Death Mask (Wraith's Rebellion Book 3)

by Aya DeAniege

  “Daisy?” I asked. “If wolf blood is the answer, I’m not certain that’s a good idea.”

  “Do you want to be immune to her magic?” Daisy asked. “There’s a reason the vampires drink from wolves, a reason why the Great Maker never banned the drinking of a supernatural.”

  “Quin said it makes us go crazy. Like a human on bath salts and a bad, bad trip.”

  “If the blood is not given willingly, it can,” Daisy said. “I’m going to need you to eat one of my boys.”

  “You mean bite.”

  “I mean eat, the entire boy. Not in a scavenger way, in the vampiric sense,” Daisy said. “Otherwise he might retain control over you until it completely passes.”

  “So, retain control,” I said.

  “Said the woman with clear trust issues and no understanding of how that works,” Daisy muttered. “You’d be linked. She’d know, and use that. If you don’t eat him, when he died, your soul would be dragged with him.”

  I stared at Daisy. “Addicts aren’t just jonesing for that special high, are they?”

  “No, they’re completely mad.”

  I sucked in a breath, looking at Troy. His eyes were rimmed in red. He looked utterly defeated, looking away when I turned to him.

  Looking back to Daisy, I sighed. “Are you certain I won’t have my break here and now? If I eat again so soon?”

  “No, but no one can predict when it hits. When it finally does, you’ll envy him. He is feeling one death. You will feel them all.”

  I gritted my teeth and looked at Troy once more. His face was pointed away from us. Trying not to make a sound, I looked back to Daisy.

  “All right, I’ll do it.”

  “Good, I need one other thing from you,” she said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “To realize that you used your powers on my pup,” Daisy said, lifting her hand to motion someone over. “Vampires of the past have been locked out of their powers, and they tell baby vampires the same will happen to them, but it’s all in their heads. You can still do all the things you could while you were settling in. You just need to want it bad enough, and I strongly suspect you can do that.”

  “I did it with the pup, so I just need to not want to die, I guess,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  “Or if Banshee had been created. You’ll want to turn that off for the moment.”

  “Why was it off?” I asked.

  Which was a stupid question given the glazed look in Helen’s eyes, or how Troy seemed to sniff at the air. Both were reacting to blood, from experience I knew that Helen’s look was that overstuffed on blood look. Her nose scrunched up slightly as I watched, stomach probably gurgling in an annoyed fashion.

  That look on her face made me want to curl around her, petting and cuddling and kissing. Slowly seducing her until she moaned as I slipped inside her.

  We don’t have time for that.

  Yes, I knew that. I grumbled to myself as I batted a hand over my shoulder to wave Wraith off.

  Troy’s was more like a dog who was pretty certain Master had a treat for him. I turned to Balor and raised an eyebrow in question. He gave the barest shake of his head.

  The sniffing wasn’t because he had wanted some finger food.

  Literally ghoulish.

  Troy was craving something and Baylor would see to his desires. What Troy craved was directed at me because he wanted the connection along with the sex. That couldn’t happen and Troy knew it, but he was feeling vulnerable and turning to the most comfortable body he knew in the hopes of getting everything from one body.

  I dropped the juice box I had brought for Helen into her lap and turned to Daisy, expecting all kinds of trouble. She smiled slowly at me, in an inviting fashion.

  “Did you use her while I was gone?” I asked.

  “We never agreed to that,” Daisy said, her teeth flashing as if to answer my challenge.

  “So, you did feed her again.”

  “I had someone laying around.”

  I glanced nervously at the bar. One of her boys was gone, and there were a couple of options as to where. One of which was inside my Progeny, but if that were true, Daisy should have been howling for blood, one way or another.

  “Are you ready?” Daisy asked.

  “What’s that taste like?” I heard Troy ask behind me.

