Ties to the Blood Moon 2nd Edition Read online

  Chapter 47

  The steaming shower spray felt like tiny needles piercing my skin, but William assured me the pain would go away quickly. I wasn’t sure just exactly what his definition of quickly was, but it sure as hell wasn’t the same as mine.

  When I opened the bathroom door William was still sitting in the same recliner he’d been in when he sat vigil while I was turning. He had my phone, and when I saw the look on his face, I knew something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?” I rushed to him, stumbling over my own two feet. William said when you first turn, your body still moves slower and has to play catch up with your mind. I sat down on the side of the bed closest to him and he handed me my phone.

  “When I realized you were going to be here longer than you were supposed to, I pretended to be you and sent Luna a message telling her to get in touch with your aunt so she wouldn’t worry. Luna messaged back and said your aunt is missing.”

  I scrolled back through her messages.

  Gen are you okay? Haven’t heard from you. :(

  Got your message, but your aunt’s not answering. Call me.

  Gen. It’s been two and a half days. Are you all right?

  Why aren’t you calling me? Something’s terribly wrong. I need you to call me.

  Gen, we can’t find your aunt. I sent my brothers over there after she didn’t answer for a couple days. They said your house has been trashed and she’s gone.

  “Oh my God,” I gasped.

  “I didn’t see all the other texts until that last one came through a few minutes ago.” William lowered his eyes. “I knew something bad would happen if I turned you. I should have never done it,” he said severely, and sprang from his seat. He paced the floor, really beating himself up about something I had talked him into.

  I jumped up, crossing the room and stopping in front of him. “Hey … wait a minute. You didn’t do this. I did.”

  “If you were at home, she might still be there.” He was angry, but not with me.

  “If I was at home, I might be dead.” I peered at him, waiting for what I’d just said to sink in.

  After a minute, William dropped his shoulders and sighed. “I know you’re probably right, but it doesn’t change the fact that something’s happened to your aunt and I feel responsible.” He pulled me close to him, wrapping his arms around me. “We’ll find her. I promise.”

  His touch felt so good I tried to let him hold me, but I had to push him away. My bloodlust was too strong. “Sorry.” I shook my head, and wrapped my arms around myself while hurrying to the other side of the room.

  When William tried to follow me I shouted for him to stay away. “Don’t get close to me,” I said severely, and he saw my razor sharp fangs. Vampires didn’t really have fangs, they were just canine teeth that when threatened or aroused turned pointed and hung down a fraction lower than the other teeth.

  His eyes grew so sad I knew he didn’t understand why I was pushing him away. He just stood in the middle of the room looking like a scolded puppy.

  “I’m not strong enough yet. When you were holding me, I could smell your blood, and I felt your heart beating deep inside me. All I could think of was how much I wanted to bite you.”

  I was shocked when I felt hot tears sting my eyes. I wiped my hand across my cheek, then looked at William, my eyes wide and brows raised. “I thought vampires can’t make tears?” I stared down at my hand after wiping my other cheek. “What’s happening to me?”

  William seemed just as stunned, but tried not to let me see it. “Uh, first things first.” He unlocked the door to the secret room, slipped away, and was back in a minute with a fresh bag of cold blood.

  Of course, I found bag blood wasn’t nearly as good as William’s blood had been. His tasted like the sweetest honey you could imagine, and had the same intoxicating effect of the finest wine. But, right now blood was blood, and I craved it more than anything.

  When I spotted the bag of blood, I rushed him, trying to snatch it from his hand. He was still much quicker than I was, and easily managed to keep it away from my grasp.

  I kept fighting him, determined to get the bag. “Give it to me,” I said in a low snarl that actually scared me. My mouth watered uncontrollably, drool sitting on the corners of my mouth.

  “Stop it,” he growled, glaring at me, and showing his fangs. “If you want to leave this house, you’ve got to get your bloodlust under control. It’s what separates us from savage vampires and Lycans. We only feed when we’re truly hungry … not for sport.”

