Night Life

by Caitlin Kittredge

  "After we have used you up," Cassandra purred in my ear as she produced silk scarves—black, of course— from her left sleeve and lashed one of my hands to the arm of the chair, "we will begin on your partner. He is extremely virile. His blood will be saccharine."

  She left my other arm exposed, touching it with the pads of her fingers and scraping with her blackened nails. When our flesh met, I felt the same electric pop I had when the man who attacked me forced me to rub my blood on him.

  I jerked involuntarily. Cassandra hissed. "Liar!"

  Hey, at least now I knew I was in the right place to find the guy.

  "Filthy liar!" Cassandra screamed again, pinning my wrist as I tried to yank away and plunging the scalpel into the soft underportion of my forearm. Just like my attacker, she was far stronger than she should be.

  I tore the scarf free and swung at her with my other hand, connecting with her nose. It fountained blood as her fairing jerked the scalpel across my skin, flaying it open. Hot red pain traveled up my arm into my chest, the mingled blood and torn nerves exciting all my were senses to the bursting point.

  Cassandra opened her mouth and howled, which served as a rallying cry for her onlookers. I tried to back away from them and at the same time stanch the free-flowing blood from my arm with the black scarf, but I felt a thousand hands on me and before I knew it I was on the ground, boots and hands and heels pressing into me as the faces milled above.

  "Shame on you for insulting Cassandra," said Maven. He crouched next to me and I thrashed once, feebly, as he touched my cheek. His hand was like icy paper. "Now I guess we'll just have to dispose of you, flawed and worthless as you are." He lifted my cut arm and let it flop back. "Someone get me the straight blade."

  The crowd rushed to do as he said. To my ears it sounded like the rustling silk wings of faraway birds. The red light started to drip down out of my vision as black crawled over it, and Maven's bony overstretched face was at the center of my universe.

  "Interesting," he was muttering, patting down my body. "How did you resist Cassandra, hmm? Tell me your secrets, plain human." His hands searched over my waistband and under my tank, pushing it up until I could feel cool air seeping through my bra.

  Maven hissed as my upper chest came to his view, and I knew he saw the long scratch left by the masked attacker's knife. "Dark ones …," Maven murmured in a tone that anyone, no matter what persuasion, uses to invoke the gods when seriously screwed.

  "Cassandra!" he shouted. "Get yourself up off your arse, woman! Come see!"

  "I am with blood, Maven!" came her nasal reply. I was so tired. I just wanted them to stop talking, wanted all the people pressing so close to go away and let me go to sleep.

  "I don't care about your nose!" Maven snapped, losing the British accent as his anger came out. "Come the Hex over and see what you've done!"

  Cassandra appeared next to him, two pale moon faces orbiting gently overhead. She sucked in a breath. "Oh, no."

  "Feel it," Maven grated. "It sings of another's mark."

  "I… I had no idea," Cassandra gulped, sounding frightened. "The brands … a watchman must have found her and she came here looking for him because of my brands…"

  "It doesn't matter," said Maven. "What matters now is that you have trespassed on her flesh and they will see."

  For a shining second, I thought he was going to let me go. Whatever my attacker had done to me, it had been enough to scare the ever-living crap out of Maven and Cassandra.

  Then Cassandra said, "Kill her. Kill her quickly."

  So much for that rosy scenario.

  "Everyone go! Leave us!" Maven said. "We must dispose of her before this violation is discovered."

  The crowd drew back with a flurry of distressed whispers, and before I had time to ponder what about my healing cut scared the pair so badly, Maven was straddling me with a long blade to my throat. Through my blood-loss-induced haze I saw his arm tense to draw it across my windpipe and permanently end this nightmare of blood and ceremony I was trapped in.

  A gunshot boomed out, and you could tell the normal humans from the others because they all screamed and broke into a run.

  I rolled my head to the side and saw Dmitri brandishing my service weapon. A roll in the other direction showed the bartender slumped unconscious but breathing with a trail of blood running out from under his head.

  Dmitri racked the dock's slide with a practiced motion and aimed at Maven and Cassandra. "Don't you fuckin' twitch," he ordered.

