by Mina Carter
Brett nodded. “Never felt anger like it. It was as if it crawled inside me and took over.”
Dom nodded, his lips pursed. “It sounds like the Red Mist the Bloods get. If we’re starting to exhibit the same thing, they must have put something similar in the serum used to make us.”
Brett blinked, then chuckled, but Fredericks beat him to the punch. “Shit Dom, you almost sounded intelligent then!”
The big man cracked a grin. “I know. Go me, eh?” He shrugged. “Working the Blood Section you pick up bits here and there. They often reused the base portion of the serum, just adding the extra bits to go for Blood, Lycan or Re-animate.”
“So far today, we’ve got walking on walls and weird eyeballs, so fuck knows what they shoved in ours.” Fredericks stepped forward, the humor fleeing his expression. “I think it’s safe to say that our birds have fled the coop. Let’s get topside and see if Jared or Julia can pick up a viable scent.”
*
A few minutes later they were on the move again. This time the men didn’t have to slow down for Julia. Thanks to Kelwood being unable to pick up the scent, his shock about his wife sending him into some kind of blackout-trance, she was leading them. The trail was easy to follow, for her anyway. The scent of the fleeing Bloods and their human captives lit up her olfactory landscape like a light stream. Energy flowed through her like she was directly connected to a live power cable. Running at high-speed endlessly presented no problem. Nor did leaping over fallen logs and the occasional boulder with one stride. She wanted to whoop with joy and howl at the moon overhead when it emerged from behind the clouds to show its face. If their situation hadn’t been so dire, if they hadn’t left a dead woman behind to burn in the ruins of the barn, or weren’t racing to stop others suffering the same fate, then she would have.
Apart from the darkness coiled deep inside her that she was ignoring, she didn’t see what the big deal about being ‘converted’ was. So, she had fangs and a new manicure? Big deal. She’d always loved vampire films and books when she was younger. Real horror stories, not the crappy gore films that Buddy preferred. Huh, he should have been there for the fight earlier. She’d have given him a front row seat to having his own throat torn out.
The smell of blood exploded on the air again and she frowned, slowing her steps. The others stopped around her as she crouched to check out a blood-splattered leaf.
“Problem?” Brett asked as Fredericks dropping to one knee next to them. She didn’t miss the fact that Dom was keeping Kelwood away from her. One of them always was.
“I’m not sure.” She rubbed at the blood and sniffed her fingertips. “The scent is weird. Like it’s changing somehow.”
Prompted by a drive she didn’t understand, she stuck her finger into her mouth and licked her finger. A little voice in the back of her head went bat-shit, screaming about infection. HIV. Hepatitis. Ebola. All manner of nastiness.
Her eyes widened as new instincts kicked in, her stomach rolling with hunger pangs.
“It’s not quite human. Not anymore,” she decided aloud. “It was earlier, but not now.”
Acting on a hunch, she dropped a fang into her mouth and used it to slash the fleshy part of her palm, near the thumb.
“Fucking hell!” Fredericks arched back as black blood rose on her pale skin. “Warn us if you’re going to do something like that!”
She arched her eyebrow and licked the wound. It tingled as her tongue swept over it, but her attention was on the taste of her own blood. Before, it had been coppery. Hot and metallic. Now it was more metallic, but cold and musky. Old. It reminded her of basements and things long buried in the earth.
“She’s like me. Or she will be soon.”
“A Blood? You mean they converted her on the move?”
She looked directly at Fredericks. “I’m not subscribing to that name. That’s what you call the assholes who took us. We’re not them, so don’t use that name.”
“Attagirl,” Dom chorused from the back. “You tell ’em!”
Fredericks half-turned from his crouch, hands loosely braced on his knees. “Just whose side are you on?”
Dom grinned, a sideward step keeping him between Kelwood and the rest of them. “Mine. But she’s got a point. She’s not like a Blood. No hunger-lust that I’ve seen, and have you ever see a Blood drop just one fang before?”
