by Marata Eros
Check.
But this? That there were certain Druids that were perfectly suited... no, only suited to one vampire of mixed descent. It was almost too much.
Like winning a damn lotto ticket or something. I stifled a giggle. It was almost funny.
But then I saw them with my own two eyes and it was the most obvious and natural pairing I'd ever seen. It gave credence to that old saying, “meant to be.” Zach hardly let her go to the bathroom without him there.
And now they had not returned. I kept a neutral expression as Holly began to pace.
When it became ten minutes since we'd seen them I went to the hotel door, a room bought from the spoils of the vampires.
Their blood kills.
Cole's voice echoed its warning even as I cracked the door.
Don't ever open it. Don't advertise your scent, your whereabouts.
I wasn't worried.
I opened the door about two inches and met the victorious face of Alexander.
I slammed the door and it burst inward, clipping my injured shoulder. I fell on my back as Holly screamed, running to the bathroom, a vampire behind her in a blur, he ripped her off her feet, covering her mouth.
But it was Alexander that I couldn't take my eyes off. I scuttled backwards from him but he advanced on me.
Hunkering down next to me he whispered, “Where is your precious Reaper now, Druid?”
He lifted a chunk of my hair, smelling it the same way Cole had. But it was so different.
Utterly different.
I wanted to be sick, impotent rage filling me. It beat like a deadly pulse inside my body.
I slapped his smug face.
His expression darkened, my handprint made a livid mark on the paleness of his cold skin.
He backhanded me almost playfully and my head spun. I fell on my back, stunned. My face went numb where he'd struck me.
He hadn't even been trying. Not really.
My eyes met Holly's from the floor, hers wide in a face leveled by fear. The vampire that held her pleased beyond measure. Tears ran down our faces, identical agony.
Alexander jerked me to my feet, pressing me against his side. I swayed and he held me up when all I wanted was to get away from him, my head spinning in streamers of color.
They dragged us to a huge SUV, the exhaust making a lazy spiral like chimney smoke. Holly struggled mightily but the vampire overwhelmed her, she was so tiny. I didn't struggle, my head hurt so bad I was fighting throwing up because of the hit.
Alexander shoved me in first, and got in right after, Holly on the other side with the vampire that held her effectively sandwiching them inside the vehicle. The driver turned, a small smile on his lips. “Where?”
“North,” Alexander said, a secret smile on his face.
I hung my head in despair, meeting an identical expression on Holly's face.
Why hadn't Zach and Cole returned for us?
The car pulled away, the town becoming a small, dark dot in the distance as we drove, my hope dimming with my vision.
****
Cole woke in an alley close to the hotel they were in, his vision filling with Zach, his throat a raw disaster. He crawled over to him, his head swimming.
He did not even want to know what his injuries were. But there was one thing he did know.
Alexander had been the cause of it. The dull ache in his chest told him all he wished to know. There would be frantic tracking ahead of them.
He tore his wrist open like he had done for Rachel by the fire, his teeth clenching at the memory, his fangs puncturing the inside of his own mouth.
He let the blood drip, first onto the wound at Zach's throat, then into a mouth he parted with his strong fingers.
Gradually Cole watched Zach's Adam's apple bob, accepting the lifeblood of their kind and his eyes snapped open, the realization and fear that filled them for one thing and one thing only.
Holly.
His Druid soul mate had been taken from underneath their noses; the ratio of enemies against themselves so high they could not prevail.
While they fought for their lives against ten of their kind, Alexander swept in and took their mates.
Their brides.
Cole looked at the moon, close to setting. He was calculating how much time they would lose when they could finally resume their tracking at night.
A full day.
Cole screamed his rage into the night. Once again Druids were unprotected. Because that was what it was. Rachel would not die. Holly would not die.
But they may very well wish they could.
Before the end, they may wish for death.
Long for it.
THE END
Rachel and Holly escape from Alexander's clutches only to fall into the hands of his Reapers.
Can Cole and Zach save their chosen before they are claimed by another?
Will the Druid women fulfill their destiny to change the race of vampire forever?
HARVEST
A Druid Series Novella
Volume 3
New York Times Bestselling Author
MARATA EROS
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2011-12 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
Marata Eros FB Fan Page
Font art by Bookish Brunette Designs
Editing suggestions provided by Hazel Novak
CHAPTER 1
Zach and Cole worked in tandem, going on pure instinct. The Druids had been taken in a car, while the ground lay frozen all around them in icy stillness.
It was at its most difficult to scent when the temperature was below freezing, as well as the challenge of auto travel tracking.
Unfortunately for Alexander, being a Reaper had its benefits. Cole had extraordinary nasal sensitivity at his disposal. The getaway car, as it were, was unique to his kiss' compound. Therefore, it had a signature that he could trace.
That he did trace.
