Authors: Tessa Dawn
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Dark Fantasy, #Romance
Blood Destiny
by Tessa Dawn
she wasn't accustomed to complete strangers speaking to her so intimately. To heck with it. She took a bite of her eggs and waited for an answer.
Colette flashed an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry—how rude of me. My mate, Kristos, grew up with Nathaniel. They attended the University in Europe together. We have been close friends for the last couple of years, ever since...well, let's just say that I was in the exact same position you're in now, not so long ago."
Now this caught Jocelyn's attention. "You're human?"
Colette's light blue eyes turned lighter still, softening beneath the dim, recessed lighting that hung above the bar.
She smiled warmly. "I was human...like you."
Jocelyn shivered and continued to eat her breakfast.
Despite her hesitation to be friendly, the food was delicious, and she was grateful that someone had taken the time to cook for her.
Colette continued speaking. "The truth is, while I don't know you personally, I do have my own understanding of what you're going through." She looked off into the distance.
"And I still remember how afraid I was at the time, how many questions I had." She softened. "It's a lot to come to terms with all at once."
The woman had Jocelyn's full attention—how could she not? She sat up, tucked her hair behind her ear, and looked intently into Colette's eyes, studying her for signs of truth.
"So, you're saying that you were just like me. You were completely unaware of...vampires...when suddenly, one 159
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appeared right out of the blue, scared the living daylights out of you, and then kept insisting that you belonged to him?"
She whispered the word vampires as if merely saying it out loud could get her locked up in a dungeon somewhere.
Colette nodded and leaned forward. "Exactly like you. And I have to tell you, I didn't take it nearly as well as you are right now. Not in the beginning, anyhow. And I already knew Kristos when everything happened."
Jocelyn finished her orange juice, sat back and considered Colette's words. At least she had a law enforcement background and was no stranger to danger or frightening situations. Something like this must have been hell on someone as soft-natured as Colette. She leaned forward again. "Colette, what would really happen if I tried to escape?"
Colette didn't flinch. "You wouldn't be safe, Jocelyn." She lowered her voice. "There are fates far worse than whatever you fear with Nathaniel right now." She frowned and took Jocelyn's hand, rubbing it empathetically. "And the plain truth is—you probably wouldn't get very far. Between Nathaniel, Marquis, Kagen, and the sentinels, you would be back here faster than you could say your name three times." She sighed. "I know it's not what you want to hear, but it is the truth: Escaping is just not an option."
Jocelyn lowered her head and closed her eyes as the reality of her predicament began to sink in all over again.
It just couldn't be true.
This just couldn't be happening.
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Only days before, she had been packing for a trip to the valley, safely unaware, at her home in San Diego. Although it wasn't much of one by some people's standards, she had established a comfortable, routine life.
She had her job. Her elderly next-door neighbor, Ida, whom she often looked after. And her beloved aquarium filled with rare, tropical fish...which had taken her years to acquire.
Oh God, she thought, my fish are all going to die if I don't get back at the end of the week.
It seemed an utterly crazy thing to think about—all other things considered—but the point was: She had been a normal person with a normal life, and now her entire world was about to change, and she was helpless to stop it. The sheer enormity of the situation threatened to overwhelm her.
"Jocelyn..." Colette's voice was compassionate.
Jocelyn looked up.
"Right now, this feels like your worst nightmare. Believe me...I know. But I wouldn't be surprised if you look back one day and see this as the best thing that ever happened to you." She patted her on the shoulder. "Here, let me get you another cup of coffee."
Colette rose from the sturdy knotted-pine bar stool, an exact match to the custom kitchen cabinets, and poured Jocelyn a second cup of coffee before returning to the breakfast bar, carrying a small tray with cream and sugar on it.
Jocelyn sighed and shook her head in frustration. "I don't think so, Colette." She frowned. "Look, I get that you love your husband. And you obviously think a lot of Nathaniel, or 161
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you wouldn't be doing this, but you don't know anything about me."
