The Ties that Bind (The Forever series, Book Five) (7 page)

“Thank you. You are pretty, too,” I say with a smile and she
glows under my praise.

“If you are just friends, why were you kissing?” she asks in
that blunt way that only children have, as I seem to recall.

“It’s what friends do when they like each other,” I say at a
complete loss and cast a quick glance up at Xandra who is hiding her smile
behind her hand. She takes pity on me and says, “Come now, Xaria. Let us leave
the Queen and your uncle to their… business.” She says with a knowing look at
the two of us, “I will let Mother know you are here. She will want to see you
before you go.”

Xane holds his hand out to me and helps me rise. “Later,” he
mutters and she snickers. Leaving the room I can hear Xaria telling anyone who
will listen that Uncle Xane is kissing the Queen in his bedroom. Oh dear. This
is a disaster.

“You have no reason to be terrified. You would be a great
mother,” he says to me. Why do people keep telling me that? I would be a
dreadful, awful mother.

“Humph,” I say before he pulls me in for another lingering
kiss.

“Xane,” I say and pull away, my hand on his chest. “I’m not
doing this with you.”

“Yes, you are. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it,” he says
again.

“Feel what?”

“Our bond.”

“We don’t have a bond,” I say, hoping that is true.
Otherwise Constantine--never mind Cole--is going to have a freak out.

“Oh, yes we do. The ritual we performed tied us together. We
are one,” he says and cups my face with his hands and kisses me again, pushing
me back towards the bed. In spite of myself I get lost in his kisses and,
encouraged, he picks me up and lays me down on the bed. He takes off my shoes
and murmurs, “Why a pantsuit?” to himself as he goes about removing it from me.

“Xane,” I say again, sitting up. “I can’t do this.”

He ignores me and kneels in front of me and pushes me back
down as he inserts his tongue inside me with a low growl. Oh fuck, I think, as
I feel a rush of pleasure right where he is now licking me. “Xane,” I whisper,
pushing my hands into his hair to get him to move away, but instead he moves
closer, pushing his tongue deep inside me. He licks me and sucks on me up over
the shaven mound, up over my flat stomach to my breasts, which are now aching
to be touched. He licks roughly over my nipple and I cry out.

“Still want me to stop?” he murmurs huskily as he knows he
has me right where he wants me. I shake my head feeling the guilt but brushing
it aside to deal with later. In a magick move similar to my own he loses his
clothes and he is naked and ready on top of me. He clasps my hands and looks
into my eyes intently. “Do you feel it?” he whispers. And I do. I feel like I
am on fire. The good fire from yesterday’s ritual. It is racing through my
veins, heating me up. A clear knowledge of what we did enters my head and I
part my lips as I gasp. “You should have told me,” I say before he plunges his
mouth to mine and thrusts inside me. I start throbbing almost straight away but
it’s not like any other orgasm I have had before. The rush hasn’t come yet,
just this steady pulsing that matches my heartbeat, which matches his. I can
hear it. I lose myself in the steady pounding and I cry out as the wave of
pleasure hits me, like a red hot fire. “Oh fuck yes,” he murmurs. “It feels
right. It feels perfect. Show me,” he whispers. “Show me.”

Show him what, exactly? I form the thought before I roll us
over and straddle him. He grabs my hips. I move over him slowly, the link from
the Blood Magick ritual spurring me on. The most powerful of spells, amped up
by our Dragon and Demon lineage, performed correctly with good intent has
invariably bound us together forever. Not just in the way that Lance had his
Romani perform it, full of malice and bad intentions. This is more. More than
just if one of us dies, the other will too. It is if one of us dies, the other
won’t be able to live, won’t want to carry on living without the other. We are
two perfect halves, needing the other to be whole.

“Oh, Liv,” he groans as I speed up my movements, wanting
another release.

My mind sharpens and my focus becomes clearer. I grab him by
the throat and pull him up to me. He stares into my eyes in rapture as I see
mine reflected back as my Dragon eyes, only red, not green. I feel my hair
getting longer and it falls into my eyes like a heavy black curtain. It tickles
me down my back and my Dragon flutters in delight, the motion of Her wings
causing my hair to fly up in the sudden wind.

