Even I winced. Look what irony does to a bloke.
I shot Liberty an anxious glance as I bottom shuffled away from the window.
Was Liberty trying to hide a grin?
Bugger that.
I shoved myself up, crossing my arms in customary slouch. “Trial found me innocent then?”
Liberty appraised me coolly. “You’re anything but innocent. The trial’s been postponed. The judge met with an unfortunate accident.”
One of the denim bitches gestured at Liberty from the end of the corridor. I didn’t blame her for keeping Liberty at arm’s-length. She lobbed an iPhone at Liberty, who caught it and answered without once looking away from me like a teacher who reckons that if they do, they’ll miss the culprit spraying graffiti.
“I see.” Liberty arched an eyebrow. “Well isn’t that interesting? Thank you.”
“New reality show? Spurs lost? Bloody hell, the boy band that you’re crushing on aren’t breaking up, are they?”
“Downstairs. It seems that your Renegades have delivered a gift.” I frowned. A fortnight I’d been playing this and for the first time I was off script. “Something wrong?”
I flashed a bit of fang. “I just got to watch Captain staked on my bonfire in a sea of my words. Everything’s perfect.”
Liberty studied me narrowly. Then she nodded. “Follow me.”
The rest of the Council was in the same uproar as the previous offices. You’d reckon that an apocalypse had broken out. Word of coups spread fast in dictatorships. Toadies were already fawning over Liberty like she was the new messiah.
A pine crate rested at an angle across Captain’s office: this was the gift?
I stumbled to a stop in the doorway, but Liberty didn’t seem to notice. “From Your Sun Girl,” she read from the pink Post-it note, which was stuck to the front.
I knew that crate: it was identical to the one that I’d been delivered in to Grayse from Abona, when I’d been nothing but a slave picked by a slaver’s daughter.
It was everything that I hated and feared. It was the dark and nightmares. And it wasn’t part of the plan.
Plantagenet and Sun had been holding hands like Sun used to hold my hand.
Please…please…don’t let Sun have betrayed me. Not now. Not like this. Any way but this…
To my shock, I realized that Liberty’s arms were around my shoulders and she was calling my name. “Light, Light, Light…”
Two concerned jade eyes were scrutinizing me. I pushed away from Liberty, before prowling to the enemy of my peace of mind. Then I sank my nails into the wood and ripped.
The wood smashed against the far wall.
Blake — naked — was struggling against the red nylon ropes at his wrists, ankles, and neck.
The red nylon was a nice touch.
Blake was shouting threats through the catsuit that had been used to gag him.
“You shouldn’t mumble; I can’t make out a bleeding word.” I patted him on the cheek, before turning to Liberty with a smirk. “One leader of the Renegades.” I pointed at Plantagenet’s bio ring, which had been forced (and sodding hell did that look painful), over the purple head of Blake’s cock. “Even decorated. You want your trial still? After what’s happened today on London Bridge, I’m reckoning that the Council will believe that a human could be our equal or more than prey.”
“Maybe.” Liberty considered me and then Blake. “This is the bully who subjugates our kind?”
I nodded.
When a cold smile crept across Liberty’s face, I shivered. “I shall enjoy this fresh inquiry. Very much.”
Blake began to truly holler then but not threats.
“Shh.” Liberty leant over the crate. Her finger traced Blake’s lips, whilst her other hand…? Let’s just say that Blake’s not daft: he got the message. “You see,” Liberty stroked Blake’s hair, “it’s all in the training. Punishment and reward.”
When Liberty straightened, I caught her eye. “Guess that’s us all paid-up? How about honoring Captain’s promise? Give me Donovan and let us go.”
“Won’t you be wanting Will too?” Liberty’s cool look was amused.
I took a step back. My arse knocked off that bastard yellow face, and he bounced, leering up at me.
“I am the Jade spider. Do you think that I played no part in this game of ours? Pet was without doubt the same boy you waxed lyrical about. He could barely be without you, as you couldn’t stand being without him. The beatings that Pet took for inattention… He was lost without you.”
