Read Online Bound by the Vampire Queen by Joey W. Hill - Free Book Online
Authors: Joey W. Hill
Ads: Link
found her.
Ingram had taken good care of the plants, keeping tabs on the landscaping crew who maintained them.
Like Jacob, he understood the significance of the spot to her. For loving and impregnating a vampire, Lyssa’s father, a Fae lord even more powerful than Keldwyn, had been turned into a rose bush. He was then planted in the desert to wither and die. That had all happened a thousand years ago, before Lyssa was born. When she’d been hiding in the mountains and still carrying Kane, Keldwyn had given her an enchanted rose that came from her father’s transmuted form. It was now suspended under glass in her bedroom here, but she’d known the story long before she’d received the rose, and so had always cultivated exotic, delicate roses in her father’s honor.
She’d avoided going to the nursery entirely, and he knew it wasn’t because she missed Kane. As he watched her from the doorway of the solarium, he could see it happening. She was shedding that part of herself. It was in how she walked through her rose garden in that slow, methodical way, her back straightening, chin lifting unconsciously. She was drawing her shields around herself, repatching any armor that the past months had softened or dented.
She was becoming Queen of the Far East Clan again, right before his eyes. And Jacob knew what that required from him.
Though some might cal her months as a fugitive in the Appalachians a hardship, once they’d been reunited there, neither of them had viewed it that way. Not long after they’d met, he remembered a vulnerable moment where she’d spoken of her longing to simply exist. Not as a queen, but as a creature of the forest, nothing required of her but to be. As such, in those forest months, they had been merely Lyssa and Jacob, one’s strengths filling in for the other’s weaknesses, whenever needed, so that they could survive and be together.
Even after they’d returned to Atlanta, with the limbo state of the Council not being sure what to do with her, they’d been able to hold on to that, unmolested by vampire affairs. Until the attack on Mason’s estate had drawn the attention of the Fae queen. While he was sad to see those times about to disappear, perhaps he was cut out of the same fabric as she was, because it was a passing moment. He could feel himself changing as well, aligning back to the concentrated focus of a servant.
Not just guardian and lover, but the being whose role was anticipating her needs at all levels. The knight and samurai that were his past, but also part of his present, were resurrecting, getting ready to defend and care for his liege lady.
His somber thoughts were broken by a smile at her entourage. Bran, her Irish wolfhound, stalked so close to her side that her hand rested with relaxed ease on his wiry head. Whiskers trailed in their wake, making occasional spectacular leaps at Bran’s tail as it swayed with his stately stalk. Now that Ingram and John lived on Lyssa’s property, Bran had developed a tolerance pact with the cat, ignoring her most of the time. However, Mr. Ingram was careful to keep the feline inside when Bran’s siblings were running loose on the estate.
“Because what one dog will do to a cat is a different matter from what a pack will do,” the fifty-something majordomo had observed earlier.
“A universal truth,” Lyssa murmured. That moment had been the beginning of her mood shift.
At dusk on the following day, they’d start seeking the whereabouts of a dryad trapped somewhere among the concrete, glass and asphalt of downtown Atlanta. But tonight, Jacob watched his lady draw strength from the brown earth beneath her bare feet.
When she at last stopped in the inner circle of her garden, where the plants were oldest, those that bloomed with the sweetest, deepest fragrance, she lowered herself to the ground gracefully, sitting on one hip. She wore one of the older skirts she used for her gardening, an oversized Renaissance shirt loose
Ingram had taken good care of the plants, keeping tabs on the landscaping crew who maintained them.
Like Jacob, he understood the significance of the spot to her. For loving and impregnating a vampire, Lyssa’s father, a Fae lord even more powerful than Keldwyn, had been turned into a rose bush. He was then planted in the desert to wither and die. That had all happened a thousand years ago, before Lyssa was born. When she’d been hiding in the mountains and still carrying Kane, Keldwyn had given her an enchanted rose that came from her father’s transmuted form. It was now suspended under glass in her bedroom here, but she’d known the story long before she’d received the rose, and so had always cultivated exotic, delicate roses in her father’s honor.
She’d avoided going to the nursery entirely, and he knew it wasn’t because she missed Kane. As he watched her from the doorway of the solarium, he could see it happening. She was shedding that part of herself. It was in how she walked through her rose garden in that slow, methodical way, her back straightening, chin lifting unconsciously. She was drawing her shields around herself, repatching any armor that the past months had softened or dented.
She was becoming Queen of the Far East Clan again, right before his eyes. And Jacob knew what that required from him.
Though some might cal her months as a fugitive in the Appalachians a hardship, once they’d been reunited there, neither of them had viewed it that way. Not long after they’d met, he remembered a vulnerable moment where she’d spoken of her longing to simply exist. Not as a queen, but as a creature of the forest, nothing required of her but to be. As such, in those forest months, they had been merely Lyssa and Jacob, one’s strengths filling in for the other’s weaknesses, whenever needed, so that they could survive and be together.
Even after they’d returned to Atlanta, with the limbo state of the Council not being sure what to do with her, they’d been able to hold on to that, unmolested by vampire affairs. Until the attack on Mason’s estate had drawn the attention of the Fae queen. While he was sad to see those times about to disappear, perhaps he was cut out of the same fabric as she was, because it was a passing moment. He could feel himself changing as well, aligning back to the concentrated focus of a servant.
Not just guardian and lover, but the being whose role was anticipating her needs at all levels. The knight and samurai that were his past, but also part of his present, were resurrecting, getting ready to defend and care for his liege lady.
His somber thoughts were broken by a smile at her entourage. Bran, her Irish wolfhound, stalked so close to her side that her hand rested with relaxed ease on his wiry head. Whiskers trailed in their wake, making occasional spectacular leaps at Bran’s tail as it swayed with his stately stalk. Now that Ingram and John lived on Lyssa’s property, Bran had developed a tolerance pact with the cat, ignoring her most of the time. However, Mr. Ingram was careful to keep the feline inside when Bran’s siblings were running loose on the estate.
“Because what one dog will do to a cat is a different matter from what a pack will do,” the fifty-something majordomo had observed earlier.
“A universal truth,” Lyssa murmured. That moment had been the beginning of her mood shift.
At dusk on the following day, they’d start seeking the whereabouts of a dryad trapped somewhere among the concrete, glass and asphalt of downtown Atlanta. But tonight, Jacob watched his lady draw strength from the brown earth beneath her bare feet.
When she at last stopped in the inner circle of her garden, where the plants were oldest, those that bloomed with the sweetest, deepest fragrance, she lowered herself to the ground gracefully, sitting on one hip. She wore one of the older skirts she used for her gardening, an oversized Renaissance shirt loose
Similar Books
