by Marie Hall
“Exactly. Bring her bait,” Nailia crooned.
The way she said it, with that lilt in her tone, it made Mila’s skin crawl. She needed to find some way of escape; this couldn’t be it. She wouldn’t let it. Making her way painfully slowly to her feet, she gripped onto the edge of the green Dumpster, curling her fingers in so hard the metal began to dent. She wasn’t nearly as strong as she’d been, but she still had some strength. Not much, but maybe there was enough to get out of this mess.
Scanning the buildings one more time, she noted the nearest fire escape was at least twenty feet up. All her life her gran and mum had taught her that the way to winning was to holding on to the one thing she didn’t want to live without. To fight for something.
When she’d been alive, she’d fought for pride. Fought to prove that her gran’s and mum’s deaths hadn’t been in vain.
Then she’d met Frenzy, seen his fire and passion, the way he touched her, looked at her. How he’d tell her over and over that she wasn’t alone…He’d given her something she hadn’t had ever.
Hope.
Crouching low, she clung to that like a lifeline and willed her exhausted limbs to work one last time. Even if there were other fae waiting for her atop the roofs, at least she’d fought, at least she hadn’t stood here and waited to die.
But just as she was set to make that leap, she smelled something that sent shards of ice through her soul. Fresh, sweet, and tangy. The smell of blood. And, gods, it was heavenly. The scent of it crawled up her nose, infiltrated every thought or reason, made her unable to think about the fact that even now the fae were closing in.
That the thudding, beating heartbeat exciting her nerves to a fever pitch was most definitely the bait set out for her. That not only could she smell the blood, she could smell the fear of the human. The panting and sweating musk sliding out of his pores. It was primal, elemental. This was what she’d been created for.
What she was destined to be. A monster. The hunger grew and stretched malignant fingers deep inside her emaciated gut, whispering over and over that this was right, good, that she could not deny her nature any longer.
Eyes rolling in her skull, she took a tentative step out from behind the Dumpster. The fluttering beat of that heart was like a siren’s call, and where she’d been weak just seconds ago, a new surge of power filled her limbs.
The last dregs of her energy she’d saved to jump to freedom were now being used for one thing. Finding food.
A hunter’s instinct took over. Jumping against the wall, she dug her fingers into the brick, ripping into it like a hot knife sliding through butter. She was suddenly strong, sure. She was power; the mortal would die.
“Die,” she hissed, surveying the empty alley, stealthily moving, making sure to keep to the shadows so as not to alert her prey.
Mouth watering, she walked to the very edge of the alley and peeked her head around the building.
The two fae were standing upon a stoop. She recognized them immediately by the blast of roses in her nostrils. The man had long hair, falling down to his ankles. It was a blond that looked spun from moonlight. The female also had the same kind of hair. He was dressed in long black trench coat; she was in black leather and boots. Their faces were the same haughty, gorgeous ones she’d come to associate with the fae. Long, patrician noses, perfectly sculpted lips, and both with glowing blue eyes. The same kind of eyes she’d seen on the vampire who’d turned her.
Obviously they were twins, and it quickly crossed her mind that here was the proof the queen had indeed been in on it from the very beginning. When she’d first seen the vampire she’d had a fleeting memory of something odd about his eyes, but had quickly dismissed it since she was fighting for her life. Now she remembered mum had shown her a book once. A very old book that spoke of pledging one’s soul and honor to the queen of fae and how that pledge was sealed within the eyes, turning them an electric, shocking blue.
The queen had confessed to that this morning, but in hindsight Mila felt stupid that she hadn’t recognized it immediately.
The fae struggled with the woman in his arms.
A terrified human woman. Her brunette hair was caught up in a stylish chignon. She wore a polished plum business skirt suit with nude pumps. She obviously worked out. Her body was trim, lithe, and sleek.
Mila licked her lips, already tasting the salty sweetness, already feeling the glorious thickness of that crimson tide rush down her throat. She licked aching gums as her stomach groaned painfully, making her dizzy and breathless with hunger.
