chapter 8
He would die before admitting this to anyone, but Frenzy was struggling. Rolling onto his side, he punched his pillow and growled under his breath. The woman drove him crazy, brought out the ire and beast in him. He knew he was acting like the world’s biggest prick with her, but he wasn’t sure how to stop it. Because she was worming her way under his carefully crafted guard.
After Adrianna’s murder he’d closed himself off. Emotions could kill—it was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. Her loss had very nearly destroyed him. After her death he’d gone mad, losing any shred of humanity he might have possessed, becoming a killer of legend. Decimating the local vampire coven down to mere dregs. Not because vampires had had anything to do with her death, but because they were there and he’d been in agony.
His chest ached as he rubbed at the spot over his heart, staring up at the ceiling. And then here comes Mila with her spun-gold hair and her soft Irish lilt and the emotions he’d thought he’d killed were coming out.
To see that knife in her today, he’d suffered a moment’s panic so violent it’d nearly brought him to his knees. In physical form, she reminded him nothing of his sweet-tempered Adrianna, but there was a spunk to her, a breath of freshness that he couldn’t seem to help but respond to.
Biting his lip, he tugged the sheets higher and then, with a growl, kicked them off. He was restless; he wanted to call her back here. Just being around her soothed him. Not that she’d likely think it. He’d been nothing but an asshole.
Sighing, he watched Lucky, his five-month-old goldfish, swim back and forth, and wondered what she was doing now. He should check on her, just to make sure she wasn’t actually trying to kill herself. But he wasn’t exactly ready to engage in a war of words with her again. Or to deal with the feelings she plucked out of him.
It was no longer a matter of him not wanting to kill her just to satisfy his duty; Mila was breathing life into his dreary, gray existence, and he craved more, like a junkie. Maybe he should try to be nicer to her, starting tomorrow. Make an effort to show her he wasn’t really the jerk he was pretending to be.
But the thought of dropping the mask terrified him. The mask was what helped him survive; he’d become a man he hadn’t once been because it’d been the only way for him to thrive without the constant reminder of all that he’d lost.
It was so much easier to make others hate you than to let anyone in. Because if they hated you, you knew where they stood, but if you invited them, then you’d always wonder if they felt the same.
Growling, he squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t thinking about this shit anymore. The woman was making him soft and weak already. Lise should never have stuck them together. What had she been thinking?
It took him several hours to finally quiet the frenetic buzzing of his mind, but eventually he must have slept, because the next thing he knew he was rolling over and blinking open hazy eyes.
Frenzy couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so rested. Sunlight filtered in through his half-drawn blinds. Peeking around his room, he noted Mila was nowhere to be seen. But he smelled her earthy scent floating in from somewhere within his apartment, perhaps coming from the direction of the kitchen.
The wench was likely starving. He smiled thinking about her. Last night, the way she’d fought him, how soft and malleable she’d been in his arms when he’d petted her…goddess, it’d twisted him up inside.
He could try to deny it all he liked, but she intrigued him. Her fire, her spunk, the way she moved and smelled and how wild she got when angry. How her pale, iridescent skin would flush a faint pink. How human she still seemed in so many ways.
Rubbing his cheek, he snorted, remembering the sharp flare of pain. The way his body had tightened, his cock had grown hard—that hadn’t happened to him in ages. She brought out his violence and his lust. It was only a matter of time before they either killed each other or had nasty, hot sex. He hoped for the latter, but figured it would likely be the former.
Neither of them had docile temperaments.
Stretching his arms above his head one last time, he jumped out of bed. Frenzy didn’t need to sleep. None of the fae did, but he found he enjoyed the quiet, the meditative calm of just simply being still. It was when at rest that he could think best.
Last night when Mila grilled him on what he planned to do he hadn’t answered—not out of spite, despite what she might think. Truth was, he didn’t have a clue. Lise had given him no concrete plans on what protecting Mila actually entailed. He was as alone in this as she was.
Apart from George, who’d secluded himself away from all of humankind, he couldn’t think of another monster who wouldn’t betray his trust or worse to get at Mila. The queen and consort had shown their true colors last night. They were as interested in the her as everyone else.
Brushing his teeth, he took care of his bodily needs next and then dressed in no hurry to get back to her, perversely enjoying prolonging their reunion. Even after seven hours of rest he didn’t really have a clue what their next move should be.
His apartment was only a temporary solution. None knew of its location, not even his queen. Frenzy had learned how to keep his personal life private thanks to Adrianna’s death, a harsh lesson that living out in the open wasn’t wise for someone like him. Since that night he’d learned to ward his homes with powerful magic.
Though his flat was in the heart of the business district, where hundreds of others roamed with impunity, they’d all feel a natural compulsion to give his place wide berth. It had cost a small fortune to get the crone to place the warding spell on it. She’d warned him that he wouldn’t receive many visitors, but like every other member of his species, death was solitary by nature and he especially did not wish to mingle.
Fastening the final pearl button on his dove-gray silk shirt, he snatched up a pair of socks from his drawer and meandered toward the kitchen, frowning when he realized that apart from her smell letting him know she was still around somewhere, he heard no sounds. Not even the beating of a pulse.
No sounds of scraping chairs, glasses, or utensils on plates; there wasn’t even an exhalation of breath. Suddenly alert, he cracked open the door and peeked inside.
