“No, but if I was, you wouldn’t be my type. I don’t do bitches.”
“Ladies, ladies,” Timothy said. “Eyes on the road. Watch your six, seven, and eights. Just because it’s been quiet the last few months doesn’t mean the bleak aren’t out there, waiting for their moment.”
It was my turn to snort. “They don’t want us. We don’t shine.”
“They can still infect us,” Timothy pointed out. “One bite, one scratch, and we’re fucked.”
“Remember Bali and his family?” Vala said. “They were on this very road off to visit relatives at the Summer Court when they were attacked. They turned on each other and tore each other to shreds.”
Ah, yes. That case. That poor family. “There’s no evidence to suggest they were infected by bleak.”
“No evidence to say otherwise,” Timothy added.
He had a point. There were no for-sures when it came to the bleak, but my gut told me there was more to the story, and it bugged me why no one else really questioned it.
We crunched up the frozen road, our breath pluming in front of our faces. The sky was clear, crystal blue and free of clouds. It would snow in a few days. It always did. Winter had us in its grip. But the farther we got from the capital, the warmer it would get as summer took hold. Our world was governed by laws of nature we didn’t understand.
A crack cut through the crisp silence, and all three of us froze. I scanned the wildlands to the left. The thick brush, the thorns, and the towering trees that leaned into the road. Another crack. A dark shape shot into the middle of the road. Three feet high, head too large for its body, center of gravity all off, it stood, swaying, huge dark eyes pinned on us, hairy body quivering.
What the fuck. It looked bleak, but a quarter of the size. It looked bleak, but—
It opened its mouth and squealed, high-pitched and piercing, before running toward us with its arms outstretched.
A howl cut through the air from the right, and a scream followed.
A plea? A warning.
Instinctual comprehension sliced through me. The thing in the road. It wasn’t a threat, it was a— “It’s a ch—"
Vala’s sword took off its head. It rolled across the frozen ground and came to a standstill, eyes staring up at the sky as if asking why.
“Child.” I stared at the dead bleak infant.
We’d never seen one before. Hadn’t thought bleak had offspring. But they did. This was one, and we’d just killed it.
A dark shape shot into the road toward the dead bleak and hunched over the cleaved form. It began to rock, keening softly, and then it threw back its head and screamed.
“Kill it!” Timothy cried. “It’s calling others.”
Vala was staring at the dead bleak child, her mouth parted as she absorbed what she’d done. Oh, great, now the bitch decided to lose her shit.
Distaste curdling my stomach, I drew my sword, strode over to the large bleak, and stabbed it in the heart, cutting off its cry. It fixed its eyes on me. Its mouth moved in a sibilant whisper, but there were words under that sound.
Remove the veil and see.
“What?” I took a step closer. “What did you say?”
“Danika, we have incoming!” Timothy yelled.
The forest shuddered and screeched, and then the road was filled with bleak.
2
The bleak rushed us, five, no, six. Fuck. This was not the time to count. I swung into action, sword cutting through the air, connecting with flesh, slicing and stabbing. I was peripherally aware of my team, Timothy to my left and Vala to my right, as they held their own. We worked well together, and Magnus knew that. It was why he often teamed us up.
The bleak at the end of my sword screamed in my face, its eerie blue eyes pinned on mine.
Murderer. You don’t see. You never see.
What the fucking hell was happening? I was going insane.
Bleak didn’t speak, and now it was dead. Shit, I pulled my sword from its chest and swung to block the attack of another bleak. This one was larger, its dark limbs corded with muscle. Bleak were bald, naked, but with no visible genitalia, they looked like living three-dimensional shadows with claws and teeth and blue eyes, and they hit hard.
I went flying backward from a swipe to the chest. I hit the ground, jarring my tailbone, then rolled with a wince, let out a bellow, and ran back toward the huge bleak.
It moved fast, avoiding the swipe of my sword, and then its hand was on my throat and I was hauled up, my face inches from his, my feet dangling off the ground.
Look at me.
Look.
I was going insane. I was hearing things, but Killion had trained me to trust my senses, to rely on my instincts, and they were screaming at me that this was real. This thing was speaking to me.
See me.
Vala’s and Timothy’s cries faded as the bleak’s face grew large in my vision. The inky-black residue that coated its face melted back to reveal smooth nu-brown skin. It had features, features that were pleading with me. Darkness swirled on its back, clinging to it in a humanoid form, and sapphire eyes stared at me.
An Umbra?
It looked like a fucking Umbra—the shadow guards that served the shining ones.
What the hell? “What are you?”
The Umbra and its host’s eyes widened in shock. “You see. You see us.”
“Get away from her!” An iron blade came down in front of my face, and I was free. My feet hit the ground, a cry frozen on my lips as Timothy took off the bleak’s head.
My mind scrambled to hold on to what I’d just seen and make sense of it, but it was too crazy. Too impossible.
“What the fuck, Dani?” Vala snapped. “Why didn’t you kill it? You had a shot while it was hissing at you, and you didn’t take it?”
Hissing…All she’d heard was the usual hissing.
