Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others

by Robin Renee Ray,

  “He is known as a medicine man, as well as their eldest,” Jacob explained rubbing his temple.

  “To you, it would just be more witchcraft,” Cates smiled.

  “You are such a pain.” I rolled my eyes, causing him to laugh out loud. “Think she went with them?”

  “We will find out when the sun goes back down, for now we should rest.” Jacob closed his eyes.

  “I’m not even tired, so I know the suns not up yet,” I added then looked over at my little ones, which were curled together sound out to whatever world we went to.

  I turned back to talk to Jacob and was taken aback to see his body change in color and tone. He became more like stone right before my eyes. I was now staying awake longer than him. Cates must have fallen into his slumber while he and I were speaking.

  I was apparently talking to myself. Nothing had changed that I could tell. I hadn’t had anymore spells like I’d had after I drank Yvette’s blood, and now I had no one to ask that might know. I turned my head seeing the normals making themselves comfortable, and closed my eyes, wanting to scream out my frustrations, but holding them in check. I laid my head on Cates’ leg and waited for the pull to take me under.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  I woke thinking I was in our room with the fireplace burning out of control. The smoke was so thick that when I took my first deep breath I coughed it right back out. I sat up as soon as my body regained its strength to the coming night, and couldn’t see my hand past the heavy smoke that filled the tunnel’s hall. I grabbed my mouth and crawled over to Jacob who was still out of it. I got up and made my way up to the opening that went into the ladies dressing room and felt the hidden door, which was as hot as the flames of a burning fire. We had been attacked while we slept. It was the only explanation. I turned and ran back down and started shaking Jacob, grabbing him by his shirt. His form was as stiff as a dried stick. I fell back against the wall and waited, looking at him, realizing that we were truly dead when we slept. We didn’t sleep at all, not really. My head was spinning. How many times had I laid next to my little ones and never once tried to push them over or done more than slide out quietly. Yet, I had known they were just as stiff but until this moment it had truly not sank into my mind.

  “Do you smell smoke?”

  “Oh Jacob, thank goodness your awake.”

  “How long have you been up?”

  “It started when we fell asleep. You did and I didn’t,” I said sliding over by him.

  “Don’t look so worried, we all change in time.”

  “I haven’t even been a breeder a year yet. Why am I changing so much, so fast?”

  “I believe because you took the life of the one who created your maker,” he replied stopping to look at me.

  “How do you know that?”

  “We don’t have time to discuss this. Come, I want to see what has happened.” Then he took off deeper into the tunnel.

  “Jacob? Jacob!” I yelled but got no response, so I got up and ran after him.

  I came around a curve and had to jump over the normals that were passed out from the smoke on the floor. Jacob was standing at a closed door a few feet away from them with his head leaning on the door. I walked up and put my hand on his back and asked what was wrong.

  “They made their way into the sleeping quarters of our guard.”

  “What are you talking about, Jacob?”

  He left his head on the door a few more seconds then pulled it open by stepping back. This was one of the doors that were secured from this side and looked like the rest of the wall from the outer side. The light that found its way through the cracks on the two heavy doors that were left slightly open showed charred body parts and broken furniture thrown all about the room. The wood was blackened from the fire that seemed to have burned itself out. They were all dead, even if they had survived the fire it was apparent that their headless bodies would not be getting back up.

  “Cochee will think we burned in the fire as well,” Jacob said in a low tone.

  “Then let’s put that dog down,” I added raising my voice when I said the word dog.

  Everyone woke with the same form of shock when it came to the smoke hanging over their heads. Jacob explained everything at one time. It was Cates that stormed down the hall. We heard his cries of anger, then the destruction that followed as he tore the room apart. Tammy was the one that took a chance going down that long dark hall, while we all waited only to hear Cates scream in agony. It became quiet, and then we heard the soft weeping of a man’s heart over the ones he had lost. Jacob’s head hung that night and sorrow filled the air. But, when the hurt passed, the blood rage filled its place and the temperature changed. Cates held Tammy at his side when they walked back up the hall, and Jacob held up his head.

  One by one we all stood, until we made a perfect circle facing each other. We ten stood strong and would track them down, making them pay for what they had done. Just how many came into our home during the day and killed everything that they saw, we didn’t know. What really mattered was that we didn’t care. We buried our dead that night and took our weakest to the ship, instructing our people take it so far out in open water that no creature could follow. They were told to bring it back in only under the cover of night. Jessie returned with us. We made sure that we could not be reached down in the tunnels and waited for the sun to set the next night. It was apparent that we were being watched while we performed our duties throughout the night, but we were very careful to show no signs of going underground. We used only the entrances in the ladies quarters, due to the fact that its doors didn’t open to another exposed area where a pair of glowing green eyes could be watching from the top of a tree. Jacob was covering every angle.

  The men went into the back portion of the home, the girls and I went to our room. It was then that we all met in the tunnels. Cates had set a rig to slam the door shut if anyone should come through the men’s area during the day, making them as trapped as we were below. Jacob knew they would start looking for a hidden passage as soon as they found the rooms empty, planning on trapping some in the first half of the tunnels and taking us out the back. All that we could do now was stay down in the center of its depths and see what we would wake to the following night. I thought about Shyanna while the day took me, hoping that she was okay.

