Margetta liked keeping her army hungry and sometimes a starving fighter would go searching for food to steal from a less powerful comrade.
It didn’t happen often, because full-scale brawls often ensued and once again Margetta came down hard on the instigators, death always following. He had to give her credit for knowing how to keep her army in line. It also helped not having a conscience; she killed anyone she pleased, when and how she wanted.
As he took a swig of the beer, his thoughts turned once more to Sandra. With no pain in his gut, Griffin knew and understood the truth about her. The lovely fae woman was a blood rose, a powerful phenomenon making the rounds through the Nine Realms, a subject often discussed among the fortress slaves.
The latest news had been a really strange pairing between an outcast shifter named Olivia and Mastyr Zane of Swanicott Realm. Because they’d bonded, they’d been able to defeat Margetta’s hidden army in Swanicott, which had happened a month ago.
He set his beer down unable to believe the impossible had happened because when Sandra had fed him, her enriched blood had ended his chronic blood starvation. He no longer had pain of any kind in his stomach and he’d lived with that pain since he’d become a mastyr eighty years ago.
He shuddered, however, thinking what would happen if by chance she encountered any of the camp’s mastyr vampires. Gossip had it that the blood rose drive to feed a mastyr in need would be extended to all mastyrs until a bond was forged.
His gaze once more shifted to the fortress. He was only fifty feet away. He could get to her quickly if he needed to.
He knew her schedule extremely well. At this hour, she’d be sitting down to a meal for the household staff, though she’d likely have a nice soup with her bread, instead of a slopped out ladle of beans.
Griffin pictured Sandra moving around the kitchens, helping the housekeeper, laughing at some joke or other. He hadn’t planned on taking her to bed, but it had happened. Goddess, he wanted to be with her again.
Fulton stood nearby, glaring at Griffin. The vampire’s instincts had to be shaken up. He might not know exactly why he should be unsettled by Griffin, but he was right to be worried.
Yet in the same way Fulton was uneasy, Griffin kept his eye on Fulton. If the mastyr indicated in the smallest way he was going into the fortress, Griffin would be on his ass. The moment Fulton got near Sandra, he’d be all over her. He’d heard the gossip, but that wasn’t how he knew what would happen. He could feel it in every bone of his body, the blood rose call on him, to get back to her, to be with her. And every mastyr would feel this way once they’d gotten close to Sandra.
As Griffin used his bread to clean up the last of the beans, he leaned his head back to stare up at the night sky. As he did, he began to see something he’d never noticed before, a strange mist high in the air hung over the entire camp.
Without having to be told, he knew he was seeing the actual physical structure of Margetta’s spell, the one that had disguised the Ancient Fae’s army from anyone passing nearby. He’d never seen the mist before. But he knew his ability to do so was another indication his recent engagement with Sandra had changed something in him forever.
Because he hadn’t been paying attention to Fulton, the kick came out of nowhere, stunning him. Fulton made it a good one too, knocking Griffin’s tin plate from his hands as his heavy boot landed on Griffin’s jaw. He flew back several feet.
Griffin levitated swiftly in response and knew Fulton was winding up his battle energy. He felt his own rise in response. It hummed to the surface and flowed in waves down his arms, more powerful than Griffin had ever known before. Without a shred of doubt, Griffin knew he could kill Fulton right now if he wanted to.
But if he did, he jeopardized his own life as well as Sandra’s. It was well known she’d fed him and his sudden increase in power would be talked about everywhere.
However, he couldn’t keep taking Fulton’s beatings, especially not tonight. He needed to be in top form.
As soon as Fulton released his battle energy from the palms of his hands, Griffin met that energy. His blue Guardsman power crashed into Fulton’s red power, the color a sign that Fulton had given himself to Margetta and would soon have a wraith-mate.
A crowd gathered and wraiths flew above the battle, shrieking loudly. The shouting started, an Invictus roar that brought more and more of the wraith-pairs close to watch the fight.
