Howler's Night

by Marie Hall

  He was going to crack me open, make me relive the agonies of what I’d seen and done. What’d happened to me.

  I screamed as he yanked me into his unyielding chest. “Dora, stop. It’s just me. Just your Luc.”

  “No. You can’t do this. You’re not Sloth, you can’t.”

  He nodded slowly, still gripping my hands so tight that I couldn’t budge, couldn’t move. “She trained me for months. If you came back, I had to know. I had to know, Dora. I have to know.”

  Then he slammed his lips to mine, and the kiss was brutal and rough. Tears spilled from my eyes as the buzzing that was him ripped through the fractured barrier of my steel wall and the memories flooded in.

  I trembled as he sucked them in, as he saw me strapped to the bed, saw them take cattle prods to my heart, saw them dip me in ice, burn me in flame, as they cut me open over and over and over. I felt blood leaking from my mouth.

  I’d bitten my tongue, struggling to get away from him.

  But his hold was unyielding, his grip brutal, and his fingers dug into my skull as he explored every second of the missing year.

  The doctor was staring down at me, whispering garbled words.

  “You will return.” He’d laughed. “You don’t know it yet, Pandora, but what plans we have for you.” His touch was gentle on my bruised cheek. “You think you’re in charge, think you can break this, but you never can, even when you think we’re not there. We’ll always be there.”

  The echo of his words pounded through my heart as my memories spun out of control. Me locked in the cage, Asher kneeling before me.

  The angry animal that had been me on the floor, snarling and spitting at him as I’d tried to eviscerate him with my claws. Shrieking at the top of my lungs that I hated him, that I would kill him, always kill him. That he would never stand a chance because I was unstoppable and he just didn’t know it yet.

  One memory after another ripped from me, colors bleeding and blending.

  Me in Asher’s arms, his gentle kiss on my brow, his whispered words that he’d never give up on me.

  His dark wings covering me, holding me as I cried. The screams in the middle of the night.

  The shadows in my priest’s eyes as he’d looked at me, the hopelessness that sometimes settled in his gaze.

  Then a smile. And another. Being pieced back together. Not whole, but no longer broken either.

  Love.

  Love.

  Love.

  Then Luc’s hold on me snapped, and he stumbled back, nearly falling into the mirror again, staring at me with horror and shaking his head. “No, Pandora, no.”

  Blood poured from his mouth.

  My memories had been raped from me, exposed to him. The tears couldn’t stop coming from both our eyes.

  I turned on my heel and ran back out of the room, out the door.

  “Pandora, wait!” Keltse’s voice called to me. “He made me, Dora. I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

  I couldn’t stop. I had to get away, had to forget this’d ever happened. Had to forget the face of the man in the coat and the words that still echoed in my soul.

  “Oh God.” I was going to throw up.

  Running and running and running. Door after door after door, the hallway shifting and turning and becoming longer and longer and…

  “Get me out of here!” I screamed, then dropped down, huddling into myself and wrapping my arms around my body.

  A hand touched my back, and I shrieked. The darkness I worked so hard to keep locked away surged through my veins, stirred my blood, and blanketed my mind in rage. I didn’t think, didn’t stop to wonder, whether this was right or wrong. Sitting up, I shoved my claws through Keltse’s stomach.

  It was just a dream, but I wanted to end her, I wanted to kill her. My breathing was raw and animalistic, my skin crawling between pale and gray. I felt my eyes glow and knew I’d lose it soon. Sloth was alive inside of me, powerful from feeding off Luc, and if I said kill, he would.

  A fiery tingling ran through my fingertips still inside her as my nails scraped against the power of her soul. All I would have to do was give it a gentle tug and I could take her down. Could make her mine. Ours.

  Sloth laughed, the reverberations of his desire moving like a sonic wave all through me.

  Take her. Give her to me…

  Yes…give her to you…

  I laughed, and the sound that came out of me was awful. I was losing Pandora, she was slipping away from me, screaming as she fell. I could feel Ya-el—she’d never really gone away, she was still there—just waiting for Pandora to slip up.

