Amy Sumida - Blood Bound (Book 16 in The Godhunter Series)

  Blood Bound

  Amy Sumida

  Copyright © 2015 Amy Sumida

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1516949889

  ISBN-13: 978-1516949885

  DEDICATION

  To Joy Pischura for her inspiring exclamations.

  More Books by Amy Sumida

  The Godhunter Series(in order)

  Godhunter

  Of Gods and Wolves

  Oathbreaker

  Marked by Death

  Green Tea and Black Death

  A Taste for Blood

  The Tainted Web

  Series Split:

  These books can be read together or separately:

  Harvest of the Gods & A Fey Harvest

  Into the Void & Out of the Darkness

  Perchance to Die

  Tracing Thunder

  Light as a Feather

  Rain or Monkeyshine

  (Blood Bound)

  Eye of Re

  Beyond the Godhunter:

  A Darker Element

  The Twilight Court Series:

  Fairy-Struck

  Pixie-Led

  Raven Mocking

  Other Books

  The Magic of Fabric

  Feeding the Lwas: A Vodou Cookbook

  There's a Goddess Too

  The Vampire-Werewolf Complex

  Enchantress

  Pronunciation Guide

  Aillidh: Ah-lee

  Aodh: Ee

  Aoife: Ee-fa

  Anubis: Ah-new-bis

  Arach: Air-roc

  Bearach: BEH-ruck

  Carus: Care-us

  Cian: Key-an

  Craigor: Kraeg-or

  Daoir: Daheer

  Drachleen-sidhe: Druch-leen Shee

  Eilidh: Ael-ee

  Ellingran: El-ING-rawn

  Estsanatlehi(Mrs E): Es-tan-AHT-lu-hee

  Eztli: AHZTLIY

  Farinne-sidhe: Fare-nya Shee

  Fionnuala: Finn-noo-lah

  Fionnaghal: Fyoon-ghal-a

  Froekn: Fro-kin

  Gruach: Groo-ah

  Huitzilopochtli: Weet-seal-oh-POACHED-lee

  Intare: In-tar-ay

  Kanaloa: Kah-nah-low-ah

  Kirill: Key-reel

  Leannan-sidhe: Lah-nan Shee

  Ma'at: Mah-aht

  Meilyr: May-ler

  Nephthys: Nep-th-es

  Nyavirezi: Nee-yah-veer-ez-ee

  Peig: Paeg

  Raiseala: Rash-uh-lah

  Re: Rah

  Scotaidh: SCO-tee

  Shehaquim: Shah-ha-keem

  Tairhail: Tah-vel

  Tima: Tee-mah

  Tlaloc: T-la-lock

  Tsohanoai(Mr. T): So-ha-noe-ayee

  Chapter One

  Morning sickness was a unique hell when you were a dragon.

  I tried to swallow past the taste of cinders lingering on my tongue and made a disgruntled face at the glass of orange juice sitting on the table in front of me. Kirill had put it there before he'd begun to cook me breakfast in our cozy kitchenette. The mini kitchen, with it's modest stove and full-sized fridge, dominated a corner of our bedroom suite on the top floor of Pride Palace. The cupboards and counters were dove white, which made the basic black coffee maker stand out in stark relief. Beside the coffee pot and its large container of Kona coffee, was a line of gaily painted tea canisters and then an intimidating knife block. The tea pot squatted on the stove top, waiting for its chance to boil.

  The table I sat at was a six-seater. It used to be only four but then my other lovers had moved in and we'd needed more seating. So I'd made this white wood table to match the cupboards. It had sturdy chairs, something imperative when dealing with shapeshifters and a pregnant triple trinity being.

  I'd just returned from Faerie the night before, having stayed only a few days this time. I'd considered spending my entire pregnancy in Faerie but I'd decided against it for a few reasons. One was the issue of time. Messing with time could become confusing so I tried to spend the same amount of time in Faerie as I did in the God Realm. The Ring of Remembrance was created by the fey to remember their past, which is hard to do when you live forever. With it, you could pick a time in the past and return to it. If you were alive during this time, you would be pushed back into your body and experience events just as they'd happened the first time. However, if you weren't alive, you could freely interact with the past... with a couple of caveats. You couldn't change history and you couldn't save someone's life.

