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

  Hot Pants was drunk and didn’t know what she was risking. When she rubbed my cock through my jeans with her bare knee, I whimpered.

  A bloke can only take so much.

  “Heroes” built in waves of percussion and pained intensity; no shred of irony was lost on me.

  I was no bloody hero.

  Hot Pants nosed at my neck, nibbling with her blunt teeth. I moaned before I could stop myself.

  Yet this was all wrong. Why was I allowing myself to become her prey? When had I been reduced to the hunted quarry of drunken First Lifers in discos, whilst Versailles held court like a prince?

  I ripped Hot Pants away from me. Then I was caressing her neck and the fast flutter of her pulse.

  Christ, how I longed to taste it.

  The fizz of the bouncer’s blood was still on my tongue. It called to me, lighting up memories of carnage and whirlwind death, when I hadn’t cowered alone, too afraid to taste simply because I’d promised Kathy, a First Lifer, that I wouldn’t and simply because I loved Kathy.

  I stroked the poppy compulsively, and it anchored me.

  What the bleeding hell was I doing?

  When I shoved Hot Pants off me, at last my pulse slowed from the blood high and I could see past the drive for a hunt. I desired Kathy more than the blood: I always had.

  The First Lifer pouted, before pawing at my bollocks with more twist than tenderness. I yelped, but knew enough of these games not to pull away. Hot Pants gave my bollocks one final squeeze, before staggering further onto the dance floor.

  I allowed myself a subtle rub as I took a look back at Versailles and the triplets, but they were gone, and so was the First Lifer that they’d picked for the night’s feast.

  Yet what terrified me, as “Heroes” rose to its crescendo, and I stood shaking on that magical dance floor transformed to fairy realm, was that I’d almost accepted Versailles’ invitation and joined him tonight.

  I was one slip away from becoming an unleashed Blood Lifer, hunting humans. I wouldn’t lose myself again, and it’d destroy me to lose Kathy.

  The longer that the hunt for Versailles went on, however, and the longer that I was away from my First Lifer lover, the more I was becoming the monster.

  3

  I skulked back from the disco, shivering and shaking from the shock of losing myself to the blood. I’d skated on the thin line tonight between becoming the same predator as Versailles who worshiped blood, just as his followers worshiped him.

  Had he known that I’d been there, and the whole setup had simply been an elaborate game? Yet why had I even been tempted? I loved and needed Kathy, but the gleam in Versailles’ eyes had called to me in a way that no one but Ruby ever had: a connection, that only Blood Lifer’s understood, when blood spoke to blood.

  Yet I didn’t usually play nicely with others, and it made my skin feel too tight to know that Versailles had turned his charisma on me like a magician suddenly picking me from the audience to saw me in half.

  What did Versailles want from me? Didn’t he hate me? Surely he only wanted to kill me?

  When I reached my rented room, I stripped out of my soaked clothes. Then naked, I balled the clothes up and chucked them at the peeling paint of my wall, as if I could hurt them, or myself. The wet thud and snail trail as they slid to the floorboards was bloody satisfying.

  But first, I’d taken off the brass poppy, which Kathy had pinned to my jacket, as if it was a part of Kathy like she’d been gifting me a shred of humanity…or a collar. I still didn’t know which it was, but it was all I had of hers, and it was scented with her Chanel No. 5.

  It was intoxicating.

  I rubbed my arms as I shivered, raising the poppy to sniff it. My eyelids fluttered, as I shuddered at the scent. And just like that, I was hard, panting, and trembling with the need for…Kathy.

  I remembered the feel of her fingers sweeping across my chest and down my sides. The way that she’d tease along the line of my inner thigh and kiss on the sensitive place just behind my ear. I sighed, thudding my head back against the wall in frustration, whilst my cock throbbed. Since she wasn’t here, however, I’d have to make do with a wank.

  I threw myself down on the bed, wincing as I bounced off its hardness. My fingers twitched towards my cock but then stopped.

  I huffed, clenching my jaw. Since when had I needed a human’s permission to get my jollies? Yet this wasn’t what I needed: my own hand.

