by Nyna Queen
Alex put the crate down in front of the Jester’s back door and spun on her heel. She seriously doubted that the average male would be able to lift two of these crates at once, let alone three—not to mention the average female.
But the thing was, she wasn’t average. Oh no. Not your average twenty-five-year-old, whose biggest problem was fending off the awful lot of male advances coming her way.
Yeah, you wish, sugar. Alex grimaced as she snatched the second crate. You wish.
She set the crate down beside the first and studied her hands in the half-dark of the back alley. Delicate, slender hands that gave nothing away of the strength that slumbered beneath that human skin. She flexed her fingers slowly, feeling the strength gently unfurl like a flower bud opening to the sun. It was there at her disposal. Reliable. Hidden. Waiting. A silent reservoir of power she could tap into in a heartbeat.
And yet nothing to use lightly, she thought bitterly. At least not if I want to keep my skin a little while longer.
Well-known bitterness welled up and filled her mouth with a vile taste. She swallowed, hard. It felt like swallowing the whole world.
With her strength, she could easily do one of those well-paid jobs in the hard labor sector, where they were always looking for additional muscle. And yet here she was, playing the bartender, juggling crates and wiping tables while fighting off drunken customers who tried to goose her. Pretending to be the normal girl next door. Working her ass off for little praise and even less coin. Because … yes because …
Her hand curled into a tight fist until the bones ground against each other.
Because it didn’t matter what you did or said. It didn’t matter if you were willing to do double the amount of work for equal pay. The only thing that mattered was the pattern on your skin, carved into the flesh with a genetic knife.
Who she was.
What she was.
A shaper.
A spider, to be exact.
One of the half-breeds born with the double soul, the skin beneath skin.
They were a trick of nature. An atrocity. Unwanted and unaccepted. It was virtually impossible for one of her kind to make a decent living in human society. Any kind of living, period!
And wasn’t that one of the biggest reasons why she stayed in the shadiest halfborn communities, where nobody looked twice at you and people didn’t care for papers and id-numbers as long as you shut your mouth and did your work? If she kept the spider in check, she could easily enough walk among the people as if she was one of them. But it was a sham and every day was a brittle dance on the edge of a knife. A constant inner battle to control that raging, clawing part of her soul that simply refused to be tamed.
One slip in control, that was all that was needed—a flash of the wrong skin, a carelessly carried weight—and the life she’d started to build would collapse like a house of cards. She didn't intend to let it come to that point. Not again. Oh no. She’d had her fill of that, thank you very much.
Suppressing a sigh, Alex locked the storage room, snatched the last crate, and pushed the back door open with one foot, squeezing through with her back first.
The tiny closet that led to the taproom was dim and felt stuffy after the chilly air outside. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness in a matter of seconds, pupils dilating as her true skin rose toward the surface, overlaying her dim human senses with pin-sharp shaper-awareness. The shadows around her melted like hoarfrost in the morning sun.
Cradling the crate to her chest, Alex maneuvered through the confined space, careful not to hit all the clutter and cleaning supplies that littered floor and shelves.
Her skin crawled all of a sudden. Alex tensed, and her upper lip curled back, revealing human teeth, while her shaper fangs scraped at her gums, pressing to be released. The spider let out a low, warning growl.
Her sensory threads unfurled from her in a wide, invisible net, tasting, probing.
Threat! The notion whipped through her mind like a lightning bolt, electrifying every fiber in her body. Tension pulsed through her, making her wide awake. Her true skin itched underneath her human husk, stretching and pushing upward.
Slowly, soundlessly, Alex let her weight slide to the floor and sank into a graceful crouch. She slipped around the crate and moved toward the threadbare curtain that separated the closet from the taproom. The itching under her skin increased with every inch until it felt like the pricking of a thousand tiny needles.
With one hand braced against the door frame, she gently pushed at the curtain, peeked into the taproom—and froze.
HE was walking through the taproom.
Tall. Dark. Handsome.
Trouble. With a big T.
His entrance was accompanied by a cold gust of wind that caused the candles to flicker in their stands on the tables, almost as if they were shying away from him.
His perfectly tailored black coat seemed to absorb the light around him, cloaking him in a veil of vibrant darkness—a dark, floating shadow, foreboding a storm that had nothing to do with the clouds gathering outside.
The spider snarled at the sight of the man, balking inside her like a threatened cat.
Trueborn!
Everything about him screamed it: from the disdainful curve of his mouth to the silky tips of his raven hair. Magic shrouded him like a transparent, iridescent cloak, charging the air around him. In the visual spectrum of her shaper senses, it shimmered like hot air above pavement in the sun, blurring his outline ever so slightly. In this magic devoid area, it called to her senses like a siren’s song.
Yet even without her magical sensitivity, there would have been no mistaking about what she was looking at. Even among a less down-at-heel clientele than the Jester’s exemplary lot, he would have stuck out like a thoroughbred stallion tossed into a stable full of plow horses. The way he held himself, self-assured with an almost overbearing sense of entitlement left no doubt about his privileged birth. Arrogance in every inch! It was so thick in the air, Alex could practically taste it.
