Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others (30 page)

“I don’t care what brings you, or who comes in with you. No one with such fair skin dares comes before me!” Annanothra yelled.

“I wish to be one of you. I cannot return to my home,” the man cried, covering his face from hers.

“Tell me this reason why you cannot.”

“I took the masters slave by mistake. I only meant to take a small taste, but she fought and…I wish to be one of you.”

“Does he hunt you for your crimes?” she asked getting extremely close to the man.

“I am worth nothing to him, but he will kill me for what I have done.”

“You are
willing to take my mark then?”

The man foolishly glanced up at her and cowered back down under the guard of his own arms. You could see her shoulders going up and down with the anger that was building up. “Kill him and enjoy his offered meat,” she yelled and the one dragging her pulled her out of the man’s reach. He began to scream for mercy, claiming he did not want to offend her beauty with his bad skin. She laughed as creatures of all kinds started spilling into the streets. It became hard to see with so many in the middle of the dirt filled road, but you could hear the one that followed the breeder in. He never said a word, he just screamed. The breeder was lifted up by several of the creatures and taken to a stone slab that was surrounded by bones, laying him down face first.

They tore his cloths from his body, as fighting for the shredded pieces began. He screamed the entire time for them to take mercy, but it never came. One fat man wearing only a brown leather thing around his waist and another on his shoulders, came out of the same hut that Annanothra had, carrying a very long sickle type of blade. He simply raised it over his head and came down over the back of the breeders’ neck. He must have been a new breeder because blood flowed freely from his opened torso, and his body barely changed from its pale white to an eerie gray. They began to yell, ripping his body into pieces; some shoving his remains into their already gore filled mouths. Others slid parts of his remains into their clothing, afterwards rushing off into the darkness of the woods.

I was yanked right out from between Garvin and Sydney who were too engulfed to have seen the thing grab me. I reached back feeling a wooden surface that was the things arm that was pulling me at a high speed through the forest floor. I screamed trying to get to my feet, but it moved far too fast. I could see Sydney and Garvin running after me, and they were slowly slipping away. I saw a glimpse of a shadow over my head and yelled to
the top of my lungs.

“Shyanna, help!”

I heard her sweet cry as I witnessed her decent, losing her from my view the moment she crashed into the thing that had me. I rolled to a stop, turning to see her ripping at the stumpy little thing that was swatting at her with razor sharp claws. I saw the blood coming from her arm and fire went through me. I jumped up throwing the heavy coat to the ground and ran to her aid as she had come to mine. I pulled my twenty two and left my blade in its sheath. I fired three times before I hit the thing. It spun and came at me with a swiftness so frightening I barely had time to pull the trigger a fourth time. My shot hit the thing right between the eyes and it took me to the ground, biting me everywhere its mouth could find my flesh. I was now screaming from the agonizing pain that was shooting through the many marks it was making, rapidly tearing at me with its jagged teeth.

The thing that had grabbed me, lifted off of my body as I was blocking its jagged teeth from tearing out my throat. I heard branches breaking as the two forms rolled out of sight. Shyanna limped over to me holding her arm with tears running down her face, and tried to get in my lap. I sat up looking for the thrashing sounds while I tried to push her behind me. I glanced back and saw Jacob and Cates moving through the trees, that’s when I heard Derek scream the words, “Die, you son-of-a-bitch.”

“Move, Derek,” Cates yelled out, and then I heard the sounds of crushing bones.

The creature yelled a guttural cry when Sydney came down on its skull with his club. After a few minutes it began to change. The fur slid back, leaving a small deformed shape of a man behind. He was covered with leprosy; his face too unrecognizable to tell how bad the disease was, because the crushing blow from Sydney’s club left nothing but a pile of brain matter and bone fragments.

“Angry she will be that killed him you did,” a man said peeking around the trunk of
a tree.

“He tried to kill one of us first,” Cates replied, stepping in front of me.

“Matters not, be he her favorite for sticking, understand?” he snickered, limping closer to Cates.

“Make a trade,” Jacob said walking up. “Give us information, and we’ll give you our woman for the night.”

The man squatted down trying to get a better look through Cates’ huge legs, but I covered my face with my arm. I knew they would never put me in a situation like that, or I was going to blow everything and fight my way out. “Can I clean her wounds?” The man asked licking his lips, then pushed himself back up. Garvin and Sydney pulled me to my feet and took me far enough away to ask if I was alright. I had enormous bite marks on my chest, and one scraping down the side of my face. The little beast man had damn near bitten through my collarbone in the attempt of getting to my throat. If it scarred I would have a matching set, one on each collarbone. I heard the strange man take the agreement, as long as he was able to enjoy the blood that was seeping from my body.

“Have you seen a smooth skinned man come through here in the last few nights?” Jacob asked. “Wanting aid from the mistress?”

