Sundown, International 4: Maneater

by Cat Marsters

  My mind whirled. He’d spoken to my mother?

  “Glass and rock?” I said, mouthing the words. “At the same time?”

  He nodded. “Same time.”

  Well. That might get us killed. But on the other hand -- my eye was caught by a flash of movement as a door slid open and half a dozen henchmen wielding various frightening weapons move out -- we’d probably die soon anyway.

  “And Chloe?” He grabbed my hand. “I love you.”

  I opened my mouth, and sang.

  Chapter Nine

  The note for glass is a pretty high one, high enough to hurt. The note for rocks is so low it can’t be heard by human ears, but it does tend to make people pretty uncomfortable.

  The cuff around my ankle started to vibrate. The iron bars of the cell shuddered and a piece of metal flew off and struck Ruarc’s cheek. Another buried itself in his hip. Horrified, he cried out, grabbing desperately at the iron imbedded in his skin, blistering and burning him.

  The iron bars gave a terrible groan, and at the same time Alexius and I leapt on Ruarc, covering him entirely with our bodies. He shuddered and moaned beneath us as the bars exploded, showering us with sharp metal fragments. They studded my back, agonizing, making my voice falter. But I rallied, and sang louder. The chain on my ankle was still whole.

  From the corner of my eye I caught movement as Maria leapt behind her bed, Lliadra huddled under her covers and Eliadne and Tiel grabbed pieces of furniture to shield themselves from the shattering bars of their cages. Only Ursula the werewolf stood proud as the silver bars shattered all over her.

  Alexius nudged me aside and tried to get at the piece of iron in Ruarc’s cheek, but before he could I glimpsed the henchmen with their very large guns. They hadn’t fired yet and I wondered if they’d been ordered not to harm us. But the question was moot because I directed my voice at them and their guns blew up. I think the explosion killed a couple of them. I felt the heat from it, more shards of metal, and shielded Ruarc because I didn’t know if iron was used in guns or not.

  I was starting to run out of breath, and the metal fragments in my back were killing me, but the chain wasn’t broken yet. I grabbed at it with both hands, tugged, felt it weaken, and held it up to my mouth.

  I took in a deep breath, and screamed both notes as loudly as possible, right up against the metal. It shattered in my hands, and relief overwhelmed me.

  I yanked the remnants of the stupid bloody chain off my ankle, grinning like a fool, and swept up into the air. I don’t think I even remember changing shape. I just flew right up to the ceiling, around in a loop, then spotted one of the henchmen sitting there looking dazed, and swooped down to grab him in my talons.

  “Where is Starne?” I demanded, and when he didn’t respond I repeated it in The Voice. Still nothing: I realized his ears were blocked. Setting him down on the floor, I transformed back to mostly human. Then I grabbed his shoulders, shoved my face into his, and mouthed very clearly, “Where is Starne?”

  He pointed, terrified. I think my eyes were glowing red. Behind me, carnage erupted as Maria took her anger out on one of the other henchmen still standing. Eliadne and Tiel rushed to help Ruarc.

  “Take me,” I said, digging the claws of one hand into his shoulder and pushing him, stumbling, in the direction he’d just pointed. He led me through the doorway, down a corridor and up some stairs. Just before I pushed open the door to a control room, something grey-brown streaked past me and smashed through the door. A second later a gunshot echoed, and my heart stuttered.

  Then I heard a growl, a low undulating growl, and opened the door to see Ursula crouched there, ready to spring on Starne, who stood holding his gun out like a talisman. All around him, there was the wreckage of dozens of TV screens and recording equipment.

  “I’ll shoot,” he said, despite that it had clearly had little effect on Ursula.

  “No, you won’t,” I said, shoving the henchman over to stand beside him. “Give me the gun.”

  He did, helpless to resist.

  “How did -- how did you --” he gibbered.

  “Break the chain? I just sang.”

  “But, but that was forged by a god --”

  I leaned closer. “So was I.”

  A slight fabrication, because it as my grandfather who was a minor deity, but the line was too good to waste.

