The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (49 page)

“You're not gonna touch her,” Jason said,
pressing the tip until the skin broke; a drop of blood rolling down
his neck to cling to the dark fur that lay there.

“You're just pissed because you didn't get to
bang
your wife
,” Tony said and no one saw Jason's hand hit
Tony's face until blood sprayed, landing like crimson rain on the
tall grass, speckling it with violence.

Manny rushed the pair, scenting the aggression
like thick smoke. He put his mouth on the back of Jason's neck and
bit down, just shy of breaking the skin. Emitting a low growl he
gave the most primitive of commands.

Emmanuel hoped that it worked. They needed to
return to the den, with the girl, leaving the cop here to awaken
without their presence.

Jason couldn't think. All he wanted... wished
for was to end the wolf under his claw. He could feel the life flow
underneath him.

Then Tony used his hesitation as invitation to
buck him off as Emmanuel released his teeth from Jason's neck. They
simultaneously backed away from the red.

Jason stood, giving equal attention to both.
Emmanuel he respected, Tony, the miserable fuck, absolutely
not.

It was Adi who summed everything up perfectly.
“You just have to say the wrong thing every time.” She looked at
Manny. “You're gonna have to tell Lawrence about his King Asshat
routine.”

Emmanuel sighed then said, “Tony, take the girl,
don't touch her inappropriately, and keep your yap shut.”

Tony looked at Jason. “We're gonna go, you and
I.”

“Bring it, dickhead,” Jason ground out.

Emmanuel strode to the two. “Listen to me. If he
wakes, we will have to kill him. And killing innocent bystanders
goes against Were law.”

“Yeah, Manny. You're so perfect, so moral,” Tony
spit out.

“Somebody has to be,” Adi said, then flipped him
the bird as a soft drizzle began to fall.

Tony's face flushed a deep red and Jason smiled.
There would be a perfect time to deal with this jerk. And it'd be
soon.

Emmanuel gave Adi the nod and she carefully
transferred Cynthia to Tony who smiled and used every opportunity
to paw her as he placed her in the cradle of his arms, her face
pressed against his chest.

Jason hated that he outranked him. It wasn't
fair that Tony had the flesh of one of his own against his body. He
had an instinctive dislike for Tony. Who he knew had been dead set
on the Ritual of Luna. Its outcome all for him.

Tony had been bound to fight the wolves for
Julia.

But she was Jason's wife. Jules belonged to him.
Were law be damned. It was too new to stick, if struck false. It
was Vegas that counted, the memory of their vows still fresh in his
head.

His heart.

A tightly coiled disquiet unfurled as he touched
on the memory of his attack against Julia. What if she couldn't
move past that?

What if he couldn't?
Who could?
h
e thought morosely.

Jason watched Tony curl a paw around Cynthia
possessively and Adi huffed into position. Jason was enjoying
the fact that the wound he'd given Tony would be
human-slow to heal since it was inflicted by another
Were.

They began to move, speeding off into the woods.
The strips of green that connected suburbia also connected to each
other. Where there was forest, they ran, where they ran, the small
creatures all around halted their lives of survival as the
werewolves made way through the path of nature they foraged in.

The Were were the very top of the food chain and
the animals of the forest knew it, deferring to their entry.

As they ran for the compound that housed their
den, the detective that had been unconscious awoke. One word formed
in his brain.

Pursuit.

William

William slapped the palms of his hands together,
Julia's fear,
no-
he corrected internally,
her
terror-
fueled his strength. His finesse as a vampire warrior
came to the forefront with a stinging clarity that shattered the
skull of his torturer quite neatly, if bashed in brains could be
considered such.

He had planned and executed the move
perfectly.

When there were no runners to back him. Whilst
Torturer was so certain of William's frailty his complacency drove
him forward to mockery.

William was ready and leapt as Torturer leaned
forward to whisper his sweet nothings in William's ear.

He never heard anything again, his ears mashed
with the remains of his brain, unrecognizable to all that would
have noticed.

