Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

  “Because inside me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom...and as hard as I try, I cannot kill it.”

  -Veronica Roth, Insurgent

  The house was way too hot, the way her mom liked it after a visit with her daddy. Daddy had just left, but Mom had let her next door neighbor come over, Eire’s best friend, Ina.

  Ina had magic, but it wasn’t bad magic. It wasn’t like when Daddy got mad and he cut her with his knives.

  Mommy had said it was an accident the first time it had happened a couple years ago, but her mom had also been scared for Eire at the time. She’d watched Eire for a week looking for something. When Eire had asked what she was so worried about, her mom had looked at her curiously.

  “Daddy’s magic makes people sick, sweetie.”

  Eire had walked to her mother and touched the tears trailing down her cheeks.

  “I just have a tummy ache, but I think that was the gummy worms I ate earlier. Daddy wouldn’t hurt me, Mommy,” she had said at the time, with all the confidence of a four-year-old. Daddy barely spoken to her, but she knew, she just knew when he’d used his magic knives that it had been an accident. At least, she had known that at four.

  At eight, she had a few more scars, and she knew now that Daddy wasn’t as good of a man as he made others believe. He was good at lying. Eire never wanted to be good at lying like him or like the other adults in her life.

  “Ina, do you think there are really princesses?” She took the Barbie from her play chest and the GI Joe Ina had brought over and made little thread crowns for them.

  “My daddy calls me his little princess, so I’m a princess,” Ina said, smiling. “Your Momma calls you something different, but I think we are princesses. But Daddy says I can be who I want.”

  “Mommy doesn’t tell me that. She tells me to be careful. Says the world is bad and damages little fairies.”

  Ina stopped playing to look at Eire for a moment. She reached out her hand, and Eire trusted her best friend, so she just waited. Ina’s hand touched her face, and Eire felt a warm tingle in her cheek that trailed down her neck and into her heart. The tingle didn’t stop there, though. It made its way outward to her arm where she had the cuts from her daddy. The tingle burned for a second and Eire and Ina both sucked in a breath, but then Ina blew it out again, and this time, Eire felt the cold from Ina’s breath. Healing cold. Not like Ina’s normal magic.

  “You have magic, Eire,” Ina whispered. “It’s refreshing…like building a snowman.” She smiled and Eire smiled back. Snowmen. She liked snowmen. They were fun to build. She also loved finding the most perfect stones she could for the snowman’s mouth and buttoned up shirt. Yes, she loved snowmen. That was nicer magic than Daddy’s knives.

  Eire lifted the sleeve of her short-sleeved shirt and looked at where the angry, red mark had been from yesterday when she’d disobeyed Daddy and walked in on him talking with another man and Mommy. She’d thought the man was a friend. She’d just wanted to say hi. Daddy didn’t like it when she ignored his friends.

  She got punished for ignoring his friends and now for saying hi to his friends. She didn’t know how to be better for him, how to be different, and every time he hurt her, it lasted for days. Her tummy ached. Her head hurt. Her blood felt cold. And she cried a lot. And those tears burned her cheeks. Her mom said it was her body cleansing itself of Daddy’s bad magic. Eire didn’t care. She just didn’t want it. She wanted Daddy to love her.

  Eire heard the slamming of the front door and the pounding of footsteps. Her mother yelled, “Lochlan, don’t!” Mommy’s voice had barely reached Eire’s ears before her bedroom door burst open and her daddy’s anger hit her like the time that mean kid at the beach had thrown sand in her face. She felt the punch of his hatred like rough sand lodging its way into her eyes, rubbing coarsely against her skin, and leaving a bad taste in her mouth.

  “Eire, introduce me to your friend.” Daddy’s tone was bossy, and it made Eire really mad that Daddy was being so bossy to Ina. She stepped between them, and even though Ina touched her shoulder, she didn’t budge.

  She lifted her chin and stood as tall as she could in front of Ina.

