“The Rare One is the obvious complement to you, Jason. You are both Singers, you have turned, you are a rare Red...” he spread his hands by his sides then leveled Jason with a hard stare. “I believe it is you in the prophesy of the Book of Luna.” Lawrence recited the exact scripture he had quoted to Tony not long ago. But unlike Tony, this wolf was keenly intelligent and not rash. Jason mulled it over, Lawrence could almost see his thoughts washing over his face like a page turned.
“That would mean that she is bound to a blood drinker and a Were!” Jason said in a loud voice that was without hope.
“And the Singer who chooses her blood.”
Jason threw up his hands. “She is my wife,” he enunciated like Lawrence was a little stupid, his voice a vibrating weapon before use.
Lawrence stared at Jason, reining in his impatience. “That is not the way of it for supernaturals. She has consummated nothing. Chosen no one.”
“She chose me.”
Lawrence nodded. “Yes, in your prior human existence, under the human's rules, the laws which govern their species, she was your female.” His eyes met Jason's. “That is no more. Now you are ruled by the moon, by your wolf. She is ruled by her blood.”
Jason pounded his fist into his open palm. “It's not fair!”
Lawrence nodded again. He was starting to look like a bobble head, Jason thought uncharitably. “How did she get my blood? I didn't break her skin with the... attack,” Jason muttered the last under his breath, the shame infusing him with discomfort.
Lawrence palmed his chin, thinking. Suddenly he touched on a thought and asked, “Do you think that she may have consumed or touched some of your blood when you were attacked? It wouldn't take much if it entered a Singer as rare as she.”
Jason thought about that horrible night on the beach, how he'd yelled, or tried to yell, for her to run, his throat a bloody ruin. How she'd come over, sliding in tight next to him and shoving her hands against the wound. He'd coughed.
Had the blood gotten in her mouth? Her hands?
“Do you see? It would only have taken a microscopic amount at the time of your change. You were already Becoming. It was fate. You were meant to be a wolf, the instant the attack transpired, you were turning. She touched you, consumed some of your essence through blood.” Lawrence shrugged.
When Jason said nothing Lawrence let his last comment ring in the room like a damning proclamation, “She is a Blood Singer. It is what she is. Their Blood governs them. It always has. It always will.”
They stared at each other.
Jason asked the one thing he needed to know, he was going crazy not knowing. “Can I get her back?”
Lawrence nodded. “If you wish for her to be your mate, you will have to break the bonds that she has with the others.”
“How?” Jason asked, already hating the answer.
Deep down, he knew what it was.
Lawrence smiled. Jason found it to be the thing they accused him of being only weeks before: feral.
“I think you know the answer to that, wolf.”
Jason did.
He walked out, knowing his future, but not embracing it.
Never that.
CHAPTER 9
Region One
Cyrus met Scott's eyes and shook his head. “This is deliberate, Scott.”
Scott beat his fist onto the molding that surrounded the door. Dammit, just when they were making headway some other fucktastrophe came along and he had to buck up to the challenge. Hell, he was all about manning up. That was his life, actually. As the first born son of the leader of Region One, he was fine on-diddy with manning up.
If he knew what the hell he was up against.
But Julia writhing around with phantom pain was un-effing-doing him. Scott tore a hand through his hair and finally said, “What do we do?” His eyes nailed Cyrus, demanding resolution.
“This is the blood-binding working its magic.”
“Which?” Scott asked in a terse voice.
Cyrus shrugged, understanding the entire question in the one word. “I'm guessing vamp.” His eyes met Scott with a cautionary but stamped in them.
Scott stilled. “And?”
“The Were is going to know. He'll get psychosomatic symptoms as well.”
“Well hell, isn't this a fuckburger,” Michael said from the corner and Scott glared at him. “You,” he pointed at Michael, “shut up.”
While his brother dreamed of conjuring a fine illusion for him he turned his attention to Jen. “I'm ready for opinions from the peanut gallery.”