Studying the layout, she realized quickly that there were only the two fae. There were none on the rooftops, but it no longer mattered, because running away was not her priority. Getting to her food first was now the obsession.
However there was no way to snatch the woman and run. She’d be caught, likely taken by the queen’s bitches.
She snarled.
Famished as she was, going down that way pissed her off. The queen had set her up. But the hunger was making it hard to care.
Just then an image of gran’s face popped into her head. Her big, beautiful brown eyes pleading with Mila to make their sacrifice worth it. She’d be so ashamed of her now.
Breathing heavily through her nose and mouth, she tried to beat back the beast demanding the kill.
Dragging her head back and forth against the rough brick surface, she prayed for clarity. Prayed for a miracle. Her resolve was weakening by the second.
Frenzy was right: she should have fed. Should have taken from him, just once more.
She jerked to the right as the soft scratching sound of shuffling footsteps pounded through the window to the right of her. Sliding away from the edge of the building, she crawled over to the window, peeking inside.
There was a man inside.
And he was staring right back at her, terror wide in the stark whites of his eyes.
Everything went blank. She stopped thinking, stopped empathizing, because he was close and he smelled like food. A switch had flipped inside her soul, shutting off who she was, who she’d been trying to be. She wasn’t Mila, she was a monster, a vampire shifter, and she was ravenous.
Smiling, she tapped on the window. “Hello, mortal,” she breathed, and he turned on his heel to run just as she punched her fist through the glass.
With a loud cry, she chased after him, tackling him to the ground just a few feet away.
Wrapping him up, she rolled him over and then proceeded to coo in his ear, “Hush, hush, it will only hurt but a minute. Hush now…”
Then she bit.
Chapter 13
Frantic with worry, it’d taken Frenzy a minute to catch his bearings. To realize he’d been dumped at the far end of Fisherman’s Wharf, the opposite direction from Club X. The moment he’d seen the chimera (the spelled, wavering illusion) netted across the exit from their time jump, he’d known it was The Morrigan.
He’d been an idiot to believe she wouldn’t have covered her bases, wouldn’t have set up traps in case they attempted to contact the Ancient One. Mila had been ripped from his arms, but not before he’d used his glamour to keep her scent hidden from the others.
He would have cloaked her in invisibility as well, if he’d only had enough time. But it had been all he could manage before she was gone and he was roaring into the night. When he’d obscured her scent, he’d also left a marker on her, one he could track. It would be so much easier to get to her by time jumping, but likely anywhere he tried to jump in San Francisco would result in the same scenario: him being dumped out at precisely the opposite spot of where he wanted to be, so he had to track her trail the old-fashioned way.
There was the equivalent of a beacon on her, one only he could hear. The fainter it got, the farther he was, the louder, the closer.
The noise was earsplitting now.
Gaze wandering all along the rows of houses, Frenzy ran. But some instinct, some knowledge of her, made him stop. Her sweet scent of frost and
rich earth tickled his nose.
She was in one of the buildings.
He was just getting ready to ascend a set of stairs to his left when a scream, so steeped in terror, set his teeth on edge.
It was a male voice. Turning, he practically flew to the door and yanked it open.
That’s when he saw the pale-haired twins Tronos and Nailia. They were a flight above him and headed directly for the source of the screams.
He knew immediately they were after Mila. A frenzy like he hadn’t felt in centuries overcame him. A blinding, black rage that took hold of all his senses. There was only one thought consuming him, and that was getting to her first.
Bounding up the steps, he leaped like a jungle cat.
Nailia glanced down first. She hissed. “Tronos, death is upon us! You must stop him. I will get to her.”
She might as well have called for his head, because Frenzy’s focus shifted entirely to her. It didn’t faze him when Tronos landed on his back, when his hands wrapped around his neck, or when the fae squeezed so hard that it made spots appear.
Because that was secondary to stopping Nailia. To saving his woman.
