Not Quite Prey

by Kaye Draper

  A breeze kicked up, stirring the loose, sandy dirt around us, and I shifted, keeping my rifle level, dragging my gaze across the sand for any hint of the pack of fiends that had been harassing travelers on the route to Golding. It felt good to be back in my element. I needed this. When we got back to Westhold, things would be more settled. The fuss over the new sovereign would be old news and things would go back to normal. I could cash in this bounty, and with what I’d made on the job with Ahura, I could pay off another chunk of Josie’s extortion money. Life as usual.

  “They’re moving,” Emerson said, his deep voice barely more than a rumbly whisper.

  I focused on the wasteland in front of us just as the ground erupted, sand bursting upward in a spray of grit that temporarily hid the fiends as they spilled up out of their underground warren. I took a breath and calmly squeezed the trigger, barely registering the boom of Fin’s shotgun. A few of the beasts fell, but others scrambled over them, their mad eyes set on us. On their prey.

  I kept shooting, not missing a beat, going for a headshot whenever I could. It wasn’t long before nothing was moving. I looked over at Emerson for confirmation and he nodded, giving the tablet device he held in his massive hands one more glance. “Nothing moving.”

  Standing, I set my gun aside and pulled a knife from my leg sheath, then stalked over and grabbed the nearest carcass. They were interesting creatures, like some kind of cross between a mountain lion and an armadillo. I’d only encountered them once before, along another section of road. Apparently, their favorite hunting strategy was to build a warren near an area where there was some sort of regular traffic and lie in wait under the sand until the prey came to them.

  I looked down at the beast at my feet. Its long tongue lolled out between three rows of serrated teeth. The way they planned their hunts probably meant that they had some higher intelligence. I growled to myself. What are you doing right now, Sam? Was I really sitting here, debating the morality of hunting monsters? I crouched and started skinning the fucking thing. They were feral monsters that preyed on travelers. I was a monster hunter. End of fucking story.

  Fin and Emerson got to work on a couple more hides, and we all worked in silence for a long time as my mind wandered right back to stupid shit. Ahura and Theo were hiding right in plain sight among the humans. Curs were mostly fine, with the few who went feral being the exception. But fiends were mostly feral monsters with no human thought. With them, it was the sane ones that could blend in who were rare.

  Or were they?

  If Theo and Ahura were able to do it so well, who was to say there weren’t way more fiends passing as normal than anyone knew?

  A sharp flash of pain yanked me back to what I was doing as I sliced my own damned finger open. I hissed in irritation.

  Fin looked over at me and raised one thick red brow. “What, this job’s not bloody enough for you so you decided to start cutting yourself up too?”

  I rolled my eyes at him and flicked away the gore on my hands, giving my skin time to knit back together before I plunged my hands back into the warm, wet, nasty work of skinning a fresh kill. “Fuck off.”

  I made the mistake of glancing at Emerson. The giant of a man was watching me with his perceptive brown eyes, a slight frown marring his rugged face. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t even fucking start,” I warned, pointing my bloody knife at him. “I mean it.”

  He sighed and went back to skinning monsters.

  I really needed to get my shit together before Fin shot me or Emerson started talking about feelings again.

  Once we got back to town and finished cashing in the pelts at the association, we all went back to my place to get cleaned up, grab some food, and sleep. I was surprised when I realized this had become a comfortable routine. I was getting used to having Fin and Em with me, with them being part of my life.

  My shower was small, so I cleaned and stored weapons while Fin and Em took turns showering. Once the weapons were good enough, I tore open the letter that had been waiting for me when we got home.

  I huffed a soft laugh when I saw that it was from Ahura. She had stopped by while we were out. She said she assumed we were on a job and that she’d check back in a couple days. She offered to cook us all dinner to “sweeten up your other mates so I can get you in bed.” I was still laughing when Fin joined me and Em in the kitchen.

  “What’s got you grinning like a kid, Saber?” the leprechaun said, nudging me in the thigh to get me out of the way so he could get a pan out of the cupboard.