  Maven held up his hands in a placating gesture. "If we don't erase this trespass, we are all in dire trouble. You have no idea what you're interfering with, were."

  "And I don't give a witch's ass, either," Dmitri snapped. "Back away from the detective!"

  "You stupid animal," said Cassandra, moving disdainfully away from me. "Reap what you sow, then." I felt a brush of silk skirt over my cheek, and she was gone.

  The relief of knowing that I wasn't going to die pushed me over the edge into unconsciousness, and I was only faintly aware of Dmitri gathering me into his arms and carrying me out of Maven's and into the cool night.

  * * * *

  While I slept I saw Joshua again and I begged him not to leave me. Cried for him not to. Unaware of the sticky blood running down my shoulder or my nakedness in the back of his beat-up van, I clung to his hand and begged because I could feel him, under my skin, a need that burned me up. I didn't understand it, but it hurt and I couldn't bear to have him leave me with this pain.

  Of course, when he turned back in the dream I remembered the reality of the night—the suffocation of him on top of me, clawing at the zipper of my jeans, pressing me into the stinking carpet and forcing my blood out through my pores. I saw the rampant snake tattoo on his wrist as he covered my mouth to muffle the screams. And it wasn't Joshua who had run crying and battered down the beach road after starting the evening with stolen beer and the promise of a hookup.

  I ran from Joshua and from the bite, and only later did I realize the horrible ache of being Insoli, and that the choice between being a slave or an outcast was the most painful one I would ever make.

  Fifteen

  When my eyes opened the first thing I saw was Sunny's face hovering over me, brows almost touching.

  "What's up?" I croaked. "You look like somebody died."

  "With good reason, because you almost did," she said severely. I hoisted myself onto my elbows.

  "Oh lighten up, Sunny. I just got a scratch." My forearm was wrapped in gauze and surgical tape. No hospital bracelet. Sunny must have done the job herself. "Nice work, by the way."

  "You need stitches." She still didn't smile. "The cut is deep and you lost a lot of blood. You need to see a doctor."

  I waved my hand. Pain shot up my arm, lighting up the wound like Vegas. "I don't need a doctor," I gritted. "This close to the phase I'll heal up before we even make it to the ER, seeing how traffic is this time of day." That was a good question—what time of day was it? My alarm clock said 10:30 AM. Considering the last time I'd checked my watch it had been a little after seven the night before, I had been out for a while.

  Begging a far more interesting question: how had I gotten home, anyway?

  "Sunny, how did I get here?"

  She shot a glance toward my door. "Your, um, friend brought you."

  Oh, crap. "Friend?"

  "Yes," she nodded. "The very large, very attractive Mr. Sandovsky that you've gotten all crushed on lately."

  "I am not crushed," I warned her.

  So Sandovsky had not only carried me out of the club but all the way back to the cottage, too? No matter how much crazy, weird, wacked-out shit I saw in a day, life just kept pulling new and delightfully mutated rabbits out of its hat. "Did Dmitri say why he brought me?"

  "Ask him yourself," said Sunny. "He's sitting in the living room."

  I bolted upright. My wound protested, and I told it with a forceful bound out of my bed to shut up. "He's here? Now?"


  "Was when I came up here to check on you, so unless he's turned into a pumpkin and vanished he should still be," said Sunny. "He wouldn't leave until he was sure you'd be all right. He mumbled something about owing you."

  "Hex me now," I moaned, covering my eyes. Just what I needed—my very own guardian were angel.

  Sunny pulled my silk lounging robe out of my closet and tossed it to me. "Put this on before you see him. It brings out your eyes." She walked out and slammed the door, calling down the stairs, "Would you like a refill, Mr. Sandovsky? Or another bagel?"

  Hexed fire, Sunny was feeding him. I yanked on the robe and tiptoed down the hall cautiously, trying to catch a glimpse of Dmitri before he saw me in my ultimate morning-after hair and ratty sweatpants peeking out from under the robe. As soon as my foot touched the first stair step, though, his head snapped up and his nostrils flared.

  I gave up trying to be coy. "Morning, Dmitri."

  "Morning yourself, Detective," he said. He put the teacup on the coffee table and stood. "Nice place you got here."

