Blood Before Sunrise

by amanda bonilla

  “Darian,” he said, his fingers stroking up my arm, “let’s go home.”

  I melted against him, loving the way my name rolled off his tongue like a sacred word—or a prayer. It never took much for Ty to break down my defenses, and the thought of spending the rest of the night naked and twined around his magnificent body beat the hell out of standing on the cold, rain-drenched street for another second. He placed his lips against my neck, his tongue darting out to trace my flesh. Chills rippled across my skin from the contact. Oh yeah. It was time to go home.

  Side by side, we walked through the Queen Anne District just like any human couple would. Though nothing would have stopped me from becoming one with the shadows and traveling under the cover of darkness, I liked walking with Ty. As we headed down the street, the black tails of my duster floating out behind me, I was just a woman, one of thousands inhabiting the city of Seattle. It made me feel just a little less like a freak of nature, and more like the person I used to be. Night, day, dawn, or twilight—I could now pass through the world without the hindrance of being corporeal no matter the hour. I had to admit it was a nice perk, one that no other Shaede could claim, though the means to that end had been anything but pleasant. I never used to believe in ancient prophecy or rituals until I’d been the focal point of both. One attempted sacrifice and an eclipse later, and I had a whole new perspective on life.

  Though months had passed since my transformation to something more than Shaede, it seemed only a matter of days. My former lover, Azriel—the one who had supposedly made me what I was in the first place—had made an alliance with the Oracle Delilah and a small army of nasty Lyhtans—violent, praying mantis–looking bastards who hold a serious grudge against any Shaede—to bring down Xander Peck, the King of the Shaede Nation. The fact that Azriel had been Xander’s son made the situation that much worse. Hungry for power, he’d had designs on Xander’s crown for centuries. And he’d been willing to do anything to get it. I’d been the pawn in their little power struggle. But I wasn’t randomly selected for the honor. As it turned out, I was a creature created of my own will, and my superspecial blood had been used to awaken the Enphigmalé, hideous gargoyles with a serious binge-eating problem.

  When I’d first been introduced to the gargoyles by the raven-haired children who’d made me their prisoner and served as the Enphigmalé caretakers, they’d been solid stone. But one eclipse and a sip of my blood later, they’d sprung to life, hell-bent on devouring anything that crossed their path. Of the gargoyles that had made the transformation from stone to flesh, I’d killed all but a single beast. And just like the Oracle who’d orchestrated its resurrection, the Enphigmalé escaped. Azriel had been Delilah’s right-hand man, and he’d looked on as a spectator while I was almost killed. But since I was alive and well, and Azriel had gone into the shadow forever—meaning I had run my dagger across his lying, traitorous throat—it wasn’t hard to tell who’d come out on top of his little attempted coup.

  Delilah had been the one loose end I’d failed to tie up—so far. According to Azriel, she’d had more reason to hate Shaedes than anyone, though for the life of me, I couldn’t guess why. She’d proved to be more slippery than I’d given her credit for, however, and that was a sharp thorn in my side.

  Night wrapped me in its warm embrace, tickling my senses. I grabbed onto Tyler’s hand as we continued at a steady pace, not as my shadow-self, but in my corporeal form. I liked the feeling of being real, substantial, and not just a whisper of something too foreign for even preternatural creatures to comprehend. The lonely anonymity of my life prior to my transformation was gone. Up until several months ago, I’d thought I was the only Shaede in existence—part of Azriel’s lie to keep the secret of my self-made transformation good and hidden. It’s hard to hide under the cover of darkness when shadows are watching, though. Alexander Peck—Shaede High King, or to me, just plain Xander—had been watching me for a while. Once he plucked me from obscurity, there was no going back.

  Splinters of muted silver moonlight shone between the taller buildings, casting shadows on the rugged, handsome lines of Tyler’s model-worthy face. My pace slowed, and I released his hand as a strange urging pulled at my center. Turn here, intuition called, and as if I had no control over my limbs, I obeyed.

  “Darian?” Tyler said. “What’s up?”

