Blessed Curse - Sandra R. Neeley Page 0,5

his heart, then his temples. Still, she’d managed to worm her way into his psyche. The prickling at the edges of his brain, and the burning at the center of his long cold heart were enough to let him know that he’d begun to get attached to her. The problem with that was if mated vampires were separated for any longer than a few days, they would begin to lose whatever grip they held on their sanity. Once bound, they needed each other to maintain their place in the world.

“I am not bound to that sniveling, weak female!” he snarled. Alastair dropped to his knees in the middle of the clutter that had become his home. “I am not,” he declared fiercely. But he knew the truth — he was bound to her. He lifted his lip in disgust until another thought occurred to him. Alastair smiled. “I shall hunt. I shall feed. I shall find another, and I shall forget her and all her weaknesses. I shall prevail.” Alastair rose to his feet and stalked out of the dirty, dingy basement.

Once outside, he lifted his head into the air, the winds and rain still pelting him from the hurricane that just wouldn’t leave this city. He didn’t look back at the place he’d sheltered in for the last nine months, he didn’t acknowledge the stinging pain still coursing through his body from refusing to back down from Marceline’s magic, and he refused to think of the weak, worthless female he’d called Mouse — she was a means to an end, nothing more. He was now focused on the hunt. The taste of new blood already a desperately needed thing in his psyche. He imagined a place far away from here, a place that was warm and balmy, and then, he was away, soon to be there as he moved through the air as easily as though he was no more than air himself. There was no trace of him left behind, nothing to indicate he’d ever been there, other than a shredded sheet lying in tatters on the floor of the cluttered basement.

Chapter 2

A scream ripped through the predawn hours as the coven in attendance awaited the impending birth. Some of the sisters assisted Marceline, as she did everything in her power to save her beloved granddaughter from the curse that had been rained down upon her.

Adrienne had always been a quiet child, an unassuming child, who preferred to commune with the animals, the ill, and those who could not do for themselves, rather than embrace the magics racing through her veins. She’d always shied away from tapping into the magics, that had she cared to open herself to them, would have made her one of the strongest in the LaCelle line. She preferred instead to live a life of what some would call service. After years of prodding, and encouraging, Marceline had given up and allowed Adrienne’s sweet spirit to wander free, helping others as her nature pulled her to do. Adrienne never used her magic for anything more than an extra boost of healing energy, or to speak to the wild creatures she encountered. Yet, here she was, fighting for her survival, lying in a bed struggling to give birth to a babe, the nature of whom no one could venture a guess.

The babe’s father was the most virulent of the cursed. He was the most violent, the most merciless, the most feared. He’d resented Marceline for almost 70 years, and his vengeance had finally taken hold. He’d inflicted his hatred on the kindest among them. He’d targeted Adrienne.

Another scream and desperate panting filled the subdued silence of the ornate mansion on St. Charles Avenue. The women gathered outside the bedroom door, holding hands and closing their eyes as they lifted their faces to heaven, calling on healing energies, hoping the peace they called for would surround Adrienne and calm her during her labor.

Marceline grasped Adrienne’s hand, calling her name forcefully. “Adrienne! Adrienne!! Look at me!”

Adrienne, drenched in sweat, her body writhing in pain, struggling to take every breath she was able to feebly gasp, slowly turned her head toward Marceline. Her eyes glowed red, the small tips of fangs pressed into her lips where she’d bitten down so hard, tiny twin trails of blood spilled over her bottom lip and ran down her chin.

Marceline reached out with her other hand, smoothing away the dampened hair still sticking to Adrienne’s forehead. “Focus, my darling. Focus. This morning