Heart thundering like the galloping hooves of a stallion in his chest, he shoved his bony hand into the side of Tronos’s neck.
The scent of crisp autumn apples flooded the stairwell as the fae’s blood spilled. But a fae was much harder to kill than that; merely cutting an artery wouldn’t do it. Suddenly a dagger appeared in his line of vision, and then a pricking in his side as Tronos stabbed him.
Adrenaline buzzed through his body like an angry hornet’s nest as he forced his feet to take two steps at a time, breathing heavily because of the burden of carrying another body.
Nailia was so close to the door.
To his woman, his world.
“Mila!” he roared, when for a split second Nailia turned, big blue eyes darting quickly at him before turning the knob.
Fury gripped him. Swatting at the hand that continued to stab into his side, Frenzy grabbed Tronos by the neck, sliding him off his back and in front of him.
“If anything happens to my woman,” he growled, “I swear by all that is holy that I will haunt you even after death.”
“The Morrigan made us, Frenzy. You must believe me—”
But Frenzy did not give him time to finish his statement: with a flick of his wrist he’d twisted the fae’s head off, and to ensure that there would be no reviving it, he pressed the soundless lips to his own, breathing death’s dark kiss into Tronos’s brain.
Dropping the head like a sack of stone down the stairwell, he ran for Mila, gasping when he reached the door. Inside there was chaos and madness. Blood was everywhere. Mila stood before a male’s body, crouching on the balls of her heels and her hand as she walked spiderlike around Nailia, who was desperately trying to grab ahold of her wrist and yank her through the portal between the here and there.
Fear beat desperate wings in his chest. All he knew was that if Nailia grabbed Mila, he’d never see her again. The queen had overstepped her bounds this time. She’d lied to Mila, lied to him—any fledging love he’d once held for her died an insidious death.
“Frenzy,” Mila cried, eyes lighting up with a fever-pitched excitement, enough to help ease some of the darkness creeping through his soul.
To help him remember that he wasn’t the beast of legend anymore, that his woman was alive and well and waiting for him, it brought him back from the brink of no return.
That’s when Nailia turned, eyes gone wide. “What did you do to Tronos? You’ve overstepped yourself, Frenzy. The queen will have your head, she will—”
With a snarl, he had his hands around her neck. “Mila, you might wish to look away,” he thundered, barely able to restrain his need for violence. To hurt every last thing that’d ever tried to hurt her.
His blond priestess shook her head. Taking that to mean that she wouldn’t try to hinder him, he torqued on Nailia’s head and, just like her brother’s, ripped it from her shoulders.
Faerie did not bleed out, because unlike most other creatures, the only true way to end a fae was to either have it be done by the queen’s hand, or feel death’s kiss.
It was why even amongst the fae a grim reaper was so hated.
Bringing cold lips to his own, he shoved the kiss inside her brain, dropping her like stone to the floor.
A second later Mila was in his arms, trembling and acting like she wanted to crawl into him.
“Shh, shh.” He rubbed her hair, peppering her forehead with kisses. “I’m here. You’re fine. We’re fine. We’re fine.”
The last was definitely said more for his benefit than hers, as right now he felt anything but fine. He’d almost lost her. Adrianna’s death had nearly ruined him; Mila’s would kill him.
He’d learned one unsettling truth today: he loved her. Somehow, someway, she’d slithered her way into his cold, dark heart and he could never be without her. Adrianna had loved him in her way, as much as a woman of her day set on making a quality love match could. Mila accepted him for the being that he was.
Adrianna had never known his true identity. The reason why the lord of the manor was always away on business trips—not because he was out in gaming hells, but because at night he’d be cleaning up the city. Carrying souls into the afterlife.
At the time he thought he could deal with an arrangement like that. Could be happy to just spend his days with a woman in his arms, but now he knew better. What he’d felt for Adrianna had been absolutely nothing compared to what he would do to keep Mila by his side.
