A sodding Long-lived.
Magnificoe?
The passionate kiss was gentled with intimacy. He cocooned me in the scent of ripened oranges with a hint of cypress, like we were lovers under an Italian sun.
Yet here’s the thing: once in those ‘60s tripped out days Donovan had snogged me, and it’d been like he and Ruby had learnt from the same lover.
When at last the Magnificoe drew back, I didn’t know whether to clout him or haul him back in for a second snog. ‘Plantagenet?’
The lips curled into a smile. ‘Well-beloved.’
Then Plantagenet dashed me backwards one – two – three times.
As I fell towards the long dark only one word spiralled on cruel accusing repeat: Sun, Sun, Sun…
Then everything went black.
NIGHT 7
You fear the dark, Mr Blickle, yet do you not also fear the flames?
The thing about me, sweetheart? I’ll never tire of staring into the glorious heart of the fire. The heat. The dancing, surging, freedom of those flames.
I don’t fear death, only slavery.
In First Life you were a bright up-and-coming barrister: how was Captain saving you? From what was he freeing you?
I didn’t need saving; I was happy.
I once knew a Blood Lifer, who believed in electing only the best, as if he was picking from a sweet shop. Advancement of the evolutionary superior. Aralt wanted to take over the world.
Most Plantagenets author differently; we burrow underneath to the enslaved: by families, societies or themselves.
Blood Life? Turns out it’s freedom. It’s not a loss.
Is that how you authored Sun?
Sun was different. Not electing her? That would’ve been the loss.
Pain. But that was nothing new. I groaned.
The sudden memory of having my nut smashed in by Plantagenet.
My peepers snapped open, and I sat bolt upright in…bed?
Bollocks.
I gripped the white silk sheets higher up my chest, like a starkers bird in some romcom after a one-night stand.
Not that I had any modesty left to preserve.
I carefully glanced around the cavernous bedroom. There was the cloying scent of cherry blossoms and no windows: that was novel.
Blood Lifer adaptations 101.
The dark grey walls were in that rich pigment, which bounces back until your temples ache. Biscuit carpets and pristine white ceilings.
Yet there was something off. Organic. As if the building was breathing, growing – evolving.
A spiderwebbed moon light cast me in twilight. The bedside tables had stainless steel bases but curled with fragile spirals of petals. Two oversized vases stood like sentinels either side of the – thank Christ – open door. One was black and painted with skeletal flowers. The other? A forest of green. They both had an unnerving beauty. The lilies inserted into their branches transformed the vases into blossoming trees.
I took a shufti at the threads on the bottom of the bed.
Blacks jeans and t-shirt? At least the wanker knew what I liked.
My blood screamed, punishing me for fighting the pull to Plantagenet.
Plantagenet would be one hell of a cult leader, except I reckoned it was more than that. He was a Magnificoe, a Long-lived like Hartford; I’d felt the power in Hartford too, but he hadn’t been my blood.
And it always comes back to blood.
Plantagenet, however, hadn’t even allowed me to speak. He’d silenced me instead.
I wasn’t exchanging one gag for another.
I’d burned Aralt in the sun, when he’d been head of my family – rebel here, yeah?
If Plantagenet hadn’t also saved Sun..?
He was going to wish I’d burned him like Aralt.
Resolved, I dragged on my jeans, before gently easing the t-shirt over my nut. Someone had washed the blood out of my hair; in fact, had cleaned every inch of me.
Considerate of them.
No socks or motorcycle boots. You forget how reduced you are in bare feet. Still, it was blinding for sneaking, and I was on a sneak mission.
I edged to the door, peeking out.
Long silent corridor. Same biscuit floors and grey walls. In hunt mode, I made no sound on the thick carpets. I slipped out into the corridor. It stretched like some wealthy bloke’s idea of the walk to heaven.
Nothing.
Then Ronson’s distorted Les Paul guitar riffs…drums…and that voice. “Ziggy Starburst” exploded in joyous eccentricity: a glam space fantasy.
I blinked. All right then, not what I was expecting.
I felt as far from home as Ziggy.
A splash of light – enchanted pale green – from an open door.
