by Marie Hall
He’d laughed around her. Around Adrianna. He’d loved Adrianna. Adrianna had been a mortal. Mila, so newly turned that her mind still associated itself as human rather than other. When he tried to remember a time when he’d done those things without the presence of a mortal around, he came up empty.
Being around his queen was a study in court politics. The fae could be a chivalrous bunch; they laughed, made love and war…but every scenario was always tied to a human in some way.
Fae could not bear children unless they mated with mortals. There were many pairings among his kind, but all of them had human mates. They had to in order to survive. The Great Wars had even been fought over mortals. Fae may have planted the seeds that moved the wheels, but the wars had been fought primarily to control the mortal realm. To control humans, because while most fae kind turned their noses down at the lowly mortals, they also needed them around to thrive. Every type of monster did.
The vampires needed the mortals to feed upon. The shifters and fae bred with them. The power of the witch and sorcerer only manifested within human gene pools…
“I’ve laughed,” he said with a frown, refusing to concede defeat.
Her brow lifted. “Hate to break it to you, reaper, but you’re about as fun as an abscessed tooth.”
“Others are infinitely superior to your kind. We are the evolved species.” The words came out of him by rote; there’d been no thought behind it, just a lifetime of belief in that truth.
She sighed. “And that is why this argument is pointless. You’ll never get it.” Her fingers danced across the flesh of his neck. Just the slightest touch broke him out in a wash of goose bumps.
It was strange talking to her like this. He was used to the woman who screamed, pouted, stomped her foot. To see her calm and rational, it made him want to understand her even more.
She cleared her throat, and that’s when he noticed they were finally at the lake.
“Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” she murmured.
Setting her down gently, he jerked his head back in the direction where they’d come from. “I’ll be back. I’m going to bring some supplies to cook that deer with.”
Looking up at the wide expanse of sky, she twisted her lips. “I don’t like being this exposed. Especially if you leave.”
His lips twitched, suspecting that was as close to begging him to stay as she’d ever get. “I’ll mark the area with death. I shouldn’t take long.”
“Are we going back to your apartment?” she asked, leaning against a tree as she took several slow and deep breaths.
“Likely so.”
She shook her head. “Frenzy, I know you really don’t want to hear what I have to say, but I don’t think we should stay in any one place too long. I’ve spent years hiding from the shadow. I blew my cover there. I don’t think San Francisco is safe for me anymore.”
Maybe she was right. But then again, his place was heavily warded. Not even the queen could get in if he didn’t let her. “Give me time to think this through. In the meantime, bathe.”
Nibbling on a corner of her lip, she eyed the water.
“There’s nothing but fish in there. But if you want, I could kill them all.” He held up a finger.
“What?” She frowned. “Kill a bunch of innocent creatures? Are you sick? Gods, no wonder you had no problem turning me into this freak.” With quick, jerky movements she started to undo the buttons of her shirt, looking him dead in the eyes as she did so.
And the fact that he’d been thinking the same thing just a second ago made him feel ill. He wanted to apologize; it was on the tip of his tongue to say it, but the words were just too thick in his throat and wouldn’t pass his lips.
He’d told Lise the truth when he’d said he was years out of practice on knowing how to properly socialize with humans.
Dropping her shirt to the ground, she notched her chin higher, and his lips twitched.
Last night the woman could barely glance at him without turning shy, and now here she was, stripping in front of him.
He smiled when she lifted a brow. “Blood looks good on you, O’Fallen.”
Full breasts with tight pink buds jutted out invitingly; her ivory skin marred with crimson was a macabre but seductive look. With her wild blond hair framing her heart-shaped face, she looked like a sex-kitten Amazon ready to do battle.
Damned if he wasn’t getting hard staring at her.
Her breathing inched a notch, as she was obviously aware of the way he studied her body. Eyes moving slowly down the length of her neck, across her slim shoulders, around firm, luscious mounds that made his mouth water for a taste.
The air was electric, charged and heady, making his skin prickle with heat.
“It’s Mila,” she whispered, then slipped her fingers to the top button of her jeans. “Like what you see?”
Letting the heat inching through his body burn inside his eyes, he said nothing.
She snorted. “I hate you.”
Then, yanking the jeans off, revealing that she’d worn nothing beneath, she turned and leisurely strolled to the lake’s edge, dipping her toe into the water. He was as confused now as he’d been before.
Her emotions ran hot and cold. She teased him, then turned away. It pissed him off. Made him slightly crazy. And most definitely confused.
Running the perimeter of her area, he breathed a cloud of death like a barricade around her, then, cracking his knuckles, he swiped open a rift between the here and there, and stepped through into the tunnel.
The only things they had on them were the clothes on their backs, and hers were shredded. She’d need everything.
Entering his apartment, he immediately grabbed a duffel bag out of his closet and gathered as many toiletries as he could carry. Some girly smelling shampoo and conditioner, toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, deodorant. He was sure he was missing some things, but he had to move quickly.
She’d not come to his place with bags of clothes. There was nothing in his house actually intended to be worn by a woman. Most of what he had was dress slacks and silk shirts. Marching to his dresser, he pulled out a pair of plaid boxers and a plain white tee. She only needed enough to get dressed in; they’d figure out some way to get her clothes later.
