Byrne’s hand stopped for a moment, before resuming the gentle movement. “Narrow-minded bigots. We had a run in with them, picked up some injuries, that’s why we’re heading out.”
Hannah looked past Byrne to the man lying in the back of the cart. If Byrne had been injured, he would have healed by now, no doubt. A human, on the other hand...The alcohol might have served a different purpose than her original suspicion. “He came off the worse for wear?”
“He screwed someone’s wife. They weren't happy about it.”
Hannah scrunched her nose.
“I hadn’t gone into town.” With his free hand, he pointed at his eyes. “But I had a little run in with them in the forest. They chased Fin there, trying to kill him.”
She had no idea what Byrne’s temperament was like when attacked, but he was a bear. They were rumored to be fearsome. “Did you eat anyone?” She didn’t figure it was a rude question. While weres typically didn't consume human flesh, they still could. According to her mother, it had once been the only thing they were able to eat.
Byrne rolled his eyes. “Human steak isn’t really my thing.”
The blankets rustled loudly, and Byrne’s companion groaned. “Isn’t...a...pork man.”
Byrne looked over his shoulder. “Fin, are you conscious?”
“Unfortunately.” It was almost drawled. “Why did I hear a baby crying?”
Byrne shook his head. “Because there’s a baby crying.”
There was silence, the rustling of cloth and more pain-sounds. The man had quite a library of them. “Where’d you find a baby?”
Byrne’s mouth quirked. “I saw one on the side of the road.”
“What?”
“A woman and a baby were traveling down this path.”
“Right.” The blanket mound fell silent for a second. “Is she hot? The mother, not the baby.”
“What?” Hannah spluttered.
“No, she’s hideous.”
Hannah gaped at Byrne. He winked one bright yellow eye.
It was surprising the amount of suspicion packed into blanket man’s voice. “You’re lying.”
“All right. You caught me. She’s only mildly attractive.”
“Mildly?”
Byrne grinned then. “What? I’m honest.”
It was a good thing Hannah wasn’t particularly vain. The baby started to whimper. Byrne shushed her gently.
“You’re making the baby cry, Byrne. I bet it’s allergic to your lies.” Hannah heard the human’s murmur through the blankets, although she didn’t think she was meant to. She barked a surprised laugh.
“Help me sit,” the blanket man demanded.
Byrne was clearly debating whether or not to return the infant to her. Deciding to hand her back, he quietly said, “We’ll talk more later.”
The bear pulled aside some of the man’s covers and the smell of alcohol grew stronger. “I don’t think you should sit up, Fin.”
A grunt, then, “Need to piss.”
Byrne sighed. “I’ll help you up. But wait till I get you out the back of the cart.”
Hannah heard a muttered “no shit”. Byrne helped the human up, and Hannah’s skin tingled at her first sight of him, imagined pain throbbing along her own limbs. Black and purple bruises were spread across his face in a panorama of pain. Both eyes were swollen shut, and his nose looked like it had been broken and reset. Byrne handled the human with excessive care, not that the man realized, she thought. She had the feeling that she was intruding on something private — perhaps she should milk Betty. At least then she could feed the baby, who would no doubt be hungry soon.
Byrne shuffled past with the human, pretty much carrying the man. He was careful to avoid contact with her. Over his shoulder, he said, “Ride with us for a while, we’re heading to Skarva, too.”
Hannah considered, then nodded at the were. It was a risk, a huge one, but she and the were both had vulnerable humans in their care. She didn’t think he’d do them any harm. She could be certain of that assumption, if only she touched him, but she didn’t want to risk the inundation, the loss of self. Hannah wouldn’t be able to protect the baby if he wanted to take her away and she was lost in his memories.
Life had just gotten more complicated.
Chapter 21
Pinton City
Blood.
