The Death Series, Books 1-3 (Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance): Death Whispers, Death Speaks, and Death Inception

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  She laughed as I put a toe in the water. Inch-by-inch I sunk down into the scented and steaming bath water, the stress and fright of the last twenty-four hours melting away and I sighed in contentment. Human again, if only for the moment.

  Then Eve spoke and it slid back into me again.

  “Two of the vampire claim me as mate,” she said in that matter-of-fact way of hers, her hand automatically going to her belly.

  My shoulders were just covered with water as she handed me the soap and the shampoo and I suddenly thought of Michelle and my face beat with shame, hot and flushed and Eve noticed.

  “What troubles you?”

  Geez, was she really asking that? Let me see, my best friend was being raped and I left her for there. My cat doesn't have anyone there to take care of him.

  My job.

  My job! I think it was safe to say that would be gone as well and I sighed.

  I turned the tables on her. “Please answer some questions I have for you. If you really want me to feel better.”

  Eve waited, all calm and unflappable.

  “How old are you?”

  “I am one hundred five,” she answered with a straight face.

  “Are you shitting me?” I asked without grace.

  Eve's face took on a puzzled frown.

  She didn't understand me.

  I rephrased, “Are you joking? I mean, that's not possible.” I held out my hand indicating her obvious youth and pregnancy.

  She smiled. “I am Druid and I have been with the vampires since the 1930s. We do not age when we are in their care.”

  Do not age. I wasn't sure that was such a hot benefit. Who said living forever was so great?

  She reached out and tenderly put a strand of my hair behind my ear, the wetness of it clinging to the back of my neck.

  “How much,” I stumbled over the next word, “Druid blood do you have?”

  She shook her head. “Enough to breed,” she lifted a shoulder in a partial shrug, “maybe one-eighth or thereabouts.”

  “How can they know what you are, how much? And do you just become, what? A baby-maker?”

  Eve blushed and I immediately regretted all my rude questions. But, I was the kidnapped party here and even though it was not her fault directly, I had no one else to pose these questions to. I was deeply unhinged that I was so attracted to the one vampire, Cole.

  I shouldn't have been.

  “We may only have one baby per decade and if we are quite fortunate, it will be a Druid female. Female vampires are usually sterile,” she held up a finger, “but not always, and of course, male vampires are born to us.”

  God, the breast-feeding must be hell, I shuddered. Yuk.

  She saw my face and asked, “What?”

  “I was thinking about feeding the baby...?” I let that loaded question hover like a pink elephant in the room and Eve laughed.

  “The vampire infants have retractable fangs, my dear.”

  Wonderful.

  “Would you help me escape this place?” I asked. I was not interested in being sequestered in this weird-ass castle or whatever it was.

  She shook her head. “You don't understand. They will never let you go with their suspicions of your pureblood. Why, you could be mated to a vampire, fought over, have twins; pure Druid children. Male Druid children can impregnate the female vampires. You are a precious jewel to them, Rachel.”

  I was getting out of here. Even my boring cubicle job was sounding better. I'd play along and find my cell, call Michelle and figure out my future.

  I smiled, feeling it like plastic on my face and Eve's brows came together in a pretty frown.

  “I guess I'll make the best of it,” I said with false cheer and finished my grooming, shaving, scrubbing, and washing my long hair three times. I felt like I'd never get clean after what I'd been through.

  Thoughts of my friend and my life were a dismal pulse beating in my brain.

  CHAPTER 7

  I slid into the clothes that had been provided and they were nothing like what Eve had been wearing. For one thing, there were no tags. I slid on a thinly made, silk skirt with a hidden zipper in the back and low-heeled sandals, it was winter but the place was kept quite warm so my legs were left bare. Finally, a deep royal blue sleeveless shirt finished the ensemble. Eve had given me lingerie that seemed contrary to the plain yet elegant clothing I'd been given; crimson lace boy panties and bra set. The bra hugged my breasts like lace skin, molding and pushing them up to what felt like my neck level. Once the blouse was on, my breasts floated at the top of the blue like creamy flesh balloons.

