The Devil's Pride (Wild Beasts Series)

by T. Birmingham

  When she visited, she played with the next door neighbor’s kids, and Alexia had a secret crush on one of the boys, Nicky. They’d play for hours, hiding in all the little spots in the house. She was good at hiding. She’d gotten good when she’d had to hide from the other kids in the homes and the state facilities. Otherwise, she’d probably have more scars than she did. No one was going to catch her off guard. No one was going to hurt her. But Nicky would never hurt her.

  The rain poured down and the pitter-patter was soothing as she fell asleep. She was dreaming of playing hide and seek with Nicky as they drove from the restaurant to Uncle Grover’s house when she felt a bump and then the car was spinning.

  The world turned black, but she woke up to the sound of howling and growling outside the car, and she realized that they must have hit an animal. Mally was bleeding everywhere, and Alexia slowly undid her seatbelt.

  “Mally?” Alexia gently rubbed Mally’s shoulder as she crawled into the front seat. But she wasn’t moving, and when Alexia leaned in close to listen to her breath like she’d seen on the movies, she could barely hear the calming staccato of Mally’s inhale and exhale.

  “Mally? Mally, you gotta wake up. We have to get out of the car, so we can make sure people see us and help us,” Alexia sobbed, scared that Mally still wouldn’t wake up. There was a warm, wet trickle down her temple, and she used the sleeve of the cardigan over her red dress to wipe the blood away. She felt the sting of that small bit of friction as her sweater wiped along the edge of her scalp.

  Alexia tried to open the door, but it was stuck. Tears started falling down her face. She needed to save Mally. The crank for the window was tight, but Alexia wound it around until she got the window low enough to climb out. She fell out of the window onto the hard street and her stomach got scratched by a piece from the car that had fallen off. The piece cut deep, and she started bleeding more. She could barely stand, and she dragged herself around to Mally’s side of the car, breathing heavily as she stumbled along the wet road.

  She couldn’t see the animal, but there were a lot of deer in this part of town. The growling had most likely been in her head and the deer had probably run away after the accident. Alexia pulled on Mally’s door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  She heard the growling again, and this time, when she turned around, there were three large wolves.

  Alexia wanted to scream, but she held it in. She slowly backed away, moving along the side of the car, drawing them away from Mally.

  “That’s right, little wolves… This way… Follow the ten-year-old…” Alexia backed around to the other side of the car, but there was another wolf behind her. She started crawling on the hood, but the wolf who had come up behind her didn’t look at her. It charged toward the other wolves, knocking the one on the left to the ground with a swipe of its paw and tackling the second wolf and taking that one down by locking onto its throat. The third had run away when the one behind her had started charging.

  Alexia didn’t want to be attacked next, so she slid off the hood and rushed to Mally’s door again, this time almost toppling over when the large cut across her stomach and back opened further, splitting the skin so that blood was coming too quickly to stop the flow. She made it to the door and she was able to open it.

  But the pain in her side had gotten to the point that she had to think just to breathe. Alexia fell to the ground, unable to move. She’d had to have stitches once for a leg cut she’d gotten from a twelve-year-old kid with a knife when she was in a state home at the age of five. Her calf had been opened up a good four inches, and even the remembered pain of that injury was nothing in comparison to the pain and the blood she had coming from the gash in her stomach. And she was scared, and terrified of that wolf getting her and Mally even though he hadn’t moved in her direction.

  Alexia crawled to Mally, but her breath was ragged and she felt her vision blurring. Mally was still in the driver’s seat, and Alexia’s body jackknifed with adrenaline. She had to get Mally to safety.

  “Mally?” Alexia whispered. “We have to get up Mally. We have to try and run…” Alexia grabbed Mally’s hand and looked at her eyes, realizing with a start that Mally wasn’t looking at anything. Her eyes were empty. Her pale face was covered in blood. Her head hung to the side, limp and devoid of emotion.

  “Mally?” Alexia cried, her injuries screaming at her not to move. “No, Mally! No! Don’t leave me, Mally! You can’t leave me! You have to live, Mally! You have to!” She cried Mally’s name over and over again not caring about the wolf, who was going to kill her soon.

