I was terrified to obey him. I didn’t want to give him
anything he wanted. But the temptation of being free of his
gruesome hold was too much to refuse. I scrambled to my feet.
“Don’t run,” he said softly. “You know I can catch you.”
I backed away. I couldn’t help it. I put five feet between
us, then ten…
And in a heartbeat, Bristol had closed the gap. I didn’t
even see him move. One moment he was leaning against a tree
and watching me edge away from him, the next, he had me by
the throat. “I told you not to run from me, Rena. Don’t
overestimate your own power. The others might live in fear of
you, but I don’t. I know you’re no danger as long as you have
no idea what you are.”
I tried to speak but couldn’t. His grip on my throat was
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too tight.
“She can’t breathe!” Cecile’s voice was a shriek.
“She’s changing,” he practically crooned, stroking my
cheek with the back of his hand. “She’s different, isn’t she? Yes, almost finished, almost done. But not quite, are you, little girl?
Enough of what you were still remains. And until you’ve
finished your metamorphosis, you’ll never be able to
overpower me. Even Cryder knows that.”
“How do you know Cryder?” Cecile asked.
I didn’t want to know the answer. I could only think of
one possibility. Cryder must be his partner in crime, his
accomplice in committing the gristly murders we’d
encountered. That was the only explanation that answered
everything, from the reason Cryder hadn’t wanted to involve
the police to Cryder’s mysterious drink. It wasn’t a vitamin
drink at all. They were giving me something to weaken me, to
make me less of a threat, so that they’d be able to kill me. It
must have been the plan all along.
Except. .except why would I have ever been considered
a threat? Bristol easily had a hundred pounds on me. He’d
relaxed his grip some, enough that I could breathe
comfortably, but he was restraining me with no effort, and I
was sure he could crush my windpipe if he wanted to. He
claimed he wasn’t afraid of me, but the question remained—
why was anybody? How did they know who she was? There
were so many more questions, that she didn’t have the time to
ask or even find an answer for at that moment.
Bristol’s voice jerked my attention back to him. “Cryder
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
and I have more in common than you can imagine.”
“No. Cryder’s nothing like you.” I could hear the lack
of conviction in Cecile’s voice.
Bristol must have heard it too, because he laughed.
“You’re not really sure what Cryder’s like, are you?”
“He was kind to us…”
“He appeared in your lives out of nowhere. Just like I
did. He frightened you and confused you, didn’t he? Admit it.”
“There’s nothing unusual about being wary of a
stranger. That doesn’t mean anything.”
I closed my eyes. Cecile, stop fighting. Why was she so
determined to stick up for Cryder?
“Didn’t you wonder why he chose Rena so quickly?”
Bristol turned back to me. “Didn’t you question why he
wanted you? You didn’t think he saw you—you—on the street
and fell in love, did you? You’re a foolish girl, but you can’t be that naive.”
I had wondered. Of course, I had. I’d never let myself
articulate the idea, but Bristol was right. Cryder had fallen for me much too quickly. What did he even know about me?
“All right,” Cecile said, and her voice had taken on the
wry overtones she used when she was about to score a point in
an argument. I usually hated that voice, because it meant I was
about to be shown up, but right now all I heard was
confidence. Maybe her confidence was misplaced, but it gave
me hope. “Tell us, then. What was Cryder doing with Rena?”
Bristol laughed, a short burst. “Were you jealous?”
A pause. “I don’t see the relevance.”
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“You were. You couldn’t understand why anyone
would choose her over you.”
“Is that true?” I asked. Cecile was charming, and she’d
always had a way with guys. She’d never pined after a guy, at
least as far as I was aware—they threw themselves at her and
she blew through them, never allowing herself to get tied
down. I, meanwhile, had never had a boyfriend or even been
kissed. Until Cryder, that is. Could she really be jealous now
that I was finally getting some attention?
“Don’t listen to this crap, Rena,” Cecile said.
“That’s right, Rena,” Bristol agreed. “She doesn’t
understand you, does she? She has no idea how special you are.
She’s never known.” His voice dropped a degree in pitch and
volume. “You’d like to make her pay, wouldn’t you?”
Yes. The thought bubbled up from somewhere deep and
primal within me, somewhere I didn’t know existed. I was
appalled the moment it entered my mind, yet I couldn’t
pretend it hadn’t existed. I couldn’t deny that warm, bitter
satisfaction I’d felt at the idea of. .of hurting Cecile, making her see that I wasn’t just some loser to be brushed aside. I deserved to be noticed.
