Page 54 of Blood Ties (City of Blood #1)

Elina

After another night in the dungeon room, I am emotionally exhausted and beaten down when I awake the following night. My wounds have healed but I am still broken.

I know I felt Bash’s presence last night—he was close by, I could feel it.

Tonight, I awoke right at moon-rise, as though the need to sleep fell away when the sun slid below the horizon.

Sitting up in bed, a metallic tang is in the air.

Blood. Whipping my head around, I see a half-full glass of crimson sitting on my table.

Taking a deep inhale, I realize I can smell the liquid all the way over here.

My gums start to tingle and my mouth floods with saliva at the smell.

I stand and approach the inoffensive glass. Next to it is a bowl of gumbo. I lean down and smell it, it smells rich and delicious, but nothing like the way the blood smells, the way it calls to me.

I lift the glass to my nose. I breathe it in like it is life itself.

My entire being reacts. My hands start to shake, my stomach feels as though it is collapsing, hollow and needy.

The tingling in my gums becomes a sharp pain.

Something beyond my control seems to be happening to me.

Something biological, uncontrollable. I bring the bright red liquid to my lips and dart my tongue out to taste.

The lifeblood immediately fuels a frenzy the second it touches my tongue. Newly emerged fangs descend, slicing into my lips causing my own blood to join the feast. My body convulses with need.

Aching, I take a gulp of blood and electricity shoots through me, like the force of the sun inside me. My chest burns with the realization of what is happening.

This is it. My fate, fulfilled.

I moan, a sensual, arousing sound of pleasure erupting between my blood covered lips.

Strength invades my limbs, making me stronger and empowered in a way I have never even imagined was possible.

I feel every nerve-ending being set on fire.

I can hear more than I have ever heard before, the creaking of the floors, the electricity in the walls.

And banging. The entire building is filled with the sounds of banging.

Just as quickly as I realize what has happened, I realize the fear and hopelessness I felt yesterday is replaced with a fury that burns as brightly as my love.

Today is the last day I allow Nicolas to make the rules. I am done being a victim. Today, I will devise my own salvation.

I glance down. My camisole and sleep shorts are soaked in blood, clinging to me like second skin. No one brought me clothes. No one came at all.

Blood. I need more. I need blood. The need is acute and eats at me. It pulls my focus from anything but feeding. I yearn for life to flow into my veins. The small glass was not nearly enough to quench my need, the hunger growing within me with every passing second.

I try to listen to anything happening in the hallway, someone usually comes to get me after I wake up, I can't hear anything beyond the banging. Walking over to the door, I put my ear to the wood. It’s muffled but I can hear what sounds like feet pounding across the floor.

As I strain to listen, I hear a grating noise behind me and I spin around, looking at the large windows that face out to the street, in time to watch a solid metal shutter slam into place covering the entire window.

What the hell is going on?

Going back to the door, I listen harder, and I definitely hear feet running now. I try the doorknob, locked, of course.

Stepping back, I grab the handle and pull as hard as I can.

The door creaks slightly but the locks hold.

Lifting my foot, I slam into the door with all my might.

The door swings into my room which makes pushing through it almost impossible, but I refuse to stay here at the mercy of whatever is happening, without at least trying to save myself.

Kicking the door again and again, I can hear the wood giving way under my foot. When they locked me in here with the tools for my transition, they didn’t consider that they may have provided for my salvation. I am not the same person they left in this room.

Kick.

KICK.

KICK.

The door cracks down the center as the building shudders under me. I refuse to wait for death to find me.

Pushing the splintered wood out of the way, I climb through the broken door into the hallway.

There are vampires running toward the front of the house, others flowing deeper into the labyrinth of hallways.

I follow them. I can smell humans everywhere.

I know who they are, where they are. I can smell the vampires too, but I instinctively know they aren’t going to feed me.

I need to drink. I need to bite. I need to escape.

Feeding is a visceral call from my deepest consciousness.

I search for food—I smell the humanity and look for the source.

Following my body, I emerge into a kitchen, a room I have never been in, and see a human man huddled in the corner, fear etched into his body.

Flashing to his side, I grab him, lifting him to his feet, using his hair to hold him in place and bring his neck to my mouth.

I bite and feel the hot, salty blood flood my system with power.

The fire that burns inside me flares in response.

I feed and feed, filling my body with raw power.

His blood is everything. More than everything.

I have never wanted anything, needed anything, the way I need this liquid of life.

I feel the lightning he houses in his body flow into me.

As his heart beat slows, I know I need to stop—he’s going to die—but I can’t. I can not let him go.

I suck at his neck, draining him as the flow slows down, his heart beating slowly, pumping his blood to his brain, right past my lips. He has lost consciousness now, and is limp in my arms, dying. I continue feeding until the blood stops and I drop him.

Tilting my head back, covered in blood, I open my mouth and scream. A loud, long, feral scream of anguish, of power, of fury.

