Winter Blood: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Coldharbour Chronicles Book 4)

by Richard Amos

  Heavy footsteps. Greg came tearing down the hallway seconds later.

  “Where is she?” he boomed.

  I gestured to the room. “She’s okay, mate.”

  And she was, albeit still on her back and very weak. But at least she was awake.

  I went in with him. Greg crouched down beside her, stroking her face. “You’re okay.”

  “Yeah,” she wheezed.

  Greg fed her more healing potion.

  “Nay’s got Eric, Cassie, Ben and Fred with her,” Greg said, looking at me over his shoulder. “Still haven’t found Sabrina or Mark.”

  “Where is Nay?” I asked.

  “East side, down near the poolroom. Go back to the main hall, go up the east stairs and take the first corridor. You’ll see a door halfway down the corridor with another corridor sloping down. That’ll take you there.”

  “Got it. Stay here. Me and Dean will go.”

  “Find … Alpha …” Bliss gasped.

  I ran into the hallway. “Lads? Can you stay here with Greg and Bliss? We’re heading to the east wing.”

  One wolf shifted—Liam again. “Sure. But we need to find Alpha.”

  “We’re on it. Don’t worry.”

  Liam nodded and returned to wolf form.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Dean.

  We hurried down the hallway, taking a right down another smaller one and onto the mezzanine within the main entrance hall of the manor.

  It was clear, not a silkyleg in sight.

  There were two stairwells in the main hall leading to the east and west sides of the manor, covered in plush gray carpet. I ran down the west stairs, cut across the wooden floor of the hall and took the eastern steps two at a time. As if on autopilot in a place I’d never been before, I hurried down the corridor Greg mentioned with Dean right behind me.

  A beast sprang off the ceiling, landing on me before I could blink or bring my shield up. Fangs twitched inches from my face. I killed it before it could give me a face peel.

  Job done, I joined Dean at the door we needed.

  It was sealed with web.

  “Bollocks,” I growled and made short work of it.

  The corridor beyond was curved, a sloping spiral that led down, illuminated by daylight blubs—strips of light in the walls. It ended in a huge swimming pool room that was full of silkywebs, webbing holding bodies on the walls and ceiling.

  They were a mass of freakiness, a sea of red eyes staring right at me. The silkylegs dominated every inch of the pool room floor. Even the water was covered over with web, and not one of the beasts made a move.

  “Creepy,” I mumbled.

  I spotted Nay up on the wall to my right, the only part of her showing was the stop of her head. The mother of all frowns darkened her brow.

  Everyone else was fully trussed up, a few silkylegs adding more layers to their prisoners.

  I wasn’t about to end up like them. This shit was about to be shut down.

  Sometimes things are genuinely as simple as they seem, unless of course they hold a nasty surprise beneath a deceptive surface. It looked like an easy task of burning away the web, job done. But no. There it was, the complication coming to life and shitting all over the joy of simplicity. The ceiling was high up.

  “When I break this,” I whispered to Dean, “they’re all gonna fall.”

  “There’s no other—”

  I dropped as web was sprayed. But it caught Dean. He was pulled into the sea of silkywebs, fangs ready to kill him.

  The red mist descended.

  “Get ready to drop!” I roared and stuck my hand in the web without another thought.

  As my sparks devoured and a chorus of silkyleg shrieking rang through the pool room, I ran and dove at Dean. I crashed into him and brought up my shield, beasts bouncing off in a mass tumble.

  “Ohmygod!” I yelled, hands all over him, locked in my bubble with him. “Are you okay? Did they bite you?”

  My heart was racing a mile a minute, and I couldn’t breathe. It was a panic that almost split me in two.

  He grabbed my face, securing my head. “Jake.” His dark eyes locked onto mine. “I’m fine.”

  The breath caught in my throat, then exhaled with spectacular relief. Blimey, that’d been intense.

  He kissed me, a quick peck, and then I dropped the shield.

