And tucked under the creature’s arm: a head. Old, ancient even, the weathered lines sinking in on one another, the bloodless skin grey and rotten. It would look long dead if it weren’t for the eyes. Open wide, bloodshot and milky white, set in my direction with an unblinking stare.
I’m shaking, hard. I knew that the Underking would be sending his goons for me, always had—I just didn’t think it would be so soon. “I’m warning you,” I say, voice trembling. “My parents were two of the best Slayborn the Làidir has ever seen.”
I don’t mention the fact that I’m probably one of the most disappointing. An embarrassment to my own Order. Or I would be, if they and their precious Underking hadn’t slaughtered the entire operation.
The Dullahan doesn’t answer me. It just lifts its hand further, and I feel my blade try to tug itself from my grip.
“Look, this isn’t my war.” I cling to my knife. “You hear? I don’t take sides! I’m on my own.”
I grip my knife with both hands, but the Dullahan’s pull is strong. I don’t know what kind of weird Unseelie magic this is, but it should definitely be considered cheating. “I don’t fight for anyone!”
In a flash of metal the knife is ripped clean out of my grip, leaving me completely defenseless. Vulnerable. Fucked. But then, at almost the same moment, I feel another blade soaring through the air past me, whipping over my shoulder so close I feel the wind of it on my face. Instead of embedding in the Dullahan’s chest like it should it soars right through, leaving just a misty sliver in its wake.
The gesture snaps the creatures’ presence like a cord, and all of them—snarling dogs and bloody stumps—vanish. In their place, only a cloud of black smoke remains. My knife clatters to the ground again, and the one that was thrown lodges in the face of a Pacman game, cracks spiderwebbing their way across the black dusty screen.
“How have ya managed to survive this long, love?”
Christ. I know that voice. I whip around, already knowing exactly who I’m going to find standing there.
Castor. Of fucking course. He throws back his hood and strides past me, close enough that I can smell his cologne—spice and pine. He stalks over to the silenced Pacman game and wrenches his fancy, personalized Làidir knife out of the shattered screen.
“You followed me.” I stare at him, ashamed that I’m shaking so hard after that little run-in. He retrieves my knife from the floor and strides back to me, shoving it against my chest. “I told you to leave me the fuck alone,” I snap. Still, I take the knife from him.
Castor stares at me, mouth a thin line, jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek. His dark hair hangs in his face, and his fuck-me green eyes are narrowed. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything. And when he does, I admit I’m a little surprised.
“You look hungry.”
I stare at him, unsure I’ve heard him right. “Sorry?”
“Hungry,” he says slowly, brows raised. “Food. Let me buy you dinner.”
God, that brogue. I want to jump him. I want to punch him, right in that gorgeous face of his. I want to eat the tongue straight out of his mouth.
Instead, I let out a huff. “Oh, goody,” I snap. “And I guess you’ll be expecting a fuck afterward, huh?” The words come out sounding more eager than sarcastic. Castor narrows his eyes further, expression scathing.
“Let’s go. I’ll buy. I’m assumin’ you don’ have a cent to your name, loner.”
He’s right. And I have never in my life said no to a free meal. I look past him, back to where the smoke has completely vanished. Were it not for the shattered game screen, I’d think those freaks and their hounds had never been here. That none of this had ever happened. If only. I straighten my coat and grab a cigarette, eager to leave this place behind.
“Come on,” I say. “I know a place.”
Carl throws down a plate of eggs in front of me along with two sides of bacon, three sausage links, and whatever the hell passes for a steak at my favorite 24-hour joint a few neighborhoods over from my parents’ place.
Castor folds his hands around his coffee mug. He has on a nice wool overcoat, which hides his weird breastplate and gauntlets enough to keep distracted eyes elsewhere. His gaze are glued to my steak, and he looks vaguely nauseous.
“What?” I ask around a mouthful of eggs, clearly cooked from powder but steaming hot enough to keep my mind off it. I shovel a few bites of sausage into my mouth, then fold a couple of strips of bacon onto my tongue to top it off. “Never been to a diner?”
