Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods

by Michaela Haze

  Chris looked around and turned away from the car. I felt a prickle go up my spine and I whirled around. The hooded figure stood at the entrance to the alleyway, bathed in moonlight. I could see the pearl-like quality of their skin. If it was William Kain, I did not want Chris to witness him killing me on the street.

  “I’m just around the corner from my friend’s place. I can’t trust you behind the wheel,” I joked. “I’m just going to walk.”

  “Are you kidding me, Sophia?” Chris said incredulously. “It’s two in the morning, and it’s pitch-black out.”

  “It’s just around the corner.”

  I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t going to let me go. I turned on my heel and started walking to the alleyway, the feeling in my gut told me not to be worried.

  I heard Chris shout my name but I turned back and waved. He held both of his hands out and brandished them as if to ask me what the hell I was doing. I waved again, smiled and shrugged but continued walking.

  When I reached the alleyway, I looked up to see that I was in Henry’s arms, the wind ripped past my face and I realised that he was carrying me and he was running. Everything seemed to slow down, but we were moving at speed—it was like the world was moving around us, rather than the other way around.

  “You could have phoned me after work,” I breathed. Henry looked down, his mahogany hair whipped by the speed and he smiled, showing every single tooth.

  “You told William you loved me,” he beamed, his eyes alight. I felt the heat rise from my forehead to my cheeks, tinting my eyes. I looked down and fisted the fabric of Henry’s sweatshirt. I wasn’t lying when I told Chris that ‘my friends’ place was close.

  It seemed only a few seconds passed before we were bathed in the orange glow of the street lights outside of Henry’s terrace house. My hair was plastered to my face and I thrust my hand up to smooth it away. Henry set me down and looked at me. Even in the heavy rain, he had to blink to maintain eye contact as the water pulsated over us both.

  Like a hyperactive child, Henry grabbed both of my shoulders. His smile was radiant and he looked at me like I was the answer to his prayers. His hand slipped into mine, freezing cold, he pulled me up the stairs towards his front door. Henry placed his hand against the wood as he pushed it with a flat palm until the lock clicked into place and he turned around to me.

  I shivered, my white shirt from work clung to me, soaked from the rain. Henry peeled off his hooded sweatshirt and dropped it to the floor with a thwack.

  He took a step towards me and his eyes were hesitant, every move carefully planned as if it scared him. I didn’t understand the sadness in his eyes. It raised a lump in my throat, my heart felt like a dead weight. His hand grew closer and snaked its way around my warm cheek. I closed my eyes and relished in the contact like a soft feather gently stroking my skin. I heard him gasp and my eyes flew open and found his.

  “It feels like my hand is on fire.” Henry breathed incredulously. “My heart, my skin, my whole body feels like it is alive and burning.”

  “Is that a good thing?” I said timidly. I knew what he meant, I could feel it too. He closed his eyes. “Mm,” was his only response. We stood like that for a few seconds, silence and utter stillness. Before I knew it, I unhinged my arms and reached towards Henry. He stiffened. I placed both of my hands on his cheeks, his back was straight and he seemed tense. He took a few breaths and then his face relaxed and a soft smile turned the corners of his mouth.

  “He said you love me,” Henry stated in a tiny voice. “I’m a monster, a deplorable creature but you love me. You love me.”

  I bit my lip, eyes threatening to brim over.

  “Me too,” Henry murmured.

  “Are we going to declare ourselves?” I laughed.

  “Oh,” he sighed happily, “why not? Whoever knew that it would take over seventy years for me to find my soulmate.” His hands drifted to my back. The contact felt different. Tender rather than frenzied.

  “You dominate my every thought,” Henry quoted back to me. He took a step closer, our foreheads pressed together. His cool skin was pleasant rather than alien to me now.

  “My every breath,” I replied simply.

  “And every heartbeat,” he said. Henry made my head swim. He smelled intoxicating, clean and crisp—sweet and addictive. I wanted more. I leaned forward, and he rested his cheek against mine. I shivered but made no move to break this connection.

