The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (11 page)

As the ground rushed toward her Julia tried to
brace her fall but landed hard, rolling her ankle as she fell. She
screamed deep in her throat as ribs were bruised and her ankle
sprained. Her head had landed on the soft ground, with an impact
that would have crushed it had it been a hard surface.

Driven by fear, Julia leaped to her feet,
swaying while her vision remained in triplicate. Her ankle shrieked
in protest as she began a hobbling run. Her goal: the woods that
bordered the back of the property. She made the treeline, shivering
without clothes just shy of making her teeth chatter. She didn't
want that.

They
would hear.

Julia entered the forest, dragging her leg
behind her, clutching her ribcage as she jogged in an ungainly
lurch.

William palmed the lock on the door, thankful
that it was of vintage origin. Those almost always yielded to his
influence. The tumblers shifted against one another smoothly and
unlocked at his behest. He opened the door and was greeted by the
sight of gauzy curtains, like taunting fingers, waving their
mocking salute to he and the other runners.

“She is gone,” Pierce said.

“She could not have gone far,” Andrews said for
only the vampires to hear.

Robert said, shrugging, “We track her, it is not
difficult, she is but a girl.”

William turned glittering eyes to Robert, a
newer runner. “I am sure that is what the Were are considering,
even as we speak it.” He made his way to the window that Julia had
escaped from. As he gazed down, he estimated the distance as
perhaps five meters. Too great a fall for one of her stature and
disposition.

Blood Singer or no, she was but an evolved
human. Swathed in fragility.

He turned in profile, the moonlight chiseling
his features like marble. “She will be injured. Slow. Let us make
haste, moonlight is wasting.”

The runners converged at the window. William
leaped from inside the small room, exiting the portal with lithe
grace, crouched in mid-air, he landed with the barest hop, his nose
skyward.

His head snapped down, his face turned in the
direction behind the building.

The woods stood in unrelieved black, jagged
points meeting the skyscape. He felt the vampires land at his back,
fully fed, energized to pursue. He thought of Julia.

Precious and vulnerable. Alone. He hovered over
the possibility of the Werewolves presence. Without turning, he
took the lead, running headlong, following the Rare One's scent
like a moth to flame. Her fragrance a bell ringing like a clear
chime for him to hear.

Only him.

Were

Joseph used his eyesight in the gloom as the
tool it was. Piercing the darkness as a laser, he searched for
their salvation. Lost over a year ago to a number of blunders, she
would not be unrecovered again. Five Were strong, they had the
upper hand, as the vamps generally traveled by quad.

And they were closing in fast.

The girl was crashing through the brush. They
but waited for her to stumble into the meadow where they stood.

She would fall into their arms like a ripe plum.
Joseph restrained a howl, turning his luminescent gaze to his
first, Anthony, who nodded back, his muzzle lifting slightly,
revealing teeth honed for killing.

By tearing and biting.

The other three Were flanked them, partially
obscured by trees. They blended so well that it would take one of
the supernaturals to see them without night vision or some
such.

Joseph growled softly, “The blood drinkers draw
close as well.”

Tony snorted out his response, “Let them come.”
His paws tightening into cruel fists, his talons still short, the
battle's lust imminent.

Joseph's primary enforcer was fearless and not
nearly as controlled as himself. He'd need to dig deep within
himself for control once he was faced with a Rare One. They brought
out the very basest primal urges within their kind. Tony had
scoffed when told. But he had never been on the acquisition of a
Rare One. Only Blood Singers. It was not the same. The comparison
could be made that it was like an appetizer of Ritz crackers as
opposed to caviar. Never the twain shall meet.

They waited.

As the breath stilled in their bodies, Julia
burst out of the haven of the woods, the fingers of the branches
reluctantly releasing her from their care.

Her injuries assaulted the acute olfactory
senses of the Were, alerting and arousing them simultaneously

The Were advanced toward her position.