He moved with the effortless grace of a practiced fighter, slick and efficient, steps so light even her delicate senses had trouble picking up their vibrational pattern. The image of a feline snapped up in her mind: a sleek, black panther, all rippling muscles under satiny skin, silently stalking up on his unassuming prey.
People hastened to shuffle out of his way, automatically opening a human alleyway for him as he approached, the scraping sound of chairs being moved loud in the sudden tense silence that had followed his entry.
The trueborn didn’t spare them so much as a glance as he passed by, gliding through their midst with an air of self-importance that had no equal. Ah, the arrogance! As if he expected the world itself to split at his command.
Behind his back, people exchanged fearful glances, eyes darting nervously around the room, but nobody moved; the entire jungle held its breath, petrified in the face of the roaming predator.
Alex’s thoughts tumbled over each other. A trueborn? In the Jester’s Inn? Why?
What in the merciful Mother’s name was one of his kind doing in a place like the Trash Bin? Especially one who radiated “noble elite” like a solar flare. There were only a few reasons why a member of the trueborn upper class would condescend to betake his elevated behind into deepest halfborn territory, but she couldn’t see this man fitting any of those bills, unless—
No! Fear gripped at her, wrapping itself around her spine and coating her limbs with dread.
She’d gone through great lengths to make sure nobody would be able to track her down here. She’d played by the rules, all civil and law-abiding, a decent spider, cautiously hiding in the shadows. There was just no way she could have been busted, was there?
No, she reassured herself, it can’t. It simply can’t.
Yet at least six formidable feet of pure swirling magic coming her way indicated otherwise. Her insides cramped, curling into a painful knot in her stomach.
Why? The question ripped through her m
ind like shrapnel, echoing back and forth until she couldn’t think of anything else. Why? Why? Why?
Why here? Why now? Now that she was finally on the verge of building something that actually deserved the term “life:” a real job. An apartment. In a moment of ridiculous giddiness, she had even bought a little potted plant. The first wobbly baby steps on the bumpy road to finally growing some roots after being a stray for most of her life.
It wasn’t fair! She’d been so careful, so restraint. Hadn’t she denied herself even the slightest kind of relief? All the struggle—and for what?
Alex furiously raked her head, trying to recall when she’d acted sloppy. Couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered. Not really.
No use crying over spilled milk. It was what Rachel would tell her if she was present right now. What she’d always tell her, when she’d screwed up and was once again indulging herself in a good round of “why-oh-why” instead of focusing on the problem at hand.
Well, easier said than done!
Bitterness clogged Alex’s throat until she thought she couldn’t breathe. Stupid to think that the past could be shed as easily as some threadbare cloak one grew weary of. It still clung to her and wove its poisonous threads into the pattern of her life.
Stupid, Alex. So stupid.
The trueborn strode through the taproom without noticeable haste, as if he was taking an afternoon stroll through a park instead of walking through a sticky dive bar in the halfborn nether, surrounded by thieves, swindlers, and cutthroats, half of which would slit their own grandmother’s throat for the right amount of money and wouldn’t lose a night’s sleep about it. If he was the least bit concerned about his wellbeing he damn well knew how to hide it.
The wild in Alex responded to the approaching danger with ferocious intensity and all her instincts screamed for her to run.
Run, yes, the rational part of her mind retorted bluntly. And then what?
If he’d really been sent for her, he would have backup waiting outside in case she attempted to bolt. At least, it was what she would do, and the trueborn didn’t strike her as the kind of man who underestimated his opponents. Those who did, usually died early to regret that failure. No, this man wasn’t a fool and she knew with natural shaper intuition that if he’d focused himself on a prey, he’d hunt it down no matter the cost.
A chill went over her as she considered the implications of this fact. If he really was here for her, she was seriously screwed. Even if she ran now, chances were she’d not get far.
Which didn’t mean that she simply intended to be a sitting duck. Hell, no! There was just no way she would go down without a fight. If anything, she was too stubborn.
The wild tore at the mental leash she held on her untamed soul, and her true skin shot up until it brushed the inside of her human shell, the spider gaping at the world from the darkness inside her, a mouth full of needle-pointed fangs. Ready. Eager.
If they wanted her, she’d make them pay for it with dear coin!
Her eyes flickered down the trueborn’s black-clad frame. No visible weapons. Didn’t mean he didn’t have any. Much less he needed one to finish off his chosen prey. Excellent balance—she’d bet her ass that he’d received some kind of martial education along the road—and the way his coat molded to his body promised hidden muscle underneath. Not to mention that he was probably full of magical surprises. If it came down to it, he’d be one tough nut to crack. In a one-on-one fight she might be able to take him on—she’d danced that kind of dance with trueborn before and her shaper speed and strength usually equaled out what advantage they had through their magic—yet it wouldn’t be easy sledding. And if there was backup …
Anxiety blossomed in her chest, squeezing tight. A yielding feeling under her fingertips brought her back to the here and now. Alex blinked down and realized that the wood of the doorframe was denting below the pressure of her hand. She quickly loosened her grip before it could splinter and make her presence known to anyone who was and wasn’t looking for her.
