Kindred Souls: Entire Series Books 1 - 5

by Bree Branigan

  Which was why she needed Nora back. So that things could just go back to normal. Or as normal as they could be right now.

  Nora moved to sit on the bed and then dropped herself back on the soft mattress, her arms stretched up as she sighed. As if their conversation was being held by two teenagers instead of two very old vampires who had seen so much, lived through so much. It made this whole argument absurd.

  Elise moved to sit on the bed with her, resting her head on Nora’s stomach as she found a comfortable position. The room was simply decorated, but the books on the shelves and the trinkets Nora kept on surfaces told the story of a room that had been someone’s for a very long time.

  “Have you talked to Marcel tonight?” Elise asked after a moment of silence, her eyes shut as Nora played with her hair absently.

  “No.” She shook her head, her eyes still shut. “He’s been busy with Athos and I have a feeling things are not exactly friendly between them right now. He told me he’d call for me the last time we spoke, so I am waiting for him to do that.”

  “Did you tell him anything about the human?”

  “No, and we are not going to. Understand? At least not until all of this is sorted.”

  “But what if the human says something? With all the killings going on, what if someone believes him?” Elisa was agitated. This had never happened before.

  “We would hear something about it if they believed him. If they do, we’ll find a way to fix it. Right now we need to focus on what is going to happen with the nomad vampires and, if we are going to move, on finding a place that can house all of us without much suspicion. There are a lot of us. I don’t think that fleeing the city all at once is a good idea.”

  There was a heavy silence between them, not uncomfortable, but sad – desolate.

  “I don’t want to leave.” Elise sounded like a wounded child.

  “I know.” Nora nodded. “Neither do I.”

  Chapter 16

  There was a lot of blood.

  It was their thing, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just about taking what they needed. They wanted to take it all. If anything, they wanted to prove that they cared very little about the consequences. The screams had died down outside the door, but Ben and Jackie hadn’t really noticed when, exactly.

  He had a fistful of her hair pulled back, his knuckles white with the viciousness with which he held it. His chest sticky with blood and sweat, smeared as her back clashed against him, his hips moving fast, the slapping sound against her ass unrelenting as he fucked her hard, her hands gripping the sheets as the headboard slammed against the wall with a loud hollow sound.

  “Harder,” Jackie commanded. No matter how hard Ben was already fucking her, she wanted more.

  And Ben complied, his hair sticking to his forehead with the same mix of blood and sweat that coated them both.

  The bodies of the three girls he’d been watching with Jackie a few hours ago were scattered around them, lying in pools of their own blood, the sheets sticking to their naked bodies. It wasn’t necessary, really, making that big a mess, but it was fun. It was exhilarating. The feel of blood under their nails, sticking to their skin, and how it dried up on them in uncomfortable patches, the carnage of their night surrounding them gave both Ben and Jackie an intoxicating rush.

  There was nothing special about these girls. Nothing special about the people outside with the rest of the group, either. Young people tended to like breaking the rules, no matter the risk it represented. It was probably normal for them to have assumed that whatever it was that was going on was something that couldn’t possibly happen to them. Murders as gory as the ones going on around campus happened to other people, until they didn’t.

  And tonight was that night.

  They hadn’t been hard to find. That old abandoned house had been in Ben’s sights for a while without the added strobe lights and music. And you had to love those careless youths, filling abandoned buildings while a serial killer alert started putting their small University town on the news.

  Ben loved them. He used to tell Marcel that some people simply got what was coming to them and that they, as predators, only needed to let those people gravitate into their hunting zone. This was what he lived for, and as far as he was concerned these kids had wandered out of the safety of their dorms or off-campus housing and into their waiting claws. It was their own fault, really. And even if he had been able to understand that his argument was completely insane, he didn’t feel bad about any of it. Not for a second. He never had. Not even at the beginning, when he pretended for Marcel’s sake. Not just his sake, but the sake of their partnership – their bond as sire and childe. That bond had meant a great deal to Ben in spite of their different views.

  No matter where he went or who he met, and no matter how many vampires he had made and abandoned carelessly, Ben had never found a connection like the one he had with Marcel. It was like there was a strong current at the back of his mind that ran through Marcel’s and kept them connected at all times, making them crave each other even when they despised what the other represented. It was so strong, so overpowering, that Ben was tired of it.

  Wasn’t that what this whole thing was about?

  Sure. Jackie and the boys knew that Ben wanted revenge on Marcel. It was a desire strong enough that he was willing to risk everything and destroy an entire town to see it through. His volatile nature and gruesome tastes made it easy for him to hide his true intentions, but the simple truth was that he wanted to eliminate the one link he still had to the person he used to be. He wanted to be rid of that little voice in the back of his head telling him Marcel wouldn’t approve of this or that, as if it was a straight line to the other man’s subconscious.

