Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

  “And what does all of this have to do with Eire?” Alexia wanted to trust Titania, but she needed the facts, and Eire had hurt Nicky in a way that she didn’t know if she could forgive.

  “You’ll know in time… Think about the second part of the dream you’ve been having,” the goddess replied.

  Alexia closed her eyes, pushing out all thoughts of the future and her responsibilities to her people, and she honed in on her memories of the dream. It wasn’t difficult. She’d been having the dreams for months.

  “It’s so cold there,” Alexia said and she started to shiver. “And I’m stuck in my mind as everyone dies around me.” She felt tears track down her cheeks. Jesus, she wasn’t supposed to cry. She couldn’t. Not in front of her people. Not in front of Devon. Not in front of those who needed her to be strong, solid…

  Alone…

  “Yes, Alexia Maria,” Titania said, sitting back as through Alexia’s thoughts solved the mystery of the dream. “That cold, that place where you hold yourself separate… isn’t that what you’ve been doing in your everyday? You’ve been keeping yourself isolated… a queen unto herself to save her people…” She laughed bitterly. “That never works, dear.” Her bitter laugh faded on a whoosh of breath and Alexia saw Titania crying as well. “I learned this the hard way. After my own mother, Morrigan, and my mate, Lycan, both passed, I became cold so that my people could be strong, but our people become what we are, die Kriegerin Skröm. Cold. Hardened. Not at all what my mother wanted them to be. And in your dream, your people are dying, surrounded by the cold as you yourself stay trapped in your own mind, burning…”

  Clarity hit Alexia as Titania trailed off.

  “I am the cause of my people’s own death,” Alexia said on a whisper. “I am the reason we are all trapped in that field.” Devon held her tighter, but he didn’t speak. She knew he was absorbing the moment, absorbing her pain, healing her mind, making her better. Ironically because, in this dream, she couldn’t block his help like she’d done since…well, since always. She’d always tried to protect him from the worst of her pain.

  “Don’t protect him from your pain,” Titania said. “His pain is your pain. Your pain is your people’s pain. And vice versa for both. You are trying to wrap the fire around you to protect you all from the cold. My Eire does the same, but she is the cold. There is nothing wrong with that of course. Her cold is comforting, refreshing, a cold that brushes against your cheeks as you take a fall jog. The kind of cold that refreshes your soul and cleanses the earth, so that another season of warmth can return with less disease. But you both”—She emphasized the word both—“yes, you both need to stop taking your gifts and making them a weapon against yourself. Your cleansing fire and anger are beautiful, but they are not everything. And Eire’s cold is not the bitter winter that turns your bones against you. You are fire. She is ice. But both are beautiful. Both are useful. Only when used together, though. Only when used to heal. Right now, you two are so busy protecting your own minds, your own hearts, and yes, your own people,” Titania added before Alexia could protest, “that you cannot see that you are hurting them. You are tearing them apart with your barriers and your hidden agendas and your…what it the human saying?” Titania asked. “Ah, yes. Your, ‘my way or the highway’ mentality.”

  Alexia gave a small laugh. Human saying. Jesus.

  “But Alexia Maria,” Titania said severely, “you and Eire will both kill that which you seek to protect if you do not let those people in. If you do not lay aside your weapons as a way of protecting yourself and use those weapons in the way they were always meant to be used.”

  “So, that’s what the dreams means? That if I don’t let my people in, if I keep using my gift and my power as a reason to keep others out, I will kill those I’m trying to protect?” Alexia asked, thinking on all the sleepless nights and the early mornings getting sick, and feeling her anger rise to the surface. “But how exactly can I change the outcome?”

  Powerless. Alexia felt powerless.

  “Well, die Kriegerin Skröm,” Titania said, spreading out her arms. “That is the path you and Eire need to figure out.” She nodded to the corner, and Alexia looked behind them to the trees. A dark-haired woman with bright green eyes stood in the tree line, her pale face a façade of stone. But those green eyes showed so much more. Those green eyes showed she could be saved.