“Back off!” Timothy planted himself between us. “She was terrified. It was right up in her face. She probably thought if she made any sudden moves, it’d bite and infect her.”
Good excuse. Really good excuse because there was no way I was telling them I’d heard it speak. Insanity and guard duty did not go hand-in-hand, and there was no doubt in my mind that these two wouldn’t believe me. They hadn’t heard it.
Timothy turned to me, his gaze raking over my face, lingering on my neck as he looked for breaks in my skin.
I worked my mouth to moisten my tongue. “I’m good. No scratches. I’m sorry. You’re right, Vala. I froze. It won’t happen again.”
She blinked at me in surprise and then nodded curtly. “Okay. Let’s get back to base.”
Magnus’s office was a small cozy room at the back of the guardhouse. There wasn’t much furniture in it, but he filled it with his powerful presence.
He’d stripped off his armor and was dressed only in heavy cargo pants and a long-sleeved top that molded to his ripped, muscled torso like a second skin. Magnus wasn’t handsome in the classical sense. His nose was slightly crooked from having been broken and reset. His right eyebrow was bisected by a scar, and he seemed to have an aversion to razors, so his angular jaw was always covered in some level of stubble. But there was a charisma about him. An aura that made you stop and stare, and yes, several of the guards probably wanked off thinking about him on a regular basis.
I’d never looked at him that way, though. Heck, I’d never looked at any guy like that.
“You did well out there today,” Magnus said. “But you’ve been late four times this month alone. You’re an excellent guard, but I can’t keep letting your tardiness slide.”
Oh, fuck. I could see it in his face, the I-have-to-let-you-go speech. He was about to fire me.
My stomach clenched with fear. Losing this job meant putting my family back into the lottery for all events the shining ones saw fit to throw. Events that meant they could use us as playthings and props.
They’d taken too much from us already. I couldn’t let them have more. I couldn’t
lose this job. I had to do something.
Vala’s taunts filled my head. He wants to bone you. My heart flipped. Oh, God. I had no choice.
Magnus’s throat bobbed, and his warm brown eyes, dark with resolution, locked on mine. He opened his mouth to deliver his speech.
“I have a crush on you.” I blurted out the words and dropped my gaze, unable to look at him as I lied. “I’m an idiot, I know, and I shouldn’t spend the extra time getting ready for work. It makes me late, and I know you don’t even care, but I do, and I get if you have to fire me. I just…If this is the last time that we speak, I wanted you to know how I feel.”
I couldn’t breathe. The lie wrapped around my lungs and squeezed punishingly, leaving me lightheaded, and then his hand was on my upper arm, steadying me.
When had I swayed?
“Danika?” His tone was soft and searching.
I raised my eyes to his, and nausea turned my stomach at the longing I saw in them. Nausea for what I was doing, and the lie that was giving him hope.
“I’m sorry.” And I was.
His smile was wry. “Don’t be. I was young once, too. But nothing can happen between us. I’m your commander, and I’m too old for you.”
It wasn’t me he was convincing, though. Still, I nodded, looking contrite. “I know. I’m sorry.”
He let out a heavy breath. “No more late arrivals. If you’re late again, I will have to let you go.”
Oh, thank fuck. “I promise there won’t be.”
He nodded and moved to stand behind his desk, putting the furniture between us. “Dismissed.”
I headed for the door.
“Oh, and Danika.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“You don’t need to make an effort to look good.”
Our gazes locked for a long beat, and my pulse fluttered in confusion. “Thanks.”
I let myself out and jogged to the changing room, wanting nothing more than to get the fuck out of this place and away from the lies I’d told.
Alone in the changing room, I stripped off my armor and winced as the fabric of my thick tunic moved against my inner arm with the motion. I pulled up my sleeve and stared at the scratch.
Tiny, almost not there, and yet it fucking burned.
A scratch.
A scratch from a bleak.
My heart pounded faster in my chest, blood rushing to my ears.
I was fucking infected.
Fever, chills, and consuming rage that broke the mind. Those were the symptoms. Symptoms that were supposed to show up within minutes of being infected. It was why our orders were to kill an infected on sight. But…I felt fine.
I felt normal.
How could this be?
I needed to see Killion. I needed to see him now.
3
I wandered the streets close to my house in the hope Killion would materialize. It fucked me off that I had no way to contact him, that he came and went as he pleased. We did have a rendezvous arranged tonight in an hour, but why couldn’t he show up a little earlier and find me like he usually did? He always seemed to know when I needed him as if my distress was a beacon to him.
Was I not giving off distress vibes right now?
The streets were emptying in time for the nine p.m. curfew. Yeah, we had a fucking curfew. But as a member of the guard, that didn’t apply to me.
Another perk.
A few guys were gathered up ahead under a store awning. I recognized Barnet and Ginger—kids I’d gone to school with.
“Dani girl, been a while,” Barnet drawled, eyeing me up. “How you been?”
Yeah, he thought he was sexy, but his hooded eyes and slouchy frame did nothing for my lady bits, probably because he’d been the school bully. He and Vala would have hit it off if they’d ever entered each other’s orbits.
“Good. You?”
