Blood of Life: Cora's Choice 1-3 Bundle Page 9

Harper had managed to talk herself out of a charge of disorderly conduct and had left the party in a furious black mood, damning her entire family—okay, except her grandmother—as she tore out of the drive.

  And now this.

  “Why’d you have to go and crap out on me now?” she asked her car.

  But she couldn’t be mad at it. The ’68 Buick Skylark was her baby, and she spoiled, petted, and coddled it.

  And in return, it broke down, seized up, smoked, and just now, tried to kill her by throwing her into oncoming traffic.

  Harper sighed. Well, the tire really was her fault. She was flat broke after helping out her deadbeat ex-boyfriend—which she’d done for a month before she’d realized that he really never was going to try to get another job as long as he had her to mooch off of. So she hadn’t had the money to replace her tires even though she knew they were getting bald. Anyway, she didn’t want any old cheap tires for her Baby. It deserved only the best. And she couldn’t afford the best, yet, so she hadn’t gotten any at all.

  She just couldn’t resist a bad boy, even when the ‘boy’ in question was her car....

  Harper put the parking brake on and killed the engine but left the radio blaring. She leaned across the wide bench seat to crank down the passenger window so she could to listen to the music as she changed the tire, then popped the trunk. She got out of the car, pausing to squint up and down the two-lane county road hopefully, wondering if there might not be some helpful guy in a pickup who might want to lend a hand.

  She heard the sound of traffic in the distance. But of course, there was nothing in sight.

  Just my luck, she thought. She was perfectly capable of changing a tire herself, but she wouldn’t refuse a white knight, if one came along.

  Or a black one, for that matter.

  She shrugged and set to work pulling out the full-sized spare and dropping it in the grass next to the flat tire, surveying the damage for the first time.

  Crap. The old tire was just shredded. Gone. She hoped she wouldn’t need a new wheel. She got the jack and lug wrench and tossed them next to the spare. She pulled off the hubcap—an original spoked model that she’d bought to restore the car to its former glory—and slotted the wrench into place. She pushed, but nothing happened.

  Damned pneumatic tire-changing tools. They tightened the nuts so hard they locked up sometimes. Well, Harper knew one way to deal with that. She shifted the position so that the wrench was parallel to the ground, then stomped it with all her weight.

  The lug nut gave, and she smiled in satisfaction. She was no rail. She was big, just like her personality, and she knew how to use her body—around cars, around horses, around the kitchen, and with pretty much any problem that needed solving. And there were plenty of men who appreciated that about her—the big boobs, full hips and butt. Too bad she kept going for the losers.

  Harper recognized the purr of a motorcycle just as the second nut loosened. As she bent to fit the wrench over the third, she realized the bike was stopping. She peered down the length of the car just as a man in motorcycle dark brown leathers stepped around it.

  He was tall, with ropes of muscles over his spare frame and a three-day scruff of a beard. His face was heartstoppingly handsome—young but tanned and already slightly weathered, just the way she liked them. His grin when he saw her was distinctly predatory, and he pulled off his sunglasses to reveal delicious amber eyes and shoved them into the pocket of his jacket. Big, rawboned, and as hot as sin on a three-day bender.

  He-llo.

  “Nice view,” he said, his gaze resting on her rear, which was still pointed skyward as she bent to push the lug wrench into place.

  No kidding.

  “You going to help?” She cocked her head at the tire. “Or are you just here to admire?”

  He leaned against the side of the car. “Looks like you’re doing fine.”

  She snorted and stood, folding her arms and cocking a hip. His eyes flickered down to her cleavage. She knew full well that her posture drew attention to it, and she smirked back at him.

  “You could at least pretend to be a gentleman. You’re more likely to get what you want that way.”

  His gaze raked across her, taking in her dangling earrings and small nose stud, then coming to rest briefly on the small butterfly tattoo on her inner arm. The tattoo covered up another mistake—the initials of her high school boyfriend she’d gotten on her eighteenth birthday, the boyfriend who had already been cheating on her with her so-called friend. Even then, she’d known in her heart of hearts that guys always leave. She’d just been naïve enough to think that maybe if she pretended they didn’t, it would make a difference.

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  But he stepped forward, taking her place and loosening the last few lug nuts with quick, efficient motions. Harper planted her rear against the hood, quite deliberately in his peripheral vision.

  Harper might have a habit of jumping in too quickly, but this was fast even for her. She wasn’t often quite so interested so soon.

  She gauged him again, taking in the rugged jaw and chiseled nose and cheekbones.

  Okay, never ever.

  All things considered, though, maybe the day wasn’t going to turn out so bad, after all.

  He looked up at her. She could break her heart on that hard jaw. “Jack.”

  “Harper,” she said.

  His smile was slow and lopsided. “Get me the jack.”

  Damn. She scrambled for the jack to hide her blush, handing it over to him.

  “So, what’s actually your name, then?” she said, raising her chin. “Unless you want me to call you Jack. ’Cause that works just fine for me.”

