BLOOD LOVERS, page 1
Contents
BLOOD LOVERS
DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER ONE - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TWO - PAUL
CHAPTER THREE - SYRSEE
CHAPTER FOUR - PAUL
CHAPTER FIVE - SYRSEE
CHAPTER SIX - PAUL
CHAPTER SEVEN - SYRSEE
CHAPTER EIGHT - PAUL
CHAPTER NINE - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TEN - RYET
CHAPTER ELEVEN - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TWELVE - RYET
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - SYRSEE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - RYET
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - SYRSEE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - RYET
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - SYRSEE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - RYET
CHAPTER NINETEEN - PAUL
CHAPTER TWENTY - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - RYET
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - RYET
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - PAUL
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - RYET
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - PAUL
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - SYRSEE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - RYET
CHAPTER THIRTY - SYRSEE
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE - PAUL
CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO - SYRSEE
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - RYET
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - SYRSEE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - RYET
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX – SYRSEE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – RYET
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT – SYRSEE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE – RYET
CHAPTER FORTY – SYRSEE
END OF BOOK SHIT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BLOOD LOVERS
American Vampires, Book One
Edited by RJ Locksley
Cover Design by JA Huss
Copyright © 2023 by JA Huss
All rights reserved.
ISBN-978-1-950232-98-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
DESCRIPTION
The old witch is dying and that means he needs a new one.
It also means that the protection I’ve had since birth is over now. The spell is dying right along with my grandma. The vampire will come for me.
He must come for me.
He will hunt me to the ends of the earth.
He will hunt me, and find me, and capture me, and drink me.
Over, and over, and over again until I am nothing but a dying woman, in a dirty nightgown, lying alone on a bed, in a room that smells like death.
Because if the old witch is dying, then he needs a new one.
And that’s me.
This is my curse.
I am the vampire’s power.
I am the vampire’s strength.
I am the vampire’s food.
And he is very, very hungry.
Blood Lovers is a dark, seductive journey into a world where the blood runs black, the dreams are purple, and the demons aren’t just dangerous, they’re beautiful. Masterfully told by New York Times bestselling author, JA Huss—it’s a book that will change the lore forever.
CHAPTER ONE - SYRSEE
If the old witch is dying, then he needs a new one.
It’s New Year’s Eve, my grandma is dying, and there is a party going on all around me. The music is so loud the deck of the old, wooden porch is quaking beneath my boots and clumps of snow are sliding off the severely slanted roof with every beat. My hand is on the doorknob of the old cabin, ready to turn it and step inside, but I take a moment. My heart is thumping inside my chest with such vigor I have a sudden fear that I will pass out and wake up with the mouth of the vampire on my neck.
It’s not an irrational fear. It’s a very real possibility. Because I am a Black witch, and I have the Black blood flowing through my veins, and he has been hunting me for this reason since I was born.
You’re fine, Syrsee. I say this over and over in my head. You’re fine.
I’m not, really. I’m in a lot of danger pretty much twenty-four seven when I am outside the Guild walls. But I only have two choices here. Either go inside and say my goodbyes or let my grandma slip away into her dark hell, alone and afraid.
And it’s not just letting her slip away alone and afraid. It’s letting her slip away thinking I hated her. Which I did, but I’m not sure I still do.
Ten years is a long time.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen or spoken to her.
She came to my graduation from the Guild School, which is a boarding school for Guild members, obviously. They let me stay after my grandma abandoned me with them when I was seven.
Maybe ‘abandon’ is a strong word. She did take me there. She did arrange things. She did explain who and what I was so I didn’t have to hide anymore. So maybe ‘abandoned’ is a strong word.
Then again, when you’re seven and your grandma leaves you with people who have been tasked with killing you and your kin for hundreds of years, maybe it’s not.
Obviously, they didn’t kill me because I’m still here. They gave me a dorm room and an education. They gave me a home, actually. They gave me food, and friends, and adults who cared about what I was thinking and feeling. Hell, they even paid for my freaking college.
And she did that. She gave me up so I could have all that.
She saved me. Through some truce, and some magic, and, let’s face it, her own dark will—she saved me that day she walked out.
Because if ever there was a girl who needed saving, it’s me. I am made of darkness. Born of it. The Black blood flowing through my veins says this is true.
I should be dead. I should be rotting in Hell with the rest of my people. Or, at the very least, I should be living in squalor with the vampire’s teeth on my neck. I should be all these things, but I’m not.
And Grandma did that.
The intellectual side of me understands this. So I guess it wasn’t being dropped off with the Guild that drove us apart—it was all the stuff that came before that.
Here is what I have always known:
One. We are witches, but not the bookstore kind. That’s what Grandma used to call them. The ones who play with pretend magic, and use tarot cards, or incense, or candles.
