Envy

by Katie May

  ENVY

  THE DAMNING

  KATIE MAY

  Copyright © 2019 by Katie May

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Melody Simmons

  Created with Vellum

  To Grandma and Grandpa, thank you for letting me stay at your house and write without distractions

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Katie May

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  First Chapter of Darkness We Crave!

  First Chapter of Gangs and Ghosts!

  PROLOGUE

  MALI

  I skirted the old well Z and I used to play at, now boarded up, before dashing into the forest.

  The forest once brought me comfort. The trees, tall enough to brush the skyline, and the animals scurrying through the brush. Like all Vampires, I was drawn to the living. Some might argue that it was merely a pull towards a food source, but I begged to differ.

  Vampires loved the living because we were death incarnate.

  Stumbling over the trim of my gown, I found myself in front of an unfamiliar cabin. The windows were unwashed, cracked in some places, and the wood was beginning to deteriorate with age. Still, the formidable building resembled a mansion to me and my tired body.

  With considerable effort, I dragged myself up the stone staircase and onto the wrap around porch. I waited, using my Vampiric hearing, but detected no heartbeats inside.

  Breaths sawing in and out from the marathon I had just run, I stepped through the door.

  The inside was just as dilapidated as the outside. Worn rugs, tearing on the edges, adorned the mahogany floorboards. A single hearth was lit in the entrance, the flames flickering and casting strange shadows on the walls.

  Alone at last, I settled on the ground and pulled out the arrow that had lodged itself into my leg. I had heard rumors of the Before time - before Nightmares came into play - and that the humans had used guns and bullets. I couldn’t imagine such a weapon when something as simple as a bow and arrow was able to incapacitate a newly-fed Vampire. The Council was full of assholes, but they had done one thing right when they had banned weapons worse than a knife.

  Cursing, I removed the wooden arrow and tossed it into the fire. The flames hissed but eagerly ate at its treat.

  I allowed my mind to wander.

  How did my life turn so fucked up? I had thought that I had everything - a best friend, two mates, a job. And it all shattered around me with the finesse of a bull trampling through a china shop.

  A sob lodged in my throat when I thought about Diego. His body lying limp on the ground, drenched in his own blood. The gurgling noises escaping from his lips. The tears in his eyes.

  I closed my own eyes as if that could somehow rid me of the horrendous images.

  And then Z’s face, the accusal in her gaze. The hatred. She could’ve killed me. I wanted her to.

  Because of me, Diego was dead. Because of me, my mate was dead. Zack. The person who was designed to be the other half of my soul.

  Or, at least, a third of it.

  My mind flittered to Atta the last time I had seen her. Her red hair framing her face as she leaned down to kiss my neck. Her small hand kneading my breasts, tweaking my nipples. I hadn’t been with a woman before, but she had made it as easy as breathing. As my tongue eagerly lapped at her slit, and her head rolled backwards, I knew I was in love. That love was only reconfirmed when she had returned the favor, our breasts bouncing against one another as our bodies moved.

  I had thought that if I were to be with any girl, it would be Z. I would be the first to admit that I was in love with my best friend, despite my previous conquests only being men. I would imagine her always. Under me. On top of me. Her heavy breasts bouncing in my face.

  I had been jealous when she had found her mates, irrationally so. Maybe things would’ve been different if I could’ve just supported my best friend. I had been so bitter, so angry, that I hadn’t once told her about Zack and me. When he had been with me, he hadn’t been a monster. There was so much gentle anxiety on his face, so much reverence, as he kissed down my body.

  Who would’ve known the monster that lurked underneath?

  When Z had cast me out, she had thought she had saved me from death.

  But she was wrong.

  Where would a Vampire that had been forsaken by her own kind go? I had worked with the human assassins, but they no longer wanted me. My family didn’t want me.

  No one fucking wanted me.

  A rogue Nightmare was easy prey. Already, I had over a dozen Hunters come after me - the reason for the arrow burning away in the fire.

