He got up and walked around me as I remained glued to the floor, unable to move.
“Lick it clean.”
My mind strained against the order as my tongue ran against the floor.
He continued to circle me. “See a pretty penny, pick it up. Suck it dry and you’ll have good luck.” He kicked my ribs hard enough to hurt but not enough to break. “Do you want me to do that to you, Penny? Would you like me to suck you dry?”
I still couldn’t speak or move as I was jerked off my knees, my back connecting with the floor as he covered me. His fangs ripped through the flesh of my neck with a burning pain. All I could think of was that I was going to die and I hadn’t even fought. I’d accepted it. He was sucking the life from me and I hadn’t even fought.
I tried to move my hands as he sucked on my neck. He continued to drain me, but the more blood he drank, the more control I gained back. A few minutes in and his hold slipped. This was it. Die fighting or simply die. With a last effort, I pushed at his chest.
He rolled off me too easily, leaving me to wonder if my pathetic effort had really dislodged him or he had finished with me. He lay beside me, a sigh of contentment on his lips along with my blood.
“Damn, you were tasty,” he said, his eyes closing. He waved his hand. “Go. I’m done. For now.”
It took every last ounce of energy I had left to crawl away, the world spinning around me.
Seven
Donovan
“Donovan?” My mother raced down the hall after me. “Where are you going?”
“I ate dinner. That’s all I promised. If I stay a minute longer, I’m going to kill someone.” It wasn’t a figure of speech. There were plenty of people at this gathering that needed killing, and I was trying to not be the reason the pact failed.
The feeling was mutual. The vampires in that room hadn’t tried to kill me for the same reason. Neither of us could attack the other without being the downfall of our pact, and maybe our race. I was the alpha of the area, and not because I wanted to be. I was born to it the way I was born with blue eyes. Certain things were unavoidable. As far as duties, I kept the pack in line. Any political aspirations were handled by my mother, and that was fine by me.
She opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.
“If you need more people at your table, go find where your errant guest of honor disappeared to.”
She might be a lousy mother but she was a good politician. She knew when she’d hit a wall. She gave a stiff nod, heading back the other way.
I continued to the suite I used when I stayed here, planning on having one more bourbon before sleep to wash away some of the irritation of the evening. I turned down the hallway, and a small distance from my door was the human female, Penelope—or Pen, as I’d heard Ricky call her. She was sitting against the wall, head bowed, hair veiling her features. Visits with my mother were never pleasant, but this one was taking a nosedive and underperforming the lowest expectations.
How had she known what room I was in? If she’d come here trying to climb me, and the social ladder in the process, she had the wrong man. I didn’t fuck humans, not even when I was drunk. Although I hadn’t gotten that vibe from her. She’d looked more ready to stab me than to fuck me.
I stopped in front of my room, determined to ignore her. I opened the door, but before I stepped inside, I caught the scent of Mallard and blood. What the hell? Ricky had sent her home. She’d had an out. The little fool hadn’t taken it. I’d even talked to that bastard Mallard to make sure she had time to get out of here before he caught on and went looking for her.
Step inside and shut the door. She did this to herself.
The minutes ticked by and I was still in the hall.
I didn’t need the trouble this female human could bring, and she was definitely coming with baggage. I could nearly see the wagon hitched to her. It was in her stare, the tilt of her defiant chin when I’d seen her that very first time.
I needed to leave her be. She’d brought this on herself. She’d lingered, maybe looking for him? But that didn’t add up either. She’d had hate in her eyes when she stared at Mallard earlier.
I lasted another five seconds before I walked the last few feet and knelt in front of her. I threaded my fingers through her hair and pushed it away from her face. The wound at her neck was ragged and scabbing, as if Mallard had been careless on purpose. I reached down and felt the pulse in her wrist. She’d lost a lot of blood, but she was tougher than she looked, from the feel of it.
I cupped her jaw to lift her face, offering advice with no expectation of being heard. “Messing around with Mallard isn’t going to help you. You’re going to end up dead. He’ll never turn you into a vampire. He never does.”
Big, soulful eyes stared back at me. “Ricky,” she said, her breathing soft, as if every word was a heavy burden.
What did she want with Ricky? I didn’t know what their relationship was, and I was going to keep it that way.
“Please…”
I dug my phone out of my pocket and called. “Rick, there’s someone by my room asking for you. Get over here.”
I ended the call as I continued to watch her.
She reached to the molding of the door, using it as leverage to drag her depleted body to its feet again.
I stood back. She’d done this to herself. I shouldn’t care that he’d almost killed her. And why did I have to keep repeating that to myself? When had I ever had to convince myself to not care about a human?
She was almost to her feet but wouldn’t stay that way for long with the wobble in her legs. Where the fuck was Ricky? How long did it take to get across the house? This place wasn’t that big, and I needed to unload this problem.
She’d barely managed to straighten before she wavered. I looped an arm around her waist, right before she hit her knees, and toted her form easily across the threshold. She didn’t have the strength to fight, even if she wanted to. I kicked my door shut and dropped her to the couch in the sitting area of my suite.