  Stiffening, I turned to find Troy almost in Helen’s lap as she drank from the juice box. She peered at him through her log lashes, one side of her lips curling up just slightly. Troy wasn’t asking about Helen’s previous meal, he was asking about the current one. He was asking what I tasted like.

  We’ve seen that look before.

  I motioned to Balor, and he slipped up, getting between the two fledglings and separating them.

  I hadn’t seen that look in centuries. So long ago that we had all but forgotten about it. The look of a fledgling who had just realized they could rip apart another vampire and there’d be no consequences.

  Helen was riding a nasty edge. It was no wonder she hadn’t been effect by her previous meal. Which led me to wonder if it was just her predatory side coming out, or the company we were keeping.

  “Quintillus?” Daisy asked, drawing my attention back to her. “You know I would never knowingly cause your Progeny harm, don’t you?”

  “Call your boys up.”

  “Doesn’t work like that,” Daisy said, slipping off the table she had been perched on. “Sweetie, this is a big city with leash laws.”

  I stiffened as I met her eyes.

  “I asked for your help,” I said.

  “And you know my hatred of the leash,” Daisy responded quietly.

  We both stared at one another, waiting for the other to speak up first.

  I had first met Daisy forty years previous. She had still been held by her father at that point. A loner with a nasty streak, Gary had tried to take over a pack in Northern British Columbia and failed.

  They had tried to take him down but discovered Daisy chained in the front yard. He had forced her into her wolf form at far too young an age and kept her there. Living only as wolf meant that her wolf form had aged.

  What should have been a pup, was a full-grown bleeder in the prime of her life. Or at least, they thought she was a berserker.

  So they had called me in. I’ll spare the bloody details, but let’s just say dogs like me, and wolves have always felt as if I were a kindred soul. With a little research, I discovered her wolf name and unchained her, using that name to bring her close enough to humanity to make a choice.

  I had expected her to leave, not to do that, but they say karma is a bitch.

  “I’m laying a great deal of trust in you,” Daisy said finally.

  “Are you two done posturing?” Helen asked.

  “Helen,” I protested.

  “Sweetie, you pause when he gets that clouded look in his eye because he’s remembering,” Daisy said, shaking a finger at Helen half-heartedly. “Unless you’re pissed at them, then you use that moment to attack.”

  “I regret agreeing to let you specifically use me as a squeak toy,” I said.

  Daisy frowned at me, then smiled and covered her mouth with a little giggle.

  “That’s an oddly accurate way to describe it,” Daisy said.

  “You should get going,” Balor said loudly.

  Pointedly. In a very specific fashion. I glanced back once, but that was all. Troy was latched onto Balor’s neck.

  I had heard a story or two from Balor’s children, and while I wanted to know if it was true, I also didn’t feel that right then would be the time to push that limit on our new relationship.

  But, rumour said Balor demanded his children service him before they fed, then had his way them afterward. He had male and female alike. While I might not accept a male sexual partner, the idea of it still interested me, just as any other sexual combination did.

  Female and female was preferable, of course, because there was always plenty of roo
m for me. At least, in my mind there was plenty of room for me to just slip in there and enjoy a great deal of attention.

  For some reason that thought made me want to apologize to lesbians everywhere. Of course I didn’t expect them to make room for me, but suddenly I was thinking about it. I blame Helen, entirely. Before her every female pair I envisioned were simply bicurious. After her, all were lesbian and I was just that jerk of a male, trying to be a douchebag.

  Helen squeaked out. I smiled at her, hoping she would find it reassuring, then turned to Daisy.

  Who sat on the bar floor in wolf form, one paw in the air to shake. I reached out and took the paw, shaking it, then snapped my fingers and pointed at the floor. She laid down and looked at me, head cocking to the side as if questioning if I had treats for her.

  I rolled my finger, and she responded by rolling over and immediately hopping up like an eager dog, barking several times.

  Then she sat down and looked at Helen.

  I turned to Helen and smiled again. Her mouth was hanging open, eyes wide in surprise as she looked between Daisy and me.

