by Marata Eros
Cole just stared back at him.
Zach dragged me backwards and Erik trained the gun on Cole. Cole's dull eyes were full of rage and grief as they flicked from the human that held the gun on him to mine, anguished.
Zach laughed at Cole's look and he surged forward.
To rescue me.
I watched in slow motion as Erik depressed the trigger, the meaty sound of the impact striking through the inky cloth of Cole's shirt.
The light died in his eyes, as he slid down the wall.
Erik looked at me with triumph and turned to Zach.
I struggled to get away, to go to Cole, to be away from Erik and the rogue.
It was futile. I was tossed over his shoulder as they moved down the stairs. As we exited the stairwell I saw the long black SUV waiting at the curb.
Smoke from its exhaust curled lazily in the chilled night air. Erik opened the door and from my view it looked like a huge mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
I beat at Zach with my fists and he held me to him so tightly I couldn't breathe. Finally when he tired of my struggling he looked at Erik. “Give it to me.”
An evil smile overcame his face from the front seat and he handed back a cloth soaked with something foul. Zach covered my face with it and my last thought was of Cole. I was in the hands of the enemy.
The rogue.
I saw, as if through dark water, a huge figure stagger down the staircase, a blurred silhouette in black.
Zach saw him too and a smile curled his mouth. With two fingers he pointed them ahead of the car and said to the driver, “Go... now.”
Cole rushed the car as it sped away and the last words I heard before consciousness left me was, “You did not use near enough tranquilizer.”
Cole's howls followed me down into the endless spiral of unconsciousness and I knew no more.
THE END
When Rachel is taken by Zach of the rogue she is determined to resist him. But her unique Druid biology controls her and she slips perilously close to succumbing.
Cole searches for the one Druid that can make his life complete. While his comrade Nathan, in a heroic maneuver to help him, suffers at the hands of their sadistic ruler, Alexander.
While searching for Cole, Nathan discovers another Druid in the wrong place at the wrong time. Could she be the catalyst that brings two enemies together?
Is Holly more than she seems?
BLED
A Druid Series Novella
Volume 2
New York Times Bestselling Author
MARATA EROS
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2011 Marata Eros
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Marata Eros Website
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Font art by Bookish Brunette Designs
Editing suggestions provided by Hazel Novak
CHAPTER 1
I awoke with the feeling of an iron spike being driven through my right eyeball, my throat a parched desert. I cracked open an eyelid. Being careful not to move my head too quickly I took stock of my surroundings.
It was déjà vu for sure. I was back in another room, but there was no stone on these walls. It was homey and comfortable. There was just one problem.
Erik.
The putz from work was leaning up against the wall, one heel propped up behind him. He pushed off when he saw that I was awake and sauntered over to the bed. A satisfied smile proclaimed his smugness.
“Hey sleepy-head. Finally, you're awake,” he said, reaching out as if to touch me.
“Don't touch me dickhead,” I said through my teeth.
“Brave words, considering your position here.” He indicated my hands that were bound behind my back.
I tugged and felt the material bite into my wrists, my feet were unbound.
“I bet ya your vamp boss won't like you working me over when he's not around,” I said, raising my chin defiantly.
His smirk fell away. “He's left it up to me, I'm in charge of you while my master's away.” I watched his hands flex and clench.
Creepy Erik didn't like that.
Good to know.
“Why don't you be a good little slave and fetch me some food?” Maybe he'd do something to me I could survive but would get him off watchdog duty. It would be great if he wasn't around. I didn't trust him, he made my skin creep off my body.
He whipped his slicked back hair off his face and leaned down close to me, his rancid breath preceding his words, “Watch it, I can do what I want with you while the Master isn't here.” He reached out and grabbed my breast.
He gave my tit a painful crank until he got the reaction out of me that he wanted. I whimpered and he released me, my breast felt like it was on fire and a heat rose to my face. I wasn't embarrassed, no way. Any man that would grope a woman, a bound woman, was a coward.
I was steaming pissed.
“If ya don't want more of that, you'll keep your smart yap shut.”
I waited until he was leaning away, a little off-balance and swung my leg into his ugly retreating face, smashing the side of my foot into the bridge of his nose and blood sprayed out in an arc, splattering me.
“You bitch!” he hollered. One palm smashed against his nose to stymie the flow, his other balled into a fist. He moved toward me and I turned my head at the last critical moment as his fist rose above me like a dark moon. I squeezed my eyes, anticipating the blow.
Some small sound alerted me and my eyes flew open.
Zach stood there, the fist that had been raised to abuse, held in a hand that was twice as big, his onyx eyes boring into mine.
“Argh...! Let me go!” Erik screamed in agony.
“You do not strike the breeder. She cannot breed if she is beaten, fool,” Zach said reasonably, the hand that held Erik's fist squeezing slowly.
He was crushing Erik's fist. Sweat popped up on Erik's upper lip, his eyes widening.
