New Blood (The Blood Saga Book 2) (9 page)

A second before our door opened,
Damien tore me away from him and positioned me behind him on the bed. His body
went rigid in the defensive stance. “Stay away from her, Jez. You’ve done
enough damage here.”

Instinctively, I knew Jezabell,
much like I had recognized Damien. But now my body recoiled in fear and pain.
Damien held my hand, keeping me pulled closely to him. He knew I was going to
try and run.

Just from her presence, my body
grew weaker. A tightening in my chest grew painful as it spread through my
veins. I tried to hold it in but the moan escaped my lips anyway as I slumped
down onto the bed.

My hand on Damien’s suddenly became
bone crushingly tight. I heard a bone in his hand fracture. He wasn’t angry
with that of course. His rage was only for Jezabell now. His lips pulled back
tightly in a low snarl. “Release her, Jezabell.”

Lara came in just behind her with a
gasp of shock. Swiftly circling the room, she crawled onto the bed, pulling me
from Damien who moved to the center of the room between us and Jezabell. The
painful fog began to lift as Lara held me protectively to her. Her face
scrunched up as if she were focusing on a horribly difficult physical task.

This woman I didn’t know in the
slightest and in fact she didn’t seem like a woman at all. She was impossibly
beautiful but she looked like just a child. Her beauty was so angelic it
brought instant trust to me. “Sleep.” Lara whispered to me as she lay me down.
My eyes were forced close as if weighted.

“You shouldn’t have done that,”
Damien’s voice was a deep snarl. His body tense with rage.

“She needs to know the
consequences,” Jezabell shot back.

Lara remained hovering over Lianna
protectively. “Jezabell, you know that he’s right this time,” her voice was
stern, angry, even sad but most of all undeniably vehement.

“She didn’t even know who she was
when I got her to wake up. There’s blood in her eyes Jezabell. You can’t pull
this shit anymore. You could have killed her!” Damien was seething.

“Lara, how could you turn on me
like this?” Her hand extended in Lara’s direction held her fingers out waiting
as if Lara was expected to come defend her.

“Not this time, Jezabell.” Lara
shook her head, refusing to look up at Jezabell. Blood stained Lara’s dress and
arms as it drizzled steadily from Lianna’s eyes, one thick stream trailing from
her nose to her chin. “You went too far this time, Jezabell, my love… Too far.”

“She has put us all in danger by
her very
existence
. She knows nothing of our world and she betrays her
word, killing two humans right over our property line! You know the rules of
this House. We do not hunt human anywhere in the vicinity of our House. It may
have broken our wards!”

“She’s a New Blood! She’s innocent
until she can be taught. If you want someone to blame for that then blame me.
But trust me on this, Jezabell, no matter the outcome of this you will not
touch her again. I promise you that.” Jezabell’s hand dropped to her side in
defeat. “Don’t make me leave, Jez. You know that I will.”

“You can’t leave me, Damien.” She
must have intended to sound pleading, but the threat was obvious.

Lara brushed her fingers over
Lianna’s blood stained cheeks before moving suddenly to stand between the two. “Both
of you just stop it. Damien, you’re not leaving. Jezabell, you were wrong. She
will be amazing. This is all of our faults. We swore to her we would teach her,
and yet we have done nothing. We owe that to her now more than ever.”

“Lara, what do you see?” Damien
whispered as if afraid to speak any louder.

“I don’t think this has harmed her.
She’s very difficult to see, Damien, you have to understand that.” Jezabell’s
mouth dropped to protest but Lara’s hand came up to silence her. “Which is
why
…
we must tread carefully and teach her everything. Omit nothing from her. I fear
that none of us will survive what is coming if we are not all equally prepared.
She has my protection, Damien. No one in this House will bring her harm
intentionally again. You have my
word.
I’ll speak to the others myself
on it.”

“I want it in blood.” Damien stared
solely at Lara, whose brows arched with surprise.

Jezabell gawked at him. “What?”

“I want it in blood that she has
your protection.”

“No!” Jezabell screamed, all but
lunging at him before Laura stepped in between the two of them.

“It’s all right, Jezabell. He has
my word. He can have it in blood if it is his will.” She stepped to him, and
lifted her arm, wrist up.

As the fog slid away from my head
pounded. At least everything seemed back to normal. I knew exactly who I was,
where I was and that also included the man I was laying upon as if he were a
great granite pillow.

He smelled so good. I took in a
deep breath reveling in his delicious scent. It was like natural cologne specifically
designed to tease me. “Nice to see you’re awake.” His fingers drug through my
hair again and again so soothingly.

“I thought Vampires didn’t sleep? I
was looking forward to an eternity without dreams.” His fingers twisted around
my hair, the slight tug and intake of breath sent a tickle down my spine as he
breathed me in.

