Wicked Creatures

by Jessica Meigs

  While Ahm was distracted by Ashton, Zachariah circled around behind her, leaping onto the table immediately behind her and grabbing a fistful of the long black hair that tumbled down her back, yanking hard. Her head jerked back, and she absorbed the attack by turning, leaning back at the same time, trying to slacken his grip on her hair. He didn’t allow for it, though, pulling harder to drag her closer to him and burying his fangs into her neck, intending to rip her throat out at the first opportunity.

  The moment her blood hit his tongue and slid down his throat, he gagged, pushing himself away and off the table as he tried to get away from her. She had tasted like darkness, like corruption, like death, and every instinct he had told him that if he continued down that route in an attempt to defeat her, it would almost certainly kill him. He wrapped an arm around his abdomen, fighting the nausea that threatened. And for the second time in just a few minutes, his world reeled as whatever was wrong with her blood tried to take hold of him.

  He’d staggered back in front of her, closer to Ashton, still trying to find his footing, still trying desperately to orient himself, when an alarmed, almost panicked, scream reached his ears.

  “Zach!”

  He half turned and zeroed in on the pistol Brandon had aimed at him. He froze, his muscles locking up at the sight, his body unable to react because it was still trying to deal with the corruption that was Ahm’s blood.

  Three shots rang out, and at the same time, someone shoved him hard. He toppled to the concrete, a dart of pain shooting up and down his right arm as his elbow impacted with the floor. His head shortly followed, clocking against the stone and rattling his brain so his world twirled on its axis.

  “Ah, fuck,” he slurred, pushing up onto an arm. He quickly assessed himself and was delighted to find that the three bullets Brandon had fired at him hadn’t met their targets. Relieved, he pushed himself into a sitting position and looked to see who’d shoved him aside, at the same time attempting to get back to his feet and shove his nausea away so he could jump back into the fight.

  Ashton stood a few feet away from him with his back to him, oddly still considering the general activity in the building. The first thing Zachariah noticed was that his breathing was odd, short, like he was panting but his breath was catching in his throat. He looked toward Ahm; she was simply standing there, her eyes wide, one of her black-clawed hands covering her mouth like she was seeing something unbelievably horrifying, even to her. Brandon, likewise, stood stock still, his pistol still outstretched, but his face was as white as a sheet, all the blood having drained from it, like he’d done something he hadn’t intended to do. When Zachariah turned his eyes back to Ashton, he saw something red on the back of his dirty white button-up shirt. The red grew larger, spreading as it ate up the whiteness of the shirt.

  “Ash?” he questioned.

  Ashton’s legs wobbled, and he dropped to his knees. They failed to support him, and he slid sideways, landing on a hip and catching himself on one hand before falling completely to the floor. Despite his efforts to remain upright, he was slumping over, and the sight of him struggling to hold himself up had Zachariah frozen to his own spot on the floor, the realization dawning, slowly but surely, over him.

  Ashton had been shot.

  Ashton had been shot.

  He scrambled toward him, crawling the few feet between them, catching him as he toppled backwards so he rested on Zachariah’s thighs and not the hard, unforgiving concrete. As he caught him, a burst of thunder, so loud that it was almost like it was actually in the building with them, split the air.

  “We have to go!” Ahm shouted. “Brandon, we have to go! Forget them! We need to leave!”

  “But—”

  “Now!” Ahm shrieked. “Before his wrath falls on us!”

  Zachariah heard Brandon running, and he looked up to see Ahm swipe viciously at the air beside her, opening up a jagged black rift in midair with a curious ripping sound, almost like reality itself had been torn open. She grabbed Brandon and shoved him into the rift, where he disappeared into the darkness beyond it, before following, and then the tear vanished. Zachariah didn’t have any interest in trying to chase them down, though; he only had eyes for Ashton and the terrified look on the man’s face and the three bullet holes in his shirt that were rapidly being lost in the ever-expanding blood pouring into the fabric of his shirt.

