“He unconsciously blinked to the when that he felt was the most critical juncture when he lived, I surmise,” Uncle John says thoughtfully.
Mitchell isn't listening, and I feel his mental withdrawal from me. “I don't have much time. They were watching the house. They're probably already in there.”
Mitchell's arms fall from around me, and he begins to walk away.
I don't say anything. I can't. Tears tremble at my jawline. Drip, drip, dripping, they soak the fabric of my T-shirt along my collarbone. Cupping my elbows, I bite my lip to keep from crying out.
If Mitchell saves his family right now in this second chance of destiny, the events of the rest of his life will be reordered. That's the way fate operates.
He will not die.
I might not live.
We will not be more.
Mitchell suddenly stops.
He turns.
I see by his expression he understands that when bot world happens, Brad Thompson will have me.
Hurt me.
If Mitchell doesn't go to that house where he was raised from a toddler to the young man that I realize I love, he's condemning his family to death.
Pax's hand lands on my shoulder—and passes through.
Oh my God!
I slowly raise my hand and flutter my fingers. I see Mitchell through flesh that was solid a moment before.
My life hangs in the balance of a choice from a man I raised in a moment of terror so great I couldn't think. So I didn't. My ability thought for me, saving me then.
It can't save me now.
Mom screams, and I feel bodies move toward me as though if they're close enough, they can keep me in the present.
“Deegan!” Mitchell bellows. He runs to me. Then sprints.
As his family dies just meters away, I become solid again.
He wraps his arms around me.
“I can't lose you.”
His huge body trembles, dwarfing me.
And I can't kill them.
I take his hand and open it. I place my lips in the center of his palm. “Let's go together. Maybe that will be enough.”
Jonesy walks up to where we stand. “Don't know what's happening here, guys, but let's get hot. I'm on board for ass-kicking if that's what's on the table.” He waggles his eyebrows.
The rest of the group files around us. They don't know the details, but they know enough.
I see the willingness in their eyes. My parents can't stand by while two kids are assaulted and murdered.
Gramps is already on his way to Mitchell's house, Kim's hand in his own.
A tremulous smile curls the corners of my mouth.
I'd rather do one really right thing in my life and die than do a million wrong things and live.
Glass clanks, and a muffled scream reaches my ears.
Mitchell runs toward his childhood home, and I'm tucked against him.
Solid.
For now.
THE END
Watch for DEATH INCARNATE, book 9, coming in 2017!
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***Please read on for a sample chapter of another Tamara Rose Blodgett work that take place in the Death world....
VAMPIRE
An Alpha Claim Brief-Bites® Novelette
Episode 1
New York Times Bestselling Author(s)
MARATA EROS
TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2015 Marata Eros
Copyright © 2015 Tamara Rose Blodgett
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
www.tamararoseblodgett.com
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Cover art by: Willsin Rowe
Proofed by: Corinna
Synopsis:
Narah Adrienne is a bounty enforcer in the near future. She runs the seedy side of her game, capturing criminals too dangerous for the local law enforcement. Using unorthodox methods, she finds herself in the crosshairs of the Magistrate for too many allowable kills for the quarter.
And her head hurts like hell.
Aeslin is part of an elite vampire squad of Turners. A rare sect of vampire scouts who possess the ability to find women with enough undead blood to be turned into full vampire. As the numbers of the supernaturals dwindle, it is the hope of the Nobles that extinction can be a thing of the past with female hybrids.
In a race against time and common enemies, can Aeslin find the one female who is meant to be turned and also his parallel soul? Or will the fabled carrot the Nobles dangle turn out to be a lie perpetuated by desperation?
Chapter 1
Narah
My legs are kicked up on the desk, the toes of my left combat boot stacked on the heel of my right. I lean my feet a couple of inches to the left and look at my boss.
Kinda wish I hadn't.
The tongue-lashing was going to be brutal, and not the fun kind. I just barely hold back a snort of self-serving comedy.
“Narah,” Casper leans into the desk, edging a butt cheek on the only part not covered by my assortment of shit. My eyebrow cocks. Perturbed doesn't cover it. If I wanted a butt on my desk, I'd ask.
“What?” I bark with anticipation.
A vein in Casper's forehead throbs and I dial it back some. No need to bring the guy to heart failure.
“What?” I repeat more good-naturedly, though both of us know I'm nothing of the sort.
He sighs, scrubbing a palm over his face. Hair almost as white as swan feathers glows under the LED lighting in my tiny office, and his glacial eyes tighten, fighting for a view of my face over the top of my boot.
I jack my feet down and stuff them underneath my desk. My fingers itch to go to my smart phone. Anything to not commit to this conversation.
“You know we appreciate your skill set.”
Blah, blah, stinking-blah.
