Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (16 page)

With that, the
Magistrate released my wrist and stood. He wiped a small droplet of
blood from his mouth and gave me a closed mouth smile while his eyes
changed from black to their original eerie sea blue. Zander and
Jordan placed a hand on each of my elbows to steady me and returned
me to my seat. Out of breath and a little bit grossed out, a sideways
glance confirmed that Chloe was shaken as well. We would talk later.

The Magistrate remained
standing and directed his attention to the rear of the room where
Efia and my other family members sat. He nodded slowly in their
direction and then nodded towards the seated members of the Council,
I assumed in affirmation of my DNA match. This was the last obstacle
between me and my Embrace. Now the path was clear for me to be turned
into a Vampire.

Chapter 13

The next few days
were a blur of activity. The Stewards made plans and packed suitcases
and trunks. Everyone was excited about our trip to Sanguine Township
Island, the place where the Stewards and Fare live. Once there, I
would select my Fare; a decision that had me completely conflicted.

We arrived at the
hanger of the small airport in full force. There were seven black on
black SUVs with blacked out windows and flags on the fenders like
diplomats use. The Stewards were in the first, middle and last
vehicles for maximum security. This was apparently a rite of
passage, because Efia and Pleasant were traveling together. Solomon
had usually taken precautions that they kept their distance from one
another like the President and the Vice President; in case one was
killed the other could rule.

The pit in my stomach
opened wider when I saw the jet that we would be flying on. I hated
to fly even though it afforded you certain luxuries. I had asked Efia
to drug me like they did B.A. Baracus in that A-Team movie but she
refused, saying that I would regret not having the experience. I
wasn’t so sure.

As we jumped out of the
vehicles, I knew that we had been followed and were being watched.
Tabitha and Chloe must have felt it too, because, in unison, we all
turned to look out of the hanger door into the bright sunlight.
Whoever was out there was concealed by the waves of heat coming off
of the tarmac and the smell of melting asphalt. I looked at Chloe and
wondered if this trip would be safe for her and contemplated asking
Efia to send her back to the compound. As if reading my mind, which I
wouldn’t doubt was an attribute she possessed; Chloe looked me
directly in the eyes and shook her head. This girl was amazing;
amazingly stubborn.

As I was led past two
of the three aircraft being loaded, I noticed how the airport
employees kept their distance from our group. I had begun to wonder
just how Efia and the rest of the family dealt with their little
secret in the real world and realized that the answer was an age old
solution: money. I watched as Solomon handed the foreman a thick
manila envelope that no doubt was filled with cash. Money might not
be able to buy you happiness but it sure was buying Efia a little bit
of privacy.

We boarded our plane
and found seats. I was told that we were flying on a G650 and that it
was the best private jet currently being made in the world. My
concern was not in the manufacturing of the machine, however, but in
the weather that I had convinced myself was going to force us out of
the air. I had seen an episode or two of LOST and I wasn’t
excited about this trip.

I followed Chloe up the
steps of our plane and looked around the spacious interior as others
boarded. So, this was the famous G6 that all of the rappers talk
about. Not bad. I was sitting in a plush white leather chair with an
adjustable lumbar and massage feature. There was burl wood on every
hard surface and it shone to a gloss. There were multiple flat
screens mounted around the cabin but all were currently blank. I
wondered if we were all going to be watching the same in house movie
or possibly an infomercial on the benefits of selecting your own
dinner. I really hated having to go on this trip.

Everything about the
Embrace was foreign to me. I mean, Vampires? Really? But, I had been
around them for the past few months and had no doubt that I was not
asleep and that my life and the lives of those I loved were in
immediate danger. So, I had to suck it up, no pun intended.

I tore my attention
from the gorgeous interior of the jet as the Fare boarded and took
their seats. It must be a treat for them to go back to visit their
families. The Vampire to Fare relationship wasn't unlike that of a
Lord and Peasant in the feudal system, except that the Fare quite
literally feed the Vampires. It still amazed me that they thought it
to be a great honor to be chosen.