Crack — the edge of the desk snapped under my clawed hands.
“You’re not helping,” I growled.
“Captain took him from the research facility, after you and the Renegades rendered it worthless for now at least. Captain delighted in playing with humans, except that they broke too fast. There were a number of young human subjects at the labs.”
That black bag? It hadn’t been Will.
In my tortured, helpless state, seeing Will and being unable to save him, I’d buried him too soon in my grief-stricken panic. Love can do funny things to a bloke and love for the First Lifer destined to be born of your fangs you’d suffer torture. Die for them. Resurrect yourself just to offer the sacrifice a second time.
You’d destroy worlds.
When I’d first seen Pet and known…Christ in heaven…my Will was alive… Yet he was bleeding out, sliced open for me, and I had to drink from him…? I’d nearly blown everything.
Because family make you weak.
Instead, I’d decided to leave Will to Captain’s cruelty in the heart of the Blood Life Council for two weeks, treating him like a stranger. That decision had seared worse than the white phosphorous.
I’d hoped that Will would understand the game that I was playing, however, because I’d trusted him, like he trusted me. If Captain had ever realized who Will was to me? If Blink had told him? If Liberty had grassed?
Then Captain truly would’ve owned me. He could’ve ended the rebellion at a word.
I would give up everything to keep Will safe. Yet neither Blink nor Liberty had used that, and I didn’t know why.
Will was a bright kid. He’d played the game, and that flamed me with pride.
I tilted my head. “Will’s coming with me.”
“I’ve become fond of Pet.” Liberty brushed at her fringe, as if imagining it was Will’s fingers caressing her. “He’s like a foul-mouthed cherub. I’d considered keeping him for myself and to bleed for picky eaters like you, as well as political leverage in our future dealings, of course.”
“You know two weeks of my darkest secrets.” My gaze was cold and hard. “All that I’d suffer and the extremes I’d go to for my own. Do you want to unleash that on your own head?”
Liberty backed towards the filing cabinet as she swung the door wider. “That’s why I’ve decided…”
An explosion of curls burst across the room and into my arms. Will clung so tightly that I could feel his heart — beat, beat, beat — next to mine and his quiet sigh.
This time, I hugged Will just as tightly as he held onto me.
Then Will drew back. “Angel of Light.” He stared at me like I was sodding...life. I blinked away tears, when I noticed the tramlines of scars down his arms. That was because of me; I’d suckled there, lapping up his blood. I’d fed on him: I’d made him prey. Will touched my cheek. “You’re safe, remember? All that matters, innit?”
The little git was trying to make me blub. I caught his wrist. “But how...?” He was wearing a bracelet of two entwined greens knotted together in an eternal snake. “The wankers cut your bracelet off my wrist.”
Will smiled shyly. “Blink gave me the threads. I’ve been making it because I knew you lost yours.” He attempted to look stern as he slipped it off his wrist onto mine. I couldn’t stop staring at it: resurrected against my skin. I’d never take it off again. “I ain’t making another.”
“I’ll be sure to look after it better, little ma
n. But Blink…? Didn’t he…hasn’t he been…?”
Will shrugged. “He’s my mate. He stopped his dad from, you know…”
“Captain?”
Will nodded. “Blink wouldn’t let him hurt me, at least not when he was there. The thing about Blink? He just never gets how things feel. So, I tell him how the world don’t feel so bad. We’re tight now.”
“Good for you.” I wondered if I was allowed to veto Will’s mates from now on.
I slipped my arm around Will’s waist, and he let me, as I steered him towards the door. When he didn’t even comment on the naked bloke in the box, I felt a twinge of guilt. I guess Will had seen a lot worse behind the scenes in the Blood Life Council.
When I’d first noticed Will, I’d reckoned him innocent, but then I’d learned that his innocence had long been stolen from him. Now? Because I’d hunted him, drawing him into our Blood Lifer world, he’d never know anything but darkness.
After tonight’s protest on London Bridge, however, nor would the rest of the world.
“You ain’t no bad man,” Will whispered as if he’d caught my thought, nestling closer. “You know, from the song? Blink lent me his iPod, so I could… I listened to our song every night. It was like we were together. I knew that you were coming for me.”
“Because it’s what angels do?”
“Because it’s what true fam…our fam do.”
All those days that I’d been desperate to speak one word alone away from Liberty and the cameras to let Will in on the caper, so that he knew he wasn’t abandoned, and all that time, he’d had faith in me. More faith than I’d ever had in any one in Blood Life.
Christ, I hoped that I could live up to it. I was bleeding well going to try.
Donovan sauntered to join us at the foyer doors. He was resplendent in a purple velvet suit. Liberty must’ve planned that too. I suddenly wondered if the only reason that Plantagenet had ever fancied Blake was because of his choice in clothes. Blake had been nothing more than a wretched substitute for his lost love: Donovan.
Except, Donovan wasn’t lost now; he was coming home.
It was hostage release day.
Hartford — my angel leading the rebellion, who was ready to martyr himself for Donovan — was waiting out there, along with the bloke’s greatest love. How was Donovan going to choose between them and what would happen when he did?
“Alright?” I bumped Donovan’s shoulder.
Donovan grinned as he bumped mine back. “Let’s split, this scene has been a drag.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” I grasped Will’s hand on one side, Donovan’s on the other, then together we strolled out of those glass doors to the fanfare of Echo and the Bunnyman and the whirr of news helicopters above, which were like furious fireflies, towards a sea of faces, as if candlelit at an Easter Vigil.
Blood Lifers thronged amongst the First: predator and prey. I tightened my hold on Will. And for the first time? I realized what I’d done.
I’d cracked the world to save my family.
I didn’t have a clue what came next.
Yet after a fortnight trapped in artificial red and blue (as well as coffin black), I stared up at the stars. Their infinite freedom reached as far as any bloke could dream.
Then I roared with a predator’s victory: we’d done it.
We’d only sodding done it.
When Hartford saw me, a spark of rage blazed across his face (so no hope that the venom and cage had been forgiven and forgotten then), but fizzled out the second that he noticed Donovan at my side.
A cream blur — then Donovan was swept up in Hartford’s arms.
Hartford’s voice burst into joyful song, as he spun Donovan around in the Charleston. Donovan laughed, clinging to Hartford. They’d both been brought back to life. It was never the blood that they needed but love.
Icy fingers slipped around me from behind, teasing up my t-shirt and sliding over my skin. When they edged down towards my jeans, slithering under, I yipped.
“The fried thing is that I forgot. It was, like, the new power, scents, drives and sensations were making me into someone different. It was terrifying to lose everything and feel changed into a whole other species. I got confused on account of I love Plantagenet too. But I forgot…” Sun nibbled my ear. Her teeth drew blood, but on my gasp, she licked over the marks. “I’m still your Sun Girl, and that’s my choice.”
I hadn’t reckoned on hearing that again. Not said in that way from Sun.
I could’ve danced like Hartford and Donovan right there in front of the Council’s glistening glass monstrosity. I beamed. “I’m waiting to be kissed here.”
Sun dragged me around so fast and hard that I was pulled off my feet; I was flying. She cradled my cheeks like she was terrified that I’d slip away or fight her but she’d already conquered me.
I was nobody’s slave, yet I belonged to Sun, even if she’d never be mine.
Then Sun was snogging the life from me.
At once I was back in the bubble, which had embraced me as I’d fallen, caught in Sun’s arms in Peter Pan’s. My perfect moment for eternity. I didn’t know where fantasy ended and reality started, until I felt a tug and realized that I was still holding Will’s hand.
“Work that!” Will winked.
I struggled to untangle my tongue from Sun’s, then pull my lips back. Her hands still held my cheeks tightly. Embarrassed, I squirmed. “Oi, none of that, little man. Angel’s don’t like… Sod it.”
