by Katie May
forsaken building.
“He’s fine. He was able to heal.”
My thoughts went from worrying over Killian to surprise at what Devlin
had told me. There was only one way an Incubus could heal. Sexual energy.
Either Killian had visited the brothel yet again or my little boy had finally
turned into a man. If this was what it felt like to be a proud father, maybe I
would rethink my decision not to have kids.
Not with a mate, of course, but I could easily find a willing woman to
plant my seed into.
“Where is he?” I asked harshly. Now that my initial panic had ebbed, I
wanted to kill someone. Painfully. Nobody harmed my family and lived to
tell the tale. I already had to deal with seeing Dair’s blood-relatives after what
they did to his legs. To see Killian’s assailant as well? That would destroy
me.
Killian was inside of his bedroom, perched on the bed. His shirt was off,
and Lupe was worrying over the Incubus with his brow creased. The rest of
my brothers were noticeably absent, though I wasn’t sure if it was because
they had already been told the news of Killian’s attack or because they were
busy. In Jax’s case, he probably couldn’t be found. And in Ryland’s…
One glance towards the corner confirmed he was, in fact, silhouetted
against the white wall of the room.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lupe asked Killian. The big man always
seemed to panic over the littlest of things. If he were to discover I had been
drinking again, he would blow a nut.
Set one house on fire and suddenly you were an alcoholic. Geez.
Lupe sniffed when I entered the room, and his eyes flared dangerously.
Despite smelling the alcohol wafting off of me, he chose not to comment.
Smart move on his part.
“Tell Bash what you told us,” Devlin said briskly, falling into the
leadership role he had always occupied when we were children.
“As I said one-hundred times…” Killian began, trailing off to throw his
shirt back on. “...the assassin attacked me. I think he was hired to take me
out.”
“And what was the name he said?” Devlin pressed, glancing at me. His
mouth was a thin line.
“Aaliyah,” the Incubus answered reluctantly. “He said he was doing this
for Aaliyah.”
Both Devlin and Lupe turned to look at me, identical expression of
condemnation on their faces.
“What?” I asked, raising my hands placatingly. “Why are you looking at
me?”
Devlin’s pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Do you know who this Aaliyah person could be?”
I stared at him like an imbecile, wondering if this was something I
should’ve known. Their expressions were expectant.
And then it clicked, even in my drunken haze. They assumed Aaliyah was
a girl I had fucked. A girl whose heart I had shattered along with countless of
others. A girl so obsessed with me that she would send killers after my
family. I felt myself bristling at the implication that I was somehow behind
Killian’s stabbing.
“I don’t know any Aaliyahs,” I hissed, though I wasn’t entirely certain if
that was true or not. I was just furious at the accusation in their gazes, at the
judgment. These two weren’t damn saints either. “How do you know it’s not
that hoe of a mate you had? Susan?”
I knew I hit a sore spot when Devlin’s power rose, eyes flashing in the
dim lighting. Lupe quickly grabbed the Genie before he could lunge at me.
I knew I was being an asshole, but I didn’t care anymore. I honestly
didn’t care about anything.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t suicidal or anything, but if a train was to
barrel down on me, I wouldn’t complain. It just didn’t matter to me whether I
lived or died.
“Calm down,” Lupe hissed at Devlin. I continued to meet the Genie’s
stare defiantly, the power he emitted stirring my hair; I would not be the first
to back down.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Devlin managed to say through clenched
teeth. “You don’t know anything.”
Before I could retort, Devlin’s eyes flashed once more before dimming.
He was always the first to anger, but also the first to reel his anger in.
“We have more important things to worry about than Bash’s jealousy,”
Devlin snapped, turning his back to me and facing Killian. I opened my
mouth once more to argue against the “jealousy” claim, but a warning look
from Lupe had me snapping it closed. The Shifter shook his head subtly.
He was right. Now was not the time to argue.
“So you really expect us to believe that you fought and killed an
assassin?” Devlin said to Killian in disbelief. “You?”
Killian’s cheeks turned a dark red, but he kept his chin up and gaze
locked on Devlin’s.
“Yes.”
“And you just so happened to heal yourself afterwards?” Again, no one
could miss the skepticism evident in Devlin’s voice.
“Yes. There must’ve been lovers nearby.”
I couldn’t help but snort.
My brother was lying his fucking ass off. For one, he was the trip-and-
fall-onto-a-knife type of guy, not a kickass defender. Secondly, I knew that
Incubi only healed from injuries with direct... contact, so to speak.
I wondered who he was protecting. One of the people who had harmed
him? Was he being threatened? Did it have something to do with that damn
mate of his?