Jen looked at Cyrus who gazed back. “She needs to reunite with this vampire, break the blood tie,” he said emphatically.
“But why is this happening?” Jen asked, using her palm to indicate Julia's pain.
“My best guess is he's being tortured to get to her.”
The room fell into a heavy silence, Brendan finally broke it, “You mean, this vamp is laying around while someone takes chunks out of him?”
Cyrus chuckled. “No. It may not be as simple as that.”
“Like he's not a volunteer,” Jen stated.
“I'll volunteer. I'll take chunks out of him,” Scott said. “For free. Hell... for fun,” Scott ground out.
“No,” Julia whispered, her eyes rolling to his. “He hasn't done anything.”
Scott nodded his head in a quick angry jerking motion. “Oh yeah, he's so innocent. Those vampires, such an honest bunch.”
“Come on Julia! Think. They are after power, just like the Weres.” His eyes bore down on hers and Julia squeezed hers tight against the condemnation in his.
“I understand.” Her eyes snapped open, searing a line of heat on every place they fell. Scott swallowed against the wash of emotion, a backlash of her agony struck him like a whip dipped in acid. “However,” and she looked at each sibling, her gaze landing on Marcus as he entered the doorway, “the Singers don't seem much different to me. You need someone who cares about uniting everyone. So these wars will stop.” Her eyes flared at him then she turned away, both hands laid against her chest.
Scott ached to touch her and on Cyrus' nod came forward. “Will it help?” he asked, hating the helpless feeling in his guts. Cyrus nodded then added a cautionary, “I won't lie, it will hurt. You will share in it.”
Scott shrugged, his eyes flicking to Marcus' who nodded and answered for Scott. His father used the very words that he'd been thinking. “It is his job as Combatant. To protect the Queen.”
Julia groaned and muttered something under her breath.
“What?” Jen asked and gave a laugh, thinking she'd heard her just fine.
“I said, bullshit,” Julia repeated.
Scott knelt beside her and met her eyes. Julia noticed how black his were and shut her own against what she saw there. “Okay,” she said without opening them. The pull against her chest felt unbearable. The urge to cry was a weight she hated but bore, just barely.
When she felt the softest touch of his hand on her arm, gloveless, a shuddering exhale left her body and she gave a soft sob of relief. Her whole body unknotted. The pain had been so great, building to a screaming crescendo, that until some of the weight of it was lifted, she didn't know how bad it had become.
Julia opened her eyes and saw the tightness in Scott's. His hand trailed fire on her skin as he stroked her arm. When his hand stopped he wrapped his palm around her forearm, his fingers touching. She fell into his eyes, so grateful for the reprieve from the river of pain that was now dammed another hitching sob escaped her.
“Julia, shhh... I'm here,” Scott crooned to her, using his other hand to cup her cheek, his fingertips grazing her temple and she nuzzled into his palm, the contact sucking more pain away.
When his lips came for her mouth like sleeping beauty waking from a bewitched slumber her lips parted in readiness, her eyes shutting.
Heat and silk touched her mouth, moving with the barest touch, the horrible pain sliding away like melting candle wax,
an unbearable memory put away.
Scott pulled away, feeling the bite of what she felt, the thud of an instrument of torture like an excruciating echo of pain across a psychic distance where space didn't matter before blood.
He flinched with the rhythm of it and Julia's eyes widened. “No, Scott. Put it back,” she said, grabbing his hand and clenching it to her chest.
“No problem,” he said as the abuse kicked up a notch.
Scott turned to Cyrus, never taking his touch away from Julia. “How long?”
Cyrus shrugged. “It depends on the healing prowess of the vamp. If he's a good healer. Even now he might be healing it all.”
“Wait a sec,” Michael said, tearing a Blow Pop out of his mouth. Scott would have rolled his eyes if he hadn't been dying about then. “Why are they torturing this dude? They're all vamps, right?” He stabbed the sucker back in his mouth.