  The skin at the back of Alexia’s neck prickled, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to live. She didn’t want to go back to another state home. She just wanted Mally. She didn’t want another family. She already had the one she wanted.

  Alexia let her tears fall while leaning over the only mother she had ever known, and she saw the wolf come up next to her out of the corner of her eye. He walked right up to Alexia, but she couldn’t care. Even at ten years old, she welcomed the death he would bring.

  But the wolf didn’t attack. He stopped right next to her side and started licking her stomach, her temple and her hands that had gotten small cuts. The large wound remained, although it had stopped bleeding, but the small wounds vanished along with the blood and she stared at the wolf in horror. He looked into her eyes as he licked her wounds, and she saw something alive there. Something aware. Something human. Someone she knew.

  “Uncle Grover?”

  Alexia awoke with a start to the sound of whining and growling. Her hand was wet and being licked by a large, rough tongue. She slowly opened her eyes, and the next thing she knew, she was across the backyard, crouched low, and a growling noise sounded around her. As soon as she realized that she’d been the one to move that quickly, and that it was her who was growling, she stopped. She fell to the ground with a thud that should have registered as pain, but she was too far gone by then. What had been a peaceful end to their rather disturbing conversation had turned dark, and Alexia wondered if anything in her life would ever truly have a silver lining, or if there would always just be mysteries and darkness and pain. She couldn’t have stopped the tears that fell steadily down her cheeks as she curled in on herself in pain, in anger, and yes, in fear.

  It had been years since she’d had the nightmares about Mally’s death, and no dreams had ever touched the intensity of the nightmare she’d just had.

  She felt strong arms come around her as she sat defeated in Cam’s perfect backyard, and she realized that it wasn’t Mindy who was holding her, but Devon. He hadn’t bothered putting his clothes back on; he’d just rushed to her side. Any other time, and she’d have been cracking a joke or taking a step back at the creep factor. But the way Devon held her, so close, so tightly, and with such strength that she felt his comforting presence down to her toes…well, every woman should feel that way.

  Alexia let the tears fall and she took calming breaths as Devon held her, running his hands through her hair and along her back, and she felt her heartbeat steady. The calming allowed her to think, to reassess. She had no idea why the nightmare had changed. When she’d been younger, she always dreamed of the accident and she’d pictured the deer crossing the road and running in front of their car before everything went dark. She’d hear screaming and see the stains of blood covering the road and the pretty, gold Oldsmobile she’d spent so much time in.

  But the dream – the nightmare – had changed. She’d always been told the car wreck had been a deer. That it had been a rainy night and they’d swerved to avoid a collision. She’d been told Mally had died quickly, but then again, didn’t doctors always tell people that? So many questions. Too many questions. Who was Uncle Grover? And Nicky?

  She’d known a Nicky once, but not during her childhood. He’d been her first love, really her first everything. But she hadn’t known a Nicky before the summer after her senior year of high school. So, what had the dream meant? Or was she ju
st trying to assign meaning to everything now that she knew magic existed?

  Oh, God, Mally. Alexia’s calm state evaporated again as she thought of the first woman she’d ever considered family. She cried harder and curled into Devon – the Midnight from her dreams, the man who she couldn’t truly ever let herself go with. Deep down she knew that any deeper connection with this man, who felt like so much more than a stranger, would be her undoing.

  Instead of thinking of her walls or her past, though, she slowly let go of the pain she was holding. She was tired. Tired of fighting her instincts. Tired of going through life without a partner, and so, for just that moment, she let herself believe things could be different. She let Devon’s calm, his centered, strong presence ground her, and she felt her hurt, her anguish over the past diminish in the arms of her Midnight, in the arms of the Man Bear who held her as though she were his beginning and his end.