  Starne was trembling now. Beside me, Ursula growled on.

  “And by the way,” I said, “next time you try to shoot a demigod, make sure he doesn’t have any pals who are Fae royalty, won’t you?”

  Starne tried to regain some composure. “It was damn stupid of him to come back.” A glint entered his eye. “If you let me go, I’ll kill him for you.”

  Ursula’s growl rose.

  “No,” I said. “I can do that myself.”

  He gave a nervous laugh. “You? You couldn’t break a matchstick.”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it. Of course. I’d used The Voice on him, hadn’t I? And his TV screens were broken. He hadn’t seen my teeth or claws yet.

  I smiled. “Look at me,” I commanded. “See my teeth. See my claws.”

  His eyes suddenly went wide. I grinned, which is a terrible thing with so many teeth. Beside me, I swear Ursula sniggered.

  “Now,” I said, flexing my claws. “Tell me the truth. About Alexius. About what he knew. About what you ordered him to do.”

  “All right!” Starne cried, shaking violently now. “He didn’t know about this place. He didn’t know why I wanted you. He only had orders to follow you. When I told him to bring you… he ran. Are you happy now? Your boyfriend didn’t turn you over.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes!”

  “If you’re lying, I’ll cut off your dick and feed it to you.”

  “I’m not! It’s the truth!”

  Ursula’s growl rose.

  “Please don’t kill me,” Starne trembled.

  Abruptly, I tossed the gun out through the door. “I won’t,” I said, and he relaxed a bit. I gave him a smile, crossed to the door, and opened it. “But I won’t stop Ursula,” I added, and closed the door behind me as I left.

  His screams echoed behind me. I walked and walked, using my Voice on any and all doors I came across, climbing stairs and breaking locks until I was in the hotel lobby. Still I thought I could hear him screaming.

  There was a boutique in the hotel lobby. Ignoring the stares of everyone I passed -- what, you never saw a naked, bleeding woman before? -- I marched across to it, demanded clothing, and tugged it on there and then.

  When I walked out, Alexius and Tiel were just exiting from the hidden passageway to the zoo. Between them, they supported Ruarc, who looked like hell. The skin around the iron wounds was blistered and bloody and he could hardly stand, his face twisted in pain.

  A woman screamed, and all four of us glared at her. “Shut the fuck up,” I said, and she did, so suddenly there was an echo.

  Behind Alexius and the two Fae were the others, in various states of disarray. Maria’s fangs were out. A stocky woman with blood matting her hair stood proudly, bleeding from dozens of ugly wounds.

  “Ursula?” I asked.

  She inclined her head regally. “He is dead.”

  “Good bloody riddance,” Maria said.

  I turned to the astonished reception staff. “Give them clothes, food, and rooms. for free. Do it now.”

  They nearly fell over each other, scrambling to obey. I turned and walked out. I didn’t want to stay in Starne’s hotel any more.

  “Chloe, wait.” Alexius was bloody too, but the wounds from the flying pieces of metal seemed to have healed already.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Starne told me you didn’t know. I forgive you, Alexius.”

  He stood there, magnificently naked, his blue eyes lost. “Don’t go,” he said, but I did. I walked out of the hotel, across the drive, down the road and into the night. Dancing illuminations flickered over
my face, and with each step, more tears fell.

  “So let me get this straight,” Aunt Pissy said as I trimmed a bunch of chrysanthemums. My mother maintains they were so named because they matched the beauty of my father, Chrysanthos, but I think that’s stretching the truth a little.

  “Pisinoe, drop it,” my mother said now.

  “No. I don’t understand. Even the bad guy confessed it wasn’t Alexius’s fault, right?”

  I sighed and picked up the flowers one by one, trimming them all individually in the hope she’d get bored and wander off before I’d have to look up at her.

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re absolutely convinced your imprisonment had nothing whatsoever to do with him?”

  “Well, if he hadn’t found her then she’d never have been imprisoned,” piped up Raidne.

  “Shut up,” Pissy ordered. “That’s not the point. The point is, Alexius is innocent?”

