Not Dead Enough: Zombie Paranormal Romance (Project Rebellion: SARA Book 1) Read online

  Pain sliced through her gums as her fangs descended. A tiny pain, so inconsequential it was immediately forgotten in her move forward. Unable to do anything else, she wrapped herself around him. Her tongue flickered out. Swept over his pulse.

  “God, Sweetpea.” His voice was hoarse, his hold in her hair tightening almost to the point of pain. She knew he didn’t mean it, didn’t mean to hurt her, and the fact she had this effect over him fascinated her. She knew he was dangerous. Far more dangerous than she was. Yet here he was, offering himself up to her so she could gain a little edge over the bastards who had made her.

  “Yeah.… Do it. Now,” he begged. Lower down between them, his cock pressed hard and heavy against her naked belly. Slippery and wet, sliding over her slick skin. Lust joined the dark hunger that held her captive, and she reached down. Wrapped a hand around his rigid length and stroked up and down.

  “Fuuuuuck….” His mouth went slack, and she knew she had him. A thrill of feminine triumph rolled through her. It was a familiar feeling. Carnal. Nothing to do with the weirdness her life had become. It wasn’t linked to Bloods, Re-animates or the shadowy group he called The Project. No, this was the feeling between a man and a woman. Natural. Human when they were anything but. It didn’t matter what they were though, the feeling helped ground her. In that instant she accepted what she was.

  Not human. Better than human. Faster, stronger. More dangerous.

  She swept a thumb over the head of his cock, pulled her lips back, and struck. Her fangs pierced his skin, sliding through smoothly, and a rush of hot blood filled her mouth. She groaned as the taste exploded through her. The same as the scent that had captivated her, but better. Much better. It wasn’t sunshine and roses, strawberries and cream.

  She knew it was blood. Hot and metallic, coppery almost, the taste was impossible to mistake. Before it would have made her gag. Even the smell of her own blood from a cut used to turn her stomach. Not now. Now she crowded closer, wrapping her arms around his neck and lifting a leg to wrap around his as the steady beat of his heart pumped more blood.

  She swallowed as fast as she could, the heady rush of the stuff like strong alcohol hitting her system. It infused her body, like it was energizing every cell in a madcap rush through her system, until she thought she’d burst with it.

  Still he made her drink more, holding her still when her limbs went slack with the warmth flooding through her. Made her swallow until she was near drunk with it.

  “God, that feels awesome,” he muttered, urging her backward until her shoulders hit the cool tile. The small movement caused her fangs to tear his skin and she squeaked in warning, but he ignored her. Instead, he lifted her leg higher, around his hip, and rubbed his rigid cock along the groove of her pussy. She groaned at the dual assault, and lust rose again.

  “You doing that, taking me in…that turns me on.” He dipped his hips, rubbing the head of his cock against her clit. She whimpered as sparks of a different kind flew through her veins. Her swallows slowed. The need to have him press home and fill her completely overwhelmed the need to drink.

  “I need to fuck you. Hard. Here. Make you mine again. My blood in your veins and my cock in your pussy.”

  She nodded, her fangs receding. Before she could pull them from his skin altogether, he dipped his hips, found her entrance and shoved home in one hard thrust.

  She cried out, pleasure and sensual pain at being filled so hard so fast tearing through her. But she loved it. Loved the feeling of him inside her. Her back arched, and she forced her body to accept the sudden intrusion.

  He didn’t give her time to process. Instead, he planted a hand on the wall either side of her head and pulled back only to push in hard again. And again. Each jackhammer thrust brought a cry of pleasure to her lips. The tension inside her drove higher until the two of them, the feel of skin against skin and his cock in her cunt, were all there was. Her entire world.

  She strained against him, urging him to go harder. Faster. Needing something she sensed only he could give her. And only now. Sex as a human had been amazing, sometimes, but the way she was now…she could feel everything.

