Bond with Me

by Anne Marsh

  “Well, we’ll finish up here now, then, and you can be on your way.” Eilor’s poor pet shot him a tremulously grateful look, under the mistaken impression that Cuthah would send her home. As if. Eilor had a rather more permanent solution in mind for his newest darling.

  Across the room, Eilor practically quivered. The rogue worshipped his punisher, which made him controllable. Eilor understood punishment—he simply preferred to be the one doing the punishing. Eilor’s little human was an appetizer. A reminder of what he could have if he pleased Cuthah.

  “Soon,” Eilor said hungrily. His gaze never left the girl’s quivering form. “I will have the last of the females on your list soon.”

  “Very good.” With a soft, painful stroke of his long fingers, Cuthah took hold of the girl’s wrist. Eilor understood violence and only violence, so Cuthah needed to make his point in Eilor’s language. His tongue flicked out, tasting the blood that dotted his upper lip.

  Eilor stared enviously.

  When Eilor found the last two females, they would pay for all of these indignities.

  “Maybe,” Cuthah said thoughtfully, and Eilor knew bone deep that the casual tone was all pretence, “when you find these females, you should save one of them. Bring her here.”

  Cuthah had been a betrayer for almost all of those years and no one, not even that self-righteous Michael, had discovered the truth of his deception.

  “Fine,” he said, deliberately injecting a note of sullenness into his voice. Let Cuthah think him angry. Cowed. Submissive and resentful. He was not as stupid as his master seemed to think he was.

  The next part of the proceeding was his favorite. His master took the little human with a brutal ferocity that Eilor knew he could never rival. His body tore through hers like a knife through butter. Rough and quick. It was certainly quick, which was Eilor’s only regret. The female whimpered and then screamed. Once. Rather more messy than Eilor liked, but then, this wasn’t really about Cuthah’s pleasure. It was about teaching Eilor a lesson. He knew that. He could either have a female like that or he could take her place. The rules in Cuthah’s world were quite simple. Fail. Or succeed. There was no middle ground.

  “Both females. Two weeks,” Cuthah said, pushing himself off the body. “Bring one here.”

  “And the other?”

  “Kill her. I don’t care which one you bring me. Just make sure that you do bring me one.” His master strode toward the door. “And clean this mess up. Now. Or you’ll have the Goblins down on you.”

  Seven

  So he was a coldhearted bastard. Make that coldhearted and self-centered. Stepping away from the table, Brends flipped open his cell and punched in the familiar numbers. He’d recognized that face in Mischka’s vid.

  Mischka’s AWOL cousin was Dathan’s newest fuck partner.

  The familiar voice growled a terse greeting over the line.

  “I need your help,” Brends snapped into the phone.

  “Name it.” The male on the other end didn’t hesitate.

  “You’ve got a female companion. A human.”

  “Yeah. Pell.” Dathan’s tone didn’t give anything away, but from what Brends knew, the two had been friends for months now. He didn’t know what game the other Goblin was playing, but it was a deep one. He’d smelled the lust rolling off the male and he couldn’t understand why Dathan hadn’t done something about it yet.

  “Pell’s cousin just showed up here, looking for her.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Satisfaction filled Dathan’s voice. Apparently, Mischka’s little maneuver had played straight into Dathan’s hands.

  “You know where she is?”

  “Right here with me.” More satisfaction. Masculine satisfaction. Yeah, Dathan finally had Pell exactly where he wanted her. No more unsatisfied lust for that Goblin. “Is there a problem?”

  “Not if you keep your Pell far away from M City,” Brends said.

  There was a beat, and then Dathan said, “Care to tell me why? Might make my job easier. She’s spooked enough that Mischka is on her ass. She’ll run without much prodding. And I’ll make sure she runs in the right direction. She thinks someone is following her.”

  Someone probably was. “Get her out of here. Let her know her suspicions are probably right and take her out into the countryside.”

  “Will do.” A pause. “For how long?”

  “I’ll send you the all clear. But probably a couple of weeks.”

