Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2)

by Rosemary A Johns

  I caught Donovan’s sleeve as he passed. Then I jerked my nut at you. He seemed to understand, giving a nod.

  I tried to smile. ‘Come on, darlin’. Let’s get you to the boat. Leave the clean up to me and my family, yeah?’

  ‘Clean up?’

  Right, well done wanker.

  ‘You’ve done your part. Now you wait at the boat. That’s what we agreed.’

  I grabbed your hand, hauling you after me: that was the first time taking you hand didn’t make me feel diminished to a boy.

  You stumbled in your high-heels over congealing blood; you should’ve been prepared for it, considering you’d chosen Heartbreak for your bedroom.

  When we reached the empty atrium, however, you yanked away from me. ‘I’m not booking it outta here without you. Clean up? Who the frig are you going after?’

  ‘Dat would be me, innit?’ M.C. was sprawled in the baroque chair, which was crusted, as if by rough-cut crystals. She was trying to appear casual, like the party to promote the Blood Club was in full swing, rather than having wound down to a bloodbath. Yet I could see the rage simmering underneath.

  I pushed you behind me, never mind your squeak of protest.

  ‘Don’t talk to him,’ you were as furious as your sister. When M.C.’s dark peepers focused intently on you, it was clear you’d become her next target. ‘Don’t look at him or--’

  ‘Touch it?’ M.C. curled her tongue behind her teeth, as she sprang out of the chair, slinking towards you - anarchist tiger on the prowl. There was blood stained down her scarlet bondage trousers. It wasn’t hers. You were shaking. Delayed shock or anger. Maybe both. ‘Want to know how I made it scream? How I proper worked da bitch? Or taught it to be a good slu--’

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ you snarled. I caught your arm, holding you back.

  M.C. laughed. ‘All dis for some liccle leech? My crew? They be my family, you feel me?’ M.C. widened her stance for the attack. I’d analysed M.C.’s cage fighting technique, but you were here and that complicated things. It put you at risk. And I wasn’t about to kill your sister in front of you either. If I did, would you be able to look at me the same way? I remember every moment I’ve ever seen; I wish someone had saved me from witnessing the darkest. M.C.’s gaze flickered to me. ‘You murdered my family for a toy.’

  This was my opening. I hoped you’d understand. ‘I’m not a toy.’ I refused to do anything but meet M.C.’s killer’s gaze dead on. ‘I’m Light. And I’m a Blood Lifer again.’ When my fangs shot out fully grown, it was like being reborn once more. ‘Let’s see you touch me now.’

  When I sprang at her, M.C. stumbled backwards to the foot of the staircase, which swept up to the private rooms. ‘Outside. Boat. Now,’ I threw at you over my shoulder.

  Then I dived up those stairs, like they led to my redemption and not the fight of my Blood Life.

  I wove through the warren of corridors, until I reached the circular hallway with the motto above the doorways: Quocunque Jeceris Stabit – whichever way you throw, it will stand.

  My guts clenched: Master’s wing.

  The door was open to the training room. I could see the black void, which had been the scene of my torture. Gags and bondage. Canes and straps. Pain and abuse. A tool kit for conditioning a slave. But I wasn’t a defanged slave on a leash anymore; I was a fanged Blood Lifer. And I was free.

  This was where it had to be.

  If M.C. was so proud of what she’d done to me, let’s see how she fared now she didn’t have that bastard tracker in her hand. And I had my fangs.

  ‘You want to be touched?’ M.C. was standing in the doorway to her bedroom, like a threat.

  I forced myself to grin. ‘You find it that hard to get a date, do you?’

  ‘Grayse don’t. Not with humans. She don’t need dutty leeches, when she has Fernando--’

  ‘Give it a rest, you stupid bint. Fool me once, yeah? Grayse loves me.’

  M.C. snorted.

  ‘I didn’t ask for your approval. I told you because I wanted you to know: First Lifers can love us Blood Lifers. They can love me. Have done twice now.’

  M.C. seemed confused, as she frowned. ‘And I told you dat Grayse don’t love no one--’

  ‘Just ‘cos she doesn’t love you, doesn’t mean she can’t love. It just means you’re an unlovable bitch.’

