Blood of the Dead, page 1
Blood of the Dead
Dark Ink Tattoo
Book Six
Cassie Alexander
Copyright © 2023 by Cassie Alexander
All rights reserved.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
www.cassiealexander.com
Cover by the Bookbrander.
Interior art by IV Benjamin.
Formatting by Morrigan Author Services.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Luna
Chapter 2
Jack
Chapter 3
Luna
Chapter 4
Jack
Chapter 5
Luna
Chapter 6
Jack
Chapter 7
Luna
Chapter 8
Jack
Chapter 9
Luna
Chapter 10
Jack
Chapter 11
Jack
Chapter 12
Luna
Chapter 13
Jack
Chapter 14
Luna
Chapter 15
Jack
Chapter 16
Luna
Chapter 17
Jack
Chapter 18
Luna
Chapter 19
Jack
Chapter 20
Luna
Chapter 21
Jack
Chapter 22
Luna
Chapter 23
Jack
Chapter 24
Luna
Chapter 25
Luna
Chapter 26
Jack
Chapter 27
Luna
Chapter 28
Jack
Chapter 29
Luna
Chapter 30
Jack
Chapter 31
Luna
Chapter 32
Jack
Chapter 33
Jack
Chapter 34
Luna
Chapter 35
Jack
Chapter 36
Luna
Chapter 37
Luna
Chapter 38
Jack
Chapter 39
Luna
Chapter 40
Jack
Bend Her
Chapter 1
Lisane
Chapter 2
Rhaim
Also by Cassie Alexander
About the Author
Introduction
Everything’s been upside down since I helped Maya and the Faithful with the Rojo clan: Luna said no when I offered to turn her as per our arrangement, a sentiment I agree with but don’t understand—and Sam, my “favorite” Faithful, is telling me, an unholy being, to stay “topped up.”
And if there’s a hell for vampires, I’m living in it: Paco hasn’t come back since I turned him, and I need to break up with an all-too-human Zach for his own well-being.
When Luna’s kidnapped by a cult attempting to summon the Sleeper, I have absolute proof that it’s safer for everyone for me to be alone—but I’m going to need Paco’s help to find her, because he’s the only one who knows what her blood tastes like.
Will Paco forgive me for making him what I am, and will I get another chance to change Luna before she becomes a human sacrifice?
Welcome to Dark Ink Tattoo, where needles aren't the only things that bite…
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Dark Ink Tattoo is a scorching paranormal in the vein of Sons of Anarchy, with strong sexual situations and bisexual MCs.
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Content warnings can be found on cassiealexander.com.
Chapter One
Luna
When I woke, it felt like I was wrapped in the dead-weight of a sleeping lover’s arms . . . but as I reached out and moved the top of the box I was lying in, I realized the truth.
I was in Jack’s coffin with him.
Dead, yes.
Lover, no.
I blinked. The room was dark, and the last thing I remembered was fighting in one of the backrooms at Vermillion with some other woman and the feel of a chain around my neck. I got out of the box and felt for the bruises that I knew I should have, if not from her, then on the top of my breast, where Jack’s newly changed boyfriend Paco had needed to feed—but I didn’t feel anything.
I got out of the coffin quickly and looked down at myself.
What time was it?
What day was it?
Was I still . . . me?
Or had Jack granted me my wish to be changed into a vampire at long last?
I stumbled down the hall, half-running for the bathroom, catching myself in front of the sink. I was in one of Jack’s T-shirts, and his boxers too; both were baggy on me, but—I looked better, in the mirror. My hair was a mess, and my make-up hadn’t all come off yet—I used eyeliner just this side of super-glue—but!—the bruises were almost gone!
Was I dead . . . alive?
I scanned inside myself, searching for new strength, and then opened my mouth as wide as I could, looking for new teeth.
I made superhero poses, designed to elicit any powers I might have, and when that didn’t work I ran for Jack’s apartment’s door.
I almost, almost, flung it open like a normal person.
Like a human who wasn’t scared of the day.
But how ironic would it be if I got turned the way I’d always wanted, and then managed to fry myself in the setting sun’s rays?
I carefully cracked it a few inches, looked out, and found it was night.
Just like I knew it would be. That was why I was awake!
I was free!
“Luna?” I heard Jack ask from the darkness of his bedroom.
I raced back into it with a squeal. “Thank you!” I shrieked, standing beside his bed.
