The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (23 page)

Joseph was on Julia before she could move,
sweeping her behind him as Tony fell on the spot where she'd been
standing.

Julia screamed in response, held against one
Were while the other's jaws snapped around him to get at her.

She saw his face between the sliver of the one's
arm and the wall that he stood against.

Tony had changed, the eyes luminescent and
golden in a face that had elongated into a snout with silver fur
and many teeth.

Like a crocodile. Except this one didn't crawl
on the ground, but was nearing seven feet tall.

“She's shown defiance!” Tony roared, drool and
spittle flying out of a mouth filled with teeth the size of her
pinky finger.

Adriana yipped behind him and he whirled on her,
pathetically small compared to him, all white with silver-tipped
fur, her eyes were an unnerving glacial color, gold blazing through
them like lightning.

“Adriana, no!” Joseph said, going for his sister
in protection even as he left Julia there in the doorway
threshold.

Vulnerable and unprotected with a half-Were in
anger.

Directed at her.

Tony turned and saw his opportunity to subdue
this female. Now, before she embraced ideas of superiority. Her
fragility was attractive. He would not crush her but she would feel
the sting of his superiority.

Oh yes.

He sprung from clawed feet that missed purchase
on the tile floor of the kitchen and as he slipped, he regained his
balance at the last moment and leaped for her.

Julia saw that muzzle coming for her and
couldn't get whatever telekinetic power she possessed to work. It
was like she was out of gas. She turned and ran.

The wolf's hot breath on her neck, her fear
tightened her bladder and made the food she'd just eaten rise in a
tide of gorge.

He paced the cage they kept him in and when
his acute hearing heard raised shouts he allowed his nose and
facial alignments to shift to wolf. Only those. That was all he
needed to gain an answer for what was happening outside the
confines of this place.

His nose became a snout and many layers of
scent came to him instantly. He pressed his new wolf snout against
one of the many holes in the wall and fear touched him.

Female fear.

He knew the flavor of it.

He knew who was frightened.

The wolf burst out of his human form, the
force of his change spraying what he had been moments before around
the room in a splattering gunk of flesh and bone. The blood mixed
with the liquid that facilitated the change landing against the
clear wall and slipping down to pool at the ground.

He howled a warning of such contained rage
and power that the birds roosted in the trees in midday, avoiding
whatever had made that sound by seeking refuge at the highest point
of the forest.

Julia heard a howl of rage that made her
steps falter just as clawed hands that were now half-paws as big as
her head wrapped her upper arms and jerked Julia back against a
body that emanated an impossible heat. It blazed against her back
as she struggled to get away.

Then the other Were stood in front of
her.

Joseph, the brother of Adriana she thought
with random wildness.

“
Let her go!” Joseph growled
out.

The need to mark the Rare One pounded a
steady beat in Tony's head, he could hear nothing else. He knew the
Alpha had spoken but the fragrance of the Singer had sunk its
talons into his soul and the call of the wolf was on him. He
couldn't shake it and began to tremble with his needs.

They were many.

He opened his jaws wide to take her throat
into his mouth. She must submit.

The pain was immediate. He felt something
strike him in the back of his head and his hands loosened on the
Singer, trying to take her to the ground with him. But as he fell
sideways in slow motion, he saw the Alpha grab her to him and press
her against himself.

Adriana held the cast iron skillet in
delicate hands that were half-wolf. With grace, Adriana had skipped
up behind the werewolf, twice her size and arced the pan above his
head even as she jumped vertically, landing it soundly on the crown
of his head.

He began to slip, his hold coming away from
her arms and Joseph grabbed her when she would have fallen with
Tony to the floor.

He pressed her to his chest and murmured the
things people say to soothe when there isn't a hope of it.

She met Adriana's wide eyes and thought
maybe she'd bitten off more than she could chew.

Hardy-har-har.

Julia pressed her eyes shut, smelling the
male aroma of the wolf; pine, earth and the faint smell of
cinnamon.

