by Laken Cane
There was no time to talk.
Much.
“Nice,” the man said. “Those are some claws, lady.”
She pulled her claws free of a charging beast’s belly and grinned.
Then she noticed that her claws, which had faded to muted silver in her world, had grown brighter. The longer she fought, the brighter they became until finally, they radiated a shining silver too bright to stare at for long.
And that drew a lot of attention.
People began to move closer to her, fighting with her as though they accepted her as one of them.
And those people were hardcore.
She’d thought she’d witnessed every atrocity possible, but she’d been wrong.
Shiv Crew fought hard, but there was always a sort of humanity to their fighting. They killed, but always protected. They’d have done anything to protect each other.
The ones she fought with and against in Skyll were…monsters. She felt it. Maybe they knew nothing else.
Or maybe they knew something she didn’t.
But damned if they didn’t shock the hell out of her.
“Tiff,” one of the men beside her shouted, and as Rune turned at his voice, she watched him shove his sword through the girl who fought with him just so he could pin the enemy who was trying to kill her.
He hadn’t hesitated or tried to find a way to save her and kill the enemy. Just killed them both and then went back to fighting.
And slowly, the city began to push the attackers out.
The moon was red. When she caught a glimpse of it through the haze of blood that misted the air, it was red.
She shivered.
One of the beasts galloped by Rune, his rider unfurling his whip to fling at a red-haired girl with a slingshot. A fucking slingshot.
Rune growled, but before she could jump on top of the beast and send the whip-wielder to hell, the girl turned, grinned, and shot the beast between its eyes.
It fell.
Not slowly, not gradually, but immediately.
Just dropped like a boulder and didn’t move again.
“Showing off, Roma?” a man yelled, his voice full of laughter.
The sudden stop propelled the rider off its back and sent him tumbling violently toward the girl.
Rune caught him with her claws, decapitating him as he flew through the air.
The girl met Rune’s stare for a moment, then shrugged and went back to the fight.
Rune shook her head as she fought. A fucking slingshot.
But the girl was good with it. And fast.
Shiv Crew material.
She shook off the pain that screamed through her when she thought of her crew and lost herself in the battle.
A battle that would soon be over.
The enemy was retreating. Slowly, but they were retreating.
Those that refused to withdraw were dying.
The blood ran freely, thick and hot, and she didn’t pause to consider what feasting in Skyll might mean. She drank.
She needed to feed—it was as simple as that.
At least, it was that simple to her.
She sliced open one of the beast’s throats, ran her claws through his master’s chest, then fell to her knees to drink of the blood spurting from the ugly, dying beast.
The blood spread through her veins like cold water, and she frowned. He wasn’t a tasty enemy. As a matter of fact, he tasted of…
Damascus.
“Fuck me,” she said. “That sucks.”
People were staring at her.
They stopped fighting to watch her.
Some with doubt, some with horror, some with interest.
All of them with fear.
And awe.
Word spread like a terrible disease, swiftly and surely, touching everyone who stood there.
Every one of them reacted to that one feeding.
The enemy turned and fled.
The ones whose city she’d defended fell to their knees before her.
They held their fists to their chests, over their hearts.
They knelt on the ground, bleeding and wounded and agonized, but their eyes were shining.
She couldn’t at first make out what they’d begun to mutter, until they lifted their voices in unison, joyful and strong.
“Our princess,” they shouted, “has come.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
She shook her head and backed away, her hands up. “No.”
“Your Highness.” Their whispered words undulated through the crowd like a breeze through a field of wheat.
Your Highness…
She closed her eyes in a long, slow blink.
From above, one of the fire-breathing creatures that had set the trees and homes of the city ablaze screeched and dive-bombed the crowd.
“He’s out of fire,” one of them yelled, but they jumped to their feet and scattered, moving out of the beast’s way.
The slingshot girl, Roma, scrambled backward and took aim at the falling creature with her insignificant-looking weapon, and Rune took advantage of the citizens’ sudden lack of attention and ran.
