Blood Rite Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Epilogue

  Bookshelf

  Copyright © 2020 Sarah Black

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Editing by Elemental Editing and Proofreading

  Cover Design by Tattered Quill Designs

  To those perfect friends. The ones who laugh and cry with you no matter the distance keeping you apart. I love you all, and honestly, I love that you deal with my crazy self the most.

  That can’t be easy.

  They feared me before I ever existed.

  The world once hunted my kind. Killing us to extinction. That is until my sister and me.

  Years ago, the unthinkable happened. Blood sprayed upon a cobblestone street while two little girls watched their parents slowly die from the shadows—a horror that forever changed their fated path. A murder that broke one and sculpted another into a killer.

  My mind fractured that night, while my twin fought for answers.

  But now they’ve found us again and will do anything to finish the job they failed a decade ago. Neither Poppy nor I are safe, not when our kind was burned at the stake centuries before.

  We are an abomination.

  Then Valentino DeLuca burst into my life—crunching my rose-colored glasses beneath a booted heel. He says he’s here to protect me, but he won’t tell me why. Unfortunately, he’s the only person I have to keep me safe in a city of supernaturals.

  He showed me that the power gaining strength inside me must be wielded, it must have an outlet. That I am more than capable of being the nightmare the supernatural society would find me to be.

  That is if they find out about me, about us, in the first place.

  Because, soon, I’ll discover I’m their poison.

  Prologue

  The promise of death saturates the air, the scent rolling in rotten waves to anyone who dares get too close. Memory ribbons sink into the stone where blood lingers in pools. Every molecule within a ten-mile radius plays out the same event on macabre repeat.

  Ahead, the dark sky opens up, rain splattering in pools of blood, creating rivulets that run to the sidewalk, spilling down into polluted gutters. Staining trash with darkness, life snuffed out all too soon. Overhead, thunder crashes with a deafening rumble, and moments later lightening streaks across the sky, lighting up dark eyes that sit frozen upon death’s claim.

  Sirens wail in the distance, their haunting cries echoing across the valley. All too late, red and blue lights flicker against broken brick and puddles of rainwater. Tires squeal to a rough stop, kicking up dirt and debris. The car’s headlights tunnel to the two huddled girls gripping each other, their too pale faces full of grief, stricken and focused on the bloodied corpses lain out before them.

  A gruff sigh slips past thick lips as a dark brow draws low over empathetic eyes. Those eyes peer out in question to the surrounding area, assessing the threats and possible attacks. Statistics prove that murderers never veer too far from their kills. Preferring to savor the anguish their hands cause.

  Yet the alley sits in silence, not even a hungry opossum dares to enter the space where death lingers. It sits like a heavy weight across the small expanse of space. A world separate from the chaos of the city beyond.

  The static of a radio crackles out one-eight-seven on repeat until annoyance drives officer Joseph Palozzi to turn the damn thing off. Thinking better of it, his thick thumb presses the receiver, his gruff voice hoarse in the night. “Someone send Child Protective Services.”

  The ambulance slides to a stop as Joseph rolls his frame from the seat. His feet splash in the bloodied puddles. Doors slam as EMTs rush toward the victims.

  They are too late, all of them are too late. No breath stirs their dead lungs and no light shines from eyes that stare heavenward. Joseph itches to close them, but he can’t touch anything until forensics shows up, so he balls his hands into fists.

  “No pulse.” Red hair and face full of freckles, Anderson isn’t new on the EMT scene. He’s seen his fair share of death and violence, but each death always sends a slice to his heart.

  Joseph snorts, he could have told him that much.

  The other EMT, a woman, crouches before the girls. Their clothing is beginning to soak through in the down pour, clinging to their small frames. “Get ‘em in the ambulance,” Joseph commands, his voice a harsh whip across the alley.

  Blue eyes on the EMT dare him to tell her how to do her job just one more time. They always seem to work the same cases and he always finds a way to get under her skin. “Patience,” she hisses at him.

  “They are soakin’ wet. Get ‘em in there now.”

  “Sir.” Again, her voice demands patience he just doesn’t have.

  Instead, he pushes the EMT out of the way, his joints cracking as he kneels on the damp pavement. “You wanna get out of the rain?” His Philadelphia accent thickens as his heart constricts at the lack of emotion in either girl. Frozen in shock, they barely register him there.

  Two sets of light eyes finally flicker to him, the hint of blue eaten by dilated pupils. “It took their blood.” One voice, small and full of shock, doesn’t warble or shake, but instead states a cold, hard fact.

  “Your parents?”

  “It took their blood,” she repeats, her dark hair absorbing every rain drop.

  Her small words register, and Joseph mentally dismisses it. After all, it’s an impossibility with the amount of blood they were standing in. “Did you see who did this?”

  “Sir, I’m going to ask you to back up.” The EMT pushes him out of the way, her hands gently reaching out to the girls who stand as one.