But the moment he felt Fulton’s power begin to thin, Griffin dialed his own down, matching him. He had to do his feigning act again, powering down in stages and acting like he was dead on his feet.
Once Fulton had drawn in his battling power, he came at Griffin with his fists. He let loose with a powerful right. Griffin took it hard on the chin, his head bobbing back. But he answered with a right hook then a low punch to Fulton’s stomach.
Fulton doubled over. Griffin chopped the back of his neck and shoulders and Fulton fell to the grass. Griffin could have followed up with a series of painful kicks to his ribs, but instead knew he needed to pretend he was in a lot of pain from the blows Fulton had already delivered. He bent over at the waist and held a hand to his face. He sent healing energy to his jaw and his cheek.
Fulton was on his feet and leaped on Griffin’s back, punching him in the side of the head. Griffin started spinning fast and threw Fulton onto several wraith-pairs. The crowd was hopped up, so they simply threw Fulton back in Griffin’s direction.
Fulton levitated, catching his forward momentum and dropping down once more in front of Griffin.
The air however began to crackle, as a new entity arrived, one with more power than both vampires combined.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Margetta’s voice rolled over the crowd. Turning, Griffin saw that the Ancient Fae had arrived, looking dressed for a ball.
Silence fell hard and fast, along with a heavy dose of fear, and the crowd began to dissipate quickly. Margetta would be happy to punish the bystanders as well as those brawling.
With only Fulton and Griffin left, Margetta waved her hand back and forth between them. “What are you two doing? You’re supposed to be training my army.”
Fulton snorted. “Something’s off with Griffin. He’s not himself and I don’t trust it.”
Griffin had to play this smart. If Margetta figured it out, she’d make it impossible for him to get back to Sandra. Hell, she’d probably give Sandra to Fulton. A mastyr bonded to a blood rose, and under Margetta’s control, would be a huge boon to her army, even more than if the mastyr was Invictus bound to a wraith.
Margetta drew near Griffin. He forced himself to stay calm, though he nearly lost it when she sniffed his skin. “You smell familiar to me. Like … ” Her expression softened. “Well, well, well, you smell like sage, like a certain kind of soap one of the house slave uses.”
He knew she was referring to Sandra. Sweet Goddess, the woman’s scent was all over him.
Margetta smiled. “She told me she has a new soap. So what I’d like to know is how you happen to have her soap on you?”
The images of having made love to Sandra, and catching what he now knew to be her blood rose scent of rosemary and sage, rolled through his mind.
Would Margetta figure it out?
Goddess help Sandra if she did.
He decided to tell her a partial truth. “I fucked the woman, okay? I was in the fortress and it happened. She said she’d feed me after Fulton here gutted me earlier in the evening, and I took advantage of her. I wouldn’t call it rape, exactly. But we were in her bedroom and I used her shower after the fact. She has a soap in there. Maybe that’s what you’re smelling.”
At that, Margetta chortled. “Finally, the woman got laid. I knew she seemed different. I’ve been telling her for years to take a lover. Guess she was waiting for you. Of course you snuck one in under the wire; Sandra’s going to be wraith-bonded just before dawn. I’m planning a special ceremony because she was always a favorite.”
She turned tow
ard Fulton. “And no more attacks on Griffin. I’ll be getting you both bonded off to wraiths in the next couple of nights.”
Because Griffin needed Margetta to leave, he spoke at the same time as Fulton. “Yes, Mistress.”
Margetta levitated swiftly up to a balcony on the third floor where she had her private quarters with Gustave.
When she disappeared inside, Fulton grabbed Griffin by the throat. “This isn’t finished. Margetta may have bought your bullshit, but I don’t. Sandra doesn’t sleep with anyone and if she did, she wouldn’t choose your pansy-ass.”
Fulton had been after her for a long time.
Griffin stared back at Fulton. If he had to, he’d kill Fulton. Right now, he let the mastyr huff and puff until he finally released Griffin and strolled back to the sparring lines.
