The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1)

by Daniels, May Ellis

  I’m trapped. Behind me lies the forest and ocean and the Guardians. In front is this horrible hard river glistening with rain and delivering speeding coffins of the Absent.

  I need to get across the strange river. I see more forest on the other side. Perhaps if I walk long enough I’ll find a place where the Absent reside. If we ever found ourselves stranded in this dead land, or if we were blessed to be sent to murder one of Azazel’s Guises, the Priest’s taught us to find a place where the Absent reside, murder any Absent inside, take nourishment from their food, take their clothes and any weapons and then continue into the night.

  That is what I’ll do.

  Maybe the Absent will have Essence as well.

  The insects are beginning to crawl beneath my skin.

  The hard river is on a raised platform slightly above me. The bank is steep and slippery and choked with weeds, but I manage to make it onto the same level as the hard river. A white line marks the edge. I hover my toe over the hard river, afraid to step on it. Then I find my will and step across the white line. The hard river is cold underfoot. I take another step, then another, and when I’m only a few steps away from the yellow line one of the coffins screams around the corner, its horrible bright white eyes bearing down on me.

  I scream, throw my arms over my head and freeze.

  The hissing snakes give way to a terrible piercing screech, like a sound the demons in Hell must make when a new soul joins them.

  The screeching continues for a long while. It is enough time for me to regret leaving my family and joining the Absent. Then there’s a moment of silence and the smell of something burning which reminds me of the smell that filled the Arc when we burned the bodies of the Absent we Bled.

  Flee into the woods, I scream at myself. Run. Run!

  But I can’t move.

  My knees give out and I crumple in the middle of the hard river. They have me now. They know I’m here. There will be no chance to seek nourishment in one of their foul residences. I’m sobbing, and the warmth between my legs tells me I’ve soiled myself.

  Something slams. I hear boots approaching.

  Oh Holy Guardians give me Strength.

  “Jesus fucking shit, lady,” a man yells.

  The Absent speak the same language as the Priests. I spoke a different language long ago that is now lost to me.

  “You nearly…here. Let me help you…oh my god, lady! What…what happened to you? We have to…here.”

  My eyes are slammed closed. I flinch, feeling the Absent man touch my shoulder. We’re not supposed to speak to the Absent. Speaking is a channel of deceit for the Absent. They can enter a person’s mind with words. Corrupt an everlasting soul simply with the sound of their voices.

  The Absent tries to lift my limp body. His hands are too warm and not very gentle. When he has me seated upright he wraps his arms around my waist and prepares to lift me up. I throw my hands around his head, just above his neck.

  “That’s right,” he says, quieter now. “Hold on. Just hold on. We gotta get you off—”

  I drop my weight onto him, dig my fingers into his head and twist with all the strength in my exhausted body. There’s a grinding pop and then the Absent collapses face first onto the hard river, bringing me down with him.

  He smells disgusting, like fake flowers. This is the Land of the Absent, where nothing is real except deceit and death. I know if I permitted him to carry me into his coffin I would suffer a fate far worse than his.

  I’m struggling to throw his dead weight off me when another white-eyed coffin speeds down the dark river. The blinding light arrives and the horrible piercing wail and then the coffin flies off the dark river and rolls through the trees with a tremendous metal crash.

  For a moment it’s silent again, then I hear screaming coming from the woods.

  I slide out from under the dead Absent and approach his coffin. The door is open. I lower into the seat, waiting for the evil thing to sense I’m not it’s owner and turn on me.

  There’s a wheel like one I recognize from the bridge in the Arc. There are many buttons similar to those in the Arc. I work through the buttons one by one. One is a windshield wiper, which we had on the Arc. Another makes the lights brighter. A third makes the coffin stop running, and I realize the coffin has an engine inside like the Arc.

  I press the button to turn the coffin on again.

  Another Absent, a woman, staggers up on the side of the hard river. It was her coffin that crashed into the woods. Her head is bleeding very bad. She looks confused. I consider killing her, but decide learning how to make the coffin move is more important. I understand there is a gearbox for my right hand. I try and move the gear handle but nothing happens.

