Blood Rage, page 1
Blood Rage
Synopsis
Working with SPEAR is never easy, but it also isn’t boring. Until now.
Evicted from her team, chained to her desk, Danika Karson must instead endure dozens of tedious experiments to diagnose the marks on her back. And no, she may not be part of the ongoing efforts to restore human-edane relations after last month’s Werewolf Riots.
So, when Rayne invites Danika to a wedding in her humdrum hometown, Danika seizes the opportunity to be useful. Not only can she support her vampire girlfriend in coming out to her estranged family, but she can also fulfill one of many debts owed to the nasty little goblin, Shakka.
One mundane favor, a nervous vampire, and an expensive, high-profile wedding. Stressful, perhaps, but given the choice between that and one more biopsy, Danika hurls herself in, feet first.
If only the unnamed creature made of smoke and bad memories would wait one more weekend…
Praise for Both Ways
“[T]his sleek paranormal romance introduces Danika Karson, the best vampire hunter on the city’s payroll…High points of this fast-paced novel include Danika’s relationships with her mother and sister, the smoldering attraction that starts between Danika and Rayne, and detailed worldbuilding. This captivating story draws readers in immediately and keeps them hooked.”—Publishers Weekly
“This book was nothing like I imagined and completely outdid my expectations. Both Ways is a wonderful read that spikes your heart rate and possibly makes your eyes well up. It is exciting and I cannot wait to see what the future entails for the characters.”—Hsinju’s Lit Log
“Honestly, if you’re a fan of the genre, and enjoy pure escapist fun, get this book. You’ll enjoy the story, root for all the good guys, cheer the downfall of the bad guys, and look on with interest what happens to those in the moral middle of ambiguity. The action leads you from one thing to the next and you won’t want to put the book down. At the end, you’ll have had a good time, and will want to see what happens next.”—Lesbian Review
Blood Rage
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By the Author
SPEAR Mission Files
Both Ways
Moon Fever
Blood Rage
Blood Rage
© 2024 By Ileandra Young. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63679-540-9
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: February 2024
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Ruth Sternglantz
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by Jeanine Henning
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
Hey Boithing1, Boithing2…
maybe the next one Mummy writes you’ll be allowed to read. ;-)
Chapter One
“…leave your message after the tone, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at the pre-recorded voice. But then, what choice do I have? Once more I wait for the tone, then begin to speak.
“Mum? Hi. It’s me, again. Danika.” Ugh. It hasn’t been long enough that she would forget my voice. Has it? “Um. I know you’re still upset but…but…please talk to me. Please?”
Voices swirl around me, soft but excited. Something warm and soft, though oddly scaly, drops into my lap. I chance a glance around the room and find several pairs of eyes staring at me expectantly.
Crap, is it my turn?
The coffee table in front of me is covered in an array of cards, one of the piles with two more than when I last looked. The stack of brightly coloured matchsticks serving as currency is also larger.
“Um, yeah, that was it, Mum. Bye, I guess.”
I squish the end call button and shove it into a pocket low on the thigh of my trousers.
The tiny, cheerful, and incredibly affectionate chittarik in my lap purrs softly, a rumble of sound that turns slowly into an utterance of my name. “Daaaan. Danika?” she murmurs. “Kar-kar. Karson.”
I hug the talkative pest to my chest and nuzzle my chin into the space between her thin, gossamer wings. Cuddling her resembles getting close to a lizard, mixed with a cat, bred with a dragonfly, but I don’t care. She’s my baby and I adore her. “Thanks, Norma.”
From across the table comes an impatient grunt. “Chica, you make us wait? Match or fold? Your hand, it can’t be so good. I know so, your bluff is terrible.”
“Yeah? Well, Noel, your face is terrible.” I shoot back the angry retort without thinking.
Thankfully, both he and the woman at his side snort with laughter rather than offence.
Noel slaps a hand to his mouth, feigning distress. “Aah, so cruel, so cruel. Jadz, my love, she hates me so. She hates me.” He stretches tall, then slumps dramatically across his girlfriend. Once there, he murmurs happily and nuzzles his face deeper into her lap.
She smacks him over the top of the head. “Oi. Later, boy. I have a bet to win.”
“You will not win.”
“I damn well will. And you’ll eat those words.”
He surfaces long enough to smirk. “I would rather eat other things.”
“Pig,” she murmurs.
“Bitch,” he fires back.
Their banter makes me laugh, almost enough to put aside the gnawing sense of loss and pain growing in my chest.
Another week, another phone message.
I’ve lost count of how many messages I’ve left for my mother by this point. How many voicemails and handwritten letters, and emails too. I even sent Norma to her house at one point, though in hindsight, that probably wasn’t my smartest move.
