Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2)

by Rosemary A Johns

  Contents

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  JOURNAL TITLE

  MAY 3

  MAY 5

  MAY 6

  MAY 9

  MAY 14

  MAY 15

  MAY 16

  MAY 17

  MAY 19

  MAY 20

  MAY 21

  MAY 22

  MAY 23

  MAY 24

  MAY 25

  MAY 27

  MAY 28

  MAY 30

  JUNE 3

  JUNE 6

  JUNE 8

  JUNE 9

  JUNE 10

  JUNE 13

  JUNE 14

  JUNE 15

  JUNE 16

  JUNE 17

  JUNE 18

  AUGUST 27

  SEPTEMBER 2

  SEPTEMBER 3

  SEPTEMBER 4

  SEPTEMBER 5

  SEPTEMBER 9

  SEPTEMBER 10

  REBEL VAMPIRES 3: BLOOD RENEGADES

  DID YOU LIKE THIS BOOK?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HOOKED ON REBEL VAMPIRES?

  ONE LAST THING

  BLOOD SHACKLES

  ROSEMARY A JOHNS

  I slowly stood to face the bastard, who’d started all this: Head of the Retrieval Team in Bangkok, who’d hunted me on his monstrous black motorbike and trashed my Triton. He’d kidnapped me - not like a person - but like a wild bird, which’d been trapped and sold into captivity. A pet to be tamed and trained, presented in a gilded cage on some rich man’s wall. From the moment Mohawk had shot me full of tranquillizers, I’’d been a slave. My blood roared louder than those motorbikes. It wasn’t terror I trembled with any longer: it was rage.

  FANTASY REBEL

  Copyright © 2016 Rosemary A Johns

  First Edition 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters, places and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

  Copy design by JD Smith

  Fantasy Rebel Limited

  rosemaryajohns.com

  The Slave Journal of Light

  MAY 3

  Look, it’s all about the pain, right? Pretty playthings. Forever young. And no guilt.

  The Lost reduced to nothing but a possession. Property. Slaves to you sodding humans.

  See at the heart is the Blood Club: the new, most exclusive club for Russian oligarchs, sons of Arab princes and the brats of Silicon Valley.

  Here we are - two species in this world of ours - and I should have my nut examined for reckoning it was big enough to share.

  Ruby, my Author, once showed me a macabre museum: La Specola. She warned that you First Lifers would stuff and mount us Blood Lifers (like all the other animals you’ve screwed over), if you ever discovered we existed.

  Ruby swore we had no place but the shadows.

  I, however, didn’t listen.

  It doesn’t look so bloody clever now, does it?

  I’m sprawled on the bed of my cell; I’m still starkers except for the silver ring on my left hand – S.L.A.V.E standing out in stark relief. And yeah, it’s a cell: Egyptian cotton sheets don’t cancel out the lock.

  Didn’t they teach you that in How to Be a Mistress school?

  Earlier I’d heard footsteps outside my door. I’d also caught the whiff of gorse and sunlight. You’d smelled just like that, the first time I saw you, when I was just one of many slaves - tiger-striped and bruised - waiting for your inspection at Abona House. But then the scent had faded.

  To be owned by Finlo Cain’s daughter – Grayse - now that takes the piss. I’d forgotten you were Master’s spawn, until you told me your name was Manx.

  And even your name is torture: it strips me back, layer by painful layer. To my first love and betrayer. To the woman, who destroyed my heart and then got me killed. To the bitch, who became my first ever prey. Grace. That was her name. Still, your name’s spelled differently. So best we don’t take it as a bad omen, yeah?

  I can’t hear anything in the dark of the night anymore; you must be kipping by now.

  I take another quick shufti around: there’s nothing but four off-white walls, this strange bedside table (a stiff cube of crochet), and an eerie blue glow from the window blind, as if it’s infested with magical ivy. You’d explained you’d had it fitted with electroluminescent fabric, which becomes brighter at night and dims as the sun rises: an early warning system for the dawn.

