“Blood Bound”

2011 © All Rights Reserved

Chapter 3

Leo stood off in shadows of his chambers and studiously watched Shelby sleeping dreamlessly in his bed.  She looked so peaceful in her sleep he mused, like an ethereal angel sent to him from the heavens above.  The scene was rather ironic really, considering who and what he was.  A damned soul with no real hope of a surreal after life.  All he had was the here and now and right now, a beautiful woman lay in his bed, one that he was more than ready to set his claim on.

That thought brought a smile to his lips.  In all of his one hundred and four years of existence he had never thought about claiming a bride until he had fallen upon the broken body of young Shelby Tanner.  That day, something special happened.  Maybe it was the way the moons were aligned perfectly or the world shifted precariously on its axis.  Whatever it was, Leo’s world had been perpetually rocked by that one small helpless child.  

Her blood called out to him like no other.   It sang a Pied Pipers tune that attracted him to no end.  She had become his obsession over the years as he patiently waited for the time to come.  Her twenty first birthday; so that he could bring her to his home and finish what he had started all those years ago.  Bind her to him in every way so that he would never have to live another day without her by his side.  Finally the day had come, she was here.  After eleven torturous years of anticipation and waiting she was home.  

Possessiveness, carnal, and primal instincts all welled up within him as he set his sights on his young bride.  He wanted this woman with a voracious hunger like nothing that he had ever experienced.   He didn’t understand it.  Wasn’t sure that he even wanted to understand it.  This one woman made him feel things that he had never felt before and he liked it.

Leo had a multitude of women in his past, but none were like Shelby.  None of them would even hold a candle to his beautiful bride to be.  They were all a means to an end.  Prey.  He weaved them into his web with his dark magic, used them and spit them out for the weaklings that they were.  

But not his Shelby.  No, she was so very different. She soothed him, calmed the savage beast within.  He had only two meager conversations with her and yet he was certain that she was the one.  The one that he was willing to irrevocably tie himself to as soon as the conversion was complete.  Soon, he reminded himself.  Soon she would wake and all would be right.

Shelby struggled to bring herself back to consciousness.  Even with her eyes closed she knew that she was somewhere unfamiliar.  Not daring to lift her lids she stretched out and  honed her senses to try and take stock of her surroundings.  She was on a bed, a very soft and very big bed.  The sheets felt cool to her touch, silk- expensive sheets.  She heard the soft ticking of a clock somewhere nearby.  It’s monotonous sound rhythmic in nature.  The echo each tick made told her the room she was in was fairly large in size.     

Then it was there.  A recognizable presence.  One she had felt before, one that she somehow knew and it was strangely intimate.

“Your awake my sweet” Leo spoke from his corner of the room.  She had yet to move or open her eyes but he heard the change in her breathing and the rapid increase of her heart beat.  He was well aware that she had awakened.

Shelby froze at the sound of his voice.  His deep sensual voice that seemed to instantly heat her with a warmth that she found oddly disconcerting.  

“Shelby” Leo repeated in a tone that caressed over her skin, “You need not fear me.”

Slowly she opened her eyes to a room that was dimly lit by way of candlelight. The light was low but it worked well enough for her to see that she was no longer in modest apartment.  She had to blink several times in order to focus her eyes more clearly.

“Where am I?” she asked her voice sounding groggy and weak.  

“Your home, my sweet” Leo replied pulling himself from the shadows.  He stepped closer to the bed so that he was standing in front of her.  He only wanted to reassure her that she was in fact safe.  

“Home?” Shelby replied with alarm starting to creep up her spine.  Her eyes met with the dark stranger who had moved into her line of vision.  His movements were so graceful as if he had floated to her on a billowy cloud of air.  

“Yes, home“ Leo answered her very matter of factly.  He pinned her with his stare and wanted nothing more to pull her up to him and feel her body pressed up against his.  The need was clawing inside him so ferociously that he had to fist his hands by his sides in order to keep his  cool façade.

“This is not my home” Shelby quickly bit out the retort.  The handsome man that stood in front of her exuded a powerful menacing aura around him.  It unsettled her but yet she had this bizarre desire to go to this imposing stranger.  To have him circle his arms around her frame and hold her against his chest so that she could sink into him.  

Shelby had to advert her gaze from those midnight black orbs that seemed to be see staring down to the very bottomless depths of her soul.  It was unnerving to say the least.  

“My sweet, you are  mistaken.  This is your home now.  Mi casa es su casa” he spoke the words casually with outstretched hands in demonstration.  

Shelby was already shaking her head in denial. “No.” she said with firm resolve.  “You must be mistaken, I live…” and she stopped to think, pressing her hands to her temples as the memories came rushing back to her with such a speed that her breath was pushed clean out of her.  The accident, his voice, that same dark tone that melted over her, the dreams, her Knight.

 “You-” she said accusingly.  “You were the one that..” and stopped when Leo nodded his head in affirmation.  

“Yes, my sweet.  I am indeed the one.” Leo spoke softly, surely.  He had touched her mind and knew her thoughts.  Seen the images that she remembered as a small girl and felt the jarring of her sudden recognition.

Shelby went to pull herself off the bed, “This is too much” she said more to herself than anyone else.  She started to pace back and forth across the large room trying to come to grips with the fact that this man, the one stranger who has starred in her dreams night after night for the last eleven years was really and truly standing here in front of her.  How did he find me?  How did he know where I was? The thoughts erroneously flitted through her head as she continued to pace back and forth.

