by J. D. Tyler
“What would be the point in that? He has to know what he’s done wrong.”
Before I kill him went unspoken, but Kalen was suddenly, dreadfully sure that’s what Malik had planned. “He knows. Isn’t that so, Billy?”
The man found his voice, nodding emphatically. “H-hell, yeah! R-right! I recognize the purty fella here, from that night at the Grizzly.” He laughed nervously as though sharing a joke. “We don’t git many dudes like him in our neck of the woods and we was just havin’ us a little fun, that’s all! I swear we wasn’t gonna hurt him or nothin’!”
“As though you could.” Malik scoffed in contempt. “Fat slug of a human.”
“H-human?” He glanced around in confusion.
“Malik, please. Let him go.”
“He must pay, my pet.”
“For what? Him and his buddies ganging up on me? It’s not the first time that’s happened, and you can’t go around killing everyone who tries to walk all over me. . . .”
He trailed off, seeing the catlike expression on Malik’s handsome face. The triumph. And in that moment he realized two things.
First, the hapless Billy wasn’t leaving this basement alive.
Second, Malik had killed on his behalf before. When? How many? Every single person in the entire time Malik had been following him, since he was a homeless teenager?
“Yes,” the Unseelie answered his thoughts. “Every last one. And they were delicious.”
“Christ.” Kalen pushed a hand through his hair, feeling sick. Helpless. He couldn’t think of that now. “You can’t do this.”
“I really can. More important, you won’t stop me.”
“You think not? I’m just as powerful as you, and I’m fully capable—”
“But you won’t. My boy, this is why I brought you here—to show you that essentially there is no difference between you and me.” He gripped Kalen’s shoulder and brought their foreheads so close they almost touched. Kalen didn’t pull away as Malik went on.
“You want this scum dead for what he did to you,” Malik intoned gently. “He’s a symbol of all those who’ve hurt you again and again throughout your life. You want him to pay, don’t you?”
“No! Killing is wrong.”
“You’ve been beaten and worse by men like this, when you were little more than a boy. Before you fully came into your powers. Am I correct?”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly.
“Just once, you want to feel what it’s like to show one of them what it means to be completely at your mercy.”
“Yes.” The word emerged in spite of his resolve to deny it.
The bound man started blubbering, tears and snot running down his fleshy cheeks.
“He’s no innocent, Kalen,” Malik soothed. “He has raped and murdered, left many battered and broken. Including his wife and three children. Like the slime you called ‘father.’ Look.”
With a push, Malik shoved several of Billy’s memories into Kalen’s head. They rolled like old, grainy footage of a home movie, and the scenes were real. The bastard grabbing a waitress from the Grizzly, forcing her to blow him behind the bar, knowing she wouldn’t tell or else he’d spin his own tale through the town, ruining her reputation. Other scenes were of Billy and his buddies burying a body outside town. Someone they’d killed for owing one of them less than a hundred bucks.
But the worst were the kids. He’d abused his children horribly, beating them with his belt and scalding them with cigarettes, hot water. Just last week, the little one had spilled something on the greasy carpet, and the bastard had forced the child to drink half of a bottle of carpet cleaner. In their backwoods craphole of a shack, the boy had almost died. The man promised his terrified wife they were all dead if she breathed a word to anyone.
Disbelief and horror at what Malik had planned here tonight became eagerness. Morphed into a terrible, seething rage that demanded justice for the ones Billy had hurt. Killed. Especially the children. And it was justice. No one else would do anything about this piece of filth.
“Do you see?” Malik asked.
“Yeah. He’s a piece of shit.” Power surged through his veins. The need for blood sang through him.
“What shall I do with him, boy?”
“Show him what hell really looks like,” Kalen said coldly. “Then kill him.”
* * *
Miles away, in the darkness of his quarters, Nick’s pacing in his bedroom was brought up short by an awful vision.
He’d been restless tonight, just as he always was when one of his own was suffering. And this man was in agony.
