Riven

by Kait Nolan

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  A Note From The Author

  Other Books By Kait Nolan

  Sneak Peek of Devil's Eye

  Riven

  by Kait Nolan

  Riven

  Written and published by Kait Nolan

  Copyright 2013 Kait Nolan

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is a work of fiction. All people, places, and events are purely products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.

  License Notes Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig

  Acknowledgments

  It is always such a great irony to me that writing, deemed by so many as a solitary pursuit, takes so many people to make it a true success.

  This book would not have been possible without:

  The eternal patience (and sometimes butt-kicking) provided by my dear friends and critique partners Susan Bischoff and Claire Legrand;

  The almost unceasing availability of the gals from Write Chat who spurred me to finish with writing sprints;

  The enthusiastic support of my beta readers, Melissa and Dennie;

  The support of my agent, Laurie McLean, who lets me play in my own sandbox;

  The love and support of my husband, who cheerfully accepts that he has to share me with the voices in my head; and

  You, the reader, for choosing to take a chance on me and mine.

  Love and thanks to you all.

  Glossary of Terms:

  Chamael: race of lizard shifters with exceptional regenerative abilities

  Charon: expansive Mirus criminal organization that specialized in human trafficking

  Council of Races: ruling body of the paranormal races

  Djinn: race of spirit beings that specialize in illusion

  Drakyn: ancient race of dragon shifters

  Dream Walkers: specialized form of psychics, able to astral walk in the dreams of others; employed by the Council of Races

  Felis: race of big cat shifters

  Hunters: assassins, usually under the command of the Council of Races; typically work alone; not limited to a particular race

  Investigation and Enforcement Division (IED): division of the Council of Races responsible for investigation of crimes involving the paranormal races and enforcement of Mirus law

  Mirus: general term for the paranormal races

  Nix: shape-shifting water spirit

  Reaper: high level demon that harvests negative emotion

  Shade: low level shadow demon

  Shadow Walkers: special ops division under the command of the Council of Races; typically work in teams; recruited based on ability rather than race; have the ability to control and travel by shadow

  Siren: nymph with the ability to compel by voice

  Truth Taker: interrogation specialists employed by the Council of Races; generally full-blooded sirens

  Wraith: race that magnifies and feeds on negative emotion, specializes in illusion

  Chapter 1

  This is a mistake.

  Marley knew it. The dread that comes with a bad decision pressed down on her shoulders the moment her foot touched the cracked asphalt. Before she could change her mind, the door of the bus hissed closed behind her. The driver pulled away, taking with him the illusion of safety. Marley was left alone at the corner with the heat and smell of its exhaust, and the chill of her anxiety.

  Not a valid choice anyway, she reminded herself. There was nothing for her at the next stop, or at the one after that. Sometimes she felt sick and tired of choosing from lousy options.

  Marley paused to dig out her pepper spray, cursing when she found the pocket empty, the bottom seam frayed. Resigned, she curled her hand more firmly around the strap of her backpack and started walking, ducking her head and trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible. She observed her surroundings through lowered lashes, noticing everything in her immediate vicinity. She’d had years to hone this skill through her time in the foster system as a kid, and then for years afterward, when she’d been out on her own in DC neighborhoods even worse than this one. She’d honed other skills too, learning from various foster brothers how to fight dirty, make it count, get away. They weren’t skills she’d had to employ in the two years she’d been out of the projects because she’d been smart enough to be inside by nightfall, before the monsters came out.

  Until tonight.

  She’d just had to go into the city proper after her shift to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. She’d spent too damn long lingering, enjoying the beauty of it, and she’d missed the Metro train and connecting bus that would have brought her home well before the sun went down. Now, here she was a mile and a half from home. With the shadows pooling between buildings and at their bases like sleeping monsters, it might as well have been light years.

  She set a brisk pace as she took the long way. She could shave off half a mile if she cut through the park, but that was just asking for trouble. She passed a stretch of shops and offices, already closed for the day, and reached the first section of row houses. The farther she got from the bus stop, the more dilapidated the houses became, as if the buildings spread out from those main arteries didn’t get enough of whatever blood fueled the rest of the city to maintain their vitality. More likely, whatever restoration project was currently en vogue hadn’t had the funds to reach beyond what the public was most likely to see.

  The faint squeak of her sneakers seemed to echo off the buildings, too loud in the dark. Across the street, a hoodie-clad kid, not more than sixteen, slapped palms with another guy. Money changed hands. So did a small plastic packet.

  She kept her head down and pretended not to see them. That’s how it worked. Head down, mind your own, and pray they did the same.

