The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (27 page)

Jen grabbed the hands that Julia was trying to
use to cover her face. She was so embarrassed to be somewhere that
she wasn't wanted, in the ridiculous white dress, her hair six ways
to Sunday.

“No, no,” Jen crooned, throwing a dirty glance
at the two guys that stood behind her looking contrite. “Don't
listen to my stupid brothers...” she looked up at Julia earnestly.
“They always sound dumb.”

“Yeah, that's us. Dumb,” Brendan said dryly.

“Yeah, that,” Michael agreed, swinging his
longish dirty blond hair out of his eyes.

Julia gave a small smile. “So, you guys... do
you want me to leave?” Her lip trembled again. “Because I can't go
back there,” Julia said in a low voice.

Brendan was alarmed and approached her too
quickly. She backed up and he stopped. “No. You don't... we don't
want you to go back to the Were... or the vampire. We're all about
sucking you into our world. It's where ya belong.”

Michael nodded. “Why would ya think that we
wouldn't want you?”

Julia shrugged. “You sounded like... that you
were kinda mad?”

Jen shook her head. “Nah! That's the way they
always sound.”

“Like smart ass meets anger management?” Julia
asked. She was definitely okay now, Brendan noticed with relief, a
smile breaking through her tears like they'd never been.

Jen smiled in return. “I'm Jen,” she said,
sticking her hand out and Julia shook it.

Brendan and Michael came forward. “And these are
the dummy duo, who you've had the misfortune of meeting already,”
she said, but the humor in her voice took away the sting.

“We're not always dumb,” Michael said, taking
her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze, then dropping it.

“I wouldn't know how to be dumb,” Brendan said
and winked. But he didn't shake her hand, instead he drew her into
a hug which pressed her against his body, melding her form to his.
He said against her hair, “We've been looking for you for a long
time.” He drew away, the happiness radiating from every pore.

“Me?” Julia asked, putting her hand to her
chest, trying to let the heat from his embrace fade like a
still-hot brand.

They nodded.

“Why? I mean, I don't know you guys.” She looked
at them expectantly.

“It's not who you are it's what you are,”
Michael explained cryptically.

Julia folded her arms, impatience seeping in a
little. “Okay, I give. What am I?”

They looked at each other uneasily and Julia
asked again, “Come on, spill the secret! I know I'm a Singer...”
she threw out her hands. She'd known that for awhile. “I know I'm
the 'Rare One',” she said, her hands dropping against the fabric of
the dress after the air quotes.

“Rare One?” Michael shook his head. “I don't
know what that is but you're not that to us.”

Jen said, “You're more than that.”

Julia looked at them. She opened her mouth,
impatience on her tongue when Brendan spoke, “You are Queen.”

Julia staggered back a step. “What?” she asked
dully, her voice coming from a distance. “Queen of whom?” Julia
heard herself asking.

“The Singers. You are Queen of the Blood
Singers.”

The room began to tilt and she heard many voices
at once. She fell into strong arms.

Fainting for the second time.

It was becoming a trend.

Brendan looked down at the girl in his arms and
felt his heart clench. He hated feeling weak.

She already had a piece of it.

His heart. It beat slower for the loss of that
chunk.

Brendan didn't even know her name.

Not that it mattered. Love was an errant master,
choosing who it would without reason.

Without rationale.

****

pack

Adriana screamed at her brother. For him, at
him.

“Hold still, Adi!” He jammed his leg into her
armpit and wrenched the arm back in before she could stiffen up
more than she already was.

Tears of pain rolled down her face and Joseph
swiped them away with the pad of his thumb. “Shhh... it's okay,”
Joseph said, gathering her against his chest.

“It's not okay, Joseph and you fucking know it!”
Tony paced and Joseph felt the small bones of his face shift. That
was automatic when an Alpha felt challenged. The Change asserted
itself subtly beneath his skin.

Adi felt it and looked up at her brother.

“It is at your feet where the fault lies. You
insisted that Lawrence give her the worst punishment!” he
responded, his anger roiling underneath his skin with weight, with
purpose.