  Sure, she’d just moved at lightning speed in Cam’s backyard and growled like a monster, but she’d let herself have that moment with Devon. She’d let herself pretend all was right with the world for just a minute. When she’d let it all go, grieved through the pain, and was ready to face the world, she looked up and realized Mindy and Cam had left. Maybe even before she’d had her fight or flight monster show. She kind of hoped that was true. It was one thing for a stranger to see you turn into a monster; it was quite another thing when those you loved started seeing you as something different. Alexia looked into Devon’s eyes, and she saw – not hate, not fear. No, she saw pity and sadness and comfort, and she felt her heart crack at that look because she knew her Midnight would never really love a monster.

  Alexia was standing near the edge of the town green with Mindy at the Friday evening vigil for Professor Anderson and his family. The weather had started changing with the start of spring on its way, but tonight, there was a bone deep chill in the air. The leftover remnants of winter refusing to let go. Alexia huddled into her bright blue sweater. Her black stretchy jeans were tucked into her cowgirl boots, and her red hair was pulled back from her face.

  Alexia wasn’t focused on her mentor’s service, though.

  She was thinking about the day before when Devon had rocked their world, and not in a yummy sexual way. Okay, maybe slightly yummy.

  She was thinking about her dream with Mally and the Uncle Grover wolf.

  She was thinking about a very naked Devon comforting her after she’d hyper-sped herself across the lawn and growled at him.

  Alexia watched the candles flicker, but her mind wasn’t fully there. She sighed out loud, drawing Mindy’s attention away from the vigil. Mindy’s 5’6” frame was only a little taller than her own tonight with her clunky cowgirl boots and Mindy’s light green flats. She looked over at Alexia, and her friend didn’t have to ask how Alexia was feeling. Mindy always knew.

  “You’re thinking about earlier, aren’t you?” Mindy, asked quietly. Her friend had probably been feeling the psychic punch of her unhappiness and fear all day.

  “I can’t help it, Mind. I was a savage, but Devon… God, Devon… He showed us his bear, and he was just so…well, his animal was beautiful.” Devon had been kind and comforting in his bear form, and even – as strange as it sounded – loving. A small voice inside of her whispered that it would be worth almost anything to have that love and comfort and kindness from Devon when he was in human form. She’d seen that side of him the day before, but he’d left for Dunham this morning, and he’d probably realized his mistake afterward. She wanted him to be like her Midnight, strong and capable and understanding, while also darkly sexual and desirous of her. But he didn’t – desire her, that is. And he never would. Because of her eyes. Those goddamned eyes that apparently proved she had something in her that wasn’t completely good. How could she expect kindness and goodness from Devon if deep down in her probably Skröm soul, she wasn’t good? If deep down, she was evil. He deserved better than that.

  Sure, he’d shown that he at least understood Alexia a little yesterday, but she knew she couldn’t count on that. Letting her heart go to those feelings only caused trouble. She’d done that before. Almost eight years before, she’d fallen in love, and she wouldn’t do it again. She wouldn’t break because of a man. Especially a man who might believe she was evil…right down to her very DNA.

  Well, shit! Those are defeatist thoughts, Alexia thought, shaking her head and looking to her best friend.

  “Mind, I’m scared. I can pretend I’m not this evil Skröm thing, but I fucking sped across Cam’s yard and growled,” Alexia said under her breath, “and I didn’t even realize I’d done it at first. There’s a part of me—”

  “Don’t even say it, Alexia Maria Garda-Martinez.” Mindy grabbed Alexia’s arms and looked into her eyes. They were quiet for a moment. “Don’t you even say it,” she whispered so as not to draw attention to their conversation. Alexia watched as an adjunct professor from Montville University, Annabelle Monroe, her straight, light, reddish brown hair loosely flowing around her, stepped forward and dropped a red rose onto the pile of items that were slowly being added to by the crowd. Red all around.

  “I’m evil,” Alexia whispered, turning back to Mindy, and finally voicing her worst fear. “I’m evil.” A single tear dropped from her eyes. Mindy held her tighter.

  “You’re not evil, Alexia. Don’t forget, for all the superpowers you all have, I have my own superpower. I’ve felt evil before. It’s part of this thing I do,” she said, and for the first time, Alexia realized what a burden it would be to feel other’s emotions, their deeper truths and lies. “But you,” Mindy continued, “well, you are the furthest thing from evil. Sure, you have your dark moments, but all I see is light when I look into you. Bright reds and oranges and yellows with subtle hints of blue and white.” She paused and looked at Alexia again. “Devon is not the expert on feelings. I am. And I’m telling you: You. Are. Good.”

