I flexed my fingers, counting my breaths as I waited for the beast to pounce.
Fighting Clarence had attuned me to the predatory mannerisms of beasts. Hellhounds were a form of shifter, and while they were fae, meaning they had other forms of magick to them, an animal was an animal was an animal.
Number one rule: never act like prey.
I snarled, dropping my fangs and calling my own transformation. Still running high on Mercer’s blood, I reminded myself I had no option but to win.
“Fight!” the announcer yelled to the satisfied roar of the crowds.
The hellhound wasted no time. One second, it was in front of me, the next behind. The fae had traced, and I rolled out of the way, lunging to my left just as the beast came at me with canines bared, intending to rip into my gut. The damn thing wasn’t playing around.
Thanking the gods that Mercer and Clarence both had always drilled the importance of sparring into me, I hopped to my knees, wrapped my arms around the hound’s middle and squeezed. In one smooth motion I stood with it, only to drop to one knee and ram its spine against my thigh.
Bones cracked loudly, and the beast howled as it wriggled, digging its claws into me, shoving and maneuvering to get out of my death grip.
Everything was now happening so quickly that my body was running on autopilot. I became vaguely aware of the teeth sinking into my wrist, of the blood—Mercer’s blood—pumping through my fingers with each massive beat of my pulse, coating my fingers and making them sticky, making it hard for me to hang on.
The power of the hound was immense. We grunted as we used all of our strength to bring each other down.
For a while, I was able to hang on, giving myself a flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe I could do alone what had taken ten officers to accomplish previously, but then the bastard slipped through my grip, twirled, and shoved me down to the mat.
Stars exploded in my eyes as its fetid breath punched my nostrils. Thick streams of drool plopped onto my neck as it stared deep into my eyes.
The fires of hell burned through its own, and I read my death in them. It would take me, end me. My muscles ached, screaming with fatigue. I’d used up most of my reserves. I had no venom or tricks left. I couldn’t thrall an animal.
Its nostrils flared, and a rolling growl vibrated off its tongue. It was scenting me, tasting my essence. It was thinking it had me.
I had it exactly where I’d wanted it, though.
I thought jiujitsu was probably the cleverest of all forms of martial arts simply because one didn’t have to be stronger, bigger, or badder to win. One simply had to be smarter.
Carter had been training in that art for a few years and had taught me a remarkably effective method that worked on the unsuspecting. See, I could never use that with Clarence because he’d been a trained fighter. He’d known the moves. However, I could tell by the way the hound moved in closer and closer that it thought it had me, thought it’d won because I lay there seemingly defeated, panting, and looking desperate. I wasn’t desperate, though. I was baiting.
Come on, you little shit, take the bait. Come closer. Just a little bit closer, I mentally projected at it, knowing it couldn’t hear me but looking as weak and defeated as possible. I was concealing my fangs, sheathing my claws. In essence, I was acting as though it’d won. One should never, ever act like prey with a predator—ever.
However, that’s exactly what I was doing.
I whimpered, and its pupils flared.
The crowd around us began to boo, hissing and snapping, telling the beast to end me. Its chest rose and fell swiftly as it leaned in a microinch closer. I bit down on my lip, appearing terrified, pleading softly for my life, looking the victim in every way.
“Please,” I whimpered, “please don’t.”
The hound finally took the bait, turning its eyes from my face to my chest, ready to tear into it and take my heart as its prize. That lapse in awareness was all I’d needed. Everything moved in a blur.
I could’ve ripped its larynx out, but it still would’ve had a hole to gain air through. Hellhounds were tough sons of bitches to put down, but not impossible, not if you knew how.
I didn’t need to destroy it. I only needed to cut off its air. While the beast was distracted, I used one hand to cover the hound’s nostrils then leaned in for the kill. Clamping my fangs down on its throat, much like a jungle cat would, I snapped off its airway.
Instantly, it went feral, clawing at me, trying in vain to get away, but I quickly took full mount, refusing to release my death grip on it. If I budged even an inch, I’d be dead. That close to the beast, I’d never survive its assault.
The hound’s strength was immense, though, and I was quickly fatiguing. Vampires aren’t the tanks of the Veiler world. We leave that to the shifters and dwarves. We’re slick, quick, and smoothly efficient.
I wasn’t built to take down an army, and that’s what the hellhound was. Its claws punctured my stomach, and it was all I could do not to howl in response as it shredded through me.
That was its death throe, and if I could just hang on a little bit longer, I’d win. It shook its head violently, trying to work my hand off its nose. That movement caused my fingers to twitch, and I brushed against a silver stud I’d not noticed before, pierced through its lip.
Instantly, a flash came to me.
Running. Hunger. Deep and unrelenting. An unstoppable force. Desperate. Stopping. There, to the left. A human. Blond hair. Pale skin. Slender. Pretty. Pretty human. I smell it. Sweet. Tempting. Incredible. No. Closing my eyes. Can’t... can’t do this. Wrong. So wrong. Breeze shifts. Hunger consumes. Mind goes dark. Blank. Want. Need. Now! Stalking. Moving forward. Pouncing. A cry, a howl. Burying my face in its chest, feeling her death grip me, consuming the viscera. Sweet. Gods, so sweet. Blood. So much blood. Mindlessly shoving through. The heart. The heart. Desperation grips me. Beating. Beating. Sweet temptation. And then... I lick it, possessed by rapture until I consume it all.
The human is gone. Dead. I am transformed. No longer a demon of dark madness, I see what I’ve done. I look down at my body, covered in someone else’s blood. I toss my head back and howl, cry to the moon. Why, gods, why am I like this? But the hunger... the hunger never ends...
I suck in a breath as I’m sharply yanked out of the vision. My eyes go wide, my throat dry as I stare into the hound’s eyes. It knows. It knows I took its memory, and for a second, we both stop fighting. My arms grow lax, and my brain trembles with the knowledge that that hound came to the blind witch for the cure to the hunger.
There is no cure, though, not for that, because the hound is what it is, an instrument of instinct and bottomless appetite.
It sees the truth in my eyes, and a hollow, burning emptiness passes through its gaze before anger consumes it. I don’t stop to think, don’t stop to consider that the creature is hurting, desperate not to kill as it does.
I have a choice: Mercer or mercy.
I don’t take a lot, but I tug on that dark corner that lives inside of me, that place that terrifies me, an endless wellspring of power that I don’t understand and never wish to know. However, I choose Mercer. It’s always been Mercer, and I would kill the world if that would keep him safe.
Then I latch onto the hound’s jaws, and I rip. It doesn’t even take much, I simply tug. The power inside of me is so vast, so raw and elemental that I know I can take the world down.
For a second, I want to. The hound is dead, blood pooling at my feet in rivers, thick, dark, and intoxicating. I stand slowly, eyeing the crowd, gone absolutely silent. I must look like a demon.
I sense fear mingled with lust and many other emotions. That darkness, that wellspring inside of me is jeering, taunting me, teasing me that it’s only a matter of time before I give into it.
Maybe I should, I say back to it.
I smile, and someone screams.
“Win... winner,” the announcer says, snapping me instantly from that dark place.
I blink, fee
ling suddenly lost, confused.
I look down at my hands. They’re shaking, covered in gore. I look at the carcass behind me and can’t believe what I’ve done.
No life lingers in the fae’s eyes anymore. It’s gone from this world and the next. Blue covers its form, and I know the witch will consume its soul.
Frowning, I twist on my heel, run to the cage door, and fly as fast as my feet will carry me to Mercer. We have to leave. We have to get out of here.
I don’t know what I’m becoming, but I’m terrified I might be a bigger monster than anything else in that place.
Chapter 17
Mercer
Something cool and soothing slid down his tongue and his throat and filled the emptiness of his belly.
He’d been dying, but now he lived. His body ached, though. Blinking open his eyes, he frowned, immediately aware that he was lying on a bed and Scarlett was sitting beside him. She had her legs caught up in front of her and was staring out a dirt-smudged window.
