Wicked Soul Read online

  Wicked Soul

  Ancient Blood: One

  Nora Ash

  Contents

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Debt of Bones

  Also by Nora Ash

  Copyright © 2018 by Nora Ash

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any and all likeness to trademarks, corporations or persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental.

  Summary

  He saved me... And then he blood-bonded me. Now I'm his.

  My first meeting with a Chicago vampire went better than expected.

  Up until that night, all I knew about vampires was limited to a few common facts: they drink blood, they get a mean sunburn and if you find yourself alone with one, you’re dead.

  * * *

  Except he didn't kill me.

  * * *

  Sexy, broody Warin clearly had his own reasons for sparing my life and tying me with his blood, but if he’d known how much trouble I’d attract, I bet he wouldn’t have bothered. When he blood-bonded me, secrets even I didn’t know about myself came to light.

  Secrets that will pull us both deep into the eternal war between vampires and the witches determined to rid the world of their evil.

  * * *

  We have only one choice now: fight the forces hell-bent on breaking our bond…

  * * *

  Or die.

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  1

  “Ow, what’s wrong with you?” I aimed a futile kick at the burly guy manhandling me out of the back of the white van he’d tossed me in a good twenty minutes earlier.

  A smarter girl would probably have been terrified at being kidnapped off the street, but I was mainly just furious.

  “Let go of me, you goddamn fanatic!”

  Then again, most girls didn’t get tossed into the back of cross-riddled vans for their choice in reading material. Somehow, even as the big goon wrenched my bound hands up high behind my back and shoved me through the door of a house somewhere in the bad part of Chicago’s suburbs, part of me still thought it was all some horrible joke. Any minute now, an over-excited TV host would jump out with a bunch of cameras and tell me I’d been pranked. Haha.

  I looked around the inside of the house. There wasn’t any light apart from the little that managed to seep in through the dirty windows, but from what I could see of the room we were in, no one had lived here for a very long time. There was no furniture, apart from a broken couch and a tipped-over coffee table in the far corner of the room, and both walls and flooring looked like they were rotting away.

  “Time to learn what happens to filthy little vamp sluts,” the guy who’d been driving the van sneered as he closed the door behind us.

  “Jesus, the state of public education is as bad as the Internet says, huh? I swear to you, reading a paranormal romance novel is not the same as actually banging a vampire.”

  Yup, that was what had gotten me kidnapped

  Reading a sexy vampire book at a cafe, minding my own business. I swear, this sort of thing could only happen to me.

  “Shut your mouth, bitch,” the goon behind me growled, giving me a hard shove that had me stumbling across the floor and face-planting against a heavy, wooden door. “Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain!”

  Okay, so not a game show then. I swallowed a whimper of pain when he yanked me away from the door by a grip on my ponytail so he could unlock and open it.

  I was pretty sure, despite the sorry state of American TV these days, that no candid camera would get away with physically abusing its unsuspecting contestants. The acrid taste of true fear burned in my throat when realization of how bad my situation truly was finally set in.

  I gritted my teeth against the swell of panic in my chest when the newly opened door revealed a dark, narrow staircase leading down below ground level. I tried to throw myself back and away from the gaping chasm of darkness in front of me, but it was useless. My kidnappers simply gave me a shove between the shoulder blades, and thanks to my bound wrists, I didn’t have any means of resisting.

  Squealing, I stumbled down the stairs, only narrowly managing to keep on my feet, until I smacked up against another door, this one made of solid metal. Face first. Again.

  The goon and his accomplice were right behind me, and a second later, I was shoved through yet another door. Pale light illuminated the walls of a large, concrete room. I stared open-mouthed at the many odd-looking weapons lining the walls—wooden stakes, crossbows, scary-looking knives. And among them, crosses and long metal chains of varying thicknesses. Just what the hell sort of place was this?

  “The sun sets in two hours, deadwhore. If I were you, I’d spend that time praying for forgiveness,” my kidnapper sneered. He pulled a knife and sliced through the zip-ties binding my wrists, then pointed at the far end of the room. “Get in.”

  I followed his finger with my eyes and saw a large, metal cage half-hidden behind a pile of junk. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who the fuck had a cage in their basement? Just how many girls did they force into their little rape-cave because of their taste in smutty literature?

  My frozen silence was met with a gentle, yet unmistakably threatening poke of a knife’s point against the back of my neck.

  “In.”

