The Runaway: The Alphas Novella Collection Read online

  Standing, he only came to my chest. He looked up at me and smiled. His skin was pale, paler than Thomas’s. His white-blond hair just made him appear paler. But his youthful face is what made him so sinister. It was what made me fear him more than anything. His eyes were gray and he wore grey. Grey shirt, grey trousers and black shoes.

  “You haven’t checked in with me in a while” he said in a childish voice. He pouted, “I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me.”

  “Hardly” I told him, my tone full of strength, my lips curled into distaste, but my insides were like jelly and I was using all my strength to stop my legs from buckling underneath me.

  “You need to come and see me more. You can’t hide from your Maker forever” he told me, his creepy hands stroking my arms.

  Silva was turned when he was a child and was one of the Firsts. He was my Maker, his bloodline were my Family. I had never stemmed the bloodline further and made anyone myself. I refused to taint anyone with Silva’s bloodline and leave them under his command.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me” I said blankly and tried to pull away from him.

  Tried.

  “Bella, where are you going?” he asked me, pouting like a child as he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him, “We’ve got catching up to do.”

  “Let me go” I told him, keeping my voice low, refusing to cause the scene he so badly wanted me to make.

  “I like what you’re wearing” he told me and his fingers circled a button on my jewel-tone blue shirt.

  “I’m not really into the seventies style” I told him, pulling away.

  “Not enough flesh on show” he murmured, his eyes blank and cold as he stared at me.

  I took a few steps backwards, away from him and promptly bumped into someone. I spun around to apologise and came face-to-face with a six-foot-nine demon.

  “Azurel! What the hell are you doing here?” I asked in shock. I looked behind me and Silva was gone.

  “I’m here to drop off Vlad’s gift from Leon, he couldn’t make it” Azurel told me, his deep Geordie accent sending a warm flush down my body. His dark blond hair was cut into a men’s swing style just past his ears. His blue eyes were oddly warm for a cold colour. His blue and white shirt was tucked into his blue jeans.

  “Do you know if Thom’s here?” I asked curiously.

  Azurel shook his head, “In the wind somewhere. Leon hasn’t heard from him in a while” he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it touching the tip with his fingers.

  Stinging from the absence of my best friends, I turned back to Azurel, “Are you staying for a drink at least?”

  He eyed me curiously and shrugged, “May as well” he hesitated and then lowered his voice, “Are they serving more than blood?”

  I giggled, “There’s human’s here and picky drinkers. You don’t have to have blood.”

  He grinned and raised his eyebrows. He pulled another cigarette out of his pocket and offered it to me but I politely refused it, “I stopped smoking in New York in the twenties” I told him.

  We made our way to the bar and he ordered a beer. While we waited for the bartender to get it, Azurel turned to me, “Silva’s your Maker?”

  I swallowed the dry lump in my throat and nodded, “The one and only.”

  “God, I’m sorry” he told me with sincerity in his voice. “Get a blood for the lady” he told the bartender as he appeared with his beer. “That has to be the shittiest deal ever.”

  I shrugged, “What are you gonna do about it?” I took a small sip from the glass that was placed before me.

  “Have you tried applying to have your loyalty transferred to Leon or Thom?” he asked.

  I shook my head, “I didn’t know I could do that. What is it?”

  “Pretty much what it says. Both your Maker and new Master agree that your loyalty and Blood Ties will be transferred to your new Master. Your Maker no longer has power over you.”

  I thought the whole thing over. There was nothing I wanted more than to be out from under the thumb of Silva. The child-vampire creeped me out. But there was no way Silva would let me go.

  “What happens if the Maker dies?” I asked, “What would happen to my ties then?”

  Azurel eyed me suspiciously, “You’d be a free vampire. You either go it alone or you find a Family that will take you in. Why?”

  “Silva has kept me in the dark about the whole vampire thing” I sighed softly, “Two centuries of being a vampire and I feel like I know nothing.”

  Azurel patted me gently on the shoulder and finished his bottle. He set it down gently, “I have to get going, I have errands to run. Drop in on Leon sometime, he’d love to see you.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “A town in North East England called Riverbrook. He lives in the white mansion on the hill” he told me. “Take care of yourself.”

  I looked behind me as he walked off and then he was gone. I no longer felt safe, not now he was gone. I had to get out of here. Maybe I could drop in on Leon and seek shelter for a bit?

  I got up from my stool and pushed my way through a crowd of cold bodies and raucous laughter. I heard my name called out by different parties but ignored them all. Then my instincts began to burn. He was following me through the crowd.

