Furyous Ink

by Saranna Dewylde

  “Mr. Frost, let’s be honest, shall we?” Ian began, but Frost’s eyes weren’t on Ian, they were on Marcus, attempting to bore holes into his armor. “We’re not Vice. We don’t give a damn what she did for your money.”

  “Honesty?” Frost’s eyes were still on Marcus. “She wasn’t just my assistant.” They waited for him to continue. “She was my protégé. I have no family, no children, and I don’t intend that to change in the future. I was grooming her to take over my company.”

  Marcus read between the lines. He was training her to be an assassin. But Amazons didn’t usually outsource any of their training. They learned to fight, kill and survive alongside their peers. Another game piece in play, but Marcus wasn’t sure where it fit on the board.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Ian asked.

  “Last night around eight.”

  Ian skipped the other questions they usually asked. What kind of mood was she in, did he know her plans for the evening, what was their interaction like. He went straight for information about the tattoo. “What do you know about her new tattoo?”

  Frost’s supernaturally cold eyes narrowed. “What tattoo?”

  “She had a fairly new piece on her forearm. It was a great horned owl clutching a tarantula in its talons. If you saw her last night, you should have seen it.”

  “No, she was wearing long sleeves. It must have been very new.”

  “Do you know anyone who would have wanted to hurt her?” Ian asked.

  “No. She didn’t date. She didn’t have friends. All she did was work.”

  “Did she stay here at your residence?”

  “Yes. The guesthouse.” Frost nodded woodenly.

  “Mind if we take a look?” Ian asked.

  “Whatever you need.” He turned to address the butler. “Davis? Will you escort Detective Spinner to the guesthouse?” He held out his hand to direct them toward the front door.

  The group went outside and around the house, where a footpath stretched to the small house. Ian forged ahead, following the butler, leaving Marcus and Frost dawdling behind.

  Frost spoke so only Marcus could hear. ”I told her not to get that goddamn tattoo.” He inhaled deeply. “The only thing she ever defied me on was joining her sisters in that vagina cult.”

  The heat of his words was completely unexpected. “Do you know who’s killing them? Someone who wants it to look like you? Your fingerprints were on her bag and personal items.”

  “There’s an increased presence of Arachnae in the city, but it seems to be a peaceful gathering. I’ve had no other intel.”

  “So you don’t think it’s the Arachnae? Do you have any idea the wrath of hell that the Amazon Nation is going to bring down on this city?”

  “Fuck the Amazon Nation! If they were so badass, they would have already done something about the murders. And they wouldn’t have recruited a girl who was no more ready to be an Amazon than she was to kill a man. You know who you need to consider?” Frost looked at him meaningfully. “Those wretched bitches at Furyous Ink.”

  “I’ve already spoken with Megaera Eumenides.”

  “Speak to her again. The Furies’ little ink shop is the only one in the U.S. that’s been sanctioned and blessed by Athena’s priests to mark an Amazon.”

  Meg had lied to him? She’d said she hadn’t known any of the Amazons besides Galatea. How likely was it that all the victims had been inked at different places, and unsanctioned shops at that? Then he reminded himself that things in their world weren’t always what they seemed. Of course she’d hidden things from him. She had her own reasons to hunt the murderer. He knew that.

  “Actually, you’d better get over there and talk to her again now while she’s still breathing, Detective. Athena speaks through the Furies. Chooses the women to add to the tribe who weren’t born of Amazon flesh. It was through Megaera that Galatea was chosen. It was Megaera who signed her death warrant. In doing so, she signed her own.”

  Marcus was instantly assaulted by visions of the beast ripping out Nicodemus Frost’s throat. The scent of blood was in his nose, and he found himself wondering what the assassin’s would taste like when Marcus was cleaning it off his fur. His hands curled into fists, his nails erupting into claws and slicing into his palms.

  Marcus reminded himself of all the reasons he became a cop. The code he believed in and had sworn to uphold. He couldn’t kill another being based on what he might do. And even though it was known Frost was an assassin, he’d never been tried, neither by a human nor supe court.