  I just gave him an innocent look and stuffed the letter into my back pocket. “Nothing. You’ll find out in a couple days.” It was kind of scary, looking forward to something for a change. But I could do this. Good things could happen in my life. It didn’t mean something bad was coming. I could change. I could stop being a loner and let people in.

  Fin and Em started lunch while I went and got cleaned up, hoping they’d left me some hot water. I stood under the lukewarm spray and tilted my head back, rinsing away the last traces of the grime from the hunt. I wanted to wonder if Theo was still a bird monster or if he was back to being a human-shaped thing. But I shoved that aside. It didn’t matter. I was done with all that political crap. I was done with him. If I wanted a fiend in my life, I had one who was honest with me about what she was. I had enough to deal with, with my two mates, my potential new thing with Ahura, Josie and her drama, and just fending for myself from day to day…I didn’t need an arrogant sovereign to deal with.

  As the water coursed over my skin, I took a steadying breath and gave myself a stupid pep talk. It was time. I was ready. I could do this. As I dried off, I swiped a hand across the fogged-up mirror. Staring myself in my weird crystal blue cat eyes, I squared my shoulders and whispered, “I think you guys should move in with me.”

  I blinked at myself. There. That wasn’t so hard. I could do this. I went to my bedroom and hurriedly pulled on a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt. I had to do it now, before I chickened out. I was still tugging my t-shirt down when I got to the kitchen. I looked up, a smile on my face, ready to do the scariest thing I’d ever done in my life and ask my mates to live with me.

  I glanced up at them and the smile faded, the happiness draining from me as I took in the energy in the room. Fin and Emerson were both just…standing there. They glanced at each other, then back at me. Emerson looked like he’d been physically wounded.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Fin took a deep breath. Then he held out a piece of paper. “We found this on the floor.”

  I took it and looked down. It was the note from Ahura. I must have dropped it on my way to the shower. “Oh, come on, guys,” I said with an eye roll. “Just give her a chance. We never said we’d be exclusive. Just get to know her before you go all speciest on me, okay? I think I…really like her.” They had to know how hard it was for me to even admit that. How much that really meant.

  Emerson closed his eyes and made a face like I’d just punched him in the gut. “Sam,” he breathed out in a pained voice.

  My heart started thundering in my chest for no reason. They were just upset about me bringing a fiend into our relationship, that was all. Nothing to worry about.

  But my instincts were screaming at me that there was something else going on.

  “It was on the news…on the radio,” Fin said softly, waving at the old contraption where it sat on the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

  I looked between them, panic edging into my voice. “What the fuck are you talking about? What was on the news?”

  Emerson shifted and I realized he was hiding something behind his back. “What is that, Em?”

  He shook his head and clutched whatever it was tighter. I heard a rustle of paper. “The newspaper.” He pulled it out and crumpled it up in his big hands, stuffing it into the trashcan. “You can’t read it, okay? Please.”

  The letter I held in my hand crinkled and I forced myself to loosen my white-knuc
kled grip. “Tell me. Right now.”

  Fin came over and motioned for me to come down to his level. I glared at him for a minute before I finally crouched down, putting us at eye-level. He brushed my damp hair back from my face and cupped my cheek. “She’s dead, Sam.”

  I stared at him, not understanding his words, even as my eyes prickled with tears. “That’s not funny, asshole.”

  He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine. “I’m sorry, Saber. I know I was an asshole about her. But I know you wanted…more. I’m sorry.”

  I stood, shaking my head in denial. “No. You’re wrong. Ahura’s a fiend. She’s probably the strongest thing in this damned city!”

  Emerson moved toward me, reaching for me. “Sam….” I ducked under his arms and dashed to the trashcan. “No! Sam, don’t!” He tried to stop me, but I was way faster than the hulking ogre. I grabbed the crumpled-up newspaper and darted around the island, leaping easily up onto one of the barstools and crouching there with my knees bent, like an animal. They were both silent as I unfolded the rumpled pages and flattened them out on the countertop.

