SweetHeat by Jan Springer Page B

they were superior. Her female children would be trained to be submissive and to obey the males. And a couple of centuries down the line she would most likely end up having this same argument with her own daughters. Young females who did not wish arranged marriages, who instead wanted to defy the traditions in order to be free to explore themselves as well as the human world.
    Oh! How would she be able to tell them they would never be free, let alone to pick their own mate or mates as the case would be?
    Juliette bit back a bitter sob. She could never deny them their freedom. Never!
    Venturing into the human world where so much danger lurked was forbidden in the Traditionalist world. Yet she’d heard of other vampires who had broken and run. They disappeared into the human world and most were never heard from again. Whether they were hunted and killed by the Elders was never revealed.
    There were whisperings that some who escaped kept secret ties with family members. She’d heard that by eavesdropping among her father’s many wives.
    There were also whisperings of other vampire worlds beyond the Traditionalists. One of which were the Warriors, a group of dominant males who literally hunted down the females they wanted and took them against their will. Several decades back, the forced mate of the two Warrior Kings, who ruled the Warrior Empire, had left them. She’d been able to disappear with the help of Vampira .
    That’s what she wanted. To be free.
    She would do anything to achieve her goal.
    Shots of despair raced through her. Oh Sweet Vampires! She couldn’t sacrifice herself to this kind of life anymore. She couldn’t! Maybe she could plead with him one more time. If she could just get him to listen.
    “Father—”
    “Away! To your quarters! Now!” He waved his arm at her as if he were shooing away a fly, as if she was a mere nuisance and not his youngest daughter. He didn’t so much as glance up from the gold he so greedily counted. Acted as if his word was law.
    Damn him!
    On trembling legs, Juliette did his bidding. Humiliation raged and bitter nausea burned through her tummy as she walked from the giant dining room into the hallway of the centuries-old French castle.
    Situated in the French Alps in a picturesque valley bordering Italy, the old castle was concealed from the humans by her father’s mind veil. Reportedly built by King Louis in the thirteenth century, the castle had seven towers and was made of gray schist and white stone. After the king abandoned it and made a larger castle somewhere else, her father had taken it over.
    Now, as she rushed down the cold stone hallway, utter loneliness swept through her. If she went through with this horrid union, she would be trading one trap of her father’s coven for another trap in her soon-to-be mates’ coven. Surely she would go insane.
    Anxiety swelled in her chest and the long hallway suddenly appeared too narrow. The walls gave the impression they were moving in on her. Crushing her. Panic ripped through her and cold perspiration blossomed across her brow. She struggled to breathe.
    Air. She needed to inhale the fresh mountain air. Yes, being outside the castle always made her feel better.
    It took several minutes of dodging servants and hiding from a couple of her father’s wives before she reached the back door. There, she twisted the skeleton key in the lock, heard the click, then pushed open the heavy oak.
    Icy air and swirling snowflakes slapped against her face as she stepped outside. It felt good. Sobering.
    Suddenly her thoughts gathered and she knew what she needed to do to survive. She would go to the one vampire she had heard was suspected of having ties with Vampira . She would throw herself at her mercy and beg for an audience with those powerful females.
    And then she would be free.

Chapter Two
     
    Juliette shivered with a horrible sense of hopelessness as she stood in front of thirty female vampires and awaited her fate. Earlier