  Keltse looked down at herself wide-eyed, and it was the whimper that spilled from her lips that snapped me out of the haze just long enough to yank my claws back out, shaking my head.

  What was I doing? Oh God. This had to stop. I didn’t want to kill her. Not like this. I didn’t want to lose myself. Not this way. I shoved Sloth away, slamming him down into the box with a will so fragile that had he fought me harder, had I not surprised him, I would have been his slave. His puppet.

  But I was Pandora, not Ya-el. “Not Ya-el. Never Ya-el,” I muttered incoherently.

  “You hurt me,” Keltse whispered as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  But I could see her wound healing, could see the blood returning to her face. Heartbreakingly familiar amber eyes turned to me.

  “How did you do that?” She rubbed her stomach in horror, looking between her healing wounds and me as if only just realizing the power I now wielded.

  I could have made her mine. Could have sucked her soul into me. And for a second I’d wanted it so desperately. Even now I could still taste the reverberations of my depraved desire.

  “Get me out of here.” I shook my head and scrabbled to my feet. I had to get away from her too. Unable to answer her question, only knowing I had to get away. Had to leave and leave now.

  “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled again. “I’ve never done this before, never. So sorry.”

  But her words fell on deaf ears. I clamped my hands to them and shook my head. I didn’t need words, I needed action. I needed my priest; I needed to remember who I was.

  Screaming, I was shoved out of the dream by a black bolt of Keltse’s power. In an instant I shot up from the bed, and without thinking, feeling only the fury of what he’d done to me, I grabbed the buck knife from Luc’s end table and shoved it through his gut, pinning him to the mattress.

  His eyes shot open, and a gurgling sound fell from his lips.

  Kneeling over him, I slapped his cheek, and then, just because I could, I slapped it again.

  “Never again, Luc. Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me. We’re over. Done. I hate you, and I hope you rot in Hell.”

  I ignored the crimson tears spilling from his eyes. Ignored his apology, ignored his whispered I love you. Tracing out of there, I went to Asher’s tree.

  And when he looked at me and asked me what was wrong, all I could do was shake my head and cry.

  The sobs that tore out of me didn’t make me feel better. This wasn’t a cleansing cry; this was the pain of knowing that Luc hadn’t and would never, ever change. He was still the same man who’d stabbed me through the heart with a spelled blade. Time hadn’t changed the fact that Luc was who he’d always been; it’d only been my belief that made he think he had.

  “Get me out of here, Ash.” I gave a hiccupping sob.

  His eyes darkened, became stormy, as he looked back at the trailer. But I wrapped my arms around his neck and shook my head.

  I didn’t want a war between me and my family. I didn’t want them to have to choose sides. I still needed to train.

  With a tender kiss on the side of my jaw, he spread his wings and carried me high into the clouds. And he never asked me why, or what’d happened back there, and I was so grateful to him for it.

  This was also the first night we didn’t make love, but sometimes being held and told just how beautiful and special and pe
rfect you are is even better.

  ~*~

  “No!” I cried, kicking out against the restraints. I’d been deadened, couldn’t feel anything.

  But the words he’d just said, they couldn’t be true.

  “I would never do that!”

  The doctor’s smile was nothing but teeth, and I shuddered as he slipped his gloves on. “But, Pandora, you already have, my dear. You already have.”

  Something hard clamped down over my mouth, and I screamed as I fought valiantly to get away. Tears smothered my vision, obscuring who it was. I was stuck in the dream and terrified I’d never be able to find my way back out.

  “Pandora, little demon, shh. It’s just a dream, baby. Please wake up.”

  With a cry ripped from my soul, I sat up, draping my arms around his neck. We were back in our trailer, the lights were out, and the moon was heavy, spilling it’s golden wash through the miniature windows, casting just enough light to see how my skin was pebbled up.

