Ravenous

by Sherri L. King

  RAVENOUS

  SHERRI L KING

  MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-229-6

  Mobipocket (PRC) ISBN # 1-84360-230-X

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), & HTML

  (c) Copyright SHERRI L KING, 2002.

  All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave.

  Ellora's Cave, Inc. USA

  Ellora's Cave Ltd, UK

  This e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author permission.

  Edited by Jennifer Martin

  Cover Art by Darrell King

  Warning:

  The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. RAVENOUS has been rated NC17, erotic, by three individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this ebook are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…

  Many thanks to Patricia ‘Zuca’ Haley for helping me discover Cady

  And to Nancy Adams for letting me borrow ‘Squaker’

  Prologue

  “Die, you son of a bitch—hijo de puta. Die! God, why won’t you just die?” Cady Swann choked out as she buried her hands in the gushing black fount of the demon’s chest. She searched out the giant beating heart of the beast, seeking to crush it and end the struggle at last. Her hands closed around the slippery black organ and she sunk her fingers deep.

  “Die!” The demon’s clawed hands were digging into the flesh of her back, as the monster tried to make her join him in the throes of death. Cady’s hands tore into the burning, putrid heart of the monster, sinking into flesh and sinew as if they were an over-ripe orange. Dark, sticky blood erupted from where her hands were buried, drenching the both of them as they struggled.

  Bracing herself against the flailing form of her dying foe, she jerked back, away from the grasping claws at her back, and away from the open cavity of the creature’s chest. Stumbling, she broke free at last of the creature’s embrace, its black, oozing heart still clutched desperately in her fists. The skin of her back was aflame. It was an accompanying pain for the myriad other bruises she had sustained during the night’s dark work.

  Ignoring her wounded body’s weakened condition, she immediately set to work on the still-pulsing organ in her grasp. She pulled upon the humming power that even now flowed like a raging torrent through her form, drawing upon the supernatural strength that she would need in order to fulfill her task.

  With a strength that would have torn the limbs from a mere mortal man, she ripped the preternatural heart in two. The wet, tearing sound of it echoed through the moonlit wood. Pulling a small container of lighter fluid from her pocket, she doused the hideous heart, lit a match and set it ablaze.

  The fallen form of her monstrous foe writhed and screamed as its heart was swallowed in the flames. Moments later with a gurgling, choking sound the creature was still at last. Dead without its beating heart.

  She’d learned the hard way that to leave even a small bit of the heart still unburned would give the creature a chance to rise from its death. So it was after the heart had been reduced to a blackened husk of ash that she rose wearily from her crouch on the forest floor. With tired eyes she surveyed the scene around her.

  Her night vision was excellent thanks to her ‘spooky talents’—a phrase she liked to use when referring to her enhanced senses. She could clearly see the fallen forms of two of the monsters as they lay dead about her. She would need to burn the bodies, she knew, to wipe away all traces of their existence. To hide the evidence of their evil.

  No one must know these beasts existed. No one.

  The two monsters she’d just killed brought the night’s score up to five. And she still had four hours before dawn in which to find more of them to kill. She could feel the presence of more monsters out in the night. It was like an electric hum in her blood. Wearily she released a long-suffering sigh.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter One

  Her hands were covered in the black muck of demonic blood. Her clothes were saturated in the thick, viscous substance, causing the fibers to harden and stick to her skin like glue. The job was getting more and more dangerous as time went on. If job it could be called, this strange nightlife she lived.

  Unfortunately, if killing these monsters—vicious beings with preternatural strength and power—was a job, it sure didn’t pay anything. Nor was it a career that promised much hope in the way of comfortable retirement. Hell, it was highly doubtful she’d even live to see retirement.

  No. Killing the evil, murderous monsters was not so much a job for her as it was a calling. She’d been doing this for fifteen years now. Saving her town, maybe the world, from demonic infestation. Though admittedly she’d battled more and more often in recent months. This was her life.

  One thing was certain. She had no intention of slacking off in her self-appointed duties any time soon.

  As far as she knew the threat was limited to her hometown of Lula, Georgia. And for certain she was the only person who knew of the monsters’ existence. Whether these creatures were an invading force of evil minions sent from hell to invade the world, or simply abominations who’d come to her town by chance, she didn’t know. But no matter the answers to her endless questions, she had to fight the creatures. Or hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives would be put at risk.

  It was a thankless job, but she couldn’t, in good conscience, shirk her duties. Lula might be a small, out-of-the-way railroad town, but it was her home. She cared about the simple, country-bred citizens. Knew most of them quite well. It was up to her to keep them safe.

  Cady entered the darkened foyer of her small home situated on the outskirts of town. Her house was a humble one. Hardly the type of place you’d think a supernatural assassin would call home. The plain-fronted farmhouse had been built by her great-grandfather, and had been bequeathed to Cady in her grandmother’s will upon her death, three years before.

  She loved this house. It was her only safe haven.

  It was a structure rich with fond memories. Memories of quiet summer days that smelled of sun-warmed crops growing in the garden. Of dancing in soft evening rain, and of tobacco-smoke from her grandfather’s ever-burning pipe.

  Her grandparents had raised her here after the death of her family, in the comforting shelter of their quiet home. She missed them both desperately. Her grandfather had died of a stroke when she was eighteen and her grandmother had died in her sleep nine years afterward.

  She’d had many good years with her grandparents, true, but she still missed them with an aching heart. It was hard to be alone in so frightening and dangerous a world. Hard to acknowledge the fact that no one was waiting for her when she came home.

  Cady breathed out a heavy sigh. Knowing that her memories would not leave her in peace this night, she leaned against the doorframe and looked into the darkness of her home.

  She wondered, not for the first time, if this was all there was to life. Her life. Fighting almost nightly to save the innocent, then coming home alone to an empty house. Struggling to stay afloat financially and mentally. Only to have to do it all over again the next night.

  She wondered if the monsters would suddenly stop coming. Maybe just as suddenly as they had first come that stormy night fifteen years ago. The night they’d killed her parents and little brother, Armand. The night she’d left her childhood behind and taken up the chase as if a gauntlet had been thrown, forever dedicating her life to the pursuit and destruction of the monsters.

  Cady jerked back to herself. She had no time for such frivolous reveries. What she needed was a bath and a cup of hot, soothing tea. The sky outside
was starting to lighten as the sun rose to bring the dawn. The monsters could not move about by day, so she and the people of Lula were safe…until the next nightfall. And the next. And the next.

  * * * * *

  Shoulders slumped and achy, Cady stepped further into the room. Even though the sky outside was brightening, little of the illumination reached beyond the windows of her home. Deep shadows swallowed the interior of the house but Cady didn’t bother switching on a lamp to light her way. She was simply too tired to bother and too in need of a hot shower to waste the time.

  It was a mistake. One she was not soon to forget.

  From deep within the shadows, an arm struck out and wrapped itself around her neck. With a choked gasp, Cady struck out at the large form behind her. Satisfaction flooded her when she connected a solid blow against her attacker’s head. She wasted no time, and brought her booted foot solidly against the instep of her assailant. As she heard the pained grunt from the form behind her, she thrust her elbow into a firm, muscled midriff and tried to squirm free of the restraining arm around her throat.

  Instead of loosening his arm, her assailant tightened his chokehold on her, and brought his other arm around her middle. A large hand splayed wide across her stomach to better hold her still. She was jerked forcefully back against a hard muscled body. Her struggles were ignored, much like the buzzing of an insect.

  The arm that encircled her throat suddenly contorted. Before her wide, startled eyes a glowing, blue-white blade erupted from the skin of her assailant’s forearm. The electric glow illuminated most of the room. The blade arched out in a wicked curve from the muscular arm, to rest the deadly, winking point just below her chin.

  “Do not move if you wish to live, human,” a voice growled deeply into her ear.

  Cady ceased her struggles abruptly—not because she feared that the man behind her would end her life—but because his voice compelled her to do his bidding. His voice was deep, but melodiously pure in tone, like the voice of an archangel. She suddenly had no will to struggle against him. In those heartbeats that followed the command of his magical voice she would have been willing to do anything for him.

  Anything at all.

  “With whom do you swear allegiance, mortal? Daemon or Shikar?”

  “What do you mean?” she rasped out.

  “Are you friend to the Shikar Alliance or to the Daemon Horde? Answer me, woman. Now, or I will bleed you out where you stand. You will be dead before you hit the floor.”

  “I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about. And even if I did, why should I tell you? I mean—we haven’t even been properly introduced,” she quipped, before mentally cursing her smart-assed mouth. It was always getting her in trouble.

  Fuck it. She was already in trouble.

  Suddenly the hands that held her cruelly, roughly against her captor’s hard form, released her. She was spun roughly around, then pinned once more so that she faced him in the shadows. The arm sporting the wicked magical blade rested across her clavicle, once again placing the deadly point against her chin.

  Cady’s dark eyes flew up to the face of her captor, only to find it hidden in shadows too deep for her night vision to penetrate. Not even the bright glow of the blade at her throat pierced the shadows that swallowed her attacker’s features. It was as if he controlled where the light fell, and he had no wish to reveal himself to her.

  The hand that rested hot and firm upon her back, holding her tight against him, dug cruelly into the claw-wounds at her back. It made her wince and fight against the urge to cry out. She felt the commingled ooze of her congealed blood and that of the monsters she’d killed squish between her back and his splayed hand.

  “You have the Daemons’ foul stench upon you, but you are virtually unharmed. How do you explain this, human? Do you dare consort with the Horde? Are you the Daemons’ concubine, a wanton follower of their evil ways?” His fingers dug more forcefully into the wounded flesh of her back.

  Cady’s vision grayed as pain wracked her battle-weary body. She gritted her teeth against a scream but could not hold back an agonized gasp. She rallied her last reserves of strength and braced herself to fight. Her pain, fear and anger fueled the fires of her attack.

