“We don’t have much choice.” He sounded pained. “Last time I checked, neither of us had mastered any covert glamour skills. We can’t mask stationary objects from view, let alone obscure moving ones.”
The man had a point. “If they see us coming, that gives them more time to prepare.”
“They’ve already fallen back. They’re in their safe place.” His teeth flashed. “They’re trapped.”
The predator in me roused, still hyped from the kill. “They’re in a defensive position.”
“No, they’re in a box in the ground.” That toothy smile grew a tad sharper. “And they’ve got to get air from somewhere.”
“What does—?” Tempting spice hit my nose, the scent of his skin intoxicating. It backed me up a step, until my shoulders hit his chest. Understanding pierced the fog rousing my libido. “Oh, I like the way you think.”
Chapter Fifteen
No two ways about it. The Richardsons knew we were coming. Even if they hadn’t figured out I had decommissioned their guard worm, it stood to reason that if the annuli had first become aware of our presence because we had tripped a perimeter spell, then the Richardsons also knew of the breach.
Yet for all that, the walk was uneventful. The most excitement we had was dodging cow patties.
A warm breeze ruffled my hair, drying the sweat running down my nape. The hike into cow country did my foot good. It stopped aching, but the skin felt too tight, like the time Andrea dumped a bottle of Elmer’s over my toes then sprinkled an entire box of emerald glitter over the top.
Hey, when you’re five and don’t have access to nail polish, bad things can happen.
That flicker of memory, even though it was a happy one, pierced my heart. Andrea, my first best friend, dead because of me, because she was the first to touch the light kindling in my hand.
“Is your foot hurting?” Shaw rested his hand between my shoulder blades.
“No.” I rubbed the tender center of my chest. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
The look he shot me called me ten kinds of liar, but he didn’t press me.
“The dot didn’t look so far away on the map,” I grumbled.
“We’re almost there.” His steps were light, his expression clear. Almost serene. Tense as he had been the whole trip, for days really, I doubted the annuli’s demise was the reason for his newfound calm. “Keep up.”
As he set off ahead of me, I hung back admiring the view. The man knew how to wear jeans, and his shirt was missing a six-inch strip around the bottom where he had ripped it before using it to gag me. The dirty thoughts his rear view and peekaboo abs inspired caused a light bulb to flash over my head.
No wonder Shaw was Mr. Zen. He had fed. A lot. On me.
He was at peace, if only for a little while, and I had given that to him. He had helped me out too. Without him, I would still be flying as high as a kite and batting at the clouds like a kitten on catnip.
“Take a look at this.” Shaw stood with his hands resting on his hips, staring at something on the ground the high grass hid from me. He kicked out his boot, and metal clanged. “I think we found it.”
“I think you’re right,” I agreed as a three-by-six-foot steel door inset into a concrete pad came into view. The surface was smooth. Its hinges must be to the inside. The handle, and there must be one, was hidden. Two feet of concrete framed the door. Sod covered the rest of the concrete lid, giving us no clue how much hollow mass spread beneath us. All we had was an access point we couldn’t, well, access.
“Stand back and keep watch,” Shaw ordered. “I’m going to find the intake vent.”
Twenty yards away he whistled and knelt. Rising onto my tiptoes, I shielded my eyes against the glare from a whirling silver turbine.
From here, Shaw looked like any guy resting on his knees in the grass, but the tingle in my nose told me the truth. Standing slightly downwind from his position meant his lure drifted past on the edge of my periphery. His scent made sweat bead on my forehead and roll into my eyes.
Never had it occurred to me to wonder where his scent glands were, how his lure was produced. If he kept this up much longer, I would be forced to explore answers to those questions with my tongue.
Snap out of it.
I held my breath until I regained coordination of my limbs then eased out of the path of his enticing scent.
With a tight nod at me, he stood and dusted off his jeans. His first order of business was punting the spinning turbine downfield. Sound wasn’t a concern as he crushed the base with his heel. Taking off the shredded remains of his shirt, he balled the fabric and shoved it down the tube before kicking dirt into the hole. The air shaft was clogged. Even if they had a second intake, the circulation was hampered, sealing the Richardsons in with the tempting fragrance of an incubus male in his prime.
