Bond of Darkness Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE - NEW ORLEANS, MARDI GRAS, 1927

  TWO - NEW ORLEANS, ONE WEEK LATER

  THREE

  FOUR - SOUTHWEST TEXAS, FIFTY MILES FROM THE MEXICAN BORDER, APRIL, PRESENT DAY

  FIVE

  SIX - SAN LEANDRO, THE NEXT NIGHT

  SEVEN - A SMALL FARM TOWN NORTHEAST OF AUSTIN, TWO NIGHTS LATER

  EIGHT

  NINE - ALONG THE RIO GRANDE RIVER BETWEEN MEXICO AND TEXAS NEAR THE RIO OSO, ...

  TEN - COMPOSTELA RANCH, JULY 6

  ELEVEN - DPS HEADQUARTERS, JULY 10

  TWELVE - HALFWAY BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND BATON ROUGE, THE SAME NIGHT

  THIRTEEN - AUSTIN, JULY 19

  FOURTEEN - AUSTIN, JULY 26

  FIFTEEN - COMPOSTELA RANCH, THAT NIGHT

  SIXTEEN - DON RAFAEL’S GULFSTREAM JET, LOUIS ARMSTRONG INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ...

  SEVENTEEN - COMPOSTELA RANCH, THAT NIGHT

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  GLOSSARY

  Praise for BOND OF FIRE

  “Audacious . . . Blends European and American history into a shockingly heady brew . . . Whiteside merrily rampages through history and vampire lore, building an impressively sturdy and compelling narrative from the wreckage.”—Publishers Weekly

  BOND OF BLOOD

  “What do you get when you cross the Crusades, Texas, hot and steamy sex, and immortality? The first in a vampire romance trilogy by the master of erotic prose . . . [An] incredible, sensuous story.”—Booklist

  And the novels of Diane Whiteside

  “Extremely titillating . . . an excellent and engrossing story. I know I couldn’t put it down. I . . . eagerly look for more books by the amazing Diane Whiteside.”—The Best Reviews

  “A very interesting story related in prose so steamy that it fogs one’s reading glasses.”—Booklist

  “Erotically thrilling and suspenseful story line keeps the reader riveted to the book. Diane Whiteside has created fascinating characters that turn an ordinary story into a work of sensual art . . . It’s a scorcher.”—The Road to Romance

  “A devilishly erotic story . . . full of vivid imagery that sets your heart aflutter . . . A hero who will melt your heart and make your blood pressure rise all at the same time.”—Affaire de Coeur

  “Hot and gritty, seething with passion and the aura of the Wild West, Whiteside’s debut presents readers with a solid Western as well as a highly erotic romance, and the combination is sizzling. Erotic romance fans have a tale to savor and an author to watch. SPICY.”—Romantic Times

  “A very sensual, romantic love story. It is very well written and leads you on a journey of sexual exploration sure to leave you tingling . . . Snatch this one off the shelf; it is a definite keeper.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  Titles by Diane Whiteside

  Novels of Texas Vampires

  THE HUNTER’S PREY

  BOND OF BLOOD

  BOND OF FIRE

  BOND OF DARKNESS

  THE SWITCH

  CAPTIVE DREAMS

  (with Angela Knight)

  Anthologies

  UNLEASHED

  (with Rebecca York, Susan Kearney, and Lucy Monroe)

  BEYOND THE DARK

  (with Angela Knight, Emma Holly, and Lora Leigh)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2008 by Diane Whiteside.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without

  permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the

  author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / October 2008

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Whiteside, Diane.

  Bond of darkness / Diane Whiteside.—Berkley Sensation trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-63995-1

  1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Texas—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.H5848B664 2008

  813’.6—dc22 2008025602

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  The Texas vampires live in their own universe and it took a village to bring them to life.

  This book is dedicated to Cindy, Leis, Leslie, the copy editors, the art department, the text designers, the folks in sales and marketing, and everyone else whose name or role in bringing the Texas vampires trilogy to life I may have forgotten.

  Thank you.

  The vocabulary for the Texas vampire universe is drawn from feudal Spain. That very special time and place, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived in a rich cultural synthesis, was also the origin of the vaqueros’—and later the cowboys’—cattle herding skills and specialized gear.

  A detailed glossary explaining those words, plus any other non-English terms, is provided at the end of Bond of Darkness.

  Brief prounciation guides to French and Spanish—with hints about Don Rafael’s quirks—are available on my website, www.DianeWhiteside.com.

  PROLOGUE

  COMPOSTELA RANCH, TEXAS HILL COUNTRY OUTSIDE AUSTIN, PRESENT DAY

  Steve brought her big Ford Expedition to a decorous stop before the impassive gates, gravel shifting under her tires like the butterflies flitting around her stomach. If she’d had any other choice, she wouldn’t have come.

