Blood: Under the Skin Book 1 Read online

  Somehow, she seemed to understand what I was doing. I wasn’t sure how she did, but the look she gave me said it all. Her eyes, while drooping with fatigue, looked at me softly. Her mouth tilted into a smile that seemed to tell me she was not angry. She hadn’t lost the ability to fight while I drank from her, she just simply stopped wanting to fight. For whatever reason, she was accepting what I was doing.

  “Take me away…” she whispered hoarsely before grabbing my wrist and forcing my open vein to her lips. Her eyes closed as she moaned when my blood coated her tongue.

  I stared at her stunned, not sure why she was willingly giving herself over to me. I brought my other hand up and stroked her cheek, her skin losing its warmth and color as my blood replaced hers. It was a breathtaking sight, watching her body change before my eyes. She’d sleep the moment she was done taking what her body needed for the change, but I wasn’t sure for how long.

  We sat like this for another five minutes before she was finally overcome with exhaustion and fell still. My wrist wound closed and I picked her up bridal style, making my way back to an abandoned flat I used when I wanted to get away. Thankfully, the streets were empty that night, the humans snuggling into their warm beds to escape the downpour of snow that showcased the beginning of winter.

  Unfortunately, this would be the last night I could touch her for a long time. I didn’t know what my master had in store for me, but I knew it would be a while before I could figure out a way to leave him, breaking his influence over me for good. But no matter how long it took, I would find her again.

  As I watched the first woman to enrapture me in almost two hundred years, sleeping upon the cold floor of the flat’s basement, I made a vow to her that I’d come back. I kissed her cheek as my first ever bloody tear left me, and stood. But as I began to walk away, I heard her shifting around behind me.

  I startled when I turned and saw her sitting up. She was supposed to sleep a while longer. Her new vampire eyes looked at me in dazed confusion.

  “Who are you?” She asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “I am your maker. I’m sorry, but I must leave you.”

  She rubbed her eyes and asked, “What’s your name, at least?”

  I walked up the stairs until I reached the door, turning to look back one last time at my beautiful progeny looking up at me.

  “V. My name is V.”

  And then I left her. My heart ached at the missed chance to teach her the things she’d need to know to survive in this world. I did the only responsible thing I could do for her. I asked two vampires I trusted outside of my master’s control to watch over her. They promised they’d do their best and immediately went to her aid. I watched from a distance as they exited the flat with her, longing to be the one holding her hand as they took her to feed for her first time.

  “I’ll come back for you, Lucy. I swear it,” I muttered to the wind.

  I walked back into the darkness, her face etched into my brain to hold me over for however long necessary until I could have her back in my arms once again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hollis

  “Agent Grey,” a deep voice said behind me.

  I turned my head from the table all the maps of the city and surrounding areas were strewn upon. My men and Sloan had gone over every known nest in the city and some places we suspected a nest could be. My team had gone home for the night while Sloan and I stayed to look for anything we missed. It had been almost three weeks since Lucy was taken and weren’t any closer to figuring out where they took her.

  Agent Bishop Bentley walked up to us, towering with authority. He’d been out of state for an assignment and I hadn’t expected him to show for at least another two days to help us. It made me confused for a second as to who was speaking.

  He stopped to the side of me and glanced over the table before setting his leering, sand colored eyes on me. He was a beast of a man. I wasn’t joking with Sloan when I said he made me look like a shrimp. While I was a pretty huge guy that towered over most of my men, Bishop Bentley was a giant. I was only just over six feet in height, he stood at around six-foot-seven. His body mass was intimidating with how much space it took up and his permanent scowl always screamed that he wasn’t one to be fucked with.

  I reached out and to shake his hand, but of course he ignored it. I figured he wouldn’t take the gesture. It didn’t stop me from trying for politeness anyways. “Agent Bentley. Thank you for coming. I know this isn’t your usual thing to take on, but we could use your help.”

  He nodded and glanced at Sloan “Who are you?” Bishop asked him with a grunt.

  I looked over and saw Sloan’s Adam’s Apple slide up and down as he swallowed. I smirked, knowing he was definitely intimidated. Smart man, I thought to myself.

  “Sloan Jenkins. I’m helping Hollis find our girl.”

  Bishop snorted in a way that showed the inner bull inside him. “A Were sharing a mate. That’s new,” he replied harshly then leaned over and thumbed through the maps.

  I began filling him in on the case my team and I’d been working on; last known locations, distribution points, the lead I had with Lucy, and finally what happened at the stakeout and where.

  “It’s a good thing you called me,” he went to the filing cabinet where we kept copies of city maps and grabbed a few before returning to the table. He unfolded one that was completely outside the city. It was a map of an area within the Catskill Mountains further north in New York. He looked it over before taking a marker and putting a circle around small towns and a few mostly forested areas.

  “You’re narrowing down you’re search too much. These areas are different nest houses my team and I encountered,” he shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “The odd thing is, these are all for one nest, moving to different locations. Nests don’t move like that unless they have a damn good reason or are running from something. If it was a nest that took your girl, I’d say it was that one. We came across a small warehouse that the pack had circled around, trying to throw us off their scent. It was completely abandoned, but the scent of the nest we smelled a few days earlier was all over it. They seem to move to all the same places though.”

