Page 1 of A Bond in Blood (Blood Bound Duet #1)

Chapter 1

T he Gods were whispering, beckoning for me to listen.

But my heart and mind were focused ahead of me, watching the fjord. Searching for the signs of my future approaching. The destiny I hadn’t known to be an option.

Beside me my father, the king, fidgeted nervously. The movement was irritating, and while I would have usually questioned his disjointed shuffling, I held my tongue. It was my day.

One I’d waited for.

Three long years of patience for my betrothed to sail his ship to our secluded island in the sea. Years that should have been nothing for me as a half-fae woman, nearly immortal. Yet, the longing had almost killed me. Even with our letter-only communication, those years had moved as slowly as the glaciers that had formed my beloved fjord.

My hands twitched at my sides while I looked for him—Prince Leif of Havrd.

He’d surprised us all with that first letter. Addressing it only to my father, he made his intentions known that he’d heard of the beautiful, auburn-haired princess living in the mortal realms and he intended to make me his bride.

My father had objected at first.

Surprising no one.

But Leif was insistent, sending only letters to father at the beginning. Laying out his intentions. Sending portraits of not only himself, but his kingdom and family. Slowly breaking down my father’s anxious heart until he allowed the letters to go to me.

My heart instantly latched onto the first two words.

My enaid .

Enaid —the silly word the Seelie fae used in their land. A word the mortals refused to use when describing their other halves. Previously, I would have scoffed at it. I wasn’t one for fae customs, leaning more toward my mortal half.

But the word…

It had wrapped around my soul, dragging me to him instantly.

The wind picked up around me while my mind drifted along with it. I wondered if perhaps the Gods were blessing this first meeting. Perhaps Odynn was granting his approval for the joining of our kingdoms.

My family would be making history again by joining mortal and fae people together. Creating a new kingdom and potentially bringing additional change to this world as well.

My eyes lifted upward while I gave my thanks to the Gods for their love and blessings.

Then the rain fell.

Small patters at first which turned to a downpour, instantly soaking me to the bone.

Every warning bell inside of me went off, forcing my eyes back to the fjord. I scanned the water, now darkening with the sudden storm, and my blood ran cold.

The brilliant, blue skies from before were encompassed with threatening dark clouds, heading over my island at alarming speed. At the forefront of that storm was an ominous black ship.

Screams rang out along the deck behind me as my people scattered. They all knew, as well as I, only one being in our world had a ship so dark no sunlight shone on its surface. A moving casket in the water, traveling to lay wreckage on the unsuspecting mortal lands when its owner grew bored.

The Unseelie King’s vessel was as brutal as the man himself.

I shook my head, stepping back in shock as the boat moved against the waters of the fjord. The speed—it was unnatural, unthinkable. Bringing a dark air of violence over myself and my small kingdom.

Only, I was frozen in my place. As though the ice from the hills beyond my home had held me still, commanding me to remain where I was.

Time slowed; it moved at an agonizing speed as the ship approached, cutting through the water with ease. It pulled the very air from my lungs the closer it grew.

I did not move.

Instead, my eyes moved back and forth, keeping track of the omen approaching the dock where my betrothed’s vessel was intended to go.

My hands balled the skirts of my dress when it finally arrived. As I scanned the massive hull, my stomach sank. It was as terrifying as I’d heard.

My eyes tried and failed to take it in in its entirety, where it towered over me. Casting a dark shadow across what had been a bright morning. Looming over my little home like the bringer of death itself.

Ropes came from the sides and more screams echoed behind me at the monsters sliding down the tethers. They were horrible, grey, with tiny black horns on their heads. Even worse were their blood-red eyes that stared at us all as though we were their next meal before their claws dug into the wood of the ship and they climbed back up the hull.

When they’d disappeared over the edge, the gangplank slammed against the dock.

Thud .

I stepped back, heart racing when father’s hand found mine, grasping it tightly.

In the haze, I’d forgotten he was beside me. I returned his grip and bit back my cry, horrified by the shining, black creature approaching us on all fours, ripping fear throughout my body.

It was like a bear, but so much worse. Broad, muscled shoulders, paws larger than mine and my father’s clasped hands together, with claws dragging against the dock. Its face— Gods was it horrifying. The snout, more elongated than a bear’s and thin, black lips at the end. It’s head was massive, terrifying.

I lost my senses while I watched the creature, not realizing my people had all scattered. Or that my father had released my hand.

I could only focus on the beast. The shine of its fur catching the small amount of sunlight barely shining through the gray clouds. The dark red scar running down the upper half of its face. The sickening cold that grew closer with each of its steps.

The black eyes staring right into my soul.

“Why wait, king?” the creature asked.

The rasp in its deep voice startled me and my father remained silent.

I glanced at him, eyes widening at the fear splayed across his face. He appeared utterly unable to speak while his mouth opened and closed. Like something had taken the tongue right from his mouth.

With one step forward, I squared my shoulders. “We wait for my betrothed,” I answered.

The beast’s eyes flashed briefly with what appeared to be amusement.

“Hello, Brenna,” it growled.

My skin pricked at the sound of my name on the beast’s tongue. It was unnatural to hear it from a creature so terrifying.

Its eyes flashed with amusement again. Likely due to my silence before it turned its attention back to my father.

“I am Olen, the right hand of the Unseelie King. I come on his behalf.”

To my shock, my father sank to his knees. “Please.” His hands rose as though he were praying to the Gods. “I know of the deal once made , but please.”

I bit back my disgust. My father was begging? What had overcome the usually stoic and unfaltering man?

Olen—the creature—grinned and brilliant white teeth shone through silky black. Long canines protruded over its lips while it replied, “A deal once made. A deal cannot be broken.”

My father didn’t move. His hands remained raised in pleading while his arms began to shake.

“Please,” he repeated.

The creature only blinked in response while the wind and rain grew thicker.

Taking control, I stepped forward, pointing at the ship. “Sir Olen, I’m sure the Unseelie King has his reasons, but please, my betrothed will arrive soon. Can you not take your discussions with my father elsewhere while I wait?”

The creature’s laugh boomed out and lightning cracked in the sky.

I stepped back, blinking away my shock when one of those smaller Unseelie monsters walked down the gangplank. Its clawed hand wrapped around a small sack. The creature passed the item to Olen, glancing at me once with a vile smile while it returned to the ship.

I turned my attention back to Olen who grinned that unsettling smile before throwing the sack my way.

“Your betrothed, princess.”

It landed at my feet, splattering dark liquid up my green dress. My stomach lurched at the smell while time ceased the longer I stared at the liquid seeping from the fibers of the fabric. Slowly, I forced myself to kneel, peeling the tied edges open.

It wasn’t possible.

It wasn’t…

My scream ripped from my throat, echoing across the fjord. In the sack, a short length from my fingertips, was the bloodied head of a fae man.

Not any man.

The man I’d been waiting for. The man whose portrait I’d slept next to for years—Leif.

“You monster!” I cried, throwing the sack back to the creature who had infiltrated our shores.

Only, my effort to rid myself of the gore was useless. The liquid, Leif’s blood, had stained my dress. The smell clung to every part of my skin.

“Please give us one hour,” my father whispered beside me, startling me. “One hour to gather her things and say goodbye.”

“What!” I cried. “I’m not leaving with that. ”

The creature at the dock laughed again, the sound forced my body to recoil with fear.

“A deal once made, princess.”

“Father!” I protested with tears lining my eyes. “Father!”

I watched as the man I’d once believed would do anything to protect me rose from his knelt position, placing a single finger over his lips. He shook his head for me to remain silent.

He turned back to the Unseelie King’s creature once more.

“One hour,” he repeated as he gripped my wrist and pulled me toward our modest palace.

I tripped on my soiled dress while he wove through the crowds of our people gathering once more.

“Don’t speak,” he whispered, keeping his voice low.

My heart raced, my head swam, and my skin smelled of death as I followed. I had questions. More than I was able to form on my tongue.

But not one was more pressing than the one at the forefront of my mind. What does the Unseelie King want from me?

My father slammed my bedroom door closed behind us, keeping his voice at the whisper he’d had since the dock.

“We must make haste,” he said with command.

His hands moved in an unnatural frenzy, ripping my wardrobe open and throwing my clothing onto my mattress.

“Papa,” I protested, catching a gown before it landed on the comforter. “Papa,” I repeated.

His eyes were glazed over when he turned my way, like he was terrified to his bones. He kept pulling the clothes out, not acknowledging my pleas. Not even blinking when I continued to call out to him.

My bedroom door opened, before slamming again. I glanced up, finding my grandmother.

“Will you two tell me what’s happening?” I begged, falling against my mattress.

My grandmother shook her head. “No time to despair, child. Let’s get this dress off you quickly.”

I shook my head, flattening my hands against my thighs. Not caring that the tips of my fingers were resting against the rotted blood of the man I loved.

“I’m no child,” I replied, “and I am not leaving this castle. I am certainly not going anywhere with that monster if neither of you answer my questions.”

“A family secret,” my father replied, not meeting my eyes.

I turned to my grandmother’s pale blue gaze. “What is he speaking of?” I asked.

“Please, Bren, change and we’ll tell you.” Her crooked, aged fingers pointed to the dressing screen in the corner of the room.

I stared down at the blood-stained gown, trying to ignore the foul smell. With a slight nod, I pulled myself upward and silently made my way to the dressing screen.

The sounds of trunks unclasping and rustling fabric filled the room while I slipped off my gown.

I watched it fall to my feet in a sad, destroyed pile, biting back my grief.

The color—a dark, forest green—had been one I’d chosen just for Leif. After countless letters of him telling me his love of the color, specifically the rich color of the pine trees in the mortal lands. I had thought I’d picked the perfect gown for our first meeting. Now it was at my feet, covered in his blood from his cold, dead body.

Possibly as cold as my heart had begun to grow.

A thud against the screen startled me, and I forced my eyes up, finding a muted gray gown hanging over the side.

“For you to wear,” my grandmother said before coughing. “For you to remind the Unseelie King that you’re in mourning.”

I scoffed at the words. My grandmother spoke as if I would have any idea what she was referring to. As if I were to accept this notion of me going with the beast outside to meet the most notorious monster of our world.

After throwing the gown over my head, I stepped out from the dressing screen, finding every trunk clasped and my wardrobe bare.

“How did you do that so quickly?” I asked, sinking against the chair at my vanity.

Hate boiled in my blood at how my father, a man who took ages to walk from one end of our small island to the other, could pack my things so rapidly. It made me wonder if he were glad to be rid of me, and if this family secret was feigned and I was being played a fool.

“Anxious hands work quickly,” he replied behind me, and I watched through the mirror while he sat himself on the mattress behind me.

My grandmother groaned, pulling a small chair at my back. Holding her palm open, her fingers wiggled. The life-long sign I knew meant hand me the brush .

Reluctantly, I obeyed, passing her the whale-bone brush, staring back at my lifeless reflection while her hands worked the strands of my hair.

“The family secret,” my father began, choking on his words. “I’m ashamed to have never taken it seriously.”

My grandmother’s eyes rolled. “Enok, tell the truth.”

My father’s eyes met mine in the reflection before he dropped his shoulders in shame.

“I was terrified from the moment you were born. Your mother—”

I jumped at the mention of my mother. My father rarely spoke of her. Even when I’d pried. Even when I’d begged, he’d remained silent. But now he sat behind me, speaking of the mother I’d never known, like it was a topic we discussed openly within our family.

My father cleared his throat, continuing his tale. “Your mother—she knew of the secret and when the midwife announced we’d had a daughter, well… I believe her heart gave out that night out of fear and despair.”

I pulled away from my grandmother’s hands, growing irritated. “Will you please get to the point?” I snapped, forgetting my controlled tongue.

“A deal once made,” he whispered. “Generations ago, one of your great-grandfathers made a deal with the Unseelie King. It was almost laughable what the king asked for, but our ancestor… He agreed.”

My stomach sank. I’d heard of these deals . Of the havoc they wrecked. Of the pain they inflicted upon those unsuspecting souls desperate to have their prayers answered by silent, inattentive Gods.

“He made a deal?” I asked, holding my fingers to my lips.

“Yes, the Unseelie King would convince Oberon to allow our ancestor to start his own kingdom in between the mortal and Seelie lands, taking a mortal as a wife in exchange for the first daughter of our bloodline born on the first day of the blood moon.”

A confirmation, old and deep, settled over me. Unlocking something within me that had, apparently, been hidden inside throughout my life. A quiet nodding, accepting a secret my soul appeared to recall.

I’d heard the stories of my birth.

The rough torrential rains that morning. The dark skies that had lingered over our island as my mother had wailed through the hours of the day and into the night.

How the blood moon—an anomaly our world only experienced every millennia—had appeared early. Starting one hundred and fifty years of a fog of red every night. And how that night, the moon had risen over the island, brightening the fjord as though it had been filled with blood itself.

My father stood from the bed, approaching behind me.

“Our ancestor, he didn’t think anything of the deal. The blood moon hadn’t occurred in millennia, so he agreed.”

“He sold me for a kingdom?”

“You didn’t exist in his mind, my dear,” my grandmother replied.

“But I exist now ,” I countered. “I was supposed to go to the Seelie lands! I was supposed to be married!” My tears fell while I covered my face with my palms. “And you both are going to just allow him to take me? With no questions? No protests?”

My father’s hand landed on my shoulder. “I can’t fight against the Unseelie King.” He gave me what felt to be a reassuring squeeze. “There’s more.”

I shirked off his touch. “What?”

“It’s only for a year,” he replied.

I twisted in my chair, my brows crumpling with confusion. “A year? ”

He nodded his head. “Thirteen months. That’s all.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That was the deal,” my father responded. “All he required. Our family got their kingdom, and the Unseelie King would get the service of a daughter for one year.”

My skin pricked. “Service?”

My grandmother let out a boisterous laugh. “Bren, my dear, I’m sure he didn’t mean sexual service.”

My cheeks warmed at her voicing the place my mind had gone to and my eyes went back to my father. He shuffled his feet, shaking his head.

“I—” He cleared his throat. “He didn’t specify what service meant.”

“So, I’m meant to be his whore?”

“Brenna!” my father yelled.

“What?” I shouted back. “Some man in our family sold a woman to a king. I can think of countless tales where that usually ends up as the woman whoring for said king.”

“I will cut off his head if he makes you his whore,” my father snapped.

I stared back at him, sitting straighter in my seat. “You should have cut off his head the moment you learned you had a daughter. You should have sailed to his kingdom and killed him on the spot. You should have protected me even if it were the last thing you had done.”

He held my gaze, before his head dropped. “I know,” he muttered.

“Why now?” I asked, turning my eyes out my bedroom window, tracking the white bears cresting over the hill.

“Because I disobeyed him,” my father replied. “I allowed you to be betrothed. It was the last part of the deal. He would claim your year of service whenever he pleased.”

My vision blurred with my tears. “You’ve spoken to him?” I whispered while betrayal ran through me.

“No!” my father yelled out. “When I say I disobeyed him, I mean he was disobeyed in general. This secret, Bren—it was passed to me on my Father’s death bed as it was passed to him and so on. For generations. I didn’t believe it. I thought it was an old myth.”

I thought back on my life. Of the years walking through our small palace, never leaving. Always the dutiful daughter doing as I was told. Always at my father’s side, nurturing our people like it was my life’s purpose.

“Is this why you’ve kept me away?” I asked. “Why I’ve never been allowed to visit our Seelie family and Oberon’s court without you there? Why I’ve always had to deny Titania’s invitations to spend summers with the court?”

I turned to my father while my hands balled my dress at my thighs. I was sure my heart was breaking. Sure everything I knew and loved had been a lie.

“You may lean closer to your mother’s mortal blood, but you know how superstitious the fae can be. I couldn’t ignore the ominous warning of the secret. Even if I didn’t fully believe it,” my father replied.

“So now I’m supposed to board that moving casket and disappear for a year without fighting back?” I asked, meeting his dark brown eyes.

“Bren,” he dropped to his knees before me, grasping my fisted hands. “If he doesn’t get his full year, our kingdom is gone. Everyone and everything you love will be ripped apart by his monsters.”

My disgust grew and I ripped my hands from his. There it was, the words he did and did not say. My duty . My expectations as this island’s princess.

Even though I knew the stories and the horrors of what the Unseelie fae could do to mortal kingdoms, I didn’t want the future of my kingdom to lay on my shoulders. Not when I hadn’t asked for this. Not when I’d been given this knowledge so suddenly.

I stood, crossing the bedroom before turning back to my father.

“I agree, but when I return…” My eyes scanned my little room, out to the blue waters of the fjord lapping against the shore mere feet from my home. “I get to leave. I get freedom. I get to decide whether or not I will continue to live in this kingdom created by selling my soul to a demon.”

My father’s eyes grew wide, but I lifted my hand, stopping him from responding. My eyes darted to the small clock on my bedside table.

“We’ve wasted our time; the monster is expecting me.”