  The climax hit out of nowhere. No run up. No warning. It ambushed her, and she screamed. She tumbled headlong into the overwhelming pleasure that tightened everything in her body in one perfect spasm of ecstasy. One that went on and on, propelled by each thrust of his hips. Then he stiffened, cock shoved deep to pulse his release, and he moaned his pleasure into the curve of her throat.

  Then he bit her, the small nip from his blunt teeth tumbling her into a second orgasm, and she knew in that instant that she’d trade anything to stay in his arms forever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Brett idly stirred the mug of coffee in front of him. The spoon clicked rhythmically against the side, the sound almost lost under the others around them in the diner. For a moment he allowed them to wash over him in a blast of noise and vibration that obliterated all else.

  After a few seconds he started to identify them. Raucous laughter from a group of men at the back competed with the soft drone of female voices in the corner. The couple having a very quiet, but also very heated debate three tables over. The waitress moving between tables with her orders. Big sounds. He drilled it down. The click of cutlery on crockery complemented the slosh of liquid in mugs.

  One by one he filtered them out, and muted the noise until there was an oasis of calm around the table he and the others had occupied. They’d decamped from the motel, but only as far as down the road. Brett flicked a glance through the window. Their rooms were on the second floor, but he didn’t have a clear line of sight to the doors, which bothered him.

  They’d only managed to get him to leave Julia by pointing out that she needed to rest. She needed sleep, especially after the night they’d had. He’d fed her until she complained she couldn’t eat anymore, and her temperature had disappeared under the heat they generated between them. Desire rolled lazily through his system, but since they were in company, his heart was already beating. He let it trigger natural reactions, his cock half-hard in his pants as memories played in the back of his mind.

  “Heeeellllo, lover boy?” Dom clicked fingers in front of his face. “You gonna drink that or just look at it?”

  Brett curled his hand protectively around his mug and snarled. “Touch it and die, gym bunny.”

  They didn’t eat anymore, not anything cooked anyway, but coffee…. Java was soul-fuel. Necessary for their sanity. What little of it they had left.

  Dom sat back, hands out in surrender. “Whoa, whoa… no need to diss the muscles!” He struck a pose, then turned his head to kiss each of his biceps in turn. Brett’s chuckle was joined by one from Evan, and even Kelwood cracked a grin.

  Lifting his mug, Brett sucked down a big gulp. He leaned back in his chair and studied his companions. The tension that had constantly shadowed them since their breakout had cracked a little. And hell, had they needed it to. Tracking the Bloods with so little success had been frustrating as fuck, especially when the bastards had been snatching women willy-nilly with seemingly no comeback. A little levity was long over-due and more than a little welcome.

  “So…how’s our resident vamp doing?” Evan leaned forward, hands wrapped around his own mug, shirt pulling taut across his arms.

  “She’s good. The temperature came down overnight, and she got sleepy real quick. She didn’t need to feed much though.”

  He frowned as he rubbed at the short growth on his jaw. He hated shaving with a passion, and it seemed not even dying would stop the damn stuff growing.

  “Far less than I thought to be honest, but she seemed content. How’d the hunt for McCoy’s lot go?”

  Evan shrugged, making a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. “We cast a wide net but found nothing concrete. They’re here, that’s for sure. Jared keeps picking up their scent, but it goes dead before we can track it down.”

  Dom twisted in his seat, reaching into his bag
and removing a laptop. Brett’s eyebrow winged up. “Dare I ask where you acquired that from?”

  “Dude, ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” He flipped the lid open and tapped at the keys. Brett sucked down more Java. For all Dom looked to be the muscle-bound brainless brawn, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do with a laptop and a net connection.

  “Okay…right. Local police have a few missing persons that fit the bill. Peeps disappearing on the way home at night. Bar staff, waitresses. Mostly women. One guy.…” He paused and clicked on something, then his expression cleared. “Cross dresser, or pretty enough to be. Could have been picked up in error.”

  Fredericks nodded. “I cased out a couple of the homeless shelters. None of the staff have noticed anything particular, but say a lot of their regulars can disappear for weeks before popping up again.”

  “Ugh, crap. So there’s no way to tell if people are disappearing.”