No. What was wrong with me? I flinched away from
myself in horror. Of course, I didn’t want to hurt Cecile. It
wasn’t her fault guys liked her, for God’s sake. And if she’d
ever felt a moment of jealousy about my date—relationship?—
with Cryder, she hadn’t let me see it.
“Cryder saw the truth about you,” Bristol murmured.
“Cryder saw the danger. I see it too.”
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
“What danger?” Cecile demanded.
“You’re stalling.” His eyes cut sideways at her. “I know.
I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to distract me. You’re
hoping someone will find us. He released my neck and I fell to
my knees. I needed to run. I needed to get my feet under me
and run, go to town, get help. Put as much distance as possible
between myself and this. .this beast of a man. But he was
stalking Cecile now, edging closer to her. She backed away
from him until she was pressed against the trunk of a tree, and
he leaned in, his handsome, terrible face inches from hers.
“No one’s going to find us, Cecile,” he said.
I felt like screaming.
“Prevailing wisdom is that you shouldn’t play with your
food, isn’t it?” He leaned close to her, obscenely, intimately
close. Like a lover. “But it’s just so tempting.”
“What are you talking about?” I breathed.
“Oh, Rena.” Bristol shook his head, not turning his gaze
from Cecile. “You’re the last to know, aren’t you? Always the
last to know. Even your friend is starting to wonder, aren’t
you, Cecile? Even she has a guess. But you. .you’d never have
figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” The words were out bef
ore I could
decide whether I truly wanted the answer.
Bristol’s answering chuckle was low and horrible.
“What we are.”
Again, he moved so quickly that I couldn’t track him.
One moment he was leering at Cecile, the next, he had me
backed up against a tree trunk, the rough bark scraping my
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shoulders. His face was contorted into a horrible snarl. As I
watched, something seemed to shift in his mouth, and another
set of teeth lowered over his incisors.
No, not teeth.
Fangs.
He caught my eyes with his, and with a rush of horror, I
noticed that the color of his eyes was changing, brightening.
Burgundy. Maroon. Red. Bright, blood red.
What we are, he’d said. What.
Not a murderer.
Not even human.
He bent close and sniffed the artery in my neck,
hummed with pleasure, and I thought, vampire, vampire, but
how could it be?
“Rena!” Cecile’s voice was pure panic now, no more
stalling, no more games. Her head appeared over Bristol’s
shoulder—she’d jumped onto his back—but he threw her off
easily. Her body hit the ground with a thump and I gasped, but
Bristol’s hand was already around my throat. This time, he
held tight. I gagged and my eyes watered, and I tried to bat
him off, but he was strong. So strong. Inhumanly strong.
This is really happening. He’s a vampire.
I thought of the bloody corpse under the bench in the
park, and of poor Caitlin lying on the forest floor, and as
Bristol’s lips met my neck I knew, beyond any doubt, that my
fate would be the same as theirs. I prayed silently that Cecile
would escape, that she hadn’t been hurt too badly when he’d
thrown her. Maybe she had already run away. Maybe she
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
wouldn’t have to watch this.
God, don’t let her have to watch this.
God, don’t let me be alone when I die.
I felt the pressure of bone, of Bristol’s (vampire) fangs at
my neck, and my final thought was of Cryder and the fact that
I would never learn whether he’d meant to harm me, or if, by
chance, whatever we’d had was real.
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Chapter Ten
MY VISION ENDED...DARKENED...BLACKENED…
And then returned.
I gasped, my lungs grasping almost involuntarily at air,
hauling oxygen back into my bloodstream. My throat burned,
but with every breath, my vision cleared, and I became more
aware of my senses. My hearing returned. The tight grip of
Bristol’s hand around my throat. It had loosened,
though...why?
He wasn’t looking at me.
He was looking off to the left. I followed his gaze.
Cecile.
She lay where Bristol had thrown her, unmoving, eyes
closed. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. Blood gushed from somewhere beneath a clump of hair. That could mean
anything, though, I reminded myself. Head wounds like to bleed.
We’d learned that in health class, during our first aid unit.
Head wounds often look scarier than they really are. She might
be okay. She might just have a concussion, or…
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
Bristol sniffed the air.
It was inhuman, that sniff. His ears nearly perked up.
He looked like a dog—like a wolf—scenting prey.
Vampire.
Scenting blood.
With the same superhuman speed he’d already
demonstrated, he released me and moved to her. Crouching
over her prone body, he lowered his nose to the blood pooling
around her head and inhaled deeply. When he lifted his head,
his eyes were closed and the expression on his face was one of
rapture.
I was going to be sick.