“No.” She made a feeble attempt to stand back up.
Clearly this human had no idea who I was. I gave her shoulder a little push, and she fell back like a twig.
“I have zero interest in you. I don’t fuck humans.” I walked over to the chair in the corner and pulled my phone out, checking my messages. Pretty much anything to kill time so I didn’t look at the girl on my couch who had so little blood left that she could barely stand. Because if I kept looking at her, I might…
Might what? I wasn’t going to get into it with Mallard over some unknown human. She wasn’t my problem or concern.
I scrolled through emails as the glass on my phone cracked. Fuck. They needed to make these things stronger so they didn’t snap so easily.
There was a soft knock at the door.
“Come in,” I said, getting to my feet immediately.
Ricky walked into the room, took one look at the girl on the couch, and ran to her side.
“Pen?” He checked her pulse.
“It’s steady enough,” I said, keeping my distance even I fisted my hands.
He held her hand as he kneeled in front of her. “How did this happen? You were supposed to go home.”
“He stopped…me,” she said.
“I’ll get you home. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry,” he said, running his hand over her head.
So not a confirmed social climber, at least that she’d fess to. She could be lying. Plenty of them did. I found most of these humans to have a very low moral compass. Plus, I’d bought her time. If she’d left as soon as she was supposed to, this wouldn’t have happened, so it wasn’t quite as clear-cut as she was making it seem.
Ricky bent forward, scooping Pen up into his arms. I took a step forward, wanting to tear his hands from her. There was something very wrong with me right now.
I took a step away from them. “Do you have this situation under control?”
Ricky nodded. “Yes. Sorry abou
t this.”
“It’s fine.” I didn’t wait for them to leave and went into the bedroom, shutting the door on them. I stripped my clothes off as I headed to the shower, then turned the water on and stepped underneath the spray. I let the heat suck the adrenaline from my veins because killing Mallard—and jeopardizing the pact between shifters and vampires for a stupid, possibly lying human—was out of the question.
I got out of the shower ten minutes later, but the blood in my veins was still pumping way too fast. I grabbed my phone, hoping it still worked, because I didn’t want to have to make this call from a borrowed line.
The phone on the other end rang.
“You in the area? I need a favor. Ricky has a human with him that could use a little help.”
Eight
Penelope
Parts of last night were a blur. I wished the whole thing had been obliterated. I remembered what had happened in Mallard’s room all too well. It was after the attack that things weren’t so clear. I remembered staggering down the halls of the grand house, trying to get out, my body failing me. I remembered glimpses of Donovan, then Ricky. After that, I must have passed out completely.
Somehow I’d woken in my bed, still in work clothes. There was a ghastly bruise on my neck where Mallard had dined on me almost to my death. There was another bruise on my arm that was curious as well.
I’d taken my credits and walked to Arnold’s before anyone else was awake, getting my thoughts in order. It hadn’t helped much. I was about to walk back in the house and I was still a rattled mess. I hadn’t felt quite this out of sorts since the day my mother died.
I pulled my hair around my neck before I walked in the house. Any luck, Sassy and my father wouldn’t notice the damage.
Sassy was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me when I walked in.
“Where’s Dad?” I put the eggs in the fridge and took the seat opposite her.
“He’s at Lorna’s.” Sassy let out the he’s busy disappointing us again sigh. I’d heard it so often that I’d named it.
“Guess he ran out of booze.” Lorna was always willing and able to take him in and feed his addiction. She could afford to, since she was a regular on the blood donation line. Her haggard appearance didn’t promise much hope of being turned, but the rarity of her AB-negative blood meant she commanded a premium with the vampires.
Sassy nodded, drumming her fingers on the table, staring in the vicinity of my neck, before alternating to my face with a stare beyond her years. Sometimes I couldn’t believe she was only twenty-one, but this world had a way of aging you a decade in a blink of an eye.
“You planning on telling me what happened? Or do you think I’m not going to notice that you appear to have been mauled?”
“There was an incident at work.” It wasn’t unusual for Sassy to wake in the night with coughing fits. She must’ve seen me while I was sleeping.
“I figured that out. Are you going back there?”
“No. I’m going to the employment office this morning to try to get placed somewhere else.” As it was, they weren’t going to let me back to the Tessa’s anyway. The jig was up. What that meant for my sister, though…
I couldn’t think about that yet. Not now. She was still holding up okay. A few coughs were manageable. Maybe she wouldn’t get bad again. Maybe it would stay this way.
“Maybe I should come with—”
“You can’t. You know you can’t,” I said, cutting her off before she told me how she needed to go get a job too. “They’re trying to pass a bill to kill sick humans. Did you know that?”
She got up, her skin flushed, as she walked over to the counter, giving me her back. “I’m not that sick. I have a cold. That’s it.”
“I didn’t say you were. It’s just a precaution.” I wanted to believe it was a case of the sniffles as much as her. Unfortunately, knowing your sister had a ticking time bomb inside her wasn’t something that could be easily wiped from your mind.
