I press my forehead against the cool surface and clasp the circular handle. Swinging the door wide, I step inside. I stand there for a moment in the soft blackness and a drop of water echoes against what I assume is a sink basin.
Thank God.
I smack the wall behind me, feeling for a light switch. A familiar plastic nub fills my palm and I slide my hand up.
Bright light snaps into the space like white blood and I yelp, closing my eyes and throwing a hand over my face.
Vomit pulses inside my stomach, begging for a chance to escape. I resolutely swallow back the rising gorge.
I don't need dickhead Duncan to come back to me while I'm vulnerable and puking so he can work his fists on me again.
A startled laugh bursts out of me with the thought of what my life has become in a day's time.
Fucked up, if I'm any judge.
I'm so far away from coiffed and in-control counselor it feels like I've been reincarnated.
A bare bulb swings from the ceiling and I jump when the thin pull chain smacks me lightly on the cheekbone.
God! I deliberately calm my breathing and slowly peruse the bathroom, easily finding a toilet that hasn't been flushed in so long the water is a stagnate swamp of mildew. I hit the handle and the water engulfs the choked dark water, swirling it down and away.
I sit and pee.
And pee some more, head in my hands. I bite my lip, as the stingy, hot stream evacuates, breathing a sigh of complete relief when my bladder is finally empty.
I stand in a half-squat, using one square of toilet paper.
I open the under sink cabinet—nothing.
Okay. Conserve TP.
I turn on the faucet of an ugly mustard porcelain, 1970s chrome-rimmed sink and splash delicious water on my face.
The cold water stings my injuries... and I don't care. Cupping my hands, I gulp down greedy handfuls until my stomach slushes with it.
Cold water drips down my face, landing like soft drops of rain on my collarbone and dampening my t-shirt.
I survey the bathroom. No towel.
My gaze shifts to the mirror and I give a choked scream at my reflection.
I step back, hands to my throat and stare at my face.
But it's my eyes that are the worst.
A huge bruise circles my left orb like a raccoon's eye. Abrasions litter my chin, and a stubborn piece of gravel has embedded itself on the side of my jaw. I look like a war survivor.
Worse—My naturally gray eyes look strange. Like a second layer of clear crystal floats over the surface of the irises.
Without glancing behind me, I pull the filthy chain from the bulb and the room is silenced to black again. A noise issues from my throat like a squeezed trickle of misery.
Where my eyes would be, discs of silver flicker reflectively back at me within the near-complete darkness of the bathroom.
I'm not me anymore, but something new.
Just as I think it, a piercing pain lances my female bits. With a defeated sigh, I slide down the wall and push the door shut with a finger.
It's just me inside the miserable suffocatingly blank bathroom.
Waves of heat pulse from my sex to my toes, radiating back to the center of me and spreading like a wildfire inside my body.
I remember what Arden said. And Merck.
I needed to be transitioned.
Changed.
My head drops. I guess this will happen the hard way or the easy way.
Right now, I'm not even with the men. Even if I caved to what they wanted—and I almost had—there's one tiny problem.
Jamie Duncan.
4
As if on horrible cue, a door slams open. The tread of heavy boots stomp around outside of the inky bathroom. I hold my breath, my body tight against the wall, the cold of the floor leeching into my ass cheeks.
He's searching.
Talyn Phisher is no coward. I shake off my lethargy and stand. I will fight until he kills me.
I back away from the door, stepping backward into the shower stall.
The bathroom door slams open, and the light switch is swatted into compliance.
Hateful light flares on, illuminating a pissed-off Duncan.
“There you are—cunt.”
He says the horrible word with a hard T.
I shudder.
Duncan reaches inside to snatch me out of the shower and I chop his wrist with a hard downward arc. He instinctively jerks his hand away and I step out of the shower, doing the one thing he doesn't think I will.
I head butt him. Hard.
I stumble back, stars bursting in the field of my vision.
That fucking hurts.
I rush out of the bathroom and blindly ram myself through the partially open door and into the arms of a man.
“Whoa, filly!” he laughs good-naturedly.
I loathe horse analogies.
Like a woman is a horse? Instant hate ignites and I knee him in the groin.
He crumples to the floor as a wicked smile lights my face.
A hand grabs my ankle and I shoot a kick backwards, making contact with something that rewards me with a dull crunch.
I scramble across a mid-century ranch floorplan, fingers digging into shag carpeting as I spring to a stand again. Everywhere I look there's stained mattresses and couches. Chinese take-out boxes litter surfaces, empty of food.
It's a nightmare and from deep within, something claws to escape.
Not yet, I command in instant instinctive recognition. Whatever's happening to me is going to have to wait.
Because this girl is leaving the building.
Footsteps pound behind me and my heart races, adrenaline giving flight to legs shaky from fatigue, the bludgeoning and zero food.
Despite that, I fly.
Aided by new strength and a changing physique.
I whip open the front door, and pour myself through the threshold like a streak of lightning.
My hair is gripped from behind and I rotate, bringing my fist around as I do, and smashing it into a face.
A face of a half-changed animal I don't recognize.