Not sure whether he should bring her a pair of socks or not, he paused, every muscle in his body freezing when the faint scrape of a chair moving back caught his attention. Straining to hear the minutest sound, he waited.
Normally such an innocent noise was just background in the music of his life, but knowing that she had a monster of the hunt tracking her—that every damn monster in all of the world was interested in possessing her—the innocuous made him feel like a meerkat guarding its mound.
He was ready to dismiss it as his mind playing tricks on him, when he heard the scraping sound again. But this time it was closer. It was coming down the hall. Snuffling softly, like a dog sniffing at scent.
Common sense said run, leave it all behind, and go back to her. But something didn’t feel right. His house was warded; nothing could enter without his consent.
The sounds were closer still, and now they sounded more like a wet gurgle. Pushing as much glamour out of him as possible, he shielded himself within the magic inherent to his kind. Making himself nearly invisible. None could see him unless they knew exactly where to look and what they were looking for. He wasn’t actually invisible, he’d simply distorted the perception of space and time, causing a ripple effect that made it appear he wasn’t there.
Easing the drawer slowly closed, he gathered the duffel bag of items and made sure the room appeared as empty as it’d been this morning. The door opened.
And what he saw, he could not name. It did not appear like anything he’d ever seen. It was blackness—moving, rolling shadow with twin dots of red for eyes. A glowing-cinder kind of red, making it appear as if unholy fire burned behind it. There wasn’t much of a face, just a distortion of one, a perception of i
t. If he looked dead-on, there was nothing, but when he tilted his face to the side, he could make out the blurry image of a nose, eyes, and mouth.
A mouthful of ragged, razor-sharp fangs. The creature, for it was definitely that, walked upright, but its long arms and webbed hands made him think it was more of a quadruped than humanoid.
Every step it took left a black streak of fog in its wake, and the rotten stench of sulfur made Frenzy curl his lip. Creatures of the hunt generally fell into two categories: gloriously beautiful, godlike in many ways, but it was a beauty so deadly it’d been known to cause any unwary, unlucky soul who glanced at it for too long to die of shock—then there were the monsters. The boogeymen. The bastards of the fae world.
This was one of those.
It sniffed again, and he wasn’t nervous, but something didn’t feel right. He was covered in glamour so thick not even his queen could find him, yet this creature was drawing slowly closer to where he stood.
A wet, slurping sound echoed through the nearly empty room. “You can come out.”
The voice resonated angrily, rolling through the room like a windswept wave. His brows lowered, but he didn’t move. There were still too many questions to reveal himself just yet.
“Can you see me, reaper?” it asked, and though the voice sounded like it’d been dragged from the depths of hell itself, it was also surprisingly cultured and refined. It smiled. “I’ve no quarrel with you. I only wish to find her.”
The way it said “her,” it was a like prayer and a curse. Heaven and hell, there was desire, lust, and hate all wrapped into it.
It came in closer, lifting its nose higher into the air, and the closer it got to him, the more it solidified, no longer moving like a shadow, but more like the sensual slink and curl of a snake, its head lolling from side to side as it followed Frenzy’s scent trail closer and closer.
How the hell had this dark-court abomination found them? They’d never left the house, she’d not even peered out a window…
But last night, he’d left her alone. She’d gone comatose from lack of food; what had she done before that, though? But the moment he thought it, he shook his head. Mila had told him just seconds ago they needed to move on. The woman had survived this long by being smart. She would never have done something so stupid.
It continued its slow walk into his space. He hoped the thing was female. Not everything that looked male actually was, not within faedom. Frenzy had always been able to charm the fairer sex when he wanted to; it was how he’d been able to get in so close to the queen.
Studying its chest area, he tried to make out twin lumps, or anything else that would identify its sex. But though its form had definitely solidified, it was still indistinguishable as truly male or female.
“I smell her on you. All over you.” It smirked. Something long and black poked out from where the mouth was. He could only assume it was a tongue, the way it ran slowly along its lips. “Tell me, reaper, how does she taste?”
Nose curling, he took a step back. The creature might know he was there, but it didn’t know what he looked like. Keeping his identity secret might be the only thing that saved Mila in the end.
“What do you want?” he barked, throwing his voice to the opposite corner of the room hoping the creature would bite and turn around, but it didn’t. It merely chuckled.
“You play a fool’s game, death. As I said”—it stuck its face up in the air—“I smell my prey.”
Light coalesced from the inside out, pouring through the shadow, but rather than obliterating the darkness wrapped like skin so tightly around it, it made it glow a deep, deep black. And from that blackness something else materialized: eyes. Dozens of them, painting themselves on its skin like living tattoos.
Green eyes filled with sorrow blinked. Blue ones burning with fury stared hard. Brown, black, and a vivid, vivid purple, every color of the spectrum, gazed back at him.
“What do I want?” it rasped, chuckling deep in the back of its throat. “I want her.”
As it said it, the form of its body manifested more. Fine threads of hair sprouted on a balding, shiny head. Muscle demarcation became apparent across its flat abdominals. Fingers became claws with hooked, shockingly white nails.
