“You know,” this time it was me taking a step forward — good feet, “you haven’t a clue what I am.”
Blake assessed me, which was bleeding disturbing with Mr Darwin’s head right next to his, giving me the once over too. “Maybe not or maybe we’ll all find that out together. Anyhow,” he rapped the Mini’s nose, “this is Plantagenet’s. It was my gift to him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course it was. Because it’s hard to buy for, right? That occasion: I chose you as a sex slave and now I realize that I’m a big fat guilty prat. So…Mini. Why not?”
Blake’s eyes flashed, as he drew himself up. “Do you have any idea what I’d do to Plantagenet if he spoke to me like that?”
“Unluckily for you? Yeah, I do.”
Blake pressed his hand to his brow. Blinding, I was giving him a headache. With a flash of silver, Blake’s ring (twin to Plantagenet’s), caught the garage’s light.
I cocked my head. “Are you a slave too? Or married?”
Blake smiled, rubbing his thumb over the ring. “Both. You have a narrow view of love. When Plantagenet and your website educated me to the truth, I wouldn’t have him wear the S.L.A.V.E ring, but he’s still mine.”
“Is that right?”
“Of course,” Blake arched a brow, “isn’t Sun yours?”
I drew in a sharp breath. Being an Author was different, wasn’t it? I satisfied myself by shrugging.
“I’m also Plantagenet’s, however, more completely than I imagined two creatures ever could be. In fact, before Plantagenet, I needed no one. These rings are bio: made from extracts of bone cells seeded and combined with silver so that each one is unique. This one is Plantagenet.’ Blake held up his finger, and it chilled me with the thought of such possessive love. “I wear him, and he wears me at all times. I’m always with him.”
“This bone extract? How’d you get that then?” I wished that I didn’t have to ask and that I didn’t already guess at the answer.
I've written the…memoir…on obsessive love. I knew about needing someone, whilst being consumed by love’s blaze. But this desire for control frightened me because its shackles were as small as a pretty ring but were as powerful as any chain.
“Wisdom tooth.”
I looked away. “And for Plantagenet?”
“One of his fangs, obviously. He has them removed anyway, when he has his venom drained. He sleeps through it regularly like a baby.” Blake’s smiled widened. “Which reminds me, when shall we schedule your procedure?”
That was it: no more holding on to plan a caper. Now it would be me acting the pillock because no bastard was ever taking my fangs again. And this First Lifer had stolen Plantagenet’s fangs? He was still stealing them?
My fangs shot out — take that, you git, this is what a real Blood Lifer looks like — and dived at Blake.
Shocked, it was Blake’s turn to stumble backwards. When I clocked him across the jaw, he let out a yip and landed on his arse.
Suddenly, I had a face full of enraged chimp. Mr Darwin clamped his long arms and legs around me, shrieking and barking. Then he opened his mouth wide and sank his teeth into my neck.
“Buggering hell…” I yowled.
It wasn’t like a bite from another Blood Lifer: a mind-blowing pain-pleasure. This was jagged, tearing agony. I scrabbled at Mr Darwin’s hairy back, before slamming myself backwards and crushing him against the bonnet.
Mr Darwin was heavy and powerful. How had Blake made him appear like a kid? His weight crashed me sideways over a motorbike, which was covered in a dustsheet. In my crazy thrashing, the sheet rose up, revealing a 350cc scarlet Triton.
Still staggering under Mr Darwin, I gawped at my bloody god.
“Don’t thank me,” Blake offered, as if I’d been just about to. “Hartford was droning on about your motorbike in between the screaming. Almost as much as about Donovan and your abductions. I couldn’t get him to shut up.”
My eyes pricked with wet.
When Mr Darwin bit harder, I spun around in a wild circle. Blake probed his tender jaw as he watched the battle with cool amusement.
Sod. Him.
I stood still. Simply stood there, whilst the primate prat chomped on me. My blood soaked my t-shirt sticky to my chest. I didn’t drop my gaze.
Blake clapped lazily. The smug prick. “Mr Darwin, stop.” Instantly, the monkey let go. His lips were smeared crimson, as he shuffle scampered to Blake’s feet. “It’s all about submitting. Anyone can be trained. Even you.”
