“Meet you at the furniture,” Dom announced as he sprinted off toward the home improvement area.
I didn’t necessarily need anything since I tried to keep my bag as light as possible, so I walked slowly amongst the various items, running my hand along the sleeves of blouses and grabbing some tanks tops when I spotted them. Realizing the opportunity, I filled my backpack with a few clothing items I needed to replace. Once I was done, I spotted the books across the aisle from the women’s clothing.
In the popular theme of my life at that moment, I wondered just how long it had been since I’d read a book. Looking back, it had been before the sharks came. I’d never loved reading as much as mom did, but I didn’t hate it. Abandoning the clothes, I crossed the aisle over to the shelves of paperbacks, and when I ran my hands along their slick covers, I felt sadness at the stories that would never be read. The adventures that would never happen.
One stood out to me, a colorful volume with a grumpy fairy on the cover. I took it and slipped it into my jacket. Maybe I’d find time to read it. Shadow jumped up onto the shelves and started rubbing against the magazines. Bending at the waist, I gave him a scratch under the chin and went to find Dom. My nose led me past the greeting cards and craft supplies to the auto area where Dom was trying on some ATV goggles. Not as stylish as my steampunk ones, but they would work.
We walked to the furniture and unboxed two mattresses to lay out on the linoleum tiles. I opened the fairy book and started reading it as Dom stretched out on his mattress, staring up at the industrial ceiling like it was the night sky.
“Night, Kitty,” he whispered, and within minutes I heard his breathing and heartbeat slow, a very soft snore coming from his mouth. Normally I’d have stayed up to keep watch, but I felt safe enough to finish reading my book and fell asleep with it on my chest.
BANG!
A loud crash startled me awake and I jumped up with Artemis in my hand. Another crash came, prompting me to kick at Dom’s leg to wake him up. Letting out a groan, he rolled over and opened his mouth to complain at his mistreatment, his accent so thick I could barely understand him, when more bangs rang through the air. I pushed my senses out to see where it was coming from and…
“Sharks,” I muttered, and my pulse started thumping against my throat. There was a horde of them outside the supermarket, the crashing noise was their rotting bodies running into the glass sliding doors to try and get inside. “Fuck!”
Dom must’ve pushed his senses out too because he scrambled up. “Mother fucking dicks,” he let out as he gathered up his things. I shoved my book inside my bag and started reaching for Shadow to zip him into my jacket when the sharks broke through the glass doors and stampeded into the store faster than a herd of antelopes. Shadow ran in fear of the commotion and I chased after him, towards the horde of sharks.
“Move your ass, kitty cat!” Dom shouted at me just as I’d managed to grab Shadow. His cat claws scratched at my impenetrable skin, but that was a mere distraction from the sharks coming right at us. Dom pulled at my elbow and we ran down the medicine area, back to the gardening section. The growls and stomping feet of the sharks were closing in on us, only spurring our effort to get the glass doors open, and just as we’d gotten them apart, the sharks descended and we fell underneath their sheer mass of bodies.
Teeth tore into me and Shadow ran from my arms when I couldn’t hold him any longer. The sharks had me like a football player at a buffet. Blood spilled, turning the air bitter with the smell, and I pushed through the pain enough to start attacking my assailants back. For every bite they gave, I gave two more. I tore, I pulled, I threw, until the sharks were off me and I could stand up. Dom was under his own pile of the monsters and without even thinking, I flung out my claws and dove in like a tornado.
Even with many of the sharks falling under my claws, the horde was so massive, I knew this was a losing battle. I reached a bloodied Dom under the sharks and pulled him along with me by one hand, beating off more sharks with the other. We slipped through the crack in the doors and somehow got out of the metal garden corral before the sharks could come after us. I chanced one look back at them and saw their arms reaching through the space between the sliding doors, desperate to get us under their teeth again. They were too fucking stupid to move aside and squeeze out of the doors to come after us.
