Reckless

by Selene Charles

  All eyes turned toward what seemed like an impossible situation. Seth was right. And Flint was pretty sure they’d all been thinking the same thing, though no one had been bold enough to say it.

  “We’ll distract them and rely on our shadows,” Adam’s starry-eyed gaze pierced through Rhi and Janet.

  Flint frowned when she noticed a sheen coating Janet’s face. It wasn’t rain, even though drops of it had begun falling.

  “Ja?” she asked quietly, clutching her friend’s wrist. But Janet seemed unfazed by the contact.

  Suddenly backpedaling, Janet knocked into the trunk of a tree as she grabbed at her chest. “Oh my God,” she croaked, then slumped down at its base.

  Everyone dropped to their knees beside her as the horrible, gut-wrenching truth settled in Flint’s brain.

  “Abel’s dead?” She hadn’t realized she’d said it until Ja shook her head.

  “No. No. Oh God, it’s worse. So much worse.” She whimpered, and then her head lolled to the side, her breathing growing shallow, and Adam had just enough time to throw his arms out to catch her when she slumped forward, almost lifeless.

  “Janet!” Cain barked, unmindful of the fact that just a few hundred yards away from them was a very dangerous vanguard of shifters who would hunt them down in a New York minute if they were discovered.

  But that was the least of Flint’s worries. The night was rocked with noise. And not just from the storm barreling down on them.

  Breaths short and stuttery, she whipped around, staring at the compound as the building literally seemed to shudder like a living thing in the midst of its death throes. A horrible, nightmarish sound howled, like the cry of a monster dragged up from the very depths of hell, deranged and fueled by madness.

  All of them stopped what they were doing. Even Adam, clinging tightly to a passed-out Janet, couldn’t seem to rip his eyes away from the shadow spewing like a geyser out the front door.

  They’d not really had any plan to getting Abel out, except distraction and hoping that a few of them actually made it out of there alive. But the shadow that wasn’t actually a shadow at all, more like a pillar of darkest ebony and as broad as some orc straight out of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, was ripping through the pack of shifters and guard dogs.

  The killing tower—whatever the heck it was—was besieged on all sides. Soldiers milled from the doors, hacking away at the monster with swords, some of them shooting at it.

  Like a village of ants, a wave of soldiers literally seemed to manifest from thin air, coming out of tunnels hidden in the earth itself, from windows, from doors, so many soldiers that Flint’s stomach went topsy-turvy as all moisture left her mouth.

  How were they ever going to be able to get to Abel now?

  A crack of lightning struck the tree they all hid under, lighting the branches and twigs on fire, and even the heavy press of rain wasn’t enough to extinguish it. And then a tingling rush of power shot down her arm, through her hand, and she gasped as the sword of truth blazed like hottest flame before her.

  Cain jumped to his feet, then held an arm in front of her as though he once again meant to tell her to stay back.

  But she felt the primal rush of the earth running through her veins like a jolt of adrenaline. This was her high, her new drug of choice. The world reached out to her, embraced her as its daughter, as its true heir, giving her strength.

  Vines crawled up from the ground, wrapping themselves around her ankles, and even the trees at her back groaned, leaning forward as though waking from some long-dead slumber.

  Janet moaned, her nails clutching at Adam’s shirt. “Save him. Save him,” was all she could mutter.

  Adam’s jaw clenched. “I’m getting her as far away from here as possible. I’ll be gone only a few seconds. Can I trust you all to hold down the fort?”

  His eyes blazed like jewels.

  The others had readied themselves. Rhiannon was nothing more than shadow with hellfire eyes, and Seth and Abel were snarling and rolling their shoulders as their bodies continued to morph and grow and turn into something monstrous. Cain was half altered, but his eyes were still just as blue as a cloudless night.

  His hair was plastered to his face, and he had to blink the rain from his eyes, but it was easy to see his fear for her written across his pinched features.

  The thundering of feet pounded up the hillside. In minutes they’d be surrounded by soldiers. The roar of the beast continued to cry out in the midst of the small army.