Summoning every ounce of energy in my oxygen-
deprived muscles, I launched myself at Bristol. I should have
run, probably—hadn’t I just been hoping that Cecile would
take advantage of Bristol’s distraction with me to make her
own escape? —but I couldn’t. It was too much to ask. In the
end, I doubted Cecile could have done it either. We’d been
friends for too long. We were too deeply bonded. The idea of
running away while this...this thing crouched over her sniffing
at her blood was almost as repulsive as Bristol himself. If I’d
abandoned her, I too would’ve been an animal.
Vampire.
He’s going to kill me, I thought, just before my body
made impact with Bristol’s. Surely the idea of my own
imminent demise should have lost some of its power by now?
If only I’d known I was going to die, known it for sure, this
would’ve all been much easier. Instead I kept finding false
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hope, believing I had a chance at escape. Without my even
realizing it, when Bristol had released me, I’d found hope
again. But no. I was truly at the end of the line.
I drove into him hard, like an egg against a brick wall. I
was surprised not to be liquefied. I’d never thought of the
human body as pliant before, but Bristol’s muscles made him
rock hard. The impact bruised me. Still, I couldn’t give up. My
only chance was to distract him from Cecile, to turn his
attention back to me. Maybe if I could do that long enough to
persuade him to kill me first, she’d be able to recover
consciousness and run away. Or maybe.. maybe someone
would find us…
No. Stop hoping, Rena. You’re on your own.
I beat my fists against Bristol’s back, and he let out a
fearsome roar.
As he got to his feet, I wrapped my legs around his
waist. I wouldn’t let him throw me off the way he had thrown
Cecile. Hanging on tight with my thigh muscles, I continued
my assault on his upper body, searching for weak spots. I
found none. I slammed my fist into his neck, prompting a
howl, but it seemed fueled more by rage than pain. I tried
slamming the heel of my hand into his nose, but the angle was
awkward, and I missed and connected with his cheekbone.
That blow probably did more damage to me than to him.
“Cecile!” I screamed.
She didn’t stir.
“Cecile, please!”
Bristol whipped his body, shaking me from side to side,
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
determined to throw me. I clung to him more fiercely,
breathing hard, equally determined to maintain my hold. My
ankles found each other, and I locked them together,
tightening my grip on his broad torso. I wrapped one arm
around his neck, bringing my forearm to bear like a rod
against his throat, and pulled it tight by wrapping my other
arm around that wrist. I’d learned the technique from Cecile,
who had learned it from her father, an army veteran. The idea
was to cut off your adversary’s air supply, which seemed
fitting—I would do to Bristol what he had done to me.
He huffed out something that sounded lik
e a laugh.
“Can’t choke me, Rena.”
His voice was raspy, devoid of air. He was lying. I pulled
tighter.
“Don’t need to breathe,” he hissed. “You can make
me.. quiet. .can’t make me die. Not this way.”
I felt cold, then hot. “You’re lying--.”
“No reason.”
“--to make me let you go.”
He choked out another laugh. “Don’t care. Don’t let go.
Doesn’t matter.”
Suddenly we were moving in a direction I didn’t
understand. Were we flying? Could vampires fly, on top of
everything?
No. My back struck the ground with such force that the
shock of it very nearly made me let go of Bristol. He had
turned a somersault in midair and come down on his back. On
my back. I was lucky not to have been seriously injured.
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You’re going to die anyway, I reminded myself. Distract
him. Take up his time.
“Stubborn,” Bristol grunted. “Parasite.”
“You’re the one who feeds on people.”
He got to his feet and I braced myself for another flip,
another impact on my back, but this time we moved in a
different direction. When the impact came, it wasn’t as hard as
the last strike had been, but sharp spikes of pain bit into the
flesh of my back. I cried out. He was pushing me into the bark
of a tree.
“Let go,” he hissed. “Let go and this ends.”
“You won’t let me live.”
He rubbed his back—my back—up and down the bark,
and it scraped and gouged at me. I could only imagine the dirt
that was being pushed into the wounds he was digging in my
skin, and I bit back a sob of pain.
“I’ll let you die,” he said.
And, God. I wanted to say yes.
It was going to happen anyway. Just let it be now. Just
let it end.
Cecile…
But she wasn’t waking up. I couldn’t save her.
I released Bristol’s body and slipped to the ground
behind him. A hair’s breadth of a second later, he was facing
me again, his hand back at my throat, and this time, the
pressure didn’t stop. It lifted.
He was holding me up by my neck.
I closed my eyes.
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
“Rena!” someone shouted. A new voice. Not Cecile.
My eyes snapped open. Cryder?
He was standing several yards behind Bristol, his eyes
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