  “I can smell her.” Jared spoke suddenly, making them all look up in surprise. Brett’s gaze slid past him to the waitress passing by with a full tray. She cast an appreciative glance over her shoulder at Jared, but he didn’t notice, attention focused on Brett.

  “Yeah, mate. She’s wearing perfume. Smells pretty.”

  “Nononono.” Jared shook his head empathically. “Not her. I know she’s wearing perfume. Cheap stuff as well.”

  “Well, exccccuse me, I don’t have your discerning nose, Mr. Perfume Expert.”

  Jared paused in irritation, shooting him a look that could have frozen hell over.

  “What did you mean, Jared?” Fredericks prompted, his voice low.

  Brett shut his trap, feeling like a shit. Jared didn’t talk much these days. He didn’t need to be a dick and get on the guy’s case.

  “Kathy. I can smell Kathy.” Jared’s expression twisted in pain for a second before he got it under control. “She’s out there with them. Sometimes two, mostly just one. I think.… She’s hunting.”

  Brett stilled, wariness running through his system. His surprise was mirrored on the faces of the two others as they all looked at Jared. If his wife was out there, on the streets, then they all knew what that meant. She’d fed. If she was hunting, then she wasn’t being held a prisoner. She was doing it of her own free will.

  Dom shifted in his seat. “Man, you gotta think. Some of them will have…like amnesia? She might not remember who she is. Who you are. We just need to get her to remember all that stuff. It’ll work out fine. I promise.”

  “But what happens if she doesn’t?” Jared’s voice was low, but the note of pain in it was so raw that it made Brett suppress a wince. He’d fared better than Jared where the fate of his lady was concerned.

  Evan reached over and clamped a big hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Whatever you need, we’ll be here. We’ll sort it. That’s my promise.”

  Whether Jared realized or it not, that promise came with a rider. If Kathy was a Blood and she couldn’t be brought back, then Evan would end her so Jared didn’t have to. Brett looked away so Jared didn’t read the truth in his eyes. Gazing out the window, he looked over at the motel and frowned. Was that the sound of wood breaking?

  “Guys…I think we should wander back. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  *

  Julia lay in bed, drowsy and comfortable. Brett had left a while back, kissing her on the forehead. She’d waved lazily at him and shut her eyes again. She didn’t want to leave her dozing. The bed was way too cozy to wake up properly, and the pillow was uttering sweet nothings in her ear about sliding back into sleep. She was tempted to listen to it. Her body ached, and not just from the many times Brett had woken her, or vice versa. Those parts of her body were pleasantly sore, but that was familiar. It was the other changes in her body and her senses she was more interested in.

  That interest pulled her out of sleep, but she kept her eyes closed. If she didn’t open them, then she didn’t have to be a responsible adult and rejoin the world. And too much weird shit had happened over the last couple of days for her to want to rejoin the adult world. For a moment she lay still, allowing her mind to wander over what had happened.

  She didn’t feel any different. Not now anyway. Not after feeding from Brett in an act so natural and sensual that heat flooded her body again. Why didn’t she feel different? She was a vampire. Blood. Whatever. She should feel different.

  Lifting her hand, she shoved a finger against her gums where her fangs were hidden. If she didn’t know they were there, she would have completely missed the small protuberance where they were hidden. Curious, she followed the new lump upwards and pressed. The fang slid down with a tiny snick. No pain this time. Curiouser and curiouser. Perhaps it only hurt when she was panicked?

  She lifted up on the pressure, and the fang immediately slid back into its hiding place. She dropped it down again, paying attention to how it felt, the pull of unfamiliar muscles in her jaw. The fangs were new, so it made sense that her infection, conversion, or whatever it was called, had also created anatomical features to support them.

  Moving her finger, she tried it again, then winced as pain lanced through her gums, stopping the movement immediately. Okay, that felt wrong, like she was trying to force it the wrong way. A faint hint of copper tingled over her tongue, a warning that she’d cut herself. She concentrated and tried again. This time her fangs slid down easily, without pain or effort. Elation surged through her. She’d nailed it.

