“He’s a fucking fairy.”
I didn’t hide my contempt. “That’s all he did? That was crossing the line in his case?”
Killian snarled but his eyes held secrets. “It was enough.”
“Wasn’t there anything he could’ve done to make amends? If he’d wanted to stay?”
He kept his back to me. But I sensed something change. A straightening of the shoulders. He was happy. Not in a light and fluffy kind of way.
Had he gotten revenge on Thrace? Punished him? Whatever it was, he felt self-satisfied.
“Did the Feds say when they’re coming out here to search the property?”
Killian turned to me at the neck. Smiling. He was too relaxed. His eyes shrewd. “They didn’t. But they can come anytime they want. They won’t find nothing.”
I understood his meaning. Thrace wasn’t at the werewolves’ Joshua Tree property. But he was somewhere. I was more and more certain that the pack had kidnapped him. They wanted something from him. Money? It was a decent motive. Thrace was richer than these feral people would ever be. Forced to live in rustic isolation.
I shrugged for the benefit of other unseen eyes. “Hopefully they won’t find it necessary.”
We crossed a rise. Beyond it was a shallow valley with mobile homes set up in an ‘H’ pattern. A garden was fenced off on one side. A chicken coop and some goats tethered on the other.
Women were hand-doing laundry. No electrical lines connected the mobile homes to the rest of the world. The women looked up at me. Frazzled hair. Worn clothing. Suntanned skin over strong arms and legs. Children stopped running after each other to stare at us.
“I hadn’t thought there’d be children.” I’d never pictured werewolves as children. As babies. Not even as teenagers.
“What, you think we eat our kids?” Killian wasn’t happy.
I’d fallen into the same stereotypes that ordinary humans had about all manner of preternaturals. “No. I just think of werewolves as very sexual beings. Children aren’t that.”
“No. They ain’t. Anyone touches one of our young-uns and they’d wish they were dead. Literally wish it.”
“I wouldn’t even blame you.”
I think that surprised him. When a werewolf threatened to torture and terrorize someone, most people were probably scared away. My enthusiasm wasn’t typical. In fact, I was pretty sure my desire to protect the innocent was on the extreme edge of socially acceptable behavior.
“Alice! Mabel. Coffee and some bread for our guest. At the meeting table.” He glanced at my horns. “Any of you wanna see a real live devil-girl, come join us.”
It was like he’d opened a set of cages. People swarmed out of the mobile homes. Women dropped their laundry into buckets. Teenagers slipped out from the pile of boulders overlooking the encampment.
I tried to count the werewolves quickly in my head. At least twenty-five people. That was a lot of lycanthropes. It looked more like a cult dwelling. Maybe they had a lot in common with cults. Isolation. Beliefs almost no one else shared. Living in a way that normal people wouldn’t accept or tolerate.
“Sit here.” A young woman, mid-twenties used a rag to wipe off the bench closest to me. “I’m Iris.”
“Bianca.”
She stared at my horns. Unafraid. Intrigued. Wistful. I’d seen children look at my horns like that. As if having them were special instead of a burden. It was refreshing to see an adult so intrigued.
I smiled. “You can touch them.”
One of the teenaged boys was standing near me. Dark hair. Green eyes and full, pouty lips. Lean. Still growing. He reached out. I jerked away, startled. “Not you! Not bare-skinned.”
He pulled back, pride wounded. “I weren’t going to hurt them.”
“I believe you. But they might’ve hurt you.”
He walked around the far side of the table, confused. Still hurt by my reaction. Killian slapped him hard on the back and he flinched.
“She’s a succubus, Boy! And you got something dangling between your legs. They don’t go together! Ain’t we told you about their kind?”
“No, Sir.”
Killian grunted with begrudging delight. “Then I’m glad she’s here. Education for everybody.”
I sat next to Iris. She’d withdrawn her extended fingers. I’d made it clear that the warning was for the boy. All the boys. Killian had reinforced the idea that it was because he was male. Iris apparently decided it wasn’t a good idea for her, either.
