Unforgiven (The Forbidden Bond 2) (2 page)

She checked her hair and make-up one last time, loving her new haircut. Her mother was going to have a shit fit when she saw the shorn locks that curled and wrapped around Brandi’s jawbone. The stylist had given her the perfect hair cut for a woman that wanted to look good but didn’t have time for a lot of primping. The new cut used her natural waves to advantage in a style that reached midway down her neck with long layers that tickled her face. She looked greatstraight from the shower with nothing more than a little product and a pick. It dried to a wavy and stylish perfection. Today she wore several sparkly pins in her hair that peeked out of the curls to accent the shiny beads on her lavender dress that caught the light and made her appear to shimmer. The Brandi of old was gone; looking to the future was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Griffin, Brandi’s father, was the first to see her transformation. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found him in his tuxedo, looking as much like a movie star as any she’d ever seen on a red carpet. He stared at Brandi and made a slow circle around her to take in the changes. He said nothing at first and her self-esteem began to plummet. Her father would tell her the truth no matter what, and if he disapproved, he wouldn’t hold his tongue. He looked at her with the grave expression of a man about to break some very bad news. It was the serious face he used in the Council chamber when deliberating with the other Councilmen. Finally a smile split his face and softened his expression into that of her daddy.

“Now what am I going to do with you?” He folded her up in his arms and kissed the crown of her head.

“I would assign armed warriors to guard you, but they would likely fall in love. Then I’d have to have good men executed.” He shook his head, “The one precious child I never had to worry about had the nerve to become a beautiful woman and break her daddy’s heart.”

He held her there against his chest, swaying back and forth for several moments before pulling away with suspiciously shining eyes.

“I love you, too, Daddy,” she beamed up at him. The relief of his acceptance and pride in her was overwhelming to Brandi. “Shouldn’t we be leaving now? Where are Sam and Mom?”

“It seems your mother is having trouble resigning herself to attend the bonding and Samantha feels she shouldn’t have to attend, given her past with Chase. Not to mention her unreasonable distaste for Danielle. I gave them both fifteen minutes to get down here about thirty minutes ago.”

Griffin looked aimlessly around the room and ran his fingers through his perfectly groomed hair in frustration. The white highlights he was born with were believed, by their people, to be a sign of great power and they stood out starkly against the dark coffee color of the rest of his hair.

“I’m going to go ahead without you in my car. I can’t be late. Will you hurry them along and follow in the limousine?” 

Her father looked so forlorn it made her heart ache for him. The past six months had been a balancing act and an exercise in patience for Griffin. After discovering hissupposedly dead first mate and daughter had been alive and well for nineteen years, he had to deal with her mother and sister, who wanted nothing to do with the girl or her human mother. Brandi’s mother, Sarah, had decided that “the trashy human” was nothing more than a fling in his misspent youth and should have been exterminated when he had mistakenly gotten her pregnant. It didn’t matter how many times he explained that he had loved Tessa and they planned to have a baby after their bonding, Sarah wouldn’t hear it. She believed it was a phase, like when human girls go off to college and test out girl on girl relations. It was his “human phase” and a mistake. Sarah was making life around the house hell for him because he refused to disown his “mutt of a low born child and her filthy mother.”

Having Danielle come to visit their home was impossible and when Griffin went to Danielle, Sarah made a point of making him suffer. Brandi herself had been scorned for attending the bridal shower and other pre-bonding festivities. Brandi believed the drama was all due to the obvious electricity between her father and Tessa whenever they came into close contact. The tension between them was almost tangible. Her father still loved Tessa. He had only bonded with Sarah to lessen his pain at losing her. Something about Tessa being a human had kept their bond from being strong enough for him to know she was still alive, but it had been plenty strong enough to prevent his bond with Sarah from being the all-consuming experience it was supposed to be. It hadn’t stopped his pain and longing for Tessa. It only dulled it enough to make him believe the faint echoes of her voice in his head and the vague sensing of her emotions were just his heart’s wishful aching for a lost love. Their relationship had been a mix of a deep, true love, and the vampire bond that was unheard of with a human. The fact that Danielle’s mother was human was still a shock to their people. No one had believed it was possible for a human to carry a vampire child and survive. Most everyone ignored Tessa at the bridal parties and Brandi believed they would shun Dani as well if it weren’t for her transformation into a full-blooded vampire.