None were there at present.

William gave a grim smile as he stepped over his
sodden corpse, jerking the chain that was attached to his body
which held the iron keys to relieve his cuffs of burning silver.
The cool metal slid down the bare flesh of his forearms and his
fangs pushed out sluggishly in response to the horrible stinging
pain. His energy was so depleted that his fang response was the
least of his worries. It would take special blood to relieve the
stress of his healing. He needed to feed, and soon.

William heard the footsteps even though they
made no sound and blurred behind the massive door as it swung
inward and Merlin stepped through it. William didn't think, he
reacted, as he had been trained for hundreds of years. He stabbed
his talon when it burst the confines of his fingertip,
simultaneously punching it through the slots of metal that
crisscrossed through the airhole that was head height in the wood
door.

It pierced the skull at the other side.

Unfortunately, Merlin was centuries older and
twisted away, the hole at his temple beginning to close the wound.
William slammed the door viciously against him as he entered. It
splintered on impact and he moved around the door as Merlin was
pinned against it, his eyes wide, struggling to move through the
shattered material. William felt his fangs lengthen and all talons
burst simultaneously, the last of his energy catching the scent of
ancient vampire blood that coursed through Merlin.
It ignited the flame of his survival instinct.

Ready for consumption.

Merlin flung the door off himself and slashed at
William.

For all his age, Merlin was not a warrior,
trained in strategy, hardened in battle. William parried with his
talon, striking in a two punch dual hit, thrusting with the lead
talon on his right hand and slashing as he did with his left.

Merlin's throat burst like a water balloon and
William fell on the geyser that sprayed black blood like an oil
strike. Merlin, the coven leader for the Southeastern Kiss,
struggled against William at his throat but the battle was over
before it had began.

William fed until Merlin's flesh and blood grew
cold, his body exsanguinated. He stood, observing the corpse
indifferently. With a final glance William turned to walk away, his
body thrumming with the stolen energy.

Then he changed his mind, coming back to the
corpse.

William gave a slow blink then struck the dead
vampire in the face with his booted foot, breaking the skull open
at the jaw. What was left of what had made Merlin vampire spilled
out to join the remnants of the vile room of torture.

There
, William thought,
that is for
costing me precious time to find Julia.

William left, metaphorically wiping his feet
behind him.

When in reality the coven now belonged to
him.

The Southeastern Kiss was his. Won by violence,
beget by treachery.

*

Region One

The brothers were arguing and Julia stood
wearily listening to them joke about the battle. Brendan and
Michael stacked the vampire parts on a huge pyre, Brendan lighting
small patches ablaze with his mind while Michael teased about what
parts to burn first.

“I say light up their gonads, pal,” he said,
raising a fist in the air in triumph.

“Shut up, Michael,” Jen said, trying
unsuccessfully to give him the signal that maybe it had been a Long
Night and he oughta cool it. Michael wasn't one for subtlety and he
elaborated, of course, “Ya know, Jen, you're kind of a male-hater,
I was thinking their torched dicks would work for you.” His brows
popped and Scott gave a chuckle.

“I don't hate guys. Well,” she debated for a
moment and Julia couldn't help but grin, “smart ones are immune to
my assessment.”

Michael frowned and said, “Yeah, what I said
earlier.”

“You agree then?” Jen asked innocently.

“Chick trap!” Brendan said, casually lighting
the sightless head of the one that had tried to tackle Julia. She
gulped as his face disappeared underneath the blaze.

“Goddammit! Where's the Negator?” Michael asked
suddenly, dismissing the dis on his intellect, his hand covering
his nose as he breathed through his mouth. “These vamps smell like
ass and puke!”

“Here!” a red-headed guy said, awkward and
skinny.

“Okay pal, can you do something about the
smell?”

He frowned at Michael. “Hold on to your drawers,
doofus.”

“Doofus?” Michael opened his mouth and Marcus
said, “Enough.” His eyes met those of the red-head. “Paul,” he
inclined his head.

