Blood Gods: Rebel Vampires Standalone Novella (Rebel Legends Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Description

  Copyright

  Books in the Rebel Verse

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  REBEL ANGELS

  About the Author

  BLOOD GODS: A REBEL VAMPIRES STANDALONE

  REBEL LEGENDS BOOK ONE

  Rosemary A Johns

  BLOOD GODS

  REBEL LEGENDS BOOK ONE

  Hunt the wickedly beautiful vampire and his Blood God and save the world.

  A rebel vampire like me should have no problem taking down his own kind, right?

  Except, what should I do when that wicked beauty turns around and hunts me?

  I was reborn into a vampire’s world of blood, passion, and sin as Light. My battle to redeem myself through my forbidden love for a human, Kathy, exiled me from the deadly world of Blood Life.

  Now, three predators and their secret cult are stalking the human world. Blood Life wrecked me before but now it’s whispering pretty temptations.

  Freedom. Family. Power.

  I know that they’ll never stop hunting me because they hunger to own me.

  I might not have the Blood God on my side, but I have my rebel spirit to resist their seduction.

  Will it be enough to save my lover and the human world…?

  BLOOD GODS: REBEL LEGENDS BOOK ONE © copyright 2019 Rosemary A Johns

  www.rosemaryajohns.com

  First edition 2019

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Fantasy Rebel Limited

  BOOKS IN THE REBEL VERSE

  REBEL ANGELS - COMPLETE SERIES

  COMPLETE SERIES BOX SET: BOOKS 1-5

  VAMPIRE HUNTRESS

  VAMPIRE PRINCESS

  VAMPIRE DEVIL

  VAMPIRE MAGE

  VAMPIRE GOD

  VAMPIRE SECRET: REBELS AND RENEGADES

  REBEL VAMPIRES - COMPLETE SERIES

  COMPLETE SERIES BOX SET BOOKS 1-3

  BLOOD DRAGONS

  BLOOD SHACKLES

  BLOOD RENEGADES

  STANDALONE NOVELLA - BLOOD GODS

  1

  SATURDAY 19th NOVEMBER 1977 PARIS, FRANCE

  My Kathy,

  The monster that I’m hunting is wickedly beautiful and almost as deadly as his god. It’s three weeks now since I first discovered Versailles’ Moon Cult and I promise that this time I’ll stop him, just like last time I failed.

  Christ, I hope that this letter reaches you… Are you reading this, love?

  Although, if I’m honest, Versailles is just as likely to twist the hunt to kill me or tempt me into becoming a predator again (or into his arms), because when you battle the dark in this Blood Life, you must never forget that its fangs are as sharp as your own.

  Humans call us vampires and even though they don’t know that we truly exist, they fear us. Maybe they’ve always been the clever ones.

  Still, Ruby who elected me into Blood Life once called her gift of second life, which is nothing like the fantasy of vampires, the Blood Kiss, and I’ve never stopped kissing blood or life, right? The only thing that’s changed is the woman pressing me down: it’s no longer Ruby’s possessive caresses but your passionate teasing.

  I could live on the touch of your soft forbidden — human — lips and forget that the choice I made to abandon my own kind for yours has exiled us. By loving you, I broke the rule to never reveal Blood Lifer existence to humans. Yet we’re all monsters when it comes down to it: First and Blood Lifer alike.

  You made me forget that, in the beautiful cocoon of our love. That’s the secret danger of humans. We’d been safe in our own hidden world, just the two of us alone divided from both our species, but the dark will always find you.

  Versailles, his Moon Cult, and his god caught us.

  Kathy, my Moon Girl, please be reading this now.

  In seven days, I’ll slay that monstrous Blood Lifer, Versailles, or I’ll sodding die trying. I’m unleashed now: restored into a true Blood Lifer. Until I track Versailles who dragged me from your humanity, I don’t trust the itching of my gums, the pounding of my blood, and the shrieking wildness of my soul near the pulsing beat, beat, beat of your First Lifer blood.

  I will find my way back to you.

  I’m sorry that I had to leave you behind in this adventure, but Versailles is so much more dangerous than we first imagined.

  I’m slumped on the worn blankets of my bed, shivering in my thin black t-shirt, as the chill rises from Paris’ night streets and seeps through the walls of my room. I’m caressing the cream paper of this letter like it’s your skin but it’s cold, rather than thrumming with the warmth of life.

  You burn me up.

  Here…? There’s only dust and Victorian oak furniture as old as I am. I’m alone and I yearn to howl. Except, I’m no longer the predator that I once was, so why do I hunger to rip apart the world? Yeah, that’s right: because I’m losing myself to the Blood Lifer who’s been buried deep, ever since you saved me in the wild 1960s nights of love, when my eyes were opened to the truth that humans weren’t prey.

  That’s why I have a confession. I’ll play the penitent on my knees.

  This evening, for the first time since I fell in love with you, I hunted humans…and I lost myself in the call for the Blood Kiss.

  That’s why I can’t risk being close to you, Kathy, until this ends in the death of a monster: either Versailles or me.