  His touch was gentle on my back, and I buried my head in the crook of his shoulder, inhaling his familiar scent of sandalwood. I shuddered into his touch as the nightmare continued to breathe its heavy breaths down my spine.

  I hadn’t had a dream like that in months.

  So real.

  Where I could smell and taste my blood, feel the heat of pain and feel the cold of that steel slab. And his voice…

  I swallowed to keep from gagging.

  “Little demon.” His voice cracked, and I could hear the heaviness in it.

  Asher was so good to me. Too good. Sitting there on the bed, wrapped in his arms and wings, I couldn’t shake the heavy, depressive feeling that one day I was going to break his heart.

  “You have to tell me what’s the matter.”

  But every time he tried to pull away to stare at me, I only clamped my arms around him tighter, afraid that if I let him go for even a second I’d be lost, sucked down into the nightmare and no longer Pandora, no longer myself. I’d become the monster they’d created me to be.

  “We have to kill Creatus, Ash,” I whispered, my voice tiny and breathless.

  He nodded, still rubbing my back, still pulling me back to myself. I would die without him. I would be nothing.

  It’s not fair to put your hopes and dreams on someone else’s shoulders, it’s not fair to make them your savior. But Ash wasn’t my savior, Ash was my anchor. He was my compass, and I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost him.

  I think I would kill everything and everyone if they tried to separate us again.

  “We will, little demon. I vow it.”

  “But we don’t even know where it is,” I murmured, planting tiny little kisses along his collarbone. Just needing the constant contact, his touch.

  I felt him tremble beneath me, but his touch was still warm, still soothing.

  “We’ll find it,” he said. “We will, Pandora.”

  And it was almost like I could hear his thoughts, I was so attuned to him. He was wondering what’d happened back in that trailer, what demons Luc had unlocked.

  I wanted so desperately to tell him what’d happened, but I knew if I did he would kill Luc, and as much as I hated him, the family would never survive his loss. They might be operating the carnival without him, but he was the heart and soul of the place, and they all knew it.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid to open them, afraid if I did that I’d see echoes of the doctor hiding in shadow, taunting me that he still owned me.

  But I refused to believe it. I’d come to Ash, to the carnival. I hadn’t gone east as he’d ordered me, I’d come home. To those I loved and who loved me back.

  I would be okay.

  I would.

  But as I took my priest’s lips and felt him slip deep inside me, I couldn’t stop the tears, couldn’t stop the fear that I was forgetting something vital, the repercussions of which would ruin me if I couldn’t remember it soon.

  And when we were done and my beautiful priest slept in my arms, I didn’t follow him. I gazed sightlessly at the shadows creeping up the walls, trying in vain to recall just what it could be.

  Chapter 23

  Pandora

  I didn’t see Luc all of the next day, and frankly I didn’t care if I ever did again. I’d made a decision last night: I would train, and then I would leave.

  This carnival held nothing for me anymore.

  “You need to focus!” Vyxyn snapped her fingers, giving me a hard glare as she lifted a brow.

  I shook my head. I’d been at this stupid Guess My Weight booth for the past hour. The carnival was still another fifteen minutes away from opening, and she was explaining just how to use Envy to my advantage. But she was right, I’d been losing focus for the past two hours.

  Asher rubbed my shoulder. “Just give her a minute, Vyxyn. It isn’t like she’s lived with this her entire life,” he snapped.

  Sighing, I squeezed the hand he rubbed me with. He was worried about me. I’d been out of it all day, more quiet, more withdrawn.

  I knew it worried him, but it was hard to smile when all I felt was a sick pit growing in my stomach.

  “It’s okay.” I shook my head. “I know I’m off today.”

  Her green eyes studied my face. “You do look pale. What the hell did Luc do to you last night, anyway?”

  Moving so that he could now sit on the table beside Vyx’s booth, Asher plopped down onto it, and I felt so guilty for the obvious exhaustion lacing his shoulders. I was the party pooper dragging them all down with me.