Or so we hoped.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Shaw gave them thirty minutes before crossing back to me.
“It didn’t work.” He surveyed the area while I worked hard at not surveying his shirtless state. “They must have a filtration system.”
Forcing my girly bits to behave, I tamped down the lure’s effect. This was not the time nor the place to get frisky. “Let’s give it another minute.”
Just like a man, he took me literally. “Time’s up. We should fall back and work a new angle.”
We cleared a dozen yards before a pinging sound made me whip my head around. I shoved Shaw behind me, which made him snarl and forced me to elbow his gut. Again. “Did you hear that?”
Twisting groans from grating metal made him cock his head. “I do now.” He edged around me, jabbing a finger at the shelter entrance. “Circle around. Get downwind and stay there, understand?”
I jogged a wide circle around the buckling door, coming up behind it, straight in front of Shaw. I flipped him a thumbs-up, the extent of my sign vocabulary, then dropped onto my stomach in the grass. At least I didn’t have to worry about a human scenting me. If I kept quiet and out of sight, I was golden. Except...the Richardsons had no qualms pitting fae against fae to protect their interests.
Muscles tensed along my spine. Why open the door we couldn’t budge and risk making themselves vulnerable to attack? Was Shaw’s spicy lure that powerful? Or was that exactly what they wanted us to believe? I didn’t like this. It was too easy. They wouldn’t surrender now, they had gone too far.
Frustration had me chewing on my lip. Too late for second-guesses.
Hinges squeaked and silver flashed as the door swung open. A blast of pressurized air tainted by urine, feces and stale blood hit me in the face, and I almost gagged. Fae, if I had to guess. Crawling nearer, I lined up with a part in the grass that let me keep an eye on Shaw.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach as a slender woman climbed the stairs on her hands and knees. Once her head cleared the doorway, she glanced over her shoulder, right at me, as if she knew I was there. Her pupils had swallowed her irises, leaving her eyes black voids. Her parted lips gave her the appearance of panting. In a blink, the moment ended and she resumed her crawl onto the ground.
Several yards away from the safety of the door stood Shaw, and the woman was ruining her pale gray pantsuit by crawling every inch of it to reach him. Her movements made my eyes twitch. I kept getting hung up on how her knees bent backward, like a giant grasshopper. I had trouble reconciling her insectoid scuttling with the curvy, middle-aged woman she otherwise appeared to be. Blonde hair whipped behind her head from the speed of her passing. Her otherness hypnotized me until I blinked.
Remember, you are the cavalry. Don’t fall off your horse yet.
Those intense tendrils of fascination wrapping my mind cleared once I coaxed my gaze from the womanesque creature. All we needed was another lure-wielding fae on the playing field. What the hell was that thing?
Shaw watched her approach with a neutral expression, but panic welled behind my breastbone. He was out there standing that thing down alone. Screw the plan. I p
ushed up from my hiding spot as a jagged wire sliced into my throat. My skin sizzled where the rusted steel touched me. Barbed wire, really?
My back bowed as the person holding the garrote tugged to get my attention. I bit down on my tongue to keep from calling out for help. Shaw had his own problem barreling straight for him. I had to solve mine on my own or die trying.
“How many marshals did the conclave send us this time?” a man with a thick Texas twang asked over my shoulder.
“What you see—” I hissed, “—is what you get.”
“I don’t believe you.” He tightened the strand, cutting into my throat. “You killed Ethel.”
“Ethel?” I wheezed. “You named the worm Ethel?”
Metal shifted with the roll of his shoulders. “When in Texas...”
I gasped against the wire carving into my airway. “Who are you?”
“Forgive me, darlin’. Let me introduce myself,” he drawled. “I’m Jake Richardson.”
Black spots dotted my vision. If he was Jake then... “That thing out there is Bethany.”
His laughter grated in my ears. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”
His weight settled on me. He knelt over my legs, trapping them between his thighs.
