The Tomb of Blood

by Britney Jackson

  “They do accept you, Alana,” Kara murmured against Alana’s neck, pressing another soft kiss on the soft, sensitive skin. “They’re just afraid of you.”

  “Good,” Alana said coldly. “They should be afraid of me.”

  “Alana,” Kara sighed. She trailed kisses up Alana’s pale, slender neck. Kara kissed and sucked at Alana’s neck, drawing soft, breathless moans from her lips. “Why do you want that?” she asked. Kara brushed Alana’s white-blonde hair aside and kissed the shell of her ear. “Why do you want them to fear you?”

  Alana closed her eyes and leaned back, surrendering her weight into Kara’s arms, their bodies pressing closer together. “You know why,” she said.

  Kara grasped Alana’s hips and turned her around, so that they stood face-to-face. She moved her hands to Alana’s face. “You don’t have to do this,” she said, staring into Alana’s dark blue eyes. “You’re not human anymore. No one is going to hurt you like that ever again. You have me now. If anyone tries to hurt you, I will kill them. You don’t have to become…what you’re becoming.”

  Alana leaned closer. “You think I’m becoming a monster, don’t you?”

  Kara sighed, “I think that I’ve seen you do a lot of terrible things lately.”

  Alana dug her fingers into Kara’s hips, her fingernails sinking into Kara’s skin as she pulled her closer. “What if I like what I’m becoming?” she hissed.

  Kara breathed out a low groan as Alana raked her fingernails down Kara’s spine. Kara leaned into Alana, her lips brushing against Alana’s as she slid her hands down to Alana’s soft, round breasts. She squeezed them, smiling as Alana gasped in response. “Lie down,” she whispered against Alana’s lips.

  Alana stepped back out of Kara’s arms, a seductive smile curving at her lips as she walked backward toward the bed. Kara stepped forward, following Alana. Her hands slid into Alana’s soft, pale blonde hair as she kissed her. Their lips never even broke apart as they fell into bed together. Kara straddled Alana’s hips and trailed her lips down Alana’s neck, down to her collarbone, and then, finally, down to her breasts. Kara covered one breast with her mouth, delivering a long, slow lick to Alana’s nipple, smiling as Alana gasped and arched her back.

  “Do you know,” Alana gasped, her dark blue eyes watching as Kara moved to the other breast, licking it, too, “what I love about sleeping with you?”

  Kara looked up at Alana and smirked. “Everything?”

  “Mmmm,” Alana moaned as Kara swirled her tongue around the other nipple. “You’re so attentive to what I want. It’s like you’re worshipping me.”

  “Isn’t that what sex is?” Kara said. “Worshipping each other’s bodies?”

  “It was never like that for me…before,” Alana said. Her voice cracked, as if she were on the verge of tears. “It was just someone using me, like an object.”

  Kara froze, her light blue eyes softening with sympathy as she looked up at Alana. She crawled up Alana’s body, bracing her hands on each side of Alana’s head as she held herself up above her. “You don’t have to worry about that ever again,” she said, her voice raw with sincerity. “I would never treat you like that.”

  “No one will,” Alana growled, “because now, people are afraid of me.”

  Kara nodded. “I get it, Alana,” she sighed. “I understand why you do all of this, why you want people to fear you, but…it doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “Yes, it does,” Alana argued. “It’s the only way.”

  “What about me? I’m not afraid of you,” Kara reminded her.

  Alana stared up at her coldly. “Well, maybe it’s time that changed.”

  Kara pulled back. “Why? Why would you want that?” she asked softly, her brows creasing with pain. “I treat you well, Alana. You know I do. I would never hurt you. And it’s not because of fear. It’s because I care about you.”

  “You care about me?” Alana said, frowning, as if she didn’t understand.

  “Yes,” Kara said, her eyes softening, “and also because…I love you.”

  “That was the first time you said it,” Alana said suddenly.

  Kara spun around, her eyes widening in shock.