“One day,” I pressed my hands tightly to the teeth marks, as scarlet oozed between them, “your security, guard dog Plantagenet, and bodyguard monkey won’t be around. And on that day? You’ll be dead.”
It took a blood packet, followed by a wash in the green glowing bath, before I was feeling more myself again. Being hunted, monkey attacks, and blood feuds can really tire you out, so I was ready for a good kip.
At least Blake had decent sheets.
When…shuffle, scamper, shuffle, scamper…
I tucked the towel (fluffiest that I’d ever dried my arse with), closer around my body, as I edged into the bedroom. “Mr Darwin?”
I wiped my wet hair back.
Now wasn’t that taking the biscuit...?
A pink face with whiskers was lying on the plush pillows, with the silk sheets pulled up to his large ears.
On my side of the bed.
“I don’t think so,” I growled, stomping over and dragging off the sheets. I pointed to the floor, “Out.”
Mr Darwin stared up at me, as if butter wouldn’t melt.
I shook my head. “Your act’s not going to work on me.”
All I saw were lips bunched in a scowl, before Mr Darwin launched himself at me. I rolled to the side, losing the towel and all pretense at modesty.
“Bully!” I accused, as Mr Darwin wrenched off the base of a petal bedside light, before charging at me with it.
I jumped onto the bed (not retreating mind), whilst Mr Darwin screamed, slapping his hands and stamping his feet. Then I watched, shocked, as he dropped the bedside light, staggering instead to the black vase of skeletal flowers. There was a brief stand-off.
I slipped slowly off the bed. “Good monkey, now don’t…”
Mr Darwin picked up the vase, before holding it above his head.
Of course he did.
I bared my fangs at him, but he wasn’t scared. In fact, it only seemed to nark him off. I only just made it to the bathroom, before – crash – there went the first vase.
Crash — there went the second.
When I peeked out an hour later…? Mr Darwin was asleep in my bed with his long arm slung over Sun.
Sighing, I picked my way around the shards of priceless ceramic, settling down to sleep on the floor and draping the towel over me, as if to hide my shame.
The next evening, I groaned stiffly and stretched. Bloody hell, had I pissed off Sun again? Then I remembered why I was on the floor: Mr Darwin.
I shot up.
The bed was empty.
Relaxing, I padded into the bathroom. “Alright?”
Mr Darwin grunted but didn’t look up from grooming himself in the mirror above the ghost double basin.
I ran my fingers though my pompadour; it needed some attention from the Brylcreem fairy. Even here, however, the chimp had me beat.
What did I say about too many alphas?
I turned on my heel back into the bedroom, dragging on my clothes. I still hadn’t been given socks or shoes but I still went exploring.
Plantagenet and Blake only told us what they wanted us to know. They spoke about family and love, at least their version of it. Yet it wasn’t what I’d learned, built, or needed. It was intense and dangerous. Yet here’s the thing: I’ve always been attracted to the flames. That moment when the voice inside whispers to throw yourself on the bonfire, until you’re consumed Guy-like.
For the first time, however, I’d found something different with Hartford and Donov
an. I’d reckoned that I had with Sun too. Sun had always loved pretty playthings, however, and the Renegades could offer a world, in which I didn’t even believe.
Love sometimes truly wasn’t enough.
And that bleeding hurt.
I followed the sound of the steely piano notes that rattled out of the lounge like blues on a business schedule: “Rhapsody in Blue” evolved to the robotic. I stalked into the shadows, pressing close to the wallpaper. The Steinway shuddered under the onslaught. I slid over to the Victorian tiled mantelpiece, where a black vase stood stark at its center, which was scarred by cracks like branching veins.
Blake.
No security, Plantagenet, or monkey bodyguard. Only Blake by himself building to a clinically cold finale on the piano. He hadn’t even glanced up.
I silently edged closer.
Blake raised his fingers off the keys. “Most people request an encore.”
I stiffened (Blake was too good a predator to be hunted), before sniffing. “Hartford plays it better.”
Blake’s cheeks flushed as his hands clenched, before he pointed significantly behind my head at the CCTV camera and pressed the outline of a Blackberry in the pocket of his suit. So, that was security then… “You don’t like me. In fact, you hate me; Hartford does too. You think that’s new to me? Being hated? I’ve been hated or ignored most of my life. The question is: do you think that I care?”
“Wild stab in the dark here: you don’t?” Blake gave a sharp, shark smile. I fiddled with the fractured vase, spinning it until the cracks were like holes in the universe. “You might’ve broken this, mate.”
Blake’s smile widened to a grin. “I smashed it, right where you’re standing now. As hard as I could because it was mine to break. I see it up there every day, remade by my hand. It’s a reminder of that violence and that it’s mine.”
I gave him a long look as I balanced the vase on my palm. “Whatever gets you off.”
Blake shrugged one large shoulder. “Now you’re getting it.”
“Well, cheers for the rescue from the lab, but I reckon that my family and I will be off now. Stuff to do and that.” I started to sidle backwards.
I could no longer hide my family in the shadows. There were no shadows left. No safety unless we acted. Here with Blake, however, we were prisoners in luxury, whilst the true nasties of the world — pure death and the Blood Life Council — were still out there.
The Renegades with their puppet master Blake were so radical that they were missing the big bloody picture.
Freedom fighters? Wankers more like.
“Leaving us?” Blake slowly stood. My heart beat faster, as he carefully closed the piano.
“I’d say that it’d been fun but…”
“Back to that slum? Strip joint? Abductions and being used as lab rats?”
“It’s not all so glamorous.”
Blake studied me with cold disappointment. “Plantagenet doesn’t believe that you’re ready to head a family yet, and frankly? Neither do I.”
A flood of fury and humiliation prickled me pink.
I opened my hand, and the vase tottered and — smash. “Whoops.” Let’s see him glue it back together a second time. A muscle on Blake’s cheek twitched. “I wonder what that symbolizes now?”
“How about,” Blake strolled towards me with his hands casually in his pockets, but I could see that they were curled into fists, “are you sure that your family would even leave with you?”
I stared down at the shards, trying not to think about Sun nuzzling at Blake’s scarlet arm and sucking at the gash, as she lost herself in the stars. The way that she fit: two sets of shoes next to each other on the silk sheets. “Anyway, with my company’s abilities, I don’t need to keep anyone against their will because we can track you from here. This is a prison without bars. Go where you like, but I thought that you wanted our help with Donovan? Because if you do this? Go it alone and break up the Renegades, along with this family? Just know that you’ll also be breaking Plantagenet.”
I frowned. “What are you on about?”
“I could’ve killed you any time that I wanted.” I dodged back, as Blake paced towards me like a black panther. “Hartford too. Do you have any idea, however, how desperate Plantagenet has been to find you, since he saw you on that website? How frantic to save you? Not to mention the time, cost, and resources that I sank into the rescue at the lab. It was worth it though, to see Plantagenet’s joy. A family is all that he’s ever wanted. If you knew him or had bothered to, then you’d understand. Hate me but love Plantagenet.”
Confused, I nodded. I couldn’t help the draw to Plantagenet and I remembered Ruby telling me that Plantagenet had always been desperate to create a family of his own.
Controlling, self-destructive, and obsessive as it was, Blake’s love was real.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling like another gift, frilly in ribbons and expensively boxed, guilt-delivered to Plantagenet to top even the Mini.
Blake threw himself down onto the hosepipe chair with his leg across the arm: the picture of ease. I was better at reading him, however, and that muscle in his cheek was still twitching. “If you’re staying, then there’s a mission on tonight to liberate a slave. Plantagenet’s leading it and he’s asked you along. I don’t need to tell you what it’d mean to him if you went…or maybe I do?”
My blood was instantly racing…roaring…and rushing. The air was alive with orange flames and the stink of melted flesh and ashes. I fidgeted, eager to be out, free and on the hunt with the slavers as my prey. “This is what you do? Plan capers to rescue Blood Lifer slaves? All for Plantagenet?”
Blake glanced away. “He needs this. They’re like a new family for him.”
My eyes narrowed. “And you’re looking out for him? Touching.”
