Blood-Bonded by Force

BLOOD-BONDED BY FORCE

Tracy Tappan

Blood-Bonded by Force

Book Three in The Community Series

The Vârcolac warriors face their biggest challenge when one of the demented Topside Om Rău goes rogue and starts stealing Fey power, driving them all toward an Otherworld apocalypse
.

With a single act of unspeakable cruelty, half-demon Pändra Parthen permanently binds herself to Vârcolac warrior Thomal Costache. Stuck together for life, the two enemies must find a way to live with what cannot be undone. As time apart from her ruthless father allows Pändra to uncover her true self, she tries to mend the breach with Thomal. But he is stalled in seething rage, troubled by an inner turmoil even deeper than the abuse he suffered at Pändra’s hands. To free Thomal, Pändra makes a perilous sacrifice…and lands herself in the demon town of Oţărât.

Half-Rău Big Nỵko Brun is the one man who has a slim hope of breaching Oţărât. But Nỵko took himself out of the hero business after failing the people he loves too many times. He even abandoned Faith Teague, the woman who was destined to be his mate. Left to fend for herself while her world crumbles around her, Faith also makes a sacrifice that traps her in the violent hell of Oţărât. Now the fate of both women rests on Nỵko’s enormous shoulders, but he can’t manage a rescue without Thomal’s help…and then only if the proud Vârcolac can somehow find room in his heart for his enemy.

**Content warning: not intended for gentle readers, this book contains profanity, violence, and intense adult situations.

Also by Tracy Tappan

The Community Series

Dark paranormal romance

Available on
Amazon

THE BLOODLINE WAR

THE PUREST OF THE BREED

LUNĂ ZÂNĂ

(Free short story)

Coming in 2015!

The Wings of Gold Series

Military romantic suspense

EIGHTBALL TWO-THREE

(Free introductory novella)

BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

(click
here
to read an excerpt)

Don’t miss any of Tracy’s gritty romances!!

Sign up
here
for updates from the author

Praise for

THE BLOODLINE WAR

Book One in The Community Series

**Winner of the Independent Publishers Book Awards Bronze Medal for romance**

“Tracy Tappan has a hit series on her hands that is full of action, great characters, snark and attitude!”

~ Dii Bylo at Tome Tender

“I LOVED THIS BOOK! (And boy, can Tracy write a hero!)”

~ Lauren Seiberling at Romance Novel Giveaways

“The book starts out strong and just keeps going with the action and suspense!”

~ Michelle Oxrider from Snarky Mom Reads

“I couldn’t give this book a simple rating. I had to give it infinite gold stars. It was just that wonderful.”

~ Wendy Mitchell from Rage, Sex, and Teddy Bears

“
The Bloodline War
, the first book in The Community Series and author Tracy Tappan’s debut novel, puts a fresh spin on the vampire mythos.”

~ Tara Carlson from Dividing by Zero

Praise for

THE PUREST OF THE BREED

Book Two in The Community Series

**Finalist for the USA News Book Awards for Romance**

“Tracy Tappan does a grand slam in this second book of The Community Series. This is a very fast, action packed, exciting book!”

~ Teri Lloyd from Sportochick’s Musings

“What an adrenaline rush!”

~ Talina Perkins at Bookin’ It Reviews

“Dev is a total sweetie wrapped up in one very hot warrior package.”

~ Maria Trojanowski from Book Junky Girls

“This book is solid! Wit, humor, snark, love story, steamy romance, sexy men, secrets, intrigue, and fantastical creatures.”

~ Michele Breux-Rowley from Dauntless Indies

“It is packed to the pages with every emotion possible, a fully mind blowing thrill ride that will have you on your toes, and have you turning the pages with abandon!”

~ Gemma Hopgood from Fantasy and Romance Book Reviews

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Robyn Segel Shifren for her invaluable help with ballet questions. Also to my editor, Faith Freewoman, for her expertise in the world of dance, as well as Tarot card reading. How lucky am I that one of my editors is such a Jack of all trades?

Jessa Slade, also my editor extraordinaire, once again applied her genius to peeling back deeper layers of my characters. I am indebted to all of these fine woman.

All mistakes are my own.

To my readers.

Every day I sit at my keyboard is pure joy

because so many of you have reached out to

share your enthusiasm for my writing.

It feels really danged good.

Thank you.

Note to readers:

The symbols above and below some of the characters’ names don’t affect pronunciation, and they are not meant to resemble a language. They are used solely to indicate a type of breed (Om Rău, Half-Rău, Fey, or Fey-Rău). This will make sense to you when you enter the story world.