Tony turned to face him, his posture wary and
tight.

Joseph carefully untangled himself from Adriana,
shifting her weight against the acrylic wall that had held the
feral.

But no longer.

He faced Tony, walking toward him on a slow
prowl.

Adi watched as her brother's body shifted to
bursting, the moon's power waning but not enough. Not nearly
enough.

“Me? She is the one that pushed the boundaries!
It's always her. And she is always coddled. Now the Rare One has
escaped with the Singers, the feral has escaped and that vamp
runner killed five of us! Five!”

Tony's scathing stare burned a pathway across
Adriana and she growled low in her throat. She didn't care that he
outmatched her by a hundred pounds and a foot of height. She hated
Tony.

He smelled bad.

She smacked her palm of the uninjured side of
her body against the clear wall and boosted herself to standing. “I
will take responsibility for the feral, I panicked. I thought he'd
already escaped. But,” her stare gave dominant weight to her words
and she watched Tony visibly bristle at its significance, “I will
not accept the strange shit that went down while I was injured
substituting for
you
so you could fight my brother and also
stick me with that chore on the full moon!” Her eyes shifted from
one to the other. “I am not a 'favorite',” Adi said, using air
quotes. “I was pressed to do the worst chore at the worst time
because I let my alligator mouth overload my canary ass.”

Joseph barked out a laugh. “She's right.”

The tension in the empty holding cell slipped
down a notch.

“Like any one of us could have known a vamp was
skulking around, all Lone Ranger and then the coincidence of the
feral escaping? Oh!” she yelled into the strange acoustics of the
room, “let's not forget the darling Singers that waltzed in, during
the bloodiest and most distracting ritual ever conceived, and
snatched Jules right from underneath our very noses,” she seethed,
the fingers of her index and thumb a hair's breadth apart.

They'd been that close to not losing Julia.

“And!” she continued to rant and Tony crossed
his muscular arms, rolling his eyes, “Shut up and listen!” Tony
growled, this female never knew when to shut up. Hell, if that
brother of hers wasn't always around, he'd teach her a lesson
that'd stay with her permanently.

Tony smiled at his thoughts and her lips pulled
away from her teeth, another growl reverberating from between
them.

“Enough!” Joseph roared, startling them both.
His eyes landed on his sister. “Finish now, then we go to Lawrence.
This whole incompetent mess will need to be explained.”

“I was just going to say, that fifteen of our
wolves trailed the Singers, and still... we didn't get her
back.”

“So?” Tony said with derision.

“So... I think they're more powerful than we've
been trying to convince ourselves.”

“Ha! Bullshit. They're human, they can do some
parlor tricks. It's not real strength.Who do they call leader?”
Tony asked, palms spread with his superior omniscience.

Adi rolled her eyes. He was such a goddamned
know-it-all.

“What of the Book of Luna?” Joseph asked into
the stillness, Tony's words echoing into silence.

Tony didn't bother with reading that old crap.
It was the new order. The only thing he'd wanted was to become a
moonless changer. That, he'd believed in plenty. And now that
little Singer had slipped between his claws like water through a
sieve.

She would be within his grasp again.

Adi nodded. “They are a force of their own. You
know that! Look what happened a few hours ago? They fooled
you
, Tony!”

Tony glowered at her. He'd almost had that
Singer but it's as if the Singer had eyes in the back of of his
head. Tony shook his head, thinking about it.

“Yeah,” he ground out. “Don't know how, I almost
had him.” He smacked his fist into his opposite palm, his dark eyes
flashing.

“Scent Tracker,” Joseph said in a flat
voice.

Tony whipped his head in Joseph's direction, his
brows raised.

Joseph and Adriana nodded. They'd both been
trained in the precepts held within the Book.

Tony threw his hands up. “I give. Drop this
secretive shit. Just. Tell. Me.” He pegged his hands on his
powerful hips, frowning at them.

