Bond of Blood Read online

  Rafael let his eyes roam over them one last time. They were all undoubtedly working very hard and very well, as they'd done so many other times before. Excelente.

  They left him free to contemplate, yet again, exactly what had happened with the red-haired doctora. Instinct demanded that he seek out something so unusual that logic offered no explanation. Instinct insisted, yet again, that he occupy himself in her bed as frequently as possible—where he could lose control of himself and the situation without warning. Mierda.

  He lifted his voice. "Hijos y compañeros, are we agreed then?"

  They immediately fell silent and turned to him.

  "One vampiro, at least seventy years of age."

  "Most likely Devol of New Orleans," Gray Wolf said.

  "No confirmation, either sightings or reports of attacks on respectable women," Ethan drawled, in the cold tones of a gunfighter ready for a shoot-out. "However, we are monitoring rape and suicide-prevention hotlines for unusual activity."

  A muscle twitched in Rafael's jaw. Beau's passion for feeding on fear was sickening enough. But a monster that preyed only on respectable women was a demon to be sent directly to Hell.

  "Devol's arrival can be either a direct attempt on us or a diversion," Jean-Marie interjected smoothly. "Beau has not been seen in New Orleans for the past four days."

  An excited buzz broke out. Ethan turned to his second-in-command, growling commands, and pointed to a map.

  Recognizing a report from Lars given through Jean-Marie, Rafael thumped his fist on the table. "Enough! Everyone knows what must be done, whether we hunt for one vampiro or twenty."

  They fell silent, Ethan's eyes blazing as if he longed to personally rip Devol apart.

  "Everyone has a sector to search in Austin." Rafael eyed them all sternly. "When a hiding place is suspected, Ethan's team will be summoned to flush the vampiro. Do not, I repeat, do not approach the hiding place on your own. Devol and Beau are extremely deadly. You must obey me in this."

  He reinforced his instructions with the firmest vampiro mental order he could give. All bent their heads obediently, as befitted knights in his army.

  Jean-Marie glanced at him sideways. As his eldest hijo, he had more latitude for independent thinking but was also clever enough not to express it in public.

  "Now go find the enemy vampiro before he can harm a citizen of Texas."

  "Sí, Don Rafael," they answered and rose to salute him.

  Rafael came to his feet, his heart swelling with pride. It was the greatest honor in the world to lead them. Dios mediante, he'd do so for years to come.

  They filed out, gathering up their notes and electronic aids, falling into groups as they did so. Gray Wolf dropped an arm over Caleb's shoulder as he spoke to Luis, Caleb leaning easily into the casual embrace.

  Rafael's gaze rested on Gray Wolf and Caleb for a moment, considering for the first time in decades the implications of their comfort with each other. Trust was the essence of the conyugal relationship: love so complete that two people trusted each other on every level—physical, mental, and spiritual. It could not be forced or given; it could only occur. Each cónyuge's thoughts were completely open to the other, since there could be no barriers between them.

  He had heard of less than ten dozen conyugal relationships in his long life. Only two were known to openly exist in North America: Gray Wolf and Caleb, plus Donal O'Malley, the San Francisco patrón, and his lady wife.

  So why the hell had he felt the openness of cónyuges between him and Grania a week ago? It was impossible, absurd, beyond belief. In seven hundred years, he'd only loved one woman, his wife.

  Oh, he'd had lovers, many of them, but only his wife had ever captured his heart. And at that, they'd had so little time together, barely five years—the blink of an eye to a vampiro, no matter how he'd memorized every moment and retold it to himself. Since then, he'd given each lover the courtesy of complete attention, which included never comparing them in any way to his wife.

  So how had Grania ensnared him when he'd met her so recently?

  Could count the number of hours he'd known her on the fingers of one hand? Had tasted no more of her than her mouth and a sip of her blood?

  And his instincts were snarling at him that he had to return to her. He'd awoken every night for the past week, aching like a young boy from carnal dreams of her in his arms. Insanity!