Colette ran her hand through her hair, the soft, medium-length tresses bouncing back and forth in response to the motion. "I don't have to know you, Jocelyn. I know the Omen, and I know what it means." She paused, as if searching for the right words. "Jocelyn, you are Nathaniel's destiny—just as he is yours. That means that fate decreed this long before you were born. And whether it happened now, a year from now, or ten years from now, your heart would've searched for his forever." There was deep conviction in her voice. "Vampire or not, his soul completes yours."
Jocelyn frowned and turned away. "How romantic," she smirked. Somehow, she just wasn't getting into the whole fairy-tale thing.
Colette was not deterred. "Now then," she said in an upbeat voice, "whether you agree or disagree with what I'm telling you, you should still take advantage of this chance to ask some questions, because you probably won't get another one before—" Her voice abruptly broke off.
"Before what?" Jocelyn asked.
Colette smiled warmly. "Before you and Nathaniel come together."
Jocelyn winced, feeling suddenly light-headed. She added a spoonful of sugar to her coffee, took a sip, and looked away as she collected her thoughts. She was a detective and a darn good one. Someone with reliable instincts and inborn intuition. Colette was absolutely right about one thing: The more information she had, the better.
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She sighed and tried to distance herself from the situation.
Setting her coffee mug down on the counter, she turned to face Colette squarely. "What exactly are these creatures?"
she asked, sounding more courageous than she felt.
Colette smiled. "They are...we are...precisely what Nathaniel told you."
Jocelyn rested her elbows on the counter. "Then tell me more about vampires—because I'm still not sure if Nathaniel is a monster, a man, or something between. I just know that he has way too much power."
Colette folded her hands in her lap. "Not a monster—of that much, you can be certain. But not a man, either, at least not as you've come to know men. Nathaniel is a male who possesses both light and shadow. He's capable of amazing good, but..." She let out a deep breath. "He's also capable of dealing out harsh retribution and violence when necessary: The sons of Jadon are always trying to balance the two energies." She leaned forward. "In my opinion, the hearts of the Light Ones are good—very good—but their natures are wild."
"Light Ones?" Jocelyn asked. "Sons of Jadon?"
"Yes..." Colette's smile was infinitely patient. "There are two kinds of vampires, Jocelyn, and they both descended from a very powerful line of magical beings—human, but more. The Light Ones are the descendants of Jadon—" There was a sudden catch in her voice. "And I believe you had the misfortune of seeing one of the Dark Ones last night, a descendant of Jaegar."
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Jocelyn shuddered. "The creature in the chamber.
Nathaniel told you about that?"
Colette nodded. "He wanted us to speak freely." She absently brushed a few grains of sugar off the counter into her open palm and dumped them onto the tray. "The vampire you saw was Valentine Nistor." She cringed then. "Trust me, there's nothing good in one like him. He is definitely a monster."
Jocelyn nodded. There was no argument there. "What he did to that poor woman...." She held her hands over her stomach. "Why did that baby claw its way out of her body like that? She seemed so human."
Colette rubbed her arms like she was suddenly cold. "I've never actually seen the ritual of the Dark Ones. In fact, I think you're the first one who ever has...so maybe Nathaniel would be the better person to ask." She sighed. "But what I do know is this: The Dark Ones are more like reptiles than humans; they genetically reproduce their own offspring. In other words, they don't require women to create life; they just use them as hosts to support it."
"Hosts?" Jocelyn blanched. "You mean like an incubator?"
Colette nodded. "Exactly—just a warm place for the child to grow." She shifted restlessly in her seat. "From what I hear, they treat the host environment like a shell...they hatch...like out of an egg." She shuddered. "Blessed Mother, that must have been a horrific thing to witness."
Jocelyn didn't reply: There were no words, and Colette seemed to understand. A morbid silence hovered between them for what seemed like an eternity before Jocelyn finally 164
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spoke again. "So, tell me how you met Kristos." She needed to stay focused.