I sighed. Maybe she’d miss out on telling her kids about touching a succubus horn someday. But the males would be safer if everyone was afraid.
“A succubus is a demon-girl. Mother sucks the life out of a man when they make a baby.”
“Um, Killian?” I raised a hand respectfully. “May I tell the story? With a little less panache? As your guest?”
“Of course. I reckon you know more about the demonic powers of your own kind.”
I counted to five. Not three. Five. Taking two deep breaths. Ignorance wasn’t the same as hatred. No need to ruin the moment.
“Let me start with my own story. Payment for the coffee and bread.”
I accepted a cup and took a quick sip. Some cultures required small gestures to feel respected. It was habit more than anything conscious. The coffee was bitter, but I smiled and nodded to the woman serving. Then I scanned the eyes of the eagerly waiting werewolves.
“Imagine one of you being born without a pack. Your mother and father dead. Alone in the woods. How much would you know about yourself? Learning everything first hand.”
“That happened to you?” The teenage boy eyed me warily as he asked the question. I’d betrayed his trust by the public rebuke. Some part of me wanted to win it back. It wasn’t his fault he was raised in ignorance.
“It did. I didn’t know what I was. What a touch of their skin on any part of my body could do to a young man.” I held his gaze, even through my sunglasses. “If I’d only made you sick, nothing worse, well, that would’ve meant getting off lightly. I don’t want to ever kill anyone again. Not on accident.”
His eyes flashed wide as he stared down at his hands. When he looked up again, he nodded. Appreciation instead of resentment in his eyes.
“So you have killed.” Killian smiled. “Guess that means you won’t rain down judgment on us.”
“I didn’t come here to judge anyone.” I glanced at a young girl with curly golden hair peering from behind a man who looked enough like her to be her father. “I admit, you’re my first pack. The way I’m your first succubus. I’m here to learn your truths as much as anything.”
The girl’s blue eyes were full of innocence. Not fear. “Why do you have horns?”
She wasn’t growing up in a scary world where her own safety was at risk. Killian wasn’t a bad alpha if the children were brave enough to ask questions. Made it harder to hate the man.
“That’s a very good question—?”
“Hettie.” The father gave me her name with pride. “Five years old and ain’t another one smarter.”
“I see that. Well, Hettie, I have horns the same way you have fangs and claws and fur on the full moon.”
She giggled and covered her mouth. “I ain’t turned yet. You gotta hit pubity.”
“Puberty,” corrected Iris gently.
No familial similarity. She wasn’t the girl’s mother. I looked around. To test my skills. Watching for a mother’s reaction to the girl’s candor. I scanned all the faces, smiling so that they didn’t misinterpret. The woman wasn’t there.
“Did you really not know that puberty was the start?” asked Killian.
“I didn’t do research before I came if that’s what you mean. I was coming to meet fellow preternaturals. Fellow people. Help me keep other preternaturals from going missing.”
“I had my first change two months ago,” said the teenaged boy shyly. As if admitting to his first sexual experience. He blushed deeply.
I frowned. “I don’t m
ean to be disrespectful, but you look older than that.”
He beamed. “Thank you! That’s what everyone says. Bigger an’ my pa was at this age.”
I turned to Killian. “From the accents, your pack has quite a collection of states represented. How’s that?”
He shrugged. “The government sends us to whichever facility has the most openings. Don’t care about uprooting families. Some states won’t let us return from where they plucked us. So we look for homes elsewhere.”
“You were gonna tell us about yourself!” reminded Hettie impatiently.
“So I was. Let’s see, I should elaborate on what I said earlier about touch. In case any of you meet another of my kind, you should understand the dangers.”
“We’re wolves! We can handle anything!” boasted a ruddy boy younger than Hettie. He looked fierce and patted his skinny chest defiantly. His hair was long and tangled. Brown eyes tracking my every movement. No more afraid to speak than Hettie.
I grinned. “Wolves can handle quite a lot, Young Man. But even the strongest person has to be careful. I’ve never tested it, I’ll be honest. But I suspect my ability to drain a man’s lifeforce could do just as much to a werewolf.”
