by T. G. Ayer
“He spoke to you?” Cassia’s voice rang out, so harsh and cold it dropped the temperature in the room by a few degrees. Maybe the woman was magical after all.
“Yes,” I whispered, still holding on to his hand. He’d spoken. He was still there. And what had he meant? “I’m not done yet?” What did that mean?
“What did he say?” Her question broke through my thoughts, an angry tide breaking onto my happy, grateful shore.
I looked up at Cassia and grinned. “He said I was skinny. And he told me not to forget what he’d taught me.” I didn’t see any reason to tell her the rest. I suspected she’d overheard the last of Samuel’s words so that’s just what I gave her.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Cassia snapped, her honey eyes flashing. “He hasn’t been lucid for months, and you waltz in and he just talks to you out of the blue and says don’t forget what he taught you?” She snorted, hands on her hips, eyes wide. “Who the hell do you think you are? You just come in here whenever you feel like, say whatever you want and then leave him to me? Who do you think looks after him? And he talks to you?” Her laugh was hoarse, underlined by a deep bitterness.
I watched Cassia, her anger an almost palpable thing. She was struggling with her own burdens, but all I wanted to do was to slap her as hard as I could across the face.
“You know what? I’m a bit tired of your whining and moaning. I know you’ve had it tough, but we all have our own bloody demons to deal with. As far as I’m concerned you can just suck it up.” The color drained from her skin and I was certain she wasn’t sure whether to be shocked, upset, or angry. “Take Samuel, for instance, he’s way worse off than you. Maybe someday we will have him back—from what he said today, I am hoping his condition is temporary and wherever he is he’s okay and he will come back. But until then we have to wait. So, quit feeling sorry for yourself. If you feel this is all too much and looking after Samuel is a burden, then by all means leave. I’m sure we can find someone else to take care of him.”
I’d never voiced my opinion to Cassia before. I’d always steered clear of her, left her to her anger. Now, in the face of my words and my own fury, she seemed startled, unsure of herself.
“You can’t make me leave.” She lifted her chin.
Really? After everything I said, that was all she got? “I’m not making you leave, Cassia. I’m just saying if you aren’t happy taking care of Samuel, we can find someone else.” I was careful to use the word we. A gentle reminder that my presence here was with the kind permission of Samuel’s extended family. Not that I needed their permission, but they had eased Cassia into accepting me in the house and I appreciated that.
Now, I watched Samuel’s niece as she considered my words. She didn’t respond and for Cassia, being short of words was unusual. Then she turned abruptly on her heel and left the room.
“Well, I suppose I got my answer, then,” I said to myself.
Samuel chuckled and when I glanced at him, a little shocked, my heart sank with disappointment at the blank expression in his eyes. Then he tilted his head and stared out the window. Sighing, I got to my feet and kissed his cheek. I walked out of the room and left him there alone again.
As I drove, all I could think about were Samuel’s words.
I’m not done yet. The girl . . . she needs me.
Read Blood Magic ebook ~ Blood Magic Audiobook
Skin Deep: The SkinWalker Series #1 Sample
Chapter 1
There was a razor-fine line between protector and vigilante, and right now I knew I was skating it blind.
Funny thing was, I didn’t give a damn.
Tangled nerves sparked liquid fire within my veins. Muscles tightened, knees locked in a solid crouch. I slid the tiny vial into the chamber at the top of the arrow and readied the crossbow, taking care to keep my fingers clear of the poisoned tip.
The diminutive arrow was designed to sink into the creature’s flesh, eliminating the possibility of it being removed. The longer the poison remained, the quicker the death.
With the weapon prepared, I lifted it into position, and settled in to wait and watch from my perch across the street from my target’s destination. The rooftop view of Chicago’s night sky was glorious. Faint strains of a string quartet wafted from the restaurant below, adding to the romance of the night. But romance was not the reason I crouched here, merging with the shadows, supporting the steel crossbow with strong, steady hands. While its weight was solid, it was also a comfort. So strange when its purpose was to end a life.