“Kalen,” he whispered hoarsely. “No.”
But he couldn’t stop what was happening. There was no way he’d find Malik’s hideout without Kalen’s help, and the Sorcerer was already there.
Kalen’s storm was on the horizon now, the thunder rolling. Lightning just beginning to flicker in the sky. The choices he made tonight, and the ones to come, he’d have to live with for the rest of his days.
However few those were.
The vision intensified.
Show him what hell really looks like. Then kill him.
“Oh, Jesus. No! Don’t do it!”
But it was far too late. The Unseelie had finally managed to get his talons into Kalen, and the seduction had begun. The gradual slide into the pit of hell.
God help them all.
* * *
“No, no, please! I—I’ll leave town! My wife and kids won’t never have ta look at me again!”
Malik smiled, and his canines lengthened to protrude over his bottom lip. “They won’t have to do that anyway.”
With that, the Unseelie began to change. Kalen barely had time to register that Malik had dropped his glamour before his clothes disappeared and his form began to grow. His skin darkened to a grayish purple hue, and his straight black hair cascaded to his waist. His ears grew long, pointed at the tips, and his facial features sharpened to cruel angles.
His height quickly towered to at least seven feet. But the most frightening and impressive of all were his wings. Unlike Sariel’s beautiful, feathered wings of electric blue, his father’s were dark and leathery, almost black. They spanned nearly the entire basement in width, some fifteen feet.
The whole package that was Malik, undisguised, was cruelly magnificent. Something straight out of a nightmare.
And now he was Billy’s nightmare. The man stared up at his tormentor, mouth open, no longer making a sound. He was learning now, at the very end of his existence, just how pathetic and insignificant he was in the grand scheme of the world. How powerless. A mindless bug headed for a zapper.
Kalen almost felt sorry for him. Except when he thought of what the asshole had done to his own kids.
“I’m not from hell, Billy,” Malik said, his voice much lower and more gravelly than before. “I am hell. I have existed since before mankind walked upright, and for too long I have watched as many humans evolved to be not much more intelligent than the primates before them. You are one such substandard example of humanity. Are you following me, ape?”
The ape was beyond speech, his eyes fixed on the Unseelie in horror.
Malik reached out a hand, extended his index finger, and ran one razor-sharp claw down Billy’s fleshy cheek. A thin line of blood trickled from the slice, over his jaw and down his neck. “And as a piece of undisputed filth, unworthy of being loose among even the weakest of humans, I cannot allow you to live. Even you with your limited cognitive ability can understand this by now, I’m sure.”
Totally entranced, Billy nodded.
“Very well.”
The Unseelie moved so fast, Kalen hardly saw what happened next. His arm shot out and he stabbed his claws deep into Billy’s stomach. The man screamed, a high-pitched keen of sheer terror that bounced off the walls and became a gurgle as Malik thrust up, effectively gutting him.
Then Malik used his other hand to grab Billy’s scraggly hair and yank his head back. The cords of th
e man’s neck were exposed, and the Unseelie licked his lips in anticipation. And then he lowered his head and struck, tearing into the vulnerable throat of his captive, ripping it out. Drank and slurped, grunting in satisfaction.
Feeding on his prey.
The weak feed the strong, and the strong survive. That was Kalen’s thought as he watched, transfixed by the sight of the powerful, muscled creature taking his fill. Why wasn’t he horrified? Afraid? But he just wasn’t. There was something darkly beautiful and primal about the scene before him. It called to his blood, to the dark power residing within him. Tightened his groin deliciously, stiffened his cock.
Abyssus abyssum invocat, Beryl had whispered to him a few days ago. Hell calls hell.
Now he knew why. The witch had been preparing Kalen for this night. For joining Malik, embracing his destiny. He never had to be helpless again, as he had been at fourteen. Never again had to endure the mockery of those like Aric. Never had to be alone. Because Malik understood.