  Taking her captor unaware, she swept her foot out and brought them both tumbling to the floor. Cady landed on top of him with a grunt. Wasting no time, she stabbed her hands into the exposed flesh of his throat, only to slam them with bruising force into the hardwood floor as he dodged her blow.

  Using his substantially greater mass he turned them so that he towered over her as they struggled. But Cady was in full battle mode and it did not subdue her in the least. Using her knees, she kicked out against him, sending him flying over her head. Grabbing a dagger that she kept sheathed at her booted ankle, she whirled around to tackle her assailant as he struggled up from his position on the floor.

  The man managed to shake her loose. Enough to stagger to his feet, at least. With mindless abandon she launched herself onto his back, sinking her teeth into his shoulder. She hung on for dear life as he tried to pry her off of him once more. Growling around the mouthful of flesh and muscle in her gripping jaws, she brought the knife to bear and sank it deep into his side. Hot wet blood spilled out over her hand before she was flung across the room. She had enough sense to brace herself for the impact that was sure to come—only to find herself suddenly plucked from her wild flight in the air by a hand encircling her throat.

  He moved so fast! Faster than she could ever move, and she was an enhanced human. Or so she liked to think.

  Her nails clawed the hand at her throat, leaving deep, weeping furrows behind. With a menacing growl her assailant brought her back against a wall. Her entire body was held inches above the floor by just the one hand clamped around her throat. Cady still could not see his face, but now she could see his eyes.

  They were the same eyes she looked into each time she killed one of the monsters. His eyes were yellow-gold, with bold red rings around the pupils and irises. Though admittedly his eyes were clearer, lacking the bloodshot, glazed look that the monsters sported. In fact, they glittered like translucent jewels from beneath the longest, darkest lashes she’d ever seen.

  This man was clearly different from a monster. His skin wasn’t blistered and slimy, his blood appeared to be red instead of inky black, and he spoke plainly in English so that she could understand him. His voice was far too beautiful to belong to a monster. But his eyes were irrefutably alien and so like the monsters’ that she wondered if he were a new breed of the hideous beings.

  The thought left her cold and full of terror. If there were more enemies like the one she now faced, she feared she would never live to see another dawn.

  In hopeless desperation Cady reached out before her, seeking out the soft, vulnerable flesh that shielded his heart. In her experience, every monster she’d ever faced had each possessed the same mortal weakness. The flesh of their chest cavities was like soft, over-ripe peaches, easily torn asunder to lay bare their hideous hearts. Her legs flailed over the empty space between them and the floor. With brutal force she struck out at his chest.

  Only to bruise her knuckles against the hard, firm muscles that shielded his heart.

  Oh God, she thought. What is he?

  The assailant shoved her more forcefully against the wall, striking her head cruelly against it. Even as her vision dimmed from the blow to her skull she refused to cease her struggles. This must have angered him, because he raised his free hand and slowly brought a single finger to rest against her shoulder.

  “Don’t make me hurt you, woman. Cease your fight, and answer my questions; the dawn is almost upon us.”

  “Fuck you,” she choked out, lashing out with her fist. She aimed for his nose, but he managed to evade her blow so that it glanced off of his cheekbone instead. Regardless, she felt no small amount of satisfaction knowing that he would at least bear a bruise for her efforts.

  “I’m not really i
n the mood, just now,” his beautiful voice bit out, just before a blue-white blade shot out from the tip of his finger. It stabbed cleanly through the muscle of her shoulder, like a hot knife through butter.

  Cady screamed as the searing pain in her shoulder registered to her brain. Her assailant loosened his hold so that the weight of her body rested on the blade that ran straight through her shoulder and beyond into the wall behind her. She was suspended on that keen and wicked pain as he bent forward to breathe softly into her face.

  “Do not make me hurt you further, little one.” Was his voice gentler? Did she detect some small regret at his cruelty staining the dulcet tones of his voice? Or was she so consumed by pain that she was imagining things?

  “Answer my questions, and your suffering will end. Are you friend or foe to the Shikars? Speak the truth or I will know you lie.”

  “I…I…it hurts,” she whimpered. She could not think beyond the pain of the bright blade that pierced her flesh. Later, probably, her show of weakness would shame her. But not now. Now she wanted nothing but to escape from the horrible pain.

  “I know it hurts, but you would not cease your struggles. I did not intend to come here and visit harm upon you. I merely wanted answers—answers which you still have yet to give me.” His last words were gritted out and he twisted his finger, causing the blade to bite more cruelly into her tender flesh.

  “God! Please!” she screamed as the pain unbelievably intensified. “I’ll tell you anything—anything! Just…just stop.”

  “With whom do you side? Shikar or Daemon?”

  “I—I don’t know any Shikar or Daemon,” she managed. It surprised her that she could talk at all. Her body had begun to shake and tremble with the waves of agony.

  “You speak the truth…and yet you do not. You smell of the Daemons. You are covered in their filth.” His intense, burning eyes blazed a trail down her form.