What Lies Inside (A Blood Bound Novel, Book 1) (2 page)

Oh my god, I was a freak! Hyperventilating, I freed my other hand from Caius’s grip and jumped to my feet, kicking back my chair. “What’s wrong with me?”

Dorian froze, still as a statue, his terrified eyes locked on me. Mom spluttered in desolation.

Yet Uncle Caius remained calm. He rose from his seat, turning slowly to face me. “Amelia, sit back down. We will explain everything.”

I shook my head, taking a step back. “No. Tell me now!”

Mom wiped away her tears and sniffed. “You’re both…” She paused, looking like she might be physically sick. “We’re…”

“Vampires,” Uncle Caius spoke gently. “We are all vampires.”

Dorian let out a nervous laugh. “You’re joking, right? This is a pre-birthday prank. And those,” he said pointing at my fangs, “are fake. Good one, you seriously had me going for a second there.”

I stared across the table with vacant eyes. “This can’t be. It’s
…
impossible.”

“C’mon Amelia,” Dorian went on, the confidence in his voice waning. “The charade is up.”

Tears stung my eyes as anger began to boil inside of me. “This isn’t a charade!” The callousness in my hissed words startled us both.

Dorian’s wavering smile finally vanished, replaced by an expression of total fear.

The way he, Mom, and Uncle Caius were staring enraged me further. Watching them I knew the truth; I was a monster. In blinding fury I launched myself across the kitchen and onto the counter, crouching like a wild animal. I ripped the bloody steak from the sink and tore into it with my fangs. “See!” I screamed, raising the shredded meat above my head. “Does this look like a joke?”

Dorian gagged and backed up, hitting the bay window. Mom simply stared, wide-eyed.

“Amelia, let us explain.” Uncle Caius stepped toward me. “Just take a deep breath and try to calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down!” My breathing was fast and ragged. The room was beginning to spin. Whatever was happening to me was their fault. It had to be. My lungs began to ache. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. Even more than that, I needed to get out of here. I needed to be far away from them with their expressions of pitying fear. “You made me a monster. I hate you for this!”

I launched from the marble counter, shot through the hallway and escaped out the front door. The cool night air hit me as my feet pounded the gravel driveway. A spray of white snow kicked up behind me. I could feel my muscles lengthening and retracting like tightly coiled springs, pushing me forward at an inhuman speed. Houses flew past in a monochrome blur. My eyes focused only in front of me. Freezing wind whipped passed my face and into my eyes. In the t-shirt and jeans I was wearing, the wind chill should have bit into my skin. Should have, but didn’t. I wasn’t even cold. These changes inside me further confirmed my fears. They were telling the truth. I was a…
vampire.

I shook the ridiculous word from my mind and focused on the pavement as the balls of my feet hit harder and faster. I knew my intended destination. The night club my best friend, Kendrick, visited every Friday when he wasn’t off snowboarding. Right now I needed his support, and hoped for his undying loyalty. Seething fear surged adrenaline through my body and gripped me from within. What if he thought I was a monster too? Imagining his reaction terrified me. How could he accept this…this living nightmare I was becoming?

The passing houses fell behind me, replaced by commercial strips. I pushed myself faster still, keeping to the shadows and somehow passing with ease the moving cars on the streets. I pulled to an abrupt halt after taking a shortcut through an unlit alley. To the right was the club’s entrance, with a bright flashing neon sign above the doorway.
Pulse.

A solid-built bouncer manning the door caught sight of me as I neared. “ID?” It was clear from his smirking expression that he knew I was underage.

I gulped, shrugging my shoulders. “Please, I just need to find my friend.”

The bouncer’s smirk thinned into a humorless line. “No ID, no entry.”

Like an irritating itch you can’t quite reach, his radiating aura of authority angered me. I squared my shoulders and clenched my jaw, staring him down. “Let me in.”

The bouncer’s superior expression faltered. He blinked once, then slowly pulled back the velvet robe and stood aside. I darted through the entry, so relieved to be inside that I didn’t stop to question his split-second change in attitude.

The pulsing music hit me first, sending shock wave vibrations through my body and painfully though my ears. The smell, like walking straight into a brick wall, hit me second. Salt, body odor, alcohol, and a scent I’d never experienced before tonight:
blood
. My mouth watered while the other scents made me want to gag. Trying to ignore the draw of that new scent, I pushed myself away from the gyrating bodies on the strobe-lit dance floor and over to the bar. The scents dulled as my distance grew.

