My family has promised a Lifecard to the creature who aids in my capture, dead or alive. It entitles the barer freedom from an attack by way of retribution. There are very few Down Under stupid enough to challenge me without the reward. That’s why I run. They will kill me when they find me.
The southern states, especially here in the sewers, and places like Purgatory are no-kill zones; our kind is not allowed here—as written by Them who watch over the underworld—mainly because we cannot control our lust for flesh. In a one-on-one confrontation we always win, and little is left of the body afterward.
The best of the best of us are called south—infrequently—to extinguish those inextinguishable by any other course of action. The summons always arrives on the monster of fatal unpredictability, and this is why I choose to hide in the southern states. To control my thirst for flesh would be considered impossible, yet I have done so for thirteen years.
I’m pulled from my thoughts by the arrival of a berserker who goes by the name of Vicen. He comes down the sewer south of me, head turning this way and that. I slide farther behind the stairs and watch as he enters Purgatory. Vicen deals in human trafficking. Sells some, uses others. I’d watched him stop CeCe on the street above ground earlier. She’d sloughed him off. I’d approached him. He knew what I was immediately, but not who I was, so I let him live. I asked him if he knew CeCe, he said through friends. I didn’t want to bring more attention to myself and asked no more questions. He’d promised to stay away from her, and me.
The only reason CeCe would know him is if she’s one of the humans he prostitutes, unless she’s not who she wears. But I would know it, sense it if she were a shape-shifter—any shape-shifter. I need to find out for sure. I should just walk away, move on like the other times when things felt wrong, but I can’t this time.
Can’t or won’t? My father’s voice invades my conscious thoughts.
Can’t, I mentally respond. What if she’s the one? What if she’s a possible mate? But I’m fooling myself. She’s not a shifter. I’ve sensed them before—she smells different. Damn it, she’s captured my curiosity. The need and lust I feel are overpowering. I have to find out what she is. The only way to do that is to bed her. If she’s otherworldly, she’ll feel my darkness and show herself.
And if she doesn’t, you’ll kill her, my father’s voice warns.
CeCe
A berserker I know struts in, all muscle, murky eyes, and albino features. Vicen’s presence is formidable. Heads turn, and an atmosphere of anticipation falls over the bar as he goes straight for the cages.
All eyes follow Vicen. Mumbles burble like the sewer stream outside the door, undefined and volatile. The smell of blood, sweat, and demon tears are thick in an atmosphere rattled with tension-packed pheromones. A surrealistic light pulses, and multicolored beings exude a lust for the unknown.
Purgatory crackles excitement as lycanthropes, berserkers and other creatures group around cages and wagering becomes physical, oral, and unruly.
An Indian with cold black eyes, set jaw, and long, jet hair breaks from the pack and strips down to a hairless, beautifully sculpted body; light reflects off his dark skin. His face contorts, skin rolls over bones that pop and reshape. The Indian heaves with the effort this change brings on. Usually it’s a quick process, but this one is drawn out. Long tresses of hair fall damp around his pain-contorted face and almost touch the ground as he bends at the waist, reaching for the floor with one hand, the other wrapped around his midsection. Arms lengthen—noise in the room melts around the spectators like candle wax—and large paws replace fingers; claws the size of dinner plates dig into concrete as a black wolf, four times its human weight, shakes from head to tail and clears the betting floor.
I have never seen a wolf this large, and I’m mesmerized by the impressive creature.
On padded paws, the beast paces, gazes at his opponent’s supporters, and intimidation rumbles in his chest. The crowd splits, and the wolf’s black eyes shoot daggers at the blond berserker. Slowly, words of encouragement rise in volume until they rush from the patrons for both parties.
Saliva drips from the wolf’s maw as he kicks up dirt on a damp floor with its hind quarter. The air becomes cloudy around the wolf’s paws, but I am staring at the animal’s distracting eyes. They look like lightening bottled up within a black night.
The wolf’s opponent hoods steel-gray eyes and spreads a grin at the animal’s exhibition. The berserker’s sharp, pointy, metal teeth catch and reflect light from a fixture over the cages.
The wolf raises its head and howls a retort. The lycanthrope shifters join in with human bellows of threat-driven support.