The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance)

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  When she rounded the corner and saw the last of the creatures fling themselves out of the window, a primal alarm sounded.

  A deep and abiding warning from way down where her humanity had begun just as a spark, and that instinctive warning had been triggered. It had laid dormant until needed.

  Like now.

  She raced to the window. Though Shirley had been quick, she wasn't quick enough, she was only in time to see several pale forms move toward the forest in a blur that was against nature. Against all things.

  When a face turned to look at her as she stood in the window, it was as if the three hundred feet that separated them did not exist. An exquisite sense of calm stole over her, those red eyes glowed into hers, seeing her.

  Not that it was possible to see her well.

  Yet, she knew it had. For it wasn't human. It was other.

  Shirley came away from the window, the face turned and in a breath, disappeared forever. Behind someone.

  Following someone.

  Shirley looked at Julia's things on the bed that had been left behind and suddenly she knew. The girl had jumped out the window. Escaping those horrible things.

  Attempting to escape.

  Shirley shivered. Whatever brave things she'd martyred herself to long ago slipped away in a fear so acute, so breathtaking, she did something she never thought possible. She succumbed to apathy.

  She let her cowardice cloak her in indifference. She allowed Julia Caldwell to deal with whatever lurking threat came after her in a wave of terror and retribution and did nothing.

  Said nothing.

  Both women had tears streaming down their faces, one old, one young, the crying for different reasons. Still, in the end, they both cried for Julia.

  “So you see, I can't talk about it to anyone. I am guilty of not helping. Of not reporting it.”

  Cynthia laid a comforting hand on her frail arm. “It's okay, Miss Collins,” Cynthia said, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. “There's nothing you could've done.”

  Shirley gave a small lift of her shoulders.

  “I'll tell you why,” Cynthia said and Shirley waited.

  Cynthia told her everything. The attack, the nocturnal visits from the werewolves. Her fear. Her misery.

  Her escape. Cynthia pressed on even when Miss Collins' face showed a range of emotions. It was a compulsion. Cynthia just had to get it out. She'd told no one. And this might be the one person that'd believe her.

  “Now you know why I ran. If you're a coward, then I'm a bigger one.”

  Shirley Collins shook her head. “No, sometimes there's larger issues at play than the right or wrong choice. Sometimes, survival plays a part,” she finished significantly.

  She gave a watery smile through her tears, her shock at Cynthia's story on every line of her face.

  Which Shirley utterly believed. Maybe because it validated hers.

  Whatever the case may be, she asked Cynthia to wait while she retrieved something.

  “Here,” the old woman said, thrusting a bag in Cynthia's hands.

  Cynthia opened it and saw Jules' stuff in there. Not much. Just her pathetic make-up bag and a few other things. But one item caught her eye. It was the final picture of them together on the spit. Champagne glasses raised high, a deep twilight edging in around them in the land of the midnight sun.

  Cynthia noticed the champagne didn't look golden like she remembered.

  It looked like blood against the setting sun.

  CHAPTER 8

  Region Two of the Singers

  Jacqueline watched her advisor with narrowed eyes. “So, you're telling me that you cannot avail yourself to send a scout on the mere pretense of an errand?”

  She knew that Victor was capable of whatever deception she was. Why he was hesitant was anyone's guess.

  Victor raked a frustrated hand through his already mussed hair, crossing a muscular leg over the other, his ankle dangling over its perch on his knee. He leaned forward, in a last attempt to convince his ruler of the need for caution. “Jacqueline, it would be unseemly to send a courier with any news other than that of the annual Gathering.” He settled back against the uncomfortable Victorian furniture in the huge mansion his region used as headquarters. However, it was Jacqueline's tastes that predicated the décor. And who was he to bitch? His place was in the field, carving out their place in the Singer Hierarchy. They were the most powerful region. Well, nearly so. Marcus had a formidable battalion. And now Marcus and Jacqueline's offspring was coming into his own.

  A Combatant after all.

  Jacqueline fingered the courier's note which stated simply:

  Dearest Jacqueline,

  Our progeny has ended his Awakening and has manifested as a Combatant.

  As agreed, you are now informed in writing.

  Yours, Marcus

  “He was never mine,” Jacqueline seethed, standing in a huff.

  Knowing a rage was likely, Victor endeavored to head the manic ranting off at the pass.

  “Now, Jacqueline...”

  “Shut up, Victor,” she said, crumpling the deeply embossed note on ivory stationery, the scarlet wax seal breaking and crumpling into bits at her feet.

  Victor shut up. But it cost him. He sometimes wondered why most regions were ruled by females, they were entirely too volatile for their position of importance. Look at this livid bitch he followed. Still stinging over a two-hundred year old dismissal. Jacqueline had never gotten over the rejection of Region One's leader, Marcus.

  Who had married for love.

  When his mate died a strange end, Jacqueline had rejoiced upon her death in a way that had strained the bounds of civility.

  Even for her.

  In the end, the matriarchal rule of Singers was mandated by blood. As were all things with the Singer. Blood was sovereign.

  Blood ruled.