  “Call Damon! Now! Get him here!” Riley shouted. Then she was there with him and Ashton, dragging the man out of his lap to lay him flat on his back. Ashton let out a pained cry, and his body jolted as it made contact with the concrete beneath him, but Riley ignored it and grabbed either side of his shirt, pulling hard to tear it open. Buttons flew, and then his scarred chest was exposed, revealing the extent of the damage.

  There was a neat hole in the upper left side of Ashton’s chest, above his heart, another hole in the right side of his chest, and the third in the center of his abdomen just below his sternum. And it was that one that looked much worse than the others, because while all three were bleeding profusely, the one below his sternum was gushing blood, the thick red fluid pumping out with every beat of his heart.

  Riley pulled her flannel shirt off, stripping down to the tank top underneath, bundled it up, and pressed it against the worst of the three wounds. At the pressure on his wound, Ashton cried out. “We need to get him to a hospital,” Zachariah said.

  Ashton shook his head slowly, which looked more like a lolling motion than anything else. His hand fumbled for Zachariah’s, grasping it and squeezing so hard his knuckles blanched. “Not…going to…make it…to the…hospital,” he choked out. His body shifted, and Zachariah glanced down to see he was digging his heels against the concrete, like he was trying to shove himself away from what was happening.

  “Don’t talk like that, Ash,” Zachariah said, gripping his hand in return. “You’re going to make it. Everything will be fine. Just like always.”

  “Not…this time…Zach,” Ashton breathed.

  Damon appeared beside Riley then, dumping a large orange canvas bag on the floor beside them and tearing into it. “Get a line started on him,” he said, shoving IV supplies into Riley’s hands. “I’ll try for one on the other side.” He stepped over Ashton’s legs, jostling Zachariah aside. “Move to his head,” he said. “I need room to work.”

  Zachariah obeyed, his eyes not leaving Ashton’s, unable to shake the feeling that Ashton was right. He was already struggling to draw in a breath, and his entire body was trembling with shock and blood loss; when he grimaced in pain, Zachariah could see blood on his teeth. His eyelid was already fluttering like he was dangerously close to losing consciousness. He still had the strength to pull his arm free from Damon’s grip, though, and once he had, he reached for Zachariah, clinging to him with clear desperation.

  “Zach,” Ashton breathed, tugging gently, and he leaned down so his ear was close to Ashton’s mouth. “It’s okay, Zach,” he breathed, dislodging his arm from Riley’s grip to reach up and touch the side of Zachariah’s face gently. “It’s okay. I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t…let him kill you.” He drew in a breath, struggling to get the air to breathe out two more words, and they were so faint that they were mere air against Zachariah’s ear. “Love…you…”

  Then he took in one more ragged breath, and on the exhale, he stopped breathing.

  Zachariah stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, but the reality of what had happened—emphasized by the slackening of Ashton’s grip on his hand—settled in, and he let out a cry of despair and collapsed, hunching over Ashton like he could protect him from an unseen blow. The sob that ripped free from his throat was no match for the pain that tore through him.

  Ashton was dead. Zachariah couldn’t feel him anymore; that connection that had arisen between them when he’d drank Ashton’s blood had severed, disappearing with Ashton’s death. He felt hollowed out, like someone had cut out the most vital parts of him and left him to die.

 
Someone was calling his name. He blinked and realized he was sobbing, loud sobs that tore from his gut. Hands tugged his shoulders, and he looked up to see his father trying to pull him away from Ashton’s body. Riley still knelt beside Ashton, looking shell-shocked, her hands clutching the emergency supplies she’d been using to try to save his life. Scott stood near Ashton’s feet, spattered in a copious amount of blood, Katie lurking behind him with tears streaking her face. Angelique stood guard nearby, a rifle in her hands, the expression no less horrified and grief-stricken than anyone else’s. Four bodies littered the ground; three were the thugs who’d wrestled them out of their SUV, dead from bullet wounds; the fourth was the massive Alpha werewolf guy, a gaping, ragged hole where his throat had once been. But Zachariah didn’t care about any of that. He couldn’t stop the desperate sounds tearing from his throat.

