Roseblood

by Emily Shore

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Other Books by Emily Shore

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter - Epilogue

  The Roseblood Series, Book One

  Emily Shore

  Roseblood

  Copyright ©2019 by Emily Shore

  Cover Art: M.A. Phipps

  Copyright © 2019 Emily Shore

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without prior written permission of the publisher. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to: Permissions, ARK, PO Box 21491, Saint Paul, MN 55121.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Further, readers should be aware that Internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it was read.

  For more general information about our organization or technical support, find us at: http://emilybethshore.com

  ARK publishes its books in a variety of electronic and print formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books and vice versa.

  Front Cover © 2019 Molly Phipps, We Got You Covered

  Physical ISBN Print: 978-1689765282

  Get your copies of these by Emily Shore as well:

  The Ruby Series

  Ruby in the Rough

  Ruby in the Ruins

  The Uncaged Series

  The Aviary

  The Garden

  The Temple

  The Temple Twins

  The Aquarium

  Other books in the Roseblood Series

  Silhouette – Coming in October

  For Kevin because of that night on the porch.

  Thank you for listening, for acknowledging my feelings,

  and for telling me that I wasn’t evil for writing about vampires.

  Most of all, thank you for encouraging me to keep writing.

  Chapter One

  The Blood Farm

  I woke to a glaze of cold frost prickling the naked soles of my feet, a January wind

  bristling against my cheeks, and the sound of coyotes howling close by. Too close.

  Shocked and shivering, I leapt back from the barbed wire fencing, humming with

  electricity. I didn’t even need to see the coyote packs beyond it to recognize it as a blood animal farm. The kind my family never allowed me to see even if I’d read about them countless times in school. How the hell did I get here?

  No doubt drawn to my scent, the coyote pack reached the fence line perimeter and began

  pacing back and forth, sniffing, forbidden to trespass. I could make out their dim shapes in the early, gray dawn light.

  I racked my brain, trying to remember a blood farm with coyotes nudged up to an abandoned vineyard on the edge of Le Couvènte. I stood in the last row bordering the fence line guarding the high trees fostering the blood farm. Which clan’s territory was this? My meager pajamas offering little comfort from the pre-sunrise wind combined with my shoulders throbbing and aching meddled with my memories. I kneaded a hand into my shoulder blades, but the gooseflesh on my exposed skin was an ever-present reminder that I needed to get someplace safe. But safe seemed miles away. At least the coyotes had begun to pace further down, disinterested in me.

  At first, I doubled over laughing. As a human with a werewolf mother and a vampire father, I’d learned to laugh at the stranger goings on around me.

  “Best prank ever, guys. Now, come and get me,” I commanded my brothers, raising my voice an octave, but then shook my head, rationalizing.

  This was no prank. This was too…dangerous.

  Someone…someone powerful enough to move my body in the middle of the night without my family knowing had brought me here.

  I stepped forward until something pricked my foot again. Peering down, I realized I was standing on a rose stem. I leaned over to pick up the fresh bloom: an awkward presence in an abandoned vineyard on the edge of a blood farm. As soon as I turned it around, I shuddered even as I gripped it tighter, the thorns stabbing my palms.

  The rose was bloody.

  I slammed my eyes shut, remembering something from a dream. No, a nightmare. An image of a vampire caped in shadows paraded itself beneath my closed lids. I shook my head, wishing I could rid myself of the memory. A human girl in a white dress. A bloody rose. And a faceless vampire. In my dream, the girl didn’t even have time to scream before his strong arms nuzzled her neck and his fangs buried deep into her tender throat. He’d tossed a long-stemmed rose to the ground, picked up her body, and carried her away.

  This same rose.

  My veins filled up with hoarfrost. I spun my head, searching for a predator, wondering if I was next. No, I hadn’t survived the past seventeen and a half years in a supernatural city to become a morning entrée today.

  Immediately, I flung the bloom to the ground and started running. Down the last vineyard row toward the familiar Redwood trees on the opposite end. Giants compared to the miserly blood farm trees on my left. Just as I reached the vineyard’s end, I tripped over something large…and soft. Even in the dim light, I knew what it was before my hand discovered chilled skin, icy flesh. Narrowing my gaze, I gulped at the corpse. Bloodless as a stone. I scrambled away on my hands and knees and silently chastised myself when I froze to look back. More Déjà vu. It was the same victim from my nightmare. The same human girl.

  No wonder the coyotes had barely acknowledged me before returning to this site. Attracted to the scent of decaying flesh, they growled and barked, tempting fate too close to the fence line before yelping from the electrified barrier. I almost yelped, but my throat lost it somewhere between gasps.

