Page 39 of Claim of Blood (Blood Bound #1)
Chapter Nineteen
Lander
The Cadillac Blackwing hummed like a contented cat in Lambert International’s cell phone lot, its quiet purr a stark contrast to Lander’s white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
The dashboard offered a cheerful reminder that autonomous mode was available with a simple voice command, but Lander ignored it.
Like most vampires, he was slow to embrace change—even when that change would spare him the indignity of folding his six-foot-four frame behind the wheel with all the grace of an origami giraffe.
At least PDC hadn’t made manual driving illegal. Yet.
He’d rather endure the cramped quarters and keep control than arrive in one of the Court’s diplomatic tanks—sleek black hulks practically advertising “important vampire business” to anyone paying attention.
Bad enough he was playing chauffeur to his parents without also driving something that screamed supernatural authority.
“They’re at baggage claim,” Ilona announced, her phone’s blue glow casting shadows across sharp cheekbones.
Fresh from her New Orleans flight, she was clearly channeling her irritation at being summoned home into watching Lander squirm.
“Unless you’re planning to abandon your beloved parents to the mercy of ride-share services?
Though if we’re deserting family members tonight, I should have called my own car. ”
“They’re perfectly capable of getting a ride share,” he muttered, knowing even as he said it how ridiculous it sounded. Johan and Elisabeth Jensen, reduced to hailing autonomous cabs like common tourists.
“The son of Johan and Elisabeth Jensen, leaving them to find their own way from the airport?” Ilona’s laugh was rich and knowing.
She shifted in her seat, somehow making even the cramped car feel elegant.
“Scandalous. I still don’t understand your dread.
They were absolutely lovely when we met in Vienna. ”
“That’s because it was Vienna,” Lander said, finally surrendering to inevitability and engaging the auto-drive with perhaps more force than necessary.
The car’s AI gave a soft, pleased chime as it took over, pulling smoothly from the space.
“A diplomatic gathering. With witnesses. This is...” He gestured vaguely at the terminal looming ahead.
“This is them visiting. There will be gifts. Probably another hand-knit sweater. In public.”
Those blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “The horror. Your mother’s cooking and handmade clothing. However will you survive?”
“You don’t understand,” he insisted. The car slid into the pickup lane, joining the steady flow of vehicles. A traffic guard approached, but Ilona’s casual glance sent the man off to hassle someone else.
They stepped out to wait, scanning the crowd of weary travelers wheeling luggage past shuttle signs and idling taxis. Cars crawled forward in steady rhythm as Lander searched for two familiar figures in the chaos.
“They’re...” He trailed off when he spotted them. Even from a distance, he could see his mother’s face light up with unrestrained joy. Johan, ever steady, steered their cart toward them while Elisabeth waved with enough enthusiasm to draw stares from passing travelers.
“Smothering?” Ilona offered helpfully, her Russian accent slipping through. “Doting? Absolutely besotted with their miracle child?”
“I’m two hundred and fifty years old,” he hissed, bracing himself. “You’d think they’d have gotten over the novelty by now.”
“Min kjaere!” Elisabeth’s delighted cry rang out, her voice pure and bell-clear.
The rapid click of impossibly high heels on concrete heralded her approach—of course she’d worn her traveling shoes for a transatlantic flight.
All six-foot-two of her (not counting the six-inch heels) moved with the grace that had once held opera houses spellbound, her red hair catching the overhead lights like flame.
Behind her, Johan maneuvered what appeared to be an entire department store’s worth of luggage through the crowd.
Barely five-nine, he nonetheless filled space like a man a head taller, his barrel chest and trunk-like limbs straining the seams of what had probably started the day as a perfectly tailored shirt.
He looked as relaxed as if he were carrying a few grocery bags instead of half of Norway.
“Min kjaere!” Elisabeth called again, her soprano drawing more appreciative looks. “My darling boy!”
Beside the car, Ilona didn’t bother hiding her laughter. “Darling boy,” she murmured. “How precious.”
“Not. A. Word,” he ground out, but any further protest was cut off as his mother enveloped him in an embrace that managed to be both affectionate and critical.
“You’re too thin,” she declared, releasing him only to smooth his collar.
“I’m a vampire, Mor. I look exactly the same as the last time you saw me.”
“Nonsense,” she said briskly. “You’re practically wasting away. Johan, doesn’t he look thin?”