  “Zachariah,” Damon was saying, his tone worried and heartbroken. He had his arms around Zachariah. Zachariah shrugged his hands off twice but had neither the heart nor the energy to do it a third time, and he collapsed against him, weak with grief.

  “Shh,” Damon breathed, rocking him a little, soothingly. Zachariah thought of his mother then, remembered how Damon had talked of how in love with her he’d been and how she’d died. But Ashton wasn’t supposed to die, not like this; he wasn’t supposed to be in the field at all. “We have to go,” he murmured. “We can’t stay here. Someone probably heard the gunshots, and we can’t be here when law enforcement shows up.”

  Zachariah wrapped his hands tightly around Damon’s arm, like it was his lifeline from drowning. “We can’t leave him,” he said brokenly. “We can’t leave him. We have to take him with us.”

  “Leaving him wasn’t a consideration,” Damon murmured in his ear. He tightened his grasp on Zachariah’s waist and dragged him to his feet. At the same time, Scott moved forward and gently pulled Riley away before kneeling beside Ashton’s body.

  “I’ve got him,” Scott promised. He nodded to the exit and said, “Katie, hon, will you and Angelique go to the black SUV outside and lay the back seat down flat? I’ll need room to put him in the back.” She nodded, and the two of them went to do as he’d asked. As they walked away, Scott slid his arms underneath Ashton’s limp form, and Zachariah closed his eyes, not wanting to see the way Ashton’s body laid so limply in Scott’s arms.

  Damon was talking again, but Zachariah didn’t think the words were directed at him. Regardless, he tried to make himself listen. “I know of a motel outside the city that we can hunker down in,” he said. “The owner knows me. He won’t say anything if we show up like this.” He led Zachariah to the door then, taking him to his SUV. Zachariah allowed him to do so, feeling like he was in a haze of shock, unable to process that Ashton was gone and he was now alone.

  Nineteen

  They had no trouble getting to the dingy motel that Damon recommended, for which he was exceedingly grateful. The clerk at the check-in desk hadn’t even commented about the blood on his shirt. Truth be told, though, he wasn’t even sure the long-haired, scruffy young man had even noticed; he hadn’t seemed totally with it as he passed Damon the keys to two adjoining, connected rooms, and Damon was at least sixty percent positive the man was under the influence of something.

  Good, he thought, walking back out to the vehicles. Maybe he’ll be less likely to remember we were even here.

  Riley was behind the wheel of one of the SUVs, Scott beside her, Katie in the backseat. He went to her car first, and she rolled the window down as he approached. “What’s up?” she asked once he was within earshot.

  Damon leaned casually against the car and offered her one of the keycards. “I got us connecting rooms,” he said. “Four beds total. Safety in numbers, I figure.” He hesitated then asked quietly, “Do you guys have a drug kit?”

  “I think I spotted one in the cargo space,” Scott spoke up, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in that direction.

  “Good. We’re probably going to need it,” he said, and at Riley’s raised eyebrow, he clarified. “For Zachariah.”

  “Is he that bad?” Riley asked worriedly.

  “Not yet, but he will be,” he replied. “Especially once me and Angelique have to go bury the body.” It felt cold referring to Ashton as “the body,” but he had to be cold; thinking about the corpse in his trunk was one thing, but thinking about the fact that said corpse was Ashton was too much, and he was afraid if he thought on it too closely, he’d fall apart. And right now, that was the last thing any of them needed.

  “Will you need any help with that?” Riley asked, and though she obviously meant well, Damon could tell she was really hoping he’d say no.

  “It’s fine,” he assured her. “Me and Angelique will take care of it. You guys keep an eye on Zachariah for me.”

  Ashton lurked near the corner of one of the hotel rooms that Damon had rented, his arms folded over his chest, watching the activity in the room attentively, because he knew it’d most likely be the last time he ever saw any of his friends.