  It was the first time I had seen Dmitri by the light of day. Lit by the sun his skin was translucent along his sharp cheekbones and aggressive chin, and the hair was darker than I realized, more of a copper than a red. The eyes were the same bottomless green. In my girly, fluffy living room with its overstuffed couches and worn braided rugs, he looked hopelessly out of place. He shifted his feet and left black boot prints on the hardwood floor.

  "I see you've gotten some refreshments," I said, indicating the mug and the plate holding the remains of a wheat bagel. I suck at small talk, but what do you say to a gorgeous alpha were who's gone all heroic on you?

  "Yeah," said Sandovsky. "Rose hip tea your cousin made. Pretty good, actually."

  "If you're telling the truth, you'd be the first one," I told him. Time to figure out what the hell he was still doing here. Liking a girl and bringing her home injured in the dead of night are two very different countries, and I wasn't sure I was comfortable with him crossing the border. "Why did you bring me home? How do you know where I live?"

  "Relax, Detective," he said, holding up a hand. "I got your address from your ID. You were bleeding bad, and I didn't think you'd want a bunch of questions at a hospital. I wrapped your arm up in some bar towels and drove like a bat out of hell." He pointed out the window at the low black bike sitting next to Sunny's car. I groaned.

  "Please don't tell me you drove me home, bleeding and unconscious, on the back of your motorcycle."

  Dmitri shrugged. "I didn't know where you parked your car." He picked up his wolf head jacket and slipped it on. "I can see you're not overwhelmed with gratitude, so I'm gonna go."

  "Wait, wait," I commanded as he headed for the door. He turned back, one copper eyebrow cocked. If the night made him seem sexy, in sunlight he was full-on mating material.

  Bad thoughts, Luna. Bad! No Internet shoe shopping for you!

  "You saved my life," I told him. "I don't know how to thank you for that. But that doesn't change the fact you haven't been exactly cooperative from the get-go."

  "At the get-go you were in my face, embarrassing me in front of my pack and trying to arrest me," he tossed back.

  "I was doing my job," I snapped. "Arresting is what I do to suspects."

  "You know, I save your Hexed life and you're still a bitch," he said.

  "Maybe instead of standing here insulting me, you should take what I said last night to heart and stop trying to vigilante out on the man who killed Lilia."

  He swept the cup and plate to the floor, where they shattered in a puddle of lukewarm tea and crumbs. "Don't you dare think that because I talk to you, you can order me around, Insoli bitch!" he screamed. "You'll never even be capable of feeling what I am right now!"

  I reached up and slapped him across the cheek hard, punctuating the blow with a growl. Dmitri growled back and grabbed my wrist, pulling it tight to my side and me against him.

  "I should knock you senseless for that," he whispered to me. He was shaking with the effort of keeping himself under control, and his eyes flashed yellow.

  "Then do it," I said calmly. After last night, and the nightmares that came with it, Dmitri was last on the list of things that scared me.

  He let out a long trembling sigh and loosened his grip, shoulders slumping.

  "I know exactly what you are feeling right now," I whispered, putting an arm around his neck and my mouth close to his ear. He didn't pull away. "Lilia didn't have to die for nothing. Don't throw away a chance to really punish this guy because you have to exact some cockeyed pack revenge."

  He released my wrist and stepped back, not able to meet my eyes.

  "I didn't mean that. The Insoli thing," he muttered.

  "I know, but you're still a son of a bitch for saying it," I told him.

  "I'll make it up to you, I promise." He smirked and I saw the flash of devil in his eyes that must have been present a lot more before Lilia's death snuffed it.

  "Oh, really? How?"

  Dmitri shook his head. "Don't tease me, Detective. You'll regret it."

  "Not very secure, are you?" I prodded. "Aren't you supposed to say I'd like it?"

  Maybe I just wanted to poke him once more for the Insoli comment, but I was totally unprepared for Dmitri to grab my shoulders and push me against the living room wall. His eyes were hooded, and he leaned close and scented me as I squirmed.

  "You would like it," he rasped. "But then you'd regret it. I'm not what you want, Luna."