  I press the two petals on the floor. One makes the engine whine. That must be how I make the coffin go. The other must be to make it stop.

  “Hey…” the Absent woman says. She’s looking right at me, bleeding, not understanding. “Hey…” she says again, taking a confused step toward me.

  The woman looks at the dead Absent lying in the middle of the black river. She blinks slowly, then turns to face me, lifts her arm and points her finger in my direction. Her lips move, but no sounds arrive. She’s casting an evil spell. Cursing my immortal soul.

  I flinch away from her and try the moving coffin’s gearbox again. The thing still won’t move.

  I think I’m going to have to kill this Absent woman as well.

  She’s close now. “Hey what are you…” Then her eyes widen and she screams, “Help. Help me please…” over and over.

  The coffin won’t move. She’s only a step or two away.

  I decide I must speak to an Absent.

  There is no choice.

  I smile and motion her toward me. A look of relief crosses her face. She’s happy I’m going to help. “I can’t make it move,” I say, hanging my head out of the coffin door.

  “What?” she says, looking even more confused. There’s a long gash across the side of her head, so deep I see white bone underneath. The rain is washing her blood onto her creamy sweater. She’s bleeding very badly. I don’t think she’ll live long. She’s older than me, but not by much. “What are you…” she mumbles.

  “Help me make it move,” I say, shaking the gear handle back and forth.

  “There’s been…an accident.”

  “How does it move?” I shriek.

  The woman staggers back, afraid. “You have to…push the brake.”

  “This?” I ask, pressing the right pedal.

  “No…the left…”

  I press the one she calls the brake. The gear handle slips down one spot, but the coffin doesn’t move.

  “Take me,” the woman says. “ You can’t…I’m hurt. There was an…accident. Help me. Oh god you have to help me!”

  She’s clasping both hands together like she’s praying. Even the Absent call for God when they need Him.

  “I will help you. If you teach me to make this machine move.”

  “You have to…you don’t know…are you…”

  “Tell me!”

  “Put it in drive. The ‘D’. That’s how you drive a car.”

  A car. That’s the name of the coffin. I push the gear handle to the ‘D’ with my foot on the brake and say, “Now what?”

  The woman staggers to the front of the car. For a second the lights hit her, pale her skin, make the blood spilling from her wound glow bright. Then she’s on the other side of the car, opening the door beside me. The stench of her blood wafts into the car, making me experience sharp, needful hunger.

  Before she can get in I ask, “What now?”

  She hesitates, blinks slowly, says, “Press the gas pedal.”

  That must be the other pedal. I push it down and the car goes nowhere.

  My mouth begins watering. I look across at the woman. Stare at the blood staining her sweater. She’s full of warm, nourishing blood. And her flesh—

  The woman laughs in a way that means she�
��s close to sobbing. “You don’t…oh my god. You don’t even fucking know…you shouldn’t be driving…we need to get off the road. We’re…oh my god…”

  Road. That is the word for the black river.

  “Tell me how it moves!” I scream.

  The woman looks at me with deep sadness, like she knows what I’m going to do. Then she says: “Take your foot off the brake, silly.”

  I do. The car rockets forward, knocking the half-dead Absent woman to the road.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AARON

  WHEN SOMEONE SAYS you need to think like the prey you’re hunting, what they mean is you need to know where your prey’s gunna run. Then you can lie in wait with your knife on your lap instead of chasing them around like a twit.

  Mia? She’s doing what we’d all do if we could slip out of these fucking collars: heading east, out of the city and beyond the ‘burbs, running for the Cascades. If she makes it to the mountains I’ll never see her again. We’ll read reports of hikers spotting a blue black snake large as an anaconda. Half-eaten bodies found with their ribcages crushed.

  When a Pureblood loses control and shifts to pure animal they’ll hunt anything. Stricken, Skin—it doesn’t matter. Hasn’t happened much since the Stricken cursed us with the collars. But Mia’s unique. Her snake slipped right through the collar. Hasn’t worn one in a millennia.