  I'd keep the bra when I got out of here I thought with a smirk.

  I found my cell after Eve left with a suspicious glance over her shoulder and I heard the bolt slide into place from the outside. I would have to leave this room first, then scope out possible portals of escape.

  The hopelessness of my situation did not escape me. I was with a bunch of predators, bent on having me and keeping me... virtually forever. But I wasn't one to give up.

  I snapped up my cell and the bar for service was at one.

  And so was my charge.

  Quickly I speed-texted Michelle, thinking... respond, respond, respond.

  The envelope lit up on my cell and I punched the screen and Michelle's text appeared.

  Where the hell are you? You dumbass, the cops have been crawling all over your apartment looking for you! And! They found the bodies of the guys that attacked me...

  I sent back this message:

  I've been taken by the freak-vampires and am trying to figure out an escape plan.

  I glanced around. Went to the window, looked outside. I had no idea where I was. Wherever it was, the woods didn't narrow things down.

  Somewhere rural I thought, despairing.

  Well... I am doing cat-sitting right now. Do you know where you're at? Are you okay?

  Yeah, I'm okay. Are you... alright? Has the cop been arrested? I texted.

  Why? What cop? Michelle texted back.

  She didn't know? I thought.

  The one that was busy raping you in the interrogation room...

  I think you're confused, Rach. I mean, the two jerks at Spinners were the ones that raped me. The cop is the one that ordered the rape kit and drove me home.

  Scrubbed.

  The vampires had erased her memory. As far as Michelle knew, the rapists were dead and in the ground now. Never to do a repeat performance.

  The bolt slid back and Nathan and Cole strode in the room, Cole's eyes honed in on the cell open and lit in my hand.

  He was upon me in an instant, the cell swept against the wall and shattered before I knew my hand was empty.

  Nathan held both my wrists together in a grip that was achingly tight, just shy of crushing and I moaned against my will, it hurt that much.

  Cole turned and said, “Release her fool, she is fragile.”

  Nathan did, smiling and Cole frowned at him.

  I fought the urge to rub my wrists as Nathan's eyes roved over my body. “Mouthwatering,” he said. “Her scent permeates the air.”

  Cole nodded. “It does,” he said, his breath quickening.

  They approached me slowly and I backed up into the corner of the room, thinking that was becoming a familiar theme for me.

  My body responded to their closeness and my knees grew weak as Cole leaned into my neck, his fangs punching out with a snapping, meaty sound and I shuddered, my desire and fear mingling in exquisite torture.

  Nathan moved in on the other side, wrapping his muscular arm around my waist and holding me against him. Cole began to kiss my neck and simultaneously graze those fangs along my jawline. Nathan wrapped a hand in my hair and exposed my neck in a long, clean line and my breath came in ragged gulps, my core getting wet for invasion, thoughts of my escape dimming as my desire for the vampires overcame my sense.

  “I will taste you now, Witch. And you will let me,” Cole said, his hot breath warming my sl
ender throat, the pulse beating wildly beneath his mouth.

  Something fundamental inside me screamed no even as my arms drew him into my body and he struck, his fangs sinking into my throat, latching on.

  It was the worst pain of my life. I began to struggle and Nathan held me still, my body bucking as Cole drank my blood, his arousal against my belly while his fangs pierced my flesh.

  As my head became light, Cole pulled back, licking the wounds at my throat and I slid down the front of Nathan's body, dizzy.

  Cole caught me easily, carrying me to the bed where they lay me on it.

  “She is pure. Both parents, Druid,” Cole said as I stared up at him dreamily.

  “She will not fight us now,” Nathan said, his eyes on my legs, breasts, all of me.

  “Alexander will punish us for having her before the ceremony.”

  Cole looked at Nathan. “He need not know.”