  I ignored his question, my mind too focused to answer. My legs followed a path down an abandoned side street, the stench of ripe garbage wafting from a nearby Dumpster. Clearing my mind of conscious thought, I moved on instinct alone, allowing the strange feeling to guide me past a fire escape and toward a gaping door where the street dead-ended.

  “Darian!” Tyler’s tone sharpened as something close to a growl rumbled in the lone word. A warning. He was bound to me as my Jinn, a mystical protector, and his Spidey sense must have been tingling. I held up a hand to quiet him as much as to reassure him. I wasn’t in any danger—at least, not yet.

  I walked through the opening, surprised to find a storage space large enough to park a car in. From the look of it—not to mention the stale smell—no one had used the space for a while. Through the dark, I perceived the presence of another, and the feeling in my stomach tugged lower, like a rope drawing me to the floor. Squatting down, I roved the space with my eyes, marking a path of dirty blankets and discarded food containers, grateful for the ability to see through the dark. And at the end of it all, a body sat huddled in the corner, knees tucked up and head hidden beneath thin, bony arms.

  “Hello, Delilah,” I said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I’d never considered it.” Raif’s thoughtful voice echoed as we walked down the staircase into Xander’s council room. The High King’s brother rested his hand on his sword, his hand gripping and releasing the pommel as if it were a stress relief ball. “Perhaps it was the lack of decision making that allowed you to find her. If you hadn’t settled on a course of action, there would be no future act for the Oracle to see.”

  Sure, it made sense. Why not? But something aside from knee-jerk reaction had led me to Delilah. I was certain of it. We’d been searching for months, and she’d stayed just out of our reach each and every time. But tonight, she’d been handed to me on a silver platter. The only thing missing had been a large, shiny apple shoved into her mouth. A strange, otherworldly force had guided me. I couldn’t discount my feelings, though what they meant, I had no idea.

  We came to a bookcase at the far end of the council room. Raif pushed on one of the books, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I snorted before reining in my gasp of surprise. The bookcase gave way to admit us into what I can only describe as a prison cell. It wasn’t your run-of-the-mill sparse concrete square like you see in the movies. Like everything of Xander’s, this room bespoke a certain regality that almost made me laugh. A full-sized bed, decked out with pillows, a petite sofa, even a toilet complete with a privacy screen, furnished the cell—and a small flat-screen TV, for shit’s sake. No windows—after all, the room was meant for containment—but the walls were adorned with lavish oil paintings of landscapes. The cell was nicer than most hotel rooms. And I’m not talking about a Motel 6. Muttering under her breath, Delilah sat on the bed, dirty, with downcast, unseeing eyes.

  “Why didn’t you keep Azriel here after we’d captured him?” I asked, regretting the words before I could take them back. Since his death, speaking of him was forbidden in Xander’s house.

  “Azriel was a crown prince.” Raif’s tone became stiff, his usual formal self. “I would not have dishonored him so.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but reconsidered. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. “What are we going to do with her?” I asked.

  “For the time being, she’s Xander’s…guest. We can’t have her out roaming the streets and causing trouble. The PNT Council will hear her case, and I suppose they can decide her fate.”

  The Pacific Northwest Territories, as the area was called, encompassed the nonhuman population of Oregon
, Washington, and Idaho. They met once per quarter to address business pertinent to the supernatural community. Who better to decide what should happen to Delilah than a jury of her peers?

  “Do you think that keeping me locked up is going to do you any good?” Delilah’s words came through clenched teeth, anger infusing every syllable. She rocked back and forth, her hands twitching in her lap. She brought a finger to her mouth and bit it, hard. Blood welled from her fingertip, and she passed it along the lines of her palm, studying the bright red pattern with frightening intensity for someone who supposedly couldn’t see. “Of her blood, they’ll drink like wine. Stronger, faster, changing still, she’ll be forced to do his will! From herself she has been born. All will die and none will mourn!”

  Oh, just great. “Listen, Delilah. I’ve had enough of rhyming words and prophecy to last me the next thousand years or so. What’s done is done. You failed. It’s over. Time to let go.”

  “He’ll finish my business,” she said, laughing like a lunatic.