  M.C. exploded (as I’d hoped), in an uncoordinated flurry of knife-hands and palm-heel strikes, all of which were easy to block or let harmlessly slip past. Blinded by emotion, M.C. wasn’t maintaining distance or strategy.

  Who says I can’t be master of the mind fuck too?

  When M.C. growled in frustration, unbalanced by missing her punch, that was my in.

  Suddenly I was swarming all over M.C., with an uppercut to her chin, which nearly took off her bloody nut.

  Jab, jab, cross, jab, jab, cross, hook, hook, uppercut, jab, jab, cross…

  Picasso-faced, M.C.’s mug was a shattered mess.

  I’d driven M.C. staggering back to the doorway of her bedroom with a sidekick to her guts. She was struggling to breathe, as she spat out a bloody canine onto the floorboards between us. Like a hunted, man-eating tiger - wary but still dangerous - she swayed, glaring at me through swollen peepers.

  I only twigged M.C.’s apparent weakness had been a trick, when I closed in for the kill: she swept both my feet out from under me, in a move so swift she could’ve been a Blood Lifer herself.

  Then M.C. was bringing her heel stomping down onto me in an axe-kick, as I sprawled on my back.

  Right onto my throat.

  I choked, before rolling to the side, just as M.C. went to repeat the move. I tried to crawl out of M.C.’s reach, further into the bedroom, with its satin bed, which was enclosed by erotic Blood Lifer glass panels. Before I could escape, however, M.C. clutched me by the ankle, cranking on the small joints at the rear in an Achilles lock.

  I howled.

  I rode out the pain, allowing myself to fall limp, as if beaten by it. I could feel M.C. creeping closer.

  When M.C. stroked down the back of my neck, I cringed. ‘I be touching you, see?’ Still I played dead. Then I heard her say, ‘Guess what I found by the bedside? Only da tracker, innit?’

  Then everything went white.

  There was branching fire in the forests of my nerves. Nothing existed but my pain. I was flying.

  M.C. was dragging me, like felled prey, across the wooden floor and then up onto her bed… Lie down… She was still inflicting punishment, my back arching off the sheets, as my hands convulsively opened and closed.

  I was lost in the white. The cloud light was bright above; the twists of nylon and tiny lights were as if infinite.

  M.C. must’ve eased down the tracker’s level because my back hit the bed, although I still buzzed with electricity.

  Please let you have gone to the boat.

  Hartford had made Donovan promise - First Lifer and slaver’s daughter as you were - that you’d be looked after like family. Hartford paid his debts. I trusted him. You were safer with those Blood Lifers, than anywhere else in this corrupt and brutal world.

  If you’d gone to the boat.

  ‘I’m gonna touch you. Den I’m gonna mess you up. I’m gonna learn you dat you be nothin’ but a toy. Just like dad learnt dat bad leech cupid. Cupid fought - more than any other leech since - and we made it suffer for it. When we get cupid back… When dad…’ M.C. hesitated, as if uncertain for the first time, ‘retrieves both da two bitches.’

  ‘Good luck with that. Last I looked, we’d eaten your Blood Club.’

  M.C. increased the tracker’s power. I gritted my teeth.

  Then I shuddered, when M.C.’s long, wet tongue licked up my neck. ‘And now you get to eat me, slut.’

  I grinned, my fangs springing into place; my mouth was still stained crimson. ‘Bloke with the red Mohawk? I just bit his chin. Do you really trust me near your soft and privates, luv?’

  M.C. hissed, as she clouted me across
the cheek.

  With one final burst of effort, I rolled off the bed. As I thumped to the hardwood floor, I grabbed the base of the glass panel. And yanked.

  M.C. only had time to turn in alarm, as the porn photos collapsed in on top of her – smash. They sliced her in bright slashes, scarlet on scarlet, whilst she bled out.

  M.C. was submerged under the printed glass of fractured Blood Lifers, which trembled with her slight gasps.

  I dragged myself closer to the bed. ‘When you were raping me in here, you’ve no idea how much I sodding wanted to do that. So, cheers.’

  I hauled myself over to the tracker, which M.C. had dropped over the side of the bed. Sighing with relief, I slipped it off, before I crushed it.