  “Mine,” Eire said. Her mom always told her a name had power, and that because of Eire’s gifts, if she used a person’s whole name and claimed them as hers, she could protect them. So, she did what her mom had told her to do with the Fae, and she said her best friend’s whole name, what her mommy called the naming. “Ina’s my best friend.” She watched as her daddy’s face turned bright red. He tried to reach out his hand to Ina, and even though Ina was kind and sweet to everyone she met, Eire’s friend now knew she didn’t need to be sweet. And Daddy couldn’t get to her because Eire had told him Ina was hers.

  Daddy stood slowly, and his red face became pale again, the muscles in his neck no longer bulging like an evil hulk.

  “You win this time, little Fae,” her daddy said, and then his scary smile was back. Eire still didn’t move. Ina was hers. Her best friend. Her happiness. Her make-believe sister with good magic.

  Daddy tipped his head toward her and walked toward her mom, who stood in the doorway. Mom’s face was pale, but she smirked slightly as she looked at Eire.

  Eire watched as Daddy leaned down to give her mother a kiss, and the smirk disappeared from her mom’s face. Her mommy didn’t move in. She stayed where she was, her eyes like the plastic eyes of the Barbies they had been playing with, dry and lifeless. Eire felt an anger well up in her that she’d never felt before, but it made her cold. Ina was right, though. Her cold wasn’t a bad cold like Daddy’s. Her anger tasted like vanilla snow cones.

  She watched Mommy’s eyes as Daddy kissed her, and when he pulled away, Eire saw her mommy’s lip bleeding, but she also saw the look she feared. Her mommy’s eyes were alive again after that kiss.

  Mommy had always said she was addicted to Daddy, that she couldn’t stop seeing him. She knew the naming now, and she had to make Mommy better.

  “Daddy, go,” Eire said as she stomped toward him. She knew the naming thing worked. She knew she had power. She just crossed her fingers that this worked. “Lochlan Vincenzo Trappe, you are not welcome in mine and mommy’s home.”

  Daddy’s face turned bright red, but he slowly walked out of the house, almost as though he was fighting it. Like when her mom made her go to bed and she dragged her feet. When he was on the front step, he turned around, a smile on his face that made Eire shiver.

  Her mom moved around her, walking toward the door as though trying to chase her daddy, but Mommy stopped instead, and blocked Eire’s view. Her mommy’s body shook and her fists clenched and unclenched at her side, but Eire didn’t know how else to make her mommy better.

  “Belthea Arina Donovan, this just means I get you for a whole week. Meet me at the family home starting next month, second week of the month. You’re mine.” His words made Eire sick to her tummy. He said “mine” like he owned her mom, but no one owned her mom. Her mom was a grown up. Eire felt tears trail down her cheeks. Why was Daddy so mean? Why wasn’t he like Ina’s Daddy?

  Eire heard the steady thrum of his footsteps as her daddy walked away.

  Her mom shut the front door with a loud thwack and walked back to her bedroom, but not before she turned up the heat. She shut the bedroom door with another loud noise that made Ina and Eire both jump.

  Quiet.

  There was only quiet—

  Eire awoke with a start, breathing heavily, and she noticed the shadowed figure of an animal hiding in the corner. She was about to cry out, but her nose picked up what her eyes did not. She smelled the strong scent of pine and caramel and she breathed it in, closing her eyes, and letting the wolf’s presence calm her.

  The clip-clop of his paws against the floor of her guestroom was steady, like the wolf himself. She cherished it in that moment as she took deep breaths to calm herself.

  The dream wasn’t any worse than anything else she’d dreamed. In fact, the
memory wasn’t even all that bad in comparison to the many other things that could destroy her sanity, that could tear down her walls if probed. But this dream… Jesus, this dream was sticking with her, clinging to her mind and not letting go. She felt the catch in her throat over and over again, and she let the tears that kept getting stuck there finally fall. What the hell?

  The strange wetness was rare for her. Hell, it was basically nonexistent before she’d come to Montville. Eire noticed the wolf prowling near as her tears fell down her face in waves of sorrow. Sorrow over a simple dream.

  A memory.

  A flashback to one of the most life-altering moments of her life. She’d lost her safety, her best friend, and had set in motion the loss of her mother with her decisions that night.

  Was she set to fail again? Were her weaknesses going to destroy her and her life once more?

