I held my finger up to my lips. “Shhh . . .” Reaching for the tequila bottle, I leaned closer to Garth and whispered. “He’s got really good hearing, you know, because he’s like me.” I filled the shot glass, emptied it, and filled it again, then met Garth’s dubious gaze. “A witch.”
His eyes didn’t widen, and he didn’t laugh. Instead, he leaned in a little and spoke so quietly that I wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the classic rock blaring throughout the bar without my Nejeret senses. “I know what you are . . . Nejeret.”
Shit. Balls. If he shared even that name with the wrong person—if the wrong person overheard him and reported it to the Senate—they wouldn’t hesitate in issuing a kill order, and whoever had taken my and Mari’s places would hunt down Garth and silence him, for good.
“I have to go,” I said, hopping off my barstool. I couldn’t ever see him again; it would only put him in danger. I slapped a wad of cash on the bar and made a beeline for the door.
Garth’s hand closed around my arm. “Kat, wait . . .”
I twisted my arm, yanking it free. “Stay away from me, Garth, and keep that word to yourself. Trust me, it’s better for your health,” I said, before turning and stalking out of the bar.
Chapter Ten
“Hey! Ink Witch!”
I stopped in my tracks, barely a dozen steps out of the bar, and spun around to glare at the Nejeret bartender. “What?” I snapped. I really hated that nickname.
The Nejeret’s wicked grin was back, as was the challenging glint in his cerulean eyes. “What about our chat?” he said as he strode my way.
Frustrated and irritated after that little scene with Garth, I turned and continued down the sidewalk.
His quick footsteps told me he was jogging to catch up. He planted his hand on the brick wall in front of me just before the corner of the building, intending to block my retreat, but I ducked under his arm, barely missing a step. His next move was to grab my arm, just as Garth had, and pull me a few steps into the alley between the bar and the salon in the next building over.
I froze, giving his hand a pointed look, then raising my gaze to meet his. “I’m not in the mood to chat anymore.”
He stepped closer and stared down at me, interest lighting his eyes. “Then what are you in the mood for?”
With the adrenaline pumping through my veins, making my heart race and exaggerating the rise and fall of my chest, I was itching for a fight. Or a fuck. Either would do. I stood on tiptoes and brought my lips nearer to his ear. “I don’t think you can handle what I’m in the mood for.” I dropped my heels, locking eyes with his.
The corner of his mouth lifted, exaggerating that cruel twist to his lips. “Try me.”
I tilted up my chin just a fraction of an inch, and in the next heartbeat, his lips were on mine and my back was against the brick wall. His lips were soft, but his tongue was greedy and his rough stubble scratched my face. He tasted like tequila, mint, and just a hint of cigarettes. There was nothing gentle about him or his kiss—it was rough, cruel, and just a little painful when he bit my lip. It was exactly what I’d needed.
One of his hands tangled in my loose hair, yanking my head back even as he deepened the kiss. His other hand glided up my rib cage under my shirt, shoving my bra up and out of the way. He palmed my right breast, pinching the nipple between two fingers. When he twisted it just a tad too far, I arched my back and whimpered from the intoxicating mixture of pleasure and pain.
His leg slipped between mine, and my hips rocked against him, creating a blissful friction.
Someone gasped, a kid giggled, and a woman said, “Disgusting!”
The bartender—I still didn’t know his name—broke the kiss, leaving me breathless and blocking my view of the alley mouth and whoever we’d disturbed with our little show. “I’m renting a place upstairs,” he said into my hair. “Want to—”
I nodded.
He grabbed my hand and practically dragged me to a metal door further down the alleyway. He fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, then pulled me in through the doorway to a dingy stairwell that smelled faintly of mildew. We never made it any further than that.
He unbuttoned my jeans and yanked them down without bothering with the zipper, then spun me around and, hands on my wrists, placed my palms on the smudged wall. His fingers slipped into the front of my underwear, and I dropped my head as he deftly found my most sensitive place. Damn, but this was exactly what I needed. No frills. No strings. No emotions. I craved a momentary reprieve from the insanity dragging me back into a world I’d extricated myself from years ago.
