Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1) (29 page)

Then Susan disappeared inside, slamming the door, and we were left alone.

I was more frightened in that moment than when I’d been on the burning ship, with the stink of roasting flesh and Kira’s brawny arm around my throat. Have you ever understood what you do to me?

You could flay me with a look.

We circled each other, like two lions sussing each other out. Not knowing if the other would attack.

At last you shrugged. ‘This is what it’s all been about? Advance? Why you..?’

‘I never wanted to--’

‘Shut your gob.’

In the silence, I couldn’t meet your eye. Every decision and choice were no man’s responsibility but his own; sod it, I knew that. ‘I’m sorry.’

You edged closer to me, step by careful step, reaching your fingers up, like you were going to trace down my chest. I was desperate for your touch; I could feel it ghost-like. Your hand, however, hovered inches away from me, as if I was infected. For the first time after the horrors I’d witnessed on Radio Komodo and Aralt’s vision of a Blood Life future, I felt as if I bloody well was.

Your voice was soft and close to tears, but none spilled. ‘You promised you’d never leave me.’

And there it was: the killing blow.

I howled inside with rage at everything the Plantagenet siblings had stolen, broken and contaminated. At your pain, which I could never take back.

You were right though. It was me alone, who’d made that promise. No one else.

Yet now I’d endangered you again, and the only way to make you safe was to send you away. You’d once said, however, that hurt could be passed on. And I intended to pass it on with bloody credit.

I couldn’t risk myself saying more than, ‘Please go with Susan.’

You just shook your nut.

‘Christ in heaven…’ I booted the wall hard enough to jolt the throbbing hurt from my smashed toes right up my leg and then grabbed you by your shoulders, not caring that you tried to flinch away. ‘Please?’

You stood there – frozen - like you were made of glass, only gazing at me with those large blue peepers, before you asked, ‘Do you love me?’

I was surprised to realise it was
my
mush, which was wet with tears. I dropped my hands from your shoulders, gripping your fingers tight between mine instead, as I’d done in those treasured, quiet moments. I couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not after everything. ‘I’ve always sodding loved you.’

Then you kissed me gently on my bruised cheek. ‘You fair think I’d leave without you?’

You’d reckon that on the way to the scaffold or the front line, some deep thoughts on life, the universe and everything would spark. Or maybe a moment of revelation or clarity, when the fragments slot into perfect place. Or else there’d be some bleeding peace at the end at least. But then life’s not neat like that. It’s mundane for the most part. Confused up to the final gasp. The interesting thing is that it’s no different the second time round.

I waited for Aralt at the bottom of the wide staircase, by the doors out into the clear winter sunlight. He was barely keeping nocturnal hours anymore; like other Blood Life adaptations, our night-time living was to Aralt nothing but a weakness to be overcome. I was sure he had scientists somewhere working on that too.

As I tested the handle –
up
,
down
,
up
,
down
– tapping my foot with nervous energy, I tried to think only of you: my Moon Girl fallen to earth as
my
girl. I conjured the purr of your voice. The brilliant sparkle of you up on that stage. And those long nights, when I’d obsessed over your photo. Then, however, how much better the reality of your touch had been than I’d ever dreamed, as I’d tossed off whispering your name.

After all, I might as well make my last memories on this maddening earth blinding ones, right?

Yet I found, like water, that I couldn’t hold onto them. Instead I kept blanking out, as my mind wandered to the buzzing of the flies, which were collecting in the ceiling’s corners, the sensation of the cold metal handle or the stink of noxious smoke, which was still sticky in my nostrils.

I lit up one last fag, drawing in deeply: a condemned man’s final request.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs but not a single pair: Aralt wasn’t alone. When he came strutting down, I saw Ruby magisterial on his arm, Alessandro scampering close behind and Donovan yapping at his heels.

‘It stopped mid-broadcast, man. Not cool,’ Donovan tried to grasp at Aralt, but Aralt was still heading down the stairs without slowing. ‘You gotta sort it.’

Yeah that was right
,
a couple more steps
…

I tossed the fag away, rubbing my hands together.

‘What has befallen my dearest prince?’ Ruby was staring at me in surprise. She stopped, assessing the damage; I must’ve looked a bleeding mess - but then Ruby didn’t know the state of my adversaries.

I pressed my back against the door. I could see Alessandro’s pale face, as he cringed back against the wall, his hands instinctively clutched over his ears.
Christ
,
if he started to
rock
…

I forced myself to breathe. ‘I know.’

‘Know what?’ Aralt jumped the last two steps, before swaggering towards me.

‘About Radio Komodo. And Silverman.’

Donovan was glancing between us. I couldn’t read his expression, but there was enough confusion in his peepers to make me wonder if he’d been played worse than I had. I hadn’t been betting on that. But Ruby? There were no surprises there. Her expression hadn’t changed - although of course she knew the truth when she shared a bed with her brother. I guess that was one thing Donovan couldn’t give Aralt.

I was part of one hell of a screwed up family.

‘Don’t hold out on me,’ Donovan sidled closer. ‘It’s dead air and--’

‘Shut up ya pile of nancy,’ Aralt’s gaze was intent on me, as he flicked my chest. ‘You’ve been fierce bold nosing into my business. What do you know?’

For the first time, I allowed myself to smile. This was it, when I brought Advance’s cardboard empire toppling, just like my life had been tumbled down. This nobody had teeth. ‘
Everything
.’ Aralt took one careful step back. ‘You wanna control the First Lifers. And for what? Blood on tap? Are we predators or businessmen?’

Donovan spun to his brother. ‘What’s he talking about?’

‘Not now.’

Donovan slammed Aralt against the wall, his fangs shooting out. ‘This was mine, you said. Promised. After everything, Advance was gonna be
my
baby. What have you fecking done?’