  Slowly, I forced my feet to move toward the cage where the other guy was holding the cell door open for me. How fucking gallant.

  I glared at him as he swung the gate shut with a clang, locking it behind me and taking a step back.

  “How long do you plan on keeping me in here?” I demanded, feeling oddly relieved to have bars between us. It was an illusion of safety, of course, since they held the keys, but it was enough for me to find some of my anger again. And anger felt a lot better than fear.

  “Oh, just for a couple of hours,” the driver said, a cruel smirk on his face. “If you get bored, you can always see if you can wake up your new friend.”

  He nodded at something behind me, and I turned halfway around to see what the hell the crazy old goat was referring to.

  And that was when I realized I wasn’t alone in the cage.

  A dark-haired young man who looked like he was in his early twenties sat cross-legged at the back of the cage on the bare concrete f
loor. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving a muscle, a serene look on his face as if he was meditating or something.

  Outraged, I spun back around to my kidnappers. “Great, so now you kidnap college kids? What did he do, watch Van Helsing? You sick fucks!”

  Both men laughed, and I felt like I was missing some twisted joke. “Start begging God for forgiveness. You don’t have much time left.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snapped, but they didn’t answer me. Instead they turned around and left the room, the heavy metal door closing behind them. The keys rattled in the lock from the other side, and then I was alone with the meditating college kid.

  I cussed and turned around, leaning heavily against the metal bars. What the hell sort of crazy whack jobs kidnapped people off the streets and locked them in their creepy basement?

  I looked at the kid—or guy. A possibly twenty-one-year-old would likely take umbrage with being called a kid.

  He still hadn’t so much as cracked open an eyelid at the commotion of getting a new cellmate.

  I pinched my lips in a disapproving frown. Nice to see that someone could keep their cool while being locked up by crazies. “Hey, hello?”

  Not even a muscle spasm to indicate he’d heard me.

  Was he in some sort of trance? Or was he just a complete asshole? I knelt down on the concrete in front of him so my face was less than five inches from his and stared intently at him. “Hello?”

  Still no response.

  I blew in his face. Perhaps not the most mature thing I could have done, but his complete lack of interest in my existence was just the tipping point. I’d just been kidnapped and manhandled, and he couldn’t even take a break from being all hipster-zen? Hello, damsel in distress here!

  A groan slipped past his full lips as he opened a single eye to a narrow slit.

  “Don’t… do that.” It was hardly more than a whisper, and his eyelid immediately closed again.

  His obvious grogginess scared me. Was he sick? Drugged? Just what on earth had they done to him?

  “Are you all right?” My voice pitched shrilly with worry, all thoughts about my own shitty situation vanishing. When he didn’t respond, I slapped him across the face and gently shook his shoulders with both hands to make sure he didn’t slip into unconsciousness. “You gotta stay with me, okay?”

  Slowly, both his eyelids cracked open this time, revealing nearly black eyes with just a ring of blue, so much were his pupils blown.

  “Shh, little one.” He slowly lifted a hand from his knee and wrapped it loosely around my right wrist. Gently, he pried my hand off his shoulder before he let go again, his hand falling bonelessly back down in his lap. “Have to sleep… a little longer. Until… sunset.”

  Bewildered, I moved back a little so I wasn’t breathing right in his face, but I stayed in my low crouch so I could study his blank features for clues. His hand had been very cold against my skin, and even though we were in a basement, it worried me. He clearly wasn’t feeling well, and just what was everyone’s obsession with sunset around here?

  His pale face and the fact that he was hardly breathing made me worry he was seriously, fatally ill, and I somehow doubted the creeps who had locked us both in this cage would care to call an ambulance.

  I rubbed my face in frustration and tried to recall what I’d learned about caring for possibly-dying people on my one and only first aid course nearly eight years ago. It was then that I realized he wasn’t breathing at all.

  “Omigoddess!” My pulse sped up to warp-speed as adrenaline kicked in, but it turned out my instincts were on point even if most of my conscious brain was busy freaking out.

  With a swifter movement than was usual for me, I tackled my cellmate to the ground and pinched his nose shut before I put my lips on his and blew air into his lungs.

  This time, his eyes opened wide as a cough shuddered through his body.

  “Oh, thank the stars!” I gasped as I placed a hand on his chest, relieved beyond belief to feel his chest moving again. “You stopped breathing! You…”

  But his chest wasn’t moving.

  I glanced from my hand against his completely still torso to his face. His eyes were still open, looking at me as if he couldn’t quite comprehend that a stranger had just tried to perform CPR on him.