Jack groaned. “Don’t thank me.”
“Jack, no, you have no idea what this means to me,” I went on, beaming at him even though he couldn’t see it. If Jack had turned me, then I no longer had to serve the strange Master who’d given me the nightblade—and I no longer had to worry about when I was going to die.
I wouldn’t be like my mom, or my mom’s mom before her. The Huntingtons wouldn’t get me. I would be healthy for the rest of my long non-life. “Thank you!” I sobbed.
“Don’t thank me, Luna. Literally,” he said, swinging himself up.
I reached for the light switch on the wall, flipped it, and the look he gave me then shattered all of my hopes and dreams like a glass vase dropped from a great height. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
I frowned. I couldn’t imagine a world in which Jack went back on his word. And—I knew I’d lost so much blood feeding Paco—I was sure I’d been at death’s door.
“It’s been a week. I’ve been taking care of you.” He pulled himself out of his coffin, wearing an outfit that matched mine almost exactly, except his fit, and he started searching for jeans on his bedroom floor.
A week explained why the bruises were almost gone. “But . . . I was passed out? That whole time?”
“Not all of it. I whammied you some, and for that, I’m sorry,” he said, as he buttoned up his pants. “I fed you and cleaned you, but you needed rest more than you needed anything else.”
“Oh,” I said again, even more quietly.
“Do you feel better now?” he asked solicitously.
I held myself and bit my lips to stop from crying. I didn’t want to show any more weakness to him than I already had. “Not really.”
Chapter Two
Jack
I watched disappointment strobe across Luna’s delicately boned face, then she stormed off and I heard her start a shower.
I made my way to my apartment’s kitchen, fed my cat Sugar, and pulled out the few food items I had that a human could eat.
I’d been so close to giving Luna my blood after the affair at Vermillion. Once she was safely back on my couch, I realized just how much blood Paco had drained from her—and how brave she’d been in letting him, knowing full well just how dangerous a vampire’s first taste of blood could be.
But she’d been too weak to give me permission when I asked, and she wasn’t quite on death’s door. She’d been pale and weak, but I’d known by the strength of her heartbeat that she’d survive, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until I heard her tell me that she wanted it one more time.
Because I hadn’t given Paco a choice—I’d changed him in desperation before he’d died, and I didn’t know if that was a good thing yet.
I thought it was, given the alternative . . . but now that it’d been almost a week, and he hadn’t reached out to me, I didn’t know. He hadn’t called, or texted, or dropped by, not at my
The only thing I was sure of was that he was alive.
As his creator, it felt to me like we were connected by this thin silver strand, a magical manifestation of my concern. On my side, it felt like it was a thread lost in a maze for a minotaur. I didn’t know where it ended; I only knew that it had one. Whereas on his side, I knew if he felt it, and if it felt to him like mine had from Rosalie, my maker, to me . . . it was more like a leash.
Which was why even though I knew I could figure out exactly where he was, at all times, I couldn’t use my powers over him to track him down.
Even if it meant he never came back to me.
He had to trust in me, that I wasn’t that kind of . . . owner was the wrong word for it. I loathed the word “master,” “boss” didn’t make any sense, and I didn’t want to be any of those things besides.
I just wanted what we’d always had. Him and me.
Together, for as long as he would have me.
Caring for a broken Luna had given me something to do other rather than think about having possibly lost Paco.
The shower cut off, I heard the hair dryer running, and by the time Luna had made herself presentable in her own clothing, some short skirt and slouchy gray goth-girl-number top, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich waiting for her, alongside a small cup of all the vitamins I could think a human might need when they had to replenish half their blood supply quickly, which I’d overnighted from the internet.
When she came out, I offered both to her.
“You kept me alive with this?” she asked, holding up a diagonally cut wedge of sandwich.
“And these.” I shook the cup of pills.
She looked between them and me. “You know what works better than vitamins, Jack?”
I’d had no illusions about what her mood would be when she finally healed up. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“Vampire blood!” Her hands went into fists at her side. “What would you have done if I had died? Would you have granted me the same gift you gave Paco?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. If Paco had killed her, my conscience wouldn’t have given me a choice. “But you didn’t die—and I told you if we survived, we would talk like equals. So now that you’re awake, we are.” I reached over to nudge one of the chairs in my small dining room out, and she slumped into it like a petulant child.