  Blue balls ache, but without Kathy, they were simply another reminder of why I was here. I’d forgotten that tonight, too lost in the blood. If I denied myself wanking, then that would be a sodding good reminder that Versailles’ cult had already tried to kill me. Plus, effective because Versailles might be beautiful and charismatic but a bloke could only deny himself for so long, no matter how tempting the treat.

  I groaned, banging my head against the pillow in an attempt to ignore the pain in my balls and cock.

  No, it didn’t help.

  I raised my eyebrow at my cock. “It’s no use looking at me, mate. You may as well go back to sleep.”

  He strained harder than ever because just like me, he was a determined bugger. I shuddered, squirming.

  A cock in the soft, then hard, tunnel of my palm… Stop imagining… Please, Christ, think of anything else… Cabbages, spiders, the dark… The copper bloom of blood…

  I clutched the poppy broach so tightly that I pressed the pin through my skin. Yet then the scent of blood made my cock pulse, and my bollocks tingle. I drew out the pin, licking my own blood in electric bursts. I writhed, whilst my hips arched from the sheets as if at a disco of their own.

  The poppy was on my lips — Kathy was on my lips. I was worshiping, nuzzling, and tonguing it; I dropped gentle kisses across its face like a worshiper at the feet of an idol. When I closed my eyes, I was safe in a cloud of Chanel No. 5, embraced by Kathy.

  Safe with her.

  And just like that? Untouched? I came.

  Yet when I came, I sobbed because it was agony and ecstasy in one divine moment, as if the memory of Kathy had milked my exposed body.

  Empty, I curled in on myself, clutching my arms around my chest, as the wet patch grew sticky underneath me.

  I’d just made love to a ghost.

  Had I lost Kathy? Was she still even my Moon Girl? Because I bleeding lived for her. Yet, three weeks ago, I’d abandoned her because I’d known that this hunt…if we were going to be flayed truth about, I…would be too dangerous. Kathy and I had already faced Versailles once in Cherbourg, and after the terrible events in that town, I knew that I couldn’t risk her again.

  Maybe if I stopped Versailles, I’d get to be the hero, after all, and Kathy would forgive me. But here’s the thing: to catch a monster, it takes a monster, and I was the one with the fangs.

  4

  SUNDAY 20th NOVEMBER 1977 PARIS, FRANCE

  My Kathy,

  The greatest terror that forces a man to sweat at night isn’t fear of his own death, but the death of the woman that he loves. And where the true nightmares bite…? Knowing that he caused it.

  In Blood Life, I’d reckoned myself free of rules, society, and fear. But that was the lie.

  The ultimate rule — to hide our existence from the humans and remain always in the shadows — I broke that for you, Kathy. So, now we’re exiles from both First and Blood Life, trapped in the sliver before the dawn.

  I refuse to allow us to become doomed lovers or anything that dramatic, even if we are from two divided species and our love is forbidden.

  I’m no bloody Romeo.

  Yet, we’ve always been hidden, alone, and therefore safe. For a decade, I’ve clung to those three words, making them my bloody mantra.

  Hidden. Alone. Safe.

  Yet whilst we were condemned to the dark, monsters were playing in the light. A month ago in Cherbourg, we’d known nothing about Versailles, his Moon Cult, or god. We’d been happy in our ignorance and our love.

  Love: it sets us al
ight, Kathy. Christ in heaven, know that I love you, if tomorrow I die.

  Your Light

  5

  Sometimes, I dreamed that I was back with my Blood Lifer family and then I awoke to find myself in the arms of my First Lifer lover. The woman, for whom I’d betrayed my family, and would again. I never knew for those first few seconds when Kathy’s warm breath gusted against the back of my neck and I stared at the walls of our rented rooms in some European city whose name I could barely remember, which was dream and which reality. That’s when I needed the pain to remind me and keep me in the human world.

  Flames, which burnt the skin with a sublime agony, had always anchored me the best.

  Christ, I craved that agony.

  When I cupped the flame on my gold lighter against the breeze, the orange flicker caught my palm like a friend. The end of my ciggie caught in a smoldering blaze.

