Once Bitten: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Arcane City Book 1)

by Tilly Hart

  At last, as we stood back to back, Calvin had wrestled a knife from one wolf while I fought with nothing but my weakening fists. With heart wrenching clarity I saw the stake a moment too late. The men had timed the attack so I’d fall right as the others pinned my arms. Panic shot through me as I flailed with the last of my strength. My mind flashed back to Rebecca’s beautiful face and in that instant before death, I felt a calmness wash over me.

  Before the stake could pierce my skin and reduce me to the pile of withered corpse I should have been at three hundred and five, three shots rang out in quick succession. Pres? He’d had the guns…

  But it wasn’t Pres who emerged in the wake of furious, pained howls. It was Rebecca. Like a deadly angel she appeared in front of me, her eyes hard as she stared down the extended muzzle and fired a further three rounds into the dying werewolf.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I asked.

  Seventeen

  rebecca

  ‘Saving your sorry ass by the looks of it,’ I said.

  Jed was a mess. He was blood stained, dirty and had a score of slashes over his body. But worse than that, he was pale and greying, his eyes sunken into their sockets.

  I didn’t have time to worry about him as the other two men they’d been fighting looked around in confusion. They’d seen the havoc I’d caused, but they did not understand I was even there. If I made it out, I’d have a lot to thank the witch for.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ One said, his face turning left and right.

  ‘Someone’s here. I don’t know how, but bullets don’t come out of mid air on their own.’ A chill ran down my spine as they stepped in my direction, the direction the bullets had come from. It was one thing to shoot a man who was about to kill the man you loved, but another to shoot one at arm’s length.

  Still, I had no choice.

  They advanced on me, knives slashing the air wildly, and I pulled my second gun out just in time to catch both of them with a round. They yowled as the silver bullets ripped through their flesh, but continued onwards regardless. It took a further round to slow them, and another to bring them to their knees. The last round turned them to a still mass on the floor.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Calvin said, ‘what the fuck is going on?’

  ‘Rebecca is here.’ Jed said, smiling up at me.

  Calvin startled as I lifted the necklace over my head and put it in my pocket so that Calvin could see me. ‘The meat lump has grown some balls.’

  ‘I don’t need balls, the bullets worked perfectly well.’

  I knelt beside Jed and touched his cheek; I needed to get him out of there. ‘Can you help me get him out of here?’

  Calvin shook his head as he checked the clock. ‘No time. I need to get in one of those cages before it’s too late.’

  Jed smiled and touched the back of my hand with a slow, gentle stroke. ‘You need to go, Rebecca. Put back on that charm and don’t look back. You need to get in a car and drive as far as you can. Right now. The city will burn tonight.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ All his vitality seemed to have disappeared. Seeped through the cracks and left a shell of a man in return.

  ‘He’s hungry.’ Calvin gave me a pointed look.

  ‘Shut it C, I’m not doing it.’

  ‘Doing what?’ I asked, looking from the wolf to the vampire.

  ‘He needs blood. It’s the only way. Mine won’t work, so that only leaves you.’

  I stared at Jed, lifting his face with my hand to meet my eyes. ‘Is it true?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘It is, but I don’t want your blood Rebecca. Once we’ve gone there, it’s a downward spiral.’

  ‘If we don’t go there, we are all dead. I’d rather be on a downward spiral with you than not be here to spiral at all.’ Feeding a vampire my blood was the last thing I wanted to do, but it wasn’t just a vampire, it was Jed. ‘Please, let me help you.’

  Jed’s skin was icy as I leant in to him, kissing the edge of his mouth as I straddled him. Winding my fingers into his hair, I firmly tipped his head back so that his mouth was level with my throat. His hands slid dangerously slowly up to my waist, his touch sluggish.

  ‘Please Jed. I need you.’ His fingers dug into the flesh on my hips as I bit my lips, fear cascading through me. As much as I knew he needed fresh blood, I really didn’t want to become my boyfriend’s next meal. What if he couldn’t stop? What if I became the next blood junkie throwing myself at any available set of fangs?

  ‘Jed,’ Calvin said, watching us transfixed, ‘we don’t have time for you to wait. Now or never, man.’

