Bound by Her Blood Read online

  Bound by her Blood

  Mara Leigh

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Also By Mara Leigh

  A Note to Readers

  About the Author

  Bonus Read

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  Selina

  Today, I am going to die.

  It’s not the first time I’ve thought King Xavier would kill me. Not to mention the countless days and nights before my capture when I thought my end was near, but no matter how many times I’ve been close to death, it doesn’t get easier—or more welcome.

  And King Xavier’s lost patience.

  Each time I fail to complete the ceremony, the powerful vampire king grows more angry, his punishments more brutal—and on the last new moon he swore my next attempt would be my last.

  No way will I survive another wedding.

  “Come, Selina. Today’s your big day.” Jordina, one of Xavier’s mates, gestures for me to step into the warm bath where she and Alexander are waist deep, their bodies’ glistening like sculptures of a Greek god and goddess, and nothing short of magnificent.

  Held captive at King Xavier’s court for over a year, I’m still not used to the nudity and sexual openness here. My hand trembles as I unbelt my red silk robe.

  “Don’t look so frightened.” Alexander smiles warmly, his deep brown eyes transmitting comfort. “You’ll complete the ceremony this time. I’m sure of it, and then you’ll be part of our family.”

  Although the king prefers females, Alexander is also one of Xavier’s mates, and if I complete today’s wedding ceremony, I’ll be mate number nineteen. I’d rather die.

  I drop my robe to the tiled floor, and the red silk spreads like fresh blood across the gleaming marble tiles, leaving my body exposed to everyone in the baths.

  A loud exhale comes from a dark corner of the room.

  I lift my gaze.

  Pike.

  My hands fly up to cover my body, and my belly tightens with fear. Pike’s the most vicious of Xavier’s King’s Guard, and his immense size is a fraction of what makes this particular vampire so utterly menacing.

  His huge body shifts, and his thick arms barely reach across his bare chest that’s marred by a jagged scar that slashes red from one shoulder to slip under the waistband of the worn leather pants, hanging from his hips.

  Pike’s eyes, amber and piercing, penetrate the darkness. Shivers trace through me as if his gaze is visceral, scraping over my body, peering into my soul and adding salt to my many wounds.

  Eager for cover, I accept Alexander’s hand and descend into the warm, rose-scented water.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” Alexander says to Jordina as if I’m not there. “Such a perfect age when she turned.” Lifting my hand over my head, Alexander twirls me around like we’re on a dance floor, not in a small pool.

  “Gorgeous,” Jordina whispers near my ear.

  Using soapy fleece mittens, she strokes up and down my arms, over my back and shoulders, and then slips the mitts under the water and over my butt.

  Relax, I tell myself. Allow yourself to enjoy the pleasant moments of this day, but it’s not easy, given I know what’s coming.

  Once Jordina finishes with my back, Alexander guides me onto the partially submerged lounging bed in the center of the bathing pool.

  “Head back.” Jordina holds up my lavender hair as I relax my neck into the cradle that seems designed exactly for me, even though I’m sure all of King Xavier’s mates use this bath.

  The female vampire pours warm water over my head, and I inhale the citrus scent of the shampoo as she washes my hair, giving my scalp an intoxicating massage. Weak from months of starvation and torture, my body yields to the warm water and the vampires’ gentle touches.

  As Jordina washes my hair, Alexander dons the soaped mitts and washes my throat, my belly, my breasts. His caress is firm but tender and sensual, and if I keep my eyes closed, I can imagine his are the hands of a lover, even though imaginary lovers are the only kind I’ve ever had. Not that I haven’t been fucked.

  Since I’ve been captive at court, I’ve been abused too many times to count, and although I’ve been blindfolded during most of those assaults, I feel sure the worst of them have come from Pike.

  I shudder, knowing he’s here in the room, his eyes on my naked body. My insides squeeze as if those muscles could protect me from his punishing member.

  “What’s wrong?” Alexander pauses, his hands on my breasts, and I open my eyes to find genuine concern in his.

  “You know what’s wrong,” I say flatly.

  “Selina.” He strokes his hand down the middle of my torso to stop low on my belly, circling there. “Resisting will only bring you more pain. Give our king, give us, a chance. Is Xavier a demanding lover? Yes, he is. But I love him, and if you let yourself, you will love him, too.” He smiles at Jordina and she nods, a blush rising on her cheeks.

  “And you’ll love being our mate,” she whispers in my ear, then kisses the lobe.

  Alexander backs through the water toward my legs, and his erection juts through the water, bouncing near his abs. Is his arousal for me, or because he’s been talking about his mate?

  It doesn’t matter. And he’s wrong. Even if I get through the ceremony—doubtful—I will never, ever, love King Xavier.

  As Jordina massages my temples, Alexander lifts one of my legs and washes the length of it, spending extra time on my upper thigh. Then his mitten slides over my sex, stroking the plush fabric back and forth, way beyond what seems necessary to bathe me.

