Not Dead Enough: Zombie Paranormal Romance (Project Rebellion: SARA Book 1) (13 page)

“Ugh….” Did she like it? Dumb question. She curled her hands around his solid upper arms. “Of course I like it, as long as you move. Now.”

His answer was to roll his hips, and sensation exploded through her. His thick cock stroked nerve-endings she didn’t know she had, sending a host of fireworks sparking through her blood. She gripped his arms harder and rocked her hips, her greedy pussy clasping around him as though trying to hold him inside when he pulled back. He didn’t get all the way out before surging forward again, filling her to the brim.

“Oh, yes…that’s it. Harder.”

He bent his head, stealing a quick, hard kiss before giving her what she wanted. Needed. Shifting his position to get better leverage, he hooked one of her legs behind the knee, holding it up with his arm. His thick cock powered into her over and over, speared her, filled her. Fast, hard strokes of pleasure. Slick and wet, but tight.

It. Was. Amazing.

Her breath came in hard pants, the tension in her body threatening to spiral out of control. She moaned and arched back, her nails digging into his arms as he added an extra roll to his hips at the end of each stroke. A roll that hit a spot inside her that made her go weak with need.

He slammed into her and did it again. She cried out with pleasure, a sound echoed by a deep groan as her claws slipped her control and caught his skin. She let go instantly, scared of hurting him. “Sorry—”

“No,” he cut her off with a snarl, his thrust into her so powerful the headboard slammed into the wall with a sharp crack. “Let them. Cut me, I like it.…” He caught her gaze, his eyes fading out to white. “It…fuck, it turns me on. Do it again. Please.”

She didn’t say anything. She just grabbed his arms as he fucked her, and dug her nails in. He shuddered as she scratched him, and picked up the pace. The scent of blood on the air fed the heat and darkness within her. Her pussy tightened around his thick cock until each thrust slammed the bed into the wall. Each roll tightened the screws inside her until she could take no more.

Between one thrust and the next, she reached the peak. Time paused, the world in all its infinite varieties of pleasure laid out before her. The brush of his lips on her neck, his cock as it slid out of her body until only the tip remained, her nails across his back.

He must have felt it, turning his head to whisper against her neck. “Come for me, sweetpea. Let me feel it all over my cock.”

He thrust back in with a roar, so deep inside her that the dam broke, and she tumbled into the abyss. Pleasure took over until there was nothing else. Nothing but the feel of him as he surged into her again and again. Through it she felt his body stiffen and his cock jerk where it was buried. He came with a deep groan, gathering her close as his cock pulsed deep within her.

She buried her face against the side of his neck and sighed as the waves of pleasure died down to soft ebbs. The tiredness rose again, clinging to her and trying to pull her under.

This time she didn't fight it, letting the warmth of his embrace and his slowing heartbeat take her gently toward sleep. Whatever happened now, no matter what a nightmare her life had become, she had this. One perfect moment of peace and contentment. So perfect she wanted it to last forever, holding it close as she slid into sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Like most men, Brett had always liked sex. And like most men, deep down, he considered himself something of an expert lover. Certainly complimentary comments from his previous partners had helped with that impression. There were only so many times a guy could get told he was the best lay ever before he got a big head. But last ‘night’ with Julia had been something else entirely. A sensual and charged experience that had totally blown his mind, one that had kept him close to her as they rested.

With the darkness Julia’s energy had returned, and they’d been on the road for hours. Using her as a bloodhound to track the Bloods, they’d followed the trail to what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. Now they were crouched in the edges of scrub-land nearby, watching the building. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence that had sections ripped and missing, and the parking lot in front of them was empty of the vehicles that had once loaded here.

He moved closer to Julia, crouching next to her to loop his arm casually around her waist. He couldn’t resist touching her. She was like a drug, one whose lure he couldn’t and didn’t want to escape. At his touch, she smiled at him over her shoulder. He smiled back, an unfamiliar feeling spreading through his chest. One so warm that he had to double-check he hadn’t restarted his heart, just to be sure.