  “I don’t want to stop touching you,” Henry admitted. I snaked my hands around his neck, pulling his cold body closer, every touch made my head swim. The more I touched him, the more it felt like I couldn’t breathe—as if the life was being sucked out of me.

  “Then don’t,” I whispered back fervently. His white shirt clung to his skin and dripped onto the floor. He reached up and pushed a lock of my hair back off my face. His hands were so cold, but the burning I felt from his touch more than made up for that.

  I didn’t want to ask why he was so desperate to touch me. It wasn’t because he was hungry and my touch was feeding him, it was like he could see the funnel storm of a tornado on the horizon. He clasped at my shoulders pushing me to him. I fell limply into the space between his shoulders.

  “Where is William?” I asked in a quiet voice. Henry shrugged.

  “He had some business to take care of,” he said distastefully.

  He leaned forward cautiously and traced the line of my neck with his nose. I could practically feel the tingling feeling in a concentrated line where the contact had taken place. I felt a nervous breath drag through my throat and I struggled to regulate my heart beat.

  His eyes shined like a predator stalking prey. His elbows rested on my shoulders and he took a step forward and another until my back was pressed against the wall. He looked at me. His pale tongue darted out and wet his lips.

  His hand snaked down my body until they rested and cupped my hipbones. I was unable to focus on anything but the dizzying feel in my head and the man in front of me. He leaned into me, his breath mixing with mine, I couldn’t think of anything but my burning need for him. I couldn’t express anything other than the arousal building in between my legs. He leaned forward, gauging the atmosphere and my scent—but his need to be close to me seemed to override everything else.

  I felt it too. It was a delicious mixture of joy and light and that sick twisted bond of blood that seemed to chain us together. I couldn’t run from this. It would find me. The fear of him evaporated and all I could feel was the heat of his tongue. It was what I wanted—desperately.

  This kiss felt so stifling—like I would always want more and it wouldn’t be enough. Dirty, as it sucked my energy from me, as it choked me and brought me to the brink of feverish and arousal induced death. His grip on my hips increased and the same groan fell from his mouth and into mine. My tongue explored the plane of his smooth bottom lip. It was frightening, being this close to death but feeling so alive at the same time.

  As he pressed down further into me, I felt like a tiny doll in his hands, bending to his will. I felt like the kiss was an exploit he had spent an entire lifetime imagining, different from all our other kisses. Henry was revelling in the pleasure; committing this sin with careful hands. Every movement told me he was addicted to me, his kisses were killing me, drawing my soul out of my body.

  Who was I to argue with fate? And it felt like fate, harsh and deadly. I wanted him more than anything I had ever wanted in my life.

  My back pressed against the wall, I felt his cold hands circle my thighs and lift me easily. His tongue grazed my lip and I heard the air change around us, Henry spun me around and my eyes flickered open and then we were at the top of the stairs. He moved effortlessly, fast and leonine.

  It was as easy as dancing and as graceful, we moved in perfect sync.

  His fevered kisses moved to my throat and his low guttural moan vibrated against my collarbone. I started to shake, my vision blurring, tiny breaths gasped through my teeth as I strugg
led to stay conscious. I reached down to his shirt and began to undo it, I peeled it from his skin before looking down and realising that he was doing the same.

  His lips turned up and he kissed my forehead. His hand slipped around my waist and rested on the small of my back, pressing my wet skin to his chest. He could kill me at any moment—I would lay broken at his feet, the knife’s edge spurred me on.

  Part of me felt horribly guilty that I was addicted to Henry Blaire. That his chilled touch was the only thing I craved and needed. I felt like I would die if he stopped touching me. His hands traced over my rib bones and my hips bucked against him. I felt his erection through the wet fabric of my trousers. Heat swelled at my centre and I ground against him.

  “I don’t know if I can stop,” Henry whispered. “I don’t know if I can stay away…I can’t stop…”

  I silenced him with a kiss and I felt as if I was staring at a chasm, preparing to jump. Our bodies were different but still the same.