Brandi knew this all to be true after overhearing a conversation between her father and his best friend, Mason. Brandi had a knack for being in the right place at the right time to overhear private conversations. He’d told Mason he loved Tessa still, but he was a man of his word and he intended to honor the bond he made with Sarah. For that, Brandi greatly respected her father and was saddened at the same time. She wanted her father’s happiness, but she also worried for her mother’s future welfare and that of their family. Of course, Griffin hadn’t admitted to Sarah that he still longed for Tessa, but it was impossible not to see it when they looked at each other.

This was all ground breaking stuff. Up to this point, as far as she knew, once a couple was bonded they happily kept only to one another until one of them died. Then the surviving mate would either bond themselves to another in order to end the suffering, as Griffin had done, or they wasted away in loneliness, longing for their lost mate. Griffin had been too young to live out his days alone. Now the sadness in his eyes warred with the longing to be with his daughter on the day of her bonding to a man she loved as much as he had loved Tessa when they were bound together. The knowledge of his pain tore at Brandi’s heart.

“I’ll do my best, Daddy. If I can’t get them moving I’ll be along without them,” she embraced her father again. “Everything is going to work out. Mom will come to terms with this addition to our family as soon as she realizes they aren’t going away.”

With a disbelieving smile that didn’t reach his eyes Griffin replied, “I hope so, baby. I really hope so.” He kissed her on the cheek and headed out the door.

Brandi had been waiting in the foyer for an hour. She had made several trips to her mother and sister’s rooms in an attempt to get them out the door. It seemed odd the way her mother kept checking her watch as if she was waiting for something. Maybe her intention was to miss the ceremony and show up fashionably late to the reception. The last time Brandi climbed the stairs had been the last straw.

“Mother, I’m leaving without you. I’ll see you later tonight.”

Brandi informed Sarah’s back, because she refused to turn around to acknowledge her. This brought Sarah’s head whipping around to scowl at her.

“You will not leave this house without me, Brandi! Your sister and I will be down shortly, and you will stop making a nuisance of yourself. Go wait quietly in the foyer. It’s bad enough you cut off all your lovely hair. Must you be a pest, too?” Sarah turned back to the mirror, dismissing Brandi entirely.

On the way down the stairs familiar warmth started to spread in her core with the growing aggravation she felt with her mother and sister. What the hell did her hair have to do with anything? Taking calming breaths and forcing down the heat licking at her belly, she sat and practiced the calming meditative breathing techniques Doc Stevens had been teaching her during her recent secret weekly visits.

 Finally, Sarah swept down the stairs, her head held high, looking lovely in a black dress, the one she wore to funerals. Griffin was not going to think that was funny. Samantha looked dour in a matching shade meant to let the world know she was in mourning. The ride to the vampire owned Country Club, where many such ceremonies and events are held, was almost too quiet. Samantha continued to look as if she was going to vomit, and Sarah had the look of a cat that had swallowed a bird. She appeared smug and satisfied. They were most surely going to be late. They would have to wait in the hall so they didn’t interrupt the bonding. Maybe Sarah’s intention was to barge in and cause a disruption. 

The limo pulled up to the building and Brandi realized the lights were out inside. She knew it was to be a candle light reception with additional pale lighting used so as to not ruin the view of the stars in the clear night sky, but she hadn’t heard any mention of the bonding being held in such darkness. Then she noticed a van parked up on the curb at an odd angle and a chill skittered down her spine. Something was wrong here. She could feel the tension in the air. Brandi leapt from the limo as soon as it came to a stop and ran for the stairs leading to the chapel.

