Forever Onyx
New York City. The steaming pile of filth that held not only the man I had come here to kill but the man the universe ever so comically saw fit to mate me with. I hated New York City.
My long black hair slid around my face and neck as I walked at a faster clip than anyone else on the street. There wasn’t any reason why I walked so quickly – my prey had already gone home for the night – but I couldn’t stop myself from moving with speed and efficiency. It was something I couldn’t turn off, something I had been trained to do since I first had conscious memory. I calculated my moves and always made the most efficient and effective ones. That is the way of a warrior.
My mate was close by; I could feel him. Not distractingly close but near enough that I could keep an eye on him, which I had done for the last year since I had discovered I even had a mate.
Like a fucking mother hen. I shook my head in disgust.
I had to keep an eye on him because the universe had chosen to mate me with a human. Of all the sad and pathetic creatures in the world, the universe had given me something that not only wasn’t immortal, but it also couldn’t take care of itself. Humans were basically just meaty little flesh bags with high functioning brains, wandering around hoping that a real apex predator didn’t come along and set its eyes on them.
His name was Ryker. Ryker Jones. I had met him at the airport the same day that I had arrived in New York myself. Again, the universe was full of cute little coincidences.
The moment I laid eyes on him, I had felt something different… something about his presence was all consuming. I chased him through the airport, probably looking like a mad woman, following his cropped blonde hair like a beacon through the crowds. When I finally caught up with him, to say I was disappointed would have been a colossal understatement.
No fangs, no claws, nothing. He was just a southern white boy getting off a plane from North Carolina and heading into the big city. I was devastated.
My mate should have been powerful and feared by all. He should have led men into battle and been called a beast. Just his presence should have sent those around him quivering. Instead, my mate was a golden boy, incapable of driving fear into even the weakest of vampires. Hell, the fae wouldn’t even have batted an eye at him.
When he sat to eat dinner, I took the booth behind him, listening to his phone conversation, thinking there must be something about him that made him worthy enough to be my mate. He had to have been a demon or a warlock. Something that appeared human… smelled human… but that held grave power deep inside. Maybe he was a great general that commanded legions.
Instead, I listened to forty-five minutes of him talking to his mother in a way that sounded more like talking her off the ledge. He appeared to be in his early thirties, but the way he was calming his mother down made him seem like he was fresh out of high school, trying to tell her he’d be all right living on a college campus. Humans, the slightest bit of time felt like an eternity to them because they had no real concept of immortality. Months passed by like minutes to me, but to him, it sounded like his entire family was in agony to be apart for such a short amount of time.
Apparently, he was looking for someone. He made promises of bringing ‘him’ back safely to everyone back home. They shared a joke about how ‘he’ was always getting himself into odd situations and that everyone was sure this would be no different, but the way Ryker’s back stiffened during the conversation made me feel like this was all just a show for his mother.
Ryker was a mama’s boy. I could hear it in his voice on the phone. He loved his mother, probably more than I loved anything in the world. To be fair, though, I had been raised to have nothing and no one. My life had belonged to assassins. I was born and raised to complete missions or die. Nothing else. No family, no love, and no kindness because kindness only bred weakness.
Speaking of weakness…
On and on, he had blathered about family and people from their home town. Apparently, small towns in the south gossiped a lot. They talked about church and what he would eat for Sunday dinners without his mother’s cooking. Disgusting. If he was on a mission to find someone, then the last thing on his mind should have been food. I had gone three weeks without blood when hunting a marked demon, but the poor little human would have to get his fried chicken from a restaurant instead of his mother’s kitchen. Someone should call up the U.N. for crimes against humanity.
Looking at him, well, the back of him, I decided he didn’t appear to be a bad specimen. For a human. His body was large, more than twice the size of my thin, Asian frame.
People liked to tell me I had “bird bones,” whatever the fuck that meant. If I had to describe my bones, I would have called them dragon bones because that’s what I was. A dragon who was going to burn down the entire universe for sticking her with this child as a mate.
Unconsciously, my feet began to pad in his direction now that I had brought up his memory. I could stop myself, but I didn’t.
It had been three days since I had seen him last, and something about this cursed bond made me ache if I didn’t keep in contact with him. Not for the first time, I wondered what would happen if I killed my own mate.
Could I do that? Would my body listen to me, or would it obey the bastard bond? Even thinking about it gave me a nauseated feeling, which told me the answer even if I didn’t want to hear it.
I was stuck with Ryker. Forever.
My boots smacked the pavement hard as I walked. Just because I was going to see him didn’t mean I was going to be happy about it. Muscly back or no muscly back, Ryker would always be just a human. Unless I changed him.
The thought had me gagging in my own mouth.
If I changed him, I was stuck with him forever. One man. One dick. For all eternity.