  No time for that stuff. Beasts to kill and I had to make sure Nay was okay.

  She was, but incredibly pissed off. She booted one of the beasts as if it were the ball to score the winning goal in the World Cup. It smacked the wall and slid down, leaving a sticky trail in its descent before landing in an unconscious heap.

  Nay threw a blue potion and it exploded into a mass of pretty fireworks. She’d used that once before. It was nothing more than a distraction, but it seemed to rattle the beasts with the racket it made.

  I got to work, killing as quickly as I could. Everything had gone mental, the free wolves ripping into the beasts. I couldn’t see Sabrina, the alpha, or Mark, the beta, but I couldn’t worry right now. These fuckers had to be exterminated first.

  Sticky crap hit the back of my head, and I was yanked across the room. I bloody knew I was going in that pool, a vibe at the back of my head had been telling me so since I stepped into the room. At least the web covering had gone.

  I spat out the water with a dash of chlorine as I surfaced. Bastard silkylegs!

  “Toss them to me!” I yelled. “I may as well do this shit from here.”

  The pool started filling up with battered beasts, and some that weren’t so battered. Either way, they really didn’t like the water.

  One by one, I took them out, gathering momentum which each kill from the pulses of euphoria that devouring their essence brought me. Killing machine—that was me.

  “Is that it?” I asked, treading water after another slaying.

  “I think so,” Dean replied. “Can’t see anymore. Oh …”

  He’d noticed my hands.

  My sparks were still active, which meant there had to be another somewhere.

  I scanned the room. “Everyone okay?”

  The pale, naked form of Sabrina West stepped into view. Her long silver hair was still sleek and immaculate, even after being trapped in web.

  “Everyone is fine,” she said. Her coal eyes harbored as much dark intensity as Dean’s did, but her’s lacked any trace of warmth.

  “Bliss took a bit of a … biting,” I responded. “But Greg’s with her. She’ll be okay.”

  Sabrina’s stoic expression did not so much as flicker. “Good.”

  A man, with short brown hair, tanned skin and brown eyes, appeared next to her. He was almost as big as Greg—muscle wise. Almost. It was Mark, the beta. He didn’t say anything, just watched me enjoying the pool.

  “You want a hand?” Dean asked.

  I swam to the side and pulled myself out. “I’m good, thanks. Sorry, I’m not taking full advantage of your facilities, Sabrina. Honest!”

  She didn’t react to my little jolly. Well, her home had just been invaded by messed up spiders with silkworm arses, so I didn’t blame her really.

  “Your power is still on,” she said, as cold as the snow outside.

  I was still scanning the pool room, dripping wet and freezing my bollocks off. “It has to be close.”

  “Wait,” Dean said. “What’s that?”

  He pointed behind me.

  I turned to see and saw a beast at the bottom of the pool in the far left corner.

  “Bloody hell! What’s it doing down there?”

  “Back you go,” Dean sing-songed. That threw me for a moment—Mr. Tseng never had any sort of melodious tone to his deep speaking voice.

  Suppressing a giggle, I dove back in the water to shut down the beast. It was still, putting up no fight. Thirty seconds later, I was back out of the pool.

  “Haven’t got a towel, have you?” I asked.

  I was sitting in a huge living room, all the décor gray and th
e wooden floors pine. There was barely any furniture, aside from the large corner sofa—more like a half-moon in shape—I occupied, and one bookcase with neatly shelved tomes. The best bit of the whole room, though, was the open fire for a chilly bloke like me.

  Eric had lent me a white hoodie and trackies, plus a pair of trainers. We were the same shoe size, but his clothes were a tad baggy for my frame. Still, they were dry and warm and no one else really came close to my build aside from him.

  Dean was next to me. I wanted to curl up into him, snuggle in the luxurious heat and maybe … maybe get my mind out of the gutter.

  Greg and Nay were with us too, and Sabrina stood beside the fire. Everyone else was tidying up the mess the beasts had made.

