“Looks like we’re double lucky, boys,” one of the bleeders said with glee. He pointed his rifle at Dom when the vampire was close enough, and Dom raised his arms in surrender. The other bleeders took him and slapped on another set of vampire cuffs. With us restrained, they took us inside to a metal storage room and slung our cuffs onto strong hooks that ran from the ceiling, our arms suspended above our heads.
“It’s a shame there wasn’t a Lycan with you two,” the head bleeder said with an evil grin. “Our last supplier… expired.” I fought against my bonds at the thought of a Lycan suffering with these bleeders. The ceiling hook stayed put, and I knew it had been made to withstand a vampire or Lycan’s strength.
“I’ll rip all of your fucking heads off, you shriveled up twatwaff—”
The bleeder cut me off with a backhand across my face. “Shut your bitch mouth or I’ll muzzle you,” he warned, and I shot him the deadliest glare I could conjure as he turned to pick up something from one of the metal tables. A bucket and a tube. My many years of travel had taught me things I never wanted to know, and I knew exactly what the bleeder was about to do. I struggled so hard I felt the skin on my wrists slice open against the cuffs and blood trickled down my arms. The bleeder noticed and smiled again. “Maybe you’ll behave yourself now.”
“No!” I shouted with more struggling against my bonds, but he ignored me and brought the bucket and tube over to Dom. He took a special knife from his pocket and used it to slice across Dom’s leg. Dom cried out in pain and the scent of his blood filled the air. I was so distracted, it didn’t even make me feel thirsty. The bleeder stuck the tube into the cut he’d made, preventing Dom’s body from healing itself, and Dom’s blood started flowing into the bucket. “I’ll fucking murder you,” I ground out to the bleeder. “You’ll die a thousand deaths before I’m finished with you.”
Unfazed, the bleeder checked his handiwork and straightened, throwing me a grin. “We’ll see.”
Distracted or not, I eventually could hardly think with the smell of Dom’s blood in my nose and my stomach rumbling from hunger.
“I’ll be fine, kitty cat,” Dom joked with a pale smile, and he turned his dual-toned eyes up, nodding to comfort me, like I was the one having the life drained out of me. Every second was an eternity, but finally the bleeder was satisfied with the amount of blood in the bucket and he pulled the tube out of Dom’s leg before leaving us alone in the metal room. Dom managed a weak smile. “Saving some of us for later, ehh?” His skin went even paler and his head dipped to his chest.
I swung my leg at him, but I could barely reach his side. “Dom, stay awake. You can’t fall asleep.” If he went into a frenzy, the bleeders would shoot him. I’d never get to see his smile again, feel his hands on me again, or stare up into his blue and brown eyes. And I realized that would’ve made my despair that much worse.
With no way to mark the passage of time, I didn’t know how long we were in that room. The bleeders came in several times to take our blood and refused every request to let us down. Hunger was starting to overtake both of us, and I didn’t know how much longer I could survive without blood. Thankfully, the bleeders eventually brought in two bags of blood. Dom tore into his as they held it up to his face, but I turned my nose up at mine.
“I don’t drink human blood,” I informed them tartly.
The bleeder grabbed at my hair, making me wince in pain. “Then you can starve.” He left us and I slumped my head against my chest. My arms were on fire from the abuse. I would’ve done anything to be unchained.
“We’ll get away, I promise,” Dom said weakly. He was worse off than me, having given extra blood because he was more docile than me. I still found the strength to fight and kick at our captors when they came at me with their blood bucket.
I appreciated Dom’s heroism, but I found it ridiculous. We were too weak to escape. My arms hurt so much, I couldn’t even contemplate trying to move them.
“Guess we won’t save everyone after all,” I joked wearily, sagging against my bonds.
Dom stilled and tilted his head to the side like he’d heard something I didn’t. “Never say never, kitty cat.”
“Wha…” My blood reserves were so depleted, I didn’t have enough to use on my senses. Before I could hear what he was hearing, he started panting and I turned my head sharply at him.
He was going into a frenzy.
“Dom, no! Fight it. You can’t slip away from me.” Salty tears flowed from my eyes, despair filling me to the brim. “Dom…” I swallowed the lump in my throat and said exactly what was in my heart, because if we didn’t make it, I’d never forgive myself for not telling him. “I should’ve let you kiss me again. I want to kiss you so badly, even right now with you looking like death warmed over.” Dom’s eyes fluttered open and he looked at me hazily. “If we’re not making it out of this, I want you to know that. I want you in my life, even if we’ve only just met. Will you stay with me?”
His mouth curved into a smile and he shuffled his shoes on the floor to turn his body towards me. “Well now I definitely have to survive. I’m not passing up a chance to kiss Kitty Bathory again.”
I smiled at him, and I felt a small sliver of happiness, here where our story was coming to an end.
Fate had other plans, and the door to our room burst open as Jason came in with two smoking pistols in his hands like a warrior from heaven. Dom growled, pulling at his bonds with Jason’s blood calling to him. Jason gently picked me up by the waist and unhooked my arms from the meat hook, the sharp pain from the blood rushing back into my limbs making me cry out. He set my feet onto the ground.
“I’m sorry I let you leave, Kitty,” he confessed brokenly, holding me close. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Don’t let it happen again, dumb ass,” I sauced weakly. Jason turned to Dom and I stopped him with my burning fingers. “He’s close to a frenzy. We can’t let him loose with you in here.”
“Kitty,” Dom ground out, panting with the effort, his eyes just barely turning red. He was right on the edge. “Won’t… hurt him… let me… go…” Jason reached up to unhook Dom and I stepped in front of him just in case Dom attacked. He fell to the ground and ran out of the room without stopping. Jason picked me up again, slinging my arm over his shoulder, and we left the metal room behind.
We found Dom face first in a pile of bleeders Jason had shot on his way in to rescue us. Dom finished drinking all of them dry and he stood, wiping his very bloody mouth with his jacket sleeve. He panted and nodded to me like it was a normal day.
“Your boyfriend is gross,” Jason commented, and I flicked him with my finger to shut him up. After un-cuffing ourselves, we left the building to see three motorcycles outside by a hitching post like a cluster of mechanical horses.
“Nice, you got us motorcycles,” I observed happily, eyeing the biggest one lustily.
“Not exactly,” Jason said, and set me down on the pavement, holding me up with his arm. “I didn’t tell you what happened to me.”
“Que?”
As an answer, three masked figures appeared from a building across the street. Women, by the shape of their bodies. One had long, straight brown hair, and her scent made me pause. She was a vaewolf like Jason, part vampire and part Lycan. The second had blonde hair in a long braid, and her scent was known to me: Marie, my mom’s vampire secretary from before. The third drew my attention so much I almost did a double take. She had long, black curls and pale, white skin. On their approach, each woman took off their goggles, the last revealing a pair of familiar purple eyes.
“Grandma?”
25. I’m so shiny
Kitty
My journey to find my family had led me to the only person I hadn’t looked for, and she was sitting across me at our makeshift camp.
Anastasia Bathory, the crazy vampire who had slaughtered hundreds of vampires and Lycans in her insane spree of vengeance and spent hundreds of years in a comatose state after giving up my infant moth
er to keep her safe. Did I mention she was crazy?
Marie, who last I knew was more interested in designer heels instead of polishing a gun, was doing just that against a nearby tree. She finished her work and my grandmother stood to join her. Anastasia pulled Marie in by her hips, giving her a triumphant kiss, not unlike my mom making out with Arthur.
In shock at the sight of my grandmother kissing Marie of all people, I looked at Jason to see if he shared my surprise, but he was smiling, smiling, at them.
Oh my god Marie was mated to my grandmother.
With that tidbit stored away, I cleared my throat and they stopped face sucking long enough to come back to our circle.
“Jason has told me everything about Lisbeth and the human city,” Anastasia said once she’d sat down again.
“Including the part about my mom having two lovers now?” I wondered how she’d feel about that.
Anastasia shrugged and fiddled with one of her long curls in thought. “I’ve had several lovers at once, many times.”
I grimaced and wished I hadn’t said anything. “I’m going to pretend that’s not gross to hear.” She shrugged again and Marie took some of her black hair to put in little braids. “How did you get here so fast, by the way? Where were you?”
Anastasia raised her eyebrows at Jason who looked away in avoidance. “Jason did not tell you.”
“No, Jason did not.” I turned to him accusingly and waited for him to look up at me. “He told me to piss off before I could find out what he’s been up to for the past twenty years.”
“I…” Jason sighed and scratched at his neck. “I said I was sorry. I haven’t had it easy, and sometimes it’s hard to interact with people.”
“How about I start. You were with Balthazar, my bio dad,” I offered, flipping my palm up in a signal for him to continue.
“We went to an island west of California. He was there with me for several years, helping me grow food and keeping me company until…” My heart stopped and I reached for his hand, to comfort myself more than him because I had a sinking feeling where this was going. “The Bicus came, they arrested him for reproducing after the ban was in place. They had Toni in custody too. Took him away to the Bicus plane. I never saw him again.”
And that’s exactly what I thought he’d say, which was great. My dad had been thrown in prison for creating me. My anxiety rising, I squeezed at Jason’s fingers and he kissed my fingertips to get me to let go before I broke his hand.
“After that, I had to fix the motorboat we’d used to get there and come back to the mainland. It broke at some point, so I had to swim the rest of the way. I floated up to a beach, as exhausted as I’d ever been, and I wandered around for a long time, trying to find someone who would take me in. Dad used to tell me about the farm house in Texas, so many times I felt as if I could find it in my sleep. When it was finally in sight, I was bloody, dirty, and tired enough to fall asleep for a year. That’s how I stayed until Anastasia found me.”
“First thing I did was hose him off,” she said with a grin. “I didn’t know he was my grandson at first, just that he needed my help. He’d been alone for many years.” Just like me. “As soon as he was old enough to be on his own, I left to continue my search for Alistair.”
The mere mention of the man was enough to raise my hackles. He was the one who had ruined the world.
“Alistair? That’s where you’ve been all these years?”
She nodded and sipped at her canteen. “He’s a slippery bastard, but I finally found him with the help of Marie here.”
“I trust you made him pay,” Dom inquired beside me.
Anastasia’s mouth curled and I couldn’t tell if she was gleeful or remorseful. Both. Hauntingly, both. “He won’t hurt anyone again.”
We all relaxed with a collective breath, from something I didn’t realize I’d been worrying about.
“He had Yukina as a prisoner and we brought her with us,” Anastasia continued, gesturing to the brown-haired girl who had been silent this entire time. From the first glance, I’d known she was a vaewolf like Jason. He’d been staring at her off and on as we left the town and made camp in a patch of trees, like she was a priceless artifact he’d been searching for his entire life. He was a love-sick puppy, and his scent was very telling about the nature of his feelings for her, I can say that much.
My stomach took that moment to growl loud enough to wake up a bear during hibernation season. Jason laughed at me, I punched his arm, and Anastasia stood up.
“Come here, you can drink from me.”
Oh fuck. My mom had told me stories of Anastasia’s heightened powers. She didn’t even need to blood binge to be the most powerful vampire ever. What would drinking her blood be like?
Gulp.
I got up and crossed over to her as she removed her jacket and pushed her black t-shirt to the side, revealing her pale, smooth neck. Hesitating only a little, I leaned in and took a small sniff of her scent before I sank my fangs into her neck.
OH MY FUCKING GOD.
If Dom’s blood was pure sunshine, Anastasia’s was like taking a bite of the actual sun. It was like a thousand shots of espresso, with a hundred energy drinks, and Night Shadow without the hallucinations. I pulled off after getting a stomach full and gasped with a burp-cough.
“Holy shit,” I exclaimed, my eyes widening to saucers. “I feel high. Can I get high from your blood? Am I talking too loud? Oh my god I’m so shiny right now.”
She was trying not to laugh at me, patting my back with a smile. “You’ll be fine for awhile now. I can’t say how long, I’ve never fed a vipyre before.”
My stomach flipped over, and I held a hand to my mouth to keep my dinner from coming back up. “Check please.” The feeling passed before I’d sat back down between Jason and Dom. I looked at Dom and started brazenly stroking his chin. “You’re so cute. I like your face. You wanna bone later?”
“Maybe my blood is too much for her,” Anastasia said in thought. Mmmm, no way. I wanted her blood more often.
“We should get to bed,” Marie pronounced just as I was about to lean in and kiss Dom on his cute little lips. “We have to get to Salvation as soon as we can. We have no idea what’s been going on there since Kitty and Dom left them.”
I hoped it was all good and shiny things.
26. Plans foiled
Dreya
As my three parents plotted our next move amidst some passionate make-out sessions on the couch, I was having my own make-out session on the clock tower balcony. Darius’ hazel eyes somehow shone brighter than his pink aura, and I drowned in them with every kiss to his soft lips from my perch on top of his lap. Stopping for air, I pressed our foreheads together and ran my fingers through his brown curls.
“I could kiss you forever,” he breathed, moving his lips down my cheeks and to my neck where he kissed every inch of my skin.
I wish I could’ve seen my own aura. I wondered if it was as pink as Darius’ was. Or if it was pink at all. That hardly mattered, and I giggled at his tickling kisses on my ear, pulling my head away from him. Whatever I could say about him, he was a good kisser.
“I want to tell you something,” I told him with a grin. My parents had been against this, but I trusted that Darius was in love with me and would do whatever I said, even if I didn’t have mother’s psychic abilities to make him do whatever I wanted. I checked his face first, saw the full pink of his aura, and kissed him on the lips again to seal his mood. “My father is here.”
His smile remained, and I felt hopeful for a moment. “Knight? Is he in the stair landing? Do you have to go home?” He turned to look through the hole in the clock, but I pulled his face back to me.
“No, not Knight. Arthur. Arthur is here.”
When his smile fell, my stomach plummeted ten stories. “Arthur is a fugitive, Dreya. He was banned from Salvation for drug possession.” The pink was slowly turning to green, and I almost saw red on the edges. Trying not to panic, I kissed at Darius
’ hands, anything to see the loving pink again.
“It was a long time ago, he’s not on the stuff anymore, I promise. He just wants to be with me again. Can’t your dad forgive him?” I kept my face as innocent as possible, and Darius eventually shifted back to a very light pink, but I knew he wasn’t in the mood for kisses anymore.
“I’ll talk to him,” Darius said, running a hand through my hair.
Sighing with relief, I leaned back on my knees. “Sorry I ruined the mood,” I apologized with a shy grin.
He smiled at me and gave me a gentle kiss on the lips. “It’s fine. I have something for you, actually.” Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a small box and handed it to me. Inside was a silver necklace with a gold ring on it. “It was my mom’s,” he explained, slipping the band onto the tip of his finger. “Dreya, I know we’re young, but I know how I feel about you. I want us to be together forever.”
And at that moment, I knew I was bathed in the brightest yellow that ever touched the sky.
“I wish you’d gone with Kitty,” father said for only the fifth time in the past twenty minutes. With my fingers gripping the chained ring underneath my dress, I suppressed the desire to roll my eyes as we continued walking down the darkened street. In the past week or so we’d gotten to know each other a bit, but he still treated me like a child. It was something I could forgive because he had never raised a kid before, but it was still fucking annoying and tested even my patience.
Resisting the urge to tell him to shove it up his ass, we arrived at our destination and Arthur knocked on the door three times before it opened to reveal Olivier dressed in a simple black dress, bathed in angry red light as she always was. Olivier’s subdued wardrobe was enough to raise my eyebrows, but we walked in before she shut and locked the door behind us. Renard sat at their kitchen table and she gestured for us to sit across from him while she made us something to drink.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 80