Dom was able to stand once we were safe for the moment, and I took his hand without thinking about it. We raced off away from the store.
“This is a fine damn time for our cycle to be broken,” I complained through gritted teeth, pulling Dom along through the parking lot. Somehow, Shadow had also made it out, and he galloped along with us. I picked him up because he couldn’t keep up when we went full speed.
My senses still pushed out, I felt the crack of the glass doors inside my chest like someone had just stepped on me with a large boot. The sharks pressed against the glass so hard that it shattered like the first set of doors.
“Incoming!” Dom shouted, and the flood of sharks once again started chasing us, free from the barrier. Even with our head start, it wasn’t long before they were gaining on us. We were running so fast, I was starting to feel winded, as impossible as that sounds. Somehow Dom found enough breath to say, “If we don’t make it, I enjoyed kissing you. The dry humping was nice too.”
“Shut up and fucking run faster,” I hissed at him.
Dom tugged my hand and he pointed to a brick building with a rusty fire escape that looked like it was about to fall apart. He steered us towards it, and I handed Shadow to him so he could go first. The stairs groaned under his feet, but he ran up them so fast they didn’t break under his weight. He punched out a window on the third floor and threw Shadow inside before turning back to me.
I’d waited too long, trying to make sure they were safe, and I stared up at Dom’s duel-toned eyes before the sharks descended on me like bees on a flower. I went under like before, but this time I couldn’t fight my way back out. They bit me, they tore at me, and my blood flowed like a crimson river.
I passed out.
23. Oh, brother
Kitty
I didn’t expect to wake up. Somehow, I found myself opening my eyes to see an abandoned apartment around me. Dom stood at the broken window, Shadow sat on the kitchen table, and I was on a purple couch.
Everything fucking hurt.
The more I came to, the more I smelled blood in the air. My blood. I looked down at my hands and they were covered in a thick blanket of red. More importantly, one of my pinkies was hanging off by a sliver of skin. I groaned and Dom turned from the window, quickly crossing over to the couch. He pressed against my shoulders to get me to lie back down.
“Stay put, you’re injured,” he cautioned me, and kept pressing until I lay flat on the sofa.
My throat didn’t seem to work properly, bringing a slice of pain when I tried to speak, so I only got one word out.
“Hurt.”
Dom’s eyes were etched with concern, and I knew I was much worse than wounded. Before I could register it in my brain, my hunger rose from all my injuries, and I felt a frenzy creep its way up to me. My fangs dropped, my eyes glowed, and I heaved out each agonizing breath. Without hesitation, Dom helped me sit up and pulled me into his embrace on the coffee table.
“Take what you need,” he whispered into my ear, sending a responding shiver up my spine from being so close to him.
I sank my fangs into his neck as easily as slicing butter, and his blood tasted like pure sunlight. I’d never tasted blood like his before, not even Thalia’s. I wanted it every day, filling me with its golden beauty so I’d never have to drink from sharks again. Dom’s hands curled up on my jacket and I drank deeply of his essence, every mouthful pure ecstasy. Once I felt better, I retracted my fangs and licked his already healing skin clean. My pinkie restored itself after I pushed it back to my hand.
“You taste amazing,” I breathed against Dom’s neck, before I could stop myself from saying
something like that. “It’s been so long since I had vampire blood, I think I forgot what it tasted like.”
“Of course I taste amazing. I’m fucking awesome.” He held me closer to him, and with my hunger gone, I enjoyed being near him. The intimacy of feeding was a pleasant excuse to be in his arms, if only for a moment.
“Have the sharks gone?” Normally they’d stay around, but with the fresh corpses we’d left at the supermarket, the sharks would gravitate there once we were gone. My fingertips absently ran up the bumps of Dom’s spine before I realized what I was doing. It felt natural though, being there with him.
“Took several hours, but they’ve all left. Your blood must’ve been like a vampire twinkie. I’ve never seen them stay that long before with fresh kills nearby.” I felt his fingertips on my spine now, sending another shiver up it, and my cheeks reddened from the response.
