Blood And Thunder Audiobook Novels & Stories

His voice, thin, from somewhere near the back of the warehouse, past a row of stacked crates that threw long shadows under the one working overhead light. She was moving before she'd fully located him, Nico close behind her, and found her brother kneeling on the concrete with both hands pressed to a wound in a stranger's abdomen, his face gray, his shirt soaked through at the knees where he'd been kneeling in someone else's blood for however many minutes it had taken her to get here. "Move," she said, already dropping beside him, and he moved, scrambling back on his heels like the word had physically pushed him, relief and terror crossing his face in the same instant.

I woke with a gasp. The room was dark. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers. The window was black with the night. And the Book of Blood, which had been locked in the council hall, was open on my bedside table. I sat up slowly, my heart pounding. My hands were glowing faintly silver, just like Mirren's had when she first discovered her spirit-wolf. The light pulsed once, twice, then faded. The Book was open to the first page. The names of the bloodlines glowed faintly in the darkness, and I could feel them. All of them. The families who had been waiting. The survivors. The lost.

I said, and my voice didn’t shake nearly as much as I expected it to, “then I’m done running.” I pressed the blade into my palm. The first drop of blood hit the bowl. Every candle in the room exploded into silver flame at once, and the floor trembled beneath my knees like the castle itself had exhaled. ⸻ Far away, in a hall still stained with my blood from another kind of ceremony, Alpha Lucien Blackthorn clutched his chest and went to his knees without knowing why. His wolf tore through him with a roar that had no source, no enemy, nothing to fight but the impossible thought crashing through him all at once.

She launches at him again. His hand wraps around my throat. Squeezing it hard that I can't breathe. For a moment, I see his face. See the horror in his eyes as he realizes what he's doing. "Roselyn," he gasps. "I'm so sorry. I can't... I can't stop..." The sky above us fills with dark clouds. Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles. And somewhere in the distance, I hear screaming. Lots of people are screaming. The blood moon. The boiling river. The fight between wolf and vampire.

VALERIA The book fell from my hands and landed on the floor with a thud. The last time I was this petrified was when I was hiding, watching my parents being murdered. And I felt like because all things were pointing towards the same thing happening to me, getting killed by a werewolf that hated the existence of vampires for some reason. The feeling of someone touching my shoulder had me jerking away, triggering my instinct to fight. But it was just Marcello's concerned face that I saw when I turned. His eyebrows were furrowed as he observed me carefully, then he asked,

He positioned the cup beneath Alexander's wrist, then pressed his thumb against the inside of Alexander's elbow. I heard the sound of skin breaking. Alexander did not flinch, did not make a sound, but I felt his pain through the bond like a knife in my own chest. Blood began to flow from the wound, dark and thick, splashing into the cup with a sound that made my stomach turn. "Stop," I whispered. "Please. That is enough." Ragnar ignored me. The cup was filling slowly, the blood pooling at the bottom, rising up the sides. Alexander's face had gone pale, paler than usual, and I could see the tremor in his legs, the way he was leaning on me without meaning to.

But promise taketh no attention. Hours pass. No one speaks to me. Someone does not tell me why I am still alive. Hunger chews me, and anger burns still higher. I walk around the room, repeating all the words Dino said, all the glances he cast my way. Instead of being a threat, he is dangerous because he makes decisions. It is what is most horrifying to me. I am rudely awakened by the voice of shouting. Then gunfire erupts. Initially, I believed it to be my imagination, but the cracking noises became nearer and clearer. Bells ring in the estate, very strong and desperate. I go down to the window, and I find men running over the grounds with weapons up. Smoke curls into the air.

"Chester! If you've got the guts to leave, then don't ever come back! I'll be waiting to see you starve out there! Don't come crawling back to beg me when that happens!" I had just reached the bottom of the building, ready to run toward freedom, when a scream came from behind me. "You can leave, but the money stays!" I spun around. My dad and Brian were charging down the stairs like they had lost their minds. "You're my son! Your life belongs to me! That money does, too!" he roared, lunging straight for the backpack on my shoulders. Brian rushed in from the other side, reaching for my ticket. "No money, and you think you can run? Hand it over!"

Curious looks are thrown at me but I don't care. Nothing of human nature applies to Battista Cattaneo, AKA Ash Thunder. If Grant is a human, then Ash is a god, a hurricane, his nature unpredictable, the totality of his being as beautiful as it is understated, perilous, and unrelenting. A brave man who never fears the fire, never fears death. I craved the wills of the tempest when I sought him out but I didn't know the extent of the storm I was getting myself into as at the time.

Ragnar was struck by the Primordial Thunder again, his entire body stiffening as he crashed to the ground. "Arcturus' Primordial Thunder… and it's from the source." Ragnar's voice carried a hint of panic and deep, venomous hatred. His massive wolf body leaped several hundred feet away before he spoke harshly to Andrew. "Who exactly are you? What did the Highland Tribe do? Why would they let you possess Primordial Thunder?" As the words fell, Ragnar lowered his head and vomited massive amounts of blood, mixed with what looked like organs. Andrew said nothing and raised his sword to attack.