Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2)

by Rosemary A Johns

  Your hand ventured lower down my chest, pausing to twist one nipple.

  Hard.

  My fingers curled and uncurled convulsively. I schooled my features to blankness. There was no sodding way I’d let you see the damage you were doing to my head.

  It wasn’t like this was the roughest treatment I’d ever received, even as your fist tightened around my flaccid, frightened todger and began pumping it to hardness; Ruby had enjoyed playing games, which had left me sore for days. It’s not even as if I’d had much say, being bound by my wrists or the mental bondage of the ties of election. This, however, was different because there wasn’t even the illusion of choice.

  How was I meant to deal with the fact that the bird, who was using my dick as a dildo, had only hours ago kissed me like I was a free man? Kissed me like she believed my name truly was Light again?

  If you did…this…you’d be completing the process started at Abona.

  You’d shatter me into a sex slave for real – Sir’s whore.

  And you? You’d be a rapist.

  When you leant over me, your hand still working on my todger, I could feel your breath across my mouth.

  Your lips were moving closer, as if you were seeking another kiss.

  Buggering hell, no…

  Your mouth was about to violate mine.

  Christ in heaven, if you were intent on fucking me, please let you not do it with your lips soft against mine.

  That’s when I started to shake.

  I felt, more than saw, you back off. When our gazes met, I recognised the surprise in yours, as if you couldn’t understand my distress.

  I reckon it’s that more than anything, which did it: I couldn’t stop a tear escaping down my cheek.

  You studied me for a long moment, before your vice-like grip let go of my prick, and you pulled back sharply. ‘I can’t do this…’ When you stumbled from the room, I heard a door bang somewhere - it might’ve been the bathroom - and then there were sounds like… So I wasn’t the only one, who needed to puke. I lay where you’d left me - an abandoned toy - too confused and frightened to do sod all else. At last I heard hesitant shuffling footsteps in the doorway. We stared at each other. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t…do that again. Get dressed and go to bed.’

  This time you couldn’t look away fast enough, as I scrambled to pull on my clothes.

  And I haven’t spoken to you since.

  Nothing’s ever as simple as a kiss, is it?

  MAY 24

  ‘What’s doin’?’

  I peered out at you from under the duvet and shrugged.

  The neon blue ivy was glowing brightly, casting my cell in the role of enchanted forest.

  You hesitated on the threshold, toeing the wooden floorboards with your bare feet. I’d never seen you in fuzzy pink pyjamas before: you looked kind of vulnerable. There were bruise coloured rings around your peepers, as if you’d been getting about as much kip as me.

  You ran your fingers through your mop of hair. ‘So, you wanna watch TV? I’ve made popcorn.’

  In the weeks I’d been incarcerated here, I’d come to reckon you imagined the TV to be nothing but a flat screen on the wall: another one of your designer pieces. More art than function.

  I leapt out of bed, snatching the olive branch in both sensory deprived hands.

  The lounge was lit by mango scented candles in glowing pools. The furniture was skewwhiff. It was clear you’d been doing your own chores.

  About bloody time.

  Still, I couldn’t help the momentary kick of pride in how much better I’d been at them.

  You padded over to the sofa, passing me a humungous glass bowl of popcorn.

  I pulled a face when I smelled the popcorn was neither sweetened nor salted. Then I carefully perched on the opposite end of the sofa.

  The space between us felt like a chasm.

  I saw the muscle in your cheek twitch.

  ‘Here,’ your hand reached towards me, holding…

  Bleeding hell - no - you’d promised.

  You were holding the tracker. You were pointing it right at me.

  I waited for the pain. But instead there was only something pressing insistently into my palm, your arm around my shoulders and your voice ringing over and over: Light, Light, Light…

  I’d been shaking again. When had that started?

  I stared down at the object in my hand: the tracker. I nearly hurled the hated thing as far from me as I could. Then it penetrated my fogged noggin, however, that the Manx symbol was missing. I nudged it tentatively with my thumb: there were buttons too, rather than a touchscreen.