  Because…Alana’s voice hadn’t come from the woman beneath her. It had come from someone else, someone standing behind her. The entire memory dissolved instantly as she spun around toward Alana. The real, present-day Alana, that is. They no longer lay together in the ancient, cave-like room, made of dirt walls and dirt floors. They stood within the same room, except…now, it was Kara’s room, a room that had been renovated many times within the last thousand years. Rather than that heavy, blue dress from the very early days of the Middle Ages, Alana now wore a thin, modern, blue dress that clung to her figure.

  Kara jumped up and raced toward Alana, burying a dagger in her heart.

  Alana glanced down at the dagger that was buried in her chest and raised an eyebrow. The dagger instantly dissolved, just like the rest of the memory had. “Did that make you feel better?” Alana laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but I didn’t feel a thing. This is your dream, remember? I’m just the one in control.”

  Kara fell to her knees, her entire body shaking as she tried to hold back the tears that burned at her eyes. “Stop doing this to me,” she whispered.

  “Ah, come on,” Alana chided. “These are good memories.”

  “Please,” Kara pleaded brokenly. “Just let me wake up.”

  “Oh my,” Alana said, her eyes widening. “Are you actually begging?”

  “I can’t keep reliving this,” Kara growled. “It hurts so fucking much.”

  “You could always come back to me,” Alana suggested.

  Kara bared her fangs at Alana, like an animal. “I hate you,” she snarled.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Alana scolded, wagging her finger. She knelt in front of Kara, her silky dress brushing against Kara’s thighs. She giggled. “Weren’t you paying attention to the dream? You love me. You just said so. Well, technically, you said it fourteen hundred years ago. But in a sense, you just said it again.”

  “I just want to wake up,” Kara sighed, all of her anger evaporating.

  “Not yet. First, I want you to…” Alana trailed off. She suddenly looked up at the empty bed, her eyes narrowing. “I’m really starting to hate that redhead.”

  Kara frowned at her. “What?”

  —

  “Kara, wake up.”

  Kara shot up in her bed, her heart hammering. She felt someone’s hand on her arm, and reacting purely on instinct, she jerked the person against her and placed the blade of her dagger against the person’s throat. It wasn’t until she saw the bright blue eyes blinking back at her that she realized who had touched her.

  “Rose,” Kara breathed, breathless from the panic racing through her body. She glanced down at the dagger that she had pressed to Rose’s throat and winced. She removed the dagger immediately. “I’m so sorry. It was…a reflex.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re not the first vampire to attack me for waking them up,” Rose laughed. Her azure eyes sparkled with amusement. “However, I think you are the first person I’ve ever known to sleep with a dagger under her pillow.”

  As Rose laughed, her chest rose and fell ever-so-slightly, making Kara suddenly very aware of the way Rose’s soft, fleshy breasts felt against her arm. Her icy blue gaze shifted down, darkening with lust as she stared at Rose’s black-and-blue, flannel pajama shirt, as if she could see straight through it. She realized, then, that her hand still clutched Rose’s arm, holding Rose’s body against her.

  “Yeah,” Kara said with a nervous laugh. “It’s a Viking thing, I guess.”

  “Or an I-have-a-psychotic-ex-lover thing,” Rose added dryly.

  Kara shifted her gaze back to Rose’s face, her brows furrowing. “Yeah.”

  Rose stared at Kara, her bright blue eyes softening with concern. She’d never seen Kara like this. Kara always looked so confident, so dangerous, but right now,
she looked broken and exhausted. Her skin looked paler than usual—ashen, really. Kara’s blue-and-black hair hung over her bare shoulders, drenched with sweat. Rose could feel the cold, wet hair brushing against her hand as Kara continued to hold her by the arm. As a matter of fact, with their bodies so close together, Rose could feel that Kara’s entire body was drenched in cold sweat.

  “Sorry,” Kara mumbled again, finally releasing Rose’s arm.

  “She was in your dream again, wasn’t she?” Rose asked sympathetically.

  Kara glanced around the room, relieved to see that Erik and Kallias still slept, unaware of her distress. Rose still sat next to Kara, on the edge of the bed, one leg hanging off of the bed and the other leg folded beneath her. Rose’s hair looked disheveled and frizzy, as if she’d just woken up, and as Kara glanced past her, at the other bed, she noticed that Rose’s sheets looked as if they’d been ripped back in a hurry. “How did you know?” she asked, frowning at Rose.

