The Druid Breeders 4-Book Bundle
Page 4
More vampires filled the room, their eyes taking in the scene before them, their stares falling on me. I went back into the corner and their eyes tracked me like prey.
Holy-hell. This was looking bad. No, check that... it was bad.
“Who has bled her?” the leader asked, a huge signet type ring glinting on his middle finger; a swollen ruby that reflected their precious blood.
His hand covered his nose and he breathed out of his mouth, as did the others.
Wasn't this special?
His gaze watched me with a hunger that was alive. He actually took a step backward. “Cole, Nathan!” he barked.
They broke apart, both faces swollen from abusing each other. Their chests heaved from exertion.
The Leader said, “You understand better now, no?”
Cole looked at him and nodded. “It was not I that transgressed, it was Nathan, Alexander.”
Alexander looked at Nathan. “You came here to see her... alone.”
“Yes,” he spit a wad of blood onto the floor. They bled red, just like humans, I noticed a trifle smug.
Alexander's eyes narrowed on Nathan. “You bled her as well.”
Nathan looked at Cole. “The witch enticed him.”
I huffed and they looked at me. “Ah, excuse me, Superior Vampires, but I am not wanting your twisted attention, thanks. Just so we're clear.”
Alexander's dead glacier eyes looked into mine. “You will.”
I shrugged, let him think what he wanted. I was desperate to give him the middle finger salute but held back. I think I may have caused enough trouble as it was.
For now.
One of the other vampires said to him, his stare never leaving me, “She is bold with her words, this one. How much Druid blood does she have?”
Cole looked shamed but answered, “Much.”
Alexander swung his head to Cole. “A pureblood?”
Cole shrugged. “I would not know for certain, but I have not tasted purer than hers.”
Wonderful. As fun as all this was, “Here's the thing,” they all looked at me again. Six identical crystalline blue eyes, their weighty stares were disconcerting as hell. “I have a life. That I want to go back to. I am not a witch... I don't know about this 'blood thing'. You're holding me against my will. I promise... I won't tell the, ah... humans about you. Just let me go.” As I said that my eyes swung instinctively to Cole who shook his head slightly.
No dice.
“We cannot release you. Even if you had just an distant Druid relative, you would still be a viable breeder. Now,” he swung his palms out away from his sides, “a pureblood would mean much more.”
Alexander moved slowly to me. I think he was trying to keep me calm, but his slow approach was almost worse.
My palms grew damp and I wiped them on the wrinkled skirt.
“Let me taste you, Witch.”
I shook my head, his face inches from mine.
His eyes stared deeply into mine and I felt him pushing at me but it sloughed off like water off a duck's back. The mental ability that they used on others was not having the slightest effect.
“I don't have to ask you. Cole?” he directed at Cole without turning from me.
“Yes?”
“She does not respond to compulsion,” he stated.
“No.”
“Definitely a pure parent at least.” He leaned closer, sniffing me.
His fangs elongated slowly.
I shrank away, none of the desire I'd had for Cole with this one. He only filled me with fear as he prepared to strike the vulnerable flesh of my neck.
I threw my hand into his face and it slowed him for a moment and I yelped, retreating. He lunged for me, spittle hanging out of his mouth, a ravenous expression on his mouth. When Cole appeared out of nowhere he hissed at Alexander his body crouched in front of me. I stifled a whimper but he heard it, his body stiffening.
“Are you bonding with this breeder, Cole?”
“No, but you scare her to taste her. We are trained to not harm the breeders. Think, Alexander, if she had been stumbled upon by the rogue. We are not savages, we are Vampire.”
Alexander straightened.
He glared at Cole, his eyes flicking to me then back to him. “You are right, I have lost myself. It has been some time since I have been exposed to... a pure breeder.” His eyes bored into mine.
“She goes nowhere. Two of you visit her together, no exceptions. There is time yet to ascertain the purity of her blood. But mark my words, it will be soon.”
He looked at me one last time then left, taking his two “guards” with him.
Cole and Nathan looked at me.
Finally Cole said, “We will send a female to help you clean up and get some clothing for you. Tomorrow there will be a ceremony and your life here amongst us will begin.”
With that, he gave me a final stare and they left.
Great.
I was locked in a house with a bunch of gang-rapists whose primary goal was to get me pregnant.
Every girl's dream.
CHAPTER 6
I waited in my austere room for this elusive “female” that would give me clothes.
I didn't sit on my ass, I paced.
I spent an inordinate amount of time beside my window gazing out at the crystallized brightness, the white glancing of the sun casting diamonds on the ground.
A soft knock sounded and a woman entered, her belly swollen. I took in her simple attire of flowing tunic and linen pants, simple flats completed the look. Something about her made my soul clench, like a bell had been rung that only I could hear.
She smiled at me, she felt it too.
“You are Druid,” she said as statement. Her hair was as black as my own, flowing about her waist like silken water.
“I... I don't know,” I stammered, feeling very unbalanced, surreal.
“I am Eve.” She came forward with her hand out and I shook it, rapidly stepping back.