  “We couldn’t save Mindy,” Devon said, pulling her back to look at him. “We haven’t been able to find Cam.” Devon’s jaw hardened and his grey-green eyes became somber. “Red, we can do this for our people.” He pulled her to him, letting his strength show her he could not only handle her pain, he wanted to. “Let us in, Red,” he whispered and she felt her tears flow down her cheeks. “Let me in, please.” He was pleading with her, asking to help shoulder the burden. “I need to be a part of this. We all do. We can’t lose you, not even to your own stubborn, hard-headed notions.”

  There should have been a smile accompanying the statement. He always smiled when he called her stubborn and hard headed. But this time, there was no smile. Now, he knew. Now, he knew more. And so did she. She knew the hardening of her heart against the pain around her wasn’t a protection. She knew the barriers and walls she’d perfected over her lifetime were not healthy. He’d destroyed them before. She’d felt it. When their bond had first formed, he’d broken through.

  “But those were human shields, Red. I can’t fix this. Only you can.”

  “I don’t know how,” she cried out as she stood. Eire watched from the edge of the woods still, and Alexia saw in the other woman’s eyes the same raw frustration and pain she herself felt. She wanted to go to her, but she also wanted to kill her. Jesus, this was a bloody fucking mess.

  “You will figure this out, Alexia Maria,” Titania said, with confidence. “I have faith in you both.” Then, the Fae Queen touched her forehead and her heart once more—

  Alexia awoke to the blinds being drawn and for a moment, she wanted to hide under her covers and pretend Mindy was opening the curtains. But Mindy wasn’t there. Neither was Cam. She did have others she needed to protect, though.

  She just didn’t know how she was going to do that. She’d thought her walls were the first step, the most important step. She’d thought separating herself was the answer. Fuck, except that was what they were all doing.

  Carrie, hidden away in her cabin, apart from when she went to the Clan clubs.

  Gem and Matt, only coming out of their own trailer every once-in-a-while, as though afraid to step on anyone’s toes.

  Nicky in his fucking mountains all by himself. Maybe helping Eire would also help him, would help bring Nicky out of the coma he had fallen into after the cold Fae had poisoned Alexia’s Vuković friend.

  And then there was Ben. He never joined the others except during the occasional communal meal time or to spar, to fight, to get the shit beaten out of him. But her resident scary badass was unique and kind in his own way. Along with his twin, Carrie, Ben had helped Alexia train and become who she’d needed to almost two years ago.

  Alexia smiled to herself, then shivered as she felt her mate pull her in more tightly against him while Ginny continued opening the blinds.

  “Oh, you’re awake!” Ginny clapped her hands together. “You two lazy asses! Nicky’s awake too!”

  Alexia felt the elation the other woman let off suffuse her being. Ginny had that gift. That joy that she herself wanted to find. She’d lost that when she’d lost Mindy, but abandoning joy wasn’t what Mindy would have wanted. And Alexia had the power to change things, to do better.

  “How do you do it, Ginny?” Alexia asked.

  Ginny gave her a confused look, and then a huge smile brightened her face as she jumped on the bed next to Alexia.

  “It’s on purpose, cousin,” she said, poking Alexia’s nose in a playful way. Yeah, Ginny had known what she meant. Probably got this question all the time. “You have to let the Darkness become a part of you, let yourself griev
e what comes. But you must also learn from it. You need to take on that scar and fucking learn from your mistakes.”

  Then, she smiled cheerfully as she gave Alexia a kiss on her forehead in a sisterly way that broke something in Alexia.

  Alexia felt tears track down her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe them away. Ginny’s smile widened. “And then you do the most important thing of all,” Ginny continued, in what Alexia knew was her mockingly serious voice and Alexia smiled through her tears. “Then, you play, my sweet cousin. You laugh and you let the Light fill you, and you move the fuck forward, babe.”

  “That easy, huh?” Alexia asked, laughing. Her cousin was one-of-a-fucking-kind.

