The Human Herders (Daemons of London - Book 2)

by Michaela Haze

  Henry stepped forward and entered the key code to the elevator with ease. William had gone off without us, marching forward with a phone to his ear like a fifty shades billionaire.

  “Each Family originates from a Pureblood.” Henry explained. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the silver aluminium doors pinged open. A blonde woman with a topknot and a pencil skirt smiled faintly, waiting for us. She sucked up the energy in the air like a vacuum, causing my breath to become mist on the air. She was a daemon.

  “Hello.” She said mildly. “My name is Cynthia. I am Master Kain’s personal assistant.” Cynthia nodded to each of us, but her gaze drew to a stop at Henry. “Master Blaire. It’s a pleasure. Where is your Mistress?”

  A stab of jealous pulsed through my chest, like a fist around my heart. It took an unusual amount of strength to keep from flinching. I turned to look at my daemon, his eyes flared ice blue, his pupil was a stark black dot on a sea of Celestine. He cleared his throat and motioned for all of us to step into the elevator without a word.

  Cynthia pulled out a tablet and began typing away without acknowledging us further. I watched the numbers on the lift increase until they reached the top floors.

  “The Penthouse?” I looked to Henry in disbelief.

  “The smallest things surprise you.” His lips twitched in a smile.

  Cynthia coughed to draw our attention. “Master Kain will be detained for a short period with preparations for the Equinox Festival at the first of the month. Is there anything I can help you with whilst you wait?” Her voice was melted caramel, detached and professional.

  I shook my head, unable to think of a request. Trix snapped her fingers and ordered coffee in a bored drawl. As an afterthought, she added, “And a bottle of JD.”

  It was obvious she had been to the Penthouse before, but I didn’t ask.

  When the elevator opened, it had led us directly into the living room of the penthouse. The windows were from floor to ceiling. The London skyline was spectacular, the phallic shape of the gherkin building glinted in the sun as it’s glass structure caught the weak spring sun outside.

  The apartment was sparsely decorated; the Scandinavian style furnishings were all light grey and boxy. Trix flitted past us both, her peach hair bouncing as she hurried to one of the armchairs and sat down with a huff. She stretched her feet onto the glass coffee table, and quickly made herself at home.

  I swallowed any questions about the two of them, William and Beatrix, and found myself looking at her breasts appraisingly. Hers’ were large, and I knew that William liked that.

  “What’s the Equinox festival?” I wondered as Cynthia’s heels clacked against the pristine white marble tile. She carefully laid her tray on the table, the pot was full of dark, delicious coffee and the PA trotted away without a word. I leant forward and took the bottle of Jack Daniels, unscrewing the lid and taking a large swig. I instantly calmed, the rolling nausea and unease in my stomach began to settle.

  “It’s the Rebirth festival,” Trix explained. “Happens once a year.”

  “It is when most daemons are turned.” Henry looked at the JD out of the corner of his eye but chose not to say anything about it. “It would be unwise to consider turning a daemon without the support of the Families. The Equinox Festival is a collection of humans, both consorts and food. They are placed in the auction and given to the highest bidder.”

  I shivered, disgusted. “Auctioned? Like…antiques?”

  “Or cattle.” Trix piped in helpfully, as she poured herself a cup of coffee in a delicate manner. “They’re Biters, Taylor, what do you expect?”

  Henry reached over and took my hand, but my attention was briefly stolen by the hazy red cloud that drifted from where our skin touched, it was like a scarlet thread. I didn’t know what it meant, but it had helped me find him. It kept me grounded and connected to him.

  “As an Elite, William can put you forward for the Equinox festival,” Henry said. “When the time comes, you will be turned into a daemon and will belong to the Families. Over whom the Purebloods have no jurisdiction.”

  My head swirled with the new information, and I leant back in the chair as Henry’s finger drew invisible patterns over the skin on the back of my hand. The material of the expensive faux retro sofa was scratchy and uncomfortable. It was probably easy to stain as well.

  “So William can’t do his magic Elite thing and give me pale blue eyes?” My tone was defeated. “At least it can’t get any worse.”