  She put her hand in the fur of the wolf, grabbing onto the dark coat and letting the warmth of his body settle her. She petted him steadily. He was a great anchor, silent and understanding.

  His head butted her hand, and she couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped her. Nicky was a needy wolf. She wondered if he was different as a man. Many Vuković and Other shifting animals had slightly different personalities than their animal counterparts.

  Eire looked into the wolf’s eyes and sucked in a breath. Not Vuković eyes.

  Vuković wolves had bright eyes a shade lighter than the eyes they had in their human skin, but that were unearthly in their coloring. Too bright. Too inhuman. Too human as well.

  But not Nicky’s wolf. Nicky’s wolf eyes were the same warm brown he had while in his human skin.

  “What are you, wolf?” Eire asked, but she followed his lead when he bumped her hand again to be petted. She rubbed behind his ears, to the back of his head, around his scruff and neck, and down his back, releasing her own tension in the mindless pattern of comfort that she offered to the animal as well.

  Animal.

  That’s how she had to think of him. As animal.

  And he was, but those eyes…she’d never met a shifting Other or Clan member with eyes exactly the same as their human skin. The animal was one with the person and yet separate.

  Eire lifted the wolf’s head and looked once again into his eyes. Warm. Brown. Nicky.

  “So unique. Should have known you were an anomaly, wolf,” Eire said softly as she got up from the bed. She needed coffee. She saw through the window flap in her room that the sun was coming up over the horizon. “New day, Vuković?” She petted his back, digging in deep and giving a good rub. He nudged her forward and into the main room of the yurt.

  “Jesus,” Eire said as she stepped out of the room. “Fucking just as bossy in wolf form as in human form.” Actually, Nicky wasn’t all that bossy. He was quiet. Pushed food on her all the time. Watched her steadily. Always pulled out her chair. He liked doing things for her. Sort of the opposite of bossy. He tried to ask questions, but he didn’t demand. He just asked. And when she inevitably turned cold and backed away, he didn’t push. He accepted with a quiet serenity that riled her more than anything, like he understood her in ways others didn’t. His actions weren’t cold. They were patient. Nicky was patient. But for what, she didn’t know.

  She stepped into the kitchen and found the plates of food everywhere. He liked doing this for her. Making her breakfast. Making her happy. This morning, there were waffles, pancakes, bacon, and her favorite, rabbit stew. Two weeks, and Nicky already knew her too well.

  She heard the crack of his bones and his labored breathing as he went through his shift. She hadn’t asked because although she was never one to hold back in an investigation, the questions she wanted to ask Nicky were personal and completely unrelated to the case. Her need to know him more deeply scared her, sure, but now that she knew his eyes stayed the same in any form and that he experienced a strange shift, she wanted to ask him a million more questions. Shifting shouldn’t have been that painful.

  He walked out of his room, his sweats clinging to his strong, dark-skinned body, and she shuddered with a need she’d only ever felt with the wolfman in front of her. She ducked her head and took a breath as she went to pull the bowls and plates from the shelves in the kitchen. She tried to reach the bowls, but as she stretched upward, standing on her tiptoes, she felt Nicky move in behind her. His body molded to her own and his hand brushed hers.

  She let her hand fall slowly, reluctantly, to her side and Nicky stayed there for a second longer than she knew he should have. Connection. There was way too much of a connection between them. Clan and Other. This shouldn’t have been happening, but it was just sexuality, she told herself. Except, she was starting to question even that.

  “I’ve got it.” His voice was still rough from his transformation. It always was. Rough. Sexy. So tempting, she wanted to give in just this once to the feelings that were stirring inside of her. But she couldn’t. She never had, and she wouldn’t with this man, no matter how tempting. The one time she’d tried, her Stone had reared its ugly head and tried to make her feel it all.

  She didn’t want to feel it all.

  She’d seen what sex was.

  She’d seen how sex could destroy a person.

  She didn’t want to be destroyed. She wanted to keep her walls of ice up and avoid the pain. She could live without more pain. She could live without this wolfman, no matter the promise of pleasure he currently offered. Whatever they might have would turn cold, would crack eventually, and she had no desire to feel that brokenness in her soul once more.