  “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “And he said he loves you. He told us this. Did I tell you he told us he loves you?”

  “Once or twice per minute since I got home.” They’d been waiting for me at the airport, all five of them, causing multiple pile-ups as men wheeled their luggage into walls while staring. My aunts are really something to behold.

  Even if they are currently annoying the crap out of me.

  “And he is gorgeous,” Aunt Pissy added wistfully. The others sighed.

  “And he came to rescue you,” Leucosia put in.

  “Not you, too, Lucy,” my mother said. “Can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk about it?”

  “But why not? If a man like Alexius was in love with me, I’d never want to stop talking about it,” Aunt Pissy said.

  “Well, you haven’t so far,” my mother sniped, and Pissy snapped something back, and I tuned out.

  It had been like this since I got back. They wasted no time telling me, in complete detail, about how Alexius had come to visit them, still pale and weak from the Hydra’s blood, begging for help in rescuing me. Every single one of them had been charmed to within an inch of their lives by him -- my aunts, damn sirens, charmed! -- and planned a glorious welcome for the two of us when Alexius brought me home.

  Only he hadn’t brought me home. I’d left him there in Las Vegas and traveled home alone, crying, more miserable than I knew how to deal with. All right, so maybe I’d been lying when I said I forgave him. I just wanted to get away from him then. I didn’t want to have to look at his beautiful face and remember that this was the man who’d caused my imprisonment, even if he didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to lose myself in his eyes, his kiss, the memory of his molten lovemaking, and just forget my anger.

  But it had been a month now. A month in which my aunts had twittered, my mother had shouted at them, and I had thought and cried and wished and screamed, and eventually booked a plane ticket to London and visited the Sundown office.

  I was met by a werewolf, as pretty and polished as Ursula had been raw and feral. Her name was Magda, and she showed me a file detailing all the requests Starne had made and all the reports Alexius had sent back.

  He’d been paid to find me and bring me to Las Vegas. Neither he, nor Sundown, had any prior knowledge of Starne’s zoo.

  “Since then, of course, we sent in a clean-up team,” Magda said. “All traces of it are gone now. Ursula has been returned to her pack, Maria to her hometown, and one of the Fae is helping us set up a new office in New York.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  She shuffled some papers. “Ruarc. An Unseelie Fae.”

  My heart gave a guilty lurch. I hadn’t even tried to contact him, and last I saw he could barely stand. “Is he okay?”

  She smiled. “Yes, and very attractive too, with a scar right here.” She touched her cheek. “We’re sending over some other operatives to get the place running smoothly.”

  We chatted about the company for a while, and Magda explained that their services ranged from investigations to assassinations. She asked me questions about my background, my abilities, and my family -- and then she did something extremely unexpected.

  She offered me a job.

  Now, I stood in the kitchen on the siren’s island, trimming flowers and ignoring the bickering going on behind me.

  I thought about Alexius. It was time to forgive him.

  I thought about the island. It was time to leave.

  I thought about Magda’s offer. It was time to take it her up on it.

  The man behind me in the check-in queue was so enamored of me that he paid for me to be upgraded to first class, and then he sent over his card with a glass of champagne and begged me to join his agency.

  “Thank you,” I said, “but I already have an agency.”

  “Which one?” he cried. “Storm? Elite? I could get you on the cover of Vogue.”

  “I don’t want to be on the cover of Vogue,” I said, which seemed to confuse him. “But I would like to be left alone.”

  Sundown had found me an apartment close to the new office in New York, and even furnished it. I hung up my clothes, watered the plants, hooked up the Internet and looked up Storm and Elite.

  Oh. He thought I was with a modeling agency. Well, if the Sundown thing didn’t pan out, it might be a useful sideline.

  In the morning I mounted the cute Vespa scooter Sundown had also arranged, and made my way to the office in a high-rise building with its own helicopter pad. I liked this idea. It meant I could fly to work if I wanted.

  “Chloe!” Ruarc called as I entered the pleasantly-decorated office. He gave me a hug, and I admired the rather dashing scar the iron had left him. “You have a visitor.”

