Mated & Blooded, A Blood Ties Novel, Book 1 (11 page)

“No need to continue I know exactly who her
mother is. Finish eating, then I am going to take you somewhere a
little more comfortable.”

I was full of guilt. I was once friends to
the BlueRidge pack. I had held Lidia and her sister Risa in my
hands when they’d been children. I also knew Marie. Her father had
been a dear friend. The only wolf I would have ever called friend.
It now made perfect sense that Marie’s daughter was my beloved. In
fact, I was pretty darn sure I knew exactly how the doctor got my
blood, and I knew for sure now it was my blood. I turned toward the
alpha and said

“I will be back for you shortly” then gently
placed my hand on Lidia’s elbow and walked her towards the exit of
the cave. I was careful not to hurt her as I led her into the
house. I took her straight upstairs and into one of the empty guest
rooms.

“Lidia, out of respect for my old friend
Anthony Howard, I am going to let you live for now. Take a shower,
and get some rest. I will come back for you later today. Don’t try
to escape or I might change my mind”

I left her and locked the door. I was going
to have to go downstairs and explain her and the dam rotten alpha
to my beloved now.

I found myself frozen in place. The vampire
had left, and I still hadn’t moved. Everything about the last week
was unbelievable. I kept closing and opening my eyes praying that I
was going to wake up from this nightmare.

I had done everything wrong. I went against
my own nature. I had hurt my son and sided with my monster of a
husband against my sons mate. I even helped Logan plot to kill my
child. What was wrong with me? Thank god the vampire had come and
stopped Logan and I. I would never have wanted to live if I had
been responsible for my son’s death.

What we were doing was wrong. How we treated
Marie and her child all of these years was wrong. I knew that, but
somehow I’d managed to forget. Just as I managed to forget that
Maria had once been my best friend. Or that a true mate, any true
mate was precious given by the gods themselves. How could I have
told my son to reject his mate?

It was like I hadn’t been able to control
myself. Everything that Logan said made sense when he’d said it.
Now, however it seemed surreal. In fact, everything seemed surreal
since the vampire grabbed us. It’s like a veil was slowly being
lifted from my head and I was finally able to see the truth.

Years of my life were suddenly staring me
back in the face. My hatred for Logan bubbling to the surface as I
found myself suddenly slammed again with the loss of my true mate
Tony. I knew Logan was responsible. Somehow over the years he’s
made me want to forget. Today I saw clearly. Today I knew Logan did
it purely so that he could have more power.

He wanted the BlueRidge pack. He wanted to
have the largest pack in North America. Logan believed he was an
Alpha’s alpha. BlueRidge wasn’t even the only or first pack Logan
assimilated into his. He also took over Rockledge. Rockledge was a
small pack that was located to the north of Northern Star.

Their alpha also passed mysteriously with
only female heirs. More likely Logan killed the alpha like he
killed my dad and my true mate. How could I have forgotten? How
could I have forgotten watching him bed the daughters of the
Rockledge alpha? I stood by his side while he all but raped them
for weeks on end.

Thank god both of the Rockledge shewolves
never gave birth to any of Logan’s children. I don’t remember how,
but both Anna and Alice disappeared along with twenty other
Rockledge pack members just after Lucas’s birth.

How could I be so evil? How could I stand by
while Logan raped and killed people I cared about? I never even
tried to stop him. I didn’t deserve to live. I dropped to the floor
and I started to cry. I cried for the loss of my true mate, I cried
for the loss of my friends, I cried for the evil that I had allowed
to happen. I cried for my son and his mate. I cried to god to take
me away so that I didn’t have to face the things that I allowed to
happen.

The last few days without Lucas have been so
hard. I missed him so much. My wolf missed him just as much as me
if not more. It was strange, I had spent most of my life without
being touched, but now that I had experienced the joy of touching I
felt like I couldn’t live without it.

Nikoli was wonderful, I had a great time with
him but he isn’t my mate. I understand that I am his beloved; I
just don’t feel the same way about him. He is special to me, and I
have a soft spot in my heart but it’s not the same. I enjoy talking
to him and it feels safe and warm when he is around but he doesn’t
ignite the fire in my belly that Lucas does except when I
dream.