  How did he know about these, but I didn’t? I felt kind of irritated with myself for not thinking of asking Bishop and his team about suspicious vampire activity. It wasn’t something I figured he’d know, though. Nor did I think of expanding the radius a bit further. Vampires liked highly populated areas, not forests and small towns. Especially vampires who didn’t care for rules.

  Sloan was the one to ask Bishop the questions I was cooking up, though his level of bravado when asking wasn’t the level I’d have used. “How are you so sure? You deal in Weres, not vamps. Who’s to say you’re right?”

  Bishop raised a brow at me in question, also seemingly surprised at the tone Sloan just took with him. I shrugged, not having an answer for his unspoken question. I wasn’t Sloan’s keeper. If he wanted to be dumb, I’d let him learn his lesson.

  “While it’s no concern of yours since you’re not my superior, nor are you even a part of the STF, I’ll enlighten you anyways, pup,” he stated with condescension, picking up a map and shoving it into Sloan’s hands. “I may not deal in vampires, but I do cross them. These nests are all ones my team and I sniffed out while chasing after a few rogue Weres two weeks ago. You may be a werewolf, but my whole team is trained with having a superior sense of smell and being able to remember them. These vampires smelled exactly the same each time we passed their hiding spots. That’s how I can say that I’m right.”

  Sloan scowled at him, his eyes flashing with anger. I put an arm on him to get his attention. “Go walk it off, Sloan.” I ordered, giving him a tone that said not to argue. He growled low then tossed the map on the table, stalking off out the door of the briefing room.

  “He has a lot to learn if he plans to help you, Hollis,” Bishop rumbled.

  I sighed heavily and nodded. “I know. He’s just worr
ied. We don’t know why Lucy was taken, but we have to find her. She’s connected in all this somehow. Why would whoever is supplying the city with BloodLust want her? I’ve checked her history. She’s just an ordinary girl who tattooed the wrong guy. What more is there that I’m missing?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. But if you’ve searched every possible spot within the city, it might be time to think outside the box now,” he replied.

  A commotion outside the room caught our attention just before the door was thrown open. Claudia came marching in with a pissed off look and walking towards me like a woman on a mission.

  I’ve gotten to know Claudia a lot more these few weeks that Lucy’s been gone, and one thing I’ve learned was that she was a force to be reckoned with. Every day she called me, demanding updates on what we’d found, throwing out suggestions on where to look based on rumors floating around the club. Claudia Adams may be a girl who could be sweet as pie and make you feel like the oldest friend to her after only just meeting her, but there was nothing she wouldn’t do for Lucy. That included talking up some less than friendly vampires who came in and out of The Sassy Sanguine. Sloan had immediately put a stop to it when he finally questioned how she was getting her intel. It was quite the argument when he chastised her for putting herself at risk like that, just before letting her know she wasn’t allowed to help us anymore. She didn’t take too kindly to being ordered around, that was for sure. I wisely stayed out of it.

  With the way she was stomping towards me now, I wasn’t too sure she’d be leaving without getting what she came for. I hated admitting it, but in this moment, she was downright terrifying.

  “Hollis Michelangelo Grey!” She shouted, shaking her finger at me as she closed in.

  “That’s not my middle name,” I groused at her, rubbing my hand down my face in aggravation. She changed my middle name up every time she fussed at me.

  She pushed me with more force than I thought her little body could dole out, knocking me into the table. “I don’t give a flying fuck what your middle name is! You will not keep me from this investigation anymore!”

  “I tried to stop her, but she punched me in the nose,” Sloan said nasally. He came up behind her, rubbing his nose with his palm and giving her the evil eye.

  “I could’ve done worse and you know it,” she shot over her shoulder before crossing her arms and leering at me. “Now I’ve waited two days for you to update me and I haven’t gotten shit. So, you’re either gonna fill me in or I’m going to stand right here all night.”

  Bishop grunted beside me.

  “And this is where I take my leave. Good luck, Agent Grey. Let me know if you need anything else.” Bishop surprisingly stepped as far around the glittery little vampire as he could before exiting the room.

  It was almost laughable at how uneasy he looked at someone as small as her and was hard to choke down the laugh threatening to bubble up. To think this pixie of a vampire made such a massive Bull Shifter uncomfortable. I had a feeling if I did laugh though, Claudia would surely use my face as a punching bag next.

  “Claudia, we still don’t know much. Agent Bentley helped us narrow down some spots that weren’t on any of the maps within the city. We’re going to have to widen our search range now.”

  Her shoulders sagged and the tension flew from her body. “This just sucks, you guys. I need her home safe. There’s no telling what those vampires are doing to her.” Bloody tears welled in her eyes. It broke my heart seeing Lucy’s friend like this.

  Sloan slung his arm over her shoulder and pulled her in close to hug her. “We’ll get her back, Claude. It’s taking longer than all of us want it to, but it will happen. She’s tough. They obviously need her for something, so I’m sure she’s fine.”

