Dried Blood On Concrete Novels & Stories

"Now, we focus. Save mate." I could hear moans and whimpers from the wounded – a worrying discord. I bounded around the final corner, skidded to a halt near a tree, and there lay my mate—unconscious, teetering on the brink of death's clutches. The metallic tang of Brock's blood filled the air, heavy and pungent, mingling with the earthy scent of soil. The ground was now a vivid canvas of red, stark against the greenery of the forest floor. The blood from Brock's wound created a striking contrast, forming a gruesome testimony to the seriousness of his injury. The crimson hue spread out in jagged patterns, seeping into the earth, and staining the once pristine ground with a chilling reminder o

Each step felt like moving through quicksand, my body suddenly leaden with dread. When I pushed open the bathroom door, the scene before me stopped my heart. The tub—that massive marble tub with its gold fixtures that had made Emma's eyes light up with childlike wonder—was empty of her presence but full of evidence of violence. The water still filled it nearly to the brim, but instead of crystal clear, it was stained a diluted red, like watercolour paint bleeding across a canvas. The scent of her blood hung heavy in the humid air, mixed with something chemical and wrong. On the marble floor, a small puddle of water had formed, with partial wet footprints leading away—too large to be Emma's.

I could tell this was where Leonidas and his wolves usually shifted, there was a pattern to it, a rhythm in the dirt, like a trail of their animal instincts left behind. My boots crunched softly as I followed the path. The claw marks led deeper into the trees, almost vanishing at one point, until something caught my eye. Blood. A smear of it, dark red against the pale dirt. I crouched down slowly and touched the edge of the stain, pressing my fingers gently into the dried surface. It wasn’t cold yet. Still damp around the middle which meant it was still fresh. And definitely vampire blood.

I arrived after she left. The parking lot was dark. The body was still there, pieces of it, scattered across the pavement. Blood everywhere. The smell was thick, metallic, clinging to the back of my throat. I worked fast. First, the blood. I had a spray bottle in my trunk, industrial strength, the kind that breaks down proteins on contact. I sprayed the pavement where she had stood, where the blood had pooled, where her paws had left prints. I scrubbed with a brush, rinsed with water from a jug, sprayed again. I wiped down the places where she had touched. The car door of Felix's vehicle. The ground where his body had fallen.

I whispered, clutching the toy to my chest. “Raziela?” Diane’s voice sounded far away, like she was speaking through water. I forced myself to examine the ground more carefully, and my blood turned to ice. Dark droplets marred the stone near where the toy had fallen. Blood. “Oh goddess,” I breathed, touching one of the spots. It had fully dried and darkened, which meant it had been here a while.”

He pressed his fingertips to the concrete. His blood had been here. He couldn't see it anymore, it had been four days, and whatever facilities management protocol St. Catherine's used had presumably addressed the obvious evidence, but the ghost of it was still present in the molecular record that paint and cleaning solution couldn't fully erase. He knew his own blood the way he knew his own heartbeat. That was his. That stain, slightly darker than the surrounding concrete, roughly two meters from the drainage grate. That was where he'd been lying. And overlaid on it, threaded through it, caught in the porous surface of the concrete like something pressed between pages…

I stepped over a fallen archway and entered. My foot crunched onto broken tiles, and immediately I saw it—dark stains pooled at the center of the cracked floor, almost too old to be noticed unless you looked closely. I knelt down. The stains weren’t just dark; they were deep. Almost etched into the floor itself. Blood. Old blood. Dried and yet… still holding its shape. My breath caught as I brushed my fingers over it. The texture was grainy, sticky with age. Not paint. Not rust. It was blood. And it had formed into something.

“It’s okay, Knox.” I shouldn’t have let that car get ahead of me. By the time I… by the time I pulled myself together and started looking again, I found this.” He gestured down. I followed his hand—and my stomach clenched violently. A streak of dark brown liquid drying into the cracked pavement. Blood.

Without hesitation, they descended. The basement was a nightmarish laboratory. Cracked glass containers lined the walls, their contents long gone but leaving behind sinister stains. At the far end of the room, a large, empty pool dominated the space. The dried blood coating its surface glinted under the dim lights. Rowan’s gaze fell on the massive blood pool, bigger than an Olympic-sized pool, his stoic expression tightening. The dried blood clinging to its surface shimmered faintly, the metallic stench making the air almost unbreathable. His sharp eyes caught strange carvings etched into the stone surrounding the pool. The symbols seemed to pulsate faintly, emanating a sinister energy.

Darius's POV The blood had dried brown against the stone floor of the apartment. I had made sure of it. Not too much, not too little. Just enough to suggest injury without confirming death. A few drops near the bed. A small smear on the wall. A torn strip of fabric from her gown, stained dark, left near the edge of the clearing where the hounds would find it. Lucian would find it. I was almost certain.