  “I need it, William. I’m so thirsty. Please, give it to me.” The entire time I begged him, I never once took my eyes off of the bag. Between his heartbeat and the smell of bagged blood, I was going insane.

  “No! You don’t need it, Genevieve.” He placed the bag on a dresser sitting across the room, then turned around to face me, planting his feet and crossing his arms tightly.

  As soon as I saw his hand release it, I attempted to go after it. I’m sure I looked just like a clumsy Great Dane puppy. My feet fumbled, and my long lanky legs twisted under me when I tried to run causing me to stumble. I tried catching myself, but my reflexes were still not quite there yet, and I fell, landing at William’s feet.

  He laughed and it took my mind off of the blood for a moment. I got so angry, I grabbed his foot, catching him off guard, and yanked it out from under him. His back landed on the floor right next to me.

  “That’s what you get for laughing at me.” When I saw the shock in his eyes, I couldn’t help but laugh, too. “I’m not as weak as you thought, am I?”

  His face scrunched up like it hurt, then it quickly faded into a sly smile. “No, actually you’re pretty damn strong … for a newbie.”

  He barely got the words out of his mouth before pouncing, and we wrestled around on the floor. I was still pretty sore, and at one point he accidentally elbowed me in the stomach, causing me to scream out in pain.

  He stopped immediately and scooped me up off the floor, cradling me. He carried me to the bed and gently lay me down. He just kept apologizing repeatedly.

  “I’m okay … really, it’s no big deal.” I smiled reassuringly at him. His already naturally disheveled hair was even more messy after our romp on the floor. I glanced up, then giggled. His mouth curved up into that sly smile again, and he smeared my hair all over the place.

  Afterward, he plopped onto the bed next to me, pulling me onto his shoulder so he could wrap his arm under me. “Guess what?” He said in his most sexy tone.

  “What?” I replied.

  “Don’t freak out or anything,” he said, taking hold of my hands. “You seem to have forgotten all about your thirst.”

  I thought about it for a minute and realized William was right. For whatever reason, my hunger wasn’t driving me crazy. It was still on my mind, but at the moment it wasn’t controlling me. I was controlling it.

  I heard a faint vibrating noise, but William heard it, too, and reached across me plucking my phone from the bedside table. “Here, love,” he said in what was possibly the worst British accent I’d ever heard.

  It was a text message from Luna. I read it aloud for William to here. Gen, I have news about Bev. Tell me where you are and I’ll come there.

  If it’s something bad, tell me now. I messaged her right back. When she didn’t respond, I texted her again. Luna. Tell me now, please.

  When she didn’t text right back, I sat up. “We’ve got to go to her,” I said frantically, and had already started chewing on my lip.

  William sat up and swung his socked feet over the side of the bed. My gaze flitted between him and the bag of blood. “Just close your eyes and concentrate. You don’t need it.”

  I quickly did just as he said. Even though it helped some, just knowing it was there was starting to get to me. “Please put it away.” I was nowhere near ready to trust myself yet.

  When William left the room my phone vibrated again. Naturally, he’d easily heard it from the oth
er room and hurried back to my side.

  Sorry, I had to wait until my mom left. I overheard her talking with my grandfather. He said in his vision he saw Bev with Zane.

  Chapter 48

  “Oh my God,” I said incredulously when I walked into the kitchen and found the table and chairs tossed about the room. “Why would Zane do this? If he only wanted my aunt, he could have simply thrown her under his arm and walked right on out. Why trash the house?”

  I didn’t think much about it when I picked up the chairs with ease, but when I realized I had flipped the table upright with one arm, I really freaked. By the look on William’s face, I’d say he did, too.

  “Where is your aunt’s room?” William asked, after closing all the cabinet doors.