With a ragged breath, I slid onto one of the bar stools, scanning the busy crowd for Kendrick. Please be here.

A guy’s strong cologne hit me even before he spoke. But it wasn’t Kendrick. It was Joel Nickel, a senior and, as star quarterback, the king of our school. “Hey, hot stuff,” he began with slurred speech then paused. “Hey, I know you. You’re a sophomore, Amily or something?” He smiled and winked. “Fake ID huh? Planning to get messy and have some fun tonight?”

Part of me was thrilled that the superstar of our school was even acknowledging my existence. The other part just wanted him to leave so I could scope out Kendrick. “Amelia,” I said, and turned to the bar, hoping he’d get a clue and leave me the hell alone. He didn’t.

Instead, he took a step closer. “Come on babe, how’s about a drink?”

He was too close, standing only an inch from me. I could smell his blood under the astringent cologne, and worse than that, I could hear his quickening pulse.

“No!” I snapped, muscles twitching, aching with thirst. “Go away.”

Joel chuckled, amused. “Playing hard to get?” He inclined his lips to graze my ear. “I like a challenge.”

His alcohol-drenched breath beat against my neck, sending a ripple down my spine. I could hear the blood pumping faster and louder through his body. Too close. Too freaking close!

That already too-familiar tingle danced across my gums. My mouth salivated. I went to move, to force myself away from him before I became the monster from my favorite Skillet song. His hand caught my shoulder, and it was more than I could take. His scent was now stronger, moving with arousal through his veins.

No longer in control—no longer even myself—I spun on the spot and whispered, “Dark and secluded…”

A victorious smile tugged at Joel’s lips. He curled an arm around my waist, pulling me from the bar. We passed the partygoers and slipped out the back door and into the dark alley. Urine and wafting smells of garbage from a nearby dumpster coupled the scent of his blood.

Joel turned to face me. But I was faster. My hands shot up to his shoulders, nails digging in as I drove him back against the brick wall.

He chuckled, amused. “A fiery one… I knew it.”

His complete lack of awareness to the threat before him angered and excited me. The option to stop, to walk away, was long gone. The thirst had taken over. His hands found my waist and traveled up, forcing their way beneath the fabric of my t-shirt.

Disgusted by his touch, I jerked his back off the wall then slammed him back against the bricks. “Don’t move!”

Joel’s hands dropped obediently and he smiled. “You’re the boss.”

His words evoked a broad smile across my face. Too broad, I realized, as his own smile fell. His eyes widened in shocked disbelief. “What the fuck?”

Moving at lightning speed, I clamped a hand over his mouth and forced his face to the side. I pressed my other hand against his chest, pinning him to the wall. His arms flailed, but it was no use. I was stronger. My eyes zeroed in on a fat vein pulsing along his neck. Then instinct took over. My teeth plunged into his flesh. The warm, metallic taste of his blood filled my mouth. It was an entrancing flavor coupled by the sound of his racing pulse.

A moan of pleasure escaped his lips and his muscles relaxed. His resistance had ceased. That’s when I noticed it. His heart was slowing. The blood loss…
I’m killing him.
Part of me cried to release him, to not be the monster my uncle and mom had claimed me to be. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to.

When his body slumped against me, my strength somehow kept him pinned. Death was close. Still, I couldn’t stop. Not now. Not yet. Not when something buried so deep within me was awakening.

The smells of the alley soared, muddling together in their intensity to become indiscernible. And I could hear…
everything:
stray drops of rain hitting puddles, rats gnawing on discarded rubbish. Then something else reached my ears, something quieter. Footsteps?

A blur shot from the shadows. Something as hard as concrete connected with my arm, ripping me from my victim. Then I was flying backwards through the air as Joel crumpled to the ground. I connected with a
thud
against the adjacent wall before falling in a heap on the uneven asphalt. Instantly, the spell of Joel’s blood was broken. The reality of what I had just done spun like a maelstrom through my mind. I’d killed him!

Tears plagued my eyes, spilling down my face and tinting my sight rose-colored. I swiped at them, but stalled. Blood was smeared across the back of my hands. Crying blood?