The name Om Rău also is like the word moose—the same form for both singular and plural.

Celtic Quaternary Knot

Celtic Meanings of the Five Fold Symbol

Inner circle = fifth element binds the other four

Blood-Bonded by Force

Book

One

Chapter One

Topside: Fairbanks Ranch, San Diego, California, November 9th

Pändra Parthen crumpled to her knees with a hiss, clutching at the bloody slash in her stomach, pain burning through every vein in her body. Her hands shook as she grappled to shove her intestines back into her belly, but the slippery ropes were uncoiling faster than she could push them back in. A scream slammed up her throat and battered at the backs of her teeth. Blood fountained through her fingers and splashed to the floor.
Not my blood
.
Can’t be
.
There’s too sodding much
. She panted roughly, her cheeks working like bellows.
Do
.
Not
.
Scream
.

Her father despised weakness.

So did she, in truth.

Raymond came to stand dispassionately over her, his Gucci loafers stopping just short of the spreading stain of her blood. She didn’t look up—couldn’t, really. Just as well. Raymond’s eyes were such a startlingly clear blue, they appeared almost colorless when he was enraged. Like now.

Not the jolliest of sights.

The room fractured into a prism around her as the electrical charge of her father’s power seared through her once more, tearing the hole in her belly wider. A gritted, “No,” made it past her lips. She toppled over, landing with a hard splat in the pool of her own blood. Her viscera boiled up and out of her, piling onto the floor around her body.

Silence.

No. The thunder of her heart and the harsh cadence of her breathing were deafening.

Wetness soaked through her jeans and into her knickers. The books on the shelves she’d been scanning mere moments before Raymond’s arrival slanted sideways and grew moss: Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce… Through pain-slitted eyes, she stared up at Raymond. Tall and refined, his features sculpted and handsome, his hair a rich mane of silver-blond falling to his collar, he was a man who could be as warm-hearted as ruthlessly cold. Let a soul act according to Raymond’s rigid specifications of behavior and all would be dandy. Break a rule and the poor sap earned herself one beastly punishment.

Until recently she and her father had an unspoken agreement about those rules. If she chose to break a minor one, she would do so outside of his general knowledge and make sure her actions wouldn’t damage his reputation in any way. The one exception was her penchant for dressing like a tart. She did that with full awareness it cheesed him off. But then…he’d never overtly told her not to do it.

On his end, Raymond wasn’t supposed to act behind her back. He would tell her what to do and she would do it, but it was understood that there was always clear communication.

He’d broken this rule.

Without asking, Raymond had used information Pändra acquired regarding the Vârcolac, the bloodsuckers who held the dubious honor of being Raymond’s mortal enemies. They’d earned this unenviable status by kidnapping Tonĩ Parthen, Raymond’s daughter from his first wife. Tonĩ and her brother, Ãlex, possessed an extremely rare and powerful gene called Royal Fey Dragon, a gene Raymond wanted bred into his grandchildren. With this scheme in mind, Raymond had always planned on reuniting with the daughter he’d abandoned. But the Vârcolac had ruined that by abducting her.

For nearly a year now, Raymond had been trying to snatch Tonĩ back. To no avail. He needed to find an easy way into the Vârcolac’s secret, underground town to wage a proper war. His brilliant plan? To kidnap a Vârcolac delivery woman—Pändra had unearthed her schedule, and this was the information Raymond had swiped—and
persuade
her to reveal the entrances to the Vârcolac’s lair. But Videön, Pändra’s mental half-brother, had tortured the poor girl to death, which had inadvertently led to another woman getting captured: Marissa Nichita. She was the pregnant wife to one of the Vârcolac, making her a perfect bargaining chip to trade for Tonĩ. Except…

Pändra had released Marissa a little over an hour ago.

Two could break the rules in this sick game she and Raymond played, eh?

But of course Pändra’s actions had violated her father’s most stringent and unforgivable rule: never openly defy him.

And so here she was…sweat running in rivulets down her neck, her vision tunneling.

Raymond clasped his hands behind his back and gazed down at her coolly. “What a perishing disappointment you turned out to be, Pändra.”

She gritted her teeth against a stab of pain piercing through her sternum…her heart. Not from her father’s power, but his words. What a pile of wet lettuce she was. Here her guts were spewed around her like tangled macramé, and what made her want to cry was one, wee sentence of Raymond’s. And he was only confirming what she already knew. She’d thrown away her status as her father’s favorite—or his
second
favorite—with both hands.