  ‘The clicka,’ why did your voice have to be so tender? ‘For the TV.’ You were right. Your arm still hadn’t left my shoulder. I didn’t shrug it off. I’d dropped the glass bowl. The popcorn had cascaded over the sitting room floor, but you didn’t order me to clear up the mess. ‘I reckoned you could choose, you know, a channel for us. A movie maybe?’

  When did I have a choice?

  Even my night out of the apartment had been nothing but smoke and mirrors.

  For so long, I’d stumbled from grief to grief. Yet now you handed me this gift of choice, as if it was a common penny..?

  When I broke down, shuddering with sobs, you simply held me, even though I doubt you understood my tears.

  Later, after you’d hoovered up the popcorn and brewed me a coffee, you nestled close on the sofa again, resting your nut on my chest. I should’ve shoved you off - all things considered. But I didn’t. ‘What do you remember…’ here it comes, ‘…about the night you were retrieved?’

  ‘That’s what you’re calling it?’

  You glanced at me, two grey lamps in the darkness. ‘Retrieval and Acquisitions Department handles the selection and retrieval of product.’

  I bristled. ‘Why not try captured on for size? Or here’s a thought, abducted?’

  You didn’t look away. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Bangkok. At a mixed martial arts tournament. If you really wanna know, I was trying to get given a bloody good hiding. But mostly I ended up giving someone else one.’

  ‘Why the frig would you want..?’

  ‘The pain,’ I pushed your nut off my chest, before banging my coffee mug down on the glass table – clang. I didn’t care that you cringed. I sodding didn’t. ‘If I hurt, I still existed. I was in control. I decided if I walked into that cage…but the pain inside? I couldn’t… I can’t…’

  ‘Kathy?’

  ‘Don’t,’ I turned to you warningly, ‘you don’t have a bloody clue what it’s like to grieve.’

  ‘Wanna bet?’

  We glared at each other.

  You, however, lowered your gaze first. ‘So, what happened in..?’

  ‘I was being watched. Not like the normal baying crowd. Something or someone else. I was winning most fights, even though I was drunk and swallowed in black. But this night, it was like someone you really didn’t want to notice you, had. I’d won the bout, but it’d been brutal. I could hardly stand. That’s what I needed, the bruises and the high. See, I’d just let myself take it for the first half of the match, before I’d Anaconda choked the bastard, ‘til he passed out. Afterwards, I’d sensed these blokes: punk-like in aviator-goggles, red braces, spiked collars and so many tattoos they were swaggering works of art. They were circling the crowd. And I knew, without even questioning the instinct, they were there for me.’

  You shifted. You were hiding something. I guess this honesty lark doesn’t cut both ways.

  ‘And..?’

  ‘And they retrieved me. End of.’

  ‘Light…’

  I jittered to my feet, pacing to the fireplace. The aroma of mangoes floated me to warmer, safer climes - to freedom. ‘What? You want all the gory details? I took the back way. They chased me out onto the roof. I threw myself down to my Triton.’ I paused.

  Why the bleeding hell had I mentioned that?

  You were assessing me levelly. ‘Triton?�
�

  ‘My bike.’ I fiddled with an indigo Italian glass vase. ‘She was all I had, apart from this jacket. From my time before. All I cared about. And you lot,’ I pointed at you, not caring whether it was fair or not; the grievance had festered for nearly six months and you - a Cain - were in the firing line, ‘took it from me. Took her.’

  I swung away, booting the marble.

  I heard your quiet voice behind me, ‘They took your bike?’

