The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (20 page)

A gun.

What? They were here to kill her? Julia was
utterly confused. The two groups were not, however. As she held
herself up against the wall they wordlessly charged each other, the
Were making excited yips as their supple muscles clenched and
bunched, readying to spring against the vampire.

Julia thought she'd just slip away while they
fought. She couldn't be taken by the Were, her mind shuddered at
the possibility. She began to feel her way along the building's
fa
ç
ade, until her hand curved around the
corner. She turned her face into an alley so dark she couldn't see
where it ended, how high the sides were.

She stepped into the darkness, the war behind
her raging in a clash of supernatural strength and will.

William advanced on the leader, swiping with
talons that sprung from his fingertips in a blur of motion faster
than anything he had mastered before. The pulse of his protection
for Julia a thing that beat in his brain independently of his
heart. The need to protect her was instinctive.

He saw in his periphery one of the runners fall,
his gaping wound a hole in his body.
Still he would heal,
William thought as he leaned away from a strike and simultaneously
punched a hole of his own in the chest of the nearest Were.

Fear gripped him. Julia was no longer a warm
presence at his back. At the same time he saw one of the largest of
the dogs break from the group and lope off to the side, a spider
gait with fur, he pursued something else.

Someone else.

William turned in the direction of the lone Were
just as Joseph used his half-wolf paws in a swinging arc, bringing
them down across William's back, knocking him forward into a rough
patch of cobblestone, revealed by newer asphalt. William’s hands
bit into the unforgiving street as two more of the Were assailed
him. They pummeled him into submission.

Before he lost consciousness, he tore the head
from the neck of one and warm blood sprayed his face. He gulped
without thinking, the grievous wounds inflicted by the Were
repairing as he drank the arterial spray of the enemy. His death
repairing the worst of William’s injuries as they occurred. A cycle
of rejuvenation that was as old as time.

Joseph saw the vampire leader take the head off
his third and howled. Before he could kill the vampire covered in
blood at his feet Joseph's second growled, “Tony.”

It was enough. Joseph shot away from the
vampire, his soldiers tearing the other vampire limb from limb in
an hour when humanity slumbered.

While humans slept peacefully, proof of the
battle ran in the city street, painting it with inky blood.

Julia ran alongside the wall, more tired than
when she'd been running for exercise. The terror at being taken
pouring an adrenaline nightmare in her body, her extremities numb
with it.

She clipped her ankle on a pallet that was
standing upright before she could see it and yelped softly.

She heard a noise behind her, the softest scrape
and put on a burst of speed, her hand leaving the wall behind
her.

Julia sprinted, the heat and lack of air in her
lungs whistling a tune as she tore forward. Up ahead she could see
a tall fence. Without a backward glance or thought she grabbed on
to the smooth, circular metal fencing and jumped the first row,
digging her shoe into the hole and climbing.

Julia didn't hesitate when the first piercing
sting of something in her shoulder twanged and bounced.

When the second bit her in her upper thigh as
she climbed, tears began to run down her face, the fence design in
sharp contrast to the streetlamps that were beyond. The holes from
the fence made shapes on her face, circles of light spearing her as
she climbed.

She climbed slower now, she realized with soft
horror.

Julia told her hands to grip the cold metal. Her
foot missed the next hole and slipped.

The tears came harder now, dripping off her jaw
and falling to the ground before her.

She stopped, seven feet above the ground, three
more yet to finish. The razor wire at the top formed a spiral of
hopelessness she couldn't overcome.

Julia's vision began to dim, the grayness of the
night encroaching on her. She clung to the fence, her body no
longer climbing, pressing herself against it, she clung.

As her legs folded beneath her and her
fingertips slipped away she fell in a graceful arc to the concrete
below.

To her death.

Julia didn't react when she heard the excited
yelps and yips of the Were beneath her.

Jason dead.

William gone.

She was in the same position she had been when
she started.

Sole protector.

Of herself.

Julia didn't land on the unforgiving concrete
below, but in a steel cocoon, lined with fur and muscle. She looked
up into eyes that shone like liquid gold. Her vision dimmed as she
threw up her arm to defend herself in the last way she could before
she faded into drug-induced oblivion.

Joseph stared at Julia for the moment of
wakefulness she had before she sunk into the sleep of the drugged.
His stony heart had squeezed at her weak attempt to defend herself
against him. Did she not know that she could not? That there was no
need? Joseph gave the signal to move out of the area even as he
tightened his hold on the Rare One. They must exit. The blood
drinkers would come en masse when the others didn't return with the
Singer. Their margin for error this night was slim to none.

He ran, the light burden of the girl
negligible.

Tony ran beside him, managing to carry out the
task without a hitch.

Perhaps a first.

As he passed where they'd warred he saw the ash
and blood lifting in the wind as a light rain began to fall.
Cleansing the proof of their battle. One troubling thing
remained.

A single vampire lay undisturbed, covered in his
werebrother's blood.

Joseph faltered, debating on whether or not to
return and finish him. His experience whispered at the possibility
that this one would be a problem in the future. Then he looked down
at the sleeping girl in his arms. He clutched her tighter. Better
to fight the devil that you know rather than the one you do
not.

He re-hastened his gait, smoothly leaving the
city behind for the mountains beyond. They would address that worry
if it came.

For now, the Rare One would become part of the
pack.

The den would be balanced once again.

Joseph would have smiled as a human.

As it were, he was not.

He lifted his snout to the sky and howled a
baleful note.

It resonated in the city as they left the
buildings of concrete behind, the others, a symphony in chorus with
him.

They ran to the den.

To freedom from their warden.

The moon.

underground Seattle

William’s abused body struggled to heal even as
he debriefed Gabriel and Claire. Their eyes and bodies were
dread-filled.