  “Not that easy, Red,” Devon said from behind her. “You’re not alone in this, Red. We’ve all had pain. We’ve all experienced loss. We’ve all felt a little crazy at times. We’ve all felt evil or lost or incomplete.” He turned her around, so his breath was no longer against the back of her neck. Good thing, too. Her Man Bear’s breath against her neck was making her all cozy and ready for him.

  Ginny smiled mischievously and hopped off the bed, giving her a wink.

  Alexia turned red. Bright red. She already had red hair and red eyes. But shit, her mate always turned her on.

  “I’m just gonna…” Ginny started backing up, her perky grin and short laughs only causing Alexia to turn a brighter shade of red. “Yeah, I’m just gonna go… Toodles,” Ginny said as she left the room.

  She let her thumbs touch the area under her Man Bear’s grey-green eyes and then she took his face in her hands final letting then rest near his strong jaw.

  “We can’t—” Devon cleared his throat and looked away for a second. Was he embarrassed? Alexia smiled.

  “We can’t what, Man Bear?” Alexia asked playfully. She was taking her cousin’s advice. She’d cried it out. She’d grieved. Now, she wanted to learn and grow and play and be a better leader. She knew of course what he was going to say. They had definitely not fallen asleep at home.

  He looked back and lowered his voice like a child who’d been caught sneaking cookies from the cookie jar.

  “We can’t have sex in Damon’s bed,” Devon whispered. Alexia laughed outright, and it felt so good. The laugh came up from her belly, filling her head, her stomach, her spine, and spilling out into the room in a burden-lightening moment of bliss. Devon’s booming laugh joined her own, and she felt his Light fill her. Felt their connection click.

  She needed that connection. Needed to seek it out more often.

  We will, Red. His voice in her mind was like breath, like air, like floating down a lazy river just like it had always been.

  Devon’s kiss was beauty itself as he reached for her. Her Man Bear’s lips met hers, and she felt the slide of his tongue, of his scruff, of his hard jaw, of his hand as it moved along her ass, of his other hand as it pulled at her hair. She felt it all, and she gave. She let her claws out and she grabbed onto Devon’s back, marking him from shoulders to ass. His growl heated her blood and she lifted her leg and—

  “Jesus, Lex,” Damon yelled from the doorway. “Not. In. My. Fucking. Bed.”

  Ginny giggled from behind him.

  Alexia turned bright red.

  Loch and Zeke also started to laugh, which must have prompted Devon, because his booming bear laugh filled the room.

  Alexia smiled at Damon and saw his lips twitch.

  “Fucking bed, huh, Damon?” Alexia asked, and she burst out laughing.

  Yeah, she could do this. She could do better for her people. She could stop wrapping her fire around her like a weapon of anger.

  No, not ‘she could’, she thought as she and her Man Bear got up after the others left to let them dress. They would, she corrected herself. They all would.

  “Yeah, Red. We will,” Devon said, pulling her in for another kiss. She loved his kisses.

  “Lex, for fuck’s sake,” she heard Damon yell from the room beside Damon’s.

  “Oops.” Alexia ducked her head and took her Man Bear’s hand. “Coming!” she yelled to the others, running out of the room. She walked into the room to see Nicky sitting up, and she was surprised to find he looked healthy.

  Better than healthy.

  He looked whole.

  She smiled at her previous lover, at one of her people, at her friend, and she felt another click in her soul. Nicky was always meant to be hers, just not in the way they’d thought when they were kids. She had the memories now. They’d talk about them someday, but that day was not today. Today, they planned.

  “I think that’s what Damon was trying to avoid, Lex,” Nicky said seriously, and then he cracked as a smile. His voice was rough. So, not 100% yet.

  “Avoid?” Alexia asked cautiously.

  “Yes, you coming in his bed,” Nicky said. The room was silent for a beat and then the room erupted in laughter.

  A ruler’s people became what their ruler put out. She’d work hard to be more open. She’d work hard to try and take down these barriers she kept putting up. She didn’t know how, but she’d do it. For them. For Nicky’s rare jokes and Ginny’s playfulness. For Devon’s booming bear laugh and even for Damon, who wasn’t officially in her community, but who was still one of her people.

