But I knew one thing—I had to stop hiding.
Once I’d done that, I could maybe figure who I was now. What I was.
* * * *
“I have an idea for working everything together. Making a cohesive design.”
Three days later, I sat back in Paulie’s place. I’d used the back door and slipped in through the side entrance. I didn’t know if anybody had seen me enter, but I’d left earlier than normal, planned to be done sooner.
As she held out the sheet of paper in front of me, I made myself look. I didn’t care if it was cohesive or not. I just wanted...
But then I saw it. Struck, I reached out and touched my hand to it. The drawings were mine, but she’d made them beautiful. The broken blade that was me. The python, coiled and ready to strike. A vampire’s fang. The spear burst up through all of it, everything twining around it. Each unique piece had been set into a vining, twisting garden of green.
There were flowers there as well. Vivid bursts and blooms of colors. I knew many of them. “Foxglove. Oleander. Belladonna. Angel’s trumpet. Wolfsbane.” I touched each as I named them. Then I looked up at her. “These are all poisonous.”
“Poisonous...deadly if used the right way. And lovely. Just like you.” She caught my hand. “The leopard was one of the largest and we couldn’t do anything else but him that first day, but if you have the time, and are up to it, we can get a third of this design done today.”
Absently, I touched the leopard that stretched over my collarbone, up to the lower edge of my neck. “Yeah. We can do that.”
Hours later, I reached up and touched the tattoo that covered more of my neck. She’d worked in the foxglove, angel’s trumpet and leaves twining around the leopard, as well as the snake.
This had been almost a walk in the park compared to the last one. I could remember the fear of the snake—I should, the damn thing had tried to eat me—but it was nothing compared to what had happened with the first session.
The colors were surreal and vivid against my skin. Now I stood there, staring at the progress and shuddering at the pressure of that much magic crawling just under my skin. Behind me, Paulie went about cleaning up her supplies, an eclectic mix of mundane and arcane tools.
“I know it’s a lot of pain, a lot of magic to deal with,” she said, catching sight of me as another bout of chills wracked me. “Humans tend to do this sort of thing slowly…the outline first, then coloring it in. As it is, the only way to do it on our kind is to do as much of it as fast as we can.”
I wondered if I was supposed to respond to that. I didn’t really care anyway—yeah, I felt lousy, but I hadn’t felt good in so long, I doubt I’d even recognize it. Instead of responding, I just studied the new marks laid on my skin.
“Come back in two or three more days, and we can get back to work on the next phase. If we keep to that pace, we can be done within two weeks, possibly less. It’s all up to you and how you feel as we advance.”
There was an odd hesitation and then she asked quietly, “Are you coming back?”
I closed my eyes as I let myself touched the mess of scars along my neck, the ones that hadn’t yet been covered. “Yes.”
* * * *
Jude had just about broken me. No chance of rescue…but one chance to escape. That was where the memories took me now.
I could even feel the ice of the cold air on my flesh as in my mind, I relived every brutal moment of that day.
They were chasing me now, but it didn’t matter. I just had to get there—
Memories chased me as well.
TJ and Goliath, sitting at the bar as they showed me how to pull drinks. You can hold a fucking blade but you can’t pour a beer? That’s shit, kid, TJ had groused. And Goliath had laughed. She don’t want to, TJ. But she’ll do.
Then TJ’s hand on my shoulder, years later. It’s time you try to do something else, Kitty. You ain’t made for hiding in a bar.
Justin, all fire and flash on the surface...and he’d made me realize I could come out of the shadows. Come on, Kitty-kitty. If you find that runner before I do, I’ll let you try to beat me up. You won’t win, though...I had. It was the night he kissed me the first time.
Colleen. Sitting at her daughter’s bedside as Mandy breathed her last. The girl hadn’t died easily...but Colleen had looked at me with a thankful smile and held my hand, cried on my shoulder and whispered, Thank you...
There was even a flicker of a memory from Rana, one of my aunts. We could make a warrior of you yet—she’d stared at the bow in my hands and shook her head with something like admiration in her eyes.
Memories, slamming into my mind...and then one nearly sent me to my knees.
Baby girl…
I stumbled to a halt as I reached the lip of the chasm. It was so far down, I couldn’t see the bottom for the blowing snow.
The wind howled, raging and furious.
“Don’t!”
I turned and looked at Jude’s men, creeping closer.
I barely felt anything as I lifted the HK. Their blood painted the ground red and I went back to staring at the drop. Slinging the weapon’s strap over my shoulder, I lifted the handgun and pressed it to my chin.
Shhh, it’s okay, baby girl. It’s okay...Damon. After the first time Jude had fucked me over. Damon had been there. Had saved me. Hot tears burned my face but I managed to smile a little as another memory flickered through my mind.
Reluctant humor in his eyes as he dragged me out of a drugstore after we’d narrowly avoided a run-in with those humans who’d helped hunt kids like Doyle. Come on. I’d rather not continue to lurk in the feminine hygiene area.
The look in his eyes the first time he’d marked me.
Good memories, I thought.
Not all of them were hurtful.
I needed to focus on those. They were more than I’d really ever expected when I’d broken free from my grandmother’s iron grasp.
