The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (18 page)

Julia had been curious, picking at the meal
before her, salad and salmon. The coven provided only the finest
meal for their trophy. Julia squelched the thought even as it
formed. She knew that she needed to think of the coven as her
benefactors. Or she'd never achieve any happiness, joy.

She had sighed and Williams’s brows had rose
in question.

“
It's about Claire...” she
looked at him.

Stared actually, trying not to notice how
handsome he was, how well-built, how... everything. Heat rose to
her face and she knew without a mirror she was blushing.

“
Well... she is my cousin.” He
dropped the bomb like it was of the least consequence.

“
Are you kidding?” Julia
nearly shouted.

He shook his head, the corners of his mouth
already turning up.

“
You are!” she huffed, folding
her arms across her body.

“
I promise, I'm not having you
on. It is true.”

Julia searched his eyes for the joke, and
finding none, went on, “How is that? She looks like she's ten years
older than me?”

William paused, then said, “Once a Singer
mates a vampire, if there is enough blood quantum, they take on
some of the properties of their mate. In this case,” his eyes met
hers, “immortality.”

Julia thought about it, almost stunned into
speechlessness. “So Claire's like... hundreds of years old?”

“
Technically that is
accurate.” William said, thinking he was enjoying having her pull
information from him like hen's teeth.

The tables turned for once.

Julia huffed. “Just tell me William.”

“
She is three hundred
six.”

Julia gasped. That made William...

“
I am only two hundred
twenty.”

So young
, Julia
thought, rolling her eyes.

William laughed from his gut. Usually
serious, he found Julia lightened him considerably. She added a
buoyancy to his life where none had been before.

“
Yes, she is quite
wise.”

Julia turned her fork over and under, over
and under until William put his finger on the tines. He met her
gaze. “What are you thinking?”

“
I wonder why we look a little
alike, Claire and I?”

William leaned back in the chair he sat on,
drumming his tapered fingers on the bare wood of the table,
thinking.

Unaware that he smoldered at her, in her.
The blood share's tenacious grasp still clung like reluctant
glue.

“
Gabriel has said there is a
common region that the Singers hail from antiquity.”

Julia waited.

William shrugged. “It is just a hypothesis.
But it may explain the similarities in their looks.” He looked at
her briefly, then glancing at her half-eaten plate finished his
thought, “Blood Singers are generally fair-complexioned, with some
degree of red hair. But not all. Some can be quite dark.”

“
How do you know this?” Julia
was thinking that Jason hadn't had that coloring.

“
It was a cross-checking
method we employed as runners. If the scent did not convince us,
the coloring being as it were... well, it was almost fool
proof.”

Julia was fascinated, remembering her
mother's hair ablaze with copper fire. She remembered perfectly.
Memories of the accident crowded the inside of her skull in a dull
press but she shoved them away forcefully.

“
Gabriel is originally from
Scotland.”

Ah... Julia remembered wondering about that
brogue he had.

“
Have you heard of Stonehenge?
Located in England?”

She nodded, it was pretty famous. In high
school they'd studied it briefly in World History.

“
That is where the biggest
concentration of Singers reside. They fan out in many directions,
but it is there that they proliferate.”

Julia smiled, not really successful in
reining in her sarcasm. “Then why don't you guys do a road trip and
net 'em all?”

Williams’s smile faded, shaking his head.
“They become powerful in concentrations as big as that one.” His
eyes were serious again.

“
So, they can bring a can of
whoop-ass?”

William smiled at her vernacular. “Yes, they
can bring whatever they please. That is why we concentrate on
mostly immigrants, diluted by centuries of out breeding. Sometimes,
as in your case, we strike a pureblood. Any Singer over half pure
is worth acquisition.”

Julia thought about all that he'd said. “So,
why am I not... psychic or some other cool thing like that?”

William chuckled, crossing his legs at the
ankle. “You will be many things.” He shrugged, “It is different
with each Singer. A Rare One is an anomaly. Hard to find, more
difficult to speculate about.”

“
What can Gabriel do? He's the
coven leader... he's a Rare One,” Julia said, thinking he may have
mojo. A buttload.

Julia watched William think about his words
and was struck anew by how very deliberate he was with his
thoughts. He never just blurted stuff out.

Like her.

She smiled unconsciously and he returned her
grin, his fangs hidden.

“
He is male.” William looked
down to his long-stemmed glass, the bagged blood distributed inside
the glass as an affectation. Like a beer out of a frosted mug as
opposed to straight out of the bottle.

She waited and he continued. “He has some
paranormal talents,” he paused, looking at her then continued, “but
it is the females that possess all of what a Rare One could offer.
Eventually, you will be many things. Manifest many things.”

Julia looked at him. “Besides being able to
make vampires choke on my blood and heave helpful people against
walls, what else is there?”

She was only half-joking. Julia wanted to
know what to expect.

William shrugged a muscular shoulder, the
button-down shirt hiding nothing. She'd give vampires this, they
were all pretty spiffy to eyeball.

“
It has been some time since a
Rare One has been... in residence. It will be all conjecture at
this point. But,” he paused, “there have been things in legend.
Those are: telekinetic ability, telepathy, super-human strength...”
He finished, ticking off each ability on his fingers then resting
his hands on his thighs.

Julia liked the last one and smiled.

He chuckled, “That's usually reserved for
males.”

Oh.

“
Limited healing. And of
course, there are the genetic properties of the Rare Ones. They
will allow the supernaturals to become more, better.” William
leaned forward, all intensity. “Just think of the ramifications of
being vampire, but not ruled by bloodlust, by the night.” He swung
his palm to encompass their immediate area.