  As she turned and cried into his shoulder, he gave me a determined look over her shoulder. He wanted to believe his words just as much as I did, but we needed to step up our game if we wanted to hold out hope that they were true. We wouldn’t stop until we had her back in our arms where she belonged.

  I just prayed our girl was still the same girl when we rescued her…

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lucy

  After hearing Vex’s story of how he came to be my maker, it was like every memory I’d been missing from that night other than the pain of the turn had come slamming into me like a tidal wave.

  I suddenly remembered that night he had bumped into my table, spilling my coffee and how I had been completely transfixed on who he was. It was such a far-off memory, I had lost the details of his face, yet somehow subconsciously remembered them. He was the reason I began furthering my research on vampires. I had rallied for their rights before I even was one, but it took meeting him and seeing that I had been right about them not being monsters that made me give myself over to the change.

  I wanted to change. My life had looked picture perfect to those around me, but it was anything but. My parents weren’t very good people and had basically disowned me not long before my change from life to afterlife. I had escaped to Baltimore as a big ‘fuck you’ to them because they hated the idea of vampires. When I met Vex, he solidified for me what I was born to be. When I had awakened without him there, I was foggy on a lot of things, mainly why I was suddenly a vampire. I’d heard of vampires losing memories when they were turned, but I figured my mind blocked it out for a reason.

  Vex was telling the truth. He was my maker. I knew when I met him for those few short seconds at the cafe that I trusted him with my entire being. I wasn’t sure why, but he was a beacon of hope for me to escape the life I was living. So, when I saw him as the one changing me, I gave myself over. Then it was all gone when I woke up.

  After Vex told me the story and brought back those memories, I decided to give him a chance. We devised a plan to hide me away in my cell on days his maker was here and plot a way for us all to escape anytime he was gone. He allowed me to visit Diego in his cell and fill him in on what we were planning.

  Diego, of course was unconvinced, but I managed to sway him in at least trusting me. Vex unchained him and told him to just wait it out until the time was right in the cell. It was his safest option.

  For a week and a half, Vex kept the vampires loyal to only his maker at bay while we switched back and forth between me being in the cell and being free. Unfortunately, his maker was still shooting him up with BloodLust. He finally told me his maker’s name was Bellamy. He was over a thousand years old and one of the younger of the Ancients still walking the earth. It gave me an unsteady feeling in the pit of my stomach. Ancients weren’t to be trifled with. You would never know what kind of power they carried within them until you faced them yourself. Mental influence, vocal influence and telekinesis were just the ones I knew about. None of which you wanted to be on the receiving end of.

  It was hard planning our escape when Vex was constantly on the verge of losing his sanity. Still, we pushed forward. We had to time our departure on a night that both Bellamy and the other vampires were out of the building we were currently in; which Vex kindly explained was actually a bunker built within the Catskill Mountains.

  Finally, we were blessed with an opening. Bellamy would be leaving for another round of gathering vampires to bring into his BloodLust army. Vex had no idea what Bellamy was planning, but from how many vampires he’d injected so far, it wasn’t good. My guess was releasing them all on the city, either taking it over or wiping it out completely. New York City was a damn island and a good place to release a siege of vampires. Tons of people and very few escape routes.

  We had to get out of here and warn Hollis and his team.

  It was the night before Bellamy’s arrival and Vex and I were hanging out in his room; which was more like a suite than anything. I spent a lot of my time here when an influx of vampires loyal to Bellamy wandered the halls. Anytime I was taken from the room, Vex would throw the bag over my head to hide my face, pretending I was just a pet human he liked to keep around. It placated the vampires, wh
o even though they mainly followed Bellamy’s orders, feared Vex all the same.

  I had gotten to know the men that followed Vex, Viper being one of them. He and I actually had a bit of a love-hate relationship. He was an okay guy and still marveled over the snake tattoo I’d done on him. He’d apologized for fooling me into believing he was a bad guy when we first reacquainted ourselves with each other. But he was still kind of an asshole. The other vampires, Luke, Basil and Ash weren’t so bad either, well, except Ash. I still hated him. Ash was the one who had knocked me out, so I steered clear of him as much as possible.

  “Whip it out. I wanna see it,” I jested with Vex.

  He was currently in his walk-in closet getting weapons hidden inside ready for our escape tomorrow. Tonight, was one of the few nights that his mind wasn’t fogged over with the drug, which meant Bellamy was bound to have him drugged up again before he left. He’d gotten a few extra nights longer than usual and was more of a sane man than he’d been in my entire stay. I liked this Vex. He was kind, funny, and even though he had a slightly sociopathic disposition, was a good man.

  Vex had informed me that while compulsion worked, he could still somewhat resist it. That’s where BloodLust came in. It prevented Vex from resisting, making him easier to control.

  “That isn’t going to happen,” he said, sticking his head out of the closet with a smile to reply before going back to what he was doing.

  “But you’re always hiding it,” I replied with a laugh, hopping off the chaise I sat on to stand by the closet opening. “I heard one of your men say in passing, that if you like someone, you’ll show it to them but we can’t touch it.”