*Just a quick little author's note*
I have been HORRIBLY cursed with my long time nemesis of insomnia lately. But I'm a good girl, and so I lay in bed and TRY TO SLEEP.(not gonna fall asleep if ur up and running around, after all.) Since I was like four, my trick has been to make up stories in my head-it usually works. I always fall asleep just when I'm getting to the good part, lol. So if any who reads the start of this story (and thank you for that kindness!) is interested or curious I have already written, in my head at least, the stories of Lindy, Kiara and Jess. Just don't ask why I decided to start with the last first. By the way, I'm still fighting the urge to flip to the last chapter half way through a really good read!
I never should have let my mother talk me into becoming the liaison for the Vampire King. It meant living here in the Mansion. And this fucking place was probably larger and more sprawling then some second or third world palaces.
It housed, between the fangs and the weres, when you threw in all the humans that served either group, at least 400 bodies-warm or otherwise.
And I don't really play nice with other people.
When she's not irritated with me momma says I'm an individualist loner type. When she's actively pissed at me-and that would be ninety percent of the time and usually involves my having punched out someone even I knew I really shouldn't have-she calls me an anti-social Irish hell child with little manners and less self control. And she always blames it on my dad's side of the family. (Like I'd know. I've never met my father. I don't know if he's even still alive. She never talks about him. I don't even know his name.)
I tried to argue her out of banishing me here. I honestly didn't see why she needed me here. She already had three of her favorite former students living at the Mansion.
First she told me that whining was very unattractive in a woman and then calmly pointed out why none of her three pets could be her liaison. A) Lindy was mated to Aidan, the Vampire King. She was the single human that he ever took the blood he needed from, and last but sure as hell NOT least, she reminded me that Aidan was violently in love with his still human mate. Way to go with the fricking over kill mom.
And then she moved onto B) Kiara, who was in a very serious, locked down love triangle that involved Jontay, Aidan's second in command, and Lisset, the wickedly exquisite, deceptively fragile looking female Vampire who wore the misleading face and form of the 16 year old she had been when she'd been changed. And who just happened to be the King's secret, most deadly assassin.
Even I could agree, as much as I didn't want the job, that Jess already had enough to deal with.
She had recently been mated, totally against her will (the poor thing panicked, basically setting herself out on a platter, when she broke the Were "laws of engagement" pact and tried to run away from her mating hunt) to not just one, but TWO Were kitties-brothers, and two of their pride's top enforcers.
That poor girl was spitting mad and bleeding hurt. She felt betrayed because neither Kia or Lindy had done anything to help her. She knew on an intellectual level that both had been literally unable to do anything. It's no small thing when you cry "Master" to a Vamp with power. I know enough from my studies about the fanged folk to realize that it's almost impossible to resist an Old One who's hell bent on seduction and possession.
But Jess still hurt, on the emotional level.
I think the only reason she hadn't attacked anyone yet was because she was so mad at so many people she couldn't decide on a single target. And believe you me-that girl WAS a Warrior. She was top of the class and seething with inborn talent and the learned skill that comes from passionate obsession. If she went off she could do some serious carnage. She didn't need fangs or claws to hurt something.
So there you have your stage set.
Three woman with strong ties to the Warrior guild...and at least five Alpha level were or fang folk not about to let those treasured three get in any sort or danger, even as small as a stubbed toe.
And then you had me.
Nobody really cared about me. Not enough to die for me. I mean my mother loves me. But she loves me with a cold, hard, practical love. With my mother, it is always pragmatic. There were ties that had to be forged stronger. There were things that had to be done. And sometimes that involved sacrifices on one alter or another. I've always known that. I can never escape KNOWING this. It was how I was raised. And I can't even hate or resent her. When I hurt, I do not look to see where I bleed.
If it has to be done, if it will save millions or thousands or mere hundreds. If it affects even just an important dozen-or a single irreplaceable soul one day I may find myself laid out on some alter, real or metaphysical, looking up at a knife that my mother holds.
I know this. I think it is my first memory.
My mother can not be the liaison that is needed. She is too important to risk. She can not be made a target that fangs and claws and human weapons ache to sink into. She has the school to run, her Warriors to train. None of us, not even those who do not understand the importance could survive losing her.
But we need them, these "Others". And they need us. It's always a brutal battle. There are so many blood thirsty, angry rogues who do not understand. But it's this symbiotic relationship that keeps our shared world from spinning off into hell. And you can't just toss some nobody into the role of being the liaison and expect them to have the the power to speak with both "voices" behind them.
As much as I have always hated it and never wanted it I am the one who stands silent, in waiting. I am the weapon lurking behind the striking force of the immensely powerful Warrior's guild.
I am the power behind the power. And I have long been kept in check; a prisoner in waiting. I am left simmering, burning. A murderous deadly weapon given no target. I am held back just waiting, always waiting. Momma told me once, when I was sick almost unto death from a knife tainted with poison and she thought me too incoherent to hear, that I was the best she had ever trained. She told me I was the one who could someday take her place.
From my birth, I have been trained.
I am a weapon, well honed, with a perfect cutting edge. All I am, is a weapon.
And right now I am a weapon lost fucking somewhere miles beneath the bowels of the above ground Vamp Mansion. I got caught up all confused and turned about in the rabbit warrens mess of tunnels carved out under this Mansion prolly a thousand years ago for means of warfare, deception, or escape.