“But we can't have you pulling firearms on all your bounties.”
My bottom lip pops out in a pout. “It was a very small gun, Casper.” I put my index and thumb almost touching.
“Using manstopper ammunition?”
He might have a small point.
“Outlawed in 1898,” Casper adds.
I shrug a bare shoulder, my tank top skin-tight against my small frame. I find loose clothes are handles to make a bludgeon against me easier. I nail the targets but if there's nothing for them to grab onto, so much the better.
“I like antique weaponry and ammunition,” I say with deliberate nonchalance.
“Really?” Casper says and I wince at the sound of his voice. “Let's run down the list of target fatalities.”
Hmmm.
“Target 103, lethal stabbing.”
I lean back in my chair and cock my neck back, staring at the dingy ceiling. A water stain has spread out from the center in a pattern of copper lines that somehow resemble a flower opening.
It's sort of like watching clouds outside, but inside.
“Narah!”
I sigh, answering the ceiling. “Yeah.”
“Target 424, beheading.”
Yeah, that'd been messy.
“Again, I was in fear for my life,” I say, not sounding defensive.
At. All.
“Thirteen times?” Casper asks softly.
My chin snaps down and I meet his eyes. Mine are big and golden hazel lik
e a cat's, and that's why I hide them behind my aviator shades. The sun hurts like hell. I've always been sensitive to sunlight.
I shrug. It'll get me nowhere to fight with Casper. Who has the nickname in the office of, The Ghost. No one says it to his face though. I fight a snicker.
“We are the last profession for use of lethal force, you know. It's not goddamned 2015, when everyone thought all physical force was necessary in some capacity.”
I'm in the wrong era, I muse with regret.
“We are the last stand against the criminals of our time. When the police can't nail them, then it's up to us. But Narah,” Casper scrubs his head, his crewcut bristling from the contact, “we can't have you killing all the targets. They must be brought to justice.”
And of course, if I kill a target, Casper doesn't get credits. That's what this is really about. I bring in the most targets in our office. I get results and he gets credits for my hard work.
We stare at each other. I won't break and Casper knows it. “You're the finest bounty hunter we have. Your instincts are uncanny, and you never let being a woman get in your way...”
I lunge to my feet and Casper jerks to his, eyeing me warily.
Good, my desk is finally free of his ass.
“Nothing about me being a woman comes into play here.”
Casper shoots out an exhale like a cannon. “Everything about it matters. You're smaller, you're vulnerable to things a man could never be.”
Rape is the clear inference.
“You think a man can't be raped?” I bark out a laugh. “You think that my looks don't disarm. They do, Cas.” My eyes laser down on him and his shift away. “You know I'm a proficient, Level Ten.”
“Nothing to sneeze at,” he concedes and opens his mouth to add more, perhaps dig his grave a little deeper.
I raise my palm. Nothing to sneeze at. I can feel a royal conniption fit brewing. “No. If I've killed while gunning for a target,” Casper frowns at my wording which causes me to grin, “then they needed dying. Period.”
Casper walks to my office door. “I'm sorry, Narah, I've done what I could, but the law states that there can't be more than ten sanctions in one quarter. You have thirteen. I got the bonus three waived.” He whips his palm in the air like he's performing a magic trick. “Now you'll have to go before the magistrate.”
Fuck. They'd plug me a second ass after a first class reaming. If—if I could even bounty again.
I jerk my leather jacket off the back of my chair and sling it on. A bright headache, a new friend of mine of late, settles into my temples with zeal. I press my fingers against my head.
I hate not having a target. The chase is the one thing that makes my life worth living. No longer an outcast—always in the game.
Now the rules are being threatened.
And all I want to do is play.
Chapter 2
Aeslin
Edan jerks a thumb my way, throwing a towel I deftly catch. I dab at the sweat running like a river from my scalp and making its way to the waistband of my work out gear.
“Corcoran's asking for you.”
I look at him, narrowing my eyes.
“Hey man, don't kill the messenger,” Edan's hands spread away from his body.
He'd look so much more innocent if he had even one spot of bare skin. Edan's tatted from head to toe. Well... that's not entirely accurate. Don't think his feet hold the tats of our species. Or his face.
Turners are required to be marked.
It's grounds for immediate execution to civilian vampires if they touch us. After all, we're the only savior of our dying race. They can't miss our marks. In the human world, tattoos no longer stand out. We hide in plain sight now.
I flick irritated eyes to him. “I'm on leave, Edan.”
He shrugs. “You know the drill. If a female comes on the radar, we're all on alert.”
I throw the damp towel in the soiled laundry hamper. I'm bone tired. Not physically—mentally. So many scouting expeditions and coming up empty handed has taken its toll. I rub a hand on my nape, trying to make a raw spot. “I've worked a solid quarter—nothing.”