Eve put some things down on the end of the bed and brought a key out of her pocket. It gleamed like melted butter in the low light of the room.
“I was told that you needed to clean up...”
“I don't want to be here,” I said, frustrated. She was human, surely she could understand it.
“They will not let you go. You must understand how rare you are. How rare we all are.” She held out her hands in supplication.
“Do you know your kin?” Eve asked.
I shook my head. “I was adopted... I didn't know that I was anything but single white female, age twenty-eight.” I shrugged.
Eve smiled and it broke the ice. “Let's get you in a bath and some fresh things. You will feel much better after you are clean. And,” her hazel eyes met mine, “they sent me for a reason. They wish for you to feel more at ease.”
Eve spoke very strangely, I could feel my face scrunch up and I asked, “Are you... how old are you?” I looked at her swollen stomach and felt a heat rise on my cheeks.
“Come,” she held out her hand and I took it as we walked into the bathroom together where she closed the door softly behind us.
*
Like the rest of the structure, the bathroom was all clean, old-fashioned lines with a huge claw-foot tub that stood in the center atop a marble platform.
Eve cranked open the taps and feeling the water temperature she nodded to herself, laying the towels beside the tub on a small wooden stool of sorts and turned to me. The pipes moaning in the bathroom were the only sound.
“You have met Cole, Alexander and...?” She hesitated.
“Nathan,” I filled in reluctantly.
“You understand they do not think as human males do?”
I nodded, I was fully getting that.
I stripped in front of Eve, any self-consciousness gone before my desire to get the soiled and ruined clothing off me. She watched me silently, her eyes roving my body and she nodded. “You are not modest?”
I shook my head and shrugg
ed. “Not in front of other women. In front of them, I wouldn't feel real comfortable taking my clothes off.”
She laughed as I put a toe in the water. Inch-by-inch I sunk down into the scented and steaming bath water, the stress and fright of the last twenty-four hours melting away and I sighed in contentment. Human again, if only for the moment.
Then Eve spoke and it slid back into me again.
“I have two of the vampire that claim me as mate,” she said in that matter-of-fact way of hers, her hand automatically going to her belly.
My shoulders were just covered with water as she handed me the soap and the shampoo and I suddenly thought of Michelle and my face beat with shame, hot and flushed and Eve noticed.
“What troubles you?”
Geez, was she really asking that? Let me see, my best friend was being raped and I left her for there. My cat doesn't have anyone there to take care of him.
My job.
My job! I think it was safe to say that would be gone as well and I sighed.
I turned the tables on her. “Please answer some questions I have for you. If you really want me to feel better.”
Eve waited, all calm and unflappable.
“How old are you?”
“I am one hundred five,” she answered with a straight face.
“Are you shitting me?” I asked without grace.
Eve's face took on a puzzled frown.
She didn't understand me.
I rephrased, “Are you joking? I mean, that's not possible.” I held out my hand indicating her obvious youth and pregnancy.
She smiled. “I am Druid and I have been with the vampires since the 1930s. We do not age when we are in their care.”
Did not age. I wasn't sure that was such a hot benefit. Who said living forever was so great?
She reached out and tenderly put a strand of my hair behind my ear, the wetness of it clinging to the back of my neck.
“How much,” I stumbled over the next word, “Druid blood do you have?”
She shook her head. “Enough to breed,” she lifted a shoulder in a partial shrug, “maybe one-eighth or thereabouts.”
“How can they know what you are, how much? And do you just become, what? A baby-maker?”
Eve blushed and I immediately regretted all my rude questions. But, I was the kidnapped party here and even though it was not her fault directly, I had no one else to pose these questions to. I was deeply unhinged that I was so attracted to the one vampire, Cole.
I shouldn't have been.
“We may only have one baby per decade and if we are quite fortunate, it will be a Druid female. Female vampires are usually sterile,” she held up a finger, “but not always, and of course, male vampires are born to us.”
God, the breast-feeding must be hell, I shuddered. Yuk.
She saw my face and asked, “What?”
“I was thinking about feeding the baby...?” I let that loaded question hover like a pink elephant in the room and Eve laughed.
“The vampire infants have retractable fangs, my dear.”
Wonderful.
“Would you help me escape this place?” I asked. I was not interested in being sequestered in this weird-ass castle or whatever it was.
She shook her head. “You don't understand. They will never let you go with their suspicions of your pureblood. Why, you could be mated to a vampire, fought over, have twins; pure Druid children. Male Druid children can impregnate the female vampires. You are a precious jewel to them, Rachel.”
I was getting out of here. Even my boring cubicle job was sounding better. I'd play along and find my cell, call Michelle and figure out my future.
I smiled, feeling it like plastic on my face and Eve's brows came together in a pretty frown.
“I guess I'll make the best of it,” I said with false cheer and finished my grooming, shaving, scrubbing, and washing my long hair three times. I felt like I'd never get clean after what I'd been through.
Thoughts of my friend and my life were a dismal pulse beating in my brain.