  She gave a nod of her head as if to say that ended the conversation. Alexia took a breath because Mindy was right. Alexia didn’t have evil thoughts; she always tried to do right by others; and she gave as much good to the world as she could. She was good on the surface, sure, but she wondered if maybe Devon saw the ugliness underneath – the blood, the bad luck red dresses, the death that followed in her wake.

  Alexia knew – deep in the recesses of her mind – these things were not her fault, but she also knew she now had a mission to find out more information. She had a mission to see just how far her Skröm heritage went. Because even though Mindy had forcefully made it clear that Alexia was not evil, Devon’s words about her probable heritage had struck a chord within her, and she knew he was right: Alexia was Skröm, and even though he hadn’t said outright that she was evil. Even though he’d treated her better yesterday and this morning before he’d left, as though he had respect for her, Alexia was still worried. And she knew that someday the most important question that would have to be answered would be how much Skröm had leached into her human half?

  In fact, when she’d mentioned the idea to Devon earlier that she must be part human, they had talked about how the Skröm mated.

  Devon had shared that the Skröm couldn’t mate with the Light Clans. He’d gone over some of the history with her about mating, and how mating with a Light Clan member, and the ability to have children, required a deeper bond – a bond tied to the soul. And because the Skröm had a Dark soul, they couldn’t mate with those in the Light Clan. In fact, he claimed he thought it was impossible. This question was one of the many he’d brought up in the phone call to James, his mentor.

  When he’d come back from his phone call and his packing, he’d gazed at Alexia with an emotion she hadn’t been able to put a name to, but she’d quickly walled up the fuzzy emotions inside her own body, and pasted a “don’t give a fuck” look on her face. She didn’t want to be a bitch. She just didn’t want to be hurt.

  He’d just smiled at her and informed the three of them that he was going to ride back t
o Dunham. She’d seen his motorcycle when he’d left earlier. A Triumph. Fuck, even his motorcycle was hot.

  He planned to return in a few days with some other Clan members and more information on the Skröm and the Shadows, but also on Cam’s case and Alexia’s “situation.” Alexia needed to know, and Cam had made it clear that he was concerned about more Shadows and more cases like the Anderson family. Neither Cam, nor Alexia, wanted to wait those few days, but it didn’t seem they would have a choice.

  When the vigil was done, Mindy and Alexia walked to the front and placed their candles by the stuffed bears and the scarves and the other knick-knacks people had brought in remembrance of the family that had been such a huge part of their community. Alexia pulled out a picture of a Prussian archaeological dig in Eastern Europe. It was the first dig Professor Anderson had introduced her to when she had started the program.

  “I’ll light a candle at the dig for you, Professor Anderson,” she whispered as she placed the photo next to the candle she had been holding. In all of the hustle and bustle over the past few days, she had forgotten that she would be leaving in a couple months for Eastern Europe. When classes had been cancelled for the rest of the week, Delilah Haig, the Anthropology Department admin and a fellow redhead, had let her know that they would still be taking the summer trip, but that they’d be going instead with the new professor they would be hiring on to take Professor Anderson’s place in the fall.

  People she’d known had been killed in cold blood, in her town, possibly in retaliation to her existence in the town even though she’d lived there since she was fourteen. Is this what the Skröm did even among their own Clan? Fight over territory? Always take? Always destroy? Was that what she was a part of? Because she sure as fuck was going to fight that instinct to her deathbed. As Alexia walked away from their lit candles and the new treasure trove near the town green and into the alleyway that led to the street near their apartment, she felt a soul deep anger the likes of which she had never felt before. She vaguely noticed that Cam had joined them, and that he was talking about Devon. But all Alexia wanted in that moment was focused on her anger. She wanted to tear the Shadows apart. She wanted their lives. She wanted the Skröm’s lives. No matter that she was apparently related to the bastards she so hated. She wanted them dead.