  Did I have time to get my coat? Screw the coat, I told myself, and made a beeline for the large double doors that led to the hallway. With any luck, I’d make it into there and be able to zip into the night and make my way to Riverbrook.

  I pushed the doors open and slipped out, my hands beginning to shake. I slipped into the hallway, my heels clicking and echoing on the marble floors. I suddenly felt like I was back in my human life. I could feel a pain in my ankle, hot tears on my face, my heart racing in my chest.

  I screamed and spun around, “Don’t do that to me!”

  Silva stood behind me, angelic disguise slipping ever so slightly, the sick bastard enjoying my distress, “You’ll never get away from me, Delilah. We have a connection, one which I refuse to break. You are mine.”

  “I belong to nobody” I hissed at him.

  “You belonged to me the day I made you.”

  “Against my will after slaughtering my family!”

  “I do what I must to get what I want” he told me, stepping towards me, backing me into a corner of the hallway.

  I looked around for an escape route and found only one. It was either jump or take my chances and push him out of my way. So I jumped. My hands just grasping the banister and I pulled myself up and began running down the hallway. Maybe I would get my coat, then.

  My feet were muffled by the thick carpets but I could still him following me, which meant he could hear me running. I took my shoes off and carried them close to my chest. Weapons! I had weapons!

  I ran through the winding corridors, him hot on my heels and chose a door at random and slipped inside and hid in the darkness.

  I dared not move in case he heard me tiptoeing around in the room. I froze, standing stock-still in the darkness, clutching my heels to my chest and stared at the door, hoping to see his shadow pass the door.

  But it stopped right outside the door. He called my name, almost childlike, and I tried to stop my knees from knocking together. Then I could feel hot tears, hot blood, a beating heart, a splitting headache, a piercing pain in my ankle and I began to shiver. I began to whimper and cry, and no matter how hard I tried to stop myself from acting human, I was human again. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my lips together tightly, but a sad keening noise escaped me and then it ceased as quickly as it came.

  Afraid, I opened my eyes and he was standing there, starkly white in the darkness and my heart sank to my feet. “Stop doing that to me” my own voice surprised me. What was meant to be a strong demand escaped me as sad begging. “Please, don’t do that to me again.”

  He hushed me gently and approached me. I flinched as his fingers brushed my lips and then his hand cradled my face. “I’m
not trying to hurt you” he whispered, “I need you to remember that you’re mine.”

  He took my arm gently and guided me to the bed and sat me down. He began to unbutton my shirt. For the first time since I was human, I felt the sting of tears. His mind tricks had opened up a human wound I wasn’t sure I could close again. As his cold, childlike hands brushed my skin, I snapped and plunged the heel of one of my shoes into his chest, directly where his heart was.

  He made barely a sound as he backed away from me, clutching at the shoe sticking from his chest. He stared at me, a sad, pitiful look on his face, as if asking me why, and then he crumpled to the ground.

  It took a moment for the situation to hit me. I had just killed a First. What had Leon said of the penalty? Oh, that’s right; my head.

  But could he truly be dead? The First were the strongest of our race. Surely a stake to the heart wouldn’t kill him?

  I got up from the end of the bed and made my way towards his body. He looked like he had met the True Death, his skin was dry and his eyes had a milky coat to them.

  I was free.

  ***

  I left Dracula’s house a short while later, my hair pulled up in a ponytail, both heels on, my jacket wrapped around my body. I placed dark shades on my face to hide my eyes and looked up at the house. Soon, they’d find Silva’s headless body in the room, his head placed carefully upon the vanity table. I’d be faraway by then. Word would get out that one of the Firsts was dead.

  Azurel would know it was me, whether he told Leon was another story. Maybe I’d drop in on him anyway. I smiled a smile I hadn’t worn in ages. Silva had torn away my most precious things; my title, my family, my life and my innocence. Tonight, I was a fugitive on the run. But I was a free one. A scream erupted from the house and with a smile, I took off into the night.

  THOM’S STORY - AN ORDINARY HEART – MIAMI, USA, 1987

  I eyed the large man across the bar and smiled at him. Muscular, hairy, tattoos and I could smell his scent a mile off. Werewolf. He grinned back at me and I shyly played with my lips as I looked away.

  He approached me and I almost passed out when the full force of his scent hit me, “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked in a gruff, American accent. I didn’t know enough about them to place him from a particular area but I was in Miami, so I went with that.

