Blood Price (New Breed Book 1)

by Melody Raven

  Whatever he saw didn’t seem to make him feel any better. He let the curtain fall back in place. “Get dressed. I’ll take you home.”

  Tela pushed herself up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just get dressed.”

  She blinked in confusion. At least he was smart enough not to lie to her, but that didn’t make her feel better. “Am I in danger?”

  “I doubt it. But we should go.”

  If he thought she should leave, she wouldn’t question him too much. But she wasn’t going to go without at least knowing why. Getting up from the bed, she wrapped the sheet around her. As comfortable as she’d been naked with him just a few seconds ago, she now felt the need for as many barriers as she could get.

  She made her way to the window and half expected John to stop her, but he just stood motionless as she made her way to the curtain.

  “You don’t want to do that,” he warned.

  It was a testament to John. He could pull her from the window so easily. He could force her to do whatever he wanted. But instead, he simply asked even though he had to know she wasn’t going to turn back now.

  Stepping up to the window, she hooked a finger behind the curtain and pulled it back just enough for one eye to poke through. The sight below took her breath away. Ever since the invasion, she’d spent so much time protecting Dani that she’d also protected herself from the brutality. She’d seen a few dead bodies here and there, but the fights, the destruction, and the bloodshed had all evaded her.

  Until now. Some poor woman was hung from a balcony about one floor down and a few apartments over, her hands bound and ankles slit. Blood dripped down to a writhing mass of vampires below, reveling in the red droplets. The same way the witch had been murdered....

  The woman wasn’t moving and Tela was oddly grateful. It would be so much worse if she’d been struggling. As it was, Tela was never going to get this image out of her mind.

  But then it got so much worse. The body, still dangling in the air, slowly turned around. Even from this distance, Tela recognized the dead woman.

  Angelique.

  “What the hell happened?” barked John as he confronted Dante in the man’s office. He never looked fully comfortable behind the desk that he’d been given. Even though John was sure that by now Dante had to be well versed in how to use the computer set up in front of him, Dante wasn’t a behind-the-desk type.

  From the police procedurals he’d watched, desk duty was always described as a punishment, and John could completely understand why. To go from being a soldier, a general in Dante’s case, to hidden away out of sight, sounded like a form of hell to John.

  Except right now he wasn’t exactly in a pitying mood for Dante.

  The Vopura leaned back in his seat. “You need to reconsider your tone.”

  “I opened my curtain to a sacrifice. I want to know what happened.”

  Dante ran a hand over his head. “What we expected. A human attempted to sneak into the building last night under the guise of a blood donor. When she was caught, Mikel wanted to make an example of her.”

  “And Mikel thinks hanging her out to die in front of all the humans will stop future rebellions?”

  “They need to know their actions have consequences.”

  John clenched and unclenched his fists, but Dante didn’t appear that sympathetic. “I know you’re familiar with Mikel’s style by now. No use pretending you’re surprised.”

  “No, but Tela got to see his little show of force.”

  “Ahh.” Dante nodded with understanding. “Your anger makes a little more sense now. How did Tela take it?”

  John thought back to her numb reaction. He was worried she’d scream and draw the attention from everyone on the floor, but she’d managed to mutely get dressed and follow him out. On the street, most of the Vopura were gathered beneath the girl, hoping for another drop of blood to come their way. He’d shoved Tela in the first cab they found and got her home as quickly as possible, but he knew she was far from being okay.

  “Where does Mikel go from here?”

  Dante shook his head. “It’s not for me to say.”

  “You can guess.”

  “Well, I’m guessing he’s pissed. And usually angry people do stupid things. Not that anything he does is stupid.”

  John knew he only added on the last bit in case somebody was listening in. A reminder that nowhere was safe right now. Not if even Dante thought the walls were closing in. “I can’t not see Tela.”

  “Of course you can. Walk away. Pretend you never met her. It’s not hard.”

  “You’ve never had to walk away from somebody you cared about,” bit out John.

  “You have no idea what I’ve had to walk away from.” Dante’s words were controlled, but John could see there was a veil of anger behind that control. “You met that girl weeks ago, and ever since you met her, she’s been in more danger and on the radar of beings who would’ve never known she existed. She’s better off without you, and you know that. Don’t get pissed at me for pointing out the obvious. And you better not let it show in your work. I need you out in the field tonight. It’s more likely now than ever that the humans will try to mount an insurrection. You need to be on the streets. I’m giving you District Four.”

  “Give me District Six.”

  “After what I just said, you want me to put you in the same district as your fucking girlfriend?”

  “It’s one thing if I can’t be with her. But I can at least watch over her.”

  “No. Watching over her, being with her—whatever line you’re drawing, it’s going to wither away and disappear. What are you going to do if Mikel wants her? What are you going to do when you’re between her and her sister? You’re going to end up dead. I’m doing this for your own good.”

  John nodded bitterly. “You know, that’s what my mother said to me when she sold me. It was for my own good. I’d have a place to sleep and food on the table. More than she could provide.”

  “Well, good for you. I’m not your fucking mother. Now do what I say or don’t. It’s up to you whether you want to face the consequences.”