  Jed’s lips brushed my neck, dragging tiny kisses across the sensitive skin. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘No, but there’s no time for worrying about all that. All I have is now yours, Jed. People give each other kidneys, I can give you blood. Just do it. Please.’ I trembled as he opened his mouth, his fangs emerging and visible for a moment. My stomach lurched at the terrifying site as his eyes darkened, but before I could protest, he’d sunk the dagger-like fangs into my flesh.

  The initial sharp pain made way for a blistering warmth, tingles shooting through me. I could feel myself pouring into Jed, but I could also feel him pouring into me, combining us in a way which couldn’t be replicated between two humans. The world ceased to exist while he fed, pure pleasure wracking my body as I moaned in his arms. My limbs were limp but with every passing minute, his arms held me firm, his muscles tightening as my blood revitalised him. All the fear and apprehension subsided, leaving lust and longing in its place. My entire body suffused with the rippling promise of an orgasm, and as he cradled me against him and fed from me, the promise exploded into realisation. It was long and intense and didn’t falter, like light broke from my every nerve, and like my muscles were made from pleasure itself.

  I longed to stay in that state of bliss forever, and I cursed internally as Jed broke the seal against my neck. It took minutes to return to a state of awareness, and when I did, it was Jed’s beautiful face I saw. All the signs of malnourishment had disappeared, his skin once again infused with colour.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, kissing me tenderly. ‘I hate that I had to do it, but getting to Greyson would have been impossible. Never again, though. Do you hear me?’

  My body felt like it was made of Jello, and my mind was as wobbly as it too. ‘Never again?’

  ‘Never.’

  Calvin cleared his throat and held out a hand to help me to my feet. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay pressed against Jed’s chest and sleep. ‘You need to get out of here. And we need to get into the cages immediately.’

  ‘Don’t leave me.’ My eyes welled up, my previous bravado gone in my weakened state.

  ‘You can’t come in there, you need to put back on your necklace and at least hide. If the wolves find you, they will kill you.’

  A shudder stole through me as I reached into my pocket and fished out the necklace. Jed took it from my shaking hands and lowered it over my head. Calvin blinked in surprise as he stared at the place I stood.

  ‘Black magic, that shit,’ he said, screwing his face up.

  ‘So I’m gone?’

  Calvin didn’t respond, but Jed nodded. ‘He can’t hear you. Now you need to go get out of sight. Find a door with a lock and get in there. Stay in there until morning.’

  With a final, lingering kiss, Jed and Calvin pressed onward toward their target. My legs wobbled as I stood, cursing my sudden inability to move properly. At least when I gave blood I got a cookie after.

  I limped in the opposite direction from the one Jed had gone in until I spotted a store cupboard of sorts. It was dark as I stumbled in, but I didn’t want to put on any lights in case it alerted anyone to my presence. The door clicked closed behind me, and I turned the latch over while breathing a sigh of relief. My fingers brushed against crinkling packets and cardboard boxes. A food cupboard, perfect. As I moved in the dark, searching with outstretched hands, I tripped on
a box on the floor, falling hard into a metal shelf. As I bounced back and hit the floor, my back and neck both ached.

  Shit.

  It was only as I rubbed my neck I found the charmed necklace missing. It must have caught and snapped in the fall. I scrabbled around the floor until my fingers settled over the smooth tooth. I tied the snapped string around my throat and prayed the spell hadn’t broken.

  It wasn’t until a few minutes later when the door burst in on its hinges I discovered the charm definitely no longer worked. The light blinded me as a gruff faced man stormed in, his nostrils flaring.

  ‘Found you, you little blood bitch.’

  I pressed myself flat to the shelves to no avail. The man stormed across the room and grasped me by the arm, pulling me toward him. I was powerless to stop him. In my mind addled state, I’d left the silver bullets and guns in the other room, my holsters sitting empty on my hips.

  Fuck.

  He picked me up by the waist with barely a strain and clamped a meaty hand over my mouth, fear coursing through me and tears wetting the tiny fissures between his fingers and my face. He dragged me from my hiding place and through the building. I hoped we’d run into Jed, but my luck wasn’t in. We scuffled through the hall to a room where riotous noise bellowed below the door.