  Marley turned a corner, down a street where the row of street lights was punctuated with big spaces of dark, like the gap-toothed leer of a junkie. She hurried from one oasis of light to the next, clinging to her backpack. There were textbooks inside that she couldn’t afford to lose if someone decided to take it away from her. They were big and heavy, with sharp corners. She could use the bag as a weapon, if she had to.

  Half-way there.

  At the next intersection she hesitated. The straightest route was to her left, lit by only one anemic street light. Anxiety clamped around her chest, but she kept her quickening breaths silent. Always silent. She’d learned that lesson the hard way as a child.

  Eschewing the faster route, Marley kept walking. She headed up to the next block and cut over, her breath easing at the sight of sickly yellow lamps, all in a row. Almost there. She’d get inside, stow her package, and make a nice cup of tea before sitting down to work on the paper due Friday.<
br />
  Her shoulders tensed again at the sound of voices. Up ahead, on the other side of the street, a group emerged from one of the row houses, laughing, joking. There were four men, passing around a bottle wrapped in a paper bag and trading the kind of profane insults that, in this neighborhood, could only be swapped among friends without leading to bloodshed. Their voices slurred, already drunk.

  Marley fought the urge to move faster. Like any other predator, the two legged kind could sense fear. Better to keep her pace steady, eyes averted. She imagined a bubble around herself. Uninterested and uninteresting. Not worth noticing.

  A wolf whistle rang out. Her heartbeat stuttered and began to gallop, but she didn’t change her pace. If she ran, they would chase. If she didn’t acknowledge them, perhaps they would leave her be.

  “Hey baby, come join us!”

  Not a flicker of response, though her breath seemed to clog up in her lungs.

  “We’re lookin’ to have us a good time. Got somethin’ here with your name on it,” he said, holding up the bottle.

  “Bitch, I gots somethin’ here with your name on it.” The second one grabbed his crotch and leered at her before stumbling over, laughing at his own humor.

  One foot in front of the other.

  The clatter of feet down concrete steps made her stumble. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed. One hand slid into the pocket of her jacket, closing into a fist around the ring of keys, securing one of them between two knuckles. Her shoulders hunched, the movement softly thumping her books against her back.

  A pair of scuffed black Converse came into view. Marley automatically readjusted her direction, trying to walk around them, but her shoulder bumped into another of the guys. Boys, she realized, looking out from beneath her lashes to catch their faces. Big ones, but boys nonetheless. The kind who would never dare speak out for fear of losing face, who would give in to peer pressure because they were more concerned with impressing each other. Always a bad combination.

  They surrounded her, moving in pack formation, adjusting to the ebb and flow of her movements, invading her personal space.

  “C’mon honey, we got money. We can pay your price.”

  Marley felt a splinter of temper jab through her fear. She wasn’t a frigging prostitute. She’d done years of backbreaking work to claw her way up from nothing. But not that. Never that. She just wanted to go home, get off the streets. She didn’t ask to be hassled.

  Her eyes were glued to the ground, measuring the passage of distance by the number of weedy sidewalk cracks, but she didn’t know how much farther until her turn. She didn’t dare lift her face and chance making eye contact in case they took that as encouragement.

  “Aw baby, don’t be like that.” One of them reached out and brushed the back of his hand clumsily down her arm. “We’ll make it good for you.”

  Marley’s skin crawled. The hand gripping her keys shook, the edges pressing so hard into her palm, she wondered she didn’t bleed.

  Think, think.

  The voice of Chaz, an older foster brother, echoed in her head. Keep your head, little bird. If you can’t walk away from a confrontation, don’t hesitate. Out here hesitation can cost you your life.

  They were far too close for her to get up good momentum with her backpack now. A stupid, careless mistake.

  A pair of dirty shit-kicker boots entered her field of vision as one of them stepped directly into her path. She stopped short; her whole body recoiled rather than allow itself to bump against him, and she stumbled back, into the chest of another delinquent who gripped her bag. “Whoa there. Don’t fall.”

  “Didn’t anybody ever tell you to look up when you’re being spoken to?” A hand reached toward her face.

  Marley sprang into action, whipping the keys out of her pocket, slashing toward the arm in front of her as she jammed one foot down on his instep. As the first guy started shouting, she drove her other elbow back and caught someone in the diaphragm. She barreled past a third and began to run. Pounding feet rang out behind her.

  Her pulse beat frantically in her throat. She’d never make it home. She needed help. But as someone caught her bag and yanked her backward, Marley knew no one in this God-forsaken place would hear her scream.

  ~*~

  Ian Ryker moved through the shadows, silent as a ghost. It was an unnecessary precaution; he could hunt as easily while visible. The people in this area kept to themselves, kept their heads down, stayed uninvolved. They made a point of not seeing things. If they did see, they kept it quiet. It was an excellent characteristic for the population surrounding a safe house, particularly given the nature of the people who used this one. Ian had to admit that the Council of Races had chosen the location wisely.

