by K. N. Banet
“I’m a snake,” I reminded him. “Lightning fast reflexes are kind of our thing.” I couldn’t move that fast all the time, but instinct really ramped up my reflexes when I was hunting or in danger. A snake had to know when it was time to strike. We conserved energy otherwise.
Slowly, I let his wrist and arm go, kicking the gun away before anyone thought to get a little too trigger happy again.
“Now, we definitely need to leave unless you want to explain this to the human police,” I said, glancing at the window. “Raphael, at least take a walk with me.”
He didn’t seem happy, but he nodded.
“Yeah. I can’t get sent back to New Mexico. I know if I’m arrested for the deaths of my friends, I’m an easy target for those people chasing me.”
“Exactly. Do you have a go bag?”
“Of course,” he snapped, seeming insulted I would assume he didn’t. He left the living room into one of the two inside doors. I figured one was the bedroom, and one was the bathroom. It was a tiny, shithole apartment. He came back out with a large duffel thrown over his shoulder. I picked up his gun and offered it back to him.
“Let’s not try to kill me again?” I waited for his reply as he grabbed the gun. I didn’t let go, though. I needed him to make me some assurances.
“I’ll go with you for now,” he agreed. “I won’t try to shoot you unless you try to kill me.”
I let go of the gun.
“Then let’s get out of here. We have to hurry. Hide that. If the cops are already nearby, they’ll be stopping people.” I could have offered to hide it in my bag, but I figured he would be more comfortable with his weapon. I didn’t need him defenseless.
We left the apartment together, and I was really starting to think I should have stayed out of this mess from the moment Paden brought it to my attention.
9
Chapter Nine
I could hear the sirens as we got into his car. He drove carefully this time as we pulled out, the cops too busy investigating the gunshots to realize the culprits were leaving. He was cool under pressure, I had to give him that.
“You’ve done this a lot,” I commented lightly. “Avoiding the cops.”
“Yeah. Whenever someone blows my cover, they show up, and I need to dodge everyone,” he said, his voice tight, fraught with tension. “So, what is it you do? You said you were a Tribunal Executioner. You kill people?”
“I kill a lot of people. If a supernatural breaks the law, it’s normally punishable by death, and I’m just the person who gets that done for the big guys at the top. There are investigators as well, your standard detectives who investigate potential criminals. They’re also the prosecutors in the Trial. They gather evidence and present their case to the Tribunal. The Tribunal is both judge and jury, holding the court and passing a guilty or innocent conviction. I just come in at the end.”
“Does it happen a lot? You needing to kill people for them?”
“Depends. I go to Trials when the potential guilty party is there, so I can act swiftly once the judgment is passed. Most of the time the Tribunal will call a trial, and the criminal has two choices. Either go speak in defense but die faster when found guilty, or use the Trial’s distraction as a chance to cover their tracks and hide. If they’re found guilty, my kill on sight list is updated, and I memorize the face and species. If they ever run into me by accident or vice versa, I am legally bound to act and end their life.”
“Do you ever…go looking for them?” He was too curious, in my opinion, but since he was dragged into the supernatural world, it was only fair to tell him all of it.
“Sometimes. Depends on their crimes and how invested I am in their case. Some Executioners patrol their areas nonstop, looking for people. Since my area has so much open desert, it’s a bit harder. If they go out there and want to starve to death or die of dehydration, I’m not going to stop them. It’s not like they can get much done in the desert, where they probably won’t have a connection to the internet or running water.” I shrugged. “I’m on a long leash when it comes to how I perform my duties.”
“So, killing is okay in your world.”
“Not really.”
“But—”
“I’m a sanctioned executioner through our ruling government. Assassins and hitmen are murderers, and the people who pay them are as well. They are just as guilty in the supernatural world as they are in the human one. Bounty hunters aren’t allowed to kill anyone, though it happens sometimes. Capture only. If it happens, they’re brought in front of the Tribunal and have to plead their case. Self-defense normally works for bounty hunters. The people we go after can get dangerous.”
