A trilogy by Diane Whiteside, focusing on the vampire that rules the Texas territory, Don Rafael Perez, and his children, and their respective love interests. The entire series takes place (mostly) during a period of time when Texas is involved in a Secret War with the crazy New Orleans patrona, Celeste. Flashbacks occur regularly.
The three main novels (there are some short stories taking place in the universe too) are:
- Bond of Blood
- Bond of Fire
- Bond of Darkness
Provides examples of:
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: completely subverted with Rodrigo, combined with The Dog Bites Back.
- Cloak and Dagger: vampires operating as secret agents for England after the French Revolution.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: happens to Rodrigo for an extremely long time.
- Double Agent: Celeste
- Fictionary: the terminology vampires use for themselves is based off of feudal Spain, even in other countries. Also see Busman's Vocabulary, Gratuitous Spanish.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampires: the Texas, any vampires who were taught to feed on sex/love rather than fear/terror.
- Fully-Embraced Fiend: pretty much every bad guy
- How We Got Here: the entire first half of Fire covers Jean-Marie and Helene's romance from the French Revolution onwards until their separation.
- Mandatory Motherhood: Rodrigo originally swears never to make vampire children, but eventually caves in.
- Mayfly–December Romance: any vampire romance with a non-vampire, Ethan and Steve being the most prominent example.
- Meaningful Rename: why Rodrigo changed his name to Rafael in Fire.
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: the reason why Steve broke up with Ethan and married another man. It didn't work out for her.
- Never Found the Body: should have been a hint to Helene and Jean-Marie, both of whom thought the other was dead for hundreds of years.
- Oddly Common Rarity: by the end of the series, there are four couples with conyuge bonds in Texas.
- Playing with Fire: Helene, a rare female, non-insane version.
- Psychic Link: vampires have this with those they made.
- Reincarnation Romance: Rodrigo/Rafael and Blanche, after Blanche is reincarnated as Grania.
- Self-Made Orphan: Celeste set this up.
- Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: depends on how your vampire was brought up and what they were brought up to feed on.
- Spirit Advisor: Raoul to Celeste
- Start of Darkness: Celeste's fiance Raoul getting killed (by Helene, not knowing he was there) starts hers, though she was kind of a Spoiled Brat before then.
- Tomboyish Name: Stephanie Amanda "Steve" Reynolds.