  ***

  It was completely silent when I woke up, no smoke, no nothing. The silence was almost eerily quiet. I stepped over those around me who were still asleep and made my way down the hall to the room where we found Jacob’s men. I put my ear to the door and heard a heavy breathing. Someone had gotten trapped in the room, and it sounded like they were still in their beast form. I backed away then sprinted down the hall to check the area that went back into our room. I placed my ear on the door, but heard nothing. I was about to open it when Jacob grabbed my wrist. I jumped and would have screamed if his other hand wasn’t covering my mouth. He put his finger to his mouth and started backing away.

  “Are…”

  “Shhh!”

  He moved around to the side of the door and slid a small panel back and waved me over. I looked in and saw four nude men sound asleep on the tunnel floor. His slid it closed then took me by the arm and walked back down the hall. He started toward the men’s door, but I started shaking my head ‘no’. He nodded then headed deeper into the hall.

  “When everyone wakes we go out the back entrance and come in on them through the front.”

  “What about the one in the guards sleeping quarters?”

  “He belongs to Cates.”

  “He’s still in the animal form, Jacob.”

  “The bigger the better,” Cates said coming up behind me.

  “You guys have got to stop doing that,” I said spinning around.

  “You are just too jumpy.”

  “I wonder why, Cates.”

  “Am I supposed to answer that?”

  “I wouldn’t,” I replied. “What if there’s more out there besid
es what we have trapped in here?”

  “We kill them first,” Cates replied before Jacob could.

  “He’s right. We worry about them first,” Jacob concurred.

  “Are these things hard to kill? I know they went down fast when Cates was slicing them up, but none of us has his strength.”

  “You go for the heart on all beings, but removing the head works well also,” Jacob explained looking back at the group on the floor. “They’re waking.”

  “Yeah, well the heart doesn’t work on those walking dead things.”

  “True, but removing the head does,” Cates added walking over to Tammy.

  “Removing the head does,” I mocked walking back with them. “There isn’t anything special that hurts these things?”

  “Nothing that we have knowledge of, it is a fight of brute strength,” Jacob said as he helped pull Garvin to his feet.

  Jessie and Tammy woke next, the other boys followed shortly after. We soon found ourselves going out a small, round opening at the end of a hall that broke off of the one that we had been in. It went about thirty five feet to the south before coming to a dead end. Derek was the last to come out into the forest that we now stood in. Jacob closed the round door, and then covered it back up with the debris that was lying about. We made our way around the towering wall that was supposed to protect those who lived inside, but failed miserably. The gate was standing open halfway when we reached it. Jacob and Cates took the lead, rushing in with their weapons in hand, and us at their backs.

  Cochee was fixing to slam a piece of wood into the doors that held the beasts when I came around the gate. He turned and threw it at Jacob and Cates, who easily stepped out of its way. Two more men stepped out of our room, probably trying to free the other men as well. They froze at the sight of us, and then slowly looked to their leader. Cochee stuck out his chest and walked out into the middle of the foyer.

  “Release my men!” he ordered in a loud voice.

  “You have no right to make demands here, murder!” Cates yelled back.

  “Say what you will, but it was the woman that caused this, not me,” he growled, looking over at me.

  “I didn’t have damn thing to do with you chopping up our men, you stupid bastard.”

  “She is correct you shit hell and you will die this night,” Jacob blurted out and caused me to break down laughing. “Why do you laugh?”

  “Just don’t try and curse, okay, and I won’t laugh,” I replied hearing my little one’s snickering behind me.

  “You are a mad people and deserve to die!” Cochee yelled and dove off the porch, changing his form in midair.

  The other two broke out of the room, changing as they ran at the group of my little ones, while several other beasts came in behind us. “Pull in,” Jacob yelled. We all put our backs to each other’s and formed a tight circle, then took one step out and leveled our weapons for a striking blow. Out of nowhere a beast landed on top of Garvin and bit down on his shoulder. Sydney leveled his club on the back of the beast’s head and brains splattered over the side of Garvin’s face. I pulled my trigger four times before the beast backhanded me into the wall of the house. I slid down, losing my sense of direction for a few minutes, giving the beast time to come after me. I kicked out as soon as it was close to my leg, hitting it in the snout, then I rolled away from the house. I grabbed my blade, and plunged it into the back of the beast’s head, where it dropped like a rock.