  When I edged on weak legs back through the hallway and down the sweeping staircase, I didn’t meet anyone. I glanced at the motto as I passed it – yeah, M.C. wasn’t doing much bloody standing anymore, was she?

  When I reached the atrium again, I found Hartford and Donovan had made good on their promise to clean up. Wisps of ash smoke curled between the Doric columns and fairy tale props, licking up the Goliath Manx cat.

  You were gone.

  I hoped you were safe on the speedboat, which was tied and waiting for us on the edge of the Estate.

  When I poked my nut into the main reception, everything was silent, except for the crackling of the fires, which had been set. The air was thick with smoke and the pig-aroma of crisping human flesh, as antiques and modern furniture alike blazed side by side to the dying light of those one hundred pooling candles. Fernando had hacked into the mansion’s fire system and turned it off remotely. The Blood Clubbers were melting down, wax-like. Because we were camouflaged predators, their deaths were still natural: if the heart attack didn’t get them, then the smoke or fire would.

  It wasn’t as if we wanted our attack entirely masked: it was sending a message to the Blood Clubbers still out there, to the Blood Life Council and to anyone else, who intended to step into the Cain’s shoes.

  I guess that makes us terrorists.

  Still, that’s better than collaborators. Appeasers. Or bloody cowards. One thing I’ve come to know is you’ve got to live with yourself - no one else - every day. To face all you’ve done, failed or intend to do.

  I prefer to think of us as rebels, anyway.

  I left that white and black room, which was curling to grey, consumed by tongues of orange and red. I dived through the back passageways, whacking in the six digit security codes, which I’d memorised that time in Mr Cain’s study: the price I’d paid had finally been worth it. I’d drilled the codes into all your nuts over the last few days and hadn’t that been a delight with Donovan’s grumbling.

  When I reached the last code, I plugged it in and the cool, fresh air hit me, like life. I closed my peepers, resting back against the wall.

  We’d bloody done it.

  ‘Light, are you..?’

  My peepers snapped open.

  You weren’t down at the coast: you were standing only feet away, assessing my many injuries. I sighed. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘My sister?’ I winced, looking away. But then your fingers entwined with mine. Surprised, I glanced up. ‘So, I met your family,’ you said carefully, ‘I guess my family now. I like them.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. Your grin was too close to tears for comfort but full marks for trying. ‘Hartford’s wicked pissa. He was…kind. Not what I expected. They both weren’t.’

  ‘Yeah, we never are. So why didn’t you go with them, like we planned?’ I wanted to add – like I told you to – but I didn’t quite dare.

  ‘I wasn’t booking it without you. Donovan had to stop Hartford from going back in, when I told him… He was wicked upset when he knew Marlane… They both frickin’ love you, don’t they?’ You gazed at me, as if you were surprised by this realisation. ‘Hartford only stopped struggling, when Donovan told him sometimes there were things you had to do alone.’

  ‘Wise words those.’

  You nodded thoughtfully. ‘I had to kick their asses to get them to go ahead on account of they wanted to stay and protect me. I told them there’s no one left to protect me from.’

  ‘Not quite true, sweetheart.’

  You frowned. ‘But Donovan said--’

  ‘Your dad.’

  You stared at me and then suddenly frightened, around at the black of the manicured gardens. The ragged clouds were streaming over the savage moon and the ancient stars. ‘Right, let’s go.’

  ‘No arguments here.’

  Your hand tightened around mine, as we sprinted across the lawns, your Fendis catching in the long folds of your ball gown. I guided you in the darkness: a First Lifer safe in my world.

  It was when we were weaving through the Cain’s personal wood, over the carpet of wild garlic, towards the coast that I first suspected we were being hunted.

  Even amidst the firework-burst of raw nature, there was something else underneath, which my Blood Lifer senses - now fanged and free - were attuned enough to pick out. The snap of a twig, the rustle of clothing, the thud of a third heartbeat…and a gun cocking.

  I glanced at you, stumbling alongside me in the dark. You didn’t have a scooby.

  ‘Sod it, this has gotta go.’ I ripped up the hem of your dress to your creamy thighs, as you let out a gasp. Then I balled the desecrated satin, chucking it out onto the garlic.

