Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

“Did you forget something, Mel?” Damon asked and she smiled at his tone. So commanding. Idiot man.

  “I’m heading over in a minute,” she said, walking back into the kitchen and grabbing a glass from the counter that she used for water. She filled it and drank the cooling liquid, just for something to do. She sensed his presence outside the kitchen, and instead of panic, she felt the challenge. He was challenging her to stand up, to lean away from the sink, to step out onto the now snow-covered ground, and to walk her ass over to Alexia’s place.

  “Fine… Fine, I was going anyway,” she said with resolve. “You didn’t need to come over here just to tell me to go to a goddamned Girls’ Night.” Except, he had, and she touched his arm in thanks as he moved out of the doorway to let her pass. Touching Damon wasn’t like lightning, but she didn’t want lightning. She’d had lightning and she’d been struck too many times by the hand of that particularly brutal storm.

  No, Damon was a lot like Eire, actually. Of course, they knew each other, so maybe they just spent a lot of time together. She wondered if her boss, and the man she was secretly in love with, knew he was friends with her best friend from childhood? Had Eire shared that they’d once been best friends?

  She looked over her shoulder at Damon as she walked to the door. Yeah, no way Eire had kept that from him. Damon pried the secrets out of everyone, and beyond that fact, recent events had brought all of Melina’s secrets to light.

  “Is that really why you came over, Damon?” She turned to the stoic Ben, and she raised her eyebrow. “And you, Ben?” she asked.

  Ben’s somber look was her first clue that something was wrong. She walked to his side and touched his arm in question.

  “We found Henry,” Ben said, barely meeting her gaze. So straightforward. No preamble. No drama. Just the facts. That was Ben.

  “Shit, Ben,” Damon said moving into her side, but she held up her hand.

  Not yet. Focus on the moment.

  Their chatter was like a buzz in her brain.

  Focus on the moment.

  Found him. Found Henry. Alive? Dead?

  Why did she care?

  Focus on the moment.

  Oh, Jesus. How had he done this to her?

  Turned her into this?

  How could she still care?

  Pain. Torn. Left for dead.

  Focus on the moment. Breathe.

  Betrayed.

  Lost. Angry. Hurt. Left for dead.

  Focus. Focus. Focus.

  She heard the glass door of the trailer open and close a couple times, the sound of voices, raised and then lowered, and she breathed.

  Eyes closed, she breathed in and out, feeling first her toes, then her calves, then her thighs, then the muscles around her hips, her abs and back, all the way up to her forehead. She rubbed her temples as she breathed, letting herself have the moment. She found her center. She didn’t want to open her eyes. She could hear them now. Their chatter. Their arguing. None of this helped.

  Don’t you know the arguing doesn’t help?

  She thought she’d said it to herself. Thought she’d whispered it in her head. Instead she’d yelled it clear across the room.

  And it felt good.

  The dead silence at the rage in her voice made her feel powerful in a way she hadn’t felt in such a long time.

  “It doesn’t help when you argue,” she continued, her voice loud and clear, cutting through the tension in the room. “It doesn’t help when you tiptoe. It doesn’t help when you baby me or treat me different.”

  She looked around at every single person in the room. Eire, her best friend from childhood, stood in the corner, huddled, shaking. No one else saw, but Melina did. She turned to observe Carrie, not far from Eire, arms across her chest, her burned face hidden from the room. Alexia, with Devon at her side, stood in front of them all, always on guard, always waiting for something to attack.

  Matt, the Luna, had been Vanessa’s feeder at one time, and in him she saw a strength she hoped she’d be able to acquire again one day. He wanted vengeance against Vanessa, or Nessa as he’d called her, but he was patient about it. Part of that patience was almost surely attributed to his mate, Gem, who waited quietly at his side.

  Ginny…well, Ginny was different. She just shook her head and took her place next to Ben and Damon behind Alexia and Devon.

  She wondered how much they all knew about the man who had tormented her and destroyed her piece by piece these past twelve years.

