Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (14 page)

There were times I
wished for the simple romantic Vampire story where boy meets girl and
they live happily ever after. But it appeared that my life was going
to be a cross between Blade and Vlad the Impaler. So, I continued to
look at the lethal weapons on the table and kissed my dreams of a
Vampiric romance good-bye.

Vampires promoted their
own myths about sunlight, garlic and Holy places. They encouraged the
false modern characteristics that had become stereotypical. This was
by far one of the best ways to hide their existence. Aside from long
life and the need for blood, most of the stories about Vampires that
I grew to believe were false.

The attributes that I
would inherit with the Embrace were plentiful. I had been learning to
control my power over air but it was difficult since I had never
thought it possible. Chloe started me on simple tasks first. She
would light a candle and have me blow it out by causing the air to
move like wind and then she would have me remove the air from the
space altogether. Making wind was as simple to me as blowing out a
lungful of air. Removing air was trickier.

I left the others
sorting through Solomon's bag of goodies and relaxed my sore body in
a well deserved tub. I would have gladly slept in the bathroom if the
bath water hadn't turned to ice, causing my teeth to chatter. Chloe
had started a fire in the main suite, and I haphazardly climbed into
bed in my favorite pair of pajamas.

The next morning I met
Violeta on the rooftop terrace to begin my fencing training. I felt
silly in the complete fencing outfit while she wore a cute sports bra
with matching yoga pants. It was clear that she had no fear of being
injured on the first day of class.

We went through the
basics of the sport for the first few hours and I realized why
Violeta was dressed as she was. There was no contact whatsoever while
I learned how to hold the sword properly. She tied one end of a rope
around my waist and the other to a 45 lb weight and forced me to
advance until I was soaking wet with sweat.

By lunch the only thing
that kept me from falling on my face was that fact that we had an
audience. Chloe had arrived an hour into my training and had been
joined by Zander, Tabitha and Jordan. They sat there giving me thumbs
up and looks of encouragement. I removed my fencing mask and laid my
sword on the mat at my feet before walking over to greet them.

“
Good
job, Sis”, Jordan said with a crooked smile. “You look
like you have the hang of it.”

“
She’s
doing okay considering she knew nothing beforehand. But she has to
get quicker feet if she is going to stand a chance in a fight.”

Violeta came up behind
me with her hands on her hips, looking at my feet and shaking her
head. Zander handed her a salad and she sat next to him to eat.
Tabitha, who I realized had been missing in action for a few days,
removed the lid from a huge chicken Caesar salad and held it out for
me.

“
I
can’t fence. I’m no good at it,” I said around a
mouth full of lettuce. “I don’t even know why Efia
recommended it.”

“
It
will help you with your balance and agility. It will get easier, I
promise.”

I looked at Violeta as
if she had just killed my dog. She actually sounded sincere and
supportive. I looked at Tabitha in time to see her raise an eyebrow
in Violeta’s direction and felt satisfied in my assessment of
her character.

Zander extended his
hand to Violeta and pulled her to her feet. They walked toward the
middle of the room on the balls of their feet, with a slow deliberate
gait. Once they were in place, they released hands and backed away
from one another. The training facility was silent and every eye was
on the couple as Zander stepped toward Violeta in a graceful lunge.
She parried his approach with an elegant, one-footed sidestep and a
full turn. She placed her foot on his butt and deliberately pushed
him away. Zander, however, didn’t lose his balance, instead he
used the forward momentum to step farther away from her and thus
avoided a stab by her invisible sword. For 5 minutes the couple
executed a perfectly matched demonstration of what artful fencing
should be. They ended their match with the customary bows and a kiss
for good measure.

Shaking my head, I
turned my attention to Jordan.

“
So,
Jordan,” I began. “Do we have a plan? To attack Grigor
and get Mom back, I mean.”

“
We
have a plan. Now we just have to execute it. But you might be staying
home. Chloe is for sure.”