  “You know who’s on her trail?”

  “Yeah. Eilor.” He gave the other male the truth, because he didn’t think that Pell was just another human soul to Dathan. Not anymore. There was trouble brewing there, trouble that he’d sort out later. Hell, he’d never worried about it before. “You remember all those human females someone has been slaughtering in and around M City?” He continued when the other grunted. “That’s Eilor, and he got another one. Killed Hushai, too.” Quickly, he ran down the details for Dathan. “I’m sending you the vid we got. Take a look and tell me what you think.” With a soft ping, his handheld finished the file upload to a secure site.

  There was silence for several long moments and then, “None of our kind should make a kill like that.”

  “Not unless he’s gone rogue.”

  The words hung in the air between them. “Which means I need to track the killer fast. Before he takes out one too many humans. Before he gets to another brother.”

  “Hell.” Dathan cursed viciously. “Why now, Brends? Why target human females for so long and then switch to one of our kind? He has to know we’ll come after him. The rogues are insane, Brends, but they’re not stupid. That’s a death warrant. He’d be lucky to be sent to the Preserves.”

  “Yeah. It means we’ve lost two of our number. One to the blade and one to the thirst. Take Pell and get out of town.”

  “To keep her safe.”

  “That too.”

  There was silence on the other end and then, “Right. Give me an hour. Two, tops. We’ll be on the road and you can get on with whatever it is you have planned for the cousin.”

  Perfect. Dathan would spirit Pell away. That trail would distract Mischka, keep her motivated. And she’d have no one to turn to but Brends for help. Carrot. Stick. Simple. She’d be angry if she realized he’d manipulated her. But she’d get what she wanted.

  And he’d get what he wanted. A clear shot at the killer. It would be simpler to convince her to help him, but he’d cover his bases. Just in case.

  Because he always got what he wanted.

  Always.

  And he wanted Mischka Baran.

  Get out of town or confront a homicidal maniac.

  Not a difficult decision for Pell to make.

  Soviet-era relics still dotted the city, half buried beneath the ruined hulks of the too-tall apartment buildings designed to house a human population that had grown too fast. Decaying churches, the paint of their bulb-shaped domes faded to a mere echo of color, poked their aging spires up into the almost perpetual twilight of the sky. A few bolder architects had built tall buildings of glass and steel, buildings that stepped over these lesser, squatter remnants of the past. Tangible reminders, she told herself, that the humans had gone up—and the paranormals had gone down. When the paranormals had first gone public, the newspapers had reported that one of the reasons they’d been able to hide so long was the vast underground network of metro tunnels.

  For almost two decades after her kind learned that they were not the only race in this world, they’d refused to accept the paranormals as equals. Some paranormals had continued to hide underfoot, inhabiting the tunnels, becoming the dreaded things that went bump in the night. Others, like the Goblins, had set about acquiring the tools of power. Money. Connections. Real estate. Now, they owned the city and humans came to them.

  When the Great Wars of the twenty-first century had taken place, the paranormals had watched their human neighbors go at it but hadn’t interfered. Smart bastards. Much of the countryside
between M City and Petersburg had been destroyed. There were still humans there, still the occasional paranormal holed up on his country estate, but most of the area was now a wild no-man’s-land. If you couldn’t fly by natural or mechanical means, you got yourself over that not-quite-empty space as fast as possible. Or you died out there. No one—human or paranormal—who lived out there was civilized. And most were barely sane. Worse was the occasional patch of complete wasteland, where one of the nuclear power plants that the Soviets had experimented with had breached its protective walls and spilled a lethal load of toxins out into the countryside. Rumor had it the Goblins used those places as some sort of holding ground for their rogue members.

  No, getting out of town wasn’t the issue. The issue was her traveling companion.

  Pell eyed the Goblin pacing next to her. Dathan was big enough. Strong enough. And he’d made it perfectly clear that he wanted her. That he was going to take every opportunity she handed him to convince her to have sex with him. But he stopped when she said stop.