Leo couldn’t help but to continue reading her mind, touching her thoughts.  She was like a drug to him, a living breathing temptation that he had to be with in some shape or another.  Through the years he had settled with simple telepathy.  Touching her mind; assuring himself that she was safe and well.  “I’ve always known where you are my sweet.  Not a day has gone by that I have not known where you were or whom you were with.  I made a promise to you and I fully intend to keep it.”  

He said the words as if it was a normal every day thing.  Not some type of freakish anomaly that was seriously starting to set Shelby at unease.  None of this was making any sense to her, the return of her Knight or the fact that he brought here.  To his home.

“Who are you?” she barely whispered the words again.  Her voice was so small that she didn’t think he had her.  Shelby knew exactly who he was, she could feel him deep in the marrow of her bones and that scared the living bejeesus out of her.  How did one have such a connection with a person that she hardly knows?  She needed assurance, she needed him to tell her again.

In a split second Leo crossed the room closing the distance between the two of them.  He stood behind Shelby and placed possessive hands on her shoulders.  “You know who I am little one.  You feel me in your blood, I can sense it.  You call to me as I have wanted you to do so ardently over the years.”  Leaning in he intentionally let his breath fan over the back of her neck. He wanted her to feel him, know exactly who he was.

His touch branded her.  Burned straight the thin sweater that she was wearing and seeping into her sensitive skin.  The sensation tingled across her shoulders and electrified her nerves, filling her.  Making her feel so alive, more alive than she had ever felt in her entire life.  

Shelby jerked away from his touch, needing space. She couldn’t think with him so close to her.  What she felt when he was near wasn’t natural, it couldn‘t be.  This urge to be with him was insanity at best.

“Who are you?” she repeated the words once again, with more grit and letting her frustration show through.

Leo sighed when she pulled away.  He did not like the resistance she was showing to him.  She was to be his bride and he expected her full acceptance.  “I am Leonardo Risso, your soon to be husband” he answered her indifferently.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.  “My what?!” she screamed taking a step back from him.  That confirmed it.  Now she knew that her Knight was to good to be true.  He was certifiably insane.

Leo once again closed the distance between them, needing to be close to her.  Wanting to breathe her in, craving to taste her.  Wrapping his arm around her waist he pulled her back flush against him.

“You are to be my bride, Shelby.  We were bound eleven years ago.”

Shelby shuddered from his closeness.  She wanted nothing more than to turn around and wrap her arms around his neck; holding him to her.  But in the next second she thought about the absurdity of the idea.  This guy intends to wed her, this stranger who saved her all the years ago.

Panic suddenly rose in Shelby.  She needed to be free.  She had to get away from him.  Struggling she tried to pull away but it was useless.  He was entirely too strong for her.

“Let. Me. Go” She said the words concisely and with an undertone of warning.  

“You are mine, my sweet” he whispered the words and bent down to kiss her neck.  He lingered at the throbbing point of her pulse lazily licking and slightly grazing his teeth over the spot that he wanted so badly to sink his teeth into.  He wanted to claim her with a fierceness now that the drive from the beast was almost too much to hold back when a sudden wrap came at the door.

“Damn” he muttered the curse lifting up his head.  It was Ric, he had no doubt.  He could sense his presence close by.  “Go away!” he barked out loudly.  How dare he bother me when I am in my chambers with my new bride,  He had specific instructions for us to not be disturbed.

The knock came again, more persistent this time.  “You’ve been summoned master“ He waited a second before adding, “It is your mother and she says that it is urgent.” Ric called out through the door.  

Shelby stood rigid in her Knight’s arms.  Something was different.  She didn’t know what it was but there was something about this man that held her that was off.  Predatory.

Leo suddenly released Shelby and she stumbled backwards.  Roughly pushing his hand through his hair he let go a string of explicative’s that she only half understood because they were spoken in what sounded like Spanish.

Leo turned and headed for the door leaving a stunned Shelby to stare openly at his back.  He opened the door when she yelled out, “Hey, what about me?”

Leo stopped and glanced over his shoulder.  “You” he said and inclined his head towards the bed, “May rest.  I’ll be back.”

The way he said that irritated the hell out of Shelby. It was as if he expected her to sit around and just wait for him.  He was sorely mistaken, that was not going to happen in her life time.

“Yea” she shot back at him, “I won’t be here when you come back buster.  I’m going home” she said with raw determination.

Leo raised his eyebrows in amusement, “Sweet, you are home” he said simply and waltzed out the door closing it behind him.  She heard the click of the locks and panic seized her again.

“Oh, no.  No he didn’t” she murmured and ran for the door. Frantically she pulled on the door and tried to wrench it forcefully open.  She refused to stay here no matter how much of a God the man looked like or how much her traitorous body seemed to yearn for him when he was near.  That made it more pertinent that she get out of this house, fast.

“You will not leave me.” the order unsuspectingly whispered into her mind.  

Shelby stilled at the intrusion and spoke aloud with steel conviction in her tone, “You can not keep me here.”   

She felt the rim of a power touch her mind, strong and certain and then a ghostly stroke of a hand lightly brushing her face before she received an answer, “Watch me!”