  Scott wasn’t in the room; at about the same time Ashton showed up, he’d disappeared into the bathroom, presumably to wash the blood off. Riley had resorted to using a damp washcloth to clean the blood—his blood, he was forced to acknowledge—off her hands, while Katie sat huddled in a chair at the table near the windows. Damon and Angelique were nowhere in sight.

  Ashton only had eyes for one person in the room, though: Zachariah. He sat on the bed in the middle of the room, looking dazed, like he’d been drugged with something. He still wore the clothes he’d been dressed in during the fight, and the fact they were streaked and stained with Ashton’s blood seemed to have escaped his notice. Tear tracks adorned his face, cutting through the smear of blood that had somehow gotten on his cheek. He rocked back and forth, just slightly, like he was struggling to stay awake lest he miss something important.

  Riley said something, but Ashton was surprised to discover he couldn’t hear a word of it. It was disconcerting, like watching a television with the sound muted while still trying to follow the plot. Zachariah’s mouth moved slightly, like he was answering a question Riley had posed, and Ashton strained his ears, desperate to hear his voice one more time. When he couldn’t, he sighed in disappointment.

  “Why can’t I hear him?” he asked, his voice sounding loud to his ears.

  “Because he’s on another plane of existence from us now,” a woman’s voice replied. Ashton glanced to his right to see Sera standing beside him, her long blond hair pulled back in a braid, her pale skin almost radiant. A faint light, the merest suggestion of wings, arched from her back. “The veil between the two planes makes it impossible to hear what’s on the other side.”

  “But I need to hear him,” Ashton said plaintively.

  Sera rested her hand against his arm. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help, maybe make that happen, but I can’t. Only Father can do that.”

  “Speaking of,” Ashton said, still unable to tear his gaze from Zachariah, “am I about to get in trouble with Him?”

  “Who, Father?” Sera asked. He nodded, and she laughed. “Of course not. Why would you get in trouble with Him?”

  “I haven’t exactly been the best of believers,” he admitted. “Most of the time, I sort of assumed He didn’t really even exist.”

  “Oh, honey, most people go through that,” she said. “But He is very forgiving, especially to someone like you.”

  “But why?” he asked. “What’s so special about me?”

  Sera smiled and slid her hand underneath his elbow, like she was a woman accepting his arm so he could lead her into a ballroom. “I’ll let Him tell you that,” she said, and her smile softened as she tugged gently. “Come on. It’s time to go now. Take one last look, and then you have to come with me. It’s time you found out who you really are.”

  A Message From the Author

  If you enjoyed Wicked Creatures, please pick up a copy of Reapers, the fourth book in the series!

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  An Excerpt from Reapers

  Turn the page for an exclusive look at Reapers, the next book in The Unnaturals Series, coming soon!

  “I may not remember who I was, but I know who I am.”

  Doug Hauser, Total Recall (2012)

  Chapter One

  Fourteen years ago

  Damon Hartley’s stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself as he settled behind his desk on the fifth floor at the Agency’s headquarters. The smell of the Philly cheesesteak he’d picked up had been teasing and tempting him the entire time he’d been riding back to his office, and the delicious scent was rapidly filling his office with its cheesy, steaky goodness. He set the sandwich in the middle of his desk—after clearing away the stray paperwork that he couldn’t risk getting stained, of course—and unwrapped it, inhaling deeply before picking it up and taking a massive bite. He groaned out loud at the sheer pleasure of finally getting to eat as the flavors of his favorite sandwich from his favorite local restaurant hit his taste buds. He was pretty sure they stood up and did a happy dance in response.

  It had been an insanely busy day, made worse by the fact that he’d had so much to do that he hadn’t had time to stop and eat. Really, he shouldn’t have been eating now; a quick check of his watch in between bites revealed that it was already six p.m. He was supposed to be meeting Mary Walker, his longtime girlfriend of fifteen years, for dinner in just two hours. They met up every Friday—carefully, of course; they had managed to keep their relationship under wraps for the decade and a half they’d been together since every time they met up, they were risking their jobs and probably their lives.