Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (11 page)

What I wanted was to
find out how this affected me and what would happen on my 18th
birthday. I had always wanted to know about my family history but I
was even more confused than ever. The phrase “Be careful what
you wish for” was never truer than that moment. My ancestors
were Vampires and I was next.

Chapter 6

The next day I was to
attend a family meeting in the conference room. I was nervous about
sitting in the same room with a group of Vampires no matter how much
DNA we shared. This wasn't my ideal reality and I especially didn’t
want to find out what was in store for me once I turned 18. A feeling
of dread grabbed ahold of me and I had to struggle to breathe.

Chloe found me sitting
on the edge of my bed trying to catch my breath. Seeing my distress
she immediately came to my aid. I tried to tell her that I was okay
and wave her off but she wasn’t having it. She forced my head
between my knees and held it there until the panic left me and I
relaxed. When I felt her release my neck I sat up slowly; tears mixed
with snot were running down my face and dropping off of my chin. Not
the least bit grossed out, Chloe took the edge of her sleeve and
cleaned my face before wrapping me in a hug.

We were still holding
each other when Tabitha and Veronica came in. Veronica ran over to us
the make sure we were okay while Tabitha checked the windows and the
bathroom for intruders. Satisfied that we were alone, she came to sit
next to me.

“
What
happened?”

“
Panic
attack.”

“
Oh,
Chey, you’re gonna be okay.”

“
No,
Tab, I’m not. I didn’t ask for this. All I wanted to do
was graduate from high school and move to a big city. I wanted to go
to college and date the wrong kinds of boys and cram for tests. I
wanted to be late on rent and eat Top Ramen every night. But, never
once in my life did I think that it would be fun to have a Vampire
after me for my blood and have to run to other Vampires for help!”

By the end of my tirade
I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I was scared and alone in a
compound full of beings that resembled people but weren't. I wasn’t
really sure what was going on. I didn’t trust Tabitha to be
objective and I was afraid that Chloe had been brainwashed with the
same mysticism. I had just found my sister, and two brothers for that
matter, and I felt as though it was costing me my sanity.

The girls remained
silent, knowing that nothing they said right then would help. They
were in this reality with me.

“
I
think we should get you ready,” Chloe said breaking the
silence. “We have your clothes in the closet and your hair will
be fine down or in a ponytail.”

Chloe started to busy
herself with the details for preparing me for the meeting. I wondered
how long she had been here; how long she had been living with
Vampires and waiting to become one. If it was a lot for me to take,
Chloe must be overwhelmed. Guilt ran through my veins like ice water.
I was suddenly a big sister and felt I had to fix things. I stood up,
shook off any feelings of apprehension and followed her to the
closet.

“
Chloe,
how long have you been here…in the compound?”

“
We
move a lot, but I have been with our family since birth. One or the
other of our great grandmothers has always had me. They took me from
Mom before Grigor could get me.”

Now it was Chloe’s
turn to look guilty. We were both thinking it. Why had they taken her
and left me to be raised by strangers? Traitorous strangers at that.
I knew that the question was clear on my face so I turned toward the
closet mirror and pretended to adjust my hair; one dreadlock at a
time.

In the mirror the
reflection of Tabitha and Veronica making my bed and straightening my
room gave me mixed feelings. I felt like a cross between an invalid,
an unintelligent child and a spoiled socialite. I had to decide how I
was going to deal with this. It was obvious that I couldn’t
run. Tabitha and Raphael had found me so easily the last time. There
was really only one option. As deceptive and secretive as Tabitha had
been, she'd never once put me in harm’s way. She must have been
just as conflicted. I would have to just suck it up and see what the
future held. I mean, really, how bad could it be?

I always ask myself the
stupidest questions! ‘How bad could it be, Cheyenne?’
Really, really bad. The conference room was full of people. Abraham,
Israel, and Providence were in their seats to Efia’s left and
Pleasant, Rachel and Eliza were to her right. Sitting on a lower dais
directly in front of them, however, were six additional people. All
of them had my chocolate brown eyes and varying degrees of brown and
light brown skin. And the most unnerving thing of all was that they
were all smiling at me. You know the saying ‘like a kid in a
candy store’? Well, I knew what the candy felt like.

There were four high
backed chairs sitting in the center of the room facing the double
dais. They were elaborately carved with Calla Lilies adorning the
middle of the back. The legs of the chairs met the polished floor
with the claws of some type of large cat. The carvings were so
painstakingly done that I would not have been surprised if the claws
came to life and moved. Zander and Jordan were standing near the four
chairs as we approached. Veronica remained outside but Tabitha took a
seat in what looked like a jury box along one of the walls. She
smiled encouragingly at me from her seat and I tried to relax.

Chloe took my hand and
led me to my chair where we waited to be addressed. Efia and 6 other
people stood, waiting for the room to quiet. They allowed the room to
quiet down before one woman stepped down and walked toward us. She
was intercepted by a Steward with 4 regalia stoles draped over his
arms. I watched as this woman placed them on Zander and Jordan,
kissing each cheek as she was done. They were black and adorned with
red Calla Lilies on one side and an SC on the other. She walked
passed me and placed a stole on Chloe’s shoulders, kissed her
and stepped back. I met her gaze head on and took a deep breath.
Whatever fate that awaited me would not find me on my knees.

“
Hi,
Cheyenne. My name is Amelia and I am your grandmother a few times
removed. Welcome to the family.”

With that, she placed
the stole on my shoulders and kissed both of my cheeks. The dais
erupted in applause and Amelia wrapped her arms around me in the
warmest hug I had received in a long time. Tentatively, I returned
the hug even though my nerves were shot. Having a Vampire's mouth
that close to my neck wasn't something I had ever been prepared for.