“Several come, few leave, not alone he was.”

“Then how can you be sure that we’re speaking of the same man?”

“He’s lover of men, yes?”

“He is,” Jacob replied looking back at Cates.

“Two were with him. One, he gave for safe passage, other fond to him I think,” he smiled pumping his crouch out several times then squatted down on the ground. “Heard was giving out a warning that others come, kill our mistress they try?”

“Where is he now?”

“First taste me prize, no woman blood long time.”

“How about we just kill you now?” Derek growled, jumping down from the tree, landing right in front of the now scared man.

“We…trade,” the man mumbled falling back.

“Then make good on it, before I cut out your heart!” Then Derek slid back into the dark.

“Cages below the mistress’s home he be. She no believed words, no smart to cross her, right?”

“And this is all that you know?” Jacob asked, placing his hand on the hilt of his blade.

“That, hum, plans she does on making lover gift, lots crippled women, like he will not.”

The deformed man looked up at Cates laughing as Jacob’s blade slid through his throat removing his head completely, with him never even knowing what hit him. The boys started covering up both bodies with branches they tore from the trees, and then threw as much debris from the ground on top as they could to make it look semi normal. Now it was time to go in and find Caden, the man we were looking for, who just happened to be in the one place that I really didn’t want to go. I didn’t have to pretend too much when it came to leaning over and walking with a limp, my back took several logs, as the dwarf beast drug me through the woods. Once we stepped back into the main area of Blad Alley, no one seemed to even notice that we had been gone. There were no solid remains of the man that was being torn apart when I was yanked out, but the people were still fighting over bits and pieces of meat.
             

Annanothra was nowhere to be seen, but it wasn’t long until the crippled man that had been pulling her around came up to us. He told us that she would be seeing us in her quarters, but when we all started following, he turned and said, ‘only the two of you’, meaning Jacob and Cates. Jacob told the man that he would not leave his woman for another to take. The man left, going into the closest hut, then returned with a sharp nod then quickly went back in. I followed Cates and Jacob in, thinking she would be right inside. Instead we were taken down a trap door, on dirt covered steps that went a lot further down than they looked. We could all hear the cries of Caden before we were halfway down. He was begging for whomever to please not touch him again, and a smile crossed my face.

“The best torture for a fair skin, is our kind,” the man leading us laughed, twisting back to glance at Jacob.

It was hard to tell if the smell was getting worse, because it all smelled the same to me; filth, rotting flesh, and death, not to mention the constant overflowing evidence of
human waste that coated the floor, spilling from every corner. Once we reached the bottom, several of our kind began surrounding us, forcing us into the middle of the room. Annanothra pushed herself with her one good arm, with what I think was a smile on her face, but one couldn’t tell due to the rotted flesh, with Caden right by her side.

“Either you are truly looking for my protection pretty boy, or you are a far better liar than the likes of me,” she said, grabbing the leg of one of the bloodbreeders closest to her so that she could pull herself up to get a better look at me.

“I would never say such a thing about a woman with your power, but I did warn you they would come to destroy everything that you have just like they did my home,” Caden replied, shrugging his shoulder toward Jacob.

“We came only looking for the one at your side, My Lady,” Jacob proclaimed, stepping in front of me.

“Then why come mocking my people, and why bring the one who has caused death everywhere she goes?”

“Had we come in looking as we normally do, would you have listened to our pleas, or asked our allegiance with death being the only other option?”

“This one came in on bended knee, and so far what he has said has been true,” she replied, looking around Jacob up at me.

“He’s lying,” I blurted out. “The only reason he dropped down on his knees was to save his own hide.”

“So, you have caused no harm where you port?” the crippled queen smiled.

“They had it coming, and if you were doing the same here, you’d have it coming as well,” I smiled right back, gaining several coughs and wrinkled brows from Jacob and Cates.

“Word spreads fast in our world, and he is not the only one that has spoken of the one who brings change, but this is
my
community. All those who have nowhere to go and show me their allegiance are welcome to stay…if they can survive my other members of course.”

“I see nothing wrong with allowing those to live a free life. This one at your side was killing just because he could, without offering anything. He will pay for what he’s done, even if it means going through you and your people, Annanothra.”

“Renee,” Jacob hissed.

“No, Jacob. If she is as honorable as she says she is then she wouldn’t allow a slave trading piece of shit to hide out here, making her feel like he would do anything to live free among her clan, pack…whatever this group’s called.” I pushed the gore from my face and went down on my knees. “He is a lover of men and wouldn’t have let you touch him if you were the most beautiful woman on earth. He did what he did to use you.”

“What would you have of me? Would it not be the same thing? Come into my home dressed to mock my people so that you could find this she-man and make him pay for his crimes?”

“We just want him, and then we’ll be on our way,” I said, getting to me feet.

