by Nadine Mutas
Deimos gave him a nod, his cell phone already pressed to his ear.
Time for another run, this one along the border to check for any other scents. He started with a widening circle around the site of the murders, and went east when he didn’t find anything else remarkable to pick up.
The long, curved claws of his bear paws dug into moss and earth and fallen branches, the light rain stroking his fur. Squirrels rustled in the trees above, birdsong a constant musical backdrop to his journey.
He was atop a cliff when he heard it. A whimper.
Sniffing the air, he followed the trace of the new scent on the breeze, down into a small forest valley. The magic of his border was a hum in the air. He crossed the invisible line to the other side, toward the bundle laid out on a moss-covered boulder.
He knew the species long before he got a look at the babe. An algos demon, feeding on pain. Wrapped in a torn and threadbare blanket, the youngling whimpered again, one of its legs deformed, its normally dark red skin paled to rose. Probably due to hunger and cold, having been out here who knew how long.
Surrendered to Arawn, like so many others.
He huffed, gripped the edges of the blanket with his teeth and carried the babe away.
Like so many others.
Chapter 6
“Plant your bottom here,” Lucía said and patted the spot next to her on the log.
Maeve sat down carefully, positively surprised at how cushiony the seat was. The ever-present moss covered the fallen tree trunk much like it did most everything else here in the wet climate of northwest Oregon. Although Maeve couldn’t say with any certainty whether she was still in Oregon…maybe Arawn’s lair was actually in Washington? Who knew how far she’d traveled when she went through the lake…
She shook her head and bit into the wrap, part of the dinner she and Lucía bought from the brownie kitchens belowground, her attention on the gorgeous sight of the tumbling waterfall a few yards away. Fairies flitted to and fro, leaving colorful glitter in their wake.
Maeve blinked, tilted her head. Colorful glitter? She’d never seen fairies produce that before. Was that a special thing they did in Arawn’s territory? Some sort of influence of his magic?
“Whatcha thinking?” Lucía asked around chewing.
Maeve had already resigned herself to the inescapable truth that Lucía was a talker. The exact opposite of her introvert self. While they’d been out strolling around Arawn’s above-ground dominion, since Maeve didn’t want to spend more time than necessary enclosed by earth and stone on all sides, Lucía would stop time and again and just chat with…everybody. From human-looking otherworld creatures—Maeve couldn’t tell whether they were shifters or demons, lacking that magical sense due to her powers being bound—to the smaller beings able of speech. Any smaller being.
If it could talk, Lucía would talk to it.
Well, even if it couldn’t speak, Lucía would chatter at it, as she’d done with a friendly fox that ambled close and allowed her to pet it.
How someone was capable of spending all these words in one day and still have more to say, Maeve couldn’t fathom. She’d always been the most reserved of her family and friends—well, no, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Up until she was eight years old, she was a bubbly little girl who talked as much as she breathed, according to others. Maeve barely remembered that time. Same as she couldn’t remember the day it changed, and with it the makeup of her family.
She only had bits and pieces of memories of her mom and her oldest sister Moira, who both died that day…
“Oh, no, is the wrap that bad?” Lucía gaped at her, pale green eyes wide. “Wait, mine tastes really good. Do you want to switch? We can switch. The avocados in this one are superb.”
“No, it’s okay. I was just…remembering something.”
“Hmhm. Now, don’t let the brownies hear that your wrap is just ‘okay.’ They’ll be livid, and the next thing you get from them will be food poisoning.” She curled her lip and stared off into the distance. “Been there, done that.”
Maeve ate another bite. “Doesn’t it bother you,” she asked after chewing, “to be stuck with babysitting me?”
Lucía snorted. “You know, there’s always two ways you can look at something. To you, this may seem like babysitting—which, I gotta say, is so not true, because I’ve done actual babysitting, and let me tell you, you are a vacation compared to those brats I had the pleasure of running after—but anyway, to me, this is on par with my most important assignments. If you haven’t yet figured it out—you’re Arawn’s new crown jewel. He wouldn’t just trust anyone with guarding you. So, no, it doesn’t bother me at all.” She shrugged, her leather jacket creaking with the movement. “Also, you’re adorable.”