  “I trust you,” I replied breathlessly.

  “Don’t trust me,” his eyes laced with sadness and he buried his head in my neck.

  “I need you—I want this,” I begged. Henry lifted my leg and wrapped it around him. Our clothes went with the pleasure of anticipation. Released frustrations and tentative feelings—I felt his length press into my stomach, he wanted me too.

  His pale blue eyes smouldered and his mahogany hair held flecks of water. I couldn’t stay away from him. Henry Blaire was the only thing I would ever want this much. Henry ripped his head away from my neck, his hands roamed over my breasts. Teasing my nipple and making my hips buck out as my body became a livewire.

  Henry bit into his hand and it streamed with blood. He pushed his hand between my lips and I could feel the copper on the roof of my mouth. I moaned in pleasure.

  I swallowed the liquid and let it ooze down my throat. I looked down to my shoulders where Henry’s hand held me tightly a few seconds before—it wasn’t painful but there were bruises. As I swallowed more of my daemon’s blood, the bruises faded completely and my skin looked radiant.

  I no longer felt on the edge of death—I felt as if I was glowing, I could breathe, I could touch him. I had never felt so healthy—so non-sick and non-depressed. Alive. I drank much more than I ever had before. His mouth came back to my neck and placed kisses along my jawline.

  “I haven’t…done this in a long, long time,” Henry ground into me and my legs separated.

  “Neither have I,” I breathed before fisting his hair and pushing his lips back onto mine. All I wanted was him.

  He felt like home. Cold as marble but soft as silk, pulsating home. His heart didn’t beat but mine felt like it would break out of my chest. All of the disturbing images in my mind seemed to melt away and be replaced by nothing but Henry Blaire.

  I was on fire…and his cold body was the only thing that could extinguish the pain of existence.

  The bedroom door slammed shut behind us; my mouth tasted like rust and dried salt. My legs wrapped around his waist and he supported me against him. I clung to Henry like a life preserver.

  I had never felt more alive, my veins felt as if they were being shot with ice water and jolting me back from the edge of oblivion. All I could feel was Henry, taste…see…he was in my every sense. His skin was soft and I felt the firm promise of muscle as my hands trailed over his body.

  His eyes burned into mine, wordless communication that the electricity needed to be sated. I didn’t care that I had been told to stay away from him. Henry was mine.

  I would look back at that moment, the day, the afternoon, the soaking wet and cold night that defined me as who I would forever be. I was giving myself to this man. I was submitting to him, but there was sadness in his eyes, like every touch could be our last, and that I may die at any moment meant that he was submitting to me.

  Playing a silly game of trying to be human for me, trying to believe we could be together. Or maybe he wanted to make me more like him, forcing his blood down my throat. He would take me, break me down into a thousand facets of broken glass and consume every piece until it lacerated and ripped the internal lining of his veins.

  My body wasn’t there, lost in pleasure as he sheathed himself inside of me. He touched me and I floated over us both, but he did as well. We were not defined by our bodies, we were souls. Glittering flecks that danced together; forever sad and sorrowful that we were born as two separate entities. I saw the very heart of the universe, the magic. Soulmates.

  I was a vessel waiting to be filled.

  I breathed his name over and over. He breathed mine. He filled the void in my body and my mind, sliding into me as I held tightly onto him. He closed his eyes, squeezed shut as if it was almost too much.

  He looked like he was crying. His head pulled back as if he was holding himself back as if internally he was in pain, it eased as he looked into my eyes. I didn’t understand why, so I closed my eyes and held onto him tightly, my back thrusting against the wall as I felt it creak and buckle under his strength.

  “I love you,” Henry told me, his hold on me tightened, my chest filled with joy and all I could do was smile back at him and twist my fingers in his hair.

  Two souls that were in pain because they were split down the middle; our bodies were two separate entities but were one at that moment. My soulmate and my addiction.

  Henry Blaire.

  13.

