Blood Dream Read online

  Pushing her against the unpainted wall, a hand slid up her shirt, under her bra, the rough skin on his fingers grazing against her nipple. Her hand against his throat, one still tangled in his long hair, trying to pull him closer, pull him into her. She wanted him to absorb her, pulling her deep into the hunger inside him.

  Sledge’s phone started ringing, he pulled away from her, his hand still up her shirt, his hips pinning her against the wall. “Fuck. I dun needin’ to take this.” He put her down gently, his face burning as he turned away from her to answer the call.

  Lupa felt embarrassed. Her skin was hot, her heart was drumming hard inside her… She shouldn’t have let him kiss her. Now everything could be fucked up… shit. She should have just… what? She wanted him to kiss her… she felt her face flush again and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

  “I needin’ to go…. Work.” Lupa glanced at Sledge, he was pulling his shirt on and keeping his eyes averted. His face and neck were all red.

  “Ok… um... catch up another time?” Shit. Probably not what she should say. Fuck.

  “I likin’ that… I’m… shit, I gotta go, Hammer…” She nodded as he walked to her door, looking at her like he wanted to say more, then decided against it, shutting her door behind him.

  Lupa ripped her shirt off, flopped onto her new couch and lit a smoke. Fuck. Her eyes stung. Fuck shit fuck. She might have just fucked it all up. Shit, she probably had… she couldn’t get… involved like this with Sledge. She wanted him around, and if they had sex… that might ruin their friendship. She should have just stepped the fuck away from him. Why did she have to be so fucking stupid? She hit the bench with her fist and rolled over, putting her smoke out in one of them empty glasses. Stupid stupid stupid.

  Chapter two

  “Some are big, some are small, all are important…”

  Lupa smiled as she walked over to her Protector, Dameon, who was sitting out the front of HQ waiting for her. The rain had stopped for now, and she was grateful for the fresh air. “Hey Hawk, how are you?”

  Dameon grinned at her, “Aint too bad, Little Red. You?”

  Sexually frustrated. “Not too bad. We going to go see if Slasher has any jobs for us?”

  Dameon grinned sheepishly. “Only if you’re up for it. I’ve been going batshit with boredom for the last week… I love my Gran, but her idea of helping me recover was telling me stories I have heard a thousand times… Dad aint been much better.”

  Lupa laughed, “I know what you mean, I actually painted the wall in my apartment and went fucking shopping for furniture.” Shit, she could feel her cheeks burning. She still hadn’t heard from Sledge, it had only been last night but still…

  “Shit, that sure does sound boring… so… you in?”

  “Fuck yeah,” Lupa bumped her shoulder to her Protector’s, smiling up at him.

  Dameon opened the big front door for her, and followed her into the purple halls of headquarters. Lupa stared at the walls, no, her wall was definitely different… she rolled her eyes. Did she really give a fuck?

  Dameon opened the door to the offices. Lucy was eyeing them over the front desk. “Hello, you here to see the Commander? She’s very busy you know…”

  “We can wait,” Lupa responded flatly.

  Lucy sighed and called Slasher’s office. “Ok, she’ll see you now.” She said, giving them both an odd look.

  Lupa smiled sarcastically and went to Slasher’s door pulling it open and letting Dameon go in first. Slasher was sitting at her desk looking… stressed. She pushed her very short hair back from her forehead and smiled.

  “Little Red, Hawk, how are you both? Had enough rest?”

  “Fuck yes,” Lupa said to her almost-mother, “I have had more than enough of sitting around at home.” Dameon nodded next to her, and Slasher gave them both an amused grin.

  “Ok, well… we still have a build-up of cases, especially after losing two Hunters for the moment. And not everyone who came on our raid is ready for work yet. What are you wanting? Small fry or something a bit more… interesting?”