She grinned as Brett and Fredericks whipped their heads around to look at her. Peeling her lip back, she dropped the fang on one side, then the other. “Can make them dance if you like?”
The stunned looks on their faces when she did just that made her giggle. The sound was so carefree and happy, she forgot everything that had happened to her for a moment. When had she last made a sound like that?
“Yeah, yeah. We got another damned comedian. You and Dom should do a double act; we could charge,” Fredericks griped, pushing to his feet, but she caught the tiny curve at the corner of his lips as he tried not to laugh. “Come on, let’s try and track these fuckers down before sunup.”
They carried on, the pace just as bruising as before. The only conversation exchanged was from Julia, updating the others on the scent trail. One by one, the human scents disappeared, to be replaced by the dark, mustier scent that marked the changed women. The original ‘Blood’ scent remained the same. Dark and rich.… Too rich, as though it was on the verge of turning to rot.
An hour passed, then another, the sky growing lighter all the time. Energy started to seep from Julia’s limbs, and she stumbled. The first time it happened, she shrugged it off. A light shower had left the undergrowth slippery. It could have happened to any of them. As she went to leap over another boulder, she lost her footing. With a gasp, she crashed into the side of the boulder, sliding down it, scraping her knees and elbows on the way. Hitting the ground with a thump, she knocked all the wind out of her lungs and lay there. Stunned.
“Julia? Julia! Are you okay?” Brett was first at her side, his eyes filled with concern. Warmth flooded her chest as he didn’t wait to check whether she’d broken anything, just gathered her up into his arms. Alarm rolled off him in waves, the sharp smell pushing through his pores and easily detectable to her sensitive nose.
“Yeah, I don’t know what happened.” She lifted her head with a struggle to look at the boulder. She’d leapt bigger during the night, so what gave? She’d felt invincible earlier. Now she just wanted to curl up in a small ball and close her eyes. “Just…feel so tired.”
“Sun’s almost up.” Dom’s deep voice reached them, and she realized that it wasn’t her new nocturnal vision that allowed her to see him clearly. It had steadily been getting lighter, and now a thin line along the horizon revealed the sun’s arrival was imminent. “She’s gonna get really tired. We should go to ground.”
Chapter Ten
They might be the undead, zombies, but they weren’t the stereotypical walking dead from the average horror movie. They didn’t shuffle or moan, and to date none of them had any body parts drop off. All in all, as long as they made sure to eat, and were careful about the freaky head twitching, Brett and his brothers could blend in rather well.
Certainly enough for Fredericks to lift an unsuspecting diner’s wallet at a little place an hour down the road, a skill Brett was dying to ask him about. It was so out of character for their by-the-book, straight-as-an-arrow leader. Brett wasn’t complaining though. The wallet had contained enough ready cash to snag them a couple of rooms at a cheap roadside motel, and the day’s rest he’d argued Julia needed.
He sat by the window, watching the parking lot and the road beyond idly. Julia was behind him, lying on the bed while locked in the day-lethargy most Bloods were prone to. He flicked a concerned glance back at her. She’d crashed and burned quicker than he’d expected, especially after she didn’t seem to be having problems with the conversion. Which in itself was odd. Not that he wanted hysterics and drama, but he’d expected some kind of freaking out at the fact she had been human and now sh
e wasn’t.
But nothing. Zip. Nada. Nothingdoingsville. What was with that?
He sat back in the lounge chair and studied the gentle curves of her figure under the light blanket. Either she was the most psychologically put together and laid back person he’d ever encountered or she hadn’t fully processed what had happened to her yet. He was betting on the latter.
He ran a hand over his head, ruffling the short fuzz. Fuck. She was in for a hell of a crash when it did. He’d seen it. Seen the denial, the belief this was all a dream…then the crash as the realization that this was it, that life had been irrecoverably changed, sank in. ‘Sank’ was the wrong word. ‘Plummeted like a lead balloon’ would be nearer the mark.
