by Kresley Cole
"What are you talking about?"
"Nix wants me to get information on him, won't let me see Thad until I do."
Rune raised his brows. "So your solution is to assassinate her? Seems like a blunt-tool approach, doesn't it?"
"Yep. It eliminates the obstacle. My motto? Squeeze until something breaks."
"I'm discovering you like to keep things simple."
She nodded. "Even though I'm not spying, I want to know more. Had you met Orion before he freed you?"
"No, never. Yet he somehow knew I would become the greatest archer in all the worlds."
Rune said this matter-of-factly, as she did when she informed folks she was wicked strong. It's not bragging if it's true. "You told me your bow was a priceless gift. Was it from Orion?"
"Yes, the Darklight bow." He plucked at the string. "You do listen to me on occasion."
"Every now and then. Why's it called Darklight?"
"It was crafted from Yggdrasil, one of the world trees. The wood was harvested beneath a full hunter's moon, but cured with the fire of a sun dragon. Even my strength won't break it. Which means I can shoot very, very far, and very, very fast. With the right arrow, I could pierce a mountain with ease. In the Elserealms, I'm known as Rune Darklight. It's my surname, as much for the bow as for my species, I suppose."
Josephine Darklight. Sigh. She would love to take his name, to finally become someone other than Josephine Doe. He'd asked her for her family name only once, but he'd promised to get all her secrets. Soon, she'd entrust them to him.
"Maybe I'll take you shooting one day," he offered, his tone casual.
One day equaled future. "I'd like that." She glanced down at his ever-present quiver. "Why are your arrows different colors?"
"They each have a specific purpose. I use blood runes to bespell them."
"I want to learn those symbols."
He frowned. "Why?"
"Because they're badass. And they're how you got your name."
"Learning them is easier said than done. Perhaps I'll teach you a couple."
A couple? She'd already memorized all the ones he'd drawn on her and the one he'd used today. "Let's see your arrows."
He drew out one with a white shaft and feathers. His runes shone in the dim light.
She noted the symbols.
"This is a bonedeath arrow," he said. "Shot into the ground, it will pulverize the bones of anyone within screaming distance." His expression was impassive; he didn't sound proud or ashamed.
Yet he considered her ghosting him into the earth horrifying? "That arrow doesn't hurt you or your allies?"
"I make us immune. I'll add runes to spare you as well."
"So that's what Nix was talking about." When she'd been breaking my limbs. "Have you ever shot one of those?"
"Today I used it against troops of ice demons before I went to Dalli's. She's my friend I told you about." He returned the arrow.
"Dalli's a friend with benefits?" No denial. He'd gotten with that female less than a day ago. Jo's claws sharpened. It seemed like weeks had passed. "So you had time to get busy with a nymph and go into battle?"
He shrugged, his demeanor all no big deal, then moved to the black arrow. "We call this"--he tapped the feathered end--"one-and-done. When I shoot a target in the neck, the arrow severs his head cleanly, which makes things tidier when I need proof of a kill." His fingers skimmed a gray arrow. "This one is the eraser. It will explode an immortal's body into small chunks."
That'd probably be a trip to see. "And the red arrows?"
"I've dipped the arrowheads in my poison. Most Loreans won't survive even that dose."
"Who was the last person you assassinated?"
"A descendant of that queen. Before I killed Magh, I swore I'd stamp out her entire line." Just talking about that female made his eyes glint with hatred. "Each Morior wants something in the Gaia realms. I work toward retribution."
"Do the others have vendettas?"
"Some, but there's more." He seemed to be deciding how much to tell her.
"Like what? Do you plot worlds domination?" she asked, trying to lighten his mood once more.
Deadly serious, he said, "Yes."
Whoa. "Are you going to set up some kind of dictatorship?"
"How would that be different from what you do in your neighborhood? You police it and protect your people from threats. Imagine if your actions alone kept your entire neighborhood--no, your nation--from absolute destruction." He shot his glass, then picked up hers. "I want you to meet Orion. He'd best explain it to you."