I squeezed the trigger, felt it giving way.
* * * *
I nearly choked as I tried to swallow back the sob.
“Shhh…” Paulie covered me with a blanket after she’d covered my neck with the poultice. “Why don’t you rest?”
Rest. Normally, the first thing I wanted to do when she finished was stumble off the damn chair and move, but all I could do now was curl up in a ball and shudder. Shake.
Eyes closed, I cringed and waited for the memories to fade.
But they weren’t fading this time. They slammed into me, one right after the other.
If you think I’ll kill you and let you escape me like that, you’re sorely mistaken… I’ve had you a week. Even if your fucking cat could find you, he wouldn’t want you after what I’ve done to you.
Oh, Kit…broken, already?
Shoving the blanket back, I sat up in the chair and lifted my hands to my face, all but ready to scream. The memories swarmed. Swamped me. I couldn’t breathe, damn it. I couldn’t—
I could hear his laugh. Feel his hands pinning me down, the strength of him as he fed and the pain as he tore into me.
And the pain…the pain that ripped through me when he carried my blade away.
Broken…
Useless…
I jerked upright off the padded chair and stumbled out of the room.
Paulie was rising to meet me and I shook my head. “I’ll be back in a few days,” I said before she could start clucking and soothing at me. I didn’t want to be comforted or patted or stroked.
Not when I had all those nightmares of Jude in my head.
I wanted to cut something. Hunt something. Fight something—
But I was broken.
I took off down the street at a run, ignoring the cats who loitered outside the tattoo parlor every time I went in. The damn puma again. And a lynx. They needed to leave me the hell alone and if I had the breath, I might have screamed at them.
Instead, I just hurled myself toward TJ’s.
Goliath was staring at the c
ats as well, but looked up at me as I stumbled to a halt just in front of him. Couldn’t go in there like this. If I did, I’d hate myself. TJ would see it and I couldn’t hide from her. Couldn’t hide from Goliath, either, but at least he’d let me keep my secrets. He looked at me and then lowered his head, staring at the tattoo that spiraled almost up to my jawline now. “That’s some serious ink on you now. I like the snake. Looks mean.”
My voice shook a little as I reached for some level of calm. “It tried to eat me once.”
“Did it now?” Goliath resumed his watchful stare, looking out over the streets like the asphalt itself might attack. Nothing slid by his notice. Not even my skinny, scared ass.
“Yeah. I chopped off its head. Figured it was fair.” Up until a few months ago, I’d still had nightmares about the snake. Whoever would have thought I’d miss those?
He nodded . “Sounds fair enough to me. I would have barbecued it and had it for lunch.” He was quiet for a moment and then said, “I heard screaming come from Pauline’s today. Bad screaming if I can hear it outside her spells. You sure you have to keep doing this?”
“Yes.” I went to go inside, but he caught my arm.
“She has to use poison to make them stay,” he said sadly. “You okay with letting her use poison on your skin?”
“It’s just enough to make the ink settle and it fades,” I said tiredly. It was poison…to the aneira. A fact I might have learned if I hung around home long enough to finish my training, but then again, if I’d stayed much longer, my grandmother’s training might have killed me.
Goliath continued to study me and then he reached up and touched my chin, angling my face away so he could study the newest addition. “A fang, Kit? Why do that?”
“It’s a reminder...these are all the things that have broken me.” I’d rather cover the ugly ones Jude had left me with something of my own choosing. “Sooner or later, I’ve got to find a way to remake myself and it starts with this.”
Somewhere close by, I heard a cat roar.
Deep and loud, it echoed. I flinched and instinctively moved closer to Goliath. One massive arm wrapped around me and he hugged me. Softly, he whispered, “Kit...nothing broke you. You got knocked down, but you ain’t broken.”
Everybody seemed to think that.
They were all wrong.
The cat roared again and it was closer. Goliath sighed. “If you aren’t ready to face it yet, Kit, you better get on inside.”
I got on inside, like the coward I was.
* * * *
When the guy came inside this time, I knew who it was. The puma who’d been prowling the streets the past few days. I should have placed him before now, but my mind had been…occupied.
He also had been coming into the bar regularly for the past three weeks and he left tips that were almost painfully ridiculous.
That was fine. I had Goliath donate the money to one of the shelters set up in Wolf Haven. They had nearly half a dozen and they could always use money.
I dumped his Redcat in front of him. “If you want me to do a job, I don’t do them anymore. Find somebody else.”
He stared at me for a minute and then looked away.
“You’re wasting your time.”
He sipped his Redcat and then said quietly, “No, ma’am. I am not.”
I sighed and turned away. Fine. Let him waste a hundred bucks a week here drinking TJ’s whiskey. What did I care?
I pressed a hand to the tattoo burning on my neck and got to work. I only had to keep busy for another hour and then I could collapse. Sleep. Get up. Work. Repeat.
Yeah, the memories were a bitch, but once she finished the tats I needed done, maybe she could just think up her own designs. I might even ask her to keep going once she finished. And then do more. If I could sleep without nightmares, it would be worth it to walk around covered in ink from head to toe.
