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

by Daniels, May Ellis

  “Fifteen thousand two hundred thirty-six.”

  “Yes. The longest unbroken death match record of all time.”

  “The Night Lord raises me.”

  “Oh, I think he should,” the Keeper laughs. “An average of three men a day for fourteen years.”

  “You remain displeased.”

  The Keeper smiles, but he is not happy. He takes a long breath, then says, “The trouble is…after so long a reign, it’s become rather difficult to secure…proper offerings.”

  “Sir?”

  “No one wants to fight you, Rodas. No one qualified, that is. Sure, there will always be fools like that Russian Maul asshole you murdered today, who fight to pay for their next drink or hit. But the true fighters? The ones who would provide…a lucrative match? Their handlers won’t even return my calls. And worse, no one wants to bet against you anymore. There’s no thrill in wagering on a sure thing, and no joy in throwing one’s money after the fool who challenges you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re too good, son. You’ve been too good for too long.”

  “Does this mean the offerings will stop arriving?” I ask, fear thickening my voice. The Night Wind only calms when the offerings are made.

  The offerings must not stop. Ever.

  “Not necessarily,” the Keeper says. “It only means…we have to even the odds a little.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve thought about this for a long time, Rodas. Years now. I’ve waited, wracking my mind trying to think of another way. Because you’re so important to me. But it’s the only way.”

  “How?”

  The Keeper nods at the doctor, then says to me, “Would you like to feel pain? Or no pain?”

  “Pain,” I say. “Always.”

  The Keeper smiles. “Pain it is then. Close your eyes, Rodas. This won’t take long.”

  I listen to my Keeper and close my eyes. I must trust him. He brings offerings. He is the living link to my Night Lord.

  The doctor rubs something wet and cool against my right ankle.

  I hear the Keeper shuffle to the side.

  A sound like an electric saw.

  Then pain unlike any I’ve ever experienced makes me strain against my bindings.

  The acrid smell of a spinning blade biting into bone.

  O Night Lord, raise me.

  I am filth. I am excrement. I am stillborn. Raise me into the night sky.

  Lay me on the reed mat.

  I offer you my heart and bones and blood.

  I offer you all I am.

  ***

  That night I dream of a world where the Night Lord has inverted the heavens. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and its light shines weak, like they say the sun shines in the months-long northern twilight: pale and without warmth.

  In my dream I am not in my cell beneath the tall building of glass and concrete, and I am not in the Cloud Temple atop the building.

  I am Elsewhere. Lost.

  Running down a dark street.

  Something is hunting me. No, many things. Creatures with jaws that open wide enough to swallow a man. Creatures with hooked beaks to tear flesh from bone. Creatures with many-colored wings and creatures with tails ending in poison-filled stingers.

  All are chasing me.

  I turn a corner and nearly slip into a dark chasm rent in the earth. The chasm falls beneath me, endless and black. The creatures, seeing me trapped between them and the bottomless chasm, cackle and screech and howl.

  I’m about to leap into the chasm to save myself from being eaten alive when a figure rises from the murky depths. A magnificent creature with broad, feathered wings like an eagle and the body of an enormous silver wolf. Something whips by my head, and I notice the creature has a long, armored scorpion’s tail.

  The creature rises from the chasm, its lupine eyes glowing bright white.

  With me, the wolf-eagle says without sound.

  The creatures behind quicken their strides, driven by hunger and bloodlust.

  “Night Lord?” I say while the wolf-eagle settles onto the ground beside me.

  “If you wish.”

  This creature is a she. And she’s not the Night Lord.

  She’s something different.

  Something…like me.

  Hurry, the creature says. There isn’t much time. Soon you’ll be strong enough to stand against them. But not now.

  I leap onto the creature’s back, gripping her silver fur between my fingers and as the fastest of the beasts reach us I feel their claws rake into my leg, and when I wake I’m screaming, my face pressed into the painted concrete wall of my cell, clutching the deer’s foot and the smoking stone amulet, and accepting the pain radiating from the bandaged stump just above my severed ankle.

