by Mia Taylor
He shook his head.
“No.”
Sera offered him a half-smile.
“You’re not from around here?”
He shook his head.
“You heading home?”
Again, he shook his head and Sera found herself more intrigued by his quiet way than anything else.
“No. I will be with you.”
A shiver pierced through Sera and she wasn’t sure if she was nervous or aroused by his words.
He feels the attraction between us too, she realized, but she shook her head. But if he thinks this is going to be anything more than sex, he’s sorely mistaken.
“You are?” she replied teasingly, glancing about. She didn’t want anyone to hear her flirting with this patient. “How do you know that?”
He smiled enigmatically but when he answered, Sera’s breath was stolen again.
“Because you are the one for whom I have been searching.”
Chapter Three
He’s on the Wrong Track
Harrowing.
It was the only word he could use to describe what was happening to him as he wandered through the desolate streets of Mexico City.
Never had he seen such scum, such deterioration.
It had been two centuries since he had stepped foot on earthly soil and it seemed impossible that the world had advanced and fallen behind simultaneously.
On one hand, he was stunned by the technology, the advancements being made. Jayce barely knew where to look at the ancient yet modern city. His senses were overstimulated but he couldn’t find a place to rest his eyes, the colors and movements astounding.
On the other hand, there were so many people, a cesspool of leering smiles and reeking of debauchery. How had the world multiplied so intensely in only two hundred years?
Jayce had been certain he would never miss the serenity of the afterlife’s gold-paved streets again when he was longing to wander the earthly avenues below. But now he found that he wanted nothing more than to return to the sounds of harps and fairies.
He was bumped, hit, and molested at every turn.
How am I ever to find Ashur in such a scenario? he wondered woefully but no answer came. He was on his own, it seemed.
How he had made it from the lower Americas to the northern part was a mystery. The time had gone by in a blur of activity. It had been two weeks and he knew he was closer than he had been, but still, Jayce could not sense his half-brother during the commotion.
Jayce’s senses were overloaded, but he dared not rest. He needed to know what Ashur was doing on earth again.
For centuries he has been marinating in revenge. How far will he go? What will he do?
Jayce knew the wolf with whom he had once roamed the Georgian villages of England was no longer. Gone was the meek, mild-mannered boy who had sought his approval following their father’s untimely passing.
Jayce could only imagine who lay in his place.
He didn’t need to remind himself that he was the cause for the change in his brother. If not for Jayce, Ashur would still be the very same wolf who had been content to protect the pack and live without doing harm.
It seemed uncouth to Jayce that he would be sent back without some form of backup, knowing what they did about Ashur.
Or what they believed they knew about Ash.
What they truly know is my own fury. They know little of my half-brother.
In retrospect, Jayce felt he did his brother a great favor having him banished into the dark afterlife. The tediousness of the good place was exhausting after all.
There was no excitement, no heat.
Immediately, Jayce silenced his thoughts.
The alternative was much, much worse, he knew.
It was why he had blamed the murder on his brother.
And the fool had accepted his fate without so much as a bat of the eye.
But when he fell, Jayce had felt a stabbing in his heart so ferocious, he was brought to his knees. The look in his brother’s eyes screamed of the betrayal and it haunted the older wolf for hundreds of years. Even though Ash had said nothing, done nothing, the look was permanently etched in Jayce’s mind.
And now Ashur was back.
In a way, Jayce had anticipated the day, knowing that the afterlife would either harden or break the loving Ashur. It was just another thought that often plagued him.
Before they had been subjected to their respective otherworld residences, they had both been much different beings.
Ashur had been a moderately educated carpenter with a gentle way and quiet manner.
Jayce had been a Lothario, a whoring, drunken fool with too little regard for others and even less for himself.
While Ashur had devoted himself to caring for the pack, undoubtedly the next in line for the role of Alpha, Jayce had died at the hands of a lover’s jealous husband at one hundred twenty-seven years of age. Ashur’s death had come a few years earlier, a terrible freak accident which had impaled the wolf while he did what he loved best—building furniture.
At least I died in the throes of pleasure, Jayce often thought, remembering his final climax before the silver-plated knife had cut into his heart.
He had never seen it coming.
No one had been more shocked than him when he had been permitted into the good afterlife, a place he hadn’t even been certain existed until that point.
“Oh, praise the gods!” Jayce sighed when he realized he was not burning in fire for the terrible way he’d lived his life.
I knew it! he scoffed silently. There is no such place. There are probably no gods either!
“There must be some mistake,” the guardian of the good afterlife announced, peering at the roster with bespectacled eyes.
“You have lived your life as an unworthy consumer of air. You should be cast into darkness, not light.”
The smugness which Jayce had initially felt faded away and he gaped at Michael, who shook his head in dismay.
“No!” he insisted. “There is no mistake! I may have made poor choices, but my heart is good! You can’t cast me out of here.”
Michael snorted and eyed him.