I glanced over my shoulder, before stalking shadow to shadow to the fairy light.
Peeper to the gap, I let my fangs descend, as I raised my fists.
Now I was bloody ready.
Forest baroque, like a world had sprung alive amidst twenty-first century tech. Steel, iron and titanium, but swarming with butterflies, moths and flowers. A breathing animal, which could swallow you. Screens of ivy in waves, and in the very middle? A humungous bed – big enough for…
Sun: she was dressed at least but back in Alex Highbury-Lord pencil skirt and ivory cashmere top. Plantagenet: at least I guessed it was him by the flicker of gold peepers; black curls cascaded to his waist. And some tosser I didn’t know (twice my size), in poncey Savile Row purple suit, his haircut so precise it could’ve been scientific – the billionaire to match the pad – like a First Lifer god in the centre.
The First Lifer’s jacket was thrown over a Louis XIV upholstered chair; his crisp white sleeves were rolled back, and his arms held out Christ-like (if Christ had been in ecstasy, rather than agony).
Sun and Plantagenet were on either side of the First Lifer, licking and nuzzling at shallow cuts along his arms: blood sharing. Their peepers were rolled to white, as they juddered.
Lost.
Me? I was the poor git peeping in at the door.
This? Meant the loss of my elected because I’d seen this before.
Blood sharing was sacrosanct. Yet Sun had broken it with one of our own. Worse? She was awake: but she hadn’t been there when I’d awoken.
Had she even seen me since the rescue?
I craved to rent the world…that First Lifer…all three of them…in two. Donovan, however, was still kidnapped, and I’d made a promise.
So instead, I slowly pushed open the door. ‘Alright?’
The three glanced up like they were doing no more than sipping tea together.
The First Lifer smiled. ‘Our sleepy head awakes. You’re too late to join the party.’
‘Pity that,’ I took a step forward, before realising my fangs were still out; I battled to force them back in. ‘Sun, luv, you mind telling me, whether you’re all in one piece after our adventure?’
At last Sun drew back from the human’s – muscled – arm. Crimson dribbled down her chin; she licked it off luxuriously. I suddenly realised she’d never drunk directly from a human before.
Bloody hell, what were they thinking?
She was flying.
How was I ever going to… I flinched when I imagined the word leash. But Sun unleashed? She’d be a wild Blood Lifer as fierce as Ruby.
I’d never wanted that for Grayse…bugger it…Sun.
‘Wanna try?’ Sun gestured at the bloke’s arm, as if it was ice cream. ‘It makes you, like, see the stars.’
The businessman let out a bark of laughter.
‘Blinding, sweetheart, but I’ve seen the stars: the real ones. And right now? I want a quiet word with Plantagenet.’
Plantagenet looked up from his licking, those lips curving into a smile. His peepers, however, were steel; he kissed the businessman teasingly, then – sodding hell – Sun too.
I bounced up and down on my toes, struggling to control the fighting instinct.
Plantagenet swung himself o
nto the edge of the bed.
Only then did it register that he was starkers: his slight form a piss annoyingly perfect warm Mediterranean olive. He raised an eyebrow.
Blushing, I turned around.
Still, that meant Plantagenet had been starkers in front of Sun.
I cut my tongue when my fang partially shot out. I whimpered, trying to hide it with a cough, as I sucked at the hole.
‘I’m Jamie Blake by the way,’ came a lazy drawl, ‘but most people call me Blake.’
I already had some other names for him… For once I kept my gob shut.
A hand on my shoulder, and I was yanked round, so fast I stumbled. Oranges and cypress wove their spell. Then Plantagenet’s neat hands were on my waist, steadying me.
A flash of silver: a ring on Plantagenet’s left hand. A slave ring?
Plantagenet was a slave? So Blake was..?
I hadn’t realised I was snarling, until Plantagenet took my chin hard between his fingers. ‘My dear child, calm yourself. What is done, is done. We must reshape the future, not bewail the past.’
‘You’re a sodding slave?’
I didn’t miss Plantagenet’s glance back at Blake – or Blake’s returning nod, before he answered, ‘Was, well-beloved. But I did not suffer at Master’s hand, as you and so many others did.’