Falling to my knees, next to the dead man, I wrap my arms around him and sob. No tears come but the heartbreak is real. I killed a man. I fed from him until he died. I’ve become the monster I loathed to be.

A crash from across the house causes my head to snap up and look in that direction. Picking myself up from the floor, I tiptoe to the kitchen door. I spy a crisp white apron hanging on a peg and snatch it down, putting it over my torn, bloodied pajamas.

‘Michael’, the embroidered name across my breast reads. I glance back at the man. I’m sorry, Michael. A sob works its way up my throat as I look at the dead man on the floor. I’m now the villain in someone’s story.

Silently, I enter the hallway from the kitchen. I listen and hear banging noises coming from all around the house. No one is in this part of the building anymore, so I set off to try and figure out what is going on.

Coming upon a set of doors I recognize, I turn the knob to the library and enter the cavernous space.

There is an identical set of metal shutters covering the large corner windows of this room too.

Something large and strong bangs against the shutters, causing them to shake and bend.

They are no longer perfectly covering the window.

The banging doesn’t let up. I don’t know what’s happening but if whatever is out there comes in here, I’m escaping through that window.

Is this my rescue? Is this for me?

The relentless banging and smashing continues, the shutter becoming more and more mangled as the minutes pass. I duck behind a bookshelf, peeking around it, watching the progress. Waiting for whoever is on the other side to crawl through.

More yelling and banging comes from other parts of the house. Nicolas’s court of nightmares is under siege. The doors of the library swing closed behind me, and muffle the sounds considerably but I can hear the fear in the human voices and the war cries of the vampires.

A few more loud bangs on the library shutters, and a large pale hand reaches around the side of the shutter, wrenching it back, with strength that only comes from an old vampire.

Slinking back further behind the shelf, I try to make myself invisible.

I don’t recognize the hand clawing its way into the room.

After a few minutes, the shutter is crushed enough that a blond head pops around the side of it.

His long body coils up, his muscled forearms straining to hold the metal out of the way as he squeezes through the opening he made.

His heavy boots land on a plush antique rug, his long sleeved grey henley ripped across his stomach.

His chest is heaving with exertion, a look of triumph on his face.

He turns back toward the window, leaning out, and giving a quick whistle.

“Jack,” I breathe out, almost silently from my hiding place. His head whips in my direction as he tries to locate the source of the noise he undoubtedly heard.

“Who's there? Come out and I might not kill you,” He whispers into the space, trying not to draw attention of anyone outside the library.

“Jack?” I repeat, a sob breaking my voice. They came for me. He’s here for me.

His mouth pops open in surprise as he walks slowly in the direction of the bookshelf I am peeking out from behind.

“Elina?” he murmurs, coming closer. “Hey, baby, we’ve been looking for you.” He speaks slowly, like he is speaking to a wounded animal backed into a corner, something unpredictable and scared. He isn’t wrong in his assessment of the situation.

I stand up and fly out from behind the shelves, barreling into his arms so suddenly I almost knock him to the floor. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight to his chest. I was expecting Bash but Jack will do. He’s Bash’s best friend and he will do.

He strokes my hair and lands a kiss on the top of my head. “Hey, how are you doing? You ok?” He stretches his arms out, holding me away from his body. My blood covered face and body pulls his attention and he gasps, searching me for wounds.

I smile, widely, fangs on display, relief filling my body.

“Perfect, now that y'all are here. Where is he? I’m so happy you came, I was so worried.” I ask him desperately.

He reaches out and presses his finger to my tooth, puncturing it.

I taste the blood before he withdrawals his hand and sticks his finger in his mouth. His smile is pleased.

“He’s looking for you. You’re damned right we came, Bash hasn’t breathed since you disappeared.” He gives me another once over to make sure I am all in one piece and drags me toward the window. “Let’s get you outside and then we will try and find Bash. God, he’s going to lose it when he sees you.”

I stop smiling, suddenly afraid of him finding me like this, covered in blood, fanged. Not his Elina anymore. Not the same woman he’s been looking for.

Lifting me up, he helps me stand on the sill.

I look out at the carnage and wreckage outside the window.

There are dead bodies everywhere, vampires fallen, hearts ripped from their chests.

Broken glass, splintered wood, and bent and mangled shutters protruding from the windows act as evidence of the battle that is still ongoing.

I jump down, followed quickly by Jack who grabs me around my waist and hauls me away from the house.

Pulling a phone from his pocket, he presses 1 and brings it to his ear.

“What is it, Jack?” I hear the clipped tone from Bash on the other end. I let out a gasping breath, a breath I feel like I’ve been holding for weeks. I sag against Jack’s chest from hearing his voice.

“I’ve got her, Bash. Outside.”

There is a loaded pause.

“Don’t take your eyes off her, I’m coming.”

“Never, brother.”

He hangs up and we wait, side-by-side, for Bash to emerge.