The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (60 page)

“Yes... she said you wanted to have someone
interpret it.”

Julia nodded and Marcus added, “I know it is a
lot to assimilate, that you are young and have been through a
series of traumas. Many of which are quite recent.”

Well that about summed stuff up
, Julia
thought.

“And many dreams of Singers are prophetic.”

Great
, Julia thought.

Julia told him about it, the entire thing.

Marcus leaned back in his chair, very like a
throne, behind his huge desk, one of very few pieces of furniture
that matched the age of the house and steepled his fingers. After
the ticking of the clock marked two minutes of silence after she
had finished, Marcus said, “Everyone is represented. That is what
is noteworthy,” he commented thoughtfully.

Julia's expression grew puzzled, then troubled
as she began to wearily make possible connections. Marcus
interrupted her internal deliberations.

“The wolf will come, as will the vampire. Those
two come into the play of your freedom from the blood-binding.
Without them relinquishing you through blood, you will not be free
of them, and therefore, cannot reign as you were meant to.”

“Jason will kill me,” Julia said, proud that her
voice didn't tremble with fear, or with the other emotions she
associated with the attack: grief, loss, denial and acceptance.
Julia knew that William would not harm her. She had enough time in
his presence coupled with firsthand knowledge to know that she was
too critically important to harm. The vampires were all about
self-preservation. And deep inside, Julia knew that he'd actually
cared for her. A subtle thread of memory, like a slice of comfort
came to her, almost like a dream and she struggled to capture it
but it floated away when Marcus answered her statement.

“No,” Marcus said with certainty. Julia gave a
little gasp of surprise. He had been there, Marcus had seen what
Jason did to her. There was no doubt that if he hadn't lost
consciousness at just the right moment she would've been toast. “He
is Singer and from the looks of his wolf, a rare type of Were.
There is no precedence. I take his actions toward you for confusion
during the upheaval of his change in combination with your
proximity...”

“You're saying... what? That he got bowled over
by his emotions, went on sensory overload and momentarily forgot I
was his
wife
?” Julia asked, her voice raised.

Marcus flinched but gave a satisfied look toward
Julia, thinking not for the first time, how very astute she was for
having only lived twenty years. “That's exactly what I am
saying.”

Julia leaned back in shock. Could it be
possible? That Jason was not acting rationally but instead, his
wolf and human sides had jumbled at exactly the wrong time and in
that sideways moment he'd acted without true thought? It shed light
on the event in a whole new perspective.

Now what was she going to do? Legally she was
married to Jason. Hell, she sure had been married to him in her
heart. Things had changed though. He was no longer human but a
Were, she had ten protectors in place because she was some kind of
royalty for the Singers. Topping that off was a whacko visiting
leader who blew poisoned snow at her in dreams and was the
biological mother of a possible soulmate that had anger management
issues.

Julia was screwed six ways to Sunday.

She furiously thought about all of it. Finally,
she asked Marcus the biggest question that begged an answer, “What
can save me from this mess?”

Marcus smiled, pleased again by her intellect.
She would make a fine leader.
If they could get her through to
the other side of the Circle of Protection,
he thought with a
pang of trepidation.

“Your blood. It is your blood that holds they
key. If we can but protect you a little longer, when you finally
Awaken fully... then all hope is not lost.”

Julia stared at Marcus, so unlike Scott, but
with a similar intensity and said in a low tone, reluctant to voice
the obvious, “And if I don't 'Awaken' soon enough?”

“Then you are horribly vulnerable until that
time.”

Wonderful news,
Julia realized, feeling a
little hopeless.

Marcus expounded, “This is why the Combatant
stays close. They're protecting you until such time as you Awaken.
And I will say this: the vampire and Jason, who is now more Were
than any other thing, human or Singer, will come. It is compulsion.
You carry their blood and as supernatural beings, that is what
binds.”

Julia sighed.

“The Blood sings and calls to all that carry its
counterpart. They will come and we shall be ready.”

You hope
, Julia thought, leaving the room
with more questions than answers.

Story of her life.

Truman

Truman flipped his notepad closed. He left the
small convenience store in a subdivision of greater Gig Harbor. The
bell tinkled over his head as he exited, the sign missing a T as it
swung in the slight breeze above his head. It should have read
Arletta Stop & GO! Instead, it read,
Arleta Stop &
GO!
The exclamation mark was a mere suggestion after sixty
years of weather and sun. Karl took a look around, finally heading
to the spot where he thought there'd be some People of
Interest.

Or in the case of his perps: werewolves.

He leaned hard on the checker, the granddaughter
of the people that had owned the convenience store when it was a
wide spot in the road. In fact, her family had homesteaded the area
back at the turn of the last century, when a felled Douglas Fir
could trim a whole house.

The conversation had been an interesting one.
Karl had the feeling like the hard-miler broad had been waiting for
the other shoe to fall and when Truman walked in, it did.

At first she put up the typical fight of
feigning ignorance but Truman's nose had caught the scent and he
was a literal bloodhound.

Irene had told him that there was a religious
sect that lived in the center of a hundred mile forested patch of
land.

Religious his ass. They were religious all
right,
religious about hiding
, he figured.

Truman remembered what she
hadn't said,
and
how that had sharpened his
speculations to a razor's edge.

“
They don't bother nobody,” her shadowed eyes
landed on Truman's significantly. “And nobody bothers them,
leastways locals,” she said in a true smoker's grate. Truman was
almost jealous as the smoke from her cig curled to tease him, the
cloud of gray between them like a lover's caress.

God he missed smoking.

She had given him a subtle warning to get
lost but he wasn't going to bite. He was made of sterner stuff.

Irene took a long, hollow-cheeked drag of
her menthol and with a practiced flick, landed the one inch ash in
the glass ashtray with uncanny precision. Truman noticed the
ashtray had a special molded pouch for a matchbook.
Old-fashioned.