  ***

  This morning’s offering is different in many ways.

  It is the first offering I will free without my right foot. The stump is wrapped in gauze and still seeping and sore and swollen. The doctor gave me something to help me sleep, but the drug only brought those terrible dreams.

  The audience is the largest I’ve seen in a long while.

  Two dozen or more.

  The Keeper smiles in a way that makes me think he’s actually smiling. I hear him introducing the guests, drug lords to industrialists, princes to presidents, army officials to dictators. An audience member requires two things to enter this sacred temple: money and power.

  Cigar smoke hangs heavy in the air, and the champaign flows freely.

  I’m sitting in my corner, naked as always, focusing on my breathing, clutching the deer’s foot and the smoking stone amulet.

  The amulet feels warm in my hand.

  The elevator dings in the hall, and when the doors open I scent the air and know this morning is different for another reason.

  Today is the first day I fight to offer one who is like me. One who has been gifted by the Night Lord.

  “O Master, O Lord of the Far, O Lord of the Night, O Night, O Night Wind…” I mutter quietly, calming my breathing in preparation for death.

  Is today the day I will join the Night Lord in the wind that never sleeps?

  “Pray permit me join you, O Lord of Night. Raise me from this life as excrement, as waste, as wretch, as stillborn, as stricken, as deceiver, as—”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the Keeper begins as the cage door clanks open, “permit me present this significant occasion, an event that arrives only once in a generation, when two esteemed athletes, the legendary Blood Giver and the newcomer the Iron Incisor, battle one another for the ultimate prize: life. I would like to remind those in the audience that everything you witness today is real. The contest will commence at the sound of the bell and will finish upon death of one or both athletes. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I sincerely hope you enjoy the show, and remember: do not approach the cage!”

  The audience applauds the Keeper’s welcome. He’s dressed in a black tuxedo he reserves for special offerings. This is truly a momentous day…perhaps, if I am most fortunate, even the day I am freed in death to join the Night Wind.

  Usually I try not to see my offering until his first strike hits.

  But today…the unusual scent of the offering forces me to lift my eyes.

  Standing beside the cage door is a lovely blonde-haired woman wearing a pair of tight jeans and a white cotton t-shirt. She has delicate cheekbones and a lean build and tight, pert breasts and what I want to do with her—

  I murder the wretched thought. This woman is an offering and nothing more.

  She is already my Lord’s.

  “Hello, sweetie,” the woman says, closing the gate behind her. “Fancy a night on the town?”

  Her voice is very friendly. It is a ruse. She aims to throw me off guard.

  She is a liar.

  I lower my gaze and mumble a quick prayer.

  “Oh, you’re a shy one, hmm? I know a thing or two about shy men. I know t
hey’re often fierce under that shy, soft-spoken exterior. How about you, handsome? Are you fierce?”

  A ripple of laughter rolls through the room.

  “You want to stand up, love?” the woman asks. “You want to see the woman who ends your admittedly impressive reign?”

  I don’t. Not again. Not until she strikes me and I learn of her.

  It doesn’t matter that this offering is a woman—blood is blood to the Night Lord.

  But still, her scent is…wrong.

  Not quite human. Not quite animal. And not exactly like mine, either.

  “Iron Incisor,” the woman says, scoffing. “The name my handlers gave me. They say it has a suitably fearsome ring. I loathe it. My name is Tamara. Only Tamara. That’s the name you can scream as I gut you.”

  She comes in faster than any of the thousands I’ve offered, and she has me by the throat and flying backward into the metal cage before I have time to set my talismans aside. My head smashes against a metal post. Colored light dances in my vision, and for an instant I forget everything—who I am, what this place is, what I do here. But my memory returns as I crumple to the floor, and so does the sound in the room: a roaring cheer.

  The audience is on its feet. Clapping and cheering.

  Tamara is a crowd favorite.