When she glanced up again, her heart skipped a beat. The trueborn had almost crossed the taproom. He was close enough now that she could make out the outlines of his face in the smoky gloom of the bar. It was a handsome face, too, that was hardly deniable. Strong and masculine. Straight nose. Square jaw. Slightly dimpled chin. His chiseled features bore an obvious aristocratic heritage that gave the clear-cut lines of his face a refined, sophisticated edge.
He couldn’t be much older than she was, somewhere in his late twenties, thirty at the most. His dark brown, almost black hair was just long enough to be slightly tousled by the wind, giving him the air of a guy who’d just slipped out from a romp between the sheets, satiated and smug. The three days’ worth of stubble only added to that roguish tint.
Oh yes, trouble no doubt. It was the kind of face that would guarantee him a second glance from many women, inspiring certain fantasies—fantasies that ended with skin rubbing against sweaty skin and heat blossoming between wide open legs—yet only until you got a good look at his eyes.
Those eyes … Alex sucked in a breath. There was something deeply troubling about his eyes.
It was said that the eyes were the mirror of the soul. Which was why most magic was foremost expressed over the eyes, why it was usually her true eyes that were the first to shine through her human skin when the spider rose from her core. A mirror. A window. A glimpse at the soul that lay beneath the flesh.
Yet when she looked into the eyes of the trueborn, she saw nothing but darkness. A raging, swirling, infinite darkness, like a churning black ocean stretching under a starless sky. Cold and indifferent to the world and its whims. And absolutely merciless.
The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Oh yes, this man was trouble, and she wasn’t talking the waking-up-without-your-bra-and-panties-and-a-broken-heart kind of trouble, but rather the look-at-me-the-wrong-way-and-you-might-not-wake-at-all kind.
She didn't need anybody to tell her that if she had any sense, she’d get her ass away from him as soon and as far as possible. Right now, seemed like a very good idea. She’d rather deal with any kind of backup than with him.
Silently, Alex started to recede. In that moment, the trueborn stepped out of the cluster of tables and chairs into the small open space in front of the bar. His magic washed over her in a hot raging wave. There was no way to prepare for its violent intensity. It crashed against her, engulfed her, scalding her skin with liquid fire and grinding against her bones. The sheer physical force almost drove Alex to her knees. The spider in her howled, half terrified, half battle cry, braced against attack.
But the trueborn wasn’t attacking her. In fact, he wasn’t even looking in her direction. Alex gasped, as she struggled to stay on her feet. That power! So much power and he wasn’t even consciously wielding it! It just poured out of him like a natural force, unbridled and terrifying.
And suddenly she wasn’t so sure anymore that she would stand even the slightest chance against him. Fear sent a shiver down her spine. Time to go!
She tried to move and couldn’t.
Come on, Alex, move!
Nothing. Not an inch.
Move, stupid you!
He was almost at the bar, the distance shrinking like a too hot burning candle. Panic zinged through her.
Run! Run, run, run!
But the air had turned viscous around her, like hot boiling glue. It wound around her, rooting her in place. She was numb. Paralyzed. A helpless fly in the spider’s sticky web. Unable to run. Unable to do anything but watch her perdition approach on silent wings like a glorious angel of doom.
CHAPTER TWO
THE trueborn reached the bar, where an uncomfortable Mitja clearly wished he could be anywhere but. Alex’s heart clogged in her throat, pounding so loud it seemed a miracle that not everyone inside the bar turned into her direction in search of the source of the noise.
Slowly, hesitantly, conversations were resumed throughout the room. But hus
hed, muted, compared to before. As if any loud sound would draw unwanted attention.
Well, perhaps it would, Alex thought as she anxiously watched the trueborn come to a halt between two chairs and lean against the bar. Below the presumed easiness of the motion, she felt an underlying tension. It reminded her of a cat perching in a tree, watching the birds through half-closed eyelids, its lazy, sleepy mask hiding the fact that it was wide awake and ready to pounce at any moment. Oh yes, the trueborn was more than ready to strike—if anyone was stupid enough to provoke him. Well, good luck with that!
With excruciating slowness, he slipped off his black gloves, one at a time, and deliberately put them down on the counter, resting his forearms beside them. The light of the bar lamps idly played on the tattoos that wound around his arms up to where they vanished inside his sleeves. An intricate pattern of interwoven golden and black lines that stood out against the warm tint of his skin. In the play of light and shade, they seemed to move. Floating, twisting. Like beautiful golden snakes—
Alex was hit by a flash of memory. Her seven-year-old self, perched on a hand-wide windowsill, peeking into the parlor of her sire’s mansion.
Because of her “special” abilities, the two boys, her half-brothers, had decided that it was up to her to spy on the secret meeting that was taking place up here. No surprise there. After all, their sire did have a soft spot for his chit of a halfbreed daughter and if push came to shove the scolding might be less severe if she was the main center of his wrath. It usually was a safe bet. In this case, however …
The little spider shifted a little and watched her sire run up and down the formal reception room like a headless chicken, just stopping here and there to straighten a vase or rearrange a plant while wringing his hands and muttering under his breath.