“A sense of smell a thousand times more powerful
than ours,” Joseph said.

“Impossible,” Tony breathed out, thinking of his
multi-layered scent awareness. It was so overwhelming he had
trained himself to tune out most scents. It was too much. But one
thousand times more sensitive? He couldn't wrap his mind around it.
He scoffed at the possibility.

“I know, right? It's...” Adi began.

“Unbelievable!” Joseph agreed, nodding.

“Yeah... okay. Whatever. But what about the ten
vampires that just flashed into existence and were ghosts when we
attacked?” Tony said like,
explain that.

Adriana laughed and the men turned to her.
When she finally stopped she said, “Vampire mirage.”

Joseph sighed. Not helpful.

“
What was it?”

Joseph shook his head. They weren't sure.
But it had been a superb deflection on their part. Too good.

“
Don't know,” he
answered.

“
Well, it was pretty fucking
effective!” Tony said. “I could smell the vamps.
Smell
them
,” he said through clenched
teeth.

Joseph gave a sound low in his throat. “No,
that was the Tracker, assisting... the other one.”

“
They can work in tandem?” Adi
asked, stunned.

Joseph nodded. “Looks like.” Then he paused.
“But a more likely reason for the two is family.”

“
What?” Tony asked, his eyes
narrowing.

“
I speculate for that pair to
work as seamlessly together as they did, they'd have to be
family.”

“
What about the bitch with
them?” Tony asked. He conjured up an image of her in his mind.
Small, pixie-like features, hair blondish, he guessed. Hard to know
with the moon, it silvered everything.

Except the Red Feral.

His fur had shone like blood spilled.

“
Her too,” Joseph
said.

But Tony's nose was unaffected by his sight.
He'd know her the next time he smelled her. Hell, he'd know them
all. Tony's fists curled. “I'd love to have another chance at those
three.”

“
Soon,” Joseph
promised.

“
What about the female?” Adi
asked suspiciously. She trusted Tony about as far as she could
throw him.

“
Especially her,” he said with
barely contained desire.

Joseph scowled at him just as another Were
entered the holding pen.

They looked at him. “Lawrence is waiting,”
he said, shyly glancing at Adriana.

Brother
! she
thought...
men!

Adi flounced out, pushing by the Were. His
eyes followed her form as she disappeared.

Joseph followed behind and Tony came
last.

As he passed the other Were, slightly
younger than himself he whispered, “You don't want her.”

He leaned back with a puzzled expression.
There were few Were females and she was a good looking one too.
“Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“
Untrainable,” Tony said,
stalking off behind the siblings.

****

the Feral

The feral lifted his head from the fragrant
entrails of the deer, the meat a fresh and tasty smell that
permeated his olfactory senses, stirring a deep and profound
hunger.

He howled.

Then fed.

The moon, on the wane but not headlong, hung
above him in a blanket of velvet, the stars as diamonds. They
glittered as she supervised her charge.

When at last he finished, his body demanded
rest. He dug out a place of safety in the deepest part of the
forest. The Feral burrowed underneath his self-made nest. Finally
satisfied, he needed to ready himself for the next leg of his
journey. Sleep came for him and just as he slid into the embrace of
unconsciousness, he thought of her.

The female.

He must have her.

And she, him.

He was certain when they had connected under
the roof of the great structure that she felt it too.

The pull of one to the other.

They were meant to be together.

Forever.

He slept, the moon keeping her own
counsel.

*

the pavilion

William screamed inside his head as the Were
held him, their talons biting into his dead flesh. He saw the
Singers tear Julia out of his grasp and that of the Were.

Hope slid away like rain on a tin roof.

William Changed were he stood, his raven form
protecting him, assuring his survival.

The Were let go in surprise, not ready for the
smallness of his form. As they rushed to grab him at the same time
he rose with a sharp caw, circling above their position. His
eyesight, many times sharpened from his vampire form, tracked the
Singers. And the pursuit of them by the Were.

He followed, his blackness the perfect
camouflage against the night sky. He saw all: