Gut Deep: Torn Worlds Book One

by Augustine, Donna

  Bigs hesitated nearby before he resigned himself and went inside. The other one had his chilly gaze directed my way as he dug in his pocket. “Here.”

  There was a flash of movement before something came flying my way. I didn’t catch it. I didn’t trust him enough to touch whatever was flying at me.

  I took a step back as a hundred-credit coin dropped to my feet. My heart did a little flutter as I stared at it. That would buy a whole lot of eggs.

  “Take it. Looks like you need it.” His gesture might’ve been generous, but his gaze wasn’t.

  “I don’t need your charity.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to show him how much I despised him, his kind, and everything they’d done to us, all in one stare. It was a tall order, but it was all I had. Speaking out of turn to one of the scourge would get you killed, quick and easy.

  He lifted his eyes from his phone to meet my gaze, then slowly perused me from head to toe. “Are you sure about that?” He went back to his phone, as if whether I took the coin meant nothing to him.

  I should’ve walked away. I couldn’t stop staring at the credit lying on the ground. That coin could feed us for weeks. Why not take it? He didn’t care. He’d moved on, not even paying attention to me anymore. He’d probably leave it on the ground and someone else would pick it up. It was my coin. I leaned down, grabbed it slowly, and turned, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

  “Stubborn but not stupid,” he said as I left.

  I wanted to turn around and tell him to fuck off. Four years ago, when I’d been a girl of twenty-two who’d aced her MCATS and was attending one the best medical schools in the country, I would’ve turned around and told this asshole to go fuck himself. If I did that same thing tonight, I’d take a beating at the very least, maybe even die. If I survived, there wouldn’t be a single person to complain to, because there was no more police force, not for humans. The police had been absorbed by the HBE. It was more human than creature, and those humans got perks. It was hard when the neighbor you’d made mud patties with was willing to sell you out for a couple muffins at the end of the week.

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t have the time to get into a fight. I had to get home before curfew; after that, you had to show a work card, and you needed to be either traveling there or back. So instead of screaming all the obscenities I wanted to, I kept my back to him and pretended the entire scene hadn’t happened, praying that one of these days he’d get his.

  There was only one thing left to hope for: that there was some sort of karma in this world and things would right themselves. And one day? These monsters would pay for everything they’d done.

  Three

  Donovan

  I leaned an arm on the marble mantel, sipping twenty-year-old bourbon. There would be a minimum of two more of these to get through the night that lay ahead. I rarely wished away any portion of my life, but would gladly give up the night ahead.

  Larissa Tessa, the reigning hostess of the D.C. political scene, strolled in with perfectly coiffed gray hair that contrasted with youthful skin. Her red gown was sleek, and she carried herself like the queen of D.C. she’d been dubbed. She walked over to the dining table and shifted a crystal glass a quarter of an inch to the right, before moving along and clucking her tongue over a silver place setting.

  She turned with the agility of a twenty-year-old and the arrogance of royalty, snapping her fingers at passing staff.

  “You. Come here.” She pointed to the spot next to her, as if doubting the man’s intelligence to understand her.

  The man jumped to do her bidding.

  “The silver is spotty.” She said it slowly and over enunciated.

  “I’m sorry. It’ll be fixed right away.” His skin reddened, as if water-spotted silverware were a criminal offense that would get him hung. In Larissa’s book, it might be.

  The servant grabbed the towel he had hanging on his arm and polished the fork, then moved on to the knife and spoon, which already shone.

  Done harassing the staff, my mother walked over to me.

  She sighed, as if she were on the twenty-fifth hour of an eight-day week. “The staff is lacking. It’s not actually their fault. If they didn’t have such deficits in their vision and senses, they might actually be able to do their job. But they do, so I guess it’s a burden we must tolerate.”

  I took another long sip of bourbon. “If you dislike humans so much, why hire them? Why not get the fae or trolls or some such? It’s not like there aren’t others who would take the work.” Most of the supernatural races that couldn’t pass for humans were impoverished.