“What you want and what you get is altogether different, wouldn’t you agree? No one comes into my territory and tries to make a fool of me,” she snapped her fingers, as two big bloodbreeders took Caden under the arms.

“Wait, you can’t do this, we had a deal,” he whined.

“I knew you were bringing trouble our way the moment you opened your mouth. Strap him to the table,” she ordered. “Shall you enter your cells on your own, or shall we see just how true the stories are that we have been told about the red demon?”

“I can tell ya right now that I’m not going in any cell,” I swore, pulling my blade out in one hand and my gun out in the other, knowing I only had one or two bullets left at best.

Annanothra began laughing so hard, that she had to lean over to hold herself up off of the dirt floor, glancing up every so often, as if completely amazed at what she had just heard and saw. As quickly as she had begun laughing she froze, bouncing her hand off the ground several times, then once again all hell broke loose. Jacob pushed me back in time to block the blow of a long blade coming down at the back of my neck. Cates spun around in time to slam his fist into the chest of a smaller man, but not fast enough to dodge the curved blade that came down at his left elbow. He yelled out, grabbing the smaller breeder by the throat and snapping its neck to the side, dropping his corpse in the form of ashes to the floor.

Annanothra was pushing herself back into the small cove that she had come out of when I went after her, getting a blow to the back of my head. I went down feeling the
warm fluid of my own body running down the sides of my ear and onto my cheeks. I rolled over, bringing up my gun only to have it kicked free from my hand, hearing the pampered breeder yell out.

“Kill them all, but keep the pretty one on the table,” she called out, talking about, Caden.

“You gotta help me,” he began pleading. “You don’t know what they do to people like me.”

I felt a spray of warm droplets shower over my face, as two bodies dropped like puppets beside me, soon turning to an ash-like mush. Cates and Jacob stood slightly bent at the lower back, gripping their weapons, waiting for the next group of morbid looking breeders to attack. Cates’ arm was missing from the elbow down, yet he held the muscles tight as if he had a fist ready to knock whatever came his way to the blood coated earth. I got to my knees and pulled one of the old ragged shawls off and crawled up behind him, causing him to jump, turning, ready to bring down that invisible club of a hand on me.

“I need to wrap your arm,” I explained as I tightly bound it around his mangled elbow.

“It’s nothing girl, we’ve got more important things to deal with right now.”

I was about to respond when we all heard the wicked screams of the one and only leader of the misfits. Something had set her off into a manic rage and I was thinking that she may have just found out about the little werewolf leper in the woods, that died at the hands of several of my people. He had attacked me first and they had come to my rescue. Jacob grabbed me by the wrist and practically yanked me back up the hand carved dirt steps, with Cates bringing up the rear. Shouts and yells could be heard coming up close behind us, then one piercing scream from Caden, then his high pitched voice went silent. Cates began crashing his body back and forth into the hard packed earth walls with each step of his massive form, blood gushing from his wound with every impact.

“Cates, stop, please!” I screamed, not knowing the meaning behind his actions.

“Just move, woman!” he yelled back as chunks of earth began to fall.

I knew then that his means were to bury the ones coming up behind us, and I hurried to get out of his way. The first thing we encountered when we raced out of the hut was Garvin and Sydney back to back, swinging their blades at anything that came too close.
None of us could tell our werewolf from theirs, we just ran as fast as we could into the cover of the forest. The one thing we all heard were the cries of the leaper breeder’s leader, screaming out that her son had been murdered by the interloper’s, then silence fell as we passed through the dense forest floor. Jacob moved at a steady pace, cutting as he leaped over dried trees that had fallen long ago, slashing his way through the vines that not even Mother Nature could untangle.

I searched the air with every break of the canvassing trees, looking for our winged friend, but she was nowhere in sight. I could hear many feet hitting the ground, but the dark of night made it too hard to tell who was who as we passed. I heard Garvin yell out that Cates was losing his step, not needing anything else to tell me that he had lost way too much blood and needed to be attended to immediately. The stench of rotting death filled the air as if it were poured over our heads. I grabbed my mouth, looking to my right, seeing a figure that I knew wasn’t one of ours just by the way it leaped from tree base to tree base.

“Come together, Jacob!” I yelled, hoping he would listen, but he waved his arm to keep moving. “Something’s out here, and I don’t think it’s the Scabs.”

I ran right into the river standing knee deep before I realized that Jacob and some of the others were at its edge. I looked around to see if I could see the figure that was moving like liquid speed, vanishing just as fast, and saw nothing but my wounded companions filing out of the dark forest. Derek was the last to step out of the trees backwards, holding his blade at shoulders length. Garvin and Sydney were applying pressure to Cates’ arm, as he tried to act like it was a mere flesh wound. Jacob said nothing as he turned his head back toward the wall that we had just escaped from, so deep in thought that he never replied to my asking him what he saw, until I walked up and touched his arm.