Blood Reign (#4): Alpha Warriors of the Blood (The Blood Series)
Read Blood Reign (#4): Alpha Warriors of the Blood (The Blood Series) Online
Authors: Tamara Rose Blodgett
BLOOD REIGN....
"…
I pre-ordered my copy, and even waited up until it began to download onto my Kindle so I could jump right in and after reading the first few pages I was glad that it had been worth the wait...!" -
Gemma Hopgood
"...This series is one of the best I've read and this is the best book in the series so far. There is so much going on. I love the fast pace and all the action..."-
Mellissa Bair
“...I am hooked on the series.... can't wait to see how it ends...”
K. Pitcher
Table of Contents
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More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros
Julia's sworn enemies are safely sequestered in a prison of the fey and her forever mate has been chosen—not by blood, but by a circumstance shaped from coincidence. However, it's not enough to save Julia and the others their fate at the hands of the Alaska den, whose reacquisition has come alarmingly full-circle to capture them.
Tharell of the fey aligns with the Singers, Were, and remaining vampires to take back the one true Queen. Only Julia can stop the interspecies wars and establish a genetic truce that would free all groups from extinction. Can they rescue Julia and her allies before it's too late? Will the Red Were's lineage prove to be the catalyst of victory against a corrupt pack grown too debauched by greed and power?
BLOOD REIGN
Book Four: The Blood Series
Copyright © 2014 Tamara Rose Blodgett
Kindle Edition
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Design: Claudia McKinney
Photographs: DepositPhotos
Photography: Oleg Gekman
Linda Palomera-Terpe
May this be the first of many....
Contains spoilers.
Blood Singers/talent:
Julia- Queen of the Singers; Telekinetic/telepath
Scott- Royal Singer Blood; Deflector/Combatant
Brendan- Tracker/pyro
Michael- Illusionist
Jen- Telekinetic
Cyrus- Healer
Paul- Negator/amplifier
Angela- Feeler
Marcus- Region One
Jacqueline- Royal Singer Blood; Region Two Leader
Victor- Region Two/Combatant- Boiler/Flame of Blood
Lucius- Combatant
Cynthia “Cyn” Adams - Rogue/Healer
Heidi- Reader
Trevor- Deflector
Northwestern Were Pack:
Lawrence-Packmaster
Emmanuel “Manny” - Beta to Lawrence
Anthony “Tony” Daniel Laurent- Second to Lawrence
Adrianna “Adi”- Alpha female
Southeastern Were Pack:
David- Packmaster
Alan Greene- Alpha male
Lacey Greene – female Were and Alan’s sister
Buck “Slash”- Alpha male
Karl Truman- former Homer detective
Ford- Alpha male/ FBI agent
Reagan - Moon Warrior, Lacey’s daughter
Southeastern Vampire Kiss:
Merlin- Coven leader (now deceased)
William- new coven leader (now deceased)
Brynn- New leader of the Southeastern
Northwestern Vampire Kiss:
Gabriel- Coven Leader
Claire- William’s cousin
William- Runner/shifter/Singer blood
Unseelie Sidhe fey:
Queen Darcel- Sidhe
Tharell- mixed Sidhe warrior
Cormack- Sidhe warrior
Domiatri “Domi”- Sidhe warrior
Rex- Sidhe
Kiel (
key-ale
)- dragon shifting Sidhe
Celesta- Sidhe warrior
Delilah
- Vampire, third to Julia, Scott’s half-sister
Rogue Reds:
Ezekiel “Zeke”
Rogue Alpha female Were:
Tessa
Juvenile female Were/shapeshifter:
Taliah
FEDS:
Tom Harriet
Tai (
tie
) Simon
Motion woke Julia initially. Rhythmic. Unfamiliar.
Constant.
She allowed her eyes to open to slits. What little light existed crept inside to illuminate the four corners of where she lay. Julia said nothing, alerted no one. Silver chain, a fine gauge little better than woven lace, covered Jason, Truman, and Adi. Cyn was bound from behind, her hands in painful-looking knots behind her back.
Julia swallowed, acutely aware of the dryness of her mouth and throat. She lay on her side and rocked back and forth, accidentally throwing herself on her face. It pressed uncomfortably against the rough wood of the surface on which she lay. Julia moved her shoulder into the unforgiving wood and shoved hard, using her half-asleep legs to jerk up to her knees in a semi-kneeling position.
Her head swam with the remnants of the drugs.
Julia took several deep, steadying breaths. She blinked, meeting Cyn's.
Hers reflected in the dark.
