“Sucker.” My voice was a hoarse gasp as I sprinted down the corridor, one hand on the wound at my neck.
“Watch out,” Tobias shouted, his body pressed to the door in an attempt to keep the horde out. Snarls and yips filtered through the ever-growing gap. Feral Fang snapped and groaned, eager for a taste. Feral Fang behind us, Feral Fang in front. But wait, the sucker who’d attacked me had been uninfected. How was that even possible? It didn’t matter. No time to dwell.
“Out of the way.” I shoved Emily at Tobias. “Back up,” I ordered Tobias.
He took in my expression, my newly acquired blade, and the wound at my neck, and then he launched himself away from the door.
The horde poured in, and I leapt into the fray, dropping to my knees in a slide, blade sweeping in an eviscerating arc. Black blood sprayed, Emily’s scream lit up the room, but my body was moving on autopilot, cutting down the monsters, clearing a path out of the building.
“Now.”
Tobias and Emily slipped out into the night, and as the final Feral fell, I followed them into the moonlight. We ran as more Fangs leapt off the roofs, hitting the ground, howling as they loped after us in pursuit. Fangs weren’t as fast as Claws, but they were fast enough. Emily stumbled, and Tobias grabbed her elbow, hauling her against him, forcing her to keep running. There was no destination in mind, only escape. But the voice of reason, that darned logic, screamed that outrunning them was impossible, not now that they had our scent. There was no river close by, no way to wash our scent away and lose them. Ten behind us. If Tobias had a blade, we could have taken them. But there was only me.
Leave them as bait, fight your way out.
Dad’s voice was strong in my mind.
Survive.
The strong survive.
Emily as bait, possibly, but not Tobias … No, he’d hate me if I sacrificed Emily. There was only one thing to do.
“Keep running. Just keep going. I’m right behind you.” My voice was still hoarse from the Fang attack.
Tobias faltered.
“Move your arse, Tobias Flynn.” I channeled my father, and Tobias picked up speed. The gates were looming. “I’m right behind you. Do not stop.”
I slit open my palm.
And then I skidded to a halt and turned to face the oncoming horde.
Chapter Ten
The tide of Fangs, semi-desiccated bodies, rushed to meet me, thrown into a frenzy by the blood caked to my throat and the fresh wound in my palm. Something red glinted on one of their necks, a collar? But then they were closing in and my brain switched gears, going straight to my mental playlist.
It was time to dance.
Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” began to play in my head, and it was time for some serious decapitation. One sucker, two sucker, three sucker, four. Five sucker, six sucker, seven sucker, more? Fuck!
They came at me from the right. I spun, my inner track faltering as blade met flesh. Blood rushed in my head, drowning out Motorhead as something hit me from behind. Fire raced down my back. An elbow punch to the thing’s gut and I was free, stumbling back and running while they advanced. Away, needed to lead them away from the main gates. Away from Tobias.
What are you doing? Dad sounded pissed. You’re going to get yourself killed.
Guilt clawed at my heart. Guilt at almost abandoning my best friend under a bridge with a monster. This was my penance.
Not if you die.
Time to stand my ground again.
As the Feral closed in, “Ace of Spades” began to play, and my body prepared to dance again.
* * *
Had the stars always been this bright? Or maybe impending death was lifting a veil from my eyes. The steady pump of my blood seeping out of my many wounds and into the dry, cracked earth and my ragged, irregular breath were the only sounds in the cold, still night. The Feral were down, but they’d taken me with them.
Laughter bubbled up my throat, a sound filled with life, if only I could move.
It would be over soon. No more fighting. No more loss. No more pain. The stars called to me, and I watched, counting them as my vision blurred in and out of focus, as my life blood fled my body as if it were a curse. How long before a person bled out?
Sunshine and the scent of freshly cut grass. Kisses, sweet kisses and toffee popcorn, hot cocoa under the stars in the compound garden… Memories of safer times. Happy memories that usually made me feel better, but nope, sorry, still feeling bad.