“We usually don’t. But you’re not
like any Vampire I have ever known.” His mood was unable to be determined
through his tone of voice. So I was left not knowing how to take that. “How do
you feel?”

“Just a headache.” Paranoia wracked
my brain, deciphering what he had meant. But I had incidentally forgotten he
could hear my thoughts. Not like you could really control what you’re thinking
forever anyway.

“I’m sorry for how that sounded.
But it is true. I have not, nor has anyone else here known another like you,
Lianna. However I’ve never once considered that to be a bad thing as far as I’m
concerned,” his tone lightened just slightly.

“I don’t want to make your life any
harder.”

“The original offer still stands. I
will take you anywhere in the world that your heart desires.”

“No, I can’t. If nothing else I
couldn’t do that to Lara. She nearly cried about your threatening to leave
earlier. I don’t want to cause more problems with your family. Jezabell hates
me as it is.”

“Just how much do you remember?”

“Everything from when you three
showed up going forward. Before that, I remember some things but it’s very
hazy...” I didn’t know how to feel about killing those two now. My only guilt
was that I couldn’t recall what they looked like. They could have been white.
Or black. Had blonde hair or red. They could have been purple with green spots.
I would never remember. That I cared at all about this took more effort for me
than I thought it should.

As I had slept I dreamt a dream I
had forgotten entirely. A dream from my time as a human. A dream just days
before I had died. The spell that bound the woman from my dreams to Damien and
in that, Damien to her. He wasn’t mine anyway. I was making his life miserable
without any reason at all.

“How’s your hand?” I whispered as
my thoughts swirled in on each other again.

His body seemed tense. He didn’t
answer me right away. My lips parted to ask but before the first word came out
he interrupted me. I may never get used to the mind reading stuff. “What was
that?”

“Um, I asked how your hand was?”
Shit.
I flinched.
Stupidstupidstupid.
We both knew what he meant. All I could
do was look away.

“Why are you hiding things from me?
Why would you think I could ever love anyone else? Let alone that I was bound
to anyone else.” My mind went blank. What could I say? It was then Hendrick
knocked on the door. Bless him.

Damien’s eyes narrowed in
frustration. He sat up, moving to sit in front of me protectively. “What?” he
sounded as irritable as he looked.

Hendrick opened the door but hung
back in the hall. “Time to take little chickadee hunting.” He winked at me
playfully. His massive arms folded over his even bigger chest. Damien grunted
and stood, pulling me along with him. He wasn’t going to let it drop.

“You’re not mad about your arm?” I
questioned nervously though Hendrick just laughed.

“You think you could actually hurt
me? That’s funny.” He laughed as he stepped aside so that we would join him.
That’s
not what you said in the woods
. Damien smirked, though it was still bitter.

“How are you feeling?” Damien
questioned as we reached the woods. My stability was a touch off. Both Damien
and Hendrick had noticed. My legs had mostly healed but it was still quite
uncomfortable. I tried not to focus on it so Damien wouldn’t have to hear the
thoughts.

Shrugging, I gave him an amused
sardonic look. “Just peachy.”

Hendrick and Damien both chuckled
simultaneously. Hendrick was watching me still, looking nervous and rather
guilty. Damien took my hand.

The land was ours. It held no
dangers to us. Not here. Hendrick stayed nearby but was sure to give Damien and
me some space as well. We hunted until dawn, feeding on a whole herd. Between
the three of us they never had a chance. Hendrick was the most amusing to
watch. The giant ape of a man being so graceful was just comical.

Dawn came too quickly. Damien and
Hendrick were about a hundred yards from me standing together, speaking quietly
to one another. It would have been easy to focus on the words, but I chose to
ignore them. It didn’t really matter in my opinion. Hendrick took off seconds
later brushing past me. I felt him jab playfully at my ribs, but he never
stopped for my reaction.

Damien remained leaning with his
back against a tree watching me. After a moment, I jumped up to the branch
above me. Climbing quickly to the highest limb I could find that could still
hold me, I settled in to relax and enjoy the view of the dawn.

Yes, sun hurts my eyes horribly. It
makes me lethargic and weak. My body becomes languid and stiff. But I love the
dawn. He promised that would ease in time.

Before long, Damien came up to join
me and slid in behind me. With a little adjustment I lay back against his rock
hard chest as we sat watching the sunrise.

“Will you talk to me now?” With
brief hesitation his arms slid around my body.

“I may as well.” All I could think
was that any hope of my everlasting happiness was about to jump out of this
tree. Unlike me it wouldn’t survive the fall. It was time. I’d been a fraud. I’d
known this for so very long now, and had hidden it from him so thoroughly I had
even forgotten it myself.

I took in a deep reluctant breath. “To
explain I have to go back a bit. The night you saw me walking, and took me home
the first time, Neesa gave me a tarot reading that shook her up. She saw my
death in the cards that night.” Damien’s arms clinched around my waist. He
remembered this part.

