Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Read online

  Amidst a backlash of concern, the segregation laws had been put in place immediately by the newly appointed, human-led Global Council. There had been a drive to round up all the third species. The door-to-door searches began, dental examinations the cheapest and easiest way to identify them. They’d all been put into temporary guarded accommodation, but there were so many more than the authorities had ever envisaged. Cities were cornered off, security systems put in place, chain-link fences and concrete walls dividing sections in the newly formed locales – divisions that had been increasingly reinforced over the years as the miracle cure was awaited.

  Most humans had left the area when they had been warned to do so by the authorities, when the markers of what would become Blackthorn – the core where the majority of the third species would be housed – had been placed.

  Most humans had been relocated to Lowtown across the border or, in some cases, Midtown. In rare cases, the most fortunate humans – those with the intellect, education or social promise enough to deem them worthy – had been moved to the affluence of Summerton. What had remained was nothing more than a cloudy handprint of what life was once like there.

  Her friend, the only friend her memory extended back far enough to recall, had hidden her from the census. He’d also refused to leave her to survive there alone.

  No one had anticipated the cons’ extradition into the area thirty years later when the penitentiary started to fill, when it was deemed the ultimate deterrent. No one could have anticipated the society they’d build for themselves on the fringe of the third-species communities. They took over row after row – and Pummel had taken a particular liking to the one she and Toby had resided in.

  He’d broken in there one night. From the lock-up, she’d sensed something was wrong. She’d bounded through the front door, bursting into the room Pummel had since claimed as his – the room where they had disturbed Toby from his sleep. She would never forget her gut wrenching at seeing her friend on his knees, the blade to his throat, his large blue eyes leaking with panic. She would never forget seeing the few contents from her jewellery box spilled onto the floor, only the necklace remaining dangling from the hand of one of Pummel’s crew. The necklace he threw towards Pummel to catch just as she crossed the threshold.

  Pummel’s eyes had ignited, along with the rest of his crew, on seeing her. Acting on impulse, she had taken out three in quick succession until Pummel had sent a blow to her face. Having seen her in action, he’d already worked out she wasn’t human. Waiting for her to retaliate, he’d sensed her hesitation as quickly as he’d worked out her lack of retaliation had something to do with what he was now wearing around his throat.

  Because it was the one rule that restricted her, contained her into submission by an invisible force: whoever owned the necklace, whoever her guardian was, she could do nothing to harm them. Even just trying would have been agony – rendering her incapable of lashing out effectively.

  So, as Pummel had closed in on her, Toby had revealed the only thing that had any bargaining power in that moment: the truth that would not only save Jessie’s life but, wrapped in a lie, would save her from years of potential abuse on top of the mental and physical. The lie that, heal though she could, sex would render her defunct.

  Pummel didn’t believe her abilities at first, but had acted promptly. He’d stabbed his fellow con several times in order to watch her in action. And she’d never forget the triumph in his eyes when he realised the potential of what he had found. Fortunately, with it, he treated Toby’s claims seriously, viewing her skills far more valuable than an occasional bedroom session that he could get with countless other females willing to do whatever it took to get into the row.

  He’d subsequently slaughtered Toby in front of her.

  Amidst tears and outrage, her heart severed at losing her only friend – the man who had cared for her since finding her cold and alone on his parents’ lock-up floor, him no more than a child himself back then – she’d killed three more of Pummel’s fellow cons before being knocked out cold.

  And then her prison time had begun.

  Pummel had kept her on a short leash ever since. Others in Pummel’s crew knew what he used her for. Loyal though they were, foolish though they would have been to even contemplate breaking an allegiance with him, their very lack of morality meant those loyalty ties were capable of snapping at any time. And that was why Pummel kept her necklace locked away where no one knew where it was: the key to her guardianship that also kept her trapped.

  They might not have been able to own her without it, but they could still take what they wanted from her. They could still do enough damage to render her powerless to Pummel – or at least what they all thought would render her defunct – if they were brave enough to take her on. Because Pummel might have opted to abstain, but that didn’t mean the others hadn’t had thoughts. She’d seen the furtive glances Chemist occasionally sent her. She’d seen what he liked to indulge in. She’d passed his room once, had caught a glimpse of one of his drug-fuelled fantasies. She’d run with her hand clasped over her mouth, barely reaching the toilet before she’d vomited.

  Because hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil was her life. To do otherwise, let alone intervene, meant another few hours there in the hole, if not longer.

  She’d only ever risked it twice. Once was with a girl no more than eighteen who’d been dragged there straight off the streets from what she could hear. The girl had been a fighter, new in Blackthorn, and out of her depth with the three cons who had brought her back for the night. And Jessie couldn’t just walk past – not once she’d overheard what they had planned. She’d broken their necks like she had with Grayson and the others. She’d trusted the girl not to tell she’d intervened. The same girl she’d found dead a week later.

  The other time, she’d rescued a male. He was glassy-eyed, just as young, brought back there for kicks – literally. He’d run before she’d had a chance to warn him to keep quiet. She’d had the feeling he would never have made it far anyway.