  She cracked open an eyelid and studied her fingers. Analyzing them in the same way she had her fangs, she slid a talon free and studied the mechanism of how it worked. Like a cat’s claws, they were retractable, but unlike a cat, they slid away and were completely concealed under her own nails. When they were hidden away, there was no trace of them. Not even a mark on the skin where they appeared from. Perfect natural camouflage of the monster within.

  She closed her eyes and let her hand drop back down to the covers on the bed. No, not a monster. Brett’s words had struck a chord within her. Real monsters were people like Buddy, or The Project, and the Bloods that had taken her and the other women for their ‘master race’ experiment. Just because she wasn’t human anymore didn’t by default make her a monster any more than some people needed to be bitten to qualify.

  Just because a girl needed to drink blood to survive…that was just like extreme carnivorousism or something, wasn’t it? Like steak tartar without the meat part. Besides, she only planned on drinking Brett’s blood. It tasted so good, the thought of anything else made her feel sick to her stomach.

  Like her first ‘meal’, if she could call it that. Driven by hunger and instincts she hadn’t fully understood, she’d drunk the only source of blood her weakened body could find. But it hadn’t felt like this. The craving had been intense, driving her to catch more rats, the need to drink overwhelming all else. An instant high, followed by an instant low as the blood didn’t provide the energy she needed. The life she needed. Blood was dead within minutes of leaving its body, no longer able to sustain life, no longer any good for her, but by that point it was too late. She had a gut full of dead blood and an insatiable need for more.

  Brett’s blood was different though. He believed he and the others were dead. The walking dead. Zombies. What was the term he used? Re-animate. They weren’t though. They couldn’t be, not when their blood teemed with life. She felt it moving through her, suffusing into her bloodstream in a steady drip of energy that spread through her cells. It was like each blood cell had its own built-in power plant, supplying it with energy even though it was separated from its original circulatory system. It explained how their bodies operated without the usual circulation required for energy exchange. She’d bet her bottom dollar that the cells had an adaptation to hold onto oxygen as well.

  It wasn’t just that though. As the cells mingled with her own and became part of her system, she felt herself changing again. But this was different from the first time. There was no pain. Instead, it was comforting, warming
. Like her body was settling itself into the pattern it had always been meant to follow, and the last pieces of the puzzle had slid into place.

  New instincts unfolded, new senses joining the ones she’d gained from her previous conversion. Heartbeats and movements around her intensified until she could literally feel the vibrations surrounding her, shivering through the air, and transmitted through the bed she lay on.

  She followed them like an over-excited puppy, eagerly tracing the waves back to their source. From the drip-drip-drip of a tap three rooms over, to the rumble of traffic outside, she studied them all. Studied them and filed them all away as she sat, like a fat spider in the middle of her web of senses. The extra ‘noise’ didn’t bother her. Instead, it lulled her back into a trance. From feeling like her world had shattered around her and she was at its mercy, now she felt content. Secure. Nothing was out of place. She knew what everything was, and a sense of control and contentment filled her.

  She lay listening for a while, floating in the little island of peace she’d found. A new vibration joined the symphony, then another and another, changing the melody. Eyes closed, she frowned. They weren’t flowing with the rest. Instead, they were discordant. Wrong.

  She narrowed her focus to study them. They were easy to track back. People moving around the motel, out on the balcony that wrapped around the building and in the rooms above. Her eyes snapped open. There were no rooms above, which meant whoever was out there was crawling over the roof. Humans, as a rule, didn’t view sloping roofs as a viable route.

  There were five. All with the slower heartbeat that she’d come to associate with the Bloods. Not her kind. Never that. Whatever they’d done to her, however they’d changed her, she would not be like them. Ever.

  Certainly not with Brett’s blood flowing through her veins. She closed her eyes just before the door crashed open. She didn’t need to see the five Bloods rushing into the room to know they were there. The smell alone was enough. Before it hadn’t bothered her; now she felt the need to breathe through her mouth to deaden the stench.