  “Why are you still alive?” Helen demanded.

  No humour on this one.

  “Well, Daisy and I both have dark senses of humour,” I said.

  “You mean, you’ve worked with her before.”

  Daisy made a talking sound. It was the sound she used to warn me of danger. Humans thought she was just talking nonsense, so they never suspected anything of it.

  “I met Daisy when she was young, then again, what was that? Twenty years ago?” I turned to Daisy. She woofed in response. “Morris set me up with Daisy when I had a need.”

  Helen didn’t need to know the timeline, not right then. Not while they were close enough to get into a fight over it. Until I knew how far Helen’s possible jealousy was, I would protect those from my past.

  Whatever I said, as long as Daisy didn’t bite me, Helen would probably believe what I said was true.

  “But you knew her before that.”

  “I met her once when she was young, yes,” I said.

  “Oh boy,” Helen said as if I had just proudly told her that I pissed the bed. Daisy made several sounds at Helen, who frowned at her. “I can’t understand you, and if he doesn’t understand that he’s a walking cliché, that’s his problem, not yours.”

  “I’ve met tens of thousands of living wolves, that’s not impressive odds,” I said.

  “Did,” Helen said, dragging out the word, “you happen to save her from certain death? Or enslavement? Did you literally remove a leash and collar from her and saved her from her father?”

  “Why would that be important?” I asked.

  “How many living wolves have you literally saved from life or death situations?” Helen demanded.

  I winced, which made her cross her arms and huff out a breath. There was no way I could win that argument. Helen would see the symbolism that she wanted to see, and that was simply the way it was.

  Don’t the witches say something about symbols?

  I could have been wrong, what with not having a witch on hand to consult, but I thought a witch had once told me that symbols carried the power which others gave over to them. If a witch believed that they would have bad luck because they crossed the path of a black cat, they would. To a point, humans could do the same.

  Does that make us a symbol?

  I batted the voice away in annoyance and tried not to growl at anyone. Daisy was particularly bitey when she felt male animosity. She wouldn’t care that I was annoyed with a witch, or Helen, or even a symbol that I was supposed to represent. She would just see the angry male.

  “Quin?” Helen asked.

  “Let’s just go,” I grumbled.

  “Is Wraith around?” Helen asked.

  “I said, let’s go,” I repeated as Daisy made a questioning sound and cocked her head to the other side. I jabbed a finger at the wolf. “Don’t you start with me. I get enough trouble about that from her.”

  Daisy woofed and stood. I shot Helen a scathing look, motioning to the door. Helen bit her bottom lip, as if she wanted to say something else, then stood and headed for the door. I followed after her, pausing at the door for just a moment.

  Troy was pressed right against Balor, a hand reaching between them. Balor sat with his arms on the back of the seat, eyes closed and head tilted back.

  The idea of it set a fire in my loins.

  You sound like a moron who has never had sex.

  I mentally slapped Wraith away and left the club. Outside, I took a moment and looked around us. Down the street, a man was stumbling about, so high or drunk that he couldn’t even walk straight.

  Daisy barked once, causing the man to stop and look up at me. I frowned down at the wolf, who pawed at the air several times.

  “I’m allowed to look,” I protested.

  Helen turned to where I had been looking. I saw the little shudder run through her as she turned back to me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We never did discuss your drug use,” she said, then looked away.

  Daisy made a sound, and I sighed.

  I suppose in a way, we had discussed drugs. If we hadn’t, Helen wouldn’t have said it the way she did. It wasn’t that I had a problem with drugs.

  Because I couldn’t. Because Sasha said so.

  I think I see the problem.

  Grumbling silently, I adjusted the leash in my hand and glanced at Helen, who seemed to be too focused on the man.

