Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by hamilton, rebecca

  "You're doing fine," he said against her mouth as he claimed it again.

  By now his hands were roaming her body, lighting her skin. The sounds around her, of the moans and begging for release only heightened her own need, except that beneath the primal sense of release was the very real threat of discovery. She wasn't sure which of those was the one that drove her hands beneath his shirt, stretching her fingers for his nipples, thinking to pinch each one, to thumb them to hard stubs, but she let them roam and do what they would.

  She could feel his erection as she pressed closer, and the speed of his breath had shifted. It broke against the skin of her neck like waves battering the shore. His Palm moved beneath her bra and rubbed against her nipples before cupping them, lifting them, squeezing them.

  "Almost there," he said into her ear and his voice was a tight, husky thing that pulled a moan from her throat. In another circumstance, she might think that it meant something different, but she was acutely aware of the danger moving about the room, hopefully doing nothing but a cursory inspection of the patrons.

  One of the women in the group beside them took notice of Ezekiel. She leaned over, slipping her hand beneath Theda's bra and overtop Ezekiel's hand. She helped him squeeze harder, then let her fingers slip down Theda's torso, seeking entrance beneath the thong. This time it was Ezekiel who groaned and for one second his eyes met Theda's. She saw hunger in his gaze just long enough to believe that it was for her, but then the woman leaned in, blocking him from view, and plunged her tongue into Theda's mouth.

  Ezekiel's thighs twitched beneath her bottom. She tried to close her eyes, to pretend to enjoy the kiss, but she was aware of someone behind her and knew in that moment that they were being inspected. She heard Ezekiel's throaty voice urging the woman on and had to force herself to remember that it was an act, that everything here was for show. That the show meant her very life.

  "That's it, baby," he said. "Now touch your pussy for me, show me you like it."

  Theda was paralyzed by his vulgarity, but thankfully the woman responded immediately, lending credence to the act. She withdrew her hand from Theda's thong and sucked at her bottom lip, pulling it into her mouth and licking it. Theda tasted each moan as the woman rocked against her own hand, each burying of her fingers forcing a new sigh into Theda's mouth. She thought she heard Ezekiel groan aloud even as she felt his hands urge her against his cock. Aware of the presence behind her, Theda ground into it, until he grasped at her from behind, yanking her from the stranger and claiming her tongue for his. Her heart raced hard enough that she could swear it would burst. Every inch of her body was on fire, and yet every fiber was alive with fear.

  He cupped her face with both hands, twisting her face so that her ear was next to his mouth.

  "We're good," he said. "He's moved on. It's time to go."

  He might have thrown a bucket of water on her, but she did as he bid her. She got to shaking legs, working hard to force her muscles forward. He wrapped an arm around her waist, reaching with his other hand to take her fingers. They could have been longtime lovers, picking their way home after a much-needed night of debauchery and hedonism. She wasn't sure why her face was wet, or why her nose had clogged up so much that she could barely breathe, but she made the trek with him through the room, down the hallway, into reception with her eyes watching the floor at each step.

  When the door opened and the frigid night air struck her skin, when she noticed that her crocheted blanket still lay in the corner of the gutter, she collapsed into a heap on the sidewalk and the sobs that tore their way through her lungs paired so nicely with the pain of dragging in breath to fuel them that she decided to let them dance as long as they needed to.

  There were two kinds of freefall, if Theda had to name them: one was the sense that a girl was indeed finally free, dropping without constraint, letting the air caress her skin, taking joy in each millisecond. In the other, she had no control; she spiraled, like a paratrooper just realizing that the safety chute was tangled into the main. Both of them created the same physiological sensations in the body. For Theda, both of them required the normalizing power of godspit. And neither of them would be assuaged because she was fresh out of smears.

  She was wrapped again in her Afghan, this time huddled on the sofa in a cigarette pack sized apartment where she could touch the cupboard doors with her toes from the sofa where she sat. She had no idea whose apartment it was, only that Ezekiel had the key. He let them in the hours before, letting her stare neatly off into space while he rattled about the tiny kitchen making tea, of all things. She had a mug of it in her hand, but it had long grown cold.

  "You need to tell me why you brought me there," she said to Ezekiel without looking at him. She knew he sat next to her, barely touching her, but his presence was as electric as a live wire.

  "I honestly thought you'd be safe."

  "Safe in a spitters'den where wealthy men purchase addicts for either sex or death, sometimes sex and death, sometimes just death." She said the words without emotion, but each one that exited her mouth could've been a nail she was pounding into a coffin.

  "I told you to stay put," he said.

  "I'm an addict," she said refusing to look at him. "You put an addict in a spitters'den. You gave her money. You couldn't have expected her to just wait for you to come back."

  "So it's my fault?"

  "Hell, yes." She turned on him, letting him see her anger.

  It looked like he wanted to argue, but he tightened his mouth closed, almost as though he was literally clamping it shut.

  "Why didn't you bring me back to Bridget's? I was safe there."

  "Safe enough that you were free to use, it seems."