So sorry, Tobias. So sorry, Dad.
The crunch of boots echoed through the silence, invasive and intrusive. A shadow fell over me. Cold hands touched my face and startling gray eyes blocked out the stars.
The Fang from the storeroom, the one who’d bit me. Uninfected but hungry. Was he going to finish me off? But he was surveying the land around me, his brow creased in a neat frown. He was big, and his rugged, stubbled face hid the perfectly formed lips that had sucked on my neck not long ago.
“You Fang …” The word ended in a slur. “Bit me …”
His attention snapped back to me, and his eyes shone like pennies in the dark. I reached up with a strength I didn’t know I had and touched his chilly jaw. My fingers, deathly pale against his tanned skin, left a bloody trail as they slipped away. My blood had put color back in his cheeks and now that same blood was seeping into the ground, wasted. Was it getting darker?
Arms slipped under me, and my body was torn from the cold, dead earth. Where his hands had been chilled, his body was warm. He cradled me against a wide, muscular chest, and the heat seeped into me, reviving, urging me to live. The scent of cedar competed with the coppery smell of my blood. His nostrils flared, and then he pulled me close, dipped his head, and swept a rough tongue over the wound at my neck. The wound he’d made. Fire shot through me, searing my veins and tearing a hoarse scream from my throat. His mouth latched onto me and horror swelled my heart.
No. Not again. But there was no bite. No draw of blood. This wasn’t the kiss of death, it was life. It flowed into me, white-hot and healing. My teeth began to chatter, and as if coming out of a dream, my body went into shock. Wounds. How many did I have? How much blood had I lost? Brain back online, sense back in the driving seat.
Live. Yes, I wanted to live. I gripped the guy’s shirt tightly in my fist and raised my head with great force of will. “My sword. My friends.”
He blinked down at me in surprise.
“My friends …”
He shook his head, his gaze filled with sorrow.
What did that mean? “No …”
But we were moving, faster and faster, the world rushing by.
Leaving? No, we couldn’t leave. Tobias needed me. I’d promised I’d be right behind. He was alive. I knew it. I bucked, trying to get free, but my movements were weak and sluggish.
“My friend. I need to—”
The roar of an engine swelled in the night, followed by the screech of tires. The Fang came to a halt and looked down at me, and then he leaned in, wrapping me in his cedar scent, and pressed his warm, dry lips to my forehead.
“Ash, thank God!” The voice was a deep baritone.
“And look, he picked up dinner,” another voice said, smooth and snarky. “Give it here.”
The Fang holding me, Ash, looked down at me, his eyes glinting silver in the moonlight. A strange expression crossed his face, and then his grip on me tightened and his chest rumbled in a warning growl.
“Back off, Logan,” the first voice said. “It’s all right, Ash. You can fill us in when we get back to base.” This tone was soothing, as if reasoning with a wild beast. The world rocked as we climbed up into the vehicle.
Tobias. I had to get to Tobias, but my limbs were lead and my eyelids glued together. Doors slammed and an engine roared, and darkness claimed me.
* * *
“Bullshit, Ash. No way did she take down fifteen Fangs by herself.”
It was the smooth, snarky voice from earlier, and it immediately put my te
eth on edge. Unfortunately, my eyelids still seemed to be sealed shut. But my mouth wasn’t.
“Twenty …” My voice cracked. “No, make that twenty-five.”
Silence filled the air. “Well, it looks like sleeping beauty’s awake and delusional.”
As if his words were a spell to release me from an enchantment, my eyes sprung open to a gray, cracked ceiling. I turned my head and was greeted with bars. They had me trapped. Fangs had me in a fucking cage. The revelations sparked a mixture of rage and terror that stole my breath. Calm, Eva. Calm. They could smell fear. They could smell weakness. They were uninfected Fangs. Something Dad had said didn’t exist any longer, but heck, we’d been locked in a compound for almost thirteen years so who could know for sure.
They may have been upstanding members of society once, but they were now nothing more than monsters that would do anything to survive.
