Blood Shadows

by Lindsay J. Pryor

  He lifted her with ease, spread her thighs around him again as he gently pressed her back against the wall. As his lips met hers, he didn’t thrust inside her – he pushed. Slowly. Deeply. Feeling every inch of her, watching every tiny reaction that her eyes betrayed. She gasped and trembled as he filled her to the hilt, as he withdrew inch by inch only to push deep into her again. She needed to know this was more than sex – it was a claiming.

  He closed his lips over hers again, tasting her warmth, toying with her tongue and teeth in a way that made her clench around him. He bit her lip and she gasped again, her eyes flashing open to stare at him.

  He smiled before sucking on her lip, her blood mingling in both their mouths as he kissed her more hungrily.

  He released her hands to grab her thighs and spread them further as Caitlin wrapped her arms around his shoulders, buried her head against his neck, her nails digging into his back as his pace increased.

  He felt her tears against his neck but she didn’t ask him to stop. Her body only accepted him more willingly. It was the sign he needed.

  He bit into her neck, his incisors penetrating her deep, breaking through her fragile skin with ease. She tasted divine – hot, sweet, intoxicating.

  Seconds later he came hard and he came fast, just as her muscles clenched around him, just as he felt the first shudders of orgasm burst through her. Spilling inside her that time wasn’t just release, it was a sealing.

  Withdrawing his incisors, he clutched the back of her head, entwined his fingers through her soft, tousled hair and held her as both their orgasms gradually dissipated.

  Head nestled against hers, he held her tighter. There was no going back. She was his now and all that went with it. ‘I love you more than I ever thought I could love again, Caitlin,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘How did you do it?’

  She didn’t say anything. She just tightened her hold around him and held him, the silence fractured by the pouring rain.

  Minutes passed but it didn’t feel long enough. He withdrew and lowered her gently to the floor.

  Clothing adjusted, he eased her to the floor with him as he sat behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, his thighs either side of hers as they gazed out at the retreating rain.

  ‘We sure don’t make things easy for ourselves, do we?’

  She rested her head back against his shoulder as she looked up at him. ‘Is it really going to be that bad?’

  ‘Yes, Caitlin. That bad.’

  ‘But we can handle it, right?’

  He wasn’t sure. Not now he knew Feinith was involved. She was his first visit as soon as this died down.

  ‘If you learn to do as you’re told,’ he said, lightening his tone to divert from the line of conversation he needed them to avoid. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘If I learn to do as I’m told?’ She pulled forwards a little to look across her shoulder at him. ‘Who put you in charge?’

  Smiling, he pulled her tight against him again. ‘I’m always in charge. Always have been. Always will be.’

  She smiled back. It was fleeting but was still a smile. It was the first one he’d evoked in her. It made him love her to the point of being painful. ‘You may have been around the block a few times, Kane, but you’ve still got a lot to learn.’

  ‘So have you,’ he said, brushing his lips over her ear. ‘All sorts of dark, depraved, sinful little things that I’m going to inflict on you if you don’t learn to be a good, compliant girl.’

  ‘I told you – I don’t do submissive.’

  He laughed lightly. ‘Oh, yes you do,’ he said, nipping her lightly on the ear. ‘And as soon as I get you back to my haven, I’ll prove it further.’

  ‘Is that where we’re going?’

  ‘For the time being.’

  ‘And then what?’

  He rested his head against hers as he stared back out into the darkness. He hadn’t sighed in a long time, but he sighed then.

  ‘I don’t know, Caitlin,’ he said, kissing her affectionately on the temple before resting his head against hers again. ‘But you’re going to be okay with me. I promise.’

  ‘And you’re going to be okay with me, Kane.’

  As the darkest hour of Blackthorn crept along the empty street outside, he could only hope they were both right. That she’d still feel that way when she knew the whole truth.

  The darkness out there was going to deepen.

  It was only a matter of time.