Colette sighed. "When I met Kristos, I was in Dark Moon Vale on a river rafting trip, and he was our guide." Her eyes lit up like sparklers. "I'm not gonna lie—I thought he was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen, and honestly, I still do." She looked away and blushed.
Jocelyn thought about Nathaniel then: his stunning features and his rock-hard body. "Yeah, they're definitely...gorgeous." The admission irritated her. "But then, that's hardly the point."
"True." Colette nodded, losing the nostalgia. She flashed a knowing smile and went back to her story. "On the last night of our trip, we stayed up late talking around the campfire. It was already a beautiful night, so you can imagine how stunned I was when I saw the sky change like that."
"Like last night?" Jocelyn asked.
"Exactly...the black sky, the blood moon...everything. Only Kristos's constellation is Lacerta."
Colette held out her wrist, and Jocelyn leaned forward to study the odd pattern of zigzag lines and mystical markings, all formed in the shape of a lizard. She looked down at her own wrist then, studying it closely for the first time. "What do the markings mean?"
Colette reached out and ran her finger over Jocelyn's arm.
"They mean that out of hundreds of years and millions of people, you were the one chosen for Nathaniel...." She leaned forward. "You know, the hardest thing for me was coming to understand that one simple point: the divinity of it all.
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Understanding that Kristos had not chosen my fate any more than I had chosen his. It just was. And since he didn't make it happen, he couldn't make it un-happen." She rested her elbows on the bar. "If I can give you one piece of advice, Jocelyn—something to make it easier—it would be this: Don't blame Nathaniel for what's happening to you. He didn't create the circumstances any more than you did. And the truth of the matter is, it's happening to him, too. And he's probably just as scared...although he would never show it."
Jocelyn sat back in her chair, carefully considering Colette's words. Somewhere deep inside of her, she felt the truth of them. Somewhere even deeper, she felt Nathaniel as if he were already a part of her. The power of those dark, sultry eyes, the fierceness of his passion when he looked at her, the flames that burned just beneath the surface of his touch. But it was all just...too much.
Overwhelming.
"What if I don't want it, Colette?" she whispered. "What if I don't want him?"
Colette shook her head reassuringly. "But you will, Jocelyn." She looked her deep in the eyes. "I know this sounds absurd to you now, but those marks on your wrist say more than I could ever say. Look, can you imagine a fish asking, What if I don't like water? Or a bird saying, what if I don't want to fly?"
Jocelyn frowned.
"You see my point, don't you?" Colette gently turned Jocelyn's wrist over and pointed to Cassiopeia. "You don't 166
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have to wonder...or try...to be who you are, Jocelyn. How could you possibly be anything else?"
Jocelyn took a deep breath. "Maybe, Colette—maybe—but I still need to know...." She forced herself to say the words:
"What will happen to me?—What will happen to him?—if I don't want it? Tell me the truth, Colette; what if I refuse?"
* * * *
Jocelyn was glad to get up. She followed Colette to the large picturesque window and curled up in the corner, staring idly down at the steep drop below.
Once they had both settled in, Colette led with a question:
"Did you ever study the ancient Aztec civilization?"
Jocelyn shrugged. "Yeah...I guess so. Why?"
Colette sighed. "Then you remember how obsessed their culture was with blood sacrifices, right?"
"Yes," Jocelyn answered. She wasn't sure she liked where this was going.
Colette took a deep, calming breath. "Well, a very long time ago, Kristos's and Nathaniel's ancestors did a very similar thing—they started sacrificing their females as an 167
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offering to the gods. I guess they wanted more power...more magic."
"More than they already had?" Jocelyn asked, incredulous.
"Apparently so," Colette replied. "At first, it started with the newborns, and then it progressed to the older girls—you know, the virgins—until after a while, there wasn't a single female left."