Griffin stayed stuck in one place for a few more seconds. As his gaze again slid to the fortress, he knew one thing: He had to find a way to escape from the fortress with Sandra and he had to do it before Margetta forced an Invictus bond on Sandra.
~ ~ ~
The news that Margetta was planning a bonding ceremony within the next few hours, worked in Sandra’s mind like a virus. Each minute that passed filled her head with more and more of the Invictus horror. She knew what the pairs became, how changed the Realm-folk were once they’d entered the terrible bond. Each embraced battling with a maniacal fervor.
She didn’t want to become that kind of woman.
She had few calm moments as she went about her post-midnight duties. Mostly, she stayed in the kitchen doing whatever Yvonne needed her to do. But her movements were agitated and more than once she dropped a pot or pan and finally shattered a glass bowl on the stone floor.
The housekeeper stopped her mid-stride and grabbed both her arms. She then yelled at her dish-scrubbers to get out.
Once she was alone with Sandra, she held her gaze and spoke quietly. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Tell me, because I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Sandra’s voice caught on a sob. She didn’t want to burden Yvonne, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’m to be bonded in a few hours. Margetta has picked out a wraith for me.”
The troll’s three forehead ridges tightened. “Oh, no. I’ve feared this night would come and with the war heating up I’m not surprised. But my sweet Sandra, no. No, no, no, no.”
Sandra was considerably taller than the troll, who squeezed both her arms tight.
Yvonne then released her and looked around. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
She left the kitchen and when she returned, she had a stool in her hands. Setting it on the floor near Sandra, she waved her forward. “Help me up here.”
Sandra held the troll’s hand as she assisted her in climbing up on the stool, though Sandra had no idea why she wanted it in the middle of the kitchen and not even close to one of the cupboards.
But when she was standing on it and facing Sandra, she gestured for Sandra to come close.
In this position, Sandra actually met the troll’s gaze eye-to-eye. “What is it?”
“Sandra, you’ve been as dear to me as my own daughter, Eva. And I would do anything I could to keep this from happening to you. I’m so sorry. Now come here.”
When the housekeeper opened her arms, Sandra finally understood. She practically fell on the woman and had to work to keep the troll balanced on the stool. But when Yvonne was steady, she held Sandra close, wrapping her up in her short, troll arms, the hug exactly what Sandra needed.
Nothing had felt better to her in a long, long time.
Except being with Griffin.
But how was she to keep the bonding nightmare from happening?
When Yvonne released her, Sandra helped her get down from the stool, returning it herself to the nearest pantry. While there, she remained smelling the unique food-stuff redolence, a sort of combination of flours, dried beans, and cookies in canisters.
For some reason, the scent calmed her and she could think. Yvonne’s comforting embrace had helped as well to settle her mind.
Her thoughts turned to the war and to all the slaves who’d died in the fortress over the decades. She’d grieved for every death and each time promised herself that if she ever had the chance to make a difference she would take it, no matter the consequences.
An otherworld serenity came over Sandra, an acceptance that she might not survive the night. Somehow, that acceptance began to shape itself into a profound resolution to do whatever she had to do to assist Regan in leaving the Ancient Fae’s fortress, even if it meant stealing the guard’s key to the tower cell.
She closed her eyes and after bidding wisdom from the Goddess, she held her hands palms up and let her mind flow in ways it perhaps never had before.
She’d felt different since the lovemaking with Griffin, though until this moment she hadn’t thought to analyze it. For one thing, despite the fact that she’d fed Griffin, her heart felt oddly laden again, as though …
Her eyes widened and she put a hand to her chest. She felt it now, a heaviness that wasn’t emotional at all, but rather very physical. Something a blood rose would experience.
She gasped. She’d heard all the rumors, especially the latest ones about the shifter Olivia, who was now mate-bonded to Mastyr Zane. They’d become a Nine Realms power couple and all because Olivia was a blood rose.
