Blood Rebel [COMPLETED]

Blood Vengeance - Preview

The black crystal waves crashed onto the shore, shattering in a million pieces around Selene's wet trainers, her feet sinking into the dark sand. As she watched the sea break over the beach, the relentless tidal motion overwhelmed her. The vast expanse of ocean, the rolling clouds overhead, the wind that whipped strands of her hair about her face: all were greater than she would ever be, and she bowed her head in deference.

In front of her Virgil and Xander pulled a small wooden rowing boat onto the shore, and as they heaved its belly onto the sand, the grey clouds overhead burst and rain began to fall.

"Welcome to the Isle of Epershand," grunted Virgil as he dragged the boat up beside some rocks that would partially cover it if anyone looked down from the cliffs above.

Selene's legs shook beneath her and she turned and moved further onto the beach, where her thighs crumpled into her knees and she fell on the sand with a dull thud. For a moment she was completely still, listening to the sound of the wind, the birds, the roar of the sea at her back.

Her mouth was dry and parched, and she had been hungry for so long now that she no longer knew what she was, but she was so far beyond the human concerns of thirst and hunger that she was probably delusional.

In fact, she was definitely delusional. By the light of the stars, as Xander and Virgil had rowed the boat they had stolen from a small fishing town on the north coast of Scotland, she had let her eyes close and Hector's face hovered before her: a vision of perfection.

It was so real she felt she could smell him, hear him telling her he loved her. But the dream was ruined when Xander shook her awake, admonishing her for being too loud, shouting Hector's name into the darkness. Xander had given her that scowl he usually did when she mentioned Hector; the one that made her feel like crying. The one that showed both his pain and his anger all at once.

But of course Hector came up in conversation, because she carried part of him with her. His human soul rested, cradled within her. After Hector's disintegration it had set up a permanent ache, a throb, in her chest, which she had almost learnt to ignore, all these weeks later.

She let the sand hold her pain, feeling it mould to her body, her legs, her hips, her breasts. She stretched out her fingers, mixing them in the grains as the rain made them thick and heavy.

"Selene."

She heard her name over the bellow of nature's chorus, wind and sea, but did not have the energy to respond. She knew Xander would come to her, so she lay with her cheek resting on the beach, knowing her hair would be full of sand when she stood up.

"Selene, we can't stay out here. It's exposed. It looks like there's a cave just along the shore. Get up."

"I can't."

"Yes you can. We've come so far, Selene. We're close now."

"Close to what?" She asked, raising her head and looking at him out of one eye.

Xander pressed his lips together, sucking them into his mouth.

"I don't know," he admitted, finally.

"Close to the Stanley Brothers' House of Whores, my friends," said Virgil, slapping Xander on the back and smiling. How on earth he managed to make a joke, to look even vaguely cheerful at a time like this, was beyond Selene. But because he had tried, because he had injected that energy into his voice, because he had smiled, she sat up and brushed some of the sand from her arms and legs.

Xander's curly dark hair was quickly becoming wet, rain twisting it into ringlets that dripped down his neck. A thick beard grew over his chin; the result of weeks of not shaving. Virgil, by contrast, had continued to shave with a knife he kept sheathed in his boot; but every time Selene saw him use it over his neck, curving it round his jaw, she shuddered, seeing how close it ran to the skin, hearing the bristles scrape beneath its blade.