Blood of Life: Cora's Choice 1-3 Bundle Read online

  Blood of Life

  Cora’s Choice Bundle, Books 1-3

  by V. M. Black

  Aethereal Bonds

  AetherealBonds.com

  Swift River Media Group

  Washington, D.C.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 V. M. Black

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Blood of Life: Cora's Choice 1-3 Bundle

  Aethereal Bonds Series

  Master Table of Contents

  Life Blood Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  New Installments Every Month

  Blood Born Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  From the Author

  Bad Blood Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Finish the story arc with | Rites of Blood, Cora’s Choice 4-6 Bundle

  If you liked this book....

  Master Table of Contents

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  Aethereal Bonds Series

  Vampire Serials

  Cora’s Choice (100 to 200-page novellas/short novels)

  Book 1 – Life Blood

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  Book 1 – For All Time

  Shifter Serials

  The Alpha’s Captive (60 to 80-page novelettes/novellas)

  Complete Bundle (Books 1-6)

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  Book 1 – Out of the Darkness

  Stand-Alone Short Stories

  Heaven’s Price

  Kiss of Memory

  No Gentleman

  Master Table of Contents

  Life Blood

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Blood Born

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Bad Blood

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Afterword

  Life Blood

  Cora’s Choice – Book 1

  by V. M. Black

  Aethereal Bonds

  AetherealBonds.com

  Swift River Media Group

  Washington, D.C.

  Life Blood Table of Contents

  Life Blood

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Blood Born

  Bad Blood

  Afterword

  Chapter One

  “No response,” I repeated, staring numbly at the upside-down chart on the doctor’s desk. “None.”

  “I am sorry,” Dr. Robeson said. “There is really no point in keeping you on the alemtuzumab any longer.”

  “But you said that it’s the only thing that could help,” I protested. “It has to work.”

  “Cora, I have your latest lab results right here.” She tapped the open folder. “Your lymphocytes are continuing to climb. Right now, the only thing the alemtuzumab is doing is decreasing your quality of life.”

  I could see my name at the top of the chart: Cora Ann Shaw. There I was, summed up in black and white. My height—a little less than average. My date of birth. My weight, which had fallen from I’d-like-to-lose-10-pounds to terrifying double digits. And, of course, my diagnosis: T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia.

  Cancer. To me, it had meant pink ribbons, surgical scars, and middle-aged women without hair. I hadn’t even heard of T-cell leukemia then. I hadn’t realized how the cancer could steal all my strength, burn through my fat and then consume even my muscle to feed itself as I wasted away.

  “There must be other things to try,” I pushed. “Some other chemotherapy.”

  “I’m very sorry,” the oncologist said again. “The older therapies were ineffective. That’s why their use has been discontinued. They simply don’t prolong life—in fact, on average, they shortened it. Alemtuzumab was our only realistic shot.”

  I should get a second opinion, I thought. Except Dr. Robeson was my second opinion. I’m at Johns Hopkins, for godssake, I thought bleakly. Where else can I go?

  “So,” I said. “Five months, then.”

  “It could be that long,” Dr. Robeson said carefully.

  I felt the tears burning my eyes, and I blinked them away. “You promised me seven months. That wasn’t even two months ago.”

  Dr. Robeson had a bulletin board on her office wall. It was full of the happy pictures and notes from those she’d cured and even a few grateful letters from those she hadn’t. Mine wasn’t going to go there. I wouldn’t know what to say. Thanks for trying didn’t seem quite generous enough. Anything more would have been fake.

  “Cora, cancer has a different rate of progression for everyone—”

  “I know,” I sai
d, cutting her off. I was being unfair. I knew it, and it made me squirm inside.

  But I don’t want to be fair. Damn it, I just want to live!

  “I’m turning twenty-two in two months,” I continued. “I’m graduating—supposed to be graduating—from the University of Maryland in six months. I’ve applied to grad school.”

  “I know, Cora.” And there was genuine sympathy there, behind the professional wall that kept her insulated from all the people she couldn’t save.

  I took a deep breath and pushed to my feet. My hips hurt from the institutional chair, my buttocks too thin now to cushion them. “Sorry. I was just hoping for better news.”

