Yearn For Blood (Blood Origins Book 1)

by Tiffany Heiser

  and knees. My first inhale left my body in a soft scream, and I

  scrambled, trying to run away, but firm arms encircled me and

  held me. Tightly, not painfully. “Rena.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Cryder.

  He held me against his chest, his nose touching mine,

  his blue eyes inches from me. “Rena.”

  Exhausted, I let myself go limp in his arms.

  BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE

  Chapter Twelve

  THE CLEARING WAS SUDDENLY,

  overwhelmingly, very quiet. I lay in Cryder’s arms, listening to

  the incongruous sounds of birds singing around me. If it

  weren’t for his hands on me and his heavy, strained breathing,

  I might have even thought I’d imagined the whole thing. Had

  we really been fighting for our lives? Surely it was just a

  misunderstanding. These things simply didn’t happen in real

  life. People didn’t have fangs in real life.

  But so much of my life over the past few weeks had

  been surreal. My mysteriously declining health, Cryder’s

  curative elixir, and the fact that these new people had appeared

  as if from nowhere, seeming to know me. It was strange

  enough for a guy to show interest in me at all.

  I couldn’t deconstruct it right now. I focused on

  breathing, on keeping myself together.

  “Rena,” Cryder said. His voice was thick, as if he had

  been crying. “Are you hurt?”

  I took stock of my body. My neck hurt quite a bit from

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  being squeezed repeatedly by Bristol, but other than that, I was

  all right. “I’m fine,” I said, a tremble to my words.

  He seemed to hear what I didn’t say and trailed his

  fingers along my throat. “I’m so sorry about all this.”

  My body shook, from fear and possibly from the touch.

  “It isn’t your fault,” I told him. Then I reconsidered. “Is it?”

  “It might be my fault.”

  I thought about that. Could Cryder be responsible for

  everything I had been through? No, I decided. Cryder was

  kind. He had genuinely wanted to help me at every turn, I was

  sure of that now. Even if he had led Bristol to me in some way,

  it wouldn’t have been deliberate. I closed my eyes and felt his

  fingers on my neck, where Bristol had just handled me so

  roughly, and I knew the truth. Cryder would never hurt me.

  “It isn’t your fault,” I told him.

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” he said.

  “Done what?”

  “Charged in like that. You could have been killed.”

  I glared at him as I spoke. “You could have been killed.”

  He shook his head. “He didn’t want to kill me. He only

  attacked me to get to you in the first place, Rena. It was very

  stupid on your part, diving in, trying to be a martyr without

  knowing the first thing about who Bristol is—who we are—

  and what he wanted with you. You see that now, don’t you?”

  “He wanted my blood…”

  “Your blood.” Cryder ran his thumb along my neck

  again, over the pulse point, and I was reminded of when

  Bristol had done the same thing. This is where he would have

  BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE

  bitten me. This is where he wanted to drink from me.

  “Why did he want my blood?” I asked, the question

  difficult to ask.

  “It would have given him. .great power,” Cryder said.

  “Your blood is powerful, Rena. Transformative. If he had

  gotten it, he would have caught and killed me very quickly.”

  My own hand went to my neck. I felt hot, suddenly, lit

  up from inside, as if I could actually feel my powerful blood

  rushing through my veins? “Why?” I asked again. “What makes

  my blood so special?”

  Cryder shook his head. “Another time. For now, let it

  be enough that Bristol is dead. He’s no threat to you anymore.”

  So that was the awful deathlike sound I’d heard. I

  couldn’t say I was surprised, but there was a part of me that

  wanted to cringe away from Cryder. A part of me that was

  horrified to be lying in the arms of a man who had so recently

  killed. Even if the victim was someone as evil—as inhuman—

  as Bristol, it came as a shock to realize that Cryder had it in

  him to commit such an act. Physically, I could never have

  overpowered Bristol, but even if I could have, I didn’t think I’d have managed to take his life. It would’ve been too horrifying.

  But he was going to kill Cecile…

  Maybe. Maybe I could have done it for Cecile’s sake.

  I gazed up at Cryder. “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “No, you’re bleeding.”

  “I’m healing.”

  I raised a hand to the wound on his arm. To my shock,

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  it did seem a little better than it had been before. “You’re

  healing pretty fast,” I managed.

  He met my eyes. “We have a lot to talk about, Rena.”

  “You’re like him, aren’t you?”

  “In some ways, yes. In many ways, no.”

  “I mean you’re.. what he is.”

  His face changed. Now he seemed to be pleading with

  me. “Rena…”

  “Later, right?”

  “I promise. But we shouldn’t stay here.”