  It made front page news. A fiend had been discovered hiding among the humans and curs in the city. Local police had opened fire. The print blurred before my eyes as the reporter bragged how it had taken fifty rounds from the brave officers before the monster was killed. They didn’t consider her a person. She was a fiend. A monster. So of course, there were pictures. I stared unblinking at the grainy, black and white image of Ahura in her true form, sprawled on the sidewalk in a puddle of her own blood. She hadn’t been fully shifted, but her human disguise had fallen away when she…. I recognized her anyway, my eyes taking in the long-limbed creature with the shiny black skin and scorpion tail. If the photo was colored, her sightless eyes would be glowing bright ruby red. I wondered if she bled as red as the brave humans who murdered her.

  I smoothed a hand over the newspaper photo again and again, as if I could wipe it away with a swipe of my hand, erase it from existence.

  “Sam.” I looked up at Emerson as he loomed over me. “Honey, please, let me get rid of that.”

  I bared my teeth at him. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He nodded. “I know, sweetheart.” He slowly reached out and tugged the newspaper out from under my hands, handing it blindly behind him for Fin to take.

  Then the giant slowly, carefully wrapped his arms around me and pulled me off the stool. I wrapped my legs around his waist. My claws and teeth were out. I sank them into his smooth green muscles, feeling numb. Feral.

  Ahura was dead. She’d been gunned down in the middle of the street and they didn’t even bother to make up a reason why she was killed. Things like this happened every day. Fiends didn’t live with humans. This was why.

  I removed my fangs from Emerson’s pec and pressed my face into the crook of his shoulder as I started to shake with pain and pointless, powerless rage. He just held me close with one big hand under my ass while the other hand stroked warm, slow circles on my back. “I know, Sam,” he whispered. “I know sweetheart, just let it out.”

  I growled, fighting the emotions that wanted to swamp me. But I couldn’t hold out forever. As Emerson crooned nonsense in my ear, tears escaped and soaked his t-shit. I choked back my sobs, shoving them down where all the rest of my stupid, weak emotions lived. Fiends died all the time. This was nothing new.

  She was going to make us dinner. She wanted to fit in. And I’d never see those creepy red eyes glowing at me with humor, or disdain, or lust again.

  The world swayed and I realized Emerson had lowered himself to sit on the couch with me still wrapped around him. Fin clambered up beside us and stroked my head. “It’s okay, Sam,” the leprechaun said as he settled in close to Emerson’s side. “We’re here.”

  I closed my eyes as I choked on my grief. Yeah. They were here. But for how long? How much longer until one of them died on a hunt or was put down by the humans like a rabid dog in the streets? This was why I never let myself love anyone. Because monsters like us didn’t get the luxury of family, or security, or fucking basic human rights.

  I let myself sink into the warmth they gave for the moment. But I was going to get answers. Someone was going to pay for what they’d done. I was tired of living like this.

  Shit was going to change, one way or another. I’d make sure of it, or die trying.

  Chapter 11

  My legs felt heavy as I marched up the smooth stone steps to the sovereign’s mansion. The guards at the gatehouse had cleared me easily, which wasn’t such a surprise, since I recognized the older woman in charge. But when I approached the armed guards at the front door and one of them just nodded at me and opened the door, I had to do a double-take. Sure, I’d been here a few times before, but usually it was a planned visit and they’d known to expect me. This time, they just recognized me as belonging here. Which was creepy shit.

  I returned the human guard’s nod and walked into the place like I owned it. Then I froze. Angel was just stepping off the big, arching staircase that led to the upper floors. I knew Theo’s personal suite was up there somewhere, and my mind immediately wanted to wonder why the fuck Angel was up there. But I shoved the thoughts firmly aside, easily burying them under all the other anger and pain that was constantly threatening to swamp me these days.

  Angel arched a brow at me and opened his mouth to speak but, thankfully, he was interrupted when Jules stepped into the hall from a nearby open door and headed my way. The siren was giving me an assessing look, but I ignored him, turning away to talk to the butler.