Tenderness swept through him, and before he processed the need to move he found himself standing by the bed. Crap. That shit freaked even him out sometimes. Despite it, he stayed where he was, looking down at her. Here he was, a dead thing, craving the touch of the living. Well, one living thing anyway. No matter that they called those infected with the BD strain vampires. They were not the undead.
They skirted the line, yes. Some of them, like Major Fielding, could stand on the very edge, shutting everything down so that nothing about them gave off a vibration that his kind could track. Not for long though. Intrinsically, they were alive, and everything that lived had a vibration.
Everything that lived could be tracked.
Everything that lived could be killed.
Eaten.
But he didn’t want to eat Julia. Not in that way. The desire to sink his teeth into her flesh, to tear through the delicate skin and feel her hot blood flowing down his throat was absent.
Shaking his head, he yanked his gaze away from the slow pulse at her throat. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel her heartbeat. It was different from any he’d heard before, with a tiny kick on the fourth beat. A variance, perhaps a defect, but one that was purely and uniquely hers. He’d know her anywhere because of it.
Gently, to avoid waking her, he sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to tuck a lock of hair that had fallen over her face behind her ear. Her eyes flickered, then opened. She smiled.
“Hey.” Her voice was soft and sleepy. She looked comfortable and warm, and for a second he had to fight the temptation to crawl in with her. Trouble was, if he did, he’d want to do more than sleep. Way more than sleep.
“Hey yourself, sweetpea. How you feeling?”
She swallowed and shifted to get more comfortable. The sight of her nestling closer in the covers almost did him in. She should be nestling against him. Hell, he’d even go out and find something to eat so he could get his blood circulating and raise his body heat to keep her warm.
“A little tired. Like the whole world is pressing down on me.”
He nodded. Stroked his thumb down her cheek because he couldn’t resist. “Dom said that’s common. Even older….” he paused to reassess his description. “Even those who have been infected a while, that are used to it, feel tired in the day. Sluggish. You hungry?”
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “No, I don’t think I could eat a thing.”
Odd. Dom said she should be ready to feed soon, should have been ravenous already, in fact. Brett hid his concern with a smile. “Perhaps we’ll get something later tonight.”
“You?”
He paused at her soft question. “Me what?”
“Are you hungry?” Her gaze held his levelly. Not wary. Not anything. Just watching him. “You’ve already admitted you guys are zombies. Don’t you crave brains or something? Am I likely to wake up and find you gnawing on my skull?”
He suppressed a snort. “No, we don’t crave brains. Although please don’t mention that to Dom. I can just imagine him shuffling around going ‘Brrraaaaaaiiiins’ and trying to chew Evan’s ear or something. Guy’s a freak at times.”
She chuckled, the sound trailing off as she closed her eyes for a second. “Yeah, I’ve known him…what, all of a day? And I can totally see him doing that. So….” She focused on him again. “What does today’s discerning zombie prefer to eat?”
“Shit, sweetpea. Don’t ask me that.” He turned away, dropping his head into his hands. He could feel them shaking, told them to stop. Fuckers totally ignored him.
“Well, it can’t be any worse than me, surely? I was bitten by a vampire. I seem to be allergic to daylight. Stands to reason that some point soon I’m going to start craving blood.” She touched his back, the contact fleeting and light, but one he felt all the way down to his soul. “You never know. Might be you waking up with me snacking on your neck.”
He turned in an instant, whipping around and looming over her, hands either side of her head. “Promise me you’ll never drink from any of us,” he demanded, his voice harder than he’d ever heard it. “I’m serious, sweetpea. You do not want the shit we got in our veins. No way, no how. Never.”
She was pressed back into the bed, her hair like a halo of curls around her head. “Okay….”
“Shit.” He was an ass. If he wasn’t careful, he’d scare her and ruin the one good thing he’d found since his life had ended up down the crapper. He started to pull back but the quick flicker of her tongue over her lips, wetting them, stopped him in his tracks.
He flicked a look up and was caught by her dark gaze. Her eyes were blood-black, all the color swallowed up, but they weren’t the cold, dead black he’d seen on the others. Heat blazed there, along with a carnal need his body responded to immediately.