The kitchen was as it always was. Frenzy was a minimalist in every sense of the word. He did not enjoy clutter, he preferred order to chaos. That was why everything from the appliances on the glossy Formica countertop to the refrigerator, the stove, even the floor tiles were white.
It took no time to find her sitting with her back to the door at the breakfast table. The way she sat so still, he wondered whether she’d fallen asleep attempting to raid the fridge during the night. But he had nothing in there for vampires or shifters. He wasn’t much of a meat eater and would never require bloody cocktails to get him going.
“Wake up,” he said. Walking up to the table, he toed at the back leg of her chair, determined that today he wouldn’t be so harsh with her.
Instead of jumping, she dropped like a stone off the side—smacking her face into the floor. Heart crowding his throat, he snatched her up, shaking her gently.
“Mila,” he barked, noting the gray pallor to her cheeks and the veins now standing in bold relief. Her skin was dry too, like touching dehydrated corn husk. Her lips were cracked and oozing black. It took two seconds for his befuddled brain to figure out why.
She hadn’t eaten a thing since turning two nights ago.
“Damn it, woman,” he snarled.
Others were immortal and very nearly indestructible, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t go bat-shit crazy if they didn’t take care of themselves. The longer she went without the sustenance her body needed, the more likely she’d suffer irreparable damage. She needed food in her quickly, needed to get her heart and blood pumping. Right now it was sitting like sludge in her veins. Not knowing whether the priority was blood or meat or both, he knew his only choice was getting her to a food source immediately.
“Mila,” he whispered, not sure if it was a prayer or curse, then slashed a hand through the air, ripping open the fabric of time. Hauling her over his shoulder, he jumped inside, taking them to the only place he could think of.
Walking with her in the city was too much of a risk; there were creatures looking for her everywhere. She was too incapacitated to fend for herself, especially while he had her hanging off his back like a monkey.
No, he had to get her far away from the city. Which meant—stepping out of the tunnel, he inhaled the nutty aroma of sprouting wheat fields—he’d have to return to George’s home.
But he couldn’t let the lone wolf know they were there either. The longer he kept Mila around the monk’s location, the more her scent would permeate, basically turning his bachelor’s paradise into a homing beacon. George had managed to stay alive for so long by lying low; he wouldn’t risk his friend’s safety.
In and out. That’s all they could afford.
“I hate to do this to you, O’Fallen,” he said before releasing her and gently dropping her to the ground.
Last time he’d been hunting he’d caught squirrel. She hadn’t touched any of it. So maybe rodent wasn’t her thing.
A rustle of shrubbery caught his ear. Turning toward the noise, he spotted the fluffy tail of a rabbit burrowing in deep. Needing bigger game than that, he ignored it.
The sun was shining bright; there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the trees were so wildly spaced that they didn’t offer much coverage. Neck prickling with the need to get them quickly back to his warded home, he scented the air, quickly catching the musk of several different prey items.
The clean, icy scent of reptile. The nut-and-berries scent of bear. Fishy smell of hawk, the clover of more rabbit, and then finally the earthy gaminess of deer.
By his calculations the deer, a stag in musk, was a good mile off in the distance. He could drag her with him, but she’d slow him down, making it a sure bet he wouldn’t be able to catch it.
There was only one option. Leave her. But not unprotected. He wasn’t completely without skills. Unbuttoning his shirt, he yanked the tail out of his pants and then tore it off him. Bringing the dove-gray shirt to his mouth, he opened and exhaled.
After Adrianna’s death and his subsequent years as a raving lunatic killing anything unfortunate enough to cross paths with him, he’d determined he’d never be weak again. Never allow anything or anyone to take what was rightfully his. He’d studied, taking centuries to master the limits of his powers. Learning there was so much more to being death than merely touching his skeletal hand to a mortal’s chest.
He wasn’t just pushing air onto his shirt, he was scenting it. Marking it like a predator. Lacing the very fabric of it with death’s toxic kiss. Exuding a type of chemical bomb from his mouth, one that would kill anything that happened to graze it.
Because Mila was undead, the effects were harmless to her. Anything else would suffer hallucinations, seizures, vomiting, before the heart finally stopped beating. It would be a grisly way to go.
Laying it gently on top of her, he couldn’t help but feather his finger across her delicate cheekbone. Her skin was so brittle and cold, and his heart ached to see her in this position. He debated whether to tell her he’d return soon, but he wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hear him.
“Don’t worry, little one, I’ll come back very soon,” he whispered before turning.
Each reaper had a unique and specialized gift only they had. His was speed—being able to move at the velocity of thought. Standing erect, he scanned the rolling hills, knowing he’d smell the deer before he actually saw it.
Gathering scent from the wind, he waited until he caught its trail again. Then he was off. Time jumping would be easiest, but not the most effective, as being within the tunnel would cut off his ability to scent it out.
The world was a blur of color, browns and blues and grays and greens all melding into one chaotic clash. Moving in between trees, he never stopped drawing lungfuls of air.
It was easy to follow; deer were generally stupid creatures, and though it could likely sense a predator’s approach, it would never be able to outrun him. The animal was farther than he’d initially estimated. He’d easily run a mile by this point.