We are an entirely different kind of witch. We can’t just… stop burning candles and incense and decide to be something else one day. It’s in our blood. Literally. Our blood is black with the darkness and the evil that stalks the edges of this world.
Two. The evil inside us can do powerful, powerful things and can be stolen if one knows how to take it. Because isn’t that always how it goes in this wicked world? Even if one is not a witch like me, everyone is feeding off something. People eat, don’t they? Everything eats.
Survival is evil, in and of itself.
And it’s justified because it’s survival.
It’s a circular thing. A cycle, like everything else. Survival and evil feed each other. They feed off each other. It’s a sick, dark, corrupt symbiotic relationship that tells you everything you need to know about the realm we all live in.
Three. Everything has a place or it wouldn’t exist. Even the darkness. Even the evil. Even me.
I know all this. Have known all this.
I know what I am, I know what I’m running from, and I know where I will end up.
Nothing I do can change any of that.
But being told this and being confronted with it in real life are two entirely different things. And maybe I overreacted. Perhaps I went a little too far when I walked away for ten years.
But when your grandma shows up for your high school graduation and tells you… things… things you never asked to know, and then you curse her to Hell and back and banish her from your life forever because this is the moment that you figure out just how evil your people were—are…
I was eighteen. This was my justification for a while. This is how eighteen-year-old girls act. Or… overreact, as it may be.
But the things Grandma did weren’t small infractions. They were mortal sins. Sins stacked upon sins. She killed my mother just moments after I was born, but that’s not the worst part. The worst part is why. She killed her to steal her magic. Because we are evil, and made of darkness, and just… fucked up.
And that’s not even all of it, either. Killing my mother after I was born was bad enough, but she did things to my mother before I was born too.
I couldn’t deal. I was out. I had a new life, with new friends—well, one friend—and a future. The Guild paid for me to go to college. After taking care of me for a decade, they didn’t just kick me out and say, “Good luck!” They held my hand and gave me a gentle push, setting me up for success.
Grandma didn’t do that. She dropped me off and didn’t come back until graduation.
Anyway.
Another ten years have passed since then and I work for the Guild full-time now. Not as a Guardian like my best friend, Zusi, but as a librarian in their considerable vault of knowledge. I am not a true Guild member, just their token charity case. But there are worse things than being a charity case in the most comprehensive collection of secret teachings on the planet.
I am not one of them, but I am… well—not part of things, per se, and not really in the game, but I’m on the sidelines. Watching the plays. Observing t
A useful member of the team in my own small way.
And maybe I’m just easy to please, but it’s satisfying. I don’t mind being benched all the time. I’m doing my part to make up for the people in my bloodline who came before me and helping an influential secret group save the world from evil at the same time.
I call that powerful.
Family means nothing to me. I have none. That’s just how it is. And I’m glad I’m the last of us. I’m glad. Because we are a stain upon the earth and this whole killing-your-daughter-to-steal-her-power is just the beginning of our evil. It goes way, way beyond that.
That’s why the Guild eradicated us. All but me and Grandma.
When I walked away from her, I put her out of my mind and moved on as someone new. I didn’t spend a single moment thinking about her. I kind of assumed she was already dead.
Of course, she couldn’t be dead. If she were dead then the magic she was using to protect me would’ve worn off. So I knew that she was still alive. But in my heart, I killed her myself. Figuratively. To put her out of my mind. To pretend that I am not what I am.
But hearing the news that she was dying and that I had not missed this moment changed something inside me. Made me take a second look at how things ended between us. And I’m sure telling me was some kind of test from the Guild—to see how committed I am to them, or to see how I respond to the news, or whatever—and I’m also sure that I’m in the middle of failing this test.
Because here I am. I couldn’t not come.
There is no right or wrong way to live my life. That’s what the Guild Commission drilled into my head in every single one of our annual meetings to renew my scholarship at the school. There are only choices to be made. And those choices all lead to consequences.
One choice might bring me closer to the Guild, others might whisk me further away.
But all choices are my own and the Guild respects my right to make them.
I couldn’t not come. And that’s the end of it. Maybe Grandma is a reminder of a bloodline I’d rather not think about, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let her leave this world old, and ruined, and alone.
She is evil. But she, like me, was just born that way.
We didn’t ask to be this.
We had no say in it.
And yes, Grandma did unspeakable things in her life. But I have had ten years to really think about it now. To process it. To come up with reasons why her choices made sense. And… she is my grandma. The only kin I have ever known.
I can’t let her die without a final goodbye.
So. Here I am, standing in front of the door amid the cacophony of the New Year’s Eve celebration, trying my best to get rid of the guilt I feel for abandoning her just because she told me the truth.
It was… selfish.