Aralt squirmed. Bloody hell, it was blinding to see that. ‘Nothing. It’s… You’re my brother.’

Donovan pushed himself off Aralt. ‘Am I now? Used to be.’

‘Don’t…’

‘I reckoned you already knew, ’ I said softly, not looking up at them, ‘seeing as Kira was on board. Wasn’t she
your
Night Terror, Donovan?’

Bugger, did that hit the mark.

‘You bastard,’ Aralt stared at me, as if a kicked puppy had sunk its teeth into his ankle.

‘
Boom
,
boom
,
boom
…’ I replied dispassionately.

Aralt’s jaw tensed, the muscles ticking. Before he could fly at me, however, I heard Donovan’s small question, which stopped him, ‘You used Kira?’’

‘You don’t understand. This was important--’

Donovan yanked his brother back by the lapels of his expensive suit; Aralt grimaced as it creased. ‘She’s my elected. Still you ordered her to keep secrets from me?’

‘I didn’t need to order.’

Donovan flinched. ‘We fought a war together, but now you’d have Kira tell your petty lies?’

‘Petty?’ Aralt flung his brother’s hands off him, shoving him back. ‘
This
is a war. Are you blind?’

Bewildered, Donovan stared at him. ‘Kira’s mine.’

‘Yours?’ Aralt snorted. ‘How could
you
satisfy a woman?’

Donovan stepped back in the silence, before stalking to the stairs. Ruby grabbed for the sleeve of his jacket, but he shook her off. He didn’t look round at Aralt again. ‘We stood side by side, even as our home burned and us with it. But whatever
this
is? You kept me in the dark. Like a stranger. Look, I’m gonna split before I have a total freak out and if I do…’ Donovan legged it up the stairs, pausing at the top in the shadows. ‘We’re not blood brothers anymore. And that’s on you.’

Then he was gone.

There was a long moment. Then Aralt dragged his fist back and slammed it into the wall. The plaster crumbled, but his knuckles were bloody; I hoped they were broken.

I smiled because an enemy’s pain is the most delicious type there is; anyone who pretends different is a liar. Aralt had lost his brother, the same as he’d made me lose you. I don’t normally go in for all that
eye for an eye
,
tooth for a tooth
stuff. But right then? It felt sodding smashing.

It felt slightly less smashing the next moment, when Aralt looked up from flexing his hand and caught my smile.

I read the murder in Aralt’s expression. He squared his shoulders, like the head of the pride once more, before he prowled towards me. As I figured it, this was bloody perfect.

Time for the heroics then.

I steadied myself, testing the handle and gripping its cold iron harder.

‘Pray let me correct Light’s behaviour. I’m sure he did not…’

Aralt didn’t even seem to have heard Ruby. And here’s the thing, when I glanced at her, there was still this sparkling defiance in her expression, as if I’d been a daft berk for ever thinking there’d have been a hint of apology for her scheming. Yet at the same time, there was also that glorious fire, which made me remember - in one flaming moment - every decade of cruel carnage and love.

And that was the moment Aralt swung for me.

I felt my lip split and the burst of my own blood on my tongue. I heard Alessandro slide to the floor and start to whine.

‘Who told you?’ Aralt’s voice was so soft it sliced with danger.

I shrugged.

Another belt, this time to the kidneys. I needed Aralt closer and more off balance. If I could wear him out through giving me a hiding, it wouldn’t be long…

‘How’d a wee gobshite like you..?’

‘Must’ve underestimated me, mate.’

That earned me a kick in the goolies. One more step and…

‘Me. It was me.’

Bollocks
.

Alessandro was staring up at his Author with wide peepers, terror vibrating through him, until he quivered with it. Still he didn’t look away.

‘Shut up, Alessandro,’ I tried to grab at Aralt to distract him from Alessandro, but it was too late. The noble bugger had put himself in the firing line to save me. And there was nothing I could do about it.

‘You told him?’ Aralt asked shocked, as if he couldn’t compute that his tame little Blood Lifer could ever have an independent thought; my rebel nature had rubbed off on Alessandro, even after Aralt’s training. ‘You fecking told him?’

‘All this…was meant to be about Komodo you said…but it wasn’t. You lied.’

Lightning fast, Aralt hauled Alessandro’s small body up from the floor by the front of his vest, pinning him on his tiptoes. ‘That’s what grownups do when the babbies can’t be trusted.’ Aralt traced his hand over the neat line of Alessandro’s hair. ‘Who’s he to you? I’m your Author. I saved you.’

Alessandro’s simple reply nearly broke my bloody heart, ‘He’s my friend.’

‘You don’t even know what that means - an idiot like you.’ I could’ve flung myself on Aralt and ripped the tongue from his cruel mouth. If I hadn’t known I had to keep clinging onto that door handle, I’d have done just that and to hell with everything else. I wish I hadn’t seen the look in Alessandro’s peepers. Aralt glanced at Ruby, who was standing very still on the stairs. ‘Just because some of us,’ and then Aralt turned his attention to me, ‘don’t know how to deal with those, who they elect…’

It was the way Aralt smiled at me - this thin smile, like from one predator to another – which meant I knew…
I bleeding knew
…what he was going to do. But I couldn’t do anything about it fast enough. And Aralt realised that too, which was the sodding point.

With one quick, efficient motion, Aralt snatched his silver fountain pen out of his pocket and rammed the entire length of it right through Alessandro’s chest cavity, skewering his heart.

‘Christ in heaven,
no
…’

Red stained out through Alessandro’s white shirt. Blood gurgled in his throat. He whimpered - just once. His peepers widened with startled pain, before they emptied, with what I tell myself is freedom, not simply a blankness because that’s what I need to keep going every time I remember that moment. In vivid detail.