Son of Our Blood

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WCP

World Castle Publishing

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright
© Kathi S. Barton 2013

ISBN:
9781938961977

First
Edition World Castle Publishing March 1, 2013

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover:
Karen Fuller

Photos:
Shutterstock

Editor:
Brieanna Robertson

Chapter 1

He felt his fangs sink deep and in the
back of his mind he knew that he’d gone too far, too deep into her vein for it
to be good. But the blood was. Warm, it poured down the back of his throat as
he drank greedily from her. Even as she moaned, he felt the connection snap
into place, the connection of vampire to victim.

Drinking from her, he knew that this
wasn’t enough. There was more to be had from her and when she moved her ass
back against his cock, he felt himself grow hard, harder still. He sent her
erotic images, images of them together. Of him holding her high on his body and
fucking her hard against the wall behind them. And he could smell her now. She
was wet for him, needed him in ways she didn’t even understand. But still,
there was more.

“Come for me,”
he whispered
into her mind.
“Come for me and fill me with your spice.”
When her body
tensed for a full second then shuddered in release the hit to his system was
nearly as good as coming himself. The taste of her blood spiked up and he
moaned with pleasure. He pulled the knife from the back of his pants and ran it
along the pearl buttons down the front of her blouse. He cut them from the
fabric one at a time and heard the ping of them as they disappeared on the wet,
dirty concrete ground. Soon, her blouse was open for him and her breasts heaved
with need.

“I’m going to give you the ultimate gift,
my love.”
She moaned again and reached behind him and grabbed his cloth-covered cock. He
rocked hard into her had.
“You need to come again for me. Come hard so I can
give you what you so richly deserve.”

“Please,” she begged him. “Fuck me. Please
I want to feel you deep inside of me.”

He chuckled against her throat. Her body
grew weaker as he fed. He was nearly sated, but didn’t stop. The next spike to
her blood was what he wanted. Pressing the knife under her bra, he cut it open
and watched as her creamy flesh spilled from it. Hard nipples tightened as the
cool night air hit them. The blade in his hand nipped at her left breast as he
pulled away.

“You are mine, do you understand me?” She
nodded at him as she slumped against his body. “Mine.” Going back to her throat,
he bit her again, this time severing the vein. Her pulse stuttered a bit before
it began to slow. He took the tip of the knife and drew into her cooling flesh
and then put the tip to just above her heart.
“Mine,”
he said as he
drank and plunged the knife into her beating heart.

Mac woke with sweat pouring from his
body and his eyes wide open. His heart was pounding in his own chest as he
relived the dream. He knew every detail, every crack in the walls of the
buildings that hid them. He could see the dumpster and the dim light that hung
from the window above them. But what he could not see was the man or the woman.

“Son?”

Mac smiled at his father’s touch.

“Is it the dream again?”

Aaron MacManus was a great man, a well
loved vampire and a master of his realm. And he was Mac’s father. Mac stretched
back on the bed and answered his dad.
“I’m fine and, yes, it was the dream
again. Do you suppose I’ll ever not have this dream?”

He hoped so. Since he’d become what he
was now, over fifty years ago, he’d been having this same dream over and over. The
woman would change, she would be older at times, blond or brunette others. The
woman changed, but the circumstances did not. She died by the vampire that had
invaded his dreams since the first night he’d become a vampire.

“I don’t know. Have you any more
details? I can have Pete look again. Maybe there is something we’ve missed.”

 Mac didn’t doubt his father had all but
threatened Pete, the computer expert, to look into the women and the deaths. But
he also knew that she’d continue to find nothing, as he had nothing more to
give her.

“I don’t know, Dad. I wish I knew why he
was coming to me.”
Mac knew that what the man in his dreams was doing was real. The bodies of the
women had been turning up after his dream in a different part of the world
since the dreams started. Over seventy women now. And Mac had an idea that the
man didn’t know he was getting a front row seat to his murder.

“Come home.”
His dad begged
this every time.
“Your mother misses you and well…so do I. And Duncan asks
about you nearly every hour. He is taking classes at the local college to learn
how to cook.”

Mac laughed. Duncan was the sweetest man
he knew. Kind hearted as well as a little naive, Duncan was his father’s
manservant. But anyone who stayed long at the MacManus household knew that the
only true love of Duncan’s was Mac’s own mother Sara. Duncan would give her his
life if she asked it of him.

“I have some things to do here first. Something
more I have to finish and I’ll be home. But nothing has changed, Dad. I won’t
go to the castle again, not yet at any rate.”

“Of course. I’ll tell the family that
you’ll be home in a few days. Maybe Lizzy will come here as well. We’ll make an
event of it.”

After closing the connection to his
father, not even bothering to correct him that he’d never said a few days, Mac
got up to go to the bathroom. Turning on the light he looked at the stranger
staring back at him. Mac still looked twenty-five, but he also looked tired. Exhausted.
And he knew why.