  William walked into the room, his arms open like a king addressing his subjects. He still wore his hipster t-shirt and an easy smile as he strode across the room and sank into the chair next to Trix. William gave her a subtle nod, which she pointedly ignored.

  “I had to make some calls. The Rose family are hosting the Equinox festival this year at their estate in Eltham Palace. It will be closed to the public for the month of March.” William crossed one leg over this other at the knee. His pose unusually dominating.

  Henry gave his friend a long-suffering look. “Will Sophia be safe in the auction?”

  “If your mistress doesn’t find out.” He smirked.

  I bristled. “Your mistress?” I thought back to the comment that Cynthia the PA had made in the elevator and I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

  William glanced at Henry, “It is not my place to speak about Lillian Blaire.”

  Heat rose from my toes to my hairline. Anger flooded my body as Henry turned to me. There was guilt, plain as day, written all over his perfect face. His doe-eyes shot to my lips, and I tasted a metallic tang. I had bitten clean through my cheek lining, and blood filled my mouth. Henry’s eyes flared from their deep blue to pale ice. He stood up without a word and walked into the door nearest the living room, slamming it behind him. He was avoiding the blood, but I didn’t care. I leapt to my feet, fists clenched and walked after him.

  When I opened the door to the room, which turned out to lead to the study, Henry paced in the dark. His eyes the only thing in the room I could see clearly, everything else was a black outline as the thick shutters kept out almost all light.

  I kept my voice level, but it held malice as I measured my words carefully.

  “Lillian is your mistress,” I said. “You left me, two years ago, for her. It wasn’t just a ‘summons’ was it?”

  Henry turned silently. A candle on the other end of the room flared to life and made me jump back. His face was bathed in shadow, the light caught the perfect angle of his jaw and the light red sheen of his dark mahogany hair.

  He said nothing, his jaw churned as if he was trying hard to loosen it.

  My throat was dry; my eyes were anything but. “Tell me.” I croaked. “Tell. Me.”

  “Yes, we were together.” He murmured, without turning to face me fully.

  “You.” I pointed my finger at him, hatred flared in my bones. “You are a bastard.”

  “Knowing I was with Lillian in that capacity, does not change anything.” He explained, no ounce of guilt entered his voice. “I am here with you. You are mine.”

  “It changes everything,” I said. “I knew you were summoned. I didn’t know you were still sleeping together!” My voice became a shrill scream in the now silent room.

  Henry's movements were slow and deliberate as he walked towards me. His fingers wove around my waist, and all my strength left my body. I wanted to push him away, but the part of me that wanted him to hold me was more powerful. I was disgusted with myself. His touch sent sparks through my blood even though my mind shrieked for me to pound his beautiful face to a messy pulp.

  “You are my soulmate.” Henry buried his head in my hair. His hard, muscular body leeched my body heat and I melted into his embrace. I allowed my arms to drop limply to my side, unable to speak.

  “I left you to protect you.” He whispered. “Lillian holds an immense amount of power over me.”

  “You left me.” I struggled to break our embrace, “You may have chosen me. Y
ou may have marked me. But I never chose you.” I scratched the Blaire Sigil on the crook my wrist out of habit. Henry gripped my shoulders and pushed my body to arm's length so he could survey my expression. I did not know what he found, a tentative mixture of utter betrayal battling lust probably.

  “You don’t mean that.” He said.

  I closed my eyes as a single tear dropped down my cheek. The warmth I had felt from the JD only minutes before was gone. My fingers shook, and I needed something to take the edge off.

  My skin throbbed with the new to cut. To turn my mental anguish into something physical.

  He leant forward, his hands gripped the back of my head as our lips were forced together. I felt the light inside of my chest, the happiness that had always seemed so elusive. It flared and then slipped away as the kiss deepened. I couldn’t do that to myself anymore. I didn’t want to be someone’s second choice. I didn’t want to be the one that picked up the pieces of a man when his real woman tore him down. I cupped Henry’s face gently and forced myself to look into his eyes. My heart broke in two. My ears burned, both embarrassed and angry.