He hadn’t, but the warmth remained. He sat back on his haunches and looked around. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Dom. Crouched behind them, the bigger man was making silent kisses in the air while thrusting his index finger into his closed fist. Brett flicked him the bird behind Julia’s back.

“They’ve been there. Recently.”

Julia’s voice was soft and light, pitched so it didn’t carry beyond their little group. Approval joined the warm feeling in the middle of his chest. She’d learned quickly that they only needed the tiniest of vibrations in her voice box or movement of her hands to get their attention.

“Okay.” Fredericks nodded, rising from his crouch. “Stay behind us. If the shit hits the fan, get out and back to where we agreed.”

That was the last word on the subject. Silence reigned as the five of them stormed the building. Rendered wraiths in the darkness, they made the chain link fence in front of them, swarming in perfect concert through a gap where the mesh had peeled away from a post. Brett concentrated on the building ahead. He shut everything else out except for the sound of Julia’s heartbeat behind them. He was alert for the slightest movement that could indicate the enemy had seen them, expecting at any moment for snarls and Bloods erupting out of the shadows around the warehouse.

Nothing happened. The shadows remained just pools of darkness that didn’t hide anything sinister. They raced across the loading circle in front of the structure, the slight crunch of stones underfoot all that gave away their position.

He reached the loading bay first. Wrapping his hand around a steel support strut, he swung his body weight around and up onto the platform the forklifts had used to load the backs of the trucks. Black tire marks on the concrete lined up with the battered roller shutters. Five bays.

The others joined him on the platform, skittering up the side of the building as though the change in surface orientation was little more than a minor inconvenience.

Pausing for a moment, he watched to ensure Julia made it up onto the platform alright. He needn’t have worried. She barely altered her stride to run at the same point on the wall he had, reaching up to wrap her hand around the same strut he had. With a graceful leap, she copied his move and landed lightly next to him with her eyebrow raised in query.

Attagirl
. She learned fast, by watching him, it seemed.

Turning, he studied the doors in front of them. The darkness presented no problems, his vision adapting until he could see clearly. Fredericks motioned Dom and Kelwood to the left and the right, indicating broken windows higher on the walls.

The two split, jumping onto the walls to crawl up and across to their targets. Vertical surfaces posed no problem anymore. Hell, they could probably climb the Empire State Building if they’d wanted to, like some sort of freaky spider men. He huffed to himself. As long as no one suggested they wear spandex, it was all cool.

The remaining trio turned to the door in front of them. Unlike the other doors, it was the only one that showed recent use. Dints and scrapes at the sides cut into the rust to reveal new metal. There was no way they’d be able to lift the whole thing without alerting anyone within the building they were coming.

A click behind him made both him and Fredericks look over their shoulders. Julia jerked her head to the side and they looked that way. Hidden in the recess of the exterior wall and the interior wall of the platform was a man door.

Grinning, he gave her a thumbs-up, and in the next second he and Fredericks were at the door. He reached out a hand, putting it on the handle and pausing to check for vibrations. Nothing. No footsteps within, no speech, no nothing. Not even the background rumble of a machine running.

He applied pressure on the handle, gently, expected to meet resistance. Instead, it gave with a click, and the door swung open in front of them. He cast a puzzled glance at Fredericks. The Bloods were inhuman killers and assholes to boot, but they were, or had been, soldiers. They wouldn’t leave their lair unlocked for just anyone to wander in.

Their movements synchronized, the two of them moved through the doorway, instantly splitting left and right, ready for an attack from within. As soon as they were through the door, two things became apparent. One, the derelict appearance of the warehouse was a sham, and two, it was empty.

He and Fredericks froze, all senses on high alert for anything that could indicate there were Bloods in the building. Apart from Julia’s behind them, there were no heartbeats, not even their own. They’d all shut them down to track more efficiently. But no heartbeats didn’t mean a lot when it came to Bloods. Not when some could do the whole freeze-like-a-statue thing, slowing their hearts right down to one beat every couple of minutes and only bursting into movement when they were ready. Like those street performers who dressed as statues and scared the crap out of people when they moved unexpectedly. But where street performers only looked to elicit a shriek and a laugh from the unwary, Bloods had an entirely more deadly agenda.