“Hanging tough,” he said.
Oh, yeah, Barnet was in a gang. Which meant he hung around with a bunch of other guys and went home by nine p.m. Sooo fucking cool.
“You ready for the Hunt?” Ginger asked.
“Why you asking her?” Barnet’s lip curled. “Guard families are exempt.”
The Hunt, an annual event where the shining ones literally hunted teens through a chosen district of Middale. A red letter would arrive for those unfortunate enough to be picked to participate, and the ones who survived the night would be taken to central Middale and given new homes in noble families. The shining ones’ way of giving back, never mind the fact that these teens might not want to be separated from their families. Never mind the ones that never made it back at all. No one spoke about that—the fact that the Hunt killed our children.
But like Barnet said, as a member of the guard, my family was exempt.
“Fucking guards get off scot-free,” one of Barnet’s cronies said.
I shrugged, refusing to rise to the bait. “Meh, we just keep the bleak at bay, risking our lives on a daily basis is all. I guess it’s only fair we get a few perks.”
Ginger nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m going to try out for the guard again next month.”
“What’ll that be?” Barnet said snidely. “Your fourth try?”
Ginger flushed, so his face matched his hair. “I’ve been training.”
My heart went out to the guy. He was a genuinely nice person, while Barnet was a wanker.
I ignored Barnet and focused on Ginger. “Look, if you want, I can put in a good word for you with my commander. Ask if you can do a trial shift or two with us?”
“You can?” Ginger’s face lit up with hope.
The guilt from lying to Magnus ebbed a little. “Sure.”
Good deed canceled out bad deed, right?
“Ask him about me too,” Barnet said.
“What, and take you away from your boys?” I put a hand to my chest in mock horror.
“What the fuck, mate?” one of the other guys said.
“You said the guard were all bleak fuckers,” another guy reminded him.
Ginger ducked his head to hide a smile. Why he hung around with Barnet was a mystery to me. As far as I knew, he wasn’t part of the gang.
As Barnet tried to save face with his crew, I slipped into the night, headed toward the rendezvous spot Killion and I used.
I sat on the flat roof of Madeline’s Market. It was one of the only places in outer Middale where you could get decent perishables, and recently, more often than not, it had been out of stock. Yeah, food was scarce in the outer districts of Middale, but not for the reasons you’d think.
Killion materialized beside me like a specter taking form. My body buzzed and fizzed in response to his presence.
“How was shift?” he asked.
“We were attacked by several bleak.”
He tensed, as he always did when I told him about any altercations I’d been in. I opened my mouth to tell him about the scratch then snapped it closed again. Aside from the fact he’d be pissed I’d let my guard down enough to get scratched, there was no proof that the scratch was bleak. The scratch was doing no harm to me, and now, with a little distance between discovering the abrasion and the attack, I was beginning to wonder if I may have gotten the scratch earlier while climbing the tower. If it had been a bleak scratch, I’d be a foaming, raging mass by now.
What about the bleak speaking to you?
The inner voice of reason strikes again. “I think I might be going crazy.”
“Explain,” he said.
“I could have sworn the bleak that attacked me spoke to me.”
The air crackled. “What did he say?”
He, not it. “You believe me?”
“Do you believe yourself?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked me to see him. And I…Damn, this is going to sound crazy. I swear I saw its face change to something else, and there was an Umbra on his back, riding him.” My cheeks burned. “Okay, that sounds crazy. He had his hand around m
y throat. Maybe lack of oxygen to my head caused a hallucination.”
I turned my head to study his shadowy profile and noted the tick in his jaw. As if he was mulling something over. As if he was considering his response.
He did this a lot.
When I’d first seen him, when he’d saved my life, I’d thought he was an Umbra, one of the shadow guards that served the shining ones. But he was different. He had features and form, unlike the Umbra, who were more ethereal. Killion could change shape, and as far as I knew, the Umbra couldn’t.
“So?” I blew out a breath. “What’s the verdict?”
“You see and feel more than the others around you, Danika, you always have. You know what you saw and heard. Trust your instincts.”
“Bleak are ravenous monsters that feed on shining.”
“Yes, they do.”
“But I saw a child bleak today. Vala killed it, and I think…I think we killed its mother. I think that’s why they attacked us, and I think…I fucking think they may have spoken to me.” I met Killion’s bright blue eyes. “I think the shining ones may be lying to us. Keeping more secrets.”
His lips curled in a smile. “I think we should stick it to the man, as you like to call it.”
Ah, the reason for our late-night rendezvous.
My grin matched his. “Let’s do this.”
4
The night was a beast eager to devour the average human. But I was no average human, and the night was my bestie, cloaking me in darkness as I moved through the shadows. The streets were empty and—
“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Killion’s voice was an amused rumble.
“Dunno what you’re talking about.”
“Your venture-forth-into-the-night monologue.”
Busted.
He chuckled. “Your face takes on a specific intensity.”
“Maybe I just need the loo.”
I pulled my hood up to cover my head. And now he couldn’t see the blush on my cheeks. Darn him and his observation skills.
Taste My Wrath (The Iron Fae Book 1) Page 2