*

Julia

Julia rushed forward, her foot tangling on a
root as she ran and she fell, her palms biting into the dirt. The
needles and branches scraped her palms without mercy. She threw
herself into running again, the fir boughs whipping her as she tore
through, the smell of cedar filling her nose.

Her lungs burning, Julia could see through the
gaps in the trees, an open meadow was just ahead. She ran toward
the clearing, feeling if she could just get out of these woods,
she'd be free.

She threw herself out of the treeline, her
breathing ragged, her ankle a throbbing stump she dragged along.
Julia was greeted by five werewolves. She knew exactly what they
were.

Now.

Their eyes bored into hers and she felt
something integral shift inside her and open, a flicker of emotions
assailing her.

It took Julia but one confused moment before she
understood that it was one of the Were soldiers within the tight
group whose emotions were leaking on her like a wayward radio
signal.

She felt lust, power and greed. Not in that
order. She turned to run back into the safety of the woods and was
met by William and his team.

Trapped.

They walked out of the forest's border using a
smooth and unhurried gait.

Julia felt her bowels hiccup, her palms
instantly glazed with sweat, her throat threatening to close. A
fear so profound she could not breathe.

They did not look at her, rather, they looked
beyond her.

At the Were.

Julia began to shake, she had nowhere to go and
could feel anger from the vamps and a primal surge of adrenaline
from the Were. The emotions collided with her in the middle.

Their emotional sandwich.

Overwhelmed, she collapsed to her knees, a pain
in her chest. She met William’s eyes. They flicked to hers then
locked back on the Were. She began to crawl away, tears dropping to
the grass that was already drenched with dew. The wetness soaked
her knees and the hem of the nightshirt she wore. Julia was
suddenly struck that she was out in the middle of nowhere, in a
strange place with nine creatures of legend.

Half-naked.

She flipped over and in one motion, pulled the
shirt over her knees to the tops of her feet. Her teeth did chatter
then. Her ankle throbbed with the beat of her heart.

Julia watched the obvious leader of the Were
step forward and William circle him. Their talons, almost
identical, slid out from the tips of their fingers. In the
moonlight the vampire's looked black, the werewolf's a light
sable.

“Save yourself, Blood Drinker. No one need know
that you released the Rare One this night,” the Were ground out,
the timbre of his voice sounding full of gravel.

William smiled. “We would never let this one go.
We but lost sight of her for one moment,” he spread his hands,
feigning reason and continued, “she is our salvation.”

“Ours as well. We can breed her. What do you
offer?” The Were asked as a statement, his teeth revealed in a
snout that was almost human, until you saw the teeth like ivory
razors held in an alligator's grasp. Ready to close at the least
provocation.

“It is an impasse, then?” William asked, already
crouching.

The Were backed away, swishing a tail as a
command.

With a gnashing of teeth, the Were sprung on the
vampire and a war of fang and claw began.

Julia watched in horror as the vampires began to
fight for their lives, outnumbered five to four.

The prize they fought over lay to the west. An
injured and sodden mess, huddled in a ball with fear riding her
like a shroud of mist as an uncertain dawn approached.

*

William

William sprang, fangs unsheathed, launching
himself at the leader of the Were. Wrapping himself around the
torso of the Were like a steel vise, his fangs sunk deep, the foul
taste of its flesh like acid in his mouth. He hung on
tenaciously.

Even as Joseph sunk all ten talons along his
vulnerable flank, William worried the Were's shoulder like a dog
with a bone, grinding his teeth closer to the vulnerable bone that
lay beneath.

Joseph felt the horrible, burning bite of the
blood drinker pierce his upper shoulder and stifled a howl of rage.
Instead, he launched his claws into the vampire's side, digging
deep. Like a handle he lifted the drinker in the air, a piece of
his shoulder coming with it and flung him away, releasing and
retracting his claws as he did. The vamp landed with a practiced
roll, springing upright, blood trails leaking everywhere Joseph
looked. All ten.

Like mini geysers they flowed, the blood looking
like black oil in the moonlight.