Hunters had likely overrun this place not so long ago, killing off many deer already. The one he’d tracked was the only one he smelled for miles in any direction. But soon the cool tang of water and freshly shorn grass had him veering to the right. Close now, he stopped, not wanting to spook the animal further. Able to make it out now, he noted it was a buck, only a few years old. There was still velvet on its antlers. Its head was high, its black nose in the air, and its eyes wide and alert.
The deer had to weigh almost two hundred pounds. Maybe a little too big for her, but he’d make steak out of whatever she didn’t consume.
The next breath the deer took would be its last. Frenzy was upon it in less than a second, cracking its neck with a firm twist, watching as the beautiful creature dropped, lifeless, to the ground.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he inclined his head. All fae folk were in tune with nature and her children; killing one wasn’t sport. At least not for him. Needing to hurry back to her, he grabbed it by its midsection. Grunting under the weight of it.
He was a fast runner, but not with this thing on his back. Opening a rift in time, he brought the deer with him, returning to the clearing.
She was as he’d left her, eyes closed and not breathing. The grass she’d been on, which had once been lush and green, was now an ugly shade of yellowish brown. Beside her feet lay the rigored body of a garden snake.
Breathing a sigh of relief as he tossed the deer to the ground beside her, he picked up his shirt and put it back on.
“Wake up. I’ve brought you food.”
Doing up the last button, he gently tapped her foot. But she still didn’t move.
Kneeling, he pulled her to a semisitting position, leaning her torso and head against his chest.
“Wake up, woman,” he said forcefully, and realized he was one again slipping into the douche bag role of his. Because he was angry at himself for the position she was now in. He should have forced her to eat yesterday, but he wasn’t a vampire and knew little of what it meant to be a shifter. He’d never expected this to happen to her, and it was all his damn fault.
Rubbing his thumbs across her face, he whispered, “Come on, O’Fallen, wake up.” He shook her a little, but all it did was cause her head to flop forward.
“Damn me to the gates of hell,” he growled. He should have known better. He’d been told time and again how out of touch he truly was, and this was just another reminder of that truth.
Frenzy tried again, but not even a flicker of awareness crossed her face. “You have been such a pain in my ass,” he growled, and then sighed. “And I’d be really pissed if you left me now.” Then, dragging the carcass to him, he called the fire of transformation onto his hand.
He watched as the flesh turned to bone. He had no knife handy; his death hand was the best he was going to get out here. Sinking his fingers deep into the deer’s neck, he flicked his wrist. Tearing it open, he prepared the meal for her to take easily.
“Now wake up.” He shook her, trying to get her head to lull forward into the deer. But of course, it wouldn’t be so easy. Grabbing the back of her skull with his free hand, he shoved her face-first into the blood bath pooling from the deer’s neck. He didn’t want to be so forceful with her, but she needed blood in her now. He’d ask her forgiveness later.
He began to worry when there was no movement, but a minute later he heard the faint sounds of swallowing.
“Yes, that’s right, O’Fallen.” A wave of relief engulfed him. “Drink it all. Take it in, girl, you cannot go without food. Don’t do this to me again.” On and on he encouraged her, but he doubted she was hearing him. She was too entranced with her meal.
A minute later he breathed a sigh of relief when the gray tint of her skin turned the familiar iridescent white. Finally she began moving, not using him so much to sit upright. She was moving into the beast, grabbing hold of its neck and downing giant gulps.
Her pale hair gleamed like gold in the brilliant rays of sunlight, and he was finally able to ease off her, let her alone so she could finish eating in privacy. Standing, he looked down at his pants, dusting them off when with a loud sigh she pulled away, groaning and holding on to her stomach.
“I don’t feel good.” Her eyes were wild, the irises shot through with pinpricks of fresh blood. Red covered her lips and chin, dribbled down her neck.
“It’s because you starved yourself. You’ll feel better soon. Just finish drinking.”
She grimaced. “I don’t think that’s it. My stomach really hurts.” She winced again, doubling over and kicking the deer away.
Mila looked like the drawings he’d always seen of wild women. The way her hair was standing up around her head, gnarled and knotted with grass and debris. Her clothes were torn and in desperate need of changing. Suffering a brief flare of remorse that he hadn’t exactly been the best host, he shrugged it off; there was nothing he could do about it now.
She was moaning again, eyes squeezing tight, and bending over to rub her head back and forth on the dirt.
Starting to worry now, he took a step toward her, holding out his palm as if to rub her back, realizing just a second before he did it she might not thank him for it. “Maybe you’re not a blood drinker, then. Maybe you need actual meat?”
“Oh gods, it hurts,” she said in a breathless whisper, brogue thick on her tongue.
Deciding he didn’t care if she thanked him or not, he placed his hand on her back and was shocked to discover she was burning up. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Please.” Her voice shook with tears. “Help me. I can’t, I need…” She didn’t finish her statement, because now she was crying.
Caught completely off guard, Frenzy found himself in panic mode. She was the first shampire he’d ever heard of. Was their physiology really so different from their makers? Forgetting all about trying to salvage his clothing, he shoved his hand deep into the deer’s belly, searching around until he found the liver. Yanking it out, he offered it to her.
“Eat this.”
“No.” She moaned again, curling into her body.
“O’Fallen, I think that maybe you need meat more than you need blood. Try it and see. It’s probably going to help you feel better.”
“Oh gods, oh gods,” she repeated over and over while holding out a trembling hand for the piece of liver.
He handed it to her, waiting on bated breath for her to take the first bite. Her nose wrinkled when she brought it to her lips.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” She did a dry heave, clamping down on her lips before she could bring anything up.
Getting down on her level, he rubbed her back up and down trying to help ease the trembling running down her spine. “Do it. Don’t think about it.”
Normally he hated to see the way others ate their food. Death might take life, but they were cultured and infinitely more civilized compared to other species when it came to eating a meal.
But he was determined to stay with her, to give her whatever support he could to make sure she’d get it down, because he didn’t like to see her suffer this way. He wanted the woman with fire in her tongue, the woman who sparred with him and made him feel, ache, and want. Mila was suffering and, for the first time in a long time, he was bothered by someone else’s agony.
Bringing his hand beneath hers, he helped bring it to her lips. “Part your lips,” he ordered softly.
She did it, with a whimper.
“Bite.”
She bit.
It wasn’t a large bite, just a small dainty one, but the effects were immediate. The shivering stopped, the trembling of her hands ceased. She took another, a bigger one this time.
“Oh gods,” she moaned. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She didn’t sound happy about it.
“You’re feeling better, right?” he grunted, in no mood to deal with any sort of moral objections. She had to eat, period. It was essential to her health and well-being, and if he had to be the bad guy about this, then he would.
Taking two more bites, she swallowed them hard and then tossed the liver through the air so far it faded from sight into the distance.
“What was that for?” he growled.
“I…I…can’t. It was…raw.” And with those words, she gulped. Once, twice, three times, and then she was scrabbling forward on her knees and everything she’d eaten had come up.
“Mila, no!” It wasn’t her that he was mad at; he was furious with himself. His heart was pounding, his breathing ragged. She had to eat. He wouldn’t lose her, not because of something like this. Last night he’d decided to make things right, to work through this and be there for her. They were stuck with each other, and it was time to stop being enemies, and learn to work together.
“It’s raw and warm,” she hissed, smearing the blood across her lips. “I can’t eat that way.”
“You’re going to have to. O’Fallen, it’s a matter of sanity or insanity. This won’t kill you, so please don’t think to kill yourself that way. You’re dead now and that’s just how this goes. I’m sorry.” And he really truly was; sorry to see her suffering so much, sorry that she’d never asked for any of this, sorry that he’d been so much of a problem for her.
“I haven’t forgotten, you stupid bastard!” She stood to shaky feet.
“O’Fallen, you look like hell. You have to eat.” He tried again, hoping to make her see reason.
“I feel like hell. What did you do to me last night?” She grabbed her head, stumbling forward in a drunken waltz.
“Me?” He stabbed his chest. “I was sleeping. I found you this morning, in a coma. A food coma. I’m trying here.”
“Then feed me!” she hissed, before latching weak arms around the skinny trunk of a tree.
“What do you think I just did?”
And for a split second the old, closed-off Frenzy surged to fore. That she was ungrateful, undeserving…but then he stopped himself, because none of this was her fault. It was his, plain and simple. And maybe Lise’s for not telling him how in the hell to properly care for a hybrid.
“Real food.”
Grabbing both sides of his head, he glared. He’d taken down a deer; what else could he possibly do?
“I can’t eat that, Frenzy. It makes me sick. You should have just let me die,” she growled, still clinging to the tree as if for dear life. “This is too hard. If you can’t help me, how in the hell am I going to survive any of this?”
“O’Fallen, giving up is not an option.”
“Why does this even matter to you now? You sure as hell didn’t care what happened to me last night.”
His nostrils flared; he wasn’t sure whether to share his epiphany. She was moody and food deprived, and she’d laugh at him. The thought of that galled him.
“You suck, death.” She laughed weakly.
“Damn you, O’Fallen,” he muttered, because they shouldn’t have, but her words bothered him. The last thing he wanted was for her to believe that about him.
“It’s Mila.” She coughed weakly. Looking around, she finally seemed to become aware of where they were. “We’re out in the open? Where are we?”
“George’s place.”
She coughed again and already he could see her strength weakening as she sank slowly to the ground. “We need to hide.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you looking like a vampire’s bride. You’re covered in blood.” He waved his hand at her.
Glancing down at herself, her nose curled, as if she was just now noticing how awful she looked.
“There’s a small lake a few yards in the distance. You need to clean up. That blood will attract too many things.”
She didn’t ask what he meant by that, but he figured she understood he wasn’t referring to forest creatures, but the possibility of others being drawn to the scent of death.
“Where we going after this?” Amber eyes stared at him, and there was no longer any fire or heat in them, just pure exhaustion.
He wanted to hate her; it would be so easy to give in to it, to wrap himself up in that sharp emotion and not let her get through, but it just wasn’t in him anymore. All he really wanted now was to keep her safe.
“I haven’t decided yet. Can you stand?”
Rocking forward on her butt, she made as if to get to her feet, but sighed and dropped back instead. “No.”
“Here.” Walking over to her, he held out his arm. She grabbed on and then he gently pulled her up.
Nodding her thanks, she clutched onto his back. Her body was no longer hot, or even warm—she was clammy and cool again. She still needed food.
“Frenzy,” she whispered softly.
“What?” he asked as he scooped her into his arms. She was light as a feather compared to the deer.
“Did you catch that for me?”