“That cop bit me,” Cyn croaked. Julia imagined her throat was as parched as her own.
Julia hadn't witnessed Cyn's being bitten, and the reason behind it eluded her. She relaxed against her heels for the time being. “Why?” she asked.
Cyn grimaced as she shifted her weight, her eyes tightening with pain. “I don't know. I think he was thinking he'd be Mr. Helpful.” Her gaze roamed all over the inside of the stuffy space. She recognized they were in a truck as it jostled. She and Cyn groaned from the motion.
“You're looking a little wolfy, Cyn,” Jason said from his slumped corner.
Jason.
Julia half-crawled, walking to his position with her knees, and he gave her a small smile. It looked more like pain than joy.
“What is it?” Julia asked.
The truck jerked to a halt, and Julia flew forward, no hands to ward her fall. The ground hit her face a second time, but this time with momentum. She yelped on contact, muffled as it was, rolling over as splinters and a bruise vied for position on her cheekbone.
She'd just kicked her own ass.
“Jules!” Jason yelled, moving to her in the same awkward shuffle she'd just managed.
Not fast, wrapped as he was with the silver chain.
His face appeared above her, tightening in pain.
“Jules,” he whispered.
Tears rolled out of the corners of her eyes and she moaned. “Yeah.”
“We're home boys... and girls. Home reek home,” Truman said in a sarcastic commentary from the back of the bus. Or truck.
Julia rolled over onto her back. She hadn't noticed the stench. Now that he’d brought it to her attention, exhaust was all she could smell.
“Not yet,” Jason said to Truman without looking at him, his hands bound tightly against his back like everyone else.
Truman snorted. “Canada, pal. Close enough.”
Jason grunted affirmation. “Yeah.”
“What now?” Cyn asked.
“Looks like they're taking us back to Alaska,” Jason said and Julia could hear the despondency in his tone. It wasn't going to be reunion time. There was an entirely different agenda going on.
The truck slowed, coming to a shuddering stop.
Lily's entrance shattered their small group’s quiet commiserating.
Vent holes and an opaque ceiling was the only air and light the five of them had. The sultry heat and dim interior vanished the instant the doors were slapped open and daylight streamed inside.
Julia took in the woman who had pretended to be her aunt, secure the doors against the sides of the truck.
“You're awake,” she said without waiting for a response. Gone was the demure, small-in-stature guardian with the perpetually sour disposition and perma-smirk.
In its place was a statuesque Sidhe warrior of the fey.
Julia flung about in her memory bank for anything to do with fey lore and could only come up with the colorful Faerie stories of childhood literature.
None of that was remotely applicable to the reality that stood before her. A six-foot tall, inky black figure with a shock of silver hair gave them her inscrutable, pale gray eyes. She was nearly naked. A band of material like a vintage tube top wrapped her breasts and a matching covering that decorum dictated hid the female bits and nothing else. She looked like a barbarian from another planet. Every movement brought striated musculature to the surface of her skin like the rippling of water after a stone's throw.
“Good,” she said in a soft purr. “I'm sure the human necessities are calling.”
Her voice didn't even sound the same. Lilting, biting... it ran along Julia's skin like small bugs looking for flesh to penetrate.
“I always thought you were a dumb bitch before. Now I don't have to speculate. Yeah,” Cyn commented dryly.
That was how Cyn coped. Julia just wished it hadn't been right now.
Lily's self-important smile wilted a little around the edges. “Your good or bad opinion of me is not relevant, Singer.”
“I think it's more like Were now, fairy,” Cyn bit back. Then, “I gotta pee, and unless you want to add winged janitor to the list of your bullshit, I suggest you get my drugged ass out of here.”
Adi groaned in the background. “God... what—
silver
.” She blanched, looking around until she caught sight of Lily. “Okay, kidnap us because you're asshats. I get it, but silver?”
Jason and Truman said nothing. Their glaring at Lily was all the evidence needed that they'd rather be anywhere but in the back of a box van returning to Alaska.
Lily watched Cyn warily as she leapt up from the ground five feet into the rear of the van. Cyn grinned. It hung on her face wrong somehow.
Lily was on her in a second. She grabbed an ankle, jerking her like a willful dog on a chain.
Julia saw what would happen before it did, but Lily was a little slow on the uptake. Some things remained the same.
They had not thought to wrap the spiderwebbing of feather light silver chain around Cyn. They'd discounted her.
She had been a Singer before Truman's bite, and someone had dropped the Were ball. Having Singer blood meant many things. But if the host held a Singer’s blood, transference to cross-species genetics was a highway instead of a walk.
