Blood Rights (PULSE Vampire Series #7) (PULSE Series)

by Kailin Gow

  “No,” cried Max. “Octavius, run – we have to get out of here!”

  “Not so fast…” Nereti was saying. “If you deprive me of my dinner – the least you could do is let me have that!”

  Kalina saw a few burly vampires seize Octavius, along with the vial he was holding, and flew into the distance, followed by a magnificent Nereti.

  “No!” Kalina cried out softly, blood pouring from her mouth.

  It was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

  Epilogue

  In an opulent palace in the depths of the desert, the Queen Nereti lay fanned by servants, a pile of corpses before her, staining the cream-colored silk with new blood.

  “Bring him in!” she cried, fanning herself with a bouquet of peacock feathers.

  The four guards escorted Octavius – stripped to the waist, chained from all four limbs – into the room, pushing him down face first before her. Nereti stopped to consider him, looking at his chiseled torso up and down, lust in her eyes. “Pity you are cursed with such good looks,” she said. “If you weren’t I’d have ended your misery long ago. But as it is, I need a new general to serve me in place of Molotov. One to satisfy me in…all ways.” She licked her lips. “I know your love for humans – but I know too that my powers are stronger than your love.” She stared into his eyes, her own irises burning wickedly. “I’ll wipe that diseased way of thinking out of your brain altogether. I promise you, General – when I’m done you will care for only me, worship only me, love only me – do only my bidding.” She ran her finger up and down his taut chest. “You will only see me. You will forget Kalina – who even now is rotting beneath the earth.”

  “Never,” cried Octavius, spitting into her face. “I will never stop loving her – dead or alive…”

  “You’re a strong one,” Nereti continued. “Determined. I like those qualities. I admire you. But you are fighting for the wrong cause. Fight for me, Octavius – and together we will be unstoppable.” She touched her lips to his and smiled as his eyes went hard, his body tensing with irresistible desire. She knew her power, her strength. She knew that not even the strongest vampire could resist her power to glamour them. He had screamed and wailed many days during the tortures she had devised for him – crying out Kalina’s name over and over again – but now, she knew, he would forget it completely. Her lips would do what her tortures could not.

  “I’ll enjoy this…” said Nereti. “You will come to me every night and we will sleep together. Feed Life’s Blood to one another. You will please me – and I…will please you. Soon you will forget there ever was a girl who resembled me – you will think only of me. You thought that girl with the dark eyes was the one to change your destiny? False, my love. That girl was I. With my blood in you, you will be transformed into something greater than you could ever have dreamed of…”

  *****

  In the three days since Kalina’s death, they had done nothing but sit at the Greystone Winery and watch over her body. They had not been able to bear thinking of funeral arrangements, of burials – she hardly even looked dead, lying so peacefully on the bed before them. They refused to believe she was gone.

  “Do you think this will work?” Justin asked Max, tears in his eyes.

  “It said so in one of the ancient documents,” Max’s voice was shaking. “The ideal Carrier could transcend death – become immortal. I thought – when I did it…I wanted it so badly to be true. It was the only thing that gave me the strength to kill my own child – the chance that she would rise again…”

  Jaegar entered the room, and a hush fell over them. Jaegar had taken the death harder than they’d thought – he’d cried his body weight in blood, and now looked paler than ever before, the color of decaying marble. He had barely spoken since Egypt, barely even left Kalina’s side.

  “Here,” Stuart said, handing him a cup of vampire wine. “Drink this – you need it.”

  “What’s the point?” growled Jaegar, “she’s gone!”

  “I know…” Stuart too was trying to hold back all-too-human tears. “I know you loved her, Jaegar. I loved her too. But we have to hold it together. For her. For the Carriers.”

  “After I was turned,” said Jaegar, “I thought nothing would ever hurt as much as losing my soul. But now I know. This is worse.”

  Stuart put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We can’t lose hope, Jaegar. We have to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “She’ll come back to us – she’ll fulfill the prophecy – you’ll see…”

  “That was just an old fairy tale,” spat Jaegar. “A lie. A deceit.”

  “They used to say Life’s Blood was a fairy tale, too. And you always had faith in that, even from the beginning…”

  “When I met Kalina – when she changed me, her blood changed me….” Jaegar let his voice trail off. “She made me believe in that. She made me believe in hope again.”

  “Then believe in this too – the prophecy that says she can be resurrected, cleansed, born anew…”

  Jaegar sat down at Kalina’s side, taking her cold dead hand in his and pressing it to his lips, her wrist against his mouth. “When we bury her,” he said, his voice hollow. “I want you to stake me. Stake me on her grave and let my ashes mingle with the earth that consumes her – so that we shall never be separated…” He choked back tears. “I can’t bear this, Stuart. I…” And then he stopped short, astonished.

  “Jaegar – what? What is it?”