I scoffed out loud. It wasn’t like I was getting any other dick any time soon, so what did it matter? I didn’t trust anyone for long enough to even let them get their shirt off, let alone try and dick me down. The last time I had gotten laid, phones were still attached to cords, and if I wanted to use the internet, I had to go to the local library and wait for my turn at a computer like the rest of the schmucks.
Still though. Commitment was not really my thing. In fact, it was so far away from my thing that even thinking about it being my thing made me want to punch the smile right off Ryker’s stupid face.
My head snapped to attention as up ahead, I felt something was off. I could feel his emotions turning from his usually calm nonchalant demeanor to anger and… shock?
Something was wrong.
No matter how much shit I had talked about him, when I felt like he was in danger, my ass kicked it into gear, and I moved double time to get to him. Nobody was gonna fuck with my little flesh bag except for me.
Ryker was surrounded by five men… no… their eyes flashed black in the light – demons. They were closing in on him fast, and he didn’t seem to have a clue that he was dealing with anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t know the situation, but asking first wasn’t really my style. Neither was trying to keep the peace.
I was the bitch you called in when you were ready to fuck shit up, and fuck shit up is exactly what I had planned at the moment.
“Hey, shit face! Get away from that white boy!” I screamed from across the street.
The demons looked up in confusion, but no one looked more confused than Ryker. Of course, I realized that he didn’t know I had been following him for close to a year at this point. As far as he knew, we had only met one time, and that was at the airport when he noticed me and tried to strike up a conversation. Hitting on me, I guess, would have been a better way to describe it.
“Listen, honey, unless you’re selling group rates on blow jobs, I don’t think we really have much to talk to you about,” one of the men called out to me while the others cackled and high fived him.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. It wasn’t even that good of a burn.
“Blondie is with me. So, either fight me and hope you live, or walk away now with your lives,” I told them, speaking calmly. I knew what they would choose. It wasn’t hard to guess with their overly macho tone and the way they looked at me like I was a piece of meat.
I was small, and to demons, I always looked very weak. I only weighed one hundred and ten pounds. My hands and feet were child size. I had gone through this same song and dance a million times in my long centuries of life. Everyone thought they were the top dog.
What they didn’t realize was that if I wanted to, I could pick up one of the parked cars on the street as easily as I could a basketball and fling it right into their smug little faces. Demons were tough to kill – for a human, nearly impossible to kill – but this is what I was made for. I had been trained to kill demons until it became as easy to me as killing a spider.
Their howls of laughter annoyed me, but I tried not to let it affect my judgement. Pride had always been a sore subject of mine. I was prideful to a fault. It had fucked me over more than once in my life, but I still had trouble letting it go, no matter how stupid I knew it made me.
People with pride in their hearts made costly mistakes on the battlefield, I reminded myself. I had made more than one of those mistakes, but tonight would not be one of those times.
Did I want my mate? No.
Was I going to let one of these fucks have him? Double no.
“Ma’am,” Ryker called out to me, and I wasn’t sure if I was more horrified at the worry in his voice or the fact that that little shit had called me ma’am. “Ma’am, please don’t interfere. I have the situation under control. Don’t put your safety at risk.”
“Can it asshole,” I shot back, marching forward while drawing my sword.
The thugs in front of me were still laughing, discussing how they would violate me once they had knocked me out, but at least one of them looked at my blade seriously. If they stopped talking for one minute and recognized the blade I carried, they would recognize how fucked they were. This sword was given to the assassins hundreds of years ago by angels, at the height of the demon epidemic, and would cut through a demon as easily as any human. If they were smart, they would be worried, but these assholes didn’t have three braincells to rub together.
“One punch, and that bitch is going down, and I’m dragging her behind the dumpster,” one of them said and laughed.
“I’m calling dibs on her asshole,” another shot back and high fived the others as he spoke. “She’s not going to be able to sit down for a week.”
“Teach her fine little ass a lesson about staying in her lane,” yet another joined in, eyeing me like a predator. He was the only one who looked at me with sincerity, and something more… sinister. As if he had plans for me much darker than the other men he was with. Even if I hadn’t seen his eyes change, I would have known he wasn’t human. Humans couldn’t summon that much evil.
“Fight me, then.” I cocked a brow and laid down the challenge. “I’ll take all five of you at once.”
“Oh, you’ll be taking us all at once, all right.” They busted a gut, laughing at their grade school humor.
I wasn’t laughing though, and the amount of my time they were wasting was beginning to grate on my nerves. These guys were piss stains and wouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to hack through if they would quit showboating and get this thing on the road.
They started to circle around me, but Ryker, my little hero, was not a fan of this idea.
He charged at them, and the fight popped off into a mess of fists and weapons flying through the air.
At this point, I didn’t have time to worry about what I was hitting. If little Prince Charming wanted to get in my way, then he was just gonna have to take a hit like the rest of them.
My blade sunk through demon flesh like butter. This blade made them so damn fragile. The receiver of the first wound looked up at me in horror when he realized he actually felt the pain of the blade. It pierced through the human body he was possessing and reached the demon inside.