“Brandi get back here, now!” her mother exclaimed, but Brandi was almost to the doors by the time Sarah and Samantha had exited the vehicle. Sarah called her back again in vain. She wanted to rip open the doors and go storming in but that instinct that told her when to shut up and listen kicked in, so she slowly slid through the door, and crept over to a coat closet off to the right. It would give her a place to observe her surroundings for a moment. She needed to be sure her creepy feeling wasn’t just her imagination working overtime. Busting into Danielle’s bonding ceremony like gangbusters to find she was wrong would not be the ideal way to smooth things over between the Vaughns and the Deidricks. Not to mention, it would be embarrassing.

Brandi heard voices and a struggle in the hall. The owners of the voices came into view. One was very familiar and the other less so, but he reminded her of someone she couldn’t quite place. The first was Darren carrying a lifeless Danielle and the other guy was carrying a mean looking gun and covering Darren’s back. Darren had tricked Danielle into following him six months earlier, and had given her to the Rogue that had been hunting Danielle and other vamp youth for months in order to rob them of their extrasensory powers. Darren’s motivation had been to force Dani to a bond with him. The Rogue had drained her nearly to death in order to absorb her power and Darren had given her his blood to revive her. Dani had nearly died and she lost an important part of herself in the process. Her human half was stolen from her that night and she was transformed into a full blooded vampire. The loss of the humanity gifted to her by her mother still haunted Dani. Fortunately, the bond Darren forced onto her was one sided. Her humanity was still firmly in place at the time of the blood exchange and it prevented the bond from taking hold of her soul.

The warmth in Brandi’s belly grew swiftly. She struggled to hold it back. Just then the door flew open and Samantha walked directly into Darren. Danielle moaned with the impact. The other guy spun around, pointing the gun at Samantha’s face.

 “Back away and you won’t get hurt, Sam.” Darren said calmly, but the guy with the gun seemed less sure of Sam’s safety. Samantha put her hands in the air and moved away from the door. In the background Brandi could hear people pounding on the chapel doors, trying to get out.

“Take the bitch. Make sure you get the job done this time. She’s like a bad song stuck in my head. No matter how hard I try to forget her, the bitch just refuses to go away.”

Brandi had to find a way to stall them until help came and Samantha was providing the great distraction. Brandi rummaged around the closet, fighting the flames trying to escape her, until she found a set of golf clubs. Lucky thing the Country Club had a golf course, because the clutch purse she carried wouldn’t have done her any good in this situation. She exited the closet behind the armed man with a club raised over her head ready to swing.

Samantha looked her right in the eye and yelled, “No, Brandi, let them take her! We will all be better off this way!”

The armed guy spun around to face her. The club struck the shoulder of his gun arm instead of his head. It knocked the weapon loose, but he caught the gun, and his balance, as Brandi rushed him. She only had to keep them from leaving without getting shot. That’s what she told herself, but she wasn’t fast enough. The rage looking back at her from behind the dark eyes of her opponent froze her soul. He twisted her roughly with one arm, trapping her against his chest and slamming the muzzle of the gun into her temple. Samantha yelped in protest behind her and the sound of people banging on the chapel doors from the opposite direction grew louder. The pain in her head from the impact of the gun angered Brandi and made her stomach roil. A little of her hard-earned control slipped, and the heat crept though her hands, scalding her captor. He released her quickly and pointed the gun at her head again. His incredulous look and the struggle went unnoticed by Darren, who had already shouldered his way through the doors and was heading down the front stairs. Samantha was cowering in the corner. The guy lowered his voice to a confidential level and whispered to Brandi.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else. Just stay where you are. You can’t win. Please, just back off.”

His entire demeanor had changed and he suddenly seemed as young and frightened as Brandi. She could do nothing but stare into the sable depths of his haunting eyes while he backed out of the door. The spell was broken when the door shut and the sound of his retreating footsteps faded. Shaking herself, Brandi went to the door after retrieving her golf club. Her mother entered with a smile on her face.

 “Well that was entertaining, wasn’t it girls? I guess we won’t have to suffer through the bonding after all.”

Samantha jumped up from her hiding place and tried to stop Brandi’s exit.