  But the fey hadn't considered multiple realms when they created the ring. Back when the ring was made, Faerie was connected to the Human Realm and there would have been little reason for a faerie to visit the God Realm. So they never considered the fact that the ring could be used to experience multiple realms at once. Each realm held its own timeline. With the ring's help, I could spend a certain amount of time in Faerie and then jump back to the God Realm in the exact moment I'd left it, to experience that same time over there. Then I could return to the Faerie in the moment I last left it and do it all over again. This basically allowed me to be in both places at the same time.

  Like I said, it's confusing. Which is why I don't like to press my luck by spending a whole month in Faerie. It would mean that I'd have to wait another month after returning to the God Realm before I was able to freely travel between realms without the ring's interference.

  Then there was Trevor, my werewolf lover. I housed a portion of his soul inside me and if I didn't allow him to reconnect with it at least once a month (through physical contact), he died. This made visiting Faerie for long periods of time difficult. Even with my ring, I still had to limit my visits to no longer than a month because I didn't want to risk Trevor's life (please note the second caveat about not being able to save someone's life). So if I wanted to spend a lot of time in Faerie, I'd have to pop over to the God Realm and reconnect with Trevor at least every few weeks, for only a few moments, and then go back to Faerie. This would cause a time deficit in the God Realm, which I'd have to reconcile in the future. A bit of a headache.

  Damn werewolf binding ritual. Trevor had bound himself to me without my knowledge or consent and I was unable to make that kind of commitment back to him. So he was bound but I wasn't, making us the only incomplete Froekn couple in existence. Normally, if one part of a mated werewolf pair died, the other would soon follow. But with us, only Trevor would be affected by my death. If he died, I could live through it. I would be miserable but I would live.

  I looked over at the man himself as Trevor came out of the bathroom with the sleek strut of a wolf. He was in a pair of worn jeans and nothing else. A couple of rebellious water droplets caught my eye as they made a run for the enticing edge of Trevor's waistband, leaving a glistening trail over the many dips of his muscled chest. I watched those muscles bunch and stretch as he rubbed a towel briskly over his shaggy, dark hair. He needed another haircut soon if he was going to keep the short style looking good.

  I didn't mind though, I liked long hair on a man. How could I not? I looked over to Kirill, where he stood at the steel stove. His blue-black hair hung down his bare back in a braid as thick as my wrist. The tapered end of it dangled over his impressive ass, which was currently covered by a pair of loose shorts. Kirill always slept with his hair braided. My hair was pretty long too and I did the same. It was either that or we ended up tangled together by morning. Still, I preferred to see his hair loose.

  “You don't want your OJ?” Trevor asked and kissed my cheek.

  “Not quite yet,” I rubbed my rounded belly.

  Oh yeah, back to my drago
n-sidhe pregnancy. On top of literally burning indigestion, I had the weirdest food cravings and an advanced pregnancy. Dragon-sidhe (aka faerie dragon shifters) had a six month gestation period. Which meant that although I was only two months along, I looked closer to three. At least I didn't have a lot of the other stuff human women had to put up with. Gross stuff that I read about in a pregnancy book and which I will not repeat... for any amount of money. So I guess there were both pros and cons with having a dragon baby.

  The random fires were a bit of a pain in the ass. I hiccuped and pressed my fingers firmly to my mouth before I let out a stream of flame and burnt our lovely lacey tablecloth. I'd already lit the bedspread and a bath towel on fire but I was getting better at controlling myself and only a thin stream of smoke trailed out of my nose. Trevor chuckled and shook his head as he went to the counter to pour himself some coffee. He glanced over at what Kirill was cooking and then immediately looked back for a more thorough inspection.

  “What the hell is that?” Trevor asked.