In my dreams Nikoli is my everything. It
transcends the physical and moves into the pure spiritual. In my
dreams there is nothing that I can’t do with him at my side. He
makes me the best me I can be. In my dreams, I know that the love I
think I feel for Lucas is really my wolf and his wolves love. Lucas
and I are just tools of it. In my dreams I know that my love for
Nikoli is mine not my wolves. I feel his emotions like they are my
own. I know his every thought. In my dreams his soul and mine are
one.

Then I wake up to reality. In reality, I know
that I can never be allowed to love Nikoli that way and he can
never love me. In reality my blood is poison to him, and my wolf
wants to shred him every time he even tries to touch me. I want so
badly to feel what his skin under my fingertips would feel
like.

His skin is flawless and looks like white
porcelain, but from our very brief touches I somehow know it would
feel like silk. While he appears thin and not nearly as muscular as
Lucas I know that he is solid as a rock. Aside from missing Lucas,
I have had a wonderful time with Nikoli. He somehow is pushing me
to be a better person. He makes me own my fears, my abilities and
maybe even my future; He has forced me to realize I was a victim
because if I let myself be. Nikoli says that I never have to be a
victim again.

We work every day on my fighting skills and
my strength. He has shown me combat moves that I can easily do in
my human form. Turns out, I am a better fighter and much stronger
in my human form than as a wolf. Lucas says that’s not because
vampires are physically stronger than wolves, it’s because they
pull their abilities from their bodies, minds and spirit or soul as
Nikoli prefers to call it.

The vampire blood in my system allows me to
use some of those special talents like astral projection, Illusion
manipulation, and some psionic inundation. Nikoli also said as a
full vampire he also has additional abilities like psychometry and
memory and mental manipulation. Nikoli isn’t sure if I can tap into
any of those. I chuckled to myself again just thinking about Nikoli
trying to explain them to me, and worse trying to get me to do
them.

“Okay Kalli lets start simple with astral
projection. I know you can do this, because you were in a full
astral projection the first night I met you. Focus on your soul and
push it outside of your body. I know you did that without trying,
but now I would like you to do it on command”

We’d spent hours trying over and over again.
I couldn’t make it happen. Then, Nikoli did it and just like that,
I found my spirit rip away from my body and meet his. It had been
the most amazing feeling. We were able to move in and out of each
others non-corporal energy. I don’t even have the words to explain
how wonderful it was. It was like dancing souls touching everywhere
and nowhere. It was a blending that simply couldn’t happen with the
flesh.

I tried to stay out for as long as I could
but I kept snapping back to my body. Each time I did my wolf was a
bit more agitated then the time before. Seems like she didn’t like
being separated from my soul, I on the other hand found it kind of
refreshing to be without her. I spent hours the first day over and
over again jumping out and blending with Nikoli. Eventually he had
to ask me to stop. Seems I had exhausted myself and hadn’t even
realized it. Now, I spend a minimum of an hour a day working on
astral projecting. I am hoping the more often I do it, the easier
it will become and the longer I will be able to keep myself out of
my body.

The next skill we worked on was psionic
inundation. Nikoli wants me to master this skill quickly. He feels
like it could be my life saver if I was ever hunted by a lot of
wolves again. Basically, psionic inundation is the ability to
overload a mind, causing pain, memory loss, lack of consciousness,
vegetative state and/or death.

Nikoli forces me to practice it several hours
a day. Not all at once, but a few times an hour. I send my waves
towards a huge watermelon that he painted a face on. Nothing
happens, and without a real person to send the waves at I’m not
even sure if it’s really working or not, but Nikoli insists it is.
Part of me hopes I never really have to find out.

The last thing I’ve learned to do was
Illusion manipulation. Nikoli swears that beyond a shadow of a
doubt I have already mastered the illusions. Nikoli said that I do
it so well, it’s almost scary. All I have to do is focus on what I
want them to see and bam, they think they are seeing it.