Mum never did enjoy my choice of pets.
But I can’t give up. For one thing, it has never been in my nature, and for another, neither my sister nor my girlfriend will let me. Even if I wanted to.
As Norma claws her way up my shoulder, using all twenty of her damn claws in the process, I glance at the fan of cards I’m holding.
A ten, a three, and a six. All clubs. Hmm.
On the table, a nine, seven, and an eight. In diamonds. Of course. Then beside them, a king and a two, heart and spade respectively.
I force a smile to my lips and push six of my matchsticks into the centre. “I’ll see that, and raise. You two are going down.”
Jadz drags Noel’s head off her lap and shoves him into a sitting position. With her gaze pinned hard on me, she shoves the rest of her matches into the centre. “All in.” Her grin is wide and feral, showing off teeth slightly too sharp to be entirely natural. A long wing of dark hair falls across one half of her face, throwing shadows. The blue-black tattoos on the other side of her head, shaved bald, seem to stand out in sharp relief.
I hold the smile, confident. Screw them. Of course I can bluff. I’ve been a SPEAR for years—this stuff is my bread and butter.
After tutting at his hand, Noel dumps the cards on the table and sits back against the soft cushions of the sofa. “Fold, ladies. I want no fight with you. I know I’ll lose, sí?”
I tighten my fingers on the cards. A small motion, but these two will probably notice it. Damn. Well, no choice left now, right?
I push my matchsticks towards hers. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
“Hell yeah, Queen B.”
That makes me laugh. Sure, it might sound like a wonderful compliment in some circles, but I know what the B stands for.
Norma screeches like a harpy and digs her claws into the side of my neck. Not viciously, of course, but apparently because she knows something I don’t. She bends close to my face and rubs the side of her beak against my cheek. “Dan, dan, dan.” She seems to sigh.
“What?”
Jadzia Ramachandra, werewolf, poker master, and all-round badass, squeals and claps her hands together like a child. “Why do you do this, Agent? Are you so off your game?” She fans her cards across the table, still grinning.
Well, shit.
A ten and a seven of diamonds nestle among the rest of the selection.
I arch an eyebrow. “Fuck.”
She bounces up and down on the sofa, still clapping, before putting out both hands to scoop the matchsticks towards her. “Game, set, match,” she says.
“That’s tennis.”
“Who cares? I win.”
Another little sofa bounce, then she turns and hurls herself at Noel. Her lips meet his with crushing force, and the pair of them fall heavily over the arm of the sofa. “I win,” she growls. The pair then spend a few seconds whispering into each other’s mouths and swapping spit before remembering themselves.
Noe
I roll my eyes at the pair of them, not that they can see, and leave my cards on the table when I stand.
The kitchen, when I reach it, is dark and gloomy. I would snap on the light, but the dimness reminds me of the passing time, and a sudden thrill buzzes through me. Norma seems to feel it too, because she chitters low in the back of her throat and taps lightly against my shoulder with her barbed tail.
Yup. Nearly sundown. Time to go home.
On the sideboard lie my car keys and utility belt. The first go into my pocket, the second around my hips, and then I’m striding for the back door. “Thanks for putting up with me, you two. You can go back to shagging now.”
A giggle floats through the air but not much else.
Fine. Let them have their fun.
Assuming I can get home with no trouble, I’m about to enjoy plenty of my own.
* * *
Back home, Norma flies ahead of me towards the double-reinforced doors. Since sunset has only just arrived, the security system takes an extra few seconds to let us through. To either side, and across the front of the house, blackout shutters rise from the windows on the ground and first floors.
She swoops in, glides back and forth in front of the opening, crooning that throaty cackle I love so much. She’s through before they open fully and cuts to the right and out of sight.
I know where she’s going. That’s where our kitchen is, and my sentiment no doubt matches hers. Food sounds like a great idea.
Inside, the rooms are light and bright, compensating for a lack of natural sunshine with carefully curated fake illumination. Even the windows rotate through beautiful outdoor scenes, including a park at midday, a snowy mountaintop, ocean views, and glittering cities by night.
Rayne’s idea. Not my taste exactly, but I can’t clearly remember the last time I was able to say no to her. Pippa doesn’t seem to mind either, so I let them do what they want with the indoor decor.
Seems only fair when they’re the ones who can’t go out by day.
As if to think of her is to call her to me, my sister pops her head through the doorway of the room she has taken for her study. She sleeps there too sometimes, and by the fact that she steps out wearing a creased and rumpled trouser suit, I know this was one of those days.
“Another late morning?”
She grunts and drags a hand back through her hair. With effort. It’s tangled all over the place. “I lost track of time.”