I could hear the clink-clink of metal on metal, then the sound of a zipper. A second later, the bartender pushed down my underwear, his other hand moving from between my legs to curl around the front of my neck, and the hard length of him slid between my thighs. He kicked my feet apart, spreading my legs as wide as my jeans would allow, and I arched my back, offering him a better angle. It did the trick. He slid into me in one rough motion.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed.
I gasped at the pressure, at the relief, and rested my forehead against the wall.
“Do you know what it’s like?” he asked, pulling out and slamming back into me. “Watching you on the nights you go home with someone?”
“Pervert,” I said, grunting when he moved his hips in that jerky motion again. A slow burn thrummed to life in my belly, stoking hotter with each of his thrusts.
He leaned into me, pressing his chest against my back and curling his arm around my middle. His hand dipped lower, and I gasped when he pinched that swollen bundle of nerve endings. “I wondered . . . what it would feel like . . . to be them . . . to be inside you . . . fucking you.”
“Well now”—an inferno roared low in my belly, seeking a way out—“you know.” I ground against his fingers as the pressure built to blissful heights within me.
“You’re a little whore . . . aren’t you?” His breath was hot against my cheek. “A dangerous little whore.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out his words even as I reached for sweet release.
His fingers stilled, and his thrusting slowed.
“No,” I whispered. I was so close. So very close.
“Open your eyes, Kat,” he said. “Look at me. Look at me and tell me you’re a little whore, and I’ll let you come.”
I gritted my teeth, reaching for that glittering bliss, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He moved just slow enough to keep me on the edge—to hold me on the cusp of orgasm without letting me topple over the edge.
“Look at me, Kat. Tell me what you are.”
I opened my eyes and glared at him. I was desperate for that moment of ecstasy. But my pride was non-negotiable. “Fuck you.”
“I think you’re already doing that, sweetheart.” His breath was hot and sticky against my cheek, and I wanted nothing more than to have his hands off me. His mouth away from me. His dick anywhere but where it was right now.
“Not anymore,” I said a moment before I jerked my head back, enjoying the crunch of his nose smashing against the back of my skull. It was almost as satisfying as sexual release. Almost, and maybe just a little bit more.
His hands flew to his face and I yanked up my jeans as I spun around, kneeing him in the groin, then raising my boot to kick him against the other side of the stairwell. “Fucking bitch,” he said through a groan, blood seeping down his chin beneath his hands.
“Maybe,” I said, pushing the stairwell door open. I stood in the doorway and glared at him. “But I’m nobody’s whore.” I walked out into the alleyway, donkey-kicking the door shut behind me. Guess it was a fight I was looking for after all.
I jogged the five blocks to my shop, disgust and regret a lump of lead in my stomach. I never should’ve let that shithead Senate Nejeret put his hands on me in the first place. I slowed to a walk when my boot touched my native curb. I couldn’t wait to get out of my clothes and back into so
mething normal. Something clean. Something that didn’t smell like him.
I pulled the shop door open and paused six steps in to glare at the man working in my office. Nik was leaning over a woman getting her tramp stamp covered up. I rushed past the door, not wanting to give him a chance to take in my all-too-recognizable scent. With his sensitive nose, there was no way he’d miss the smell of sex if I lingered.
The door’s little bell chimed, and I glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath as Garth strode in. I stalked toward him. “What did I just tell you?” I said, seething. I really didn’t want to get him killed, and that was exactly what would happen if the wrong Nejeret discovered that he, a lowly human, knew about us. Protecting ourselves, our people, was our number-one priority. We might be more powerful and live longer than humans, but they outnumbered us a million to one. Probably more. “Stay away from me, Garth.”
His eyes shifted to the right, then to the left. Kimi was watching us from behind the counter, but the artists and clients in the offices seemed oblivious enough. Except for Nik, I’m sure. He was probably soaking up every single word. “I still need your help with the missing kids . . .”