“
You got official business with 'em?” she
asked, blowing a puff into the air where it joined the general fog
of smoke from a thousand other smokes, the ceiling gone from true
white to a dim gray. Karl watched the smoke lift and filter along
the ceiling, transfixed.

He came back to himself with a start. “Yeah,
I do. There's a missing girl and we have reason to believe....”

“
Say no more.” She paused, holding her cig
like a joint and took that last, lung-singeing draw before stabbing
it out in her ashtray in a vicious crush of ember and tobacco.
“Just don't sing about me. 'Cuz I'll be the one that pays, not
y'all.”

Truman frowned. “I don't think you have to
worry about retribution from my official police visit ma'am.”

Irene looked at him for a moment, weighing
his words carefully while lighting another cigarette with her
trusty Bic. “Yeah, I gotta worry. I live here. My family's always
lived here. We'll live here after you stir up that hornet's nest
and they need somebody to sting. Who do ya think that'll be?
Eh?”

Truman's excitement over the bone being
found gathered a sense of unease at the edges. He'd take all the
heat that could be dished but he didn't want to share the entree of
danger with innocents.

He stared at a bedraggled Irene, rode hard
and put away wet, long miles and time etched on her face like an
unfortunate roadmap of land-locked isolation in a community that
harbored danger.

“
Don't worry ma'am, the trail won't lead back
to you. I give you my word.”

Karl Truman remembered her words with a
ringing clarity now, they'd wormed into the fabric of his memories
perfectly.

“
It could be more than your vow, officer.
Much more.” Irene had not said those words in a thoughtful
way.

She'd uttered them like a certain
promise.

Karl shook his misgivings away like a wet
dog sloughing water and jammed his key into the ignition, belting
up. He drove toward the vague directions Irene had given him, his
mind's eye conjuring that waffling cigarette smoke like a prop in
the telling.

He drove.

When Truman reached the long dirt road that
wound to nowhere, he parked. Popping the trunk, he dumped his cop
shoes for Xtra Tuffs. That'd do anywhere in a pinch. If the terrain
had mud, muck or snow, bring it... he was prepared.

The wolves who watched his methodical
progress were as well. The forward sentry racing to the den.

Alerting the pack to the stranger who
smelled.

Scenting the trouble his presence signified
on the wind.

*

Southeastern Kiss

There were no vampires of strong enough Singer
blood to Shift. Even if there were sufficient blood quantum to be
had, it did not guarantee that knack for shifting that William was
lucky enough to possess. Yet, there was one vampire who approached
that had enough Singer's blood to offer something else of use.

Merlin's former second-in-command, Mason, moved
through the silent folds of the forest as a panther, his eyes
reflective in the darkness. William turned slightly as he neared
and caught the subtle flash of white fangs as he smiled and then it
was gone.

He was a huge male, as many of Singer blood were
bound to be.

Mason inclined his head and William answered his
unspoken question. “It is done. The female Singer will lure Julia
to our preordained meeting point.”

Mason appeared thoughtful, his shock of carrot
hair blazing even in the night that had fallen around them. “This
is our sacred prophesy playing out before us my brother.”

William just nodded. The next few hours would
seal the fate of all supernaturals.

“I can scent the dogs,” Mason said almost
offhandedly.

William could not, he would need to be in raven
form and then he could scent and sight them with ease. How he
wished his sight matched that of his other form. Mason was
extremely fortunate to have the dual ability that some Singers
possessed. He had the Tracking ability, smelling everything for
miles. It had been instrumental in William's capture. However, in
the end, it was William's sharp intellect which had saved him from
the tender mercies of the Southeastern Kiss.

Which was now his. William was linked to every
vampire who had blood-share with that kiss, the blood of their
leader beating within his body, the control of the kiss was now
William's by default, by usurpation via the death of their former
leader.

“How far?” William asked softly.

“They approach from the south.” Mason lifted his
nose, a pale beacon in the air, his nostrils flaring once then
responded, “perhaps ten miles...” he inhaled deeply, bringing air
with a coaxing gesture of his hand to his nose, “and they
slow.”

William nodded, his battle strategy, employed
throughout the centuries were assisting his speculations handily.
The Were would erect a camp then wait. Timing was crucial. Perhaps
there be one in charge of the dogs who was a worthy opponent. Or
worse, one with all that violent passion the wolves possessed but
driven by strategy, in sync with himself. It was unlikely but
William could not dismiss the potential. After all, they were after
the Rare One as he was. The Packmaster would have selected those he
trusted with such an errand. William opened himself to that faint
pulse that marked where Julia was, and even underneath the call of
her blood to his, William could feel the tenor of her emotions.

What he found troubled him. The fragility of
Julia was wound in a knot of anxiety. Almost as if... she waited
for something.

A bloated portent.

Could she be closer to fully Awakening than even
he knew?

*

Julia

Julia had her knees tucked underneath her chin,
her fingers tracing errant patterns in the pebbles that bordered
the lake, the swans long-gone, no water creature in sight, a light
breeze disturbing the surface slightly. She had one arm wrapped
around the bend of her knees, her mood pensive. She could feel the
Combatant at her back, actually Julia could feel their presence
like a wall of solid, unreadable blank spots in her head. Where
there was the incessant whispering of voices, dulled slightly by
Paul there were holes of silence in that vast space.

It was where the Combatant dwelt.

Her protectors were blanks in her telepathy.
Julia thought she should be thankful, instead, she found it vaguely
disturbing.

Julia picked up a pebble and spun it into the
water.

Then she pinged three with her mind, smacking
them into each other like stone pellets, where they crashed into
the surface, shattering the stillness in different directions. It
made a mess of the water.