  I was warm, safe and happy. Content. In my dream, I was in a field. Starring at the sun as it slipped over my head, the clouds lapped over each other at speed. I looked up but the whiteness did not abate to grey—it was sunny here. Henry stood in front of me, his skin translucent with the glow of the sun. Happy, complete, content.

  I woke up with a start.

  The room was empty, it filled me with a sense of foreboding but I thought nothing of it. Things like that, the warning signs that I should have watched out for were ignored. In retrospect, looking back on the morning that changed my life, I could have done everything differently. I could have listened for their voices, William’s or Henry’s. Maybe it would have eased the blow if I knew they weren’t in the house.

  I pushed off the covers and shivered. There was no dent on the other side of the bed, I was alone. There were no sounds other than the ones that I made as I pulled the blankets from my body. I walked over and tugged on my jeans. When I went over to the chest of drawers, I saw that the top drawer was empty. The next one was as well…I didn’t understand. The room itself looked like it always did. The large four poster bed, the pictures…but something was off.

  The wardrobe was full—I hadn’t thought that maybe Henry just didn’t like to use drawers. In the glass cabinet by the door, I noticed a folded white t-shirt, and the dark blue sweatshirt Henry wore yesterday. I picked up the jumper and it was freshly laundered, it no longer smelt like sandalwood and soap like my daemon—it smelt of washing powder. I held it to my nose to try and decipher any hidden scent particles that had lodged there, to no success.

  I slipped on the t-shirt; it was my size as if he had gotten it especially for me. In his absence, the gesture was beautiful.

  I should have seen the signs. I was ignoring everything, Maylett’s death. There was one other to go. I didn’t dare ask what would happen next when we weren’t held together by the sick bond of murder.

  Pulling on the sweatshirt, I zipped it to my neck and opened the door. Nothing was out of place but everything was wrong.

  “Henry?” I shouted. No response. The hallway was the same, the maroon carpet, even down to the coat rack by the door. A chill crawled up my spine and settled in my stomach.

  It never felt good to wake up alone after sex but this was different, this was something sinister. The house was empty, but everything was still in its rightful place. I reached into the sweatshirt pocket, there was a note. It crumpled when my hand had disturbed it.

  Then, three things happened.

  First, I realised that there was some
one at the door, knocking. Two, that person was forcing their way in. And three…the note was pushed back into my pocket as I ran.

  I didn’t have a chance to wrench the door open.

  “Mr. Blaire! We’re here to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Mr Robert Parr!” I heard Milligan’s voice. My hands covered my ears. I slouched down. They would find me here…they would know I was responsible. I couldn’t move. I was alone when the door cracked open with an audible bang that caused me to jump.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. Milligan stepped in as the men in black swept past him and filled the house like water. I sat on the bottom stair and looked at him blankly. Why were the police in Henry Blaire’s house? A whole armed squad for one man.

  Milligan stood in front of me in silence, I sat for ten minutes and we stared at each other as I heard the house being searched.

  “He’s gone, sir. Done a runner,” a man in black informed Milligan. The man had somehow gotten past me on the stairs and was speaking from behind me

  Gone? Was Henry gone?

  “Thanks, Perkins,” Milligan’s gruff voice snapped me from my reverie. The bulky red-headed man saddled over to me. He wore an expression of grave sympathy and curiosity.

  “We have reason to believe that Mr. Henry Blaire was responsible for the death of Robert Parr yesterday evening around nine o clock. Did you see Mr. Blaire yesterday?” Milligan asked in a professional voice.

  “I spent the evening with him…but I didn’t…see him until two in the morning,” I rasped. Henry wasn’t in the house.

  “Alright, Ms.Taylor. We will require you to come to the station a little bit later with us to talk about this.”

  I furrowed my brow. The police officer made it sound like Henry was a murderer…he wasn’t, I was.

  I didn’t feel closure; I didn’t feel alive. Killing those arseholes had done nothing other than condemning me to hell and self-pity. I was a killer—Henry was my angel.