  His group didn’t know about his link to Marcel. They didn’t know that he was trying to sever it forever by killing his maker – a crime so unforgivable amongst their kind even his nomad pals would have a problem with it.

  It wasn’t that he needed Marcel’s approval. Ben just couldn’t deal with his disappointment. That tug at the pit of his stomach, the sinking feeling it caused, was no fun at all. Ben had no interest in things that weren’t either fun or sexy or violent, or a combination of them all, if possible. Disappointment wasn’t any of those. “Disappointment” wasn’t even angry enough to turn into the kind of sexy rage that had fueled him as he sucked the life out of the girls here, tossing them off the bed so that they landed in contorted poses; their blood still fresh and pooled on the bed as he jumped on Jackie, already aroused by the smell of blood, its heat on his flesh, and the high he got as it rushed through his veins.

  This feral nature they shared was what made it easy for Ben to manipulate her to his heart’s desire, and once he had her, she handled her brothers and the rest of the boys without ever making him look like the mastermind behind their way of life – at least not until now. It was easy to see this was personal and, really, as long as they were getting empty houses full of college girls and boys to nibble on, they were fine with whatever it was that was driving Ben into a killing frenzy unlike anything they had seen.

  It was fun. There was nothing to lose because they didn’t answer to any authority and, with certain exceptions, were wise enough to keep moving. Even if their vicious killings got attention, they were usually long gone by the time it started showing on the news. Usually.

  Even now, they were all a little excited to find themselves in the middle of the drama. To be called beasts and animals as the world speculated on what it was that was killing these kids was an ego boost. This hit would probably be what sent the students running, leaving them with a ghost town where it would be impossible for Marcel to hide. His precious world would be gone. Reduced to police investigations so thorough they would all have to flee.

  The thought made him fuck Jackie harder and harder, using his hands to push her down on the bloody mattress by the shoulders until he climaxed, his thrusts slowing down gradually until he collapsed on top of her. She was still moaning as he
closed his eyes, inhaling deeply the smell of sex and carnage. It was delicious. He loved it. It was almost enough to get his mind off of his mission. Almost.

  Ben was proud of the body-count they’d put under their belts tonight. It was impressive even by their own standards and, even if it didn’t empty the University by the end of the week, it was bound to get Marcel’s attention. A reaction. The thought of it was enough to make him horny all over again.

  This connection of theirs? Between himself and Marcel. It was as strong as love; a variation of love, even. It was belligerent, and war-like. It was filled with rage and fear. It was like having that anti-love returned ten-fold. Like having a brand new relationship with a man he’d been trying to forget about all this time. These killings were declarations that demonstrated the strength of their feelings, and in a twisted way Ben saw them as a poetic closure.

  The same kind of poetry he found in this place and its current state as a murder-house; the bodies scattered throughout the rooms, the staircase, and across the front lawn like an Easter egg hunt for the homicidal and unstable; the blood sticking to them, plastered and drying up on their skin as he lay tangled in bed with Jackie.

  Jackie would never be Marcel, but she made up for that connection in other very uniquely creative ways. In that, she and the rest of their people were better than Marcel could ever be.

  Chapter 17

  Nora meant it when she said that she was done with her fixation on Fletcher. She meant it when she promised Elise that she would put her time and efforts towards helping their clan stay right where they were, and that Marcel would never have to find about any of this because she was done. It was over.

  She meant it when she said that she understood why this was the worst possible time to do what she was doing. It was not lost on her that messing around with humans while humans were being picked off and slaughtered like characters in a horror movie was stupid and endangered them all, including her precious boy. Elise was right. Nora had always been reliable and responsible. Life as she knew it was good and, while she wasn’t afraid of change, there were things that just didn’t need changing.

  She had always been big on devouring every piece of fiction that talked about their kind, whether it was dangerously close to reality or so insane it was amusing. She scoured the world looking for these bits and pieces of what humans thought vampires should or could be like and, in general, she related most to vampires that wanted to be quiet and live life without being disturbed, feared or persecuted. The truth was that she often thought the interviewer that ran into her would be thoroughly unimpressed – maybe even tell her that no one would really want to write or read about her very particular reality in this town where no human was ever meant to remember her name.

  Her clan’s very nature ensured that they wouldn’t keep in touch with victims, the same way predators don’t keep in touch with their meals. And maybe it was true that there was an exception to every rule, and that Fletcher was hers. The exception to her responsible ways, her reliable nature, and her militant interest in keeping their clan safe. The exception to her loyalty to Marcel and their people and the exception to the way she always, always kept her word. The exception to every human she had fed on and forgotten effortlessly, without as much as a second thought or pause of consideration.