  I yanked it out in time to turn and get knocked back down by the claw of another one, whose strength brought stars to my vision. My legs were lying over the beast that I had killed who, was now changing back into a man and the other one was walking over both of us, coming right for my throat. It stopped, its eyes glazing over seconds before it fell on top of me with Cates’ sword sticking out of the base of its skull. He pulled his blade free, and then slid the beast off of me.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, one of the wolves took him from behind. I dove in; stabbing it over and over in the side, trying to hit the heart, but the thing was enormous. I looked up just in time to see it open its mouth to take a bite out of the side of Cates’ neck. I reached up with my blade as it came down. It closed its mouth shut and my blade went right through its brain with its own strength. Cates swung the beast off then ran to Jacob’s aid who was covered by two more. We thought one of the beasts might be Cochee. Cates pulled one back by its leg, then crushed its head in with his foot. Garvin and Derek fought another, slicing at it every time the beast turned for the other. Brandon yelled running in from the side, jumping up on its back, and driving his blade through the back of the beast’s throat. It went up on its hind legs throwing Brandon to the ground and then tried to reach for the hilt of Brandon’s blade that it could never reach in animal form. The beast let out a great roar, then took off into the woods.

  I heard Shyanna’s cries over our heads, but didn’t dare take my eyes off of the fight. Jacob struck out and sliced one of the beasts across the stomach, dropping him in his tracks. The beast fell to his knees, stopping the remaining three, freezing their actions instantly. Jacob had taken down Cochee, and they were now at a loss as to what to do next. Cates lifted his sword and came down on top of the head of the beast closest to him, then spun around taking the one closest to Sydney and Tammy. Cochee held his intestines, as his body changed back into the smaller man that he was. The fur absorbed back into his skin like magic, which I was beginning to understand had a lot to do with the world I now lived in. His snout crushed back in on its self until he once again resembled his human form. That’s when he fell forward, holding himself off the ground with one hand, while the other stayed pressed firmly to his abdomen.

  “Wait!” Sontos called from the open gate as Shyanna landed beside him.

  “He has killed a great number of my people and will pay for his crimes,” Cates yelled as he raised his sword.

  “Cates!” Jacob said loudly, as he lowered his weapon and stepped away from Cochee.

  Two of Sontos’ men drug the creature that Brandon had left his blade in, and dropped him in front of the gate, dead. “You have every right to take your vengeance out on us all. I took the winged one to keep her safe from the likes of my son. I did not know he was going to harm you while you slept,” Sontos admitted as he stepped closer.

  “But you knew he was going to attack?” I asked, moving closer to him.

  “I did have my feeling, but only found out this day and came right away. I would never allow such brutality from my people. We have suffered enough at the hands of the white man, as well as your kind, to act like our enemies.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Sontos, but I am your sons,” I replied. “He chose to take action, and we did nothing to provoke him.”

  “He is my only son,” he said going to his knees. “There is a belief amongst my people that all can change if given the chance.”

  “Do you think that he will ever stop thinking about my death, Sontos?”

  He got to his feet and lowered his head, because he knew his son would always want to see us dead, truly dead. Shyanna hopped over to his hand and licked it then flew up into the air landing next to me. “Give him back his, son.” Cates spun around, giving me a look of pure hatred. I looked away from his angry stare and focused on Derek and Garvin as they took Cochee under the arms, dragging him half the distance to his father, and laid him on the ground. Once they moved away, two of his men ran in and with a great amount of speed rushed him away into the cover of the woods.

  “I will personally take his life if he ever crosses you again. Take care of our winged friend, she brings good fortune. Change will set us all free, she who rides on the wind of her wings.” Then he and his people turned and all signs of them disappeared into the woods.

  “We still have the ones locked in the tunnels,” Derek said turning around.

  “They are a gift for the actions of his son,” Jacob said looking out into the night.

&nb
sp; Cates took down the beast that was trapped in the one room, in a single blow. The other four men were imprisoned with Rebecca’s two men Ronny, and Marcos. They seemed to want to make a deal every time one of us came close to their cell, swearing they never touched one of my family members, that Omar had killed them all. The more they mentioned my family, the more I wanted them to die. It was Jacob, who stopped me from having their heads removed, or better yet, hanging them upside down and cutting their throats so they could drain out just like my father had. The question now was what to do with the ones we captured. We didn’t want a beast on the ship and we couldn’t leave them here to starve, no matter how good that sounded. There wasn’t even enough left of our home to rebuild.

  Jacob suggested that we try and find Sontos and give them back, however Cates’ idea was to just chop off their heads and get it over with. It was Derek who came up with the idea of finding out what would happen if one of us tried to mark one of them. If they would follow orders like a normal we might have use for them after all. Cates all but threw a fit, saying he would never place his mouth on such a foul creature, and was in no way, shape, or form having it when Tammy said that she would do it. That’s when they got into their first argument, with the rest of us leaving them to discuss what he thought she could do, and what she felt about his thoughts. From the shouting that was coming from Tammy, it wasn’t sounding pretty for Cates. The boys trailed behind me as I followed Jacob down to the cells.

  The four men stood and backed up to the wall furthest from us. Derek let out a snicker and got an elbow from Brandon. Jacob pointed at the one in the middle and gave him the ‘come here’ signal. He shook his head vigorously and stayed put. Jacob wrinkled up his brows and stepped into the cell. “You come now, or I will skin you alive, one small piece at a time.” The man swallowed, glancing from the man on one side of him to the man on the other, and not one raising their head with a response. They were far too afraid they would be chosen in his place if they stepped out of line in anyway what so ever. They knew by instinct alone that their leader had left them to our discretion.