  He scratched his nose, regarding her with amusement still glittering in his eyes. “Levi,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows at him. It fit in a kind of cowboy-country-boy sort of way. “Nice.”

  He slid the jack under the front of the car, and she pushed away as he raised it. He spun the lug nuts and slid the bolts out one at a time, handing them to Harper without a comment. The wind ruffled his short hair, medium brown with just a touch of auburn where the sunlight glinted off it. He pulled the wheel off, not appearing to notice the weight as it came free of the axle, then slid the new one on just as easily.

  He held out a hand without even looking at her, and Harper put a bolt in it, then the nut.

  “Where’re you from?” Harper asked, handing him another.

  Again, that wolfish look, the gaze that saw too much. “Around.”

  Wouldn’t he like to eat me up.

  “And where are you going?”

  “North.” He held out his hand, and she put the last nut and bolt in it.

  Damn. She was heading the other way, back to Baltimore. She wouldn’t mind taking a detour for him, though. He was way too interesting to just let him buzz out of her life as quickly as he came in.

  Now that she was standing, she could see his motorcycle, a dozen or so feet behind Baby. Some exotic model—it was probably worth twice her car’s value, maybe more. Her heart sped up at the mere thought of the kind of speed that machine could muster. Maybe she could get him to take her for a spin. She loved motorcycles. Not as much as her Baby, but she didn’t love anything as much as her Baby.

  He tightened the last lug by hand before lowering the jack.

  “That’s a pretty hot bike. Think you could take me for a ride?” she asked.

  He raked her with his gaze, still spinning the jack to lower it. “Tempting. But no.”

  “Going to be late?” she prompted.

  “Late.” He seemed to find the word amusing. “Yeah, something like that.”

  He slid the jack out. Harper hauled the wheel back to the trunk and heaved it in, sad scraps of rubber dangling from the wheel. Scowling, she stuck the jack in after it. She wasn’t used to getting shot down, not by a man who was so clearly attracted to her.

  She leaned against the car again as he used the lug wrench to g
ive each nut a final tightening, then slapped the hubcap on.

  Dammit. She knew that she interested him, and he sure as hell interested her. Why was he giving her the brush-off?

  “I could drive along with you. You could get to where you were going, then maybe we could hang out,” she said.

  He grunted as he stood, the wrench dangling from his hand. He flashed his white teeth at her. “You won’t be able to do that.” He turned away and walked to the back of her car.

  “Why not?” Harper pushed off the side of the Skylark and trailed after him, bristling at his easy assurance.

  He tossed the wrench into the trunk and closed it, continuing up the left side of the car. Standing near the driver’s door, he turned to her, treating her to the full effect of his smile.

  “Because, Harper, I’m taking your car.”

  Blood Born

  Cora’s Choice – Book 2

  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.

  Blood Born Table of Contents

  Life Blood

  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

  Afterword

  Chapter One

  My veins burned. Pain seared through them, through my heart, like razors in my blood, turning every racing beat into a new agony. I sucked in air hard past the crushing weight on my chest.

  My eyes.... I knew they were open, but I saw only shadows against darkness.

  I tried to open my mouth to call out, fought to move my hands to catch at someone, anyone for help. Nothing happened. My burning limbs were heavy and dead, even my voice beyond my control. Inside, I writhed with the pain that screamed through every nerve ending. But my body would not move.

  “She’s alive.”

  The words hung in the darkness with me. But they weren’t from me—they came from somewhere else, somewhere outside my burning body.

  From him. Mr. Thorne. The vampire who had cost me my life.

  There was a burst of noise then, from far away, and a sudden light, first in one eye and then the other, and an impression of a face framed by curls. There were other people, far too many for my fevered brain to take in. Then the light was gone and darkness closed over me again.

  “Congratulations, Dorian. You managed not to kill this one.”

  I assembled the feminine voice carefully in my mind, one word after the other, but the meaning escaped me. Someone was pulling at my hair, pressing something to my neck. The touch against my skin sent an explosion through my head, and I managed to make a strangled whimper.

  For a moment, the rest of the pain receded slightly, and I came back to myself enough to make sense of what someone else muttered next.

  “As long as she doesn’t bleed out.”

  “That won’t happen,” the female voice said sharply. “Don’t scare her. She might be able to hear you.”

  Something tightened around my upper arm, and something else squeezed one finger. There was tugging at the gown around me. It was pulled away, out from under my limp body. Cold air washed against my angry, burning skin. Struggling for breath in my sea of pain, I felt a faint twinge in the back of my hand.

  Someone snarled a curse. “She’s got no pressure. I can’t get a vein. Are you sure we shouldn’t do a transfusion?”

  “No.” The word cracked through the room—cracked through my panting, sweaty body. Mr. Thorne. Even now, my body sang at his voice. No one else had such power over me. “The blood would not be compatible. She wouldn’t survive.”

  “She’ll get through this,” the woman said soothingly. “We always do. Ready now? One, two, three!”