  She had said that her ex was an addict. That he had left her after getting sober and there I was, focused on an addict in almost longing. Even without being what I was and who I was, I could see that there was a problem there. She was envisioning a future where I was a recovering addict. In her mind, recovering addicts left her. Only damaged men wanted to be around her, to use her until she was no longer useful to them.

  I focused my eyes and turned my face to the sidewalk. Daisy looked over her shoulder at me, then looked back to Helen and woofed. That was her inviting woof. If Daisy had been in human form, there would have been a wink and a nudge nudge to go along with that woof.

  “When someone could fall from the sky and kill us by landing on us, is not the time to have that discussion,” I said. “Daisy, do you mind?”

  She raised her nose and sniffed. Then sniffed several more times in several directions.

  When she went off, I followed her, keeping close to give her as much slack on the leash as I could. When she stopped, I stopped. Her head swivelled, following a cop car driving down the street, then she stood and went off again.

  At a lamppost she paused, lifting her leg to urinate.

  “Really?” I asked.

  She woofed in response and trotted off again. I rolled my eyes as Helen held out her hand for the leash.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry, but that would be Daisy’s decision, not mine.”

  To which Helen rolled her eyes and quickened her pace to walk beside Daisy.

  Somewhere in the night, I had done something to upset Helen. I didn’t know where it was, or how, but she was acting like a lover scorned, and I didn’t appreciate it one bit.

  It may have been the handling of her brother, or the bit where she had made a comment on the addict. Perhaps it was even a mood swing, but I wouldn’t know until later. Long centuries later when she finally jabbed a finger and accused me of something that I hadn’t known I had done.

  Or she would forget about it by the next night. It was always hard to tell with new female vampires.

  “Do you all, you know,” Helen said to Daisy. “I mean, wolves in the wild. There’s a male and female alpha, and they’re the only ones to breed and. I mean, I’m confused, what I’ve heard so far has been more human than wolf. Even the pecking order isn’t quite the same, but I get that. But still, in the wild, a wolf won’t sacrifice himself for the alpha.”

  “That’s not true with werewolves, either,” I said.

  Most
wouldn’t. Daisy’s boys? Hell yes, they’d do it. What concerned me was more about what Helen knew about werewolves and making her knowledge as vague as possible until the next night.

  Helen glanced back at me, then turned her attention to Daisy, who was looking up at Helen.

  “It’s a Bitch thing, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Daisy gave a little woof of confirmation. Helen nodded and looked around us. She seemed to consider things carefully.

  “Do you go into heat?”

  Even as I protested that it wasn’t an appropriate topic to ask a wolf she had just met, Daisy gave a woof of confirmation, then grumbled for a while.

  “Which makes it harder, because if they managed that, then you could lose your rank,” Helen said, pausing as Daisy grumbled some more. “And you can’t hide it because you’d also lose rank.”

  Followed by more grumbling.

  Helen’s power was learning. People would talk to her more willingly, reveal secrets that they would tell no one else. She had even gotten Lu to disclose his plan, got him talking when he should have known better.

  So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Daisy opening up about wolf behaviour that even I was too terrified to ask about.

  “You can sniff out any vampire?”

  Daisy confirmed that and Helen looked around us once more.

  “Do you need to get a whiff of them, like a dog does, or is it intergenerational?”

  Daisy turned her head and sniffed Helen’s leg eagerly, then sniffed upward ever so slightly.

  “Daisy,” I said in warning.

  She still shoved her nose into Helen’s crotch and began sniffing like Helen was a dog in heat. Helen laughed and batted Daisy away from her playfully. Daisy sneezed and looked back at me.

  That tail waved twice, and I swear I saw a wolfish smile for a moment before Daisy barked and started off again.

  “So, you’ve met her,” Helen said.

  The wolf whined once. Helen seemed to sigh.

  “Your grandmother wasn’t a Bitch though, you said. Was she close friends with one? Like, lovers?”

  Daisy gave a shake of her head and lifted a paw several times before she continued. Helen looked back at me.