The Unseelie raised his head, wiped the blood from his lips, and smiled.
“I told you that I do understand, my pet.” Releasing his dead prey, he beckoned Kalen to him. “Come here.”
Kalen obeyed, stepping so close he had to look up into that stunning, sharp face. “Yes?”
The other male lifted an arm and, with one claw from the opposite hand, sliced a cut in his wrist. Dark blood the color of merlot welled instantly. “Drink,” he commanded.
Kalen hesitated, then took the wrist uncertainly, his heart pounding hard in his chest. A distant voice begged him not to do this, warned that this step would be irrevocable. Would bind him to the Unseelie until one or both of them died.
“Drink, and never be alone again,” Malik said softly.
Kalen’s tongue flicked out, tested the thick stream. The taste exploded on his tongue, sweet and rich as the finest red wine. A bolt of pleasure seared to his gut, his limbs, his cock, and he groaned, latching on more firmly.
God, it was so good. So fucking fine. He wanted more, would do anything to get it as often as his companion would allow him.
“Stop.” The order barely filtered through to his consciousness.
Kalen blinked up at Malik and released his arm. Reluctantly. He licked his lips. “Please . . .”
Malik stroked his hair, studied him almost lovingly. “There will be plenty more. Do not worry. We are bonded now, and my blood will be your reward when I’m pleased.”
“And when you’re not pleased?”
“You do not want to know. Just make certain that doesn’t happen.”
He nodded, fear winding through his soul. What had he done? There was a lingering fog of lust that had banished all the caution he knew he should have. The guilt for having joined the enemy.
“I’m not the enemy, my boy. Does anyone blame a lion for killing and feeding upon a gazelle?”
“No, of course not. But—”
“I want to rid the earth of scum like Billy,” he said, waving a claw at the corpse. “And I must eat, same as you or anyone. As a purebred Unseelie, I must have animal flesh and blood to survive, and if that means occasionally removing a violent, dangerous man such as this from the earth in the process, why is that wrong?”
He couldn’t argue that point. Billy had been a motherfucker. And now he was food. Probably the only thing he’d ever been useful for.
“What now?” he asked. “Will I live here with you?” The idea suddenly made him anxious. The Pack guys were his friends, too—well, except Aric. Most of them had made him welcome. Right?
“Not yet. You must go back to your compound. For now, it is where you can help me the most. You’re going to practice the arts among them, beginning tomorrow.”
“I won’t hurt them,” he said, body tensing. “Any of them.”
Malik sighed. “Don’t fight the darkness, pet. You can’t win, now that you’ve accepted my bond. And why would you want to? Can’t you feel the power flooding you, stroking your cock like a woman’s lips? The ecstasy will only get better once you embrace our bond and let go of your previous inhibitions.”
He swallowed a moan. “What do I do?”
“Good boy,” he praised. “First, tell no one of our association. Practice on one of your teammates. Start small. Find a weakness and exploit it, discreetly. They mustn’t suspect you’re behind the incident. You’ll be surprised by how wonderful it feels to wield such a weapon.”
“And then?”
“Do as I say and you’ll come to me again soon. I will tell you what to do next, after you’ve begun to enjoy exercising your superior gifts over the others.”
“That’s all?”
“For now. Eager already?”
He looked away, unable to answer. Too late, he was afraid of what he’d allowed to be set in motion. But the lure was so great, he didn’t know how to break free. Wasn’t sure he wanted to. But there was one certainty he had to make clear.
“I won’t hurt Mackenzie. Ever,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “She’s mine, and I’ll kill you and me both before that happens.”
The Unseelie smiled, showing off his fangs. “Have the woman. What do I care? She’s merely a human and is nothing to my plans any longer, one way or the other.”
“Fine.”
With that settled, Malik shifted back into the form of an urbane, handsome man. He was once again fully clothed and one would never know he was anything but what he appeared to be. Unless they saw his half-eaten dinner hanging sightless in the middle of the room.