He debated whether to lie or not, but finally just sighed. “Yes.”
Laying her head on his shoulder, she nodded. “Thank you.”
First she bit his head off for feeding it to her, and now she was thanking him. He’d never understand women. Surely Adrianna hadn’t been this temperamental. Of course, she’d been cosseted and pampered her whole life; she’d never been thrust into an impossible situation like this.
“You still need to eat it.” Turning, he walked toward the lake where he’d captured the deer. It wasn’t that far of a distance.
“Not raw. Please.” Her voice shook a little.
Why was she so bound and determined to hang on to conventional human strictures?
“Raw is the best and easiest way for your new body to metabolize food. But if you feel you can’t eat it that way, then we’ll figure something out. I still think raw is best, though.”
“You just saw what happened with that.”
He shook his head. “I think it’s because you convinced yourself you couldn’t eat it. You forget, I saw you moaning, inhaling it. You enjoyed the taste.”
Mouth tipping down into a frown, she closed her eyes. “All my life, I’ve fought you guys. Seen the ugly and despicable things you’re capable of doing. You tell me now I have no choice but to be this way, for who knows how long. Don’t you understand, even a little?”
Those familiar amber eyes grew wide, pleading silently for him to get it. But he simply couldn’t. Why would she want to hang on to a past that was so frail and weak that a mere vampire bite was lethal? The lifespan of a mortal was so impossibly short as to be laughable.
Dragging his nose along the length of her collarbone, he inhaled deeply. “Why would you want to change? You smell of fresh earth after a spring rain. Your skin gleams like you’ve been lit from within with candlelight. What is the appeal of returning to a form that sickens and decays? Withers from disease? Why would you want to hang on to any part of that past life?”
Her eyes were huge as she stared at him, her mouth lax, and he wondered at her strange transformation. Was she slipping back into a coma?
Trembling, she shook her head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “Don’t smell me like that again. And to say that that’s all the human experience is would be a lie.”
“I’ll smell you any time I want. And if that’s not the human condition, then you tell me what is. Make me see the appeal.”
“I’d need a lifetime to make you understand.” She sighed.
He grinned. “Lucky for you, you now have one.”
He’d expected at some point for her to tire of his holding her, but she must have been truly exhausted because she simply snuggled deeper into the shelter of his arms, looking around at the hilly green landscape. Stepping around a dense shrub, he jerked to the side when a pair of pheasants were startled into flight.
Frenzy liked her in his arms. He wondered if she was aware that his heart beat faster when she was near him.
“The beauty of our short lives is that we’re grateful for every second of them. How can you truly feel gratitude at the beauty of a sunny day, or hearing that your grandmother beat breast cancer, or seeing a baby’s first smile, first steps…unless you know that each and every one of those moments are gifts? Treasures to cherish? How can overcoming the odds bring any kind of jubilation when the possibility of tragedy isn’t present?”
He frowned. “That does not make sense to me. I am not mortal. But I have enjoyed my life.”
She shrugged. “Have you really? Or are you just saying that? Think about it, Frenzy, when was the last time you laughed? Cried? Showed any kind of emotion?”
Her look was pointed. Taking the challenge, he thought back on his long life. He’d laughed plenty. He’d even loved once. She had no clue of what she spoke, but when he tried to remember the situations, an unsavory truth began to dawn on him.
He’d laughed around her. Around Adrianna. He’d loved Adrianna. Adrianna had been a mortal. Mila, so newly turned that her mind still associated itself as human rather than other. When he tried to remember a time when he’d done those things without the presence of a mortal around, he came up empty.
Being around his queen was a study in court politics. The fae could be a chivalrous bunch; they laughed, made love and war…but every scenario was always tied to a human in some way.
Fae could not bear children unless they mated with mortals. There were many pairings among his kind, but all of them had human mates. They had to in order to survive. The Great Wars had even been fought over mortals. Fae may have planted the seeds that moved the wheels, but the wars had been fought primarily to control the mortal realm. To control humans, because while most fae kind turned their noses down at the lowly mortals, they also needed them around to thrive. Every type of monster did.
The vampires needed the mortals to feed upon. The shifters and fae bred with them. The power of the witch and sorcerer only manifested within human gene pools…
“I’ve laughed,” he said with a frown, refusing to concede defeat.
Her brow lifted. “Hate to break it to you, reaper, but you’re about as fun as an abscessed tooth.”
“Others are infinitely superior to your kind. We are the evolved species.” The words came out of him by rote; there’d been no thought behind it, just a lifetime of belief in that truth.
She sighed. “And that is why this argument is pointless. You’ll never get it.” Her fingers danced across the flesh of his neck. Just the slightest touch broke him out in a wash of goose bumps.
It was strange talking to her like this. He was used to the woman who screamed, pouted, stomped her foot. To see her calm and rational, it made him want to understand her even more.
She cleared her throat, and that’s when he noticed they were finally at the lake.
“Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” she murmured.
Setting her down gently, he jerked his head back in the direction where they’d come from. “I’ll be back. I’m going to bring some supplies to cook that deer with.”
Looking up at the wide expanse of sky, she twisted her lips. “I don’t like being this exposed. Especially if you leave.”
His lips twitched, suspecting that was as close to begging him to stay as she’d ever get. “I’ll mark the area with death. I shouldn’t take long.”
