by Laken Cane
She had no idea of the distance she’d fallen, but when she finally managed to peer up at the opening, it appeared at least forty or fifty feet away.
“What the fuck?” she murmured. Her voice slid into the shadowed crevices, dancing eerily and echoing from the rock walls. It seemed, for an instant, as though other whispers were mocking her.
Areas of her skin were dark blue and purple, seeping and splattered with her own blood. The fall wouldn’t have hurt her so badly had she been able to control it, but she’d thumped and smashed and banged against the walls her entire way to the bottom.
It was cold at the bottom of the well, or whatever she’d fallen into, and it didn’t help that her hair and underclothes were still wet. Shivering, she sat up and glanced at her body.
Fucking Epik. It didn’t matter that he’d likely been ordered to push her into the well, not right then. She was too pissed for it to matter.
She’d been warned about the pike alpha, and she hadn’t been careful enough. She groaned when she tried to stand, and decided to give it a couple more minutes.
Broken bones and smashed organs took a little while to heal.
She put a hand to her chest and took a deep breath. It was not a good time for her claustrophobia to kick in.
But then the smell hit her, clogging her nostrils and attacking her brain. Her impending, panicky claustrophobia inexplicably lessened beneath the odor of rotting death.
The floor of the well was littered with debris. Piles of it. It was then she realized that most of the piles were bones, some still with meat clinging stubbornly.
Finally able to stand, she got to her feet and walked gingerly to one of the skulls, staring at the long strings of bloodstained blonde hair clinging to it.
Then she studied the hole at the top of the well, not really seeing the bright block of sky above. Someone had been using the ominous hole in the ground to dispose of people for a long time.
It was unlikely anyone other than a vampire could have escaped the hole, and even a vampire would have to be pretty damn old to climb, jump, or walk the very tall walls.
It was even more unlikely that anyone could have survived such a fall. A shifter would have been destroyed on impact.
She counted six skulls, and when she used a stick to dig deeper into the rubble, she was unsurprised to find more.
Wormwood had graveyards inside the graveyard. And the one in which she stood…that one was bad.
Real bad.
Obviously Epik and his alpha had no idea what she was. She looked up at the hole again, and curled her lip.
Fucking pushed into a fucking well…
Shit. It was almost insulting.
She’d have no trouble getting out.
She gave a last glance around, and her attention was caught by something shiny in the rubble. She leaned over to snag it, and her breath caught when she held it up to see what she’d found.
A small, silver crucifix.
There were several reasons a silver crucifix might have been found amidst all the bones, and none of them were good.
Others didn’t wear silver crucifixes.
A thin chain was attached to the cross, part of it showing the rusty red stain of old blood. Part of the cross was also bloodstained.
The scent of despair, held in the air by rotting flesh and maggot-filled entrails, became too much for her.
Grimacing at not only the smell but the lingering pain in her head, she and her monster prepared to get the hell out of the horror that lived at the bottom of that well. She dropped the chain over her head.
She ran, then leaped at the walls she’d banged off of when she’d made her hasty descent. She was fast and strong—her monster was unbelievable. She had absolutely no doubt that she’d be able to climb the walls. She scaled them, pushing herself from one wall to the other as she scrambled to the top.
Her feet gained purchase on the slippery, slimy walls, but only for a brief second—then she was pushing off and digging her toes into the wall a little higher up.
Slime and goo competed with vegetation for space on the well walls, and by the time she burst free of the hole in the ground she stank almost as much as the rot at the bottom of the grisly prison.
She shuddered and ran her palms over her body, trying unsuccessfully to rid herself of the sticky grime as she strode away from the treacherous hole.
The sun was hot, the air so fresh she couldn’t stop drawing it deeply into her lungs. It helped clear the lingering memory of the stench from her brain.
She picked up her speed, running back to the hill on which she’d stood when Epik had approached her. When she stood on the hill looking once more at Poison Pond, Owen wasn’t the only one standing there.
The berserker stood beside him.
He and Owen peered into the lake, and as she watched, Strad began yanking off his weapons, then peeled off his shirt.
She grinned. He was going in after her.
“Hey,” she screamed and waved.
The two men glanced up at her and Strad’s hands froze on the waistband of his jeans. “Rune,” he roared. He didn’t sound happy to see her.
She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m coming,” she yelled, and without waiting, charged down the hill.
She ran through the trees at the bottom of the hill, her bare feet skimming the ground. Most times her monster wasn’t entirely engaged unless she was in danger, fighting, or otherwise extremely emotionally involved, and running toward Poison Pond seemed to take forever.
She needed to get to the berserker.
She wanted to wrap her arms around his hardness and taste the skin of his chest before he covered it back up. She wanted to inhale his scent, to put her lips to his smooth neck and sink her teeth into his flesh.
She wanted his blood. The need for him was so sudden and overwhelming she slowed her run.
Nothing good could come of wanting another person so much. Nothing.
He was addicted to her. Addicted to her blood.