  He pushed the door open and shoved me through, to a great snarling cheer from those gathered. Enormous metal cages covered one wall of the cavernous room, with timer locks above them. Most were empty, but in the far corner, I saw Pres and the other vampires stood at the back of one; the door closed tight.

  ‘Run!’ Pres shouted over the noise. ‘Get in a cage. They can’t touch you in them.’

  Before I’d even taken one step toward them, one of the bikers bowled me over, my body sent flying and crashing hard onto the floor. All the air escaped my lungs as I lay there gasping for breath. Footsteps sounded on the cold stone floor as someone neared, and a fist gripped painfully in my hair, lifting me to my feet. I gasped as hot pain engulfed my body; my hip, my neck, my back and my scalp burned from the plethora of injuries I’d sustained. The men surrounding the room either sniggered or looked away, pretending like they couldn’t see what was happening. I winced as the man with my hair twisted around his fingers turned me to face him. He was a gigantic man, with a brutish scar covering one side of his face, his lip a gnarled knot at one side. His nostrils twitched as he took a moment to sniff me.

  ‘We’ve not been introduced,’ he said, smirking at me. ‘Not that there is much point now. Soon you’ll get to see a whole different side of me…’

  ‘Let me go.’ I writhed beneath his hand while kicking out at him, but he just let out a hearty laugh.

  ‘You killed one of my boys, you’re going nowhere. When the moon brings us to our full glory, you will be the first gift I give to my pack. The burgeoning of a new era. And it’s all going to start with you.’

  ‘Greyson,’ I whispered, the realisation hitting me with a cold hard smack, like a mallet to the chest.

  I was going to die.

  ‘The verysame. And isn’t it a pleasure to make your acquaintance?’ His fingers stroked down my bruised neck, along the place where Jed had feasted. ‘Tsk tsktsk, been feeding the beast I see. Shame you chose the wrong side.’

  ‘Please let me go.’ Tears pricked at my eyes as Greyson ran his fingers to the collar of my tee-shirt and with one swift yank, tore it from the chest to the bottom of my stomach. He threw his head back and howled, the horrific noise sending a chill to my core. My cheeks burned as the bikers threw cat calls my way, jeering at my exposed bra.

  ‘Oh, this is just the beginning. When they turn, you’ll be there’s to do what they please with. To fuck, to torture, to eat. We’ve spent decades being shit under the humans shoe, locking ourselves away like a scourge. No more.’

  Greyson dragged me across the floor by my hair to a table in the centre of the room. He pushed me into it, jarring my pained hip. He grinned sadistically as I cried out.

  ‘But first, you pretty, insignificant thing, you have a cost to pay for taking one of mine.’

  I prayed for Jed and Calvin to burst into the room; I pleaded with Greyson as tears and snot made a glue on my face. In the corner, Pres thumped his fist against the cage.

  ‘Too late,’ Greyson erupted with laughter. ‘You locked yourself in there for protection, but those cages are on a timer, you’re going nowhere until morning. You can sit back and enjoy the show.’

  Greyson pinned my arm to the cold metal table and produced a large hunting knife. Fear swallowed me up whole, and as the knife glinted in his crazed eyes I felt a warmth spreading down my jeans. Pissing myself was the least of my worries. With cold-blooded accuracy, he swept the knife downward. Pure, blinding pain ripped through me as the knife bit into my flesh, gouging a deep wound. I screamed until my lungs burned as he dislodged the knife from my arm and slashed again. The second time the knife clanged against the metallic table, leaving my hand there, severed entirely from my arm.

  ‘No!’ Jed’s voice filled my subconscious as Greyson pushed me away from him. My vision blurred as I clutched my arm to my chest and stumbled away from Greyson. Jed’s appearance at the door distracted the wolves, with Calvin trailing behind him. I tried to strangle my sobs long enough to crawl off out of view as Jed shot across the room so fast his body was barely visible, crashing into Greyson with deadly fury.