  “Because vampires prefer human servants. They’ve been using them for centuries, and that’s what they expect.” Her eyes were on the servant again. She didn’t trust him to do his menial job correctly. He must’ve sensed it, because he dropped the silverware on the floor with jittery fingers.

  Larissa sighed loud enough to make sure he heard.

  “The vampires would adjust. You need to stop catering to them as if they’re our superiors. I can barely tolerate them as equals.”

  “Donovan, we all need to do our best to uphold the pact,” Larissa said, spoken like a true supporter of the new world.

  The pact. That was all she cared about since the takeover. The. Fucking. Pact. I’d be happy going back to living in anonymity, but not her. She’d spent so much time watching the high-rolling humans of society prancing around that it was a shock it hadn’t changed her eyes from brown to green. It hadn’t mattered that she’d had everything money could buy. She’d wanted status. Now that she had it, she was holding on for dear life. I’d yet to meet the person tough enough to pry her away from her spot in the limelight.

  Her eyes went to the glass in my hand, and I could’ve said the same for it. If she thought she was going to pry it from me, she’d met her match.

  “I’m here. That’s all I promised.” I took another sip to make my point.

  “As the pack leader of the D.C. area, it’s your responsibility to keep things calm,” she said, fixing a hem of her sleeve that was slightly askew.

  “I’m well aware of my position.” How could I forget?

  Sometimes I wondered how anyone had thought this pact was a good idea. I’d voted against the union with the vampires, then the takeover, but I’d been sorely outnumbered. Everyone had insisted it was “our time to rule.” I had money and obscurity before. Now? I still had money, but also a limitless number of headaches.

  This pact was an anchor chained around my neck. For the last three years, all I’d done was keep my people from ripping apart vampires, when all I wanted was to sink my claws into the bloodsuckers myself. Now my lot in life was peacekeeper, because if the pact failed, we’d all end up dead.

  “This is your duty,” she said.

  “You asked me to come to this fiasco, and I’m here.” I raised my glass to her. “That’s as good as it’s going to get.” I took another healthy gulp. Not only would I need it to tolerate the vampires, I’d need it to tolerate my mother for the rest of the night. Sometimes I wondered if the accident that killed my father had been an intentional suicide. We might not live as long as vampires, but a thousand more years with my mother might make anyone think life was too long. In death, he’d finally escaped the misery that was Larissa Tessa.

  She pushed back my shaggy locks that liked to fall forward. “You need a haircut.”

  I turned my head away from her grasp. The only time she’d acted motherly in her life was when there was a favor or show she needed to put on. There was another shoe about to drop, since she’d already gotten me here.

  “Tell me you didn’t compound tonight’s issues by inviting Veronica?” The vampires wouldn’t care what my hair looked like. There was only one reason she’d switch gears.

  The slight shrug and tilt of her chin said it all before she uttered a word. “Why wouldn’t I? She’s very useful in these circumstances.”

  “And you wonder why I avoid your parties.” I was going to need mo
re bourbon than I’d thought.

  “She’s a great catch. All the women in her family are very fertile, and her bloodlines are excellent. Her father is the alpha of the NYC pack. Don’t you want alpha sons? You can’t tell me it doesn’t matter. I’ll readily admit I want alpha grandsons, and—”

  “I’m not a horse. I’m not mating with her for her bloodlines.”

  “You act like it’s such a crazy idea. People do it all the time. There are men lined up around the block wanting to mate with her. Why do you think me and your father mated?”

  Everyone knew why they’d mated, and it had nothing to do with love. Even if I hadn’t spent years listening to my father, I would’ve known anyway. The abject misery on his face every single day told the story better than any words could’ve. Larissa hadn’t cared because they got the desired result: me, an alpha son. She’d been using me as social leverage for years. If they only knew how I barely tolerated her, her limelight might’ve dimmed.

