The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (6 page)

Jason couldn't believe this was happening.
The hell with this! He walked right back over to the couch and
scooped Julia up in his arms, her soft moaning twisting something
inside his chest.

Without mercy.

“Put her down, Jason!” his
dad yelled. Their eyes met again.

“No. I don't give two
shits and an eff what you guys do. I'm an adult and everyone needs
to back right the hell off.”

He'd never talked to his dad that way. It
was long-past due.

Lily stabbed the numbers in the phone and
Shelia tore it out of her hand and jammed it into the receiver.
“Please,” her voice trembled, “let's discuss this.”

Lily looked at them like they'd gone
insane.

“Listen here, Jason. I
posted your bail. I am responsible for you until that hearing,
where you'll be found innocent. Until then, don't jeopardize this
with your he-man stunts. Leave that girl where she belongs. NOW.”
Harold planted his hands on his hips and stared at
Jason.

A loud ticking from the clock on the wall
reverberated around the room, the moment swelling unbearably around
them, the tension a living breathing thing.

Jason wanted to scream so badly his eyes
burned with frustrated unshed tears. He turned away from them,
blinking fiercely, feeling like he was betraying her.

Betraying Julia.

He laid her back down on the couch, her
eyelashes like soot against chalky cheeks and turned before he
wrapped her up against him again. Saying nothing, he stalked out of
the house, shouldering past his dad and almost knocking him
over.

He looked up as the cold air hit him, the
clouds roiling above him, the look of their charcoal anger exactly
matching his.

existing

Julia sullenly took another spoonful of
soup. After a week of suffering through liquids, she'd finally been
upgraded to soup with meat. Susan was the cook too. Versatile
gal.

If Julia was honest with herself, she had to
admit that Susan was a saint. But she was not here to make friends.
Every day she thought of how she could get away, each day she
wanted away from William, and to a lesser degree, Pierce.

At least she finally had answers. William
was deliriously complacent with her presence here. He thought he
had it handled. Well, he had another thing coming. Julia was
waiting for the best opportunity she could manage to leave
permanently.

William had expounded on her importance,
making her desire to leave even more acute.

Blood Singers were rare. They were
critically needed in the human population. The vampires looked at
the humans like cattle. Blood Singers were just a fraction of the
human population; one tenth of one percent, to be exact.

Julia had listened to his speech silently.
William and Pierce were “runners.” Their express purpose was the
acquisition of Blood Singers. The Blood Singers balanced the
vampires “food load.” The properties their blood afforded made the
human population's blood of a high enough quality to sustain their
existence.

Whatever
, Julia thought, remembering
his words.

*

“So you see... how
essential you are?” William spread his palms out on either side of
his body, his coal-black hair shimmering with blue low lights in
the subdued glow of the dining hall. His silver eyes bored into
hers and a sudden memory of them shifting to a red so deep it was
nearly black as he'd almost struck her flesh caused her heart to
speed slightly. She rode it out. He could probably hear her blood
course through her veins. That's all she needed. Julia would never
be able to help herself if he was anticipating all her moves,
especially as weakened as she'd become.

“Why take me? It sounds
like you need us out in the... populace,” she restated, genuinely
puzzled.

“We're reconnaissance,” he
said simply. “We seek the Rare Ones.”

“Okay,” Julia threw up her
hands, her soup forgotten. He frowned when she pushed the bowl
away. “I give. Who are the Rare Ones?”

William stared at her and she held his gaze.
“You are a Rare One, Julia.”

She shrugged. So? Who was he kidding? How
was it different than what he had essentially told her? Basically,
the Blood Singers of the human race were the purebred cattle of
homo sapiens.

Wonderful.

He took in her expression. “Maybe you have
not asked the right question. It is quite simple, actually.”

Julia thought about it. It slowly came to
her. “Why do you have that name for us... Blood Singer?”