So they held still. Listened. Every fiber of Brett’s being was aware, waiting for an isolated beat or some other movement that would lead them to a Blood hidden in the darkness.

Moments passed, stretched into minutes without incident. Dust motes danced in the air around them, sparkling in a sliver of moonlight that had found its way through a chink in the roof.

“The scents are older in here than out front,” Julia said softly, as Dom and Kelwood dropped out of the darkness overhead to land lightly on their feet. “What were they doing in here?”

Brett turned. The middle of the room had been sectioned off, opaque plastic walls creating a building within a building.

“Medical grade sheeting,” Dom murmured, moving forward. He pulled the plastic aside to create a door, the rustle loud in the darkness. They slipped through the gap one by one and found themselves in a corridor of sorts. Brett flitted forwards, not bothering to keep his movements human. Julia knew what he was; he didn’t have to hide or pretend to be something he wasn’t.

He pulled aside a loose sheet of plastic to reveal a small rectangular room with the same plastic walls. It contained a hospital bed and a bedside cabinet. Nothing else. The bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled as though the occupant had just left the room.

“Bedroom? Cell?”

“Same here.” Fredericks said behind him. He’d pulled a plastic sheet back on the other side of the corridor to reveal an identical ‘room’. “But not a cell. This stuff wouldn’t even hold a human, never mind a new Blood.”

Moving along the corridor, they pulled sheeting ‘doors’ back to discover eight rooms in all. The door at the end of the corridor though, revealed something different. Brett and Kelwood were the first ones through it, spreading out to cover the layout as the others entered.

“No heartbeats. Nothing moving,” Brett commented, and turned to study the room. Medical equipment was set on the counters, with an examination bed in the middle of the space. It had stirrups at the bottom. There was dried blood across the plastic sheeting. “What is this place?”

*

Julia paused in the doorway, and a sense of deja-vu washed over her as she looked around. Replace the metal frame and plastic sheeting with actual walls, the concrete floor with bland linoleum, and she was looking at every prenatal care unit she’d ever worked in.

There was blood on the bed.

Ignoring it, she took a seat by the bed in the middle and swung a nearby machine around so she could reach the controls. Keeping her expression set, she turned it on. It was a newer model than she’d worked with, but the base system appeared very similar. Certainly enough that she could work her way around it.

“What is that?” Dom asked, moving forward to look over her shoulder. She didn’t jump, not anymore. Now that she’d been around them a while, it was easy for her expanded senses to pick up the ‘dead’ spots where they were.

“I used to work at the local hospital. I think…yes, this is an ultrasound machine.” The screen flickered as it booted up. She navigated to the last images taken and noted the timestamp on the files. Less than a day ago. She tapped her nails on the side of the keyboard as she waited for the images to load. “How long have you guys been out?”

“Around five weeks, coming up on six.” It was Brett who answered, opening drawers and doors on the units around the walls. She caught a glimpse of medical stuff and blankets, as well as some towels, before he shut them in disgust. She wasn’t sure quite what else he expected to find in there. Perhaps a map to where the Bloods had taken their victims. Would be helpful, but she didn’t think their enemy would be that accommodating. “Why?”

He looked up at her and she was caught. Her cheeks flushed as memories of the day before crowded into her brain, replaying every erotic moment on fast forward. A beep from the machine in front of her broke the spell and recalled her attention back to it.

The first picture showed on the screen. Human fetus, just like every other image she’d seen. Nothing stood out. But why here? The Bloods weren’t the type she’d have pegged for providing prenatal care. Not when they were so set on creating their own master race.

“Shit,” she breathed and flicked back a couple of images, looking at them all in turn. There were eight different case numbers. The men crowded around her, but she ignored them in favor of studying the images, a horrible suspicion forming in her mind. Eight files. Eight rooms. Eight victims.