Julia watched an internal fire ignite in his
eyes and realized the vampires felt trapped by their existence.
That what made them
other
, also stifled them in
isolation.

It made Julia profoundly uncomfortable to
realize two factions thought of her as a savior. But she hadn't
asked to be a Rare One. Instead, she had just wanted a normal life.
She looked in William’s earnest eyes and sighed. At least she
hadn't been taken by the Were. From what William told her, they
cared very little for the Rare One's comfort. She remembered what
he had told her on one of their many runs before she'd been able to
do much but shuffle along.

*

William

William looked down with tenderness at the
top of Julia's head. He allowed himself that luxury when she was
not aware of his regard. She looked up and he instantly schooled
his expression into one of neutrality.

“
You ask of the Were. They also find the
Blood Singers critical. Even a Singer who has as little as one
quarter blood quantum can give them additional days to make the
change. They cannot aspire to be moonless changers. But, they can
have more days to use her call.” He kicked a random pebble and
Julia stopped, turning to look at him. The streetlamp reflected off
the damp patches of asphalt, the city still humming all around
them. The deadest hour of the night had the least people but still
cars were rushing past, dim noise and the smells of a city that
never quite rested a backdrop to their hushed conversation.

She crossed her arms and huffed out a breath
while the other vampires formed a loose circle around them,
maintaining an ever-vigilant protective perimeter. “So what you're
saying is, that both vampire and Were compete? They run around,
gathering up the purest of the Singers to what? Make sure they have
more power?”

William thought it sounded dire when she put
it like that. “It is for the betterment of both. We think their
methods are heathen. But the consequence is identical. What they
gain, what we gain...” he let his sentence trail off.

“
What do we gain, William?” Julia asked, her
eyes searching his, her palm on the center of her chest.

He did not drop his gaze but not without
effort. There was little that the Singer gained. Except, their mate
would be devoted. There was additional protection. He sighed,
raking a distracted hand through his hair, frustrated.

“
You have the security and protection of the
coven,” he finally answered.

Julia snorted, “Oh yeah! That's worked so
well,” she said significantly. She thought of the fangs that had
been sunk into her collarbone, adding to the healing scars of
William's claws from when he was in raven form. Unreal. She felt so
protected.

Julia told him so, with sarcasm.

William gripped her shoulders, cupping them
firmly in hands that wrapped them front to back. “There will always
be rogue vampire. There will always be vampire amongst our kind
that take, that do not follow rules, hierarchy. You do ken to that?
Is it not the same in the human population?” he asked, unblinking.
His eyes, so blood red in certain lighting, were silvered and
reflective in the dark.

“
It's true,” Julia responded, trying to not
squirm in his grasp. “But if I'm so special, why did they try to
hurt me? Believe me, it hurt.”

William knew. He had been barred from giving
blood a third time. As her kind said, the third time would have
been the charm. It would bind her to him without choice, without
consent. A union filled with resentful compliance was not
acceptable.

Not to him.

In the end, she had been given a
transfusion. She smelled off for two weeks afterward. He had
mentioned she had smelled like someone else until her body's
natural cycles and rhythms had righted themselves.

“
I'm so sorry that I didn’t smell tasty for a
week or two,” she'd said, rolling her beautiful eyes at him.
William had smiled.

“
It is better for me. Not your pain, your
suffering at their transgression,” he mentioned quickly to avoid
confusion as her brows came together in a frown. “But because their
attack on you proved my mettle. You know the man I am.”

Julia shook her head in correction. “You are
not a man. You're something else.”

William’s face took on a sad countenance. “I
am more man than you could ever know.”

Julia looked into a face filled with
sincerity and an expression she'd seen on Jason's face before.

Desire.

She shifted her gaze from his as they walked
away together, the vampire guard swarming around them.

*

taking

Joseph gave Tony a subtle flick of his tail, but
it was scent, not motion that let Tony know to flank the group of
vampires. One amongst the Were remained unchanged.

A new threat faced them. They had smelled what
threatened during their last reconnaissance.

The Rare One was entering her awakening. She
would be dangerous. One of his wolves would nail her with the gun.
A gun that had a dart filled with a sedative. It could stop an ox.
In this case, it would stop the Singer. Stop her from using what
made her unique against them. That she stayed willingly with the
kiss of drinkers was worrisome. Very.

She was unmated. Joseph knew. Her smell told
him.

They moved toward the group, stealthily. Sure
and confident.

Ready for combat.

*

Julia

Julia was nervous. She was usually anxious now.
Gone was the easygoing nonchalance of her former life. Knowing what
she was had stripped her of that. Not knowing what her future held,
or knowing the expectation others had for her future had cloaked
her as surely as the warm puffy coats of her Alaskan existence
before.

William watched her pace, her unease a
contagious thing. Finally, he could bear it no more. “What is it?
What is troubling you?” His arms were crossed, his face in shadows
as he leaned against the wall in her chamber. She took in his form,
his athletic build accentuated by the casual attire. His tight
black T-shirt stretched across a broadly muscled chest, black
sweatpants hugged hips and legs finely honed by exercise and the
perfection of what he was.

Julia stopped. Looking at him she felt the pull
there between them, like a rope of warm taffy, always taut, never
breaking. She felt dumb explaining it. “I know that the exercise is
good.” His expression encouraged her and she realized she was
starting to care a little for William. She didn't know how she felt
about it. But after almost eighteen months, he and Claire were
really all the contact she had.

She went on, stumbling over the next part,
“Before the thing... happened.” Julia flicked her eyes to his.

William knew she meant Jason's death.