Monsters (Kaliya Sahni Book 3)

by K. N. Banet

  “You can crash here,” I told them softly, flipping to the next page.

  “Are you sure? You don’t like guests.” Cassius stood up like an old man, stretching out once he was on his feet, another yawn making him seem older than he really appeared.

  “It’s easier than letting you drive home and drive back. We’ll probably be done with this tomorrow.” I got up slowly, putting down the journal I held. The problem we were running into was some journals only covered a week before this raving madman filled them to the brim. There were also dozens of them, and we were trying to put them into a timeline. Every new one we opened exposed a fresh round of horrors—from the mind of a madman desperate for more power and with little regard for the lives he was destroying.

  Cassius had been right. Our favorite sorcerer was being blackmailed by Mygi. They had reached out to him once Raphael was in my care, knowing about his private work for the prison. They wanted to get the heat off them by using him. They probably hadn’t expected Raphael to remember his face from the lab.

  “Yes, it will be,” Cassius agreed. I watched him gently tap his wife’s shoulder, and she jumped, looking up at him with a smile and a yawn of her own. He helped her to her feet and allowed her to lean on him. “Where can we stay?”

  “My room is clean,” Raphael said, looking up from his reading at us. “Made the bed and everything.”

  “I’ll show you.” I waved for them to follow and led them to his door. “There’re sheets in the closet if you want to change those.”

  “It’s fine,” Sorcha said, shaking her head. “Just sleep would be nice.” She went in first, and I heard the mattress creak probably from her falling on it.

  “How are you feeling? I know you normally sleep in a…” I didn’t really know how to put it. His bedroom was anchored to both this realm and the fae lands. It allowed him to recharge his battery while he slept and kept him on our time instead of potentially losing years as he rested if he went fully back into the fae lands.

  “I’ll be fine missing it for a couple of evenings if necessary. You know that,” he said softly. “But thank you for being concerned. Where is he going to sleep?”

  I didn’t answer, gently pushing Cassius into the room by his shoulder and closing him in with Sorcha.

  Walking back into the living room, I found Raphael pouring over the journals still, with no sign of stopping.

  “We need sleep—”

  “Do we know his real name yet?” Raphael asked, tossing the book aside. “We have two fake names for him, but his real name has to be somewhere, right?”

  “I still need to look into the owner of the house,” I said, rubbing my temples. “But we need to sleep, Raphael. Research like this takes time, energy, and a clear head. We could be formulating our next plan of action for a couple of days.”

  “I’ve been out for five years. I don’t want to waste any more time. They need me,” he said, grabbing the next journal. “Why could this guy never write down his damn name?”

  I was tired…exhausted, rather. I walked across the living room and snatched the book from Raphael’s hand.

  “You need to get some sleep,” I ordered.

  His eyes flashed to black and red as I put the book down. I took two steps back as he surged to his feet and took one large step to get into my personal bubble.

  “I’m not a child you order around,” he growled.

  “No, you’re a friend I’m worried about,” I snapped back, revealing my fangs. They hadn’t dropped to threaten him, but I could use them to, anyway. “What happens when we find this guy, and you’re dead on your fucking feet, Raph? You need to get some sleep just like everyone else here.”

  “My friends have been left there for five fucking years, Kaliya!” he snarled, and the black veins began to spread over his face.

  “And you’ll get someone killed while being foolish to save them,” I hissed, refusing to back down. “Believe me. Been there, done that. I’m not going to let you make that mistake.”

  “Can you stop me?” he asked, his words a threat in their own right.

  “Do you want to end up on the floor, bleeding out of your eyes until your body fights back my venom?” I asked softly, smiling. “Because we can put your healing to the test. It’ll be a nice case study I can tell people about. Cambion versus naga venom. Let’s see what comes out on top.”

  He went very still. I stepped back, acting like I won.

  “You can sleep on the couch,” I said very softly, glaring at him. “Or you can sleep in a bed. But you will sleep tonight.”

  I turned and walked away but only made it halfway through the room before he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

  “Don’t walk away from me,” he said, glaring at me. “We weren’t finished.”

  “Yes, Raphael, we were,” I said, glaring back. “You obviously don’t want to listen. Fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stay up all night and put myself in a bad position. Getting rest is important. If you want to be foggy and slow, fine, but I’m not going to do it to myself. At least if I’m well-rested, I can get out of the way when you fuck up.”

  “Don’t you understand? My friends—”

  “My kind has been butchered by enemies we’ve never been able to find or stop. I can count the number of nagas in the world on both hands and tell you all of their names, how old they are, and what they want out of life. I can tell you how none of them have the freedom to do what they please because they live in fear. I have been struggling for decades to find a way to help them, and I’ve gotten myself ostracized from the community to do it. I understand what you’re feeling. I understand better than Cassius and Sorcha. I understand better than you.” I was pissed. “Don’t you ever come at me with that line again. I swore to you I would do whatever I had to do to help save your people, but it’s worthless to save them if you die in the process!” I yanked my hand away and shoved him back. Surprisingly, he actually took a step back. “Or worse, get them killed.” I looked him over and wished I didn’t feel so fucking attracted to him. “Good night, Raphael.”