Blinking neon pulses lit the room.
He frowned, and her spine stiffened. She knew he was awake.
She glanced over her shoulder, a red sheen sparkling in her eyes.
Sitting up, he immediately moved toward her, dimly realizing that nothing hurt anymore, which had to have been because of her.
“Scar?” he asked gently, terrified of spooking her. She looked so lost and scared. Her eyes were wide, and she was visibly clamping down on her back teeth.
Her lashes fluttered at his call.
“Scarlett,” he said again, even more softly, less a word and more a breath, a prayer. Her name spilled off his tongue like a benediction. He was suddenly scared to fucking death and not sure why.
She swallowed hard, glanced around the room, and frowned. The carpets were shag, a hideous shade of gold. The curtains were red silk, and a silver knob sat on the bedpost, a coin slot beside it. They were obviously in a sex room, which meant they were probably still in the witch’s realm.
“What happened, Scar? Why are we still here?”
Her brows drew down, and he noticed the blood. She was covered in it, from her neck to her boots. Even her hair was dipped in it.
She shook her head, looking lost and confused, as if she couldn’t quite seem to remember how to form words.
Desperate to reach her somehow, Mercer slid off the bed, took her hand and guided her toward the open door behind them, hoping like hell it was a bathroom.
It was, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Her skin was paler than usual, her eyes still bright with that pink sheen that said she was close to tears but fighting like hell to keep herself together. He tasted her emotions, raging, desperate, and hurting—deeply hurting.
“I didn’t die, Scar.” He gently pulled her toward him, caging her in his arms, needing to feel her body, her touch, needing to assure himself that his woman was real and there and that by some fucking miracle, they’d both made it out of that cage alive.
The last thing Mercer remembered was the feeling of venom mainlining through his veins, along with Scarlett whispering that she would save him.
He’d known she would fight, and he fought like hell to hang on, but he’d not been strong enough.
“I... I know,” she hiccupped, her voice sounding so tight and small that his soul ached.
Reaching toward the shower, he turned it on to the hottest setting. That’s how she liked it. Without asking permission, he slowly undressed her.
She stood still for him, lifting her arms when he tugged on her top and shimmying out of her pants when he started to shove them down, but her expression was flat, her eyes hopeless.
Mercer had always thought undressing Scarlett would be the single best experience of his fucking life, but right then, the only thing he felt was his own fear and panic gnawing away at his insides.
Then he was taking off his own clothes, kicking them off to one side. What was happening wasn’t about sex or even lust. He’d seen that look in her eyes before, on the battlefield—the look of a fighter broken, defeated, and terrified out of his fucking mind at what he’d done, forced or otherwise.
Scooping her up, he walked them both to the tight confines of the shower. He needed to bring Scarlett back, to drag her away from the darkness still gripping her.
Setting her carefully on her feet, he moved her gently under the spray. She trembled visibly, planting her hands on the tiles as she pressed her forehead against the wall with a soft exhalation.
Clenching his jaw, Mercer grabbed the complimentary bar of soap and began rubbing her down, hypnotized by the sight of the suds sliding down the graceful lines of her goosebumped body. He watched them trail down the sides of her gorgeous breasts and toward her sexy ass.
His dick immediately went stiff, and he grunted, pausing in his cleaning.
Fuck.
He hadn’t thought through what he was doing.
He should never have taken her in there. Not with him. Not like that. She moaned, making him harder, and he had to bite back a groan.
One hand suspended before him, he couldn’t tear his eyes off her soft-looking skin. Even shredded in spots as it was, and marked with dark spots of bruising typical to vampires, he knew he’d never seen anything so pretty.
“Merc, I...” Her voice felt like a lash against his electrified skin. Her words were soft but husky. She started to move as though she wanted to turn around.
“No,” he barked. “No,” he repeated more softly after her spine stiffened at his command. “Don’t turn around just yet, Scar.”