  It’s a blessing and a curse.

  Mia will become a myth, a legend. She’ll be woven into the Skin’s stories.

  Prayed to. Feared.

  I reach up, hook a thumb under the my collar and give it a sharp tug.

  Part of me wants to let her go.

  Lonny’s pumping Latino hip-hop through the Caddy. It’s not bad, but the pimpwagon’s a fucking heat score like nothing else. Worse than a Harley, even, and Lonny’s not helping: he’s smoking a kingsized blunt and hitting the Wild Turkey like it’s water.

  Can’t say I blame him. Never seen shit like what happened at church tonight.

  Just what the fuck was that thing in the black cloud? And how the hell did that weak-assed Skin summon it?

  Makes a man question his place in the world, and the last thing a stone-cold predator needs to do is start questioning his place. I hit the blunt, then slip my hand under my tee and rub the bullet wounds in my chest. They’re nearly healed over. The new skin is smooth and warm.

  Yup, those’ll leave a scar.

  Blue-grey smoke swirls from my lungs. I pass the blunt back to Nash. He takes it without a word. Fucker hasn’t said a thing since before we fed on those Stricken bitches. Maybe it’s time to check in.

  “So what do you think?” I say, turning to face Nash.

  “About what?”

  “All this shit.”

  Nash squeezes his face up tight, holding the dope-smoke in, then says, “Think we should get fucked up.”

  I grin. “Yeah. That’s a fucking shocker.”

  “No good ever came from being sober.”

  Lonny hands me the whiskey. I take a long pull, smack my lips, then say, “You believe her?”

  “Who?” Nash says.

  “The fucking Stricken bitch. You believe what she said? About the…First Fallen?”

  Nash shrugs. “I know you don’t.”

  I think on that for a minute, then say, “You’re right. I don’t.”

  “Might be worth rethinking.”

  “Yeah?”

  Nash lifts his arm up and shows me the pink, freshly healed skin over his burn.

  “It’s a fucking myth, Nash. A bullshit story like all the rest.”

  “You sound pretty damn sure of that.”

  “The First Fallen’s dead,” I say, my voice becoming cool and quick. “Been dead for centuries.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I study Nash. He’s one of my oldest friends. He’s a wild fucker, but not generally prone to bouts of paranoia. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s suppose the Stricken bitch is right. The First Fallen is returning. What then?”

  “Our time’s up.” Nash smashes his fist into his hand. “Boom! It was good while it lasted.”

  “The hunter hunted.”

  Lonny casts me a glance that says he’s not too keen on hearing more.

  “If he’s returning,” Nash says quietly, “there are others coming with him. Another species. Stronger than Stricken or Pureblood.”

  I can’t help myself. I burst into a laugh, but when I look at Lonny and Nash neither of them are laughing, and suddenly I wish I’d waited to have this conversation until Sorry was with us. He’s always the mellow voice of reason for my pack. “The Risen?” I say once my laughter dies. “The First Fallen’s spawn? Able to feed on…anything that moves? Skin and Stricken and Pureblood?”

  Nash kills the joint, cracks his window and flicks the roach out, then glares at me in a way that says he’s done talking.

  Fair enough. So am I.

  I stare out the window as the urban cesspool called Seattle streaks by. I hear Sorry’s bike purring along behind us, and suddenly I’m envious of my little bro riding outside all alone. I could use some fucking wind in my hair. I could use pinning the bike through the corners.

  Clear my fucking head a bit.

  I’ve got way too much on my mind for a lowlife biker meathead. My Harley’s stuck at the Wilds, likely being towed by the pigs as we speak. The Skin members of the Pureblood Predators MC are gunna demand retribution for the attempted hit on my life. Someone’s gunna die, or I look weak. So I gotta decide which crew to blame, and fast. Then there’s Mia making a run for freedom. Blue rotting in a cell. The fucking Stricken earlier today that burned Nash, and if that becomes a trend then us Purebloods are pretty much fucked. And that cult the Stricken bitch mentioned and the thing swirling over my head in church.