I hiss at him in a voice that most definitely is not my own,
“I am Xerxei of the House of Dracul. I am Mistress of this Domain. I claim you
as my own.”

He groans as I kiss him, his hands coming up to pull roughly
on my hair. “I accept your claim on me and I choose you,” he says and I feel
myself Shift back to Liv as I come around him again and he lets go. I have the
presence of mind--probably just a fraction too late--to quickly chant the curse
in my head, sounding it out like he said. Who knows if it is accurate, but this
is going to be bad enough to explain without me being overwhelmed with a batch
of baby Dragons and Demons. Oh fuck, Linc, I think with horror. What if? No, I
tell myself, it can’t be possible. My body just isn’t going to change to
suddenly be able to reproduce. It’s ridiculous.

We fall back to the bed in a heap, breathing heavily.

“Xerxei of the House of Dracul, eh?” he asks in half-wonder,
half-amusement. “My father will be pleased.”

I push the hair out of my eyes, somewhat embarrassed, as I
have no idea where that came from, “Why?”

“He always wanted a daughter named after him. My mother
would never let him. It’s clear why now. It wasn’t meant to be, as she was
saving it for you.”

“Daughter?” I ask, a bit worried.

“Well, not a daughter by blood, but by other means,” he says
with a wicked glint and I remember what he said: “I choose you.”

“Oh, Xane. No. No. This is…”

“Don’t say a mistake,” he interrupts me quietly. “It isn’t.
We belong together.”

“I belong to another,” I say, shaking my head. And another
after that. Get in line indeed, I think without a hint of modesty.

“For now,” is all he says.

I climb off him and get dressed, slipping my shoes on when
there is a knock at the door. Xanthe opens it without waiting for an answer and
I thank god I am fully clothed now and not naked and straddling her son. He,
however, is still naked on the very crumpled bed and I’m sure my hair is a
tangled mess.

“Mother,” he snaps, pulling the covers over him. “Wait until
you are bid,” he adds with authority, which has me raising my brows at him and
his mother inclining her head in apology. Well, I suppose he is Overlord. Even
a mother has to respect that.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” she says to me. “I don’t mean to
intrude, but there is an unexpected guest and I wondered to the cause.” She
looks between me and Xane and the rumpled bed and adds, “I see now why.” She
tries to hide her pleased look but doesn’t succeed very well.

“Who is here?” Xane snaps at her.

She crosses to the windows and pulls the half-drawn curtains
open. The window panes on either side of the stained glass are clear and I can
see out for the first time. The sky is the same orange as the Dragon Realms
with rumbling black clouds overhead. I move closer, curious about the mystery
guest. Xane, now also dressed, stands behind me and I turn to him. Oh crap. We
glance at each other. This is going from bad to worse.

“Tiamat,” Xane breathes and I heave a big sigh.

We make haste down the stairs and Xane pulls open the heavy
wooden door. I adjust my clothing, straightening the cuffs of my jacket as I
have seen Constantine do a thousand times when he is uncomfortable, and
smoothing down the legs of my pants. I fluff out my hair and I think briefly if
I should change but Xane hurries me outside with a hand under my elbow. He
leads me through a very strange garden of black bushes the likes I have never
seen before, but then I suppose I wouldn’t have, really. We go through a black
rose garden, very pretty, and into an area that is enclosed by a small wall,
but is still big enough for a Dragon to land.

And she does. Swooping down in front of us, nearly knocking
us back with the force of her wing beat, she lumbers forward and drops her head
to glare at us standing there, Xane’s hand still on my elbow. He lets me go and
she huffs gently and she transforms into me, right down to my rings and the
Hellfire necklace. I don’t know why she does this, but the last two times I
have seen her in human form she has adopted the exact same look as me. Maybe to
intimidate me, as it is very unnerving, I wonder idly, as she smooths down her
suit much like I did and adjusts her jacket. She stands in front of us with far
more poise and grace than I claim to have and her authority is clear. Empress
of the Dragon Realms and Underworld.

“
ValamAtrux
,” she says and I incline my head.

“Mother,” I say. She insists I call her that.

“Xane,” she glowers at him.

