Die By the Drop: Shivers and Sins Volume 1

by Kaia Bennett

  A tenderness I’d never felt before, not even in Manny’s arms, suffused my entire being. Liam had fallen asleep night after night to this feeling, to a love so deep and true I felt tears streak my face in the real world to mingle with his blood. I struggled to release myself from his hold, from his need to travel back to the moment he lost everything. We catapulted towards torment, towards violence, and straight into the dead end that created a vampire.

  Violence. Pain. The flashing lights of a rave. Bodies everywhere, but the crowd didn’t save Liam from the bite. He cried out, shoving a pretty girl away from his throat. The girl flashed sharp teeth and drove them into his neck with a rabid hunger. Time shattered, and some of the pieces skittered across the landscape of his mind, like marbles forever lost in dark corners of a house. He didn’t know what happened after that bite. For a long while after he woke, he thought he’d had some strange, drug-induced dream. Not realizing what he’d become, he stumbled home, to tenderness and Anna.

  I sobbed as we approached her sleeping form, my vision a hazy red as hunger attacked our innards.

  Please don’t. Don’t hurt her. Don’t.

  Liam’s voice. Already he pleaded for control because the beast within him saw food instead of love. Liam and I shuddered. We wept in confusion even as we flipped Anna over onto her back. So soft and willing, at first she didn’t fight. Only a hint of surprise marred her sleepy features. The hint of her dimples in the dark whispered to him, but the blood pumping in her throat sang. He answered the siren call. My mouth opened on a soundless scream as Liam descended on her.

  He didn’t mean to hurt her. He didn’t mean to make her cry. He tried so hard to stop, he said the word aloud once, but didn’t hear himself. He was so hungry he couldn’t hear anything but her screams, her cries stirring him to the heights of feral desire. She cried out, “Liam, you’re hurting me! L-Liam?”

  The lingering humanity in Liam felt Anna’s screams like a wound, his betrayal of her digging deep into his heart, like jagged claws to tear at the muscle. But her blood healed the ache. Her cunt, wrapped around him for the last time as she struggled, calmed the hunger. For a moment, the roar in his mind dulled to a hum.

  When he came to, bloodlust still ran wild in his body, like a sickness, but the fever had broken. He stared down at what he’d done, his whole world gasping in a final breath on a blood-soaked mattress.

  Tears rained down Liam’s cheeks—and mine—the moment she died. Liam’s fading form remained silent while I stepped away. He licked his own tears away along with Anna’s blood. As if closing a door on a room I didn’t belong in, I peered into the dying memory one last time.

  Liam collapsed into a heap beside Anna and closed her amber eyes. He didn’t sob until he dragged her body to him and realized she couldn’t return his hug. Never again would she hold him.

  I tore myself away and looked up to find Liam’s labored breath matched mine. A lone tear streaked our right cheek. Vaughn had parked on the side of the highway. Cars zoomed past, rocking the SUV. Liam looked spooked, hurt, but also enthralled, as if he were a kid I’d just dazzled with a magic trick. Liam looked down at Jesse stroking my pussy, my legs spread wide of their own accord. I filtered back into my body on a delay, first recognizing, and then aligning with the nerve endings that belonged to my true form, instead of Liam’s. The intensity of my arousal after all the heartache I’d witnessed was like a punch in the gut. My body had a mind of its own and had been in the real world climbing the heights of climax. There was no halting the train even as Anna and Liam faded from my mind. I pumped my hips roughly into Jesse’s hand and licked the last remnants of blood from Liam’s wrist. I glimpsed Liam squeezing his stiff cock, his hips pumping in time with mine as if he’d finally gotten inside me.

  Vaughn drummed his thumbs on the wheel and shook his head as if disgusted. I tore myself from Liam’s hell, realizing Jesse ordered Vaughn to feed me while I’d been beguiled by the intensity of Liam’s love for Anna. Forced to share with me against his will, Vaughn bit down on his wrist. I smiled and caught sight of my blood-coated teeth and lips in the review mirror. When Vaughn offered me his wrist, I grabbed the thick, pale forearm and sucked his wounded flesh as hard as I could.

  Vaughn tried to keep me out. For the first time in my life, I dug into another person, violating his mind while knowing how much he’d hurt when I did so.