Joseph howled in triumph. The drinker was
wounded, quite badly. But he was distracted as one of his soldiers
head's flew by his peripheral vision like an errant bowling ball.
His nostrils flared and he was stung by the awful smell of a
drinker quite close. He gave an instinctual evasive lean as claws
missed his exposed throat by millimeters. He reacted even as he
leaned, bringing the claws of his right paw and swiping in an
upward arc, releasing their full length as he did. The talons
sprang from the stubs of his fingers and gutted the vamp as he
leaped to finish the swipe that had not been true.

Andrew's face had a surprised look as Joseph
held him suspended, mid-leap. He retracted his claws and the vamp
fell at his feet on the long grass of the meadow. With his left
hand, he made the final cut to sever the head.

That bastard drinker could have healed a
disembowelment. He could heal nothing without a head, Joseph
thought with brief satisfaction.

The head rolled to join his fallen Were and
Joseph turned in the melee, blood spray and gore littering the
pathway as he began to move toward the girl. Belatedly he realized
that Tony already made his way to her.

Against express orders.

Joseph was the only Were allowed to touch the
girl.

Already Joseph could smell the unshakable lust
of his first, riding an unstoppable urge. He would crush the girl
if he reached her first.

The sharp claws of Joseph's feet sprung from the
pads of his feet, spearing the soft earth beneath him. He spun,
using the finely honed balance they gave him. On the balls of his
feet, he surged forward, each landing paw, gripping and shoveling a
spray of dirt behind him.

Even with his incredible speed, he could see he
would not reach the girl in time. For the first time as a Soldier
of the Were, he experienced an emotion he had only heard about.

Fear.

And underneath that. Panic.

*

Julia

And Julia thought she'd known fear. Tasted it.
She had not. Sheer terror took hold of her now. Something even
scarier than William approached. Not at a dead run, no. He advanced
with purpose, a light in eyes that were reflected in the pale
moonlight like a cat's. Glowing.

They were fixed on her with a look she couldn't
recognize. Finally, as he was almost upon her she thought she knew
what it was. What he wanted.

He looked like he wanted to consume her.

Julia gave in to her intense fear, screaming so
loudly her voice left her and hoarse shouts were all she could give
out. Her terror was not diminished from the lack of their
volume.

She scooted backward on her haunches with an
energy Julia didn't realize she possessed. Her modesty forgotten,
she scuttled like a spider backward, using just her hands and
feet.

Still he came.

William

William’s sides burned as if on fire, the wounds
inflicted by the Were deep, the poison released from his talons
delivered and flowing through his system, weakening him.

He needed blood.

And his group was outnumbered. Andrew gone.

He heard a hoarse voice, hysteria riding it like
fine wine. Normally, a scream like the one he heard would incite a
tornado of blood lust.

Not tonight.

The source of the screaming was his to protect
with his life. By any means necessary.

William shifted into the form that would allow
him to travel faster, his only gift. The singular thing that
separated him, identified him as having the blood of a Singer
running through his veins.

His already injured body fought the change.
William forced it upon himself, his body losing shape and molding
into the raven. It was twice the size of the majestic Bald
Eagle.

The eyes remained a deep cranberry, a color not
found in nature. His ebony wings unfolded to a span of nearly ten
feet. He rose, partially healing as he lifted from the ground, his
clothes in a shredded pile at his feet. Lack of blood, coupled with
injury made William sway in the air. He sharpened when he was
greeted with the image of Julia struggling in the brutal embrace of
the Were.

Clearly in the grips of lust.

Breeding lust.

William pointed his sharp beak at the pair,
folding his huge wings against his body, he sailed down as an onyx
torpedo.

*

Julia

Julia sprung to her feet just as Tony grabbed at
her. She used her elbow in an insightful move that surprised both
of them, using the hardest part of her body as a weapon she threw
it up into the half-human face that was so close to her. Tony
helped her by leaning into her just as she jabbed it forward.