  Rose shifted uncomfortably. “You were kind of…talking in your sleep.”

  Kara stared at Rose, her eyes wide. “What did I say?”

  “Just…that you wanted to wake up,” Rose lied.

  Kara glanced down at Rose’s hands, watching the way Rose shifted them in her lap as she spoke. “I should take a shower,” she said suddenly.

  “Yeah. Of course,” Rose said quickly, jumping to her feet.

  Rose moved back to her own bed, sliding her cold feet beneath the black sheets. When Kara stood and stretched her arms above her head, Rose tried not to notice how Kara’s tank top slid up her stomach as she stretched…or how the black boxers that Kara wore rode up her thighs as she raised up on her toes.

  “If you need to talk about it,” Rose said softly, “I’m here.”

  Kara’s intense gaze suddenly shifted toward Rose. She lowered her arms and watched Rose for a moment, a hint of emotion flashing in those icy blue eyes. “Thank you,” she said, frowning, as if she were confused by Rose’s offer. “But I don’t really want to discuss Alana right now. Or…ever, for that matter.”

  Rose nodded. “Of course. I understand.”

  The intense, raw emotion in Kara’s eyes faded away, replaced by a gleam of mischievousness. Her gaze swept up and down Rose’s pajama-clad body. “Now, if you want to offer me a different kind of comfort,” Kara said seductively, a flirty smirk tilting at her lips, “you’re welcome to join me in the shower.”

  Rose couldn’t help but laugh at the absurd suggestion. “Are you really asking me to have sex with you while my boyfriend is sleeping in the next room?”

  Kara shrugged one shoulder. “It wouldn’t be my first time doing that.”

  Rose laughed, “You are so terrible!”

  Kara smiled as she watched Rose laugh. It was beautiful, she thought—the way Rose’s bright blue eyes sparkled when she laughed, the way Rose’s fair, freckled cheeks flushed a soft, luminous pink. She turned and walked toward the bathroom, but before she reached the door, she froze. “Thank you,” she said.

  Rose stopped laughing and frowned at her. “For what?”

  Kara looked at her. “For waking me up,” she said, raw sincerity burning in her icy blue eyes. “And…for lying about how much of the dream you heard.”

  Rose was quiet for a moment. “You could tell I was lying?”

  Kara smiled gently. “You’re not very good at it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rose sighed. “I just didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

  “I appreciate that,” Kara said sincerely, “more than you know.”

  13

  Mostly Gray

  “You’re avoiding me,” Rose accused.

  Kallias froze, just inside the bedroom, soap-scented steam still drifting out of the bathroom. His drenched, brown hair dripped water onto his black button-down shirt as he stood there, frowning at her. “I was taking a shower,” he muttered. “I didn’t realize that taking a shower was considered avoiding you.”

  Rose stood across the room from him, leaning against the edge of the bed, her arms crossed across her chest. “When you wake up before sunset just so you can sneak into the bathroom before I wake up, it’s called avoiding me.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  She sighed at the cold dismissiveness in his voice. “Kallias, you’re a freaking giant, and we’re sharing a bed. And somehow, you still managed to avoid touching me the entire day. I didn’t even realize that was possible before today.”

  “Well, the last time I checked, you weren’t a big fan of P.D.A.,” Kallias said, gesturing toward the other bed. “I didn’t realize you changed your mind.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “Well, the last time I checked, your arm brushing mine wasn’t considered P.D.A.,” she countered. “Admit it. You’re avoiding me.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Rose,” Kallias said stoically.

  Rose threw up her hands. “But we are fighting!” she laughed. “We fight about something every night. And we’re going to continue fighting about every, little thing until you finally tell me the real reason that you’re angry with me.”

  “I’m not angry,” he argued.

  She gave him a skeptical look. She sighed. “You’re angry because…you think,” she said uneasily, heat rushing to her face, “that I’m attracted to Kara.”