It was everywhere. Alice didn’t think she’d ever seen so much. Not even that time she’d sneaked over to the blood den on a dare, to watch when vampires drank from willing humans. Alice stared at her hand, like it belonged to someone else; her fingers were smeared in the sticky red substance, coated from touching the doorframe. She stood just inside the door, staring blankly at her fingers like an idiot, unable to move, unable to even really think. The blood was still warm, like it had just been pumped from its source.
She didn’t want to take another step, to walk further into the nightmare that awaited her. The smell of iron permeated the air, until she thought she could taste it. She didn’t want to see the prone figure on the bed. Something wild and hot welled inside her, and she was torn between screaming and crying. She had no idea tears were snaking their way down her face, not until their salty tang overrode the metal flavor in the air.
Her nightdress hung below her knees, but she suddenly felt naked. Stripped and exposed, as if every shameful and secret thought she’d ever had was on display. Her bare feet squelched as she forced herself further into her mother’s bedroom. Her heart pounded a fast, terrified beat. She knew what she would find under the dark-soaked sheets.
“Mom?” her voice came out strangled, tear-choked.
No response. But it had to be her, Alice knew it. Wait, where was her brother? Where was—
“Ashok?”
Movement out of the corner of her eye had her looking sharply to the side. And there was pain, so much of it. It radiated from the center of her chest, a starburst of agony that didn’t seem to end. Looking down, she saw the knife handle protruding from her sternum.
And then she saw nothing.
Alice woke with a gasp, hand clutching the blankets to her chest like a shield. Her sternum ached with remembered pain. Absently, she rubbed the scar under her nightdress, picturing it, silvered against her pale brown skin, a needless reminder of something she could never forget. Slowly sitting up, she brushed strands of curly hair from her face. Sweat stuck a few tendrils to her forehead.
She’d been foolish to think she’d grown out of the nightmare completely, just because she hadn’t had it for a while. It had been almost nine months since the last time. Just after the attack, she hadn’t been able to imagine a time when the nightmare wouldn’t haunt her sleep. Every detail of it was so real. The metallic stench. The burst of fear. That night had stripped away her dreams for the future.
It had been such a defining point in her life, the attack. It had occurred just days after her fourteenth birthday. In one fell swoop, she’d lost her mother, her brother. And there had been the pain, pain such as she thought she’d never survive.
After she’d been stabbed, she’d woken up in the local hospital, the sawbones telling her she was lucky to be alive. The City Guard had found her lying on the floor in the blood-soaked bedroom, the knife still in her chest. Days later, she’d been standing unsteadily and against medical advice, in the city morgue — the old one, not hers — next to her predecessor, watching the red shroud being pulled back to reveal her mother’s face. Raylene Reive had been stabbed fifteen times — once in the neck, the rest in her torso. Her mother had been so vibrant: her brown spiral curls had seemed to bounce with pure joy, and her smile had been sincerity incarnate. And she’d had lustrous blue eyes that had melted everyone’s hearts. But in death, she’d been so still...so empty.
There were no words to describe how Alice had felt that day, or in the days after, when she closed her eyes and saw the shroud being lowered, as if in slow-motion.
Now every time she pu
lled down the covering of a new corpse in her morgue — or out in the city — she would remember that heart-rending moment, and would dread that under the cloth cover would be someone she knew, someone she loved.
She’d lost Ashok, too. Even now, he was a missing persons cold case. The City Guard had thought that her brother had also been attacked. There’d certainly been enough blood in the bedroom for a second victim. But they’d never found his body. Perhaps he’d crawled off to die. Perhaps he’d been abducted. No one knew.
If not for Tal and Aunt Zara, her paternal aunt, she’d have been completely lost. As it was, she’d spent a good year in a haze, not knowing her head from her butt. Aunt Zara had started calling her Ghost Alice. Yet she’d emerged from her self-enforced cocoon eventually, to a world that was exactly the same as it had been before. It had been shocking to make that discovery — that everything fundamental in a person’s life could be ripped away, and yet the world just went on. It couldn’t care less about her and her losses. It just kept spinning, and people kept on living the lives they had lived before.
