Bound To You

By K.A. M'Lady

Under the dark skies of Vranthia The Wasting has spread, claiming victims by the thousands. Disease, madness and death shroud this fierce warrior race.

With the recent death of their mother, Queen Srionna Balacjek, and the imminent demise of their grieving father, King Kamet; three brothers must now find their own path. Will The Wasting’s dark madness claim them all as deceit and lies turn brother against brother. Or, is the key to saving their people in the legend of the trion. And will they find it in time?

Draven Balacjek -- warrior, Prince, immortal. Fierce in battle, sure and deadly as a dark a storm or the shadows he walks among, must choose between the ties of brotherhood or the possibility of a life without the parts of his soul he has bound in blood and magic.

The Vranthians have taken everything from Ook. Desecrated the Darengy people as a whole. But the visions of a grave-warrior tell no lies and the spirit of the human along with the fierce strength of his Prince, Draven Balacjek call to him as nothing before. Can their love together heal the wounds that time has wrought and free him of his darkness?

For singer, Leah Allen, the choice was never hers to make. But life, like the music her heart clings to, has a way of playing itself out. Will this strange new world and the fierce warriors she meets within it bring her shattered past the healing she has always needed or will the strangers she finds herself bound to be her hearts undoing? Can she make a choice between dark, intense Draven and exotic, muscular Ook?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mojocastle Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781601802002

Book preview

http://www.mojocastle.com/

Also By K.A. M’Lady

Get Lucky

Song of the Wolf

Realm Book One: To Tell of Darkness

Realm Book Two: Shadow Slave

Realm Book Three: Illuminated Death

Faith Savage, Demon Huntress Series

Ramshackle Castle: Bent Poetry and Other Altered Verse

Rational Animals

A Walk in the Black Forest

Dedication:

For love.

For all the reasons that magic happens.

Because all things are possible

If only you believe.

Prologue

Vranthian Outpost – Sector Twelve

Beneath the hazy glow of Vranthia’s third moon, Draven stood alone in the alley. From the darkness, shadows rose like spirits from their graves. The oncoming storm clouds skulked across the skyline, dark swatches in a darker sky. Though the night was silent, the air subtly shifted, filling the night with the hollow memories of battles long since passed.

With each inhaled breath, he could smell the coming rain. Taste the fire-storm on his tongue. A slight breeze stirred the dry sands so that with each blink the horizon was awash in a tinge of crimson before the next blink sifted it away. The natives called the coming storm blood-rain. The title was apt; he’d seen enough blood in his days to know.

He’d come to this desolate wasteland of Vranthia’s Rebel Sector many times before, but tonight the gritty air that permeated the darkened streets felt coarse against his skin. The shadows were more ominous, the encroaching darkness more foreboding than the nights that had passed before.

In a hurry to be done with this ill-advised mission, he kept to the side streets, one destination set in his mind. His pace was steady, sure-footed. But like filth that sticks to a boot, he felt the loners, runners and thieves watching him from the darkness, following in his wake. Their hissing anecdotes were all the same murmur in the night – his infamy followed him well. "Darkness follows at his heels," he heard them snicker. Death is his sweet mistress. They hummed like carrion in the night. Circling like scavengers.

Let them chatter, he thought, dismissing their comments. They were nothing to him. Weaklings. Petty vagabonds and fools. He’d killed enough of them to know.

A quick left turn brought him to a main thoroughfare. Through the crowded streets he briskly wandered, each stride filled with purpose. He looked at no one, yet saw everything between. His black duster skimmed the dirt on the roadway, stirred the blood-red haze. The duster’s flare left just enough room to easily draw the sword at his hip or the gun in its holster.

If one judged purely by size and demeanor, then his would send most fools and rabble to scurry in his wake. But as stories go, it was possibly the dark sheen of his ebony hair, the hard glitter in his stark green eyes that left most to believe that darkness walked upright as man.

Fools, he thought idly. Anyone with an ounce of wisdom would know that it’s all in the weaponry. When you carry deaths’ weaponry a breath from your fingers and know how to impose its finality with quick vengeance…well, then death is always certain.

He continued his efficient pace, his shadows scurrying to keep up. He lost them in the crowd as he cut through its center and took a side street. Three buildings down, he paused at a door, listened intently while he scanned the darkness and then pounded for entry. When the door opened, he quickly disappeared through its smoky recesses.

The doorman, Ook, was always at hand. Draven followed the large, blue-skinned Darengy through the main bar and into one of the back rooms. The immense grave-warrior strode past the storage room, through a secreted door in the cooler and into one of the many safe-rooms that the bar kept for runaway slaves or others in transport. With a curt nod, Ook left as quietly as he came.

Not for the first time, Draven wondered about the warrior. Considered the electrical rush his flesh felt whenever he was near. Wondered if he felt it too, but it was a thought for another time. The pulse of fate tugged at him.

In the pale, dirty light of the small room, Draven could taste the metallic hint of old blood, hard truths and desperation. Hopelessness clung to the dark, stained walls like the traces of blood that kissed the bruised flesh of the small, injured woman who lay on the pallet before him. Her wounds were rough, deep and tinged a dark greenish-purple beneath the uppermost layers of her flesh.

He stared at her in wonder, a fission of anticipation thrumming through him. It coiled in his belly, rushed through his blood and then was gone like a breath of the wind. Until this moment, her name and her life were unknown to him. But, like the wounds she bore, Draven had the oddest feeling that she would somehow leave their mark upon him and everyone whose path she crossed.

He continued to stare at her for some moments, watching her silently. Mesmerized. There was something elusive and alluring about her fragility. Maybe it was just the allure of her weakness that called to the beast within him. Maybe it was the blood that he craved. Either way, he swore when he got his hands wrapped around his brother’s neck, he wouldn’t stop squeezing until every last bit of air escaped him. There wouldn’t be enough of his brother’s remains left for even the Elders to scoop up and reformulate his DNA.

What the hell were you thinking, Kantella? Draven swore. You know that harvesting humans is forbidden. Have you grown so weak as to resort to this? So desperate?

Words interrupted his thoughts, the voice rough with age, yet smooth with time. She knows not how she came to be here.

Are you certain she has no memory? he repeated to sink himself back into this reality. If he recalled correctly, the woman’s name was Latronda. She owned the bar, and over the course of the past few years, had taken in many refugees. Draven’s own rough voice seemed to fill the shadows, stirring the darkness and ending the silence.

As certain as one can be in these matters, my Lord, Latrondra starkly replied.

Her truth hung heavy in the air between them. He wondered, for the first time, how many waifs Kantella had dumped at her doorstep. How many wounded she’d taken such great strides to hide and repair.

Your brother dumped her here two weeks ago, beaten, broken. The girl is lucky to be alive.

No soft words between us, then, he thought with an inward smile. Good. What were his orders?

Latronda glanced at the warrior beside her. His large frame filled the small enclosure of her safe-room with a silent, caged fury. It convulsed through the air like a small force field, but Prince Draven Balacjek needed