I sat up and swung my legs off the narrow cot they’d laid me on. “Big bad Fangs like to lock up little humans, huh?”
My attention zeroed in on the Fang who’d fed off me—Ash, that’s what they’d called him. “I appreciate you plucking me from death, but I need to get going.” I stood up and walked up to the bars. “Now let me out.”
“You’re hardly in a position to make demands,” the snarky one said.
I tore my gaze from Ash’s huge bulk and focused on the Fang with the designer stubble. Chestnut hair and warm brown eyes. He was all black T-shirt, pecs, and biceps. And if not for the cocky look on his face, he may even have been attractive. He was smaller than Ash and could almost have been mistaken for human if not for the hunger in his gaze, a gaze that was fixed on my neck.
I clenched my jaw. “Touch me and die.”
He smiled sharkishly. “And how do you intend to defend yourself?”
He stalked toward my cell, and there was no doubt that I was in the presence of a predator. It was in the rippling of his muscles, the flash of fang, and the focused gleam in his dark coffee eyes. The bars were the only thing keeping me safe right now, but I’d be damned if I’d cower.
Ash moved so fast he was practically a blur, and then his back was to me and his growl was a live warning.
“Shit, Ash.” Snarky guy held up his hands and backed up. “I’m not about to take a bite, not until she’s been cleared … Yeah. I know you said she’s clean, but that was before she was attacked by Feral …”
Ash had his back to me, and he hadn’t spoken but was communicating with snarky guy somehow. Sign language, maybe?
“The heck, dude?” snarky guy said. “You know the score. We share. Always.” His tone was flippant but there was real anger in the set of his jaw.
The two Fangs faced off for a long minute, and then Ash took a menacing step toward his companion.
The snarky guy held his ground. “She’s food. Get that through your thick skull.”
And then he was flying across the room and slamming into the wall. He coughed, shook his head as if to clear it, and pulled himself to his feet.
His brown eyes blazed with gold flecks, the pupils standing out like pinpricks of danger. “Tut, tut. I’m the rule breaker in this unit.” He leaned to one side, head cocked to see past Ash into the cell. “You must taste divine for Ash to lose his head over you.”
Ash stepped back against the bars, shielding me from the snarky Fang’s view.
“We’ll see what Noah has to say. If she’s clean, then she belongs to us all.”
My pulse kicked up. “Fuck you. I don’t belong to anyone. You let me out right now.”
He offered me a cocky grin that promised pain and then strolled out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I prodded Ash’s back through the bars. “My blood saved your life, and you return the favor by bringing me here? To be used as a fucking source of food for you and your comrades …” I choked on the words and then reined in the panic.
Getting emotional would achieve nothing. Think, dammit. There had to be a way out of this situation. He’d saved my life, but he didn’t seem too keen on sharing me with the others. Maybe there was something there I could use?
“Look, get me out of here and help me find my friends, and I promise, I’m yours.” Lies, of course. Promises didn’t mean anything in this world any longer. It was all about leverage and opportunity.
He turned to face me, looking down on me from his lofty height, his silver-penny eyes gleaming in the gloom, and then he sighed and shook his head.
“What? Yes? No? Maybe? What?” I grabbed the bars in a white-knuckled grip. “My friends are out there. They’re alone, and they won’t survive without me.”
His brow arched as if to say, arrogant much?
“It’s not arrogance, it’s a fact. Emily isn’t a survivor, and Tobias is way too gallant. She’ll get him killed.”
He was staring at me strangely now, probing and insistent, and then his attention fell to my neck. I reached up to touch the wound, but there was nothing but unbroken skin. He’d healed me.
His obsidian pupils dilated, and his tongue peeked out to sweep over his full bottom lip. My pulse jumped, remembering the pain and then the heat that mouth had wrought. My heartbeat picked up eagerly. No. I took half a step toward the bars and caught myself. He tore his gaze away, turned his back on me, and strode from the room.
My heartbeat slowed to resting pace.
I was all alone.