  “You lost your foot in a fight?” she asks, pacing the cage from corner to corner, whipping her long hair over her shoulders while I blink and spit blood.

  “They took it,” I growl, trying to keep my fangs hidden. But another attack like that and—

  Tamara freezes. Stares at me. “Who took your foot? The handlers?”

  “Yes. My Keeper.”

  “Your Keeper? What a fucking prick.”

  “It was necessary.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” I say, standing to face her and releasing my claws an inch.

  Tamara’s eyes widen. “Would you look at that?” she says, watching my hands. “You’re one of them. It figures. I scented your kind in the room. Thought it was someone in the audience. But where’s your collar?”

  “What am I?”

  I didn’t mean to ask that.

  But something tells me…the woman called Tamara knows.

  Tamara smiles. “It’s a shame, learning the truth so late. Meeting you even a few months ago…well I think you may have continued your reign of blood. But now? The Age of Discord has arrived. The First Fallen rises. His strength feeds the Stricken. You have bad timing, handsome. Terrible timing.”

  Tamara’s front incisors drop. They’re two inches long, curved inward, and gleaming white. Her nails grow into three-inch long white blades.

  The audience gasps.

  “That’s right, everyone,” Tamara says, facing the audience. “You’ve placed your bets. I hope you backed the right horse…or should I say…lioness?”

  A few in the audience chuckle. They must think she’s wearing some kind of costume. Fake fangs.

  But I know better.

  “What am I?” I ask again.

  “Such a shame. Handsome but dim. That’s usually the case. You’re a Pureblood, love. An ancient predator. You know that much, don’t you?”

  “I offer blood.”

  “Yes, yes. You not only offer it. You crave it. And from the sour reek coming off you I can tell its been a long time since you’ve had a real feed of my kind’s black blood. Your Keeper has you on a strict diet of Skins, steroids and stimulants? Poor thing. I’ve heard all about you. So much I decided I wanted to meet you myself.”

  “A…Pureblood?”

  “One of the few still living. For the next ten seconds or so.”

  Tamara leaps at me, her jaws opened wide to reveal a mouthful of glittering razor-sharp teeth. I duck left, thrown off balance by my crippled leg, far too slow, barely managing to avoid her teeth. Her claws rake across my shoulder and down my chest, leaving four deep gouges through my tattooed rosettes.

  As she lands Tamara kicks sideways, catching me in the belly and flinging me to the ground.

  Tamara walks backward to the opposite end of the cage, turns and examines me…her handiwork.

  I know what she’s doing.

  Drawing it out. Toying with me. Giving the audience their money’s worth.

  Tamara lifts her nose in the air and breathes deep. A frown flickers across her face. “You smell odd for a Pureblood,” she says, a note of worry creeping into her voice. “Your scent is…powerful.”

  I snarl at her. My fangs and claws drop and my jowl widens and I’ve never been so close to him, the Night Stalker, my Night Lord, and the scent of this woman’s black blood reaches my nose and I understand the Spotted Stalker must have this offering at any cost.

  Tamara’s eyes widen still further. “You’re a cat too, sweetie? Meow.”

  The gouges in my chest are closing. The burning pain of their healing makes me waver, and I decide to fake being more injured than I truly am. It’s a coward’s trick. But I want this feed more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  A woman in the audience stammers: “…he’s…how can he…oh my god…”

  Tamara takes the bait and runs at me, shrieking, her beautiful eyes black as night.

  “O Night Lord raise this undeserving…” I pray.

  Tamara smashes into me, driving me backward, her fangs snapping at my throat, and as we tumble to the floor I rake my claws into her soft belly, opening her stomach wide.

  The bitter reek of Tamara’s black blood fills the room, floods into my nostrils, drives me wild with ravenous hunger. My jaws snap and lengthen as Tamara and I wrestle on the floor, each trying to gain the other’s neck, and this offering is the one I’ve yearned for without knowing it, this animal-woman’s black blood reminding me of the dense jungle I once roamed through, silent death, the spotted stalker, leaping from branches onto my prey’s back, digging my fangs deep into the struggling, shrieking animal’s neck and holding on while the animal bucked and shuddered beneath me, desperate to throw me off, struggling for life, that frail, fickle thing, that fleeting illusion.