  “Got under your skin, did she, our little Fury?” Nicodemus laughed lightly, with obviously no care for the fact Marcus lusted for his blood. “Did you fuck her, Detective?” He leaned closer. “Did you mark her?”

  All of his reasoning and honorable intention disintegrated to ash beneath the fire of the beast. Marcus slammed Frost against the solid brick wall of the manor house. His nails elongated into wickedly sharp claws and blood trickled from Frost’s neck.

  “Touch her and I’ll kill you,” he rasped, his voice low and guttural.

  But Frost was as cold as his name. He simply smiled into Kage’s morphing face. “Your partner doesn’t know what you are. If you try to kill me, you’ll have to take him to the vampires to scrub his mind. Even then, you may have to kill him. Is that what you want? Your partner to die because you got your cock wet?”

  Marcus noticed that Frost had “claws” of his own. His nails were painted with blessed sterling silver—and were currently digging into Marcus’ throat.

  He didn’t even feel his flesh as it burned away. It was too close to the full moon and Marcus’ cells were replicating at the same speed the silver was destroying them. “Touch Megaera Eumenides and your silver nail polish won’t protect you.”

  Kage suddenly released Frost, his own words echoing in his ears like a gunshot. Meg was a Fury. She didn’t need him to protect her from the likes of Nicodemus Frost. Unless Frost was more than human?

  He looked at the man and hated the smug, knowing smile he saw on his face. “Just realized what you were saying, did you? That primal drive to protect her? I’d bet my life you didn’t even know her before today. Furies are worse than Succubi. Filthy creatures,” Frost snarled. “Preying on your goodness, your honor—parasites, glutting until you have nothing left.”

  Marcus fought to control his breathing and to keep his own consciousness at the forefront before he suffered an uncontrolled Change and drowned a whole city block in blood. When the red haze over his vision cleared, he looked at Nicodemus again, this time with the eyes of a cop rather than a Lycanos. “I meant what I said, Frost. If Megaera is at fault, she will be punished. But not by you.”

  “It seems we’re at an impasse, then, Kage. It’s Megaera’s fault that Galatea is dead, and she must suffer the consequences of that.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather catch the bastard who actually killed her?”

  “If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. That tattoo was nothing but a bull’s-eye for all of our world. It was as good as a bounty on her head.”

  He had to talk to Megaera again. Not to warn her, although he would, but to wring her secrets from her.

  “You don’t think training her to be an assassin would have eventually resulted in Galatea’s death?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have let that happen.”

  Marcus opened his mouth, but Spinner wandered slowly back up the path, sans Davis and with a dark look on his face. “We’re going to need forensics.”

  “What did you find?” Kage and Frost asked simultaneously.

  “You have to see it to believe it.” Ian shook his head. “Are you sure she was living out there?”

  “Of course.”

  Ian kept shaking his head. “The place is covered in webs. It looked like something out of the end of Kingdom of the Spiders.”

  Chapter Four

  Megaera followed Marcus Kage all the way to Sunset Hill and Nicodemus Frost. She kept praying
the wind would continue from the south; if it shifted, he’d scent her and he’d want answers she wasn’t ready to give him.

  She’d known Galatea had some unnatural attachment to Frost. Meg had suspected they were lovers, but she’d never dreamed the girl had made him into some kind of demented father figure.

  Meg understood Frost’s rage, even though it was directed at her. Because she felt it herself, the heavy mantle of guilt for pointing her finger at Galatea and declaring her Athena’s chosen. Athena spoke through Meg, but sometimes she didn’t know if it was Athena’s voice she heard or her own. She could have just as easily chosen another girl, but Galatea had been so desperate to serve. Born an Amazon, exiled at twelve for her small size and stature… Meg closed her eyes against the flood of memories.

  Her power was already turning gangrenous, shifting inward toward herself, latching onto her guilt and devouring her from the inside out. Megaera had to find out who was killing the Amazons, or she’d literally destroy herself from guilt.