  Posada would have her up on charges if he knew she was here. Especially if he even suspected she’d brought copies of the case files to a fortress which it would probably take every tank at Fort Hood to break down.

  To be viewed by the A Number One suspect in a string of unsolved murders.

  No, she was supposed to have sauntered up with another Ranger or, even better, a gorgeous, blessed-by-a-judge subpoena to haul her suspect’s ass into town for questioning . . .

  No way
. Not him. Even if he was the only Texan she knew who could have put those bite marks on a woman’s neck—a vampiro’s M.O.

  She slapped the button and sent the window skidding down.

  “May I help you, ma’am?” A very smooth voice came from extremely high-quality speakers, not the usual distorted tones. He’d cleaned up all the details, including putting money into stuff that didn’t show, of course.

  Or should she say they’d put money into? And just how many men did he surround himself with—and how well could he vouch for every one of them?

  One Ranger, one riot. The riot’s size didn’t matter, since a Ranger could handle any number of bad guys. Every Texan knew that.

  Even more, she had to believe Ethan’s friends were all good guys—just the way she knew he was. The real killer had to come from someplace else. Somehow.

  Would her stomach ever stop playing volleyball with that last slice of pizza?

  “Ranger Steve Reynolds to see Ethan Templeton. Please.”

  She kept her face impassive and waited, without glancing at the four—no, five!—cameras watching her. Her hands stayed relaxed, easily visible, far away from her pistol. Her shoulders remained square, aligned forward, never twisting toward the back and all her tactical gear, including her assault rifle and shotgun. Guns wouldn’t do her shit good against Ethan, anyway, given his speed.

  She knew—God dammit, she knew every one of those girls’ marks from personal experience, because she’d begged him to leave the same ones on her. Before she left today, if she left alive, he had to explain exactly what had happened to those victims.

  Fifteen years of being his lover, off and on, said he couldn’t have done it. She was betting her career and possibly her life on being right.

  He had to tell her who’d actually killed those women.

  Please, God . . .

  Machinery whispered into life like ghosts gathering around a grave. The gate began to slide open.

  “He’ll see you now.”

  She gunned the engine into full, roaring life.

  ONE

  NEW ORLEANS, MARDI GRAS, 1927

  Three blocks away, the Mississippi swept toward the Gulf of Mexico, its brown waters running hard and fast. Fog tried to play games but couldn’t hide the telltale regular slap of boats tied up to their piers. Nothing to worry about there.

  A single big diesel purred like a kitten in the distance, ready to roar like a tiger if need be. Cut the rope, put her nose out into the current, and the fastest yacht in Texas would soon be far beyond the rich layers of decadence and greed called New Orleans. Out of sight and out of reach within seconds.

  Ethan Templeton still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d agreed to let Don Rafael Perez step off the Matagorda Lady. Probably because nobody said no to a vampiro mayor, a six-hundred-year-old vampiro capable of freezing you in your tracks or ripping your head off. Especially not when he was the patrón of the Texas esfera, the absolute ruler of every vampiro in Texas and Oklahoma, and the richest patrón in North America.

  Ethan had been fool enough to let Don Rafael become a target tonight for any vampiro who wanted to grab that fat esfera by wiping out her ruler.

  As if he could stop his creador—the vampiro who’d sired him—from doing any damn thing he wanted.

  A growl rumbled through Ethan’s throat. He snapped shut the tiny window with its view of a blank wall only six inches away, and spun around. A drab hallway lay ahead, the vines on its sour green wallpaper and threadbare carpet turned into flickering shadows by a single swinging light. Three men waited by the only door, just one of them his friend. Four strangers played poker in the office above the warehouse next door, their voices garbled by the thin plaster wall.

  He started to walk back, counting every pace. Damn, how he hoped the ex-legionnaire had broken the rules and changed positions.

  Greed was probably why Monsieur Armand, the New Orleans patrón, had invited them here. Hell, it would have been damn surprising if treachery wasn’t on the bill of fare. The bastard had to have figured out some way to kill Don Rafael, even if it took an army sporting Greener shotguns and Thompson submachine guns. After all, he’d reduced Monsieur Lucien to ashes that way five years ago, right in the middle of Cathedral Square at midnight.

  Or maybe some green cachorro would burst in, thinking he was something special, just because he’d managed to survive La Lujuria’s madness long enough to think about something more than blood and emotion. The only fast way guaranteed to stop one of those fools was sunlight, dammit, which would kill everybody else in the room—except Don Rafael.

