Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1)

by Rosemary A Johns

  Ruby had her back to me now, as if she was watching the shadow puppets cast by the torch. ‘Do you remember this, darling Light? My little games?’

  ‘Your games. Not mine.’

  Ruby twisted back to me – blazing - the queen she’d always been. She flew at me, burning my right shoulder this time, until it blackened.

  I screamed, not because I reckoned somebody would hear but because the pain had to go somewhere, or my nut would explode with it. The reek of my own roasting coated my nostrils.

  I panted, as Ruby studied me, before gently wiping the tears from my cheek with her trembling finger. ‘Nay,’ Ruby agreed softly, ‘you were all about the kill.’

  And Ruby was right. Who was I kidding? Like I was any better? Any different? I’ve never been one for heroics. We’d hunted the world together and drained it dry, so who knew me better than Ruby? That’s what I was: one of the Lost. What was the point in trying to deny that to my own Author?

  I was a Plantagenet too.

  When Ruby leaned closer, I tensed. Ruby, however, merely kissed my cheek, like a mama would their own kid. It’d been so long since anyone had given me that little gesture: it broke something inside.

  I wanted to curl into Ruby again and be lost in her deadly safety, as I had for so long. I craved to let her cradle me close and forget how she’d betrayed me for her addiction to bloodlust and power. As our foreheads touched, I swore I saw a glimmer of my old Ruby. The one from before the taint of Advance, which she’d kept just for me, when we were two flames free in the world to dance in its ashes.

  Then I remembered: the First Lifers strung on the walls of Radio Komodo, looped with tubes of blood and chemicals and the barren world, which Ruby would’ve left as her legacy, out of love for a brother, who’d hurt, controlled and battered, until there’d been nothing good left.

  The fires were put out. And I was cold again.

  Ruby nuzzled my neck. ‘Dearest prince, why did you foreswear me?’

  ‘You left me. For him.’

  ‘You were jealous?’

  When Ruby sat up, gazing down at me steadily, I read something in her peepers. My hands clenched. ‘It was a bloody game? You and Aralt?’

  Ruby laughed. ‘Love’s always a game.’

  Maybe I’d been flamed to a crisp but even that was, for a moment, washed out of my shuddering body by a wave of lava hot fury. Those long months of torture and loss. Smelling Aralt on Ruby. Watching her share blood. Everything that had happened since - and all because Ruby had been pulling my strings in some twisted idea of romance, or adding spice, more out of skew even than my own..?

  Remember I said that some Blood Lifers come back wrong but there’s no such thing as wrong, rather emotions amplified?

  What must Ruby have been like in life? How screwed up by her father and husband to play with a bloke like that?

  Yet even then I couldn’t hate my red-haired devil. That’s the thing with your Author. There’s a blood bond. And yeah, don’t strop, but our love had blazed through the decades and across continents.

  But a game?

  ‘Not to me,’ I said softly, ‘it wasn’t a game to me.’

  Ruby balanced the torch between my bare feet, sprawling over the rock next to me. When she rubbed her body against mine, the fire was back in the blistering burns.

  I gritted my teeth.

  Ruby pressed her knockers against my chest. ‘We played the world together. Ate it ripe. Do not tell me now that you’re tamed?’ Ruby’s long tongue licked against my lips.

  ‘No,’ Ruby’s tongue retracted, like a snake back into its hole, when I smiled. ‘I’m happy.’

  Ruby sat bolt upright, staring down at me. Then she snatched up the torch, holding it against the sole of my right foot. She always knew how to hurt, Ruby did.

  Through the haze of pain, I managed to hiss, ‘This world it’s…’ When Ruby eased off for a moment, I suddenly realised I was desperate not only to stop her burning me again, but for her to understand, so I could return to that feeling of wholeness, like when Ruby had kissed my cheek. ‘We get the night; the day’s not our due. First Lifers aren’t there to crush or conquer, exterminate or enslave, like they’re animals. Or we’re animals. We’re not. None of us. You’d have seen it too if you’d not been bound to the blood, your brother and this desperate desire never to be controlled again. And what am I? Just something for you to mould as dark as you and keep you warm in the shadows? Don’t you want something more? We don’t need to kill…’

  Ruby bayed with laugher then, shocking in its sudden loudness. ‘A Blood Lifer who will not kill? Your shyness was not odd when you were first elected. But now?’ Her peepers quivered with tears. ‘That First Lifer has broken you.’

