I’d spent many of my earliest years in the muggy heat of America’s south—or in the heart of Africa. There were a handful of years that had been spent … elsewhere, but I try not to think about that.
Heat was simply bred into my bones. I could handle the cold, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
Saleel’s teeth flashed white in the faintest of smiles when he glanced at me. “Then perhaps next time when I ask you if you have a preference, you should give me an answer. Instead, you say, Do whatever you want, Sal.”
He managed an imitation of my voice that was almost dead-on.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
He went back to staring into the tent. “Offer your tongue again, my angel, and I will make use of it.”
Yeah. Right.
The two of us were like gasoline and fire and we both knew it. Combustible—and dangerous.
“Promises, promises,” I said lightly, and then I eased closer, bracing my shoulder on the lightweight metal of the doorframe, gazing deeper into the tent.
Saleel was right.
I was restless.
But I hadn’t yet figured out why.
A hot summer wind caressed the back of my neck. I enjoyed it while I could. Once I got inside, the air would be stifling. Already, I was dreading it. I could smell the heat of too many bodies and the air was thick with sweat. Heavy with despair.
Hope clung to many of the people who awaited me, but hope was a capricious bitch. I could all but hear the cackling, gleeful laugh as she darted from one person to another, crooning, You don’t really think this will work, do you? You’re going to die … You’re all going to die…
Fans churned from all corners, laboriously whirring away. They did little to cool the temperature, but at least the air kept moving.
It wasn’t the heat, though, that plagued me. It wasn’t even the promise of death. People died. It was simply part of life. It wasn’t the despair or the misery—the hunger inside me reached for that, but that wasn’t what made me restless.
“It’s time,” Saleel murmured.
I nodded.
But still, I didn’t move, searching inside the tent.
“Frankie?”
“I’m going.” I took a deep breath and reached deep inside for the well of calm that would carry me through when I took another’s pain inside me. I craved pain—fed on it.
That didn’t mean it was pleasant.
The twisted duality of my nature made me crave the misery even as I knew it would later cause me plenty of my own misery. My body already dreaded it. My stomach knotted and my muscles tensed and my legs tried to resist my head’s commands to move.
As I moved to the simple podium set up on the dais, I did a brief scan of the crowd. If there was anybody in there with a bad heart or other such frailty, I’d deal with them first. Maybe that’s all it was—somebody could be hovering right on the edge of life. I’d had that happen before.
There were plenty of those who did—or claimed to do—what I did, and they would have thrived on healing somebody with a failing heart or stopping a stroke in action. It was pure drama.
But I wasn’t there to cash in on dramatic moments or inspire awe.
Terrible as it sounds, I was just there to feed.
My quick scan told me everything I needed to know. An elderly woman up front needed to get her pacemaker checked, but she wasn’t in immediate danger—still, I’d do what I could tonight before she left. Hearts were always tricky.
“Welcome!” My manager, Jody Wilson, lifted her hands and waited for the applause to die down.
I paused a few feet from my spot and waited. The crowd was deafening. Despite the cacophony, I could hear just fine—including the scattered mutters of She’s a fraud, Man, look how tall she is, I would kill to have those cheekbones …
The curtain at the back opened and as a couple of people slid in, I cast them a casual glance.
They might as well have brought an electrical storm with them, and my second glance wasn’t so casual. Tension shot through me. I felt like I had a leash around my neck and I was being jerked right toward them.
You …
The restlessness I’d felt all night suddenly made sense.
It hadn’t been the heat. It hadn’t been boredom.
I’d been waiting. And I’d been waiting for them.
But I couldn’t let myself get too distracted, not at first.
I still had a job to do, and I had to feed. It had been over a month since the last meeting, and while I could go a fair amount of time between feeds, the last one had been minimal. Most of the people had been there either for kicks or because of things that, sadly, I couldn’t fix. I wish I could help all of them and not just because of the rush I get when I take in the suffering, or the peace I find when pain is alleviated.
Suffering, to put it bluntly, sucks.
Tonight, the air was thick with misery, so thick I was choking on it and if I wanted, I could feed until I was drunk from it. It was everywhere, all around me. And … to my surprise, one of those so quietly hurting was the woman who’d entered in silence from the back. One who crackled with the wild energy of somebody who wasn’t entirely mortal.
I blocked her out, again. And focused on a young woman in the front. She was pregnant—and she had cancer.
My heart twisted as I moved closer, my gaze resting on her. She stared at me, her eyes beseeching.
Her friend was glaring at me as she tried to tug her away.
“Come on, Cici,” she said, her voice cutting through the chaos churning inside me. She watched me with disgust.
I slid a look around, studying the faces of the sea of people. In the back, I noticed the blonde woman—the latecomer. Her cat-green eyes held a flicker of distaste.
She glanced at her companion and the two of them shared one of those unspoken conversations. I shifted my attention to him and arched a brow. Oh … helllloooo … pretty, pretty man.
His eyes were narrowed pensively as he took in his surroundings, his gaze never once connecting with mine.
The two of them looked highly out of place, though. They looked … bored.
You won’t be bored much longer.
I smiled at them both.
Read more…
Damon
"Oh, Damon. Your face…your poor face." The breathy, little girl voice, sweeter than sugar, really didn’t fit the insane woman who’d just spoken to me.