Nope. Not happening. With his knowledge, if I got him involved with this Ouroboros situation and the missing Nejerets . . . his days were numbered, probably in the single digits. I shook my head and rolled my eyes, putting on an air of annoyance, which wasn’t all that difficult. “Fine, whatever.” My mind churned a mile a minute. “Meet me at the Fremont Troll at nine, tonight.” Waiting for me there would keep him distracted while I searched the containers in Mari’s mysterious shipment. “You can help me go through the missing kids’ shit.”
His brows knitted together. “Why not now?”
Because I need to know that you’re somewhere else when I go to Harbor Island. “I have to prep some stuff,” I told him, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “Ask the cards for guidance . . .”
His eyes scrutinized my face, but finally, he nodded. “Alright. Nine o’clock tonight—the troll.”
I nodded, then turned away from him and strode toward the beaded curtain, glancing sidelong at Nik as I passed by.
He was studiously not looking at me. Until his nostrils flared and his entire body stiffened. His jaw tensed, but he remained focused on his client. My client. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d been eavesdropping, but at the moment I was more concerned with what his nose was picking up than what his ears had.
I paused before the beaded curtain, like I might offer an explanation or an excuse. But there were none that didn’t make me sound like the degenerate I’d become. So I continued on. I passed through the curtain, shame bubbling in my belly and disgust poisoning my heart. Because Nik knew. And if I wasn’t mistaken by his reaction, he cared.
Even more disturbing—so did I. And that scared the shit out of me.
Chapter Eleven
I emerged from the shower with skin raw and rosy from excessive scrubbing. By the time I was lacing up my combat boots, my head was clear of the slosh and slog of too much tequila and my regrettable sexual encounter. I still didn’t know the Senate Nejeret’s name, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt immeasurably better once the scent of him was off my body and I was comfy in my favorite pair of jeans and a tank top. Though it was the boots that really sealed the deal. Feeling like me again made everything else that was going wrong seem a little less vomit-worthy.
I grabbed a leftover slice of pizza from the fridge and headed into my office. The paint on the walls had changed again, becoming a dark, swirling miasma. I studied the designs, searching for meaning in the chaos while I ate the cold pizza. The only definite shape I could make out was a pitch-black orb that seemed to bob along throughout the midnight current.
Maybe, eventually it would make sense, but right now it was meaningless to me. I brushed the crumbs on my fingers off on my jeans and walked to the closet. I stared at the door for a solid minute. Was I really going to do this? After three full years of relative normalcy, was I really considering jumping back into this life—one where I needed a sword at my back and a half-dozen other blades stowed about my person? Once I opened this door, once I came face-to-face with the darkness within—with my past—I wasn’t sure I’d be able to shut it away again.
But for Dom . . .
To find him, to save him, I needed the darkness. Wasn’t that why Nik had come to me in the first place? Not only because my sheut might make me the only one who could find him, but because I, personally, might be the only one willing to do what needs to be done to save him.
“You better not already be dead,” I grumbled, sliding the closet door open and ignoring the lead sinking into the pit of my stomach.
The closet was empty, for the most part. Two identical small wood and iron chests sat on the closet floor, and a few items hung on hangers. I dragged the chests out into the room, then reached up to the overhead shelf, fingers searching for the only thing up there. For a moment, I thought it wasn’t there. My heart skipped a few beats. But my fingertips grazed a strip of leather, then touched cold metal, and my worry eased.
I closed my hand around the old, familiar hilt of my sword, Mercy, and pulled it down from the shelf. “Hello, old friend,” I murmured. I’d named the sword a long time ago, and it seemed wrong to ignore what she’d been to me. She was what had finally brought an end to the suffering left over from my human life. She was my right hand. My salvation.