  He was right, of course. Absolutely. The totally wrong kind of man for me, a repeat of almost every one I'd been with up till this moment.

  "You're exactly what I want," I purred. Way to stay strong, Luna. Bravo.

  Dmitri shuddered as he scented my arousal and then his mouth was against mine, tasting me and sliding down my neck, his hands tugging my shirt upward to expose the fact that I spent way too much money on lingerie.

  "Sunny…," I hissed as Dmitri's hand moved the waistband of my sweats. "Sunny might come back…"

  "Shut up," he muttered against the pulse point in my neck. His fingers brushed over my Brazilian wax, and he rumbled approval deep in his throat as his two longest fingers found wet and slid inside. His other hand pulled my bra cup aside and twisted my nipple painfully as his teeth closed on my neck.

  My tee slipped down to expose four round bite scars and Dmitri sucked in a breath, pulling back like I was red-hot iron. His expression caused humiliation to flame up instantly.

  I slid down the wall, readjusting my clothes. "I guess you were right. I do regret it."

  "The hell didn't you tell me a Serpent Eye gave you the bite?" Dmitri demanded. He jerked at his belt buckle with irritation, trying to accommodate a newly appeared bulge.

  "What in Hex are you talking about?" I said, brushing myself off. My wound throbbed again and my limbs felt heavy.

  "The four-fang scar. Serpent Eyes. Pack that doesn't have pack magick." Dmitri was standing on the opposite side of the room, like I had sprouted a small mutant head out of my shoulder. "They never know what the bite will do."

  "Well, all it's done for me is cause a lot of grief and gotten disgusted looks from you." I sighed.

  Dmitri shuffled his feet. "Sorry. Just wasn't expecting to see that."

  "Forget it," I muttered, hoping that the free-flowing font of embarrassment welling inside me wasn't telegraphed in my voice. I had forgotten for two minutes that Dmitri and I were different, but now he had hammered it home and soldered it shut.

  Sunny stuck her head into the room. "Everything all right? I heard some yelling. And thumping." She used the same kind of tone orderlies use on the lunatics.

  "Fine," I said calmly. "Dmitri and I were just discussing some of the finer points of the case."

  And before anyone could say anything else, I turned calmly and walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Once I hit the fence I broke into a run, practically falling over myself to reach the tiny falling-down bo
athouse that rested on the beach below the cottage.

  I would never be like Dmitri. I would never call a pack my own. I had thrown away the one chance at a normal were life when I threw Joshua's sweaty body off me and ran away from him, bleeding out my last seconds of plain humanity into the sand.

  The boathouse was dim and smelled like old fish. Previous tenants had left nets and one dilapidated kayak that Sunny always talked about using during the summer but never got brave enough to take out on the waves.

  I ignored it all and ripped the tarp off the kennel in the corner, large enough for me to crawl inside as a human and strong enough to hold me as a were. I hoped.

  My pulse pounded in my ears and all I could see was Dmitri's flat look of disgust when he laid eyes on my bite. Days of holding in the phase made my tattoo flame with pain, and the pentacle on my neck hissed when my fingers brushed against it.

  I crawled inside the cage and wrapped my arms around my knees, muttering "No, no, no." Denial was my last line of defense against the phase.

  The door clicked shut after me, and as if a secret signal had been sent, my hands spasmed and a cramp doubled me over, digging wire mesh into my cheek and side.

  "Hex!" I ground out, a scream waiting behind my teeth. My skin prickled with a thousand pins as hair began to sprout and my jaw creaked, making room for my were fangs.

  I lost the battle and screamed, not with pain but with unadulterated were rage. I saw Dmitri again, black and white, and this time my desire was purely to kill him. Him, Joshua, and anyone else who would deny me this, this painful release that made my ringers bleed and my skull crack and my body fold in on itself.

  Sunny knocked, of course. She would know the only reason I ever came down here. "Luna? You okay in there?"

  Far from okay, body seizing, skin searing off as muscle rippled underneath. Dimly, I realized the pain wasn't dissipating, because I wasn't under a moon and couldn't fully phase.

  I looked down at my still-human hands, black were nails dripping blood onto the sandy floor.

  "Luna?" Sunny rattled the handle once.