by Katie May
surprised to see absolute hatred reflecting back at me. Maybe she wasn’t as
much of a sheep as I suspected. Maybe she had the makings to be a lion.
“What?” she snapped, jaw clenching.
“Help me down to my basement.” My smile grew as the color drained
from her face. She—more than any of my servants—knew what lurked at the
bottom of my house. “I need to raise more of my monsters.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Z
“M omma!” I cried, reaching my arms out as if I could
grab her and hold her to me. Tears burned my retinas
as I witnessed something no child should ever see.
The Shifters’ faces were etched into the skin behind my eyelids. When I
closed them, they were all I could see.
One was burly with midnight black hair, teal-colored eyes, and a tattoo of
a dragon climbing up his neck.
Another had blond hair so light it was almost white. He too had a tattoo,
but his rested on his muscular forearm. From my position beneath the couch,
I couldn’t decipher what it was. A tree, perhaps? A garden? It was decidedly
plant-like in appearance.
The third was handsome in a traditional, aristocratic type of way. With
sharp cheekbones, a strong jawline, and long lashes, he could’ve been a
fairytale prince incarnate. He didn’t participate with the other two. Instead,
he was content to lean against the wall and watch, an indolent smirk on his
face.
“Momma!” I cried again, my tiny hand stretching forward feebly. The
normally vibrant light in her eyes was beginning to dim. A single tear
cascaded down her cheek before her body went still. I didn’t understand it at
that age.
Had she given up? Why wasn’t she fighting back? Why wasn’t she
blinking?
My little brain couldn’t comprehend the aspect of death. The finality of it.
People left all the time, but they always came back. Always. Just the other
day, Daddy left the house to retrieve supplies, but he came back only two
days later with my favorite ice cream.
“Mommy?” I whispered, my voice breaking. She stared back at me with
vacant, unseeing eyes.
The third Shifter kneeled until he was eye-level with me, his cheek
practically against the ground.
“Little girl, why don’t you come out and play with us?”
Behind him, the other two men leered maliciously.
“I just want my mommy and daddy,” I sobbed, my heart splintering. It
was the first time I had ever broken. At the time, I hadn’t realized that was
what the gaping hole in my chest was. I hadn’t realized how difficult it would
be to sew myself back together, to find the pieces that had been lost that day.
“I’ll be your new daddy,” he told me. The interest in his eyes turned to
avarice. “I’ll always find you.”
The Shifter extended a hand, his smile growing, but before I could accept
it, his features twisted, becoming someone else entirely. His chestnut hair
turned black, and his smooth face became wrinkled with age. Those hard,
cruel eyes shifted from a bright shade of amber to an emerald green. When
he smiled, the crinkles around his eyes became more pronounced.
I was no longer underneath the couch. Instead, I was seven years old,
hiding in an alleyway behind a bakery as I searched for food.
“You’re okay now,” he promised, extending a hand. “My name is A, and
I’m going to take care of you.”
The vision changed abruptly.
Now, I was twelve years old, kneeling on the edge of a roof. A was on one
side of me, and B was on the other. Over the years, I had begun to think of A
as my father. He couldn’t replace my true dad, but he was slowly refilling the
numerous cracks in my heart.
“Steady hand,” A instructed as B languidly reclined on the roof next to
me.
I lifted my dagger, trying to control the involuntary tremor coursing
through me.
“Aim,” A continued as B yawned dramatically.
I focused on my target—a thirty-five-year-old Genie with greasy brown
hair and violet eyes.
“Fire.”
Without preamble, I threw the dagger with painstaking accuracy. It
landed in the Genie’s forehead, and he immediately dropped to the ground,
dead. The Nightmares nearby began to cry and scream, but A was already
pulling me back towards the portal B had created.
“You were phenomenal, my daughter,” he praised, slapping me on the
back.
Together, we stepped through the portal, and the two men dematerialized
like clouds of smoke. In their place was S.
“You going to cry over your ex forever?” he teased, knocking me with his
shoulder. I rolled my eyes playfully, but my stomach twisted into dozens of
knots when I thought about Lin. It was an invisible scar, one only Mali was
privy to.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” I murmured, turning on my heel to
smile up at him. “Now, are we going to train or are you going to continue
staring at my ass?”
“How can I stare at your ass when I’m facing forward?” he joked.
“Wouldn’t I be staring at your tits?”
I swatted him with the back of my hand, a laugh escaping unbidden.
“You’re such a pervert, S.”
“And you love it.”
Suddenly, we were no longer in the compound I had come to love. We
were at the edge of the woods, a scream lodged in my throat as I watched a
Shifter tear at S’s throat. I screamed in anguish as blood squirted from the
gashes on his neck.
No. No. No.
Don’t leave me.
