Then Kathy hissed, snake-sharp, “It’s not enough to be swallowed by the dark: you have to fight it.”

  I drew back from her, even though I knew that she was right.

  Kathy and I had scurried under the shadow of the palms, skirting the flower beds of mimosas and the clash of their exotic fragrances, in a dash for bread, cheese, and pigs’ blood. Although we were being hunted, we were also starving in the rented rooms, and Kathy had insisted that she take the risk as well, after the beating that I’d taken at the police station.

  Kathy loved me enough to want to protect me, as much as I craved to protect her.

  Kathy had clutched the blood in a paper bag because I hadn’t been able to touch it; I was so hungry that the scent of it so close had my watering mouth shifting from human to Blood Lifer with my fangs bursting in and out like a party trick.

  Then the full moon had broken free of the cloud, caressing Kathy’s lips silver, and…enough was bloody enough. I’d pushed Kathy back against the stone monument, grasping its crumbling corners, as I’d snogged the moon from my Moon Girl. Kathy had shivered, caught beneath me, before she’d pushed back. Her tongue had warred with mine. The paper bag had split, as she’d tumbled onto the monument.

  Christ in heaven…

  Scarlet had dripped from Kathy’s fingers, and I’d sucked: whining, gasping, and whimpering. She’d been my life, and I’d hungered to devour her. I’d licked up every drop, whilst my cock had pulsed, pressing against her thigh. Kathy’s gaze, wide and laughing, had never left mine.

  I’d cradled Kathy back onto the stone, grinning around her fingers. “Thanks, mama,” I’d mumbled.

  She’d pulled her fingers from my lips to bop me lightly on the nose. “Brat.”

  I’d feathered kisses down her neck. When the silk of her scarf brushed against me, which was scented with Chanel No. 5, I hadn’t known what had throbbed harder, my cock or the fangs buried in my gums.

  When Kathy had wound around me in her flame-red jumpsuit, she’d burned me. She’d been a light in the dark, and the thought had made me shiver that her human life could be put out just as quickly.

  Then came Kathy’s hiss, snake-sharp: “It’s not enough to be swallowed by the dark: you have to fight it.”

  I struggled up. “Hang on a tick—”

  “The babies die tonight. Do you reckon that I haven’t seen the full moon? You’re free to choose, Light. We all are.”

  My fists clenched. “What does that even sodding mean?”

  Kathy’s gaze hardened, as she shoved me in the chest. “It looks like Blood Lifers don’t grow wise with living so long.”

  I smirked. “There’s no such thing as wisdom, love, only experience. And I have plenty of that, only it doesn’t make me less of a berk.”

  She snorted. “At least we agree on something.”

  When Kathy slipped past me, I grabbed her shoulder, but she shook me off with an irritated shrug.

  Silver knives…scarlet, scarlet, scarlet…

  I closed my eyes for a moment at the memory: I’d been a blood god’s sacrifice before and the thought of becoming it again was horrifying.

  I forced my hands to unclench, as my back prickled with sweat. “The Blood God wankers aren’t screwing around. If the worshipers have been doing this for centuries, then there’s more going on here than we know. It’s bad enough that they want to add us to their Moon Cult. If I run in there playing the hero, then they’ll kill me, or worse. Then I can’t keep you safe.”

  “Keeping me safe has nothing to do with it.” Kathy’s words were like whip strikes. “Saving those three—”

  “So, the little ones are sacrificed tonight. It won’t be the first time.”

  I didn’t mean it, even as I said it. Instead, I shuddered with the memory of being trapped in the attic room of the Orphan School: stripped, humiliated, and thrashed. Kathy grasped my hand, and her fingers anchored me in the present, where I was loved, free, and could choose. I understood at last what that meant. The gift that Kathy had granted — had always granted — me. The knowledge that love could be equal and free.

  For the first time in both First and Blood Life, I was free to be whatever I chose: prey or predator.

  And right now…? The choice was between safety or danger, coward or hero, living or dying…

  “Bloody kiss me.” I dragged Kathy back — slam — against the monument, before tonguing her lips open and pressing deeply into a kiss.

  Suddenly, there were footsteps in the dark and low voices. Blood Lifers.