  It looks like you’re a dead thoughtful slaver.

  Still, there’d also been this journal on my pillow.

  A5 textured Italian calf leather, framed by smooth burgundy; it’s so deep red I could suck the blood from it. The pages are buttery between my fingers.

  I guess you’re not big on irony, springing for such luxury on a slave. I imagine you only buy the best: this journal and now me.

  The journal even came in a cracking navy presentation box; the bang was bloody satisfying when it hit the wall. It doesn’t have any lines, so your thoughts can flow free. There’s no lock. But then I don’t know why I expected one: privacy’s for the free. There was, however, this blinding pink gold fountain pen, so…swings and roundabouts.

  And its name – ‘The Slave Journal of…’

  See, that’s where I got stuck.

  You lot call me slave shadow to mock. Because my true name?

  It’s Light.

  I feel like I’ll be struck down or…beaten down at least, simply for writing that. But it’s the truth. And truth can’t be erased as easily as words.

  You must be a mug if you reckon you can keep me here – tamed - as a willing slave. But then, I’m not exactly willing, am I?

  Do you get off on it? The power?

  If folks were honest, everyone bloody would (given half a chance). The thing is, most First Lifers never do. It takes being reborn as a Blood Lifer to taste that splendour.

  I haven’t forgotten the majesty of the night, even if the black’s consumed me. I’ve more than a century on you. I’m a predator - not to mention a Rocker. You can take the clobber from a bloke but you can’t take that.

  Freedom means so little, until you lose it. But I will find it again, I promise you.

  So, dear Reader (because I know you’re reading this, there’s no use pretending otherwise), did you reckon giving me this poncey journal - all softness and stink of leather - would make me spill my Soul? You already have my body, bought and paid for. You think you have my mind.

  My thoughts, however..? They’re my own.

  Write in it every day, you’d ordered, with that little smile.

  What do you think this is: Bridget Jones’s Diary?

  I’m not a performing monkey. I’ll write, when I write. You want more?

  Good luck with that.

  You want to know how I was captured? Enslaved? Defanged?

  I won’t guarantee you’ll like what you read. No one does when it’s the truth: raw and flayed. Bloody.

  But not tonight.

  The glowing ivy is dimming in the blind. The sun is on its way. And I’m knackered. I need a kip and a wank. That’s what comes of you not giving me any clobber: black
jeans and t-shirt please. Nothing fancy.

  Maybe you won’t even read this. Why would you? I’m only a slave now. What difference could my thoughts make?

  MAY 5

  So, I guess you did read my journal then?

  The look on your mug this evening when…

  I noticed the journal had been straightened on the crochet table. It’s not like I leave anything straight, is it? Because rebel here, yeah?

  I knew you’d read my pissed off ramblings, when you tossed the black jeans and t-shirt at me, before slamming down a cup of blood and banging out. Not a single glance at me. Not one word.

  OK, wanker here, and you’re a… I don’t know yet. That’s what brings me out in a cold sweat - the uncertainty, which haunts all slaves - because nothing is under their control, least of all what their new owner will be like.

  Still, if you don’t want honesty from a Blood Lifer, don’t demand it.

  In the 1950s, I knew this Blood Lifer from Darwin, who was so blindingly honest he’d tell you to your face you were a crook or a fiddler (and sometimes both).

  I asked him once if he didn’t get tired of all the barnies.

  The bloke had stared at me evenly out of his purpled peepers, before shrugging. ‘The truth is free.’

  Turns out, however, that the git wasn’t right: he copped it when some crook or fiddler took exception, shanking him through the heart.

  Shame that - because wouldn’t it be nice and comforting if life could be tied up pretty in a bow?

  Anyway, now you’ve left me alone for the night. I don’t know if it’s punishment, or if that’s simply the way it’s going to be. If it is, I’ll start scratching lines on the wall to record the dawn, as the ivy brightens and dims, transforming this into a proper gaol.