Everyone always leaves me.
S stared at me hopelessly, the same glint in his eyes I had seen in my
mother’s before she’d died years ago.
I tried to crawl towards him, but my injuries prohibited any and all
movement.
“No,” I croaked out, grasping at the leaves. Rain pounded down around
us, obscuring my vision. “No!”
It was supposed to be a simple mission. Find the Shifter responsible for
raping and killing two dozen women and kill him. But while we had been
hunting him, he had been hunting us.
The Shifter turned towards me, his features as handsome as they were
when I was a child. I had killed the other two, but he… he had always evaded
me.
“I told you that I’ll always find you,” he whispered as he brought his
claws to S’s throat.
“No!” I screamed as the forest changed to the throne room in the
Capital. I spun towards the thrones, only to freeze when I noticed the
occupants sitting lazily on the huge chairs.
Bash’s head lolled to the side as he slept, his breathing even. Killian sat
in the throne directly beside him, shirtless with his tattoos on full display.
Was that a…?
“When did you get a nipple ring?” I questioned, staring intently at the
silver bulb piercing his left nipple. He turned towards me with cold eyes.
“Do I know you?” he asked darkly.
“She’s cute enough,” Jax drawled, a hint of fang poking his bottom lip.
“I’ll suck her dry.”
“Stop teasing the
girl,” Ryland snapped as the shadows pressed in on all
sides of him, stealing the light from the room.
“But it’s fun,” Dair threw in. There was something in his smile I had
never seen before. Something...evil. He stared at me as if he couldn’t wait to
stick a knife into my neck. It went beyond vengeance, beyond anger. It was
hatred.
“Enough!” Lupe’s strident voice cut through the mutters like the crack of
a whip. He rose to his feet, his lumbering frame making me feel small and
dainty. “We don’t talk to humans. They’re scum. They’re nothing.”
“I’m your mate,” I pleaded, tears blurring my eyes. When all of them
began to laugh, I tried again. “You love me.”
“Why would we ever love you?” Devlin asked coldly, stroking his lamp.
“What makes you so special?”
“I don’t feel any lust when I look at you,” Killian purred, gripping his
crotch in a vulgar manner.
“Nothing to be envious of,” Dair added.
“I’m not greedy to have someone like you as a mate,” Devlin said
harshly.
“I wouldn’t be proud to have you on my arm.” The shadows tightened
around Ryland with each word he spoke.
“Killing you wouldn’t make me wrathful,” Lupe threw in. “It would make
me...glad.”
Bash continued to snore away, oblivious to the conversation happening
around him.
Jax stood as well, stalking forward until he was directly in front of me.
His eyes were solid red, no white or black to be seen. They were the eyes of a
demon—the eyes of a monster.
“Jax…” I wanted to touch his cheeks, to trace the contours of his
handsome, beautiful face. He was alive. He was in front of me. He wasn’t
dead. “Jax—”
Before I could finish my sentence, he shoved his fist in my chest. I could
feel his hand around my heart, crushing the sensitive organ with each press
of his fingers. A cold, malevolent grin lit up his face. “I am gluttonous for
your blood. To drain you dry until you’re nothing but a husk.”
With a harsh laugh, he ripped my heart from my chest.
And…
And I died.
THIRTY-EIGHT
DEVLIN
“W hy isn’t she waking up?” I demanded, pacing the
room. I rounded on Bash who was perched on the edge
of her bed. “And why the fuck didn’t you tell us about
the poison sooner?”
Poison.
Coursing through my mate’s body.
Killing her.
I couldn’t focus on that. Wouldn’t. If I did, I would go insane.
Fuck.
This entire day had been a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Jax had died.
Died. His heart had stopped beating.
Even from a distance, I could see the life drain from his eyes. Blood had
coated his shirt and Z’s hands. My brother—my best friend—had died.
And then, he was alive again.
I didn’t know how to describe it. Light seemed to emit from Z’s pores
like a golden sheen. I’d had to close my eyes against the sheer brilliance of it.
So. Much. Power.
When my eyes finally readjusted, I watched Jax’s chest rise and fall
steadily as his eyes popped open. It shouldn’t have been possible. The world
worked because the dead stayed dead. Not even Nightmares were immune to
it.
We had carried Z’s unconscious body back to the car, and Dair had
quickly driven us away.
Away from the Gargoyles that had been reduced to piles of stone.
Away from the blood that soaked the front steps of the mansion.
Away.
Away.
Away.
It was only when we’d arrived at an inn on the outskirts of the city did
Bash disclose the truth about Z.
She was dying.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Killian rambled, forking his fingers through his
dark red hair. “She was able to bring Jax back to life. How come she can’t
heal herself?”