My hand went instinctively to my breastbone, patting to make sure Dad’s key was still there. Now to check for weaknesses to my prison. The room was twelve-by-ten and mine wasn’t the only cage. There were two others. No actual locks on the bars, but there were three levers on the wall attached to some kind of mechanism. The release for the damn doors, no doubt. One exit led out of this room, and there were no windows. The ground was cement and the walls plastered in a dingy gray color. There had to be some weakness to my prison.
Ten minutes later I was back on the cot, head buried in my hands, panic a live thing in my chest. Breathe. There had to be a way out of this, and then like a godsend, the door opened and a petite woman walked in.
Human. She had to be, because Fangs were all tall and powerful.
She was carrying a tray. Her hair was a wet-sand blonde and cropped short to her scalp. Her face matched, elfin with huge brown eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless gray tunic, black leggings, and a smile. A peacock feather-patterned scarf was wrapped around her throat.
“Hello, my name’s Gina. I thought you might be hungry.” Her voice was feminine and sweet. She held up the tray like a peace offering. “Ash says you lost a lot of blood. You’ll want to eat the chocolate first.” She plucked something from the tray and slipped it between the bars.
My brain short-circuited for a moment. Chocolate?
The world went still and then the bar was in my hand, the wrapper was off, and the whole thing was crammed in my mouth. My taste buds sparked to life, saliva pooling in my mouth as I chomped. Heavens above, how long had it been?
“Whoa, easy,” Gina said. “There’s more where that came from.”
More?
She placed the tray on the ground as close to the bars as she could get it—bread and what looked like some kind of tinned meat.
“It tastes better than it looks, I promise. It’s my own special recipe.”
“You’re human.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Don’t tell me, you’re here of your own free will. A blood slave to the Fangs.”
She stared at me steadily and some of the warmth seeped from her eyes. “I’m no blood slave. I’m a woman trying to survive. Noah, Logan, Ash, and Jace keep me safe, and in turn, I feed them.”
A transactional relationship. That I could understand. “How many more are there?”
“Excuse me?”
“How many more humans?”
She ducked her head. “No one else. Just me.”
I scanned her tiny frame, her bony wrists and slender arms and thighs. She was feeding four Fa
ngs? The idiot. “They’ll bleed you dry. They’ll kill you.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s better than what’s out there.”
Out there was free will. Out there was not being a blood bag for a Fang. “How long have you been … with them?”
“I’ve been feeding them for almost six months now but taking it in turns with the others.”
Okay, now I was confused. “Others? I thought you said you were the only one?”
She rolled her eyes as if chiding herself. “I’m sorry. Let me explain. I used to live at Haven, and there were a few of us who volunteered to feed the four in exchange for their assistance in scavenging.”
“What happened to everyone?”
“We have no idea. I was on a scavenge trip with Ash, Jace, and Logan six weeks ago when it happened.”
Of course, they’d like to take a snack with them. I kept my expression neutral. “Go on.”
“We got back to find Haven had been breached and everyone was just gone.” She tucked in her chin. “There was blood and signs of a struggle. Empty shotgun shells littered the ground. The Feral had found a way in.”
The gate had been wide open, the flora barrier hiding the entrance torn away. “No. Someone let them in.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. We left and came here, but it’s been playing on all our minds. Ash’s theory matches yours, though.”
Ash, the Fang who wasn’t fond of speaking? “Ash told you his theory?”
Her gaze flicked up to meet mine, and her mouth lifted in a small smile. “Yes. Ash doesn’t speak with his tongue, but he speaks very well with his hands. I’ve picked up enough to get by.”
He was mute? That explained the silence.
“He’s the one who sent me here with food. He told me you saved his life.”
I shifted on the floor and reached through the bars for the bread. “Trust me, it wasn’t intentional and certainly wasn’t consensual.”
She winced. “Ash doesn’t feed very often. He can go weeks without blood. He must have been gravely injured to have attacked you.”
For the Blood: For the Blood Book 1 Page 6