His heart sang, surging to life and beating again. This time he didn’t stop it. The abrupt rush of blood around his veins took his breath away. His cock punched to full mast, pressed against the inside of his zipper so hard he was bound to be left with marks. It jerked, desperate for release.
She smiled, every inch the temptress, and lifted on one elbow to bring her lips within brushing distance of his.
“So,” she whispered. “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?”
He couldn’t help the smile that curved his lips. “That’s a terrible pickup line.”
“Is it?” She pressed a gentle kiss at the corner of his lips. He liked that, liked her being the aggressor. Blood or not, he knew he was stronger than she was. If he lost his control, snapped, she wouldn’t stand a chance. But he didn’t move. He held still, braced over her. Protective. Possessive.
She wasn’t scared of him, and that blew his mind. Back at the Project everyone, from the scientists who’d created them to the Project’s other creations, had been terrified of them. The women the guards had thrown in with them, to see if they’d fuck or kill, had often been frozen in terror. Two Blood females had even killed themselves, tearing open their throats with their own claws, right there in front of him. Like he was a fate worse than death.
Perhaps he was. Because none of the women the guards had shoved into his cage had aroused his interest. Just his hunger. Not one of them had restarted his heart or aroused him. None had drawn forth this all-consuming need to claim them from the pit where his soul should be. Had been.
His mouth opened and words poured out of their own accord. “Yeah. If I tried that line, you’d kick my ass.” He was too busy focusing on her and what she’d do next.
“Yeah. Maybe.” She grew bolder, her kiss this time further in from the corner of his lips. Her small hand slid over his shoulder to cup the nape of his neck.
He liked her touch. It was warm, gentle, and reminded him of everything that he’d lost. He hadn’t had sex since before he’d died. He missed it. Missed the feeling of a warm, curvy female body under him. Missed the feel of a slick, wet pussy wrapped tightly around his cock as he thrust in and out.
But this was different. The same sensations. The same need for touch, but deeper. He and the others hunted by sensing the tiniest of vibrations around them, in the air, through things they touched. Now, that sense turned inward, following the trail of vibration as her fingertips skated over his skin. He shivered as
his predatory instincts turned to a different, and entirely pleasurable, scenario.
“But whatcha gonna do about it?” She moved closer and nipped his lip, catching the bottom one with a fully extended fang. The tiny pain was nothing, but lust exploded through him at the scratch. His cock pulsed with need and pure, feral want. Fuck the risks. Fuck that he was a SARA and she was a Blood. They shouldn’t be touching, never mind exchanging bodily fluids, but he didn’t care. He had to have her.
“This.” His voice had turned to gravel, his reply coming a mere second before he crushed her mouth beneath his. He didn’t have time to be gentle or the ability if he’d wanted to. Not with this heat blazing through his almost-dead body.
Shoving a hand in her hair, he held her still so that he could part her lips with a hard sweep of his tongue. She tried to evade him, a playful murmur in the back of her throat. He growled in warning and thrust this tongue deep to claim her mouth.
They were way past playing now.
She was his, all his, and now he was about to prove it.
*
Ohmii….yes.
Julia murmured a soft sound of pleasure at the back of her throat as she was pressed to the bed by a lean, hard male body. A fully aroused, very hard male body. Instinctively she softened, parting her legs to cradle him against her hips. The hard bar of his cock pressed against the softness of her stomach at the same instant his tongue found its way into her mouth.
He kissed like a man possessed. As though he couldn’t get enough of her. They weren’t soft, exploratory kisses, and she wouldn’t want them to be. They were hard, claiming kisses that reached in and branded her very soul.
He moved, sliding his arms under and around her so that she was caged in his embrace. A gasp escaped her, but it was lost under the onslaught of his kisses. His tongue, hot and slick, wound around hers and demanded a response. She wouldn’t have been able to deny him even if she’d wanted to. As soon as he’d touched her, she’d gone up in flames. All she could think about was him. Touching him. Having him inside her.