“I see nothing but your debaucherous ways,” he retorted. “But I also see you have a referral. I have no choice but to grant you access.”
The relief which Jayce felt was almost insurmountable, filling his heart with gratitude.
“Thank you!” he gasped, reaching to embrace the sentry, but Michael stepped back, shaking his head.
“Please,” he said, holding up his hand in disgust. “Do not touch me with your unclean hands. Your sins may be catching.”
Jayce’s brow furrowed.
“But… we have died. There is no disease, no suffering,” he replied in confusion. “We are still shifters, are we not?”
“That may be true, but you are likely the worst case we have ever allowed through. I do not wish to take that chance.”
Jayce’s face turned furious and he began to choke indignantly.
“You think you are better than me?” he spat. “You do not know my life or what I have endured!”
“No,” Michael interjected. “None of that matters now. You must forsake any memory of your life on the earthly realm. You are someone else now, do you understand?”
Jayce did not know whether to laugh or scowl.
“How do you propose I do such a thing?” he demanded. “I lived it for over a hundred years.”
“You are in custody of His Grace now, Jayce. You must leave all your dark ways here at the gates or suffer the consequences.”
Jayce gaped at him, unsure of how to respond.
“And if I do not?” he asked, leeringly. “Then what?”
“You will be banished into the dark afterlife for eternity along with all the others you have ever loved.”
Jayce could not think of one person he had ever loved.
Still, from what he could see, things were much better up here.
The dark otherwo
rld sounded unbearably hot to his ears.
“You have one chance whereas others are repeatedly forgiven in here. Should you upset the harmony of our life here, Jayce, you will be cast out forever. Do you understand?”
Jayce clenched his teeth together, his fists closing at his side like a defiant child.
“I suppose I do,” he retorted.
“Anger is not permitted,” Michael pointed out. “I suggest you leave that here also.”
It was then that the blond man first learned to mask his true feelings.
“You may enter. His Grace and the gods are with you,” Michael sighed as if permitting such an action was causing him great grief.
Jayce paused, glancing back at him.
“Was it my father who recommended me?” he asked, his brow furrowing. He had forgotten to ask who to seek out for the referral.
Michael erupted into peals of laughter, tinkling and thunderous as an orchestra. Tears formed in his eyes as if the words were simply hysterical.
“Oh goodness, no!” he chortled when he was finally able to catch his breath. “Your father is rotting in the dark world and even the Commodore didn’t want him. He was syphilic and half-mad. The apple does not stray far from the branch, now, does it? No, Jayce, it was your brother. He believes you can be saved even if we have our doubts.”
“Edward?” Jayce gasped. “But he was just a boy when he died—barely out of the womb!”
Michael had stared at him as if he were an imbecile.
“No!” he snapped, shaking his head. “Edward does not recall who you are. He barely had breath before he perished, and he is better for not having known you. You are not renowned for your intelligence, are you?” Michael mused, again shaking his head in disbelief.
Jayce ignored the slight, his eyes growing wide as he realized of whom the gatekeeper spoke.
“Ashur,” Jayce breathed, almost unable to believe that his half-brother would speak on his behalf.
“Yes. Do not disappoint him. For him to bring you here, he has agreed to a probation of one hundred years during which he is not allowed to do any wrong. Trust me, I was against this, for I am certain you will be the cause of us losing a very precious soul.”
Michael glared at him and for the first time, Jayce felt a hot flush of shame.
I cannot believe Ash would do such a thing for me. I have never given him reason to love me or even like me. What a bloody fool.
As if reading his thoughts, the guardian’s scowl deepened, and he waved his hand dismissively.
“Now, if you would please be gone from my sight, I have more shifters to process today—all of them worthier than you. They do not deserve to be kept waiting.”
“Hola, gringo. Quiere fechar?”
He jolted out of his reverie as a young woman touched his arm and he stared at her almost toothless mouth. For a moment, he had forgotten where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, but now he was back, grounded in reality.
“Habla espanol?” she asked leeringly, and he nodded. Her beam widened, and Jayce was sure he had never seen a more revolting sight.
“Quiere fechar?” she asked again, and Jayce nodded, licking his lips.
“Four hundred pesos,” she told him, trying to steer him toward an alleyway, but Jayce froze.
He knew that whatever occurred on earth could not be held against him later, but that did not mean he was not being watched carefully.
It took me a hundred years of pretending to be someone I am not before they trusted me over their beloved Ash. I cannot risk ruining their perception of me.
How uncertain his existence had become, how unfair.
Even in the afterlife, he was not free. He knew his actions were being carefully monitored, particularly when everyone had been waiting for him to fail.
“You may indulge in the act of fornication only in the name of love,” Michael had explained. “But never in the name of lust.”
The idea of claiming one of the afterlife shifters for eternity seemed sickening. This time, it truly would be forever. Death was not an option to the already dead. Instead of falling into an even worse dark afterlife, Jayce had remained celibate.