But it was the haunting shout of another
wolf that echoed in her mind, the sound of it still following her
thoughts. Somehow he had interfered with Tony hurting her.

It had sounded so sure.

Like a warning.

Adriana looked down at a semi-conscious Tony and
said, “Bull's-eye!”

Julia looked at her with big eyes and Adriana
laughed. “He gets kinda enthusiastic and needed a slow-down.”

Yeah,
Julia thought,
a cast iron
skillet would do it.

Joseph slowly released Julia and turned her to
face him. She was immediately struck by his eyes, an impossible
hazel, at once gold, green and a rich, root beer brown. Rainbow
eyes.

She realized she'd been staring and cast her
eyes down. He chuckled. “You're not afraid of me?” Joseph
asked.

Julia shook her head, but oh yeah, she was. But
given that he'd just rescued her from Enthusiastic Tony... she
guessed he was okay.

He looked at his sister, his hands leaving
Julia's arms with a caress and she shivered, like a goose just
walked over her grave. It was a creepy sensation but also like a
itch on your back had just been scratched. Totally weird.

“That'll be a helluva thing to smooth over,
Adi,” he said to her, exasperated. Joseph looked at Tony on the
floor, writhing around and scrubbed his face again.

Julia had an idea he did a lot of that when it
came to his sister.

She smiled at him. “He was outta control and
your ass was too slow so... Adriana to the rescue!” she shouted to
the rooftops.

Julia stood awkwardly between them in the
kitchen. A werewolf at her feet, one beside her and a possible
female ally.

Funny how life works.

*

one week later

Moonlight streamed through the skylights,
shattered pieces like shards of glass on the cobblestone floor of
the underground of the Seattle kiss. William looked at the pass
through which led into one of the long halls, the bricked archway
perfectly framing Gabriel.

He had an abiding scowl planted on his face.

For good reason. William was busy packing in
readiness to reacquire Julia. It was but one week from the full
moon. They were not yet ready for acquisition but each moment they
drew closer to the moon's zenith their enemy grew stronger.

And on their territory, no less. No, the time
was now. He and Gabriel had argued. But, as the leading runner, he
had pull, his thoughts held weight.

And, as her potential mate, even more so. Claire
had sided with him.

Gabriel pushed away from the brick and walked
over to where William stood, shouldering a small backpack. “You do
this at your own peril. You realize how closely guarded she will
be?”

William nodded. “I do. Even now, kept by the
mongrels, day by day they grow closer to their heathen ceremony.
No,” he shook his head at the multiple visions that greeted him,
“she will not have that end. Not Julia.”

Not his Julia.

*

Julia

Julia was in her room again at the Were
compound. That is how she saw it. Her routine was the same and it
reminded her eerily of the vampire. Except for William. She found
she missed him. At first, he'd been nothing but a captor. But
now... he was someone that she had grown to care about. To... have
an easy friendship with. She was acutely aware that she'd grown to
depend on his protection. She had not felt that sense of security
since Jason.

Her chest got tight and Julia took deep breaths.
Her capture and his death combined in a memory of unbearable
agony.

One bright spot was Adriana. She liked Adi, so
Julia called her that. Julia remembered the conversation
exactly.

*

“You can call me Adi too, ya know,” she'd said,
putting some clothes away in the drawer, her eyes doing a
peripheral check of Julia's reaction.

“Okay, thanks,” Julia said.

“Do you... do you always go by Julia?” Adi had
asked.

Julia looked down, feeling sad. Finally, she
shook her head. “No... I had a friend,” Julia covered her mouth
with her cupped hand for a moment and Adi broke the sadness with,
“No waterworks, just tell me your nickname.”

Her whiskey colored eyes met Adi's brown ones.
“Jules. That's what my friends called me.”

“Tell me about them.”

It was the first time someone had actually given
a crap about Jason, Cyn and Kev.