“
I
should be ready by then. I mean, except for me and fencing. And I
didn’t go through all of that training for nothing!”

“
Cheyenne,
since we have no concrete proof that Grigor is holding our mother
against her will, this isn't exactly a Council sanctioned mission.
For all intents and purposes, we are planning to ask for forgiveness
rather than permission. Grigor has far more people than we do so we
have to orchestrate this like a ballet.”

“
Yeah,
Grigor would be in heaven if he could defeat Efia’s
descendants. Or, better yet, capture one. But we're better than he
thinks.” Chloe had picked up my sword and was going through the
moves that I had just learned. She was better than me by far and I
began to wonder how long she had trained to be that good.

Lunch lasted about 30
minutes and I was forced to return to my rigorous training. After
going through the motions and stretching, Violeta allowed me to
return to my rooms to get cleaned up before dinner. Zander and Jordan
were going to finalized our plans and present them to Efia and a
select few Council Elders. I was still nervous about being in a room
with so many Vampires so Chloe and Tabitha had been preparing me for
the meeting.

“
The
first thing that you need to understand,” Tabitha began, “is
that you are royalty regardless of the status of the Council Elders.
They will bow to you, never the other way around.”

“
Are
there any Royals on the Council?”

“
No.
It would be a conflict of interest since Royals already have so much
influence.”

“
There
are twelve Council Elders, twelve Senators and approximately 100
Vampire Representatives. Tonight we are hosting only three Elders,
two Senators and twenty-five Reps. Each Vampire here tonight has
pledged their allegiance and fealty to the St. Clairs.”

Chloe joined us at the
large picture window. We had grown very close and I knew that she
could see the weight of Tabitha’s words on me. With her arms
around my waist, she squeezed just enough to push the breath that I
was holding out of my lungs.

“
Look,
Chey” Chloe said, looking up at me. “I know this is a
really big deal for you, but it is your life now. We have
responsibilities to our subjects and the region in which we rule. The
fortunate thing is that neither one of us is next in line to rule.”

We laughed at Chloe’s
joke; the ice successfully broken. I still didn’t understand
how all of the families became Royal in the first place, and the fact
that the Stewards and Fare treated me like I was a Princess unnerved
me.

“
So,
do you think the Council members will try to discourage our mission
to rescue our mom?”

“
No.
Grigor has lived outside of the Council’s laws for too long.
They know how much Efia hates Grigor and she has every right to.”
Tabitha said.

“
Why?
Why does she hate him so much? I mean, aside from the obvious?”
I still had questions about that.

Chapter 11

“
Grigor
and Efia are kind of related. She was Embraced shortly after she gave
birth to her daughter. She wasn’t given a choice, but she had
lost so much blood that her Sire desired her to live.”

“
So,
he saved her?”

“
No,
not personally. But his obsession with her bloodline made a choice
necessary.”

“
What
type of choice? To be Embraced or not?”

“
Chey,
wow, it's not that simple. You see, Efia didn't want her descendants
to be cattle and was considering death...for her and her child. Her
Sire changed her mind and promised to help protect her descendants,”
Tabitha was looking at me with a mixture or sorrow and strength.
Hopefully the strength would rub off on me sometime in the near
future.

“
Let’s
start over. Grigor is sick. He always has been and becoming a Vampire
was a cruel joke played on him but it back fired.”

Grigor's story was more
interesting than any book or movie I had ever heard of. He was the
son of a minor nobleman in 14th century Europe. His family lived in
and ruled a small village of Zarozje in what is now Serbia. Like most
minor nobility, Grigor and his father, Vladimir, thought much more
highly of themselves than was due their position. The people of the
village hated them and revolted the year Grigor was born. Lord
Vladimir Oleander, Grigor’s father, hired the best mercenaries
money could buy and quickly put the rebels down.