The chest was obvious now; the nipples were too. The way the skin hung, it could have been a female, but it could just as easily be male. Taking a gamble, he made a call.
“Do you wish to rape my female?” he growled.
The thing hissed. “Rape your female?!” Glowing cinder eyes swirled with a hypnotic light.
The burst of anger made it obvious the thing was in fact female and affronted at the notion of raping one of its own sex. Human, fae, or otherwise.
Smiling, Frenzy released a little of his glamour. Not enough to reveal himself, but enough for her to feel him.
“Ahh, death.” His moniker rolled off her forked tongue with satisfaction. “Where is she?”
“Patient, lady death.”
Her entire form trembled and she sighed a breathy, moany sound.
“How did you find me?” That question would nag at him forever.
Lifting her hands, she touched the tip of his navel and drew a nail upward. Slow and easy. Women, no matter the breed, were easy. Always had been, he just rarely felt the need to put in the effort. Only once had he really wanted to, but the rules of seduction never really changed, no matter the century.
Setting his repulsion aside—he’d seen much worse than a shadow with eyeballs covering its body before—he traced the edge of her neck. The spot right above the collarbone, the one that seemed to drive all women manic. “Tell me, darkness. How?” He stepped in closer. “Did?” He leaned in. “You?” He blew a shivery tendril of breath along the shell of her ear. “Find?”
Tremors racked her shadowy form, her head tipped back, and her mouth parted just slightly.
“Me?”
Blowing out a heavy breath, she grinned. “You know your dance well. And though I am fond of you, death…” Her hands continued to run along his, but the shadow had more than just two hands. There were three, four, five sets of hands, running down his spine, his ass, the backs of his legs, cupping him.
He had no desire to look down and see whether the hands were manifesting bits of shadow or whether they were actually tentacles of some sort. He kept his eyes firmly on hers. Because though she shouldn’t be able to see him, somehow she was. Maybe she couldn’t see the true symmetry of his features, but she was seeing something; her touches were too accurate for her not to be.
To pull this off, she’d need to believe what he did wasn’t a ploy to get her to talk.
“I am no fool.”
“My lady.” Palming what he hoped was her backside, he drew her tight to him, delighted to note the trembles still coursing through her. Painting too pretty a picture would make her see through the deception easily. Half-truths were what he would give; she was too smart for anything else. “You are correct. I know my dance well. And while I desperately wish an answer to that question—”
“Desperately?” Her face came more into focus. The fire in her eyes was still there, but it was no longer just fire. It was a floating flame in a moat of inky black. Her nose was sharp and angular, reminding him of a bird. Thin lips stretched across a face that bore not an ounce of unnecessary fat. Razor-sharp cheekbones and a high forehead that led to a thick mass of hair the same shade as her body. “I like the sound of that. And what would you give me in exchange? Hmm? The girl?”
He didn’t answer, merely strummed his fingers along her spine.
She laughed, and the sound grated on his ears like the breaking of glass. “You ask for much, and give me nothing in return.”
The best way to keep Mila safe was to keep this thing off of her trail. Strangely ready to get back to her, he released a little more of his glamour, enough to show lady shadow his eyes.
Frenzy had earned his name centuries ago, and not because of his fighting skills, but rather the way
in which women fell for him. Shaking off the rust, he shoved his magic through his eyes, turning them a startling shade of liquid silver.
She gasped, panting like a dog in heat.
“A kiss,” he murmured, feathering his lips along her dry slits. “Tell me, lovely creature, how did you learn where she was hiding?”
Biting her lower lip, she pulsed like the spark of electricity, beginning to glow a strange obsidian.
“So that you can deny me her?” Her voice was a heady whisper as her hands continued to play along his flesh. “You cannot kill me, death. I was born of the wild hunt.”
“I know. But the woman is mine.”
She hissed. “Did you bed her? Do not think to play me for a fool, reaper.”
“Darkest beauty, as you say, I am death. What need have I of something so…mundane? Hmm?” He tipped her chin up.
She giggled.
“I have a taste for the more exotic.”
Something long and thick wrapped around his hip. Goddess, it was all he could to do to continue on with this charade. The longer he stayed, the longer his woman was without supervision. Startled, he almost dropped out of character. Since when had he begun to think of Mila as his? But he no more thought that than he realized that’s exactly what she was. His. And in order to keep this shadowy bitch off her trail, he needed that answer now.
Slamming his lips onto the hag’s, he made love. Tasting and nipping, purring in the back of his throat, and his hands caressed the nearly flat bumps on her chest, but when she tried to shove her tongue down his throat he pulled away with a chuckle. “Wild minx.” He flicked the tip of her nose. “You would make a fine female. But I need answers.” He shoved angry urgency into his words.
“Then will you kiss me again, my love?” The leathery skin of her palm clamped onto his cheek.
“Tell me.”
She sighed. “I am darkest shadow, wherever it gathers, there can I be also. As much as I my body desires yours, grim reaper, I will not stop until she is mine, and do not think to hie her off to faerie, for that land only makes me stronger.”