  I headed for my bedroom and slammed the door. I didn’t much care I had other guests. They probably heard every word. The walls weren’t thin; I had just yelled that loud.

  I stripped and fell into my bed, curling into a ball to try to sleep, but now I was awake.

  I didn’t know how long I laid there but eventually, my door opened. I didn’t roll over to see who it was. Closing my eyes, I ‘saw’ the heat. I heard his soft footsteps and listened to his clothing rustle and drop to the floor. The bed weighed down as he got in, and I had to resist rolling toward the depression he made and cozying up to the heat.

  He didn’t touch me. He didn’t speak to me.

  He probably thinks I’m asleep.

  He rolled around a lot, trying to get comfortable.

  “Please settle in,” I said, groaning, unable to pretend I didn’t notice anymore.

  He stopped moving, one of his arms slowly going over my side but not touching anything worthwhile. I closed my eyes, and even though I was angry with him, I enjoyed his heat. It lulled me into sleep better than the cold ever could. Freezing myself to sleep helped for a long time when I dealt with bad nightmares, but nothing beat a warm nap on a sun rock.

  I thought I was asleep, but a scream made me sit up and reach for a gun. Flailing on the bed next to me made me realize what was happening.

  Oh, no. Oh, shit, I forgot about the nightmares from yesterday.

  I tried to grab one of his arms and realized he was sweating. He wasn’t juiced up, so it was like grabbing a normal human man, and I was able to wrangle it down.

  “Raphael, wake up!” I yelled, crawling over him and trying to get a look at his face. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re here!” I needed to get through to him.

  His eyes flew open, and in that second, they morphed from chocolate brown to red and black. Veins spread quickly as he reached up and grabbed my throat. One minute, I was over him, and the n
ext, I was on my back with a powerful cambion over me, between my legs, and it wasn’t all fun and games this time.

  “Raph—” He squeezed my throat and cut off my words. My room had the best soundproofing in the house aside from my private office, so I didn’t have much hope Cassius and Sorcha would run in and help me.

  I clawed at his arm and tried to pry his fingers loose, frantic. I hadn’t been expecting this sudden turn of events. Using my legs, I tried to move and kick him off, but he never budged. I couldn’t bring myself to try anything else. I didn’t want to hurt him and turn this into more of a fight that I would lose. I couldn’t even consider it because my instincts told me I couldn’t. This was my mate. I couldn’t hurt him.

  He’s not in there right now. He’s somewhere else. I know how this works. He might not figure it out until it’s too late.

  My mate is going to kill me.

  Black spots started showing up in my vision.

  “R-r-r,” I tried, gasping for as much air as I could, but this sort of death wasn’t caused by the lack of oxygen. It was also hampering blood flow to and from the brain.

  He lowered himself down and sniffed my hair, a deep growl rumbling in his chest that didn’t sound human. It sounded like the demon we had fought. Insanely, he grew hard between my legs. Then his hand loosened, and blood rushed to my head, making me dizzy. I took the deepest breath I could manage.

  “Kaliya?” he whispered. I watched him blink and come to the realization it was me under him. I watched him lose his color, and the cambion in him disappeared faster than I had ever seen. He removed his hand completely and pulled away, falling toward the end of the bed then spilling off the side onto the floor.

  I breathed for a moment then sat up, rubbing my neck as I looked down at him.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “You’re asking if I’m okay?” he snarled. “Really? I just tried to fucking kill you!” He was yelling at the end, holding his head.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling how sore my throat was. It was going to be bruised tomorrow, and that was going to raise some eyebrows. “It’s fine. I know what a PTSD nightmare looks like. It’s—”

  “It’s not fine,” he snapped.

  I got out of the bed slowly, wanting to comfort him, to help him. This wasn’t a position I had much experience with. I had never put myself in place to do this until Raphael. I went to him slowly, trying not to scare him, and dropped to my knees beside him.

  “It’s not fine,” I agreed softly. “But it’s life, and it’s what we deal with. You had new memories come to the surface, and those are going to haunt you for a while. That’s okay. We’ll figure something out, and eventually, these will fade to every so often instead of every night. One day, you’ll get over them a little faster than tonight. You sniffed me and realized it was me, and that stopped it. I can take a little choking, Raphael. It’s not what I’m into, but I can take it.”

  He didn’t respond, so I sat down next to him.

  “Fifty years ago, I would have stabbed you for that,” I admitted, looking toward my wall so he didn’t feel the pressure of me staring. I decided to talk about myself, not to override what he was dealing with, but to help him understand we all had our own traumas. He wasn’t alone.

  “Fifty years ago, I was still deep in the pain from what happened to me. I was seventeen when I was drugged, caught, and sold on the black market. Looking back, it was awful, but it could have been worse. I could have ended up in the hands of the people who killed my parents.” I snorted, trying to make some light out of what had happened. “Humans bought me, though. They just wanted to fuck a monster. They didn’t know what type of monster they had. I think that saved me in the end. Hisao got me out. He didn’t even mean to find me. He only knew humans who knew of the supernatural were collecting pretty girls and women for their own entertainment.”