What if, for him, that’s all it was?
What if he made her weak?
She forced herself to jog, slowly and methodically, across the forest floor.
When she finally reached the two men, Strad was once again fully dressed, frowning impatiently.
“What—” he began.
“Fuck you,” she said, and began to pull on her clothes.
Owen pursed his lips and stared into the distance.
Strad raised an eyebrow, then folded his arms across his massive chest. “What the hell happened up there?”
She jerked on her vest so forcefully she nearly ripped off her fingernails, aware the men thought she’d lost her mind but what was new about that?
If the berserker turned on her…
But how could she love someone she was afraid would hurt her? More importantly, how could she almost actually believe that someone might not hurt her? If she let him, he’d hurt her. That was the way it was.
And it’d be her own damn fault.
She bent over to pull on her boots.
One second she was furious and frustrated and fucking scared—and the next, she felt a touch on her back.
“Rune,” Owen said. That was all. Just that touch and her name.
She went from anger to horror in a millisecond.
She fell to the ground and curled into a ball, her breath wheezing from her constricted throat as slayers grabbed her—
“Rune! Rune, no, no…”
There were no slayers. She was not splintered, and there were no slayers. Her clothes were on. She was not being violated. She was not on the ground.
She was not.
She was instead face to face with Owen, her long, silver claws buried in his belly. His face had lost its color, his thin hair lying flatly against his cheeks. His breathing was harsh, his eyes too wide.
The berserker had his fingers wrapped around her wrists, maybe trying to pull her claws from Owen, maybe trying to hold them there.
She was sure of only two things—one, she’d lost her mind.
And two, she’d killed Owen.
Chapter Eleven
“Fuck me,” she whispered. “Oh, God. Oh, no. I’m…oh, fuck me.”
“Shhh,” Owen said. “I’m okay.”
But how could he be okay with her claws in his body? She shook her head and looked down, down to where her hand rested against his belly.
The berserker was moving his thumb over her wrist, caressing, gentle. He squeezed lightly and started to pull her claws from Owen’s abdomen.
She’d managed, in her fog, to shoot two claws into him—her thumb and first finger.
“I think you cracked a rib,” Owen said, his voice strained. “But you missed anything vital. I’m going to be okay, honey.” He looked at Strad and gave him a terse nod. “Back her away.”
She let Strad move her backward. “Owen. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She closed her eyes and ran her hand over her face. “Fuck. Oh God.”
“I’ve had worse.” Owen grinned, but leaned forward, his hand to his ribs.
She hated that they were being so careful, like she was a dangerous but mentally unstable girl they needed to handle. Which she was.
“Shit,” she said. She shook Strad’s hand from her arm. “I’m good, guys. I lost it for a minute. I thought Owen was…”
“Rune,” Strad said. “You’re okay.”
She was finding it difficult to breathe. “Let’s get Owen out of here so we can get a cell signal. He needs to be in a hospital.”
“Call the Annex,” Owen said. “They have a nice setup for injured ops. They’ll take care of me.”
“Yeah.” She and Strad put Owen between them, and supporting him, they began the walk out of Wormwood.
Owen had gotten lucky. The next guy she zoned out on and tried to kill might not be. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“There’s nothing to do.” Strad glanced over Owen’s head and met her stare. “You’re fine.”
“No. I’m not. I’m not.”
“You’re good, Rune,” Strad said, steel running through his voice. “We’ll be more careful. We’ll help you work it out.”
“It was an accident,” Owen agreed. “You’ll need to keep this from the Annex.”
She frowned. “Why do I get the feeling I’m in the dark about something?”
“The Annex,” Owen said, pausing as though each word hurt him, “will put an op down if he or she becomes a liability.” He shrugged, then grimaced. “Maybe not you, but you don’t want to show anyone your weakness. You can’t trust them. You know that.”
“What do you know?” she asked him. “How do you know shit about the Annex?”
“I’ve heard things.”
But it was more than that. Once again Sam Cruikshank’s words flittered across her mind. “What things?”
“The Annex will kill you if you become a liability,” he said, enunciating each word carefully. “You’ll just have to believe me.”
She looked at Strad. “Berserker?”
He nodded. “We’ll keep this to ourselves. You and Owen were fighting some Others in Wormwood. He got in the way of your claws during the fight.”
She took a deep breath. “Fuck it. Fine.”
She’d known she couldn’t trust the Annex leaders. She’d heard the gossip. But she’d never seen the Annex kill an operative who’d become trouble for them.
Of course, she hadn’t been working for them long enough to know the facts.
She looked at Owen. Neither had he. At least not as far as she knew. And why the fuck was Strad so sure she’d get trouble if the Annex thought she was losing it?
Because he was just that suspicious?
“They can’t kill me,” she said. “I’m not worried about it.”
“They can make your life hell,” Owen said. “Those you love can be hurt to control you.”
She laughed, but caressed her stake wounds. “You’re both paranoid. It’s the Annex—the good guys. They’re not COS.”
