The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (45 page)

“Why hello, Cynthia,” Shirley Collins greeted
the tall slim girl in the funny boots with the haunted eyes.

“Hey,” Cynthia said sweeping her glance to the
old woman's gaze in a nervous dance before it flitted away, moving
on to the rest of the interior.

“What can I do for you?”

“Yeah, I uh...” she looked at Miss Collins and
shuffled her feet, the boots uncomfortably hot for the climate, “I
wanted to know if this girl has been here?”

Cynthia pulled out an old photo of Julia. She
was only sixteen in the shot but it looked pretty close to the way
she did when Cynthia had last seen her. A pang shot through her. At
least, that's what she
had
looked like. Who knew what she
looked like now? She'd be twenty. Older... like Cynthia was
now.

Shirley looked at Cynthia and a moment of
awkward silence settled over the two. Cynthia could hear a clock
ticking, some distant faucet was turned on and then off. Miss
Collins opened her mouth, then shut it. “You know that each
resident has a right to their privacy.”

Cynthia nodded. “I know, Miss Collins. For their
safety. But I'm not a threat to Julia. Actually, the same problem
was threatening us both. I'd like to find her, somehow. I need your
help.” Cynthia gave her earnest green eyes, ones that had dark
circles underneath them where none had been before.

Shirley deliberated then finally nodded her
head. “We're not sure what happened but that room that you just
occupied?” Cynthia nodded. “It is where it happened.” Cynthia
watched her shiver and didn't think she was aware she had.

Shirley Collins' eyes looked off in the distance
and then she looked back at Cynthia. “I'm a practical woman,
Cynthia.”

No shit?
Cynthia thought, like she'd
would've never got that.

“But what I saw that night. What I thought I
saw?” she paused. “Defies explanation.”

Cynthia figured she'd hit paydirt. After the
weirdness that was her new reality, she was ready to believe
anything. “When I heard the ruckus from her room I raced up there,
thinking it was a Domestic.”

Her eyes glazed and she spoke, remembering:

Shirley clutched the phone in a bony hand,
her finger lightly covering the speed dial for 911. They had the
pipeline to Freedom Affirmed and the nearest squad car would detach
on her summons, she knew.

When she rounded the corner and saw the last
of the creatures fling themselves out of the window, a primal alarm
sounded.

A deep and abiding warning from way down
where her humanity had begun just as a spark, and that instinctive
warning had been triggered. It had laid dormant until needed.

Like now.

She raced to the window. Though Shirley had
been quick, she wasn't quick enough, she was only in time to see
several pale forms move toward the forest in a blur that was
against nature. Against all things.

When a face turned to look at her as she
stood in the window, it was as if the three hundred feet that
separated them did not exist. An exquisite sense of calm stole over
her, those red eyes glowed into hers, seeing her.

Not that it was possible to see her
well.

Yet, she knew it had. For it wasn't human.
It was other.

Shirley came away from the window, the face
turned and in a breath, disappeared forever. Behind someone.

Following someone.

Shirley looked at Julia's things on the bed
that had been left behind and suddenly she knew. The girl had
jumped out the window. Escaping those horrible things.

Attempting to escape.

Shirley shivered. Whatever brave things
she'd martyred herself to long ago slipped away in a fear so acute,
so breathtaking, she did something she never thought possible. She
succumbed to apathy.

She let her cowardice cloak her in
indifference. She allowed Julia Caldwell to deal with whatever
lurking threat came after her in a wave of terror and retribution
and did nothing.

Said nothing.

Both women had tears streaming down their
faces, one old, one young, the crying for different reasons. Still,
in the end, they both cried for Julia.

“
So you see, I can't talk
about it to anyone. I am guilty of not helping. Of not reporting
it.”

Cynthia laid a comforting hand on her frail
arm. “It's okay, Miss Collins,” Cynthia said, giving her arm a
gentle squeeze. “There's nothing you could've done.”

Shirley gave a small lift of her
shoulders.