  “I want to assure you, Greg,” Sabrina suddenly began after a period of silence gazing into the flames, “that Bliss will be back on her feet in no time. She is strong, and your magical potion has helped massively with her recovery already.”

  “Nay’s a genius,” Greg responded.

  Nay shrugged, but you could see she was loving it. “Happy it helped.”

  “How long will you need to stay?” Sabrina was clearly done and ready to move on.

  “We can go whenever,” I offered. “I’ll need to keep these clothes on, though. Eric won’t mind.”

  My soaked clothes were in a black bag by the front doors, waiting to get slung into a washing machine.

  “Of course. I will be coming to speak with Karla this Saturday.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes, we arranged the meeting just before this incident.”

  “Still no idea why they came here?”

  She folded her arms. “I have reason to believe their former nest was in the forest—within the caverns to be exact.”

  “The caverns?”

  “Yes, deep and dark and forbidden to all my pack. In fact, access is blocked. They are dangerous, prone to cave-ins. But warm, you see. There are hot springs in there.”

  “Perfect for the silkylegs.”

  Arctic winds rose up to meet me—she could do that with just one look. “I despise that name.”

  No one said anything, though I’m sure Nay was dying to fire something back at her for the diss on the name she’d come up with. The werewolves had the same access to the beast app we did. Ungrateful werewolf master! I didn’t see her coming up with a new name. No, she was just her usual self—resting bitch face in full bloom.

  “At least they’re dead now.” I chose the route of not mouthing off. “You want us to do anything about those caverns?”

  She nodded. “If there is any form of spell to act as a trap for any who enter them, that would be great. Is that possible, Naomi?”

  “I have the perfect warding spell,” Nay said. “I’ll need Dean’s help.”

  “Magical glue?” I asked.

  “That’s me,” Dean replied.

  She’d used him as glue once before in a spell performed with the white eye guy—metaphorically speaking.

  During all this drama, I hadn’t thought about my white-eyed nemesis/part-time savior/person at the top of my ‘People I Want Dead’ list. The knob head! He was still at large, sending me texts about how he hadn’t spotted any signs of Lilisian. I didn’t need him to fill me in! And he still had an ocean-load of secrets. I didn’t know what he was, why he was helping me out, and how he kept avoiding us whenever we tried to hit him with truth spells. He was always one step ahead and it drove me crackers!

  “Jake?”

  It was Greg. I blinked. “Yeah?”

  “You alright, mate?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Sorry.”

  More arctic winds from the alpha. “Shall we get this spell over and done with, then?”

  As well as the clothes already on my back, I now had Eric’s khaki parker jacket on to fight the cold, even though the car heater was on.

  Greg and I sat together in his Audi hatchback, waiting for Nay and Dean to return. It was agreed I didn’t need to be a part of that, and I was glad. I didn’t fancy traipsing through the forest in baggy clothes, just to watch a ward be put up. I did feel a little guilty acting way too keen to agree with waiting in the car, especially as Nay and Dean had to go for a woodland stroll. Still, I was happy in the warm vehicle.

  “You okay?” I asked my golem friend.

  “Yeah, mate. I’m all right.”

  “She’ll come over as soon as she’s better,” I offered reassuringly. “You know she’ll be back to her old self in no time. In fact, she’d be pissed off to know you were worrying.”

  “She did actually say that.”

  I nodded. “Makes it look like you doubt her ability to get better.”

  “What are you? The Wolfy Whisperer?”

  “Just behavior I’ve observed.”

  “Werewolves.” He rolled his eyes. “They’re so sensitive.”

  “Yep. Or is that just Bliss?”

  He snorted. “A combo of both?”

  “Let’s go with that.”

  It was midday now, dark outside. Tonight would be proper night—the kind you get in horror films … or steamy novels. I could tell it was gonna be pitch black and freezing. I’d shut the curtains against the world and take Dean to bed … There was my mind in the gutter again, down on the streets of Lustville.