My eyes meet his. Edan's looks are unusual for a Turner. Most of the sub-sect of vampire Turners possess dark coloring. Our only unified feature are silver eyes. Edan's are amber. Some kind of genetic throw back. My own hair is a deep chestnut, more red than what is considered fashionable. And if we want to enjoy female vampire company, it matters. They're few and far between. If they can't be our mates, it's only for release. And that's become an empty vessel.
“But what if we have a live one?”
I smirk at his words. “You mean undead, right?”
Edan throws up his hands. He's muscled, like the rest of us. Mandatory training makes our bodies at battle readiness. Last month we'd just missed a female by minutes.
She'd been sterilized. Technically, it'd been on our watch.
The loss had brought the entire team down and morale had not recovered.
Edan spoke my thoughts, “We need this, Aeslin. We need a female. They're so vulnerable to the Hunters...”
I toss my palm up. “We've been over this. It's a race against them. And they got to that female first.” I see guilt on his face and know mine looks the same.
“Then why can't you see that every lead should be followed?”
Tired of fucking losing, that's why. Or just tired.
My eyes feel like they're on fire when I glare at Edan, a Turner I've fought shoulder to shoulder beside. “You don't think it haunts my fucking every thought that she could have belonged to one of us?”
“Does it?” Edan asks in soft disbelief.
“Yes,” I hiss defensively.
“Then join us.”
I don't want another dead end. Another disappointment. “I'm not rested.”
“So when has that ever mattered?” he asks.
Since that female was lost, I think but don't say.
*
Corcoran stands at the window when I walk into his office and shut the door.
He doesn't turn.
Corcoran is a Noble.
A politically correct word for being in charge of the Turners. But he became a Noble the hard way, having been a Turner first and struggling through the ranks to prove himself invaluable to the cause. Now he rules over the Turners of our region with an iron fist.
Hell, in his day, there was a female turned every month. Now we were lucky to turn one a quarter. However, there was one biological advantage. A human female with vampire blood once turned, was always meant for her biological other half. Lucky bastard. It meant offspring.
A chance at happiness.
With Hunters killing off every vampire they could, our numbers continued to dwindle. In the last half-century, one in two females who possessed enough of the blood of our kind had been sterilized before they could be turned, negating their vampire ancestry and the ability to have children.
A Turnersʼ goals were two-fold. Find the hybrid vampire females before the Hunters did, and determine how they were setting their sights on the rare females.
Easier said than done.
“Aeslin,” Corcoran said as greeting.
I remain silent.
Corcoran turns, eyeing me up. “You look rested.” He sounds hopeful. We both know I've had only four days respite.
I need a month.
I haven't taken enough blood, had enough sex, slept inside the ground as I should. A lot of have nots on the short list of my exhaustion.
I lift my shoulders in an answer that isn't one. It will do no good to rehash the discussion I had with Edan.
Corcoran says something under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like a curse.
“You're the best I have, Aeslin,” he says quietly.
“Let Edan take it. Hell—Jaryn could...”
His gaze darkens. Eyes not the common light gray of the Turner are pewter in a face devoid of emotions. Corcoran's gaze is a coming storm.
/> “I need you on this.”
That's just what Edan said. “I mean no disrespect...”
“Yes, you do,” he says with the barest bit of humor.
My lips thin. “Yes.”
“She's a Turn, Aeslin. I know it.” Corcoran closes his fingers into a fist.
My breath leaks out of me in defeat. “Okay.”
I simply don't believe anymore. There's been so many dry runs I can't remember the last one that wasn't.
“She's sending out pheromones like a distress signal.”
“Who called it?”
His face closes down. “Torin.”
Corcoran and Torin don't see eye-to-eye. I say nothing, waiting. I'm not political and won't immerse myself in it now.
Corcoran slams a fist against the wall that bisects the bulletproof windows. “She's bounty.”
His frustration gets my attention. Hell, her occupation stalls me and I unlace my fingers and straighten my posture. “What?”
“Damn,” he grits through his teeth, knowing full-well the risks of this acquisition.
I tell him anyway. “Too high profile,” I state, hands going to my hips.
“She's manifesting.”
Dammit.
“Is Torin sure she's a Turn?”
Corcoran exhales in a rush, taking a rough palm down his face, nodding.
I suck in a deep breath. “I'll do it.”
Corcoran looks relieved. “You know the risk?”
Hell yes. But another sterilized female? That we don't need. Can't stand.
“Yes,” I answer.
If Torin's got a bead on her, then so do the Hunters.
The thought of a female out there and vulnerable tightens my guts. This is the part of my job I hate. However small, the emotion is there in my suppressed emotional makeup. The hardest to squelch, the most damning.
Hope.
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Death Series 08 - Death Blinks Page 19