“I can answer that.” A young woman came through the door and Brendan said, “Angela?” She looked at Marcus and he nodded.
“I've sensed... the presence of the blood drinkers.”
“Vampires 'R Us, huh?” Michael asked, sticking the lollipop back in his mouth, but not before everyone got a load of his blue tongue.
Gross, Julia had time to think before Scott gave her hand an involuntary squeeze, his eyes tightening from whatever was being done.
To William.
Scott gave her a quick glance and getting the basic emotion he whispered, “Don't you dare feel sorry for him.”
Julia wanted to take her hand out of his but he held on. “No,” he shook his head. “If I let go, it will all come back to you.”
“Do something, Cyrus. It's a circle until the torture of this vamp stops,” Brendan said.
“He can't, Bren,” Angela said.
All eyes fell on hers but Marcus'. He knew what she would say. “He can't repair what doesn't happen. It's all here,” she touched her head, then let her palm sweep her own body, head to toe. “It is in the blood, a blood-binding is impossible to break from a distance.”
“So, he gets the treatment and so does bro and Queenie?” Michael asked the general crowd.
Marcus intervened when Scott stood, his hand tenaciously clinging to Julia's. He put a palm up to stay Scott and gave a look to Michael. “If you choose not to be helpful, leave.”
Michael shrugged, leaning against the wall.
“She'll have to go to the vamps, won't she?” Jen asked in a whisper.
Marcus nodded.
“No effing way,” Scott said through gritted teeth. He couldn't believe Julia had been bearing this. He rolled his shoulders, trying to shrug off the agony.
It clung like a scent.
Angela came to stand before Scott. “There is no choice. They'll never stop, Scott.”
“Goddammit!” Scott roared into the room, Julia flinching with the sound of his anger. He looked his apology to her but turned to the others. “What the hell do they want?”
Marcus sighed. “Julia, son. They want her.”
“Well, they're not going to have her. Over my dead carcass.”
“They'll probably be happier than hell to arrange that,” Brendan said.
As it happened, that was the truth of it.
As the Singers despaired over Julia and Scott's situation. Merlin's troop of runners closed in on the Singer compound, the kiss of night having fallen softly on the woods, the grounds.
“They're here,” the Feeler said. Angela's eyes grew wide as more of their intent became known.
“Ha!” Michael said. “Let 'em try. We're going to kick some undead ass.”
“Don't hurt William,” Julia said.
Scott looked down at her, seething because of her sympathy.
“Why, Julia? Why should I give... should we give two shits about this guy?”
“Because he saved me.”
“From what?” Scott asked, his eyes searching hers, frustration and pain a mix that made him hold her hand too tightly. He loosened his grip.
“The others,” she whispered.
Angela, Region One's Feeler, put her eyes on Julia's and gasped, her hand covering her mouth. And Scott shifted his gaze to her. “What?”
“They plan a terrible end for her.”
“What end?”
“An arranged mating. She'll have no choice. None.”
Scott gave a vehement shake of his head, gathering Julia against his chest, raising her effortlessly into the cradle of his arms.
He was struck by how he'd hated Julia in the beginning, just a short week ago. Or hated what she had represented, a fine line that he'd had difficulty recognizing. She seemed like an intrusion on Scott's freedom, his independence. And in time Scott had come to realize his independence was merely a hiatus from what destiny deemed his future.
Julia was his future.
Scott wanted her as his soulmate; he knew that now as he stood there, shouldering the pain from a distant vampire as he was tortured so they could get to Julia. As he looked at his father, Scott recognized that at the very least he was her protector. Along with nine other soul-meld candidates. That part he hated.
“Where are the others?” Scott asked him.
“They come. They draw nearer to complete the circle.”
Julia said, “Let me down.”
“No,” he said quietly and she did the only thing she could think of. Using her God-given Singer ability she jerked out of his grasp and flew through the open window into a night embraced by vampire, fueled by the power of her mind.