  Lupa raised an eyebrow. What the fuck was a bit more interesting? Wolfbloods were just that. Unless there was a few grouped together or something…

  “I see you both look intrigued by the more interesting idea. Ok.” Slasher got up and thumbed through the ‘Cases’ filing cabinet and pulled out a thin folder. “This one is something I haven’t seen in a while, it’s out in the farmlands of Blackmoars. There’s been a few reports on the outskirts of our coverage, of something killing cows.”

  “Cows?” Lupa wasn’t sure she cared for killing a wolfblood who was going after cows, that sounded… boring.

  “Yes, cows. It’s strange. I think it’s not a wolfblood but something else, I’m actually more worried it might be some low levelled witches fucking around with something to be honest. The cows are having their throats slit and their blood drained. It could be witches not strong enough to come into The Organization, or ones that didn’t want to…. And you know what fucking around with blood magick can do…”

  Not fucking really. The Organization didn’t really explain what was so bad about blood magick, just that they should never do it. Obviously Lupa knew what using someone else’s blood, or any other body part, could do, but that was the extent of her blood magick knowledge, it was the basics they all learned. She just nodded and looked over to Dameon to see if he were interested.

  “Isn’t this more of a job for The Force?” Dameon asked, a slight hint of suspicion in his voice.

  The Force dealt with people doing illegal magick, or trying to kill wolfbloods on their own, or other such matters that usually involved humans or weak witches. They didn’t have to have as much magickal power as Hunters or Protectors. They were kind of like… the police of The Organization. There wasn’t a branch in Black, the branch was over in Grace City, just like they didn’t have a Hunter HQ in their city, it was down in Black City encompassing both under its wings. Why hadn’t Slasher handed this over to them?

  “It would be… if you don’t want it, I will pass it along. But there have been a few farmers report seeing a wolfblood at night, so we kind of have to view it as our issue. If you come up with nothing I will just forward it along…”

  Dameon nodded and looked to Lupa with a grin. Yeah, she knew he wanted it. They had only worked two cases together, and this was something different. Probably something they wouldn’t ever be offered again.

  “We’ll take it, sounds interesting,” Lupa said, holding her hand out for the file.

  “I’m sure it will be. Now… there’s something else I need to talk to you two about. I do admit I have been putting it off, but seeing as you’re here now… Grey has had his sentencing up in Central City…”

  Lupa felt her heart skip a beat, her hands gripped the folder as she looked at Slasher. She had thought that it would have taken longer for him to be… Fuck. She could see it written all over Slasher’s face, she didn’t even need to say anything. Grey hadn’t been executed. And wouldn’t be.

  “Fuck…” she shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Little Red, I know you were… hoping for a different outcome, but he won't be executed. He’s been sentenced to three years jail-”

  “Three fucking years!?” Dameon jumped up. He looked as angry as Lupa felt. She wanted to go up to Central and punch every last one of the people involved in his sentencing. What the fuck.

  “Sit down, Hawk. Yes, three years. I was pretty angry when I found out. Apparently his father’s influence has got him such a short time, we knew that with his father being who he is that… Grey had a high chance of not being executed. He also managed to convince them he was trying to tell you about it, Lupa, and that he was trying to get out of the whole thing. Which is absolute bullshit I know, but this is what has happened. Brianna’s father is due to be executed in two weeks though…”

  Lupa gritted her teeth together to stop herself from flying off the handle, she could see D
ameon putting that rigid blank look on his face as he sat down and folded his arms tightly across his chest. Shit.

  “I’m really sorry guys, you know if I had anything to do with it…”

  Lupa sighed and gave her a fake smile, “I know, Slash, this might take us some time to deal with though…” Slasher nodded and they got up, bowing to her as they left the room.

  “Did you guys hear about Grey?” Lucy piped up as Dameon ripped the door to the hallway open. Lupa didn’t bother to say anything, she just followed Dameon down the hallway as they both practically ran the fuck out of there.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Dameon and Lupa sat at a small outside table at Frenchy’s, they’d had three beers already. The rain was falling from the dark sky and they were both still fucking angry.