  “Tima vanted eggs for breakfast,” Kirill's Russian accent made him sound a bit brutish but the expression he directed at Trevor was warm and friendly. He slid a fluffy, sooty pile of stuff out of the frying pan and onto a plate.

  “Those aren't eggs,” Trevor stared at the plate in fascination.

  “Da, zey are,” Kirill put the plate in front of me and I sat up, instantly interested. “She brought zem back vith her from Faerie.”

  “Faerie eggs are black?” Trevor turned horrified eyes to me.

  “They're asten eggs. Astens are lizard-like creatures in the Fire Kingdom,” I sniffed the omelet appreciatively... yum. The eggs may look gross but they tasted a little salty and smokey. Delicious, even without any spices added. I glanced up at Trevor. “Pregnant women eat asten eggs to cure morning sickness. I brought a whole bunch with me, they're in the fridge if you want to try one.”

  Trevor turned slowly towards the fridge, as if he were a stupid white person in a horror movie, heading down to the basement after hearing something growl; Go away! He opened the door with an expression which clearly said that he knew he was that person and was fully expecting something to jump out at him. His eyes went wide as he spied the basket of large, crimson eggs. Trevor shook his head as he reached for something on the shelf beneath the eggs. Turning back to me, he held it up for me to see. It was a jar of bright turquoise paste.

  “What is this?” He asked carefully, like he was unsure whether he wanted to know the answer or not.

  “Suppressive seaweed jam,” I smiled and reached for the jar. It would go perfectly with my eggs. He handed it over and as he gaped at me, I scooped some out.

  “She just put seaweed on her eggs!” Trevor announced as he turned to Kirill.

  “Da, I'm standing right here,” Kirill frowned at Trevor like he'd lost his mind. “Jam helps to stop fires,” he waved at me. “You should be happy ve have it.”

  “What?” Trevor fell back against the counter heavily.

  “It's made from a special seaweed found in the Water Kingdom,” I explained. “The trace amounts of water magic within it counteract the excess amount of fire magic within me.”

  “Helps stop fire,” Kirill nodded.

  “But on eggs?” Trevor asked in a horrified tone.

  “It's not a sweet jam,” I shrugged. “It kind of reminds me of Vegemite.”

  “Oh, gods no!” Trevor cried. “You can have your sea jam but do not bring Vegemite into this house.”

  “Vegemite is good for you,” Azrael said as he came down the tower stairs in the right corner of the room.

  Yep, I kept my men in towers, as every wicked witch does with her loved ones. Trevor and Kirill had rooms in the tower on the left, while Odin and Azrael each had a room in the right tower. The towers ended up being nice additions to the palace, bracketing our large balcony nicely, and freeing up some closet space for me. Not that I needed it; I had an entire room for a closet. The main reason for their creation though, had actually been to free up the bed and give the men some personal space of their own.

  Our beautiful, four-poster bed was quite large and could easily fit three of us in it at once but five made it a little too cozy for alpha males. Someone inevitably fell or was pushed (I wouldn't put it past those yahoos) off the bed during the night. So now I rotated my bed partners like a sultan with his harem. Just call me Sultana Vervain.

  “No, not you too,” Trevor shook his head at Azrael, bringing me out of my delusions of grandeur.

  “What are we talking about?” Az smiled as he came over and gave me a good morning kiss.

  “My strange food cravings,” I laughed. “You want some coffee?”

  “I'd kill for a cup,” he nodded and went to pour himself one.

  “Maybe not ze best phrase for you,” Kirill observed dryly.

  “Hey, just because I'm the Angel of Death doesn't mean I actually kill people,” Azrael chuckled. “I just transport their souls.”

  “Whatever,” Trevor scoffed. “I saw you at the monkey palace. You were doing more than just transporting.”

  “I was defending the mother of our child,” Azrael huffed.

  They were all still calling the baby theirs, even though we now knew that it was Arach who had fathered my son. I was a little worried about what would happen when the baby was born. Arach and I had counted on having a true dragon-sidhe heir, which meant a child that was one-hundred-percent dragon and who could therefore rule the Fire Kingdom (and shift into dragon form). We'd also thought this meant that the child would remain in Faerie and never be a part of my life in either the God or Human Realms.