He smiled at her like she was a prized pupil
and looked achingly human for that one moment. Then his face fell
into the handsome but otherworldly lines she was becoming
accustomed to. “Do you not feel it?” He placed his fist to his
chest, where his heart must beat.

Or did it?

They stared at each other and Julia felt a
pull to him. She fought it, it was simply like ignoring one voice
amongst many. She tried that, tuning out that one strand, like a
distant bell that sounded. She silenced it with an effort.

His hand slowly fell from his breastbone.
“That is the call of the blood. I have shared mine with you. It now
calls to yours.”

“Why?” Julia asked, deeply
creeped out.

“Because I have shared
blood with you.”

“No, you forced your blood
inside of me!” she raised her voice at him, crossing her arms, high
color seeping across her cheekbones.

William's eyes narrowed slightly. “True. So
that you might live, I gave you my blood. I have Blood Singer
ancestry.” Julia cocked an eyebrow, the conversation becoming more
confusing by the moment. What he said next made her forget her
curiosity like falling off a precipice. “How do you think we found
you? Found... Jason?”

His name fell like a stone in the room, the
horrible memory threatening around the edges of her consciousness.
She clenched her eyes against the images assaulting her.

He continued as if the oxygen had not been
forcibly torn from the room. Julia felt like an elephant had sat on
her lungs. “Your blood calls to us. It sings to us. We follow it
like a melody on the wind. All roads lead to the Blood Singer.”

Julia opened her eyes. A startling
revelation was blossoming in her mind. “Jason was... he was a Blood
Singer?” she asked on a breathless whisper.

William nodded.

Julia jumped off the bench and flung herself
at William, beating against him with her fists. Her hair flailing
wildly about her. It was like beating a brick wall. Stony and cold.
“You killed him! You had no right!” she wailed. “You killed him...”
she sobbed as he grabbed her wrists. “Why didn't you kill me
instead?” Julia asked on a sorrowful moan as she sagged against
him, fainting from exhaustion.

William picked her up in his arms, the
burden of her weight no more than a feather. His pain at watching
hers was unmatched with anything he had ever known.

He carried Julia back to her room, his soul
as heavy as a ton of lead.

*

Julia

William had been fairly quiet since the
scene in the dining hall the week before and Julia was glad. She
thought the ache for him would never end. But thankfully day by day
it lessened. She didn't want to be tied to the blood drinker.
Because that was what he was.

All he was.

He and Pierce lingered in the hall, speaking
in covert whispers as she dabbed at the corners of her mouth, bread
half-eaten in front of her.

The dreams had started again and with them,
her long-lost friend, Headache. She sighed, rubbing her
temples.

William and Pierce were suddenly beside her.
“Are you ill, Julia?”

She glared up at the pair. A prudent girl
with half a brain would have been scared of the vampires; deadly
and menacing. But she didn't care about her welfare anymore, her
future. She wasn't interested in being taken anywhere with
them.

“No, I'm fine.” She looked
at them impassively.

Pierce stared a moment more then turned to
William. “Perhaps her awakening has begun.”

Julia thought she was about done with the
revelations.

“Possibly...” William said
thoughtfully.

“What?” Julia asked,
standing, her arms crossed over her body, she hugged herself to
stay warm. She looked up at the pair, such a contrast to each
other. They were huge men...
vampires
, Julia self-corrected. She
gulped back a sudden stab of fear.

“Rare Ones go through
a...” William struggled for just the right word.

“Transition?” Pierce
supplied.

Julia's brows jacked down over her eyes and
she said, “Haven't you two kidnapped Blood Singers before?”

William's expression darkened at her
terminology. But Julia remained steadfast. It was what it was.

“We have acquired some of
Rare One lineage but never a pureblood. Never once,” Pierce
said.

“Adolescence!” William
said triumphantly, remembering the word.