  I took a deep drag.

  A month ago, when Kathy and I had known nothing about the darkness of Moon Cults, clawed triplets, or beautiful monsters, we’d been exiled but happy in the medieval harbor of Cherbourg.

  I’d imagined that I knew every enemy hiding in the shadows, yet I hadn’t known to also watch out for the gods.

  When Kathy tugged impatiently on my hand, I slipped my lighter back. Then we strolled down La Rue du Port, which was a narrow street in Cherbourg that was awash with aromas: spider crab, mussels, and fish. “Heroes” — our song — was playing from above a pavement café that was full of nothing but old men, who slouched with closed-off expressions.

  I grinned, snagging Kathy around the waist and dashing my ciggie underfoot, before I spun her — just once — in front of those boring wankers simply because I could: we were still here in their world, alive, and…

  Yeah, Kathy was stuck as a secretary, whilst I worked as a translator (cheers, photographic memory), but right at that moment under the moon, we were free.

  I laughed, nuzzling at Kathy’s neck and licking up its milky softness. When she gasped, I set her down.

  Kathy mock-glared. “You’re a brat tonight.”

  I smirked, running my fingers up the front of her red-and-white coat, before teasing her sexy little thing: the silk ivory scarf that was tied at her neck.

  Bloody hell, I loved that scarf.

  Kathy panted, whilst she leant towards me, and I circled the knot that was just over the beat, beat, beat of her pulse. I drew my fingers down her arm in featherlight touches, before clutching her hand instead. “I’m sorry, mama.”

  This time the glare was real. Kathy tried to wrench away, but I didn’t let go.

  Yet I understood her rage because only she would ever age. But what was youth to me? When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ll know that it means as little as money or power. They’re all a fool’s game.

  Under the soft lights of the ancient French harbor, Kathy was as beautiful as the night that we first met. I rubbed my cheek against hers, shuddering as her long curls brushed against my skin. Only now, of course she was a woman, not a girl.

  At last, she collapsed against me with a laugh. “Brat.”

  Then I fell into her arms, giving an unmanly squeal, as a pram rammed into the back of my ankle.

  Wailing, snuffling, squalling.

  I slowly turned around.

  Red-faced in protest against its evening walk, a baby was drumming its little legs under the blankets of the pram. It — she — was dressed in matching orange corduroy to her mum. Her mum wafted on a woodsy scent, whilst her hair framed her face in angelic blonde wings.

  It was the baby, however, who held Kathy in her thrall. She leant over the frilly pram and any moment would be…

  Cooing.

  I watched with narrowed eyes, shifting from foot to foot, whilst Kathy stroked the baby’s tufts of white-blonde hair and lost herself to the fantasy: the one where we weren’t on the run, and this baby was ours.

  I bristled, pulling at her arm. “Enough with the fussing over half-pints.”

  There was a tinkle of laughter — the mum even laughed like a sodding angel — before her hand rested over mine. “Let your mother look, yes?” Kathy and I both gaped at her. Then a blush stained Kathy’s cheeks, as she bit her lip. The mum let her daughter suck on her finger until the fussing stopped. When she glanced up and saw the tears in Kathy’s eyes, her brow furrowed, but then she nodded, as if in maternal understanding. “It’s hard when the children grow big, n’est-ce pas?”

  Children? I was no sodding boy.

  Before I could stop myself, I growled.

  Then I squealed, as the mum drove the pram over my right foot — on purpose — as she waltzed away. I rubbed my foot, and my eyes watered.

  When I looked up again, Kathy sniggered.

  My pain was worth it, if it made her laugh. I still pouted. “Oi, mortally wounded here.”

  Kathy attempted to hide her smile behind her hand. “You’ll live.”

  I dragged her close by the waist. “Don’t be narked,” I pushed the dark curls back from her ear, “but you should be careful swooning over babies.”

  She scowled (so, no luck on the not being narked front). “Smiling at babies isn’t illegal.”