I took a seat across from her, bringing both the sandwich and the pills, pushing them across the table to her.
“Don’t you want to be older first, Luna? Live a little longer? Or get a goddamned tan?”
She frowned at the sandwich, as if to eat it might be akin to admitting she was mortal, but then she broke down and took a bite. “No. I don’t,” she said around a mouthful.
“You don’t realize what you’re asking for.”
Luna glared at me. “Don’t project your bullshit relationship problems on me, Jack. Unlike Paco, I know exactly what I’m getting into. I’m a hundred percent prepared, and what’s more—you swore you would do it.”
She wasn’t lying. She’d worked for Rosalie for years—she probably knew more about being a vampire than I did.
And she wasn’t wrong. I did owe her. I’d practically promised her this, if she helped Paco, which she had.
I just wanted to hear it all the way from her lips first.
I didn’t want to turn someone who didn’t want to be turned.
Not again.
“You truly want this?” I asked her.
She set the crust of her sandwich down and pushed the plate aside, sensing my sincerity. “More than anything, Jack. Believe me.”
I rocked back in my chair, remembering what it’d been like when I’d been turned, and the problems that’d ensued right after—I’d been trapped in Vegas, without money or ID. “Did you want a final meal first? Any last thing you want to go see in daylight? Go home to your folks and say goodbye or anything?”
Her mouth opened, her chest heaved, and her eyes suddenly went wide.
“Luna?” If she was having a heart attack in front of me, I was going to feel like an asshole for not granting her request earlier.
Her hands fluttered, as did her eyelids. “No—just—yes—I can’t believe it,” she said, confused words tumbling out of her mouth. She didn’t seem like herself. “Maybe—just—a few more days?” she squeaked.
I frowned. “What changed?”
She gathered herself quickly. “You did!” She said it like it was a complaint. “I mean you—you mean it now!”
I nodded. “Yeah.” I squinted at her, trying to read her, but she looked away.
“It’s just . . . I thought I was ready, but I’m not,” she blurted out.
What precisely had changed between the pre-sandwich Luna and post-sandwich Luna I was facing? “All right,” I said slowly. “Well, the offer stands. You just let me know when you’re ready for me to take you up on it, okay?”
She started nodding and didn’t stop. “That sounds perfect.” She stood and picked up the cup of vitamins, downing the chalky pills dry. “We going into Dark Ink tonight?”
“It’s my night off.”
“You take nights off?” she said, her voice going high in disbelief.
“Sometimes.” I watched her carefully. She was still flustered. I was watching the surface part of her, reading all the things that made her still human, whereas my hunger was reacting to the nervous way she breathed.
It wanted her to run, and it wanted me to chase her. I yanked it back.
“Okay, well,” she went on, “I bet there’s tons of things I need to do there, to get caught up, especially if it’s been awhile.” She composed herself quickly and pushed her chair in. “I don’t suppose someone brought my car back from Vermillion?”
I jerked my chin towards the kitchen’s counter, where her keys sat beside my own. “Maya said it was scaring off clientele.”
Luna snorted, shaking herself, seeming to finally come back into her body. “I’ll just go by the shop then. See what I’ve missed and get caught up on mail and payroll.” She darted down beside the couch and picked up her small backpack from where she’d left it days ago. “I’ll be back later. Don’t stay up.”
I felt my eyebrows crawl up my forehead as I watched her leave. “I won’t.”
Chapter Three
Luna
I stumbled out of Jack’s apartment, weak—now that I wasn’t operating on adrenaline, my body still felt a quart low.
And Jack . . . Jack, Jack, Jack . . . he really had been ready to turn me, right then, when he asked.
Except that my current Master wouldn’t let me say yes.
I looked around the outdoor corridor, wondering where he was hiding—and how come he’d been able to be inside Jack’s apartment with me, and Jack not know.
I held the keys to my little Fiat with a shaking hand and walked down the hall, hitting the button on my key fob, listening for its beep, craning my head back and forth across the parking lot—when one of my shadows peeled off the wall to come stand beside me.
Only years of serving Rosalie stopped me from screaming in surprise. She’d trained me well; no good ever came of giving your location away.
The shadow moved to stand in front of me, a me-shaped spot of liquid darkness with blurry edges. “Master, I was so close,” I hissed. “I thought you wanted him to owe me?”
“And now he does,” the shadow-puppet shaped like me informed me in my mind.