  “Um.” I was so shook up I had trouble concentrating. “Oh. Right down the hall.” I pointed William in the right direction before I headed toward the stairs. “Wait,” I shouted, and tried to run, but instead, I stumbled around the corner.

  When I spotted William almost to Aunt Bev’s door, I grabbed onto the end of the hallway wall and smiled innocently, trying to hide the fact that, again, I had almost fallen on my face. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  William shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure. Anything that doesn’t seem right, I guess,” William said, and paused before adding, “Should we change your name to Grace?” He had seen me almost fall after all, and thought it was cute teasing me.

  “Ha ha, very funny,” I said sarcastically, and stuck out my tongue before disappearing around the corner.

  When I pushed open my bedroom door, I expected to find my room trashed like the rooms downstairs. It wasn’t though. Only one thing was out of place. A framed picture of my mom and me that I always kept on my nightstand. The frame was broken, and the glass had been stomped and ground into the picture on the floor. I wanted to cry after I bent down and carefully tried to wipe the glass away from my mom’s face.

  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind it had been Zane that took her. I remembered his scent and could smell him everywhere. I figured it was a personal note from Zane. He was taunting me into coming to rescue my mom and now Aunt Bev, too. He would get his wish, but he would be expecting Gen the Adlet wolf, not Gen the vampire. Hopefully that would work to my advantage. The chief told me I would have to outsmart Zane … and I would.

  William found me standing in the middle of my floor holding the scratched up picture in my hand. He crossed the room and stopped next to me, reaching down, gently prying my fingers from the picture. “This isn’t good.” William stared into space, rubbing his chin. “He’s made this personal. He doesn’t just want the throne, for some reason he wants to make you suffer in the process.”

  “Why? I don’t even know this guy.” I took back the picture and flopped onto the edge of my bed.

  “I’m not sure, but something has definitely changed.” He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tightly. Even after everything that had happened William still made me feel completely safe.

  He kissed the top of my head. “I know it hurts, but we’ll find them.”

  “I’m not so sure that we will. Now that he has Bev he’s probably moved them from the place I saw.” I buried my face in his chest and wrapped my arms even tighter around him.

  He tensed, and pushed me back enough to look at me. “Wait … what do you mean ‘the place you saw?’”

  “When Zane tossed me my mom’s necklace, the second I closed my hand around it I had a vision. I saw her and she showed me flashes of where she was. When I got home, I told my aunt and she researched the landmarks and found the only possible town the landmark could have been.” I pulled away and paced the floor. “Don’t you see? I shouldn’t have involved Aunt Bev. It was my fault Zane took my mom and now it’s my fault that he took my aunt.”

  William grabbed my arms and shook me. “None of this is your fault.”

  I furrowed my brow. “If he’s moved mom and Aunt Bev I’ll never find them. I don’t have a clue where else to even start looking.”

  “I think I do,” William said, lowering his voice. He released his grip and shoved his hands inside his front pockets. He lowered his head, and started pushing glass around the floor with the toe of his shoe.

  “Where?” I asked earnestly. When he didn’t answer right away, I grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him to me. “Where, damn it?”

  William’s eyes locked onto mine. “The Adlet burial ground. It’s a cave across the lake from the reservation.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he go there?” I rolled my eyes.

  “He’s not actually going to the burial cave. HHH e’s going under it. There’s a bunch of tunnels running under Haven. They were dug out hundreds of years ago. There is an entrance through the burial ground.”

  “How do you know about the tunnels? Have you been there before?” I asked skeptically.

  “Everybody knows about them, but, they don’t actually know how to get to them.”

  “Okay. So how in the hell do you know?” I was beginning to get pissed. William loved playing little guessing games, but I wasn’t in the mood for guessing. I needed facts and I needed them fast.

  “The Amalric,” he said, like it should have been obvious. “I’m not sure how they know, they just do.”

  “How are we going to find him once we get down there?” I asked, but before William could answer, the doorbell rang. William and I looked at each other for a moment before hurrying to the window.