  In the case of royal blood, the females were the bearers of royal blood that could yield a queen if the pairings were assembled with forethought and predetermination. As, obviously, hers and Marcus' had been.

  Another male Singer had been identified as Combatant. Their son by blood, not by a loving union. Their coupling had been arranged according to the old Law of Blood.

  Victor's eyes shifted to the desk that was like a huge wooden anchor in the room where they met. Brass, wood, high ceilings and ten inch moldings graced the formal parlor.

  As did nine other embossed ivory notices like the one Jacqueline had crumpled in her hand. Sitting in a portentous heap on top of the desk, a huge glass paperweight magnified the old-fashioned script like a seeking eyeball.

  “You know what this means as he is the last!” she hissed up at Victor, her rule having nothing to do with size. She was small, like so many Singer females, but powerful. Her royal blood assured an array of different talents.

  All of which she'd mastered expertly. To use against others, of course. Jacqueline ruled with tyranny instead of mutual respect.

  Victor sighed, knowing the day had come and dreading it with every fiber of his being. He nodded. “A Queen has Become.”

  “A true Queen or the circle would not be complete.” Jacqueline crossed her arms underneath breasts that still retained the bloom of youth, her age notwithstanding, she appeared mid-thirties but was actually over three hundred years.

  Victor tried for reason where none prevailed, “It is prophesied that the true Queen will bring peace and unity to all species, she will herald the coming together of Claw, Fang and Blood.”

  Victor held his breath for a moment, hopeful. For he saw a spark of reason in the fervent light in her dark eyes. Then it dimmed, to be replaced with her typical lust.

  Lust for power, lust to be the only one.

  The only queen.

  But she could not be. The circle did not congregate for her protection, but for another. The true Queen, Victor thought.

  The blood knew, foretold.

  The blood chose.

  Julia took a walk, the Singer
guards on duty trailing behind her at a discreet distance and she sighed, annoyed.

  She shouldn't have been and she recognized this basic principle. She was a Big Deal who needed to be Protected.

  Julia kicked a pebble and it bounced off the bark of a tree and winged into the bushes as she walked, the sounds of the forest a white noise to her. She was surprised by how fast she'd gotten used to the sounds of nature again and it made her a little homesick. Julia needed to get over that and pull up her big girl panties. It had been two years since Homer. Alaska had become a distant dreamlike memory.

  Jason's attack hadn't been a dream. She walked over to a boulder and sat down, turning her back so that's all the two fellow Singers saw and plopped her chin in her palm, balancing her elbow on her knee.

  Julia closed her eyes and remembered those hands on her throat, the eyes that had been hazel as a human, now spinning green orbs, the hands like fleshy steel.

  Blocking her airway.

  The numbness in her fingertips woke her out of the fog of her memory. Her wet cheeks testified to the grip her love for Jason still had on her.

  Did she care for Scott? Well sure... she had some unnatural soul-whatever going down. But, according to Marcus, she'd have some weird soul-shit with nine other Singers too. The Combatant.

  Wonderful.

  Had she cared for William? Yes, her mind whispered. But maybe it was kidnappee's love, better known as Stockholm Syndrome. After all, she'd lost everything and there'd he'd been, picking up the broken pieces of her life. Julia didn't want to mistake gratitude for love. As she thought of William she felt a terrible pain in her gut. Her hands flew to her stomach. What was this?

  Just as quickly as it was there, it disappeared. Odd as hell, Julia thought, puzzled.

  However, when it came to Jason, she had loved him. She had.

  Past tense.

  Julia found that she couldn't continue to love someone who tried to kill her, call it self-preservation. Sadness threatened her but behind it was determination. She needed to move on. He was a Were.

  Very likely a Were with the pack that Adi belonged to. If he still lived. Julia thought of Tony and wondered what would happen now with Joseph gone, Adi by herself. Now, maybe Jason in the mix.

  When the pain came again she staggered to her feet, feeling like her guts were being ripped out.

  She ran to the guards, their faces in comical twin expressions of pinched surprise. Julia fell to her knees, giving a low groan.

  The guards came to her side.

  But it was Scott that shoved them away and scooped her up into his arms.

  “No,” she said, batting at him.

  “Yes,” he smirked, looking down, his face a false mask of gaiety but the worry lurked underneath it all.

  “Are you still...” he asked, striding toward the house.

  She shook her head, embarrassed to be held by him. By anyone.

  Another pain wracked her body and she bit her tongue to hold in the shriek.

  Scott yelled at the guard, feeling an echo of it in his own body, “Get the Healer.”

  He ran to get Cyrus.

  Scott took the steps two at a time, thinking that they'd just gotten over one chaotic event only to have another rear its ugly head.

  *

  William

  William let the stringy blood trail down from his broken fang, which even now was repairing itself, the calcified bone knitting itself as he hung there like a limp dishrag.

  Of course, they were feeding him all the blood in the world to keep him awake and conscious for the torture.

  William held his intestines inside the cavity of his body with one hand while the other supported his weight on the bloodied and gore-soaked floor. The pain was such a constant that he was building tolerance. Unfortunately, the one that he'd shared blood with was meant to take the burden of his pain. When his cup became full, it flowed over its bounds, spilling to the other person.