Rune wanted to introduce her to his people? "You'd arrange a meeting?"
"In time. As I've said, you need allies. You could have none finer."
"Do any of the other ones have a mate?"
He coughed on his drink. "Why would you ask that?" He cleared his throat, emptied the jug, then signaled for another.
"Because I'm totally yours."
He looked rattled. "I'm not even a demon. I'm a dark fey--and they don't get mates."
"Says who?"
"I've never met a dark fey who had one."
Funny how he didn't say Jo could never be a possibility. "But you don't know a lot of them, right?"
"I thought we agreed you had a crush."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Nope. Wouldn't have agreed with that."
"Then explain how you can be so sure."
"The first time blood touched my tongue, I knew I was a blood-drinker forever. I didn't need to date Blood for a few months and then move in with Blood and meet Blood's family to be sure."
"Yes, but that's instinct."
"Exactly. Don't you trust yours?"
Instead of answering her, he asked, "Do you think the reverse is true? That I'm yours?"
"I thought they went together."
"Often, but not always." He leaned in closer, peering into her eyes. "Am--I--yours?"
She leaned in as well. "I'd--lay--odds."
He drank again. "When a Lorean male finds his mate from a different species, the female is usually resistant. I've seen more than one acquaintance go to hellish lengths to secure a future with a mate who is other. I'd expect you to fight every step of the way. Not ask for a commitment on day four!"
"What a breath of fresh air I am. Look, I know what I want, and I've been waiting for this. So just spitball with me. What would happen if I was your mate and we had sex?"
"My body would recognize yours. I'd begin to produce seed for you," he said, his voice getting huskier.
"You like imagining that?"
His eyes darkened even more. "The idea of filling you with my cum? Fuck yes, it's erotic as hell." He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. "Yet the reality would prove to be anything but--if this were even possible. Everything in me is poisonous. Why should I expect my semen to be different?"
"But I'm immune to everything in you." She turned his question back on him: "Why should we expect your semen to be different?"
"Would you take that risk? If there's an infinitesimal chance you're mine, there's a chance you could die in agony."
"I'm immune to you; you're delectable to me. Seems we're compatible, huh?"
He was either surprised or frustrated by her blase attitude, or both. "There's more. After giving you seed you might not survive, the demon in me would need to mark your neck with a bite, forever signaling to other males you're taken."
So that was what Desh had mentioned. "It'd be like getting a tattoo? You have tattoos--I want one!"
"No, no, it's not like that." Definitely frustrated. "It would be invisible to all but demons."
She pouted. "I wouldn't be able to see my own tatt?"
"Will you let me get to my point? I would sink my fangs--also lethal--deep into your flesh. Could you withstand so much poison in your body? What if the effect is cumulative?"
"You'd screw me, come in me, and bite my neck? You just described my dream date." She shivered. "So what will I do?"
He sh
ot another glass. "Females climax from a demon's bite."
"Sign. Me. Up."
He was getting agitated. When he poured more of his drink, some sloshed over the rim. "Why would I go seven thousand years without a mate? What's your explanation? I'll tell you mine: because it was never going to happen anyway. You can't change my thinking on this. I've had eons to accept my fate."
"It's because I wasn't born yet, sport." She poked his chest with her forefinger. "I just arrived on the scene twenty-five years ago. Plus, it's an Accession. You said Loreans find mates around those times. So while seven thousand years sounds bad, in truth I've only missed the first thirteen Accessions of your life."
He swallowed.
Boo-yah. "Hadn't thought about it that way, huh?"
"You truly believe you're mine?"
"Yep."
He stared her down. "I guarantee you're not."
She nodded with understanding. "Because I'm Desh's? I guess I could have my dream date with him."
Rune ground his teeth until a muscle ticked in his wide jaw.
The host returned with a tray of food then, serving two large bowls. Each had a big noodle folded into it with vegetables on top. It smelled appetizing, and poor Rune was going to need his strength tonight.
"Go on and eat. I'll still be your mate in twenty minutes."
