Bound by Blood (Bound by Desire #3)

Prologue

Six Months Ago

Amber's POV:

Seeing the four standing side by side irks me to no end. Especially since I can now see the moonstone blue cord connecting the four of them when it shines around them. Making them appear as though they were indestructible. A pain where my plan was concerned since I knew that they would be able to destroy me if I let them get close enough.

"You ok Amb?" Kali's tone is sharp but I can't tell if that's from running or because she's strained for another reason. Her power perhaps since she drew it from an unsteady source given that the way she uses it taps into more volatile places and means of survival. "Amb? Are you ok?" She tries again to talk to me but I can tell she's not angry. No for the first time I could tell she was afraid. Though for what I don't know. "Amb?"

"I'm ok," I responded as we kept running. Running as the power cast by the four still licked at our backs like flames in a furnace. "I'm ok Kal, it didn't hit me." Looking around I can tell that she'd managed to gather as many of our flock as possible but had to leave the hostages behind. A sore spot with me since I know that when the others manage to find they've chased us as far away as possible they'd free them and my investigation would all be for nothing.

"We can start again Amb, it's not over." Kali's tone is firm and I can see her streaking by me as a dark blur as we run so fast we're rendered indistinguishable from the dense, dark woodland surrounding where we'd thought we'd be safe. Before my idiot and braindead slut of a half-sister's friends found her and the others when I kidnapped them in what should have been a flawless plan. "It doesn't matter if we lost the people we'd trapped before. They were just a means to an end Amb. We can do it again. We can take as few or as many people as you want, just say the word."

I smirked at her then, seeing that she'd noticed my expression had shifted to something that was less lethally mad. "I will I just need to know that we're ok." I look around at the woodland racing past us at a million miles an hour, spaced between with dark blurs that represented a friend or foe that was travelling with us. "I just hate that we had to move away from where we'd been. It was a good place Kal and I don't think we'll find somewhere like it again." I growl in frustration and see Kali stop for a second, her eyes rooted on mine where I was staring at her when she'd stopped. "What?"

"You're mad," Her tone sounds surprised and that has me snorting sarcastically, rolling my eyes at the same time. "No, that's good. Because if you're mad Amb, you'll be able to finish what we started. And without morals compromising it." Kali keeps her eyes on me but I don't respond to her for a few seconds before she realises that I won't. "It's ok to be mad and feel Amb, just don't let it compromise your morals or ability to do what you have to so you can make her - them - suffer."

I snort again, starting running when I see that it appears Kali has said all she wanted to for now. "What says I even have morals Kal?" I joke, seeing how her expression darkens with a savage pleasure that I love seeing and relish feeling running through my veins. "What's to say I care? Or can feel at all? How do you know I'm not just fabricating it to get a reaction out of you or anyone else for that matter? How do you know I even have a heart?"

"Because if you didn't you would have-" Kali stops herself when she realises what I said, taking off running when she realises that if I didn't stop down I'd leave her in the dust. "Clever one there Amb, nice stall tactics," She starts running again when another wave of that moonstone blue power washes over the land, cleansing it of whatever we'd managed to do to reverse the natural balance in favour of what we'd been doing.

"Guess I had a good teacher or something," I shrug, seeing how her eyes light up with something faintly resembling maternal affection since she'd raised me for over ten years. "Either that or I'm just that good." I shrug and hear her laughter as it curls around me from where I'd pushed off and could run faster than she could, leaving her behind when I was stronger. "Or maybe I was just better than you gave me credit for?"

Kali smiles and catches up to me easily with a ghost of her former smile on her face, though the expression changes to a pained grimace mixed in with a scowl when another wave of that blue power hits us and we keep running so it just licks our backs. Well almost all of us since a few people had tripped during that latest wave of power, screaming when it did something to them before they could move on and stagger to their feet, leaning against one another to remain upright.

"Weak," Kali sneers, her eyes flicking between the two of us, those in front of us and the ones behind us that had fallen when the four's power had managed to attack them since they hadn't been strong enough. "Weak, ineffective wastes of space." She keeps mumbling profanities and angry retorts under her breath until I laugh and she fixes me with her famous black look. One that should have made me shiver but that instead feeds into my darker impulses.

"Temper, temper," I chide her, seeing that she rolls her eyes. "Hey, where are we even going? I thought the only safe place would be here? One of these dimensional pockets that seem to be outside the angels and other rule marshall's jurisdiction. A place outside-"

"-A place outside of time you mean?" Kali asks with a sly smile on her face. "Yea I know that's what my sisters and I said but we've found another one. Another place like this that's not as nice mind you but does the job until it's safe to come back and see if we can salvage anything from this one."

"And after that? What then? Do we.....do we keep running or do we set down roots elsewhere and hope that my braindead slut of a half-sister doesn't; find us again and destroy the whole operation?" My anger causes me to unfairly snap at Kali, my demon side not able to control the feelings racing through me at the moment. "What happens then? Do we keep running or do something else and hope it doesn't epically fall apart. Again."

"I think as far as those four are concerned they'll be preoccupied for some time given the spell I had my sister Ariadne do to check if they were carrying the demonic spawn I was joking about before." Kali shivers and shudders as whatever her sister's found resonated with her. "Unless..." Now a new tone of malice enters Kali's voice and I can tell what she's about to say before she opens her mouth. "Unless we use those children to do it. To exact your revenge."

"Just like we planned in the beginning," I respond, thinking about all the ways I could torment the four by dangling the lives of their soon to be precious children over their heads. Kali was right, that was the perfect revenge, after all, according to the rules of the game they were bound into it, just as their future mates/soulbound partners would be. Bound by blood.

Tick tock, tick-tock. Your time is running out and I hope you know it. Because I'm not gone. This isn't over between us. We will meet again dear sister, and sooner than you think.