The smell was the worst that Julia had ever
known. Not because it was
Eau de
Burning Vampire but because
it was close enough to the smell that permeated the air at the site
of where her parents were killed that she stumbled away as the air
got thick with it.

Still with death, heavy with rot.

Julia backed away and bumped right into a hard
chest. She whirled around as Paul worked his magic on the smell and
the air filled with jasmine and honeysuckle, though those scents
weren't in season right now. Her nose deceived her, the vampires
burned but the scent of garden blooms filled the air. Sweat ran
down Paul's face, the concentration necessary for the falsehood was
obvious.

Scott's arms snapped around Julia and she fought
their connection, images of his battle lust and changed physique
rising up in her mind. “I'm fine, let me go.”

Scott reluctantly did and they stood, staring at
each other as Singers bustled around them in waves. “I can't help
you when you resist everything Julia,” he said. Julia was struck by
how helplessness was not an easy emotion on Scott. His frustration
and lack of control were unraveling him moment by moment, even she
could see it and she didn't know him that well.

All the more reason for her to leave. If she
were gone, they could all move on.

Julia could move on.

But as Julia watched Scott search her face, she
wondered how much of
her basic emotions the
soul-meld allowed through.

How much did he know?

Maybe too much.

Julia turned to go into the house and felt a
warm hand on the back of her neck and comfort with a chaser of
feelings of such perfect rightness bled through that simple touch
that she shivered underneath it. Julia could feel him like a line
of heat behind her. Every hair stood on end and it was everything
she was, everything Julia could do, not to turn into him and climb
him as he stood there. However inappropriate the urge was, it was
there. It was real. Her intellect fought with her instincts.

Something was going to win and she wasn't taking
bets on what it'd be.

Scott thought again of all that Julia was
wrapped up in that fiery package. Their connection flowed from her
to him in that closed circuit that he'd never get used to. It ran
through his body like an electrical conduit. Scott fought himself
not to pull her against him and hold her.

He could feel the ghost of it from her as
well.

Scott opened his mouth to ask her why she fought
the pull. Was it Jason Caldwell? Was he still between them after
two years and an attack that almost took her life? Or was it the
vampire that had first acquired her that she had begun to care
about at the very end?

Or was it both things, or neither? Was it the
blood-binding of the two that made her flicker like an uncertain
candle flame?

He tightened his grip on the back of her neck,
the tiny bones biting into his palm when Angela said, “They're
here.”

“Excellent,” Marcus said but not like he meant
it.

Silent as a tomb three black SUVs pulled up in
the great circular drive that had seen horses and carriages in the
day but now served modern day vehicles. The flames of the burning
vampires cast shadows against the vehicles that danced across the
surface in an ominous pattern of disjointed shapes.

Julia turned, the warmth of Scott's hand lending
her that false sense of security, making her itch to throw it off,
itch to hold it.

When she saw who got out of the vehicles a small
voice whispered that things had just gone from bad to worse.

Then a real voice confirmed her worst
nightmare.

“Jacqueline,” Marcus gave the barest incline of
his head in acknowledgment.

“Marcus,” Jacqueline smoothly unfolded herself
from the first vehicle and strode forward, her outfit clinging to
every feminine curve she had. She looked over the siblings, who had
grown as still and quiet as Julia had ever seen them.

She put slim hands on full hips, blooming and
ripe and Julia had to remind herself that this was Scott's bio-mom.
Of course, one look at her and she would have known their relation
to each other. Jacqueline had his dusky coloring, inky black hair
and eyes that glittered like polished ebony in the light of the
burning dead. “Where is the Queen?”

Marcus frowned. “I have sent you the notice we
agreed on, it is all that I was required to provide.”

She stomped her foot and the troop of huge men
came to stand behind her, their expressions varied. One in
particular looked almost bored. She cocked her head and Julia moved
back closer to Scott even though she'd promised herself to maintain
distance.