  I’ve paced up and down to burn off the buzz and roar of the blood, as my muscles bunch and tense, dancing on the balls of my feet and gagging for a go with my fists and my non-existent fangs.

  Or a shag – I’m not fussy.

  You’ve been feeding me cows’ blood, which is richer than my normal pigs’. It trickles into the system slow and sensuous, manna to a starving man, after all these months.

  Christ in heaven, can it really be so long..?

  The blood’s not human. But after existing on so little, it firework sparks technicolour, until overloaded I could lick the walls and kiss the stars dancing in front of my peepers.

  There’s nothing to do in my cell. I’ve lain for hours counting, losing myself in the exquisite coloured song of numbers: whorls of plaster on the high ceiling, strands of entangled crochet cotton, moulded into servitude and leaf tendrils on the alien ivy.

  Then I’ve played with the numbers, drawing out the game to fill the void: ordering them into sequences and memorising the never-ending tumble of morphing shapes.

  I should be used to my bondage. When I was first captured, I drowned in it. And now..? Sometimes I think it’ll turn me touched after…

  No, you haven’t earnt that memory. Not when you’ve locked me in here. Alone.

  I tried the door earlier, just before I started writing this entry.

  It’s a heavy, original affair, or it’d splinter with one good boot. I’ve broken through enough doors in my time (you don’t want to know why). There was no budging it.

  Then I lost my blasted temper.

  All of a sudden, I was hammering on the door and hollering.

  You sodding well let me out… I’m not your bleeding pet… Open this…

  Until reality crashed in: Abona House’s severe grey façade, the dark stables, Sir, the slaves, who I’d left behind and the parades of punishments for just such rebellion.

  I freaked out. Trembles shook every nancy boy inch of me, as I fell back, scrambling to the illusory safety of the corner. I hugged my arms tight over my nut.

  Good boy. Got to be a good boy. I promise to be…

  I huddled there - I don’t know for how long - but you never came. The blind showed it was still twilight. You must be out.

  Lucky break for me.

  That’s why I reckoned I should write this entry…you know, honesty and that. To show you I can be a good boy too.

  You can’t imagine how much I hate myself for that slave thinking. But you’re free. You have options.

  I don’t.

  Still, writing this has given me something to do in the vast expanses of boredom, seeing as you’ve abandoned me in this cell. It keeps the nightmares out: the ones of my past and future. Spectres of what’s been done to me and shadowed fears of what will be.

  It doesn’t half bring home a fellah’s helplessness, however, to have the long length of an empty journal spread in front of him, with all these blank pages to fill, like these walls and my slavery.

  How about I write what it was like when you came to buy me?

  Maybe then you won’t leave me in isolation. A bloke’s got to hope or else he’s truly dead - and I’ve already tried that. I didn’t fancy it much.

  It was the rebirth, which was glorious.

  ‘Whoa, this one’s wicked frickin’ busted. What did he do, Mr Yates?’

  A line of us had been herded into a wing of Abona House, which I hadn’t seen before: a humungous entrance hall, with a baroque chandelier, all smoky flourishes and brass scrolls amongst the sharp glint of Austrian crystal. I’d only caught a shufti of the room, before we’d been ordered to kneel. Then all I’d been able to see, as I’d bowed my nut, had been the cold black-and-white chequered marble floor.

  When I heard the woman’s unexpected voice, I risked a quick glance up from underneath my eyelashes.

  It was some bird, tall and willowy in a lace Victorian knit sheath dress, who’d come to inspect us, as if we were expensive antiques for sale.

  The bint was a First Lifer; I could smell the blood pumping through her.

  Christ in heaven did I crave to violate that dainty throat and gorge my starved fill.

  I told you this would be the truth flayed bare, didn’t I?

  The woman’s grey, piercing peepers caught mine, before I had the sense to lower mine.