  I won’t be your predator. Instead, I’ll always be…

  Your Light

  2

  I stalked Versailles, the charismatic leader of the Blood God cult, across the district of Paris as soon as the sun set. The rain plastered down my hair, tickling the back of my neck. The clouds tore the moon in two.

  I dragged my leather jacket closer around myself as I prowled past boutiques, whose windows were filled with handbags, sandals, or perfumes. I held my breath against the powerful mix of sweetness and leather. My pulse pounded, as I hunted the dangerous Blood Lifer who worshiped something even more dangerous than himself.

  First Lifers streamed by in excited flurries, clutching umbrellas against the downpour. To me, they appeared to be soaked blood bags that smelled a thousand times more mouth-watering than the pigs’ blood, which I’d just drunk. Each one of them was blind to the creatures, which were primed to rip out the
ir throats and huddled the same as them in the evening rain.

  I shook my head like a mutt, spraying water from my hair, and the humans scattered, clucking their tongues.

  I smirked. Yeah, fear the great splasher of humans.

  Suddenly, I stilled, spying a flash of purple silk.

  Versailles, my quarry, strutted like a peacock ahead as if he owned the world because that’s what folks crave: to own or be owned. Except, that’s only those who aren’t brave enough to take responsibility for their own darkness, even if that means breaking the rules or being the villain.

  No one’ll ever own me. Rebels blaze their own path. Although, the problem is, there’s always a cost.

  And I was paying it now.

  I blinked the stinging rain from my eyes and then I gasped. Versailles had stopped and was staring down the street right at me. His indigo eyes were startlingly bright and as wickedly beautiful as the rest of him.

  I threw myself against the glass front of a patisserie: the rich aromas of cakes, tarts, and croissants wove a false web of safety around me. The glass shuddered, and I panted.

  Versailles’ three Blood Lifer guards scented the air, as I slid to the pavement, seeking invisibility — just one more tramp slumped on Paris’ streets. The triplet sisters shimmered in velvet coats of midnight over lace frocks, whilst their gloves ended in sharpened claws; their ebony hair snaked to their waists. Their backs arched luxuriously, as they rubbed against Versailles, and their porcelain faces were fevered.

  It looked like someone had been reading too much Bram Stoker.

  I peered at Versailles from underneath my eyelashes.

  Versailles hooked his arm around the waist of one sister, whilst he whispered to the other. Their sharp fingers scratched up and down his back, and he gasped, arching. Then his lips moth-fluttered across each of their cheeks in turn. The third triplet stroked her gloved fingers carefully through Versailles’ brunet curls like he was a king to be worshiped.

  The moon broke free of the thunderclouds, just for a moment, spearing across Versailles’ family. A cult prostrating itself before the monster that I was hunting.

  Right, I was the optimist here, because that meant wickedly beautiful and the triplets didn’t hunt me first.

  Then Versailles laughed, and the triplets clasped each other’s clawed hands, as if this was all a bloody joke. Yet I couldn’t help how my chest ached because I remembered how it’d felt to be part of that predator Blood Lifer freedom with Ruby, when there’d been nothing but the pulsing thrill of the blood and the intimate hot touch of each other’s bodies.

  I stiffened, blinking away tears. And I’d never felt so alone.

  With one final scan of the crowds, the Blood Lifers turned and disappeared into the sea of First Lifers.

  I shrugged myself to my feet with a growl. What did it matter how things had once been? Ruby was dead, and I’d fallen in love with a First Lifer, turning my back on the world of Blood Life. Humans were more than the red throbbing beneath their skin.

  I dived after Versailles, but caught the shoulder of a First Lifer in a bottle-green coat. Before she could stumble, I grabbed her arm; the coat felt as soft as a lamb. “Sorry, princess.”

  She still fell against me, however, and the long line of her neck stretched out like a feast. My fangs ached.

  I could take just a single lick…taste the salt and the low throb of the blood beneath the tangy skin…

  I shuddered, wetting my lips.

  Then my teeth would slice through, and the blood would sing, exploding gloriously on my tongue…

  “Monsieur,” the First Lifer’s boyfriend, romantically swirled in a designer black coat, yanked her away from me so hard that she let out an eep. Then he shouldered between us, ripping off his gloves as if they were gauntlets.

  I breathed hard, struggling to shut the predator tight in the box again, but it was too late and it was free.

  I was free.

  I smirked, letting myself flash a little fang. The First Lifer who was twice my size and muscled like a gorilla, shrank back.

  I tilted my head. “Go on then, walk her home. You’re lucky that I’m too busy to whip out my cock for a quick game of Who’s the Bigger Man. And I’d win, by the way.”

  The First Lifer gasped in outrage, wrapping his burly arm around his bewildered lover, before dragging her away. She blinked, pulling her coat closer around herself, although I didn’t miss her assessing glance back at me over her shoulder.

  She looked as lost as I felt.

