by Kiki Howell
If Conrad screwed up Walker’s relationship with the Dawn Court, it would be his head on the block, not the Tylwyth Teg’s.
“Accepted.” Walker steepled his fingers. “Now, your letter stated that you needed a lift to the County of Tears?”
Conrad forced a smile. “Yes.”
“To see the count?”
“Not your business.”
“Well, I’d say it is. Because I could just dump you on the outskirts of the county and let you make your way through the Borderlands on foot.”
The fucker would do that, too. And the Borderlands changed. What could take someone a couple of hours on foot today might take them a month tomorrow. It was the price paid for being the magical realm that bordered the more stable human and fae worlds. Walker could delay his mission for weeks, if he was unlucky.
“To meet the count.”
“There, that wasn’t so hard.”
“Next time you try and force my hand, you might want to think who my employer is, and what they might do if you decided to leak any sensitive information.”
“I figure you’re inventive enough to be able to come up with a reasonable answer that won’t cause either of us any problems.”
The smooth bastard. Conrad kind of – sort of – admired him. The rest of the time he wanted to murder him. Slowly.
“So when can you leave?”
“Four days.”
“Four days?”
He’d be stuck in this shithole of a place for almost a week?
“That’s the next opening I have. Take it or leave it.”
“Fine.”
Those dark eyes stared at him, something wicked glinting in their depths. “Is that everything?”
Conrad stood. “For now.”
He had a Succubus to track down.
Chapter Six
“I’M EVERYBODY’S TYPE.”
– Lori Hardcastle
Gods, when would this pain end?
Lori lay in only a bra and panties on a soft mattress. Her limbs were trembling, and her skin was on fire.
“How’d we get back here? Are you okay?” Lori craned her neck to check Carol for Pixie bites. She couldn’t remember much from after they left the hotel, just that they’d been in the street and Carol had been swarmed by those sharks.
The little assholes.
Carol had a dark purple bruise spreading over her cheekbone, and a swollen lip, but no missing chunks of flesh. Would a mostly-human be able to heal that on their own?
It’s my fault, she’d been waiting for me. And if I’d been able to help...
“Don’t blame yourself.” Carol placed a damp cloth on Lori’s forehead. Water trickled down her temples, saturating her hair. It didn’t matter, the pillow was already soaked from her sweat. Lori hoped Carol wouldn’t make her do the laundry afterward.
“How do you know—?” Telepathy hadn’t been in her friend’s skillset before.
Carol rolled her eyes. “I know what you’re like. I chose to wait for you, and I chose to engage the bloody Pixies. And it would have worked out in the end, if that thing hadn’t happened.”
Lori shifted uncomfortably, but at least the pain had ebbed slightly. It seemed to come in cycles. “Wait, what thing?”
She only remembered blackness.
Carol bit her lip. “Uh, nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“I think you should rest.”
“Tell me, bitch.” It was the strange thing about their relationship – when they took to calling each other names, they knew that it was serious.
“Fine.”
“Well?”
“When you passed out, you screamed, and then this wash of energy came flooding out of you. It only affected the Pixies, but they were screaming, contorted in agony. One of them died.”
Lori had no recollection of any of that. “Was it me?”
“I think so, but I can’t be sure. No magic.” And Carol smiled, a self-depreciating expression that made Lori suspicious.
“Wait, you said one died?” That didn’t sit well with Lori. Sure, the Pixies had been pricks bent on killing them, but she wasn’t a killer. Except for that one time.
Carol shrugged. “Yeah, that I saw. They left the body behind and ran. But they’ll come back for it.”
Lori winced, and it wasn’t from the pain in her body. Why did she always have to fuck everything up so badly?
Carol replaced the wet cloth on Lori’s forehead. “I told you I had a bad feeling.”
“You always have a bad feeling when I feed,” Lori mumbled, guilt doing funny things to her insides. And then the pain came back.
Her friend snorted.
Taking a deep breath, Lori tried to fight the burning in her limbs. It took her several heartbeats before she could reply. “You’re a bloody mother hen.”
Considering Lori was about twenty years older, the ridiculousness hadn’t escaped her.
“It’s because you take risks. You don’t need to.”
“I’m not going to go and kill humans.” Especially not after this.
“You don’t know that you will.” Carol pressed the cloth down more firmly. It hurt. But then, everything hurt.
“Ow.”
The problem was, Lori did know she’d kill a human if she fed from one, and she couldn’t have sex and not feed. She’d tried. When her powers had first activated, she’d been like a cat in heat. Anything and anyone had appealed.
Lori had even moved to the Human World for a brief period, hoping to lose her father’s spies and that the lack of magic in that realm would reduce her hunger. It hadn’t worked, at least not on the suppressing part. And then she’d had fewer prey to choose from. Well, hundreds more humans, but far fewer fae. Eventually, she’d been so starved she’d slept with a married mortal couple, who’d offered to pay her for the privilege.
They’d died.
With smiles on their faces, yes, but they’d died.