  Suddenly, I heard another growl. Distant. Carried on the wind from somewhere behind me at the end of the vineyard row. A human growl, but otherworldly. Freezing was my default with vampires. No possibility of a human like me fighting them. Thanks to my father’s training, I hacked away at my default by breathing in four times and using my nails as miniature spikes to carve crescent marks in my arms. Then, without daring to turn my head, I somehow got to my feet and raced to the bare edge of the vineyard. Until I saw the vampire emerging from the Redwoods line. His crouching posture betrayed his hunting form.

  There was nowhere
to run except back toward the body. I was done running. Nothing left to do but stand and face them down like a queen. Every vampire and werewolf in Le Couvènte knew of my birth and humanity. From my mother and father’s former reign as monarchs to the No-Human Blood Law, I was untouchable.

  But as the corpse proved, this was a prime place for a murder.

  As soon as the vampire landed before me, I sighed, knees almost buckling in relief. “Raoul,” I uttered my friend’s name. A friend who’d saved my life thirteen years ago.

  “Taking an early stroll, Reina?”

  There was no time to play along. As if picking up on the death aroma in the air and my panic, Raoul hastened to my side.

  “Something’s happened,” I tried to explain but choked on the words.

  Instead of inspecting the corpse just a short distance away, Raoul refused to leave my side. He glanced once at the sky. “Your heart is racing. Are you hurt?”

  “No,” I gasped, nearly heaving. “But I need to get out of here. The Council, they―”

  He raised a hand. “Hold onto me?”

  I loved how even his well-meaning commands were always questions. Accepting his offer of speedier transportation, I wrapped my arms around his neck. This would be awkward if Raoul wasn’t such an old friend, such a good friend…with my whole family. It wasn’t the first time he’d carried me, though it had been years since he’d traded piggy back rides with my brothers. No, make that brother since Brian’s were puppy-back rides. Not that I would ever call him puppy to his wolf face.

  The wind stirred Raoul’s neck-long, deep ash locks past his cheekbones—chiseled, defined—to tease my face, casting a scent of damp moss and evergreens. Of dew-drenched hunting grounds. Raoul spent a fair amount of time outdoors. His scent reminded me of the woodlands around our homes. Familiar since we were neighbors. I breathed deep, using the scent to steady my quivering hands right before he shifted into vampire speed.

  He slowed once we were deep within the Redwoods, trees I recognized. Even as they blurred, I could make out one or two with familiar carved scrawls from my childhood.

  Hanging tight to Raoul’s neck, I twisted my neck to see my family’s house in the distance and pleaded. As soon as one of his hands navigated up my shoulder, I cried out, “Stop!”

  Inertia struck my body like a cymbal crash. At least I didn’t bite down on my tongue as Raoul held me fast to prevent me from falling. Thanks to years of experience with my brothers, my stomach was strong. But his hands pressing onto my shoulders felt more like dagger hilts.

  Raoul slowly loosened me from his grasp, no doubt relaxing in the center of groves and thickets surrounded by Redwoods. No danger here…for either of us. Even if vampires didn’t immediately burn in sunlight, it could damage their skin in a sustained time versus a human like me. Similar to second or third-degree burns after a few hours with a longer healing process. Thanks to their hyper-dilated irises and sensitive retinas, sunlight rendered them blind if they so much as stared for a moment. Not to mention how much it diminished their energy and abilities. Raoul’s fog and shadow skin was too beautiful to damage. Both milky and dark. Contrary to popular opinion, not all vampires were “pale as the moon”.

  First, I caught my breath, then rubbed my shoulders again. If they were bleeding, Raoul would have smelled it, would have alerted me.

  “What’s wrong?” Raoul’s voice laced with concern.

  “Please check my shoulders. I’m in so much pain. I…I don’t know what’s going on.” I winced, pivoting my back to him.

  I turned just my head. Raoul blinked twice as if checking my body language for more permission. Once his cold hands descended on the back of my nightgown, easing it down just a little, I trembled, cringing again. One moment was all it took for Raoul to shift my nightgown back into place before swinging around to face me.

  “Reina, what happened this morning?”

  I studied the creasing of his brow. Almost shuddered at his bronze eyes like iron in fire as they narrowed pointedly. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  “You have bruises all over your upper back.”

  Chapter Two

  Discovery

  We lingered in the woods. It helped me to collect my thoughts before diving into my family’s drama. Even if all I did was rake my fingers into my scalp, nails no doubt quarrying crescent-shapes. Sure, I’d served up my own drama throughout the years. Growing up as a human in a city, in a family of supernatural killers was intense by definition. I’d worked hard to tame any monsters going bump in the night. Still, there was no way to prepare for stumbling across a dead body. Her image stuck. More Raoul’s informing me about the bruises.