What-the-hell? Were they stupid? “Look
guys,” they turned their simultaneous attention unnervingly on her.
She stepped back, then realizing it made her look weak, she
reclaimed it. “I am clearly a woman. Full-grown guys,” she ran a
hand down the front of her body and the vampires tracked it. She
was immediately embarrassed but bottled it up before they noticed.
She rushed on before they could comment. “What I'm saying is, I
went through adolescence years ago. I am done with all that,” Julia
said waving away their weird ideas with a hand.

Pierce shook his head and William said, “No.
The Rare One comes-of-age much later than one that is just a Blood
Singer. The purer you are, the greater the manifestation of your
latent talents.”

Julia's eyes shifted back and forth between
the two of them. “What talents?” she asked slowly.

William paused, then dropped the bomb,
“Paranormal talents.”

Julia's hand whipped out and gripped the
table that stood behind her. The hell with appearing weak, she
backed up until her thighs pressed against the bench.

Insane Vampires. It wasn't just enough that
there were such things as vampires. These ones were crazy ass
loons.

It just kept getting better and better.

Julia despaired.

“Are you having
headaches?” Pierce pressed.

“Precognitive dreams?”
William asked silkily.

Julia's head snapped up and locked with
William's gaze, gold meeting silver. She shook her head in denial.
She would not be their stupid Blood Singer messiah or
whatever-the-hell they were looking for. She redoubled her
determination to escape.

Soon.

graduation

It was cool, the air holding none of the heat
that would be found in other parts of America. Here at latitude
fifty-nine, late May meant maybe sixty degrees. Maybe.

Today it was a cool fifty-eight. Intermittent
clouds floated overhead and the breeze from the Homer Spit had made
its way to the high school, slowed but not beaten.

Julia looked away from the Valedictorian who was
expounding on the benefits of altruistic endeavors.

It was all bullshit, said through the bullhorn
of what she could gain by making a good impression on whoever was
listening. Julia swung her leg restlessly until Jason stilled it
with a hand on her knee. His eyes swung to hers. “It'll be okay,
just today, then we're free.”

The girl droned on, the guys got a fine sheen of
sweat over their brows, all that satiny polyester was causing the
greenhouse effect.

Finally, the staff herded them through the line
and they shook hands, stood for pictures and ate the celebratory
cake courtesy of Costco. It was anticlimactic anyway.

It only served to underscore that uneasy feeling
Julia had. Like she was waiting. Ever since the Terrell
incident.

Death
, she corrected herself.

She had felt a portent. A feeling of impending
doom. It felt like a ticking time bomb. Her sleep was leaving her
these days and nightmares were taking up residence in its
absence.

She was exhausted and Jason was worried.

If that weren't enough, there was the impending
trial. If a jury of Jason's peers found him not guilty in the death
of Terrell, then he was free. Unfortunately, because of the nature
of how he had... killed Terrell, he had a mandatory six weeks of
anger management classes. And of course, he was angry about the
classes.

Total irony.

The Caldwells had not really forgiven Jason for
making them look “bad” by killing Terrell. Even Truman had defended
Jason, saying he'd saved lives. Of course, what the Caldwells
weren't telling Truman was that her life was not that important to
them. It hurt, but Julia had to stay focused on her future.

With Jason.

When the lame reception was over they drove to
Julia's house so she could change. Then it was out to the beach
with Kevin and Cyn.

Julia opened the door, Jason behind her. He'd
been so quiet in the car. She knew something was on his mind.

Seeing that Lily wasn't home from work yet she
walked to her room. Tearing open her closet door, she chucked out
her beach jeans, T-shirt and the faded, battered Salty Dawg Saloon
hoodie. It was her most beat up one but she loved it. She'd bribed
a tourist one summer to go in there and get one for her. It was a
Homer landmark, a cabin from 1897 that had grown into a rough and
tumble tavern.

She pressed the hoodie against her face,
inhaling the fragrant soap Lily used and a pang of homesickness
struck her.
She was really going
, she thought, a little
forlorn. Just six short weeks.