I decided, right then and there, that if his mate had something to do with
his attempted murder, I would kill her myself. He could hate me for it, but in
the long run, he would thank me.
Nobody was allowed to harm my family.
EIGHTEEN
Z
Icould’ve almost imagined that he was sleeping. That was, if sleeping
men had blood staining the whites of their necks and creating a puddle
around their bodies.
I tilted my head to the side, unable to tear my gaze away from the
Shadow. I had killed him. Me. Zara, the Assistant. I wasn’t sure what to do.
Turn back into Z? Claim self-defense? Would this kill count towards my
overall goal of five? I understood that these questions were not the sanest to
have while staring at a dead body, but it was all I could focus coherently on.
That, and the tingling of my lips.
I pictured the Incubus once more. Auburn hair. High, prominent
cheekbones. Smooth lips, thin at the top and full on the bottom. How his
tongue had felt mingling with mine…
I shook my head once, angrily. The bastard had left me. I had saved his
life - twice, I might add - and he had ran like a little bitch. If I were to see him
again, I would stab him myself.
Or kiss the shit out of him. The verdict was still out on that one.
Turning away from the grotesque body, I headed in the direction of my
room. I would wash myself, find Mali and Diego, and then figure out what to
do. Before I could do any of that, however, something sailed through the air
and hit me in the back of the head. I let out a cry, more surprised than
anything else, and spun towards the offending object.
It was...a book?
Someone had thrown a book at my head. A damn book. It occurred to me
that if it had been something heavier or sharper, it would’ve killed me. That
thought made my hands clammy.
Death.
I really wasn’t ready to die.
But it wasn’t a knife or an axe or even a brick. It was a book that was
titled “Lovers on the Snowtop” and featured five half-naked men around one
woman. I pitied her. Sure, I knew some people took multiple lovers, but I
couldn’t ever imagine doing it myself. For one, what did you even do with
that many dicks? There were only so many holes available on a human-body.
And that girl must’ve had one hell of a sex-drive to please all of them, for I
would be in a wheelchair by the end of the night. Balls. Balls everywhere.
I squinted down the hallway, searching for anyone who had felt the need
to chuck a book at my head. Was it an accident? Was this some perverted
way to murder a person?
A liltingly laugh cut through the silence. It was low and husky and did
funny things to my damn libido that was already thinking about balls and
penises. It was also familiar, though it took me a second to place where I had
heard it before.
A figure appeared on the wall beside me, a black silhouette against the
white tiling. A Shadow. Ryland, if I remembered correctly.
“Why the hell did you throw a book at my head?” I asked. Really, I was
quite offended. Did he really think I could be killed by a smutty romance
novel? And I wasn’t even dressed as Z, but as Zara. One thing was for
certain: Ryland was a twisted motherfucker.
“Your response-time is slow,” he answered smoothly. The Shadow
materialized inches from my face. It was the strangest sensation to look at
him but not actually see him. I could decipher the outline of broad shoulders,
cloaked in ink, and strands of hair poking in every direction. His features
remained indistinct. “If that was a knife, then you would’ve been dead.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, popping my hip to the side and
twirling a piece of blond hair around my finger. I hoped I looked ditzy - the
part of an Assistant and a lover. I had to remind myself continually that I
wasn’t Z, that the mask was gone, and I was an entirely different person.
Surprisingly, I couldn’t decide which version was the real me and which one
I liked the best. That was the funny thing about wearing masks. They were
capable of changing your personality so effortlessly that you lost sight of who
you really were.
I had worn my mask for years.
“Don’t play stupid.” I felt his breath against my ear, and goosebumps
erupted on my sensitive flesh. “I know exactly who you are...Z.”
The way he said my name...it sounded like molten honey. It rolled from
his tongue in a way that was sickeningly delicious. And then it struck me
what he had said, what he had admitted to.
Z.
He knew.
He knew.
He fucking knew.
I scrambled to think of something to say, something to contradict what he
seemed to know with absolute certainty.
“Are you talking about my lover?” I asked coyly. I even managed to
giggle, punctuating each word. “I’m Zara, not Z.”
“You’re both.” This time, his voice came from behind me, stirring the
hairs on my neck. I jumped, hands fisted. I debated once more if I should lie.
Deny. That was my go-to move. I could deny profusely, twist stories in
accordance to my will, until I almost believed them to be true. Did anyone
truly know a person? We all spun our webs, lies and deceit twisting words to
fit the perception we had of ourselves.
Lie.
Deny.
It was my motto.
But, I knew it wouldn’t work just then. It was apparent that this Shadow
was privy to more information than I was comfortable with him having. It
also was immensely important for me to know what he would do with such
valuable information.