Just for fun, I had projected me walking
across the room and plastering my lips on Nikoli’s. I saw his face
change as I pushed out the thoughts, then I heard him moan. I
started laughing and that stopped the illusion. Nikoli said I did
well, but for some reason I really don’t think he was happy.

Anyhow, I begged him to try to teach me
psychometry and memory and or mental manipulation, but he swears it
takes a full blooded vampire to utilize them. He said it was better
to keep practicing the ones he knew I could master and to work on
our combat skills.

I looked around the room I was staying in and
wondered where Nikoli had slipped off to again. I was kind of
hungry but wasn’t sure how I should broach the subject with him. I
know he’s a vampire and needs fresh blood I’m just not sure how he
goes about getting it.

I know I am being silly and stupid but I am
just uncomfortable having to talk about it. Also, I really don’t
know much about real vampires and some silly little part of me is
afraid that he is going to bring some big breasted beautiful female
into feed on. I really don’t like the idea that he might have a
bunch of gorgeous women stashed somewhere as blood donors.

I sighed loudly and sat down on the chair. I
didn’t like the places that my mind was trying to take me to so I
decided to force myself to think about something else. The thing
was, I couldn’t come up with anything. Instead I kept seeing Nikoli
with beautiful women. Touching them, kissing them.

“Ugg” I shouted out loud.

What was wrong with me? He is free to be with
anyone he wants. I have a mate. Nikoli made his entrance only
moments after I had my stupid outburst. He walked into the room
took one look at my face raise his eyebrow and said

“Problems love?”

I couldn’t help myself. I crossed my arms
tightly over my chest, looked him dead in the eye and said in the
most confident demanding voice I thought I had

“I need to feed and she better not be
beautiful”

Nikoli had the strangest reaction to my
demand. He raised his eyebrow at me, smiled went into the loudest
fit of belly chuckles I think I had ever heard.

I was lying in bed trying to force myself to
sleep yet again. I hadn’t had one good night sleep since Kalli had
disappeared. We still had no idea where she was and where my
parents and the rest of the pack had gone off to.

We’d checked everywhere, and didn’t have a
single clue. It was like they disappeared into thin air. I placed a
call to the wolf council and they said since my father was
officially missing without notification, I could declare myself
alpha without an official challenge. Well, after tomorrow at least
that particular problem would be an afterthought.

I rolled over for what must have been the
fiftieth time since I laid down when my phone started to ring. It
was of course on the other side of the room. I got up and bumped my
leg on Kalli’s end table. Dang that hurt. I wasn’t too familiar
with this bedroom but I was happy that I was here. I thought it was
so nice of Marie to offer to let me stay in her house. It made me
feel closer to Kalli lying in her bed. I was surrounded by her
scent in the sheets and pillows. I didn’t even care that the bed
was too small for me.

I reached my phone and saw an unknown number.
I thought about not answering then changed my mind. It could be an
informant with information on Kalli or my parents. I slid my finger
over the screen and lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hello” I said.

My body started shaking the moment I heard
her voice. I was relieved and freaking out at the same time. My
mate was on the phone. Thank God she is okay. I nearly jumped out
of my own skin when I heard her voice on the other side of the
phone line. I could barely wrap myself around that fact that she
was okay and talking to me. Somehow, I had thought that she would
be gone forever and that it was my fault. I had failed her and I
would suffer the consequences.

I jumped in my car and headed towards the
BlueRidge pack house the moment she told me she was also there. I
couldn’t wait to see her. We talked on the phone the entire time I
drove to BlueRidge. The first thirty minutes I just apologized over
and over again. Then I started to ask details about what happened,
if she’d been hurt and how she got away.

She told me how her mother had left her in
the car, and how two of my dads lieutenants grabbed her and shot
her up with something. I knew that part because Marie had told me
the same thing. Then she told me how she took off running through
the woods. Then she started to get kind of cryptic and kept
deflecting my questions. Specifically she didn’t want to tell me
how she escaped and where she’d been held for the past week.