  “Where’s your boss?” I demanded, cutting straight to the point.

  Jules had his butler face on as he folded his hands in front of him and gave me a slight bow. “I’m sorry Vice—Sam, he is still indisposed.” He lifted a pale brow at me. “You may speak with him. However he may be too busy to give you a reply at the moment.”

  I narrowed my eyes at his stupid obtuse wording. Did he mean Theo was still a fucking bird monster? Or was the guy in a meeting or something? Either way, I didn’t give a damn. I was going to talk to him, end of story.

  “Lead on, Jeeves,” I said with a sarcastic sweep of my hand to encompass the empty hallway.

  Jules just sighed and turned on a heel. “This way, please.”

  Angel reached for my arm, but I brushed him off as I followed Jules toward the back of the mansion. A sort of anxious, irritated energy coiled inside me, the same as it had since yesterday, when I’d found out my friend and potential lover had been gunned down in the street. I needed to do something. I’d set out first thing this morning to prowl the streets and find out anything I could about what had happened, but there was only so much I could do. The police wouldn’t talk to me, and I didn’t even try. It was illegal for curs to join the police force for a reason—the humans wanted to keep their fragile control over the monster population. They sure as shit weren’t going to just welcome me with open arms and answer all my questions. For all I knew, I’d end up just as dead as Ahura.

  The thought sent a shiver of pain and rage through me. Dead. She was dead. I told myself that about a dozen times in the last few hours, but it still hadn’t sunk in. It still caused an echo of rage that I couldn’t quite snuff out. The beast inside me felt like a prowling, snapping tiger, ready to pounce on the first person who pissed me off and rip them to shreds.

  I felt powerless. And that wasn’t a feeling I was good at dealing with, no matter how much of my life I spent trying to escape it.

  I wasn’t really surprised when Jules led me out the back exit and across the grounds to the warded garden. What did surprise me was the sight of the big, flaming phoenix fiend perched on a bench turning the pages of a book with its weird beak.

  I stopped and stared. “That is the weirdest shit I’ve seen in a long time.”

  The bird glanced up at me, an almost human intelligence in his flame-blue eyes. He ruffled his flaming feathers and cocked his head at me questioningly
. Then he let out an inquisitive trilling sound.

  I glanced at Jules and the butler shrugged. “I’ll let you speak alone. Please ring the buzzer in the sovereign’s study if you need me.” Then he turned and walked away.

  I stared at the bird for a few seconds before walking over and sinking down to sit beside it on the stone bench. “He said you would slowly regain your consciousness. Can you understand me yet, dino-bird?”

  He made a huffing noise from his pterodactyl beak and stepped down to the ground, moving so he stood directly in front of me, looking me in the eyes. Then he clacked his beak impatiently.

  I sighed. “I’m here to accept the viceroy gig,” I said, watching those sharp eyes for signs of intelligence. I might just be talking to a bird at this point, but I got the feeling he could understand me. He seemed different than the last time I’d seen him—less distant. And the power rolling off him was weaker.

  He tilted his head, considering, then nodded.

  I squared my shoulders and finished my sentence. “But I have conditions.”

  He raised the red crest on the crown of his weirdly shaped head. I took that as an invitation to continue.

  “I want to know who killed Ahura—the unsanctioned chick that helped us on our run to get your cousin.” When he nodded again, I continued. “I want your promise that she’ll get some kind of justice. And not some half-hearted human excuses.”

  He blinked his blue eyes at me, and I arched an eyebrow. “And I want to be the one to deliver that justice. I want to make them pay.”

  He made a clucking sound deep in his throat, huffed again, but finally nodded.

  I looked down at my hands, cracking my knuckles restlessly. “There’s one more thing,” I said, forcing myself to look up at the bird monster. “I want Josie removed from the shifter forest. I want her here. In your fortress of entitlement. I want her as safe as she can be when this whole fucking shitfest implodes on your stupid ass and the humans decide to execute every shifter within a hundred-mile radius.”