  I stroked my fingers through Kathy’s curls, tracing the warmth of her skull and tapping lightly like a tattoo in warning. Kathy pressed her lips harder against mine, whilst her gaze sparked. She was a bright First Lifer, always recognizing the monsters in the black.

  “When are we fixing to be leaving?” I stiffened at Maverick’s slurred drawl. “I don’t trust that brat Blood Lifer. I want him to be mine and family but I promise you, he won’t bow before the Blood God. I wouldn’t like him so much if he would. So, why’s Versailles bothering...?”

  Bollocks.

  It made me shiver to hear Maverick talking about me with such casual possessiveness, as well as sounding like he knew me. My stomach squirmed in a way that wasn’t comfortable when he spoke about family, but I couldn’t allow myself to think about that.

  “Don’t question Versailles,” Exitus replied, clipped and cruel. “He orders, and we obey.”

  Maverick snorted. “Yes, sir.”

  Yeah, Maverick was a sarcastic bastard like me. I couldn’t help being impressed by that.

  Exitus tilted his head, assessing Maverick as if trying to judge his sincerity. “Anyway, we sail to Calais and from there we travel to Paris for tribute…”

  I froze. I tried to blink, but Christ in heaven, I couldn’t.

  Blink, please, sodding blink.

  Because it was true: The Moon Cult sailed around France nicking virgins to sacrifice on the full moon, which risked exposing our whole species to the light. Why? To feed their Blood God.

  Abso-bloody-loutely not.

  I exploded to life, buzzing head-to-toe again. I had a choice: prey or predator. And I’d just made it.

  I’d no longer be the sodding prey.

  When I broke the kiss, Kathy scrutinized me. Shadows darkened her eyes, whilst tiny lines traced their edges. I frowned at the reminder that she aged and wasn’t eternally mine. What I had to do next suddenly became a thousand-fold harder. Except, she knew me well enough to guess what I was going to say, even before I opened my mouth.

  “Don’t forget the dawn,” Kathy’s voice was hushed and reverent, as a single pearl tear stole down her cheek, and the moon caught it.

  She unpinned the poppy from her scarf, pushing it through the top button of my leather jacket.

  It was a goodbye: Kathy and I both knew it.

  I licked Kathy’s salty tear away, drinking my Moon Girl. “I can’t, love, that’d mean forgetting you.”

  Then I dove into the black.

  Neither Blood Lifer — Maverick nor Exitus — were stealthy through the town, even though they were robbing it of its innocence. They swaggered through cider- and mussel-drenched streets with all the arrogance of dark heroes.

  So, I wasn’t the hero, but I wasn’t the villain. That’s something, right? I was the sneaky prowling predator because First Lifers couldn’t recognize either their deliverance or their destruction when it bit them on the arse, and when all this was over, I’d bite their mayor so hard on the arse that he howled.

  I grinned as I stalked after the Blood Lifers towards the marina. The crash of the waves beat rhythms through my brain, as they bobbed the yachts like toys. The moon shot a beam, as if a lighthouse, across the ocean, only there was nothing but jagged rocks at its end.

  Both Maverick and Exitus swung themselves up the side of a yacht. I gasped at the violent fluttering of the sail, which was painted with a crimson Komodo dragon: The symbol of the Blood God. My hands tightened into fists. Then I scuttled over to a rope that was looped at the edge of the harbor and slung it over my shoulder as I held my breath against the stench of mackerel.

  I scoped out the yacht: no one was on guard. They were over-confident.

  I snatched a ladder that dangled over churning water. It was, however, also furthest from the main ramp. The breeze swung the ladder backwards and forwards — slam — there went my fingers against the hull — slam — my forehead — slam — hip.

  Christ in heaven, I hated ladders.

  I twisted my hands around the rope and hauled myself up, one unsteady rung at a — slam — time.

  Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t sodding look…

  My foot slipped. One moment I was balancing on wet rope, and the next only air. Then I was falling, with the breath knocked from me and…oomph.

  I slammed my arms over the lip of the deck as if I was holding onto life itself. Panting, I scrabbled. My arse had caught on the ladder, and my feet swung mid-air. Inch by painful inch, I pulled myself up and lay on my back, puffing like a landed fish.