  Spirit, ghost, essence, whatever.

  It wanted me dead. Fact I think it wanted everything dead.

  Then there’s Lily. She’s tied up in all this. Her scent is still lingering in my nose. The gunmen popping rounds at her like she’s a dictator whose time has arrived. I have no idea why those Skins wanted her dead. And truthfully it’s not any of my business…except they shot up my club, and the girl…well, she owes me a ride.

  Which means she has to live through tomorrow at least.

  I lay my head back on the seat and take a long breath. I feel Lonny looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Where we goin’, Prez?” Lonny asks.

  Asshole.

  I know Nash is in the backseat thinking the same thing, but he has the smarts not to ask. I want to say I don’t know. I want to say just drive, Lonny, and let me think for a bit. But that kind of hesitation will have your crew questioning your ability to lead, and it just might get you killed.

  So I ignore the lippy bastard, take out my phone and start dialing.

  It’s time to clean up some fucking messes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  LILY

  THE SHOWER STALL in Connor’s bedroom is glass on three sides, facing out over Lake Washington. Showering when it’s raining outside feels like flying through the clouds. When I get out of the shower there’s a change of clothes waiting for me on top of Connor’s bed: a t-shirt, sweater, and a pair of jeans I left in my drawer the last time I visited.

  I take the elevator to the main level. Connor’s in the kitchen making eggs and bacon. I approach from the hall behind and watch him for a moment, alone in a kitchen that looks like the interior of a spaceship: all pristine gleaming surfaces and smooth curves. The stove is so massive it deserves the word range.

  The smell of breakfast makes my mouth water. I can’t remember the last time I ate a decent meal.

  Connor’s changed out of his boxer shorts into black denim jeans and a white tee. He’s barefoot. He’s got dark hair cut kind of shaggy in a way that’s tousled and impeccable at the same time. There’s something incredibly sexy about a man making a meal for a girl, and okay, there’s something incredibly sexy about Connor. How he
leans against the counter when he’s waiting, his muscled arms folded over his chest. How he tilts his head when he’s intent on something. The sharp, arrogant jawline. The intelligence and veiled sadness in his deep brown eyes. How he moves: precisely, with the unhurried grace of a man born into fabulous wealth.

  I stroll into the kitchen, smile, and give Connor a peck on the cheek. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me close, sending a shiver of warmth and anticipation through me. He’s muscled hard, blessed with the kind of build that stays trim even though he rarely works out.

  “I missed you,” Connor says, pressing his mouth to the small of my neck. “Maybe a bit too much.”

  “I…missed you too,” I say, and I guess it’s true. I have missed him. More than I’d like to admit.

  He brushes back my hair, staring into my eyes in a way that makes me shiver…and damn if I don’t feel guilty. Am I using him? Maybe. Does it matter? Maybe not.

  Connor’s eyes widen and he pushes me away so he can get a better look at my forehead.

  Shit.

  “Lil…what…damn! What happened?”

  Questions. I shake my head. “I caught myself on a cabinet. At work.”

  Connor’s eyes narrow. He knows I’m lying, but he has the sense not to press. He gestures at the stove and says, “Can I offer you breakfast?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “No.”

  He sighs and grabs a single plate. I take a seat at a table made of a single block of polished marble. The legs are rough-cut iron flaked in green patina. Industrial chic. I wonder how long the table’s creator spent making something new look old.

  “Sorry for waking you,” I say.

  Connor shrugs while he drops the bacon on the plate. “I’ve only been home for an hour or so.”

  “Oh yeah? Late night?” I try and keep the snarkiness from my voice. But as usual I fail.

  “Not that, Lil. Business.”

  “Your father’s?”

  Connor turns and leans over the plate so I can’t see his face, then says yes.

  “Where?” Usually I don’t ask him about his father’s businesses. But I’m having a hard time making conversation, and I’m afraid of the silence that might settle in this giant cavern of a room.