  I managed to smile through the agony, which was hitting me in dizzying waves. ‘No. She’s freed me.’

  Ruby didn’t talk to me after that. Instead she made her point with pain and she was bloody good with that. She knew how long to leave it between blows, so you didn’t grow numb or fall into shock because you want the bloke to feel it. To build up the anticipation, which is part of the whole deal: the waiting. Pain had always been Ruby’s thing. Not mine.

  I discovered Ruby knew tricks, which she’d never loosed on me, from an age long before; I guess she’d been playing gentle with me over the years after all.

  I told you Ruby remembered the Inquisition from first time around, didn’t I?

  I began to feel like I was floating, lifted by such expertly dealt agony that there were no coherent thoughts left in me. That’s when I knew I was going to cop it. It was only a matter of boredom now - it always was with Ruby.

  It was when light was creeping into the upper caves (because Ruby wasn’t a climber, she hadn’t taken me deep), that we reached that point.

  I was coughing, spluttering for breath. My body felt like a thousand different parts, each one screaming, mewling, weeping and each unique in its own hell. Then I saw through my eyelashes, which were thick with matted blood, Ruby picking up a hooked knife – that fitted the sacrificial picture all right. Then her shadow was dark over me.

  So, this was it then.

  I tensed muscles too sore to tighten and stretch.

  How many First Lifers had I plunged down this dark tunnel? I could hear the echo of them ghostly, chanting my name and slow clapping. They were watching for the delicious moment when the light faded from my peepers too.

  Then what? No one knows what’s for dessert, do they? And right at that moment, that’s what terrified me, even though it’d never scared me before.

  I closed my peepers, waiting for the slice before the spurt, as Ruby cut my throat clean through at the jugular, like a poor bloody lamb.

  I groaned in shock, when instead Ruby thrust the knife deep into my chest.

  Sodding hell, was that my heart?

  My heart was still pumping. I was aware of its beating, as well as the ebb and flow of arteries and veins around my thrashed body, in a heightened way, more than a Blood Lifer does every moment of existence. Then Ruby was cutting in grinding slices around that organ, and I knew - bugger it all, did I know - that she was going to cut my still beating heart from my body and hold it, warm in her hands, before my peepers. Whilst I died.

  How’s that for a break up?

  Ruby’s voice was cold with accusation. ‘I gifted you Blood Life.’

  ‘No, you robbed me of my death.’

  ‘Then let me return it.’ Ruby pushed the knife deeper, and I arched, waiting for it to be over.

  There was this sudden look of surprise on Ruby’s mush.

  The knife loosened in Ruby’s fingers, before clattering from them. She looked down.

  When I did too, I saw a blossoming burgundy, deeper red than Ruby’s dress. It was staining her chest, where her heart was. I smelt her blood.

  Then Ruby was falling.

  I could see the steel piton buried in Ruby’s back. She clutched at me, curling round me as she died, as if she wanted to cr
adle me, like she always had. Because after half a millennium, the second death had found her.

  That’s when you saved me – again.

  I wish you could remember that: you didn’t simply save me once. But twice.

  The next thing I saw was your face, gazing down into my swollen peepers, as you wept and repeated over and over, ‘The dawn came and you weren’t there. The dawn came and you weren’t…’

  Today I lie here with you, in those quiet hours before dawn breaks, writing this and I know you don’t remember me.

  Truth, right? It’s all I have left.

  My First Life died, and now my second life - with you - is fading so fast I can’t keep up.

  I’ve lost you, I bloody know that now.

  But our love? It exists in these pages and maybe (a bloke can hope can’t he?), somewhere buried in that darkly blinding brain of yours.

  Did I leave out the poetry? Because at the end, that’s all there is: the bleeding words.

