He tolerates my perusal, and on closer inspection, I see the fine scarring that literally covers all the exposed parts of his body. Just like Casek. Thick platinum hair sweeps back from a brow that is pale but not pasty.
Deep blue eyes are rimmed in azure, capturing my stare easily. Flecks of blood-red appear to float within the irises. This one does not have the physique of a donkey. He's built like some of the few chimera I've seen in the colony.
“What are you?” I whisper.
The donkey in human form inclines his head. “Your salvation, female.”
Casek glowers. “I do not play games, and I will die before I go back for Seiger's brand of punishment.”
Kicking up his chin, the donkey gives a soft bray of emotion. “You might not have to if you decide in the direction I would have things play out.”
Flaring his nostrils subtly, he turns to me. “You are entering heat.”
What can I do but give a mute nod?
“I can help with that.”
I bet he can. A snort of derision slips out before I can stop it.
“Speak. I am tired of guessing games. If you don't tell me why you're here trying to strike a bargain, then we'll take our chances with the hyenas.”
“And lose.”
“Perhaps, donkey—but this insufferable wait is more than I can stand, and I do have the female to think about.”
Casek gives me his eyes for a heavy second then returns his attention to the donkey.
“I am Roiel, and I am more than donkey.”
“Cocky,” Casek says, sounding disappointed.
Roiel shakes his head. “It is my default form, but another lies host within this body.”
Casek leans forward. “Spit it out.”
“Not before I get the promise from you both.”
“What promise,” I whisper.
His strange mix of blue eyes burn a stare through me. “You will breed with me.”
“What?” I ask softly, thinking of Dirk and those like him. I let my breath out. “I don't want to be with a donkey.” Even a male as gorgeous as him.
Donkeys are the worst of the Mutables. I can't forget the rumor that Dirk raped my mother as she lay dying.
A donkey did that.
Casek's eyelids go to half-mast. “You think to lend yourself to our fight for a chance to escape and share this female.”
So now, Casek would breed me too?
I give him a narrow stare.
Doesn't matter that an hour ago I was flirting with danger by telling Casek he needed to keep me warm.
Now I'm miffed.
“I have a confession.”
Casek shrugs, and Roiel looks outside, clearly in search of hyenas who lie in wait for us all.
“I am a perversion as a Mutable.”
This gets Casek's full attention.
“I do not rape females and want … I wish to have a mate.”
“You are prehistoric or First,” Casek says with slow surprise.
Roiel gives a miserable nod. “The challenge of keeping my silence within our colony is becoming too great as I mature. As it is, I'm fifty cycles.”
“Breeding age,” Casek says.
“Yes, I can add my strength to yours. We will kill the hyenas, and we will breed this female.” His face turns to mine. “Protect her.”
He says the last like a quiet oath.
“How do we not know you're clever and telling us falsehoods so it will be easier to capture us?”
“Smell my truth.” With a move almost too fast for me to track, he slices his arm with a very undonkey-like hooked talon that sprouted from his index finger in a rapid burst of exploding flesh.
Blood wells, and Casek flares his nostrils. “Earth,” he says.
Roiel nods. “Do you scent my truth?”
“I can. You must be very smart to have hidden such a thing from Seiger.”
His eyes close for a long moment, and when he opens them, they are filled with the cost of his a dual life.
“You have no idea, First.”
Casek looks at me. “Are you willing to breed us?”
Palms sweating, I answer, “I don't see that I have a choice.”
“You don't feel the call of us?”
Heat rises to my cheeks, and I have to admit, “Of course. I'm just so used to the thought of a future of being raped by Seiger I didn't consider an alternative. Now I have two males who might be decent to me; give me a future not full of abuse.”
Roiel shivers. “I have long wanted to be with a female who responds to my beast. Who I could lay with and do the things Mutables will not do.”
“Tasting, protecting, and breeding,” Casek says.
“Yes,” Roiel breathes reverently.
“It's instinctive for our kind,” Casek adds, and the males look at me.
“I don't want to go back, and I do want what you just talked about.” I look at my hands.
“Then you give your word?” Roiel asks.
Lifting my head, I stare into his eyes and finally nod.
It's not until much later, after everything is bleeding out, it occurs to me that I should have asked what he was besides donkey.
THE END
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BLOOD SINGERS
A Blood Series Novel
Book 1
New York Times BESTSELLER
TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2007-12 Tamara Rose Blodgett
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
www.tamararoseblodgett.com
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Edited suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing.