  I rubbed my hands together, keeping my eyes on the wall, knowing it would be hard to look Raphael in the eye.

  “I could barely sleep for a few years after that, and my hair went white. Hisao taught me how to meditate, but I’ve fallen out of practice. For years, I didn’t let people sleep next to me in bed. I would wake up with a knife in my hands, ready to kill anyone who thought they could touch my body, have me…fuck their pretty monster. I would drink heavily before having sex, so we could both enjoy it, then sleep deeply enough for them to leave before I woke up. Cassius was the first guy I let stay in my bed all night, even though I had been ready for it for years. I’m a hundred and seventeen years old, Raphael. If you think I haven’t seen this before, you are very wrong. And you’re wrong, thinking it makes you a bad person. This is what trauma does to us. It makes us edgy and destroys our trust in the simplest things. We have to work to get it back. It’s never the same, though. It will never be the same, Raphael.”

  He reached for me and pulled me onto his lap. Turning, I wrapped my arms around his neck. For the first time, I didn’t have the need to sink my fangs into him. For a moment, my physiology was fine just existing with him.

  “I could have killed you,” he whispered, tucking his head into my neck. His hot breath touched the soreness of where he’d held me, but I found it more comforting than painful.

  “Yup,” I agreed softly. “But you didn’t.”

  “No…I smelled you, then wanted to…” He growled, losing the words he was trying to say.

  “But it brought you out,” I reminded him.

  “I liked having you there,” he whispered as if it was a dirty secret, something he needed to be ashamed of. “When I realized it was you, my first thought was, I liked you there.”

  I wonder if cambions mate for life, too. I wonder if his pull to me is just as supernatural as mine is to him.

  It was easier to think clearly about the science of it. The emotional issues were much harder for me to untangle. I liked writing off all of it to science, fate, biology, or something out of our control.

  I mean, really. Who would want someone like me if they had any other option?

  “Let’s go lie down,” I said, swallowing the bitter emotion that rushed through me as that thought ran through my head.

  “Really?” He didn’t let go. “That’s all you have to say now?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I replied truthfully. “I’ve never done this, Raphael. I’ve never had a relationship that was even remotely healthy like this one. I don’t often put myself in a position to help people with their problems. Cassius is the only experience I have even remotely close, and all I did with him was work, get drunk, and fuck. We argued. We didn’t work well together. I don’t know what else to say. I’m a mess, I know I’m a mess, and I’m doing my best here. I’ve been supernatural my entire life. I know there are things we can’t control about ourselves. You’re learning what it means to be what you are, and all I can do is let it happen.”

  His expression changed. “And if that happens again?” he asked darkly. “What then? What if next time I don’t find it in me to stop?”

  “I’ll bite you,” I answered, giving him the truth. This time, I knew it was somewhat underhanded to tell the truth since the truth was far more complicated than he understood. If he ever got us into that position again, I would bite him, and then he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to hurt me. He would be wrapped around my little finger for the rest of eternity, even if he hated it, just like I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him.

  And the sex would be great.

  “I might not give you a chance,” he countered.

  “Oh, you would. Once you felt as if you had me under control, you would give me a chance,” I promised softly. “I’m much faster than you, but you caught me off guard tonight. That won’t happen again.”

  He growled into my neck, and I cheated. I shifted into my snake form and found myself dumped on his lap. Before he could react, I darted under the bed, out by my bedside table, then shifted back into my human form.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll be
fine,” I murmured.

  “Why didn’t you do that in bed?” he asked, not looking at me. I was behind him now, and he made no effort to see me.

  “Because with the force you were applying, you would have crushed my snake form in half before I got out of the way. I would have been able to bite you, but I would have died in the process. I have to be careful. Both my forms are as fragile as they look.”

  He stood slowly and looked at the bed again, paled, and looked away once more.

  “We can talk about it more on another night,” I said softly. I didn’t even know what time it was, so I turned to see it was four in the morning. “At least we got a nap in. I’m going to shower. You should probably eat something.”

  He nodded silently as I walked into my bathroom and turned on the water.

  What a fucking night.

  18

  Chapter Eighteen

  When I got out of the shower, he was making breakfast for everyone. There was enough food cooking to feed a small army, and he already had one small plate set up with portions meant for a child.

  I looked at it carefully, then up at him as he worked over the stove on a batch of eggs and bacon.

  “That’s for you,” he confirmed without turning around.

  I picked up the plate, which already had silverware on it, and went to the small breakfast table.

  “Can I tell you something strange?” he asked, still not looking at me. I watched his back as he cooked instead.

  “Yeah,” I said, pushing the forks on my plate around.

  “Is it…is it normal for supernaturals to be able to…feel each other?” he asked finally, looking over his shoulder.

  “I’ll need more description than that. Some can smell each other across vast spaces on the wind. I can, for lack of a better term, see thermal information. Others can feel the magic of others, while I can taste smells. We’re all different.”

  “I didn’t hear you walk up,” he said, going back to the scrambled eggs he was making. “I knew the moment you got out of the shower and left your room, though. I could feel you behind me, waiting for something.”