  When she saw the glint of silver on Frost’s fingernails, she’d almost revealed herself, crying out a warning to Marcus, but from the way the two alphas regarded each other, Meg would guess they’d come to blows before. Marcus’ low growl was a caress on her skin, reverberating through her to touch secret and forbidden places. She trembled and her cunt clenched as she remembered what it had been like to have him inside her. She wanted him again.

  Meg squeezed her thighs together as if that could stop the rush of heat and lust. She couldn’t let him scent her. She faded back amongst the shrubs and greenery, repeated over and over to herself that what she was doing was right and just. As long as she believed that, her power would keep the wind from carrying her scent to him.

  She’d peeked into the guesthouse after she’d overheard the other detective’s comment about Kingdom of the Spiders and decided it was too obvious. Someone wanted it to look like Arachnae, but Meg knew the Arachnae were cunning rather than obvious and garish.

  And wrapping the whole interior of a building in spider silk was more than a little garish.

  Who would want to frame the Arachnae besides Amazons? The warrior women didn’t need an excuse to fight. They were as forward and blunt as the Arachnae were subtle. Since they were Athena’s creatures, they didn’t lie, and while they would sacrifice their own for the greater good, Meg knew in her bones they’d never kill their own ranks for a ruse.

  Guilt surged again, the cadence of it in her ears beating in time with her own heart.

  She returned to her car, and it wasn’t long before Marcus’ black Charger pulled out onto the street. Meg used her phone to activate the tracking device she’d slipped into the shoulder holster of his gun when she’d taken it off him that morning.

  Meg knew that he’d easily leave behind a coat, but he was a cop—that gun probably had its own pillow in bed next to him.

  She started her black ’70 Plymouth Sport Fury GT and followed the coordinates, but found she didn’t need to. Meg already knew where he was. Almost as if he really did belong to her. But that would mean his bite, his mark…it had taken root in her. So if he belonged to her, then she belonged to him—wholly. That wasn’t something she could accept. As a servant of Athena, she could mate with a male, even take him for her own, but she could never belong to him.

  She was a Fury, one of Athena’s own. They did not belong to anyone but the goddess.

  She put all thoughts of her personal bullshit out of her head. Meg was trailing him to find out what he knew, scope out his sources, not to obsess over him like a teenaged girl.

  Shit. She lost her connection and had to look at the tracing coordinates again on her phone. She found him at 27th and Sewell—right before he suddenly went off the grid.

  Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit again.

  Where had he gone that he’d take off his gun? It wasn’t—

  Unless he’d gone somewhere there was no signal. Her brain twisted every scenario, fast and furious. The only thing near there was the Quindaro Ruins. What the hell was he doing there? Maybe he was going to the river. Or the caves…

  The caves!

  She’d always had a cell signal everywhere but the caves.

  Meg headed straight for 27th and Sewell and spotted his Charger. She pulled in right behind him and parked. Visitation to the Quindaro Ruins was by appointment only, so she was surprised to see lots of cars and people with cameras. Even a bus.

  Dread suddenly bloomed hot and sour in her stomach, and she ran. There was something wrong with Marcus. She could feel it. Meg didn’t stop to think about what it meant, this link between them. All she could do was react.

  She used her Fury strength and speed to bypass the mortal security measures—moving too fast for the security guards or the cameras to catch her. She moved too fast to even be aware of the landscape, her muscles stretching and shifting in response to some unknown directive in the primal part of her brain that carried her forward to Marcus Kage.

  Of the myriad caves that burrowed into the land along the Missouri River, Meg knew exactly which one he’d gone to. The knowledge had come to her with surprising ease and surety, but she was unwilling to recognize in her conscious mind how she could do such a thing, what it meant for her and Marcus.

  As fast as Meg had moved to get there, now inside the cave that fervor abandoned her, leaving only the dread that wound around her body like a boa constrictor. It started in her gut, squeezed her ribs tight around her heart and constricted her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force herself to move forward.