  They’d stop these murders.

  They’d catch the bad guy. They always did.

  They’d find Eire and they’d save her.

  And Alexia would change.

  For her people. For her Man Bear. For herself.

  Stealth.

  The Clan Club was one of the few that let his kind in, and like the bleeding heart he was, the man with the golden brown eyes was grateful to Ginny for a safe place, even if it was hidden away.

  As a Trappe, he wasn’t shunned in the community of Others, but he knew his place in the supernatural world as a whole. The Trappe’s had a long history of being evil. It was in their very bones. Their very Fae ancestry.

  When he’d been younger, he’d thought idealistically that he would be different. His sister had played a role in that. She’d been the innocent one, the light the three brothers had needed to stem the tide of Darkness that beat at their breasts.

  But blood always spoke truth and he hadn’t turned out different. The loss of Eire’s own innocence and the years spent trying to save her from the Veil had destroyed whatever light he had left in him.

  Loneliness was a living, clawing thing that pulled at the muscles in his chest. He had realized long ago that it was his heart that bore the brunt of all that pain. He could feel that throbbing burden, battering at his body, pulling him into oblivion, into the ultimate Darkness. Every once in a while, there was the spark of “maybe,” but that spark was shit. That spark was for dreamers, for those who stood a fucking chance. He didn’t. And he realized suddenly that he’d never stood a chance. Chances were for happy people, for shiny people.

  Not for monsters.

  Not for those quite literally brought up in the pit of despair. He let the Darkness take ahold of him, let it seep into his skin, let it mold and shape his mind, until that spark had all but disappeared. He would not be weak. He would not let hope rear its head and ruin his perfect peace. His Darkness. His very clean-cut existence of what was right and wrong. No matter that he found himself on the side of Darkness. He was good with that. He embraced it even. Let it bleed into his soul as he tasted the pain around him. God, he loved their pain. He loved sucking it down into his marrow. Loved feeding on their minds, so that he could feel whole again.

  Fuck.

  Whole again.

  What was whole? No one was whole. They were all vermin scurrying through the streets of misery and hoping for a handout, a savior who was never gonna fucking come. There were no saviors. There was no redemption. There was only pain and Darkness and the clawing need to succumb to those things, to become what you knew you were. To become the demon.

  “Please,” the tiny woman at his side whispered in his ear, and he knew her need was so great that tears would b
e in her bright, otherworldly eyes. He felt her touch on his shoulder, and he tasted the one spark of Light he could take in an instant. Take her Light when he took her pain. Hell, she had so much pain, he got hard just thinking about it. Damn it all to hell, but he wanted to take that Light with the pain. He’d take it and swallow it down, and she’d be happy to be rid of it just as he would be happy to turn it into Darkness while eating all of that lovely hurt she had etched on her soul.

  He turned around slowly, and his golden brown eyes met hers, locked onto her like a beast locks onto its prey, and his smile said it all. And she was willing.

  Come into the Devil’s Lair, it said, and she would do nothing but obey. That was his blessing and his curse.

  He grabbed her roughly, his arms reaching around her small frame to pull her into his devil’s trap, and he didn’t give her a second to think, to pause, to step away. No, he crushed her to him and brought his lips to hers. He bit and sucked and took in a way he knew she’d never been kissed before.

  He quickly drew her into a back room, one of the private rooms set aside for the Others. Others hid in the shadows, barely considered persons. But he was a person, and he’d take what he wanted.

  He locked the door to his usual room and moved to the other side of the collection he’d built. Whips and knives and chains and cuffs and so many torturous devices that could calm or excite, yes, but that could also incite fear or even incapacitate forever. However, he only indulged those latter needs on occasion, or when he was directed to do so.

  She quietly made her way across the room to the bed she always laid on, and she let the sweatshirt and yoga pants she’d worn fall away. Her body was petite and everything was firm despite her age. The benefit of being Clan. Except his feline’s skin was marred by scars. Not uncommon in the wars. Clan might heal most things, but they also fought a lot. Many had scars. It was their lot.

  More human than they knew.