  “Don’t ask.” I sighed, pinched the bridge of my nose, and then rolled my neck. “I didn’t sleep good last night, and the thought of dealing with anymore of these demons makes me want to scream.”

  “Yeah.” Her jeweled gaze turned slightly sympathetic. “I bet. We heard you screaming last night. Sloth must have been a real bitch.”

  You have no idea…

  Unlike Bubba and Keltse who’d just dropped me into training from the get go, Vyxyn was trying her best to show me how she did what she did before I actually had to do the deed on live prey.

  Which was why Ash was here—he was my stand-in victim.

  The point, she said, to using Envy properly was to let the green-eyed monster take over. The demon could figure out anything about anything when it came to their prey.

  And unlike other demons that could be fed using others, this demon could only be fed using me.

  “We could always just do this tomorrow,” she said, though I could read a hard glint of exasperation in her eyes, and really, Vyxyn was being as kind as she was probably physically capable of being. The problem was with me.

  I didn’t want to do this, but knew I also had no choice. I refused to lose my head the way I had with the priests ever again, which meant I had to learn to control them.

  “No.” I shook my head, shoving hair out of my eyes. “I’m going to do this today.”

  Tossing Asher a worried frown, Vyxyn nibbled on her lip, then grabbed my hand and shook it. “Dora, if you let Envy in when you’re fully in control, it could be bad. She can turn the tables on you, and yeah, you really don’t want that. So you gotta be right here”—she touched our hands to my temple—“or this isn’t going to work.”

  “I can do it,” I repeated again, firmly.

  Shrugging, she motioned for Asher. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Asher walked back in front of me.

  Releasing my hand, Vyxyn stepped away. “There really is no mumbo-jumbo involved with Envy. She’s as straight forward as they come.” Her voice was soft, and soothing. “Want whatever he has and the rest will take care of itself.”

  My lips twitched as I stared at my priest.

  Dressed in scuffed-up jeans, a semi-loose-fitting royal-blue shirt with a picture of a Tardis emblazoned on it, and rockin’ a pair of black and white chucks. The shirt was actually Kem’s—I’d tossed it at Ash to be funny, but he’d put it on anyway, and have I ever mentioned how hot ner
ds can be? Because seriously. Dayum. The man was turning me on.

  Lust undulated through my bones whenever I looked at him. But it was Envy I was supposed to be here for.

  I shook my head.

  Envy, okay. What would Envy want?

  To lick his Adam’s apple.

  I frowned.

  To yank off his shirt and play with the delicious scars lining his body.

  My frowned tugged down harder.

  To rip those jeans off his body and suck on—

  Giving myself a mental slap, I realized it was Lust screaming at me. Envy was completely silent. Oh, she was there, but I could sense her having fun with my predicament.

  Come on, Envy, I practically pleaded, crooking a finger at her to get her to become the dominant of the two.

  Catnip, catnip, it’s time to play…

  I snorted. This was pointless, Lust was in complete control. Feeling my eyes begin to glow as she rode me hard, I almost murmured, “Envy who?”

  Asher’s brown eyes began to reflect his need as well, and as my pulse rate jumped, the air shivered with the tension of our mounting need as Lust riddled the air with her pheromones.

  “Ugh!” Vyxyn yanked me around by the shoulder. “Do you think this is a joke?”

  Chuckling, cause I just couldn’t help it anymore, I said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to play this game with Asher. I don’t envy him. I just want to screw his brains out.”

  “Why, thank you.” He poked my ribs.

  Vyxyn’s green eyes swirled with glittering bands of jade and emerald as her anger grew.

  The Envy inside me could feel the pulse of the Envy blossoming inside her, so I knew what this should feel like, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I couldn’t do it with Ash. My desire for him pretty much overrode everything else.

  “You’re just going to have to wait until someone else comes along. I can’t do it with him.”

  “You two make me sick.” She wrinkled her nose, but her eyes still hadn’t stopped glowing, and I knew what her words really meant.

  “Hey.” I shoulder bumped her. “Someday your prince will come too.” Then I began to hum the show tune.