  On that, at least, I was in full agreement. Bristol might

  have been dead, but the clearing smelled like blood and it was

  making me want to vomit. Besides, we were sitting here at the

  scene of the crime. All it would take was for some innocent

  hiker to happen by, and we’d be looking at a lot more trouble

  than I wanted to deal with.

  Oh, God. Was I really contemplating fleeing a crime

  scene? What had happened to me?

  I didn’t want to see it, but I forced myself to sit up, to

  extricate myself from Cryder’s embrace and peek over his

  shoulder. There was Bristol, lying in a pool of blood, absolutely motionless. From where I was sitting, his body looked intact,

  but I knew all that blood had to be coming from somewhere.

  What had Cryder done to him, exactly?

  I didn’t really want to know.

  “Cryder,” I said suddenly, as it hit me. “The bodies

  we’ve seen around town. The body you and I found in the

  park… Was that Bristol?”

  BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE

  He hesitated. “I don’t know that for sure. I think it

  probably was, yes.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “I’m...fairly sure.”

  “You mean it might have been someone else? There

  could be… more of them?”

  He rested a hand on my cheek. “There are more of us,

  Rena.”

  Us. I shivered. The panic was rising in my stomach

  again. I wasn’t really safe yet, was I? Bristol was dead, yes, but presumably whatever was in my blood that made him want me

  so badly was still there. Was it only a matter of time, then,

  until another attacker came to kill me?

  Would I ever truly be safe again?

  Cryder seemed to hear my thoughts. “It’s all right,” he

  said. “I’ll take care of it, Rena.”

  “C
ecile could have died because of me.”

  “She’s going to be all right.”

  I turned to see Cecile sitting upright. Drake was

  supporting her with a hand on her back and watching her

  solicitously. She had tears in her eyes, and she was shivering

  like a person recovering from the flu, but otherwise she seemed

  fine. “Cecile!” I gasped in relief.

  “Rena!”

  She was out of Drake’s arms, across the clearing, and

  wrapping her arms around me in a flash. I clung to her, almost

  afraid to let go. “Cecile, my God. I was so scared. I was so

  worried.”

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  “You’re babbling,” she said, laughing a little.

  “I’m babbling?”

  “I’m fine.” She held out her arms, turning them one

  way and then they other as if to show me that they were intact.

  I batted them aside and inspected her hairline. “You’re

  not bleeding anymore.”

  “Was I?”

  “Does your head hurt?” I asked.

  She thought about it, lifting a hand gently to her

  temple. “No,” she said finally. “It really doesn’t.”

  “But…” But Bristol had thrown her to the ground. But I

  was sure her head had struck a rock. “I thought you were

  dead,” I said again, rather dumbly.

  “Oh, honey.” Cecile embraced me. “Of course, I wasn’t

  dead.”

  “You were unconscious.”

  “That’s not dead.”

  “But he said…”

  “Who said?”

  “Drake.” I pointed at him, squatted away from us across

  the clearing, watching us like we were a curiosity.

  “Is that his name? Like a duck? What a weird name.”

  “Cecile!”

  “Sorry, sorry.” She snapped her focus back to me.

  “What did the duck say?”

  “He said you would die, if…”

  “If what?”

  I found myself at a loss for words. Cecile didn’t know

  BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE

  what Drake had done. Could I really be the one to tell her

  what I had decided on her behalf? What if she was angry? She

  would have every right to be—I had let a total stranger bleed

  into her mouth because he said she was dying and that would

  help. Free of context, it sounded insane. What if he’d given her

  hepatitis or something? What if he was just some crazy drifter

  who wanted to see if he could convince a desperate, stupid girl

  to poison her best friend?

  But that didn’t explain the fangs.

  I started to breathe easier. For the first time, the fangs

  that had been so alien and terrifying on Bristol brought me

  comfort. Whatever Drake was, whatever he had done, it was

  okay that I didn’t understand it. There was so much that I

  didn’t understand. Working from incomplete information, I

  had done the best I could for Cecile. She would understand

  that. After all, she had done the same when Cryder had given

  her the mysterious drink for me.

  What was in that drink? I got chills, suddenly.

  To Cecile I said, “Drake said you would die unless I let

  him give you blood.”

  She frowned. “Like a transfusion?”

  “Like...orally.”

  She made a face. “That’s disgusting.”

  “I know. I thought you were dying, Cecile.”

  “She was dying,” Drake spoke up. “Cecile, there’s no

  blood on you now, there’s no wound, but look here. Look on

  the ground.”

  We both looked. Sure enough, the earth where Cecile

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  had lain was stained dark. Drake’s white shirt also bore

  bloodstains, and there they appeared deep red. It was

  nightmarish.

  Cecile was staring. “That’s all. .mine?” She looked to me

  for confirmation, and I could see she was having trouble

  believing it. “But I’m not even hurt…”

  “You were,” I said. “Cecile, whatever else this is, that

  part is definitely true. You were knocked out, you were

  bleeding, and I honestly believed him when he told me you

  were going to die.” I drew a breath. “I still believe it, I think.”