A howl of pain went up from one of the thugs, and he hit me hard across the face in retribution. But my head didn’t even snap back from the force of the blow. I may as well have been hit by a toddler. The same amount of force would have sent a human flying into the cars across the street. And when they saw my reaction to it, awareness began to dawn on them. They weren’t dealing with a human now, but it was far too late to back out of the fight.
“All that shit you talked, and that’s the best you can manage,” I growled at the insult of this fight. It wasn’t worth my time or my energy. If the human I bonded to wasn’t in danger, I wouldn’t have paid any of these pukes the slightest bit of attention.
“Yo, what is this bitch,” one of them remarked, backing away quickly, his eyes widening. “She’s not a demon, but what else could be strong enough to fuck with us?”
“I don’t think so, ass wipe.” I threw a knife from my inside pocket at him as he tried to run. “You started this fight; the least you can do is finish it.”
A wild sucker punch came from left field, but before it could land, a blur of blonde hair was in front of me, trying to take the blow for me.
“Get the hell out of the way!” I yelled, pushing at him. The last thing on earth I needed was a human taking my hits for me. “That fist is enough to crush your skull in. Are you trying to die?”
“You get out of the way, lady! Are you crazy or what?” Ryker screamed, a little testy at my lack of a thank you.
Better get used to it, flesh bag, I thought to myself as my elbow connected with someone’s nose before I whirled and shoved my blade up under his chin and into his skull. The last thing I ever needed in life was someone trying to be my fucking hero.
If anything, I was the savior, not the one who needed to be saved. Weakness was a disease, and I refused to catch it.
“If you had this situation under control, I wouldn’t even be here,” I shot back at him as our backs were pressed together by the small number of demons left. The good thing about demons was that once they died, the body they possessed went up in black smoke so there was no body to clean up after. I liked clean deaths.
“I did have it under control until your crazy ass came out of nowhere. Now I’ve got to worry about a civilian getting killed on my watch,” he growled at me.
“Keep growling, kid. You’re gonna turn me on.” I licked the small trickle of blood from my lips, and he looked at me like I was absolutely off my rocker. Which, fuck it, maybe I was, but who the hell was he to judge?
As almost all the demons fell, I looked over to see the sinister one with a crazed look in his eyes. Apparently, he did not want to go down without a serious fight.
At a flash of silver, my brain registered he had a knife. I flung the man I was holding away from me hard enough for him to dent an SUV at the end of the block, snapping his neck, and readied myself to take the blow. He was too close. I couldn’t dodge it, but it wouldn’t be the first or last time I had been stabbed in my life.
In what I would describe as the most annoying thing that has EVER happened to me, Ryker once again threw his body in front of mine to take the fucking blow. This time, I didn’t have time to save him.
I watched as the knife plunged into his body like a sword finding a sheathe.
This. Fucking. Asshole. Blood immediately began to spurt, and my mate went down hard.
With a roar, I snapped the thug’s arm like a pretzel,
breaking it not once, not twice, but three times before I felt slightly better. My blade slid deeply across his throat, and I took great joy in looking into those deep black eyes right before they faded into smoke.
Ryker had crumpled into a heap on the ground. He had pulled the blade out but was cradling his hand over the wound, and blood was pouring.
I assessed quickly that it wasn’t a life-threatening wound, but I needed to get him cleaned up and to a hospital.
He looked at me with those clear blue eyes, knowing I wasn’t human and probably wondering if I would kill him now that all the others were dead.
“Come on. I’m dumping you off at the hospital.” I shoved my shoulder under his armpit to help him walk. I could have carried him like a baby, but I was still clinging to the idea that my mate would have some dignity.
“Take me home with you,” he whispered, his voice catching with the pain. “It’s the least you can do, crazy girl.”
“I’m not taking you to my apartment, flesh bag,” I growled, darting off toward the nearest hospital.
I had my own place. It wasn’t anything spectacular, a crummy little apartment the size of a cracker jack box, but what the hell did I need with more than that? I came here to kick ass and murder enemies, nothing more.
“You owe me. I’m bleeding because of you.” He stood firm, and I regretted not carrying him over my shoulder like a purse. “I need help, and after seeing that, I’m convinced you’re someone I need on my side.”
“You’re bleeding because you got in my way, asshole,” I snarled, wishing my stupid feet had never carried me over this direction. “And I don’t work for humans, and I don’t care about you, your side or anyone else’s. I care about myself only.”
I could be on a beach somewhere drinking whiskey. I could have gone to a club and shook what my mama gave me. But no, my dumb ass had to be Captain Save-a-Hoe and come rescue this turd.
“Again, I didn’t ask for your help, I had this situation under control,” he growled in my ear, and I’m not gonna lie, I was digging it… a little bit. “I knew they weren’t human. I’m still not exactly sure what they were, but I’m here trying to save a friend, and he’s with supernatural creatures.”
Forever Onyx (Vampire Brides) Page 1