Then there was Zach. Zach had fallen into a true mated pairing with Holly. One in which he was bonded to her by blood. They had shared blood more than the mandatory three cycles. It had given Zach, of the shared Druid ancestry, daylight privileges.
Cole had also taken from Rachel. As a pureblood she gave him that benefit as well. He could only pray to whatever was holy, that Alexander had not thought to pierce the veins that lay beneath his grasp. Essentially, a blood rape.
His large hands clenched into meaty hammers of violence with just the thought of their predatory former leader harming Rachel. Taking what was not his to have.
Cole's thoughts turned to Holly. She was obviously related. He and Zach and he had conferred and they were of matching blood. Rachel and Holly were siblings, there was no doubt.
Who were the relatives that had given the girls up? Had it been done purposefully? As a measure of protection? Or, was there something other afoot?
Many questions without answers.
Cole thought through all these things, running seamlessly in his mind as he and Zach ran the frozen terrain together, sleeping little during the day, waking to feed during the night. Their pursuit of Alexander and the gap therein, closing with each minute that passed.
They drew close, Rachel's unique biological perfume proliferating everywhere he scented. Maybe they had bedded down somewhere that had another vampire contingent? That possibility snaked its way down a spine that was stiff with apprehension.
They moved as one toward a local bar, nearly to the Alaska/Canadian border, ba
cktracking.
“Are we near?” Zach asked, eyes drowning pools of black ink. The light all around them bright, undimmed by the night, the moon full and luminously brilliant above them.
Cole nodded, not speaking. They were here to feed. They needed to be fully vested with blood if they were to engage Alexander and whatever contingent he had garnered on the three day journey since the women had been taken.
Zach and he moved to the back alley, where there were always the human dregs, scurrying about in the dark.
Like the rodents they were.
*
My tears had dried, my sobbing gone unheeded. The cloth pressed between my lips and that bound its way around my skull was pulled tight.
I rolled my eyes to where Holly was, hers wide with fright.
The women hung, suspended. Their toes barely grazed the concrete floor, shoulders numb.
Alexander smiled. Everything he had dreamed of possessing was here before him. He would have them both, he had decided. Who was to tell him differently? When he tired of them, and his blood lust was well sated, he would turn them over to whatever Reaper had sufficient ancestry to breed them out.
It was a perfect plan. Fool proof.
His eyes roamed the form of Rachel, ripe and curved, her blood a fragrant wine ready to be consumed. He moved forward, the muffled sounds of the other Druid, muted by the binding stuffed in her mouth.
I watched Alexander come closer, violence in motion and despaired, he would have me. Bleed me.
And judging by the way he looked, the other as well.
It was all because of my moment of curiosity at the door. I should've never opened it. It put myself and Holly at risk. Right now, I felt like a goddamned loser. I'd let Holly get taken. It was my fault. Whatever he did, I was determined to survive it.
For Cole.
I felt my guts clench at the first stroke of a finger along my jaw. I couldn't help the involuntary flinch for anything in the world.
Josiah looked at their supposed leader and felt disquiet enter him. Alexander had once been a great leader, meting out Druid fairly amongst the Druid vampire, Reapers especially.
How had the circumstances lent themselves to the debauchery at hand? He was unsure. But he could not abide two pure Druids, the kiss having gone so long without one of pure descent, to be treated in this despicable manner. And why would Alexander be tormenting the women as he was? He gave a hard gaze to the other Reapers, the few that had survived the massacre at the rogue's stronghold and they nodded back.
They were of one mind.
The three moved forward to overwhelm their leader.
Their leader who appeared to have gone mad.
Alexander felt the Reapers at his back before they were upon him.
I widened my eyes in the only warning I could give as the closest Reaper approached Alexander. A tremulous hope blossomed within my soul that there may yet be freedom as the first talon buried itself within Alexander's back.
Alexander felt the pierce of talon to flesh as he twisted around to meet the assault with one of his own. He buried his fingers, turned to sharpened claws, into the underside of the jaw of the one who attacked first. Another Reaper used the fighting as a distraction to take Alexander's head.
With a sweeping blow, he struck Alexander from behind, relieving him of his thought process forever. His head rolled away like a bowling ball on the concrete floor in a spray of blood and gore, the mess spreading as it flew.
The Reapers looked down at Josiah as he gasped for breath, his eyes trained on Andrew's face. He made a decision. Using a claw like a knife, he released the bound Druid who was closest. She fell into the arms of his brethren and he gave her a look. His eyes slid to the pile of ash which used to be Alexander. Their leader's custom made clothes lay atop his remains.
Andrew gave a grim smile and said to the Druid, “You will need to give this Reaper blood. Now.”
I sagged into the arms of the Reaper that held me in abject relief, watching the one that had decapitated Alexander. I was so grateful I could spit but of course there would be payment. I knew this.