Cyn's fingertips burst with talons, her nose grew to a stub, downy pale fur taking the place of skin and her teeth becoming sharpened tips. She sat up, partially changed, her butt dragging along the rough wood floor, and took hold of the forearms pulling her out of the van.
Cyn easily broke her non-silver bonds.
Lily turned, her face filled with comical surprise. Julia understood from her expression that it was a rare event.
Cyn crushed the bones of Lily's forearms and Lily reared back, howling in anguish, trying to tear herself out of Cyn's grasp.
It was a horrible beauty to see her friend's face grin from a row of teeth more wolfen than human.
“No ya don't,” Cyn growled and jerked Lily close, rolling her over onto her back. She didn't pause for consideration.
Human rational had left, and the Were had taken over.
Lily kicked out, connecting with Cyn's midsection as she simultaneously latched onto her shoulder.
Cyn grunted but didn't dislodge.
Instead, she moved deeper into the hold, biting down on Lily's neck with crushing force.
A second figure jumped into the van as Julia pressed against the sides of the wall.
One of the cops
.
“Stop!” he commanded, and Cyn shuddered.
She growled even as she reveled in mutilating Lily's neck, shaking her head slightly in glee.
Metallic and warm, copper filled the air, and Julia gagged.
“Release her!” the cop said.
Cyn raised her muzzle and howled, at once enraged and discouraged.
He had stopped her from tearing Lily's head off.
Jason and Truman snuffled and mewled, not in submission but in pain and disquiet.
Cyn backed away, shaking her head while on her hands and knees. No matter how much she swung her head back and forth, she couldn't rid herself of his command.
Julia's eyes rose to his. A new Alpha.
“I'm Tom Harriet.”
Julia said nothing. His identity meant nothing. Did nothing. William was dead, his sacrifice feeling more and more worthless. He'd saved her from Cormack, the Sidhe that meant her death, only for another group to capture her.
But not just her. It was now her and the others.
Julia dispassionately watched Lily's throat knit the damage, very pink against all that true black skin, Cyn's canines had made.
Julia began to speak, but Harriet held up his hand for silence.
“It was one of my wolves that botched this entire acquisition up three years ago.” His smile was a grim line in a hard face. “And now we have the Blooded Queen—who by rights was always meant to be with the Alaska den and no other.” Harriet spread his hands away from his body.
“Who are you to tell me where I should be, and with whom?” she asked. Her eyes were still closed, her breath shallow as she laid her head against the wall of the van.
She smelled his nearness, and her eyes flew open as Jason growled and struggled to get to her.
Harriet's eyes bled to green.
He was a Red.
“We're not some weak outside pack.” He evaded her question. Those spinning orbs dove into her gaze, mesmerizing, captivating—dead serious.
“I am pack master of the Alaskan den. We take what is ours. No negotiations, no bullshit.”
Julia searched his eyes. He seemed to be telling the truth, though the truth as he saw it.
“What does this mean for me?” Julia asked slowly, though she didn't think she'd like the answer. She was getting accustomed to receiving it.
“Easy, Julia Caldwell. You're the pinnacle of a breeding triangle, to simplify things. As I'm sure the fey rehearsed to you, you throw true, yes?”
Julia stared at him, speechless. Unbelievable. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jason inch closer.
“We want more than Alaska.” Harriet's hand closed into a fist by her temple. Julia didn't flinch. She was desensitized at this point. It didn't help that she had to use the bathroom so badly it burned inside her, distracting her from even the fear of this new threat.
He casually swung that held fist into Jason's temple and he fell with a howl, the chains cinching tighter with the movement. As Julia now saw, they were meant to.
Stay still, and they remained slack. Move, and they grew tighter with each motion.
Jason writhed in agony on the floor behind them, and Harriet went on as if nothing had transpired.
“We have the highest concentration of Red Were in the world. We are destined by genetics to be the dominant Were. That is
why
we're put to death on sight by dens who fear us—our potential.”
Julia chanced a glance at Jason, his eyes spinning orbs of green anger, his wolf a hairsbreadth from erupting. She couldn't stand the idea of what would happen to him if he burst his skin with the silver bindings.
“Don't,” she whispered.
Please don't.
“He will, if I will it,” Harriet said softly.
They looked at Harriet. “Why would you take us and torture some of your own kind?” Julia asked, desperate to understand.
“Because I can,” he answered softly.
Tom Harriet turned to face Jason and Truman.
His command brought worse than her imaginings.
Julia cried as the bindings tightened and the howling was the only thing she heard.