Heat washed up to Maeve’s face. Purely in reaction to being called adorable, of course, not because of anything else Lucía said. She cleared her throat, and her next question slipped out before she could smack herself upside the head. “So, are you and Arawn…?”
Lucía frowned in the process of taking a sip of her rose-flavored water—a specialty from the brownie kitchens, she’d proclaimed, and cheerfully bulldozed Maeve into having one, too—then she froze, her eyes rounding, and spit her water out in a coughing fit. “Holy hellfire, no!”
O-kay. That was quite an answer.
Lucía kept coughing and brushed off the splattered liquid on her front. “That would be like banging my uncle, and—ew. No.”
“You’re Arawn’s niece?”
“No, not even close. Well, not in terms of blood relation or anything. No one’s related to him like that.” She tilted her head with a bemused look. “At least not that I know of. I have never even heard of another being like Arawn…”
“What are you to him, then?”
“Me?” She snapped back to attention and turned to Maeve again. “Oh, right. I wouldn’t go so far as calling him my adoptive father, because he didn’t actually raise me himself, but he kind of took me in and kept me closer than the other kids, so I guess technically I’d be his ward? Protégée?” She waved a hand. “Particulars.”
Maeve drew back a little. “Other kids?”
Lucía’s eyes sparkled like sunshine on a lake in the slanted afternoon light. “Hm. Right. You wouldn’t know.” She took another sip of her water. “Since you were raised in the witch community, I’m sure you’ve heard the tales of Arawn coming to take away babies and kids, right?”
Maeve gulped, her stomach too sour to eat more of her wrap. “I remember, yes.”
“Well, those are kind of rooted in truth.”
“What?” Her voice was embarrassingly squeaky.
“Now, he doesn’t eat them, contrary to what some would have you believe.” She rolled her eyes. “And he doesn’t steal them either. Most of them are surrendered these days.” Her tone became quieter. “Or tossed away like garbage.”
Her chest tightened. “Were you?”
“Pretty much. It’s what happens when you’re a half-breed in our world.” Lucía’s soft features hardened. “Neither side of your family wants you.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lucía cut a glance at Maeve, a smile gentling her expression. “Yeah, well, I always say they wouldn’t have been able to handle my awesomeness anyway.”
“Why are…half-breeds despised like that?”
A snort. “Obsession with blood purity isn’t just a thing among humans. Otherworld creatures are just as stupid about it. Shifters only mate with shifters, some even only with those who change into the same animal, and don’t even get me started on demons. Oh, and when you happen to have some human in you, you might as well crawl into the sewer to die.” She shook her head.
“Used to be,” Lucía went on, “those kids were killed right after birth. Or just kicked out into the elements. Now, some give them to Arawn. As a sacrifice? I don’t know. It’s not widely known that he doesn’t eat them, so maybe these morons think they’re truly appeasing the Demon Lord by of
fering him a snack or something.”
Maeve shuddered at the thought. “And he just raises them?”
“Not himself. He’s got a system of foster families. The kids grow up to work for him, mostly. Some might say he raises them to be in his service. I’d say he gives them a home, a life, and a purpose. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him.” She took another bite of her almost-finished wrap. “Like I said, there’s always two ways to look at something.”
Maeve considered that for a moment, then filed it away to revisit later. “You mentioned you’re a half-breed…” She trailed off, glancing at Lucía, unsure if it was even polite to ask an otherworld creature what exactly they were.
“Yup. Demon-shifter hybrid.” She finished her meal, dusted off her hands and grinned at Maeve. “Wanna see my animal?”
“Um. Sure. If it’s not too—”
“Pfft.” Lucía waved that away. “One thing you gotta learn about shifters. We’re super eager to show off our second skin. We’re kinda vain that way.”