  Sobbing, I placed my head in my hands and thought of death. It was so incredibly tempting, that seductive dark embrace constantly nagging at me, and I wanted nothing more than to give in. But I knew I could never.

  Atta.

  Z.

  My love and my best friend. Somehow, someway, I would earn their forgiveness and love. In my mind, I had a goal: to win Atta and Z back before Z’s wedding to the seven princes. I chuckled yet again, slightly hysterically, as I thought of my badass, Nightmare-hating best friend as the lover of the seven Nightmare princes. It was some cosmic joke. Fate was no doubt laughing at her.

  Suddenly, the fire was blown out, and a cool wind blew through my hiding spot. I froze, knowing that I was too weak to defend myself from the Hunters. As a Vampire, I healed faster than a mere mortal, but the wound in my leg had been deep, cutting through bone and tendons.

  “Get up, you pathetic simpleton,” a strident feminine voice demanded. It was unfamiliar but still caused pinpricks of terror to race down my spine. It was the voice you would hear on a stage, innately demanding your respect.

  I remained shivering on the floorboards, eyes squeezed shut.

  The smell of death permeated the air. I had no doubt in my mind that it would emanate directly from this woman.

  Footsteps echoed around me, surrounding me. I counted at least fifteen heartbeats.

  Somebody grabbed my hair, and I screamed at the initial stab of pain. My eyes, unbidden, flickered to the woman who held me.

  She was beautiful, that much was obvious. Her rose gold hair cascaded around her shoulders in soft waves. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of blue, that exact color when the sun began to peek through the boughs of trees early in the morning.

  Her hand curved around my face, and a delicate smile touched her red-painted lips. She looked as delicate as a snake, however. No
amount of smiling could pacify the rage in her eyes. The darkness.

  “My poor dear,” she cooed. “Cast out. Abandoned. Alone.” She shook her head in mock apology, and my temper flared. That condescending little bitch!

  “Who are you?”

  “I think the better question would be: what do I want?” She laughed, a sound that made goosebumps erupt on my skin. Fear penetrated my defenses, and it took considerable effort not to curl into a fetal position and cry. “Your name is Mali.”

  “No shit,” I sniped back, resisting the urge to spit on her smug face. Her smile never wavered at my small act of disobedience.

  “My name is Aaliyah,” she said calmly. “And you’re going to help me.”

  ONE

  Z

  The throne room was...underwhelming.

  That was not a term I would think to associate with such a room. The connotations of the word ‘throne room’ would suggest intricately-crafted chairs raised on a dais and three-tiered chandeliers. What I found, however, was something else entirely.

  It had once been beautiful, the opulence even now undeniable, but time had tarnished its beauty. The chandeliers were covered in dust and spiderwebs. The thrones themselves were cracked in more places than one.

  I tried to mask my expression of shock, but a tiny gasp slipped out instinctively. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  This room was just one of many throne rooms for the seven kings. They barely ever traveled to the Capital unless there was an important event transpiring. Like the Damning - a fight to the death between one-hundred of the worst criminals and assassins. At the end of the day, there was only one winner. One person to claim the title of the Kings’ private assassin.

  A title that currently belonged to me.

  I could feel phantom remnants of blood slithering over my skin like a snake, a palpable entity. The screams of the men I had killed contaminated the air until I was practically choking on them.

  Nobody expected a person like me to win. A girl, for one, and a human. An insignificant bug in this fucked up world of predators. I was expected to be squashed by more than one foot, not emerge victorious. I blamed it on dumb luck.

  The seven Nightmare species were descended from the seven deadly sins. It hadn’t always been that way. Hundreds of years ago, humans had ruled the world. There had been skyscrapers and presidents and jobs that didn’t involve groveling. When the sins descended like damn vultures, they had gifted certain families with ethereal powers. Powers that defied the natural order.