Sandra didn’t spend even a few seconds denying what she knew in the depths of her spirit to be true. She was a blood rose.
She was building a fresh supply even as she stood in the pantry, only it didn’t feel Griffin-specific. Instead, all she had to do was think of the several unbonded mastyr vampires roaming the camp and waiting for wraiths with which to mate, and a profound need to feed each and every one of them rose within her.
When she found herself turning toward the door, ready to head out to find these vampires, she forced herself to hold only Griffin within her mind. She’d heard of this, as well. So long as she remained an unbonded blood rose, she’d crave every mastyr she came into contact with.
Oh, dear sweet Goddess.
As she focused on Griffin, she felt something rise within her, so powerful, like a geyser within her heart, that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. It was as though the new sensations she was experiencing, the need to offer sustenance to a mastyr vampire, became exponentially enhanced when she thought of Griffin.
The reason had to be simple; she’d made love with him. But was it something more? Something that came from her heart?
She knew the truth again without wasting time denying what she felt. Her love for Griffin enhanced what she felt as a blood rose. She’d probably been in love with him from the moment she’d entered that holding pen a year ago and found him defending the newly enslaved women against three powerful shifters. He was a man who would go the distance, who would die trying to protect those he loved, and who probably had already guessed what Sandra had so recently become.
She trembled now from excitement and hope and from the love she felt for the vampire.
The next moment, however, she shaded her eyes and tears bloomed. The reality of fortress life, the spies who roamed the halls for Margetta, and that Griffin was required to be outside sparring until dawn, all worked against them.
But if something didn’t happen in the next few hours, Margetta would force the wraith-bond on her and there would be nothing she could do to escape it.
Whatever she chose to do, she had to be swift and she had to be careful.
First, she decided to path Griffin, to see if she even could at such a distance. She’d never done so before, but she was a blood rose now and her powers had increased. Griffin, are you there? I’m in trouble.
When she didn’t hear a response she tried again. And again.
~ ~ ~
Griffin sparred with a powerful shifter, mate-bonded with a wraith who floated above them shrieking the whole time. He used his battle energy in bursts and an axe in his left hand.
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br /> The shifter had once served in the Swanicott Shifter Brigade when he’d left to join Margetta’s forces and engage in the Invictus bond. But he was no match for Griffin.
As Griffin levitated with sudden speed, and sent a minute amount of his battle vibration straight into the shifter’s head, the shifter crumpled to the dirt.
Griffin was barely winded, but he feigned what his usual response would be and bent over at the knees, waiting with axe in hand for the shifter to revive.
Griffin, are you there?
The words were faint but unmistakable now that he wasn’t fighting. Sandra?
Thank the Goddess you can hear me. I’m in trouble. I’m a blood rose, but I’m guessing you know that by now.
I do. He remained where he was and watched as the shifter slowly began to regain consciousness. Buying a little more time, he sent another blast and hit him in the chest. He rolled on his back, limp. Tell me everything.
He listened as she spoke of the new supply she was building for him, then a string of panicky words about needing to feed all the mastyrs in the camp.
At that, he tossed the axe onto the nearby weapons pile, rose up and moved in a circle. He shoved his hands through his long hair, dislodging the leather strap. He re-tied it.
But the thought of Sandra feeding even a lesser mastyr had his fangs vibrating heavily in his gums. He’d heard about the almost caveman-like visceral response to the blood rose, a drive to possess her and keep her away from all others.
There’s more. Margetta intends to bond me to a wraith near dawn.
Margetta had already told him and he’d been struggling to create a plan to get them both out of the fortress within the next few hours. Nothing had come to him and maybe that’s the reason he lost it. But he suddenly cursed long and loud, then roared into the night. He shouted every foul word that would come to mind.
Only when he stopped, he realized the entire sparring line now stared at him, including Fulton who was levitating in his direction.
Fulton. A mastyr vampire.
I’m coming to you. Somehow. Now. But I’ve got deal with Fulton.