I barely had time to wonder how that was possible when the intruder’s towering shadow closed in on me. He clutched something in his hand that glinted silver with the escaping moonlight. A weapon? I blinked up through tear-filled eyes, knowing my life was about to end. With heavy clouds blocking the moonlight again, and through my distorted vision, I could barely make out his dark features. “Kill me,” I sniffed, letting my bloody tears stream down my face like a waterfall. “I’m a fucking monster!”

The boy with hair black as night faltered, pausing right before me. The hand holding the weapon stalled. “You
want
to die?”

The alley door to the club burst open and suddenly Kendrick was standing there, his face stricken, golden-brown hair damp with sweat and plastered to his forehead. I felt relieved and mortified all at the same time. He’d never accept me now.

My eyes shot back to the boy who had torn me from my victim, the boy who had faltered in killing me. The damp and stained asphalt in front of me was empty. The boy had vanished without a sound.

Kendrick’s eyes darted around. Yet he somehow missed poor dead Joel crumpled in the shadows. He knelt to cup my face with his hands. “Are you okay? Tell me what happened.”

Certain that blood stained my cheeks, lips, and chin, I struggled to force my tear-stung eyes up to meet his. Fear swooned beneath my ribs and my heart fluttered. My victim, the unknown attacker, and Kendrick seeing the disgusting creature I had become; it was all too much. Sobbing, I lifted a shaking hand in the direction of Joel. “I killed him!”

Kendrick’s eyes didn’t reveal the fear I so dreadfully expected. Instead they softened as he got to his feet. He crossed the alley and crouched before Joel, raising a finger to his throat. “He’s not dead.”

A wave of relief washed down my entire body, as cool as the water of a breaking wave. I began to stand. But before I could make my way to Kendrick, he raked tense fingers down Joel’s chest. His nails cut like knives through Joel’s shirt, leaving scarlet ribbons across his skin.

“Kendrick, stop!”

Joel stirred, his eyes darting past Kendrick to settle on me. Mortal fear contorted his face. “Keep that psycho bitch away from me!”

Kendrick shook the guy aggressively, forcing his attention from me. He spoke in a low and commanding voice. “You were attacked by a rabid dog.
We
saved your life.”

Joel’s face dropped before his eyes rolled back in his head. Then as quickly as he’d come to, his body slumped, unconscious.

“What happened?” I cried, panic threatening to drown me. “What’d you do to him?”

Ignoring me, Kendrick took Joel by the ankle and swung him over his shoulder, as if he weighed no more than a rag doll. “Amelia, I need you to stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Swaying with body-draining confusion, I stared after Kendrick as he walked up toward the street. Cars flashed by, and his footsteps were audible even as he rounded the corner. What the hell is going on? Kendrick was lean muscled, not a body builder. How did he lift Joel like that? With my eyes frozen on the street, I began pacing, needing to move to keep upright. Why isn’t he scared of me? How can he be so freaking calm? And what the hell did he do to Joel?

Kendrick bounded back down the alley, shoving his iPhone into the pocket of his checkered shirt. Remembering the blood staining my face, I frantically tried to wipe away the evidence.

Unmoved by my appearance, Kendrick collected my hand and pulled me in the opposite direction of the street. “Your mother is frantic. I need to get you home.”

“What? How do you…”

“Caius called,” Kendrick said, cutting me off. “They guessed you were coming to find me.”

I planted my feet, and almost tripped on a crack in the sidewalk before yanking Kendrick to an abrupt halt. “Wait,” I demanded. “What’s going on? What happened back there? And why aren’t you terrified of me? I attacked the freaking
quarterback
. I tried to kill him!”

Kendrick turned to face me, hand squeezing mine. “I could
never
be afraid of you, Amelia. None of this is your fault.”

A shocking revelation hit me like a cold hard slap to the face. “You knew?”

Kendrick smiled and pulled me into a hug. “Yes. I’ve always known.”

“But how?” I pulled away. “How can you know that I’m a…”

“A vampire?” He clasped my hand and pulled me forward, continuing to walk. “Because,” he said in a soft and gravelly voice. “I can pick my own.”

A sickening shiver ran down the length of my body, chilling me to the bone. Kendrick was a vampire? My initial instinct was to pull away from him. To run screaming, back up the sidewalk to the busy street of partygoers and music-pumping cars. But this was Kendrick, a reasoning voice inside my head whispered. He would never hurt me. Trying to hide my fear, I asked, “You kill people?”