  Adam traced, taking Janet to safety.

  There was no time for her to say anything other than, “Okay.”

  And then pandemonium was upon them.

  Flint tried to keep Cain in sight, but after a while surviving became the primary objective. From one blink to the next, he became the monster his cousins already were, flinging one shifter after another off him, tearing his fists through chests as he ripped out hearts and guts, making sure none of the soldiers would get back up and follow them.

  Flint tried to stick by his side. Vines thick with lethal thorns stabbed into shifters, causing them to howl, slowing them down enough to give her and Cain just enough leeway to beat a slow-moving retreat away from the worst of the crush. Whenever Flint could find an opportunity to whack her sword at something, she would. But being surrounded by so many trees made movement near impossible.

  Thank God the sword seemed to be possessed of a life of its own. Any stab she made was true. She didn’t even need to think or aim—like a sentient being, the moment it noticed her intent to kill, it did.

  Every strike, every stab was lethal, dropping the nameless faces like flies. Flint swallowed the revulsion, the knowledge that she was killing. And doing it ruthlessly, without remorse or even thought.

  Survival was all that mattered. She couldn’t even look around to see if Rhi or the twins were safe, or whether Adam had finally come back. To look away for even a second would spell disaster.

  A volley of arms and legs came at her, causing her to stumble, to hiss as a fist or a claw connected with her.

  She felt each slashing strike like a burn. But the fear inside her only caused her powers to bloom. The storm was a fury. Tree limbs cracked like thunder as they fell to the ground, pinning bodies beneath them.

  Straight ahead, she spied a clearing—that’s where they needed to go.

  A woman with hair a blazing orange color latched onto her shoulders then, her face a contorted mask of human and the macabre. Thick hunks of flesh flopped over her cheeks—she’d been sliced through. Looked like someone had taken a meat cleaver to her. The sight of it made Flint’s throat work with revulsion.

  Green eyes sparked, and the woman’s face was a twisted mask of shock, rage, and fury. The intent to kill was so evident that Flint didn’t stop to think. She reacted on instinct alone.

  As the soldier thrust her claws out at Flint, she twirled just out of reach, blade swinging in a wide arc. A twin arc of lightning cradled them both in its violent bosom. The stink of ozone lined her nostrils as the sword struck true and the guard’s head rolled from off her neck.

  Flint stared at the face, the mouth still open as though in a silent scream, and she screamed herself, dropping her blade. Vines wrapped tighter around her body, cocooning her, as though aware of her inner turmoil.

  She’d killed, she’d hurt so many already, but what she’d done tonight, there was no going back from.

  “Flint! Watch out.” The warning came a second too late.

  Before she even had a chance to turn at the sound, she was tossed into the air. It felt a lot like being hit by a big rig. Fire consumed her battered lungs when she landed with a violence that rang through her very bones.

  Dazed and very disoriented, she shook her head and made her way to trembling feet, swallowing hard as she came face-to-face with the very demon itself. The black pillar was a man. And in that exact moment, her brain clicked with the horrifying truth of just what it was.

  Covered in blood and gore,
it was easily three times the size of Cain, with hair as thick as hypodermic needles poking through its grotesquely large biceps, and it carried a bundle under its arm. A lumpy sack with hair of deepest ebony was dragging along the ground.

  It grunted, the sound inhuman as it advanced on her slowly, all while sniffing at the air.

  “Abel,” she whispered and shook her head. Panic couldn’t even worm its way through her shocked brain.

  Her mind was empty. There was no battle raging on around her. No guards being batted aside like insignificant bugs to the ground. No sounds whatsoever.

  The creature that had once been her best friend just stared at her with eyes that knew nothing save for its bottomless pit of rage.

  It dropped the woman in its arm, and Flint had just a moment to glance down. The sight of a moaning Layla covered in bruises and open cuts was the straw that made Flint’s survival instincts finally come roaring to life.

  Abel was chopping at the vines trying to pierce his thick-as-dragon-scale hide. The lightning bouncing off his skull might as well have been nothing but a little spring drizzle.