  Part of her wished she could afford to say yes.

  He bent his dark head toward her. He was too harsh, too dark to be conventionally handsome, but his face drew her. And his body? Well, she’d managed to restrain herself from running her hands all over that big, muscled frame.

  Barely.

  “You want to run, Pell,” he coaxed in that low voice.

  No, what she wanted to do was go to bed with him and stay there for at least a week. Yet she also wanted to stay alive. Which meant outrunning whatever—whoever—was on her trail. The fear that shot through her was a familiar, shaky thrill. “Where will we go?” she whispered.

  “Away from here.” Her companion’s eyes darkened, almost glowing in the near darkness. “We’ll head out into the countryside.”

  Straight into the heart of Goblin territory.

  “And I’ll be safe there?” She tilted her head back and stared up at her companion.

  “I will keep you safe. But I’ll expect something in return.” His voice rolled out of the darkness, strangely formal.

  So much for friendship. “You want me to pay you?”

  “No, Pell,” he said, his voice low and thick with need. “I want you to trust me. And I want you to give me your soul.”

  Eight

  Mischka Baran’s flat was a surprise.

  A very interesting surprise.

  Her neighborhood was precisely what Brends had expected—a handful of human holdouts who, unlike most of their kind, hadn’t moved to the suburbs. Some of their kind still preferred to pretend nothing had changed.

  With a lot of intimidation and a bit of cash, it was simple enough to get the building manager to let him into Mischka’s flat. The Goblins interfered with human business more often than they admitted. A few greased palms here, a little computer voodoo there, and they got what they needed. Mischka Baran’s flat was in a dinosaur of a building. Had that aging-dowager air of refinement gone to pieces. He’d bet the heating bills were a bitch and the hot water occasional. So what had drawn her here? He’d already tapped into her bank account. Mischka Baran made ends meet and could have lived in one of the newer, modern skyscrapers. Yet she’d chosen to live here.

  As they stepped through the doorway, he reassessed.

  Tasteful. Elegant. And unexpectedly sensual.

  Her flat occupied one entire floor of the antiquated building, the kind of place you inherited rather than bought. Maybe she came from old money, he thought, although human definitions of old were still childishly young by his standards. He made a note to look up her bloodlines.

  A bank of windows looked boldly out on the river. Two hours still until actual twilight, but already the light had faded to a soft gray. M City lived in an almost perpetual twilight, but this time of year, the water was even grayer and flatter than usual. Spring was coming, but the air hadn’t warmed up yet and M City was still a cold, hostile landscape wherever you looked. They’d be fishing frozen drunks from the river for at least another month. From up here, though, you couldn’t spot those unpleasant little details.

  From up here, M City was downright pretty. You couldn’t even see the club.

  At first, there wasn’t much for the boys to find. Three minutes confirmed that Mischka was just as tidy, just as disciplined as he’d suspected. There were no dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and even the condiments in the fridge were methodically ordered in neat lines. He didn’t bother to check, but he’d have bet none of them was past its expiration date, either.

  “Not much to look at,” Nael complained. The soothing off-white tones of the flat had Brends agreeing mentally. As he searched, however, he realized that the cream-colored fabric was a sensual feast hidden in plain sight. Lush. Every pillow on the too-white sofa was of a different soft fabric. She was sitting on cashmere and velvet, surrounded by sensual indulgence masked in decorator elegance. There were no pets. Just a tasteful handful of silver-framed photos. Herself. An older couple. The damned cousin who’d started this whole mess. But there were layers here that had his gut clenching in anticipation.

  He didn’t think Mischka Baran was running a con, but he wanted confirmation. More important, he’d take—and use—any dirt he could dig up on her. Electronic records he’d hacked that morning merely revealed a decent amount of cash socked away in a safe savings account, bills paid on time, and a steady supply of books. Boring, well-reviewed, well-received titles.

  Nothing blackmail worthy.

  Nothing that gave him a hint of his ice princess’s true colors. All he knew was, this white and cream was deceptively tranquil. Ice Princess had depths he had every intention of plumbing.

