Page 6 of Blood Bonds

Dennis began shaking his head, panic washing over him as if he could see his imminent death looming over him, as though the man in front of him was the reaper.

“Mr. Erebus, please…”

“That is not the name I want, Dennis,” he interrupted in a hard tone that spoke of pain.

As soon as Dennis opened his mouth again, the man named Erebus struck him so quickly it was a blur of motion. One second the man had been ready to speak, and the next his face was busted up to a bloody mess.

“Now that is an enticing color on you, one I will gladly rid you of if you do not give me what I want,” Erebus warned, making me frown in question. What did he mean by ridding him of his blood?

This was when the man really started to freak out, struggling harder against the two that had him held to the wall by his arms. Something the man in charge didn’t take kindly to because he suddenly had Dennis’s throat in his hand and was lifting him up by one arm. Fuck me, how strong must he be to be able to do that?!

The beaten man began to choke, grasping desperately at the hand at his throat, but even I could see that it was useless. Erebus must have had enough because mere moments later, he dragged the dangling man closer to him and snarled a single word.

“Name!”

Dennis must have given up what Erebus wanted because I watched his lips move but didn’t hear what he said, then the cruel hand of the devil let go of his neck, making him crumble to the floor. As soon as this happened, Dennis took his chance and started running. The problem with that was that he started running toward me, making my mouth drop in shock. But then the man in charge simply grinned, rolled his large shoulder and told the others,

“Oh, how I do love it when they give chase.”

Then the unbelievable happened and my night of horror really twisted into the stuff of nightmares. He moved so fast, my eyes couldn’t track the fantastic and implausible movements before he was suddenly on Dennis like some supernatural being. And was that smoke coming off him?

The formidable Mr. Erebus was behind him in a blink of an eye and grabbing him with a fist to the top of his head, practically tearing out his hair as he wrenched it to the side.Then the most shocking thing of all happened. Mr. Erebus sunk his lengthening fangs into Dennis’s jugular and bit down into his flesh like some fucking Vampire!

This time my shock became something tangible enough to hear because a gasp of sheer terror escaped me like a personal traitor bent on having me killed.

Glowing silver eyes looked up at my yell while he fed from the man, and they found my frightened ones staring back at him in horror. This was when he extracted his fangs from Dennis’s neck, the blood dripping down in long ropes of crimson as it dripped to the floor.

Then he grinned.

It was the most evil sight I had ever seen in my life and finally…fucking finally… it was enough to make me run! So, without waiting to see if he followed, I pushed away from the dumpster and started running. My quick-fire plan being if I could just make it to the road, then my hope was that someone passing would scare off my pursuer.

But that didn’t happen because he suddenly commanded,

“Stop!”

And for some insane reason, I did as he ordered, as if he had just pulled on some invisible cords attached to my limbs.

What the fuck?!

Why had I stopped?!

Jesus, did I want to fucking die!?

Well clearly, I had walked away from the fortune teller with a death wish… unless… had this moment been the one she had seen in my future? But if that was the case, then why the fuck had she not warned me?!

The questions fled me the moment I felt him approach slowly from behind, making me flinch and suck in a frightful breath the second he laid his heavy hands on my shoulders. Christ, he felt like a brick wall at my back. A solid, unmoving presencethat made me feel like some tiny insignificant creature in his presence.

“Now what do we have here then?” he asked, his tone full of dark amusement, like a cat toying with a mouse for fun. Then I felt him lean down, his bloody lips close to my skin, and my entire body basically turned to stone. But instead of biting me just as he had done with the other man, he breathed me in deep and muttered the last word I would have expected coming from his sinister lips.

“Mmm… peaches.”

I shuddered under his hands, and he chuckled at my back. I then felt something drip down my neck and the revulsion rippled through me at the thought of the other man’s blood. Then his hands left me, and I let out the first breath I could take since he’d caught me. However, if I thought that this was him letting me go, I was mistaken.

He walked around me like the predator he was, only stopping when he was standing in front of me. And Jesus fucking Christ, if I thought he looked big from far away, then now he looked like a fucking giant!

It was a comical sight, no doubt, as my eyes rose up and up and up some more until finally coming to his face. A face I was only barely brave enough to witness as I got my first real look at the man who would most likely become my killer. Holy shit, did he really have to be the most handsome man I had ever seen in my entire life?!

How the hell was that fair?!

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