  John wanted to go against Dante. All he could think about was going to check on Tela and to verify she was okay after what she saw. All he could think about was being with her again, touching her again, tasting her again. But he had to hold himself back. He knew there were going to be plenty of battles ahead. There was no use pushing Dante now. “All right, I’ll go to District Four. I just want to ask one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Who killed the girl?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “I want to know if Mikel did it himself. To make a statement.”

  “If Mikel had done it, she’d be hanging by individual body parts. I took care of it. Figured I’d show the girl some mercy. That’s not a problem for you, is it?”

  It really shouldn’t be. But yet....

  “Tela?” asked Dani hesitantly from the doorway.

  Tela pulled the pillow off her face and squinted to clear her hazy vision. “Are you bleeding?”

  “No.”

  “Are you on fire?”

  “No.”

  “Then go away.” She put the pillow back over her eyes. She’d done well. She really had. Through all this craziness, she’d held it together for Dani. She’d kept food on the table. Made sure the initial round of looters and panicked humans hadn’t made it into the apartment. Overall, she’d done a damn good job, if she did say so herself.

  But she was out. Seeing that poor woman hanging lifeless above crowds of cheering vampires had broken her. Next Wednesday.... Angelique had said next Wednesday. She knew she hadn’t imagined that. She knew she hadn’t misheard.

  Now, of course, it made so much sense. Why would she tell Tela the truth? They didn’t know each other. For all Angelique knew, Tela was going to run back to Sorenson and tell all the vampires she knew that next Wednesday was when they all needed to be on high alert.


  And now, looking back, remembering how resigned Angelique had seemed as Tela had refused to help, it made more sense. Because if Tela refused, Angelique was going to go in.

  Fuck. It wasn’t her fault. Tela had good reasons to refuse, and if anything, Angelique’s death had proved her fears. But it didn’t stop the crushing guilt from closing in on her. She’d get out of bed someday, but not today.

  “Tela, you need to get up,” said Dani from the doorway.

  Ugh, why was she still here? “I need you to leave me alone.” Tela turned so her back was to her sister.

  “But you—”

  “Go!” screamed Tela, the shout cutting through the quiet apartment. Dani didn’t actually want her to get up. She just wanted to find out what had happened. It was nearly seven in the morning. Hardly too late to sleep in on any other day.

  Dani didn’t say anything, but Tela could hear angry footsteps. Dani still didn’t know. She was sure news of the public execution had made its way through the city, but Dani wouldn’t know who it was. Or that it was Tela’s fault.

  Suddenly, she heard Dani walking back down the hallway and she braced herself for another fight. She couldn’t get up and function. At least not today.

  She was already running through the list of rebuttals she would shout at Dani when she realized the footsteps she was hearing weren’t her sister’s. These were heavy. Slower. Someone else was in the apartment.

  Tela turned around to look at the door, where two shadows were silhouetted through the crack on the floor. A second later, the door started to creak open. Tela was frozen as the familiar shape was revealed.

  Dani had invited John into the apartment.

  Tela rolled back over. If Dani thought that would be enough to get Tela out of bed, she was so wrong.

  “Tela?” His deep voice sounded so alien in her apartment.

  Alien. Fuck, that was what he was. An invader from another world. Even if they came through a portal instead of a spaceship, all indicators still pointed to alien. “Tela isn’t here right now. Check back later.”

  She felt the bed dip as John apparently sat on it next to her. The sexy vampire was in her apartment and sitting on her bed. Somehow she thought the circumstances would be so different.

  “I came because I’m worried about you,” he said.

  “That’s silly. I’m obviously fine.”

  “Obviously,” he said sarcastically. “You’re so fine your sister invited me inside.”

  “She’s always been known more for her beauty than her brains,” said Tela, loud enough for Dani to hear from where she was no doubt eavesdropping. Dani might be stupid enough to invite a vampire—even a nice one—inside, but she wouldn’t run off right after.

  “And seeing you like this worries me too.”

  “I’m sleeping. That’s what us weak humans do. We sleep. It’s normal. Now judge it down and leave.”

  “I came here against my superior’s direct orders. I’d hate to leave without at least making sure you’re okay.”

  She finally turned over to look at him. Damn it, he looked good. A sight for her literally sore eyes. His dark eyes met hers and she took a deep breath. “I’m alive. I’m breathing. So you can leave now.”

  He reached out and set his hand on top of hers. She wasn’t sure whether she should intertwine her fingers with his or jerk away, so she instead stayed frozen, unmoving. “What do you want from me? I can’t.... I’m not going to talk about this with you. You know there’s nothing you can say to make this better.” There was nothing he could say to change the fact that his side and her side were different. Irreconcilably different. The judge wouldn’t offer a divorce; there’d be an annulment. His kind literally fed off of hers. There was no getting past this.

  In a few days, maybe a few weeks, she’d distance herself from the whole thing enough so she could go back to John’s place and let him feed, but today she wasn’t in the place to move forward.

  “I want to help you. All I’ve ever wanted to do is help.”