“Please Master...” he wheedled.
“Please what, Intimate?” Zach asked coolly, as if he wasn't crushing a man's hand in his.
“I will not discipline the breeder.”
“Why? Tell me why?”
“Because... because,” his Adam's apple bobbed as he took a hard swallow, “I don't have the right,” Erik finished in a miserable tone.
“You are not Vampire. You will not touch her again. If you do...” Zach opened his mouth wide and his fangs elongated, filling the space of his mouth. He leaned forward and put the tips delicately against the tender part of Erik's neck. “I will tear out the vein which pulses so strongly here.”
My eyes unnervingly sought and found the pulse under those fangs where it beat frantically like a trapped animal.
“And worry at it like a canine with his favorite bone,” Zach said with dark promise.
A terrible smell filled my nose and I looked down at the floor where a puddle was developing.
Erik had pissed himself.
*
Zach had made Erik clean his own pee off the floor while I watched.
I looked into his eyes as he watched me and Erik was bent over the task at hand.
“Very good. Now be about something else,” Zach said, dismissing him neatly.
Erik scuttled away like a good submissive, backing away until his ass hit the door.
I was relieved to see him leave. My eyes flicked to Zach's and he had his obsidian stare trained on me. I couldn't read his expression. There should be a law against eyes that dark. Things were looking down, Erik gone, the rogue vampire alone in my r
oom.
Trapped.
He eased down on the end of my bed. “I do not think we were properly introduced,” he began.
“Oh, yeah, we were. Totally. Introduced,” I said.
He smiled, the fangs flashing briefly in his pale face.
“I think you've got me mixed up with some other chick. I don't have anything special... you can just drop me off... wherever,” I said with the straightest face I could manage.
Zach held up a hand. “Do not. We can smell what you are. Our intimate...”
I gave him a puzzled expression.
“The one whom you call Erik?” he cocked an eyebrow, confirming his identity.
I nodded.
“He is who we use during the daytime for interface.” He shrugged.
“With who?” I asked.
“The humans, of course.”
Oh.
“Not a really great choice. He's a big-time perv and he's violent. Obviously.”
He smiled. “The dumb cattle are the ones easiest to manipulate.”
There's the cattle term again. I scowled at him and he laughed. “What is the look for, Breeder? Do you hold your species in such high esteem? Truly?”
I really didn't but I wasn't going to let King Asshat know that.
I crossed my now-free arms underneath my breasts and scowled at him. “Us mere humans may not be up to your physical standards but we're not racing around bleeding everyone out. So, don't get on your high horse about how civil and superior you are. It isn't gonna wash with me.”
The humor drained from his face as if it'd never been. He was suddenly so close to my face he was blurry. “And humans are so non-violent in their exploits. So restrained, so integrity-driven. Yes, so worthy. You are quite right, I was remiss.”
He tucked a hair behind my ear and I flinched. “You have nothing to fear...”
“Rachel,” I said.
The smile was back but just a small one, the fangs in hiding for the moment.
“Rachel...” he rolled my name on his tongue like sweet candy, “we need to speak about what has happened, your history, why you have come to be with the rogue.”
“Forgive me, Zach, but I'm not buying. You kidnapped me from the 'good vamp',” I made airquotes and his frown deepened, “and then you, the bad vamp, came and took me with the help of your pervy sidekick creep, Erik. That makes you someone I don't need to trust.” I threw my hands up in the air, landing them on my jean-clad thighs with a resounding smack.
“I am not the supposed 'bad vamp,' as you imply. Rather, our history is rich and varies from those vampires which held you in their breeding nest.”
Yuck, I thought, shuddering.
*
“Many years ago the Vampire and rogue were one.” He made an elaborate gesture of dismissal, “But no more. Vampire insist on breeding one Druid to two or more vampires. The rogue follow the human model; a single vampire to a Druid. They have left the ancient ways in their desperation for procreation.”
I cocked a brow in disbelief. Forgive me if I was having a tough time coming to terms with their existence. If you add in the whole underlying faction angle... well, it was utterly unbelievable.
“I see that you disbelieve me,” he stated.
“It is pretty unbelievable.” He opened his mouth to reply, his fangs gleaming in the low light of the room but I rushed on, “I do believe that vampires exist, obviously. But you have to recognize that I didn't know who I was until yesterday. Then I was assaulted by their leader...”
“Alexander?” Zach said, his voice ringing with knowledge.
I nodded. “I supposedly have too much Druid blood to be put under 'compulsion', so he had to...” I gulped back the lump in my throat, the memory of his invasive fingers inside me one that I wouldn't forget any time soon.
Zach's expression darkened. “He forced you?”
My eyes met his black ones. “He tried, but Cole...” it was then that the mention of him brought back the events of the last ten hours. Why was I talking to him anyway? He took me from the one vampire that had actually given a shit. Now I sat here, unprotected, with the vampire that had tried to kidnap me in the glade. I crossed my arms, glaring at him.