  It had to have been a figment of his imagination. Of course, if it happened again, then he'd know she wasn't involved in a plot against him. Even the most cunning assassin couldn't not open up during a conyugal bond.

  "Did you have a question for me, Don Rafael?" Gray Wolf paused before him, brown eyes quizzical, Caleb a polite half pace behind him.

  Rafael started, caught by his own distraction. "I, ah…"

  Jean-Marie glanced up curiously, from where he was neatly packing his computer into a leather satchel.

  "Yes, I do," Rafael finished decisively. He might as well ask the experts. "Can you stay as well, Jean-Marie?"

  "Certainement, mon père." He propped a hip on the table and waited, blue eyes quizzical.

  Gray Wolf set his PC on the table, casually resting his big hand on it. He'd set down his bow in the same way when he'd walked out of the night, the first time Rafael had met him over a century and a half ago.

  Rafael drummed his fingers on the table, then took the plunge. "If I may ask, how long did it take before you and Caleb knew you were cónyuges?"

  "Twenty years before the first mental touch, which was only the slightest hint," Gray Wolf answered calmly. "Another ten years before we could repeat the mind-to-mind touch at will."

  "And another five years before it lasted throughout a duel," Caleb added.

  "It was faster for the O'Malleys," Jean-Marie observed. "But that was during the Peninsular War."

  "And wartime stresses can accelerate the creation of trust between a couple," Rafael agreed. "Have you ever heard of anyone recognizing their cónyuge sooner, say, within days?"

  All three shook their heads in unison. Mierda. So what had happened between him and Grania?

  "No, never," said Jean-Marie. "If anything, I would say that my brothers discovered their relationship's strength sooner than most. The few who become cónyuges seem to need a century or more together, according to all the rumors. At least enough to perfect the bond so they can fight as one during a duel, enabling them to defeat all challengers."

  "If we had two pairs of cónyuges," Gray Wolf mused, "since Madame Celeste possesses only two truly dangerous assassins—"

  "Consider Madame Celeste as well, mi hijo," Rafael drawled. "She alone is a most deadly opponent."

  "The principle still holds," Gray Wolf pointed out. "The more cónyuges our esfera held, the safer we would be from any attack by enemies, since a pair of cónyuges can almost always defeat a vampiro of any age."

  "It is a great advantage, especially in duels." Caleb's eyes lit up. "Otherwise, if one vampiro is older, even by a year, he will defeat another vampiro."

  "Or if the other vampiro was trained as a cachorro to lose to the first vampiro," Jean-Marie interjected, "then he will lose again to the same vampiro even when he is a mature vampiro."

  Rafael flinched inwardly at the many bitter memories evoked by those few words.

  "But if he has a cónyuge," Gray Wolf added, "then the younger vampiro, allied with his cónyuge, will frequently defeat the elder vampiro."

  "So we must do everything we can to find cónyuges for our brothers," Jean-Marie finished. "In wartime, doing so protects us all."

  Rafael blew out a breath and accepted the inevitable. He'd been chasing this argument over and over in his head since that moment with Grania. There was too much at stake; he had to explore the bond with her, no matter how uneasy it made him. After a week of only phone calls, he'd have to seek her out again, now that she'd returned to the hills. He'd have her every move watched closely, to see if she truly was his cónyuge.

  His
instincts promptly, predictably, purred. His body tightened in anticipation, as his heart skipped then settled into a faster beat.

  He snarled at his overanxious libido. The most likely result of calling on Doctora O'Malley was a discussion of reproductive rates among predators, not carnal satisfaction for a seven-hundred-year-old vampiro.

  Still, his trousers were noticeably tighter when he left the council chamber.

  Grania went through her routine warm-up, stretched, and looked down the quiet road. A line of fence posts was connected by barbed wire and mesquite. In the distance, a dozen Angus cattle ambled toward a placid pond sheltered by some ancient oaks. The sun shimmered over the low hills, hinting at the coming day's heat. A farmer's helicopter hovered overhead like a lost dragonfly.