  “I can't consolidate the man that I fell in love with, with the man that came back.” My voice shook. “I think that I need to leave.”

  Henry slammed his hand into the wall, the drywall shattered. His consistently concealed anger and restraint was gone, shattered on the floor. The stoic man who screamed danger had shifted to something desperate. The only time I had seen that expression was when he was inside of me like I would disappear if he held me too tightly. As if I were a figment of his imagination.

  “I have waited since the beginning of creation for you; and you tell me that I can’t have you because I am cursed?” His words were slow and carefully measured.

  My eyes were wet with tears. “I don’t care about the curse. I care about Lillian.”

  “They are one and the same.” He snarled. I flinched.

  I tried to take a step back but found myself trapped by the wall, Henry took the opportunity to use his thigh to pry my knees apart. He stood between my legs, his hand was embedded in the drywall a foot away from my skull. I forced eye contact with him, unable to back down. I wanted to be strong, I didn’t want to be the weak woman that he had left in a cold bed for another.

  “I love you so much.” He whispered, broken. “Please.”

  I dug my fingers into my palms, hard enough to draw blood. I could still taste the remnants of my earlier bite, the blood on my tongue. Henry’s chest heaved as if he were drawing breath. The energy in the room, my energy, swirled in dizzying colour. His presence gobbled it greedily, leeching life force from the air without a thought. All he ever did was take, take, take! I was broken. I towed the line between mentally unwell and morally corrupt. I couldn’t afford to give anymore. Not when I would be dead in a few days anyway, at best, and insane on a murderous rampage, at worst.

  “You were a Pureblood.” I hissed and jabbed my finger into his hard chest. “You are no more trapped than you allow yourself to be.”

  I pushed him away, unwilling to concede to his touch. “You are excellent at pretending to be a human, Henry,” I said, a tell-tale tear leaked from my eye, and I cursed my weakness. “You have been cursed for so long. Feeling the emotions of others, experiencing them. But they are not your feelings. You’re just a spectator. You are nothing but a monster.”

  I grasped in the darkness as my hand searched for the door handle. Henry’s arm wove around my waist, his grip was a hard, an unmoving marble statue. I struggled, but he stepped closer, pressing my back against his chest. I wanted nothing more than to collapse into him. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I knew he could sense the deep stirring, betraying love I felt for him. He planted a slow kiss where the seam of my arm met my shoulder and my cheeks flushed. My inner bitch roared. He was an incubus and he was trying to use sex to manipulate me into staying. I stepped away and instantly missed the electricity of his skin on mine.

  I was unable to comprehend if his affection was a declaration of love or an acknowledgement of my goodbye.

  “There is no ‘us’ anymore,” I said, my voice was barely audible. “I can’t do this. I can’t keep being hurt by your secrets. You have too many.”

  “I need to protect you.”

  “You don’t need to do anything,” I replied.

  Henry spun me around, and his lips sought mine. They were cold and demanding, his sandalwood and mint scent flooded my mind. I was drunk from his touch. The Pure blood in my veins, Damian’s blood, ensured that he could not drain me by touching me, but I still felt weak and overcome by my body’s need for him. I wanted nothing more than to climb under his skin and live there. But I needed to know that he had no more secrets, and there was no way I could ever be sure. There was no way that I could trust him, not when I couldn’t even believe my own two eyes. I allowed the kiss to continue for a few moments, even though I shouldn’t have.

  When the kiss began to deepen, and Henry’s nimble fingers trailed sparks up the skin of my torso as his hand slipped under my shirt. I bit down on his bottom lip. Hard.

  A growl, unlike any I had ever heard, vibrated through the room. I pushed him away and wiped his blood from my lips with the back of my hand. His wide doe-eyes were shocked. The familiar addictive rush of daemon blood coated my mouth as I pushed through the door and walked to the elevator. I jammed the button to the lift, repeatedly.