On board with us today
were the female Fare belonging to Efia, Pleasant and Tabitha. Chloe
and I were to select ours during this visit. It was unusual that
someone as young as Chloe would select her Fare that early but we
were living in unusual times. If something happened to me, Chloe was
next in line to be targeted by Grigor and would need to be Embraced
immediately. It seemed that her fate hinged on my actions. No
pressure.

Jeannette, Efia’s
Fare, was sitting across the aisle from me. She was a gorgeous girl
with auburn hair and silver colored eyes. She had been with Efia for
the past 50 years but didn’t look a day over 25. Her family had
a long history with supplying Fare to members of the Council and she
was anxious to introduce me and Chloe to her family’s
prospects. Pleasant’s Fare was named Lucinda and she was the
opposite of Jeannette. Her jet black hair and olive skin made her
look like an Egyptian goddess. She carried herself with a humbleness
that increased her beauty and I believed that it caused the other
Fare to be jealous of her.

Lucinda was from a
Lower Caste family in the Fare Caste system. It was a complicated
matter of being the product of a forbidden union. Love children
amongst the Fare were outcasts and getting selected as Pleasant’s
Fare had been a coup for Lucinda’s parents and grandparents.
Lucinda had no hopes that either Chloe or I would choose her family
member, but I wasn’t so sure. Chloe loved Lucinda and I
believed that there was another coup in the works.

The stairs to the
Gulfstream G650 were raised and the captain began to make his
announcements about safety and weather conditions taxi. I leaned over
Chloe to glance out of the window in time to see the Stewards, led by
Solomon, go to investigate something at the far end of the runway.
Tabitha was looking as well and I knew that there had been a sighting
of Raphael or another one of Grigor’s clan. The look on
Tabitha’s face confirmed it.

“
Why
do you always keep things from me? It’s not like I don’t
know that they are after my blood…literally.”

“
Sorry.
Efia didn’t want you to be any more nervous about the flight.”

I glanced toward the
front of the plane and saw Efia look in my direction. There had been
many times over that past few months that I had wanted to hate her
for the position she put Tabitha in. She forced her to keep secrets
and deceive me all while being my best friend. But, like everyone
else in the compound, I loved Efia and believed that she had my best
interest in mind. With a smile and a nod in my direction, she turned
back to her conversation with Pleasant and left me to wonder who
Grigor had sent this time.

Chapter 14

I had plenty of down
time during the flight to do my homework. Efia had instructed Solomon
to pack a truncated history of Vampires that included their origins
and the explanations of the clans or families that they were
separated into. Even though I wasn’t quite 18 years old yet, I
began to wonder how Vampires had kept themselves hidden from me all
of these years. The way they moved was so graceful that it should
have been a red flag when I met Tabitha. I mean, who can walk that
well in the heels she had been wearing? At any rate, I started with
the first book in the case. I figured I would need to know about the
clans and the politics that surrounded them more than anything else.
I was, after all, going to meet the heads of each clan in a matter of
hours.

There were five royal
families that served as the head of each clan. This particular volume
did not go into how each family became royal, just that they were. It
was the typical creation myth writing style…this is true
because you are reading it. Don’t ask any questions.

Each clan had a
specific attribute which made them different from the others. The
royal families, after much thought, had deemed it necessary to keep
each clan separate from one another. It was illegal for different
clan members to marry without the permission of the Council.
Apparently there was an issue of too many children born with mixed
attributes. Some of these unions produced bright and powerful
offspring while others produced beings that needed to be locked away
or destroyed entirely.