  Twins. Same long, dark hair sits in soaking waves around thin shoulders. Same grief-stricken eyes linger on Joseph as he takes a step back. And both full of the eerie calm only shock can provide.

  “Officer,” the other EMT calls, drawing his attention away.

  Joseph shakes his head, his footsteps splashing in the puddles to join the other EMT, Anderson, his penlight shining against fatal wounds. Necks shredded to ribbons while brown eyes stare at the sky.

  “Yeah,” Joseph replies gruffly, his own eyes scanning the bodies. No other wound is visible, but that’s the job of the medical examiner. He’s just a beat cop who ended up being the closest.

  “What kind of animal can do this?” Anderson shakes his head in disbelief. “We’re in the heart of the city, we don’t get bears or coyotes.”

  “Not usually, but every once in a while Mother Nature checks out city life.” Joseph crouches down, rainwater running off his hat in a heavy stream. “Look at the eyes.”

  “Creepy, isn’t it?”

  “No.” It is, but that isn’t what he’s trying to point out. “They are brown.”

 
; “What’s the point, officer?”

  “The point is, those girls have blue eyes.” He waves his finger around. “These ain’t their parents.” As the rain lets up, he rips off his cap, an uneasy sensation tickling his gut. Deep brown eyes scan the surroundings. Red brick slick with rain glistens in the alley.

  The EMT shines his light from the parents to the girls. “Sure, but that doesn’t always mean much.”

  “Maybe not.” Joseph leans over the parents, again wishing he could slide their eyes closed. “But it’s unlikely, a twenty-five percent chance.”

  “How do you even know that?” Anderson mumbles, his penlight roaming over their soaked clothing.

  “I get bored. I’m not saying they aren’t their parents, that’s for someone else to decide, but I’m betting on my gut, it usually isn’t wrong.”

  “I can’t decide if you’re smart or just that cocky.”

  “A bit of both,” Joseph interjects. “It isn’t impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.”

  Joseph’s sixth sense prickles his neck as claws of foreboding scrape down his spine. Movement catches his eye in the black hole of the alley. The need to flee itches his muscles. There are moments in life when danger pulses and that hindbrain flares a warning.

  Those aren’t moments to ignore. With every ounce of mental control, Joseph holds his ground.

  “Hey, Lilah!” Anderson calls out, causing Joseph to flinch.

  The female EMT darts her head around the back of the ambulance, her no-nonsense expression saying more than words how she feels right now.

  Undeterred, Anderson shouts, “Come here a sec.”

  Rolling her eyes, she whispers something to the twins before darting over to us. “What?” Her tone is short, clipped.

  “They say these are their parents?” Anderson questions, the puzzle lighting his mind with interest.

  “They didn’t confirm with me,” Joseph states, his gaze swiveling from the crime scene to where eyes highlighted by headlights peek out from the ambulance.

  “Yeah.” Lilah glances back, her words quiet against the pattering rain. “Witnessed everything. CPS is on the way. They keep repeating that it, whoever did this, drank their blood.”

  Not he, not she, not them, or they. But it.

  An eerie sensation blankets the air, weighing heavily on the three of them. The rain eases up to a light dusting in the cold, spring air. Yet the alley sits under a blanket of pressure.

  “Drank their blood?” Joseph repeats, dumbfounded. “Their blood is everywhere.” His hands splay all around where the victims bled out right here. Right in front of those girls.

  Lilah turns back around, her own blue eyes full of compassion, far too much for this line of work. She’ll have to harden up or find something else. Death occurs every minute of every day. Though not always in Philly. Not always like this in their little neighborhood. “They told me whoever drank their blood said it wasn’t right.” She shakes her head in disgust.

  “Wait.” The other EMT stands up far too quickly. “Why weren’t they attacked?”

  In the distance, another set of sirens breaks into the oppressive night air. Backup and their sirens echo all around.

  “I asked them that too,” Lilah begins, before licking her wet lips free of rain. “They hid.”

  “They were right there the whole time.” Joseph rubs his head in confusion. Where did they hide? The alley holds no dumpsters or bins, just a door to a neighboring tax service.

  Lilah snorts. “I have no idea, Joseph. But none of this feels right. None of it.”

  Joe silently agrees, scraping a hand over his wet hair. “Get ‘em out of here.” Lilah doesn’t need to be told twice. Her and Anderson rush off to the ambulance, tending to the twins.

  Movement catches his eyes once more. Being alone in the alley with two dead bodies is enough to give anyone pause, but with strength of will Joseph stands his ground. That prickling sensation begins again. With shaking fingertips, Joseph pulls the flashlight from his utility belt, the click muffled by the rain.

  A stream of light swipes left. Right. His pulse pounds as the feeling of wrongness settles like a deadweight on his chest. Gritting his teeth, he shines the light slower, panning the space at the end of the alley. The sense of not being alone increases with each inch the flashlight spills over. This time his light catches twin points of reflective illumination.

  Eyes.