The other woman shrugged out of her jacket and pulled off her T-shirt, completely unabashed. Maeve startled and jerked her head in the other direction, staring intently at the spiraling, uncurling ferns. The sound of more clothes rustling, boots thudding on the forest floor, followed by a shift in the air. The hair on Maeve’s arms and neck rose, goosebumps cascading over her skin.
And then…the sleek beauty of sandy fur, of massive strength poured into a supple body of feline perfection.
Even with the forewarning and knowledge that this was Lucía, Maeve winced and drew back, her heart thundering with visceral fear at the sight of the kind of predator any sensible person should run from. Or not, given that a mountain lion could easily chase them down. Swallowing hard, Maeve dug her fingers in the moss on the log and forced herself to remain in place.
Her eyes the same pale green in this form, Lucía cocked her head in a distinctly feline way, and Maeve could have sworn her expression bordered on smug. She padded closer, close enough to touch if Maeve were to reach out and run her fingers through that soft-looking fur.
A rumbling sound filled the air. Maeve blinked.
“I didn’t know cougars could purr,” she said.
Lucía uttered a hoarse squeak, followed by what could only be described as puma chatter. Even in this form, the woman was talkative.
“You’re very pretty,” Maeve murmured.
That purr took on a decidedly cocky note. Lucía rubbed her cheek against Maeve’s shin, first one, then the other, before she sauntered over to a tree and scratched it, stretching herself and arching her spine. Muscles rippled under her beige-brown fur, a whisper of lethal elegance. A second later, the air shimmered around her like a desert mirage, and Maeve quickly looked away as Lucía changed back.
Her puma’s purr still in her throat, she dressed and sat down next to Maeve again. “Hm, that stretch was good. I gotta go for a run later and work out some more kinks.” She rolled her shoulders.
“Do you hunt in this shape?”
A grin that showed partial fangs. “Sure do.”
Maeve raised her brows. “So what is your demon side?” She bit her lip. “Sorry if that’s not polite to ask. You don’t have to tell me…”
“Nah, I’d rather show you.” She bumped her shoulder against Maeve’s. “But we gotta wait till the sun goes down.”
Right. Demon powers were bound to the night, lay dormant during the day. Not that it had stopped—
“Night’s over,” he rasped, breath fanning against her sweat-slick skin, “but the fun’s not.”
The light of the lone bulb glinted off the blade.
“Lucky for you, I’m not tired yet.”
Her hands jerked against the shackles, the metal biting into her wrists, rubbing over the raw wounds from her struggles.
She wouldn’t scream, not this time. That only egged him on. She wouldn’t scream, wouldn’t scream—
The knife sliced into her thigh.
And her scream filled the warehouse.
“Maeve!”
Shadows and light, mist and memory, her brain caught up in horrors she couldn’t shake.
Someone shook her.
Hands on her shoulders. Different. Finer, not as rough. A face came into focus. Warm brown skin, elegant dark brows drawn together over luminous light green eyes, mouth pinched in a tight line.
Maeve hauled in a breath that hurt in her entire chest, her heartbeat an erratic drum rhythm in her head, in the tingling in her limbs. Something salty coated her lips. Tears.
“Hey.” Lucía squeezed her shoulders. “Hey. You back? Look at me.”
“I’m…fine.” Her throat felt like a cheese grater had done a number on it.
“No, you’re not.” Lucía’s voice was gentle despite her words. “I know you’re not. And you don’t have to act like you are. I underst—”
“I want to go back. To my room.” She needed to take a shower.
Maeve made a small move, and Lucía immediately let her hands fall from her shoulders, withdrew a bit to allow Maeve to stand up. Not looking at the other woman, Maeve turned toward the path leading back to the underground lair.
For the first time that day, Lucía followed her in silence.
Chapter 7
Having spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom—until the water pattering down on her bowed back ran cold and she shivered from something other than the terror of her memories—Maeve dried off and dressed quickly in the matching long sleeve shirt and ankle-length pajama pants.