  LETTER FROM

  LINDSAY J. PRYOR

  Dear Reader,

  When I started writing many years ago, it was with an aim – to entertain myself. As Blackthorn developed, I lived in hope that it would one day be out there to entertain others. That dream came true.

  I really hope you enjoyed your journey into Blackthorn and sharing Kane and Caitlin’s story with me. I’d love to hear what you think of Blood Shadows – I always check reader reviews and you can find me online at www.lindsayjpryor.com

  I’ll also be posting exclusive news about the next Blackthorn episode – Blood Roses – on my website.

  Blood Shadows is just the start of the Blackthorn story. There’s much more to unravel about the tensions between third species and humans, more to discover about Blackthorn itself and, of course, the vampire prophecies.

  Piece by piece, I’ll be revealing the integral role these forbidden love stories are going to play in the future of characters that I hope you’ll come to love as much as I do.

  Be assured that you’ve not heard the last from Kane and Caitlin.

  Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’ll join me again as the mysteries of Blackthorn continue to unfold.

  Lindsay

  P.S. Read on for a sneak peek at the first chapter of Blood Roses. I have another very bad vampire I’d like to introduce you to…

  BLOOD ROSES

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was the last place on earth Leila should have been. The thought of what she was about to do sickened her to her soul. She was supposed to kill vampires, not save them. Those were the rules. That was the lore.

  But then again, the lore never accounted for wayward younger sisters.

  Leila stepped out of the car and into the darkness of the dank alleyway. The breeze swept her hair from her shoulders, wafted the hem of her dress against her thighs. If she’d had time to go home and change, she would have put something more suitable on – something that may have at least made her feel a fraction less vulnerable.

  Clutching the straps of her rucksack, she scanned the several stories looming above, rain trickling down the dreary walls. Yells echoed down from the road, suppressed by the low monotonous beat of trance music vibrating through the open fire-exit doors ahead. The air in Blackthorn felt alien in its density, its toxicity. Her head buzzed as if she’d just taken off on the runway but hadn’t yet reached that comfortable height. She couldn’t just see the darkness – she could feel it.

  It was the final confirmation that she was making the worst mistake of her life.

  A mistake she’d had no choice in making.

  Alisha had been missing for days but, based on her track record, it still wasn’t long enough for the authorities to act.

  Sleep-deprived, sick with worry and brimming with fury at the possibility of her younger sister’s ongoing nonchalance towards her feelings, Leila had planned another late night at work rather than face the flat alone. But as soon as darkness had arrived in Summerton, so had the call.

  ‘Lei, it’s me.’

  ‘Alisha? Where the hell are you? I’ve been going out of my mind! Four days! Four days and not a single call! You know how it’s been. Have you any idea—’

  ‘Leila, just shut up for a minute. Please. I need you to listen to me.’

  In that instant she’d known something was horribly wrong. Whether it had been the uncharacteristic strain in Alisha’s tone or that gravel effect she only got after crying, one thing was for certain – this was not like the other times.

/>   ‘I need your help,’ Alisha had said, seemingly biting back the tears – tears of desperation that had been verging on panic. And Alisha never panicked. Ever.

  Her chest had clenched. ‘Okay,’ she’d said, softening her tone. ‘Take it easy, Alisha. What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’

  ‘No. No, I’m okay.’

  Leila had held her breath at her sister’s hesitation.

  ‘But I need you to do something for me,’ Alisha had added. ‘You know the Purification Book – the one grandfather gave you?’

  Tendrils of unease had squeezed. ‘What about it?’

  ‘I need it.’

  ‘What do you mean you need it? For what?’

  ‘I’m in serious trouble, Lei.’

  Something heavy had formed in the pit of her stomach. Every tiny hair on the back of her neck had stood on end. Already two steps ahead, she’d backed out of earshot into the depths of the library’s storeroom. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Blackthorn.’

  It had been the equivalent to a punch in the chest. The same feeling of sickness had encompassed her as when she’d been told the search for Sophie had been abandoned – that their sister had been gone too long.