One day, when Grigor
was one year old, his mother took him out into the garden for a
picnic lunch with some high society women. After only minutes in the
sun, little Grigor’s skin began to redden and bubble. Lady
Oleander was horrified and ashamed that she had caused her child to
come to harm and immediately sent for the village physician. The
examination took hours as little Grigor was poked and prodded within
an inch of his life. He had burns everywhere the sun’s rays had
touched his skin and the damage was almost irreparable.

For years, Lord
Vladimir Oleander blamed his wife for the burns on his only son. That
summer, a traveling medicine man came into town. He saw Grigor in the
market place with the servants and wondered why the boy’s face
was covered with a veil. When he was told it was due to a childhood
accident, the medicine man asked if he might examine the boy himself.
Lord Oleander invited the man to his residence and watched closely as
he tested the boy’s blood.

Although it would
remain nameless until the 1800s, the blood disease was known by many
nomadic people. Porphyria, a rare disease, causes the inflicted to be
sensitive to the sun and have tight, receding skin among other
symptoms. Caused by genetic markers that effect the production of
Heme in red blood cells, Porphyria is purely genetic. Lord Vladimir
Oleander assumed that his son had inherited the disease and
immediately accused his wife of infidelity, sentencing her to death.
Once word spread of the nature of the disease, the villagers began to
gossip. Since the symptoms of the disease were similar to the
description of a monstrous predator to the East, the rumors began
that Lady Oleander had been seduced and impregnated by a Vampire.
Lord Vladimir Oleander was warned not to kill his wife and risk
offending the monster, so Lady Oleander and her ladies were sent to
live in the countryside.

As Grigor grew, so did
the rumors about his biological father. Grigor used these stories to
his advantage. He seldom ventured out during the day and never drank
from clear containers, creating the illusion that he was drinking
blood from his goblet. None of the villagers gave Grigor any trouble
out of a respect that was born of fear. It was perfect for the
arrogant son of a minor noble.

News spread eastward of
a young Lord who was rumored to be the son of a blood sucking
monster. There were so many stories in so many villages that it
reached a small village in Bucharest by the time Grigor was 21 years
old. This village was the home of the Council, the Vampiric governing
body, and they were not very happy. Many centuries prior the Council
had decided that the best way to ensure the safety of Vampires was to
either convince people that they did not exist or to create
circumstances in which you could easily prove you were not a Vampire.

In the 14th century it
was hard to convince people that the things that go bump in the night
weren’t real. Without electricity or any other modern
convenience, people of that time had a lot of time to read, think and
tell stories. So The Council began the tedious task of attaching
false characteristics and attributes to the Vampire. One fallacy was
the exaggerated sensitivity to the sun. Vampire skin, like anyone
else, would burn if exposed to UV rays for any extended period of
time, but the Council wove a tale of immediate combustion if the sun
touched a Vampire. And, to further divide the monstrous image from
the Vampire of reality, the Council promoted the thin-skin and long
canine attributes. Although Vampires do have slightly longer canines
than humans, the monsters that the Council introduced had long
extended canines that retracted at will.

The Council even
produced examples of these monsters. One year while traveling, a
young Vampire encountered a family infected with Porphyria with
members who died from their disease and were left to bake in the sun.
He carried the corpses back to the Council and the lie was born. Now,
just as Vampires had seen many years of peace from persecution, this
young Lord Oleander, afflicted with the Vampire disease, was drawing
unwanted attention to them. He had employed a physician who made an
ointment allowing the Lord to walk in the sunlight for short periods
of time, thus dispelling a major part of the myths. He would have to
be dealt with.

The Council sent their
best warriors and a Vampire princess to the Oleander village. They
had no trouble posing as a Lady with her escorts and quickly gained
the attentions of the young Lord. Grigor was so arrogant that he
summoned the princess to his residence and proceeded to boast about
his rumored heritage in front of her guards. He even went as far as
suggesting that the princess would insure the safety of her people by
spending the night in his bed.