Together they went back upstairs, where they quietly shared one more glass of Cognac before Kalen took his leave in the wee hours of the morning.
Shifting into his panther, he ran back toward the compound. One thing Malik was correct about—the darkness sang in his veins. Demanded completion. Finding a nice grassy spot under the moonlight, he skidded to a stop and shifted back to a man. On his knees, he fisted his erect, aching cock and gave it a pump.
And another. Arching his back, he spread his knees and gave himself over to the night. To the heady pleasure that had needed release for the past couple of hours. His palm slid over smooth skin, electrifying his nerve endings. Up to the spongy head, weeping at the slit. Down to the base of his cock.
The other hand massaged his balls, playing with them. They tightened, drew upward. He had to come. Needed something more.
The second he imagined Mackenzie’s mouth sliding along his shaft, sucking and licking, he was lost. With a shout he came, spurting ropy white streams onto the cool ground until he was spent and exhausted.
Finally, he’d be able to sleep. And he’d need plenty.
You’re going to be the greatest Sorcerer the world has ever known, your power beyond comprehension.
Tomorrow he’d work on making his grandmother’s prediction come true.
* * *
Mac knew there was something different about Kalen the second she spotted him leaning against the wall of the rec room. She just couldn’t put her finger on what.
His animal form, a black panther, was typically secondary to his being a Sorcerer, but today he seemed even more catlike than usual. He rested his shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, watching some of the others. Aric and Zander were off to the side, playing a noisy game of foosball. Jax and Hammer were playing a war game on the Wii, and Sariel, Kira, Rowan, and Micah were watching a ghost-hunting reality television show they couldn’t seem to get enough of.
And Kalen observed them all, the expression on his face almost . . . sly. Maybe even insolent. The sight chilled her, though it could be her imagination. She hoped it was. It could be that he was still smarting from the incident in the dining room last evening. He’d never seemed like the type to carry a grudge, but how well did she really know him, beyond a shared adventure and a hot night at the Wall-Banger Motel?
Yeah, she so wasn’t going to think about that. Not when she had much bigger worries. Or little worries, like the one currently giving her awful morning
sickness.
Lingering in the doorway, she figured she should just leave and find somewhere else to relax on her break. But that plan went out the window when Kalen’s eyes met hers and he grinned, beckoning her to him with one finger.
Taken aback, she paused. Communication between them had been strained at best since he’d given her the brush-off. And now he seemed relaxed, the glitter in his jade green eyes almost playful. Composing her expression into what she hoped was cool indifference, she walked over to him.
“How’s Sariel?” he asked, eyeing her.
Inside, she deflated some. A part of her had hoped he wanted to talk about mending their fences, stupid as that seemed. She took a breath, shoving down the disappointment. “His recovery is progressing slowly. He’s still not eating very well, but other than that, he should be up and around in a few days.”
“Do you think he would see me? I have some apologizing to do.” He sounded sincere.
“I don’t know, but I could ask him for you if you would like.”
“I would, thank you.”
“Just don’t get your hopes up. He’s been withdrawn since Beryl attacked him, and I doubt you’re his favorite person at the moment.”
He winced. “Ouch. I deserved that, I guess.”
“You guess?” She frowned at Kalen and peered into his eyes. “Are you all right?”
“Sure, honey. Why do you ask?”
Gritting her teeth, she resisted the urge to shout not to call her pet names after what had transpired between them. After he’d walked away and broken her heart. Instead, she forced herself to think like a doctor and studied his eyes. They weren’t right. “Your pupils are dilated.”
“So?”
“Blown pupils are typically a sign of illness, concussion, or drug use. Have you hit your head? Are you sick?”
“Nah. Been smoking weed in my room.” He winked. “Ya caught me.”
She smacked his arm as he laughed. “That’s not funny, Kalen. I want you to come with me to the infirmary and let me give you a checkup.”
“I have a better idea—have lunch with me instead.”
