Death Knell

by Hailey Edwards

  “Guys. Parts. Details.” I spelled it out for them. “As in they’re all plural.”

  They exchanged a puzzled look that sent heat rushing up my nape.

  “And?” Santiago demanded at the same time Portia said, “So?”

  “Never mind.” I closed my eyes. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Well that answers that question,” Portia murmured.

  Santiago glared at her. “What question?”

  “Cole and her. Her and Cole.”

  He rolled his hand. “What about them?”

  Portia formed a circle with one hand while sticking the pointer finger of her other through the hole.

  “Why didn’t you just say they hadn’t screwed yet?” Santiago thumped her on the forehead. “Besides, if they were having sex, we’d know it. We’d smell her all over him. You know how Otillians have to mark every damn thing as theirs.”

  “I’m stepping out now.” I left the tablet on in case Thom decided to shift and engage them, but I was done. The fresh air did me a world of good as I hunted down Wu, who was tapping his phone against his chin. “Hey.”

  “They’re pulling your leg,” he said, distracted. “Charun males have one penis.”

  A sigh gusted out of me, leaving me limp with relief. Cole was not a small man, and—since he had been carved from a blueprint for humanity and not born into his body—I imagined he was proportionate. Everywhere. And let me just add that imagining said proportions was not doing great things for my focus.

  “Well,” Wu started, rolling an elegant shoulder, “unless they’re in their natural form . . . ”

  About to swallow my pride and just ask outright, I noticed the merry twinkle in his eyes.

  I smacked my palm against my forehead. “Not you too?”

  “Charun are always in a good mood after a melee.” His eyes lightened to gold. “I’m no exception.”

  “So I see.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m not going back there and dealing with that.”

  “We must organize our next move.” His entire being vibrated on a frequency I imagined resonating in my bones. His happiness—satiation?—was infectious. “We’ve proven Sariah’s intel is good. We should squeeze every drop from what she’s given us.”

  Squeeze every drop? I squinted at him, waiting to see who cracked first. “That was not a dick joke.”

  Wu raked his teeth across his bottom lip, but it did nothing to counter his shoulders as they jostled from laughter.

  “You’re all impossible.” I threw up my hands. “I’m going to read until you guys tire yourselves out.”

  “You feel it too.” He caught my wrist as I turned to leave, whirling me in a complex spin that belonged on a dance floor and left me facing him. “Your blood is humming.” He cocked his head, lashes fluttering against his cheeks. “I hear its song in the beat of your heart.”

  “Invest in earplugs.” I planted my palms on his chest and shoved back, or I meant to, but my hands got stuck. Not literally. Not in a charun superpower kind of way. More like I couldn’t convince myself to let go. The reaction was purely physical, but not sexual, not wholly. “What is this effect you have on me?”

  “Perhaps you’re attracted to me,” he murmured. “Is the idea so repugnant?”

  “No.” I smoothed a hand up to his shoulder then down his arm, marveling at how the caress calmed me more than a hot bubble bath and a good book combined. “But I’m pretty familiar with attraction, and while you’re gorgeous—and you know it, so put up your fishing pole—this is not that. This is . . . I don’t know what it is. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “We resonate.” He caught my hand as it was about to fall. “I feel it too. I have since the moment I first saw you. It’s the reason why I believe we can do great things together.”

  “Cole and I also resonate.” There was no other word for how attuned we were to each other. “How does that work? He and I are . . . ” I searched for a comparison that wouldn’t get Wu’s back up. “We’re tuned to a different frequency.”

  “Resonance is potential.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles, blood and all. “All it means is we’re compatible. That compatibility doesn’t mean we’re fated mates or destined to be lovers. It’s a component in most friendships, in all the best partnerships. There might be mutual attraction, but it’s difficult to parse an emotional attachment from the physical reaction. It’s why you should never enter into a relationship that resonates unless you’re certain that person is the hum you want in your bones forever.”

  The hum in my bones.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not psychic, are you?”