Instinctive panic soured my stomach. His knees were close enough I could reach his kneecaps with my fingertips, but to do it I had to face plant and then swing my arm behind me. Without the support of my hands, my throat would cut into the wire seesawing toward my larynx. I wasn’t sure if I could survive that kind of damage, let alone heal from it.
Anticipation spiked Richardson’s scent as he tightened his noose and settled in to watch the show. He was salivating for the kill. Not my death, though that was coming, but Shaw’s. I got the impression Richardson liked to watch. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill me in a blink.
Jealousy was a double-edged sword, and I swung it. “Your wife can’t resist him.”
He chuckled. “She isn’t trying to.”
Okay, maybe I was cutting in the wrong direction. “He will kill her.”
“Not for long.” He exerted slight pressure on the wire, eagerness shaking his hands.
I made a gurgling noise that managed to sound like disagreement.
“He can try. He might even succeed.” Fingers tangled in my hair. “That’s why I have you.”
A snarl peeled my lips from my teeth.
He leaned down, scenting the skin under my ear. “You smell like...potential.”
Inhales whistled through my nose. “Thanks...for the...compliment.”
“You smell like power. Young. Fresh. Untapped.” He groaned. “So raw, you might as well be human.”
As far as insults went, that one missed the mark. Being human sounded nice right about now.
Shrill cries snapped my attention back to Shaw. The woman, Bethany, crouched in the grass in front of him. Red lines scored her white blouse. Claws were out and teeth were bared, but his hunger was absent.
Something sharp and hot like pride burned in my chest as he gestured her forward with the flex of his fingers.
“You care about him,” my captor observed. “Are you more than partners?” Laughter shook him. “Of course you are. You’re too young to know any better, and he’s got you all figured out. It never ceases to amaze me that incubus, as a race, haven’t gone extinct. All those women scorned...”
In hindsight, Shaw using his lure might not have been the best strategy. We had tipped our hand, and it gave them an edge.
Enraged screams filled the air as the woman sprang over Shaw’s head, twisting in midair so her forearms raked down his spine. His back arched, a roar ripping from his chest. She settled into a fighting stance, her arms blocking her face. Sunlight hit the curved edges of the smoky blades embedded in a line down her elbows to her wrists.
My fingernails dug into the soft ground, the urge to run to Shaw overpowering. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” Richardson said softly. “It’s do or die, and I plan on living.”
Lack of oxygen made forming coherent thoughts impossible. The same weighted feeling hit me. Balance the scales. Make him pay. His life for theirs. “You killed all those fae.”
“No,” he sounded tired. “I saved myself.”
“You only thought you did.” Gritting my teeth, I let go. My face hit the ground, dirt went up my nose. Wire carved into the delicate skin of my throat, a line of fire that burned clear to my spine. Pain cut so deep, I forgot how to breathe. I wasn’t sure I could, that my head wasn’t ready to pop off my neck. Somehow I swung my torso left. That arm shot out, and my palm gripped his kneecap.
“What are you—?” His scream as I fed magic into him silenced the urges in my head.
Twisting onto my right side, I kept hold of his knee while shoving him off me. Keeping a tight leash on my powers caused my hands to tremble with strain. “What type of fae are you?”
“Half-bloods like you...have it all.” His face contorted. “Fae power without...strings attached.”
The man was insane. My life was a tangle of fae politics and obligations. Being a half-blood just meant I got sneered at whether I fulfilled my obligations or not. Full-bloods outclassed me. Oh yeah, and I had a twenty-five/seventy-five chance of being mortal. So yay! I might also get to die one day.
“You’re spewing crazy.” I upped the pulse of magic. “Tell me what I want to hear or this ends.”
“I can’t—” Blood coated his bared teeth. “It hurts too much.”
Telling him I couldn’t stop what I started would be counterproductive, but I did throttle back as much as I could.
“Answer me,” I said, keeping my voice level, “and the pain stops.”
A wild gleam lit his eyes as blood dribbled down his chin. “We ate them.”
I blinked away my surprise at his abrupt change in topic. “What exactly did you eat?”