FORTY-TWO
I'm gonna go out on a limb here," Josephine began grandly as they strolled along a terrace, "and make a blanket statement. I like alcohol." She swerved, so Rune put his arm around her.
He might've given her a jot too much. She'd had two more draws from his finger. "I think I've created a monster." At least she was prepped for questioning.
"That blood mead you mentioned? Completely down with trying it. Hey, been thinking about phantoms . . ."
She'd asked him myriad things about her species, but he'd had little information to give her.
In all seriousness, she said, "If a phantom has an orgasm, is it a phantasm?"
He grinned. "I'm certain of it."
She craned her head up, coming to a stop. "Look at the stars. I love stargazing."
"Have you ever flown on a plane?" Over dinner, she'd admitted she'd never been out of the American South.
"Uh-uh."
"Then at this altitude, you're closer to the stars than you've ever been."
Her red lips curled. But then her brows drew together. "Wasn't there another time . . . ?"
"Another time?"
"Aren't they tempting? Maybe I'll float up to them." She reached up as if she could touch them. "They're mine. I saw them first."
"What do you mean?"
" 'S nothing." Josephine faced him again. "Where are you taking me?" Arm draped over her shoulders, he led her down a stone path. "I told you. It's a surprise." He lifted his face to the wind but scented no Loreans on this mountain. He heard no Orea. Time for questions. "I'm curious about something. How could you not know what you are? Did you never know your parents?"
"I don't know."
Even drunk, she was going to stonewall him? "You either knew them or you didn't."
She kicked a pebble on the path, tripping, but he steadied her. "I don't have any memories from before I was eight or so. It's just a blank slate."
He stopped, turning her to face him. "How could that be? What's your first memory?"
Her gaze grew distant. "There was a shroud of crystal covering me, and a warm bundle in my cloak. I jerked upright, banging my head against the crystal, shattering it. Then the bundle moved! I was holding a baby."
Dear gods. "Go on."
"I assumed he was mine, because I didn't know how old I was. In the end, Thaddie was my kid anyway."
No wonder she was so protective of him.
"I didn't know where I was. Who I was. What I was. But I knew the baby would need to eat. My God, he could scream. So I set off. Walked till my feet bled, till we were found."
She and Thaddeus had been foundlings. Rune pinched the bridge of his nose. "Who discovered you, humans or Loreans?" he asked, though he knew the answer.
"Humans. They said I'd been speaking gibberish. They blamed my memory loss on a head injury."
That explained why she knew so little about the Lore. "Then what happened?"
"They gave us names, posted bulletins to find our parents, then put us into social services. We were the 'Doe children'. We crapped out on our first foster placement."
"Why?"
"Guy stuck his hand down my pants."
Rune's fists clenched, claws digging into his palms with the need to kill. "You will tell me how to find him."
She waved that away. "Got him back. Burned down his house with his own Zippo."
In time, Rune would track down that male and do far, far worse. Somewhere in this world, a human had no idea he'd just been marked for torture and death by an immortal assassin. But even Rune's dark plans didn't appease the wrath in him. He inhaled for control.
"I took Thaddie, and we started living on the streets. I raised him from an infant. He was my number one."
"You were a girl! What did you know about taking care of a baby?"
"I knew jack shit, had to figure out everything quickly. I learned to speak English in record time."
She and Thaddeus would have been utterly vulnerable, yet she'd somehow kept them both alive. Adding to the difficulty, she'd been a hybrid in a world of humans. "How did you hide your powers? Your need for blood?"
"I got my powers and began to drink on the same day. Not until I was eleven."
"Why then?"
"I kinda burned down this gang lord's house--sensing a theme?--so he kinda shot me in the face. Six slugs to the head. Ow, you know?"
Rune's gaze dropped to her necklace. He hoped she hadn't already offed that fuck. Adding him to my kill list.
"I woke up in the morgue, in a body bag. I thought I was a ghost."
At eleven years old. Though she was only twenty-five, she'd experienced more shock and uncertainty than some immortals who'd lived for centuries.