  “No?”

  His bafflement was not a great sign. It meant resonance was real, and even the word thrummed with a rightness within me. It had the ring of a thing once forgotten but now remembered. I had been thinking of the coterie along those lines, so maybe he was right. It didn’t have to mean Wu and I were fated to be more than partners. Maybe all it required was a certain level of like-mindedness. That would explain why Cole sparked with me when he hadn’t with Conquest.

  “Do you want to . . . ” I rolled my wrist, “ . . . resonate with me?”

  His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Are you asking if I’m interested in more than being just your partner?”

  I searched his face, curious for his reaction. “Yes.”

  “You love Cole.”

  Love was . . . a big word. Huge. But there wasn’t an ounce of me willing to deny it fit.

  I was in love with Cole Heaton.

  More than shock, I felt . . . an overwhelming sense of inevitability. There was no path forward I could imagine walking without him by my side.

  Until I met him, I had never been a big believer in fate. Now I believed our mating dance had already been choreographed. All we had to do was screw up the courage to hear the music and learn the steps.

  “Yes,” I rasped, the confession ripped from my soul.

  “You deserve whatever happiness you can find for as long as you can hold onto it.” Gold washed over his eyes, the metallic sheen reflective in the low light. “If Cole brings you joy, then you shall have him.”

  The ring of permission being granted puzzled me. Wu was in no position to palm me off on Cole. Must be the battle high warping his poor little bird brain.

  “I’m going to read.” I backed away from him. “Let me know when you’ve got a plan ironed out.”

  Three steps into my retreat, I bumped into a wall that might as well have been brick for all the give there was in dragon hide.

  An inquisitive noise rose in Cole’s throat as he snuffled me, taking his time at each point where Wu’s touch had lingered.

  An angry gurgle bubbled up through my shoulder blades where they pressed against his side.

  “Upset stomach?” I reached up and scratched behind his tab ears. “I would offer you an antacid, but it would take a gallon of Pepto to make a dent after your binge.”

  The dragon sighed agreement then rubbed his cheek against mine, replacing Thom’s scent markers with his own.

  God save me from males of the species.

  Really, I ought to be grateful for their under-chin scent glands. A cheek rub beat getting sprayed each time one wanted to mark their perceived territory. Maybe that was the real reason why the NSB spayed them.

  “Sariah is online,” Thom called. “She’s demanding to speak to you, Luce.”

  “Of course she is.” I patted the dragon then pushed off and headed for the SUV. “I’ll take it.” Thom passed over the tablet, and my niece stared out at me. “What’s up?”

  “Our plans go up in smoke if you don’t get your asses in gear,” she said, all business. “Santiago has called in the all-clear. We’re good to move forward with the attack on the third nest. Have you decided which target to strike?”

  “The larger nest,” Wu said from beside me, saving me from having to choose. “We’re in no shape to go up against their bes
t. We would win, but it would cost us.” All traces of his earlier flirtatiousness had vanished now that his blood was cooling. The dragon’s appearance probably had something to do with it too. “We have better fighters, stronger fighters. We can take out more of them than they can of us.”

  “That works for me.” I checked my phone. “It will take us two hours to get from Greenville to Jacksonville.”

  The screen split, Sariah’s image compressing as Santiago popped up beside her. “It will take us three.”

  “You’ll be racing the dawn,” she warned us. “You’ll have to fight quick and dirty.”

  “I’ve got it covered,” Miller said in the background.

  Not one single person questioned him. Odds were good I was the only one dumb enough to wonder what he meant by that, but a stomach could only hold so many bodies, right?

  Miller had eaten people. No, skin suits. Most of them were buff guys or fit women. Fighters. I wasn’t clear on how digestion worked since there was a super gator stuffed in the hosts too, like some seriously fucked up turducken. But even if I downplayed the height and weight of the other coterie’s members, I was left with a disturbing gauge for Miller’s size.