  I tumbled into an image, floating like a leaf on the still surface of a pond. I clutched the leaf. He roared and tried to swipe the secret away, but my skill at using my gift was growing, aided by the anger I harbored toward Vaughn. This was how I took back, to even the score against what he’d taken from me at the farmhouse.

  Not to mention, his blood flowed through me—the blood of three vampires flowed through me.

  I turned over the leaf and saw Vaughn, fucking me with savage abandon in a room made of white light. No care for if he came too fast, no care for my fragile bones, or thundering heart. My moans echoed through his mind as he twisted me around, every position of my limbs now his to command. He made me cry and scream. He made me bleed with knives and teeth. He made the torment last for days. In the corner of the room lay a helpless, beaten and tied Jesse, forced to watch.

  This is how you fuck a witch. This is how you lead!

  Vaughn pulled his wrist away and his fantasy dominion went black.

  So much for wanting to protect his brothers from me. Seemed more like he wanted me all to himself so he could kill me at his leisure. Seemed like he harbored fantasies of being Cain to Jesse’s Abel.

  Jesse pulled his fingers away from my vibrating cunt. A few seconds more and I would’ve come all over his hand, but he left me wanting against the leather seats. Vaughn put the car in drive, speeding toward their private tour, while I lay against the headrest.

  My taste buds crackled and popped. So did every nerve ending in my body. I shuddered and then groaned in protest.

  Vaughn snickered. “Sounds like somebody needs to come.”

  I’m high. I’m so fucked up.

  I giggled, euphoria coursing through me.

  Focus. This isn’t me.

  I attacked my lips with my tongue. A moment later I looked down and realized I’d licked my fingers clean. Anger bubbled in my gut because I couldn’t suck the crimson slivers from underneath my nails.

  This is their blood. His blood. Somehow, even in the furious haze, I grabbed Jesse’s wrist and darted forward to sink my teeth in once more. Vaughn and Liam had been appetizers. Jesse the main course. I wanted to lick a plate of his blood clean. I wanted to suck his flavor off my fingers and ask for seconds, thirds.

  Our eyes met and his lip curled in triumph.

  I heard myself whisper, “I need more. Give me more, Jesse. Give it.”

  Jesse would steal my soul if I let him. One taste at a time of the magic flowing through his veins, and I’d skip down the path to hell, kicking up puddles of blood all the way.

  “I will. When you earn more.” Jesse licked his lips and stared between my trembling thighs. “I’m gonna make you pay for every drop.”

  Oh, God. Oh, God, this isn’t me. This is him, this is him dragging me down. Drowning me. Don’t let him. Don’t let him take me, God.

  Vaughn cursed and the SUV picked up speed. Fury vibrated from the front seat. I turned my gaze to the rear view mirror. My heart pounded when I saw Vaughn’s ice blue eyes narrowed.

  When my eyes rolled back into place, I stared up at the hood of the car and the black felt of darkness flashed with passing headlights. Felt as though I’d been submerged into water, the waves rippling above me.

  Fifteen minutes later, we parked outside of the faux castle-style entrance to Ruby Falls. Jesse licked errant drops of blood from my lips and chin, setting my mask of normalcy to rights. In the deserted lot, Vaughn guided the SUV to the space adjacent to the lone car. I mourned for the three young women and one guy Kelsey had brought along.

  The night air barely touched me even as a chill br
eeze slid beneath my skirt like a wandering hand. My body burned from the inside out with a warmth that made beads of sweat tease my brow and breath stutter past my lips. I’d never felt more alive, more insatiable.

  My captors gave hearty replies to Kelsey’s introductions. To my eyes, their young tour guides seemed tipsy, but I was drunk on vampire blood. Kelsey gave me a suspicious glance here and there, gauging my purpose in the group and which man I belonged to.

  The staff had deserted Ruby Falls hours ago. Colin, a friend of Kelsey’s who worked the front desk, stayed behind to turn the lights on and party. Colin, Kelsey, and her friends, Regina and Michelle, would be our tour guides.