“She insisted I go see her mother
in poor hope that she would prove herself wrong. They made me do this trance
meditation. During which I fell asleep and had another dream of the woman doing
a spell. Turns out it was a binding spell...

“Later, after the day of our walk
in the rain, I had another dream only this time you were there. I told you I
dreamed of you. The spell was her binding the two of you together for the rest
of eternity. When you looked at her in this dream I realized that.” Damien held
me to him securely. As if he held me tight enough, what I was saying would all
be a lie.

I kept going though. No point in
stopping now. “We’re not meant for one another, Damien. It’s her you’re
supposed to be with. Not me. It’s like all this time the dreams were just
leading up to that. Her way of telling me that she knew I was going to come
between you two or something and that it didn’t matter. You would always be
hers as she would always be yours.”

Damien sat quietly for a
moment.
“Can
we try something?” he whispered faintly. Unable to speak I simply nodded. “It
won’t be physically painful.” Unspoken words warned the pain was of a different
variety. “I want you to focus on every detail you remember from the two dreams.”
His hands slid down my arms slowly, interlacing his fingers into my own.

“Do you still trust me, Anna?” he
whispered against the nape of my neck, kissing up just under my ear. I nodded
softly. I trusted him. He didn’t remember her, yet.

“I want to see them but the only
way I know to connect with you thoroughly enough to see them as you do is
through this.” His lips had been right against my ear. As he finished the
sentence, his mouth spread open over the nape of my neck, letting his fangs
sink into me like a hot knife into butter.

Instantly aroused I let out a soft
moan. It took all my concentration to focus on those dreams. Reliving the
realization that we were not meant to be together while feeling his bite made
this moment so much worse.

The first dream I chose to torture
myself with was the second one I had mentioned. The one where I saw Damien and
the one that had led me to realize that his heart and soul belonged to another.

Damien sat on a rock just outside
of a makeshift hut. Looking as magnificent as always, though a little strange.
I understood the difference now. He had been human still. Dark bronze skin
glistened in the golden sun. His head hung forward between his knees, with a
knife in hand. Long ash brown hair slowly fell onto the powder soft white sand.
It matched the braid from the spell perfectly. There was no doubt it was Damien
the spell had been cast for.

Even as I relieved the dream, I
felt the same rush of awe inspired love. It was as if I were there again. He
was her everything. She would have given up all of the magic, the power, anything
and everything just to be with him. That is why she had bound herself to him.
And through this, the dreading knowledge found me again with just as much pain
as it had the first time.

Now that I understood, it doubled
the sickening blow. He was hers and hers alone. When he was done he turned to
look up at her with that unmistakable half grin of his. He would have it no
other way. As he stood looking slightly more like the Damien I knew now, just
darker, and albeit bald, he came to her. Pulling her into his arms, he leaned
his lips to hers.

Too painful to watch I switched my
focus to the next dream.

In the middle of a thick
magnificent jungle filled with huge exotic trees draped in the brightest of
every hue of green. Ivy hung everywhere as if a web were connecting all forms
of plant life.

Flowers bloomed everywhere of every
color and size. Some bigger than my entire body even. There was no dead
vegetation covering the ground. Anywhere plants did not grow the earth was
covered in pure white sand.

Beneath my bare feet it felt soft
as baby powder. I stood in a very small clearing. Before me there was a small
hole dug and set up as a fire pit. In it a fire burning there already, though
unlike normal flame of red and yellow it burned a pure white.

Kneeling down before the small fire,
I reached to my right where clusters of wooden bowls were laid out, each
containing something different. Red powders and white ones, yellow grains and
iridescent blue beady looking things. One contained a thick red liquid, Damien’s
blood I realized, and the one beside it a thick lock of long human hair that
was a dark ashy brown.

While chanting words unknown to me
I threw different amounts of all different things in the fire. To my left was a
blade, handcrafted, but beautiful. Picking it up, I sliced my left palm deeply
and mixed my blood in the bowl with his.

Then taking the knife again I cut a
large lock of my own hair and braided it in with the other. I poured some of
the bowl of blood over the braid. All the while engrossed with the chant before
placing the hair into the fire. At long last, I picked up the bowl, drinking
down the rest of the blood myself.

As she looked up to the mirror I
ended it there.

The rest didn’t matter. He’d seen
her. He’d seen them together. And he’d seen the spell that bound them. What
more could possibly matter?

The moment didn’t last any longer
than the dreams. His lips left my neck as the dream ended. “Shayla,” he groaned.
Laying his head down on my shoulder his hands slipped from mine.

So that was her name. All these
years and I never knew.

Every part of me wanted to stay
with him in my own greed to just feel him near me. But my mind beat out my
heart this time. Soon as he slumped back against the tree away from me, I swung
my legs off the left side of the branch and gracefully fell to the earth.
Before I had really landed I was off running. Damien didn’t follow.