  A silent glance passed between the two vampires and I felt the weight of their stare like licking heat on my body.

  The blood loss had made me feel drunk, but the feeding at my throat had awakened something primal in me. I felt desire for Cole spread like a flower opening deep inside my body.

  He must have sensed something because he looked down at me.

  “I cannot, it is akin to rape. She is in blood-languor. She would have sex with any one of us. And,” Cole said, stroking the flat of his palm over one of my nipples until it hardened, “Alexander would find what vampire would be the most fertile with her.”

  Nathan said, “Fine, but we must see if we can give her something for the gift of her blood.”

  A slow smile spread over Cole's face and I lay there as they discussed having sex with me and found I couldn't work up to a point of indignation. What was wrong with me? My throat throbbed and my core moistened in anticipation for their attention.

  Slowly, Cole put his large hands at the hem of the skirt and raised it inch by slow inch until it was exposing the beautiful crimson panties. His blunt fingertip slowly teased the inside of the lace edge against my vulnerable opening, not reaching inside, just stroking the side of the panty. I moaned and my legs began to part of their own volition. I was deeply embarrassed, but too aroused to care.

  Cole gave a masculine chuckle and inserted the one finger that had ridden the edge of the lace into me and was greeted by my slickness and he groaned. “She is so ready,” he murmured.

  His hand began to work a rhythm and my hips squirmed to meet it. Nathan had unbuttoned my blouse and was rolling my nipples in between his fingers as Cole moved a finger in and out of me in a slow and delicious pull.

  I looked up at his glacial eyes, watching him down the long line of my body as my skirt sat bunched around my waist and his hand was busy inside me.

  I was building toward a shattering orgasm when he surprised me out of my languid stupor by pressing his mouth against my clit, flicking it once, twice, three times. But it was the cool press of the fangs against my opening that jerked my hips up into his seeking mouth, my orgasm ripping from my mouth in a scream that Nathan caught in a kiss.

  Cole gently pressed his forearm against my lower stomach and shot his tongue into my core, spearing it as he lightly bit along my labia... and another orgasm shattered me as he speared his tongue in and out of me over and over, finishing me by lapping at my entrance, slick with my orgasms and his attentions.

  Nathan released my mouth reluctantly and Cole sat up and away from me. I lay there with my legs spread before a stranger, a vampire. Who had just given me the best sex of my life without using his cock. He bent over me once more and kissed my most private part and I shivered, my hips moving of their own accord. He worked his way up my body, my hand rising to press against his head and his hips lay cradled between my open legs and I could feel his arousal between them.

  “Why didn't you take me?” I asked. Mad, frightened and sexually frustrated all in one confused mess.

  “You are not yourself right now. I would not have our first time like this, when blood-languor is upon you. It will be your choice who you mate with, and Alexander's.” A cloud of some dark emotion crossed his face at the mention of the leader's name.

  With a tender finger along my jaw he said, “You taste perfect, you are perfect.” He kissed me. I could taste myself on his mouth and it made me moan underneath him and he shuddered.

  “You undo me. I must go.” Nathan was above me and looked longingly at what Cole had just done.

  Cole straightened my panties and skirt. “You must be hungry.”

  Not anymore, I thought dreamily. My core throbbed for something other than food.

  Nathan shook his head. “Let us take her to the Gathering Room.”

  I was very woozy after the blood loss and the sex. Each man helped me to my feet, one on either side. My eyes found the shattered cell phone and I pulled out of Cole's grip, my senses beginning to right themselves.

  “I texted my friend.” I snatched my hand out of his, backing away from both of them, the aftereffects of the bloodletting slipping away in a rush. “You know... the one you let the cop rape.”

  Cole's expression darkened and my gaze went to his mouth, thinking about where it had been but minutes before. A flush rose to my face. I was trapped with these two men. I had allowed one of them to do things to me and I was instantly angry. How could I have let him? Them?