This time it was me snogging Sun and stroking her hair like I’d craved to do when she’d sprawled with Blake or Plantagenet, whilst hoping that even if she didn’t want to hear the word love, then she’d feel, taste, and remember it in the kiss.
Sun smelled of…gardenias. Freedom — and our love.
At last, I drew back, and Sun let me.
Bugger being caged. I was saying the two words, and she was going to hear them this time. “I love you.”
I looked down but then I felt Sun’s finger under my chin lifting it, until our gazes met. “I love you too, Light.”
And that was all the hope that I’d ever need.
“Well-beloved, we are merrily met.” Plantagenet looked like a panther freed into the wild. And up close, I was beginning to have coat envy. In the dark, Plantagenet’s golden eyes were twin fires. “Here are your Renegades to command and charge and I too.”
I smiled. “No, mate, you’re free. No bloke’s commanding you again.”
Plantagenet gave a quick nod, before he turned towards Donovan.
Even though I knew that it was coming, I still cringed.
As it’d been with Sun at the beginning, it was like the world (and Hartford with it), had fallen into darkness for Donovan. Nothing existed but Plantagenet: his long-lost lover, there was no doubting it. I understood it because I’d felt the desire for him as well.
Donovan wrested away from Hartford, leaving him midstep in his dance. Hartford broke off his song in surprise.
When Donovan threw himself into Plantagenet’s arms, I knew the routine: the silent snuffling, tender licking, fingers tracing the cheek and then…that gentle, intimate kiss. I could taste the oranges.
Donovan was draped around Plantagenet, as if Plantagenet was pure blood and Donovan was overloaded on him alone. It was painful to watch because…Plantagenet…the blood…called to me as powerfully. I was an addict too and there was no point denying it.
Seeing another in my place? It was like Plantagenet was knifing me through the heart. I had to admit that I wanted the same as Sun: for us all to love each other.
Then I glanced at Hartford’s face and knew that I wasn’t the only one who was being heart-shanked. Except, for Hartford, it was a thousand times bloodier.
I tugged Will after me as I edged over to Hartford. I was a sacrifice offered up as a distraction. “You can boot me in the balls if you like. Folks seem to get their jollies that way. Or clout me in the nose, that’s also a popular choice.”<
br />
Hartford struggled to glance away from Donovan’s snog to me. “Tell it to the marines. I’m busy.”
I cocked my head. “I drugged and caged you. That must’ve pissed you off.”
“What are you doing, man? He’s going to kick your ass.” Will stared at me with wide eyes, trying to haul me away.
When Hartford prowled towards me, I had to bleeding agree.
“What you pulled? Double-crossing me?” When Hartford reached out, I flinched. “Was nutty, screwy, and…” Hartford smacked me lightly on the cheek. “Just saved the fella that I’m goofy over.”
I breathed out.
Plantagenet and Donovan were still snogging. How did you make up for decades apart? It looked, however, like they intended to take a shot at it.
Even in front of an entire army, Hartford was alone.
I risked a manly pat on Hartford’s shoulder. “Families: love them one moment and want to rip out their throats the next. Yet you’d still battle to the last breath for them.”
“Say, mac, you’re sounding dangerously like a Long-lived.” Hartford’s features gentled as he looked at Will. “It’s swell to see you too.”
Then Hartford grasped Will’s small hand — a First Lifer safe between two Blood — and we swaggered together towards our family, lovers, army, allies and Renegades: the start of a new world on that night-time bridge over the tongue of the Thames.
We saw the world, and the world saw us.
Betrayal, death, and hope. It’s how all truly great stories end too.
What comes next? That’s where the bollocks vampire myths finish, and the age of the Blood Lifer legends...?
It’s only just beginning.
Do you need a conclusion to your inquiry?
I’ll never be ashes but I’m on fire.
My name is Light. Predator. Slave. Freedom fighter.
And I’m the bloody hero.
The End
Continue Light’s adventures in BLOOD GODS, a standalone Rebel Vampires novella in the Rebel Legends series.
https://rosemaryajohns.com
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