“Prove it!” taunted the boy. He grinned, eager for me to try.
“I—I can’t promise that if I started, I could pull my power back.”
“Killian ain’t afraid!” called the boy.
“Hush, Pete!” said Iris, gently but firmly. “You know silver can make us sick. You’ve seen it.”
The boy nodded, biting his lower lip. “She’s like silver?”
“Might be, Boy.” Killian stood up. “But he’s got the right of it. We should see what happens for our own benefit.”
“Killian, no!” A handsome older woman, lines around her eyes and mouth, jumped up. Touched his arm intimately. “Don’t risk it.”
He turned to her. Kissed her tenderly on the lips. A long, slow kiss. Not his mother or an auntie. It was his woman. Ten, maybe twenty years his elder.
I’d come here wanting to dislike Killian for throwing Thrace out of the pack. I’d even been sure that I would hate him from the way he’d spoken to me at the car. Full of homophobic rage. Sexist point of view. But he kept doing amazingly decent things that made it hard to stick to my plan.
“I’ll do it,” said the teenaged boy.
“Absolutely not,” I replied. “You may have had your first change but you’re too young for this.”
“Stop looking for trouble, Chase. It’ll find you soon enough.” Iris touched my arm. “You got a soft spot for children.”
“I’m not a child!” Chase puffed up like Pete had. I could see the little boy in his face then. Hidden behind a spurt of maturing features. He was angry but I also saw fear. He believed that I could hurt him.
Unfortunately, he was at that age. Boys fighting to be men. If Killian could endure my power, he wanted to prove that he was just as strong.
“Not a child, Chase. But not a seasoned man.” I eyed the others. They watched me apprehensively. I was treading on some well-set rules that I didn’t understand. “How many women have you had? How many babies have you made?”
He had the decency to looked embarrassed again. Kicking the ground nervously. “None.”
“Exactly. My power would ruin your whole future because of that.”
“Oh.” He smiled, relieved. I’d given him a way off the hook. He swam for the safety of that excuse faster than I could have hoped. “I reckon you know more about your power than I do.”
“I do.”
“It’s to be me. Let’s do this.” Killian strode around the roughhewn table and the pack moved aside.
The woman who’d begged him to stop didn’t repeat her protest. Her eyes were on me. Her expression plain. Woman to woman. Beseeching me not to kill her man. To turn him down.
“Your people need you. What if I can’t control myself?” I didn’t tell them I’d been unintentionally fasting. That I had sporadic flashes of power that I couldn’t control. An appetite that came and went of its own volition.
He smiled wickedly. “I’m stronger than you think.”
I swallowed hard. “Then we’d better move over to that clearing. Next to the rocks.”
I didn’t wait for him to follow. I put my back to the mountain of boulders. Sitting on the lowest stone in the outcropping.
I spoke to Iris and the women gathered near her. “If he collapses, drag him away. Keep dragging him until I tell you.”
“They’re my people. You don’t give them orders.”
“She’s trying to keep you alive!” said his woman. Angry at him. “She knows you won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Smarter than I was when I first let you court me.”
“You don’t regret it.” He eyed her playfully. Love in his gaze.
“No. Not a single day.” She fought a bashful smile.
God, don’t let me kill this man! I repeated my prayer several times before I took a deep breath. “Everyone male please stay as far away as the table. Just to avoid spillage.”
“Get on with it, woman. I’m ready.”
Killian pulled his shoulders back, bracing for it. I sighed and gave up. Lowering my shields. My power seeped out toward him. Slowly at first.
It tasted his testosterone. Wild, like Anton’s. Stronger. Savage. Full of life experiences. Or maybe that’s just how much more powerful an alpha felt by his very nature.
My hunger reacted instantly. An icy pit formed in my stomach. My skin grew warm. Crawled with goosebumps as my power surged into him.