  “Azriel?” I asked, walking toward her. “Is that who you’re talking about? He’s dead, Delilah. He won’t be doing anything ever again.”

  She burst into another fit of laughter that raised my hackles. “No,” she said. “Not Azriel. The Man from The Ring is strong. Stronger than me. He gave me a gift of glamour! The Man will come, and he’ll succeed where I failed. Then you’ll know what true suffering is!”

  “We should kill her and do the council a favor,” Raif said, totally uninterested. “She’s useless and half mad.”

  “Do it!” Delilah screamed, excited. “Do it now, and I can join my sister, who you killed!” She shrieked the last word, extending a bloodied finger in Raif’s direction. “Your wife went willingly! She paid the price, and you killed my sister for it!”

  I turned and looked at Raif in silent question. His story had been a tragic one: His daughter was missing, and with nowhere left to turn, he’d sought an Oracle for answers. Her price for information about his daughter had been the life of his wife. When he refused, his wife had sacrificed herself. Raif hadn’t taken it very well. He’d killed the Oracle, Delilah’s sister.

  Brow quirked, I waited silently for his answer. Raif shrugged as if to say he’d killed a hundred Oracles in his life and couldn’t tell one from another. A look of deep hurt, of past wounds reopened, marred his warrior’s face as he turned on a booted heel and headed for the door.

  “I know where your daughter is,” Delilah said in a low, monotone voice.

  Raif froze halfway out of the room, his hand jutting out to the wall as he steadied himself. I took several steps back, putting myself safely in the middle of the cell, shocked. “Raif.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  He paused at the doorway and looked over his shoulder at the thin, dirty girl sitting on the pristine baby blue comforter. “Lies.” Grief and doubt tore at his voice. “She lies. Her time has run out, and she says it to torture me. My daughter is dead.”

  “How can you be sure?” I said, wanting to comfort my mentor, my friend, and not knowing how. “What if—”

  “No.” In two quick strides, he was back across the room, his hands gripping me just below the shoulders. He pulled me close, his mouth next to my ear. “It is a lie. Her mind is gone. She knows nothing, and every word from her mouth is insanity.” Without a parting word, he released his grip on me and strode from the room.

  Delilah sat on the bed, her legs crossed in front of her as she rocked back and forth, back and forth. She’d resumed muttering to herself, laughing and pulling out strands of her matted hair, examining each like ticker-tape before letting it drift to the floor. I approached the bed and the mindless Oracle nested there. I bent low to her face, my voice a snarl as it tore from my throat. “Tell me the girl’s name.”

  Delilah laughed, a smirk pulling at her thin, dry lips. “Brakae.”

  Chapter 2

  “Beware the Man from The Ring.”

  Her lyrical voice echoed in my ears, so sure for a child so small. She couldn’t have been more than four or five.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  The little girl skipped around me in a circle, arms outstretched as if she played a game of ring-around-the-rosy with invisible playmates. “He is the wolf of the battlefield. Once the right hand of the goddess Badb, and the first true protector. Wronged, betrayed, exiled, by those whom he trusted most. He will hunt you down and use you for his own devices.”

  I just couldn’t understand what it was about the supernatural lexicon that required everything to be spoken in rhyme or riddle. Besides being annoying, it flat-out pissed me off.

  “Honey, how about giving me a straight answer?” I said, spinning around, trailing her movement. As she skipped, her waist-length curly black hair bounced like hundreds of springs, framing her lovely pale face and sapphire blue eyes. A bright but serious smile curved her lips.

  “He is coming,” she said, circling me one last time before running off toward a distant knoll where the swaying grass swallowed her up. “Beware.”

  I sat straight up in bed and gripped my head between my hands to stop the room from spinning. I still felt dizzy from turning in circles, and dreams weren’t supposed to carry over into wakefulness. Wonderful.

  The sun sat at the cusp of the horizon. I sensed its rising as a tingling of my skin, and its scent came to me as warm and smelling of earth after a long rain. As I lay in bed, the gray hour of dawn faded into bright morning, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t banish the disturbing dream from my mind. Her energy had felt so real, rippling across my skin like satiny shadows, and the faint luminescence of her eyes confirmed that she was a Shaede. I’d never seen a Shaede child, let alone dreamt of one for that matter. But a Shaede she was, and her warning stirred a moment of disquiet in me I’d been trying very hard to ignore. It seemed I just couldn’t leave danger in my wake.