“Fine,” I said briskly. “What do you want?”
I again wondered who he was and what his goal was. If he was an
assassin, he sucked at his job. I briefly considered the prospect of him being
an Assistant, perhaps even a spy for one of the competitors.
“Your response-time is slow,” he repeated. “And you struggle against
Shadows. You rely too much on your sight that you fail to realize you have
other senses.”
I spun towards the voice, stunned.
“What?” I sputtered. “Are you giving me advice?”
He ignored my question, gliding across the floor to stand millimeters
away from me. Once again, I had the strangest urge to see past his front to the
man beneath.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
“No!”
“All you have to do is find me, and your secret will be safe.”
This asshole was blackmailing me. I couldn’t understand his reasoning
though. Why go through all this trouble in the first place? Why hit me with a
book, insult my skills, relinquish the knowledge that he knew of my true
identity, and then make me close my eyes? It made zero sense. He made zero
sense. I supposed that could’ve been his point - throw his competition off
before stabbing them in the back. If that was his MO, he was damn good at it.
“Is this some kind of kinky sex game?” I asked, my bravado pathetically
fake. I didn’t like the lack of control he was forcing upon me. No, that he was
demanding from me. Not only by holding my secret hostage, but also because
of the trust he wanted me to give him. I didn’t trust easily, and I could list
only a few people still alive that I would listen to.
But yet…
I thought I was losing my mind. That was the only logical explanation for
why my eyelashes feathered against my cheekbones and darkness obscured
my vision. Once again, I relied on my sixth sense - one of the senses he felt I
lacked - and trusted him irrevocably and probably irrationally. He could kill
me right then and there. A stab in my neck, a blow to my head, a knife to my
heart.
And the twisted part of me would allow it.
I wouldn’t be able to tell you what possessed me, why I behaved the way
I did. I killed people for a living, I had lost everyone I had ever truly loved,
and the trust I gave was few and far between. Why him? Why this stranger?
What made me trust him against my better judgement?
I thought of Devlin just then. He had never given me the world, yet he
was capable of making me feel like I was the only woman in it. I didn’t know
why I felt something similar with this stranger. It could’ve been a spell cast
by a Mage, but either way, I was helpless against it.
“Why are you helping me?” I whispered, my eyes still squeezed tightly
closed.
“Because I don’t want you to die,” came his answer from further down
the hallway.
“Why don’t you want me to die?” I felt like a child, parroting his answers
back to him in the form of a question.
“Don’t you feel that?” he asked instead. “The Shadows are so much
>
thicker when you’re around. They call to me. You call to me.”
I was reminded of something similar that Dair had said. The water had
spoken to him about me in the same way the shadows apparently talked to
Ryland. I didn’t know what drug they were taking, only that the demented
part of me wanted a bite. They spoke as if the shadows and the water were
actual people with thoughts and feelings. I wondered if there was a
connotation behind the words that I missed.
“Open your ears. Hear me. My breathing. My footsteps. Quiet your mind,
and focus on me. Focus.”
I kept my eyes shut, instinctively doing as instructed of me. At first, I
heard nothing but my own pounding heart. There was no rhythm to the erratic
beat. It was just noise. Loud and surprisingly calming.
I quieted my thoughts and turned my attention outward.
There. To my left.
I heard soft breathing and the gentle tapping of a nail against the banister.
I turned in that direction immediately.
“Very good.” His voice now came inches from my lips. My own parted
automatically. “Now what do you smell?”
I breathed in deeply.
“Pine trees,” I answered immediately. “You remind me of being outdoors.
Of Christmas.”
“Feel me,” he whispered, and my hand of its own accord reached out to
touch the Shadow in front of me. They articulated the width of his shoulders,
each dip and crook of his stomach, the hard muscles of his bicep. The
moment my searching fingers would’ve touched his face, he stepped away
from me.
“Focus on all of your senses, hearing especially. You may not always see
a Shadow in a fight, so you have to learn how to rely on sound. See if you
can find me.”
I strained my ears and sniffed the air. There was the softest sound of
clothing being rustled a few feet in front of me. One inhale confirmed the
pine scene I was beginning to associate with Ryland, the strange Shadow.
Feigning a punch to the right, I grabbed my dagger with the opposite
hand and held it inches from where I suspected his neck to be.
“Very good,” he said softly, not at all worried of the keen point inches
from his jugular. He had obviously seen me kill a Shadow only a short while
earlier, yet he was giving me the same trust he expected of me. It was a two-
way street. Before you could demand trust, you had to reciprocate it.