Not Dead Enough: Zombie Paranormal Romance (Project Rebellion: SARA Book 1) (20 page)

“You see, I’m not human. I never was,” McCoy’s voice rasped in her ear as he started to drag her down the carpet toward the dais and the bed. She squeaked, struggling to get free, but he had such a tight hold on her throat she could barely breathe. Panic wrapped around her. Where were her new abilities when she needed them?

“Oh, sure. The Project wanted to play god. Made us into something more than human.” His voice grew harder as he wrestled her tighter against his chest and half lifted her. He was tall, and strong. Stronger than she’d thought. He walked down the hall, the banners fluttering in the breeze created by their passing. “But they didn’t know they were playing with something that was already divine. Me.”

“Divine?” She managed to choke out when he let go of her throat to pull the gauzy veil around the bed aside. “You’re a fucking lunatic, not divine.”

He threw her down on the bed so hard that she bounced, but before she could slither away across the slippery surface he snapped a manacle around her ankle.

“What the fu¬—oomph!”

Before she could finish the sentence he backhanded her. Hard. Something cracked in her cheek and pain exploded through her face. Stars shot across her vision. She fell back onto the silken sheets. McCoy moved around the bed to reach for her other ankle.

Shit, how had this gone so wrong so quickly? She tried to fight him, kicking out, but he easily captured her foot. More pain made her gasp when his grip tightened, so hard that it felt like the bones of her ankle ground together.

“Don’t swear Julia,” he chided, buckling the cuff around her ankle. “It’s not becoming of one of my sacred brides.”

“Your bride, my freaking ass!” she hissed, lashing out at him with her claws. But her movements were drunken, her reactions out of whack thanks to the blow to her face. He’d definitely broken something. Speaking was agony, and every word was slurred.

He captured her wrists, one after the other, locking them both into place, then stopped at the side of the bed, his gaze intent on her.

“Of course you’re my bride. You are the only one who came through the conversion mentally intact, so what else could you be, other than a sign from the cosmos that we are meant to procreate? To sire a new race to carry on my legacy?”

He moved, the bed dipping next to her as he settled himself in. He reached out to smooth the hair away from her face. She snapped at him, flashing her fangs and he laughed. “Behave. Or I’ll have Anderson knock you out. You don’t need to be conscious to conceive.”

“Yeah, is that what you did to the others? The ones who got pregnant?” she demanded, determined to get answers, even though her face throbbed in agony. “What happened to them?”

He tilted his head back and sighed.

“Ah, the insecurity of a jealous woman.” He smiled indulgently. “You don’t have to worry, my love. Present me with an heir, and you don’t have to worry about my other brides. I’ll get rid of them all.”

“No!” she exclaimed in horror. She didn’t want the death of all those women on her conscience. “What about their babies…you planning on killing them too? Are they yours?” she demanded, but as soon as the question left her lips she knew they were. With a god complex that deep, he wouldn’t allow any of the others to sire the first generation of his master race.

“Such a soft heart.” He inclined his head, a soft little smile on his lips. She tried to figure out if she had enough play on the manacles to head-butt him in the mouth. If nothing else, she could split his lip and spoil his pretty-boy looks.

“As you’ve asked, I’ll let them survive, although they are from inferior breeding stock. Their mothers were impregnated during the conversion.” He paused and frowned. “That was a mistake. We should have waited until they were truly converted. But it doesn’t matter.…
Our
children will have pure blood.”

He lifted a hand, and extended a claw to hook under the neckline of her top. The sound of tearing cloth filled the air. The top gave and fell away, leaving her exposed to his heated gaze.

“Brett’ll rip your throat out, you know?” she said, almost conversationally. By now, there was no way he didn’t know she’d gone. There was no way they weren’t tracking her. Perhaps they were here already, waiting to make their move. “Have you seen those guys fight? They’re lethal. And they’re coming…all for you.”

“Ha!” McCoy barked a laugh. “The SARAs? Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve been one step ahead of them for weeks. You think the Project can’t track them…you think
I
can’t track them?”

His words made her heart lurch. Was he right? Had they been played all this time? She fought back the insecurity. If McCoy had known where she was all this time, why hadn’t he had her picked up before? Instead, he’d said she’d led him on a merry chase.