“Okay. So, you’re going to use your connections to help me. I can maybe live a normal life again one day.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
“And if I drop you off somewhere and reject your help?”
I’ll knock you out, throw you in the trunk of this car, and keep you under fucking house arrest in my desert.
“You’ll have to figure out how to survive on your own,” was the answer I settled on. I couldn’t tell him what I really thought because I was damn near positive he wouldn’t appreciate it. “Let’s get to my car. It’s faster and humans tend to ignore it.”
“Where are you parked?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. I glanced at his profile, and my fangs ached uncomfortably. He was frustrating—too many questions, too little trust—but damn, he was nice to look at.
I answered his question and started searching through my bag to grab my phone. I sent a quick text to another naga, asking a couple of questions. In the middle of everything else, I had to have some personal questions taken care of. Since we were relatively safe in the car for the moment, it seemed like the perfect time. As I put the phone away, the car rocked.
My head snapped up, and I looked out the windows. Beside me, Raphael cursed, turning down another street. I checked the back and hissed.
“We have a tail,” I snapped without taking my eyes off the SUV behind us. “Do you know how to lose them?”
“I’ve done it once or twice.”
I narrowed my eyes on the SUV as Raphael hit the gas and began to fly through traffic. It kept pace. I couldn’t get any sort of thermal information through the SUV’s windows and the heat of the vehicles on this warm evening. I knew it was useless to try to catch a smell.
“Get to my car,” I ordered. “If we can’t lose them for long, we can at least do a quick car change, and I can drive.”
“Do you know who it might be?”
The sun was nearly down, so I had a fairly good guess. There were only three people in the city who had a rough idea of where to find Raphael, other than me. It was most likely the fae or witch, scoping it out before Sinclair woke up. How long they had been watching him, I didn’t know, but they were obviously not okay with me driving off with him.
“Maybe.” Reaching into the weapon section of my bag, I pulled out my Beretta and turned off the safety.
“You have weapons?” Raphael was looking at me and not the road. I hissed, showing my fangs—it was now pointless for me to try to keep them under control.
“Of course, I have weapons. I haven’t left the house unarmed in nearly a century. Watch the fucking road.”
His eyes went wide and he turned away. I went back to watching the SUV behind us. There was a chance whoever it was would just follow us, reporting on our location. I knew for a fact, Sinclair would know I was involved the moment he woke up, and that worried a large part of me. I was a little excited, too. A day when I could give him the proverbial middle finger was always a good one.
“We’re here!” he declared, turning hard into a parking lot.
“Black BMW,” I snapped. “It’s my car. Get us to it.”
He gave me a jerky nod and tore through the parking lot, slamming on the brakes as the SUV barreled after us.
Fuck. They aren’t following us just to report. They’re t
rying to stop me from hiding him out of Sinclair’s reach.
I jumped out of his car, pulling my keys from my pocket as the SUV caught up.
“Get out of their way!” I yelled back at Raphael. I got my car unlocked and looked up, wondering where the damn human was.
He stood in the middle of the parking lot. I licked my lips as I tossed my bag into the car, catching his scent on the wind. It was even less human than it had been before. It was like he was constantly…changing. Every time I tasted his scent, it was a different amount of human, fluctuating back and forth.
“RAPHAEL!” I roared as the SUV drove for him instead of me.
As it slowed down next to him, he turned to me, and yes, his eyes were very red now. There was no missing the red eyes or the black, inky lines radiating out from them. He ran for the slowing SUV and slammed his shoulder into it.
I just stood there, feeling stupid.
The SUV’s side crumbled with a Raphael-sized dent. He reached down as it completely stopped, grabbed the bottom, then lifted.
Now, I had seen people lift cars before, even big SUVs. Even for strong supernatural species, it was something they had to work to do. I definitely couldn’t. I was fast, but I was only as strong as any human, deceptively fragile.