  That all kind of changed when I gave our baby a god soul. I know that sounds impossible. How could a mother choose which soul to give her baby? Well, I'm no ordinary mother. The term we've created for me is; triple trinity. It's been a complicated path to make me so but basically I have three magics, three beasts, and three races... of which I am one-hundred-percent of each. I know it's confusing. Welcome to my life.

  So when I first conceived, my child was in a state of imbalance. I had to choose a soul for it, a bloodline out of the three I had available. But I hadn't known who the father was at the time and I didn't want to give a faerie essence to a shapeshifter or god baby. So I'd waited until it was almost too late.

  When my friend Ull was killed in a battle against the vanara (Hindu monkey shifters), my unborn and unbalanced child experienced my distress and was sent into a magical tail spin. He was burning out of control and would have killed us both if Alaric, my trusty guardian and the consciousness of the Void, hadn't helped me out by taking my spirit to the Void. The Void is the place where both god and human souls are born and it's also where they return to upon death, if some god doesn't interfere. There, I was able to recover... and speak to Ull.

  Alaric explained that not only did I have the power to choose which type of soul my child would have, I could also give him two souls, making him one-hundred-percent dragon-sidhe and one-hundred-percent something else. Such as one-hundred-percent god, if I happened to give him Ull's soul. This meant that if he ever died, his faerie essence could live on, bonded to his god soul... and could be reborn again.

  Rebirth is not unknown to the fey, in fact it happens all the time, but not reincarnation. When a faerie dies, their essence is returned to the fey source, which is basically a big soup of elements. The essence is dispersed back into the element it came from and then a portion of that element is dished out again to create a new faerie. So they are reborn but not as the same, exact essence.

  The possibility of our child being reborn, assuaged the anger Arach had felt over my giving our son a god soul. But the fact that I'd chosen Ull's soul in particular, complicated things. It meant that Thor and Odin, and probably all of our friends, would want to be a part of this child's life. It also seemed to make my other men think that they were entitled to help raise the child. That was a problem since this child needed to be raised as a faerie princ
e.

  I knew this was something that would need to be worked out soon but I'd yet to tell Arach about it. It had been hard enough to tell him that I'd bonded my friend's soul to our child's essence. Like I mentioned before, he'd been happy in the end but I didn't want to wreck that happiness by telling him about all the other “bonuses” Ull's soul would bring. That people who had loved Ull would feel a need to reconnect with him in his new life, even if he had no memory of being Ull. I also didn't think Arach would like my other men claiming parentage of his child. Dragons can be a bit possessive and it was hard enough for him to share his wife, much less his firstborn son and heir.

  Then there was the one thing that Ull was likely to remember eventually, despite his old life being washed away through reincarnation. His love for a human woman named Kaitlin.

  This hadn't seemed like a problem for me at first, since it didn't look as if there would ever be another dragon-sidhe for my son to mate with. So I had gladly helped convince Kaitlin to eat an apple of immortality. With an extra hundred years of life on her side, she'd be able to wait for Ull to get old enough that a relationship with him wouldn't be gross... or criminal. It was perfect.

  But then King Rowan and Queen Liatris of the Dark Kingdom had been transformed (or evolved-I wasn't really sure which) into the first dark dragon-sidhe and it was discovered that their union would produce children who could reproduce with mine. Except that my soon-to-be firstborn son was already in love with a human. Another fact that I'd yet to tell Arach about.

  “What is it?” Az asked as he took a seat at the kitchen table beside me.

  “Nothing,” I smiled.

  How could I be disapproving over his desire to be a father to a child who wasn't his, just because that child happened to be mine? It was rather romantic actually and I couldn't bring myself to chide him for it. I'd just have to think of a compromise.

  “It is something,” Az lifted a brow over one cornflower blue eye.

  “Just maybe don't call the baby yours in front of Arach,” I gave him a little smile. How was that for a compromise?