Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1) (5 page)

Ruby hauled me into the shadow of a titanic warehouse, snapping open the door as easily as if it’d been sugarcane. Inside the floor was sticky, like it’d been newly tarred.

Now I got real quiet because I could smell something mixed in with the rest…
Blood
… But there was a fast thud to it. A surge of some extra ingredient.

Then I realised it was
fear
, which was making it so delicious.

Yeah
,
so I’m a bastard
,
right
?

But is it a First Lifer’s fault the lamb tastes better than its mama, or did nature choose to make it that way?

I could hardly stand for the hunger now; Ruby had to wind her arms around me, heaving me down into the dark vaults. There were low lights hanging from black arches; gas lamps swung midway between each.

Shocked, I gazed at the colossal catacomb of precious vintages, which had been sent from vineyards across the globe: thousands of tiers of casks, pipes, barrels of French or Cap wine, brandy or rum. The powerful fumes mingled with the peculiar one of dry rot. As I limped onwards with Ruby, it was like strolling through a city of the dead, but instead of bones and skulls, there were barrels and casks. ‘Are you trying to get me ran-tan?’

‘No, not that.’

That’s when I saw what the smell was. The blood and fear, which made me thirst to consume the world.

Who
it was.

Grace
- my first love and sweet torturer for the last three years. My tempter and betrayer. Destroyer of my heart.

Grace was strung in chains, her feet dangling helplessly above the ground, like a frog stretched out for dissection. Her back was arched against the barrels. She was gagged and when she saw us, she started up with these odd little squawking noises. She’d been stripped down to her corset; the stiff whalebone bulged her dugs out, like apples.

I suddenly remembered the many nights I’d wasted alone, tossing off over the glimpse of ankle, which Grace had flashed me with a coy smile, as she’d climb into her carriage. Now her pale body - this weak flesh - which was laid out like it was in a butcher’s window, repulsed me.

Ruby was watching me intently, as she nudged me closer. ‘My gift, darling Light, do you wish to unlace it?’

I wasn’t shaking now. There were no more doubts or qualms. Nothing holding back the predator inside. There was just this tiny sliver, which watched with horror, at how
right
this felt.

So this is how it went down: I derigged the drab down to bare skin and then I grinned because you know what? Grace was chicken-breasted under that corset - another First Lifer lie.

Strange, all Grace’s thin body did was remind me how much I’d relished Ruby’s curves, tipping the velvet, until I saw nothing but red. I still smelled of Ruby; she was on my lips. This blonde beauty had made me weak. But now I was strong.

When Ruby propelled me closer, there was safety in her touch because she was united with me in the kill.

‘Blood is our birthright,’ Ruby’s voice was low; it swallowed the darkness, until the vaults echoed with it. ‘It’s the natural order. We would never have existed on this fair earth, if it was not. We would not have these,’ as Ruby’s two thin canines extended, Grace squirmed frantically, ‘or our venom, which paralyzes and stops their weak hearts, as if they were clocks. We are so perfectly designed for their blood, as they are so perfectly designed for us. Blood Life is not hunger. It’s fulfilment. Freedom.’ Ruby’s hands caressed around me, naughty as before, to those places that had never been touched before my death and election. ‘Dearest prince,’ she breathed, ‘free yourself.’

I edged the gag out of Grace’s mouth.

Grace gasped, panting and then stared between me and Ruby, whose hands were still wandering wherever they fancied.

I knew what Grace was thinking: how could some nobody, like me, have done this to her? Her little plaything turned round to bite her?

When I saw the tears glistening in Grace’s peepers, it was like being booted in the gut. The death throes of my First Life. Then it was over.

‘Thomas, please--’

‘My name is Light.’ The fangs shot from my teeth; I sank them into the milky white of Grace’s neck. It was pure bloody instinct.

Grace screamed, but I was lost by then, engulfed in the blood.

Grace shuddered to paralysis, as I drained her. I was bursting with it – Ruby’s gift of new life. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced or imagined. I wanted everything the world could bleeding well throw at me.

When at last I fell back from Grace’s still body, I was laughing with excitement, shock, mania… I draped my arms around Ruby’s neck. ‘My thanks for your most perfect gift. It was…’ I laughed again.

My nut was ready to explode –
boom
– with the rush and roar of the blood and the beat of my own heart, powerful in my chest.

Ruby glanced at Grace, whose eyelids were twitching feebly. ‘It’s the river for this Athanasian wretch; let it carry her away with the rest of the filth. Then you’ll be free of her most completely. Free of all First Lifer ladies. Do you not feel it? That roaring call? It’s the world unfolding before you. The next step into the light, even though we dwell in the dark. Are you ready now, dearest prince?’

I gripped Ruby hard by the shoulders, as she traced the blood from my lips, slowly sucking it from her fingers. Then we were kissing.

All the nasties and wankery
? Yeah, that first kill was the most complete moment I’ve ever experienced in First Life or in Blood.

I’m not going to lie to you, not one word when this is the last time…

Well, you know, right? And git that I am, less or more than human that I am,
it was bloody perfect
.

When Ruby held up her neb to be kissed - it’s true - I loved her. And I was turned on because I wanted her, the same as I wanted the blood.

I’d have done anything for her. The two of us could do whatever we pleased.

It was intoxicating.

When I pushed my hand down towards Ruby’s quim, however, she caught my wrist, with a laugh. ‘Just the blood heat. It will pass.’

‘What if I don’t want it to?’

‘You are young, and this is new. When it fades--’

‘I won’t let it.’

I saw Ruby’s expression change then. For the first time, there was a mixture of confusion and doubt, rather than contented control. Ruby stepped back. ‘I know a place we could… Where our own kind…’

‘Others?’