  “You think you’re doing better with the stock you dally with? I’m just lucky none of them have gotten pregnant yet—or have they?”

  “You probably know better than I do. I’m sure you keep tabs on them all.” Sometimes the prelude to dinner with her was worse than the company. If they’d had the right bourbon in my suite, I would’ve stayed hidden until the meal. I needed to rectify that before tomorrow.

  “A mother must do what she has to when a son doesn’t tell her what he’s doing,” she said, as righteous as any normal mother might’ve acted.

  Huddy, my second-in-command, walked in. Perfect timing as always. My mother looked over at him and then rolled her eyes, but it was all show. Huddy might act as my second, but he’d been born an alpha. The only difference between us was that he hadn’t been stupid enough to get roped into this fiasco. He’d stepped down from his pack a year before the pact was made with the vampires, as soon as he saw the writing on the wall.

  “Now don’t you be encouraging him and his bad behavior tonight,” she said to Huddy at the same time she leaned in for a kiss on one cheek and then the other. Larissa could charm anyone, but she only double-kissed the people she truly liked. If you had alpha blood, you had a guaranteed spot in that circle.

  “Of course not,” Huddy said, smiling as if he liked her in return. The only reason he’d come tonight was bribery on my part. I still didn’t know what it was going to cost me.

  “I’ll leave you boys alone for a minute.” She patted Huddy’s arm before walking from the room.

  “Thank God you got here,” I said. “This place is going to be swarming with bloodsuckers any minute now.”

  “Isn’t Kia coming, and Stephen too, I thought?” Huddy asked.

  “Yes, my mother made certain that some of our kind were definitely going to be here. She likes the vampires to think her pack likes her.” I shook my head, downing my glass. “She invited Veronica as well.”

  “Fuck. Veronica again? I’ll make sure I stay out of range, then. I don’t want to get tangled up when she tries to hook her claws in.” Huddy waved at the same poor servant that was still polishing the silver. “Two more of whatever he’s drinking, please?”

  “Of course, sir,” the human replied, and went to go fetch a bourbon. Human staff always liked Huddy. I couldn’t find any other reason for it, other than he said please and thank you instead of treating them like they were human. It’s funny how that saying “treat me like I’m a human being” used to mean something good to them. To be treated like a human now was the worst you could get. You were better off being a troll.

  Most of them probably thought they were the victims, instead of reaping what they’d sown. What did you expect when you hunted two different races that were stronger and smarter than you, year after year? Could you really imagine that they wouldn’t eventually tire of it and seek retribution? Well, in my case you could. But I’d been smart about it. Covered my tracks. If it weren’t for all the imbeciles and show-offs, we might’ve been able to coexist for another thousand years.

  The servant brought over two fresh glasses.

  “Prepare yourself,” Huddy said to the servant with a conspiratorial smile. “This is going to be a rough crowd.”

  “When isn’t it?” the servant, a guy in his twenties, replied, sharing Huddy’s smile before going back to work.

  “You’re very nice to them,” I said, and sipped my bourbon.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I wouldn’t say you’re unkind to them.”

  I wasn’t unkind. I wasn’t anything. For the most part, I liked to pretend they didn’t exist. I tolerated them as best I could, but damned if I’d have them working in my household, no matter how cheap the labor. You couldn’t trust most of them as far as you could throw them. They turned on their own. They’d certainly turn on us.

  “No, but you go out of your way, considering our past with them.”

  “You can’t hold what their government did to us, the years of secretly hunting us down, against all of them. Most of them had no idea what was going on.” He pointed toward the kid that just served us. “You really think he was the mastermind behind it all?”

  “Still, they walk around like they’re victims, as if humans didn’t have a hand to play in the state of things.”

  “I don’t think they’re much different from us.”

  I shrugged. He had a point. There was the occasional human that was entertaining, like the little twit I’d seen at the store. It was probably only because she seemed almost like a shifter in her indignation. I couldn’t see that one acting the victim. Wasn’t in her DNA.