  Cecile nodded. “Then you did what you had to do.”

  “Yeah?” All the tension seemed to rush out of my body.

  I hadn’t realized how anxious I truly was about Cecile’s

  reaction to what I’d allowed.

  She laughed a little and hugged me. “Of course, Rena. I

  would have done the same if it had been you. I’d never let you

  die; you know that. Not if there was any other way.”

  “I love you,” I whispered into her hair.

  “You too, goofball.”

  Remembering the other part of what Drake had said, I

  held her back at arm’s length and studied her. He had told me

  that saving Cecile’s life would come at the cost of making her

  “like him.” I thought of his fangs, and of Bristol’s incredible

  strength and speed, and I examined my best friend. She was

  still Cecile, still the girl I’d known all my life. And yet,

  something felt different, slightly off. I remembered with a start how quickly she’d crossed the clearing from Drake to me. Had

  it truly been as fast as I was imagining? Was I overdramatizing

  BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE

  the moment in my mind? Or had she really been as fast as

  Bristol?

  “What?” asked Cecile, raising an eyebrow at me. I’d

  been staring at her too long.

  “Nothing.” I smiled. “I’m just glad you’re okay. We

  should head home.”

  As Cryder and Drake led the way out of the clearing,

  though, I kept thinking about Cecile, watching her closely

  when her eyes were focused elsewhere.

  Did she have fangs now? I couldn’t ask her to show me.

  It would be too macabre, for her to find out that way. Telling

  her what I’d allowed Drake to do while she was unconscious

  was one thing. Telling her she’d been irrevocably altered by

  it. .that was something else altogether. I didn’t know enough

  to break that news. Drake, or perhaps Cryder, would have to

  explain.

  And I hoped they would do it soon. Somebody really

  needed to start explaining what was going on around here,

  why my life had been so transformed over the past few weeks

  that I barely recognized it—or myself—anymore. Why had

  these strangers come to our town in the first place, and why

  had Bristol killed so many and left their bodies around? What

  was the strange concoction that Cryder had been so adamant

  that I drink, and why had it had such a positive effect—for it

  had, there was no denying that—on my health?

  And what were they? What was Cryder really? The

  changing eye color, the speed and power, the blood obsession,

  and, of course, the fangs. .it all added up to one thing, one

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  creature I’d always known was the stuff of myth and fantasy.

  And yet here they were, standing in the clearing with me and

  Cecile, watching us.

  Vampires.

  What in the world could they po
ssibly want with me?

  BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE

  Chapter Thirteen

  I NEEDED ANSWERS TO SO MANY QUESTIONS.

  But before I could ask, a gust of wind seemed to sweep the

  clearing. Dust filled my mouth. I coughed, trying to clear it,

  and felt a hand—Cecile’s—begin to rub circles on my back.

  When I managed to drive my eyelids up, everything had

  changed.

  The dirt by my feet, which had been soaked with Cecile’s

  blood only a moment before, was now unsullied. It was as if

  nothing had ever happened here.

  “Oh no,” Drake murmured.

  “What is it?” Cryder asked. We all turned.

  Drake was staring at the spot where Bristol’s body had

  lain. The ground there, too, was pristine. Just bits of grass

  speckling the forest floor.

  Bristol’s body had vanished.

  For the first time, Cryder appeared truly shaken. “What

  do you suppose that means?”

  “I don’t know,” Drake said.

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  “He is dead, isn’t he?” The fear rearing up inside me

  again sent a tremor through my voice.

  “There’s no reason to think otherwise,” Drake said. He

  sounded very reassuring, but I’d heard the anxiety in his tone

  before. Even if Bristol was dead, that didn’t necessarily mean

  we had nothing left to worry about.

  But it was hard to worry too much right now. I’d been

  afraid of losing my life today, and with Bristol gone, I felt for the first time in hours that I was truly among friends. True, I

  didn’t know Drake or even Cryder all that well, but it was hard

  to imagine them wishing me harm. Whatever had happened, I

  thought, maybe it was best to simply not look too closely.

  Maybe the lesson here was to be grateful for the fact that I was

  alive and not try to dig into the mysteries of the universe. After all, wasn’t that what had gotten me into trouble in the first

  place?

  I turned my mind to another mystery instead—how

  were we going to get home?

  “How did you get here?” Cryder asked, when I voiced

  the question. He seemed surprised that this was even an issue.

  But then, I thought, noting a slight bitterness in my own mind,

  it was probably easy not to worry about transportation when

  you could run as fast as he could. Why did Cryder even own a

  car? It was probably some macho guy thing.