Ruby frowned. On her brow it was terrible. ‘You do not want that?’

I slipped away from Grace’s naked body, noticing with surprise that no blood had leaked from the tiny puncture wounds at her neck, as if something in my venom had sealed the holes, after my teeth had withdrawn. It was a marvel of evolution.

Grace was still alive – just - her gaze seeming to follow me around the dark vault.

I leant against the caskets; the wine fumes were making me heady. ‘I don’t play nicely with others, or at least they don’t with me. I never was much part of the world, even when I walked in it.’

‘But
we
play very well, do we not?’ Ruby was at my side, even before I’d seen her move. Her fingers teased my tackle with long strokes.

‘You’re different,’ as the rhythm of Ruby’s hand increased, I struggled to stay still, ‘you’re my Author, muse, liberator…’

‘Love?’

I caught Ruby’s fingers before I climaxed, raising them to my lips. ‘Is that not why you chose me? So I would love?’

Ruby slunk closer, entwining her fingers around my throat. ‘So, lover, if you do not wish to walk in the world, will you let me be your guide to it?’

‘A Grand Tour?’

‘Of sorts. The two of us.’

‘And the earth to eat whole.’

Ruby’s nails bit crescents into my neck. ‘Patience. Learn its secrets first, before we dance. You have a mind, as well as a heart. I elected you for both.’

When Ruby wrenched her fist back, I waited for the clout – this one liked to play rough. But the
smash
came beside my head with a loud splintering of wood. Then an explosion of red, a blast of wine fumes, and I was flooded with it, as a crimson gush poured from the gaping hole.

Christ in heaven Ruby had some power in her
; I wanted some of that.

No,
all
of it. Ruby and her secrets wrapped up in a bow.

Ruby thrust me back, until we were caught in a fountain of French wine. We were giggling like kids, opening our mouths wide, drinking deep, as it coated us in a second skin.

‘Thought you weren’t going to get me ran-tan?’

Ruby licked the red tears streaming down my cheeks. ‘This is a celebration. There must be wine at a man’s…’ She caught my hand between her sticky fingers, twisting it back towards the contorted corpse of the First Lifer, who I’d once wept for. ‘To Grace.’

I blinked the wine from my peepers. The blood was still hot, pulsing through me in a howling haze of ecstasy. I smiled. ‘To the world.’

Ruby. My red-haired devil, Author, muse, liberator, guide: my gorgeous nightmare.

Ruby did it, you know. She showed me the world’s secrets.

Yet here’s the thing, to do that she took me to darker depths than I’d ever dreamt of, let alone knew had beat in my own Soul.

But that’s bollocks, right?

Because I’d only thought they didn’t, until Ruby showed me those places, which we all hide locked away, reckoning we’re dead civilised, rather than bloody cavemen. As I said,
bollocks
.

We’re animals when it comes down to it. Predators of one type or another. You First Lifers war over territory, your gods or your women, as if you’ve only just discovered bleeding fire. If you ever try and get between a woman and her cub, you’ll soon discover you’ve got a tigress on your hands.

See the truth of it is, everyone enjoys a good barney - win or lose - they hunger for the fist and the boot. Who doesn’t want to get a bit dirty, once in a while?

Modern life tries to smother it, but it’s under there, if you lift up the corner and peer beneath, then you’ll see it’s bubbling to get out. And Ruby, sod it, did she let it out.

Ruby brought me to life by killing me.

Every emotion amplified? Mine – love, curiosity, an aversion to authority – they survived but twisted, like a blasted tree after lightening. Where once they were pale and sickly, now they were intense, powerful and dark.

It’s not as straightforward as good and bad. You don’t get to sticky label me. No one does. It was simply
different
.

It made me feel like loving Ruby would be the death of me, even as I lived for being close to her. We relished breathing the same air. Draining the same First Lifers. Shagging and hurting, until we knew each other’s bodies the same as our own. All was nothing outside our love. It smashed on us. Broke on us. We savaged it. Together we screamed at the world and when we had the world by the throat, the world screamed back. There was nothing we couldn’t do, or take, together. Nobody else we needed.

I thought Ruby was mine, stupid bastard that I was. But I was young, so yeah, I didn’t reckon I’d be the one who got burnt.

It should’ve been impossible for us to understand each other, what with Ruby being an Elizabethan bird, and me not being born until the age of steam power. In First Life, if there’s a single generational divide, the parents can’t understand a word their kids are spitting, whilst the kids reckon their parents are dinosaurs, who should be euthanized for not keeping up with the latest slang.

So how can Blood Lifers bridge the centuries: Tudor to Generation X? Punk Rocker to Georgian dandy?

Because we don’t stand still: mosquitoes teared in amber or museum exhibits in wax.

Each moment we travel through - in our parallel lives to yours - it sticks, clinging like caught gossamer spider webs to our skin. The worlds of First Lifers never die. They live on in the blood of those who witness their crawl from the cradle to the grave, which just sometimes is a brilliant burning dance across the stage.

Me? I’m the bleeding audience.

True, some Blood Lifers despise this adaptation and mingling of species; they want to keep themselves pure and uncontaminated. The wankers. But me?

First Life fascinated and consumed me; it haunts me still. The ease of it, which I’d never learnt. Its warmth, joy and
life
drew me, like the sodding moth to proverbial flame; I hungered for the burn. In turn, your world clung to me more than most. We suckled each other as the years seeped by, one year crimson into the next.

But I was only ever on the outside, looking in.

It all started with stuffed hedgehogs. The Great Exhibition of 1851. Of course I was too young then. But papa’s lot? They went bloody barmy for them, starting a craze (and you know what us Victorians were like with our crazes). We never knew where the bleeding line was.