Enough memories. Swiveling so that her feet touched the floor, Alice dropped the bedsheet from stiff fingers. She pulled the sweat-soaked nightshirt over her head and threw it in the dirty clothes basket, before walking into her bathroom. It was tiny, but it had a shower, a toilet and a sink. It was all she needed. And right now, she just needed to wash the rancid smell of fear, loss and pain from her skin.
Chapter 22
Oberona Mountains
Byrne had found a woman and a baby. Just wandering around on the slopes of the Old Mother. Did the cart have a sign on it that said “Trouble, please hop aboard”? Fin had to wonder.
Why else would Byrne pick up a woman and a baby?
Then the sound of bleating reached his poor, abused ears.
A woman, baby and a goat?
“Did I just hear a goat?” Fin demanded. He wished he could glare at Byrne, but his eyes were too swollen.
The bear grunted. “Does it matter?”
“Everything matters,” Fin said darkly. Byrne laid him back down on the pine-needle mattress. Fin had needed to visit the little boys’ room — well, the bush next to the path. He hoped the woman hadn’t been watching; he wasn’t at his finest right now. No doubt his poor cock and balls weren’t in their best shape, either. Not that he could see them to verify it.
“Do we have anything to eat?”
“Here,” Byrne thrust something at him.
Propping himself up with care, Fin took hold of it. From the feel of it, it was flat bread. A tentative mouthful of soft chewy goodness confirmed it, although it hurt to work his jaw. It didn’t have much flavor, but that might be because with his smashed nose, his sense of taste was non-existent. “Where did you get bread from?”
“I made some, while you were unconscious.”
Nice.
His face hurt, but it had been a couple of days since Fin had eaten anything. His stomach grumbled even though he finished his bread, and a slight feeling of nausea spread upward into his throat. It was probably all that laudanum. “Water?”
Byrne muttered something suspiciously like, “When did your last slave die off?” but still handed Fin a tin cup of water.
Fin sipped carefully, and then passed the cup back. “What are you talking about? My slave’s still alive.”
“But you may not be for much longer.”
“My confidence in you is higher than it was two days ago. Laudanum?” He knew he must have sounded a little like an addict. Byrne passed him a teaspoon of the liquid gold, and Fin swallowed it with a grimace.
“What happened two days ago?”
The unfamiliar voice was low, raspy and sent shivers up Fin’s spine. Then again, that could just have been the pain. He wished he could see this woman’s face; with that voice, she had to be hot. And even if she wasn’t, she could still talk to him in the dark...
Although, maybe he should give up on women for a while. Things clearly weren’t working out for him in that area.
Fin waved a stitched hand at his face. “This happened. Cos my best friend couldn’t be assed saving me on time.”
Byrne humphed. “I already explained that.”
That sexy voice again. “Well, if you sleep with someone’s wife, their husband is bound to be a bit annoyed.”
Fin turned his head toward where he thought Byrne was. “You told her that?”
He pictured the bear shrugging. “We were sharing.”
Fin would have snorted, if he could. “Asshole.”
“Prick.”
“Dickwad.”
“Milk-livered apple-john.”
Fin paused. “Milk-livered? Apple-john? Where are you coming up with these?”
Soft laughter floated through the air. “You are both acting like five year olds.”
“But good-looking five year olds,” Fin said. Not that she’d be able to see much of his pretty face at the moment, but he thought he should let her know about his excellent looks in advance. It was only fair.
“Let’s get moving,” Byrne said. “We’re not going anywhere, but the daylight is.”
“Will we make the next town before dark?” the woman asked.
“Hopefully. Climb in the back. There’s room for you and the baby.”
There was silence, but after a few seconds, the cart shifted under Fin as someone climbed into the storage area with him. He heard Byrne pull the cover up.
“I tied Betty to the back of the cart; is that okay?” The woman was obviously talking to Byrne, not him. She had to be referring to the stupid goat, since the horse was called Baldy. Fin didn’t like goats. They tended to butt people and eat everything. Including his shoes. He liked his shoes. Luckily his feet — with boots attached — were inside the wagon.