“You can?” she asked, playing up to the dumb bimbo stereotype and hoping she sounded suitably awed. If he couldn’t pick up the sudden switch in character, then that was his problem. “How’d you do that?”

“Need to know,” he murmured and leaned in. His lips brushed her neck, his hand closing over her breast, and Julia reacted instinctively. Turning her face against his neck, she struck. Her fangs slid deep into his neck, and thick blood filled her mouth. She gagged, but struck again even as he bellowed, tearing himself away.

“You fucking bitch! I’ll fucking kill you!”

He rose over her, his fist raised and she saw her own death in his eyes. Spitting the blood from her mouth, she sneered at him. “Come on then, beat me to death while I’m tied up. Some fucking god!”

McCoy hit hard. His first strike caught her on the same side as the backhand earlier had. The blow upped the pain in her head to agony. By the fourth punch, she was numb, but he kept hitting her. Blood filled her mouth, her own, but still she hissed at him. He could beat her to death, but she wasn’t backing down.

He was speaking, ranting, but she couldn’t make out the words. His face had twisted with rage, his eyes red pools of hatred, and still he kept hitting her. His fist caught her in the mouth, snapping her head upward. There was a sharp crack as her fang broke, the tip falling into the back of her mouth. She coughed, turning her head to spit it and the blood in her mouth onto the bed.

“Captain….” Anderson’s low voice warned, barely audible over the buzzing in her head and McCoy’s ranting about godhood. He stood by the bed, worry written over his face. She tried to catch his eye, but McCoy caught her around the throat. His grip tightened, cutting off all her air.

“Shut up, or you’re next,” McCoy growled and pressed harder.

Julia struggled, but it was no good. She felt herself getting weaker. Too weak to escape the darkness that swam up to claim her as her heart gave one final beat and then stilled.

Chapter Sixteen

Darkness surrounded Julia. It wasn’t a comfortable darkness like that of sleep just before waking. Instead it was a prickly, uncomfortable darkness with lower depths. Depths that there would be no coming back from if she slipped down into them.

She floated in isolation. Was this death? The thought swam up to the surface of her mind, and she pondered it for a while. All her pain was gone. Nothing lingered from the beating McCoy had dished out, nothing at all. There wasn’t even a leftover ache waiting for her to wake up, like an over-eager extra in the wings. Worse. Her heart wasn’t beating. At all. There was no comforting beat filling the darkness around her as it had all her life.

Crap.

She was dead.

The darkness pressed closer. It was cold. Dark and empty. Devoid of everything.

Apart from her.

So…if she was dead, how was she thinking? How
could
she think? Dead things were dead. They couldn’t think.

Her eyes opened wide, seeing nothing but seeing everything at the same time. She was dead. But dead didn’t mean dead, not always. Dead could mean SARA. Like Brett. Like Fredericks, and Dom and even bat-shit crazy Kelwood.

Dead could mean deadly.

She was dead, but how did she unlock that state and turn it into un-dead?

How did she level up?

Reaching deep inside, she looked for clues. Her heart was still, but energy vibrated through her muscles. An eager energy, as though it was rooting for her, cheering her on and urging her to work out the puzzle. She went deeper, travelling through every part of herself until she reached a quiet void within. Nothingness emanated out from it in waves. She frowned. What was it? Why had she never noticed it before?

Reaching out, she touched it and everything hit her at once. Pain and the sound of McCoy’s ranting hit her like a freight train.

“You fucking bitch! I’m a
god
. No one questions a god!” The silk sheets under her were slippery with blood as he continued to rant and hit her. Each blow fell, but the pain ebbed away as though it was nothing. New power surged through her veins, but she held it in check. With the power came something else. Her cells vibrated, surging with energy to heal her from within.

“Captain….” Anderson protested. “She’s gone. There’s no heartbeat. She’s dead.”

Crack
. Another blow rocked her head around on her neck and she let it, keeping her eyes almost closed. Through the thin gap she watched as McCoy sat back, and the red faded from his eyes.

“She questioned me. Me! Can you believe that?” He panted, still looking down at her. His heart thundered in his chest, so loud it almost deafened her. “No one questions me. Not
me
.”