  It didn’t make him any happier to be here.

  He should be out on missions with the rest of his squad, not relegated to this shithole on fucking babysitter duty. But what else was the Council supposed to do with a washed up Shadow Walker no longer physically up to mission standards? Ian supposed it was a mark of his rank and accomplishments that he hadn’t simply been fired and put out to pasture. Somebody higher up probably thought they were doing him a favor by plunking him down in the middle of this miasma of human suffering, a veritable smorgasbord for wraith-kind. No hunting necessary to feed.

  Fuck ’em. He wasn’t a total goddamned cripple.

  Even if the constant ache in his leg said otherwise.

  Sheer obstinacy had him out here every night, maintaining the skill set that had saved his sanity years ago. Missions had given him the opportunity to feed, to survive, without preying on the innocent like the other carrion eaters of his race. But now he was forced to confront the very nature he abhorred.

  A streamer of brilliant red fury shot into the sky, chased by two others, a bit fainter, and a final sickly yellow trail of unease. These silent fireworks were the visible hallmarks of human emotion— bright, obvious markers of easy prey. His kind fed on that brand of emotional energy, and there it was, free for the taking.

  A scream rang out, choked off before it reached crescendo. In its wake, a vibrant fountain of purple fear splashed across the night. Ian was already running for the nearest bridge of shadow before the repulsive ooze of violence and lust bled across the purple. His gait uneven but still fast, he hit the conduit, skating along the angular pathways and around corners, flashing past buildings until he emerged between two crumbling brownstones.

  He caught the woman’s scent before he saw her. The delicate flora of a hothouse orchid, incredibly out of place in the squalid stench of misery pervading the general area. It was seductive, intriguing, and for a moment Ian could focus only on it, on her essence of good. The rest of his senses woke up when he saw the quartet of men hauling her toward a house, while she writhed and bucked in their hold. An ugly bruise of tempers surrounded them, proclaiming their intentions. In their center, a vivid burst of orange determination exploded, and the woman redoubled her efforts to fight free.

  Ian phased out, an invisible specter as he crossed to the group and rematerialized behind the one in the rear, the one whose arm wrapped around the woman’s head and mouth. He laid a hand on the man’s nape and felt the punch of power as he drained the hatred and fury.

  “What the f—” The guy tried to turn his head.

  Ian gave an instant’s thought to helping him with that, just cranking it on around until his neck snapped. But leaving a body would cause too many questions. So when the thug’s face came into view, Ian smashed his fist into it, enjoying the satisfying crunch of cartilage beneath his knuckles. The man gave a short, muffled scream and dropped his hold on the woman.

  A second one rushed him, and Ian gripped him by the throat, lifting until he dangled. Aggression and anger poured into him, priming muscles kept on the brink of starvation. And God help him, he enjoyed the sensation of power, the scent of the human’s fear. A third shoved the woman into the last thug’s arms and charged Ian. A quick, two-fingered strike to his wind
pipe had the bastard crumpling to his knees. Ian drove a fist into the stomach of the man he still held and dropped him as well, already turning to go for the fourth.

  But the woman was taking care of him herself, using a palm strike that drove shards of the asshole’s nose into his sinus cavity. Blood sprayed in a small geyser as she followed up with a knee to his balls. As the assailant collapsed at her feet, she staggered back, away from the group, hands still fisted, breath sawing in and out of her lungs. Her eyes went a little feral as she finally saw him.

  As bolts of citrine wariness and cobalt relief spiraled out around her, Ian held his hands up, palms out. “Are you okay?”

  Blood spray dotted her milky white cheeks. He could see the tremors running the length of her body, the slightly glassy sheen to her violet eyes and waited, prepared to leap if she fainted.

  But she held her ground, dragging her gaze from him to the groaning, grounded attackers scattered like refuse at his feet. Surprise and more wariness pulsed off her before she looked back to him. When she spoke, her voice was soft and rough, stroking across his senses like tattered rose petals. “Thank you.”

  He wanted to clean the blood from her face. Giving in to the impulse, he took a step toward her, but she retreated two, another pulse of fear, tinged with a sick topaz of distrust, coloring the air around her. He stopped at once.

  “Are you injured?” he asked. “Do you need medical attention?”

  She shook her head. Strands of fine, dark hair fell loose from her pony tail to frame her exquisite face. As her hair shifted, Ian saw a bruise darkening her temple and had to repress the surge of violence that shot through him. He wanted to beat these sons of bitches all over again, with an intent to maim this time.