  While Jorah worked through the living room shelf by shelf, Nael moved into the hall closet. The Goblin kept up a running commentary on the unexciting contents of said closet until Brends finally told him to shut the hell up. They’d disengaged her alarm system, but there was no point in drawing attention to what they were doing.

  Christ, she probably had nice, normal human neighbors, some of whom were undoubtedly home even at this time of day.

  The bathroom held a collection of bubble baths that interested him, but now was not the time to fantasize. Instead, he forced himself to check the drawers and then their undersides. He slid them out one at a time. Nothing.

  In the end, he took the bedroom. He didn’t want the boys in there. She had a closet full of clothes like the jersey number she’d worn to G2’s that first night. All the shoes were neatly lined up on shoe racks. Not an item out of place. Hell, did she actually live here? She was a real-estate agent’s wet dream; the place was picture-perfect, just waiting for a walk-through. When he hit the lingerie drawers in her dresser, however, he finally discovered her first vice. Simple, bold and expensive, the exquisite fabrics slid through his fingers. Not a white bra among the lot. Even the palest bra was a luscious peach-colored silk. Tucked under it all was the gun she’d threatened him with, a crisp owner’s manual and the damned receipt. He didn’t know if he felt better or worse that she went to work unarmed—or that she’d apparently considering returning the weapon and blowing his head off in practically the same breath.

  Jorah strolled by the doorway, a laptop cradled in his arms. “You want us to download the hard drive?”

  “Yeah.” He’d go through it later.

  “We could leave her a little present, let her know we were here?”

  “Don’t,” he ordered. No. Mischka Baran had passed the test. He didn’t believe she was personally involved with these murders, other than having had the bad luck to draw a killer’s attention.

  The only way left to get her to come to him was blackmail.

  Her luscious cinnamon and cream scent was all over the damned room. There was no way to avoid it and every time he inhaled, his cock got a visceral reminder of the woman. She wasn’t a journal keeper, but he hadn’t expected that. There was a Post-it collection that would have put the average office building to shame, but again nothing incri
minating. Or even vaguely embarrassing, unless being superhumanly well organized was a crime these days.

  He finally hit pay dirt in the nightstand beside the cream-colored bed. No condoms. No lube. Mischka Baran either slept alone, took outrageous chances or expected her company to bring his own. She hadn’t, however, even tried to hide the books. The stack of well-thumbed paperbacks included some rather esoteric Victorian erotica that you’d find in a collectibles section. If you were lucky. And only if you knew what to look for. He smiled devilishly. How very interesting.

  Flipping open the first book he grabbed, he thumbed through the pages until he found a naughty domination and submission fantasy. Slid the book, marked with a particularly decadent scrap of silk lingerie, into his pocket. He’d return the book to her and she’d know that he’d been in her bedroom. That he knew what she’d been reading. And she’d recognize the invitation for what it was.

  Eilor watched the team of Goblins leave Mischka Baran’s flat. Stupid slut.

  She’d chosen them.

  Maybe, he’d wait to kill her. He’d waited that first meeting. There hadn’t been enough time to clean the blade, to gut her. Besides, he didn’t want to rush through the kill, liked to enjoy the death. In fact, why rush now? He’d found her scent and he’d never lost a trail yet. How much better if he could kill her and whatever Goblin she’d wrapped around her evil little finger.

  Two for the price of one. He liked that.

  Yes, he and this Brends Duranov would undoubtedly be having themselves a late-night meet and greet. All he needed to do was catch them alone. Better yet, he could use the girl to draw the male out. After it all, it had worked so beautifully with Hushai.

  Slowly, he furled the massive wings until they were once again a black tattoo spanning his back. His wings had been restored to him so that he could play his part in Cuthah’s great work.

  He couldn’t fail. He wouldn’t.

  Brends Duranov needed a serious ego check. Or a simpler explanation of the word no. Clearly, he had interpreted Mischka’s words the previous night to mean “try again later.”