Blood & Roses: Warriors of the Krieger (15 page)

It is not time for you to know your mate.
Either you will know her in this realm, or she will be with you in
the next life. Only fate decides our paths.

Well, now I know who my mate is and where she
lives. There will never be another day that I will not be away from
her. And there will be hell to pay for anyone who attempts to take
her from me. The thought of someone bringing harm to my beloved
Charity, made me want to kill them with my own hands; bathe in
their blood.

I pulled into the parking lot to find an
ambulance, on its way out, with lights and sirens blaring. Bastian
was standing by a wooden bench running his fingers through his
messy blonde hair. I got out of the Hummer and walked toward
him.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“We don’t know his name, other than he is an
attack victim. He had no identification on him, so we’ll have to
wait for fingerprints to come back. Palo is on his way to the
hospital to take the prints now.” Bastian and I looked up as we
heard the eerie howl coming from behind us.

Bastian reached for his knife that was hidden
in his boot. I pulled my gun out of its holster at my hip. We
walked to the edge of the tree line, looking for werewolves.

This part of the forest had been used for
hiking trails. The park has been closed for a few weeks now. There
was no sign of overgrowth yet, because we were still in the winter
months. I noticed the path to my left was made from small white
pebbles. It disappeared into the dense woods.

Bastian stepped off of the asphalt and I
heard the quite crunching of his footsteps as he hit the path. He
took a few steps in and sighed, “They’re gone.”

He kicked a stray pebble before turning
toward me. “Can you sense them?” he whispered.

I opened my mind and felt for any sign of the
Lycan’s unique signature. My powers did not pick up on them, so
they must have ran deeper into the forest. Usually, if a Lycan was
near, I would get the feeling that made all the hairs on my body
raise and a scent of sour musk would coat the back of my
throat.

“You’re right, Bash. They took off. Let’s
head over to the hospital and check on the patients.” Bastian
looked like I had taken his toy from him, but otherwise didn’t
argue. He was always ready for a battle. He pouted all the way to
Sacred Heart.

I parked close to the emergency entrance and
followed Bastian through the sliding glass doors. They were rather
slow tonight, so I was able to find Dr. Combs in his makeshift
office. The poor man was the best vampire doctor for miles around,
and they stick him in an office no bigger than a broom closet.

He looked up from his files and smiled,
“Master Dragus, how may I help you?”

“We came to check on the victim that was
brought in.” I watched as he flipped through his pile of
charts.

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Combs opened the file and
sighed. “Richard Somers. He’s been taken up to the I.C.U.”

“Thanks, doc. We’re going to go up and take a
peek at him.”

Bastian and I made our way up to the
intensive care unit. The nurses were all sitting around a block of
monitors, watching their patients. They stood up when we walked
into the ward.

“Master Dragus,” the head nurse spoke first.
She was a thirty something brunette with hazel eyes to match. Her
badge said her name was Alice Pell. “What can I do for you?”

“We came to check on the patient that was
brought in earlier tonight, Richard Somers.”

“Yes, sir. He’s right over here,” she pointed
to her left and walked out from behind the desk. “We sedated him.
So, you may not get any answers out of him tonight.” She stopped in
front of a room with glass doors. We walked forward and waited for
it to slide open.

The patient looked to be around thirty human
years, but I sensed he was somewhere around three hundred. He was
resting peacefully in the hospital bed. Richard was large enough to
be considered for a
Krieger
position. His face looked harsh,
like he had lived a rough life. Even relaxed, I noticed his lips
kept to a thin straight line, and his hair was deep dark red.
Something about his aura made me uneasy. He had hate written all
over him.

“Are you getting the same feeling about this
guy that I am,” Bastian whispered.

“Yeah, he’s just not right. He reeks of
danger.” I glanced back at the nurses. They were watching us
carefully, none of them getting too close to the door of the room.
“Even the nurses look uneasy.”

Bastian walked away to go speak with them,
while I talked to the head nurse. “Why is everyone so scared of
this man?”