  Your dad was your hero and mentor. He was…your dad. I remembered my papa, his big hand in my small one on Regent Street… You let go Light…

  Now your dad was hunting us through these woods, just like he’d allowed me to play at hunting here as a reward.

  I couldn’t fight Mr Cain, not like I had your sister. I couldn’t kill your own dad in front of you. And maybe the bloody wanker knew that.

  I pushed you ahead of me, resting my hand on your shoulder to guide you. If the bastard planned to shoot one of us in the back, then I was electing myself for the position.

  The third heartbeat was getting closer. I remembered the night-time walks, which Mr Cain had taken; he knew this Estate in the dark, as well as he knew it under the sun. The bugger didn’t get how close to being a Blood Lifer he’d grown over the past decade.

  Suddenly, I heard the startle of pheasants, their ghostly honks and beat of wings, as they took to flight.

  You cried out.

  I pulled you against a Manx oak.

  Bang.

  I stared down at my right hand, which had been pressed against the trunk.

  My hand was sprayed with pellets, which had ripped through the flesh, just as they’d shredded the oak’s bark.

  There was nothing but silence now in the black.

  ‘Bloody run.’ I clutched my wounded hand to my chest and snatched you to my waist by the other. I dragged you on, until I was half-carrying you damsel-like.

  Then we were out of the wood and onto the open common, which was lilac with ling and luxuriant with gorse. It smelt of you. My right hand was a throbbing ball of pain; the thorny Burnet Rose bushes tore at my bare ankles. Something low and dark, with long hind legs, ran across our path: its tail was stumpy and its peepers were gold. Then it was gone.

  My Manx cat, free at last.

  Then I saw the cliffs, which led down to the cove and our speedboat, which was hidden amongst the damp boulders in the ravine.

  We’d sodding done it.

  ‘Grayse.’

  No, don’t. Please, don’t…

  At your dad’s siren call, you were struggling out of my one-handed grip. Then you were turning round; just for a moment, you were looking back. But that’s all it took.

  ‘Daddy..?’

  Bang.

  The blast tore you away from me.

  Then you were tumbling back, comic-slow in my horror, your chest scattered with pellet shot, which was worming deeper into your vulnerable insides and flooding them with blood. As you hit the heather tinted ground, you coughed scarlet. Our lips matched now.

  I dro
pped to one knee next to you, overwhelmed by your false gorse scent, which was entwined with the real thing - your new bed. I grasped your limp fingers with my left hand, desperate to use my right one too. But it was useless. Blasted to pieces. Like you. I still tried: once, twice, three times… This sudden impotence - a broken doll - brought the first tears.

  I’d saved Ashanti’s girl, the other Blood Lifer slaves at Abona and brought down the whole slaving Empire. I’d kept my promise.

  But if I lost you?

  The price was too bloody high: it always was.

  The thud of your heartbeat was slowing. Your lungs struggling. There was no magical A and E, to which we could airlift you in time.

  There was, however, your attacker standing right behind me, the 20-bore shotgun, which he’d used on you, pressed to the back of my nut.

  Tenderly, I placed your hand down on your chest, with a pat.

  Your peepers were searching. Your stained lips were mouthing silent words. The desperation in your peepers for me to understand tore me in two.

  I tried to smile at you reassuringly, before I gritted out, as the two barrels pressed harder, ‘Come on then, you wanker, what are you waiting for? A slave’s permission?’

  I felt the barrel tremble with Mr Cain’s rage - the tosser was bloody predictable.

  I spun round, knocking the shotgun up, as Mr Cain fired, blasting the 20-bore into the night sky. I wrenched it from him. My strength, now I was unleashed, shrunk my old Master to a kid in breeches.

  I walloped Mr Cain across the forehead with the walnut stock. When he collapsed to the heather with a hmmpm, I fell on him - all avenging angel - cocking his own shotgun at his temple.

  Mr Cain was quivering like a baby rabbit.

  Coldly, I scrutinized the little troll of a man, who’d once commanded me, kneeling at his booted feet. He was just a man – First or Blood – it didn’t sodding matter. Just a man. ‘The thing you didn’t reckon on is no matter how you throw me, I’m the bloke who’s always left standing.’ Mr Cain cowered back. ‘Dead big of you, shooting your own daughter. But you don’t look so big now.’

  ‘She’s not my daughter.’