Maybe—
Something attacked the wards. Sometime over the past few months, TJ had been recharging them—or rather her witch friends were adding new ones, powerful ones—and these wards wanted to keep somebody specific out. I knew enough about magic to realize that.
I dropped the glass I held as I heard a cat’s snarl.
“TJ?” I looked up and saw her sitting in the doorway that led to the back.
She had her crossbow in her lap and was staring at the door.
“Nothing—and nobody—you need to worry about, Kitty. Not just yet.” She nodded at the glass. “Clean it up, would you?
There was another attack.
And another.
I heard something growl in the back of the bar.
TJ lifted her cross bow and pointed it off in the shadows. “Sit down and shut up or leave. This doesn’t concern you.”
One of the werecats stood up at the table and bared his teeth at her.
TJ narrowed her eyes as she took aim.
I drew the Eagle strapped to my thigh, aiming at the middle of his head. He was strong; he was big. But if I put two or three rounds in his head, then two or three rounds in his heart, he’d be dead.
The man at the bar stood and turned, a rumbling sort of snarl trickling from his throat. Nobody else made a sound.
“Come on, Kit,” TJ snapped. “Clean up the glass or I’ll shove a boot up your ass.”
I glared at her. “You don’t fucking wear boots.”
A bit of a smile tugged at her lips. “Nah. But Goliath does and his are huge.”
* * * *
“You get the last one today.”
I stood in the bar, all but gagging as I made myself eat a piece of toast. Toast—about all I can handle these days. Today was the broken sword.
I nodded shortly and tried not to look at TJ.
“You going to be late?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know. I—”
Something hit the wards with enough force that the very building shook. I should be used to it, because it had been happening every damned day since it had first occurred a few days earlier—the day I’d had the fang carved into my skin.
But this felt different.
Stronger.
Heavier.
And I could feel the wards giving under the blows.
Blue lightning whipped around the room. It hit again and the lightning turned into a frenzy. Again. Again. Again—
“What the fuck?” I whispered. I flexed my hand and longed for the weight of my blade. She wasn’t there, though, and I had to make do with the gun. Mesmerized, I stared at it, barely even aware I’d drawn it. Why was I holding the damn gun?
“Kit.”
I jerked my head to look at TJ.
She was watching me sadly. “He’s hurting, too, Kit. Don’t hate me too much. I’m just trying to help you, kid.”
“What—”
It hit me then and I lunged for the back door.
Another frenzy of lightning hit and then the ward shattered with a groan. Bits and pieces of magic fell to the earth, sparkling in the air. I could see them from the corner of my eyes and the death of the ward sucked the air out of me. If I’d moved a few seconds sooner, I would have gotten away.
But I was sensitive to magic and the power of the ward death’s left me reeling. As I stumbled against the bar, I was painfully aware of the roar echoing through the bar.
The doors opened and spat Damon’s bloodied form at my feet.
I backed up, determined to get something between us.
Something. TJ. Goliath. Anything or anybody.
But TJ had disappeared.
And I was alone with Damon.
Chapter Four
He spat a mouthful of blood on the floor and then looked up at me.
“If you’re going to take off running, now is your best chance. I’m going to need a few minutes to get back on my feet,” he said hoarsely.
I darted a look at the back door. I could do that. Completely.
You can’t keep hiding.
Wanna bet? Hiding was my specia
lty. I excelled at it. I was good at it. And lately, I was more comfortable with it than I was anything else, even my weapons.
He groaned and rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling for a minute and then sat up. His arm was hanging wrong. His fingers were getting discolored and swollen and just looking at him made me hurt. As he climbed to his feet, I backed another step away.
I didn’t want to see him.
He took a deep breath and slammed his shoulder against the wall. I winced and looked away.
When I looked back, he was flexing his hand and rotating his shoulder. The color of his hand was returning and I had to wonder—just what kind of wards had TJ put up and why hadn’t anybody else been hit like that?
“She had set them up against me,” Damon said quietly. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for almost a month and that living mountain out there has been telling me to give you time.”
He slid me a look. “Give you time…but you never leave. Then when you do, you take off running from me. So then I tried to come in here and it turns out TJ had new wards put up specifically to keep me out. They’ve been kicking my ass every time I tried.”
My heart tripped a little as I focused on my feet. That sounded like TJ. Shooting him a look, I saw the blood still running wet down his face even though the wounds were already knitting back together. Setting my jaw, I grabbed one of the clean towels from the stack we kept on hand and threw it at him. If he bled all over her floor, TJ was mean enough to ask me to clean it up.
He caught the towel and swiped the blood away. “Kit—”
“I don’t want to talk,” I said quietly. Even hearing his voice hurt. Looking at him hurt. Thinking about him hurt. I couldn’t handle talking to him. I jerked open the cooler where we kept the beer and grabbed a Corona. Popping the top, I guzzled half of it before I’d let myself try to say anything else.
Why wouldn’t he just leave?
“I know you feel like you have things you want to say to me,” I said quietly. “But I can’t handle hearing anything yet.” I drained the other half of the bottle and pitched it. “Next time, before you get yourself bloodied for nothing, maybe you should call before you waste your time trying to come after me.”
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