Cover Design: Claudia McKinney
Photographs: DepositPhotos
Photography: Oleg Gekman
Once they had eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth.
~Sherlock Holmes
Prologue
J ulia pressed her nose to the glass, the trees a sea of green as they rushed outside her window, her momma and daddy's voices a low and pleasant drone from the front seat.
She hated the belt, it pressed across her neck in an uncomfortable place, itchy and suffocating.
“Momma,” Julia whined plaintive
ly.
Her mother's chocolate eyes appeared over the front seat, such a contrast to the auburn hair held in her customary pony tail.
“What is it?”
Julia worked her small finger under the belt and said, “I hate, HATE this stupid strap! I want to take it off!” Julia crossed her arms, huffing.
Momma sighed, unlatching her belt as she turned in the front seat to adjust the neck restraint portion of Julia's seatbelt. As Momma got nearer Julia smelled the special perfume that she wore. At once Momma's scent assaulted her where it intimately combined with the perfume she always wore.
Daddy said from the front, “Amber, sit back down. The belt's latched, she's just going to have to deal with it for another ten minutes.”
Julia's eyes narrowed to slits. Daddy was so stubborn. His belt didn't bite into his neck! 'Cuz he was a Big Man! Ugh... Julia fumed.
Momma smiled and began to turn and Julia saw Daddy's face in profile, watching to make sure she sat down safely.
He only took his eyes off the road for a moment.
It was enough.
Julia saw twin beads of light bear down on their car as an impossibly large grill came to eat them, the chrome winking in the late afternoon light.
Daddy made a correction to the right but that threw Momma on top of him, imprisoning their bodies in a macabre dance, the steering wheel sandwiching them together.
As if in slow motion Julia saw her mother's face as Amber looked at her father.
The knowledge of their impending death appeared on their faces like an unspoken promise.
Julia screamed as the truck slammed into the car and the belt that she hated so much whipped against her neck and slammed her against the back seat with such force that the breath left her small body.
She watched her parents crushed together in a final embrace.
The metal colliding was an earthquake in her ears and something wet and warm hit her face. She opened her eyes and her parents were... everywhere, their blood like a blanket that coated her face and hair.
Her brain howled, refusing to accept what was happening. Her vision clouded. Her neck and head throbbed and her lungs were a burning inferno with the need to scream.
The last thing she remembered was her mother's hair entwined in the steering wheel like so much spun copper.
CHAPTER 1
Ten Years Later
J ulia stuffed her wool cap down more firmly on her head and waded through the icy puddles on the way to her 1977 Chevy Blazer. Fall had edged into early winter and the dampness of the rain had solidified into a dangerous sheet of ice.
Julia had known better and instead of wearing the latest Ugg fashion boots she'd slogged on her XtraTufs. They had an unparalleled ugliness but did the job. She might keep her ass in the air instead of pegged on an ice puddle by wearing her trusty boots. She threw her backpack over one shoulder and balanced a steaming cup of coffee in the other hand. She'd lied through her teeth about the contents to Aunt Lily, who seemed to think caffeine was the devil's drink. Julia smiled at that. She thought she was done growing and besides, coffee was a mainstay of Alaskan existence. She shuffled to the driver's side and gripped the handle. Then her feet lost some of their purchase and she slid to the right, her coffee sloshing out of the slit on the travel mug.
“Shit!” Julia said, as a couple of hot drops landed on her wrist, scalding her.
Grappling with the handle she jerked the door open and threw her palm on the driver's seat, steadying herself until she could heave her backpack inside.
But her breath stilled in her lungs when she saw what waited for her.
A single rose, its tremulous form in a beautiful, ethereal tangerine color lay inches from where her reddened and chapped hand had slapped down.
She'd almost destroyed it while saving her sliding butt from falling.
A smile stole over her face and she carefully put her travel mug in the cup holder between the seats and picked up the flower.
No note.
But she knew who had laid it there.
Her fiancé, Jason. Actually, it was a secret. Lily would have ten different kinds of cows if she knew how serious they were.
She looked around, her breath coming in white puffs in the crisp air. The snow having not committed itself to falling yet, the promise still hung there in the air. It would be like him, Julia thought, to pop up and grab her from behind, twirling her around just as she discovered his present.
But he wasn't there.