  “So was I.” Dr. Robeson opened a drawer and pulled out a brochure. “This is an excellent hospice program. Your student insurance will cover all the costs beyond the deductible, and there are many people there who will be happy to help you.”

  It took all my will to force myself to accept the shiny trifold of cardstock from her. I squeezed it a little too hard, and it creased in my hand. “Thank you,” I heard myself say.

  “I can, of course, continue to treat you, addressing symptoms as they arise, infections and the like, making sure you’re as comfortable and healthy as possible for as long as possible. I’m happy to do so. But I can’t slow the progress of your leukemia.” The oncologist hesitated. “There is one other possibility. A chance in thousands. If it works....” She cocked her head sideways as if she were gauging me, then gave a shrug so small I almost missed it. “Anyway, here’s his card. You can hear him out, at least. Decide for yourself if the risk is worth it.”

  She extended a small, linen-colored business card with a discreet black border. On it was a phone number. No name, no details, just a simple copperplate number inscribed in the center of the card.

  “Thank you,” I repeated, blinking at it.

  “I’ve already filled out the referral,” Dr. Robeson said. “All you need is to give hospice a call, if that’s what you decide. Or the other number—he’s expecting your call, too.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I swallowed. “Goodbye.”

  “Bye. Enjoy your Christmas,” the doctor said with reflexive pleasantry.

  “Yeah,” I said again. I shoved the brochure and the card in my jacket pocket and stumbled from the office.

  The carpeted halls of the professional wing were dotted with brisk nurses in scrubs and plastic clogs. I hated them all. Blinking hard, I willed them not to look at me and measured the distance from the oncology department to the nearest exit in my mind.

  Keep it together for just a few seconds more, Cora. You’re almost there.

  Head down, I blew past the bank of elevators and burst through the heavy fire door into the stairwell, forcing my tired legs to keep up as I flung myself down the stairs to the ground floor.

  At the bottom, I ducked out the side door and into the cold. I found myself in a small, semi-concealed alcove between two wings of the building. No one could see me, at least for the moment. I let my legs give out, sinking to the sidewalk with my back against the institutional brick, half-gasping and half-sobbing.

  Five months. Or less.

  It wasn’t fair!

  Finals were next month. I’d already picked out my classes for the next semester. Sent in my tuition.

  I wondered if I should withdraw. But why bother? It wasn’t like I’d live long enough even to owe payments on my student loans.

  Enjoy your Christmas. The last Christmas I’d enjoyed had been two years ago, before Gramma died. Now there was no one left. I’d gone home with my roommate Lisette and her sister the last year, but I’d been miserable with missing my Gramma and even more miserable trying to pretend that everything was fine. I didn’t think I had the strength to try to smile through the season again with the specter of my death hanging over the festivities. I’d already decided that it would be better for everyone if I stayed in our university apartment alone.

  I dashed away the betraying tears and got my phone out of my pocket. Lisette would want to know the news. My finger hovered over her name on the screen. She deserved to be told. When she’d found me crying in my room the day I got my diagnosis, she’d given me one of her huge hugs and said I was going to beat the cancer, and she was going to be there for me until I did.

  She’d held up her end of the bargain. I couldn’t tell her that I wasn’t going to hold up mine.

  I pulled the brochure out and smoothed it. There was a photograph, the edges artfully out of focus, of an elderly woman being hugged by a smiling model who could have been any age from thirty to fifty-five. The text was full of words like “care,” “comfort,” and “dignity.” The toll-free number stared at me, but I couldn’t make myself call it, either.

  There was the other paper—the card, rather, small and mysterious, with the single phone number on it. The cold from the hard cement under me was beginning to seep into my bones, and the wind chilled my wet cheeks. I shifted. What did I have to lose?

  I entered the number and looked at it for a long moment before I touched the send button. The phone rang once as it connected, then once again.

  “Name?” The voice was male, light and impersonal.

  Taken aback, it took me a moment to respond. “Cora Shaw.”

  “Please proceed to the emergent care entrance, Ms. Shaw,” the man said. “A car will meet you there. Thank you.”

  “But—” I said. I looked at the phone. The time was flashing on the display—he had already hung up.

  Chapter Two

  Okay. Weird.