  I traced the brass poppy broach that was pinned on my jacket, round and round the petals, remembering Kathy’s touch and the way that she’d pinned it on more intimately than a kiss, before I sprang from shop entrance way to concealed doorways, after Versailles.

  Then I groaned.

  Versailles was sweeping into a disco with the triplets draped all over him. Tinny music wailed over a pounding beat, and a red neon sign read ‘Amor’. The disco was exclusive too; there was no queue outside, and only one discreet way in, which was guarded by a bouncer who looked ex-army.

  I glanced down at myself: motorcycle boots, jeans, t-shirt, and a leather jacket with a faded gold ace of spades on the back. Alright, rocker here, yeah? These weren’t exactly the clothes that fitted into a posh Paris nightclub, unlike Versailles’ refined style.

  Yet Versailles and his elected sisters could be killing, right now — a scarlet scream of death on the dance floor.

  That was their style.

  I straightened my shoulders, before sidling up to the bouncer, all bald boxer sneer of him. He clutched his clipboard VIP list like a nuclear weapon. I reached to draw my finger down it like I was simply searching for my name amongst the aristocrats and celebrities, but the bouncer snatched it back as if I was venomous, which of course I was.

  Not as stupid as he looked, this First Lifer.

  The bouncer didn’t say a word, glance at the list, or break eye contact. His lips simply curled with distaste, as he shook his head once in the universal gesture for: you’re not getting in.

  When I smiled, however, the bouncer’s sneer faltered. “I don’t do lists, mate.”

  Confusion clouded the First Lifer’s wary gaze, but he still leaned forward, which is when I nutted him.

  The bouncer’s nose broke, and warm blood spurted across my cheek. I licked it from the corner of my mouth, shuddering at the hit of human blood, whilst he hollered. Reddening with fury, the bouncer swung blindly, and pain blossomed hot through my right eye at the hit. So, I nutted him again, and this time he keeled over.

  I wiped the blood from my cheek, slurping at my fingers like they were tasty treats.

  I’m an addict, I’ll admit it. Except, every time that I give in…the dark swallows me.

  I bounced up and down on my toes to the beat of the music, energized by the blood, before patting the unconscious bouncer on the head and swaggering into the disco.

  Then I took a step back, blinking. My sensitive eyes ached. The interior of the club glowed, as if I’d wandered into an enchanted land that was also laced with red wine, sweat, and ciggies. Ultra-violet lighting trapped us all in an eerie world, where the women’s clothes were drained to luminous purple, their bras stood out ghostly, and their teeth shone.

  My fangs would look blinding.

  High on the taste of human blood, I bit hard on my cheek to stop myself shooting out my canines and then listening to the panicked screams.

  That’s when it hit me: my song.

  Then I couldn’t move, think, or breathe, because these First Lifers were dancing to the song that was most special to Kathy and me, whilst in the far corner, with the triplets huddled around him, swaying like black snakes and hiding the true darkness from the humans, Versailles was killing.

  Bloody hell, no…

  As David Bowie’s “Heroes” blasted in triumph through the swarming disco in a grand undulation of guitars, piano, and synthesizers, and as Bowie sang like a drowning man screaming to b
e rescued, Versailles danced with his prey: a true vision of wicked beauty luring First Lifers to death in his arms.

  I wrapped my own arms tightly around myself, whilst my breathing became ragged.

  Why should I care? A decade ago, I’d have feasted too, before I’d realized that we weren’t above humans, and fell in love with one. It was part of the Blood Lifer rules: never interrupt another’s kill. Yet Versailles didn’t stick to the rules either and by killing this openly in the middle of a First Lifer club to the song that bound me to the woman I loved, he’d stepped over every line that we had.

  Did he know that I was watching him? Had he planned this?

  Versailles swung a glam-rocker First Lifer around to “Heroes”; it looked like Versailles was kissing up his neck, but I knew that he’d sunk in his fangs. The glam-rocker struggled in the arms of his last ever lover; his cheeks were tear-streaked. I saw the moment that our venom kicked in, and the panic in his eyes, as paralysis stole away his freedom. Then the First Lifer was reduced to a rag doll, as Versailles waltzed with him, as gentle as a true lover.

  It made me shudder because Versailles glanced at the dance floor — towards me — with those intense indigo eyes, and just for a moment he retracted his teeth and smiled. His fangs glowed like a beacon, and I was shocked by how much I was drawn to them…to Versailles…and to the scent of the blood across the club.

  Yet paralysis had me by the bollocks, too. Because this was the song that bound me to Kathy, and I was trapped between the first Blood Lifer invitation since I’d been exiled from both worlds and the memory of my love to Kathy, a human, and every promise that I’d made to never go back into the dark.

  Whilst I hesitated, fingers grasped the back of my neck. I gasped as I was twirled, and my shoulders were wrenched. Shocked, I half-raised my fist, only to be knocked back by a First Lifer who plastered herself against my chest. The woman’s arms snaked around my biceps, and she tried to drag me into the dance. The sequins of her top dug into me like pins. In arse-hanging-out hot pants, she ground herself against my crotch to the rhythm of the song.