“Are we going back to your apartment?” she asked, leaning against a tree as she took several slow and deep breaths.
“Likely so.”
She shook her head. “Frenzy, I know you really don’t want to hear what I have to say, but I don’t think we should stay in any one place too long. I’ve spent years hiding from the shadow. I blew my cover there. I don’t think San Francisco is safe for me anymore.”
Maybe she was right. But then again, his place was heavily warded. Not even the queen could get in if he didn’t let her. “Give me time to think this through. In the meantime, bathe.”
Nibbling on a corner of her lip, she eyed the water.
“There’s nothing but fish in there. But if you want, I could kill them all.” He held up a finger.
“What?” She frowned. “Kill a bunch of innocent creatures? Are you sick? Gods, no wonder you had no problem turning me into this freak.” With quick, jerky movements she started to undo the buttons of her shirt, looking him dead in the eyes as she did so.
And the fact that he’d been thinking the same thing just a second ago made him feel ill. He wanted to apologize; it was on the tip of his tongue to say it, but the words were just too thick in his throat and wouldn’t pass his lips.
He’d told Lise the truth when he’d said he was years out of practice on knowing how to properly socialize with humans.
Dropping her shirt to the ground, she notched her chin higher, and his lips twitched.
Last night the woman could barely glance at him without turning shy, and now here she was, stripping in front of him.
He smiled when she lifted a brow. “Blood looks good on you, O’Fallen.”
Full breasts with tight pink buds jutted out invitingly; her ivory skin marred with crimson was a macabre but seductive look. With her wild blond hair framing her heart-shaped face, she looked like a sex-kitten Amazon ready to do battle.
Damned if he wasn’t getting hard staring at her.
Her breathing inched a notch, as she was obviously aware of the way he studied her body. Eyes moving slowly down the length of her neck, across her slim shoulders, around firm, luscious mounds that made his mouth water for a taste.
The air was electric, charged and heady, making his skin prickle with heat.
“It’s Mila,” she whispered, then slipped her fingers to the top button of her jeans. “Like what you see?”
Letting the heat inching through his body burn inside his eyes, he said nothing.
She snorted. “I hate you.”
Then, yanking the jeans off, revealing that she’d worn nothing beneath, she turned and leisurely strolled to the lake’s edge, dipping her toe into the water. He was as confused now as he’d been before.
Her emotions ran hot and cold. She teased him, then turned away. It pissed him off. Made him slightly crazy. And most definitely confused.
Running the perimeter of her area, he breathed a cloud of death like a barricade around her, then, cracking his knuckles, he swiped open a rift between the here and there, and stepped through into the tunnel.
The only things they had on them were the clothes on their backs, and hers were shredded. She’d need everything.
Entering his apartment, he immediately grabbed a duffel bag out of his closet and gathered as many toiletries as he could carry. Some girly smelling shampoo and conditioner, toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, deodorant. He was sure he was missing some things, but he had to move quickly.
She’d not come to his place with bags of clothes. There was nothing in his house actually intended to be worn by a woman. Most of what he had was dress slacks and silk shirts. Marching to his dresser, he pulled out a pair of plaid boxers and a plain white tee. She only needed enough to get dressed in; they’d figure out some way to get her clothes later.
Not sure whether he should bring her a pair of socks or not, he paused, every muscle in his body freezing when the faint scrape of a chair moving back caught his attention. Straining to hear the minutest sound, he waited.
Normally such an innocent noise was just background in the music of his life, but knowing that she had a monster of the hunt tracking her—that every damn monster in all of the world was interested in possessing her—the innocuous made him feel like a meerkat guarding its mound.
He was ready to dismiss it as his mind playing tricks on him, when he heard the scraping sound again. But this time it was closer. It was coming down the hall. Snuffling softly, like a dog sniffing at scent.
Common sense said run, leave it all behind, and go back to her. But something didn’t feel right. His house was warded; nothing could enter without his consent.
The sounds were closer still, and now they sounded more like a wet gurgle. Pushing as much glamour out of him as possible, he shielded himself within the magic inherent to his kind. Making himself nearly invisible. None could see him unless they knew exactly where to look and what they were looking for. He wasn’t actually invisible, he’d simply distorted the perception of space and time, causing a ripple effect that made it appear he wasn’t there.
Easing the drawer slowly closed, he gathered the duffel bag of items and made sure the room appeared as empty as it’d been this morning. The door opened.
And what he saw, he could not name. It did not appear like anything he’d ever seen. It was blackness—moving, rolling shadow with twin dots of red for eyes. A glowing-cinder kind of red, making it appear as if unholy fire burned behind it. There wasn’t much of a face, just a distortion of one, a perception of it. If he looked dead-on, there was nothing, but when he tilted his face to the side, he could make out the blurry image of a nose, eyes, and mouth.
A mouthful of ragged, razor-sharp fangs. The creature, for it was definitely that, walked upright, but its long arms and webbed hands made him think it was more of a quadruped than humanoid.
Every step it took left a black streak of fog in its wake, and the rotten stench of sulfur made Frenzy curl his lip. Creatures of the hunt generally fell into two categories: gloriously beautiful, godlike in many ways, but it was a beauty so deadly it’d been known to cause any unwary, unlucky soul who glanced at it for too long to die of shock—then there were the monsters. The boogeymen. The bastards of the fae world.