  “No, it can’t be…”

  “What can’t be? What are you talking about, Jaegar?”

  Jaegar looked up, his eyes shining with new hope. “A pulse.”

  A pulse, beating in Kalina’s wrists – slowly at first, and then stronger and stronger, louder and louder, like thunder in his ears.

  And then her eyes opened.

  “Kalina!” At once they were all by her side, embracing her, pulling her body to theirs.

  Jaegar opened his mouth to speak, but found that he had no words. Everything he wanted to say – all his words of love – seemed to dissolve in the force of his great joy, his overwhelming happiness. All he could do was whisper, over and over again, the same words: “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  Kalina looked around in confusion. “Where am I?”

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Kal!” Justin was holding her tight.

  “I knew it!” Stuart was at her side, too. “I knew you were going to make it. I knew you were the one. I knew it – that this love we felt for you, that it was so strong – you’d have to come back to us. You wouldn’t leave us.”

  Only Max had not moved to Kalina’s side, but rather stood immobile and emotionless, staring down at her daughter. For a moment there was silence. Then, for the first time, Kalina saw Max collapse into floods of noisy, angry tears at Kalina’s feet. “I’m so sorry, my daughter…I had to do it…”

  “I understand,” Kalina said sitting up. “Mother, don’t worry, I understand.”

  “I couldn’t let her kill you…”

  “You saved me,” Kalina said, taking her mother’s hand. “But…where’s Octavius.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell over the room like a chill.

  “Nereti…has him,” Max said at last. “She is keeping him prisoner”.”

  “No!” Kalina cried in horror. “No – we have to get him back. Before she destroys him.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jaegar. “Samson’s working on locating her right now. He’ll let us know as soon as he hears anything.”

  “And the Carriers?” Kalina’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Safe,” Jaegar said. “We’ve sent them all home to their families. And notified the families of the other ones…”

  “The ones who didn’t make it.” Kalina felt sick. “Right, of course.” Tears began to stream down her face as she thought of the fallen Carriers, of Octavius – in the clutches of that evil woman.

  She stood tentatively,
looking over at the sunlight streaming through the window.

  Something felt different – stranger. She felt lighter somehow.

  “Kalina…” Justin looked at her in shock. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  Kalina looked down in surprise. Her feet weren’t touching the floor. She wasn’t walking but gliding.

  “Another power…” said Max, awe and pride in her voice. “A power only the very ancient vampires have. Vampires like Nereti.”

  Jaegar smiled. “Then it means we have a chance,” he said. “It looks like Nereti’s about to meet her match.”

  *****

  PULSE continues in

  Blood Curse - Book 8 of PULSE

  2012

  Sneak Peek at Kailin Gow’s Newest Dystopian:

  Circus Summer

  Circus of Curiosities #1

  Releases July 2, 2012

  Prologue

  Dr. Dex Hightower stood on the sand in the middle of the circus ring, milking the applause from the audience as it rose to a crescendo behind the hard plastic barriers. The tiny town of Bent Roads had plenty of people, it seemed, who wanted to see what his Circus of Curiosities had to offer. In a world with so little else, full of war and the struggle just to survive, could he blame them? Dex’s mouth quirked in a smile. He could see them staring down at him in anticipation, but he kept them waiting.

  He knew what they would see. A man in his late thirties, tall and powerful enough to command their attention as he stood there, his dark hair spilling down the back of his long leather coat. The silver buckles and studs on it shone in the big top lights with every movement he made, catching and dazzling, as bright as the green of his eyes. His shirt was a deep red, the color of blood, while he wore pants of tight fitting black, with high boots that were as much about practicality as showmanship. Dex spread his arms as the applause built.

  “Hello, Bent Roads!” His voice carried easily throughout the tent. “These past five days, you’ve seen wonders!”

  They’d seen the genetic monsters spewed from the broken labs.

  “You’ve seen strife!”

  They’d seen their own children fighting and occasionally dying.

  “You’ve seen the full gamut of things our broken world has to offer!”

  Which wasn’t much. Dex paused again. That was the key to being a ringmaster. Not giving people what they wanted. At least not until they begged for it.

  “So are you ready for what we have for you tonight?”

  That got a roar that was almost deafening, and Dex whirled for a moment with his arms outstretched, drinking it all in. Despite everything, even down to the hate he felt for them for letting him do what he did, this moment was always good.

  “If you’re ready, then I’d like to present to you a performer you all know very well! Already, she has fought alongside other performers from your lovely town! She has fought against them too, and she has won!” Dex very carefully didn’t mention what had happened to the losers. The audience had seen it. It didn’t need reminding. The people there were too busy cheering to need reminding. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you… Prima Thornsby!”

  Spotlights focused on the far side of the circus arena, on an ornate entrance that looked like it was the kind of marble and gold doorway a Roman emperor might have stepped through. The fact that it was really a mixture of painted plastic and iron didn’t matter. It was what people thought that mattered.