  Michelle looked sweeter than Kelsey, if that were possible, with long black hair and cute cat-eye glasses that framed angled eyes. She had a round face and a pretty smile which she shined on Colin several times. Regina tossed back a shot of whiskey as we slid into the space beside her car. Now she flicked pixie cut bangs out of her eyes, tilted her head and downed the last of drops of Budweiser. While she tossed the can in her trunk, I saw Liam elbow Vaughn and throw a pointed look at Regina as if to say, I call dibs on that one.

  We passed by photos of the attraction in the darkened lobby, the glass illuminated by the glare of Kelsey’s flashlight. Then we shuffled into the elevator, the stainless steel doors parting to reveal glass-paned doors behind the metal. Colin closed the glass doors and we began our descent, subterranean rock sweeping up as we journeyed down. The scent of damp earth reached us long before the doors to the elevator closed, but now the scent thickened along with the anticipation of my abductors.

  Three vampires, four humans, and a witch walk into an elevator.

  I looked to my left and my right and would have chuckled if not for the sobering truth behind our trip to this tourist spot. Four of us—if I still straddled the line between lucky and cursed—would leave these caves alive. I doubted the rest would. I tried to wipe the goofy, distorted look off my face when I spied my reflection in the glass panes of the elevator doors.

  “I’m starving,” I whispered to no one. The feeling twisted my gut, the dull ache building after I spoke the words, like a silent siren spinning within me, the urgency flashing in my brain. Red! Red! Red!

  Not my hunger. Their hunger.

  Might as well have been my hunger. The vampires’ need to feed seared me like it was my own. An automated safety message came on just before the ride came to a stand still. Colin wrenched open the glass doors, then the steel doors. We filed out into the entrance and into a dimly lit cavern, crowding by the elevator and waiting for what came next.

  I studied the short walkway wondering what waited around the corner to the left. Stone walls jutted along the pathway. The ceiling resembled the ground, smooth cracked stone instead of the jagged stalactites I’d imagined from the pictures in the lobby. Colin noticed me staring above, searching for sharp jagged rocks that looked like vampire fangs in my blood-drunk stupor.

  “It’s like this for a couple hundred feet,” Colin explained. “They take pictures and play a video, and then lead you deeper into the caves from there.”

  “That’s why we came after closing. Let’s skip all that boring shit and get to the good stuff.” Vaughn clapped his hands and rubbed them together with a grin.

  Kelsey giggled when Jesse gave her a smile that hinted at his cruel intentions. I closed my eyes to block out the flash of brutality in his gaze. I snapped my eyes open again when my imagination splashed bloody visions of the “good stuff” across my frenzied mind.

  “Follow me.” Kelsey pitched her voice low, as though trying to spook and seduce simultaneously.

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Jesse wrapped his arms around Kelsey from behind. He spun, until Kelsey faced the group, with Jesse peering over her head. Cool air, pregnant with the dank scent of ancient earth, surrounded me. I breathed deep, feeling faint and wishing I could melt into the rock.

  It’s starting. God help me, this is just the beginning.

  Kelsey giggled again, oblivious that Jesse palmed her cell phone with the skill of Oliver Twist. Vaughn pulled Colin and Michelle under his arms, the way he had Kelsey and me in the convenience store. He leaned his back against the stone wall opposite the elevator, glancing at Jesse who blocked the path. Regina, the last to leave the elevator, stood in the back with Liam and me. Though Liam eyed Regina with malicious intent, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. I licked my lips, the ache between my legs and my hunger building, a vicious echo of my abductors’ need.

  “See, me and Vaughn have already been in these caves.”

  “Back in the Eighties.” Vaughn nodded in agreement. “Killed some choice pieces down here.”

  I swallowed hard. The air vibrated with confusion, curdling into the beginning of fear.

  Kelsey gave Vaughn the same look I did, wondering how he could have been doing anything in the Eighties but playing with G.I. Joes.

  “But Liam,” Jesse continued, “hasn’t hunted down here before. He’s popping his cherry.”

  “Hoping to pop some cherries myself.” Liam chuckled and slid a lascivious gaze across Kelsey’s three friends. Vaughn returned Liam’s grin and tightened his grip around the necks of his captives. Colin and Michelle squirmed.

  “What are you talking about?” Kelsey swiveled her head between the vampires. My breathing went shallow, the three of them—and their blood—seizing my humanity, twisting my gift so I felt desire for the hunt. The acrid scent of nervous sweat gathered on the wind despite the chill. A taste—the thrum of hearts jolting into high gear made my mouth water.