I took in Plantagenet’s threads: the bloke was barely dressed. A silk white catsuit, slashed to the navel. Nothing but smooth golden skin and black curls. Two guesses who’d chosen it for him.
He had bare feet too, like me.
Yet those two lounging on the bed..? Sun was wearing embossed leather platforms. Blake: black Oxfords.
I could’ve bleeding wept.
‘I wished to train Plantagenet myself,’ Blake chipped in.
‘Not helping your case, mate.’
‘Indeed Jamie did take me in hand. But believe me, he discovered it not as easy as he'd bethought.’
Sun snorted. ‘Frickin’ join the club.’
Blake wrapped his tree trunk arm around Sun, as she burrowed down onto his laundered shoulder, like master and mistress chinwagging over the daftness of slaves.
I bristled, until Plantagenet shook my chin, and I was lost in his gold gaze again. ‘Yet love? We’re all her slaves, are we not? Master and slave alike? God’s heart, I never bethought to follow Cupid’s path to a First Lifer. Never that. For Jamie this was…it was new as well. Do not blame him: he’s the reason for your freedom.’
‘That right, is it?’
‘He saw those most despicable pictures of you and the others. The ones you uploaded, whereby none may pretend ignorance of the infamy, and it changed him.’
I wrenched away from Plantagenet.
He’d seen. Blake too. Ironic: because that was what we’d planned, when we’d hollered the truth of the slavery empire onto the Tor Network.
Yet to finally meet the mythologised Plantagenet, only for him to have witnessed my greatest humiliation, degradation and abuse?
I twisted away, stumbling out of the green, green, green, sinking in the spidery strains of David Bowie and my own hot shame.
‘Stay, my well-beloved. What ails you? You flame bright, not break at words.’
‘You don’t know me. Where have you been? 150 years is a long time to be missing.’
I sensed the sudden tension behind me. Note to brain: Magnificoe here – he could snap me in half with one of those small hands.
Instead, Plantagenet bounced around in front of me, his curls flying. To my shock, he was grinning. When he grabbed my hands, I fought not to flinch back. ‘Then we must make up, must we not? You are the true rebel in this war with the evil doers; we have merely taken up your standard.’
You know when suddenly the penny drops? And you sodding wish it hadn’t?
‘You’re the Renegades?’
‘Guilty as charged,’ Blake smirked.
‘And…’ I squeezed Plantagenet’s hand, ‘you’re the leader?’
Please…no…don’t let him say it…
Plantagenet dragged me close, his arms around my neck, caressing the strands at the base of my neck, as he swayed to the beat, beat, beat of the drums and blast of guitars, his snake-hips tight to mine, and - sod it - was it hard to remember I don’t dance. ‘In the country of the blind,’ he whispered hot into my ear, ‘the one-eyed man is king.’ Then he chuckled, low and sensuous.
‘Good on you,’ bugger, bugger, bugger, ‘but let’s just slow things down and rewind.’ I reluctantly pushed Plantagenet back, and he let me. I could never move him if he didn’t. He looked shocked, however, and hurt. I wondered how often his spell was fought. ‘The other night at that lab, there was a kid. At least…’ I tried not to think about the black body bag. ‘I would’ve told you, if you hadn’t gone all caveman. We need to go back and--’
‘Family?’ Plantagenet was frowning.
‘Bloody well he is.’
‘Then I have offended, and as high heaven is my witness--’
‘Na-ah, no way you’re going back there on account of some First Lifer. Either of you. You’re soft if you reckon I’ll let that happen.’ Sun shook her hand in the air imperiously. ‘The boy’s not family.’
I stared at Sun. Every moment I’d suffered in that lab thinking of her – loving her – taking it for her, so she didn’t have to.
I wish love wasn’t so bleeding blind.
‘A First Lifer?’ Plantagenet’s frown deepened.
‘What’s Blake then? An ape in a suit? Hang on a tick, yeah – he is.’
Plantagenet’s backhand slammed me so far across the room, I smashed through the ivy screen. I sprawled on the floor; the scent of cherry blossoms coppery now. I licked at the blood on my lips, as I hauled myself round.