Overall, Mercy was very katana-like. Her blade was long, slender, and slightly curved, with only one sharp edge, and the hilt was wrapped in worn black leather cording, leaving the shiny steel underneath peeking through in a diamond pattern. The butt of the hilt was solid silver, a Horus falcon molded into the metal, tarnished from the years of disuse. But however much it seemed like a katana, this sword was different. Mercy was ancient beyond any katana, and so very other. She’d been created by Nik, her At blade formed by his hands nearly two thousand years ago.
I unsheathed Mercy in one slow, smooth motion. The sound of her indestructible, crystalline At blade sliding against steel broke a dam in my mind, and memories flooded in. So many memories. So many lives. So many names crossed off a list with the slice of this blade through flesh and bone. My heart rate increased as adrenaline spiked my blood. I was ready. To fight. To kill. And if it came down to it, to avenge.
“Soon,” I said to the bloodthirsty creature I’d just reawakened within me. Depending on what I found at Harbor Island, it could be very soon. I sheathed the sword. Soon, but not yet.
Kneeling, I set Mercy on the floor and opened the first of the chests. It had been so long since I’d stowed them in the closet, I couldn’t remember which was which. One contained my stash of weapons and gear, the other, what would probably convince a criminal profiler that I was a serial killer. To some, maybe I was. But I hadn’t killed for pleasure or for the thrill, even if, for a time, it had provided temporary relief from the grief. I’d killed with purpose. I’d killed for a cause. My cause, and the Senate’s.
As soon as I lifted the lid, I closed my eyes and bowed my head. This chest didn’t contain any weapons. Instead, it was filled with mementos—reminders—of the thirty-nine lives I’d taken during Mari’s and my sanctioned reign of terror. As the Senate’s assassins hunting rogues, rebel Nejerets, we’d taken out fifty-one targets total. I’d finished off most, not because I enjoyed taking lives, but because I enjoyed watching Mari torment our targets—our victims—less. We’d both lost our mothers to those rogues, and the hunger for vengeance could twist even the purest soul into a monster willing to do unthinkable things in the quest to sate the insatiable.
I opened my eyes and made myself peer into the chest. I reached in and pulled out the first thing my gaze landed on—a small, black leather-bound notebook. It had belonged to a Nejeret named Gerald, the last Nejeret I ever killed for the Senate. The last life I took. He’d been a deserter, running for his life, but he hadn’t b
een a true rogue—the proof was in that little black book—and he’d been the furthest thing from dangerous. He’d been terrified. He’d begged me not to kill him. He’d cried, in the end, when I’d freed his ba with one slice of Mercy’s ever-sharp blade.
Groping blindly behind me, I found my sketch pad and the pen I’d left in here last time, among the droves of sketches of the missing Nejerets. I wrote down Gerald’s first and last name. My victim’s name. Sure, his ba—his everlasting soul—was out there, somewhere, maybe on this plane, maybe another, but his physical life had been ended by me. That mattered. I’d killed, and as with all the others, I’d also killed a part of me. Taking his life had been a breaking point for me, tipping me over the edge. The moment his heart stopped, I knew I was done. I’d felt it deep in my bones.
It was past time I acknowledged all that I’d done. It was time for me to accept it—finally—and, if I could, move on.
I pulled the next item out of the chest. A flyer advertising an animal adoption fair. It had been stuck to Bree Coolridge’s fridge. She’d been hiding from us for six years and had amassed a small army of rescue animals. She’d had no less than seven cats, three dogs, and a turtle when Mari and I finally tracked her down. She’d been instrumental in orchestrating the events that led up to my mother’s murder. I hadn’t felt an ounce of pity for her when my blade pierced her heart, but I had felt bad for her animals. I hoped they found new homes afterward.
I added Bree’s name below Gerald’s, the act cathartic.
I moved through the chest, cataloguing and recording names until I had a list of thirty-nine. I tore the page free from my sketch pad and folded it up, tucking it into my back pocket, then returned everything to the chest and shut it once more. I shoved the chest back into the closet, vowing to never open it again. The next time I pulled it out would be to destroy it and everything within. I would honor my victims another way from now on.
The Kat Dubois Chronicles: The Complete Series (Echo World Book 2) Page 8