The noise died down and
Amelia returned to her seat on the dais. I noticed that my siblings
had all taken their seats and I was the only person still standing.
As I backed toward my chair, Efia stopped me with a raised hand as
she stood. She took the steps from her chair to the conference room
floor in long elegant strides and began to pace about. From her
profile, I knew that she was preparing to speak; but, for some reason
hesitated. When she reached Zander’s chair, she stopped and
turned around.

“
Cheyenne
St. Clair,” she began with a voice thick with emotion. “Today
you will be invited into a world unlike any you have ever known. In
less than three months you will be 18 and even more vulnerable than
you are now, but the choice is still your own.”

Efia looked into my
eyes and raised an eyebrow. Before that moment, that look might have
intimidated me, but I found it hard to separate her from the girl on
the ship and the slave on the plantation. All I really wanted to do
was give Efia a hug and tell her that everything would be okay. It
was quite the strange sensation to want to protect someone who I had
seen bite someone’s neck.

Deciding to throw
caution to the wind, however, and believing that things couldn’t
get any worse, I walked straight up to Efia, tilted my head slightly
in an awkward bow type gesture and wrapped her in a hug. There was a
silence in the room so loud that I thought everyone had left. I
started to pull away just as Efia slowly raised her arms to return my
hug. We stood there for a few more seconds and then she backed away.
Her eyes were wet with unshed tears and she cleared her throat before
speaking.

“
If
you accept our invitation, your Embrace will be scheduled for your
18th birthday. Until then, however, you will need to be educated in
all things St. Clair. There will be combat training as well as
education of the Vampiric political structure. Then there is the
Oleander clan and the act of retrieving your mother that will also
need to be addressed.”

“
What
is an Embrace?” I asked.

“
Your
‘turn’, my dear. To be Embraced is to become a Vampire.”

And there it was. I was
next on the Vampire list. I looked at Chloe and saw a small smile
cross her face. She nodded her head at me as if confirming all that
Efia had just said. I looked at Zander and then Jordan. Both of them
were waiting for me to decide.

Efia had said that we
didn’t have the luxury of time, so I ran through the events of
the last few days to try to find some explanation; anything to
challenge what I had been told. I stared at the floor and remembered
my foster mother’s voice and how vicious and heartless she had
sounded. I remembered the look on Raphael’s face when he had
punched the SUV window. And then there was my mother. I wondered if I
would be allowed to help rescue her. At the moment it occurred to me
that I simply had a choice between Efia and this Grigor character.

I straightened my stole
and took a deep breath. This was indeed the first day of the rest of
my life. From this point on I would get answers to all of the
questions I had.

“
When
do we start?”

Chapter 7

The reception had
started right after Efia opened her wrist with an ancient knife and
poured three drops of her blood into a small silver cup. It was all I
could do to keep from throwing up when she handed it to me and told
me to drink. All that I knew about Vampires was that they were
supposed to bite you and you died or you turned. No one had ever told
me that you had to drink their blood.

I was assured that the
three drops were just ceremonial and that the blood would actually be
beneficial to me. Over the course of the next three months I would
ingest more blood from either Efia or one of the others to insure my
health until my Embrace. Chloe had told me that she had been
ingesting blood for many years and it helped with her concentration
and physical fitness.

I was introduced to the
remaining members of my family and struggled to keep track of them. I
knew that I was a direct descendant of Pleasant’s and that she
had one child that was Embraced and everyone in her line of
descendants was a grandparent of mine. Abraham and Israel were Uncles
many times removed and their descendants were cousins. Dizziness had
almost overwhelmed me by the time I had met and received each
individual welcome.

Amelia’s welcome
was the most emotional. She had been there when my grandmother had
taken her last breath and years later when I had taken my first. She
held my hand and talked to me about how much like my grandmother I
was. How she had also dreamed about Efia’s life and of the
great courage she had.

We sat for hours just
at the edge of the party talking about our respective lives and what
we had done up until that point. She asked me about my likes and
dislikes and if I had a boyfriend. It was the best feeling to have
someone so interested in me. I had missed out on so much while being
raised by Joyce Redding. I couldn’t believe how much I had
loved her only to have her turn on me. The more I thought about her,
the angrier I became.

I began to feel anger
fill my lungs like water and, at first, I couldn’t breathe. I
sat very still and blew the anger out in a slow, controlled fashion.
I kept blowing the anger out of my body, releasing myself from
bondage and pain. I blew until my lungs were empty and I had to gasp
to fill them. It felt so good to let it out. My shoulders were
relaxed and I rolled my neck to relieve the stiffness. As I rolled my
head towards Amelia, I froze. She was staring at me with an amused
look on her face. She was clapping wildly and turning to look around
the room.

The entire room had
become eerily silent except for Amelia’s clapping and laughter.
Everyone in the room was staring at me and I became really
self-conscious. After straightening my ponytail and stole, I rubbed
my finger on my teeth to make sure that no food had been left there.
I had no idea what was going on and that was a feeling I was starting
to resent.

Amelia’s
jubilance was joined by Rachel’s and then Pleasant’s. I
watched as my grandmothers clapped and laughed and danced about the
room hugging anyone in their path. There was one person who didn't
join in the celebrations. Violeta. She was introduced to me as
Zander's fiance, although Chloe used a different word for it. Vampire
relationships were a bit more formal than those of humans. Violeta,
who was as quite possibly the most gorgeous person I had ever seen,
simply stared at me from the far corner of the room. Her attention
felt different than the others, less joyful. She simply wasn't happy
that I had been reunited with my family. Maybe she was jealous that
my brother's attentions were to be divided between yet another
sister.

Chloe and Zander sat
next to me as I continued to wonder about Violeta..

“
Well,
that was something,” Zander said. I thought I heard a bit of
pride in his voice.