  Prey.

  With new, heightened senses, I focused on the human gestures of terror. The quickening pulse at the base of Kelsey’s slender neck. Michelle’s flitting gaze. Colin’s fists, clenching and unclenching. Regina’s slack expression as her slow, human brain processed that something had gone terribly wrong.

  Every nervous gesture made, I tracked. I hummed with the vicarious need to feel their elevated heartbeats bursting against my tongue like ruby stars. I leaned on Liam when my knees shook from the first vicious pang of hunger. Thirst felt like jagged nails twisting in my guts, and yet the feeling wasn’t much different from the pulse in my overheated cunt. I seized pleasure from the ache.

  “I’ll give you and your friends a head start,” Jesse whispered. “Run. Hide. We’ll come find you.”

  Vaughn released his captives, only to turn and shove Michelle and Colin’s backs against a stone wall. He reached into each of their jeans pockets and pulled out their cell phones. Their eyes went wide as he dropped and smashed their one path to salvation underfoot.

  Regina made a break for the elevator, but Liam caught her with inhuman speed and shoved her, face first into the metal door. I leaned against a cave wall, not wanting to watch, and yet, needing to see this with a force I didn’t understand. Their collective fear floated around my head like perfume; their thrumming heartbeats seemed to stroke my clit in the sweetest foreplay.

  “He didn’t say you could start yet, girl. You gotta wait for the count.” Liam chuckled at his own joke and then reached into Regina’s jacket to seize her phone. Again, fragile plastic snapped between stone and shoe. He pumped his hips against her ass for good measure. I felt her ass cheeks clench like Liam’s hips were my hips. The pain of engorged flesh pressed against his zipper made me flinch.

  Michelle started to cry. Vaughn turned her sobs to hysterical shrieks when he snatched her glasses and snapped them in two. He licked the right side of her face, savoring her tears with an obscene smack of his lips. Her wail of terror only made him grin.

  Colin tried to stop Vaughn. Vaughn turned his true face to the boy, flashing sharp fangs and growling as his eyes went black.

  Every one of them screamed and ran for their lives into the dark recesses of their subterranean death trap.

  “One,” Jesse bellowed, loud enough for his prey to hear. He cracked his neck and licked his lips, staring into t
he cave’s entrance. “Two. Three….”

  12

  “Ready or not!” Jesse called.

  “I can’t wait to come,” Vaughn whispered.

  Two of them took off, sprinting so fast into the entrance of the cave they looked like streaks of blond and black light.

  Liam stayed behind, staring at me. “I have babysitting detail,” he said, answering my unspoken question.

  One part of me sighed with relief. The other growled in frustration. A scream pierced the silence. A laugh. Inside, I despaired. Outside, my thighs clenched around the pulse in my clit.

  “You saw Anna.” I turned. Liam’s soft words didn’t match his blatant fondling of his cock straining against his zipper.

  I turned away again, retreating against the opposite wall.

  “What you’re feeling now, with our blood running through your veins, is only a taste of what it’s like. You wouldn’t judge us if you knew how bad it gets.”

  In the distance Colin screamed. One of the girls released a keening cry.

  I gritted my teeth against the shudder of arousal that hit me when Liam sucked air through his teeth and picked up the pace of his stroke.

  “You’re gonna understand. You’ll see why I couldn’t stop with Anna. When the bloodlust hits you it’s like nothing else in the world exists—”

  “I don’t give a fuck why you killed your girlfriend, Liam. Nothing can explain away what you’ve done.”

  The lie tasted like ashes on my tongue. I’d learned through Liam how powerful the bloodlust could be. That’s what I feared above all else, the way the hunger could explain away the most vicious acts.

  “Fifty.” Liam smiled. I realized why he’d stayed behind. He’d been counting while he watched me, and now, the count had ended. He crowded me, grabbed me by my ponytail, and yanked me in front of him. We turned left, walked about one hundred feet, veered left again and dove deeper into the darkness of the thinning walls surrounding us.

  “I don’t feel well.” I tried to halt our progress but Liam didn’t pause even when I dropped my weight.