  “Abel, don’t.” She held up her hands, taking a step back as he started his slow advance. “You know me, remember? I’m Flint. We’ve been looking for you.”

  She talked slowly, casually, as he continued to press forward. A smile cut across his demonic features, revealing twin rows of spiked fangs more than capable of ripping into her puny neck.

  There were roars, screams of her name. Somewhere she heard Adam and Cain, Seth and even Eli, but they were fighting for their own lives—there’d be no chance of rescue from them.

  Then he sprang.

  And she ran.

  Spinning on her heel, she looked neither left nor right, uncaring of the branches that slapped at her cheeks. She’d stumble over an exposed tree root and hop back up, feeling his fetid breath wash across her skin.

  She was going to die.

  Trees exploded around her. He was slapping them out of his way, wooden shards flying like missiles at the back of her head, a few even embedding in the backs of her thighs. But she didn’t dare stop.

  Take him below...

  The voice cried out, and she recognized it as the robed fae from her visions. It grew louder and louder in her head.

  Take him below. Take him below. TAKE HIM BELOW!

  With a cry, she sprang around the thick base of a tree, gasping as she rested against it. There was nothing else, either she took him down into the ground or she’d die. She didn’t question what the voice was telling her—she had run out of options.

  The sudden shock of silence was what finally made her peek around the corner. Abel was gone. Just gone.

  Shaking her head, she couldn’t understand what’d happened. He’d been there one second, and now he was gone. How had he done that? What had he—

  She might have been tempted to seriously consider the fact that she was totally certifiable until she saw the struggle of shadows several yards away, the big, burly bodies of her friends bringing down the ebony pillar that was now Abel.

  Somehow, by some miracle, they’d managed to survive this night. All of them. Behind them lay a slaughter of shifters and guards.

  But there was no time to relax, no time to rejoice that she’d not lost any more of her friends, because Layla had just limped out from behind a tree.

  Her blue eyes were wide, her hair wild and matted with mud and blood. Deep claw marks were grooved into the mottled side of her face. She clutched at her chest.

  The woman who’d caused it all was trying to get away. Flint snarled, hands tingling as she called her vines. Abel might have been immune to them, but Layla wouldn’t be.

  “You did this,” she snapped. “You made him a monster.”

  Adrenaline made it easy to not think about the fact that her legs were coated in her own blood and her lungs ached when she took a deep breath.

  Layla’s smile was unrepentant. “He will save us all. I regret nothing.”

  “Why’d you do it? Why’d you hurt him that way?”

  “Because Armageddon’s coming.” Layla stared down at her bare feet, muttering more words under her breath that Flint couldn’t make heads or tails of before she finally glanced up. Her blue eyes were such a replica of Cain’s that Flint lost her breath for a moment.

  “Can we fix him? Can we make him right?”

  Tears dripped thickly from Layla’s eyes. “He opened the box.”

  Forgetting for a second about all the terrible things Cain’s mother had done, Flint rushed her, latched onto her wrists, and shook her hard. “What does that mean? What box? What did you do to him!”

  Behind them a twig snapped.

  With a yelp of fright, Layla shook her head. “Have to get away. They will kill me. It will all make sense one day. This will all make sense. Sorry, Flint, I didn’t hate you.”

  And then, moving so quickly that Flint hadn’t even been afforded a second to realize what was going on, Layla tore into the side of Flint’s neck. Her teeth were razor-sharp. Too stunned to think, she could only scream as a thick, noxious odor began to emit from Layla’s very pores.

  The stench was hive, and Flint was now bathed in it.

  With a cry, Layla released her and stumbled off just as another body came barreling through. Clutching her neck, Flint twirled, dizzy and in shock that she’d been bitten.

  Terrified it was a shifter, she went on full alert until she realized it was Cain, and she sagged with relief.