Huh, she turned the keys and jacked up the heat all the way. Five minutes and she'd hit the road, head to Homer High. She was spoiled. Usually Jason picked her up but today she had to head over to the DMV and get a stupid emissions test. It was amazing they even allowed her to drive her gas-guzzling truck. She sighed. Soon, she'd be with Jason.
school
Julia tore off her multi-colored itchy hat as she waltzed into the school. The familiar smell of kids, books, lunch and all the other school fragrances wafting across the air, the chill of late fall left outside the doors.
She fluffed her champagne-colored hair, hoping to eradicate the hat head she'd tagged herself with on the way over.
“Hey, bestie!” Cynthia cried.
Julia laughed, like she hadn't just spent all day and a night last weekend with Cyn? She acted like they'd been separated for months.
“Hey Cyn,” Julia said slowing, letting her catch up.
As usual, Cyn was dressed to the nines. High heels, ridiculously tight-ass pants and the latest, off-the-shoulder top with a crazy zebra pattern. It made Julia dizzy looking at it.
“What?” Cynthia looked at Julia's face.
“Your top, it's like some kind of optical illusion or something.”
“I know, right? It's hot-hot-hot,” she snapped her fingers after each word for emphasis. Julia rolled her eyes, there was no cure for her Fashion Awareness.
Julia considered herself Fashion Challenged. Yessiree. Irrefutably. Getting everything to match and be comfortable was of utmost importance.
Of course, once Julia mentioned Cyn's shirt, then she was honor bound to give Julia the once-over. Scanned from the top of her head she had almost escaped the wrath when Cynthia's gaze landed like a lead weight on her boots.
“Argh!” she shrieked in horror. “You wore your Tufs to school again! Don't give me any of that horse shit about how we're seniors and absolved of everything,” she rolled her eyes dramatically, “fashion is the exception. And those,” she waggled her fingers at Julia's offending footwear, “are for...for...”
“Gardening only,” Jason interjected smoothly, his arm sliding around Julia's waist. He'd heard the XtraTufs speech before.
“Don't you defend her either!” Cynthia lambasted him and Jason, all mock innocence said, “Who me?” his hand to his chest.
Cynthia's eyes narrowed to slits. “You're no help, Jason Caldwell, she could wear a shapeless sack over her whole body and you'd still think she was gorgeous.”
“Guilty,” he said, his forehead dipping to peck Julia's head, still fuzzy from the hat.
Julia leaned back against his chest, her head tucking comfortably underneath his chin and sighed. This is where she'd wanted to be from the moment she opened her eyes. Against him, soaking up his warmth. Letting it seep into her bones and chase the coldness of the morning away.
Cyn snapped her fingers in front of Julia's face, “snap out of it Jules!”
Jason laughed, Julia was known to mentally wander. It was becoming an annoying theme lately.
“What? Cranky witch!” Julia teased, taking a swipe at Cyn with her woolen hat.
She ducked smoothly, accustomed to Julia's abuse. “Okay... so, did you get that English paper done we started on Friday?”
Julia dug around in her backpack until she found a crumpled piece of paper at the bottom and turning, she slapped it against her locker, smoothing it with her other hand. Jason's big hand was a warm presence on her shoulder, kneading it softly.
; “Are you kidding? Terrell will never accept that mess,” Cynthia said, throwing out one hip and putting a hand on the jutting point.
Julia shrugged a shoulder. “It's a rough draft. Besides, keeping the standard low like I do assures me gravy when I turn something in.”
Julia smiled at her awesome logic. School just didn't appeal. It was something she survived until she could graduate. It was Jason that was going to University of Alaska Anchorage. He was set with a full ride.
Mr. Basketball. Julia turned to look at him and wondered for the millionth time why he'd want her. He was so gorgeous and she was so... her. It didn't matter that Cyn thought she was pretty. Whatever. Cyn was her BFF, that's what they do, cheerlead.
Julia still didn't have A Plan. She knew she couldn't wait to get out of Aunt Lily's place and begin a life with Jason.
Cynthia gave an elaborate roll of her eyes and caved, saying, “You can try all your down home weasel-like charm on Terrell while Jason and I turn in real papers. Unwrinkled papers.” She cocked her brows up to her hairline and looping her arm through Julia's, she dragged her to block one.
The Dreaded Language Arts. Everyone knew there was nothing artful about it. Jason laughed as they trudged to class, Julia's arms linked with theirs.
CHAPTER 2
First Species Page 22