  I thought about redialing, but I didn’t really see the point, except maybe to complain about him hanging up on me—which, on reflection, seemed like a pretty stupid thing to do.

  Well, then. The emergent care entrance, he’d said.

  I pushed to my feet and looked around. The medical center I’d just left squatted in the center of the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus, a flat expanse of frost-browned lawn stretching around it to the distant street. There were other buildings scattered across the vast campus, but I figured the emergency department had to be somewhere in the main center. Where, though, I couldn’t guess.

  I could go back inside. There would be signs and directories there. But there were also too many people, too many bustling nurses and bewildered visitors. I’d just escaped the hospital. I couldn’t make myself go back.

  I zipped up my jacket and flipped up the hood. I hadn’t bothered to take it off inside the offices. I was always cold now, even inside. I picked a direction and began walking around the brick and glass monstrosity of the main hospital building.

  A car will meet me? How strange was that?

  I don’t have to go, I told myself. But I needed to do something. Something other than just wait to die.

  The wind grew suddenly sharper as I got farther from the building along the main sidewalk that circled it. I shoved my hands in my pockets. Fatigue dragged at me with every step. I would pay tomorrow for this walk—never mind the blind flight down the stairs.

  I turned the first corner of the building. There was no sign of a drive or a big entrance, only the long blank façade continuing uninterrupted for hundreds of feet.

  Crap. With my luck today, the emergency department would be all the way on the third side, and I’d chosen the long way around.

  Would I make it? And if I didn’t, how long would it take for someone to find me?

  I shoved those thoughts down.

  By the time I rounded the second corner of the medical center, I was winded and my legs were shaking. My heart clenched with relief at the sight of the circular drive and the wide canopy jutting out from the building over it.

  Emergency, the sign spelled out above it. I trudged on, shutting out pain and exhaustion as I fixed my eyes on that word.

  I stumbled under the protection of the canopy at the hospital entrance and leaned against one of the big square columns, taking some of my weight off my trembling legs and struggling to catch my breath.

>   “Ms. Shaw?”

  I pushed aside my exhaustion and looked up. There, at the curb, stood a man in an old-fashioned chauffeur’s uniform, complete with hat and gloves. The car he stood next to was an understated silver color, but the elegant shape screamed money. A Bentley, I realized as I recognized the symbol on the trunk.

  Oh, really?

  “I’m Cora Shaw,” I said cautiously.

  The driver opened the rear passenger door. “Please, enter.”

  I gaped at him for several seconds. I mean, a Bentley? I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. Maybe a yellow cab. The man on the phone had told me that they would send a car. And here it was. But that didn’t make it seem any less bizarre. It was, I decided, more than a little creepy.

  “How do I know you’re not trying to kidnap me?” I demanded, crossing my arms across my chest.

  “I must admit, Ms. Shaw, that this is often a fear of our patients,” the chauffeur said evenly.

  I waited for him to continue with his reassurances, but he simply stood, waiting impassively.

  I shifted against the cold column. I could see the soft interior from here, and my whole body clamored for a chance to settle into the warm comfort it offered.

  What if he was a kidnapper? I wondered. What was the worst that could happen? Well, I could get brutally mutilated and murdered, I supposed. Torture would be bad, but my death was coming pretty soon, anyway.

  On the other hand, the best that could happen was, of course, a cure. I barely let myself think that for the tiniest instant before shutting it away. I’d already had my hopes dashed today. I didn’t need to create new ones only to have them destroyed, too.

  I looked at the car and its driver again. He didn’t seem like a serial killer. And as weird as this all was, the number I’d called had come from my doctor.

  Still....

  Oh, to hell with it. I sent a quick text to Lisette: The last # I called was 202-324-6475 n they sent driver to hospital to pick me up. Will txt or call in 2 hrs.

  Then I turned off the ringer and alerts even as Lisette’s first text arrived, shoved the phone in my pocket, took a deep breath, and got into the car.

  The chauffeur closed the door as I struggled out of my jacket. The interior was all fawn leather and burled wood, with two wide seats contoured into the back bench. A dark screen was mounted into the headrest in front of me. I shoved my coat down at my feet and sat back, and the warmth of the heated seat crept into my aching bones as it cradled my body. I hadn’t realized how much I hurt until it was soothed away.