It was kinda suffocating.
She was ill and his body moved to where she was like a satellite come to orbit. Where Julia was Scott needed to be. His emotions didn't really matter.
The loss of choice is what got on Scott's last nerve.
Though that riot of emotion began to slip away when he saw the Queen of the Blood Singers on the floor, looking pale and fragile, her warm blond hair acting as a silken rug around her. Julia was so weak she didn't even acknowledge his presence, her face in profile, one cheek pressed against the bathroom floor.
Scott could feel her indifference, as Julia could feel his contrary emotions.
Soul-meld stuff.
But it was her plight that spurred Scott to move to her side, his big frame folding beside her.
Julia looked up at Scott and fought the soul-meld, even as their insides came together in a perfectly synchronized mesh of relief. Their parting was not a natural situation.
Their unity was.
She watched his hand move to brush a hair away from her face and Julia said, “Don't,” in a low voice.
“Why?” Scott asked, frustration creeping into his tone.
“Because I know you don't want to,” she replied, still lying on her back.
“Julia... don't look at me like that.” His eyes bore down on hers with care, concern and anger.
Julia hiked herself up, glaring at him when he moved to help her, his hand falling away. When she was upright she said, “I'll look at you any way I want. After all,” she cocked her head and pegged him with her bourbon eyes, smoldering with heat, hatred, “soulmates, right?” she spat with derision.
Jen sucked in the oxygen that remained in the room.
It wasn't much.
“Actually, it's soul-meld,” Jen stated unhelpfully.
Julia gave her a withering look.
“Feeling better, pet?” Jen asked with sarcasm.
“No!” Julia said. Then glared at Scott harder. Just having him close to her had regulated her body. The illness from her creek episode was there but his nearness eased her physically.
She effing hated it.
Scott's eyes narrowed on her, Julia's body language clear and resolute. How could he be bound to her? He was definitely not the committing type.
He didn't choose this path.
Julia read his expression. “Don't worry about it Scott. You were the Big Ass Protector. You've done your Boy Scout Duty, you can dump my ass now.”
“Julia,” Jen threw up her hands, feeling sorry for her brother against her will.
No... nothing was stopping him, Scott thought, his eyes roving her angry features, those golden eyes flashing at him inside her pale face. He could feel how sick she was but more than sickness, Julia was stubborn.
His body ached to make hers right, Scott's hands clenched at his sides in the effort not to touch her.
It wasn't about choice. Fate had chosen for them. Through blood. Through destiny.
They were blood chosen.
And Julia was his.
His to protect, his to take care of.
Eventually, his to love.
It was a mandate from deep in the fiber of his being, inexplicable... irrefutable. As Scott looked at the thunderous expression on Julia's face... so obviously against her will.
“She won't see the healer,” Jen told Scott.
“The hell she won't,” he stared at Julia and she glared back.
“You can't make me!” she yelled, two feet away from his face.
“Well, sweetheart,” Scott said, placing his palms on either side of her hips and leaning into her personal bubble, he loomed over her, “we're not in Kindergarten anymore and You. Will. Be. Healed,” he roared at her, the fine hairs by her temple moving with the power behind his voice. Shame washed over him when he felt her response as a hiccup of fear.
Julia was scared of him.
Scott backed away as she continued to stare at him.
“Argh!” Scott grunted in frustration to her anxiety, raking his hand through his hair, her eyes holding something more than her irritation.
Fear. Fear of him.
Scott stalked off, slamming the door behind him and Julia collapsed on the cold tile again, the hot tears she shed warming the coolness beneath her, the small energy she'd received from Scott's presence departing like smoke through a crack, and with it, her vitality.
Julia fell asleep where she lay, in a small heap on the bathroom floor, tears sticking to fevered flesh. Her dreams played like a sick nightmare she couldn't escape from.
*
Scott
Scott paced in front of his father, Marcus, the leader of Region One of Blood Singers.
He threw up his hand, the energy from his anger racing around the office inside the Learning Compound and pinging back to the pair like a blazing boomerang of emotion.
Marcus stood, his coal black hair so like the son's. Scott charged back and forth in the small space like a bull with a red cape waved in front of him.
“Calm down!” Marcus roared in a voice full of command, authority. Marcus did not need to yell to be heard. As a point of fact, he knew that authority was not about control gained through violence and shouts, but respect through experience.
Scott stopped, his chest heaving, his hands buried in the front of his jean's pockets, his jet-black brows dropped like a brick over eyes that were so dark a brown they were like chocolate ink.
“Why?!” Scott shouted. “I was fucking fine without this,” he ripped his hands out of his jeans and flung one toward the house where Julia was.
Still ill. Her sickness pressed on him like a weight he couldn't bear. It was all he could do to not be next to her.
Taking care of her.
“Language, Scott,” Marcus said.
“Dad... come on.”
“You are twenty-five years old and can use whatever colorful metaphors that come to mind. But bear in mind there are many here now who look to you as an example.” Marcus spread his hands away from his body, imploring his eldest to see reason.