The queen. She’d not done what he’d
begged her to do for him. And Mac had yet to forgive her. He knew that she’d
only done what she’d had to or, in this case, hadn’t done. But Mac had only
ever asked her for one thing and she’d turned him down. And when he’d left the
Castle of Molavonta in a fit of anger he’d told her and her mate Shamus that
he’d never return. And he hadn’t.

Not that he didn’t want to, but it had
been so long that now…well, now he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to. She’d
been so hurt and he’d done it to her. But he knew that he was right and that
she—

“I love you, dork. I would never deny
you my love. You’re my favorite vampire godson.”

He smiled at her, Queen Melody, Mistress
of Light, Keeper of Magic, or Aunt Mel to him, hadn’t contacted him in all this
time.

“When are you coming home?”

“According to my dad, in a few days. I’m
not so sure.” He continued to look in the mirror as he spoke, seeing the
beautiful woman as she shimmered faintly in the room. “Nothing has changed. I
still want what you refuse to give me.”

He felt her pain and was nearly moved by
it and almost said he was sorry, but he didn’t want the life he had. He
wanted…he wanted what Lizzy and Daniel had. He was full vampire with a great
deal of other mixed in. Neither Lizzy nor Daniel had to drink blood to survive
and they could both walk in the day.

“I cannot change what is written, Mac. I’ve
told you this before. You’re not a monster and the sooner you—” She wasn’t
really in the apartment with him, but more than likely in the castle that she
lived in. Her and her perfect little family.

“The sooner I accept it, the better
things will be for me. Yes, you’ve said this before.” He knew that he couldn’t
close the connection to her, but he could piss her off. Not smart when he
thought of who she was and what she could do to him, but that was the point. “I
would very much like it if you’d get out of my life. If you have no helpful
solutions to my problems then, as far as I’m concerned, you’re only adding to
them.”

She was suddenly in his bathroom. And he
didn’t bother to grab for his robe or even a towel, but turned fully naked to
look at her. He was clothed in seconds.

“Behave.” She sat on the tub’s edge and
he glared at her. “It will do you no good to be mad at me. I had nothing to do
with what you are. And, frankly, I’m sick to death of telling you that. Now. I
demand that you tell me about your dream.”

Mac raised a brow at her and then walked
out of the room. He was taking off his shirt again when he turned and saw her
sitting on the bed.

“I don’t do queenie shit. Now get out of
here before I call Shamus. He at least listens to me.”

She snorted.

“Go away. I told you before that—”

He was slammed against the opposite wall
so quickly that his breath was knocked from him. “Now you’ll listen to me. I’m
not going to be able to help you if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going
on. If I have to mind rape you to get it, I will. Now, spit it.”

He didn’t bother struggling, but stood
still. “It’s spill it, not spit it, and don’t tempt me to show you the
difference.” He felt her move into his mind. “You really will, won’t you? You’ll
take what you want and not give me a fucking thing in return.”

She stopped, pulling from his mind
almost immediately. “It never was like this for us, Mac. Don’t you remember? You
loved me at one time. Came to the castle and played with the animals there. I
love you.”

“Fuck off.” He turned his face away so
that she couldn’t see his hurt too. “I never wanted to stay alive by taking
from others. I want to be normal, I want to be able to work like others, go to
the beach like the—”

“Your mate is coming.”

That had him snapping his mouth closed.

“And the man that you dream about? He is
going to kill her and her children if you don’t stop him.”

“You lie. Vampires go for centuries
without finding their mates. You lie to get what you want.” She shook her head
at him and he was suddenly afraid. “Why? Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because the Fates have given me
permission to give you what you want. They have said that if you wish to meet
the sun they will allow you to do so. They won’t keep you from what you want. They
are doing this for me.”

He didn’t know what to say. He could end
this life and be finished with it. And Mel was handing it to him all tied up in
a neat bow. But she’d said his mate and her children were going to die. But if
he were dead then she’d—

“She’ll die at his hands, as will
hundreds more.” She moved to the chairs in his lair and nodded to him. He moved
to the other chair and sat. “He is the reason I’ve come here tonight. The woman
the humans find in the morning will be nothing to them but another dead woman
on the streets that kill so many.”

“And what is she to you?” he asked her
softly, hoping she’d say nothing to her as well, but she suddenly looked so sad
that he knew that she was something more.

“Her name was Kilia. Daughter to one of
my guard. She went missing about a year ago and today…when she died, that’s how
we knew where she’d gone. She’d come to this side. Her death will be a
sorrowful one for all of my kingdom.”

Mac knew his aunt was a compassionate
woman. A great queen. He didn’t much care for her, but he knew this about her. A
death to anyone she knew hurt her as badly as if the person were one of her own
children. He looked away again to think. “Why now? Because one of your own has
died, you suddenly decide that you’d go to them on my behalf?” He hated the way
he sounded and hated even more that if what she said was true, he would do what
she wanted.