  “Already? It’s my first day.”

  “Word gets around.” He nodded toward the office I’d been shown the previous day, and I frowned and opened the door.

  Alexius was leaning against the desk, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt and looking like sex.

  “Oh,” I said, and the door swung closed behind me to the sound of Ruarc’s laughter.

  “Hi,” Alexius said.

  I swallowed. “Hi.”

  “You look --” he began, then stopped, shaking his head. “You always look great.”

  “Likewise.” My heart was beating faster. He smelled fantastic. “How’s that scar of yours?” I asked. “The Hydra’s blood? Is it healing okay now?”

  He gave a slow nod. “It’s healed completely now. Left a scar though.”

  “Oh. A bad one?” Take your shirt off and show me!

  “Not really bad.”

  “It looked bad when I saw it last, Flash.”

  “Well, it’s better.” He paused. “Want to see?”

  “Yes,” I said, far too quickly, and he peeled off his shirt -- also far too quickly.

  I sighed. His golden chest seemed to gleam in the sunlight, his tight abs and rock-hard pecs reflecting the light back at me. The spidery scar on his shoulder had faded to a barely-noticeable violet and I found myself stepping closer to take a better look at it.

  “Looks good,” I said, unable to help myself.

  “Feels good,” he replied, very close now.

  “I remember.” Then I blushed. “Alexius --”

  But I didn’t get any further, because he cupped my face in both hands and kissed me, sweet and hot, a wonderful gentle kiss that had me melting against him.

  “I’m sorry,” we both said against each other’s mouths, then pulled back, confused.

  “Why are you sorry?” Alexius said.

  “Because I walked out and ignored you. And, er, because I accused you of helping Starne to capture me, and, uh, I don’t think I was very nice to you…”

  He fingered a lock of my hair. “I think you were entitled. Chloe, did you mean it when you said you forgave me?”

  I opened my mouth. I hadn’t then. I did now. “Yes,” I said.

  He smiled that beautiful smile at me. “And do you think… we might be able to…”

>   “Start over?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I smiled, pulled him down to me and kissed him. “Does this answer your question?”

  Alexius smiled. Then he laughed, a joyful sound, and kissed me again, harder this time, a declaration of intent.

  An intention I was a hundred percent happy with.

  He was already shirtless, and it seemed unfair that he should be the only one. I pulled off my jacket, my blouse, my bra, growling in frustration at all the stupid layers. But Alexius just smiled and helped me, running his hands over my skin, cupping my breasts and stroking the nipples, making me shiver.

  I tugged at his belt. He ripped off my skirt. Underwear and shoes went flying across the room as he spread me out on the desk and dipped his head between my legs.

  I shrieked when his tongue circled my clit, and the door burst open.

  “Oh,” Ruarc said, watching us.

  “Do you mind?” Alexius growled.

  “I thought she might be eating you.”

  “Not yet,” I said, rubbing my foot against Alexius’s cock. Ruarc laughed and closed the door, and I tugged Alexius back up my body to kiss his mouth. His cock burned against me and I writhed, loving the friction on my sensitive flesh.

  When he slid inside me I screamed again, but this time Ruarc didn’t interrupt. Clutching Alexius to me, I rocked my hips against his thrusts, loving him inside me, bucking and whimpering as he filled me again and again.

  When I came he muffled my scream with his mouth and thrust harder into me, coming deep and hard.

  We slid to the floor and he held me, naked and slick with sweat. I cuddled close, enclosed in his strong embrace, and traced his profile with my gaze.

  Then I giggled.

  “What?” he said.

  “I was just thinking,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “You look good enough to eat…”

  Cat Marsters

  Cat lives in a village in south east England, which, while not quite a fairytale setting, is nonetheless very pretty and was mentioned in the Domesday Book of AD 1087. She shares a house with only slightly batty parents who hardly ever tell her to get a real job, and a musician brother who knows there’s no chance she’ll ever get one if he doesn’t. Cat doesn’t have children but she does have cats, who are her babies in every sense except the biological one.