Raphael lifted the side of the SUV with ease and rolled it over with a simple toss. It slid away, upside down nearly twenty feet. The black, inky lines were spreading slowly over his face.
He’s not human. He’s not fucking human. What the fuck is he? What the hell is even going on anymore?
I didn’t move as he jogged in my direction and jumped into the passenger seat. I kept staring at the SUV, my mouth gaping.
“Look, I’m deciding to trust you! Get in before they get out!” he growled across the front seats.
I hurriedly got into my car, turned it on, and raced out of the parking lot, my heart pounding. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Nothing was making any sense. When he’d been talking inside his apartment, he’d sounded like he was trying to convince himself he was human. Maybe he used to be, but he certainly wasn’t anymore. And that made even less sense to me because of the reaction my body was having to him, the need to bite him was generally reserved for two species—humans and other nagas. He was obviously neither. I licked the air and ended up more baffled.
His scent keeps changing. He’s more human now than he just was. What’s the other thing in his scent? What is he?
Driving in silence, hands tight on the wheel, I tried to consider everything I knew. No supernatural species could take human form and fool everyone. A fae’s body temperature fluctuated when they did magic. Werewolves and werecats still smelled like animals when they were in human form. Nagas all had the same sort of scent, and our temperatures fluctuated a little.
Thinking back to when I first saw him, Raphael had run hot, much hotter than I had ever seen before, including werewolves and werecats, who were generally the warmest bunch in the room. I hadn’t stopped to consider how warm he was to the touch when I had grabbed his wrist. I should have.
“Where are we going?” he asked after nearly fifteen minutes.
“My home. I have safe rooms, and only three living people know where it is, so it’s as secure as we’re going to find. We’re going to keep talking about things when we get to my place, okay?”
“Yeah. Your phone is buzzing in your bag.”
“It can wait,” I said, swallowing. There weren’t many options about who it could be—Paden, Carter, maybe Cassius, or the naga I had texted. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to any of them, so I decided, for the rest of the evening I was just going to focus on the human beside me.
The human, but not-human, rather.
I drove fast, turning hard to get onto my dirt road. I pulled into the garage and got out of the car before Raphael could say anything. I didn’t grab my bag, going inside straight for my kitchen.
First things first—I had to milk my venom. Even through shock and fear, the painful ache of my fangs and my overly productive venom glands needed to be treated. The only thing that ever felt like it was a bad sinus infection, probably because my venom glands took up some of the space where I should have had sinus cavities. Raphael followed me in slowly, holding both of our bags, and dropped them on the table.
“Kaliya, right? Look, I know this is crazy—”
“Shut up and give me a minute,” I snapped, grabbing a plastic cup from the back of my Tupperware shelf.
I wedged it under my fangs and flexed the muscles that pushed venom. Several drops began to fall, enough to kill probably fifty people. It felt endless, and the ache continued for a long time, but eventually, the pressure was gone, and the ache receded. I kept going, trying to force my reservoir of venom to empty. Once I was positive it was nearly dry and wouldn’t give me anymore, I put the cup down, grabbed another glass, and filled it with water. I gargled for twenty seconds, then spit it into my sink. I couldn’t accidentally ingest my venom right now.
“Sorry,” I mumbled when I was done. “I don’t use my venom enough, and sometimes I have to milk it.” It was a convenient excuse but partly true. It was a lie because normally, I only had to milk them every three months if I didn’t use them to kill anything, which was the proper way to regulate the venom. I had milked only a month ago. I was going to have to start doing it a lot more often if I had any hope of living comfortably anymore.
“Fuck,” was the only reply he had for me.
“Yeah. Some species have normal human forms, no different from any other human. Nagas aren’t like that. We’re a bit snake no matter what. When you’re in this world, you have to be prepared for anything because we all have tricks up our sleeves.” I straightened up and looked at him. His eyes were back to a medium brown like coffee with a touch of milk. There was no evidence of the strange black inky lines that had been radiating out from them, and the whites of his eyes were once again white.