  Cole was large as a dragon, and his head was massive, but it was only as long as an average human body was tall. Hence the crunching. The rest of him—I hadn’t exactly whipped out a measuring tape. Reptilian tails could stretch two or three times the length of the body it was attached to, and that was certainly the case with him, but his whiplike tail alone had to be in the neighborhood of twenty feet.

  And Miller was bigger. Much bigger.

  “We’re heading out.” Santiago shot me a mock salute. “Don’t get started without us.”

  His image disappeared from the screen, leaving me staring at Sariah, who gazed right back.

  “You don’t look thrilled,” she observed. “I thought this would make you happy.”

  “Death never makes me happy.” I closed the app before she drew me into another philosophical debate. I might feel I belonged with my coterie more than humans, but I was still an outsider with one foot in both worlds and no plans to change that anytime soon. “Load up.” I switched off the tablet and passed it to Thom. “We’ve still got a long night ahead of us.”

  “Cole will join us there.” Thom kept his voice soft. “He needs to burn off some calories.”

  “We need him to work up an appetite.” The better to devour our enemies. “Gotcha.”

  Thom drove, and I rode beside him. Wu piled in behind me, his presence a tickle on my nape. Leaning my head against the window, I let sleep tug my eyelids closed.

  I dreamed of verdant plants and walled-in gardens, childish laughter and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

  Jackson was a familiar stomping ground for me, and for the coterie. Finding our way around was simple enough without using the GPS. This time the Drosera had holed up in a condemned shopping mall, and that alone offered a chilling estimate of how many charun could hide within the warren of hollow stores and vacant halls.

  We established our base in the parking lot attached to a grocery store about five blocks from our target.

  “Having second thoughts?” Wu asked, his breath fanning my ear when he leaned forward in his seat.

  “And thirds.” I swatted him away then got out of the SUV to stretch my legs. “And fourths. You?”

  “This is a good sign,” he said, joining me. “A compound that size shores up our intel. So far, Sariah has been leveling with us.”

  “The bangles seem to be doing their job.” A faint throb of what promised to be a migraine furrowed my brow, and I flinched when Wu smoothed it with his thumb. “Personal space.” I swatted him again. “Have you heard of it?”

  “Luce enjoys her me space,” Thom said sagely. “Now he knows.”

  “Thank you, Thomas.” I ruffled his hair. “You’re a clever kitty, you know that?”

  Wu looked on, amused. “Is that the equivalent of telling a dog he’s a good boy?”

  “Watch it, Tweety.” I pointed a finger at him. “Or I’ll let him use you as a scratching post.”

  Feral delight gleamed in Thom’s eyes. “Yes.”

  “Down, boy.” Wu stepped back when Thom sniffed at him and wet his lips. “Remember—” his fingers elongated, tapering into black talons, “—I have claws too.”

  A sound that was a close relative to a purr rattled Thom’s chest. “I like when food fights back.”

  “You’re not going to win this argument.” I chuckled at Wu. “Thom is a predatory feline. Like it or not, you’re a bird-man.”

  “You liked my wings well enough,” he reminded me. “You looked disappointed when I put them away.”

  “I was,” I admitted. “The coterie could use a new cat toy, but it’s not the same without the feathers.”

  His flat stare kept the laughter rolling through my chest, and it felt good to have a moment of normalcy.

  “We need to split into teams and secure the area.” Wu tilted his head skyward. “Can you sense Cole?”

  “No.” I joined him in stargazing. “Usually it’s the wind that gives him away.”

  “We have less than an hour until Santiago and the others join us.” Wu caught Thom’s eye. “Stick close to her and take zone five. I’ll handle zone four. Cole can have three when he arrives, and we’ll keep closing the net until the others get here.”

  “Don’t take any risks.” I bumped Wu’s shoulder. “Find us if you need backup, and do not engage.”

  “As the lady wishes.” Wu touched his fingers to his heart then set out in the opposite direction.

  “He thinks you’re his.” Thom frowned at him. “He doesn’t understand you can’t be owned.”