Nurse Alice sighed heavily, “He’s mean and
nasty. Richard could be rouge by the way he acts. We just don’t
like to be around him much.”

“If you are afraid, I can post someone here
to watch over him.”

She shook her head and smiled, “No thank you,
Master Dragus. We will keep him sedated.”

I patted her on the shoulder, “Call us if you
change your mind. I will have someone come over right away.”

Bastian and I left the hospital about half an
hour before sunrise. After we returned to the estate, I retired to
my chamber and pulled out a suit for my date with Charity.

Charity

Nights only closed on Sunday and Monday
evenings. Tonight I was going in for a few hours for a special
occasion. We started renting out the club a few years ago, for
those willing to pay the fee. Lydia was on her hot date tonight so
I’d agreed to play hostess to the vampire socialite renting the
place.

I dressed up tonight in a sleek royal blue
wrap dress and black heals. My feet would surely be killing me if
this had been an ordinary night at the club, but since I was just
playing hostess, I could sneak off back to the office while the
couple has their romantic interlude.

When I parked, the place was still dark. Abby
hadn’t arrived yet which wasn’t like her. She was always early for
work. I resisted the urge to call her and decided to start opening
the place myself. My keys were still in the car locked in the
center console. I hated being out in the back alley by myself.
After zipping over to the car and back to retrieve my keys, I
fumbled through the key ring until I found the right one.

When I stepped inside the rear entrance, my
nose was assaulted by the smell of roses. The corridor leading from
the back door to the main area of the club was lined with white
candles. There was a walkway made from a white satin, and it was
covered in white and red rose petals. I followed the hallway
slowly, not wanting to destroy this beautiful path that was lain
out against the blood red carpet covering the floor.

I wondered if Abby had already been by and
set up. My senses were so consumed with the smell of fresh rose
petals that I did not sense Dragus until I stepped into the main
floor of the club.

He was standing alone on the stage, next to a
table that was draped with a white tablecloth and covered with more
petals. I sucked in a jagged breath when I looked at him. Dragus
was wearing a tuxedo and his hair was out of his usual pony tail.
He was absolutely beautiful. He looked a little uncomfortable in
the suit; like he hadn’t worn one in ages. I drifted toward him
barely noticing that the club had also been filled with hundreds of
white candles and thousands of rose petals.

“
Mi amado
,” he whispered. Obviously I
was moving too slow for him, because he used his vamp speed and met
me in the center of the dance floor. It was then I heard a click
and the music started.

“If this is your idea of a first date, you
are seriously going to spoil me,” I laughed, nervously.

“That is my full intention, Charity.” Dragus
leaned in to brush those velvet lips across mine.

I pulled away slightly to look into those
brilliant blue eyes of his and smiled. “You planed this?”

“With Lydia’s help,” he admitted. “You were
right, we haven’t properly courted and I agree.”

“You read my mind last night in my office.
Didn’t you?” I pouted, because that thought was mine.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to ask you after that
first night, but with what’s been happening at work, I wasn’t sure
when I could get away,” he frowned. “Then you were hurt.”

I stopped him before he could go any further
and stepped up on my toes to kiss him. There was no way I could
reach those delicate lips from where I was, even with the added
height from my high heel shoes. Dragus took my hint and leaned in
to my advance. He placed his hand on my waist; with the other one
he took my hand and we danced.

We danced for what seemed like hours and
while we danced, we talked. Dragus had a tough warrior exterior but
on the inside, he was mesmerizing. He was born in 1353 in Romania
and had been made a vampire in 1380, at the age of twenty-seven, by
a
Krieger
who had been out looking for recruits for the
Queen. Dragus welcomed his life as a
Krieger
and prides
himself on protecting others of our kind.

He lives on the estate with the other
Krieger
and their families, southeast of town. Their
property also borders Shepherd’s Forest. The estate was purchased
by the Queen and the land held seven homes for the warriors. It
sounded to me like it was more of a compound than an estate, but
Dragus assured me it was not.