  Tamara howls in pain as my claws rake into her ribs, then latches her teeth onto my shoulder, tries to worm her way up my neck to pierce my jugular.

  But there are other veins in the body eager to loose blood.

  I stab my claws into Tamara’s thigh while she crushes my collarbone in her powerful jaws. I scrape and claw into her leg, seeking her femoral artery, my vision a throbbing haze of pain and hunger and hatred.

  This offering will be remembered.

  Whether it’s me or Tamara the handlers drag from the cage, the Night Wind will be appeased.

  There’s a quick hissing sound like air escaping a tire and I know I’ve wounded her mortally.

  Black blood pumps out from the offering’s severed femoral artery, spilling across the cage, soaking us both.

  Tamara, knowing she’s dead but eager to take me with her, drives her sharp claws into my chest, snapping my sternum.

  She’s trying to feed on my heart.

  The realization that her claws are half an inch from my beating heart sends a surge of death-strength through me.

  I toss her off and use the cage to lift myself to my feet.

  The audience roars.

  Tamara’s lying in her side. Blood spilling between her fingers as she clutches her wounded leg.

  I walk to the center of a spreading puddle of black blood. Lean down. Dip my index finger in it, bring my finger to my lips and taste this woman.

  A flurry of images race through my mind. A fat tapir snuffling through dappled sunlight beneath me. The taste of my prey’s blood warm in my mouth. Battling an anaconda beside a slow-moving, mud-brown river and feeding on his white flesh. A den high on a mist-ringed mountainside, hidden between the roots of an ancient ceiba tree. An army of my kin roaming across a barren plain, the sky split open by flashes of red and orange lightning.

  “I know what I am,” I say to Tamara. “And I know what you and your kind are
. My prey.”

  Tamara sits up, smiles. “Maybe. But you don’t know how to kill me yet, do you?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  Tamara leaps to her feet. The wound in her leg has healed enough to stop the bleeding.

  “You don’t have to live like this,” Tamara says, eyeing the steel gate and the hallway beyond. “They could never stop us. Run with me.”

  “The One I Am Slave To demands sacrifice.”

  “You will have sacrifice!” Tamara lifts her finger to the cage, runs her claw across the wire mesh, parting it easily. A woman in the audience screams. “They can’t hold you, Rodas. They never could. You let yourself be their prisoner. You put yourself in this fucking cage.”

  “This is my temple,” I say quietly. “You are my offering.”

  But my faith falters.

  “You’re a Risen,” Tamara hisses. “He told me and I didn’t believe him. I thought you were another weakling Pureblood. I came here to feed on you, Rodas. But the cartel bastard was right! You’re the next…this changes everything!”

  Tamara races to the far side of the cage. I wait for her in the center. A new power courses through me, and for the first time I feel my love and devotion to the Keeper begin to weaken.

  “You are my offering,” I repeat, staring at the black pool of Tamara’s blood.

  “Your offering? Are you fucking insane? You’re their prisoner. You murder for them. They profit from your slaughter. They’ll profit from your death. They cut off your foot, for fuck’s sake, so they could make more money—”

  “O Night Lord have you mistaken me for another? I who am a commoner, a laborer. In excrement and in filth my life is lived…”

  “What’s that? A prayer to your dead god? The people you murder are sacrifices to him? Is that it? Fuck, Rodas, they really have your head twisted—”

  “Fight!” someone in the audience screams. “Kill the stupid bitch!”

  I pause. That person who yelled. That disrespect.

  I want him to die.

  “How do you know my name?” I say to Tamara, feeling suddenly uneasy. The Keeper pulls the electric cattle prod from the wall and approaches the cage, his thin lips twisting into a vicious frown.