  So Pummel’s back was never turned – not just from his own, but the possibility of another gang from some other row having heard rumours of her skills. Another con leader who wanted what Pummel had. Or a newbie wanting to make their mark…

  The train of thought had barely taken root when she heard something.

  She braced both hands on the floor either side of her. She stopped breathing, her ears straining through the thrum of silence.

  Whispers.

  At first she thought it was coming from outside, but Pummel’s footsteps had long departed, no others having arrived since.

  She frowned, tilted her head to try and locate the source.

  More whispers.

  She looked down towards the floor. She eased onto all fours, angling her ear close to the missing knots in the wood – holes that let the sound through, that let the whispers through. Whispers that were definitely coming up from the cellar.

  She fell back onto her haunches in shock.

  Because what she could hear were the whispers of children.

  8

  Water sprayed down over his lowered head as Eden kept his eyes closed, his palms flat against the cracked tiles of Tatum’s shower. If she had been sent to test his mettle, then she’d been close to succeeding.

  She’d been on the cusp of exhausting him. He should have been as unconscious as she was, but he’d never been able to fall asleep with a woman he didn’t know – a survival instinct developed from his usual choice in women. Besides, that wasn’t why he was there. And he was still irritated that it had taken as long as it had to finally send her to sleep. What should have been a couple of point-proving hours at most turned into a marathon that he neither had the inclination nor, more relevantly, the time to indulge in.

  His body ached all over, let alone his thighs. He throbbed, feeling tender to the touch. She sure knew how to sate a man’s needs and he’d made the most of it. He’d edged on the side of crue
l, just enough to show her the numbers were there with good reason, let alone ease his frustration at her keeping him away from what he needed to do. But now his aching felt shallow, the lack of emotional satisfaction making him spit out water more callously than he’d intended.

  He slid her shower door open and looked across at her as he towel-dried himself.

  She still lay face down on top of the rumpled sheets, what was left of the moonlight making her naked body even more ironically lily-white. Her clothes lay on the floor, her ripped silk top resembling the numerous empty foil packets strewn around.

  He ran his fingers back through his hair and rubbed the remaining droplets from his lashes.

  Stepping up to the bedside table, he reached for his bottle. Still watching her, he rubbed his thumb over the condensation on the glass. He could just make out her lips. Lips that had been enticingly wet and parted as she’d cried out whilst he’d thrust into her, her nails digging into his behind before he’d restrained her, Tatum crying out for him to thrust deeper and harder before trying to wriggle free as she’d tried to get him to reduce his pace. And she’d liked it when he hadn’t complied.

  He could see just how red and sore the soft parts of her flesh were, love bites amidst blemishes now as transparent on her skin. Fortunately she’d revelled in the pleasure, just as she’d revelled in whispering of the things she wanted to introduce him to elsewhere in the row – the things she wanted him to watch her doing, the things she wanted to watch him doing, even managing to come up with a few potential scenarios he hadn’t tried.

  Any other time, any other circumstance, and he’d be tempted to play. But there was no way he was taking his eye off the ball – even for what promised to be one or two unique experiences for him.

  He finished drying off before reaching for his clothes. He’d go to his room, grab something fresh to put on – and then he was getting himself straight to the lock-up.

  He could only hope she’d waited.

  * * *

  Jessie lay curled up on the floor in the darkness, her ear to the largest of the holes. Yet even that one was less than the circumference of her little finger – hardly an adequate vessel for sound.

  Most of the time the noise had been almost inaudible to the point she was sure it was just a result of blood pumping in her forcibly deaf ears. Human youth was practically non-existent in Blackthorn – or so guarded as to stay out of sight. Any rare vampire youth were equally heavily protected. And there was nothing like the cocoon surrounding the lycan young. If there were youngsters in that cellar, she would have known, would have overheard something, would have seen something...

  But there had been the van. The caskets. Something had been delivered down there.

  But children? Pummel never involved himself with children – not that she knew of. Her skin crawled at the very prospect.

  Reassuringly, it had fallen quiet for almost an hour, to the point she was thankfully starting to doubt she’d heard it at all.

  Then it happened again – not just whispers this time, but shuffling. Finally she was convinced it was no physiological trick or imagination. There was definitely something down there.

  The urge to call out through the floor was overwhelming, but until she knew what was down there she knew it would have been too precarious.

  Because there was a chance it wasn’t children at all – maybe something under the guise of children, something unearthly. She recoiled back against the wall, her hands braced on the floorboards again. A chill crept over her. But if it was that, she would have sensed it. If anything as powerful as that had already arrived, she would have known.

  She barely had time to let the thought evolve before the key was turned in the lock, the bolts slid across.

  Jessie flinched before using the wall to help her get to her feet. As a slither of weak light converted to an arc, she braced herself, her palms plastered either side of her hips. Pummel didn’t utter a word as his outline dominated her only exit until he stepped back, her silent indication to leave.

  Jessie padded down the hallway, turning left up the stairs. She passed the landing, Pummel’s room, taking the sharp left up the dog-legged staircase to her room.

