Made By Design (Blood Bound Series Book 2)
Read Made By Design (Blood Bound Series Book 2) Online
Authors: J.L. Myers
Tags: #young adult, #magic, #werewolf, #shapeshifter, #alchemist, #Paranormal, #vampire, #Romance, #fantasy, #premonition, #lycan
A BLOOD BOUND NOVEL
MADE BY DESIGN
J.L. MYERS
Book Two of the
BLOOD BOUND
Series
ALSO IN THE BLOOD BOUND SERIES
What Lies Inside
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by J.L. Myers
The moral right of the author had been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this literary work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the author J.L. Myers.
Cover design by Digital Print Australia.
Cover Images:
© tankist276/shutterstock.com, © djgis/shutterstock.com
© yevgeniy11/shutterstock.com, © valdezrl/shutterstock.com
Cover art © 2014 J.L. Myers.
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Paperback ISBN 978-0-9875653-2-7
E-Book ISBN 978-0-9875653-3-4
Amazon ISBN 978-0-9875653-4-1
eBook editions by eBooks By Barb for booknook.biz
Font Alegreya by Juan Pablo del Peral
Font TeX Gyre Chorus by GUST e-foundry
Also in the Blood Bound Series
Dedicated to my special boy and baby girl.
You are the shining stars in my life and everything that makes my world go round.
Forever a part of my heart, I love you both to the ends of this earth.
ONE
My eyelids fluttered as my vision cleared. Through the disappearing haze I could see a row of thrones illuminated by the dancing candlelight of a chandelier. The reigning royals occupied them, cloaks draped over formal attire. Muted whispers rose behind me, the sound coming from countless people. Yet there was no scent of human blood. An audience of vampires…
I shot a glance down and my heart stopped.
Elevated on a dais?
I was kneeling, dressed in a white bodice and thin billowy skirt that pooled over my legs.
Approaching footsteps across planked wood drew my sight up.
Panic sliced through my chest, liquefying my insides. Caius stood before me. In one hand he held a scarlet-painted sword, the tip biting the wooden floor like a pointed cane.
What he held in his other hand would have made my mouth water in any other circumstance. It was a gold chalice coated with jewels…and filled with the peppery, metallic aroma of a vampire’s Pure Blood.
Caius smiled and held out the chalice. “Take it, Amelia.”
Instinctively I went to bolt, to escape whatever heinous act he was about to pull on me. Only my body refused to move. I wasn’t in control.
As I fought harder my hands rose against my will. A moment later the chalice was in my grasp.
Stop,
I screamed internally, unable to force my lips to move. But it was no use. Inch by slow inch the chalice lifted until its cold edge grazed my lower lip.
There was an instantaneous hush around me and I wavered. Had my scream gotten through? Was I resisting Caius’s poison?
The sudden slice of metal cutting air broke the silence. Gasps erupted as Caius’s sword arched towards my heart. His eyes gleamed, incredulous and crazed.
“Traitor!”
~
I bolted upright, flinging my blanket across my dark bedroom. My tank top and cotton shorts were plastered to my body with cold sweat.
“It was just a dream.”
My words didn’t relieve the panic still drumming my heart. Because I knew better. My dreams were never just dreams, not anymore. They were part of The Sight; a Pure Blood ability that I’d somehow come to possess after whatever Caius did to make my blood immortal.
I snatched my iPhone with its new Icon For Hire case from the bedside table to dial Marcus, and cringed. The last phone had been obliterated by Caius moments before he’d sunk his fangs into my neck.
“Amelia, hey,” Marcus answered on the third ring.
“Where’s Caius?” My grip tightened on my phone, while my other hand toyed with the amethyst pendant tied at my wrist. It was cool to the touch. There was no immediate threat. Pain twisted my gut as the fear of my dream ebbed. I clutched my stomach, my hunger growing. “Has he left the Armaya?”
“Why? What’s happened?” Worry dyed his words.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Marcus didn’t know I had The Sight, and I didn’t want to get into that with him now. “I just have a bad feeling.”
“Amelia, he hasn’t been anywhere near you. I’ll kill him before letting him harm you again.” The fierceness in Marcus’s voice surprised me, forgotten under the weight of his next words. “Though you should know, he has left the Armaya.”
I began to hyperventilate and Marcus cut in. “You’re not in any danger…”
I jumped up and started to pace, my stomach grumbling with growing hunger. “Yeah, right.”
“Look, I’ve been with him every time he’s left,” Marcus said. “There have been a few
incidents
in Anchorage.”
Incidents? The word and the way he’d said it had my suspicious mind kicking into overdrive. “What kind of incidents?”
It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Marcus snapped. “Stay where you are and I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
When I began to argue the line went dead. I tried to re-dial, but after two rings it went straight through to voicemail. My stomach began clenching, over and over. The pain of my growing hunger knocked me back on the bed. I clutched at my stomach, hearing a distant rushing noise.
The next second my bedroom door flew open. Hall light streamed in as Kendrick rushed to my side. His hands came up to cup my jaw, still feeling my pain and panic through our bond. “Are you okay?”
His close pounding pulse thrummed in my ears. The smell of his peppery blood flooded the room. “So thirsty.” My fangs broke free, face turning without thought to seal my mouth over his wrist.