  “I still can't believe they let that fucking scumbag off,” Dameon said again, lighting a smoke, “After everything he did to you. And to The Organization…this is fucked. You would think that they would hold Slasher’s life with a little more fucking importance too!”

  Lupa sighed. They’d been going over it for almost half an hour, but her anger still hadn’t dissipated. How the fuck had The Organization thought three years was enough? He’d kidnapped her… he’d plotted against The Organization and Slasher specifically… he’d teamed up with fucking wolfbloods for fucks sake. She had half a mind to travel up to Central City, go see him and kill him herself…

  “It’s fucked alright. But what can we fucking do?” Lupa huffed.

  Dameon sighed and pushed his dark hair back from his face, looking like he was ready to do the same thing she’d been thinking. But… there was nothing they could fucking do. The Organization’s system had screwed them over. But how could they do anything about it? They hadn’t even been asked to fucking testify. And they sure had done it quick, he’d only been moved from Black City two nights ago…

  Lupa started to wonder who Grey’s father really was… Slasher hadn’t said much about it at all… Grey hadn’t mentioned all that much about his family… in fact he had avoided the topic when they had… whatever. Best not to think about it.

  “Ok… let’s stop talking about him for now. Wanna look at the file?”

  Lupa had almost forgotten about the file. She pulled it out of her bag and placed it on the table while Dameon got up to get them both another drink. She lit a smoke and waited for him to return. He placed a beer in front of her, pulling his chair around to sit next to her as they started looking over the contents.

  “Does seem weird, hey?” Lupa said as they studied the pictures of the dead cows. “Who the fuck kills cows? And wolfbloods wouldn’t do this surely… it’s not like blood is what they really wanna eat…”

  Images of a wolfblood tearing into the stomach of a girl she hadn’t been able to save assaulted Lupa’s mind. She pushed it away, others threatened to replace it but she refused to let them. She had shit to think about, they could haunt her later.

  “Yeah… maybe they just saying they seen wolfbloods so that someone would look into it?”

  Lupa nodded. Very possible. Either way, they’d have to travel out to the country to talk to these people. Lupa had only ever been out there once as a young girl, Slasher had taken her there for her to see the stars… at least that was a nice memory…

  “You knowing much about blood magick?” Dameon looked at her.

  “Not really… only the basics, you know… for spell curses and shit like that. I only really know as much as any Organization witch would know… and that The Organization says it’s bad and to stay the fuck away from it. Not exactly top notch knowledge, I’m not sure what more Slasher expected me to know…”

  Dameon nodded and looked back down at the file. “Think I've heard my Gran say something about it before… not sure though. I could be wrong. But I’ll ask her. Maybe after we have talked to these people I’ll go down to the library and see if I can find anything more on it.”

  “Well, we’ll need to go out there but it’s a bit of a trip, and we’ll have these three people to talk to… could take a while…” Lupa looked out at the wet streets, she didn’t really feel like going for a long ass drive today, it was already late… “Tomorrow?”

  Dameon nodded again and leaned back on his chair, staring out into the rain. “Tomorrow works for me. You wanna hang around?”

  She glanced over at him. He looked like he wanted to get the fuck out of there. She didn’t really want to go home but she couldn’t expect him to hang around just because… “Nah. You wanna get outa here?”

  “Yeah, might go home… Dad could probably use some help or something… I can ask Gran about the blood magick stuff. And hey, the sooner I get to sleep the sooner we can get out and start fucking doing something.”

  Lupa smiled in agreement and stood with him. She was looking forward to getting back to work too. All these damn thoughts in her head needed something to push them the fuck away. And work was always good for distracting her.

  Lupa walked him over to his van and waved as he left. Pulling her hood over her head, she started heading back to her place, then thought better of it, going over the road to Demons instead. She headed straight to the bar and waited for someone to serve her. There was a girl on who she hadn’t seen before, beautiful dark skin and long hair, Lupa touched her own, still missing its length…

  “Help you?” she asked in a strange accent.