  “Flint,” he cried. “Adam’s got him. Abel’s been captured. He’s sa—”

  His words suddenly stopped, and the eyes that’d been so blue just a second ago now gleamed an unholy red. His body thickened in the blink of an eye, and from one second to the next she realized she’d just become prey.

  Chapter 19

  Doing an about-face, Flint ran. Lightning struck in jagged arcs behind her. Trees shook as her powers manifested from the turmoil of her mind.

  But she couldn’t hurt Cain, even though he was roaring, tearing after her like a hellhound on the hunt. Whatever Layla had done to her, he didn’t understand. When Cain raged, he went primal. If they’d bonded, this probably wouldn’t have happened.

  The thought immediately caused an idea to spring to mind. A dangerous, stupid, incredibly idiotic idea. But it was the only one she had.

  Now she just had to work up the nerve to do it.

  She would not hurt him, and she wouldn’t let him hurt her. Running for what felt like miles through thick forest, she knew at some point she’d have to stop. Blood loss coupled with exhaustion had drained her reserves of energy down to nearly nil.

  Praying to God that what she was about to do wasn’t as stupid as she thought it might be, she made the conscious choice to stop and turn.

  Holding out her arms, she cocked her head and stared at him. He breathed heavily, not looking nearly as frightening as Abel had, but he was fully berserker with energy for days.

  Terrified out of her mind, she murmured to him. She didn’t have a clue what she was doing. But she was doing it anyway.

  “Cain.” She said his name slowly and almost squeaked when he took a menacing step closer, his flaring nostrils making her more than just a little anxious.

  Brief flashes of lightning highlighted the sculpted, almost demonic dimensions of his face. He’d completely lost all rational thought. To reach him, she’d have to put herself directly in harm’s way. He’d kill her if he knew what she was about to do.

  If he’d been sane, anyway.

  Not like she had much choice though, it was either calm him down or die.

  The way he was looking at her now, scenting the air of the night, nostrils flaring, madness burning in his ember-red gaze, she knew she didn’t have much time left.

  “Cain, baby.” Flint held up her hand, and her skin glowed like moonstone.

  A flash of lightning caught the color, making it disperse light with banded waves through the night almost like a mini au
rora borealis. For a second she’d forgotten just how different she looked.

  Cain gulped, his eyes glued to her flexing fingers.

  “Hey, big guy,” she crooned with a tongue swollen with a whole lotta fear and just a smidge of faith that some primordial place inside him might still recognize his compass. “Remember me?”

  He took a slow step toward her, his fingers flexing, his knuckles cracking as he obviously fought his instinct to rip her apart. She reeked of hive. The rain was helping dilute some of the scent, but only a little.

  Normally Cain wasn’t able to smell hive, but with the amount of pheromone Layla had just doused her in, even a plugged-up pug would have had no problems sniffing it out.

  He cocked his head, making her think of a wild wolf who was confused as to whether she was prey or not.

  “It’s me, Cain,” she whispered to him, beginning to shiver from the icy clothes now plastered to her body. Flint fought her instinct to turn and run, or better yet, slip into the earth itself and never come back out.

  But she wasn’t a worm that could tunnel through the earth—Cain would wait her out, and when she came up, he’d still be there, ready to rip her head off.

  The only way to tame a predator was to not act like prey.

  “Cain, I—”

  She screamed as he jumped her, his hands gripping her biceps so hard she knew she’d be bruised in the morning. He’d moved so fast, faster than she’d ever thought possible.

  No matter how hard she tried not to tremble, she couldn’t seem to stop as he tracked his nose up the length of her neck. Her heart shouted to trust him, to remember that beneath the monster was the man. That he’d know her if she just gave him a second.

  But her rational mind warred with her heart. Her body tingled with a rush of blood, a rush of fear, wanting to get away from him, as far and fast as possible. Because standing in front of her was the berserker of legend, the myth come to life. A killer with no heart, no soul. This was the beating heart of the monster.

  This was the demon. The one they’d spoken of in her trailer that night. How sad and haunted he’d looked when he’d confessed that sometimes the devil inside got the better of him. His fingers curled in just a little bit deeper.