“Tiamat,” he bows low and she nods at him. “It’s good to see
you again,” he says with a charming smile and she smiles slowly, seductively
almost, as she replies, “And you.” She looks between the two of us and we
shuffle uncomfortably under her steely gaze.

“I am pleased that you have made acquaintance, finally,” she
says, the last word clearly a reprimand at me. “But I am not altogether certain
this is the best course of action,” she says and points to us both.

Me either, I have to agree.

“It is done,” Xane says boldly. “The ritual had to be done
and it has drawn us closer, far beyond what anyone could have predicted. We
belong together,” he adds and I frown at him.

What the fuck is he doing? Does he want us both dead and
buried in this here garden?

She narrows her eyes at him in undisguised fury. “She
belongs to someone else.” She is very defensive of Cole for some reason. I
think maybe because he was her last hope of ever getting me back to my rightful
place.

“Maybe so, but Blood Magick won’t be denied, Tiamat. You
know how powerful it is.”

“Indeed,” she muses.

“Especially with us,” he presses.

Us? Us, me and him, or us, a Dragon and a Demon?

“I am aware of the connection between our kinds, young Draconis,”
she hisses at him but he doesn’t falter. “Leave me to speak with my daughter,”
she dismisses him. He hesitates but makes the decision to kiss me and murmurs,
“I will be close by.”

I nod briefly, but I’m not worried…much. She is my mother,
after all.

She waits for him to go out of earshot and turns back to me.
She takes my hands and says, “
ValamAtrux
.” She purses her lips, “Be
wise, my child.”

I wait, expecting more, but there is no more.

“I’m trying,” I say sullenly. “Things just happen.”

“Poor reasoning, my dear. Everyone makes choices. You make
bad choices. You are too ruled by your Vampire side. You need to suppress it.
Now! Bring your true nature to the forefront. You are a Dragon. You need to
start acting like one,” she scolds. Her wrath at me and my bad choices is
evident and I gulp. Well fuck me if that’s not me just told. Even Constantine
doesn’t have the ability to make me feel like a small child being told off
anymore.

“How am I supposed to do that?” I ask. “I am a Vampire. I
have been one for over a thousand years. I can’t just suppress it on a whim.”

“You can, and you will,” she snaps at me.

“Then tell me how,” I say, getting annoyed. “I am tired of
being in the dark and expecting to just know how things work and how to do
things and who people are.”

“The only way to learn is by doing,” she says and I sigh.

“I have to be a Vampire, I have to feed on blood. Even more
so now. I can’t change that and the consequences of abstinence are not pretty.”

“You can change that. Use your Dragon to sustain you. You
don’t need the blood,
ValamAtrux
.”

“Then show me how. I can’t be who you want me to be without
a bit of guidance. Show me and I will.”

She thinks it over and eventually seeing that I clearly need
all the help I can get, sighs and lets go of my hands and holds hers out, palms
down. “Put yours under mine,” she instructs me. I do.

“Dragons feed off energy. Try.”

By doing what? But I know this is all I am going to get from
her, the rest is up to me.

I concentrate, drawing on the spell from the Grimoire for
instruction with a few minor twists to make it a more positive experience. An
inky black glow that is my signature essence rolls out of my hands and pulls
out her silvery glow, absorbing it before sinking back into my palms.

I was hungry before, needing blood, but now I feel just
fine. Better than fine. Great, even. I smile with pride and she says gruffly,
“A bit rough around the edges but at least you can manage it.”

Gee, such praise.

“Who can I do this with?” I ask, a necessary question.
Wouldn’t do to end up killing or hurting someone I love.

“Anyone. As with blood, the stronger the being, the more you
can take.”

“Will they feel it? Feel drained?”

“Not as long as you take small doses. You realize the danger
of this, yes? It is powerful magick, capable of killing.”

“Yes, that is why I need to know the limits.”

She nods, pleased with my foresight. “Once you have become
used to getting your energy this way, you will cease to need blood and your
Vampire self can rest. It is time now for the Dragon to rule. You need to
enforce your Power, your authority, your birthright.” She smacks her fist into
her palm and again I gulp and nod. Christ, a whole new me. Yikes.

“What about the Demon?”

“She has shown herself?” Tiamat asked, surprised.

“Yes. Xerxei of the House of Dracul,” I cringe even as I say
it.