Lori absorbed a person’s lifeforce through the release of sexual energy. And while humans had a similar amount of lifeforce to fae, they didn’t have the ability to replenish it quickly. Magic fueled the soul in the fae world, but it was a human’s own internal energy that powered theirs. No magic – and a starving Succubus – meant a human’s lifeforce was drained too quickly; the body could no longer sustain the spirit, and it withered. And because a person’s magical ability was tied to their soul, Lori also accidentally stole that, too. She’d never heard of a Succubus having that ability before, but since all of her kind were meant to be extinct, it wasn’t like she could ask anyone.
And she was only a halfbreed.
For a long time, she’d hated herself, but in the last few years, she’d learned that she was who she was, and that it had probably helped her survive this long, especially with the Hunter dead, and no one to regulate the fae and their misdeeds.
Even though she’d accidentally stolen people’s abilities, some had proven useful, like the person who’d been able to open portals anywhere – they hadn’t even been a Tylwyth Teg. Taking that power was how she’d managed to get to New Vegas. Plus, the stolen powers always returned to their rightful owners, so she’d never had an enraged fae feel the need to track her down.
“Did he poison you?” Carol’s words took a while to penetrate her thoughts.
Blinking, Lori took in her friend’s concerned face, but she couldn’t get a fix on her friend’s emotions. “No, I think this is tied to his ability.”
“His ability causes him pain all the time? He didn’t seem to be suffering in that place.” The way she said it, she may as well have used the word ‘cesspit’. Talk about competitiveness.
No, he hadn’t seemed to have any issues at all. And then in the hotel room? He’d been nothing but a sexual inferno. It had been the best sex of her life, and that was saying something. She’d stayed for seconds, thirds, through to tenths. And he’d been able to keep up. Purebloods sure as hell were a lot stronger than she’d thought.
Plus, if his gift made him feel even half as bad as she did right now, he wouldn’t have been able to perform. Hell, she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to have sex again, the way her body ached.
“Maybe his ability mutated in a new host?” Lori suggested.
“Possibly.” Although Carol didn’t look convinced.
Lori thought it was more than likely, although he hadn’t exactly looked like the kind of guy who was an empath. But how else would she be suddenly picking up on other people’s emotions? Like she had in the hotel hallway?
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
But what a cover. He’d been ripped with muscle, and had scars over his delectable skin, and then there’d been that tattoo she hadn’t paid that much attention to at the time. It had looked a little like a stylized rising sun, on the nape of his neck, just under his hairline. She’d heard some courtiers had marks like that, but usually knights.
He could be a knight.
A fae knight with empathy as his talent? A rather incongruous combination.
Then again, she was a half-Succubus bastard who was set to inherit all the powers of the White Queen’s former executioner. Who was she to quibble?
“Here, I’ve got this elixir. It might help.” Carol tilted Lori’s head up, and then dribbled some syrupy solution into her mouth.
It tasted like burned mandarin. She gagged.
“Swallow it.”
Lori choked it down, then muttered, “That’s what she said.”
“I’d ask if you ever thought about anything other than sex, but since you’re a Succubus...”
“Where’d you get it?”
“It’s something I’ve had in the cupboard. It’s for magically induced pain.”
Maybe Lori should have asked about what she was drinking before Carol had tipped it down her throat.
Not long afterward, Lori’s body relaxed into the mattress, and she heard Carol leave. But the pain lingered, firing along her nerve endings, and burning through her veins. But despite the discomfort, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Instead, the agony slowly built and built, until it was all she could feel, see and hear, her screams trapped in her throat.
Chapter Seven
“I’M SORRY, BUT WAS someone talking about me? I thought I heard the word ‘legend’?”
– Conrad Death
He’d always known the Borderlands were like the mythical Wild West, except with magic, and a landscape that liked to hurt people. But damn, did they have to play to the stereotypes so much?
No one liked to talk about anyone. They never saw anything. They never heard anything. And the dead Pixie? Gone by the time he’d returned to the hotel. And since Conrad didn’t have his ability, he couldn’t easily coerce people into talking. That didn’t mean he couldn’t at all... and he had always enjoyed a good fistfight, but only when he emerged the winner.
Which he always did.
But it certainly didn’t make things easy for him, and he liked it when shit just worked out. So he’d been trawling through the bars, pubs, hotels, hells, and casinos. Finally, he stood outside The Ocelot, which had the feel of a movie set, although he didn’t think that was what the owner was necessarily going for. Nonetheless, a tingling at the base of his spine – he had no idea where that come from – told him this was the right place.
Pushing through the double saloon doors, he strode into a room with a wooden bar, brass fixtures, and electric lighting overhead. Most of the town ran on electricity, but he hadn’t seen a power station, and had no idea if the Borderlands even had coal. Pool tables took up one side of the large taproom, their green felt glowing in the light, and an old-school jukebox stood nearby. Someone had already chosen a death metal song.