Plantagenet was fidgeting on the spot, eyeing Blake worriedly.
Interesting.
‘Well, help him up then.’
Plantagenet rushed to lift me to my feet: Christ he was strong. He gave an apologetic shrug.
Blake stroked Sun’s hair slowly. ‘Plantagenet isn’t so keen on people insulting me. He’s a good guard dog.’
‘And me?’ I turned my gaze on Blake. ‘Not so keen on folks calling Blood Lifers mutts.’
A warm wetness on my lips… Plantagenet was licking the blood from my lips kittenish.
I guess I did always say waste not, want not.
‘Your boy? My apologies, but he is not of need to our mission. It’s a piteous look you bestow upon me, but a leader must make sacrifices. Make no bones about it – I shall.’
‘Not your sacrifices though, are they?’
I wondered then, when I’d be of no more need, and it’d be my turn to be sacrificed.
‘It’s my responsibility,’ solemnly Plantagenet studied the ring on his finger, ‘to free all slaves. To work until this unfair world has equal rights for Blood and First alike.’
‘Equal…what now?’ I spluttered.
‘Light…’ I heard Sun’s warning from the bed.
All right then, so my zealot of a touched ancestor was all for thrusting his hand into the fire too, but something had been niggling at me from the moment I woke up. ‘What I can’t figure? How you found Sun and me at that sick research lab?’
That quick glance by Plantagenet back to Blake; I wondered if he even knew he did it, or whether he was so conditioned, it was now automatic.
Blake stretched, before casually swiping the last oozing crimson off his arms to Sun, who sucked it with orgasmic fervour, and then turned his sleeves back down. He leapt up from the bed, sauntering over to Plantagenet: a giant and his captured fairy folk. ‘Hartford,’ Blake’s expression was hard and blank, transformed to all business. ‘This Blood Lifer shows up at the door. He knows about the Blood Club and about Plantagenet; he spins a tale about having discovered us via hacked names. Then an even more unlikely one about both you and some elected having disappeared. He thinks we’ll help find you.’
‘And you jump to help, just like that?�
�
Plantagenet was staring at the biscuit carpet, refusing to look up.
Blake swung his jacket off the armchair, sliding his arms into it, like cutting through water, in the way only the super-rich ever manage. ‘We take precautions. To some? We’re not freedom fighters: we’re terrorists. Our identities are secret for a reason. It could be a trick. A trap. To lure us--’
‘Where’s Hartford?’
Silence.
I took a shufti at Sun, who was avoiding my eye, with her knees drawn up to her chest. ‘You knew about this? You seen him then?’
Sun shrugged.
‘Not really an answer there, princess. Just take me to him.’
Plantagenet nodded.
‘I don’t give a rat’s arse if you’re my grandfather…whatever…Long-lived…Magnificoe. If Hartford’s not bloody alright? We’re going to have a barney.’
The first clue? Plantagenet hadn’t come into the room with me. The second? It was a bleeding BDSM dungeon: chains, paddles, and spanking benches. All present and correct. Unlike Master’s training room, however, it had the pristine feel of folks who played at this bollocks: rather than the cold hard cruelty of a slave trafficker who knew how to break a man.
‘I reckoned Blake fancied himself a Christian Grey,’ I muttered, as I edged passed a rack of red ball gags under the ambient lighting: I bet he had handpicked soundtracks to go with his sessions too.
But then..?
In the dark shadows at the back, I discovered the only honest – true – item in that dungeon, which was devised to break a man - or Blood Lifer.
A medieval rack.
Hartford was chained, stretched by hands and feet across it, pulled so impossibly tight his ribs stood out sharply; his pale belly was hollowed to a cavern. His limbs were strained and dislocated. His skin gleamed with sweat.
Shocked, I couldn’t make myself move any closer: this was because of me.
Hartford had come to this sodding place to get help but instead…he’d taken it for me, as he always did.
What could I ever say? Do?
Then I swallowed my bloody pride, kicked my arse and rushed to him: my family. I was here now and I’d never allow Hartford to sacrifice himself for me again.
Blood Renegades (Rebel Vampires Book 3) Page 14