Plus, what kind of a name was Betty? So stereotypical.
“No problem. Can she keep up?”
“Yes, she’s just easily distracted.” Fin swore he could hear a scowl in her voice.
The cart moved again, from side to side now. Byrne must have been climbing into the driving seat. “Baldy isn’t moving too fast, anyway.” Then they were off.
“Baldy?” The woman’s voice was louder now; she might be next to him.
Byrne’s deep voice rolled over them. “You can blame Fin for that one.”
“What?” Fin bristled. “It’s a dignified name.” The horse was a piebald, and he hadn’t been about to call her Pie. That was just stupid.
“Baldy? Dignified?”
“Don’t judge. Didn’t I hear that the baby hasn’t got a name?” Although that could have been the laudanum wearing off.
Some shuffling, then her low, delicious voice. “I only found her yesterday. I haven’t had time to think of a name.”
“Found her?” He had clearly missed out on some juicy information while he had been passed out. Women didn’t normally refer to giving birth as ‘finding’ their baby. And he didn’t think he stuffed the translation up. Languages were kind of his thing.
“She was abandoned.” The woman’s tone didn’t invite any further questions.
But Fin had so many...
Byrne spoke over the clop clop of hooves. “Baby is Graced. Was left on the slopes of the Old Mother by the Trsetti.”
Well, that answered some of his more pressing questions. There was a squeak and a lot of rustling next to him. The woman was probably freaking out that he knew about Graceds, or that he and Byrne talked about them so casually. But she wouldn’t be able to see his eye color, so wouldn’t know he was a half-blood himself.
Fin pulled the blanket up to his chin. The mountain air was cold. “Graced. Huh. What color?”
There was silence for a few heartbeats. “Green,” the woman said.
Fin exhaled. “Maybe that’s why my head hurts.”
“Your head hurt before we found the baby,” Byrne said helpfully.
“True.” But baby Gre
ens had trouble controlling their ability. They often sought out the comfort of other minds. The best result was a Green to Green, as the mature Green could send calming thoughts back, but for others, it was like someone was tickling their brains. It was...discomforting. But Fin had pretty strong shields; even his annoying sisters couldn’t break through them. And they had tried.
Nosy. No sense of privacy.
It didn’t help that Marcia, Fin’s eldest sister, was the strongest Blue he’d ever met, and she had an ego to match. No emotion was safe from her empathic abilities. Then there was Naomi, who had Gray eyes and a serene composure he figured was hard won, considering she was a year younger than Marcia. Plus, you had to be composed when you could demolish buildings with a thought. Privately, he was glad he didn’t have telekinesis. Then there was his twin sister, Faith, was a fearsomely powerful Green, and it was proximity to her in the womb that must have led to his developing strong, natural shields. Otherwise her telepathy would have probably turned his brain to mush before he’d been born. His youngest sibling, Petra, was a Brown, and had no ability whatsoever, although they had taught her some shields.
And every one of them gave Fin grief.
Man, he missed them.
Sometimes.
No doubt they would have agreed with Byrne and left him for dead as well. They’d often said he needed a forcible injection of sense.
Into the silence, he said, “What about Finlay?”
The woman made a startled noise. “What?”
“For the baby. Finlay. Clearly, it’s a great name.”
Byrne laughed sharply.
“Finlay?” The woman repeated. So much skepticism, so few words.
“Fin obviously hasn’t strayed too far from home for name ideas,” Byrne called back into the wagon.
“Right.”
It occurred to Fin that he didn’t know what she was called. “What’s your name?”
“Hannah.”
He raised a hand, as if to touch her arm — where he thought it was — but he heard material swish back away from him. “Nice to meet you?” He hadn’t meant to make it a question, but he was surprised by her reaction.
Bitten (The Graced Series Book 2) Page 9
