We walked through an ivy covered gate and under an arbor into
the most majestic garden I had ever seen. There were aisles upon
aisles of rose bushes, tiger lily plants and fruit trees. The mixture
of smells was so intoxicating that I swooned on my feet for the first
few seconds. We wound through the plants until we came upon a solid
marble bench near a fountain the size of an Olympic practice pool.
Between the calming sound of the fountain and the singing of the
birds, I was completely relaxed within minutes.

“
We
have a lot to tell you,” Chloe started. “I asked if I
could do it and Efia said that I could start. They think I'm a child,
but I want to do this. I want to tell you.”

“
Are
you a, you know, Vampire?”

“
Me?
No, no,” she laughed. “Not until I’m 18. I’m
only 15 1/2.”

Chloe went on to tell
me the ins and outs of our Vampiric family. Efia was our Great
grandmother many times removed. I was apparently dreaming about her
early life and the events that led to her abduction from the Gold
Coast of Africa and transportation to the New World when she was just
seven years old. She had witnessed vampires killing off her tribal
family, but for some reason she was spared.

At the age of 10 she
was sold to a wealthy New Orleans family, and was immediately put to
work taking care of the mistress and her children. On any given day
she could be seen walking with and caring for the family’s four
young children as well as attending to the needs of the plantation
mistress.

Once, while walking
with the children, she saw a man in a cloak following them in the
fields. Her screams brought the slave owner and his men with guns
ready to fire. They chased the cloaked figure into the forest at the
edge of the property and lost him. After that, Efia always felt as if
she were being watched.

When she was eleven
years old, a slave from a neighboring plantation asked for her hand
in marriage. He was only eighteen years old, but had been a slave all
of his life and knew how to survive. When she told her mistress that
she truly loved him they began to hope for the best. Although there
was no way to legally marry two slaves, the plantation mistress so
loved Efia that she convinced her husband to purchase the boy so that
they could have a wedding.

The couple lived as
comfortable a life as a slave could under the protection of the
plantation mistress who was only ten years older than Efia herself.
The upkeep of the main house, and grounds immediately surrounding it,
were left in their care. Efia and her husband were so loved by their
owners that, once they announced they were expecting, they were given
a manumission document for their unborn child. Satisfied with the
fact that their child would be born free, Efia and her husband became
even more loyal to the family.

One night, when
thirteen year old Efia was about 7 months pregnant, a fire broke out
in the barn near the main house. All of the field hands raced to the
scene to help save the animals from the flames. Efia went immediately
to the children of the house and found each of them with their
throats ripped out and laying on the kitchen floor. The mistress of
the house was screaming as she was dragged out of the side door and
down the steps by a cloaked assailant. Efia screamed for the slave
owner and led him to the place where she last saw her mistress. The
slave owner and his men took off in the direction of his wife’s
screams and disappeared in the darkness.

After what seemed like
hours, people from neighboring plantations arrived to help extinguish
the multiple fires that were now burning and to find the slave owner
and his wife. Efia’s husband and the other slaves on the
plantation had managed to lead most of the animals to safety before
the barn and other structures were destroyed. The property was full
of panicked people, animals and debris, but all Efia could think
about was the well being of her mistress.

Efia went to stand on
the porch, hoping that the elevated height would give her a better
look into the wooded distance, when she heard a noise. She had
thought that the house was empty until she heard footsteps and an
upstairs door slam. Even though everything in her body had told her
to run in the other direction, Efia thought if her mistress had
returned it was her duty to help. Quietly she went the rear of the
house and up the stairs. Habit forced her to skip the third step to
avoid the predictable creak that she knew it would make. Once on the
second floor landing, Efia heard the sound of water dripping on the
floor of the room nearest the stairs. She turned the door handle and
opened the door and found her mistress hanging from the ceiling by
her feet. Her throat was ripped open and three Vampires were lapping
at the blood on the floor. So absorbed in their feast, none of them
heard or saw Efia as she closed the door and ran down the stairs.
Once outside her desire to scream was cut off when she saw the
helping neighbors and her fellow slaves running from or fighting with
Vampires. With a hand on her belly, Efia searched the crowd for her
husband. He was in the arms of a female Vampire and his throat was
torn out. Shock kept her in place for longer than was safe, but a
cool breeze and the sound of movement upstairs snapped her out of her
trance and she ran.

I stopped Chloe mid
sentence to catch my breath. The entire time she recounted the events
of that night I felt as if I was living it in real time. I felt the
heat from the fire and the adrenaline from seeing Efia’s
mistress being dragged by her hair. I even smelled the blood from the
floor. Then, sitting there in the garden, I had to calm myself down
before continuing.

“
So,
this is where my dream comes in. Efia is running from the plantation
when someone saves her.”

“
Yes,”
Chloe said with a nod. “The person that grabbed Efia in the
woods was…well, that part of the story can wait.”

“
Why?”

“
Because
Grigor and his father, they wanted Efia's blood and the particulars
get a little bit confusing.”

“
Then
what happened?” I almost didn’t want to know the answer.

“
That's
Efia’s story to tell. Everyone has the right to tell the story
of their own Embrace. Just know, that at 18 she was fully Embraced
because she really had no other choice. But, I can tell you that
Grigor has our mother and the boys are working on a plan to get her
back.”

Chloe stood up and
walked over to the fountain and placed her hand under the flowing
water. She was giving me space to process the information that she
just gave me and I appreciated it. I would be 18 in a few months and
realized that milestone was the key to all of the strangeness of the
past days.

We remained silent for
several minutes; Chloe pretending that the fountain was interesting
and me letting her. As I looked at the back of the girl that I now
knew to be my sister, I began to wonder what her story was and how
she came to be with Efia. I was just about to ask her when Tabitha
came into the garden and sat next to me.

“
So,
have you to been getting acquainted?”

“
A
bit, mostly Chloe was telling me a little bit about Efia’s
life. This is all a lot to take in.”