  I waved him ahead, and we started our sweep. “Wu understands more than he lets on.”

  “Cole will kill him if he tries to claim you.”

  I tripped over air. “It won’t come to that.”

  “No,” he decided. “It won’t.” Claws sprang from his fingertips. “I’ll kill him first.”

  “Tell you what.” I drew my grungy falchion and refamiliarized myself with its heft. “If Wu ever tries to club me over the head and drag me into his cave, you have my permission to kill him.”

  “And eat him?”

  “And eat him.”

  “Do you want me to save any of the feathers for the toy you mentioned?”

  His earnestness slayed me, and I pretended to give it real consideration. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The outer ring was clear of charun, and we crossed paths with Wu a short time later as we spiraled closer to the nest. Cole remained MIA, but he might have stopped to purge. The weight of flying with a full stomach might have slowed him too. There was no reason to panic. Yet. Right?

  He was the largest airborne charun I had met. Wu might be able to outmaneuver him, but he couldn’t take him down without help. Lots of help. A whole flock’s worth of help.

  On the boundary of zone one, we met Wu for the final pass.

  Wu glanced behind us. “Still no Cole?”

  I quashed the nervous quiver in my abdomen. “Not yet.”

  “I’ll handle recon on the nest,” Thom offered. “We’ll meet back at the car.”

  The others ought to be arriving soon, and we needed to intercept them but still . . . “Are you sure?”

  “I will be careful.” He slid his cheek against mine. “Cole will return soon.”

  As alien as Thom’s thought process struck me at times, I marveled at how well he read me.

  Either he and I weren’t so different, or his innate healing gift extended to emotional wounds too.

  “We’ll backtrack and intercept the others.” I put on a brave face. “We’ll be ready to hit the ground running when you report in.”

  In the blink of an eye, he transformed from man to cat. The scruffy tom flexed his wings and settled them against his spine before he strutted off, nub tail swishing
.

  I watched until I lost sight of him then started the walk back with Wu. We intercepted three charun, one solo in zone two and a pair in zone three, and Wu dispatched them without giving me a chance to mount a half-hearted protest that I ought to pull my own weight. For that, I was grateful.

  The others were gathered around our SUV when we arrived, which had me wondering if Santiago was tracking the tablet or the vehicle, and I walked into Maggie’s arms.

  “You good?” I asked over her shoulder. “You can bow out at any time.”

  “I’m having trouble breathing,” she gasped. “Otherwise, I’m . . . okay.” She buried her face in my neck. “I’m going to need time to process this. Later. But I can hold it together a while longer. Portia is keeping the worst from me.” Her voice lowered. “You should have seen Miller. He was . . . ”

  Terrifying . . . Horrifying . . . A monster . . . ?

  “Magnificent,” she breathed. “Like one of those heroes from your kissy books.”

  “My kissy books?” I leaned back and scowled. “You’re the one who started sneaking me old school Harlequin novels when I was like twelve so I could avoid talking to Dad about the birds and the bees.”

  “Okay, so I got you hooked, but you’re the one who started reading paranormal romance. It was never my thing.”

  Just like the small-town romances she favored with normal boys falling for normal girls hadn’t been mine. Hard to relate when normal wasn’t your default.

  “I have some books you can borrow.” I pulled back and grinned at her. “If you’re ready to switch teams.”

  Mags rolled her eyes. “Now you’re my demon romance dealer?”

  “I didn’t say anything about demons.” Innocently, I fluttered my lashes. “Any demons in particular I should search my shelves for?” Flares ignited in her cheeks, and suddenly I was looking at Portia. “Thanks for taking such good care of her.” I squeezed her hand. “And of yourself.”

  “And Santiago, and Miller.” She flicked her wrist. “Boys are so helpless. They’re all ‘this Drosera is eating my spleen’ or ‘have you seen my pinky’. Losing a finger sucks, I’ll give you that. But come on. No one even knows what a spleen does. Miller could have lived without one until it grew back.”