  ‘The pretty leech makes trouble he does,’ Sir - I could feel him hovering behind me. I tensed. I could imagine Sir pushing his black framed glasses up his neb, in a habitual gesture of disappointment. ‘You don’t get nowhere without discipline, see. It was all on your dad’s orders, Miss Cain.’ I flinched. This bint was the owner’s daughter? Master’s daughter? Bollocks. Shrinking down, I tried to look as uninteresting as possible, as you strolled closer. I sensed your hand reaching out towards my cheek. Just for a moment, I allowed myself to imagine you intended to caress it, rather than clout it. ‘You carry on now,’ Sir’s voice contained a hint of impatience in its Cardiff lilt: that never boded well.

  I struggled to stop myself fidgeting; the stripes across my back and arse ached deep into the muscle.

  Stuff Sir, I was going to risk another look.

  This time when I raised my peepers, you were staring right at me. Neither one of us looked away.

  ‘I’ll take this one.’

  ‘What? I mean…’ For once Sir seemed lost for words at your announcement, and wasn’t that just harmonious, orchestral backed choirs in Heaven music to my lobes? ‘Look you, the boy’s not ready. His training’s only… Your dad’s been thinking on this leech for the Estate.’ The Estate. Two words, which hung over us Blood Lifers, as the ever present threat, which made Abona look like a sodding kiddie’s nursery. I only realised I’d begun to gasp in panicked breaths, when Sir’s manicured talons landed on my shoulder and squeezed painfully. ‘See? Not right at all. But isn’t this little one a lovely job?’

  When he released my shoulder, Sir tried to drag you on to the next Blood Lifer - this blue-eyed teenage crush of a Dutchman - who was staring vacantly ahead.

  My breathing slowed at last: that was me forgotten then.

  ‘Na-ah,’ you shrugged Sir off, ‘I’ve already told you - I’m taking that one.’

 
‘But I need a few more months to break him. If I was given a couple of weeks, maybe I could--’

  ‘Naw,’ I was surprised by your sharpness, ‘I want him like he is. Right now. Intact.’

  I nearly laughed.

  Intact?

  I sodding wish I was, sweetheart.

  ‘Up. Inspect,’ Sir barked. I jumped up, standing to attention, with my legs spread apart, as I balanced on tiptoe. I clasped my hands behind my nut and arched my back - my whole bloody wares on display. When you circled me, I felt your hand close to my skin, skimming it but never quite touching: it was torture. Your fingers hovered over the lash marks. Sir’s voice was low. ‘It’s a mistake.’

  ‘You want me to call my daddy?’

  ‘No, no, look here… But the leech’ll have to be sent to you.’ Panic. There was definite panic in Sir’s tone.

  I sensed you directly in front of me; you were studying me. ‘I want to talk to him alone. We could walk in the gardens. He’ll be on his best behaviour, right?’

  I ventured a small nod.

  ‘How about some pants and a t-shirt for him? It’s wicked raw out tonight.’

  I tensed.

  Sir had never yet shown his other side to a human, but – and I had to give it to you – you had the skill to right royally piss him off.

  There was a significant pause, before Sir replied, with what I knew was a supreme effort of restraint, ‘These creatures don’t feel the cold.’

  ‘That’s why they’re like, shivering their asses off?’

  This time I couldn’t help it. I spluttered with laughter. Then I yelped, as Sir grabbed me by the scruff of the neck.

  ‘What slaves feel,’ Sir spat, ‘doesn’t matter.’

  A moment later and it was your soft fingers on my neck instead of Sir’s, as you prised him away, before steering me out of the room.

  We strolled in silence through the kitchen gardens at the back of Abona House, the herbs – basil, mint and chime – melding in sunbursts of scents and hollowing my starved belly with the memories of long ago dinners. We wove past the ice house and down to the large walled gardens and horse pond; I could see the fat koi sleeping under the black mirror of the water. The gravel of the drive was sharp under my bare feet, nicking my soles bloody, but I bit back my pain because I was outside and that was…like breath.