“We should go then, they’ll come back if we stay too long.” Despite my words, I stayed motionless in Dom’s lap.
“Yeah,” he echoed, but he also didn’t move. My heartbeat betrayed how much I liked being this close to him, but his was beating just as fast, drumming out a rapid duet that neither of us could hide.
Shadow broke the spell with a jump onto the coffee table, meowing loudly at us. We broke apart and busied ourselves with packing up again and giving Shadow water before we left the building. I cleaned myself off with some wipes, enough where my bloody smell was diminished. Muted, but still there, it attracted several sharks on our way out of town. We dealt with them as they came and continued on our way.
Using Knight’s directions, it took us almost a week to find the right area in the giant state of Texas. The biggest indicator was the smell of dog piss, a common way of marking Lycan territory. Once we’d found it, Dom and I both winced and held our masks to our noses.
“His?” Dom asked under his mask. I shrugged. Piss is piss. You can’t tell whose it is by smell. Or maybe you could if you were a Lycan, but I wasn’t. It was still a good sign, however, sparking us to walk faster down the roads.
My stomach fluttered in anticipation and my heart seemed to leap out of my chest when I caught a second scent, a real non-piss one.
Jason.
A cry escaped my lips and I took off running closer to the source of the smell. Dom ran beside me, perfectly matching my speed and powers. We were made to run together. We could take down anything by each other’s side. Shadow meowed inside Dom’s jacket, protesting our above human speed, but Dom’s hand over the kitty’s head protected him from whiplash.
Jason’s smell got stronger and I saw in the distance the old farm house I’d seen in my vision, Knight’s childhood home. Stopping at the top of a hill, my lungs seemed void of air, and it wasn’t because I’d just ran for miles. Even with my brother’s scent in my nose, I was still afraid of what I’d find in the farm house, but I’d spent too much time worrying about what might be. I jumped off the hill and ran down a field of wildflowers, the farm house getting closer and closer with each step.
I slowed down outside the porch, Dom coming to a stop beside me with a whoosh of air. He let Shadow out of his jacket and the cat ran off in protest of our treatment of him. It barely registered with me, because I could hear a heartbeat behind the front door.
Jason definitely wasn’t dead.
A dog barked loudly from inside the house, and the door opened sharply to show Jason standing with a shotgun barrel aimed at us. Dom put his hands up in surrender, but I didn’t bother. Jason wouldn’t shoot me.
Far from the gangly teenager I’d known, he was a grown man now, with muscles for days and his impossibly curly long hair, turned slightly brown from being in the sun. The most important bit was that he appeared healthy and strong, not at all like I’d seen him in my vision.
“Kitty?” he questioned when he saw me, looking very unsure if I was really there or if he’d dreamed me up. How long had he been alone? I didn’t smell anyone else in the area, and that was telling.
I took off running again, straight up the stairs and into my brother’s arms. He was taller than me now, towering over me like a skyscraper. I clung to him, sobbing against his white shirt, and he ran his fingers through my long curls, holding me so tightly I thought my bones would break.
“My baby brother,” I cried against him.
“Watch who you’re calling baby, Kitty,” he joked, his voice much lower than before. I looked up at his deep, brown eyes and smiled with relief. At least they were still the same. He reached a dark hand up and wiped at the tears on my cheek. “Mom and dad here?” He looked up for them, petting my hair again.
“That’s a bit of a long story, mate,” Dom said from behind me.
Jason leaned down and kissed me on the top of my head. “I’ll make some tea.”
24. The ugly side of life
Kitty
The inside of the farm house looked nothing like my vision. Jason had made it a real home, with furniture and a working stove he put some firewood into before lighting it with a stone flint. He placed a kettle full of well water on top of the cast iron burner and reached inside a cabinet for some homemade tea packets.
“The apocalypse is going strong, and people still have tea,” Dom commented, placing his chin on the top of my head. I shoved him away before Jason could see.