  Her voice had instinctively dropped to a tense whisper. ‘What the hell are you doing there?’

  ‘I’ll explain later, but I need you to come here and bring the book with you.’

  In the dense silence of the storeroom, Leila had slumped into a nearby chair before her legs had given way.

  ‘Leila? Lei, are you there?’

  ‘What on earth have you got yourself into this time, Alisha?’

  ‘Tell me you’re coming. Please.’

  ‘I want to know what’s going on.’

  There had been an excruciating moment of silence. ‘Someone needs a purification.’

  Leila had already known the answer, but still she’d asked the question. ‘Someone?’

  ‘A consang. He’s taken dead blood.’

  Consangs, short for the consanguineous, was a term adopted by vampires who’d resolved that the representation of a kinship, an affinity by blood, would create a more positive image than the negative images of well-established clichés. To Leila they’d always be vampires – every last parasitic, deceitful, devious and manipulative one of them.

  And her little sister was amongst them.

  ‘How do they know about the book, Alisha?’

  ‘I can’t explain over the phone. You have to come here. Now.’

  ‘But you know I can’t bring the book there. If that book—’

  ‘Please! If you don’t, they’ll kill me!’

  Her stomach had flipped. ‘I’m going to call the Intervention Unit—’

  ‘No! No, if you do that you’ll never see me again. Leila, listen, you have to get to the top border of Lowtown and wait at the café on the corner. Someone will meet you there in a couple of hours.’

  ‘A couple of hours? Alisha, I’ve got to get across three districts, through two border offices—’

  ‘There isn’t much time. When you get there someone called Hade will meet you. He’ll escort you through Lowtown, get you across the border and bring you into Blackthorn.’

  ‘Who the hell is Hade?’

  ‘Please, Lei. Please tell me you’ll do it?’

  Leila had tried to convince herself that it wasn’t happening. That it couldn’t be happening. But it was. Her worst nightmare had finally beckoned, just as she’d dreaded all her life. The vampire-infested Blackthorn district wasn’t safe for any human. For Leila, it was deadly.

  ‘Promise me they haven’t hurt you.’

  ‘They haven’t. Not yet. They said I’ll be fine if you bring the book. Leila, please, you’ve got to help me.’

  Leila had closed her eyes. Swallowed hard. ‘Just do as they say until I get there. I’m on my way.’

  They’d been waiting when she’d arrived at the café a little over two hours later. She’d assumed the one who’d greeted her to be Hade – a tall, blond twenty-something with piercing grey eyes and a crew cut that was as harsh as his chiselled and stubbly face. Two silent bulks had accompanied him. All three, to her relief, were human. None of them would answer any of her questions, the two bulks refraining even from eye contact with her. Their orders had clearly been to collect her with maximum speed and minimal explanation. Minimal explanation being a flash of wallet-sized, photographic evidence to confirm they had Alisha.

  It had been a reality made even more painful by the fact it was Alisha’s favourite snapshot. It was six years old now, Alisha just nineteen back then. She was hugging her two big sisters like there was no tomorrow, each of them grinning inanely at the camera. Sophie was doing her best cross-eyed look, irreverent Alisha had her tongue poking out and Leila, the eldest and standing out from her fairer sisters with her russet hair, was laughing at them both.

  They’d been driven to the border of Blackthorn. A far cry from the sophisticated and flawless high-security control of Summerton into Midtown, the lesser but still effective security from Midtown into Lowtown, Lowtown to Blackthorn had been a law unto itself.

  The border office into the notorious vampire district had resembled a cattle market – people busily sweeping through the barriers, no one recording the movements, security officers marking the perimeter more as a deterrent against trouble rather than active involvement.

  The mass of milling bodies had been overwhelming, the air dense with the alien scents of everything from smoke to sweat. She’d tried to hold her breath, desperate not to let any of the intoxicating substances into her lungs as Hade and the bulks had escorted her through the crowds, their presence ironically reassuring amidst the swarms of both humans and vampires.

