Tremors 5: Bloodlines Novels & Stories

I held her other hand, pinning it firm against the mattress. Her face tilted toward me, eyes red, lips trembling. “Then why does it feel like it is?” And for the first time in a long while, I had no answer. Only the sight of her blood on my hands, her body breaking beneath us, and the silence of a brother who would never walk back through that door. The towel Rick pressed into her palm was already soaking through, red blooming fast, dripping down his wrist. She wasn’t fighting anymore. The fight in her—wild, reckless, thrashing—just bled out with the glass.

My pulse is drumming so loud it’s all I can hear . “Animal blood didn’t work , did it?” I say softly. He shakes his head once, ashamed. I crawl forward on my knees. “Then take mine.” “No.” The word rips out of him like it hurts. “Adrian, look at me.” He forces his gaze up. The crimson is swallowing the silver again. “You’re shaking,” I say. “You’re dying all over again. I’m not watching that happen.” “I’ll kill you,” he whispers. “You won’t.”

"You still have one move, Ches, and that's to use the Overlord Bloodline you stole from me! If you don't, your organs will rupture from the inside from the shockwaves, even with your cockroach's carapace!" Bang! Ches was sent flying with another swing of the Overlord, and he tore a ten feet gash through the ground as he landed! "Woah!!!" Everyone watching was thrilled—they didn't think that Caleb was giving Ches a beatdown even with all the sweet toys he had! It was simply… unbelievable! Suddenly, Caleb was once again in the air above Ches. Blood God Order, Second Style—World Tremor! In a split second, the Overlord was unleashed at Ches with the terrible force of a world-splitting earthquake

Chapter 51: The Bloodline Strain The glass enclosure exploded into thousands of glittering shards. Laila threw her arms up, the silver skin on her forearms crackling as it deflected the flying debris. Through the cloud of crystalline dust, Elias stepped forward. His movements were jerky, unnatural, like a marionette being pulled by invisible, rusted wires. The violet fluid pulsing through the cables attached to his neck cast an eerie, sickly glow over his pale skin. He let out a sound that didn't belong to a human or a wolf, a digital, guttural roar that vibrated the metal floor plates under Laila's boots.

The wind howling through the Grey Peaks felt like the screams of a thousand vengeful spirits, matching the storm brewing in my own chest. I sat on the cold stone of the Altar of Purity, my fingers trembling as I brushed a lock of silver hair away from Leo’s pale forehead. He was so small, so innocent, and yet he was the center of a war that spanned generations. The blood from my palm—the silver, glowing ichor of the Moon Lineage—dripped onto the dark obsidian, sizzling like water on a hot stove. The pain was a distant hum, eclipsed by the sight of the woman standing at the edge of the torchlight.

Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of Rowan, nostrils flaring at the clear triad scent rolling off us. “Vale,” she said, voice measured. “Voss. The stories didn’t exaggerate. The pup carries both your lines cleanly. No… external taint.” I met her gaze directly. The old fear that once would have made me shrink was gone. “There is no external claim. Draven’s serum failed. The heir is ours. Any alliance acknowledges that reality.” Lira inclined her head, but her betas shifted uneasily. “Draven’s remnants are whispering. Offering favors to anyone who challenges the bloodline. We came to see truth for ourselves.”

"That's Crowe's. You broke his nose. That's his blood on you and you put it there." It helped and it didn't help. I turned on the tap and scrubbed my hands, which were also his, and watched the water run rust-colored and then pink and then clear, and my hands would not stop shaking, and somewhere in the middle of it the thing I'd been outrunning since a boy hit the concrete caught up with me all at once, and I gripped the edge of the sink and slid down the wall to the cold tile floor and shook. Not crying. Worse than crying. The full-body tremor of an animal that had been braced to die for sixteen hours and had, against all odds, not died, and did not know yet how to be a thing that lived.

Her hands curled into fists, though they trembled. “Varek,” she whispered. “Finally,” he drawled, stepping closer, the firelight glinting in his silver-steel eyes. “You and I… alone. Not my first time, you know—being with the Crimson bloodline.” The words dripped with venom and something worse: pride. Rhea’s eyes darted around, desperate. The fire’s glow flickered against something sharp—a charred branch resting in the flames. She snatched it, ash scattering as the hot wood seared her palm.

The instinct to protect what was his. Even from his own blood. Especially from his own blood. --- He tracked the scent to the east wing of the old house. The part no one used. Where the roof leaked and the floorboards remembered footsteps from decades ago. Elias was waiting. Of course he was. Men who left warnings in dead men's handwriting liked to watch them land. "She's dangerous." Elias didn't turn from the window. Below, the town moved through its morning, unaware. "The bloodline."