“Ne’er seen someone eat like that,” he smirks, gesturing toward me. “And I’ve been to a homeless shelter.”
“Ooh, he’s got jokes.” I snap my fingers at Carl and point to my steak, mouthing another. He makes a face. Did I forget to swallow before I opened my mouth? “So, what the fuck is this about?”
Castor eyes me and says nothing.
“You know,” I continue, slicing into my steak with some effort. “The wining and dining shit. I mean, if we’re gonna fuck, this is more than enough payment.” I gesture down at the meat. “I would have done it for less. You might be the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, but...well, look at you.” I swing my fork at him, and eggs spatter the formica table. “I mean, you’d have to keep your mouth shut like, the entire time, or I would go dry down there faster than an egg on an LA sidewalk in June—”
“Christ almighty.”
“C’mon,” I say, waggling my eyebrows. “If you didn’t enjoy my enchanting company, you wouldn’t be here. Am I right? What are the girls like back where you’re from? They sweet? Or are you one of those oath-taking kinds of Slayborn? No alcohol, no swearing, no fu—”
Carl slaps down another steak and crosses his huge, hairy arms. “Should I bring the whole cow out next?”
“Oh, Carl, that reminds me. I heard a great cow joke. What do you call a cow that doesn’t make—”
Castor gestures Carl away, and the man goes with a snort. “D’you have an off-switch?” he snaps, taking a small sip of coffee. “I’d like to see if I can stomach you when your mouth is shut.”
I snicker, guzzling my caffeine in a few scalding, burnt gulps. “What? Don’t like it when I talk dirty?”
Castor glares at me over the rim of his coffee cup. Still, I can tell by the way his eyes glitter that some part of him does, even if his goody-two-shoes, oath-swearing self won’t admit it. He shifts in his chair, and though he thinks he’s being discreet, I can see him subtly adjusting himself under the table.
“Look, Berkeley. You’re no’ safe here.” Castor’s voice is suddenly hoarse. Heavy. He leans back in an attempt to look more casual, crossing his arms as I lay into the first steak. “As evidenced by you almost gettin’ yourself killed less than twelve hours after we met.”
So much for dirty talk.
“I’m never safe here,” I say through a mouthful of steak. “No one is. No Slayborn, at least. But I’m still around, aren’t I?” I smirk around a huge bite. I’m fronting, and Castor isn’t fooled. I hope he doesn’t notice that my hands are still shaking, that I’m talking fast to cover up my trembling voice.
I know he’s right, though. I’m not safe here anymore. There have never been Dullahan Riders like that here in the city, willing to crop up in shadows with hellhounds, out for Slayblood. Not in my lifetime, at least. It’s not right. Something has shifted in the Unseelie world, and it’s come all the way to San Francisco to find me.
I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know if I can go back to the manor. I don’t know if I’ll live past leaving this diner. I haven’t felt fear this real since my parents died. After that I spent every night drenched in cold sweats, sleeping with knives in my hands and loaded pistols under my pillow. But no one ever came for me, and eventually, I started going out just to look for trouble. Just to feel something. Just to kill something.
But I couldn’t kill those guys. Those things. And Castor knows it way too well.
“Come wi’ me,” Castor says, and
I slow down on the steak to look at him. His eyes are dead serious. “I have a plane ticket for ya. One way. To Dublin.”
I lower my voice, anger rising in me like a hot tide. “You’re off your fuckin’ rocker, mick,” I say, doing my best to butcher his accent as I mimic it. “I’m not joining your little gang of vendetta pricks. The Làidir is dead, got it? Just like…” I shake my head, stuffing another bite of already-cold, powdered eggs into my mouth.
“What would your life’a been like, Berkeley? If the massacre never happened? If your parents lived and the Làidir was still active?” Castor leans in, unblinking. “You would’a gone to Dublin to train with the order. You would’a become a true-blooded Slayborn. You would’a travelled the world with the brotherhood, fighting alongside them to protect the human realm from the Unseelie and their king. And you would’a been good at it.”
I press my lips together, clutching my silverware too tight. Every word he speaks sets off my veins like lit fuses. I’m a flesh-bag of absolute rage. Aimless fury. I’m going to explode.
