“It has been some time since a Rare One has been... in residence. It will be all conjecture at this point. But,” he paused, “there have been things in legend. Those are: telekinetic ability, telepathy, super-human strength...” He finished, ticking off each ability on his fingers then resting his hands on his thighs.
Julia liked the last one and smiled.
He chuckled, “That's usually reserved for males.”
Oh.
“Limited healing. And of course, there are the genetic properties of the Rare Ones. They will allow the supernaturals to become more, better.” William leaned forward, all intensity. “Just think of the ramifications of being vampire, but not ruled by bloodlust, by the night.” He swung his palm to encompass their immediate area.
Julia watched an internal fire ignite in his eyes and realized the vampires felt trapped by their existence. That what made them other, also stifled them in isolation.
It made Julia profoundly uncomfortable to realize two factions thought of her as a savior. But she hadn't asked to be a Rare One. Instead, she had just wanted a normal life. She looked in William’s earnest eyes and sighed. At least she hadn't been taken by the Were. From what William told her, they cared very little for the Rare One's comfort. She remembered what he had told her on one of their many runs before she'd been able to do much but shuffle along.
*
William
William looked down with tenderness at the top of Julia's head. He allowed himself that luxury when she was not aware of his regard. She looked up and he instantly schooled his expression into one of neutrality.
“You ask of the Were. They also find the Blood Singers critical. Even a Singer who has as little as one quarter blood quantum can give them additional days to make the change. They cannot aspire to be moonless changers. But, they can have more days to use her call.” He kicked a random pebble and Julia stopped, turning to look at him. The streetlamp reflected off the damp patches of asphalt, the city still humming all around them. The deadest hour of the night had the least people but still cars were rushing past, dim noise and the smells of a city that never quite rested a backdrop to their hushed conversation.
She crossed her arms and huffed out a breath while the other vampires formed a loose circle around them, maintaining an ever-vigilant protective perimeter. “So what you're saying is, that both vampire and Were compete? They run around, gathering up the purest of the Singers to what? Make sure they have more power?”
William thought it sounded dire when she put it like that. “It is for the betterment of both. We think their methods are heathen. But the consequence is identical. What they gain, what we gain...” he let his sentence trail off.
“What do we gain, William?” Julia asked, her eyes searching his, her palm on the center of her chest.
He did not drop his gaze but not without effort. There was little that the Singer gained. Except, their mate would be devoted. There was additional protection. He sighed, raking a distracted hand through his hair, frustrated.
“You have the security and protection of the coven,” he finally answered.
Julia snorted, “Oh yeah! That's worked so well,” she said significantly. She thought of the fangs that had been sunk into her collarbone, adding to the healing scars of William's claws from when he was in raven form. Unreal. She felt so protected.
Julia told him so, with sarcasm.
William gripped her shoulders, cupping them firmly in hands that wrapped them front to back. “There will always be rogue vampire. There will always be vampire amongst our kind that take, that do not follow rules, hierarchy. You do ken to that? Is it not the same in the human population?” he asked, unblinking. His eyes, so blood red in certain lighting, were silvered and reflective in the dark.
“It's true,” Julia responded, trying to not squirm in his grasp. “But if I'm so special, why did they try to hurt me? Believe me, it hurt.”
William knew. He had been barred from giving blood a third time. As her kind said, the third time would have been the charm. It would bind her to him without choice, without consent. A union filled with resentful compliance was not acceptable.
Not to him.
In the end, she had been given a transfusion. She smelled off for two weeks afterward. He had mentioned she had smelled like someone else until her body's natural cycles and rhythms had righted themselves.
“I'm so sorry that I didn’t smell tasty for a week or two,” she'd said, rolling her beautiful eyes at him. William had smiled.
“It is better for me. Not your pain, your suffering at their transgression,” he mentioned quickly to avoid confusion as her brows came together in a frown. “But because their attack on you proved my mettle. You know the man I am.”
Julia shook her head in correction. “You are not a man. You're something else.”
William’s face took on a sad countenance. “I am more man than you could ever know.”
Julia looked into a face filled with sincerity and an expression she'd seen on Jason's face before.
Desire.
She shifted her gaze from his as they walked away together, the vampire guard swarming around them.
*
taking
Joseph gave Tony a subtle flick of his tail, but it was scent, not motion that let Tony know to flank the group of vampires. One amongst the Were remained unchanged.
A new threat faced them. They had smelled what threatened during their last reconnaissance.
The Rare One was entering her awakening. She would be dangerous. One of his wolves would nail her with the gun. A gun that had a dart filled with a sedative. It could stop an ox. In this case, it would stop the Singer. Stop her from using what made her unique against them. That she stayed willingly with the kiss of drinkers was worrisome. Very.
She was unmated. Joseph knew. Her smell told him.
They moved toward the group, stealthily. Sure and confident.
Ready for combat.