  Kallias stared at her with raised eyebrows. “I don’t think that. I know that. I’m a telepath. I can read your mind,” he reminded her. He laughed as he saw her blush deepen, “And even if I weren’t, you’re not very good at hiding it.”

  Rose looked away, mortified. “Sorry.”

  He rolled his eyes. “It’s fine, Rose. You don’t have to apologize,” he muttered. “I’m not angry about you being attracted to her. You’re not the only woman I’ve ever been attracted to, and I know that I’m not the only person that you’ll ever be attracted to. I’m twenty-five hundred years old. I can accept that.”

  “It didn’t sound like you accepted it,” she said, frowning, “last night.”

  He sighed, “I wasn’t really upset about that. I just…snapped. I was agitated, and…I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Then…you’re angry that I attacked Osiris?” Rose guessed.

  He scowled. “No, it’s not that either.”

  “Then, what is it, Kallias?” Rose asked. “Why are you so angry?”

  “I’m not,” he said irritably. “Everything is fine.”

  “No, everything is not fine!” she argued. She laughed in disbelief. “Nothing has been fine for a while now! You can’t keep burying your feelings, Kallias. It’s like filling up a bottle and shaking it. Eventually, it’s going to spew.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” Kallias said again.

  “But that’s how relationships work!” Rose said. “You fight, and you make up. And then, the relationship is stronger than it was before. Whatever it is that’s coming between us—it can be fixed. You just have to tell me what it is.”

  “You can’t fix everything, Rose,” Kallias said harshly.

  “I can try,” Rose insisted stubbornly. “You just have to talk to me.”

  His brown eyes darkened with anger. “Talk,” he repeated, his voice sharp with bitterness. “Like the way you talked to me before you decided to die?”

  She held up her finger. “Or…the way you talked to me before you decided to turn me into a vampire,” she countered, flashing a sarcastic smile.

  “You were dead, Rose,” he snarled. “Dead! Do you understand that?”

  “Of course I understand it!” she laughed incredulously. “I remember it! I actually remember dying.” A haunted look came into her bright blue eyes. “I remember how it felt to be dead. And I remember how it felt to wake up as this.”

  For the first time all night, the hard, glinting anger in Kallias’s light brown eyes faded. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, his gaze softening with sympathy.

  “Don’t be,”
Rose said. “I’m grateful to be alive…even if it means that I’m a vampire now. And I understand why you turned me. I’m not angry at you.”

  Kallias looked away, his jaw tightening. “You should be,” he muttered.

  “No, I shouldn’t,” she argued. “We both made decisions in the moment when we didn’t feel there was an alternative. Now, we just have to accept them.”

  His gaze suddenly snapped back toward her. “No,” he growled. “You decided to die, Rose. It’s not the same. And you didn’t make that decision in the moment. You had already decided ahead of time to sacrifice yourself for us.”

  Rose frowned. “How did you know that?”

  “The same way I know everything,” Kallias snarled. “I read your mind. You knew all along that you were going to die, and you hid it from me.”

  Her frown deepened. “But…I haven’t thought about that recently.”

  “I’m a powerful telepath, Rose,” he reminded her. “Conscious thoughts aren’t the only thing I can read. I can access memories, too, if I want. Especially if you’re asleep.” His eyes narrowed. “I saw your conversation with Erastos.”

  Rose stared blankly at him, stunned that he had just admitted to looking at her memories while she slept. “I don’t even know what to say,” she laughed. “Except…if you wanted to know something, you could have just asked.”

  “Why?” Kallias asked. “So you could lie to me again?”

  “I did it to save your life!” Rose reminded him.

  “That’s the problem with you, Rose,” he said angrily. “You’re always trying to save everyone. You care about everyone, except for yourself.”

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s something I can change.”

  “I don’t know if it’s something I can accept,” he countered.

  The door opened. “Hey, guys, guess what?” Erik said as he slid into the room with a bottle of clear liquor in his hand. “Thanks to Kara, no one attacked me tonight.” His smile faded as he noticed Kallias and Rose staring at each other, and his eyes widened as he felt their emotions. “Am I interrupting something?”