  Melina had known the time would come. Known she’d have to share who and what Henry Jones was to her.

  She knew they were investigating a series of Others’ murders. She knew Henry was involved, and Vanessa as well. She’d gone over case details with Damon, Matt, Alexia, Nicky, and Danny that first week. Not Eire. Eire had stayed out of that conversation. But even though they’d gone over some details, there were other things they needed to know beyond Henry and his mother’s Fae ancestry and their ability to devour.

  She’d only met Vanessa once. Henry had been away on business, and she’d been stuck in the godforsaken castle of his. But Vanessa… In some ways, the female Fae was worse than her son.

  So, she needed to share what she knew of Vanessa and Henry Jones.

  But first, she needed to clear the air.

  She looked to Damon. “You just mentioned Henry’s name.” He tilted his head gingerly at her statement. “I freaked out.” He nodded, slowly. “But I came out of it. I’m broken and damaged, but I’m not irreparable. I will build myself up again.” Shit, she sounded really sure of herself. But in the moment, she was.

  She moved past Alexia, Devon, Damon, Ginny and Ben to sit on the stool in the corner of the room. It was sturdy and near the front entrance, and she often used it to look out at the mountains through the front windows. “This is me spilling my guts because you guys need—”

  “No,” Damon said as he advanced toward her, and her breath caught. No warmth. No sexual tension. No, she wouldn’t have been able to handle that. But a different kind of awareness, like her heartstrings were being pulled and tugged toward infinity. “You are not spilling anything for anyone, especially not to prove a point.”

  She started her story anyway.

  “I went to college at eighteen, all starry eyed and ready to take on the world, and a History Professor changed all of that.” She looked at Damon, let him see she was okay. His golden eyes steadied her, and so she locked onto those eyes. “I was supposed to be training as an Azima Counselor.” She heard the gasps around the room, and she smiled. Not many turned down what was thought to be a gift from the gods. Of course, she’d sort of said, “Fuck the gods,” and gone her own way, which had been how she’d always done things. “Yep. Gave up that ticket for the college experience, a human experience. I’d always found humans fascinating. Their darkness. Their light. The way they hung onto life so tightly. The way they hated and loved in the same breath.”

  She was still using Damon’s gaze to ground her and she didn’t miss the flicker there, like he knew what was coming. Of course, they all knew what was coming. They’d seen the proof of it just over a month earlier.

  “So, I met Henry, and things were great. He wasn’t the first man to ever love me,” Melina said, looking to Devon. Devon knew the first man. “But he was the only one who had really ever pursued me.” She paused thinking back on those days. The secret dates to magical places. The time they picnicked at the zoo, which he owned part of. The time he surprised her with her favorite cheesecake from thirty minutes away, even though he’d been working all day. The little things. The big things. He’d been her knight. She’d never needed one. She’d had a good home life. She’d had an amazing family. She’d even had some great friends. But Henry Jones. He was something special. “We got married on a beach in June after my sophomore year of college, after almost two years of being together. I never thought—”

  She cleared her throat, and ignored the look and the subtle movements from Damon still standing
in front of her. She hated that he was acting as a shield, even though the grounding helped. But she didn’t want to hide. That was the whole damn point of this conversation.

  “I never thought he’d hurt me, let alone take everything from me. Feed on everything.”

  And that was the killer. She was in there. She was married. Not mated. Married. Except she hadn’t realized who or what Henry James was: Fae. And not just any Fae. A Fae who enjoyed feeding on pain. A taker. A destroyer. A psycho who sucked everything around it dry. But by the time she’d found out what he was, it was too late. They were already mated. She was already a part of him, and he was already a part of her. So much a part of her that even then, sitting on that stool, Damon watching her and keeping her from the view of the room, she still scratched at her arm, trying to claw the Fae out of her skin. No, Henry Jones was not dead. She could still feel that bond inside of her.

  Breathe.

  Scratch.

  Focus.

  She looked at her arm as Damon’s hand gently rubbed the area she had just been scratching. He took her hand in his and held on. Comfort. What a rare thing for her.