  The girl who stepped out through that entrance was sixteen, her red hair tied back into a ponytail, the glittering leotard she wore clinging to her to show off a gymnastic figure. The costumers and makeup artists had obviously been hard at work, because as well as the leotard, she wore silver gloves and boots, and her face had streaks of all the colors of the rainbow painted on. Just one more hint of show among the rest of it. She walked out with confident strides. She had every right to them. She’d done well so far.

  “As you know,” Dex continued. “Prima here has come through almost all our challenges for her. Now we have just one more before she can move up to our national level of performance. Would you like to see what it is?”

  The crowd roared its approval. Dex turned to Prima, who nodded her readiness. Brave girl. At a signal from Dex, assistants came forward dressed in a harlequin patchwork, pieced together from scraps. They held a selection of weapons and protective items. The girl chose a long, clear plastic sword sharpened to a razor edge, along with a round shield of toughened glass. When she’d done that, the assistants retreated while more wheeled in a large crate. Dex moved to the side of the arena, behind the barriers protecting the audience.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the audience! Prima! I give you… the hydra!”

  The side of the crate fell open, and a shape slunk from within. It was reptilian, far larger than the girl before it, walking on six scaled legs, with nine necks rising sinuously from its bulky body like snakes. The heads at the ends of those necks were snakelike as well, and as Dex watched, one opened its mouth to reveal vicious fangs.

  He heard the audience’s collective gasp. He saw Prima flinch, half glancing at him to check whether it was real. It was. So very real. It and many more creatures like it, thanks to the labs. The creature seemed to sense the girl’s hesitation, because two of its heads struck out, snake fast.

  Prima reacted quickly, Dex had to admit that. She got her shield up to block one of the heads, venom dripping down it to the tent’s sandy floor. Her sword lashed out, slicing through the neck of the second, sending the head flying. She stepped back, as though expecting the hydra to fall to the floor dead. Dex shook his head at that. One head wouldn’t do it. Another minute or two, and it wouldn’t even be injured. One of the gifts this one had was regeneration on a scale barely comprehensible.

  Still, she’d gotten one head. Maybe the others would follow. Dex had high hopes for Prima. She had obvious talent. The only question was whether it was the level of talent they needed…

  Prima spun as the hydra struck again, slamming one of its heads aside, then darting away as the creature lunged after her. She moved like an acrobat; so fast, so graceful. She dodged another strike, bringing around her sword in a simple arc to lop off another of the Hydra’s heads. The creature momentarily reared back in pain, and Dex dared to believe…

  Three more of its heads flashed forward at once. Prima blocked one with her shield, and managed to get her sword in the way of another, but the third grazed her side with its fangs. She cried out, obviously holding onto her sword with an effort, and lowering her shield just enough. More heads snapped past her defenses, biting her again and again. She shrieked in sudden pain. Dex wished he could do something for her, but it was too late now. With the way the circus worked, it had been too late the moment she decided to sign up.

  Prima fell back, scrambling away from the hydra on her back. The creature let her do it, as though knowing what came next. Out on the sand, the girl started to shake, and the shaking became convulsions, the massive amounts of venom in her body pumping through it with every heartbeat. Dex watched her there, not because he enjoyed it-not because he enjoyed any of it-but because he knew he should. In just a couple of minutes, she was still, her silver costume looking far less vibrant while she sprawled lifeless on the sand.

  The crowd started to boo.

  Dex made a small signal, and his assistants did their job. A few moved in with tranquilizers to bring the Hydra under control and get it back into the crate. Two of the others, the ones who had brought the weapons, lifted Prima’s body and took it away.

  The crowd was still railing against what had happened, some pressing against the plastic walls as they yelled their displeasure. It was always like this. Dex moved out into the center of the circus ring, standing absolutely still as he waited for silence. He got it. His presence wasn’t the kind of thing people could ignore, even if their hometown girl had failed.

  He’d failed too, of course. He’d been so certain about
Prima. He’d had such high hopes for her. It seemed now those hopes had been unfounded, the way they so often were. Another young performer dead in the dust. Another wasted talent. Dex shrugged, forcing himself not to think about it. In this world, people died every day, and even the hydra was better than some of the things the war did to people.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said at last. “It seems that our entertainment for this evening is at an end.”

  That got another round of boos. Strange that they’d boo because more of their young people weren’t being killed, but Dex knew as well as anyone what people could be like. By tomorrow, they would probably deny that they had done it. They would probably blame him for the whole thing, until the next time the circus came to town.

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry!” Dex announced. “The show will go on!” He paused for just a second to let them think about whether they wanted that. “Just not in Bent Roads. Your town has provided some very skillful and brave young performers, but we have exhausted their talents now, and none of them remain, so it is time for us to move on. I hope you will join us when we are next in town.”