  “But nicking them is.” Kathy startled, but I soothed her with strokes down the curve of her back. The thunder of her heart pounded through me; the intoxicating scent of her Chanel No. 5 buffered us from the bustle of the French street. “All this week, it’s been the story screaming through every newspaper: two poor little kids snatched. Look, maybe we should—”

  “Run again?” Kathy’s lips were tight.

  “How about Japan? Or America. We could—”

  Kathy’s gaze was steely. “You must know that I’m not running.”

  I sighed because I did, yet that didn’t stop me trying to protect Kathy, even though she’d never asked for that. I wasn’t her white knight, in fact, she’d saved my life twice already. I ached, just once, to become the hero that she always swore she didn’t need.

  Suddenly, I stiffened, shaking with an awareness of something more than human, before catching a glimpse of another Blood Lifer off the main road.

  Blood calls to blood. We always know our own kind.

  A flash of suede-fringed jacket, jeans, and Western-style cowboy boots, before the Blood Lifer pulled back into the shadows.

  I swung Kathy under the awning of an antique shop, breathing hard, as my palms sweated.

  Hidden. Alone. Safe.

  The words spiraled through my mind in sparkling explosions.

  Hidden. Alone. Safe.

  Yet the truth was that we’d never truly been a single one of those, and no mantra could change that. No matter how careful or vigilant I was, we were still hunted and the less Kathy knew about the Blood Lifers that I’d fought over the last decade in order to let my First Lifer lover pretend that we weren’t being hounded, the better.

  Kathy grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her. “What is it, Light? You don’t keep secrets. Tell me…”

  “The thing is, I’ve been noticing that there are more wasps around here than before. Did I say wasps? I meant Blood Lifers.”

  She slumped against the front of the shop, sketching circles on the glass with the tip of her finger. “How long have you known, freak?”

  I stiffened but then nuzzled Kathy’s neck, bathing in her warmth. “The last few days. And I’m your freak.”

  Kathy shoved me back with a huff, and I crossed my arms.

  An elderly woman, who looked like a tortoise in a dress, glared at me, before shooting advice at Kathy in French, whilst she trudged past.

  Kathy pulled a face. “What did she say?”

  I flushed. “That you should spank your son.” When I licked up Kathy’s neck, she quivered. “I can think of far more fun games.”

  “Our landlady has a martinet to beat her son. How about I borrow that?” There was a glint in Kathy’s eye, a definite glint. Just how much had I annoyed her with the whole not telling her about the
Blood Lifers being in town?

  I cringed. “Now hold on, I said sorry…” She raised her eyebrow. “I was just about to get right on the whole saying sorry business…”

  Kathy’s eyes were crushed ice. “You don’t look so cocky now, brat.”

  I paled. “Yes, mama.”

  Except, Kathy’s fingers played gently with mine. She wasn’t Ruby, my Blood Lifer Author, whose favorite nights had been soaked in gin and blood, where I was bound and flogged on her whim.

  This was my Moon Girl, and we were both free.

  So, why did I feel so trapped?

  Kathy sighed. “If we have to leave, then we’d better pack. I’m not losing the silk and lacy…you know…your gifts.”

  I blushed. Kathy looked so sexy in the stockings and underwear I’d saved all year to buy that I’d pack her case myself to make sure they weren’t left behind.

  Instead of turning, however, Kathy tilted her head, entranced by something in the antique shop’s window. She pressed her palm flat like she could melt through the glass and pluck out the brass poppy broach that lay on the other side.

  “My granddad fought in the First World War,” she murmured. “He was the only decent man that I knew. He’d show me his medals, although he never said a word about the war itself, always just laid out the medals in silence, but not like he was proud, more out of respect.” She was watching me warily. “Do you understand?”

  My lips thinned. “Yeah, what with living through the hell of the Great War myself, even if I didn’t fight on either side.”

  I understood how much that poppy meant to Kathy. Her lost granddad, innocence, family, youth…humanity and every bloody thing that she’d sacrificed to be with me in the dark.

  If the lady wanted the poppy, then the lady would have the poppy. I was a Blood Lifer, when did little things like shops being closed mean anything to me? Maybe I couldn’t give Kathy humanity or a baby, but I could nick her a sodding poppy.