  I neared the corner, next to where Pres and the others were caged, my body weakening by the moment.

  ‘Get in a cage. They can’t touch you in there,’ Pres whispered as I passed them, but as I looked at him his eyes darkened to an inky black. Fangs protruded from his gums. He lunged toward me, his hands stretching through the bard of his cage.

  I barely made it to the cage two doors down when one biker rounded on me. Every step made me woozier, every inch felt like a mile as the biker bore down on me. I threw myself into the huge cage and went to pull the cage door closed behind me, but where my hand had once been, only a stump remained. The biker shoved his foot in the door as I crumpled back against the rear wall. The fight left me as my options faded to nothing.

  It was over; it was all over.

  Eighteen

  JED

  I flew at Greyson, my renewed strength bursting through my veins. We slammed into the wall and I bared my fangs, ready to rip his throat out. I’d have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the henchmen coming at me with long, wooden stakes.

  With a snarl I let go of Greyson and whipped round to one henchman, throwing him against the opposite wall with such force he left a man-shaped dent in the brickwork. At the edge of my eye line, Rebecca limped herself into a cage, almost closing it despite the massive blood loss she was experiencing. Guilt rippled through me. If I hadn’t taken her blood, she’d have had more then, when she needed it most. I only hoped I could get to her before it was too late.

  Then a wolf barged into the cage door, yanking it open as she lay cowering beyond. Red mist clouded me as I sped over to the cage door, ready to rip the biker’s head clean off of his shoulders. Calvin beat me to it. Despite looking worse for wear, he shoved his brother out of the way and slammed the gate shut. It would keep her safe from the wolves… but not from the horrific injury. My heart sank, I wouldn’t be able to get her out until morning.

  ‘Get into the cages.’ Calvin shouted to the wolves. ‘If you don’t want to massacre or be massacred, get in the fucking cages, right now!’

  A quietness settled over the pack as they looked from Calvin to Greyson.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Greyson said, baring his teeth. ‘Tonight we reign over this flea-bitten city. Tonight we take back what is ours.’

  ‘The governors will never let you live. They’ll hunt you down if you show yourself to be animals.’ I said, squaring up to Greyson as Calvin secured himself in the cage next to Rebecca, speaking softly to her through the bars that separated them.

  ‘After tonight, there will be a new governor in
town, and I’ll relish the thought of werewolves in the city. Free to take what they desire, free to be who they are. Free to crawl the streets and hunt their prey. Blood will run tonight, vampire, starting with yours.’ All around us, men threw themselves into cages, one by one choosing to disobey their leader. With a furious howl he crossed the room toward me, swiping with his great meaty fists.

  ‘You’ve turned my men into traitors. But I don’t need them tonight. When I come back in the morning, they will have a choice, follow me or face execution.’

  Moonlight streamed through the overhead window in a beam of intense white light, Greyson’s body quivered as a maniacal grin stole over his features. I watched in morbid fascination as the hair on his body grew longer, while his face morphed into that of a grotesquely gigantic wolf. He remained upright on two legs, but his back took on a hunched ridge, while his teeth elongated to deadly points. It was as amazing as it was horrific, but I knew I had to hasten. I sped toward him, fangs extended, and dove for his neck. Greyson batted me away like an errant child while chuckling.

  ‘You’re too late, blood boy. While you out rank us most of the time in strength, you left it too late. I am bigger than you, I am stronger than you, and I will kill you, before taking out your slut.’ And then his body jolted as his eyes changed from their human state to deranged yellow orbs. Greyson no longer remained.

  All I had left was speed, speed and trying to get to the silver bullets, wherever Rebecca had lost them. Or beheading the monster. Before he could behead me. I dashed around the room, leaping out of the way every time he got near. He roared with rage as frustration ate at him. But he underestimated me. A newly fed vampire was stronger than he imagined, especially with age on my side. All around me howls and snarls echoed. In each wolf containing cage, there was an equally horrific werewolf lurking. Calvin was trying desperately to claw at Rebecca in the cage next to him, his frenzied attack only thwarted by her cowering out of reach. My friend was entirely unrecognisable, the human side of him eliminated in the full moon.