  “Oh, Selina.” His voice is throaty and deep. “I know our king will have the privilege of taking you first, but I cannot wait to be inside you.”

  Alexander acts like he doesn’t know what’s been happening to me in the dungeons. Perhaps he doesn’t. If he knew, how could he love King Xavier? How could any of his mates love the king if they knew what happens in his dungeon? Did any of them refuse the king like me?

  As Alexander strokes the mitt over my sex, a wave of pleasure courses through me, in spite of the situation. In the less than two years since I transitioned, my sex drive has multiplied exponentially.

  When I was human, I totally avoided sex—any contact with men—but since I became a vampire I’ve found myself unable to control my body’s reactions to stimulation—even when it’s not welcome.

  My supercharged libido is my least favorite thing about being a vampire and that includes drinking blood and missing sunshine.

  But I can’t lie to myself, being bathed like this by these two kind and beautiful vampires is arousing, even if my arousal makes me angry with myself. How can I be turned on after all that has happened, given what’s about to happen?

  I want my first real love-making experience, my first time that’s my choice, to be with someone I love, but at this moment, I have to admit that the idea of sex with Alexander—or Jordina—is appealing, and being part of the king’s harem would at least free me from being tortured by his Guard.

  Can I go through with this? Marry the vampire king?

  Luxuriating under Alexander and Jor
dina’s skilled hands, I can almost imagine my life as Xavier’s mate, but then I remember the vampire king himself.

  My entire body tightens.

  “Poor Selina.” Alexander kisses the multitude of round scars on my inner thighs, gifts from my stepfather.

  Cigar burns were how my stepfather showed his displeasure when I showed mine at how he forced his penis inside me. He started when I was eight, less than a year after my mom married the monster.

  I quickly learned how to check my mind out of my body whenever he’d visit me at night, but my compliance didn’t please him either, and the monster found new ways to torture me besides penetration.

  When I finally escaped the house at fourteen, I believed I was free, that I’d already suffered the worst things that could ever happen to me—to anyone.

  Then I met King Xavier.

  Selina

  After my bath, Alexander and Jordina apply my makeup and style my hair while I hope for escape. I won’t get through the ceremony, which leaves me two choices: escape or death.

  “Do you like your hair this way, Selina?” Alexander asks, and I open my eyes for a moment. He’s curled my hair into dozens of tiny ringlets that he’s looping and pinning at varying lengths using tiny diamond-encrusted clasps that sparkle against my pale purple hair.

  I nod, noting the heavy black eyeliner Jordina applied, the metallic silver eye shadow, and, of course, the bloodred lipstick. Objectively I know I look good, but I hate it.

  Beauty’s a symbol of my captivity. My desirability’s the trait that led to this misery.

  If only I’d disfigured myself before I turned, but at twenty-two I’d been hopeful, no idea my physical self would be forever frozen in place.

  And my lavender hair color, now permanent, came the very day I was turned. I was so happy when I splurged on that hair dye—a treat to myself for landing my dream job in graphic design.

  After years of living on the streets and then in roach- and predator-infested rooming houses, I was on my way. Starting a job I knew I’d love and soon able to afford a real apartment. One where I didn’t need to share the halls with roaches or registered sex offenders.

  But the very night I died my hair, I was attacked by a vampire who nearly drained me and left me for dead in an alley. Somehow I’d turned all on my own—which is supposedly impossible.

  Clearly it’s not.

  So many things I thought I knew about vampires aren’t true. But one thing that’s true—they thrive best in groups.

  Surviving on the streets, a lone female vampire without a syndicate or kingdom for protection, wasn’t easy. Still, I managed it for three months until the fateful night I met Santos and was tricked by his kindness.

  Santos brought me here to Xavier’s court, and presented me to the king like a cat dumping a dead mouse on the kitchen floor for its human.

  Seconds later, Xavier plunged his fangs into my neck. He fed from me until I was so weak I could barely stand, then the king declared I was his. Since that night, my life’s been so full of torment and agony it made my abusive childhood, my teenaged years on the street, seem idyllic.

  One way or another, today is going to end all that. I only wish it didn’t have to end in death.

  Makeup and hair done, I stand still, and Jordina adjusts my wedding gown, this one even more elaborate than the previous twelve. In several hues of red, narrow panels of silk and crushed velvet intertwine as they drape my body, highlighting my shape and leaving my breasts mostly exposed, as well as my throat.

  The embroidery thread is twenty-four-carat gold, as are the beads and tiny sequins hand-sewn along the neckline and slits, which reach from the floor all the way to my waist—front and back.

  Jordina slips me into a thong. A triangle of red silk encrusted with tiny diamonds advertises my sex below the apex of the gown’s slit. The string reaching back from there is fashioned from a series of large black pearls.

  Jordina’s fingers part my labia to position them, then she tugs up on the garment from behind, adjusting the length of the string until the orbs press hard into my sex, creating stimulation each time I move—or breathe.

  I vow to minimize both at all costs.