But my mark had not yet arrived.
I sat—a mere shadow, invisible in my dark turtleneck and black leather pants—on the rooftop of a four-storied apartment building across the street from Adriano’s. A five-star restaurant that catered to the rich and the privileged few, the waitlist for a table for two was nothing less than two months.
Unless you knew whose palms to grease.
“Come on, you bastard. Don’t make me wait any longer,” I muttered beneath my breath.
Larson Keyes: Politician, adulterer, wife-beater. King of vices. But none of it mattered—Senator Keyes was already dead. Contained within the flesh-and-bone shell of the man was certainly not a man. Inside the polished exterior, something insidious and gut-wrenchingly evil now lived, had taken slow and deliberate control. Neither the senator, nor his family, would ever know he’d been killed by a Wraith; a possessor of bodies, devourer of souls.
I forced my jaws to unclench—my teeth hurt.
A sudden wind gusted around me, tugging at my hair, pulling slim strands free from the thick braid which hung to my waist. Loosened strands whipped around and stung my cheeks with tiny slaps.
The glittering night was subdued now. Even the chatter of traffic was a whisper on the air. Then, a powerful engine throbbed below, turning the corner and drawing closer. An old Bentley pulled up to the curb and poured its passengers onto the sidewalk. Two young women—rail thin to the point of skeletal—were draped over their distinguished host, doe-eyed and adoring. I restrained the bitter urge to vomit.
Silver hair, arrogant lines. My target had arrived.
“Game on.”
The girls tittered, and the night air drew the sound to me, crisp and clear. If I’d accessed my panther hearing, I’d have heard the words he’d uttered to them. But I wasn’t interested in anything he had to say.
Enjoy it while you can, you piece of scum. Tonight, I will send your sorry hide back to the Darkness where you belong.
Muscles bunched, tensed. I steadied the weapon, balancing it on my knee. Then, I inhaled slowly, took aim and fired a single silent shot.
Below me, the Wraith clutched his chest. His breath clattered in his throat, Adam’s apple bouncing in tempo. His eyes bulged, face caught in a horrible grimace, pulled taut in a gross parody of shock and agony. Screams echoed around him as the large man crumpled to the unforgiving concrete.
The sight of Keyes’ now-lifeless body spurred both horrified girls to run in terror. They did not see the dark wispy shadows spewing from his mouth, did not see those shadows writhe and curl and twist away from the body, smoky gray fingers reaching for the tiny rips in the Veil, seeking to escape to the questionable safety what lay beyond.
They should be grateful to be blessed with such blindness. I certainly would have been.
The body of the host now lay discarded, a dried husk of a man who’d been smiling and preening mere minutes before. Desiccated skin lay sunken on bones, papery thin and fluttering in the breeze.
Under the cover of darkness, I rose and stretched my cramped limbs. I would have plenty of time to contemplate the blood on my hands.
Impossible to avoid the body count. After all, I was a killer. A Wraith-Hunter.
But even though it’s the Wraiths I track and sever from this World, it’s the body of the Host I have to terminate. The same Host who dies soon after the Wraith takes up residence, smothered by an evil blackness which sucks the life from him until what�
��s left is a living shell without a soul. The Host was a lifeless puppet, and it didn’t matter. My heart still shattered a little, ached a little each time I lined my target up within the crosshairs of my scope—every time I watched a Host die by my hand.
And, after the deed, I was still a killer.
As the daughter of an Alpha SkinWalker—and an Alpha by birthright—killing wasn’t an alien concept to me. The only problem was, I’d cast off that mantle of responsibility two years ago and fled from the family compound, hiding out with my Grandma, Ivy Odel. Grams had been happy to take me in and had even helped to get me into the local high school to finish my final year.
I’d run from a lifetime of loneliness, and I’d found something to hold onto when I’d moved to Chicago. But it really didn’t have anything to do with being away from my dad or my Alpha responsibilities.
