New Blood (The Blood Saga Book 2) (8 page)

Blood oozed down my lips. My tongue
stretched out, lapping up the spill that ran down my chin. My intentions were
to drop the man, but the lust was so overwhelming. I needed him desperately.

Wrapping around him as well, I fell
to the ground on top of him like the primitive hungry beast that I was. My
fangs dug into his broken neck sucking deep long drinks of his slowing blood.
Tearing at his flesh with more rash desire than I had even the first male, my
fangs connected to the bone in less than second. My nails dug into his arms and
shoulders like an animal. It was his blood that had smelled so wonderfully
sweet. And it was that.

My head was so clouded I couldn’t
focus. I had gotten too carried away despite how heightened my senses should
have been at that moment. So frenzied in my glorious obsession with my feast
that I was not focused enough to hear the racing through the woods.

They were faster than any animal,
lither and more agile. Three sets of footsteps raced to encircle me. There were
whispers through the trees as they watched me. I heard nothing.

My mind was gone and my body nearly
paralyzed from my first taste of human blood. Perfect and rich.
So ambrosias
.
All of that and so much more. It was my entire reason for existence I believed
in that moment. I had forgotten everything and everyone.

The force of a speeding train
slammed into me. This time it hurt. A shriek of panic escaped my lips as my
body was thrown. The force ripped me from my feast and threw me into the
ground, destroying the earth where my body plowed into it.

Crashing into a bolder buried into
the side of a hill. The rock broke and fractured into smaller pieces. Despite
the pain it was not a second after that when I was up again, bolting up and
leaping to a ledge near the falls.

When some animals fight for their
life they don’t always take into recollection what is attacking them in the
first place. All they know is to fight. Neither their faces nor their voices
had any effect on me. It was like I was something else entirely. Lianna wasn’t
home.

“Be easy with her, Hendrick. If you
hurt her then you’ll be fighting me next,” Damien spoke with such fury and raw
anger that I pegged him to be the biggest danger.

Phoenix circled behind me and
landed on my back, grappling my body as his arms wrapped hard around my neck,
jerking my body to bow back. A low snarl ripped from my lips from the pain and
terror. I had the other two on me before another second passed. My legs were
being clamped down on like steel beams by the largest. Frenzy over took my
body. Fighting with everything I had, the fight dislocating joints in my
struggle, I managed to twist and kick until I threw them off.

Just as I was free and twisting to
get away, the wiry one grabbed a hold of my shin. His crushing grip made me
scream as I felt the bone shatter under the pressure. My other foot aimed a
sharp kick for his head in my dire to get away but it did no good. He grabbed
my other ankle as it came down before I could even get close to hitting him.

“Don’t hurt her, Phoenix! You don’t
need to break her legs!”

Both my legs ensnared, the big one
fell on top of me suddenly. His torso crushed down on mine as both our arms
swung about madly. My body flailed with every ounce of strength I could muster.
Spine twisting and arching throwing my torso in any way possible I desperately
fought for freedom.

“Damn she’s strong!” Hendrick
grunted as my fist connected with his jaw. Just then, the third grabbed hold of
my wrists. All three of them pinned me down in the mud.

“Let me go!” the words ripped out
of my mouth in a snarl. The voice was that of a demon. My head was the only
thing not pinned down. Uselessly I fought, trying to bite anything near my
exposed fangs.

“We’ve gotta get her back to the
house, Damien. We’re not the only ones out here.” Hendrick grunted again, trying
to move and find a way to wrap around me more securely.

“Let go of her, Damien. Let
Hendrick and me take care of this,” as Phoenix spoke they all moved quickly,
repositioning. They lifted me up. Hendrick took hold of my arms, locking them
down close by my shoulders to incapacitate me. Phoenix had a firm hold on my
legs, holding them twisted in an impossible angle for them to have ever bent
naturally. I couldn’t have run on them anyway now.

While kicking and lashing out,
Phoenix twisted my shin, separating my knee from the joint and the bone. My
shin fractured from kneecap down to the ankle. Screaming again in both pain and
panic, I lashed out. My body arched back from the searing pain. “Phoenix, if
you hurt her again I will snap every bone in your body!” Damien bellowed as we
ran.

“If she doesn’t shut up we’re going
to draw attention to anyone nearby. Shut her up before I do!” Phoenix snapped
back.

Throughout all of this, I had not
put the pieces together yet. I had no memory of these three what so ever.

In a pure blood given rage, I was
no more than an animal fighting for survival. Fighting and losing.

Hendrick held me so tightly I
thought he would crush me to death as they ran with me. “If you would not have
broken her legs maybe she would not be screaming,” Damien seethed just as I
broke one leg free and kicked violently back over my head at Hendrick’s arm.

With spaztic kicks, I managed to twist
my way from their hold, twisting my spine in seizing fits. They lost their grip
and I fell to the ground only to jump up and grab the closest branch, scurrying
through the trees by my hands. I’d never imagined it possible for me to get
free while enduring so much physical pain.

“Damn it!” Hendrick snarled about
his broken arm. “Oh give me some credit, she’s stronger than she looks!”

You always hear people in movies
yell the words ‘don’t look back’ as advice to someone running. It’s very good
advice.