“You would’a been just like them,” Castor says softly, and I want to rip out his throat for the pity I hear in his voice. “But instead, you’re this. Nothin’. Just a desperate fuck-up doing whatever it takes to forget.”
“You know what, Castor?” I slam my silverware down and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “I don’t give a shit what you or precious little Làidir buddies think of me, OK? I can do what I want, when I want, with and to whoever I want. I’m not meant to follow rules. And I don’t want to.” I stand up.
His eyes widen. “What’re you—”
“I need to piss, OK?” I snap, drawing several pairs of tired eyes from around the diner. “If that’s OK with you? Yeah? Yes? Fucking fabulous.”
I stomp through the diner and throw open the bathroom door. A junkie is lighting a spoon of heroin over the sink with shaky hands. Her eyes are wide and bloodshot, mouth thick with sores.
“Sorry,” she says.
“Don’t apologize to me,” I say, waving a dismissive hand. “I get it.”
But she scrambles to gather her kit and flees the bathroom. I sigh, stalk over to the counter. Look up into my own eyes. I look like shit. Frazzled hair, smeared makeup, questionable bruises—it’s no wonder Carl was so disgusted. I pat at my halo of frizz, trying to tame it, but my hair can be just as fucking stubborn as I am.
My plan right now is to cut out. Leave Castor to his conspiracy theories while I go to the party raging at my house and get white-girl wasted. I’ve already gotten a couple of texts asking where the hell I am, though I suspect it’s more to do with my Crux hookups than anything else. Still, anywhere is better than here.
I’m still making futile attempts to tame my hair when I see the door swing open in the mirror. I half expect to see the junkie returning for her spoon, which she left on the sink.
Instead, I see Castor enter. And with slow deliberation, he locks the door behind himself.
Shit. Shit. I should have known it was all a trap. A free ticket to Dublin? An Irish adonis? The Làidir returning? It was all too good to be true.
And now I’m gonna die at the hands of this asshole. I can’t let that happen.
I won’t.
I lunge for him, slamming him back against the door as I reach for my knife. He seems genuinely surprised, but it isn’t long before his training kicks in. He grabs my wrist, twisting the delicate bones inside to get me to drop my blade. It falls to the ground with a clatter, and though I make a dive for it, Castor is faster. He kicks it out of my reach and grabs my other wrist, spinning me around so that I’m trapped in a bear hug.
I can feel each breath that he takes brushing against my back, feel the hard line of his chest behind me. And digging into me, just above my ass—I feel him. I might have enjoyed this, had it been under different circumstances. But right now, I’m sick of it. Sick of fighting. Sick of bleeding. Sick of all these assholes trying to chop down my family tree.
I push back with both feet as hard as I can, sending both of us crashing into the far wall. Castor grunts, winded, but doesn’t loosen his grip. I slam into him again, but this time, he’s ready. He uses my momentum to swing the two of us around, pinning me flush against the wall under his weight. When I make a grab for his throat he clamps down over my wrists, hard. Both of us are panting, and I can feel the sweat beginning to bead on my forehead.
“If you’re gonna kill me,” I gasp, breathless, “then just fucking do it already. I’ve been waiting twenty-two years for this.”
Castor lets out a low chuckle. A deep, delicious rumble in his chest.
“I’m no’ gonna kill you, love,” he mutters, his voice rough against my ear. “Already told ya—if I wanted ya dead, then you’d be dead.”
“Then what the fuck do you want, asshole?”
Castor doesn’t answer. For a second, neither of us move.
And suddenly, we’re attacking each other all over again.
He tangles his hand in my hair, dragging me up to meet his lips, and I respond with just as much gusto. I lean in, straining my arms to touch him, but he keeps my wrists pinned tight against the wall. His hips buck against mine, effectively immobilizing me, thrusting against my center in a viciously erratic pattern. He pulls away from my lips, instead shoving his face into the curve of my shoulder with another heady groan. He nips at the delicate skin there, leaving an angry red mark in the wake of his teeth. Something he knows everyone will be able to see.