  In this case, Julia.

  As close as William could manage it, he determined that today was probably the first day that he could not stifle spillage. It had breached his boundaries, the open hole of his body being the worst injury yet.

  When Merlin strode in and looked at him without mercy, William understood that things had not deteriorated as much as they could.

  “He heals?” Merlin queried of the one who wielded the barbed whip.

  The torturer nodded, wiping the sweat off his brow. It was obvious that torturing was hard work. He had exerted himself in the stripping of flesh, the beating of William's face, and the partial evisceration evidenced in his bulging intestines.

  Already the swelling that had shut his eye was lessening and William cast a look of such withering contempt that Merlin laughed. “Yes, runner, loathe me if you will, but blame your kiss' leader. It is Gabriel that knew what would be your fate.”

  “Why?” William asked.

  Merlin waved his hand around dismissively. “He does not wish the liability of the Rare One in his kiss. He has said she had been... damaging.”

  William frowned then winced as the cut above his brow reopened. “It is not she which troubles him, but his status as overlord. She well and truly threatens his leadership. So he will sweep her to another coven. Making it your problem.”

  “We can handle the female, runner,” Merlin said, his eyes narrowing on William.

  William smiled and Merlin frowned.

  As if the unworthy male could dream of what it would be like to hold a Rare One in the coven. Did he not even understand their basic history? Had he even studied the Book of Blood as required for a leader of their species?

  “More,” Merlin said, turning.

  William's torturer shrugged huge shoulders, the barbs dull from use, from strikes against his flesh. “There is not a surface without wounds, Merlin.”

  Merlin opened his mouth in a hiss, “Do it. Make it as deep and vile as possible. We need that Rare One. We will make them come to us.”

  His head swiveled in William's direction. “Does she ail, runner?”

  William could feel that his pain was less. And it was not all his exceptional healing, aided by his Singer heritage.

  “I do not know,” William lied.

  Merlin threw back his head and laughed. “You care for her,” he said in surprise.

  William stared at the wretched excuse of a vampire, mired in deception, married to greed.

  “This is actually amusing. I shall watch your degradation,” he paused in his antagonizing, giving William a steady look, “so you know, I gave my word of honor that I would not torture you, that it would be a superficial consequence.”

  “It is no surprise then, that you partake in the pleasure of my pain, that a promise made to my leader would be broken. If Gabriel is power hungry, then you are drowning in a decadence which is nameless,” William said in a low voice gone thick with rage and blood. He spit it out onto the stone, straightening to his knees, his entrails now held by new skin, his hand that had caused them not to spill, dropping to his side. His gray eyes met Merlin's. “Julia is not a trifle. You may retrieve her but if the circle has come, she will be immune to anything and everything that you bring. All that you bring.”

  Merlin's eyes narrowed into slits then he turned to Whip-bearer and nodded.

  The weapon slung behind his massive shoulder and whistling through the air, tore into William's chest, a thousand burning bee stings hitting the area that had just healed an hour before.

  William flinched, holding the pain in the deepest part of his soul.

  Yet, no vampire was invincible and the agony escaped, flying on the blood-binding he shared with Julia, going off on a path that led only to her.

  *

  Jason

  Jason sat straight up in his bed, gasping. He clutched his hand to his chest as if a hole had opened there.

  Holy shit, what the hell was that? He looked down at his chest, feeling the smooth walls of muscle over unblemished and perfect skin and
hesitated as another burning pain hit the same area and he winced.

  What the eff did this mean?

  He got out of the bed and padded across his room, absently stroking his sternum, the burning like heartburn with a kick and looked out at the woods, the moon casting her shine on everything, causing it to look blanketed in a silver that illuminated everything.

  A cloud moved across the moon, tearing the luminescence away and when it passed Tony stood outside his window.

  Jason jumped in his skin and Tony smiled.

  That fucker, Jason thought, instantly feeling his wolf roil under his skin in a tortuous pull of heat and hatred. The wolf wanted out and the moon's weight and fullness encircled them both, calling to Jason.

  Summoning him.

  Jason resisted but it was not without an effort that was an ugly, unnatural feeling. What would have felt right would have been to burst his skin like a bird taking flight. But he wasn't a bird, it would have been his wolf. And he didn't want to be labeled Feral.

  He wouldn't be, ever again.

  Jason came to himself and slowly raised his hand, popping the bird at the bastard. Tony's smirk fell off his face like a brick landing and Jason closed the curtain to block his rotten ass from sight.

  The lurking dickhead. What the hell was he up to anyway? Skulking around the compound. Jason knew it wasn't his security detail shift. But there he was, being a prick. Seemed a natural skill for him.

  Jason threw himself back on the bed, crossing his ankles and folding his arms behind himself. His mind went right to Julia, as it did every day. He sat stewing as he remembered his conversation with the Packmaster from yesterday.

  Lawrence steepled his fingers, regarding his newest wolf, a natural Alpha and sighed. There were no good explanations, there was only Pack Law.