I was shocked to read
the matter of fact way in which the Council had ordered the deaths of
so many mixed Vampire babies. It was not regarded as murder or
manslaughter but simply disposing of something undesirable. Chloe had
warned me that I was going to read some things that I found
unpleasant…that was an understatement. I was relieved to read
that this practice had been frowned upon in the recent years due to
the advancements in medicine. The offspring, however, were looked
down upon until they reached maturity and it was determined if they
could be a viable part of society. This made me think of Solomon. His
mixed heritage had been hard on him but he had been highly sought
after and any of his children will be as well.

Solomon was the product
of a Steward and a Vampire. His father, a Steward, had fallen in love
with his Vampire Patron from the moment he met her. He tried to keep
his love for her a secret but she could tell by the way he looked at
her. Her parents did their best to keep them apart but she turned out
to be the most powerful Vampire of her clan at the time. Solomon’s
mother had been born into the Castellano clan but she was not an
Achanum Vampire.

Achanum Vampires, or
Mutes, have no attributes whatsoever. Of course they are stronger
than humans, Stewards and Fare, but they are weaker than an
adolescent from any of the other clans. This lack of attribute made
the clan even more dangerous than the others. They became ruthless,
abusive and unpredictable. Their Stewards were trained to be a
militia rather than servants while their Fare were treated like
slaves. Some of them even captured and drained Vampires from other
clans in order to gain their attributes. This practice had been the
catalyst for the clan’s civil war. They are only still alive
because they signed a treaty with the Council.

Solomon’s mother
had been born to two Mute Vampires after the war. It was not until
she reached the age of 10 that they realized she had latent
attributes. It began when she was able to lift items that her father
couldn’t. Then her mother noticed she was getting away with
things at school that the other kids were not allowed to. It turned
out that Solomon’s mother had been born with two separate
attributes; strength and compulsion.

Her parents kept it a
secret until she was 18 and only because it was becoming too obvious
that she was different. The Castellanos wanted her to marry into
their family of Royals to enhance their standing with the Council but
she was already in love with her family Steward. When they threatened
to have him killed, Solomon’s mother compelled the Castellano
Prince to walk to the edge of a cliff in order to jump. The King and
Queen were so distraught when they saw their son walking toward his
death that they agreed to leave the couple alone if they would just
leave the clan. So, she released the Prince from her compulsion just
feet before he would have jumped and ran off with her Steward.

After Solomon was born,
the Castellanos invited them to come back to the clan but they
refused. They had chosen to live on North Sentinel Island with the
Stewards and Fare. Feeling shunned, the Castellanos sought to become
Solomon’s patrons until Efia stepped up. By virtue of her
attributes and favorable standing, she had been the first to choose a
Steward that year and Solomon's family was overjoyed. But the
Castellanos had resented her for it.

The Castellanos
resented all of the other clans. Deemed the lowest caste by virtue of
having no attributes, the Castellanos were at the mercy of the
Council. Although they had the same amount of members on the Council,
their lack of attribute also meant the others had less respect for
them. Their only chance at notoriety and power was to drain a Vampire
with attributes, which was illegal, or to marry into a family with an
attribute. The last time they had an opportunity for such a union, my
brother Zander got in the way.

Violeta came to the
attention of the Council after she had been found by a Council
member. She and her twin brother were nearly starving, having not fed
for almost a year. They had been the heirs to the Miklos royal family
and were strict adherers to the feeding laws. Without their own Fare
the two of them often went without. After eight months of running
from their pursuers, the twins were found in the Carpathians
Mountains. When the Council held an emergency session to select a
suitable family to foster the pair, the Castellanos made every effort
to win the honor. When the decision was made that the young Royals
would be fostered by the St. Clairs, there was so much animosity that
the Council feared another civil war would break out.

The Castellanos
appealed the decision stating that Efia was unfit to care for the
twins based on the threat that Grigor posed to her. This argument
would have had more weight if it had not been rumored that the
Castellanos were the Vampires pursuing the twins through the
mountains in the first place. Every other Vampire clan stood behind
the Council’s decision and made it clear that any threat to the
St. Clairs would be met with certain annihilation.