  It didn’t matter, though. Don Rafael was also the man who’d salvaged Ethan from hell and turned him into a man. Somebody who could hold his head up and be proud to look at himself in the mirror every morning. He’d spend the rest of his life repaying that debt.

  As an invited guest, Don Rafael had the right to satisfactory protection and Ethan got to produce it. He’d woven a cordon of men, edged with steel and bullets, around this small warehouse south of the French Quarter, plus a path from here to the docks. He’d also guarded, equally thoroughly, the big stone mansion in the Garden District they’d rented. The big Spanish vampiro had a crazy habit of shrugging off danger and might just choose to stay ashore for a few days. After all, Gray Wolf was back home in Austin, courting the young oil geologist he’d just met. With his heir unlikely to go anywhere surprising, Don Rafael was even freer than usual to chase an adventure.

  Three attacks had tested those perimeters before Don Rafael’s arrival tonight. No way to tell how many vampiros had fallen, since they turned to ashes upon death. A good bribe had seen the prosaicos—the ordinary mortals—decently buried without any public outcry, especially since good jazz musicians had escorted their funeral processions.

  A handful of rats played tag on the roof above him, the rapid patter of their feet as clearly audible as the jazz orchestra in the far larger warehouse next door. It was turned into a spectacular re-creation of a New Orleans square every year, lit to resemble daylight and filled with Mardi Gras parades. Half of North America’s vampiros came here, just like the prosaicos did—or rather had done before Prohibition.

  Not his problem, that. Texas wasn’t nearly as dependent on tourists or booze as New Orleans was.

  Seven paces.

  Ethan was almost at the office door. Inside, Don Rafael and Jean-Marie St. Just—his heraldo or chief diplomat—were talking to Monsieur Armand.

  The poker game next door was quieter, probably because the pot had gotten bigger.

  Eight paces.

  Outside, Angus Rough Bear—Ethan’s number two or alferez menor—leaned against the wall, deceptively lazy as only a Kiowa brave could be. An ex-Foreign Legionnaire—a vampiro born in Marseille and now Monsieur Armand’s alferez—was standing across from Rough Bear with the other bodyguard, eyeing the silhouettes outlined on the door’s glass panel. One half step sideways and they could put a bullet into Don Rafael’s back, which was why they were supposed to have stayed still.

  Nine paces. Damn fool was definitely out of position—and optimistic as hell if he thought two thirty-year-old New Orleans vampiros could take out Rough Bear.

  The ex-soldier’s right hand came up to the lapel of his very fashionable jacket. He started to slip his fingers inside.

  Rough Bear tensed slightly. His bowie knife’s handle dropped into his palm, its blade ready to gut the bodyguard opposite him.

  Ethan released the safety on his Colt 1911 and aimed it precisely at the bastard’s ear. Biggest advantages of being twenty-five years older than the competition were being faster and carrying less scent. Plus, he was carrying cocked and locked, bringing him the joy of a bullet already in the chamber ready to go.

  The distinct click stopped the other alferez cold. His head swiveled, until he gazed straight down the gun’s barrel. From that angle, all he could see was a little bit of blue steel and a hell of a large hole aching to deliver a .45 round into his face, wit
h seven more rounds stacked up right behind it.

  His black eyes narrowed, turning flat and hard. His fingers twitched briefly under his lapel, millimeters away from his own big Luger. He probably considered himself the best fellow around with a knife. But how much would he risk in a gunfight?

  Ethan waited, his blood running just a little bit faster. First time he’d been in a fight was over sixty years ago. His only regret tonight was having to play the polite guest and wait for absolute proof of an attack. Otherwise, his so-called host would already be dead.

  The other bodyguard was pasty white, his eyes flickering between Rough Bear’s knife and Ethan’s Colt. Smarter than his boss, though: He’d never moved from his post.

  Ethan knew the instant the ex-soldier made his decision.

  “Did you want something, Monsieur Templeton?” The New Orleans alferez cocked his head slightly, in a mockery of courtesy.

  Ethan curled his lip. It wasn’t a smile. “Just checking my gun,” he remarked. “And you?”

  “Cigarettes,” the other answered a heartbeat later. “Care for one?”

  “No, thanks. Not here.” Ethan’s voice conveyed his contempt for any fool who’d scatter hot ashes across this carpet.

  The other’s mouth tightened and his hand fell away from his jacket. He stepped back into his assigned spot, and was quickly rejoined by his still-silent fellow, leaving behind the faint, sharp aromas of anger and fear.

  No signs of an attack from anywhere else, such as the roof or stairs. Don Rafael’s Pierce-Arrow was still idling in the alley outside, peaceful as a grandma’s rocking chair.