Pain slammed into Julia as soon as the connection was broken with Scott and light flashed before her eyes. There was no getting used to the pain. It was its own relentless force, barreling into her without mercy, the buffer of Scott gone.
Her concentration shattered under the brutality of it. She was falling and landed against something... someone.
Julia opened her eyes and met crimson ones. Ones she knew.
Vampire.
Then there were Singers everywhere, vampires battling her kind. As a wash of pain lanced her. The vampire that held her dropped her as a male Singer swung a fist at him, fire rolling off his forearm like a wrecking ball, the sunset flames hitting the vampire in the chest and he shrieked into the night, beating his own chest to put out the flames.
Another swooped in to grab her and she did as Scott had taught her, the training he gave her in the infant stages but it was enough. She lashed out with her foot, giving a solid kick to his knee and he hissed in pain, his fangs bursting out with a fleshy pop.
Julia immediately thought of that night with the vampires in the bathroom and fear bloomed where anger at Scott had been.
She'd been played a fool. Then Julia realized that the pain was gone. She scuttled away on all fours as the vampire blurred to her in a rush of speed and she used his momentum against him as she shoved her power at him and he slammed into another vampire.
Bowling pins, Julia thought wildly, giving a hysterical giggle as she beat a hasty retreat to the house.
She got to the first step of the house and a vicious tug on her head kept her in place as a strong arm like warm steel curled around her waist and lifted her off the ground.
Julia gave in to her terror, screaming for all she was worth, her throat feeling like something important tore as she did.
Julia felt a crunch and the grip loosened and she began to fall, throwing her arms out in front of her.
She knew it was Scott before she smelled him, saw him.
Their blood coursed in synchronicity and Julia resisted what she felt even as she did: safe.
Scott made her feel safe. It scared Julia. She didn't want to feel safe. She didn't trust safe. Safety was something to be stolen.
Then she looked up into his face and gasped in shock. Eyes of black ink, rimmed by red looked at the vampires who approached them.
Ten deep.
Brendan, Michael and her Singer guards flanked them. But it was Scott who held her attention.
/> Holy shit, Julia thought, stunned despite the circumstances she found herself in, he's like the Incredible Hulk.
And he was.
Scott set Julia down and she watched as his six foot three frame stretched by inches, his muscles bulging and tearing the black fabric of the tee that he always wore.
With an inhuman roar he launched himself at the vampire. His hand touched the first and as he did, he pulled the limb off in sickening twist of tearing flesh, even as two sunk their fangs into his arms. Scott howled, using the arm of the vampire as a club, he heaved the ball joint of the shoulder into the vampire like a battering ram, cracking his jaw like an unhinged gate. His face hung askew as Brendan and Michael went to work, Brendan setting a fire at many feet, but it was the faces that Julia would never forget.
The faces of the vampires as they wailed and their skin melted off as she stood there watching.
The smell of burning flesh, flesh that had long-since been dead, speared the air and as her nostrils filled with it Julia tipped like a spinning top, her hands biting into the ground, the fresh air that lay right above the vegetation not enough to stop her from puking where she crouched.
Julia's eyes burned with the acrid smell. Jen was there patting her back, coughing into the back of her hand. Julia was reminded of Adi as her nose and eyes ran, the little bit of food she'd consumed decorating the weeds.
Out of her peripheral vision she saw Scott, an impossibly changed and brutal Scott, become a tornado of violence, tearing the vampires limb from limb as Michael distracted them with his illusions and Brendan lit them up like tiki torches.
Julia rocked back and sat on her butt watching the battle unfold. Marcus was amongst the throng, using a sword as long as her torso, his supernatural strength aiding in its use. Julia watched him strike the vampires as they came, nearly as fast as they and she closed her eyes against the violence, repulsed.
“What... are we?” Julia began, still watching the images behind her eyelids of the killing like a movie she couldn't turn away from.
It was awful. It was necessary.
Julia couldn't go back to them.
She couldn't stay here. Julia knew that now.
The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) Page 35