  Not a sign of Rafael. Of course, she'd been in Brownsville for the past week, filling in for one of Bob's college buddies. He'd used a lightweight gauntlet to handle a bald eagle and had twenty-two stitches across his palm and thumb to prove it. She'd spoken to Rafael by phone but that wasn't the same as seeing him.

  She did some more stretches—the trickier ones that she usually saved for when she was training for a race.

  All she wanted to talk to Rafael about was vampiro reproduction, nothing else. She'd read and reread her notes and compared his descriptions to other predators' metabolism. She'd used her time in Brownsville to prepare a long list of follow-up questions for him.

  She was not, of course, hoping for another orgasm like the one he'd given her in the lounge.

  She blushed furiously and started to run.

  And she certainly wasn't hoping he'd cuddle her to sleep, a little voice in her head whispered. That's what a real lover does.

  Grania ground her teeth, as she turned onto a quiet lane barely a mile from home, edged with red roses. That helicopter was really close to the ground; maybe one of her neighbors was loading it.

  Rafael was a vampiro who drank blood, not a man, to use his terminology.

  A very handsome man who knew more about sensuality than anyone she'd ever met before.

  A predator.

  Who gave her the best orgasm of her life. And where had she ever seen anyone half as sexy?

  Well, she was finally established in the world. And she wasn't answerable to anyone for what she did in her private life.

  The helicopter blasted into the air beside her. An instant later, when her ears had just started to recover, a man spoke.

  "Buenos días, doctora."

  Grania's head snapped around to see the man running so effortlessly beside her, as if her thoughts had conjured him out of thin air. "Buenos días, señor," she stammered and smiled.

  Three bodyguards behind Rafael—one of them Emilio—two big Mercedes sedans puttering behind them, a sleek helicopter trying to look as if it was watching over a cornfield instead of him—he had more duennas than the king of Spain's virgin daughter. That assassination threat had to be real.

  No way to talk to him about anything private. Maybe she should think about running, not him.

  "Do you go jogging very often, señor?"

  "Regularly, doctora." He raised an eyebrow at her, a faint gleam of sweat on his face. He was wearing ordinary jogging attire for a hot day in Texas: tank top, running shorts, socks, and running shoes. It left a lot of him uncovered and very little to her imagination. Beautiful golden skin, those superb muscles flexing easily as he ran, like a poster child for an anatomy class.

  She sighed. She could start listing the muscles, and the tendons, and the nerves. Or maybe discuss the chemical reactions needed to translate energy from his food intake into making his feet move forward. No matter how she said the words, looking at him made her mouth water and her fingers twitch with the need to touch.

  "My muscles work like anyone else's," he observed, dark eyes amused.

  She blushed but quickly recovered. Best to treat this encounter as an extension of the scientific conversation a week earlier, when they'd discussed vampiro reproduction at the raptor center. At least she knew he was safe in daylight, unlike Hollywood's vampires. "Like prosaicos? Is that for camouflage?"

  He shrugged. "Probably. But also, it's how we were born, since we were all once prosaicos. Our bodies still remember and are comfortable remaining that way."

  Grania considered the implications, her mind working rapidly. If a vampiro looked exactly like his prey, then it would be very easy for him to ambush them. A high-risk, but high-value, predation tactic.

  "How far do you intend to run today, doctora?"

  "What?" She looked up, startled, to see they'd arrived at her little bungalow. She wasn't ready to say good-bye, not when they'd just begun to talk. "Would you like to come in for some coffee?" She studied his bodyguards and the helicopter a little dubiously. "There's probably room for your men too, if they'd like some."

  He frowned but nodded. "I would be honored to join you, doctora. My men will wait outside."

  Grania frowned. "It's already hot and getting hotter." Then she put the pieces together. "Do you own the house down the road, the one that's being restored?"

  Amusement danced in his eyes. "I have that privilege."

  "So they're just going to walk over there and pretend to wait for you. Then they'll sneak back to my place and keep an ear and eye out for trouble. Probably call for either those two big Mercedes sedans to take you home or that helicopter, when you're ready. Am I right?"