  When I slept earlier, I dreamt we were strolling down Carnaby Street together in the sun, under the swags of Union Jack flags, by boutiques blaring music and spilling out Mods. You were young again, like me. An unchanging waxwork.

  When I awoke, I was suddenly very tired.

  Now I study the wisps of white hair, which are caught down your lined cheek. It’d be so easy to live in the memory. To hide nice and safe there, holding the photograph in my palm.

  But bugger that.

  You once cried salty tears, turning away from me, disgusted by your own ageing body, whilst I remained forever young. You tried to cover your stomach, knockers, muff and then your mug.

  Some Blood Lifers pick the ripe before they can wither. All they want to see is mirrored perfection, stretching on for eternity. But that’s the Plantagenets of this world. I may bear their name and blood but I’m my own man: no one’s ever going to dictate my choices because of family.

  The real fun starts with the flaws.

  Because here’s the thing I’ve come to realise: First Lifers are meant to decay. Your cells degrade and die every day. But your Souls don’t. I still see yours shining bright.

  The shell?

  One day soon it’ll be in the ground, where mine should’ve been by rights a long time ago. Then I’ll bury it and I’ll weep. But I’ll live because that’s all I can do.

  I remain the Lost.

  I’ve seen more of this world than I could’ve ever imagined, even in my dreams, when I stood on London Bridge with my papa. More than I sodding wish I had too. I can’t say I’ve come to a higher understanding.

  Blood Lifers shouldn’t be revered. That’s the greatest bollocks myth of them all. If there’s a god, we’re damned. But if there’s a devil? Then I didn’t sign no sodding contract.

  Are you happy now you’ve forgotten me? What’s it like not to remember?

  I used to reckon that my memory was a blessing. A miracle of the human camera.

  I was wrong.

  It’s a curse having to relive such nightmares with the clarity of a photograph. If only some of them had moved and blurred to ghosts.

  I hope you’re happy, my love.

  Most of all, I want you to die a mortal death – natural - as you’ve lived. A First Lifer always. And when you’re gone?

  You once said that the darkness consumes us all eventually; it swallows us like tasty little titbits, one by one.

  Bollocks to that.

  If the dark comes, I’ll nut it to oblivion. I was never one to conform me. But you know what? You may be lost, and I may be alone, but after all the nasties and wankery, I never left you. We’re together at the end.

  Now that’s bloody life.

  ****

  REBEL VAMPIRES 2: BLOOD SHACKLES

  Blood Dragons over too soon? If you enjoyed Rebel Vampires Volume 1, you’ll love the next book in the series, Rebel Vampires Volume 2: Blood Shackles.

  Prepare yourself for the secret world of the Blood Club. Read on for an exclusive excerpt.

  EXCERPT

  REBEL VAMPIRES 2: BLOOD SHACKLES

  As M.C. worked on tying me down, the Doctor was busy laying onto the coffee table his grisly work tools: curved extraction forceps, brushed satin stainless steel scissors, orthodontia pliers, an ominously large pile of gauze and a pair of steel dental retractors…

  I shuddered, struggling to control my shallow, panted breathing. But I’d been through this once and nothing that’d been done to me had touched this sacrilege: fangs are a Blood Lifer’s proof of evolution.

  At last I understood why M.C. had made bloody sure you weren’t here to witness this abuse.

  I couldn’t help the tears forming.

  The Doctor soothed his hand over my forehead, as if I was his patient, rather than his victim. ‘Now, now, come on, be brave; there’s a good chap. It’ll soon be over. You know the drill: open your mouth.’ I considered keeping my lips clamped shut, but that’d only earn me another dose of the wankering tracker. Reluctantly, I opened my gob. The Doctor shoved in the retractors, winding until my jaw ached. ‘Has he been a good enough boy for anaesthetic…this time?’ The Doctor gave a bright smile, which didn’t reach his peepers.

  I stared up at M.C., as if at an executioner. Her expression was hungry and hard. It didn’t surprise me, when she shook her nut.

  ‘Shame,’ the Doctor purred. Then he spread green plastic sheeting over me and the chair because God forbid my blood stain the furniture, before he selected the steel forceps. He tested them a few times - the sadistic tosser. Finally he was all I could see, as he stood close, tapping my canine. ‘Fangs out.’