  I shoved up onto my knees. The yacht was an expanse of mahogany and gleaming white. I sidled to the steps that curved down to the cabins. Yet there was nothing but silence.

  Babies bawled, didn’t they? Why was it so quiet? If I was too late…

  I’d only taken two steps down into the shadows when voices erupted above.

  Panic…slashing silver knives…scarlet, scarlet, scarlet…

  I shivered, trying to force down the memory of the terror from my past that I hadn’t told Kathy and couldn’t forget.

  When I’d been newly elected and still a blushing virgin (if what Wakefield and others had forced on me didn’t count to the Blood Gods because it hadn’t been willing), I’d been kidnapped as a sacrifice. My Author Ruby had saved me that time in a tempest of carnage, but not before I’d been slashed open and bled…

  How could I tell the woman that I loved that I’d hesitated to save the humans because I’d once been the sacrifice and was frightened of becoming it again, even if I was far from still being a virgin?

  Trapped below stairs, the roof pressed closer, as the voices became louder. I couldn’t breathe. When I clawed at my throat, my fingers brushed the poppy, and Kathy burst like…freedom, coffee, a long stretch of road on my Triton…like life. And I wasn’t alone.

  I had Kathy.

  It turns out that I needed Kathy to be a predator.

  The voices were coming from downstairs now. I wrenched open the door behind me, slipping into the cabin. Resting my forehead against the cool wood, I breathed out. Then I held my breath.

  Behind me, there were three tiny heartbeats — beat, beat, beat…

  I twisted around, before wrinkling my nose against the tang of urine and powdered milk. Silver candles, shaped like Komodo, lit the nursery, the flames their flickering tongues. I traced along the antique cot, which was an oak-carved fairy tale, big enough for three.

  It booted me in the gut then: how many babies had lain in both their cradle and their grave? How many years of human tribute and sacrifice had there been, whilst these bastards sailed port to port?

  I leaned closer: two dark-haired babies with matching gold-print tunics, and next to them in orange…Joelle.

  When two blue eyes snapped open, fixing on mine, I flinched. “Papa!” Joelle kicked her legs; the blood-red blanket slipped. More urgent this time, as she twisted side-to-side, Joelle cried, “Papa!”

  I stroked the soft tufts of Joelle’s white-blonde hair, as Kathy had when we’d first seen Joelle in her pram: when she’d been safe with her mum.

  I wasn’t cooing. I bloody wasn’t.

  Yet when I snatched away my hand, Joelle grasped my forefinger. Joelle’s own surprisingly strong fingers curled around mine, as she squealed in delight.

  I stared at where our hands joined. I quivered with a rush of…feeling.

  Humanity.

  Why had I hesitated to save Joelle? To save any of them?

  I gently pulled my finger out of Joelle’s grasp, before smiling at the other two kids, who were blinking awake now. I hadn’t forgotten that babies bawl. “Alright, brats, let’s get you out of here.”

  I hoisted Brat Number One up onto my shoulder; she snuffled wetly into my leathers like she was searching for a teat. Brat Number Two was slung gingerly onto my other shoulder; she burped as if I was winding her.

  I stared down helplessly at Joelle, who was left alone — like a sacrifice — amidst the red of the cot. She smiled up at me, clutching the bottom of my jacket, as if to hold onto me. When I pulled away, and the jacket slipped from her hands, Joelle frowned, and her lip trembled.

  I paused at the door. “I’ll come back for you, I promise. And I don’t break promises.”

  I wasn’t mad; I knew that Joelle couldn’t understand. But here’s the thing: some words are important enough to say out loud.

  I listened until I could hear nothing but a dead silence, before I risked opening the door and shuffling up on top with the brats held close. The trick was not to suffocate the babies in the leather; the drag of Brat Number One pulling on the poppy (or sucking on it with her teething gums) became a warning system.

  Slipping on the deck, I glanced at the rope ladder. There was no way that I could risk that as my escape method now I had little ones in tow. Who knew that having babies could make your life more difficult?

  I could stroll out the main ramp…? But even these wankers weren’t that daft.

  I hefted the rope on my shoulder and sighed.