The rise and fall of her shoulders was hypnotic, and his hands clenched, palms tingling with the consuming need to touch her, to trace the velvet of her flesh.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen her naked before. He had, but the circumstances had always been life or death, giving him no time to stop and admire.
Nobody was there but them—no Clarence, no pack, no vampire clans trying to maneuver her. For the first time, it dawned on Mercer that he and Scar were outside the world of rules that’d always held them so tightly bound.
He swallowed hard.
She turned.
Her brown-eyed gaze defiant, her chin held high, but she didn’t make a move toward him. Instead, she was looking at him as he looked at her. The cascade of water washing the matted blood off her arms and throat painted her ivory body in bands of tinted pink and brightest red, swirling around the hardened nubs of her shell-pink nipples.
Scarlett had a strong body, tight and toned, but a gentle swell at her lower abdomen and hips were curvier than he’d expected. Lush was the word that immediately came to mind as he imagined his cock ramming into her slick wetness as she cried out for him, her voice growing higher and rougher. He’d heard her cries on many nights when James visited her bed.
Already, Mercer knew the sound of her, how she would growl, how she would whine like a bitch in heat when James hit the right spots, but those sounds had been for another, and his soul filled with rage each time he heard it, knowing deep down that should have been him. That should have always been him.
A rumble tore from his throat, and she blinked rapidly.
Sharp-tipped teeth bit down on her bottom lip when she glanced down at his obvious erection, and she visibly swallowed.
His nostrils flared, scenting her desire—tart like a berry freshly plucked off a vine—but fear was also there, with a sharp bite to it, bitter and off-putting, repellent even to his wolf. She was scared. He never wanted her scared, not his Scar.
“Look at me,” he said slowly, his voice a mix of beast and man, desire warring with the knowledge that this wasn’t the place or the time.
She did, and in her eyes, he saw the lingering shadows of fear along with coiling desire and gathering need. The tension was so taut between them it burned straight through him.
“I will not hurt you, Scar.”
Her brows twitched with confusion, and her fingers curled tightly to her sides. “It’s not... it’s not that
.”
“Then what is this? What’s wrong with you tonight? This started the moment we went to the Pink Lady.”
Her jaw muscle twitched as she glanced aside. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped.
Scarlett jumped, but her eyes danced with fire. She wasn’t a sissified pansy—she had a spine of steel. He’d seen her in action plenty, the way she’d go toe-to-toe with just about anyone in the pack, even against the Alpha himself. His woman stood her ground, especially when she didn’t seem to have a chance in hell of winning. When Scarlett’s back was up against the wall was when she became bravest, and he needed that right then.
“Leave me alone, Merc.” She started to twirl, and he growled.
Grabbing hold of her arm, he kept a tight grip on her. Her nostrils flared, and her cheeks hollowed out. The beast inside her was waking the beast inside him.
“You don’t get to do that,” he snapped.
Trying to yank her arm from his hand, she glared at him. “And you don’t get to fucking tell me what I get to do!”
He almost grinned to see the fire burning back in her, but she wasn’t done. Far from it, Scarlett had just gotten started.
“Let me go!” She tugged harder. “You don’t have any right to do this.”
“Do what! What the hell are you—”
She shoved him so hard he almost fell flat on his ass. Confused as hell but also violently aroused, he snarled and yanked her into his chest. She pounded at him, claws out and raking, writhing, and snapping. He had his arms banded like steel cording around hers, so tight that he could actually feel the furious beating of her heart against him.
“Stop it, goddamn it,” he barked. “Stop this! What the hell, Scar?” He shook her gently, but with force. “You can’t do this to m—”
Her wild eyes glowed with bands of bloody red, as she shook her head. “You didn’t see!” she screamed, voice so high it vibrated through the walls. “You didn’t see what I did. Who the hell am I? What the hell am I?”
His heart squeezed, fear eating away at it like a cancer. Did she know? Had she done something? Had she met her darkness as he had all those months ago? Every instinct in him kicked into hyperdrive, making him alert but wary.
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