  I could feel my fangs shrivelling back inside my gums, like a bloke’s goolies when he sees a mate taking a boot to the privates. My half-formed fangs shot out, as the Doctor grabbed me by the hair with one hand and gripped the first fang with the forceps, ready to wrench. I closed my peepers. I tried to hold still but I was shivering.

  ‘What the frig are you doing?’ You. My saviour. My Sun Girl. Thank you, thank you, thank you… And you were dead pissed. ‘I said…’

  The Doctor didn’t even remove the forceps from my fang. In fact, he twisted.

  I let out a distorted holler.

  Before I knew what was what, the Doctor was sprawled face first on the wooden floorboards, his tools clattered with him.

  ‘Out,’ you barked. ‘Get your damn asses out of here. Both of you.’

  M.C., for the first time, appeared flustered. ‘Sis, the Doc’s safe. He’s gotta remove the liccle leech’s fangs before--’

  ‘Get the hell out of my apartment.’

  M.C. nodded. ‘Alright. But I be telling dad dat you ain’t following care instructions. You reckon he be letting you keep an untrained bitch with all its fangs?’ The Doctor shuffled - limping - out of the apartment, casting obsequious, apologetic glances at you. M.C., however, threw back, before she slammed the front door, ‘When it be mine, I’ll do more than defang it, you feel me?’’

  Then you were a blur: flinging the plastic sheeting off me, unwinding the ropes around the chair, ripping at the knots over my chest, arms and wrists and then dropping to your knees next to me. You rubbed my bruised wrists, which were encircled by a deep purple line, before lifting each to your lips and tenderly kissing them in turn.

  I held dead still in case somehow I broke the spell.

  My fangs were out, for the first time since they’d last been ripped from my gob. It felt blinding. Yet I also knew how you felt about my Blood Lifer status: this parasite.

  I began to pull my fangs into my gums, but when you knelt up and gently removed the dental retractor, you didn’t recoil.

  Gasping with pain, I stretched my jaw. I was still only half a Blood Lifer: my venom wouldn’t function until the fangs were fully regrown. But you hadn’t let the Blood Club take them again.

  You’d saved me.

  Now I had to save the others.

  You were stroking the back of my hand. ‘I…decided I wanted to be here tonig
ht more than work.’ Your peepers were bright with tears. ‘What if I’d chosen work..?’ Those tears were for me. Deny it all you like. Call it a non-date. I don’t sodding care: you couldn’t let them do that to me because…we both know why. ‘Tell me,’ you begged, ‘everything they did to you.’

  Finally, I retracted my fangs and then, even though my wrists throbbed, I took your hand because you looked so bloody defeated. ‘Nosey bugger you are. I thought you were reading my journal?’

  ‘The truth.’

  ‘It is the truth.’

  ‘I need…the worst.’

  ‘It’s not enough?’

  You examined me with an intense gaze. ‘Family? Promises? There’s a whole notha buried story going on. And I wanna know.’

  I tensed. You’re no daft bint, are you? ‘If I tell you…will you let me go?’

  You snatched your hand back from mine in shock. ‘You wanna leave me?’

  I shoved up from the chair, still unsteady but unable to stop my agitated pacing. ‘I want to be free, sweetheart.’

  ‘Then no, Light,’ your voice had hardened, as you too pushed yourself up, your arms firmly crossed. ‘If freeing you means I lose you, then frickin’ no.’

  I was breathing too rapidly. ‘OK then, how about this: loan me out…just for…buggering hell…for a bit? I’ve got business, right?’

  ‘Business?’ You stared at me blankly.

  ‘I’ll write it. The worst of it. What I’ve promised and left behind. I write it. You read it. Then you’ll understand why you need to let me go. Even if I have to come back to you.’

  ****

  Want to find out what happens next in Rebel Vampires Volume 2: Blood Shackles?

  Pre-order it today on Amazon.

  Blood Shackles is released November 2016. Then sit back and experience the secret world of the Blood Club…

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