But not as much as he.

William was so full of self-recrimination he
could hardly breathe. A thousand what if's swirled in his mind. Not
the least of which was the elaborate plan the Were had executed.
The instant he had stood down, allowed less runners for the daily
exercise, the Were had pounced.

As it was, when the runners had been sent after
they did not return, it had been only William they had found. Four
runners, dead. Only two of the Were killed.

They had woefully underestimated the cunning of
the Were. They thought them without the intelligence for
strategy.

They had been quite wrong. And now, because of
assumptions, the Were had Julia.

It had taken the blood of three humans to allow
William’s recuperation. Even with that much, a gorge-worthy amount,
William was still not at his peak.

Gabriel paced in front of him. “It does no good
at this point to place blame. It is I that wished for Julia's
exercise, for some semblance of normalcy.”

Claire placed a hand on his shoulder and he
stopped the frenetic path he'd worn in the floor of William’s
chamber. “None of us could have known this would occur,” she
pleaded with him to see reason, to not blame himself. Easier said
than done.

“Julia knew,” William said quietly. “She knew
what was about. But she was so young in her ability, so new to
trust...” he let that last trail off.

It was her newfound trust that cut deepest for
William. What had it been? A mere week of them moving toward the
end that he had envisioned for them all along. Now... she faced a
situation that was not ordered but unprotected and unfit. A Rare
One who would be treated without regard. Her abilities and genetic
makeup used as a tool to further the dogs.

Of course, she had seen the vampires in a
similar light. Not that William blamed her, yet... he had never
been forthright enough about his feelings for her. He had thought
it too soon to regale her with his regard. He'd only hinted at it.
Now he wished he had been more bold. He startled Gabriel and Claire
as he punched one fist into his open palm in anger, sitting up from
his hunched position in the seat of his room.

Nausea and dizziness swirled around him but he
hung on, he would not succumb. He would keep his focus on the
rescue of the Singer.

Julia.

His future bride.

*

Julia

Julia woke up slowly, feeling like she'd been
run in the washing machine on the spin cycle.

Like a hundred times.

She sat up and her head spun and throbbing pain
latched into her temples immediately.

Julia felt like hell, her mouth a sandpaper
legacy with a chaser of dragon breath. God, yuk. Julia slowly
opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was so disoriented
she forgot where she was for those few seconds, the pain of her
head and acute thirst the distractions that called her
attention.

Not anymore.

The thing that greeted her as the memories of
yesterday crashed into her consciousness like a train without a
brake was a huge pane of glass. A forest beyond stretched without
end. Huge Western Red Cedars stretched as far as the eye could see,
filling her vision. The sweep of their emerald green branches
caressing the ground with an unseen wind that lifted and moved them
in a soundless dance.

Julia looked down at her body, the tracksuit was
gone. Instead she wore a cami and pajama bottoms. In one of the
most surreal moments of her life she saw there were sparkly
unicorns covering the material in the palest blue and silver.

Huh. She was being held by werewolves that had
dressed her in unicorn pajamas.

Irony-much.

A single tear escaped her eye and made a pathway
down her face. The weirdness of her life was making her so
claustrophobic she wanted to go back to sleep and never wake
up.

A knock came at the door and Julia ripped the
sheet from the bed up to her chin, turning to face the door at the
same time.

A girl came through the entrance, maybe about
her age but oh, so different.

She wasn't human.

How did Julia know? It was those spinning golden
eyes, their slow rotations screaming
other
... other
worldly.

Julia just stared. Rude, but at this point it
didn't matter. She was tired, she felt like she'd been beaten she
ached so bad. Instead, she waited quietly.

“Hey,” the girl said.

Julia sat there, saying nothing.

The girl fumed, finally sighing in a huff.
“Listen, I know my brother put the he-man moves on ya. I tried to
tell them it was the wrong way to do it.” She flung up her hands
and started pacing the room. “He's such a pain in the ass! Alpha
this, Alpha that. Well eff that,” she spun on her heel and faced
Julia.

Julia leaned away.

She waffled her hand in front of Julia. “You
don't need to worry about me,” she plunged her hand against her
chest earnestly.

Right,
Julia thought, doing an internal
eye roll,
that's what all the supernaturals said
. Clearly,
that'd worked out so well in the past.

She shoved her hand out for Julia to shake. “My
name's Adriana. I already know who you are, of course,” she said
rolling her eyes. Julia put a tentative hand out to shake and
Adriana pumped it vigorously.

“This is awesome, finally they will quit talking
about battles, acquisitions and all that happy horse shit. I'm so
completely sick of all their chest beating bullshit I could
puke.”

Julia did a slow blink, gradually taking back
her hand.

She thought Cyn might have been reincarnated in
Adriana. Or they were secret cousins or something. However, there
was the matter of a small difference.

She didn't think Adriana had a filter. Ya know,
that thing that pings when you've said too much or you're going to?
No, she didn't have one of those. And... Julia was certain that Cyn
hadn't been a werewolf.

Julia ignored all the really important questions
and gulping she asked, “Are these...” she picked up some of the
loose pajama material in her hand and met Adriana's now-brown eyes
(that was a relief that the wolf inside her wasn't threatening to
spring out any moment), “yours?”

Adriana nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. You were
in some hot-ass jogging get-up so I thought you should be in
something more comfortable after being nailed with the juice.”

“The juice?”

“Yeah, that crap they stuck ya with that makes
you conk out.” She looked at Julia for dawning comprehension.
Seeing none she frowned, going on.

“Here's the deal. They pegged ya with the
mega-tranquilizers to getcha from the vamps, right?”

Julia nodded, slightly dazed at the Force that
was Adriana.