  “His mother visited one time,” Melina continued and she saw the gold in Damon’s eyes turn molten. His ancestry definitely interested her, but she’d get his secrets out of him eventually. Now was time for other secrets. “Vanessa is more powerful than any being I’ve ever met.” She pinched the bridge of her nose at the pain that was developing in her head, but pushed forward in her telling. “She has the ability to shapeshift.”

  “What do you mean?” Eire asked, standing from her spot in the corner, alert now, charged, and ready. Powerful.

  “I mean, when she visited, she came as herself, but while she was speaking…” Melina voice trailed off as she turned up her nose in disgust and looked down at her hands. Damon had removed his comforting touch, but she was okay with this. Vanessa Jones was scary as hell, and she needed to face that moment from almost twelve years ago. “She wanted to meet me. Wanted to see if I was good enough for her son, Henry. At the time, I was so in love with him, I was stubborn, and her tricks didn’t scare me. She tried to frighten me by switching forms. She became a man with dark hair who looked so familiar, but I didn’t have time to place him because I ran from her and the man she’d become. There was no feeling in the jade eyes she had as her true form, but there was just as little feeling in the green gaze of that man. Their eyes were the same. The only piece of Vanessa that had not changed in her game. And oh, but those eyes were so like Henry’s. Vanessa as the man chased me until we made it to the torn down remains of the barn at Henry’s castle, but I used my gifts to give her pause. When I didn’t cower, she became a growling wolf with the same jade eyes, but still I attacked and fought. She even shapeshifted into Henry’s form, taking on his voice, but I knew what she was by then. I might have attended a human college, but I was raised Azima. I knew of the Fae.”

  Melina looked at Damon who had just turned back to her, and for a moment, she saw fear there that was greater than any she’d ever seen. But it was gone as quickly as it had come.

  “Blood and Bone,” Ginny whispered, and Damon nodded. “She has the gift of Blood and Bone. She can shift forms. That’s an extremely rare gift.”

  “The most rare,” Damon said, and Melina returned her gaze to the man in front of her.

  “Yes,” she said. “Blood and Bone, and that was when I realized the man I had married, the man I was hoping to share the secret of my own Azima heritage with, was Fae. And that was also when everything changed.” Melina stood from the stool, Damon’s presence a calming pillar of strength at her side. “She’d come to test my resolve and maybe even to scare me away, and two weeks later, I would wish I’d run when I’d had the chance.”

  The room was even more quiet and withdrawn after the revelation. She didn’t share the whole of her story. She didn’t need to. They knew how her tale ended.

  “So, Vanessa and Henry are insane, yes, but I needed to tell you all of this for one other very important reason. I see all of you. I see what burdens you have. And I spilled my guts not only to give you what other information I have, but also to prove a point. The point is this: you can’t escape it. You can’t escape the past. You can’t outrun your feelings. You can’t cover it up. You can’t drink it down. You can’t sleep it off. You can’t fuck it away.” She saw Carrie flinch and her curiosity peaked because the others in the room might not know it, but the once weekly meetings Melina had with Henry at the club had allowed her a look into the back rooms. And she recognized the dark-skinned Taryn.

  Carrie recognized her too if her haunted and frightened looks whenever they were in the same room together were anything to go by. The Taryn didn’t say anything, though, at the look Melina now threw her; she just turned her back on the room. No one noticed. Not even Eire. Eire was too busy closing her eyes, biting her thumb nail, and holding onto her middle like her innards were going to fall out.

  “You can only breathe through the Darkness,” Ginny said, a smile on her face. And Melina got her. Then and there, she got the woman in front of her that so many wrote off as crazy or insane.

  Ginny was a survivor. Hell, they all were, but Ginny got what it meant to live past surviving. Not many did. Most stayed in that trauma. Most clung to that Darkness, to that emotion. Let it drink them in and take everything over. But not Melina. She spent every day letting that emotion well up from deep inside of her, so she could deal with it and then enjoy life. Ginny got that big time.