“
I'll tell you why,” Cynthia
said and Shirley waited.

Cynthia told her everything. The attack, the
nocturnal visits from the werewolves. Her fear. Her misery.

Her escape. Cynthia pressed on even when
Miss Collins' face showed a range of emotions. It was a compulsion.
Cynthia just had to get it out. She'd told no one. And this might
be the one person that'd believe her.

“
Now you know why I ran. If
you're a coward, then I'm a bigger one.”

Shirley Collins shook her head. “No,
sometimes there's larger issues at play than the right or wrong
choice. Sometimes, survival plays a part,” she finished
significantly.

She gave a watery smile through her tears,
her shock at Cynthia's story on every line of her face.

Which Shirley utterly believed. Maybe
because it validated hers.

Whatever the case may be, she asked Cynthia
to wait while she retrieved something.

“
Here,” the old woman said,
thrusting a bag in Cynthia's hands.

Cynthia opened it and saw Jules' stuff in
there. Not much. Just her pathetic make-up bag and a few other
things. But one item caught her eye. It was the final picture of
them together on the spit. Champagne glasses raised high, a deep
twilight edging in around them in the land of the midnight sun.

Cynthia noticed the champagne didn't look
golden like she remembered.

It looked like blood against the setting
sun.

Region Two of the Singers

Jacqueline watched her advisor with narrowed
eyes. “So, you're telling me that you cannot avail yourself to send
a scout on the mere pretense of an errand?”

She knew that Victor was capable of whatever
deception she was. Why he was hesitant was anyone's guess.

Victor raked a frustrated hand
through his already mussed hair, crossing a muscular leg over the
other, his ankle dangling over its perch on his knee. He leaned
forward, in a last attempt to convince his ruler of the need for
caution. “Jacqueline, it would be unseemly to send a courier with
any news other than that of the annual Gathering.” He settled back
against the uncomfortable Victorian furniture in the huge mansion
his region used as headquarters. However, it was Jacqueline's
tastes that predicated the décor. And who was he to bitch? His
place was in the field, carving out their place in the Singer
Hierarchy. They were the most powerful region. Well, nearly so.
Marcus had a formidable battalion.
And now
Marcus and Jacqueline's offspring was coming into his
own.

A Combatant after all.

Jacqueline fingered the courier's note which
stated simply:

Dearest Jacqueline,

Our progeny has ended his Awakening and has
manifested as a Combatant.

As agreed, you are now informed in
writing.

Yours, Marcus

“
He was never mine,”
Jacqueline seethed, standing in a huff.

Knowing a rage was likely, Victor endeavored
to head the manic ranting off at the pass.

“
Now,
Jacqueline...”

“
Shut up, Victor,” she said,
crumpling the deeply embossed note on ivory stationery, the scarlet
wax seal breaking and crumpling into bits at her feet.

Victor shut up. But it cost him. He
sometimes wondered why most regions were ruled by females, they
were entirely too volatile for their position of importance. Look
at this livid bitch he followed. Still stinging over a two-hundred
year old dismissal. Jacqueline had never gotten over the rejection
of Region One's leader, Marcus.

Who had married for love.

When his mate died a strange end, Jacqueline
had rejoiced upon her death in a way that had strained the bounds
of civility.

Even for her.

In the end, the matriarchal rule of Singers
was mandated by blood. As were all things with the Singer. Blood
was sovereign.

Blood ruled.

In the case of royal blood, the females were
the bearers of royal blood that could yield a queen if the pairings
were assembled with forethought and predetermination. As,
obviously, hers and Marcus' had been.

Another male Singer had been identified as
Combatant. Their son by blood, not by a loving union. Their
coupling had been arranged according to the old Law of Blood.

Victor's eyes shifted to the desk that was
like a huge wooden anchor in the room where they met. Brass, wood,
high ceilings and ten inch moldings graced the formal parlor.