  “When did your shoulders start hurting?” inquired Raoul, pacing. His method of reflection to work out all the pieces. He moved with a soldier’s posture but a casual grace. A byproduct of his choice to enlist in every war in U.S. history. I admired his patience. All I wanted to do was punch a tree.

  “As soon as I woke up in the vineyard.” Did he want to go back there and search the area? No, he wouldn’t leave me alone.

  I should feel more outrage. At least disturbed. The thought of someone touching me while I slept…hurting me. I shivered more. From the shade, not the bruises. I envied how temperature meant nothing to Raoul. In response, the vampire removed his leather jacket and draped it around my arms. I nodded a thank you.

  Tucking a tendril of my spiced brown hair behind my ear, I licked my lips and explained, “I had a nightmare and woke up there. I don’t know how I got there.”

  “I should take you home.” So, he had no answers either. Raoul never commented on anything he didn’t understand. Safe and rational. His dark shrine eyes hemmed me in, reminding me of his past. Tragic echoes were all I’d heard. As one of few bitten vampires in the area…and older, Raoul guarded his background.

  “Please don’t tell anyone about the bruises. Not yet,” I pleaded with him. I didn’t need my family freaking out any more than I already knew they were. One thing at a time. First, the corpse.

  “No, it should come from you,” confirmed Raoul.

  Nowhere near ready to go, I leaned up against a nearby Redwood, pondering, “I’m going to be late for school.” Everyone would be disappointed if I didn’t make it. For more reasons than one. I didn’t exactly have “friends”. Hopefully, the press wouldn’t get a hold of this. Not that I was concerned most with those.

  I sighed, more concerned with another matter. “Mom’s going to kill me.”

  “If Heath doesn’t beat her to it.”

  Yes, my oldest brother. Heath had only grown more protective of me after I’d hit puberty. At least we were close.

  As Raoul approached again with his wings testing the air, I decided to ask, “Do you think this is related to the prophecy?”

  And when Raoul wrapped his arms around my waist while I stepped onto his boots, he stared down at me with his fathomless smoke eyes and confessed, “I believe so, Reina Caraway.”

  Heath was the first one to almost kill me.

  Already dressed for the day, he met Raoul and I in the driveway, grabbed me by the arm, pulled me close to his chest, and twined his arms around my back. “Where the hell have you been?!” I cringed at the thought of my telepath brother figuring out what happened. I’d hold out as long as I could, reverting to my default method of blocking his thoughts.

  “Is that the lamb’s wool sweater?” I remarked on the gray material with the shawl-collar. Heaven forbid Heath go out of the house without looking his best.

  “Stop kidding around.” Heath’s eyes dilated, black overwhelming his lagoon irises as he cupped my shoulders and stared down at me, going so far as to press his forehead to mind. I rolled my eyes and tapped his aquiline nose, stepping back as he probed, “Where were you? Whole family’s gone crazy trying to track your scent. And seriously? You’re in your mental palace again? What are you hiding?” It wasn’t a palace. Just a castle. A fortress that was difficult for him to access with my
moat and flying sharks and other mythical creatures guarding it.

  Puzzled, I glanced back at Raoul before peering at Heath. “You couldn’t find my scent?”

  What on earth was going on?

  “Told you she’d show up.”

  I spun around to my right to see my other older brother, Brian. His sculpted chest peeked through his leather jacket, careless hair wind-tossed from what was undoubtedly a morning transformation due to my disappearance. “You’re going to burst a blood vessel someday, fussing over her all the time.” When Brian slapped me across the back, I yowled in pain, but Brian feigned innocence. “What? I didn’t hit her that hard.”

  “No, it’s not that. I…” I cracked my neck to the side and retreated further into my palace to keep all thoughts of the bruises away. “It’s nothing.”

  “You’ve been gone for an hour. That is hardly nothing,” Heath warned me, voice low, tone otherwise so regal now turned grim.

  “Calm down.” I tried to lighten the mood, poking my oldest brother’s side while reciting Les Miserables in my head. “All I know is I went to bed last night, had a nightmare, and woke up on the edge of some abandoned vineyard on the edge of Le Couvènte.” The one next to an animal blood farm right before I tripped over a dead body.

  Shit. I’d just dropped my guard. It was enough for Heath. The moment his nostrils flared, I knew he’d heard that stray thought. At least it was the right one. Not the bruises one.

  “Reina.”

  My father’s voice summoned everyone’s attention, cutting off any chance Heath had of making a scene.

  “Come inside before you catch frostbite,” Dad commanded. While I walked up our wrap-around porch steps to where he stood, he ordered Heath and Brian, “Boys, we’ll work this out inside. Your mother is beside herself.”

  “Dad, I’m fine. I swear!”

  Dad squeezed my shoulder. “Thank God for that. Your mother wants to see you.”