  “Um… cheapest vodka mix, thanks.”

  The girl smiled and went to make her drink, Lupa pulled out a fiver and waited. The girl put the drink on the bar and held her hand out for the money, dropping her change back into her open hand. Lupa smiled at her, pushed off from the bar and went to meld into the crowd.

  Looking around she could see it was busier than usual for this time of evening, she glanced up to the stage and realised why. One of the best local bands was on… strange they were on so early, but made sense as to why everyone was there. The band was heavy and loud, but the singer had an amazing voice when he wasn’t screaming down the mic… not that she didn’t like the screaming, but his voice…

  Lupa startled, was that Grey? No… what the fuck, course it wouldn’t be Grey. He was in Central. He was in fucking jail… she squeezed her eyes shut and downed her drink. Not Grey, just another tall… attractive man. Her heart was pounding, maybe not a good idea to have come here… she turned to leave, putting her glass on an empty table, colliding with someone as she struggled to get out of there as panic started to fill her chest. She felt like she would never get to the door with all these people around her, threatening to swallow her up.

  She burst out the exit, panting as the cool night air hit her face. Shit, why was this getting to her? They had only been fucking… not like… she leaned against the wall, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Right. He had still pretended to be her friend. He’d told her things… and she had told him… fuck. He’d pretended to give a shit about her and make her think he actually did… And he had tried to fucking kill her… them all… it was partly his fault that Karl had been killed in that nest raid…

  “Little Red?”

  Lupa opened her eyes to see a tall blonde man standing in front of her, he had a short beard with a slightly orange streak running down the middle of it.... he was looking down at her curiously. She couldn’t quite place him… he looked familiar… fuck. Did he work for The Organization? Probably… but who was he…

  “You don’t recognise me?”

  “I do… kind of, sorry, but I can’t think…”

  “Shane…I was Brianna’s…”

  His eyes wandered away from her. She was surprised, how had she not clicked… wait, Lupa hadn’t realised he’d been let out… must have been able to prove he wasn’t involved with Brianna’s… crazy shit… although, even if he had proved it, he would most likely be watched for a while…

  “Hey Shane, how… are you coping?”

  Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black jeans he just stared down the street.
She guessed he wasn’t really seeing it though. He’d lost his Hunter, and Lupa had been the one who killed her… She knew what it was like to lose the one you were connected to…

  “Not great.” Shane responded finally, “But… I’ll get there. I’d lost her long before you… ended the madness…”

  Lupa nodded. She supposed he had. Brianna had cut their bond and fucked off, not even giving a shit about Shane. But then… how long had Slasher said they were bonded? Twelve years? Or was it more? She couldn’t remember… she hadn’t really cared… A few weeks didn’t really compare to that… she knew she still felt the pang of emptiness when she thought about Karl… sure she’d… fuck it. She wasn’t going down that road right now.

  “It gets easier,” she half lied, “If you need to talk…” She didn’t really want him to take her up on the offer, but she felt like a dick not offering. It had been her that killed his Hunter after all. She knew if someone killed….

  “Thanks… maybe. I’m… going to go in and see the band. Thanks. Just… thought I’d say hi. See ya, Little Red.”

  He shrugged, throwing her a mournful expression before putting his head down and shuffling over to the door to wait in line. She watched him for a moment before deciding home sounded much better. Fuck this.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Lupa woke up with her heart pounding, her body covered in sweat. Fuck. She sat up and looked at the clock resting on the floor next to her mattress. Two am. Shit. She wasn’t getting back to sleep tonight, not with all those dreams and memories of wolfbloods filling her mind, of blood coating her skin… Fuck this.

  Climbing out of bed, she went and flicked on the bathroom light, washing her face and walking out into the lounge. She looked around at all the mess. She hadn’t cleaned in her time off… fuck, she hadn’t cleaned up since Karl died… No time like the present. Lupa grabbed her cleaning products from under the sink, pulled on her gloves and got to it.