“An Aussie, eh?” Jason said with a grin. “Haven’t seen an Aussie vampire in a long time.”
“Can’t very well live where you might burn to a crisp,” Dom joked, and Jason laughed under his breath as he fixed a snack for us. He motioned for us to sit at the small round kitchen table and brought over some fresh fruit while the tea boiled.
While eating cantaloupe slices and peaches straight from the trees outside, we told Jason all that had happened in the past twenty years. He didn’t comment on any of it, just nodded to show he was paying attention, and he hopped up when the water was hot, pouring us glasses once the leaves had steeped long enough.
“So you’re going back to rescue everyone?” he asked, sitting down with his cup after pouring ours.
I nodded and took a sip of my tea. It was a mango mint mix, and it took a few seconds for my tongue to adjust, but it was actually pretty good. “As soon as we can. You should pack up, and we’ll leave before dark.”
“No.”
I choked on my next sip of tea and set my cup down to clear my air pipe. “Excuse me?”
Jason was staring out the kitchen window, his mind miles away. “I’m not leaving here. You can go without me.”
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” I swore under my breath. “I just found you after twenty years and you’re telling me to get lost?”
A darkness spread over his face that I’d never seen before. “That’s exactly my goddamn point, Kitty. I’ve been on my own for the better part of twenty years, and where were you? Galivanting off with your girlfriend and looking for mom? Fuck you. You could’ve found me easily and you didn’t even try.” He stood up sharply and knocked his tea over, stomping over to a window on the other side of the kitchen, the spot I’d seen him sitting in during my vision.
“That’s a bit harsh,” Dom admonished while watching Jason walk away.
“I don’t need a stranger commenting on my family matters,” Jason snapped behind him.
What had happened to him to make him like this?
I stood up hastily and my legs bumped the table. “Fine. I’ll fucking leave.” Jason stiffened from his spot at the window, but he didn’t turn. “Just so you know, mom is pregnant with Knight’s baby. Your full-blooded sister. Our sister.” A tea rolled down my cheek as I stared at his back. “She’s having another vaewolf. If we don’t rescue her, our sister will be raised in bondage. She’ll never be free.”
“She?” Jason asked quietly.
I shrugged where he couldn’t see. “I guessed.” Dom stood and squeezed my shoulder with his hand. “If we make it out of the city, I’m coming back for you. And if I never return…” My voice faltered and I
swallowed to get it back. “I hope you’re happy here.”
I left out the front door, ran all the way through the field of flowers, and I didn’t stop for anything.
I’d finally found my brother and he didn’t want to come with me. The thought consumed me while I ran and ran across the Texas countryside. I didn’t stop to see if Dom was behind me. What did anything matter now? My family might be dead, my brother refused to stay with me, and my father was still gone.
With tireless energy, I ran for days, using up all the blood Dom had given me until my stomach growled in protesting hunger. Shut up, stomach. I’m not stopping until my feet refuse to keep moving. Maybe then everything would make sense again.
My marathon ended when I entered a small deserted town and I tripped on a piece of broken pavement, face planting onto the ground. Then I just lay there, motionless, and I cried salty tears of regret, remorse, and reminders of my failings. The sun set and rose, but I stayed there on the dirt where I belonged. I closed my eyes and finally letting myself drift off to sleep after days with no rest.
My nap was interrupted from a boot to my stomach, and I woke up with a growl to a circle of bleeders grabbing me by my arms and putting vampire cuffs on my wrists. Bleeders had invented them during the early days of the turning, when humans were still afraid of us. Well, I say still. They would never really stop being afraid of the monsters they shared their world with.
Damn bleeders had my gun, I realized with another growl.
They dragged me down the street and up to a building with open doors, an old meat packing plant by the looks of it.
“Kitty!” I heard someone shouting down the road, and the bleeders turned me none too gently to see Dom running down the pavement, Shadow nowhere to be seen.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 79