  I made sure I gave him a hooded, seductive look and bit my lip in an almost bashful manner, “I was hoping we could skip drinks.”

  He raised an eyebrow and then threw back his drink and slammed the glass on the bar beside me, “If you’re sure?”

  “I’m sorry, am I too forward?” I asked, “I don’t normally do this.”

  “Neither do I” he replied and looked around. I followed his gaze and then he gestured to the door, “I have a place on the beachfront…”

  “Sounds wonderful” I said and slid from my stool.

  I followed him from the bar, hoping I’d be just another in the busy sea of faces here and slipped onto the sun-soaked beachfront.

  “So, you’re British?” he asked me as we made our way to his place.

  “I am, how could you tell?” I tried my luck at a flirty joke.

  “That sexy accent of yours” he said with a grin and I giggled back.

  We ended up at a block of flats and he took me to the upstairs one on the left. Inside, his flat was tidy but there was so much fitness paraphernalia around that I could see why he was so pumped. The smell of werewolf was so heavy I could barely smell the cologne I’d used to mask my own scent from him. He turned to me and lunged at me, his lips on mine. The smell of him was so intoxicating that I could no longer contain myself. I yanked his head back and he yelled out in pain. I pushed him to the ground and he looked up at me, “Dude?!”

  I grinned at him, flashing my fangs and the confused look on his face dropped. “How the hell…?”

  “Not hard to mask my scent” I told him matter-of-factly, “Bad news for you, though.”

  “What the hell are you doing? I’m not fucking no vamp” he told me, attempting to get back to his feet.

  I laughed and stood on his chest, pinning him to the floor with my foot. Hands on my hips, I leant forward, “We’re not fucking, I’m here for your blood.”

  His face was once again confused and I was beginning to think America was a bad place to hold a straight conversation, “What the hell kinda freak vampire are you?”

  “They call me The Werewolf Slayer or The Mad Vampire” I told him and he suddenly looked panicked, “There we go” I told myself and smiled, “The less you struggle, the less it’ll hurt.”

  He began to struggle and I straddled him, sitting on his chest. He thrust his fist up to me and I grabbed it and squeezed, breaking every bone in his hand. He screamed in pain so I snapped his neck cleanly to prevent anyone becoming curious.

  He flopped to the ground and I twisted my face in disgust, I didn’t usually like drinking from them when they were dead, but I’ll take it where I can.

  ***

  I arrived back at the seaside hotel I was staying at around an hour later. I smiled at the lady behind the check-in desk and slunk into my room on the third floor.

  They had left a newspaper for me, as requested and I unfolded it and placed it on the bed. Leaning over it, I smoothed the front page out, reading about the recent spate of murders by a supposed mad-man on the loose.

  Victims were all men, all connected, had all been seen at local gay bars and hangouts and were all found in their homes, dead and drained of blood from two puncture wounds in their necks. Police were calling it the murders of a vampire wannabe. Possible homophobic attacks. No evidence that these men had HIV but it was suspected.

  I chuckled to myself and folded the paper and dumped it in the waste paper basket. I enjoyed the secrecy of my world. I wasn’t really a mad-man or a vampire wannabe. I was a vampire. And all the men were connected, but only because they were all werewolves.

  I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle, closed the door and locked it behind me. I slid onto the bed and snuggled into the covers. My thirst was sated and I hadn’t Rested for over a week, prowling establishments and hangouts for my victims. Smiling to myself, I sank down into the thick, white covers and allowed myself to Rest.

  ***

  When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the bed at the hotel, but in a large four-poster with blood red sheets. And I wasn’t alone. Or dressed.

  I pulled myself up with a jolt and found the most beautiful man in existence sitting up beside me in bed. He had dark hair that was swept over his face, thick, dark stubble, black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. His naked body was olive-toned and covered in dark, wiry hair and tattoos. He typed avidly on some kind of computer resting on his lap, but it was smaller and more compact than the one I had myself.

  He slowly turned to face me and I got the full impact of his features which left my heart in my mouth. He smiled at me through his hazel-green eyes, a row of white teeth showed through perfect pink lips, “Sleeping Beauty arises then?”

  His voice was deep, thick, like dark chocolate and velvet. His accent was Newcastle, similar to the one that demon pet Leon liked to keep by his side. I became enamored instantly. He lowered the lid of his small computer and set it on the side table before twisting to lie on his side and face me. My face must have been completely gormless because he frowned before asking me, “Thom, are you okay?”