  I heard footsteps on the tiles but forced myself not to look back. Trix’s delicate tattooed hand rested on my shoulder, she was silent as she stood next to me.

  Henry slammed the study door open, his blood dripped down his chin.

  “Don’t leave!” He begged, he dropped to his knees, his palms were flat on the marble floor as if the weight of the world pressed down on his shoulders. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t let Damian kill you. I can’t.”

  Trix's hazel irises moved sluggishly from Henry to me. Her expression did not chance but she must have seen something that steeled her resolve. The Witching squared her shoulders as Henry crawled towards us.

  “Don’t come closer.” Beatrix said, her voice was low and threatening.

  "Don’t allow Lillian to come between us.” Henry pleaded.

  Bereft, I pushed every feeling I had for him, every warm and fuzzy until it was squashed under the balls of my feet. I forced myself to focus only on the stinging betrayal and hurt I felt.

  “You are the one that allowed her to come between us,” I said robotically. “I’m sure I will find a way to survive without you.”

  When the elevator arrived, Trix and I turned and left. I allowed myself one last glance at my daemon before my heart broke. He wasn’t my daemon any more.

  I had a routine for my grief. After my dad died, and then when Melanie followed soon after, I had perfected the art of falling into the abyss.

  Step one: Lots of vodka.

  I didn’t have any more steps. Not anymore.

  Before I had met Henry, my arms and thighs were covered in angry red lines from my razor blade. I used to self-harm. I was a cutter. Deep down, there was a nagging voice in the back of my mind that begged me to hurt myself. I had yearned to replace the mental and emotional pain with something tangible. I curled into a ball on my bedroom floor as sobs wracked through my slight body. My cheeks stung from the abundance of saltwater tears. I was pathetic. I grieved the loss of a man in the same way I had mourned the loss of murdered sister. I couldn’t help the disgusting and horrible feeling that had crawled under my skin. Any ounce of goodness I had felt had withered and died.

  It took me a while to notice that Trix was stood in my doorway, watching me. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her face was clear of all emotion but her eyes glittered with a feeling that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was akin to what I felt when I had stared into my sister's eyes. I was unable to get up and shake off the pathetic person that I had become. When I had met Trix, and we had started fights and drank daemon blood
, I had never shown any kind of weakness. I wasn’t the strong and confident person I wanted so desperately to be.

  Trix lowered her arms to her sides, her hands shook and her nails embedded in her palms. She stretched her fingers out when realised I was watching her. Her fingernails, which was always painted and maintained, had been bitten down. Beatrix turned on her heel without a word and returned a second later with a bottle of Russia’s finest vodka. She placed on the shag carpet, in front of where I had curled up on the floor.

  Without another word, her gaze caught on the hundreds of sketches of Henry Blaire that I had done years ago. They hung on my walls like a stalker-obsessive wallpaper. It hurt to look at them.

  Before when Henry had left me, there had been no closure and no finality. Now, it had ended. It was done.

  Trix's lip curled in anger and her face flushed red, I pushed myself up onto my knees (and like an idiot) grabbed the vodka to protect it. A long slow drop of crimson blood slid from her nostril and ran over her lips, her eyes caught mine and we stared at each other. Witching powers had a substantial cost and the nose bleed was only a small part of the damage that Trix did every time she used magic.

  Every single portrait of Henry burst into flames. Her power was incredible. I could taste it on the back of my tongue like burning plastic. Nothing else in my room burned, only the sketches had been set alight.

  Another sob ripped through me.

  “What am I going to do, Trix?” I croaked, my voice was broken. “Damian is going to kill me.”

  She knelt by my side, the hard ice in her expression melted. She wove an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I started to cry again, and rested my face on her chest; she was much more well-endowed than I was, even though she was a good foot shorter. I let tears and snot fall onto her shirt but she didn’t push me away, Trix held me closer, more tightly.

  “If you’re so worried about the Pureblood, why didn’t you just stay?” Trix asked, curiously.

  “He left me for her.”

  Trix undid the screw top on the vodka bottle and took a swig. She offered it to me, and I grabbed it and nursed it greedily.