  Alexander takes a gold hoop from a tray and opens it. Without warning, he pierces my right nipple. I gasp, and my involuntary movement digs the pearls into my sex.

  Alexander fastens the ring and slides it back and forth through the hole, then, using his finger, he wipes blood from my breast and pulls it between his lips, his eyes closing in ecstasy.

  “Selina tastes delicious,” he says to Jordina. “I can see why Xavier wants her so badly.”

  Alexander pinches my other nipple, making it hard, and then pierces that one, too, but this time I’m better prepared for the pain.

  Jordina doesn’t bother with her finger and takes my nipple, hoop and all, between her lips. She sucks, circling my nipple with her tongue several times.

  “Oh, my,” she says as she licks a few stray drops of blood from my breast. “You are going to be a very popular member of our family.”

  She crouches and her hand slides under the gown to circle my ass, then she tugs up on the beads from behind. I open my eyes to find her smiling, her expression swimming with desire.

  Her hand lightly traces forward through my folds, then up the front of my gown as she straightens. “Selina. Please let love fill your heart today. Don’t resist him this time. Please.”

  “Yes.” Alexander puts his lips on my neck and licks the skin over my pulsing vein. “If you let him, Xavier will worship you.”

  “And so will the rest of us,” Jordina adds. “Even if Xavier sometimes gets rough, we’ll always make you feel good.“

  “So good.” Alexander pushes his hand between my legs and fondles the pearls.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to fight my body’s reaction. These two vampires are sexy AF, and the way they’re touching me—tenderly, almost reverently, compared to the abuse in my past—drives my desire up to eleven.

  Can I actually do this? Marry Xavier? Join this family?

  Already powerful, with each new mate King Xavier grows more so. And as one of his mates I’ll have protection for eternity. No one outside our family will dare touch me again.

  Tired, hungry, tortured, I admit the idea is tempting.

  “She ready?” A deep male voice invades the space.

  Pike strides in, his heavy boots echoing around the dressing room.

  My heart rate quadruples. Why him? Of all of Xavier’s Guard, why do I have to be walked down the aisle by the most despicable, most cruel, most menacing vampire I’ve ever encountered?

  “Just a couple of finishing touches.” Alexander dips a brush in a pot of red powder, then carefully decorates my nipples, already fully healed from the piercing. If there’s one advantage to being a vampire, it’s quick healing, although that one thing doesn’t make up for everything else vampiric. Not even close. I so miss being human.

  I inhale the distinct coppery scent of the powder he’s using, intoxicated by the unmistakable odor of dried human blood. Starved for so long, I wish I could bend to lick it off.

  Jordina clips the end of a gold chain to my thong, tight against my clit. Where is the other end of it going?

  “All ready,” she says.

  With horror, I realize the other end of the chain has a leather handle—and Jordina hands it to Pike.

  Below bushy dark hair that falls to his shoulders, the massive vampire’s eyes narrow as he ogles my body, shaking his head slowly and licking his lips. No doubt the beast is thinking of all of the filthy and painful things he wants to do to me. If I marry Xavier he won’t get another chance.

  His head turns, and I gasp. Caught at the right angle, Pike is handsome, in a brutish, ultra-masculine way. Even though his right cheek is scarred in an angry red mess, no doubt badly burned before he turned, I can imagine how he might once have looked. Standing before me, Pike’s impossibly broad chest expands and contracts, each
breath lifting pecs as solid and pocked as ancient shields.

  Empathy rushes my heart. Are Pike’s scars, the pain he suffered, what created the cruelty inside him?

  No. I have scars and they didn’t make me cruel. More likely Pike’s wounds came from a woman trying to defend herself from him. I shake off my momentary softness.

  Should I try harder with the ceremony this time?

  I shudder at memories of my past wedding days. The very first time I walked down the aisle followed a period of relatively conventional courting—conventional for Xavier—and he made genuine efforts to win me over to his affections.

  But that first time I refused to speak my lines during the ceremony.

  My defiance led to a month of nightly assaults, like he thought he could use his body to force love into mine. But during wedding attempts number two, and three, and four, I again refused to recite the words.

  After that, Xavier’s distinction between punishment and coercion blurred, and his techniques turned more brutal. He moved me from the small room next to his into the dungeon where I’d be under the “care” of his Guard. His Guard made Xavier seem gentle.

  The seventh marriage attempt followed a night after I was penetrated endlessly by Xavier’s female Guard members equipped with huge dildos—the worst bachelorette party ever.

  That time I gave in. I spoke all the ceremony’s words. All I knew was I wanted the torture to end. That day I did resolve to marry him. I thought all it would take was saying the words, but it didn’t work.

  Since then, I’ve been defiant, and I’ve suffered for it.

  If I try today, on lucky marriage number thirteen, if I try to mean the words as I say them, try to feel the words in my heart, then maybe this time will be different. Maybe today I’ll end up one of Xavier’s mates—married for all eternity to a vampire I’ll never love.