Manic laughter slithers over my skin. “Whoo-hoo! She's a feisty one!”
I'm already sick of the hospitality.
I move in close, driving my knee into his nuts too, a new favorite maneuver. He falls, his grasp loosening from my hair as he grabs his package.
“Now that hurt, darlinʼ!” he squawks from the ground.
My ragged breaths are the only answer I give.
I run across a lawn pockmarked with the leavings of stray animals, and tear open an archaic cyclone gate.
It smacks the fencing, causing it to shudder with metallic indignation.
Scent, Talyn, my mind whispers.
I pass a tree as I run, dragging my forearm over the bark to mark my progress. The rough surface tears at my flesh, blood smearing the furrowed passage as I drive by, pumping my legs.
I hope to leave the men my calling card if they're looking.
I sprint down a generic neighborhood cul de sac. It's the dead of night. A few porch lights glow from narrow stoops but most houses look like rotten teeth in need of pulling.
Great.
The other inside me, gifts me the strength I don't have—the elusive wolf that I'll become.
Maybe if the men had bred me as they'd warned me they would, I wouldn't have been caught. I'd be out of biological reach from Duncan and crew.
But Merck and Arden had made it clear. I was in danger until I became this Lycan woman I'm meant to be.
I toss on more speed, the breath whistling through my teeth. My lungs are on fire and tight.
Can't breathe.
When the first guy tackles me, I buck him off, jerking to a stand. I gasp an inhale.
Three more nail me, holding me down against the rough asphalt.
Jamie Duncan saunters to the center of the street, planting his feet wide and folding his arms over his muscular chest as h
e looms over my prone form.
I'm so glad I turned this douche down.
“Jerk!” I spit, searching frantically for bystanders.
The deserted street sucks wind like a tunnel. It's the only noise.
No people.
“We own this neighborhood, Talyn.” Duncan shakes his head as if I'm a misbehaving child.
That just pisses me off.
Each man has a wrist and I stop squirming, trying to conserve energy for the fight that will surely come.
“What do you want?” My eyes cruise his features, seeing nothing helpful.
Duncan smiles, and I shy from the predatory glint of teeth too sharp for being human.
He slowly spins in the middle of the empty street. “It's not what I want, Talyn.”
“Then who!” I scream.
“My colony.”
I blink.
The others who hold me down smile at his words that sound suspiciously like a confession to me.
My eyes touch each face of those who hold me.
None of them look human.
And none of them appear to be the same half-animal.
“Colony of what?” I ask in a low voice.
Fucking ants? Like Duncan has a hill of swarming insects somewhere?
Maybe he's like a drone bee or something.
I can't believe this is my lovelife—considering animals and bugs as possible—what—breeding stock?
Despair creeps in, filling the fissures of my terror with neat abandonment.
“Mutables, Talyn. What else?”
Oh no.
His smile vanishes. “Take her back, boys.”
5
Merck
I'm out of gas—Arden too, from the looks of it.
We plow forward, keeping pace and trying not to lope too obviously. We're still feigning human.
The sun has risen like a slow explosion of pale fire over the horizon, touching off small sparkles of the need to sleep from my very marrow.
My beast presses me forward, knitting the damage from the fight as I jog alongside Arden.
Fatigue from being awake for almost two days straight trails me like a smell.
A Lycan's wolf doesn't give a fuck about rest when a female's in heat. It's the one instinct that supersedes the basic needs of living.
Eating.
Sleeping.
Then there's fucking—and that one reigns supreme.
We're scent trailing Talyn. I smell another but can't identify what. Every time my sensitive nose thinks it's got a bead on who has her, the scent cleverly morphs.
But there's something about the scent that is familiar.
I can't place it.
Arden whistles out a breath when the scent shifts to something new yet again. “Mutable.”
I stop, watching his broad back continue jogging toward the small town of Tea, South Dakota.
Arden turns, striding back to me. He braces his hands on his hips. And only I can see the quarter-change he's made to Lycan.
It's all about the nose, folks. I can't believe I can summon any humor at a time like this.
Arden's nose is like an unattractive beak stuck between two glowering eyes of flecked hazel. “What the fuck, Merck—” he swings his palm toward the rushing interstate to the east, “she's out there, let's get a move on.”
“You can't just throw out a muttered ʻMutableʼ as we're trotting to our doom to rescue my damsel in distress, and have me not take pause over that little detail.”
Arden rolls his eyes.
I fight the urge to knock his teeth down his throat. Guess my humor's not so hot after all.
“Listen—Merck. I told you the colony is always hunting. We have even fewer choices of breeding females than Lycans.”
“Pfft! Not my problem, Masker.”
Arden rubs his nape back and forth with irritated swipes. “Right, so we got off on the wrong foot. Technically, I should be the enemy.”
“Which you are,” I drawl the obvious.
Arden nods. “But none of that matters. Right now Talyn is in trouble. With my own kind, no less.”
An idea bombards me, exciting at the same time. I lean forward and Arden's eyebrows hike as I clearly switch gears.
The roar of the interstate threatens to capture my words so I use a higher frequency.
Arden's ears twitch forward, changing slightly to anyone who was observant. Such as myself.