“I’m going to carry my weight in this family, one way or another,” she said.
She took the broth out of the fridge to heat on the range. I sliced the bread as we fell into our routine.
She leaned her hip on the counter. “I hear the cost of passage is up to a thousand credits now, and that’s without documents.”
“Supply and demand, I guess. Everyone wants out of here.”
“You know, sometimes when I walk past the park and see the little kids playing, the ones small enough to not really remember what life was like before the takeover, I think they’re lucky. They still look happy. This is the only world they know.”
“Until they grow up and hear about places like Canada and Europe and Australia, which are still free.” I dipped a slice of bread into the broth. “I’ve got to go or I won’t get a spot today. Will you be home later?”
“Not until late. I told Phil I’d try to help him with his fence repairs. He’s got to get it fixed or the animals are going to eat all his plants again this spring.”
She’d been working on Phil’s fence for the past month.
“Is that really where you’re going to be?” I asked, leveling her with a stare that could fry an egg.
“I have to do something. I can’t sit here and be utterly useless to everyone.”
“Promise me you’ll stop getting involved with them. It’s going to end badly.”
My sister’s frustration killed me. Her determination to help others was going to kill her.
“Sis, I hate to break it to you, but promises aren’t worth shit in the world we live in,” she said with enough bitterness that the words nearly scorched your ears.
She straightened and walked to the table, putting room in between us.
“You’re wrong. That’s when your word is worth the most, when there’s nothing else and no earthly reason otherwise to keep it.”
“Fine. Then I won’t promise.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head.
I didn’t have it in me to have this fight that went around in circles, never having a winner or an outcome. “I gotta go.”
One thing I did know: I was going to need another job. If I couldn’t get to Mallard, the risks of staying on at Tessa’s were too high.
* * *
“Number six hundred and eight, proceed to desk ten,” a female voice said over the loudspeaker. I pushed off from my spot on the wall, squeezing through the crowds. If you took too long, people had been known to take the spot “by accident.” I’d been waiting six hours to be called and wasn’t going to wait another.
“Yes?” the fairy asked, not looking up from her phone as wings fluttered behind her back. Big or small, fairies seemed willing to take every crap job there was.
“I need to apply for a new position?”
“Name.”
“Penelope Abbot.”
She continued to type into her phone for another few minutes before letting out a high-pitched laugh. Fairies had laughter that could burst your eardrums. I knew a few people it had happened to. Lucky for me, this must’ve been more of a giggle, because my hearing was still intact, proven by the fact I could hear the leprechaun in the next booth over.
He was telling the human there he was too ugly to get gainful employment. The human man wasn’t ugly at all. What was wrong was red hair, the look of an Irishman, and the luck of the draw. Leprechauns despised the Irish. They had some gripe about being taken advantage of in their homeland. Being forced to flee to this place, run by vampires and werewolves, didn’t sit well with them. They were very, very bitter creatures, and at their worst when confronted by an O’Malley, Monaghan, Patrick, or the like.
“And you know what? You smell, too,” the leprechaun said.
My attention was diverted from the man about to cry when my giggly fairy finally put down her phone. Her transformation from amused to bitter was instantaneous. She entered my name into the system and then swiveled the display in my direction.
“Is this you?” she asked, tappin
g the screen with an especially long, glittering fingernail that looked as if it could kill someone.
“Yes.” It had my name, address, age—even my blood type, O, was listed.
She swung the screen back to her. “Permission denied.”
“But—”
“No. Says here you’ve worked several times in the last week. You don’t need another job. You have one. If you can’t make it work, then there is something wrong with you.”
I didn’t get up, even as she called out the next number. I wrapped my hand over hers. There was an immediate tingle and I released her, but couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Can I please explain?”
If the weird snarl of her lips meant anything, the apathy she’d had moments ago had turned to utter disgust.
Her eyes, a strange pink color, narrowed. “We can keep discussing this, and that work permit you have now? That can go away, too. You can be marked as ‘disagreeable.’ You know what happens to those humans?”
I wasn’t quite sure, but it couldn’t be good. I grabbed my bag off my lap and stood. “Sorry for the trouble.”
She nodded as if to say she was happy I’d come to my senses.
As I left, the man beside me sobbed, the kind of sob that made your nose run and your head hurt. Poor sap. The leprechaun wasn’t going to give him a permit, no matter how much abuse he took. He was better off coming again the next day and hoping to get a bitter fairy. Though I was hardly one to offer advice, considering my situation.
I left the office and walked home, wondering how long I could stretch that hundred credits Donovan had given me if I never went back to Tessa’s. But then what? The fewer we had, the more risks Sassy would take. Could I afford to never go back to Tessa’s?
I was only a few houses away from home when Ricky’s name flashed on my phone, alerting me to a message.
Ricky: You should make sure you’re home. Mallard found your company very desirable and your presence here is mandated tonight. They’re sending someone to pick you up, and you wouldn’t want to miss them.
Gut Deep: Torn Worlds Book One Page 4