I’d discovered a power.
Away from family and responsibility, I’d stumbled on the ability to track these demonic creatures by the residue they left behind. And I’d felt useful for the first time. I was helping people—even if just indirectly helping those whose lives were affected by the wraiths who’d been slowly penetrating the Veil and entering the human world.
I couldn’t lie that it wasn’t satisfying; the ability to kill the wraiths and to help others at the same time—even if they were humans. A different power.
For a panther shifter, power wasn’t an unusual thing. Power comes to a walker when the first shift comes on. With that transition from human to animal, a walker gains strength and an expansion of the five senses, but an alpha’s powers and abilities are ten times more powerful.
Turning into a powerful panther should have been an attractive concept to a lonely teen, looking for validation, for attention. But I’d never wanted it. Perhaps because it had everything to do with who my father was, and nothing to do with me.
Perhaps it had everything to do with a girl who’d been abandoned by her mother.
So, I’d turned my back on it all.
And even now I avoided shifting as much as possible.
The problem was, my wraith-hunting brought on the blood lust. Spilling blood brought the lust on and it took everything in me to hold the shift back.
Moisture filmed my palms as the panther clawed for freedom. And sometimes, even my heart missed a beat or two. Slick palms and a dubious pulse were understandable as the blood lust began to take a hold of me.
Heat simmered in the whorls of my ears as the blood of the feline surged through my veins. A phenomenon for which Grandma Ivy had an interesting theory—hot ears meant somewhere, someone spoke your name.
Not in a good way either.
If Grams were right—something I did not doubt—and my ears were some sort of psychic thought-detector; then I’d bet my twisted Panther DNA it meant some mean-assed Wraith was groaning for my head on a bloody spike. A fair number of those Shades lost in the Ether would have me to thank for their current address. But, as yet, none had dropped by to voice their dissatisfaction.
I stuffed the small crossbow into my backpack and left the rooftop, turning my back on the sirens. As they sang in the distance, I slid down the fire escape, forgoing the use of the rungs. I dared not tempt Fate. It would be difficult to save anyone else from the black clutches of another Wraith if I were stuck in a prison cell. I didn’t believe the humans would understand my actions, nor believe my claims. Even more importantly, I couldn’t risk my revealing the existence of the supernatural world.
My body zinged with pride as I jogged away. Then I came crashing down from my temporary high.
I was probably the only one proud of me. Would my father care? Only enough to admonish me. And maybe warn me not to ruin his precious reputation.
Would my mother care? Who knew? We hadn’t seen or heard from her in twelve years, not since the day she’d walked out on us without so much as a fare thee well. She’d left behind a husband, a son and two daughters, but she’d left more than an abandoned family in her wake. She’d left pain, anger, desperation, and loneliness behind, and as far as I knew, she’d never looked back.
And I wasn’t sure that I’d want her to.
Heading back to the Rehab Center, I sent a prayer of gratitude to the Lady Ailuros. Some knew her as Bastet, but to the panther SkinWalkers across the American States she was Ailuros, the guardian goddess. To the Alphas she signified the core power of the feline.
To me, Ailuros was the light in my darkness, the faith I held onto even when I’d cast off the unwanted mantle of Alpha—as much as I could anyway, considering it was more than a physical thing to just throw away.
Now, as a supernatural creature walking the streets alongside humans who were entirely unaware of our existence, the goddess gave me the strength to keep going.
It wasn’t easy to lie to my friends and coworkers, but I lied every day. My job as a trainee drug counselor gave me access to a patient information network which acted as a grapevine for the abused. One of the ways to sniff out a Wraith.
Along with countless other addicts, Senator Keyes’ daughter Katie had sought secret refuge from his beatings within the euphoria of drugs. Her young, innocent face had been etched with the strain of living with a father who was no longer the man she’d grown up with, but rather a demon from another plane.
And I’d only known it because Wraiths left a residue on their victims.