  He bowed. "You are entirely correct, doctora. Your powers of observation and deduction are indeed acute."

  Grania shrugged. "Surveillance tactics aren't that much different for humans than for wildlife." She considered the men, dangerous as hunting cats, and the firepower they represented, before returning to him. "Do you trust me that far? Have they searched my place?"

  He spread his hands. "Your house has not been searched. Trust has to begin somewhere. I do not believe you wish to kill me."

  "True enough. Why don't you have the guys check out my house? Then they can set up their perimeter and we can have our coffee."

  His eyebrows went up. "You're very matter-of-fact."

  "Bodyguards seem to be a fact of life around you."

  His mouth twisted. "At the moment. I thank you for your understanding. Gentlemen?"

  Grania watched the covey of bodyguards pour into her little house, thoughts tumbling through her head. The easiest one was where would all those men fit in her house. The hardest one was why he was really willing to be alone with her, if he was guarded so thoroughly everywhere else. Then she shrugged the question off, as the bodyguards gave the all-clear for him to enter. He was a greater danger to her than she was to him.

  She flipped the switch on her coffeemaker, starting the batch of coffee she'd prepared before leaving. "Do you take cream or sugar?"

  "Black, por favor."

  Something in the answer's speed triggered her medical instincts. "Is that by choice or necessity? Can you eat solids or are you confined to a liquid diet?"

  He shook his head, coming into the kitchen from the colorful little living room. "Liquids only. Even cream, alas, is beyond my capability."

  "A pity." So he could ingest blood and clear liquids but nothing else.

  "Your house is very beautiful, doctora." He was standing by the center island, studying a glass-fronted kitchen cabinet full of Indian pottery.

  "Grania, please." She smiled over her shoulder at him, as she set out mugs and napkins. "Places like this bungalow, with its bright-red cabinets, would have appalled the nuns at the group home where I grew up. But the warmth of all the colors makes me feel alive, after those boring whites and grays."

  She poured coffee for them both and handed him a mug, then leaned against the counter next to him and sipped her own coffee companionably, trying not to think about that beautiful masculine body so close beside her. "Can I ask you some more questions? Under the same rules as before, of course: I'll never tell anyone else."

  "Certainly." He waited, chocolate dark eyes s
lightly wary. Disciplined mouth, rather cruel but with a touch of sensuality. What would another kiss be like?

  "You mentioned that all senses are enhanced when you become a vampiro: speed increases, sight and hearing improve, so on. What about any of the psychic abilities?"

  "Such as?"

  She reached for one of the more commonly mentioned abilities. "Telepathy?"

  He froze, his face settling into a hard mask. The room's temperature dropped, recognizing a predator ready to pounce.

  "You have my word and I will keep it," she assured him, keeping her voice calm and sweet as if coaxing a hawk to her fist.

  His eyes were implacable. "If you don't, you will die."

  Grania stared straight back at him, equally determined. It never worked to show fear to a predator. "My word is my bond. I will never talk."

  He seemed to argue with himself, then slowly reach a decision. His face settled into its typically charming lines. He took a long drink from the mug before he answered. "Telepathy is one of the senses, usually much enhanced by becoming a vampiro. In fact, very few cachorros survive who don't have strong telepathy."

  "Do you use telepathy for hunting?"

  "Prey or other vampiros?" he asked dryly.

  She raised an eyebrow. "Either."

  "Telepathy among vampiros is like speaking aloud: difficult to do unnoticed. On the other hand, it's usually all too successful with prosaicos. So easy, in fact, that boredom quickly sets in."

  "Which leads to the very young behaving very foolishly, and many subsequent troubles caused thereby."

  Rafael snorted in agreement. "Exactly. I teach my cachorros not to rely on it. They must use seduction instead."

  "Since you look exactly like prosaicos, given enough experience, you can deduce who's susceptible to your lures—"

  "After which, both parties enjoy themselves."

  Years of scientific training revolted. "Impossible. Won't the prosaico realize they were bitten by a vampiro?"

  "Why should they? Do you remember everything that happens at the height of orgasm?"