  I was lifted into the air for a moment before being set onto another surface, firm under the cloth that warmed far too quickly against my hot skin. A blanket was pulled up over my body, then there was a pressure on my face, around my mouth, and the weight on my chest grew fractionally lighter. Faint, distant lights—the ceiling?—swung dizzily as I was swung rapidly into motion.

  “I want six milliliters of blood taken every hour,” the woman said. “This is a historic moment, people. Let’s make the most of it!”

  And then the darkness came roaring back, and everything else fell away.

  ***

  I was conscious, first, of the strange sheets beneath my body, smoother and cooler than mine had ever been. Then I became aware of the scent—roses and lilies and other flowers my nose couldn’t name, perfuming the air around me until it was thick and cloying, like a funeral.

  I didn’t hurt. The shadow of the pain still haunted me, but I didn’t hurt anymore.

  And, I realized with some surprise, I definitely wasn’t dead.

  I dragged open my eyes. I lay in the center of a wide four-poster bed, sunlight slanting at a low angle across the duvet. Beyond the tied-back curtains was the vast expanse of an unfamiliar bedroom, a poem in dark wood and beige upholstery.

  Despite the exquisite taste displayed in the balance of the furniture and the sophisticated play of texture and shade, the bedroom left the impression of complete neutrality.

  No one lived in that room. No one ever had. The only sign of life came from the vases that burst with extravagant bouquets on every flat surface, the smell of the dying flowers hanging heavy in the still air.

  Then the memories came flooding over me—his mouth on my neck, the blood, the mad heights of pain and pleasure. I shuddered and lifted a hand to my neck, my heart pounding suddenly.

  I felt nothing there but smooth, unbroken flesh.

  The movement caused a tug on the back of my hand, and I looked down to see an IV taped to it. I followed the drip line back to a stand next to the head of the bed. It was bizarre, ridiculous, even, to see such a mundane, mechanical medical device after the impossible insanity of the night with Mr. Thorne.

  The vampire.

  The smooth skin under my fingers told me that I’d imagined it. Every fiber of my being insisted I had not.

  I was alive. Whatever had happened, I’d survived that night. And now, to keep surviving, I needed to get out of here.

  Wherever here was.

  I counted five doors around the perimeter of the room. The question was, which one led out?

  I sat up and scooted up the bed to get a better look at the IV taped to my hand, and a pulling sensation between my legs drew my attention downward. I slipped my free hand under the sheets to discover a catheter, the tube strapped to my leg and leading off the edge of the bed.

  The IV I could handle, but how the hell was I going to get rid of that?

  “You’re awake, madam.”

  I started at the voice, my heart accelerating, and jerked my gaze up to see a slight young woman standing in one of the doorways. She wore a simple gray dress with a high collar and a neat line of buttons all the way down a flaring skirt. Another neutral in the neutral room. Over her shoulder I caught a glimpse of white tile—a bathroom. She flipped off the light and stepped fully into the bedroom.

  “I’ll let Mr. Thorne know you can see him now,” she said, pulling a phone from her pocket. She tapped at it for a moment before returning it to her skirt and taking a seat on one of the delicately carved chairs.

  Mr. Thorne—the vampire.

&nbs
p; Oh, my God.

  How could I have known? I wondered. Then immediately, I thought, How could I have not known?

  Long before I’d come to his house, it should have been so clear, so absurdly obvious that he wasn’t—couldn’t be—human. No human could have the kind of power over anyone that he had over me. At a word from him, a stranger, I’d thrust my finger into a candle flame.

  I should have known he was something more than what he appeared.

  Echoes of my climax washed over me, and I scrubbed at my face with the back of my hand, wishing to chase away the heat I felt rising there.

  Even now.

  I stopped. He’d promised a cure for the cancer that was killing me. It was the only reason I’d walked into his house that night, knowing that he was offering me a one in one hundred chance at life. If his procedure didn’t work, I would have died, but I’d been a dead woman walking. I’d had nothing to lose.

  But I hadn’t known then just what his procedure was, much less what he was, though some primal part of me must have recognized that the way he messed with my head was anything but natural.

  Blood is collected, and simultaneously, you are given an injection. His words came back to me. His mouth on my neck, drinking my blood, licking, sucking it...and his saliva, entering my body through the wound his teeth had made.

  Shit. I fought down a wave of visceral panic.

  Could it be true? Could I really be cured?

  And if I was, what next?

  I felt...spent. Empty. Yet unaccountably, the smothering fatigue that had been my constant companion for the last five months was gone.

  “Good morning.”

  I jumped again. I’d been so wrapped up in my churning thoughts that I hadn’t noticed one of the other doors open. I hadn’t even noticed Mr. Thorne enter, though his presence now filled the room.

  The woman left the room quietly behind him and shut the door as he stepped closer, his expression intent but unreadable. The flood of light from the great window on the far side of the room washed over him, allowing me to see him more clearly than ever before.

  Mr. Thorne was still impossibly, inhumanly handsome, his piercingly blue eyes regarding me from under his broad forehead. Though still pale, his skin had a healthier cast to it, and the thinness in his cheeks and the hollows under his eyes were gone.