She used to sleep in the nude before, but after the warehouse…she couldn’t stomach it anymore. The feeling of sheets on her naked body could set off some of her worst panic attacks.
She crawled onto the bed and eyed the crystals in the walls. How was she supposed to turn them off? Did she want them off?
She swallowed past a thick throat. The bulb in the warehouse…sometimes it was on, sometimes not. Both light and darkness held horror, and there was no safe way she could go to sleep here. Maybe she should just ask Arawn—
No. She shook her head as if to clear it.
Pathetic, to be so limited by one’s fear. She could do this. Her fingers curled into her palms.
“It’s all in my head,” she whispered to herself, lay down on the silky-soft pillow, and closed her eyes.
The fresh scent of the laundry detergent used for the bedsheets tickled her nose, mixed with the dark aroma of the earth and the lingering humidity from her shower. This is different, she reminded herself. A different room. A different place. I’m safe here.
She kept repeating it like a mantra against the shadows of her past until she slipped into sleep’s arms…into a nightmare that shattered the tenuous calm in her mind, sliced her open with glinting blades, fangs piercing her skin, a voice that soured her blood, iced her bones.
His hands on her, his fingers digging in, taking what he had no right to. Powerless, she thrashed, thrashed, struggled and screamed against those hands—
Wake up!
The voice came from far away, drifting through mist. Not his voice.
And yet the heat of him still branded her skin, and she couldn’t breathe, gasped for air—
“Maeve!”
Her eyes flew open, her pulse jackhammering. The light blinded her, the world spinning.
A shape in front of her. Above her…
Fire licked out from her core.
The blaze erupted in an explosion of sparks and flames and scorching heat, and in the second before it engulfed the person leaning over her, Maeve saw her face.
Lucía.
The force of the firewall rolling out from Maeve hurled the other woman off the bed. The storm of flames and heat built, until the swirling dance of sparks and waves of fire eclipsed everything else.
“No,” Maeve whimpered, crawling over the burning bed, her clothes turned to ash—her body untouched.
She couldn’t see Lucía through the blaze, couldn’t se
e anything but destruction in shades of orange-red. No, please.
Tendrils of darkness shot into the room, chill and smooth, dousing the flames. The fire died down, extinguished on a hush. Sudden gloom spread like ink thrown into water, and even the crystals in the walls lost their light. Power drenched the air, familiar through the beacon of it inside Maeve, and when her eyes adjusted to the dimness, the contours of a man’s shape loomed against the low light of the hall.
“Maeve,” Arawn said, and stepped into the room still dipped in shadows.
His power brushed her mind, a gentle mental touch, not intruding, more like a cursory pat-down to check for injuries. He withdrew his psychic presence, apparently satisfied that she was in one piece.
Unlike someone else in the room. Oh, gods…Lucía…
Maeve smothered a sob, scooted off the other side of the charred bed and hid behind it, too self-conscious about her bare, scarred body even in the darkness. “Lucía. The fire…she…”
“…should have handled it,” Arawn grumbled.
What?
“After all,” Arawn went on, lighting up the crystals in the walls with a lazy wave of his hand, his face half turned away, “she was trained for this. Wasn’t she?”
The question held a pointed edge, and seemed directed at the opposite wall—no, at the crumpled female shape on the floor in front of it. The shape stirred, and Lucía groaned as she sat up. She was naked, too, her clothes incinerated like Maeve’s, but she kept her private body parts hidden by her drawn-up legs in front of her.
Maeve’s jaw dropped as she studied her, the unburned skin, the unsinged hair. “How…?”
“I didn’t see that coming,” Lucía rasped.
“You should have.” The soft light of the crystals bathed Arawn’s harsh features in a gentle glow.
Maeve swallowed, gaze trained on the other woman. “Your demon power…it’s…”
“Fire,” Lucía confirmed. One side of her mouth tipped up in a wry half smile. “I really wanted to show you, but look how utterly I failed. If I’d known you’d explode like that, I’d have been able to contain it. It just happened too fast.”