“I’m sorry…I…I…” she stuttered.
Realizing she was going into shock over the violence she’d perpetrated, Frenzy tipped her jaw up to his. They had to get out of here. There was the very definite possibility that the queen could be making an unplanned visit any second now. Especially since her latest plan had failed.
But he’d almost lost her; he needed her touch as much as she needed his.
Taking her lips in a swift but almost violent kiss, he tasted and loved on her. Just the touch of her set his body on fire, made his blood roar in his ears.
“It’s okay,” he whispered again, pressing a much gentler kiss on her forehead. “We’re together and I’ll tell you everything, but we have to get out of here. We don’t have much time to get to Lise’s.”
She nodded, and as much as he didn’t want her to, he helped her disentangle herself from him, setting her on her feet.
Amber eyes studied him. “You’re hurt?” she said in a neutral tone, as if she were still in shock.
Worried more for her than himself, he shook his head. “I’m fine, Mila. I’ll heal.”
Gingerly she touched the wound in his side. He swallowed the hiss he wanted to expel and smiled instead. He was healing; another few minutes and the wound would be closed. Only a beating by his queen could leave lasting damage—reapers could heal from almost anything.
Brushing a stray hair off her shoulder, he took one last look at the nearly expired body of the mortal on the ground, almost certain she had caused that to happen because of her lack of feeding earlier. If he stayed too much longer he’d be forced to harvest the soul, thus taking him away from her once again.
She’d hidden her face behind her hair; her shame was obvious. For a woman so proud and so unyielding in her beliefs, to have been overcome by her baser desires could kill the light inside of her.
He couldn’t let that happen.
“Lise!” he cried, tipping his head skyward. “We need you.”
No sooner had he called then he smelled the unmistakable scent of more fae. They were just outside the door and there were too many of them for him to brave on his own. He couldn’t swipe a portal open. He didn’t trust that method of travel at the moment. If he tried to jump out the window with her, there was likely an ambush already waiting for them.
The queen was never stupid.
Just as the first head peeked around the corner
, time stilled. A hint of frost crawled through the window and then there was a brilliant flash of white.
“My word.” Lise’s voice had Frenzy taking a violent breath, realizing just how close he and Mila had come to being prey.
Mila had her head tucked into Frenzy’s neck, and she was still trembling violently. It was the quietest he’d ever known her to be, and it had him worried.
“Darling.” He rubbed her back gently. “This is Lise.”
She looked up then, blinking her eyes slowly at the woman standing before them. This time Lise had shown up not as the crone, but as the mother. Her skin was firmer, her hair not white but a rich chestnut with a loose sprinkling of silver throughout. Around her head she wore a wreath of laurels.
“My dear,” she said in a clear, dulcet voice that had him shivering. “What have they done to you?”
Lise took Mila’s hand, patting it gently. It was hard for him to see Mila so shaken up.
“I…I killed him,” she said, ending her words with a whimper that tore his heart in two.
Lise glanced down at the body of the man. He was youngish, maybe early thirties in human years, dressed only in boxers. It was obvious by the light of Lise’s warmth that Mila had savaged the poor man.
“Well, you haven’t killed him,” Lise said, “yet.” She smiled to lessen the blow.
Grabbing ahold of Mila’s chin, Lise turned her face from side to side. And then, lifting up first one arm, she walked in front of Mila—back and forth—before lifting up the other. “You are a miracle, girl.”
Frenzy smiled, feeling oddly as if the compliment was for his benefit as well.
“How can you say that?” Mila’s voice lowered in pitch and Frenzy knew she was close to breaking.
Hugging her, he kissed her forehead.
Lise looked between the two of them, a knowing glint in her milky white eyes. “It is as I expected.”
He tipped his head in acknowledgement, her lips merely twitching in response.
“Little one”—she smoothed a hand over Mila’s brow—“I will protect you as I could not the night the vampires found you. All of this had to be set into motion, can’t you see? A seer, you must understand, right?”