“Don’t you have a built-in timer?”
Pip eyes me coolly. “I’m a vampire, not an alarm clock.”
“Look who woke up on the wrong side of the coffin today.”
“Oh, shut up.” She yawns loud and long, and for a second I catch a flash of her fangs. “Do we have any B-pos in?”
I shrug. “We have apple and blackcurrant.”
Her eyes briefly flash silver. “Why are you like this?”
“My mama never loved me?”
“Drama queen.” She yawns again, stretches, then pads ahead of me towards the kitchen on light, bare feet.
I can’t help but giggle. Maybe I should be over it by now—I’m old enough, after all. But messing with my baby sister is too much fun. Especially when she’s barely woken up.
Norma sits on her perch near the fridge. There is already food up there for her, or at least I assume there is, because she seems to be eating happily.
I catch sight of a wisp of fur flying through the air and the skinny strand of something that might once have been a tail.
Oh. At least we don’t have to worry about mice in this house.
At the large silver fridge, Pip roots through the various neatly labelled medical bags stacked on shelves within. With a triumphant cry, she drags one from the very back of the fridge. “Aha. I knew we had some. Goody, goody.”
Pip simply bites through the plastic and sucks from the pack. The redness within oozes and bubbles as it slides into her greedy mouth.
“Animal,” I mutter.
The other fridge, smaller and black, houses all the actual food in the house. From it I pull a tub of butter and the last two crumpets in a rumpled pack. I shove the latter in the toaster and lean against the sideboard to watch my sister finish her breakfast.
I cock my head. “You know, that’s equivalent to just drinking milk straight out of the bottle?”
“So?” She burps. “Not like I plan to share it. Do you think Rayne wants my leftovers?”
I shake my head. “She prefers O-neg.”
Pippa drains the blood bag and dumps the carcass in the bio-waste container near the oven. “She’s showering, by the way. No doubt she’ll be down soon.”
Another little thrill hums through me at the thought of my super sexy, naked girlfriend in the shower. “I hope not.”
A smirk. Then, “So what did you do all day?”
“Noel and Jadz entertained me for a bit. Poker. Movies. Bitching about Maury.” I pull a plate from the cupboard and lay it on the table, ready for my toasted treat.
“Ah, classic workday.”
Soft but persistent crunching sounds drift from the top of the fridge. Norma mutters to herself, soft and contented. Mangled bone fragments fall from the sides of her beak.
I really am living with a bunch of monsters. Wonderful, lovable, kind ones…but monsters, just the same.
“I just want to get back to actual work.”
“Dani—”
I raise my hand. “Please don’t. I don’t need the lecture from you too. I get it. But I’m allowed to be bored, aren’t I?”
“Bored is better than dead.”
As if to add weight to the sentiment, the skin on my back abruptly begins to prickle. I twitch my shoulders, a weak attempt to get some friction from my clothing. “But I’m fine. Look at me—you can see that well enough.”
“We’ll all be able to see later.”
I shoot her a questioning look.
Eye roll. “You forgot again, didn’t you?” When I continue to stare blankly, she sighs. “You’ve more tests today. We’re running them at Clear Blood after your desk shift.”
Ah. Of course.
Another three hours wearing half a gown, exposing my butt to a bunch of scientists, so they can study the marks spanning my back and shoulders. Another three hours being poked and prodded, scraped and jabbed, weighed and measured.
“Pip, I can’t—”
“You can. And you will.” Her voice becomes stern. “I don’t make the rules, but to be honest, I would probably have made this one myself if I had the option. We don’t know what that creature did to you and—”
“And he’s dead,” I cry out. “Dead. Doornail dead. Rayne saw to that.”
“Flint Liddell is dead”—she nods—“but the thing that came out of him isn’t. Come on, Dani, you know this. We’ve talked about this. We don’t know what it is.”
She’s right. Of course she is. But frustration bubbles through me like lava.
“Well, all these tests aren’t helping, are they? We’re no closer to learning more than we were weeks ago. Meanwhile I’m wasting away. I’m…I’m losing my mind.”
Before I see her move, Pip is in front of me. Her smile is kind and gentle, and her arms, when she wraps them around me, are strong and full of love. I allow her to hold me, to hug me, to let me vent into the huge mass of tangled curls that make up her hair.
“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs. “It will. Just give us more time.”
“How much longer?” I know I must sound like a child, but I can’t help it. “I just want it to be over.”
After a moment, I realise she is stroking my back through the layers of clothing.
Though I can’t see them, I know her fingers are tracing the lines of the strange marks that absolute creep Flint Liddell carved into my back. Or rather, the thing living inside him.
The thing that still gives me nightmares.