  It was hard to explain what it was that overpowered everything she had ever believed in or been. It was there, though. Undeniably so. It influenced every minute of the time she spent awake and had an effect on everything she did. She craved him, his presence and taste; the way he smelled and how it lingered after he was gone.

  It was so indomitable that she didn’t even try to fight the sequence of thoughts that led her out of the house that night; didn’t reconsider telling the lies she told to get away with being alone and didn’t think twice about the determined pace at which she approached the frat house. She didn’t think. Couldn’t think. She knew that thinking would lead to her seeing just how terrible an idea this was, and she would stop. She would go back to the manor, back to Elise, and keep her promise. She would offer to take out a group of younglings and keep herself busy and away from him. Nora didn’t want that. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to be stopped. She just needed to see him.

  She had been watching him long enough to know the times she was most likely to get him alone, so she waited, stalked him through the house and held on until he was alone in the laundry room. Security was amped up, but it wasn’t enough to protect them. If Ben and his chums had wanted to go into that house and kill everyone in it, they would have already. Sneaking in was simple.

  “Don’t scream,” she raised her hands as soon as Fletcher spotted her. His hands, holding a black and a blue jersey, froze in the air.

  “Nora…”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I haven’t – this isn’t—” she trailed off.

  She had gone through this conversation a thousand times in her head and now that she was standing there, all she could hear was his heartbeat as it began raging. Nora was afraid he would scream, that this was a terrible idea and she should have been stealthier in her approach. A little bit more careful. What was she expecting anyway? After all that carnage? It was stupid of her to think that she would be met with anything other than fear. She took a deep, unnecessary breath, opening her mouth to an argument she still wasn’t sure about. Her only defense was that she hadn’t done any of it, but she really couldn’t tell him who had, could she?

  “Nora –“

  Ready to flee, Nora was genuinely surprised to suddenly find herself caught in his arms. He crushed her to his chest, the shirt still in his hands, gripped with a white-knuckled force. Her first instinct had almost been to fight it, not because there was anything wrong with it but because of how unexpected it felt. How fucking fantastic.

  And then he kissed her.

  Out of all the scenarios she had played out in her head, this had been her favorite. His lips on her, his hands tearing at her clothes. The setting had always been different and none of them had involved being lifted onto a washing machine as she was ferociously kissed, but there had been a similar sense of relief in finding out that he missed her as much as she missed him. That he craved her as much as she did him, and that his want for her was as ridiculous and unreasonable as hers. It felt good to know that she wasn’t alone in the madness. Almost as good as it felt to have his hand slide up between her thighs, pushing the crotch of her panties aside to slip two long callused fingers into her – wet and ready – her hips lifting lightly into his touch.

  “I fucking missed you,” he groaned against her jaw, kissing down her collar as his wrist took his middle and index fingers back and forth, deep into her and then teasingly out. As if he wanted to make sure that she knew he missed her wet and turned on as much as he had missed her in every other way.

  “I missed you too,” she moaned, arms and legs moving around him to support herself as she rocked her body into him, into his touch. She was desperate to feel more of his kisses, take his fingers deeper into her, feel his blood soaring through his body beneath his flesh – his heart-rate rising as she reached down to unbutton his pants.

  “Bite me,” he groaned, lifting her from the machine to switch locations to a long wooden table they used to fold the laundry on. He dropped his head to the side, kissing her shoulder. “Drink from me.”

  “Fuck me,” she retaliated, her hand brushing his away to replace his fingers with the head of his cock, teasing herself for a moment as it stroked her slit before rocking her body forward, taking him into her in a quick and rough movement that produced a cry much louder than they could allow themselves. Louder than the combined buzz of a dozen washing machines in motion.

  With both hands back on his shoulders, Nora lifted her hips into him, meeting each thrust with a a roll of hips on her own, taking him deeper, her moans silenced as her teeth tore into his skin and she began drinking. His blood was hot and sweet and spicy. It tasted like the glistening
sweat on his brow and the lust in each vicious thrust took him deeper into her, harder every time. So hard the table moved beneath them with a screech of wooden legs on hardwood floors. She licked the wound when she stopped drinking, feeling lightheaded and aroused. Completely enamored with this boy who just happened to remember her, all of her, no matter how many bites he endured. She must have fed on him a dozen times that night and still, he remembered.

  Fletcher remembered as he looked into her eyes, pushing her back onto the table to climb on top of her. He remembered her taste, the feel of her body, the shape of her tits and the feel of her hardening nipples between his fingers. He remembered her pussy, wet and tight and always fucking ready for him. Always so damn eager. The idea that he could just forget any of it, any of her, was inconceivable even after she explained he wasn’t supposed to remember her. How could he forget? How could anyone? He felt shame and pity on behalf of all the men and women who had been weak enough to forget the being he was fucking so desperately one may have thought he was trying to climb into her instead. To dive into her, under her flesh, and stay there.