The first returning wave of energy was like a heady rush. I’d forgotten what it was like to drink from a human. Warmth spread through my arms and legs. Along the nerves into my cheeks. My fingertips. All my extremities alive. My strength growing proportionately.
He yelped with surprise. His fists clenching as I drew more of his lifeforce. I savored the heat as it began to melt the cold at the center of my belly. Driving away my hunger in a way I hadn’t experienced since my first accidental kill. Even that hadn’t been as satisfying.
“Stop!” I heard a woman cry out. His woman.
I’d closed my eyes. They flashed open. Killian was on his knees. Fighting to stay upright. I tried to shut down my power. Call it back. But I had been right to be afraid. Like someone who’d been dieting for a long time, giving in to dessert, I wanted more. I couldn’t stop myself.
“I can’t!” Speech was difficult. Killian’s lifeforce filled me like a drug. The world swam as I soaked it all in. His spark grew faint. He collapsed on the ground. I didn’t see it. I felt it. “Get him away!”
Someone grabbed him. A woman. My hunger slipped past her. She began carrying him away as I’d instructed. But my power moved just as quickly.
“He’s dying!” I heard her wail. She was right. I could feel his spark start to flutter.
Then someone else was there. Between me and him. Male. Less wild. Less powerful. I flashed my eyes open as I soaked up the first taste of his life.
“No!” It was my turn to scream.
Chase had placed himself in my power’s path. He collapsed almost instantly. But it helped break my connection to Killian. Helped me fight myself. His youthful energy was too innocent. A child despite his protestations. My horror and revulsion broke the spell. I was in control again.
I reeled in my power so hard that the world swirled. Darkness tried to take me. I closed my eyes. Blinking away vertigo. Fighting to stay awake. It took longer to open my eyes between each flutter. Then blackness won and I collapsed into it. At the mercy of some very pissed off werewolves.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I felt the rumble of the motor before I opened my eyes. I was relaxed. My body sated for the first time in decades.
“Glad to see you’re back among the living.”
Chandler’s voice. I gazed at him. Blinking away confusion. He was driving my car. I looked for road signs. We were on the Ten. That meant at least an hour away
from Joshua Tree.
“What happened?”
“You blacked out.”
“To the boy!” I hissed angrily.
“He’s fine. You scared the shit out of him though.”
“Back to sounding American?”
He frowned. “No sense in pretending that being myself is a good thing, is there?”
I sat up, wiping drool from my lips. Not much but enough to be mortified. “No, I guess not.”
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Yeah. Sort of. Killian knows something.” I glanced at him. “Killian survive?”
“Yeah. Out cold but breathing.” He faced me. “What kind of something?”
“He’s been in touch with Thrace. Might even have him. But if so, Anton’s not at the commune. And keep your eyes on the road!”
He faced forward. “I don’t think it’s called a commune.”
“Trust me, whatever it’s called, it’s a commune.”
“If not there, then where? Why’d they take him?”
“I’m guessing money.”
He shook his head. “Gibraltar would never pay a ransom.”
“Not his money. Anton’s.”
That surprised him. “Oh. Kidnap him. Force him to hand over the funds. Then what? Release him? Kill him?”
“I don’t know.” I wriggled again to get comfortable in the seat. “You know, even though it’s my suggestion that they might’ve done it for money, I don’t like the timing. They could’ve done it much sooner. Or later, after he’d earned more. Why now, when Vincent’s been taken.” I jerked fully upright. “Wait! Does Vincent have access to his own personal bank accounts?”
“Some. Maybe a few hundred-thousand. A real kidnapping would’ve netted them millions.”
“A real kidnapping. You know, people keep saying stuff as if they’re being sloppy with their words. But they aren’t. Subconsciously they’re telling me important things.”
He looked over at me and shook his head. “I don’t know that it’s not a real kidnapping. It’s just, there should be a ransom.”
“Exactly. No matter what the motive for taking the boy, there should’ve been a ransom. What’s the difference between a kidnapping with a ransom and without? Procedurally?”
The Billionaire's Heir (Sucubus For Hire Book 1) Page 22