  But he wasn’t breathing.

  And his heart wasn’t beating, either.

  It was in that moment that my brain finally decided to arrive at the party.

  Sleeps until sundown, cold to the touch, doesn’t breathe…

  “Motherfucking fuck!” I flew backward and scrambled away from him until the bars at the other end of the cage pressed against my back, unable to take my eyes off his still form even as his eyes slid shut again.

  Mother above!

  I was locked in a cage with a… a vampire!

  2

  I’d always known vampires were real, of course.

  Everyone did.

  After they revealed their existence to humans in ‘72, everyone had been painfully aware that the undead walked among us.

  It was just that I, like most people, had never seen one. And we counted ourselves lucky for it.

  I stared at my once-again sleeping cellmate, unable to calm my racing pulse.

  Suddenly, my kidnappers’ snide remarks made gruesome sense. They’d tossed me in here to feed him. I was a goddamn snack!

  Mother of all things holy, what was wrong with those people? Sure, I’d known they were crazy—kidnapping random people off the street kind of gives off that vibe. But this? Feeding live humans to their… their pet vampire? Who even thought about keeping a pet vampire? And why were they feeding him humans?

  I desperately searched the cage for something—anything—to defend myself, but there was nothing. They’d made sure there was nothing in there but him and me. And two hours until sunset.

  I’d like to say that I spent the last two hours of my life MacGyvering a makeshift weapon strong enough to take on a vampire, or even meditating over my life’s accomplishments, but I’d be lying.

  I spent the entire time pressing my body up against the bars and quivering like a leaf, I don’t want to die! running on repeat in my panicked brain while I stared at my dark-haired killer-to-be.

  It was both the longest and the shortest two hours of my life.

  When the vampire’s dark eyes opened once again, there was a different sort of awareness in his gaze than when I’d forced him awake earlier in the day. Probably the difference between a vampire before and after dark.

  Neat. I get exciting, anthropological knowledge of vampires before I die! I didn’t manage to clamp down on the hysterical giggle before it bubbled out between my lips, shattering the silence between us.

  The vampire raised a single, dark eyebrow in question.

  I made a vague gesture between us, inexplicably compelled to explain my behavior. He was probably more familiar with uncontrollable sobbing. “S-sorry, it’s just… Everyone always want to know more about vampires, and here I am, getting some quality one-on-one time. I’ll be the envy of the entire Internet!” Another shrill giggle escaped me.

  “You’re an odd one, aren’t you?” His face never changed from the blank expression, but his tone was tinged with curiosity.

  I flailed a hand in the empty space between us again, offense taking over my hysteria. “Well, excuse me for not knowing the right etiquette for getting eaten alive. It’s not exactly something I do every other Saturday.”

  He sighed, seemingly losing interest in me as he swiveled around to stare blankly into the room behind the bars without getting up from his seated position. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Oh.” I blinked. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  The vampire turned his head to give me an incredulous stare.

  “I mean, I’m not offering!” I quickly amended. “I’m just pretty sure I’ve not been tossed in here to be your Bridge partner, is all.”

  He g
ave a snort of amusement, the faintest hint of a smile touching his lips. “Nevertheless… I will not harm you, little one.”

  “So... You’ve eaten recently? Do they toss women in here often then?” Oh my goddess, why are you still talking? You don’t want to know about his diet, for crying out loud! Shut up!

  “They do not.” His tone was flat, but he didn’t turn back around to stare at the basement again, his eyes taking in my still-quivering form with something akin to curiosity. “You are the first. May I ask why?”

  I blinked. “You’re asking me why I got kidnapped and used as a vampire snack?”

  He gave a single nod, a patient expression on his solemn face.

  I opened my mouth to explain how I’d been minding my own business, reading a book, when the oafs took offense to my choice of literature, but managed to stop myself in time. Suddenly, when faced with an actual nightwalker, confessing to enjoying the occasional smutty vampire romance seemed more than a little embarrassing.

  “Well, why’d they capture you?” I asked.

  “They don’t like vampires,” he answered, even though we both knew my question was pretty ridiculous. The stakes on the walls made it obvious they fancied themselves some sort of delusional vampire slayers. I’d heard rumors about people like that—people who took on the night creatures, vigilante-style—but I’d never thought they’d actually ever capture any of them. The people who made YouTube videos about how to “capture vamps” tended to look like they’d have trouble putting on pants in the morning.