I looked over my shoulder back at
Hendrick and Damien. As I realized one was missing I fell flat on my back. “You’re
fast, cupcake, but I’m faster.” Phoenix sat on top of me, straddling me with my
hands pinned above my head in a single grip. All I could do was glare at him.
Before the others reached us he smiled down at me and raised a brow before
asking quietly, “I bet it was worth all this trouble. Wasn’t it? There’s
nothing quite like fresh human blood. You wanna know something Damien won’t
ever tell you?” He whispered quickly, “It’s even better when they run.”

In a blinding fast move, Phoenix
had me folded into a tight ball and held against his chest with his arms so
hard around me I could barely even squirm. “Let’s get you home, cupcake.” He
proved struggling was useless painfully and quickly. For each time I squirmed,
he’d dig his thumb into my side between my ribs separating the muscle. A nasty
technique. I don’t care what you are. It hurts.

It was only a few minutes before we
arrived at a massive house. Once inside Phoenix dropped me on to the hard
marble floor without so much as a concerning glance.

Immediately I flew up to the top of
the staircase, practically crawling, balanced on the railing on the balls of my
feet for the advantaged position. My body was too broken to hold me. Slipping
from the rail, I fell onto the hard marble floor below. The crash and burn was
enough to make a crash test dummy proud. Shuddering, my entire body cringed. I
fought to find an escape with no avail. Protectively, my arms covered my head as
I curled into a small ball.
Let it end fast.

But it would not end. In moments, my
mind felt clouded. Invaded by something. A thick, black fog rolled through my
head suffocating my senses, blinding my eyes. Burning away at my very veins.

A broken, horrible, agonized sob
broke from my lips as my nails dug into my temples to stop the searing pain.
Everything was turning black, incapacitating me when two arms scooped me up and
ran with me. It was then I lost consciousness.

As if falling asleep, I slipped
into my dream world. Dark and magnificent. Nightmares and magic blending
together. Worlds I did not know but felt familiar with. The whispers. The
voices. So powerful. I knew these voices but not well. These voices brought me
here in the beginning. When my body was taken from mortality and brought to my
immortal world, hundreds of voices had accompanied me then as they did now.

The Pixie Pire. Like an Irish sprite, venomous and
yet so playfully sweet. Hundreds of years of illuminating power wrapped into a
beautiful, young, merciless vixen. She gives a peak into a world filled with
dark magic unlike what dreams are made of. You may be blessed by the calming
euphoric ecstasy to inspire your very spirit. Or you may suffer a consequence.
Making your mind plead for an escape as your body shrivels in agony, unable to
recoil from the suffocating burn. She will never let you forget the price of
your defiance.

Without their knowing, I began to
stir. Too hazy to even remember my own name, I lay wondering why I felt so lethargic
as well as why my body was so painfully stiff. My mind was too tired to do anything
more than listen to them. Even fear seemed to be too much work to muster.

Lara and Damien were by the door.
She sat folded butterfly style on the floor while Damien leaned against it
heavily. “You have to drink, Damien. You’re useless to her like this,” Lara
spoke in a mere whisper.

“I drank on the mountain.” His face
was a placid color of blue white. “I drank from her before, and felt great
afterwards. She healed me. I’m fine.”

“But the exertion has made you weak
again.” His lips curled back in a sneer to her words. “She has-”

“If you finish that sentence you
will regret it, Lara. I won’t let Jezabell or anyone else hurt her again,” he
snapped at Lara in an angry whisper.

“You can’t do this by yourself.
Where would you take her that could possibly be safe and yet completely
isolated from humans the way we are? There is nowhere else to go, Damien,” Lara
sounded as if she were going to cry.

“She’s not safe here. Between
Phoenix and Jezabell she won’t last a year.” He paced back and forth in front
of the door.

“She’s a New Blood. She is as
dangerous as she is powerful. If they find you then you’re both dead.” Damien
stopped pacing and started to argue when Lara cut him off, “She’s also awake.”
I felt their eyes on me then. But my body was too stiff to even move. I hurt
everywhere.

Damien slowly came over to me while
Lara slipped out the door quietly. “Lianna,” his voice flooded with relief. His
eyes stared into mine for a long quiet moment. I could almost see the precise
moment he realized that I didn’t recognize him at all. “Anna, look at me. You
know me. It’s all right. How do you feel? Do you remember anything?” The
question was not for me though. I could hear it in his tone. He just didn’t
understand.

It seemed like a thick invisible
blanket were weighing down on me so heavily that it kept me from being able to
even try to think let alone move. My only response was to stare back at him as
I tried to find the memories.

“Well maybe I can remind you.”
Damien slid onto the bed beside me. His hands gently holding my cheeks pulled
me up even closer to him, forcing his lips hard onto mine. Reacting
instinctively my fingers latched around his wrists, struggling to pull free
from his firm grasp and the pressure on my mouth.

The more I struggled, the tighter
he held me. His lips refused to pull from mine. The longer this went on, the
more I clung tighter to his wrists. My mind didn’t know him in the slightest
but my heart knew well the cold fire that burned through me from his touch.

Before long, my hands were holding
around his neck, kissing him as deeply as if he were my entire reason for
living. My heart and body knew him so my mind conceded that nothing else
mattered.