It would be the plow against a tough field. Of all his offspring, Scott was the most stubborn.
“They're not here now and I don't stand as an example before you.”
“Good habits begin now, Scott,” Marcus stated.
Scott bowed his head, reining his anger in. When a full two minutes had passed he locked gazes with his father.
“Did you know?” Scott looked at him with a dumbstruck expression. “Did you know this was real? That I would be a part of this dumbass destiny equation?”
Marcus stared at him. He deliberated, but in the end he decided the time had come to tell Scott the truth.
Scott watched his dad fold his hands behind his back and many things happened at once: Julia took a turn for the worse, he could feel his sister coming for him and his father had a look that said that there was a grave secret.
Scott literally felt like a fist was clenching in his guts. Julia, his soul whispered.
He was helpless; Scott did the only thing he could.
He went to her.
*
William
William felt his jaw flutter from clenching it so tightly and slammed his fist down on the table that had stood in the same position for the hundred years he had been part of this coven. It shook beneath his rage, rattling.
“How can you just...” he waffled his hand from side to side, Gabriel's glower telling him of his apathy, “let her go,” William finished in a low voice.
Gabriel stood, as tall as William at six foot one and as their noses nearly kissed, Gabriel turned the tables on William with, “How many must perish for one?”
Damn, he's got me there, William thought.
William shoved the black hair from his gray eyes, his gaze darkening to pewter. “She is a Rare One. We must sacrifice much for her,” William argued logically, his eyes searching Gabriel's, praying for a break, a flicker of anything that might advance him toward another rescue att
empt.
“William, I do know how you feel about Julia,” Gabriel began but William interrupted him.
“You do not,” William warned in a voice warmed by raw emotion. As if the hundreds of years he had lived as vampire without emotion had suddenly caught up and come crashing down on him at once.
Gabriel sighed in frustration. He did not wish to give her up any more than William. But her presence within the coven had already cost them over thirty vampires. Soon, there would not be enough left for her prophesied abilities and traits to help their species. Julia Caldwell had become a liability.
Claire came forward and touched her cousin's arm. William stared at her; he found the intrusion unwelcome.
As Claire began to speak the males listened, William the most reluctantly. When she was done William's head hung.
“I refuse it.” William looked from one to the other of them. “She is part of me.” He put a fist to his heart. “Do you not see it?” he asked, looking at Claire who had tried to reason him out of going after Julia again. Loving her.
He could not be reasoned with.
William would not.
“Do you not feel it?” he asked, his vampiric voice reverberating in the enclosed space, stone walls all around them, the sound beating Gabriel and Claire's eardrums like a subtle weapon. Claire covered her ears, wincing and William inclined his head in apology. “I am sorry, but I cannot be governed by numbers. Julia is not a number to me.” His gaze pierced them like lasers beams that tore the skin aside, seeking marrow. “Her blood is a chorus of voices that sing to my soul.” William locked gazes with the leader of his kiss.
“I will never be in harmony as long as she is not with me.”
William stalked out of the room, banging the solid wood door behind him with a resounding shudder.
“It is the blood-share,” Claire said mournfully. “He is lost because of her blood.”
“It is much more than that,” Gabriel said as he slipped a most modern device out of the pocket of the black slacks he wore.
Claire gave him a quizzical look and he shushed her with a look.
Gabriel had a plan.
William would eventually forgive him.
Someday.
*
Northwestern Pack
Lawrence was at a complete loss. His primary Alpha, Joseph, had been killed during the failed acquisition of the Rare One, his sister was out of her mind with grief, and he had the Feral and Anthony at each other's throats.
Literally.
Sometimes, he wished for any job other than the one he held.
Instead, he showed up and executed his position as Packmaster of the Northwestern den. Even if it killed him.
Which it almost certainly would someday.
His morbid joke notwithstanding, it was time to establish order in the pack once again.
He looked at Adrianna, the most Alpha female he had ever met and felt a pang of sympathy. Normally, her abrasive nature was so punishing on his senses he was fine with his brusque treatment of her in return. But two things stood in the way of his usual tactics with her.
One, she was the most eligible female wolf in the den. Two, her brother had just died before her eyes. Murdered by their most grievous enemies.
Brutally.
Then, as females went, she had lost the Rare One and now had a double loss to contend with there. Moonless abilities aside, the Rare One had almost been more trouble than she was worth.
Almost.
Lawrence's gaze flicked to the Feral.
Right, he self-corrected, Jason, his mind restated. Yes, the Singer's husband.
Unconsummated. He and Tony had an intimate discussion on smells. And as the case may be, now that Tony had a firm grasp on both the Feral's scent and that of the Blood Singer, Julia, he was beyond certain they did not co-mingle.
Lawrence was not privy to the intricacies of their relationship. Only that they had not allowed the circle of their vows to close. This was a crucial detail to the Were.
Lawrence thought, not for the first time, how terrible it had been that Julia had been taken on the eve of the Ritual of Luna. If they could have just....