  I stomped to the door, catching myself from falling against the jamb. Cole was instantly there, supporting my elbow. “You are not at your full strength. You need to eat. We could do nothing for your friend.”

  “Yeah, I know... cattle,” I said, tearing my arm away from him and glaring at Nathan. They stared back at me, Nathan reaching forward and opening the door.

  I walked in the hallway and immediately felt unsure of myself but my residual anger from being bled, manipulated and essentially used sexually while I was physically vulnerable fueled me onward. I swung around, still dizzy and leaned against the wall, my vision dimming, my anger and frustration at my circumstance burning hot tears in my eyes that refused to fall.

  Cole got real close to me and whispered in my ear, “You are not well, let me carry you.”

  I shook my head and my vision swam in streamers of color. He was definitely not going to touch me again. I ground my teeth together as I began to slide down the wall, my palm dragging against the cold stone.

  “Just pick her up!” Nathan said.

  Cole did, easily scooping me up in his arms and I hit him in his chest with weak fists. “Put me down...” my head lolled against him and the first, hot tears stained his black shirt and I fainted where I lay, safely pressed against him.

  CHAPTER 8

  I stirred, waking in another room with Eve peering anxiously over me.

  “They should have never bled you before you had taken food,” she said, patting my forehead with a damp cloth.

  Hunger slammed into me when I smelled a bowl of something that made my taste buds come alive in a roaring inferno.

  I sat up too quickly and dizziness assaulted me. Nausea kicked in and I said, “I think I'm going to be sick.” I slammed my feet down on the cold floor and ran to the bathroom, but my weakness caused me to stumble and I put my hands out to brace my fall and I was in his arm's again.

  Cole's.

  I was too weak to struggle and lay there, my stomach heaving from blood loss and lack of food.

  “You fool! She can hardly walk... she is sick to her stomach! Could you have not waited?” Eve yelled at him and I lay still, listening for a heartbeat that wasn't there.

  I watched Cole's eyes close, the iciness gone for a moment then he looked down at me. “Forgive me, I would not harm you purposely.”

  I was too tired to be angry. I said nothing and he sighed but the urge to throw up had passed.

  “Give me the soup. I will feed her.”

  Eve pursed her lips and gave him the bowl. Cole carried me to where I had lain, using only one arm, the soup in the other hand.
>
  He sat down and tenderly brought me to a sitting position and my stomach lurched. Instinctively I put a hand over my mouth.

  He scooped up some of the fragrant broth and lifted it to my mouth and I parted my lips for him and a fine sweat appeared above his lip. It was then that I knew that he wanted me for himself. It didn't matter what their leader (Alexander) thought, this vampire would be as territorial as he needed to be.

  I would use that as leverage and escape this place. It didn't matter that the sex was great. The fringe benefits weren't sounding too hot at the moment. I ate half a bowl and allowed my head to fall back against his chest again, playing the weak female card for all it was worth.

  It wasn't that hard.

  He clenched me tighter and stroked my hair.

  Eve said, “Don't get attached to her. You know better. Alexander will make a match that is best for a breeding pair...”

  “I know that better than most!” he spoke to her harshly and she cringed away from him.

  “Have you stopped to think that the Druids should not be matched for biology solely, but for love?”

  Eve shook her head. “You know that is not the way of it, Cole. Think with your head,” I watched her press a fingertip to her temple, “not your emotions. You have always been thus.”

  “I am not ashamed that I wished to be mated to a Druid and not share her with others.”

  “That will never happen,” Eve said. “At the very least, she will have two mates. It cannot be avoided, there are too few.”

  Cole let out a frustrated breath and it moved my hair, his arms crushed me to him and I smiled.

  Gotcha.

  *

  I had regained some strength and Eve managed to convince them all that I was ready to partake in the ceremony. Albeit after there was something solid in my stomach.

  I approached the cavernous room, noise echoing and bouncing off the walls. There were many women (and some men) lined up at a huge banquet table piling food on plates.

  Many of the women were pregnant.