She was vampire, magic, whatever the fuck—
And she could run.
She was gone in seconds.
Your Highness.
She shuddered as she ran through the crumbling, destroyed city, her heart hurting, her brain ready to explode.
Your Highness.
Our princess has come.
She started moaning and couldn’t quit.
And she ran.
It was too much. Everything was too much.
An insidious knowledge, secretive and slimy and ancient, grew like a cancer in her brain. In her memory.
Torturing her.
Confusing her.
Your Highness.
Once she left the city behind she stopped running, staggered into a tree, and vomited up the blood she’d ingested.
It burned like fire.
And she was fucking alone.
Fuck you, Gunnar.
I know you.
How did I forget?
“Oh,” Rune cried. “Oh God!”
She beat the hard bark until the tree disintegrated and her fists were a pulpy, bloody mess.
And finally, she wiped her nose on the tail of her shirt and turned to survey a dark world that was not her own.
Was not.
“I need to go home,” she murmured.
Somewhere off in the distance a colossal blast shook the ground and lit up the sky. She didn’t move, already accustomed to the explosions of the new place, but the boom flushed a few dozen animals—not wolves, nor shifters, nor the beasts the whip men had ridden—from some hiding place near her.
They streaked by, huffing and yelping, their huge paws tearing up the hard earth as they went.
Mutations.
Big as horses and ugly as…
Monsters.
Huge, hairy monsters with unimaginable faces and brown teeth as long and sharp as vampire stakes. They excreted feces as they ran—steaming piles of foulness that made her cover her nose and gag.
Gone in a flash.
It was a world not of Others, but of monsters.
Monsters like her.
“Girlie…”
She spun around, her claws already out, fangs dropping.
No one was there.
“Girlie…”
“Show yourself,” she demanded.
“I hear your heart beating. Fast…so fast. Your fear is delightful.”
“Fuck you,” she said. “I’m not the one hiding.”
She turned in slow circles, trying to catch a glimpse of the one who taunted her. The voice was low and whispery, and she had no idea if the owner of that voice was male or female.
“Oh girlie. You don’t want me to show myself. You would faint, and I would feast upon your lovely flesh. All of it.”
Rune forced her claws to lengthen. She smacked them together like silver knives then held
them out and ready at her sides. “I’m not the fainting type. Come on. Take a chance.”
Then another voice, quiet and terse but so thick she could barely understand the words, came from the shadows. “Back off, Celia.”
“But I want it,” Celia said. “Oh, so badly.”
“Go.”
“Well?” Rune asked him, once Celia’s angry footsteps had faded. “Who the fuck are you?”
But she backed away. She really didn’t care who anyone was. She just needed to find Damascus, get a cure—though she was beginning to doubt that’d be possible—and get back to her crew.
To the dying Others of her world.
To Lex.
If she could find a way back.
The man said nothing. He’d slunk away, back into the shadows of the forest, following the faceless Celia.
Once again, she was alone.
Or as alone as she could be, with the hidden creatures and monsters of Skyll lurking under every rock and behind every tree.
But she caught a scent as she walked away, a light, teasing scent.
She stopped walking, uncertain, completely lost, and the man stepped out of the shadows behind her.
She felt him before she heard him, and gooseflesh covered her skin as she turned to look at him.
Still, she didn’t know.
She couldn’t have known.
She was unable to think, unable to figure out why the fuck she was suddenly sobbing.
He stood there, dressed in black, covered with silver blades.
Watching her.
He opened his arms.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Don’t cry, sweet thing.”
About Laken Cane
Laken Cane is an urban fantasy writer living in Southern Ohio. Shiv Crew is her debut book, followed by Blood and Bite, Strange Trouble, Obsidian Wings, New Regime, the Rune Alexander short, Shadows Past, and Wormwood Echoes. She is currently working on book seven in the Rune Alexander series.
Places you can find Laken:
www.facebook.com/laken.cane.3
www.twitter.com/lakencane
www.lakencane.com and
www.facebook.com/groups/shivcrew, her very friendly and active fan page.