  ‘Scarlet 650cc twin-cylinder thing of beauty. And yeah, they might as well have done.’ I spun the glass vase between the tips of my fingers. ‘At first I thought: if I just keep scarpering, everything’ll be cool. But then I heard the roar of their motorbikes. They were a team. Organised. I couldn’t shake the wankers. I wove through downtown Bangkok’s traffic jams and onto Wireless Road, pulling my scarf over my gob to stop from choking on the fumes, as I tried not to hit the roadside food stalls. I was frightened by then, which was the first time I’d truly felt anything real since… My heart was shot full of adrenaline, ‘cos here were these First Lifers, who seemed to know me. The thought, which fuelled my flight, was the gut awareness there was something dodgy behind the attack. Every time I glanced over my shoulder, I saw red Mohawks swarming after me on black bikes, slashed with crimson. They had the power, but I had a good five decades of riding experience on the tossers. The punks tried to box me in, slamming me with their bikes. I sped up. But there weren’t any pavements to manoeuvre on. I reckoned I could lose them in the park. I was wrong.’ The glass was smooth under my fingers, strangely soothing. The dark blue was hypnotising, like staring too long into the sky. ‘I felt something…hit me. In my right shoulder. It stung. Then everything went blurry. I couldn’t see. My hands were falling from the bike and I was too… I heard screeching and tearing, like the Triton was in pain… To crash like that, after all these years…and I was tumbling, thudding along the grass. I was tranquilised, so the pain was muted, but snap, snap, snap, I could hear and feel the bones break… My limbs were floppy; the blood was seeping. I must’ve been a right state, lying there in the dark next to my murdered Triton.’ I snatched the glass still between my palms. You were frozen as a statue on the sofa. ‘As I blacked out, I remember wishing only one last thing: please let them take my Triton too. Yeah, of course they bloody didn’t. When you’re a slave, you lose everything.’

  MAY 25

  I guess you never forgot that pink Post-it note, which I’d stuck in potty optimism to the fridge.

  The first clue was when I found my white trainers poking out of the rubbish in the kitchen. The second? The pair of brand spanking new black motorcycle boots on the stainless steel counter.

  When I hugged the boots to me, like they were my long lost babies, I heard your laugh behind me. ‘Wanna put them on?’

  Cautious, I dragged on each boot, as if another amputated body part was being reattached. ‘The dog’s bollocks, yeah?’

  You stifled a smirk. ‘You coming?’

  I hung back. ‘Where?’ I’d noticed the sheen of black silk, which was coiled in your palm.

  You let the silk dangle out, like a shiny snake. ‘It’s a surprise. You chicken?’

  ‘I’m many things, darlin’. But not that.’

  I snatched the blindfold, fitting it over my own peepers. I experienced momentary panic: I was back in Abona. But then it was your hand, pressing into mine and leading me out. I was with you. And I was safe.

  Now ask if I trust you?

  I heard a click. You were taking me out of the apartment again? But I hadn’t done anything to earn it this time. I trembled, when I felt the night air on my skin.

  We were going down steps… Here’s one, two more, careful…

  Instructions, rather than orders. Protective, as if it mattered whether I broke.

  At last, we stopped; the sudden stillness was disconcerting. Then your fingers were edging off the blindfold. I blinked against the dim light.

  We were in an underground garage.

  You were standing right in front of me; your hands were in your jean pockets. You’d also slipped on the black leather jacket, which I’d filched for you on Rye Lane. The last I’d seen of the jacket, it’d been unceremoniously discarded at the bottom of your wardrobe.

  I reached out and stroked your cheek…which was when you stepped to one side.

  A Triton.

  A sodding scarlet slash of beauty. 650cc Triumph twin-cylinder engine in a Norton ‘slimline’ Featherbed frame - and my bloody god. I know because it was the exact same model I’d acquired one May Bank Holiday 1964 - and lost six months ago in Bangkok.

  For one long moment, I couldn’t breathe.

  You were assessing me uncertainly. ‘You…like it?’

  ‘How..?’

  ‘It turns out money can buy most things. Not such a hard lesson, huh?’

  I stumbled to the Triton, hesitating to touch her because it was like touching the Resurrected: sacrosanct. Tentatively, I stroked her, becoming familiar with her lines and curves. ‘She’s..?’

  ‘Yours.’

  It might not have been the same bike, which I’d lost to those hunters, who’d slayed her and tamed me, but she was as close as damn it.

  Breath blown through my Soul.

  I didn’t miss the fact there were two motorbike helmets balanced on the saddle. They were both black; yours wasn’t even poncey pink. I weighed it in my hands, before holding it out to you. ‘Ever rode on one of these?’