  I shuddered.

  “Someone walk on your grave?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Something’s going on?”

  I sat forward, eyes on the forest at the other side of the grounds. “What?”

  My hands weren’t alive with sparks … yet. Shit. Were there more beasts coming? What had he seen?

  Greg chuckled. “Settle down, Jakey. I mean between you and Dean.”

  “Oh.” I sat back.

  “You can’t hide anything from the sacred circle.”

  That was the name for our friendship—me, him, Nay and Dean. “I wasn’t—”

  “Ha! There it is!”

  “I wasn’t hiding anything.”

  “Good. You’re not allowed.”

  I smiled. “I haven’t been ready to talk about it.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough, but I can smell the change.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “Figure of speech, mate. Don’t worry, your body odor is fine.”

  I laughed. “You idiot.”

  He reached over and ruffled my hair. “You ready to talk now?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Go for it.”

  May as well out myself now. “Dean and me had that talk we needed to have, and … we … we’re in a new place.”

  “You had sex.”

  My forehead creased. “Is this smelling ability of yours a genuine bloody power you’ve been hiding from me?”

  “No, Nay heard you.”

  My face flushed with mega-heat. “What the fuck?”

  “She went to ask Dean something the other night and heard the … ending. Both of you. Apparently, you were quite loud.”

  Thank God I couldn’t see my face in the rear-view mirror from my position, as it was obviously nuclear rouge.

  He roared with laughter.

  “You serious?”

  “Yes, mate!”

  “Fuck!”

  He wiped his eyes.

  “Glad you find it so friggin’ hilarious.”

  “Sorry, Jakey, but I do.”

  “Git!”

  He snorted.

  “So you knew all along?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because you didn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  My cheeks were still hot. “Thanks.”

  He’d regained some composure. “Seriously, where you at with things?”

  “For now … sex.”

  He nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Well, to Nay.” Crap! I didn’t mean to make a stupid attempt at a light-hearted comment.<
br />
  He laughed again. “No, mate. She was shook up.”

  “She was?”

  “And really pleased too. Don’t look so uptight. She wasn’t shook up at all. I’m messing with you. She came to me all bloody excited, like she’d won the lottery.”

  “Glad my sex life brings so much joy.”

  “Is it bringing the joy? You feeling okay about things?” He put a hand on my shoulder.

  “I am, thanks.” I patted his hand. “I feel … good. And we’ll see what happens.”

  “You needed some sort of release, Jakey. I’m pleased.”

  “Sorry for the delay in telling you.”

  “Don’t ever be sorry. I’m here and you know that.”

  I offered him my warmest smile. “And that works both ways.”

  He nodded. “Cool.”

  These moments of friendship, pockets of warmth, were excellent in these dark days. They provided brief escapes from the harsh reality we lived in. My friends were my family—my chosen family. I loved them dearly, couldn’t be without them. We’d developed an intimacy that was special, something I never wanted to lose. Okay, so Dean and I had taken things many steps further, but he was still my best friend along with Nay and Greg.

  Though Karla was bound to me too, our relationship was different. She was the boss, the mother-figure almost, the super-serious one. I guess she was the grounding force of the group.

  “He’s got a dick piercing,” I blurted out.

  Greg’s head snapped round. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Bollocks! Don’t say anything.”

  “Promise I won’t.” He put a hand over his heart. “What’s that like?”

  Why did I have to open my bloody mouth? “He, er, takes it out when we get to it.”

  “Suppose it can rip the rubber.”

  “Guess so.”

  “You look disappointed.”

  I was blushing again. “I’m not.”

  “Maybe he’s not sure if you’d like that sort of thing. If you’re interested, talk to him about it.”

  “We’re not talking about this.”

  “I once knew a girl who had her clit pierced. Great shag, although sometimes I thought my dick was gonna fall off the way she rode me.”