CHAPTER 7
I slid into the clothes that had been provided and they were nothing like what Eve had been wearing. For one thing, there were no tags. I slid on a thinly made, silk skirt with a hidden zipper in the back and low-heeled sandals, it was winter but the place was kept quite warm so my legs were left bare. Finally, a deep royal blue sleeveless shirt finished the ensemble. Eve had given me lingerie that seemed contrary to the plain yet elegant clothing I'd been given; crimson lace boy panties and bra set. The bra hugged my breasts like lace skin, molding and pushing them up to what felt like my neck level. Once the blouse was on, my breasts floated at the top of the blue like creamy flesh balloons.
I'd keep the bra when I got out of here I thought with a smirk.
I found my cell after Eve left with a suspicious glance over her shoulder and I heard the bolt slide into place from the outside. I would have to leave this room first, then scope out possible portals of escape.
The hopelessness of my situation did not escape me. I was with a bunch of predators, bent on having me and keeping me... virtually forever. But I wasn't one to give up.
I snapped up my cell and the bar for service was at one.
And so was my charge.
Quickly I speed-texted Michelle, thinking... respond, respond, respond.
The envelope lit up on my cell and I punched the screen and Michelle's text appeared.
Where the hell are you? You dumbass, the cops have been crawling all over your apartment looking for you! And! They found the bodies of the guys that attacked me...
I sent back this message:
I've been taken by the freak-vampires and am trying to figure out an escape plan.
I glanced around. Went to the window, looked outside. I had no idea where I was. Wherever it was, the woods didn't narrow things down.
Somewhere rural I thought, despairing.
Well... I am doing cat-sitting right now. Do you know where you're at? Are you okay?
Yeah, I'm okay. Are you... alright? Has the cop been arrested? I texted.
Why? What cop? Michelle texted back.
She didn't know? I thought.
The one that was busy raping you in the interrogation room...
I think you're confused, Rach. I mean, the two jerks at Spinners were the ones that raped me. The cop is the one that ordered the rape kit and drove me home.
Scrubbed.
The vampires had erased her memory. As far as Michelle knew, the rapists were dead and in the ground now. Never to do a repeat performance.
The bolt slid back and Nathan and Cole strode in the room, Cole's eyes honed in on the cell open and lit in my hand.
He was upon me in an instant, the cell swept against the wall and shattered before I knew my hand was empty.
Nathan held both my wrists together in a grip that was achingly tight, just shy of crushing and I moaned against my will, it hurt that much.
Cole turned and said, “Release her fool, she is fragile.”
Nathan did, smiling and Cole frowned at him.
I fought the urge to rub my wrists as Nathan's eyes roved over my body. “Mouthwatering,” he said. “Her scent permeates the air.”
Cole nodded. “It does,” he said, his breath quickening.
They approached me slowly and I backed up into the corner of the room, thinking that was becoming a familiar theme for me.
My body responded to their closeness and my knees grew weak as Cole leaned into my neck, his fangs punching out with a snapping, meaty sound and I shuddered, my desire and fear mingling in exquisite torture.
Nathan moved in on the other side, wrapping his muscular arm around my waist and holding me against him. Cole began to kiss my neck and simultaneously graze those fangs along my jawline. Nathan wrapped a hand in my hair and exposed my neck in a long, clean line and my breath came in ragged gulps, my core getting wet for invasion, thoughts of my escape dimming as my desire for the vampires overcame
my sense.
“I will taste you now, Witch. And you will let me,” Cole said, his hot breath warming my slender throat, the pulse beating wildly beneath his mouth.
Something fundamental inside me screamed no even as my arms drew him into my body and he struck, his fangs sinking into my throat, latching on.
It was the worst pain of my life. I began to struggle and Nathan held me still, my body bucking as Cole drank my blood, his arousal against my belly while his fangs pierced my flesh.
As my head became light, Cole pulled back, licking the wounds at my throat and I slid down the front of Nathan's body, dizzy.
Cole caught me easily, carrying me to the bed where they lay me on it.
“She is pure. Both parents, Druid,” Cole said as I stared up at him dreamily.
“She will not fight us now,” Nathan said, his eyes on my legs, breasts, all of me.
“Alexander will punish us for having her before the ceremony.”
Cole looked at Nathan. “He need not know.”
A silent glance passed between the two vampires and I felt the weight of their stare like licking heat on my body.
The blood loss had made me feel drunk, but the feeding at my throat had awakened something primal in me. I felt desire for Cole spread like a flower opening deep inside my body.
He must have sensed something because he looked down at me.
“I cannot, it is akin to rape. She is in blood-languor. She would have sex with any one of us. And,” Cole said, stroking the flat of his palm over one of my nipples until it hardened, “Alexander would find what vampire would be the most fertile with her.”
Nathan said, “Fine, but we must see if we can give her something for the gift of her blood.”
A slow smile spread over Cole's face and I lay there as they discussed having sex with me and found I couldn't work up to a point of indignation. What was wrong with me? My throat throbbed and my core moistened in anticipation for their attention.