I narrowed my eyes at his request.
Cole had told me that every drink of my pure Druid blood brought the vampire closer to walking in the light.
The sun would no longer be their enemy.
Fear seized my guts. It would not be just one sip. They'd bleed me dry.
I knew it.
I struggled uselessly, weakened by everything we'd been through, my arms swinging like loose noodles at my sides.
Andrew dragged her to Josiah, his neck a ruined disaster, his gasping breaths that rattled made her back up even as she was pulled forward.
Andrew placed her wrist at his mouth.
Josiah sucked in a huge breath and clamped down on the proffered wrist.
I couldn't help it, that much pain as the fangs sunk into my wrist was more than I could bear.
I wailed as they struck.
The one named Andrew was beside me instantly as I whimpered in pain. “We do not wish to hurt you purposefully. He dies. He will die without what you possess. If there were any other way, we would not force this.”
I nodded. What could I do? While he sucked at my wrist, mewling like a cat with cream as he lapped my blood, I closed my eyes. Shame, terror and something else warred together in a confusing wash of emotions. All this accomplished was buying myself some time.
When I could think past the pain, my eyes met Holly's. Her's were wide with terror, mine with resolve.
CHAPTER 2
Cole and Zach circled the group that they had discovered.
Vampire.
They had been careless, running across their own kind, the wind blowing the wrong direction to alert them until they were upon them.
The male Cole took for the leader hissed at Cole, warning him off his prey.
As if Cole would consider it, he could smell the drug-addled blood from here. He was welcome to it.
“You are not of this region. You smell foreign. By what rights do you hunt here?” the leader asked, the blood from his victim making his mouth resemble that of a clown.
Zach and Cole gave each other a full glance. They were sorely outnumbered, five to two. He would play the civility hand and see where it got him.
“We are but passing through. Actually, we are in search of Druid.”
The leader's brows quirked. “You are Reapers?” His eyes slid to Zach.
“I am not. I am rogue,” Zach said.
They regarded one another for a moment then the leader said, “Yet... you hunt together. A Reaper and one of the rogue. In search of Druid flesh.” He chortled out loud. “That is the first I have ever heard of such a thing.”
Cole knew that he sought information but would not aide them. He moved to leave.
The leader of the four other vampires gave a subtle signal to his comrades in arms.
They surrounded Zach and Cole.
They moved closer to each other, back to back.
*
Josiah looked up with rapture as the Druid offered her life-saving blood to him. Albeit reluctantly. But who could blame the Druid women their wariness? Alexander had been cruel to this breeder, true. And the other, who he had not given so much as a glance to, would have been treated similarly. Why he had become a tyrant when he had once ruled with fairness, he did not know. When Josiah felt that he could breathe again, his ruined esophagus mending itself as he drank, he released the Druid's wrist.
But not before he lapped at the wound, the ragged edges an embarrassment. His usual finesse had been absent in the face of the scent of her blood and his death a near thing.
The Reaper finally released my wrist after licking it for what seemed like forever. The saliva he'd used like a salve. It wasn't a burning mess anymore. I cradled my ragged wrist against my chest and gave accusing eyes to Andrew.
He shrugged his shoulders. “It was no small thing to kill Alexander. Our leader. Our leader for millennia.
” His eyes never left mine.
I gulped and backed away.
Into Josiah. The one I'd just given blood to.
Wow, that was speedy.
I whirled around to defend myself against the impossible and he was smiling, revealing fangs. “I would no more hurt you than I would myself, breeder. We will not give you the end for which Alexander had planned.”
I didn't ask what that end would have been.
“But neither do we feel inclined to return you to our comrade, Cole.” Andrew elaborated.
I opened my mouth to protest but Holly threw herself in my arms just as I would have given old Andrew a piece of my mind. Where my bravery came from, I didn't know. But I sure as hell was tired of being passed around, pursued and now... caught.
I was on the bad side of pissed off at the vamp at my back. The one that met my eyes got it.
Holly pressed against me in near-hysteria and I stroked her hair as she cried.
“Cole has shared some of your history with me,” I said to Andrew and he crossed his arms, the ash of his leader as backdrop. I shivered, going on, “The rogue he travels with is a true mate to Holly.” My eyes shifted to the tiny girl I was holding. So miniature I felt like she was a doll in the circle of my arms.
“Nathan died to protect her, so she could be with Zach. It would seem to me that you vamps need to rein in your instinct to breed us long enough to think about what kind of parents we'd be to your offspring,” I paused, letting that soak in then continued, “if we're forced into relationships that go against your own rules.”
That had been quite a speech for me but I saw the wheels turning in Andrew's head as he began to pace back and forth in front of me. In profile, with his hair bound by a leather tie, he looked every bit the arrogant European, I thought randomly.