A woman was polishing glasses behind the bar, and she gave him a glare that would have expired him on the spot, had she any magic behind it. Her long sunshine-colored hair was tied back, but its burnt-orange tips were still visible. Bingo. Conrad remembered seeing her last night at the bar, with the lovely Thorne. She’d scowled at him as the Succubus had approached. A jealous lover?
Huh.
He really liked the mental picture of Thorne and another chick. You should be angry right now, not fantasizing about the Succubus with another woman.
Strolling to the bar, he leaned on the counter, and gave the blonde his most winning smile.
She put the glass down she’d been cleaning, and snapped out the towel. “We’re closed.”
“You look open.”
Phrasing.
Nice one, Inner Conrad.
He struggled to keep his smirk under control. To hide it, he glanced over his shoulder at the patrons who were happily nursing beers, the Kobolds who were playing pool – standing on milk crates – and at the television, which blared a human sports game. Some kind of football? The one where they didn’t actually kick the ball, just ran around holding it.
Idiots.
“We’re closed for you.” The woman’s dark-blue eyes narrowed. She had a bruise on her cheek.
“Come now, that isn’t a good way to treat a potential customer.” What the hell was wrong with her? Chicks usually loved him. To the point where he practically had to beat them off with a stick.
Totally a jealous lover.
A wretched scream reverberated down from the ceiling and the woman tensed, then dropped the cloth into the sink of soapy water. She hurried away, toward a closed door. “Watch the bar!”
He didn’t see who she shouted the command at – he doubted it was him – and he sprang over the counter after her. He recognized that screaming voice, just not the pain that was distorting it. He rushed through the doorway after the woman, only to draw up short.
A knife was pressed to his throat. The human was standing just inside the corridor, a fierce light in her eyes. “I don’t know who you are, but you can fuck off.”
He leaned into the sharp blade, skin splitting open in a sharp burst of pain. But physical discomfort was something he was used to. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you’ve got Thorne up there, and she took something of mine.”
The human’s eyes went wide, and then she pressed the knife deeper. His shirt grew damp with blood, the iron-rich scent filling the air. Could she slice his throat open? Would she?
She didn’t move. “Can you help her?”
“Maybe.”
He wasn’t about to commit to more than that, because he didn’t know how she’d taken his power. Or if she’d be able to return it. I want it back.
Slowly, she lowered the weapon and stepped away. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t trust you. One false move and you’re dead.”
They were big words for a human, but as she spoke, something skittered over her face. It was hard to describe, like there was a second skin waiting underneath. All the same, Conrad’s every sense screamed that she was just a human with a strange dye job.
“Fine.”
He was only agreeing to be polite, because even if she had been fae, he’d been raised to kill people. It was second nature to him now. He seriously doubted she’d be able to hurt him more than she already had – and his wound had already started to close.
It was lucky his regeneration abilities hadn’t been stolen along with his core magic. He’d always been able to heal quickly. Some fae could only repair damage at the same rate as a human, some so quickly it was like the wound had never been. Conrad was more like the latter, which implied that he was pretty damn pureblooded. Not that he knew who his parents were...
After studying him for a few more moments, the human turned on her heel. She stormed down the hallway, then up a flight of narrow stairs. He followed, and they emerged onto a landing. A series of doors marked the expanse, and the carpet runner was a threadbare duck egg blue. Another scream tore through the quiet.
The human burst into a run, heading for the door at the far end. She wrenched it open, and then hurried toward a figure huddled in the middle of a bed. Conrad moved in quietly behind h
er, surveying the room and its occupant. A metallic scent – pain? blood? – hit him.
Thorne.
She looked like she was dying.
Her golden skin was pallid, and her large apricot eyes were shadowed with pain. She was panting, her hair wild, but she still looked sexy.
Fuck. Down, boy.
Thankfully, he hadn’t gotten an erection at the sight of her. Even he would have to doubt his psyche then. Women in pain are not hot. Even Succubi in pain.
But she still looked the same to him as the night before. Had she not shape-shifted for him in the first place? Was she really that beautiful? Or was she shifted even now?
“Thorne!” The human leaned down and shook the Succubus.
Such misery. But her cries stopped. “What?”
“Stop screaming.”
“Sorry. They just escaped.”
“The medication wore off. I’ll get you some more.”
“No.” Thorne was shaking her head, hair sticking to her sweat-dampened face.
“It worked,” the woman said.
“No, it didn’t. It just paralyzed me. I could still feel the pain.”
What the hell had the human given her?
“I’ll find something else.” Turning, the woman started, surprised to see him in the doorway. Like she’d forgotten their little spat already.
“Come with me.”
“No deal.” He shook his head. “I’ll wait with Thorne.”
At his voice, Thorne craned her neck to see him, and then blanched. He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not leaving you with her.”
“I’m not leaving. So either you go and find this ‘medicine’ or you stay here with me.”
Thorne smoothed away a few strands of hair with a shaking hand. “Carol, it’s okay.”