  ‘Naw. But…I trust you.’

  Our gazes met.

  ‘Right then, hold on tight: this is what true freedom feels like.’

  At first, we wove between the London traffic, trapped between the stop and start of traffic lights, caught between bus lanes and wobbly pushbikes.

  I was just chuffed to have a Triton between my legs and a bird behind me. I’d had a stiffy from the second I’d seen you in a leather jacket, leant against the Triton and thought - she’s with me.

  As soon as we were out of London though and were tonning it down the motorway towards the coast, that’s when I really let the Triton fly.

  The engine roared. As I settled over the bike, your arms tightened. There was nothing ahead apart from the shining paths of cats’ eyes and three lanes of open road. The night sky above was like polished jet; you were hot against my back.

  Abso-bloody-blinding.

  One night of freedom – yours and mine – pure and unsullied.

  You held onto me, as we drove through the night, in silent communion with the road, until the purple of the sky threatened dawn.

  MAY 27

  So, I didn’t expect this.

  I’m back locked in my cell.

  On my tod.

  I picked up and set down my pen three times – one, two, three –– before I caught myself in the ritualising. And started to sodding write.

  I reckon a couple of ribs are broken. The rest of me’s a throbbing bruise, not to mention those three red welts across my back, arse and thighs.

  You did hand me some cows’ blood, before you threw the lock. The blood was cold, but then what had I expected? I’ll mend though: blood is life.

  Cheers for that, at least.

  This morning I reckoned something was up, when you manhandled me into your bedroom, before I’d been able to do more than pull on my boxers.

  I was still wary of that room, with your silent, white bed and the wall of your other, perfect life. And Mr Professor giving it all don’t think I’ve forgotten what I saw.

  One quiet moment and a match, mate, that’s all I’m saying.

  There was this single-buttoned suit, pale grey wool and mohair, laid out on the white covers. I glanced between it and your excited mug.

  So, it was playing dress ups, was it?

  ‘Guess what?’ You grinned, as if I should be as excited as you, even though I wasn’t in on your secret. ‘There’s a business meeting this evening. I was thinking you could come on account of--’

  ‘My dashing
good looks?’

  ‘That thing you do with numbers.’ I studied you with surprise. You shrugged. ‘I thought you told me something like we should use our humungous brains?’

  ‘Listening were you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ I smiled, but the idea I was going out again into the world, where my intelligence would be valued and I’d have a place, nearly undid me. ‘Also,’ you gave me a sideways look, which I didn’t miss, ‘you need to meet your own kind. And there’ll be another…Blood Lifer.’

  So that was it then: a meeting of slaves? Maybe you’d erect a pen in the corner for us? And why had you hesitated before you’d said Blood Lifer?

  I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t notice you drawing my arms into the pink shirt and buttoning it up, as if I was a doll, before threading a floral tie around my neck. Then you started towards me with the suit.

  I raised my hand to stop you. ‘Don’t you reckon I could dress this poncey way, if I wanted? But I choose…’ I looked down. The shirt was dead pink; the flowers on the tie frolicked. ‘That’s the point, right? I don’t choose anymore. Whatever you do to me,’ ridiculous in my boxers and pink shirttails flying, I banged my chest, like a well-dressed gorilla, ‘it’s still me underneath. Rip out the fangs, turn me into your kept boy, but the predator’s still here. I’m still here.’

  You stared at me, like I’d just savaged your mush. ‘I only wanted to do something nice for you.’

  I remembered our night of freedom on my scarlet beauty. Nothing but road, roar and revelation. ‘You already did,’ I replied softly.

  ‘That’s private.’ You’d paled, as if…ashamed? Frightened? ‘This? Is business. I need you presentable.’

  I snatched the grey jacket from you, knowing I was creasing it, as I dragged it on. ‘What you really want is to transform me into something nice to have on your arm, when you waltz into your meeting. Use my brains? I should cocoa. Don’t worry, I won’t show you up. It’s not as if this is the first time a bird’s done this to me. Humans don’t have the monopoly on being controlling bitches.’