  A black Mercedes had been waiting for them out on the street on the other side of the turnstiles.

  Removing her rucksack and clutching it to her chest, she’d gazed out of the back-seat window as she’d been driven even further from all she’d ever known.

  Blackthorn was everything she’d imagined it to be and worse. Driven through the dark dismal streets, her beloved vibrant-green spaces and sporadically spaced houses had been replaced with a sprawling mass of compacted, characterless buildings. Noise boomed out from neon lit basements and shop fronts. Pollution merged with the stagnant smell of street-sold food. The over-filled streets were chaotic with people milling and partying, queues stretching back along the streets. People laughed, tussled and argued as noise poured from every open window, alley and recess.

  She’d tried not to stare at the people lingering in doorways and on corners, something she never witnessed in Summerton. People back there had pleasant homes to go to, purposes. Now the sanctuary of home felt a million miles away and the phone call from Alisha like a dissipating nightmare.

  The minute the Mercedes had slowed outside a nightclub, the crowds having parted to reveal an alleyway, fear had consumed her.

  As she’d stepped out, Hade at least having the manners to open the door for her, her legs had nearly given way. Pulling her rucksack back on, she’d taken a deep steadying breath, a cold spray of rain hitting her upturned face as she’d told herself for the fiftieth time that she could do this.

  Now, still clenching the straps of her rucksack, her attention switched from the dreary stories above back to Hade.

  He cocked his head towards the open fire-exit doors and she followed him inside.

  They stepped into a dimly lit corridor, the bulks behind keeping so close that she was virtually frogmarched along the concrete tunnel.

  She followed Hade down one corridor then another, through double doors after double doors, Hade only stopping to key in security codes. Keeping a firm grip on her rucksack straps, the weight of the book and her Kit Box starting to tug, her five-foot-six-inch strides were no match for the swift and purposeful march of the six-footers escorting her.

  The music gradually evaporated into the distance, the density of the corridors making her ears thr
um. As Hade led her into a stone stairwell, they finally hit a wall of silence. He nodded to the bulks, both of who promptly turned back the way they came, leaving Leila and him alone.

  She glanced anxiously into the darkness above before following Hade up the steps, the low square heels of her boots scuffing against stone as they climbed three floors.

  Passing through a final door and stepping out into another dim corridor, Hade stopped outside the lone elevator and keyed in a code.

  Entering first, Leila backed up and clutched the handrail behind her. Despite taking slow, steady breaths as they ascended, her breathing involuntarily became shallow again as the doors slid open.

  ‘Is this it?’ she asked, still clutching the handrail as Hade stepped out into a broad hallway.

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘And my sister’s here?’

  He gave her a single nod.

  ‘I’ll want to see her before I do anything,’ she said.

  ‘That’s up to Caleb.’

  ‘Is that who I’m meeting – Caleb? Is he the one who has my sister?’

  ‘He’s also the one who doesn’t like to be kept waiting. And tonight less than ever, so I suggest you move.’

  Reluctantly, she uncoiled her damp palms and stepped out.

  The hallway was surprisingly luxurious. The richness of the dark cream walls was deepened by the soft glow of the elegant, cast-iron wall lights. The dark floorboards were highly polished, the blue and gold runners plump and soft under foot.

  Hade stopped at the ornate, mahogany double doors at the end and keyed in another code. As the doors clicked open, her tension surged as she followed him inside.

  The extensive open-plan room was immaculate. Four broad oak steps led down to three black leather sofas positioned in a horseshoe central to the expanse. A low glass coffee table segregated the sofas, a large flat-screen television marking the opening. Mid-way on each wall to her left and right were hallways that mirrored each other – seemingly wings to opposite sides of the building. Dominating the top right-hand corner of the room was a highly polished mahogany bar. Straight ahead, glass doors opened out onto a generous stone terrace, the late night breeze inciting the voile to momentarily mask the otherwise unspoiled view across the district.