This was one of those.
It sniffed again, and he wasn’t nervous, but something didn’t feel right. He was covered in glamour so thick not even his queen could find him, yet this creature was drawing slowly closer to where he stood.
A wet, slurping sound echoed through the nearly empty room. “You can come out.”
The voice resonated angrily, rolling through the room like a windswept wave. His brows lowered, but he didn’t move. There were still too many questions to reveal himself just yet.
“Can you see me, reaper?” it asked, and though the voice sounded like it’d been dragged from the depths of hell itself, it was also surprisingly cultured and refined. It smiled. “I’ve no quarrel with you. I only wish to find her.”
The way it said “her,” it was a like prayer and a curse. Heaven and hell, there was desire, lust, and hate all wrapped into it.
It came in closer, lifting its nose higher into the air, and the closer it got to him, the more it solidified, no longer moving like a shadow, but more like the sensual slink and curl of a snake, its head lolling from side to side as it followed Frenzy’s scent trail closer and closer.
How the hell had this dark-court abomination found them? They’d never left the house, she’d not even peered out a window…
But last night, he’d left her alone. She’d gone comatose from lack of food; what had she done before that, though? But the moment he thought it, he shook his head. Mila had told him just seconds ago they needed to move on. The woman had survived this long by being smart. She would never have done something so stupid.
It continued its slow walk into his space. He hoped the thing was female. Not everything that looked male actually was, not within faedom. Frenzy had always been able to charm the fairer sex when he wanted to; it was how he’d been able to get in so close to the queen.
Studying its chest area, he tried to make out twin lumps, or anything else that would identify its sex. But though its form had definitely solidified, it was still indistinguishable as truly male or female.
“I smell her on you. All over you.” It smirked. Something long and black poked out from where the mouth was. He could only assume it was a tongue, the way it ran slowly along its lips. “Tell me, reaper, how does she taste?”
Nose curling, he took a step back. The creature might know he was there, but it didn’t know what he looked like. Keeping his identity secret might be the only thing that saved Mila in the end.
“What do you want?” he barked, throwing his voice to the opposite corner of the room hoping the creature would bite and turn around, but it didn’t. It merely chuckled.
“You play a fool’s game, death. As I said”—it stuck its face up in the air—“I smell my prey.”
Light coalesced from the inside out, pouring through the shadow, but rather than obliterating the darkness wrapped like skin so tightly around it, it made it glow a deep, deep black. And from that blackness something else materialized: eyes. Dozens of them, painting themselves on its skin like living tattoos.
Green eyes filled with sorrow blinked. Blue ones burning with fury stared hard. Brown, black, and a vivid, vivid purple, every color of the spectrum, gazed back at him.
“What do I want?” it rasped, chuckling deep in the back of its throat. “I want her.”
As it said it, the form of its body manifested more. Fine threads of hair sprouted on a balding, shiny head. Muscle demarcation became apparent across its flat abdominals. Fingers became claws with hooked, shockingly white nails.
The chest was obvious now; the nipples were too. The way the skin hung, it could have been a female, but it could just as easily be male. Taking a gamble, he made a call.
“Do you wish to rape my female?” he growled.
The thing hissed. “Rape your female?!” Glowing cinder eyes swirled with a hypnotic light.
The burst of anger made it obvious the thing was in fact female and affronted at the notion of raping one of its own sex. Human, fae, or otherwise.
Smiling, Frenzy released a little of his glamour. Not enough to reveal himself, but enough for her to feel him.
“Ahh, death.” His moniker rolled off her forked tongue with satisfaction. “Where is she?”
“Patient, lady death.”
Her entire form trembled and she sighed a breathy, moany sound.
“How did you find me?” That question would nag at him forever.
Lifting her hands, she touched the tip of his navel and drew a nail upward. Slow and easy. Women, no matter the breed, were easy. Always had been, he just rarely felt the need to put in the effort. Only once had he really wanted to, but the rules of seduction never really changed, no matter the century.
Setting his repulsion aside—he’d seen much worse than a shadow with eyeballs covering its body before—he traced the edge of her neck. The spot right above the collarbone, the one that seemed to drive all women manic. “Tell me, darkness. How?” He stepped in closer. “Did?” He leaned in. “You?” He blew a shivery tendril of breath along the shell of her ear. “Find?”
Tremors racked her shadowy form, her head tipped back, and her mouth parted just slightly.
“Me?”
Blowing out a heavy breath, she grinned. “You know your dance well. And though I am fond of you, death…” Her hands continued to run along his, but the shadow had more than just two hands. There were three, four, five sets of hands, running down his spine, his ass, the backs of his legs, cupping him.
He had no desire to look down and see whether the hands were manifesting bits of shadow or whether they were actually tentacles of some sort. He kept his eyes firmly on hers. Because though she shouldn’t be able to see him, somehow she was. Maybe she couldn’t see the true symmetry of his features, but she was seeing something; her touches were too accurate for her not to be.
To pull this off, she’d need to believe what he did wasn’t a ploy to get her to talk.
“I am no fool.”