  She moved away from Nicky, taking the plates and filling them with bacon, pancakes, waffles and fruit while he served the rabbit stew in the bowls he had pulled down.

  They were quiet as they moved through the kitchen. Not unusual. She always became detached and cold; and Nicky, despite his obvious desire for isolation, was all warmth and comfort. Both things she couldn’t afford.

  He sat down across from her, devouring his food, probably ravenous from his morning run. He was gone every morning for hours. Then, he’d come back, cook breakfast, eat with her, and then tranform again. She’d taken to grabbing the eggs in the morning, but her dream had kept her from that today. The one contribution she made. She silently cursed herself for her ineptitude this morning. Emotions fucked a person up, and her dreams had been bringing up quite a bit recently.

  Nicky made furtive glances her way every few seconds, but his eyes were unnerving. What supernatural creature didn’t have changing eyes? Even she had eyes that brightened. He was unnatural. His gaze too steady. Too commanding. Too warm. Too—

  “Why do you look afraid of me?” Nicky asked, taking in the last bite of his stew. He sat back in his chair, crossing his ankle over his thigh.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Eire said, taking a bite of her pancakes and mirroring his position.

  “Well, you could have fooled me, Eire.” Her name. Shit. When he said her name, it was flurries on a late fall day. He dragged her into emotion daily, but when he said her name… Jesus…when he said her name, it was like everything would be okay. What. The. Fuck? She shook her head and returned his steady regard.

  “Not scared, wolfman,” Eire said, diving into her food once more and taking a big bite of the pancakes. “Just wondering what the fuck you are.”

  Nicky’s face didn’t change. His position didn’t waver. The only thing she saw was his jaw tic. His hand moved almost imperceptibly, but he stopped the movement, so that it only looked like a twitch. She knew of course what he’d been about to do. She’d noticed this nervous gesture of his, a thinking movement. No one else seemed to. Then again, he only seemed to do it when she was around. She felt a refreshing cool enter her middle at the thought of him letting down his guard in that way with her, but she quickly squashed the feeling.

  “Your eyes are always the same,” she continued. “Wolf form. Human skin. When you’re angry. When you’re happy.” She paused to watch his reaction, but there was sti
ll no change. “I’d thought originally that it was your level of control, but it’s unnatural.” She leaned down to take a bite of her stew.

  Nicky was giving her a thoughtful look when she lifted her head again. Too thoughtful. Too probing. She again ducked her head.

  “You want to know?” Nicky asked and his voice was measured, solid, calm.

  She took a risk and lifted her eyes. She really wished she hadn’t. There was such peace there, such surety, she didn’t want to know why she felt that way in this moment. So, she shook her head ‘no’ in one of the weakest moments of her life. She didn’t look away, though. She watched as Nicky’s calm look slowly turned into a downright boyish smirk.

  He grabbed her now empty bowl of rabbit stew, and he refilled it and brought it back. But instead of sitting down across from her, he stood at her side, a hairsbreadth away, and set her stew down in front of her. His breath as he leaned down was warm against the top of her head and she turned her head slowly toward him. She couldn’t help it. Her body had a will of its own. His breath touched her forehead and she closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again and letting them rise to meet his own warm, brown ones.

  “You’ll want to know, someday,” Nicky said, taking her chin in his hand, his large hand that felt like a soothing fire after a long day of work in the cold. She loved the cold. Cold was so natural to her. But a warm fire was a beautiful thing. She gasped at his closeness, at this touch, at his very soul so close to her own tattered one. “And I’ll not only share, I’ll let you have it all.”

  “You shouldn’t.” She didn’t know what she was referring to. His honesty. His emotion. His gentle touch. His willingness to give her more than she deserved, more than she herself was willing to give.

  “But I will,” he answered, and just like that, his comforting gaze was gone, and he was shucking his pants and running out of their – his – shit, his yurt.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there, but by the time she got up again, the stew was cold and the pancakes and waffles were in even worse shape. But she wasn’t one to waste, so she packaged everything up in containers and put them in the fridge.