“Of course,” Blake leant forward, “this slave in particular, actually is one of the Plantagenet bloodline. She’s one of Plantagenet’s elected, the same as your Author, Ruby.” Blake wiped his hands dismissively down his thighs. “I told Plantagenet that he should leave her where she is because she’s…mentally unstable and could risk the safety of the others. Plus, there’s the small matter that she’s betrayed him once already. But family is family to Plantagenet, so I’m allowing him this indulgence. I do always prefer to look to the future.” His intent gaze met mine. “Maybe our family should leave the past in the past.”
I knew that I’d go on the mission because I couldn’t reject Plantagenet or leave another slave trapped with a member of the Blood Club, especially if she was of my bloodline. Yet it’d mean becoming a Renegade and endangering my true family. Plus, I hadn’t forgotten my conversation with Hartford on the rooftop and that soon, I’d have to decide which side I’d betray.
I saw Plantagenet’s eyes, all fire and fervor in the dark, as we crouched either side of the paneled Jacobean door.
Plantagenet held up his gloved hand. “One…two…three…”
Then the door splintered, Plantagenet sprang through it, and I was at his shoulder.
First Lifers with guns (because God help us if Plantagenet was allowed out alone), were hollering: stay down, stay down, and a naked old bloke (minister of something or other), was squealing.
The log fire spat and crackled, casting shadows dancing across the walls. The bedroom smelled like nutmeg.
Mr Minister gibbered, as Blake’s team handcuffed him and hauled him out of the tapestried four-poster bed, “Sweetums, call MI5. Call… Don’t hurt her… She’s not… She’s no one…”
“Fie, sir! I most surely am. And look, my family come visiting.” Mesmerized, I watched the Blood Lifer, my new family, stalk naked on all fours to the end of the bed with her ivory tits swinging. A string of diamonds, like burning stars, was fierce around her neck.
“F-f-f-family, sweetums?” Mr Minister gawked between us.
Uneasy, I was unsure who was truly the slave.
“Take the most wicked man outside.” Plantagenet stepped back
to allow the First Lifers to drag the confused Mr Minister out and down the stairs.
The Blood Lifer was still scrutinizing us, as if she was about to pounce. With her blonde sweep of hair, she was a beauty like Ruby, but there was something off about her. Was she one of those Blood Lifers who hadn’t survived election, or had she been mad before Plantagenet had even chosen her?
When her gaze swung to Plantagenet, I had the unexpected urge to step in front of him.
“How now? Where have you been? I’m just saying…” Then she gave a bright, false smile that twisted my guts.
“It is merrily met, my dear child. Please, clothe yourself. We have business.” Plantagenet pointedly turned his back.
No licking, sniffing, or snogging for her. No gentle intimacy or well-beloved. Just business. Even if I knew how hard that must be for Plantagenet, he must have a sodding good reason, and I wouldn’t forget it.
As I turned away too, I noticed her expression: pained hurt but also a dangerous rage.
Plantagenet and I had ridden down to the caper in the back of a blacked-out jeep. Plantagenet had been like a kid on Christmas morning. His slender fingers had wound around mine and for once, I hadn’t been the only one bouncing up and down in my seat. I’d been buzzed for the barney, but for Plantagenet I’d reckoned that it was the freedom.
“If this skirt is such a back-stabbing bitch…” When Plantagenet’s fingers had crushed mine, I’d grimaced. “Blake’s words, not mine.” Plantagenet’s grip had loosened, as he’d stroked my bruised hand contritely. “Then why the riding in to save her like knights on sodding white horses?”
“Mother’s a slave,” Plantagenet’s voice had been very low, “and I know what it is to be captured, enslaved, and defanged.” Plantagenet had been so subdued that I’d wished to tell him: same here. Plantagenet didn’t know what it was to be a true slave, however, not like Hartford and me. Or did he? “Mother is also family.”
Christ in heaven, now we even sounded alike.
“Mother?” I’d raised my eyebrow. “You’re not going to tell me that you came over all nancy and authored your own mama?”
Plantagenet had laughed this full belly laugh as he’d slapped my knee. “You jest! Mother named herself that because… Well, such is her tale, not mine. Although she is a witch…whore…traitor…”
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 72