  "It was just the once. I didn't think it would be such a big deal. You both were so busy with brekkie and all."

  He looked at her with a peculiar expression. "She was raided, Theda. You should have known that." His tone was almost gentle and she hated that, so she shrugged, trying not to show her concern because if he saw it, she would have to admit it bothered her.

  "How would I know that?"

  "You couldn't know. You couldn't know because you were busy using just that once."

  "That's not fair; I had no idea."

  She squirmed on the sofa, her skin itching. Without thinking, her fingers searched for pockets, seeking a smear in jeans she had left behind. He noticed and tugged at her hands, held tight to the fingers, twisting them, making her look at him.

  "You want a fix right now," he said.

  She did. She wanted to let the whole entire experience go. She wanted to forget even if it was just for a little while. Something inside of her, some energy, was driving her to flee, just like she had the night her mother had to protect herself from her father, just like the night she watched her mother ascend to the heavens and leave her behind, just like each and every night she couldn't forget she was left here on this putrid Earth, where her only happiness could be found by forgetting she was alive.

  But she couldn't even indulge in that, at the moment. She had no smears. She'd used her only one on Salima before she'd been taken to that bastard and had to use her stupid trick to buy herself a little time. A magic beyond anything, she used to say when the god had first come and then left. The ride of a lifetime, she'd promised.

  And what a ride she'd given that fat bastard. She needed that smear more than anything now because there was something more in the vision she'd offered him, something she didn't want to see. If she was honest with herself, that vision had been more about her than the john. It had bought her time, yes, but his re-vision had given her another glimpse back into the same lifetime she'd shown Ezekiel in the capitol building, back before she'd even known they were connected by a previous lifetime at all. And that glimpse unnerved her even more.

  "I want a smear," she said without looking up. She heard the catch in her voice as she said it and had to hold back the sting of tears. Just post-traumatic stress, that was all, that's al
l this cascade of emotion was. It could be stemmed by one small smear, just one last bliss out to block out all the horror she'd seen in these last days, all the horror she suspected was coming. "You need to let me fix."

  "I won't do that," he said. "You're stronger than that."

  "Really?" she asked, locking onto his green eyes and holding them so she could stay suspended, so she didn't have to fall into the abyss that meant darkness worse than the pit of despair of being left here on New Earth. She held his gaze for as long as she could before she stared at the wall again, feeling the rush of spiraling out of control, trying to decide which kind of freefall she was experiencing, whether at the end of it she would care enough anymore to gather up the strings from the unfurling main.

  "Really." His palm warmed her knee.

  She snorted then, because he had no idea, and she was just now beginning to understand it all.

  "You almost died. Do you realize that?"

  She refused to let the shame wash over her. This was about him. This was about him bringing her to a place where temptation would've been far too much for her to resist. This was about him knowing what that temptation would have been like. It had nothing to do with Bridget or some raiders deciding they'd throw some addict out into the street.

  She snorted. "I've been in worse situations than being thrown on the street by some--by some--"

  She paused because she had no word to describe what the raiders might have been. No one in New earth cared about drug use. She cocked her head, thinking, but he answered the unspoken question for her.

  "They were the Beast's men, Theda. They knew you were there."

  The Beast's men; not simple bounty hunters for a regular old religion monger. She tried not to let go a gasp, but had the feeling it wasn't successful.

  "Then, you told them."

  "Not me. Not Bridget."

  "Someone." She tried to imagine who would know, who would have seen them escape from the capitol building. It was futile; the only person she knew was Ami, and if Ezekiel was right, he was as good as dead because the Beast needed to keep the world religion free. She remembered Bridget's words: that Theda was on the promo. "Anyone," she said and tried to rid her throat of a lump that had started choking off her air. Instead, all she could manage was to stuff her fist into her mouth. It had to be as simple as that: someone had seen her on the Promo. That was all.

  "She got out, as least I hope she did," Ezekiel said, misinterpreting her anxiety, and there was agony in his voice, as though he blamed her. "Don't you worry, she was more worried about you than she was about herself." His throat moved as he swallowed multiple times. "She made sure I got to you first."

  "I'm sorry," she murmured around her fingers, offering that at least. "I'm glad she's safe. I know you care about her."

  He nodded mutely.

  "Why?" She wanted to add why did Bridget care about her, but she couldn't manage more.

  "Don't you remember anything from the night I brought you there?"

  She remembered plenty. She remembered his hands on her in the tub. She remembered sleeping in a bed for the first time in months. She remembered Bridget's quick acceptance of a strange woman into her home in the middle of the night.

  "You said something to her: you said, 'it's her,'"

  "I did."

  "What did that mean?"

  "I told you she's a lover; doesn't that mean anything to you?"

  "I know what being lovers means."

  He grinned at what her dry tone suggested. "That I've had my hands in her drawers."

  She felt her face flush and he touched her gently on the chin, making her look into his eyes and hold his gaze. It was green and golden at the same time and she wanted to turn away from it more than anything.

  "She's part of a movement," he crooned. "The Beast's son began it before his father made me kill him." He shifted on the sofa, taking her hand in his. "You changed him, Theda. You made him believe he could evolve, to find peace at his end, maybe even redemption."