“What?” he said, his eyes studying my face with glittering intensity.
“You took me from the one vampire that was actually protecting me! From you!”
“Is that what you think?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes! After your stupid thug jerked my arm out of my socket, he healed me. Cole did. While you were too busy worrying about taking me to do it without violence.” There, let him chew that and swallow the bitter pill of his choices. How could I believe he meant what he said when the way he had acted yesterday was in direct conflict?
“Of course he healed you. Any of us would have done the same. An injured breeder is not worth anything. How can Druids carry our seed if they are weak or hurting?”
I watched as his pupils dilated, nearly the same color as the iris and started shaking my head.
I backed up on the bed until my spine pressed against the cold metal of the headboard.
“Don't try your effed up mojo on me!”
He smiled, crawling across the bed until our faces were inches apart and I turned my head away, ignoring the pressure that pulsed from him. The need to look at him as he wished for me to. I felt heat flush through my system and he hadn't even touched me yet.
“It is true. Most Druids will respond well to compulsion. But some are most resistant. But I am special. That is why I have been chosen as the acquisition leader.”
My eyes flicked to his and were instantly captured. It was different than with the Vampire... or Cole.
His eyes held heat and a question. I didn't move, I didn't breathe. My head told me he was the enemy, but as before with Cole, before I knew what they were, my body responded for me with a seductive whimper.
His face came closer, hovering briefly above mine. Then his lips pressed against mine, not harsh like I'd expected, but a languid and tender pull begun on my bottom lip. He sucked it in lightly, his tongue entering after his fangs had chewed the softness of my skin without breaking it. I groaned as his tongue moved inside my mouth, my ass sitting on my hands so they wouldn't touch him, and still he pecked and dove, exploring my mouth, his breath a male spice like early fall, cinnamon, apples and cider.
I was lost to it.
Still he didn't touch me with anything but his mouth. I gave up, kissing him back, my mouth moving with his, my hands still buried underneath my weight.
An inner resolve took hold over Zach, one palm cupping my face. It was so big against me it palmed most of my face and his touch electrified me. He put his other hand on the opposite side of my face, dragging me closer and I let him.
Still I held myself in check... until his hand wrapped around the slim column of my throat and his thumb began to move back and forth over the erratic pulse that beat there. I could feel his will pressing against mine and a dam broke. I sat up on my knees and he mirrored my movement, both of us facing each other, he inches taller, his mouth never breaking our kiss, his hand enveloping my throat. My hands became less rigid at my sides, they trembled with the effort not to touch him.
Finally, his mouth left mine and began to travel the hollows of my throat, his large hands moving to the small of my back and pressing our hips into an intimate kiss of flesh. He swept his tongue back and forth over that pulse then pulled back.
His hands latched onto my body were the only things that kept me from falling, I was that moved, that exhausted from resisting him.
“You will respond, eventually,” and he smiled. His eyes traveling my flushed face and soft, ragged breathing.
I stared at him, feeling my resolve like the thinnest thread of willpower, ready to unravel. Once undone, I would collapse on him and I would become the aggressor.
“Take heart, Breeder, you are rare amongst your kind, as am I.”
I took a shaky inhale and sat ba
ck on my heels, his hands falling away, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
“What are you?” I whispered.
“I am your foil. I am the one that no Druid can withstand, no matter how pure the blood.”
“Why?” I all but yelled. My misery was acute, knowing that at least I could choose with the others, tears burning the back of my eyelids in frustration.
“I am Druid as well.”
CHAPTER 2
Zach had left with a satisfied smirk on his face. The bomb dropped, he left me to deal with the debris.
I tried to sort through what he'd told me and why it should matter. The bottom line was I was in over my head, at a different place, still held against my will.
Then there was the problematic attraction thing. It's like no matter where I turned or how I intellectualized the whole shebang, those vamps had it goin' on. Zach was a problem but I could manipulate him. It was Erik that was the wild card. I'd seen the look he'd given me as he left my room.
He'd be back and I'd have to be ready.
I looked around the room, completely different from where I'd been held by Cole's group. It was an old house, the floor boards scarred with a hundred years of use, thick moldings wrapped the lone window and old door, a glass knob winked in the light cast from the window.
Strolling over to the window, I peered out at the yard below that wavered through the old glass like water running over its surface. No fence, I thought. Maybe escape would be easier.
Definitely their numbers were down, I thought with satisfaction, remembering the damage Cole had done to the other rogue. There was no love lost, I shuddered, remembering the one who'd hurt my shoulder. I rotated it tentatively, only a mild twinge proved the injury had ever occurred.
It made me think of Cole. What I'd told him. Guilt assailed me, I had told him I'd stay with him. It didn't matter how circumstances had brought us together. My former life was screwed beyond repair, I'd always be hunted. Better to be with someone that would defend me.