Before I could break his flesh, Kendrick flattened me against the mountain of pillows. His arm braced against my shoulders and his hips pressed into mine. I thrashed against him, unable to think past the lure of his blood. Unable to see through the bloodlust.
“Amelia, stop!”
Something wet and chilled hit my lips. My need to escape dimmed as a steady flow of blood poured into my mouth. I reared up and the source was pushed into my hands, my lips finding the top of a bottle. My fangs clinked against the glass as I sucked down the dead blood.
With my crazed hunger sated, my vision returned to reality.
Kendrick slid off me and held out a tissue. “You got some…” He gestured to my chest.
Face ablaze, I snatched the tissue and wiped erratically at my chest, neck, and face. My eyes darted to the Ducati posters plastered across my wall and stayed there. What I wouldn’t give to escape this awkward mess on one of those bikes. “Kendrick…I uh…
shit.
I’m so sorry.”
Kendrick pried the bottle away and took my hands. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
After everything I’d been through since becoming a functioning vampire, I thought I’d mastered control over my hunger. Well, mostly. Ty, my irresistible boyfriend with his seductive werewolf blood, was still a temptation that was hard to ignore. My desire for his blood aside, I’d still made huge progress.
Angry at failing myself, I tugged my hands free. “I don’t need you to lie to make me feel better.”
“I’m not,” Kendrick said. His next words weren’t spoken, they were thought. Delivered from his mind to mine via our blood bond.
It’s a symptom of The Sight. An after-effect following a vision.
I knew why Kendrick was speaking through the bond. The connection had formed after my ‘uncle’ Caius tried to kill me. Kendrick had fed me his lifeblood to resurrect me. Since escaping the Armaya and Caius, he’d warned me to keep my supposed-to-be Pure Blood only ability a secret. Until now I had assumed the reason was to keep me from becoming a vampire experiment. Being a turned vampire, I shouldn’t have an elemental ability. But now that I sensed him sifting through my vision’s details, probing my brain like a pincushion, I knew there was more. Kendrick was worried about what Caius might be up to, but that wasn’t all.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Kendrick took a slow, deep breath, and then blew it out. “That white dress you wore in the vision…it’s ceremonial. You were on stage at the Portsmouth Vampire Council.”
I felt sick thinking over the details of my dream. There had been an audience behind me, watching and waiting for something…monumental. “Oh my God. A sacrifice? What kind of sick race—”
“No,” Kendrick cut in. “Vampires don’t operate like cults. We don’t take lives for a made-up cause.” His expression became a mask I couldn’t read. “Though we do have rituals. What happened in your vision I’ve only ever read about in vamp history. The Sight is so rare, an Oracle naming ceremony hasn’t occurred for centuries.”
“Oracle?” I clutched a pillow, letting my nails slice through the purple material. This ability to foresee the past, present, and future already felt like a curse. “I’m a vampire Oracle?”
Kendrick shook his head. “Not
an Oracle
.
The Oracle
. There’s never been more than one at a time.”
Swallowing the spike of bloody acid that came up my throat, I shuddered at the thought of Caius killing me in plain sight. “He needs me alive for his ritual. He wouldn’t kill me like that.”
“You’re right.” Kendrick stood and began to pace alongside my bed, raking his fingers through his golden-brown hair. “He calls you a traitor, which must mean he’s challenging your ability. As a traitor you’d be imprisoned.”
“In a place Caius rules,” I whispered. My hand went to the bedside drawer. I pulled out a block of chocolate and shoved it into my mouth. “A place where he’d have easy access to me,” I spoke around the melting mint chocolate. “A place no one can keep me from conveniently disappearing.”
Kendrick stopped pacing and knelt by my bed, capturing my face with his hands. His eyes pleaded, a silver spark shooting through his blue irises. “That’s why no one can know about your visions. Please, Amelia, promise me. Apart from Dorian and Ty, you can’t tell anyone.” His fingers pressed harder into the hollows under my cheekbones. “Promise me.”
I bit my lip and nodded. If Caius got his way I’d lose everything: Ty, Kendrick, my family…and my life. Keeping this secret wouldn’t stop him, but I wouldn’t be handing myself over on a silver platter. “I promise.”
~
I entered the St. Volaras High School front gates with Kendrick, heading for the student parking lot. Fog surrounded us, thick and hazy. Just like my mind. Dorian had left early for swim practice, so with one car between us, we’d been reduced to walking. Not that I’d minded at first. The chilled air and open space gave me room to think. Too much room. After a few minutes the knowledge of being the secret Oracle was weighing on me. On top of that was the fact that I had just escaped Mom’s dreaded talk on Ty. Plus today—the second to last day of school—would be the first time Kendrick and Ty had seen each other in person since our return. This was not going to be easy.
I glimpsed Ty through the swirling fog. He leaned against his bright blue Subaru WRX, his hands pressed into his jeans pockets. His wet hair was proof that he had been at swim practice with Dorian, and it was clear he was waiting for me. I tried not to sigh. Or let my heart flutter at seeing him in a white muscle shirt and black leather jacket. But that sexy smile under his black Oakley sunglasses made my heart skip. I smiled and waved. Instantly Kendrick’s mood dropped, spreading through me like poison through our bond. A surge of anger, guilt, and hopelessness poured through me. And lucky me, the fun had just begun.