It scared me. Horrified me as well. But mostly I was so afraid of losing what I had with the Guild. And surely they knew—they had to have known what sins my grandma had committed. And they took me in and gave me a brand-new life anyway, so these fears were unfounded.
But they were there. I’ve been abandoned once. I don’t know if I could live through that again.
Choices. One brings me closer to the Guild, one whisks me further away.
I wanted so much to be closer.
I try, now, to justify it with my age, but I haven’t been eighteen for a long time.
A bunch of revelers stumble along, laughing, and joking, and having fun.
I don’t look over my shoulder at them. I don’t want anyone to see my face. I’m on the run, after all. This visit is stupid and dangerous and if I get caught… well, I don’t even want to think about it.
So I don’t look. I just turn the handle of the door, step inside, and quietly close it behind me.
Instantly, the smell of death has me recoiling. It’s so strong, I have to hold my hand over my mouth and nose as I scan the room.
There is a bed pushed up against the back wall and my grandma’s small, frail, nearly lifeless body is lying on top of it. It is very clear that she has not been receiving visitors. No one has cared for her in a very long time.
I feel sick and it’s not because of the smell.
It is the guilt.
She is wearing a nightgown. A long nightgown that was probably once white, but is dingy and soiled with filth now. Her bony legs poke out of the bottom like something from a skeleton. Her long gray hair is frayed, and mangy, and tangled around her head like a rat’s nest. She is so thin, her cheekbones are like sharp edges. Her face is sunken, and hollow, and pale. And when she opens her eyes, they are cloudy and colorless.
Shame fills me up.
How could you leave her here?
How could you let it end like this?
I like to think of myself as strong, and capable, and fair. But what is happening in this room turns me into the very thing I’ve been running from.
A monster.
“Syrsee.” Her voice is a husky whisper, barely audible over the partying beyond the door. “Child. What are you doing here?” The last few words drop off and then her milky-white eyes are closing again, like just this little bit of interaction is too much now.
Shame.
What have I done? Why did I leave her like this? Why didn’t I bring her with me?
Of course, it wasn’t up to me. The Guild wanted nothing to do with my grandma. She was a stain on all of humanity. Hell, she was a stain on all inhumanity as well.
“Grandma?” I cross the small room and sit down on the bed, reaching for her hand. Oh, God. It’s so cold. So bony. Her skin is tissue-paper thin and when I give it a little squeeze, she doesn’t squeeze back. “Grandma?”
Did she die? Did I just witness her last moment?
But just as I think these thoughts, the world becomes something hazy and lavender. A mist floating up in front of me.
Choices, choices, choices. This word echoes in my head like a haunting whisper.
The mist is a signal that the dreamwalk is coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“No. Not now!” It’s been ten years since I last had one. Not a single puff of purple haze has haunted me since I left my grandma behind. But now that I’m back, what did I expect?
Her magic leaks. My grandma is a trigger. We are both Black witches, after all. We both carry the Black blood in our veins and we are both cursed with the power to walk the unseen world that exists somewhere in between. So there is no stopping what comes next. I can run all I want—I can leave this place behind for a decade—but it won’t change anything.
The room morphs and suddenly, I’m outside. I can’t hear anything, or feel anything, or smell anything in the dreamwalk time. I can only see. And typically, everything is tainted with some shade of purple fog.
In this case it is lavender and I see woods. A thick forest. Somewhere I have never been.
The color of the fog is how I orient myself in the dreamwalks. If it’s light, and misty, and tinted lavender then I am in the present. There is a quaint little paradox attached to this fact. Because my present is occurring in my grandmother’s room, but I’m here in these woods at the same time.
That’s why we call it the dreamwalk. It explains this paradox away. Kind of.
Sometimes the haze is dark, and purple, and thick, and then it’s not the present. It’s a memory, a past event, or sometimes even the future.
It’s hard to tell when it’s very purple. The only certain thing I really know about the dreamwalks is that they are always connected to him.
The vampire called Paul.
I have never actually seen him. Not in the dreamwalk or with my own eyes. This is because I am cloaked. The magic my grandma stole from my mother just moments after I was born was used to hide me from Paul and him from me. I have never heard him speak, or touched his hand, or smelled his scent. I don’t even know what he looks like.
But I know he’s real.
One glance at my shriveled-up grandma is all it takes to be convinced.
She was his, once upon a time.
As was my mother.
As am I.
This is what having Black blood means.
It means I belong to him. And these dreamwalks are how he reminds me he is my master. He has been communicating with me like this my entire life. When I was small, the dreamwalks would take me to a pretty place—a garden, a beach, a lake house. Sometimes he even threw me birthday parties. There would be a room with people, and presents, and a cake. And my name would be on that cake.