  She unlocked her bedroom door, closed it behind her and relocked it again. Using the bathroom, she washed herself down to rid herself of the scent of the hole before hurrying back into her room.

  There was no guarantee how long he would wait. Or if he had gone to the lock-up at all.

  Opening the chest of drawers, she grabbed a clean, chunky-knit sweater, only to squeeze it in her hand as her gaze fell to the more delicate cardigan beside it. She pulled a chemise out of the top drawer, holding the cool, delicate fabric for a moment before resolutely slamming the drawer shut.

  Jessie pulled on her chemise and fastened the buttons on her cardigan from mid-abdomen to mid-thigh. Donning a pair of knee-high socks, she slipped them up so they cusped the hem of her cardigan. She stepped over to the wardrobe mirror and glanced at herself, her stomach churning at the plan that now seemed the only option.

  She made her way back down the stairs, through the first arch, past the stairs that led up to Eden’s room, and crossed to the under-stairs door through the next. It was still quiet enough for her not to be noticed – not that Pummel would have anticipated she’d dare step out of line again so soon.

  She descended the stairs, crossed the abandoned room, eased through the boarded-up window, passed through the courtyards and stepped out into the alley. She checked around cautiously before hurrying across to the lock-up, where she rarely headed without the full shield of darkness.

  Checking over her shoulder as she reached the door, she then noticed the padlock was already loose – still in its place but unfastened.

  Heart pounding, she warily stepped inside, her eyes adjusting quickly to the dark.

  Eden was sat on the far side of the room, on top of the couple of crates he’d been lying beneath the night before. Head resting back against the wall, one outstretched leg crossed casually over the other, his gaze met hers.

  9

  Eden watched her as she cast a glance in his direction before crossing to the corner of the room to his right.

  Blood rushed to his groin at what she was wearing: thigh-high socks and a fitted long-line cardigan as opposed to the chunky oversized one she’d yanked on in her bedroom. It clung alluringly to her slender waist, the curve of her hips, let alone her behind as she strolled past him, reminding him of the feminine outline he had seen that first night.

  The door she opened had been invisible behind a stack of crates until she shoved them aside. Sending one more glance in his direction, she stepped inside.

  Lowering himself from the crates, taking his bottle of beer – plus one for her – with him, he stepped into the doorway.

  Mustiness overwhelmed any other sense as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was no exit and no windows. Scattered around the concrete floor were twenty or so candles, their wax spilled on the floor in their half-used state. At least half of them gradually became responsible for the room’s subtle amber glow as she lit one after the other.

  Central to the room was a pool table, one that had no doubt become obsolete from the way the missing leg had been replaced with a stack of pieces of wood. To his left, a throw-smothered double sofa flanked the wall he was leaning against. A pile of books was stacked on the nearside of it. An iron shelving unit covered part of the wall adjacent to it, more crates lay further along.

  ‘You need to close the door behind you,’ she said as she stood, flicking her wrist to extinguish the match she held. ‘No one should see the light from outside but there’s no point taking any chances.’

  Stepping inside, Eden closed the door with his foot, the three padlocks hanging loose from their locks catching his attention. Taking a mouthful of beer, he strolled the periphery of the room, checking behind the stacked crates to be totally sure they were alone.

  ‘Nice playroom,’ he sa
id. He glanced over his shoulder to see her securing each of the padlocks in turn – and he had the feeling it was nothing to do with securing anything from getting in.

  ‘I like it,’ she said, her tone impressively calm.

  He intended to stay the same. ‘I take it Pummel doesn’t know you come here?’

  ‘Like I said earlier, no one does.’

  And now she was revealing it to him. Common sense dictated there was one reason for that – she had absolutely no intention of letting him back out again.

  Yet for some reason she hadn’t opted to quickly and efficiently snap his neck like the others. Either she had something she wanted to find out first or murder didn’t quite come as easy to her as she wanted him, or herself, to think. Any chance of the latter meant he needed to focus on staying alive long enough to give her reason to believe just how difficult that kill could be.

  She lifted the sole cue from the table and held out for him to take as he sauntered over to join her.

  ‘How do you manage to keep this place under wraps?’ he asked.

  ‘Being smart, good timing, watching my back. I’ve always managed it well – up until our encounter in the hallway.’

  ‘Is he off the scent?’

  ‘We’d both better hope so.’

  He’d done the best he could. After leaving Tatum, he’d left the row with the feigned intention of searching for the items on Pummel’s impossible list. He’d skirted around to the lock-ups the long way round, making sure he wasn’t being followed, grateful that he still had an hour of relative darkness before the early light of dawn. Using the route he’d taken on arrival, he’d got there expecting to find her first. He’d already suspected it could have been a trap. Now he knew it was.

  He also knew he hadn’t misconstrued the look in her eyes as he’d cornered her in the lock-up the night before, the way she’d flinched when he’d rubbed his thumb along her spine, or the tension in her breathing and the flush in her cheeks when he’d gazed deep into her eyes later in her room. He just needed to make sure he let some of that mutual attraction out, to make her think twice if nothing else. If not, he’d show her exactly what level of skill he had when it came to handling the third species – whatever she was.