  Before I even pulled back the curtain I heard Luna’s heart beating excitedly. She wasn’t alone either. There were multiple heartbeats—four to be exact—and I knew she’d brought her brothers.

  My eyes closed and my head tilted back. I smelled the delectable scent of their blood and I forgot about everything except the wonderful warming effect that spread throughout my body when William had given me that first bag of blood after I had awakened.

  “Genevieve,” William whispered harshly, pulling me away from the window. “You’ve got to get control over your bloodlust. I know you don’t want to hurt your friends.”

  It was like I was in a trance and no matter how hard I fought I couldn’t break free. My hunger was just too great. “I don’t want to hurt them, I just want to feed from them.” My eyes were still closed, and my heart had sped up to match theirs.

  I was just about to give in and jump out the window to get to them when I smelled a much sweeter blood scent, and it was close by. I opened my eyes just as William finished tearing open the vein along his arm.

  Even though I knew what he was doing would feel almost as amazing for him as it would for me, it was dangerous. He was already in a weakened state from turning me. If he let me drink too much, he would grow too weak to stop me and I would drink all the life from him.

  I stuck my mouth against the blood pouring from his arm and sunk my teeth into him, pulling him on top of me and his arm over my face. His blood tasted even better than I had remembered it tasting the first time. It slid down my throat like thick, sweetened nectar, and pleasure instantly surged through me.

  William felt the passion too. He moaned and started grinding his body against me, his free hand caressing my thigh. I dug my nails into his back, trying to force him closer, but I knew nothing I could do would get him close enough. I would never be satisfied until I had all of him, and even then I didn’t know if that would be enough.

  A sudden shock rippled through me, and I realized William had pulled his arm away. At first I had this awful feeling of separation, but after a moment I began thinking clearly again and I lay back against him, smiling, completely satisfied.

  I heard a pounding noise and I thought it was coming from inside my head, but then when I heard Joseph shouting, I remembered Luna and her brothers were outside. I was so weak I could hardly move, and so sated I didn’t want to.

  “Oh my God,” I moaned. “You definitely made me forget all about them.” I smiled and started to move when my
strength began coming back.

  “That was the whole point. If you wouldn’t have fed from me, you probably would have killed at least one of them.” William sat up and straightened his clothes.

  “I would never hurt them,” I said, shocked he would even say that to me.

  “Not intentionally. But trust me, until you can get your bloodlust under control, no one is safe around you. Especially not a human.”

  I knew William was referring to my mom but I refused to believe I would ever hurt her.

  “Coming,” I called out after Joseph threatened to break down the door.

  Chapter 49

  “We’ve been out here for like, fifteen minutes. What took you so long?” Luna asked, her brow furrowed.

  “Uh … you can’t hear the doorbell upstairs,” I answered, my voice still somewhat throaty from the blood.

  Joseph pushed his way in between his brothers. “You couldn’t hear me yelling either?” Joseph asked, scowling.

  “No. Actually we didn’t,” William said ominously, stepping out from behind the door. He glared at Joseph, his body language daring him to say something else.

  I rolled my eyes. “Really? Are you two really going to do this right now?” I snapped at them both and they promptly changed their expressions. “Come on in, you guys,” I called over my shoulder, totally annoyed, and lead the way into the den.

  Luna sat next to her brothers who were sprawled on the couch. I was on the loveseat, and William chose to stand on the far side of the room. Leaning against the wall, arms folded tightly across his chest, and glaring at Joseph. I twirled my ring around my finger, but kept my gaze fixed on the floor. I tried not to make eye contact with Luna or her brothers, especially Joseph, but every time I glanced up all eyes were on me. I felt like I had “I’m a vampire” stamped on my forehead. When I glanced at William, I spotted a few droplets of drying blood on his sleeve. I sang the alphabet song in my head, trying not to think about his blood and how wonderful it tasted.