As did nine other embossed ivory notices
like the one Jacqueline had crumpled in her hand. Sitting in a
portentous heap on top of the desk, a huge glass paperweight
magnified the old-fashioned script like a seeking eyeball.

“
You know what this means as
he is the last!” she hissed up at Victor, her rule having nothing
to do with size. She was small, like so many Singer females, but
powerful. Her royal blood assured an array of different
talents.

All of which she'd mastered expertly. To use
against others, of course. Jacqueline ruled with tyranny instead of
mutual respect.

Victor sighed, knowing the day had come and
dreading it with every fiber of his being. He nodded. “A Queen has
Become.”

“
A true Queen or the circle
would not be complete.” Jacqueline crossed her arms underneath
breasts that still retained the bloom of youth, her age
notwithstanding, she appeared mid-thirties but was actually over
three hundred years.

Victor tried for reason where none
prevailed, “It is prophesied that the true Queen will bring peace
and unity to all species, she will herald the coming together of
Claw, Fang and Blood.”

Victor held his breath for a moment,
hopeful. For he saw a spark of reason in the fervent light in her
dark eyes. Then it dimmed, to be replaced with her typical
lust.

Lust for power, lust to be the only one.

The only queen.

But she could not be. The
circle did not congregate for her protection, but for
another.
The true Queen
, Victor
thought.

The blood knew, foretold.

The blood chose.

Julia took a walk, the Singer guards on duty
trailing behind her at a discreet distance and she sighed,
annoyed.

She shouldn't have been and she recognized
this basic principle. She was a Big Deal who needed to be
Protected.

Julia kicked a pebble and it bounced off the
bark of a tree and winged into the bushes as she walked, the sounds
of the forest a white noise to her. She was surprised by how fast
she'd gotten used to the sounds of nature again and it made her a
little homesick. Julia needed to get over that and pull up her big
girl panties. It had been two years since Homer. Alaska had become
a distant dreamlike memory.

Jason's attack hadn't been a dream. She
walked over to a boulder and sat down, turning her back so that's
all the two fellow Singers saw and plopped her chin in her palm,
balancing her elbow on her knee.

Julia closed her eyes and remembered those
hands on her throat, the eyes that had been hazel as a human, now
spinning green orbs, the hands like fleshy steel.

Blocking her airway.

The numbness in her fingertips woke her out
of the fog of her memory. Her wet cheeks testified to the grip her
love for Jason still had on her.

Did she care for Scott? Well sure... she had
some unnatural soul-whatever going down. But, according to Marcus,
she'd have some weird soul-shit with nine other Singers too. The
Combatant.

Wonderful.

Had she cared for
William?
Yes
, her mind whispered.
But maybe it was kidnappee's love, better known as Stockholm
Syndrome. After all, she'd lost everything and there'd he'd been,
picking up the broken pieces of her life. Julia didn't want to
mistake gratitude for love. As she thought of William she felt a
terrible pain in her gut. Her hands flew to her stomach. What was
this?

Just as quickly as it was
there, it disappeared.
Odd as hell
,
Julia thought, puzzled.

However, when it came to Jason, she had
loved him. She had.

Past tense.

Julia found that she couldn't continue to
love someone who tried to kill her, call it self-preservation.
Sadness threatened her but behind it was determination. She needed
to move on. He was a Were.

Very likely a Were with the pack that Adi
belonged to. If he still lived. Julia thought of Tony and wondered
what would happen now with Joseph gone, Adi by herself. Now, maybe
Jason in the mix.

When the pain came again she staggered to
her feet, feeling like her guts were being ripped out.

She ran to the guards, their faces in
comical twin expressions of pinched surprise. Julia fell to her
knees, giving a low groan.

The guards came to her side.

But it was Scott that shoved them away and
scooped her up into his arms.

“
No,” she said, batting at
him.

“
Yes,” he smirked, looking
down, his face a false mask of gaiety but the worry lurked
underneath it all.

“
Are you still...” he asked,
striding toward the house.