His father’s voice rumbled from behind the mountain of luggage. “Better have Marie stock the kitchen. Our boy needs feeding up.”
Lander sighed. “By all means, you can march right into Marie’s kitchen and tell her how to run it. I’m sure she’d love the input. Especially after the last time. Has she forgiven you for the blood orange béarnaise incident yet?”
Elisabeth’s golden eyes widened indignantly. “That was hardly my fault! How was I to know modern blood oranges would react so... explosively?”
“The sauce ended up on the ceiling,” Lander said, exasperated. “Marie was scraping bits out of the chandelier for weeks.”
“Which is why we should absolutely offer our expertise again,” Johan put in cheerfully, eyeing the car’s trunk with determination. “Show her how we did things in Francois’s court.”
“That’s not going to fit,” Lander observed, desperate for a change of topic. His father eyed the remaining mountain of bags with the kind of determination that had probably built pyramids. “Even if you bend the laws of physics. Which you can’t, Mor. Not anymore. Not since the Vienna Incident.”
Magic shimmered in Elisabeth’s golden eyes, a reminder of the power she’d carried with her even through the turning. “I’ll have you know my spatial manipulation spells are perfectly fine now. I’ve been practicing.”
“No,” Lander cut in firmly, already pulling up the car service app on his phone.
“The last time you tried to ‘help’ with spatial relations, we had to replace an entire wall. And explain to the contractors why there was a suitcase fused with the plaster. The resulting entanglement took weeks to untangle, and Adam still has random socks appearing in his study.”
“That was one tiny miscalculation,” Elisabeth sniffed, though the air around her sparkled tellingly with suppressed power. “And really, Adam probably needed new socks anyway.”
A sleek town car materialized from the pickup lane traffic like some divine answer to his luggage-induced prayers. The self-driving vehicle popped its trunk and unlocked its doors with cheerful efficiency, blissfully unaware it was about to become a carrier for potentially reality-bending baggage.
“I’ll ride with the bags,” Ilona offered, her blue eyes dancing with barely suppressed mirth. “Someone needs to ensure your mother’s shoe collection arrives intact, and in this dimension.”
“My shoes,” Elisabeth sniffed again, “are perfectly capable of defending themselves.”
Johan laughed, the sound booming. “That they are. I still have scars from the Great Closet Reorganization of ‘47.”
Ilona slipped into the driver’s seat of the town car with predatory grace, her fingers flying across her phone screen with growing delight. The smile spreading across her face suggested Adam was about to receive quite the warning about his incoming guests and their luggage.
They transferred the luggage, the town car’s trunk closing with what sounded like a resigned sigh. As the vehicle pulled away, Lander climbed back into the Blackwing, only to find Elisabeth already in the passenger seat, magic quietly rearranging the climate controls to her liking.
The drive home wound through the city’s patchwork of neighborhoods, streetlights striping the hood.
In the back, Johan offered commentary in Norwegian, while Elisabeth narrated every detail of vampire politics back in Oslo.
She switched between English and Norwegian mid-sentence, her French accent ghosting through certain vowels.
Lander caught maybe half of it, nodding in all the right places.
Eventually, Johan’s gentle “Min kjaerlighet,” prompted her to repeat the key points in English.
Porte du Coeur’s sprawl gave way to Innsbrook’s manicured trees and ancient wards. As they pulled up to the mansion, the lights glowed warm in the darkness. Adam stood framed in the doorway, Leo beside him, watching with wary curiosity.
Elisabeth swept up the stairs, magic swirling around her in bright auroras. “Adam, darling!” she trilled, her embrace enveloping him. Johan followed with a warm handshake.
Leo froze, staring at them like they were impossible. “You’re... both? Vampire and witch?”
Lander felt the subtle wash of his mother’s magic as it swept over Leo, probing and cataloging with the thoroughness of a researcher examining a fascinating new specimen.
He’d grown up with her magical assessments—the way she unconsciously analyzed everything supernatural that crossed her path.
But this felt different, more invasive, and he caught the sharp spike of tension in Adam’s power that suggested the ancient vampire was feeling every tendril of magical examination.
The colorful auroras flickered and dimmed as Elisabeth’s attention shifted to Leo, her expression becoming thoughtful. “Impossible?” Her tone remained kind, but there was a questioning edge to it. “Why would you think that, dear?”