“All of them,” he sneered. “We savored each one.”
While my mind scrambled for traction, I hit on a possibility that made bile rise up my throat. “We found human blood at your wife’s apartment.” My hands felt dirty where they touched him. “Did you kill someone there?”
“A human? What would be the point? They are nothing. Less than nothing.” His laughter sprayed his shirtfront—and me—with crimson spittle. “Though I wouldn’t put it past that damned boggart. He never was quite right.”
“Says the man confessing to eating mystery meat,” I muttered.
“Fae, you stupid bitch,” he snarled. “We eat fae.”
Consumption of living fae tissue by humans to absorb residual fae powers... “You’re ghouls?”
Ghouls got a half-page description in the academy handbook and a brief mention in class. No wonder the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.
“We are not ghouls.” He recoiled. “After we feast, we’re as fae as you are.”
“Not so much. I’m half fae regardless of my stomach contents.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Wait.” One last tidbit niggled at me. “If you were eating the fae, where does the taxidermy come in?”
“The acquisition of rare fae is an expensive habit.” He stuck out his chin. “The art pieces subsidized that.”
Art pieces. Art. Pieces.
I had no words.
None.
“You realize you can’t eat fae until you become one any more than you can rub one on your skin to—? Never mind.” In case this capture blew up in our faces, I didn’t want to give him any ideas. “You’re born fae or half fae or plain vanilla human.” Fury glinted in his gaze, but the truth was the truth. “If you eat fae, their magic seeps into your blood. As it breaks down, it becomes toxic. Any effects—” such as sprouting freakish grasshopper legs, “—are short term. Human bodies aren’t made to withstand the wear and tear. You can’t sustain whatever powers you’ve stolen. You’ve been doing this for what—five years?” He stuck out his chin. “Your hourglass has to be running low on sand.”
“The thing about sand...” he clamped a hand on my wrist, prying my grip from his knee, “...is there are more beaches where those grains came from. Yours, for example, is downright pristine.”
Twisting my wrist, I formed an awkward handshake with him. “How is this possible?”
“Incubus.” His gaze tagged Shaw. “It’s what’s for dinner.”
Freaking monkeys. My control wasn’t getting better. Richardson’s resistance was. The effort wasn’t draining me—he was.
“They were right, you know.” He flipped me facedown into the dirt. “You are what you eat.”
Cold fear solidified into an icy ball in my gut. Fighting him was like squaring off against Shaw. The more I fed him, the more powerful he became. Incubi digested the energy they consumed. I did too, sort of, but at a much slower rate. My rebound was days in coming. His was a few minutes, tops.
How to fight someone who could throw my best right back at me? I had to take him down like I would topple Shaw. But first I had to flip the power switch. I couldn’t risk him getting any stronger.
Richardson gloated over me, twisting my arm parallel with my spine. The burst of pain amped up my magic, and he sipped it down on a sigh. Not helping.
I had to get myself under control. No more excuses, no more try. I had to do it.
I threw out my lifeline and lassoed memories of my mother. That crinkly thing her eyes did and the small twitch in her lips before she caved into guffawing laughter. The expression on her face the night I... No. Not that one. The strength of her arms wrapped around me as we waited for a conclave representative to arrive. Her promise to stand by me, to love me, no matter what happened.
And she did. I was all she had. If she lost me, then she had lost everything...for nothing.
Between one breath and the next, the white-hot burn of my power extinguished to a spark. Close enough. Flat on my face with an arm pinned behind my back, I had no leverage. I was stuck. Not my best plan. I had juiced him up, and now he was straddling my calves. At least he had ditched the garrote.
Bracing my right palm on the ground, I pushed up a few inches and allowed the weight of the barbed wire to yank itself free. Gulping unrestricted air, I shoved upward and threw all my strength into a reverse headbutt, smashing the back of my skull into his face. A satisfying crunch greeted me. His fingers vanished, giving me back the use of my left hand and allowing me to cock my right arm and throw it backward. My elbow connected with his ribs, and he wheezed over my shoulder.
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