The strange power I possessed gave me the ability to see the residue a wraith leaves in its wake. A substance in their breath, in their touch, the residue clings to those the wraith comes into close contact with—and those they tortured and abused.
A substance only I could see.
Katie had worn the pale peach tendrils around her in a misty shroud. An almost coral sign akin to a neon arrow.
Wraith marks the spot.
And I wasn’t about to complain. That very residue allowed me to track them, hunt them.
And kill them.
~ Continue Kai’s adventure in
Skin Deep eBook + Audiobook ~
Immortal Bound: The Apsara Chronicles #1 Sample
Chapter 1
In all the years of her particularly strange line of work, and her particularly strange kind of life, Vee Shankar had always done what was required in order to get the bad guy. But today, she was sure she hovered too close to that line she knew she’d never cross.
Too close.
Damned well better be worth the effort.
Vee leaned against the cool brick of the alley wall, ground her already overly-gritted teeth, and tilted her head a little to allow her companion easier access to the curve of her neck, the kisser providing the best cover as she kept a cold eye on the bar across the street.
With Kort a regular on this street, distraction was a better choice than destruction. And Vee may still find a use for him in the future. But, one of her biggest discomforts right now was what Syama would think of Vee’s current activities.
Although thankful for the ever-watchful protection of a four-eyed, four-foot-high, black-as-night hellhound, make-out sessions—fake or real—had never fallen into the appropriate-to-witness box.
A glance over at the hellhound—currently shrouded by a dense glamor that rendered her invisible to all other eyes, human or otherwise—confirmed that the bitch’s expression was downright judgmental. Vee suppressed a sigh. Making Syama feel better about guard duty for such a distasteful event was going to be a mish.
She gave the hellhound a warning glare as Kort concentrated on making his way south. Vee’s attention then returned to the entrance of the only establishment on this street still open at the ungodly hour of two in the morning. All the other stores had had the good sense to close up at an hour closer to one deemed not on the straight path to hell.
Around the corner was another story entirely; Hunts Point in the Bronx, not the place you’d want to spend your free time even in the stark light of day.
But what did any of the residents of this neck of the woods
really know? The dangers they saw were tangible ones, abusive pimps and drug pushers, trading in flesh and suffering. What they didn’t allow themselves to see lay strictly within the shadows.
Within their nightmares.
The stakeout was taking its toll on Vee’s bones. The late fall air—already edged with insistent cold—sank right through her fur-lined leather jacket, the icy wet ground seeping its way up into the soles of her boots to settle deep into her bones.
A recent rain-shower had bathed the street in a film of moisture, dotting the ragged blacktop with luminescent puddles, each tinted a strangely undulating aqueous green. Above the entrance to the bar, neon lights flickered a sickly jade every few seconds, as if they considered their task unworthy.
The sign for The Lucky Clover went dark for a full two seconds, then struggled to light up again.
When it finally emerged, returning reluctantly from the place all fluorescent signs went to die, it was on its second wind, brighter than before.
Blindingly so.
Pity the sign was missing the “C.”
Vee gave a silent snort, forcing herself to refrain from shifting away from Kort’s exploring lips. The bar would have to settle for being the only lucky lover around because Kort wasn't going to get any.
In fact, it took Vee far too much concentration to prevent herself from shuddering in disgust as he traced a line along the side of her throat. And judging from the sizable interest pressing against her upper thigh, luck had damn well better have her in her sights soon, or the creep was going to end up having a go at her leg.
He’d be a hot dead mess before he finished, judging by the look in Syama’s eyes. The hellhound rose, took a step forward, the muscles in her massive legs bulging, her obsidian claws clacking against the sidewalk, the sharp sounds a tattoo of gunshots to Vee’s ears.
Vee shook her head, cringing at the thought. Syama lifted the corner of her upper lip an inch, revealing a hint of a big-ass canine. Then, the hellhound settled back on her haunches, her red-eyed glare underlined by the haughty lift of her dark and pointy chin.