And his frustration had mounted.
It was one of the reasons Michele had died.
The stress had just become too much.
The bright afterlife is my own private dark afterlife, he thought bitterly. How cruel a joke is that?
Jayce shrugged his arm free and stared at the Mexican prostitute.
“I am looking for my friend,” he told her in Spanish. “Can you help me find him?”
The smile faded from her face and she grimaced slightly.
“No,” she replied angrily, spinning to leave. “I’m not a ratta.”
The phrasing didn’t make sense to Jayce but he didn’t stop to ponder it.
“I can pay you,” he called after her and she paused to glance over her shoulder warily.
“It will cost you fifteen hundred,” she told him. “More if I have to lose business.”
He nodded eagerly, reaching into the pocket of his blue pants to retrieve the fistful of cash he had in its depth.
There was nothing there. His face flushed and he checked his other pockets, but they were all completely depleted. He had been pickpocketed.
A flash of anger rose through him, but he expertly suppressed it.
“Bring me to a bank,” he ordered her, and she glared at him, weighing whether he was wasting her time.
“If you try anything stupid…” she told him warningly. “I have connections with Los Zetas. They will find you.”
Jayce did not know what she meant but he understood it was meant to be a threat of some kind.
He stifled a laugh, nodding somberly.
What are you and your friends going to do? he wanted to taunt her but he wisely said nothing. If he snapped her neck right then and there, he doubted anyone would miss her, but he refrained. She might come in handy and she was the first mortal he’d spoken to since arriving.
Perhaps later…
“I only require your assistance,” he assured her.
“Como te llamas?” she asked, leading the way through the labyrinth of the city.
“Jayce.”
“Soy Mari,” she told him, eyeing him through her peripheral vision and he could read the caution on her face.
He didn’t care about her name.
The only thing he wanted from the prostitute was what was between her legs and perhaps some information.
Chapter Four
More Than a Wager
His fascination with her was unparalleled as he slid off the gurney and stepped toward the girl before him.
She is the one, he realized. She is the one who will win me this wager.
It had started ten years earlier when some of the shifters had met for their biweekly poker game at the brothel in the darkest part of the dark world.
Ashur loathed the game but it was required, especially by the worst offenders.
If he had merely been a philanderer or thief, for example, he would have been exempted from cards, but murderers and fallen shifters were certainly expected to be at the Commodore’s table. Refusal would not fare well for anyone—not that Ash had ever refused.
It was never a fair game, of course, and whatever monies the shifters had stolen or plundered through the week ended up squarely back in the Commodore’s pocket where he would sit back and grin, a mangled paw atop a furry knee, looking as if he had somehow accomplished some miraculous feat by robbing the others of their pathetically gained wages.
If one was unlucky enough to be without that week, he would be strung by the eternity pole where he was stripped and mocked, tomatoes and feces flung upon him.
The females had a baby shower on those eves, hosted by a cruel fairy named Ivy, and were in for an equally horrific event, from what Ashur understood.
The mere words “baby shower” sent a tremor of terror through him when he heard them. He could
not imagine what eight to twelve hours of such an event would entail, but in the end, the women always emerged looking traumatized, often sobbing and speaking in tongues.
Yet they never spoke of what actually happened.
Naturally, there were no pregnant shifters in the afterlife, so what they could have possibly been doing for all those hours remained a mystery to the males.
Ashur was inherently relieved that he was not of the fairer sex on those days, although sometimes, he did believe they had it easier in the otherworld.
During battles between the shifters and the Commodore’s cruel games, both physical and psychological, the females were in less danger.
But that did not mean there weren’t other ways to torture them.
Ash had arrived at the burning table, glancing about for a spot where he would be the least conspicuous.
In a century, he had managed to avoid catching the Commodore’s direct attention and he had no interest in beginning that day.
It had taken him almost thirty years to accept what had been done to him and Ash knew no matter how much he hurt, there was no escape from the fate he had been dealt. He had been betrayed by his own brother, someone he had tried to save.
Of course, if Ash had known just how low Jayce could go, he wasn’t sure he would have done the same thing.
Who am I fooling? I would always have spoken on behalf of my brother.
There had been no resentment, no bitterness when it had happened. Only a deep sense of loss, one which only grew deeper and more profound in the pits of darkness.
Love didn’t exist in the dim otherworld, and any goodness seemed stripped by the horrors which each of them faced.
Death was no longer an escape, for it didn’t exist.
There was only endless pain which could never be avoided.
“You seem lost,” a voice purred in his ear. “Why don’t you come sit near me?”
Ashur did not need to raise his head.
He would have known who spoke in his nightmares—had he been able to sleep in the sweltering heat of his afterlife.
The Commodore stood beside him, sneering with too-white teeth and a glitter in his black eyes.
“You are Ashur,” he said, guiding him toward the head of the table, licking his lips as if the realization made him happier than it should have.