  “Yeah,” Melina said. “Yeah. Exactly.” The rest of the room may not have gotten it, but someone did. And that was enough for now.

  “They’ll get it someday,” Ginny said.

  “You a mind reader?” Melina asked, because she was wondering now.

  “Only when I need to be,” the Skröm answered with a wink, and Melina smiled.

  She held the smile but it fell when a sudden cramp in her back radiated up her spine, shooting outwards and causing her temples to throb, her lower areas to burn where she’d been raped over and over again, and pain to layer itself across every nerve ending. She couldn’t move. She was frozen by the excruciating madness of her body.

  She heard screams of agony and knew they were hers, but she still couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as her body was beaten by sensations no creature should ever have to feel. Like shards of glass pulling across her skin, all her skin. Like alcohol being thrown on top of that and then rubbed into raw, dry, split open skin. She was a nerve exposed to the harshness that was her current physical state. She’d had these several times this past month. These physical seizures of the nerves, but never this bad, never this raw, never this all encompassing.

  And then she felt the cold, rushing feeling of a hand brushing her arm, and her eyes opened wide to the man who had caught her. Damon.

  Of course he’d be the one who’d make the pain stop. Of course he’d be the one to cool her aching, firing, over-stimulated nerves.

  “Breathe.” His whisper at her ear helped her to focus. She felt the breath against her ear as he repeated it over and over again.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe, sweetheart, breathe.

  She took deep gulps of air and felt the wetness against her cheeks and the hoarseness in her throat.

  “Ina, I’m so sorry,” Eire whispered from Damon’s side, and Melina grabbed the woman’s hand before she could pull it away. Although, with her current state and Eire’s reflexes, the woman must have allowed it.

  “St—”

  Shit, her voice was awful.

  She whispered as quietly as she could.

  “Stop, Eirey,” Melina said. “None of this is your fault, honey.”

  Eire shook her head as if to argue, but Melina just gave her hand a squeeze.

  “I’m the one who’s hurt. I get to decide.” Eire smiled, but the facial change did not reach her eyes. Melina couldn’t make her happy, couldn’t make her best friend from childh
ood believe what she was dead set against believing, so she just gave her hand another squeeze, still in Damon’s arms and stood on her own two feet.

  Not that it mattered. Damon still wasn’t budging.

  “Damon—”

  “I can let go if you want me to,” he said, but the statement had an underlying tone that indicated he sure as hell wouldn’t like it. The touch wasn’t sexual or uncomfortable, though. Just a friend’s touch, so she just shook her head, telling him no, you don’t have to let go and she felt him relax.

  “Tell me about where you’ve found Henry,” Melina said, fortifying her resolve. She saw the room as a whole flinch, and she hated that they were keeping so much from her, but she just needed to focus on Henry’s whereabouts for now. She’d deal with anything else later.

  “Zeke was trailing him in the mountains. But he’s in town now,” Damon said, looking to Eire like she could help. No way Eire’d be getting involved in this. This was Melina’s fight. She had the weapon. It had taken a whole lot of ritual shit to get that dagger done, especially because she no longer had her Azima gifts, but she had the dagger now, and she was the one who got to use it. No one else.

  “When are we going after him?”

  “Oh, no you aren’t,” Eire said moving toward her. “Too dangerous.” Her voice was clipped. “Why would you even think we’d let you risk yourself to kill my—” Eire stopped speaking abruptly, but Melina was too caught up on the words and too angry to care about why she’d stopped speaking.

  “Let me, Eirey?” Her voice was measured as she asked the question and stepped out of Damon’s arms. “Let me? I can sure as hell let myself do whatever I damn well please, old friend. I am not a mangy and caged animal, and you are not my keeper. This may be your case as an Enforcer, but Henry is my mate”—she heard the gasps, but ignored them—“and it is my right to do this. He broke his promises as my partner. It’s my job, my right, my path to kill the man who tortured and abused and raped and stole from me for almost twelve years, so back the hell off, Eire Donovan, because I will not hesitate in using my weapon on you too, and it will work.”