  Bloody hell…

  The babies kicked like upturned lobsters when I lay them on the slippery side. I looped the coils around, tying knots. I hadn’t forgotten how to climb, but climbing down the side of a yacht with two babies…?

  I always did like a challenge.

  I tied off the end on the boat, before clasping the soft bundles and binding them to me. It felt intimate: A bonding. The human babies were mine because I’d saved them. Wasn’t that how it worked? Now I could offer Kathy the one thing that I’d failed all these years to give her because I was a monster, rather than a man.

  We could be a family.

  Lightheaded with joy, I paused and grinned, clutching at the side before swinging over.

  Time to save my family.

  At the jolt against the hull, the two brats wailed. I didn’t have a hand free to comfort them but instead muttered nonsense words — and no, that’s not sodding cooing — as I abseiled down. I couldn’t glance up to see if the dark heroes had heard the muted cries or clangs. I simply kept on balancing the babies and struggling against the sea breeze, until…

  Dry land. I could’ve snogged it. Instead, I unraveled the ropes. “I should call you the Bond babies.”

  “Does that make you 007?”

  “Bloody hell.” I almost dropped the brats as I spun around. Kathy stood on the dock with a giant pram. I smiled. “Only if you’re Mary Poppins.”

  I lay the brats next to each other in the pram, before pulling the soft wool blanket over them against the chill. They gurgled and blew bubbles, whilst I ran my hand over each of their heads in turn.

  They were safe and they were mine.

  I loved the way that my shoulder rubbed against Kathy’s, as we both looked at the babies.

  When I straightened, I eyed the pram, which must be nicked, of course. I’d be having words with Kathy later and I couldn’t wait to see her face when I repeated her words outside the antique shop back at her. I sniggered.

  Except, when I turned to Kathy, her face was ashen, and her eyes blazed. Bleeding hell, she’d just had to watch my descent down the side of a yacht…with two babies tied to me.

  I screwed shut my eyes, waiting for the slap. When it didn’t come, I tentatively opened them again. To my surprise, Kathy was gnawing at her lip, as if she expected me to be furious at her.

  I gave her a long, serious look, and she quailed.

  Almost.

  Then I grinned, twirling Kathy around, and then we were snogging. I needed that: the taste of Kathy and to know that she’d joined me on this mission because she never allowed me to be alone.

  We were predators together.

  When I drew back, Kathy wouldn’t let go of my hands, holding on so tightly that my knuckles ached. “Cheers, love.”

  Kathy gave a specter of a smile, before she nodded towards the pram. “Where’s the third?”

  My gaze dropped. “I have to go back.”

  Kathy tugged me towards her, and this time she was kissing me. Hard, punishing, and despairing. As if she was trying to lose herself in me, except that I was already lost in her. When she pulled back, resting our foreheads together, her eyes were wet. “I thought that I’d lost you, and now you want to…?”

  “I made a promise.”

  She gripped my hands between hers, even as her thumbs caressed my knuckles in gentle circles. “I always knew that you were good, but the problem is you like to hide it.”

  Awkwardly, I shrugged. “Blood Lifer here.”

  “And what’s that mean?”

  I pushed the pram further into the dark mouth of an alleyway. “You take our little ones back, alright? No arguments. I’ll save Joelle, whilst you pack.”

  Kathy blinked. “Our little ones?”

  I stiffened, before attempting for casual. “Don’t say I never give you anything.”

  Kathy’s look was brittle, as she pulled away from me. “They’re going back to their real families. They’re not ours to keep. We don’t just take. You made a promise to never steal again.”

  There was a sudden hissing inside my mind, which was so loud that I shook my head like a mutt. It snaked through my body, until I craved to curl sobbing on the crab stink of the harbor floor. “I’m not stealing. Their wanker families lost them. The humans didn’t look after, want, or save the babies — I did.”

  “Do you really reckon that’s true?” Kathy’s gaze was hard and searching.

  I flushed. Buggering hell, I wished that it was.

  Why couldn’t I — we — have this? Why couldn’t I give this to Kathy? I scuffed at a decaying mullet; its guts burst open in a foul squelch. “But you want them,” I whispered.

 

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