Ah! He shook his head, his thoughts turning to the mess at hand. The arguing before him a sure distraction.
It was Tony and the spry Alpha female (as usual), Adrianna- Adi. Lawrence sighed, flicking another glance at the Fer... Jason. His body was stock-still and his deep hazel eyes were hooded. They were distant and... contemplative.
Lawrence shouted above the two, “Enough!”
Adi turned, “I will not be under Tony!” she huffed, folding her arms underneath her breasts.
“Yes you will,” Tony said in a voice so low she could barely make it out. Lawrence did not hear the softly spoken dark promise he made. Jason did, his eyes shifting to Tony, still Jason kept his own counsel.
He wasn't talking about hierarchy, the dick hole, Adi knew. He was talking about putting it to her.
“You'll never touch me, with your dick or anything else!” Adi yelled at him, frustrated. She knew that Lawrence hadn't heard the sexual threat. But she had. It had been meant for her.
“Adi!” Lawrence roared, pegging her with his gaze. “Stop this behavior. He is your dominant. You must understand that now that Joseph is... gone,” he swallowed over the awkward wording, “that there must be another to replace him. It is the way of it. As it has been for millennia.” Lawrence's gaze softened and Adi responded, switching tactics for once and trying to be a female instead of an Alpha.
It wasn't a simple transition.
“Please... Packmaster,” her eyes flicked to Tony's, “he means me harm.”
Lawrence scoffed, foolish female, he thought, but he schooled his expression for her benefit. Adi saw the flicker of the emotion on his face and knew she'd lost before he uttered his next words, “He would never harm a female Were, Adi. Think on it.” Lawrence searched her face, waiting. Finally, when she didn't reply out of sheer disbelief and stubbornness, Lawrence added, “There are too few of you to ever trifle with your safety or protection. As it was, your brother did not show good judgment when he took you along on the raid for the Singer.” Lawrence met Tony's eyes. “It is a mark in Anthony's favor that you were returned unharmed.”
Adi seethed in frustration, her wolf roiling dangerously close beneath her skin, stretched taut to bursting. Tony would be him and Lawrence would allow it with Joseph no longer serving as a buffer. Adi turned to the Feral and his nostrils flared, picking up her scent change. And she suddenly remembered when he had awoken in her arms only to be knocked into Timbuktu by Tony, who was only too happy to do it.
They couldn't have him popping her arm off like his favorite drumstick again.
Although, Adi didn't have the sense of that anymore. His desperation to escape and be feral had slid away, she thought. Adi studied Jason Caldwell in human form with his borrowed jeans and a T-shirt that read, When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth. It didn't nail her funny bone in the slightest: A) there were no such thing as zombies and it was the lamest thing on the planet to consider it B) she was spoiling for a fight. Her good humor had deserted her. He stared blankly back. Jason made no effort to speak, having ignored everyone and everything. Including her. He was almost robotic.
Where the hell was he in there? she thought, searching those brooding eyes.
Why did he go after Julia? Wasn't he in love with her? Adi would never forget the look on her face when she told Adi about their romance, their secret marriage.
That horrible night when he was attacked and apparently killed by the Were.
Presumed dead.
But not. No, now he was a rare red Were. One of very few. Of course, it wasn't every damn day when Singers got turned into other. Whether it be drinker or claw.
Adi would never forget the look on Julia's face when he decided to choke her to death either.
Where was she now? And who in the blue fuck were those crazy-ass Singers
that had shown up, kicked ass and taken names?
What was their fairy tale story?
Lots of questions, not enough answers.
Story of her damn life.
CHAPTER 2
Merlin surreptitiously wiped the bead of sweat that slid down his skin and dampened the collar of his long sleeved button down. He had met Gabriel, as requested, in the outdoor eatery where the cattle grazed in their concrete pasture. Pioneer Square was the backdrop to their covert meeting. Even with the shade of the umbrella above the table and using sunblock with the highest zinc count, a light smolder played across his skin. It was microscopic, humans would not ken to it but it would have been obvious to a supernatural.
It was obvious to him; he was experiencing mild discomfort due to the slow broil of his body.
Yes, as the leader of the Southeast Kiss he was part Singer, part vampire. He could tolerate daylight, but it was a near thing. An almost allergic reaction would settle on his body and he itched for the night, the relief it afforded him.
Not that Merlin would admit that to the Rare One before him. Impervious to the time of day, he could do all that vampire could, even more as a point of fact. However, he did not need to drink blood. It was a shame that the male Rare Ones were sterile in their breeding potential with other vampires. It was the females that were so precious.
And the Northwestern Kiss that Gabriel presided over had procured one.
Then lost it. Most puzzling.
Gabriel lightly drummed his fingers and looked at the pale leader opposite him and realized that the politics of their meeting had already begun. He steepled his fingers, his shoulder length hair sliding forward in golden waves, framing startling eyes that were the deepest amber. He pierced Merlin with his shocking golden gaze and said what he hoped would end it, repay their coven.
“I have come to offer recompense for your assistance with the location of the Rare One.”
The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) Page 27