“Now, it’s time to stop lying. Everyone thinks you’re human, but you’re not. What are you?”
He turned again, angry all of a sudden, maybe at my accusation, maybe at something deeper I couldn’t see.
“I was hoping since you know so much, maybe you could tell me.”
Fuck indeed.
10
Chapter Ten
“You have no idea what you are?” I asked, sagging against my counter. “None at all?”
“If I did, I damn sure would have told someone, but my best guess is that I’m a fucking freak!” he snarled at me. I watched the red flash in his eyes and hated the bolt of both attraction and fear that ran through me. I didn’t know what he was, except he presented as completely human.
Until he wasn’t.
“What can you do, and when did it start?” I needed all the information I could get.
“Since you don’t have any idea of what I am, why should I tell you any of that?” he said, grabbing the back of one of my dining room chairs. I was beginning to hate his temper. It was a beast unto itself, and I needed him to keep it on a leash. Too bad I had a similar problem.
“Because I might know someone who can use it to find out what you are!” I yelled back, knowing my eyes were beginning to change in anger. My pupils would go vertical when I was angry. “Cut the fucking attitude with me, asshole! I’ve only been trying to help you since we met!”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he growled. This time, I got to see the change in his face as it happened. The whites of his eyes turned black around his black pupils. The lines bled out from there, looking like they followed his blood vessels. They didn’t go very far.
My fangs were still down, and I knew I could maybe get half a drop of venom out of them. If push came to shove, I could kill one person with that venom before it replenished.
Too bad, I also knew it would be completely ineffectual on Raphael.
“We’re…not doing this right,” I decided. “I’m going to need you to calm down and explain things to me, Raphael. I need
to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”
He took several deep breaths, and I watched the signs of his less than human nature disappear. His scent changed from unknown back to his human scent.
“I’m sorry. I’m stressed out. This is…a lot,” he conceded. “It started that night when I…killed my friends. While I was at that place, they kept pushing me further. I lose complete control if it goes too far.” He rolled up a sleeve of his jacket, and I saw a scar that went all the way around his wrist.
“Is that from them binding you?” I asked, wondering how tight something would have to be to cause that sort of scar.
“No. It’s from where they cut my hand off and let it heal back on,” he explained softly. He covered it back up and lifted his shirt. There were at least seven gunshot scars on his abdomen, all healed and scarred. “They’ve shot at me a lot. Every time I get caught and have to run. But it’s like I don’t feel them when they happen, not while I’m like that. I feel them later, as they try to heal. It’s not immediate, and I have to put pressure on them, but I can heal from a gunshot like these in twenty-four hours. Less if I’m…”
“How long did it take your hand?” I was breathing too hard, too mystified by the man in front of me and what he could apparently do.
“It was reattached within a few hours, but it took a few days for feeling to come back, an entire week for full mobility.”
“And you spent five years there,” I mumbled.
“Getting my blood drawn, getting cut open and looked at, getting drugged up and told to fight things. Yeah,” he said, nodding.
Blood drawn.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Hold on for me. I have to do something.” I had left my venom sitting there on the counter like an idiot.
I grabbed a set of keys and unlocked a small cabinet in my kitchen and pulled out a blood draw set, tourniquet, needle, and tube. While he watched, I tied off the tourniquet and stabbed myself right in the vein and drew a vial of my own blood. Without pause, I poured the blood into the small cup of venom and watched them duke it out. I was immune to my own venom and acted as a natural neutralizing agent for it. A naga’s venom was only stoppable by that naga’s blood. There was no anti-venom, though some had tried, which didn’t work because the venom composition for each naga was unique and the effects wildly differed. Someone would have to successfully synthesize anti-venom for each individual naga, which was damn near impossible.