“Because the poison was given to Zack by Aaliyah,” Bash responded
tiredly. His eyelids drooped with exhaustion. He had been attempting to heal
her for hours now, and I could see the effects it had on him. Dark shadows
marred the skin beneath both his eyes, and his face appeared haggard.
“How long?” Lupe growled, eyes flashing amber. He—more than any of
us—was having trouble controlling his sin. Controlling his Wrath.
“How long what?” Bash sounded resigned, as if he already knew what
Lupe was going to ask before he asked it.
“How long have you known about the poison?”
“I suspected it after the fight with the Kraken when I’d first healed her,”
he admitted. “I was only able to confirm my suspicions after the Basilisk
attack.”
Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t Lupe who lost his shit. It was Dair.
The normally gentle and kind man rolled his chair—which Ryland had
stolen from a local human hospital—closer until he was directly in front
Bash.
“You fucking asshole!” he hissed, punching Bash square in the face. The
Mage’s head whipped to the side, blood dripping from his nose, but he didn’t
raise a hand to fight back. It was almost as if he thought he deserved it.
Which he did, of course.
But the beating would come after he healed our mate.
“Enough!” I snapped, stepping between them. Dair trembled with barely
contained fury, eyes spitting hate. When he looked as if he wanted to punch
Bash again, I placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him, imploring with my
eyes for him to trust me. “Enough.”
Dair’s sea-blue eyes locked with my violet ones, and the air around us
practically crackled with electricity. It was a battle of wills, each of us
attempting to assert our dominance.
And while Dair was strong, he was no leader. That role had always been
reserved for me.
With a growl, Dair turned away, focusing his vitriol instead on the
hideously patterned carpeting.
“Fighting will get us nowhere,” I said to the room at large. Ryland was
balancing on the windowsill while Killian leaned against the wall beside him.
With Lupe, Dair, and Bash around Z’s bed, the only person we were missing
was…
“Where the hell is Jax?” I questioned.
Jax.
The dead man.
The not dead man.
As if he had been summoned, the door to the room was thrown open, and
a very naked Jax stepped inside. I exchanged a wary look with Lupe, who
was nearest to me, before focusing back on my Vampire brother.
“Blood runs red. Blood. So much blood. My blood. My. Blood.” He
grabbed at his light brown hair, pulling at the strands until they were sticking
out in all directions.
“What’s wrong with him?” Killian asked nervously. “When he was with
Aaliyah, he drank blood daily. He shouldn’t have the madness anymore.”
“It’s a different type of madness.” Ryland’s voice now came from the
desk sitting opposite the bed. “His brain has always been fragile, but with
everything that happened…”
“My blood doesn’t tingle anymore,” Jax whispered as Killian hel
ped him
into his pants. “My blood doesn’t tingle.”
“We don’t know what happened to him when he…” Lupe trailed off,
swallowing. “When he…”
“When he died,” Bash finished candidly, ignoring the fierce glare Lupe
threw his way. “We don’t know what Z’s magic did to him.”
“And we don’t know how her condition is affecting him,” Killian pointed
out as he helped Jax into his shirt.
“She’ll wake up,” Lupe asserted, softly brushing at her golden hair. She
looked so fucking beautiful, even when she was asleep. Her face was serene,
soft, and appeared years younger.
Fuck, I loved her. I loved her so damn much that it almost didn’t seem
real. This type of love shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t be possible. It destroyed
me in the best way.
And now, I might lose her.
“We need to find that bitch,” I growled out. “And demand that she give
us a cure.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” Bash drawled. “We only found
her before because she wanted to be found.”
“Then we’ll heal Z ourselves!” Lupe roared before taking a deep breath,
hands clenching and unclenching as he attempted to control his rage.
“What is she?” Ryland whispered, now appearing at the edge of her bed.
“She’s not human.”
“So she’s an alien?” Bash snarked, and this time, I didn’t stop Dair from
punching him in the face.
“Can’t you take shit seriously for once in your life?” Dair shouted, hands
balling into fists as if he wanted to hit the Mage again.
But when Bash released a self-deprecating laugh, voice heady with self-
loathing, Dair relaxed, loosening his muscles incrementally.
“If I don’t joke, I’ll fall apart. And if I fall apart, I don’t think I’ll ever get
put back together again.” He rose to his feet abruptly, eyes spewing lightning.
“I can’t fucking lose her. I can’t. I can’t.” He shook his head vigorously. “I
should’ve told you guys the truth sooner, but I didn’t want to break her trust.
She hates me, and I thought that maybe…” He turned towards her, his
expression for once unguarded. Without even being awake, she was capable
of breaking through all of his defenses. “I thought maybe she would come to
love me like she loves you guys.”
Silence ensued as we all processed his words. It was Dair who broke it