“What happened to the whole chivalry act, huh?” I pant, still struggling against his vice grip. “You’re a fucking hypocrite, you know that?”
He pulls back—breath ragged, pupils blown—and manages a smirk.
“So are you, love.”
I can’t stop myself. We attack each other once more, his lips on my neck, his teeth nipping at my throat, his body pressing against mine. We clash, lips on lips, teeth on teeth, hips grinding against each other as we both fight for the upper hand. I can tell Castor isn’t going to back down.
Like I would either.
I slam into him, my mouth finding his once again. It’s vile. It’s vicious. And yet, it lights up every nerve in my body. The second he eases his grasp on my wrists I spring, running my free hand through the thick mess of hair on his head. Castor runs his hands up my sides, lifting my shirt along with them, his fingers digging into me hard enough to leave marks. I raise my arms so that he can pull it over my head, tossing it onto the dirty tile floor behind us.
He immediately comes at me again, a growl rising in his throat as I drag a hand down his abdomen.The bare skin of his chest is the same golden tan as the rest of him, slick with sweat, gleaming under the flickering halogen above us. We’re practically melded together, scrambling against each other, against the wall behind us, so close and yet not nearly close enough.
I reach for his pants, fumbling for a button, a zipper—some way to release the heavy bulge I feel grinding up against me. But his armor is a complete fucking mystery. It doesn’t take him long to lose patience, reaching down on his own to spring himself free. At the same time he flicks the button of my shorts, easily dragging them down over my hips and discarding them on the floor. And then, in one swift movement, he tears my fishnets straight down the seam and runs a hand up my bare thigh. I can’t stop the moan this time.
“Oh, fuck.”
Castor chuckles into my neck, the sound reverberating through my entire body. “Knew I’d have ya sayin’ that from the moment I saw you,” he growls, nipping at my collarbone. His hand continues to explore higher and higher, teasing, painfully slow, until it finally reaches the apex of my thighs. There’s only a thin layer of lace underneath his fingertips, but each move that he makes sears into me like he’s touching bare flesh.
“We gonna do this or what?” I pant, leaning back so I can look him square in those perfect green eyes. “Quit fucking around already.”
“I haven’t even begun to fuck around.” Castor grins, hooking
his fingers around my panties and yanking them down my legs. In an instant we’re together again, his hand still teasing, testing, and I palm the length of him in response. He nearly chokes on his next breath, muttering out a deep curse as he thrusts involuntarily against my hand. He grabs me by the wrists, pinning both of my arms up against the wall under one massive fist.
“None’a that, now,” he growls. “It’s my turn.”
And suddenly his free hand is against me again in long, steady strokes, before a finger plunges inside of me. Some pitiful sound leaves my lips—a whimper, a mewl—but I’m too far gone to care. He thrusts into me again, the muscles of his arm tensing with each rough movement, and I gasp—but as good as this feels, it’s no replacement for the real thing.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t gonna fuck around,” I snarl, straining against the hand pinning me down. Castor smirks against my lips.
“And I thought we agreed you weren’t gonna keep runnin’ that mouth’a yours.”
I scowl, giving his shoulder a hard shove. “Dick.”
“Soon enough, love.”
He adds another finger, and this time, I cry out so loud I’m sure someone is going to come investigate. Like that’s ever stopped me before, though. I grind back against him, and finally, it seems that I’ve worn down whatever dregs of resolve Castor has. He releases my arms, letting me wrap a firm hand around the length of him. I hear him suck in a curse through his teeth with the first stroke, feel him twitch under my grip.
“I think ya might be right,” he mutters, his breath hot against my ear. “Enough fuckin’ around.”
With that he shoves my thighs apart with one knee, taking a moment to align himself, the tip of him rubbing against me. And with a deep growl he plunges inside of me, the initial flash of pain quickly giving way to a deep, undulating pleasure. He thrusts again and I match his movements, slamming myself back against him, my breath leaving my body each time we come crashing together. There’s a knock on the bathroom door, a gruff shout from outside—Carl, probably—but I couldn’t care less. I’m close. So fucking close that a bulldozer busting through the wall wouldn’t stop me.
Slayborn Page 4