  “What are you smiling about?” Huddy asked.

  “I had a slight run-in with a human today, now that we’re on the subject.”

  His head jerked back. “And you’re smiling about it?”

  The memory made me smile even more. “She was walking out of the store with a puss on her face, as grumpy as you’d ever seen one of them. She wasn’t paying attention and walked right into Bigs. She was just a slip of a girl, bounced right off him and landed on the ground. Bigs, the softy he is, offered her a hand up. Do you know she actually stared at it, as if he were beneath her?”

  Huddy swirled his glass of bourbon. “I’m still waiting for the punch line.”

  “She was probably a hundred pounds soaking wet, all these dark curls sticking out in every direction and huge whiskey-colored eyes staring up with venom. Clothes that were threadbare. She had nothing, scraping by at best, but she had some balls on her. A lot of them roll over. Not her. She didn’t outright challenge me, but that girl didn’t have a lot of bend in her spine. To be that down and out and still have that kind of gumption? I consider that at least somewhat amusing, if misguided.”

  Huddy shrugged, but it was clear he still didn’t get it.

  A cackling laugh sounded from down the hall, one only a vampire could make.

  “Hold on to whatever amusement you can, because you’re going to need it tonight,” Huddy said.

  We both raised our glasses and downed the last of our bourbon before the onslaught of vampires descended upon us.

  Four

  Penelope

  The servants entered the side of the home, avoiding the front where guests entered and the manicured gardens of the back. It was a grand old house that used to be owned by one of the ruling political families in Washington, D.C. before the takeover. Now it was occupied by Larissa Tessa, the grande dame shifter. As far as werewolves, she wasn’t the worst ever. Do your job and she wouldn’t speak to you. In my three months of service, I’d noticed that her most redeeming quality was her ability to ignore the human staff.

  I showed up, poured their champagne, spooned out their caviar, fetched their napkins, and ladled out lobster bisque. I’d had to go through a background check to perform all these actions. Couldn’t have anyone repeating their dinner conversations to the resistance, after all.

  I’d serve, get my credits, go home, and then rinse and repeat. I’d keep on doing it, too, be
cause not only did it feed us, it would be my only chance to get to him, and ultimately, get to it. After that, I’d find a way to buy the fake credentials that would get us across the border to Canada, no matter what I had to do. While I waited for that moment, the credits were buying the loaves of bread and eggs we ate almost daily. The scraps from the kitchen were a bonus.

  Molly, the chef’s helper that came in for the larger parties, was cutting two-inch-thick filets in the kitchen. Red meat was a daily staple here, party or not. By the size of the meat not butchered yet, it was a larger-than-normal gathering. Would Mallard finally be here?

  Molly saw where my eyes went and gave a nod. I held up a finger from each hand and received another nod.

  Mixed company. That was a good sign—for me, anyway. Most humans who weren’t hoping for a vampire to turn them wouldn’t work these types of gatherings, hunger be damned. Too many people went missing from parties when there were vampires present. A lot of the humans who wanted to be turned went straight to the blood donation centers anyway. There was a mile-long line of humans hoping a vampire might turn them and raise them to the elite caste. Why bother waiting on them and pouring their soup?

  Werewolves weren’t as lethal. They didn’t bother with most humans, other than to fuck. Even though most of them did fuck humans like they were getting paid for it, it wasn’t usually lethal. Although you did occasionally hear some tales to the contrary.

  The rest of the waitstaff slowly filed in. I knew all the faces, but talking was discouraged. We didn’t speak to one another unless it was necessary. I wasn’t sure if the scourge thought we’d start a revolt in the middle of their kitchen or poison the crème brûlée. Couldn’t say I hadn’t thought of doing the latter. Maybe the policy made sense.

  A dark-haired man in a suit appeared at the door. “Some of the guests have arrived. We need to start service.” He looked around our small group and then made a snapping motion toward me, the only one fully dressed and ready.