“No, sir. I can’t believe that.” Anderson’s voice was muted, as though he turned away. Listening to her instincts, she cast out her senses to catch all the vibrations in the room. There, behind Anderson, was Kathy creeping up on him. Julia cast wider, quickly. In the corridor were more Bloods, their slow heartbeats giving them away, but deep within the building there were softer vibrations she recognized.

The SARAs had arrived.

The shit was about to hit the fan.

“Well then.” She snapped her bonds and reached out to grab McCoy around the neck in a lightning fast move that took the Blood leader by surprise. “You’re about to be in for a world of disappointment, aren’t you?”

His eyes widened, almost bugging out of his head. She tightened her grip and he made a choking sound. His blood surged through his veins, the soft vibration a sensual caress against her palm. The energy contained within it was an alluring call to her new nature.

Hunger hit her broadside. An overwhelming tide of ravenous need. He wasn’t a person, not anymore. He was prey. He had become food, and her mouth watered. Her claw-tipped fingers dug into the side of his neck. She could rip him apart like a rag doll. Thick lines of black blood ran down the sides like someone had scribbled on his skin with a marker pen.

She grinned, thrilled at the power running through her. Life or death.
McCoy’s
life or death. She held it in her hands, feeling like a gladiator on the arena sands awaiting a decision from the crowd over whether her victim should live or die. But there was no crowd, just her own conscience and the cold, empty space where her soul had been.

Her grip tightened again and the blood vessels in the corner of McCoy’s eyes started to burst one by one in a scarlet display. She could crush the life out of him. Now. Should. Wanted to. Needed to. The urge to crush his throat into a bloody pulp, then lick it off her fingers like a gooey treat, almost overwhelmed her.

She gasped as her thoughts took her to a dark, scary place. Bile rose in her throat at the images the hunger fed her. She wasn’t an animal. Wasn’t a monster. Was this how Brett felt? Did he have to deal with thoughts and needs like this? Was this why he said he was a monster?

Her grip loosened a little, and her distraction allowed McCoy to break away with a bellow. Her claws left deep furrows in the sides of his throat, black blood coating her fingers. He fell onto the sheets, backpedalling so furiously to get away from her that he fell off the end of the bed with a thud.

“Kill her!” He screamed as the door burst inward and Bloods poured into the room. “She’s one of them. Kill her!”

Three Bloods leapt onto the bed, matching snarls on their faces. The first lashed out at her, claws slicing the air where she had been a mere moment before. But she wasn’t there any longer, skittering sideways in a move that made all three Bloods stop in shock.

The one nearest to her blinked as she opened her hand. In it she held a bloody gobbet of flesh that had once been his throat. He wheezed through his ruined windpipe. It might have been a scream. Hard to tell when his voice-box was sitting somewhere amongst the mess in her hand. His hands fluttered around his shoulders, as though he were afraid to touch as prove to himself what he was seeing was reality.

“Shit! She’s a SARA!” the one to the left yelled, then ducked as she threw the bloody lump of throat at him.

She grinned, easily scenting their fear and owning her new state of being. She wasn’t a Blood, not anymore. She was something else entirely.

“Just kill her!” McCoy screamed from somewhere behind the bed, his bellow almost drowned out by Anderson’s shouts as he battled Kathy further down the room.

Julia cast them a glance and nodded in respect. For a short,
mostly-playing-with-the-fairies
lady, she sure was handing Anderson his ass on a plate. The big sergeant bled from several wounds as the diminutive female danced around him, her claws slashing and stabbing in a frenzy of movement. Perhaps there was something to be said for crazy-fu.

“Kill her!” McCoy’s frenzied screams caught her attention again and she skittered to the back of the bed, then grabbed the gauze drapes around it to haul herself up. She’d expected the thing to rip under her weight, but the energy of the movement sprang her up into the air, flipping her over to land against the wall by one of the massive banners. Cool. Super spider powers as well; could today get any weirder?

Her higher vantage point came with advantages. Namely an over-view of the battlefield. Kathy had finished with Anderson, the sergeant's cooling body hanging wrapped in a blood-soaked banner. It swung gently back and forth as Kathy crept up behind McCoy.