I’ve have long since grown used to that voice—and her violent tendencies—and didn't bat an eyelash as she bent over me and stroked a hand down my cheek. Annette, local ruler of the cat clan, ruler of all she surveyed — except me — and batshit crazy psychopath, caught my chin and lifted my face upright.
For a moment, her face faded in and out of focus. The touch of her hand under my chin had bones grinding together. I didn’t make a sound.
Blinking my one good eye, I focused on her face until it stopped swimming in and out. The other eye was still swollen shut, although it was healing bit by bit.
I was the perfect punching bag for a lunatic.
I was big and strong and I healed fast.
In another few minutes, the bruises and bloody wounds would be gone and once I showered, nobody would be the wiser.
Save for me.
Even Annette would forget.
“Does it hurt?" She stared at me solemnly, her lips puckered, touched with a soft, pale pink that matched the negligee she’d pulled on earlier. Even the splattering of blood on her lower lip was echoed in the blood spray on the pink silk.
My blood.
Again.
“Damon, does it hurt?” She stroked a hand down my cheek.
Yes, bitch. It hurts. Mentally, I told her exactly what she wanted to hear—the truth. Out loud, I said, "I'm fine, Lady."
After all, she’d done the beating, but she hadn’t been trying to punish me.
I had just been handy.
If she’d wanted to hurt me, either I’d be unco
nscious—or she’d be dead. Because one of these days, I would get fed up and just kill her.
So I just went with the neutral response.
I was fine.
She hadn’t done any lasting damage and I could already feel a dozen, stinging aches where the bones were knitting together, that odd itch was skin was closing itself up.
An odd, avid light gleamed in her eyes as she stroked a hand back across my scalp. “Are you sure?”
It was almost like she wanted me to say something—wanted me to tell her yeah, I was hurting. Or yeah, I was pissed.
But that would defeat the purpose.
I have taken this beating for a reason and that reason was currently standing on the far side of the room, his head hanging low.
The kid’s luck was running out and I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to delay things.
But I’d managed to do it one more time.
Of course, I’d done it at the expense of somebody else’s neck.
I wasn’t sorry, though.
“I’m fine, Lady.”
“Wonderful.” She beamed at me, but the smile was lost to ice a moment later. “Where is Leon?" She strode over to the makeup table that took up the southeastern corner of her quarters. Since she was no longer leaning over me, I pushed up onto my elbow. It sent a lance of pain through me but I shoved it aside, fully aware that she was still watching me.
Those curious eyes, bright as a child’s, but oddly lifeless, like a doll’s, studied me as I leaned against the soft, pale pink wall at my back. Her rooms looked like they’d been designed to resemble a five-year-old girl’s birthday cake. Pink. Pink. Pink.
It was the color of my nightmares anymore. Not because I was afraid of her, but because sooner or later, I was afraid of what I’d find in here with her. Like today.
My shoulder screamed at me and I moved over to the center column in the middle of the room, bracing the injured part against it. A few seconds later, with lights pinwheeling across my vision, I had my shoulder set back into place.
She had dislocated it, but now that I had it back in place, it would heal up fast enough.
“Leon?” Annette asked again.
Turning, I met her eyes in the mirror just in time to see her lick my blood from her lips. “He’s gone, Lady. Doing his damnedest to stay that way, too.”
“But you will find him, won’t you, Damon?” She reached for a brush, stroking the silken blonde curls back from her face as she stared at me in the mirror.
Annette seem to have forgotten the kid. Doyle lingered near the fireplace, arms wrapped around himself, head hanging low—and his eyes pools of seething hate that locked on her head.
Just stay quiet, I willed him. Stay quiet.
“I can find him,” I assured her, moving closer so I’d fill her field of vision.
Doyle Hansen, her brother’s kid—her brother’s orphan—should have been living under her roof and if she was any kind of decent, she would have been taking care of him. But her idea of taking care was teaching a child the right way to break a bone. You want a clean break, so it will heal again. Then you can break it again. Our soldiers don’t serve us well if they can’t fight.
I’d taken the kid off her hands one night years ago. It hadn’t been long after his dad had died and what he’d needed was somebody to pay him some attention. That had happened, but the somebody had been Annette and the attention had been a fist to his mouth when he’d had a tantrum. He’d been just a runt of a thing, only days after losing his only parent and she belted him. If he’d been human, it would have killed him. Instead, she laid him up in the medical ward for days.
Shifter kids aren’t all that strong anyway and he’d ended up sick on top of things, alone there in the medical ward.
So I’d taken him. I’d been there for him for ten years.
I’d hope she’d forget about him.
But somebody had pointed him out to her a couple of months ago, mentioned that he looked nothing like his father and he was looking more and more like her side of the family with his blond hair and blue eyes.
She’d been dismayed, then delighted.
When will he change, do you think?
We could look amazing together, that boy and I…ruling this city.
Yes. It was always about her.
Her eyes took on a far-off look and I took advantage of it to give Doyle a dark look. He read it well, very well and in seconds, he was gone.
As the door whispered shut, I eased away from her. It was never a good idea to stay too close. Her appetites were too voracious, be they for blood or sex. She’d had blood from me. I wasn’t inclined to fuck her, too.
“Lady, should I deal with this issue?”
She blinked, lashes falling down to shield her blue eyes.
When she looked back at me, her fractured sanity had returned and she gave me a brilliant smile.
“Together, Damon. We’ll deal with it together. I love to watch you work.”
Available in the Anniversary Edition of Blade Song
Haunted Blade (Colbana Files Book 6) Page 31