“Are they Maskers like you?”
Arden shakes his head. “Doubtful. You must be a shifter to be a Masker—as far as I'm aware. However, most Mutables are not Maskers.”
My head spins with the complications, but I latch onto the beauty of this circumstance. “Then mask us so we can have the element of surprise.”
Arden's brows pull together.
“Whoever took Talyn, expects someone to come after her. Hell,” I don't bother being quiet here, “they must have been aware of the battle of the Lycan in her house?”
Arden chuckles. “That sounds like reality pulsevision, Merck.”
“Whatever,” I tear fingers through my short hair, “can you do it or not—the clock's ticking.”
His frown deepens into a scowl. “That is what I just reminded you of when you stopped our momentum.”
“Isn't our momentum worth more if we're cloaked in true stealth?”
Arden hesitates, cupping his chin. “Never tried it before Talyn—with two people.”
His dual nature might give us the edge we need to snatch her from under their noses.
I snort. “Well give it a shot, Mutable—we've got nothing to lose.”
His eyes meet mine.
“Except Talyn.”
6
Narah
Murphy grabs my elbow, steadying me as I trip over the second shattered glass tabletop. I hate this new klutziness.
I give him a grateful little smile. “Thanks, Murph.”
He grunts a welcome, and I smirk.
He's so fucking grumpy since I turned his ungrateful ass. Always complaining that the ladies aren't really into him anymore.
Being a vampire is an attraction-killer in this day and age of vamps being outed.
And then there's the bit where human women are attracted to the newly discovered vamps—fang-bangers. So not sexy, apparently.
I contain my smile with an effort.
But Murph needs blood, and he's proclaimed the bagged variety shit.
So here we are, rummaging through the debris of Dr. Phisher's home instead of finding blood donors—a new favorite pastime for Murph.
Donors, not debris. I feel like adding a winky face to my thoughts.
My eyes skip from pile to pile of broken and scattered household items. Destroyed house, more like.
Murphy strokes the ebony head of what I presume to be Talyn's cat.
Cats love vampires.
She purrs, barely containing herself from clawing Murphy. Instead, her little furred paws swoosh forward and backward rhythmically, the claws barely peeking out then retracting.
Murphy flicks her collar, where a glittering name tag shaped like a crown dangles.
“Old-fashioned,” he comments.
Yes, it's weird that the kitty has an etched name on the collar. Why the cat can't be just thumb-pressed between the eyes for instant pulse stats is beyond me.
“She's older,” I shrug, thinking of the good doctor.
“Forty?” he asks, eyebrow hiking.
I bite my lip. “Nah, maybe a little shy of that.”
Memory's fuzzy too. Marvelous.
“Yeah, but this beauty was around before the pulse days. Probably resisting the tech.” He cocks an inky eyebrow.
“Probably,” I say sarcastically.
“Hey!” Murphy throws up his hands and the cat launches onto the back of an unbalanced couch.
The overstuffed back sways under the ten pounds of feline weight, and she springboards again, landing on the next busted piece of furniture.
I sigh
, kneading the back of my neck.
Talyn's going to shit when she sees what her house looks like.
“I've finally come on board with everything Brain Impulse Technology. Admit it, Narah.”
I kick a shard of glass into a new hill of trash, and slide a knowing glance his way. “I admit that Casper said you either come on board or your ass could find new employment.”
“Humph.” He stabs a finger in the air. “And I did.”
“Coercion doesn't count, Murph.”
My eye catches something, and I sink to my haunches, automatically swinging my blade out of the way as I do.
“What is it?”
I pluck a strand of hair, caught as though between teeth, from a splintered table leg and the flat nail head it's caught on.
I hold it up to the meager light.
We don't need light. We're vampire.
Besides, light alerts humans of our presence. Or things that aren't people—so we never turn any on. The advantages of being a vampire aren't lost on me. I can't believe what I could do when I was human.
Murphy's brows come together. He plucks the single strand from my fingertips.
Running it underneath his nostrils he scents deeply. His eyes spring wide. “Wankers!” he exclaims.
My brows knot. “Okay, don't hold back, you know I can't scent like you.”
Which I hate. And Murphy loves to lord over me.
“Well,” he waggles his brows, “I am superior, being that I am full vampire.”
I plant a swift elbow in his gut.
He doubles over with a whoosh.
The hair floats between us and I grab it. “Stop fucking around, Murph. Talyn is missing. Yʼknow—a client, you asshat.”
Murphy straightens. “I don't hit the ladies,” he says in an offhand way, reflective eyes steady on my face.
“Sounds like you're reminding yourself,” I comment slowly.
His eyes glitter at me with dark promise.
I don't scare easily. But this new vampiric Murphy is a different ball of wax.
“I am,” he says. “If you were a bloke, I'd have already bloodied your face.”
My hands drop, swinging loosely at my sides. “Bring it.”
Murphy's nostrils flare.
It's not the first battle of wills we've had. He is my youngling. A position I've not been fair with—or asked for.
Angelic Blood (#5): Alpha Warriors of the Blood (The Blood Series) Page 30