  She shook her head. “You’re such a liar. You don’t want to help me. You want me. All of your desire to make sure I’m okay or to make sure I’m happy is just because you want me.” She glanced to the door. “Dani, I need you to go visit Tiffany for the day.”

  “I’m not going to leave you alone—”

  “You invited him in! If he wants me dead, he’ll kill me if you’re here or not.”

  There was a moment of silence when Dani was surely trying to think of a way to stay. But she must’ve realized that Tela was in no mood for compromise right now and let out a deep sigh. “All right. I’ll get out of your way. But you better take care of her, John,” she warned before she reluctantly moved out of the doorway.

  Tela waited until she heard the front door open and shut before she turned her attention to her unwelcome visitor. “You know I’m not supposed to be okay, right? I’m allowed to freak out. Seeing a person hung out to die like that is totally freak-out worthy, okay? So don’t tell me I should be okay.”

  “I’m not here to tell you anything. I’m just here to check on you.”

  “And you’re not supposed to do that either. We’re enemies, John. You can’t go and work for them and then come here and act like you’re my friend. These are mutually exclusive, exclusive things. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Trust me, I understand.”

  “Then what are you even doing here? What do you want from me?”

  “I’m sorry. It never occurred to me that coming here would upset you this much. Do you want me to go?”

  Tela shoved her head to the pillow, not wanting to look at him anymore. “That’s such a stupid question,” she said, the words muffled by the pillow.

  He must’ve understood her, though. “What’s so stupid about it?”

  She lifted her head up. “Of course I don’t want you to leave. I need you to leave. For my own sanity, it would be best if you walked out of here and I never saw you again. I shouldn’t want you to be here. I shouldn’t want anything from you.”

  “I don’t think that what we have between us allows us to think logically.”

  “That sounds like a convenient excuse.”

  “I don’t believe there’s anything convenient about this.” He sure as hell wasn’t wrong about that. “I know you have the right to be upset about what you saw, but I don’t want to leave you like this. Can you manage to get out of bed for me?”

  “Yeah.... That’s going to be a no. Thanks for trying, though.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She thought that meant he was going to give up and leave. A bolt of sadness shot through her at the thought. He stood, and as the weight left her bed, she had to bite her lip to keep from calling him back. He should leave. It was better for both of them if he left.

  But he didn’t walk out. She heard the rustle of clothing, and a second later, the bed was dipping. Except this time he wasn’t just sitting but lying beside her. He was on top of the covers and she was beneath, but she knew them both well enough to understand that the illusion of modesty didn’t mean much. She opened her eyes to see his head resting just a few inches from hers. “I was worried you were leaving.”

  “I thought we both agreed to be a little stupid.”

  A halfhearted smile tugged at her lips. She couldn’t really be happy he was here. But she sure as hell wasn’t mad about it. “You were really ordered not to see me?”

  “I requested that my patrol be in your neighborhood tonight and was told it would be better for me to stay away. But that didn’t stop me from coming as soon as my patrol was over.”

  The thought of him rushing to see her as soon as his shift was over filled her with joy. Even though she knew it shouldn’t. “Why does your boss care about you seeing me?”

  “He’s worried that if I have to choose between my own people and you, I will choose wrong.”

  Her heart jumped into her throat. She’d always assumed that if it came down to it, there wou
ld be no choice at all. “And what do you think?”

  “It’s impossible to answer. Besides, I know what your choice would be in the same situation.”

  She did too, but it wasn’t really a fair comparison. She had her family to consider. Her life. From everything she heard, John didn’t have much of a life he was defending. His own people had used and abused him. They didn’t deserve his loyalty. They didn’t deserve his love.

  “The girl who was....” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. “What do you know about her?”

  She could tell he tensed the tiniest bit. “As you know, I wasn’t there. I know she tried to infiltrate Sorenson. And I know she wasn’t successful.”

  “What’s the point of infiltrating Sorenson? I can walk in there anytime I want.”

  “My guess is that she was trying to bring down the wall.”

  Tela swallowed down her nerves. She should stop this line of questioning now, but she was so surprised John was answering her at all. “There’s something in the building that can bring down the wall?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The girl would’ve never made it there.”

  “I bet. It’s probably surrounded by guards,” said Tela hesitantly.

  “It’s not that. She wasn’t a blood donor. Unless she was properly vetted, she wouldn’t have been able to get access to the building.”

  “Getting access isn’t hard, though. I did it easy enough.”

  “All right. But if she got inside and got what she needed, she’d never make it to the wall. There are too many vampires between Sorenson and the wall.”

  Tela nodded as she thought back to what Angelique had told her. There had been a plan to get the key to the wall. She wouldn’t have to get the key all the way there. She just would have to get it to the resistance and they’d take it the rest of the way. Vampires wouldn’t be able to stop it if they didn’t know who had it, right?

  “You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you?” he asked.

  She reached out and pushed at John. It was meant to be mocking, but the second she touched him, she realized that she could never mockingly touch him. Maybe because it was forbidden, maybe because she knew it was just temporary, but every touch was so much more with them. “I’m already doing something stupid,” she pointed out.