“Do you all have a house on the estate?” I
asked.

“I live in the main house and the others have
their own smaller home. The trainees live in the dorms on the
property.”

“Do you like living there?”

“I’ve always lived on a
Krieger
Estate. Now that I am Head
Krieger
of the area, the main
house is mine. I don’t get to enjoy much of the amenities at home,
because I am never there.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” I paused. “You
should take time for yourself.” I toyed with his lapel while we
talked. He smelled wonderful, like sweet earthly musk. It was his
scent, no perfumes to taint its delicious smell.

“I am tonight,” he smiled. The song changed
and we continued to dance. The soothing music had me leaning into
his chest for comfort. I felt secure when I pressed myself into
him.

“Have you ever met anyone you could consider
bonding with?” Dragus asked after a brief silence.

“Oh, no,” I shrugged. “I’ve dated a little
but have never found ‘the one’.”

“Me either. I haven’t courted much, because
being a
Krieger
takes up most of my time. Plus, I’ve been
waiting on you,” he smiled. He truly believed that I was his soul
mate. I couldn’t imagine living for as long as he has just waiting
on me. I felt sorry for him, but his other admission made it not so
bad.

Dragus didn’t come right out and say it, but
I read the undertone to that statement. He was letting me know that
his job kept him away from home a lot. The thought saddened me a
little but I understood his position all too well.

“I know how you feel. This place takes up
most of my nights. One of the reasons I opened this was to keep
myself busy.” Hopeful that my explanation was clear enough that he
knew I was thinking along the same lines as he was. The last thing
I wanted to do was to sit at home and wait for my man to return
home. I was not a kept woman, nor would I ever be.

Dragus snickered, “Modern women are very hard
for me to understand. I come from a time where the woman’s place
was inside the home. Don’t get me wrong, I understand your
independence, but it’s not something I’m use too. If we were back
in the fifteenth century, I would have murdered Adam for entering
your mind without my permission and definitely would have
annihilated that Romeo for coming within five feet of you.”

Oh, crap! Big bad warrior Dragus was rearing
his ugly head. It’s time to nip this in the bud.

“Dragus, you cannot lock me in a house and
expect me not to live my life. I have been on my own for almost
three centuries. Life has been great for me and it’s been that way,
because
I
have taken care of myself. Lydia and I have stuck
together for all this time, but by no means have we relied on each
other. My wealth was made by me. Everything I have, it was bought
by my own hands, not some other person. I understand your desire to
protect me and that’s fine, but like I thought earlier, I will not
be a kept woman.”

“
Mi amado
,” he sighed. “Thank you for
understanding my feelings and I will honor yours, but I am your
protector now and always. I’ve known this since I met you in my
human dreams.” The song drifted to the end and with that he
escorted me over to the table.

“I don’t understand how I was in your dreams
almost three hundred years before I was born,” I admitted.

“Akalika said that it was more of
premonition. When a potential
Krieger
is born, they are
already a little different from everyone else. It’s like we were
born to become what we are. Our bodies are larger than others our
age. Some of us, as humans, already possess some sort of
supernatural abilities.”

“What did you think when they found you and
asked you to become a vampire?” I asked.

“Vampires were well known in those times.
When I was approached about joining the
Krieger
, I jumped at
the chance. It was, and still is, a great honor among our
community.”

After a glass of Merlot, we returned to the
dance floor. My head rested against his massive chest and I let him
whirl me around the floor. Dragus was a graceful companion on the
dance floor. I absolutely love to dance, but my feet were giving
out on me, and there were two hours left before dawn. I didn’t want
to leave.

“Charity, we need to go home,” he whispered
against my hair. His breath left goose bumps on my neck.

“Just a little longer,” I begged. He pulled
me up against his chest and leaned in for that customary good night
kiss. Oh boy, what a kiss it was. He explored my mouth with his
tongue, teasing me with soft brushes against my fang. It took all
of my will power not to ravage him right here in the middle of the
dance floor.