  They were both aware of the incriminating words, but left them hanging in the air, unchecked. Instead, Theda's mind went reeling to all the information she had learned, trying to connect it to all that had happened.

  "That's why they want me," she guessed. "The Beast is afraid of what might happen if too many people become enlightened."

  "Not just afraid of that, Minou. He's afraid of you. And he knows who you are."

  The mug shook in her hand, spilling liquid on her thigh. She mopped it up with the edge of the afghan.

  "Did you hear me, Theda? He knows."

  She tried to sip at the edge of the mug; the chai spices drifted up her nose, but they smelled cold, not spicy and hot like they should. She grimaced.

  "Theda?"

  She looked at him finally, this man, this bounty hunter, this Beast's lackey, who had begun all this suffering. "You know who I was in your vision, don't you?"

  He nodded. "I told you I forgive you for that."

  She chewed her lip. "I was a sadist. I hurt people. I hated you for what you did to me."

  "I know."

  "I've walked a lot of people through visions," she said. "I thought I was immune to the pain of shame and remembrance." She hung her head, staring into the mug.

  "That's not who you are now," he said. "Who you are now matters; who you are--"

  "Stop." She shook her head, pushing back into the cushions. She thought of Cathrin and her lovers, of the events that played out in intimate detail during Ezekiel's vision. "Don't say it," she said. "I tortured innocent people to death in that life. That's past cruel. That's evil. I can't be what you say I am, what Bridget thinks she sees."

  He shrugged, reaching for her waist and curling his arm around it, trying to pull her close, and giving up when she refused to move.

  "Well, whether or not you are, Minou, the Beast believes it's so, and he isn't going to stop until you are no longer a threat."

  "Meaning dead," she said, and there was a moment when she thought she was falling, when she grasped at the cords that held her aloft and they ran through her fingers.

  Agni: Act 1

  "You're shaking," Ezekiel said to her.

  Theda looked at her hands; indeed, they were trembling, the mug of tea in her hands an unsteady thing that made the steam bob on the air with each movement. So were her thighs as she perched on the edge of the sofa in the teensy apartment Ezekiel had brought her to.

  "It's the adrenaline," she said, wondering if it was also the adrenaline that stole all emotion from her voice, reminding her that the ordeal was over and her body knew there was no need to continually pump survival hormones into her muscles.

  Just a few short hours ago and already the memory was fogging out. She wasn't sure if it was the post-traumatic stress of the experience or the residual effects of the godspit she'd been forced to take before Sasha's henchmen had brought her to one of the supercity's councilmen, dressed as a doomed queen for the sport of an elitist client who wanted to live out the fantasy of taking a human life.

  She'd lived a lifetime in the hours she'd spent with that bastard, believing each moment was going to be her last. She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering that, recalling her eager stupidity. Because that was exactly what Sasha had offered her: godspit enough to last out the rest of her life if she played the role. It had seemed a fair enough exchange at the time: dressing up as Anne Boleyn, maybe offering a little booty to a portly Henry VIII, suck back on godspit for the rest of her days. She'd lost her street sense in those moments she'd agreed to Sasha's offer--all because the jonesing battened down those habitual hatches of caution.

  The irony of it made her chuckle to herself, now, and the more she thought about her naiveté, the funnier it seemed. Add to the joke the image of Sasha with his long red wig and his perfect she-male makeup and she had enough material to keep her laughing for days. Oh, the incredible humor of it all.

  "Theda," Ezekiel's worried voice cut through the laughter. Judging by
the look on his face, he didn't find anything even remotely funny.

  "What?" She swung her gaze toward that throaty voice.

  "It's going to be okay," he said, obviously interpreting her laughter as nervous fear. An even funnier notion. "You're safe here. Do you want more tea?"

  "No," she said, realizing that her hands were wrapped around a hot mug, that at some point he must have made the beverage for her. The way her hands shook as she held the cup made her think it'd be better if she just sat on them. Even the hot tea couldn't heat them up anyway, they were so cold. She dropped the mug onto the end table and stared at her fingers as they trembled. Aftershock. Post-traumatic physiological stress effects. Maybe even the results of being carried about in the frigid spring dark on Ezekiel's shoulder dressed only in a bra and panties, covered only with an afghan. As good as nude. Covered only in a filthy crocheted Afghan, the one that still wrapped itself around her and smelled of wet cement.

  She turned an angry gaze back to him, thinking about that. Remembering what it was like to bounce against his shoulder with her bare ass hanging out for the world to see, his chin against her hip as he'd lugged her to the spitters'den.

  "I was supposed to be safe there," she said. "You told me we would be safe."

  Hidden in the ranks of the derelicts of an already derelict society; it was as good a plan as any. Hiding right out in the open.

  She watched him swallow, trying to collect his face into something that didn't look as miserable as the expression he wore.

  "And where the hell are the clothes you left that place to go get for me?" She looked down at her still bare thighs, visible through the holes in the afghan.