*
Julia
Julia was nervous. She was usually anxious now. Gone was the easygoing nonchalance of her former life. Knowing what she was had stripped her of that. Not knowing what her future held, or knowing the expectation others had for her future had cloaked her as surely as the warm puffy coats of her Alaskan existence before.
William watched her pace, her unease a contagious thing. Finally, he could bear it no more. “What is it? What is troubling you?” His arms were crossed, his face in shadows as he leaned against the wall in her chamber. She took in his form, his athletic build accentuated by the casual attire. His tight black T-shirt stretched across a broadly muscled chest, black sweatpants hugged hips and legs finely honed by exercise and the perfection of what he was.
Julia stopped. Looking at him she felt the pull there between them, like a rope of warm taffy, always taut, never breaking. She felt dumb explaining it. “I know that the exercise is good.” His expression encouraged her and she realized she was starting to care a little for William. She didn't know how she felt about it. But after almost eighteen months, he and Claire were really all the contact she had.
She went on, stumbling over the next part, “Before the thing... happened.” Julia flicked her eyes to his.
William knew she meant Jason's death.
She swallowed and he waited in pregnant silence. “I felt a sense of...”
He arched his eyebrows. “Foreboding?” he intuited.
She nodded, relieved he understood. “Yes.”
He straightened. “You sense that now?”
She nodded again, it was a vibration in her body, humming in an ominous way she hated. And the headaches were back.
Turning, she walked toward him voluntarily for the first time.
William watched her come, a graceful slow-burning flame, eyes and hair a liquid gold that ignited a torch within his soul. He stuffed his emotions deep inside, giving her his pleasantly neutral face. It was something that was now a daily challenge. Before, it had been made
easier by her indifference. He did not feel that from her right now, in this moment.
Julia came very close to him. Reaching out she placed a small hand on his arm and he stifled the gasp that tore from inside him as their flesh connected. Her eyes moved to his. “I'm not afraid of you anymore. I don't know how I feel, but I know you'd protect me.”
It took every ounce of willpower not to touch her back, caress that face he had caressed mentally a thousand times before with his eyes. How badly he wished to do it with his hands. Instead, he forced them against his side, remaining unmoved.
“Today, I'm afraid. Even this near, this protected. I don't want to be with the Were.” Julia knew however bad this new life was, that the alternative with them would be worse.
William stiffened. “We would never allow that. They have tried for you twice, and failed. They would never succeed.”
She shook her head, the ginger of her hair sliding over shoulders encased in the smooth nylon material of her exercise gear. He watched the silken strands and wanted to run his fingers through it. The low light of the skylight caused it to glow a soft red. William suddenly wished he could see it in the sun. He imagined it would be quite red.
“They may succeed,” she said.
He looked down at her as she looked up at him. “No,” he said fiercely, his emotion overwhelming his sense. Wrapping both his hands around her forearms. “It cannot be precognitive. If that were so, they would have tried for you months ago, when you were more vulnerable.”
Julia stared at him. He wasn't believing her. She'd be given her nightly exercise, regardless. Maybe she had a case of nerves.
Maybe her unbearable loneliness was in the way. She felt the heat from her body warming his. Still, that small space separated them. She noticed his hands encasing her arms and suddenly her eyes were on his lips.
Julia's mind trembled at the possibility. Her emotions and intellect warred in a heated battle.
William felt her gaze shift from his eyes to his mouth.
He waited. She must decide.
He had never had a greater challenge, his nerve endings on fire.
Julia felt her emotions unraveling, guilt over Jason, his death, their unconsummated marriage. Missing him like a pit of misery in her stomach. She knew what she was beginning to feel for William was wrong. But she could only go on so long with the constant loneliness. William was right, he had proven himself. She was the one that needed to move on.
Her decision made, Julia stood on tiptoe, using lips that hadn't kissed in almost two years, she brushed a featherweight's press over the softness of his mouth.
Julia's eyes were closed, one hand on his chest for balance. She didn't feel his response and her skin flushed with embarrassment. She began to draw away.
Until she felt his hands move off of her arms and snap around her body, jerking her against him. His mouth moved over hers with a barely contained hunger, eating at it until she opened it for him.
He lifted his mouth just long enough to say, “I will always protect you, Julia.”
“I know...” she began but his mouth came down on hers again and she twined her arms around his neck. The heat that moved between their embrace felt overwhelmingly natural.
Too natural.
Julia pulled away just as there was a knock on the door and she felt his arms release her reluctantly. She watched William’s face as he followed the progress of her hand as it touched her mouth, swollen from his kiss. Bruised from his affection.
Guilt assailed her. “Come in,” she said, relieved for the interruption.
“It's time,” Pierce said, looking from one to the other, sensing the broken tension like shards of glass laying dangerously all around them.