  1

  Ten Years Later

  There are aspects about the self we hide. Buried deep down inside, between layers of muscle and fat, to that ethereal place we like to call a soul. That innocuous little myth that no one can see, but we hope like hell exists. Faith. It’s such an ugly little word. Yet without faith, I wouldn’t believe in my soul. I convinced myself long ago it didn’t exist. I buried my mental will, along with my nasty little secret, six feet under.

  I chose one way of life. Pretending to move along with a crowd saturated in denial that the creatures that lived beside them were nothing more than human. They wouldn’t know the difference even if it slapped them in the face then bit them in the neck, gorging on blood.

  Yet I chose to hide in that throng of people pretending I was one of them. Living a lie and thus endangering myself and my sister. Collecting a degree and a paycheck, living on ramen just like all the other college kids my age.

  But lies catch up eventually, even the ones I keep telling myself. The thump of the music pounds the lies back to where I keep them buried, deep in my soul where I have faith that, one day, they’d be forgiven. I let it sink in until the pounding bleeds into a migraine.

  The fool trying to claim my attention spouts off some ridiculous pickup line he probably found on the inside of a candy wrapper. I rub at my temples, pressing in on the pressure points to relieve the pain. The screen before me dances with lines of words that are all complete bullshit. Either way, in two days’ time, the masses will eat it up, flooding the doors of the club I currently sit in. Bringing all the creatures around me new playthings.

  I push that thought away, letting my fingers tap away on my laptop, my word count goal within reach. No one will deter me from that goal so I can get the hell out of here. Each minute that passes crawls up my spine further and further until the need to run creates a restlessness in my legs. I type furiously, ignoring the random trying to interrupt me with his heavy sighs and tapping feet. My eyes never once leave the screen, much to his displeasure. Besides, I know his type. The expectation that I bend to a pretty face and a pearly white smile. That I answer in kind just because I sit in a bar with a drink.

  “I’ve had such an off week, but seeing you just turns me on.” His heavy hand lands on my shoulder where he begins to caress my flesh. I can’t suppress the violent shudder that pulses through me.

  This, this is what the girls of my generation breed with? I close my eyes momentarily, allowing the thumping bass to block out the guy to my left. Under any other circumstance, the music would drive me to plug my ears.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  The not so surprising grip that slides down to my elbow causes me to pause in my aggressive tapping. I continued to ignore the man trying to get my attention, perhaps he’ll just go away. The thumping bass creates a pleasing distraction from his grating voice, as much as an ice pick to the brain can be a distraction. If the music increases any more, I’ll have to wear those earplugs. In fact, I take it back, that sounds like a wonderful idea.

  “I suggest you remove your hand.” I exhale long and slow, my annoyance at the DJ in the distance rising. I watch as he handles the turntable like a man possessed. He just might be. His head bobs at awkward angles, matching the beat he churns out. Even from here, I can see the dark stains blooming under his arms.

  “Honey, I’m just trying to get your attention. Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?” I sigh, my eyes shuttering at the sound of his voice. This is the third time this has happened to me tonight. I cock my head, still eyeing the DJ as the set dies d
own. I turn to blink up at the man standing beside my roped-off VIP table. A scruffy baby face smiles down at me. His pearly white teeth are offset against the strobe lights, his skin too tan to be normal. I’m sure he thinks it’s attractive. But not to me. I don’t have time for attraction, and I can’t risk a relationship.

  At least not with a human.

  I’m only here for one reason, and one reason only.

  To write an article on this DJ and collect a paycheck. I’m not here to fraternize, pick up strays, or even get drunk. Even though I’ve been sipping on the same martini for hours. The warm vodka now turning my stomach sour.

  “I have a drink.” I look at his hand, willing him to remove it from my person. Otherwise, I may break his fingers.

  And I won’t feel bad about it.

  “Let me buy you another one.” Oh, so he’s one of those types. Won’t give up until I bat my eyelashes and beg him to let me ride him.

  Not today, Satan.

  I sit back in my booth and blink up at him with my ice-blue eyes, my tongue darting out to lick my lips. Unable to help himself, his attention falls to them. Gross, but damn effective. With my other hand, I slap his, rolling his touch off my arm as I hit a very unpleasant pressure point in the center of his palm that has him falling to his pristine, jean-clad knees.

  “You bitch.” He tries to grab me with his other hand, but I only press harder into his palm, mutating his language to rather colorful curse words.

  “Yes, I am. But you are also disturbing me in my very own roped-off section. Can you not read?” I jerk my chin to the VIP sign.

  “Let go, bitch!” I should, but I’m enjoying this far too much. Pressure points are underrated little gems. Besides, if he leaves right now, it very well may save his life.

  “Penny Piór!” Busted. My sister slams her serving tray on the table. “The boss doesn’t request you because you beat the shit out of his patrons.” I let the poor bastard go and smile viciously as he runs away, shaking his hand out. It’ll sting like that for hours.