“My lady.” Palming what he hoped was her backside, he drew her tight to him, delighted to note the trembles still coursing through her. Painting too pretty a picture would make her see through the deception easily. Half-truths were what he would give; she was too smart for anything else. “You are correct. I know my dance well. And while I desperately wish an answer to that question—”
“Desperately?” Her face came more into focus. The fire in her eyes was still there, but it was no longer just fire. It was a floating flame in a moat of inky black. Her nose was sharp and angular, reminding him of a bird. Thin lips stretched across a face that bore not an ounce of unnecessary fat. Razor-sharp cheekbones and a high forehead that led to a thick mass of hair the same shade as her body. “I like the sound of that. And what would you give me in exchange? Hmm? The girl?”
He didn’t answer, merely strummed his fingers along her spine.
She laughed, and the sound grated on his ears like the breaking of glass. “You ask for much, and give me nothing in return.”
The best way to keep Mila safe was to keep this thing off of her trail. Strangely ready to get back to her, he released a little more of his glamour, enough to show lady shadow his eyes.
Frenzy had earned his name centuries ago, and not because of his fighting skills, but rather the way in which women fell for him. Shaking off the rust, he shoved his magic through his eyes, turning them a startling shade of liquid silver.
She gasped, panting like a dog in heat.
“A kiss,” he murmured, feathering his lips along her dry slits. “Tell me, lovely creature, how did you learn where she was hiding?”
Biting her lower lip, she pulsed like the spark of electricity, beginning to glow a strange obsidian.
“So that you can deny me her?” Her voice was a heady whisper as her hands continued to play along his flesh. “You cannot kill me, death. I was born of the wild hunt.”
“I know. But the woman is mine.”
She hissed. “Did you bed her? Do not think to play me for a fool, reaper.”
“Darkest beauty, as you say, I am death. What need have I of something so…mundane? Hmm?” He tipped her chin up.
She giggled.
“I have a taste for the more exotic.”
Something long and thick wrapped around his hip. Goddess, it was all he could to do to continue on with this charade. The longer he stayed, the longer his woman was without supervision. Startled, he almost dropped out of character. Since when had he begun to think of Mila as his? But he no more thought that than he realized that’s exactly what she was. His. And in order to keep this shadowy bitch off her trail, he needed that answer now.
Slamming his lips onto the hag’s, he made love. Tasting and nipping, purring in the back of his throat, and his hands caressed the nearly flat bumps on her chest, but when she tried to shove her tongue down his throat he pulled away with a chuckle. “Wild minx.” He flicked the tip of her nose. “You would make a fine female. But I need answers.” He shoved angry urgency into his words.
“Then will you kiss me again, my love?” The leathery skin of her palm clamped onto his cheek.
“Tell me.”
She sighed. “I am darkest shadow, wherever it gathers, there can I be also. As much as I my body desires yours, grim reaper, I will not stop until she is mine, and do not think to hie her off to faerie, for that land only makes me stronger.”
Fury churned in the pit of his belly. Why had Lise not told him this? How could Mila hope to escape a creature whose sole purpose in this life was to consume her?
There had to be a weakness. There was always a weakness.
“My boon, then?” She smiled, so docile, so responsive to him.
His fingers curled, itching to trace the absurdly long length of her neck, wrap around it, and choke the very breath out of her. But she could not die. Doing that would serve no purpose.
“If it is a kiss you want”—he smirked—“then it is a kiss you shall receive.”
This time when he took her, he breathed death into her throat. It would not hurt her—for a creature like her, death was nothing. But there was more to him than simply killing; when he looked into a soul, he saw the life. Saw every tear, every smile, the love, the hate, the need, the lust.
Visualizing death’s kiss as a type of undulating frost-nipped fog, he forced it down her throat. She moaned, but not with pleasure. Her body jerked in his grasp and the hands suddenly stilled.
Pushing more of it through her, he shoved it deep into her belly, through her veins, into her pitch-black heart, and finally, into her brain, where he could access her memory banks.
A vision came to him then—indecipherable images of flashing light coalescing with shadow. The woods. Famed fae hunters with bows. The Morrigan. Not as a woman, but in her other form—her raven form—she rode the air on powerful crimson wings. The darkness of night danced with golden flickers of sparkling color. This was the wild hunt. This was a vision of the shade’s birth, how from the darkness she sprang. Fully formed. Living, breathing shadow. Neither child nor woman, she took her first breath, and then stepped out of the blackness, and there was only one purpose. One goal. Find a seer.
It was an all-consuming hunger, a need to own. To possess.
The Morrigan dropped before the shadow, beady black eyes staring deep into her own, and a thought, a whisper passed between them. Then the crow was gone.
A loud thunk rang through the room. Pulled from the vision, Frenzy jerked his eyes open. She was cold, like living marble in his arms. She still breathed, but she’d gone rigor. He’d pumped so much death into her veins she wouldn’t move for days, hopefully weeks.
Angry eyes stared at him as he gently laid her down.
Damn The Morrigan; it was no wonder the queen was so keen to learn of Mila’s location. The magic of the wild hunt came not from nature, but from the queen herself. Nothing could be born of the hunt unless the queen willed it. She was the gatekeeper; she was the key to destroying the shadow.
Lise had known that—that was why she’d refused to allow the queen to listen in. Whatever the queen knew, Lise had to know as well. The Ancient One had helped Cian, surely she would help him also. After all, she was the one who’d forced him to guard the woman.
Grabbing the bag of toiletries that’d fallen at his feet earlier, he swiped open a rift in time and went to fetch his woman.