*
William
William was angry at the knocking, the sweet scent of Julia filling his nose, his senses wailing to take her, to make her his. Their first contact was more overwhelming than even he could have imagined. That she initiated it, that their blood share was all but washed away, made it all the sweeter.
He looked upon her as she pulled away, guilt and desire mixed up in her features. He had a pang of regret, then shoved it away. He had not taken what she'd loved away from her. It was the Were that had stolen her husband's life. In their haste to acquire her, they'd killed a Singer unnecessarily. It had been long, almost two years of patience and frustration. If he could finally be joined with her. If she would possibly be open to a courtship, he would not dissuade her. And his competitors were less.
Actually, the horrible attack of Julia had tightened things up considerably in the coven.
He glanced at Pierce, coming to his senses as if in a fog. He shook off the lethargy of his desire with difficulty. Gabriel wished for Julia to exercise, to be away from the coven. He did not think she was coping well. Even William had to admit that she was progressing better with the exercise.
Her words of disquiet were troubling. William did not assume everything. He wished to be as confident as possible but to discount a Rare One was not prudent.
William considered himself pragmatic. And ruthless.
Always that.
He turned to Pierce, “Let us take an additional five runners.”
Pierce's brows came together.
William answered his unspoken question, “It will ease Julia.”
He turned and smiled at her. She gave him one of her rare genuine smiles. He loved seeing it on her face and smiled back.
William wished he had put more weight in her comment. It would haunt him in the months to come.
Julia looked at William and was instantly relieved. He had not discounted her warning. He was more than a protector now. She wasn't sure what he was becoming, but in that moment a small space in her heart softened, a fissure formed, allowing William in.
CHAPTER 20
run
Julia wiped sweat of her brow, running with a thousand vampires at her side.
Not really. That's just what it felt like.
She'd told William that the Were were sniffing around and so far, nothing.
Julia was feeling foolish. She decided to tell him so.
She knew that they didn't need fifteen anymore. Five was probably enough. He'd smiled and kissed her forehead casually, calling off the vampires for the following evening's run. Her sense of impending doom had lessened.
It had been a full week since she'd mentioned her uneasy feelings to William. It was so similar to what she'd felt before Terrell went madder than a March hare, as Aunt Lily would have said, that she'd felt compelled to speak. Now, she just felt like a dumbass. Getting the vampires wound up because she had an emotional hiccup. Julia needed to be stronger.
She smiled at William. Julia thought there would be a ton of awkwardness between them but he'd been solicitous, touching her subtly day by day. A slow bridge of small intimacies were building one on top of the other.
She came to find herself looking forward to the subtle touches and glances, anticipating them. If anyone had told her that she was going to be crushing on a vampire two years ago, she would have written the letter to have them committed herself.
Yet, here she was. She hadn't forgotten Jason, but the pain was less acute.
Julia was also not certain of her path. She knew in her mind that Jason was gone. That this weird new life, however much she hadn't wanted, it was what she had now. Julia realized she needed to move on. A vision of Jason's face, once so clear, had turned fuzzy at the edges. She felt herself all at once profoundly sad again. It was not just losing him in reality. It was the memory of him slipping away day by day that tore at her heart.
William stood watching the myriad of emotions play over her face and having made a study of humanity in the past two hundred years he knew some of what she reconciled.
Damn the Were, William thought for the hundredth time. She would have been separated from her husband regardless. However, his death had marked her. Even now she struggled.
“Julia,” William sai
d. He looked at her, the sadness clinging to her like greedy fingers and thought that she looked so fragile and small standing there. The hopes of his race depended on a young woman barely more than a girl.
Julia looked at William and the blanket of memories slid away for the moment. She swung her face to Pierce and the other three. Julia nodded. She was ready. She focused her considerable will on the moment, not on the past.
They were deep into the run, her body singing in muscular tension and heat. The vamps were barely on a jog. Julia felt like she was practically sprinting. They used the steep hills of the city and climbed them like the Swiss Alps. An occasional car sputtered by, the gears grinding together in the ascent. When they reached the area the famous Nordstrom's occupied they stopped. The loneliest part of the night embracing them as they stood in a loose group. William grabbed the water bottle from a small backpack that lay between his shoulder blades. Handing it to her she gulped a few swigs, admiring the building. Cyn would have died ten deaths to go shopping there, Julia's melancholy stealing its way inside her again. Her face tilted to take in the vertical sign. It was completely black, save for the letters in ivory. She noticed it was lit from the sides, the characters softly illuminated.
William watched Julia grapple for a life that was no more and broke into her thoughts, “Let us go back.”
She nodded and was struck dumb with a pain so acute, so widespread she gasped and fell to her knees.
The five vampire took their eyes from their posts to assist her.
As Julia lay sideways on the concrete sidewalk, the sign poised above her head like a guillotine, she saw the Were slide out from the dark corners the city provided.
There were many.
Julia whispered through her pain, which she now recognized as an alarm come too late, “Werewolves...”
The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) Page 14