Neither Owen nor Strad replied to that.
But she wasn’t naïve. People—groups—did what they needed to do to further their agendas. They twisted the truth and the rights and wrongs of things to give credence to their beliefs.
Nothing was black and white. Not ever.
She had attacked Owen without even realizing she was doing it. She didn’t want to keep that from the Annex because she was afraid of them. She wanted to keep it from them because the attack made her seem fucked up.
Because she was showing a weakness. An extreme weakness.
And that was something she couldn’t afford to do. She was a monster—not a weak little brain damaged fuck who attacked her own.
She was captain of Shiv Crew. That couldn’t change.
Strad pulled Owen away from her and helped him into the car. “I’ll get him to the Annex. They’ll fix him up.” He looked at her, his stare intense. “Go home, Rune. You need sleep. I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to feed.”
He wasn’t wrong.
She glanced at Owen as he sat in the berserker’s passenger seat, his face pale. He didn’t look at her.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Tell Bill…”
Strad walked around to the driver’s side of his car. “They know you need sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be there soon.”
“But if—”
“Rune. Go home.”
He sped away from Wormwood, and she watched the car until it disappeared. She would go home and sleep for a while, because she needed to in order to function. But first, she had to report the well to the Annex and get someone the fuck out there.
And then she had to find Gunnar.
Because with every second that passed without a sign of the chocolate-loving ghoul, the greater the chances she’d never see him again.
Chapter Twelve
She pushed her cell back into her pocket, satisfied that Ellie would get the ball rolling and send out a team to investigate the well. She wanted to go home, wanted to take a moment to reboot, but the ghoul deserved her best.
He was in trouble because of her.
“Gunnar,” she muttered, “if you’re happily rotting somewhere in another graveyard, I’m kicking your skinny ass.”
She loped through the cemetery, her boots sending up clumps of graveyard dirt. She saw no one. “Gunnar,” she yelled, uncaring if either the assassin or pike alpha heard her.
She needed sleep, and she needed blood.
Being deprived of either of those things didn’t put her in a good mood.
If she ran into the treacherous Epik she might have some dinner. Little bastard owed her.
She ran with her claws out, slashing through any vines or other vegetation that got in her way. And the longer she ran, the heavier the darkness inside her.
Something inside her had softened over time—and she wasn’t sure when or why it had happened. Maybe since the berserker. Maybe since Amy, or the resurrection of her parents, or Z. Her Z.
Or maybe she’d been on the soft side all along. But there was a difference between caring and protecting the innocent and being soft and vulnerable and flinching.
She had to be strong.
So she ran, the entire time knowing something was going to happen. Something was going to change.
It was there, in the hot, heavy air. Something was coming.
She smiled when she heard the whirr of his weapon flying at her. She’d gone deep inside the dark of her mind, and she wasn’t afraid of the fucking assassin.
She was eager for him.
I am my monster.
And monsters didn’t have rules. Not really. So someone was going to get hurt. And it wasn’t going to be her.
She ducked and turned, sensing the weapon, and used her mutant vampire speed to streak toward the very spot from which it had been flung.
The assassin was a
bad motherfucker, there was no doubt. But she was, when she left her humanity behind, full of pain and rage and the desire to kill. The desire for blood.
She got that from her father, and from her fucking mother. Whoever the hell she was.
He was fast, the hitman, but she was so much faster. For a second, she lost him, amazed by his quickness even as she caught a glint from something shiny on his mask and found him again.
An ordinary human would have hit the dirt and begged for his life, but her assassin, when he understood he’d become the prey, pulled his gun, spread his feet, and aimed for her head.
He missed—she was simply too fast.
Seconds before she reached him, he slipped away again.
He was like smoke. Like a fucking fog.
She smiled. His attempt to flee had awakened something primal inside her, along with the darkness. She gave chase, almost psychotic in her grim playfulness, enjoying the fact that he was somewhat challenging.
She needed to regain herself, needed to be in control, needed to prove to herself the slayer attack wasn’t going to own her.
It didn’t matter.
Whatever it was, it was good.
And she was no longer tired.
“Where are you, baby?” she murmured, slipping quietly and slowly over the ground, through tall grasses and densely-packed trees, her ears tuned for the slightest sound.
But she didn’t hear him—she scented him.
The day was warm in the early evening sun, and the slightest of breezes carried his familiar scent right to her.
She turned to her right and stared into the line of trees. “I smell you, my scary masked one. Are you ready to die?”
She dropped her fangs.
Then she was too shocked to move when he stepped out from the trees, his hands in the air.
“Wait,” he said, his voice raspy and quiet.
“Wait,” she parroted, still surprised. “Wait for what?”
“I want to make a deal with you.”
“You’ll give me the salt to season you with if I make my meal quick? Because that’s the only deal I’m willing to make with you, dude.”
“If I hadn’t wanted to be found, you wouldn’t have found me. And I didn’t want to kill you today—I just needed to slow you down. You don’t ever want to underestimate me.”