"That same day, I slit the asshole's throat."
Already dead. Pity. "Go on."
"When his blood sprayed, it hit my mouth."
"You didn't bite him?"
"I was squeamish about putting my lips on him, much less my tongue and fangs." She peered up at him to say solemnly, "I'm a very picky eater, Rune."
"Noted. Why were you separated from Thad?"
"After I 'died' from gunshot wounds, this librarian took him in. MizB. When I went to steal him back, he didn't recognize me 'cause I was all vamped up--my looks change with proper nutrition, I guess. MizB and her husband were good for him, and I thought I was some kind of evil resurrected demon or something. I thought Thad should be with his own kind," she said evenly, but she was alternating between intangible and embodied, betraying her feelings. "I should've been in a grave; what right did I have to him?" She lifted her necklace. "That's why I wear this. It's a reminder of the day I became something that should never be around an innocent boy." She frowned. "Or it was a reminder."
Not to know about the Lore . . . or her own species? How had she developed such a strong sense of herself? Where did her confidence come from? As before, these answers only begged more questions.
"I tore myself away, letting Thaddie live his life. Somehow I kept my distance, never seeing him again." She fixed her gaze on Rune's. "Not until the night I thought you were trying to kill him."
FORTY-THREE
Jo had left out certain parts of her story, like her fear of floating away, but she was proud of herself for revealing so much. Baby steps. Alcohol had made it easier to confide stuff and had her feeling . . . spectacular. Specter-tacular! So what would Rune think about her history?
Though his expression gave away nothing, his grip had tightened on her. "What will you do now that you know Thad is a Lorean, the same as you?"
"I'm not sure he is. I don't think he drinks blood." A few months ago, he'd been in a hot-dog-eat
ing contest for charity. "And he's not pale like me, was never sickly like me."
"But if he's your full blood brother . . ."
"He is. I sense that strongly. Sometimes I have the vaguest memories of a woman with shadowy eyes. I think she might be . . . our mother. But why would I have powers while he has none?"
"Perhaps your shooting was a catalyst, speeding up your transition."
"You talked about females freezing into immortality in their twenties. How'd I regenerate so young?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "I can't think of another species where the young regenerate. That must be a hybrid power."
"So I couldn't have been transformed from a human or anything?"
He shook his head. "Transformed into a vampire? Perhaps, though females aren't known to survive the transition. Into a phantom? Again, it's unlikely. Into both? Impossible."
"Then Thad is like me," Jo breathed, ghosting again.
"Nix's unusual interest in him only serves as more evidence."
"I stayed away from him for so long." Grief rose up inside her. All those lost years . . . "I can't explain how hard it's been."
He laid his warm palms on her shoulders. "Did you have no one to lean on? You took three males into your bed--did you have a relationship with any of them? Love one of them?" Earlier, he'd laughed when she'd told him her number. Now his eyes flickered as he awaited her answer. "Well, have you been in love?"
Jo shook her head. "I didn't fit in with humans, and I'd never even talked to a Lorean before you."
Josephine had been completely alone.
Those two nymphs in New Orleans had told Rune she would roam the streets, appearing sad. He hadn't been able to understand it then. . . .
She was gauging his reaction. He sensed she'd stop talking if he looked like he pitied her, so he kept his expression neutral. "The woman you remember--do you think she was a phantom?"
Josephine nodded.
How had that female been separated from her two offspring? Had she been in a war? An invasion? "Aside from the Valkyrie, is there anything to prevent you from reuniting with Thad?" From both of you joining our cause? Thaddeus would become as much a target in the Lore as Josephine; the Morior could keep him protected until he'd transitioned.
"He has that human adoptive mother. Even a grandmother. He's really close to them. MizB didn't accept me when I was eleven--I doubt she will now when I have so much blood on my hands. In any case, I want what's best for Thaddie. I'd keep away if I thought that would help."
It won't. "You can take it as it comes, once we remove the Valkyrie from the equation."