  Slipping out from between the sheets, I padded toward the kitchen. I looked around the small space, took in the clean, polished concrete countertops, the soft white leather of the sofa. I breathed in the aroma of hardwood and carpeting. Cold air seemed to circulate through my studio apartment, twining around my ankles upward—or, at least, I thought it felt that way. Since my transformation, I had to recognize my senses in an entirely different way. And every day since then, I’d been relearning how to feel comfortable in my own skin—not an easy task.

  Time ticked away inside my chest like a separate heartbeat; another souvenir I’d taken away from my Enphigmalé Island excursion. I’d changed during my time there, an evolution of my being that had come to completion under the black skies of a solar eclipse—a single moment in time when night became day and day became night. I tried for a moment to expel the sensation of time slipping through my body as I focused on the remembrance of quiet. How I longed for silence. But, like a cruel joke, the sound of seconds passing echoed in my soul, reminding me that I’d never have that kind of peace again. Yep, I was a lucky girl.

  My phone rang, a pleasant distraction from time’s steady cadence. I checked the caller ID. Unknown. I lifted the receiver. “Who is this?” I answered in a cordial-for-me voice.

  “Xander wants to see you,” a bitchy female voice on the other end said. “Now.”

  I didn’t need to check the phone to know she’d already disconnected the call. Anya liked me about as much as oil liked water. I didn’t exactly harbor any warm fuzzies for her either. It could have been natural female adversity that pitted us against each other, but I suspected that deep down, Anya hated me because I didn’t regard her with the same level of fear and respect the rest of Xander’s subjects exhibited. Or maybe she just didn’t like my taste in clothes. I certainly didn’t care for hers.

  The early-morning sun peeked out from the remnants of last night’s storm clouds and glittered through the skylights above me. I ran my hand through the yellow rays, my skin quivering like a mirage against desert sand. I watched in wonder as my arm began to fade into the light; t
hen I sharply pulled away, rubbing my skin as if I’d been burned. It didn’t hurt, not really. I just wasn’t used to the sensation yet. My shoulders slumped, and with a sigh, I faded, becoming nothing more than a whisper on the air.

  I traveled like a breath of wind through Xander’s too-large mansion and found the High King seated at a table in the solarium, watching the eastern horizon and sipping from a porcelain cup.

  As I stepped from nothingness into my solid form beside the chair, Xander’s eyes drifted shut and the corners of his mouth lifted, hinting at a smile.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “You wanted to see me?” I allowed the aggravation to seep through my voice.

  “Mmm,” he answered with a sigh. “Yes, I did.”

  His voice reached out to touch me in a velvet caress. Xander had the most alluring voice I’d ever heard, smooth and seductive, and he tried to use it to his advantage.

  “Well,” I said, tapping my foot, “what the hell do you want?”

  “Sit.”

  “Excuse me? Last time I checked, I wasn’t yours to command.”

  “Sit.”

  He motioned to the chair opposite him just before a Shaede with bright platinum hair walked in, carrying a tray laden with a breakfast spread that would have put any of Seattle’s best eateries to shame. Fruit, fresh-baked croissants, eggs Benedict, and a couple of other baked goods that looked like fancy breakfast Hot Pockets. She plunked down two plates, and I stifled a groan. The High King must have been pretty confident that I’d show up at just the right time. Xander was such a count-his-chickens sort of guy.

  “I like your outfit, by the way,” he said as he watched the platinum-haired Shaede leave. “I don’t often see you in white.”

  I shrugged as I lowered myself into the chair, conveying my displeasure through the slits of my eyes. I hated his small talk. He didn’t give two shits what color I wore. In fact, I was willing to bet he’d prefer to see me wear nothing at all. I didn’t wear white—much—but since my transformation, I’d been wearing the color more often. He’d known I’d come straight over after Anya’s call. And the fact that he’d maneuvered me with aplomb raised my hackles.