She told Adi all of it. How cool they'd been,
how much she missed them, how she and Jason had gotten married in
the Gnome Chapel. That brought an instant smile.

“Really? That's a no-shitter.” Adi had thought
for a moment, her chin planted in her palm. Then she brightened.
“At least it wasn't in that creepy Elvis Chapel.” She grimaced and
Julia laughed.

She laughed until her sides hurt and tears were
streaming down her face.

Adi looked at her with curiosity, “What the
hell, Jules? Doesn't everyone think there's something alarming
about a dude in white polyester and tassels?” Adi asked reasonably,
her palms spread at her sides. “And the man tits? Ugh!” She hissed
in emphasis.

That made Julia laugh harder. When she had some
semblance of restraint, she held up a finger and replied, “That was
my only requirement,” she said, wiping the tears.

“What?” Adi asked, confused.

“I didn't want to get married at that damn
chapel with The King in attendance.”

“King my ass,” Adi muttered.

“Cyn didn't like him either,” Julia said,
remembering.

“Was she pretty cool?”

Julia nodded, their gazes locking. “She was the
best,” she said wistfully.

*

Homer

Truman slapped the file against his thigh as an
officer approached him, “Detective Truman!”

He shifted his weight in the large chair that
swiveled behind his desk.

“Yeah?” Karl asked, looking at the disheveled
beat cop. The name on his tag read,
Daugherty.
He'd sent him
on a last-ditch wild goose chase. The seasons were changing and
after almost two years, the weather was finally cooperating for his
purposes. Truman had thought of something, something that had been
missed when the Caldwell scene was canvassed two years ago. Well,
almost two years.

Those trees.

The trees that stood on either side of the
rugged path that led down to the beach. He'd seen them a thousand
times but the dream he'd received last night had been a revelation,
the break he hadn't been able to get from returning to the scene of
the Caldwell murder a hundred times.

Daugherty jerked up the evidence bag like a
prize won at the carnival. It was clear, inside it were three or
four long hairs.

Truman didn't know it then but they weren't left
by a bear.

They weren't human.

That dandy little footnote would be inscribed
later.

The first real smile of the day broke over
Truman’s weathered face and the beat cop smiled in return, relieved
beyond words that his boss wasn't gonna chew his ass.

Today.

They smiled at each other and Karl reached for
the bag, its precious cargo so light but
oh,
so
heavy.

*

3 months prior

The talons stroked Cynthia's throat and she
shuddered. She'd been asleep in her bed, on the day that the cop...
Turner, Tucker... whatever his name was, had come by to visit her
and ask questions again, about Jason's murder.

Jules' disappearance.

Her answers were always the same. The visits
from the creatures were always the same.

The day after Jules was taken they'd come inside
her bedroom window and silenced her immediately.

They said things. Terrible things. But she
believed them when they told her if she said anything about what
really
happened, she would get the same fate as her
boyfriend.

Now this one came again.

Cynthia didn't care what it said. She thought it
liked causing her pain and fear.

Her only consolation was that if they had
Julia... really had her... they wouldn't be so worried about
discovery.

Cynthia wasn't the same girl she'd been before.
She didn't care about fashion or fun. She wanted to escape from
Homer. Move somewhere new.

Somewhere
they
couldn't find her.

As she lay pinned on her bed by the creature
that ground out its demands, its filthy half-paw wrapped around her
throat, its fetid breath encasing her in rot, he instructed her on
what to say.

“Keep to the story. Repeat what it is,” it
growled at her. At least it was only the one this time.

“I... it was a bear attack.” Her eyes flicked to
its, golden and spinning in an immense head with fur the color of
the sea on an stormy day. “That's why there was so much...
blo
... blood,” Cynthia said, her voice trembling from the
memory of the blood, the carnage, her boyfriend's decapitated body,
paces from hers.

He squeezed her throat and the breath wheezed
out of it. “And...,” the werewolf that held her on the bed asked,
giving her a teeth rattling shake.