  Her eyes focused on one thing. Long, angry gashes in the stone of the cave wall. Five deep grooves that looked like the slashing of claws…

  Meg’s imagination exploded with nightmarish visions of dark things ripping their way through stone and metal to run free.

  This was where he chained himself up.

  Megaera swallowed hard. She’d wanted to push him tonight, wanted to see his beast. Now she’d have the chance. Meg was terrified, but her Fury nature wouldn’t let her run. It wouldn’t let her do anything but see this through to the end. She’d never seen a Lycanos Change.

  Why had he come to chain himself so early? It was still morning.

  She finally crept forward, the scents of the cave heavy in her nose. It smelled like water, freshly turned earth and dark, mossy places that had their own particular indescribable scents.

  And wild animal.

  For all intents and purposes, it was an animal den.

  Yet, when she emerged into a large cavern, it was nothing like an animal den.

  The scene would have been more at home in a modern research facility. The walls and floor of the cavern were polished white and looked to be marble. Machines with dials and levers lined those walls, a giant screen and desks with three computers and processor towers were inside a bright metal cage. Megaera guessed it was painted with blessed silver. There were several hospital beds, each in its own cage on the far wall, with wires and different machines hanging limp and quiet inside. They fueled her already hyperactive imagination with images of experimentation, ala The Island of Dr. Moreau.

  Especially since Marcus made no use of any of it, but rather had positioned himself beneath several sets of chains that hung from the ceiling of the cave.

  Methodically stripping off his clothes, he didn’t turn around, but she could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened and his muscles flexed in his back that he knew she was there. She was held rapt by the smooth glide of his golden skin as he moved, bit her lip hard enough to draw blood when she saw the scars on his back from her nails.

  She’d marked him, indeed.

  Her fingers fluttered up to her neck where he’d bitten her. She didn’t have to look or even touch the skin to know she bore his mark.

  Double shit.

  “Yes, little Fury. We’re fucked.”

  He smoothed his slacks down his strong thighs and Meg’s breath hitched in her chest. By Athena, he was a beautiful male. She wante
d him again.

  Marcus spun around. His eyes had already shifted, bright amber and hungry. “You don’t want to be here.” His voice was deceptively soft. “Especially not with the scent of fucking on your skin.”

  “I—”

  “I don’t want you here,” he snarled, and slipped his hands into shackles that tightened automatically around his wrists.

  “We’ve marked each other, Marcus.”

  “Even more reason for you to get the fuck out of here and run as fast and as far away as you can. I can find you anywhere now. Track you over hundreds of miles.”

  “That makes me feel safe,” she confessed.

  “It shouldn’t. I ran down the woman I loved. Killed her. I don’t love you, and you’ve made me angry.”

  “Because I didn’t tell you everything?” she answered easily. “There are some things I’m forbidden to speak of. Even to a cop. Even for justice.” She crept closer.

  “Get away from me, Megaera,” he demanded, then his voice fell to a whisper. “It’s not safe.”

  “The more you try to warn me away, the harder it is for me to go. Don’t you understand that?” She was close enough to touch him and she splayed her hands on his chest. “Even now, when you’re about to Change, can’t you smell my need?”

  “You’re going to die, Fury.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re not going to hurt me. Don’t you think I would have scented your guilt on you, your sins? No, there’s nothing but purity and honor in your heart.” She leaned into him, his skin almost too hot to touch.

  Megaera pressed her lips to his collarbone and every muscle in his body flexed. “Don’t…” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I’m going to Change and I’ll be nothing but an animal.”

  “No, you said you were in control. Not your beast.” She drew her fingers down his chest and farther still, to where his cock jutted out—engorged with lust for her. “Although, it’s cruel to cage a wild animal, Marcus. Let him out to run with me. I can keep up.”

  He groaned and Megaera knew it was more the lure of her words rather than her hand stroking his cock. She knew intrinsically that she’d spoken his most secret and ardent desire. He wanted to be free.