  Humans had feared these creatures, coined as Nightmares, but they were a dying breed. It became apparent that no amount of fighting could quell the growing plague - the plague being supernatural monsters. They were stronger, better, smarter (or so they claimed), and we were helpless to escape their keen claws burrowing into our sides.

  For the first time in forever, the humans found themselves near the bottom of the food chain.

  Lifting my head up imperiously, I took the final steps into the desolate room. It was still beautiful, there was no denying that, but it was apparent that it had been forgotten. The room was actually a fitting representation of myself in that respect.

  My eyes latched onto the Shifter King first. He sat in the center of the room, penetrating eyes aimed directly at me. At his gaze, I straightened imperceptibly. I would not allow him to intimidate me.

  Shifters were descended from Wrath. They were volatile by nature, jumping to violence as a form of resolution. They tended to see the worst in people and were quick to anger and slow to forgive. The current king was also a major asshole, no surprise, and was the most avid proponent of human work camps.

  Behind him, standing abnormally still with his muscular arms folded in front of his chest, was the King’s son, Lupe.

  My heart hammered when I met his dark eyes. His hair was disheveled, as if he had run his hand through it one too many times, but his eyes were kind. Sympathetic. Compassionate.

  My lips pursed.

  I didn’t deserve his pity nor did I want it. He may have been my mate - the other half, or at least a seventh, of my soul - but he didn’t understand me. He couldn’t possibly understand how it felt to lose your two best friends in a matter of days.

  My stomach was a clamorous mixture of dread and an almost incandescent fury. I kept envisioning Diego’s face…

  His eyes had been wide, staring blankly at a spot on the ceiling. I had heard that you were supposed to close the eyes of the dead, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. After all, they weren’t Diego’s eyes. Not anymore. His eyes had always been alight with laughter and mirth. His lips had always been curved into a perpetual smirk. There hadn’t been blood on the Diego I remembered. No, the man lying on the ground, dead, was a shell of the man I had known and loved.

  The solution to everything was simple: I would never love again.

  Everybody I had ever loved was brutally taken from me. Death had claimed them all, and I was helpless to stop it.

  My parents, murdered in front of my eyes.

  S, the man I had loved, killed by rogue Shifters.

  Diego, stabbed trying to protect me.

  Mali, my best friend who had betrayed me by quite literally falling into bed with the enemy. Zack. The last man I had killed with a single, unceremonious stab to the heart.

  Even Devlin, despite him sleeping soundly in my room, had left me. He was the first man I had ever loved, the man I had thought I would make a life with, and he had left me under this delusional belief that he needed to protect me. It was only a few days ago that I discovered our entire relationship was built on a lie. He had been Devlin the crowned prince of Genies, not Lin, the man I loved.

  And I was Z, the human assassin who killed his kind for a living, not the timid, innocent girl he had believed himself to love.

  There was nothing beautiful about our relationship. It was a ferocious snow storm with no hope of relief. It was tumbling in a riptide, desperate for fresh air before you were pulled back under. It was death in the truest form.

  I ripped my eyes reluctantly off of Lupe’s, surveying the rest of the men in the room. Of course there were only men. Of freaking course.

  The Mermaid King caught my eye. He was sitting directly beside the Shifter King, lips curved up into a malicious smile. His glacial eyes grazed the other kings before landing and staying on me. His smile grew significantly. He might’ve been handsome with his golden hair and lightly tanned skin, but there was something cold in his eyes. Something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I had the sudden urge to escape, to run, to leave this hellish room with the many eyes that seemed to see too much. I felt vulnerable standing there. Not at all like the fierce warrior I was expected to be. In that moment, I wasn’t Z the assassin, but Zara the fragile human girl.

  There were three men surrounding the Mermaid King. They all had the same golden-spun hair and ocean blue eyes. There was no doubting the similarities between them and the King. Them and Dair.

  My heart kick-started at the thought of my sweet, gentle mate. He wasn’t present in the room, but I could sense him nearby. Perhaps a few rooms over. I didn’t know how I knew it, only that I did. That damn mate bond between us. The bond that I somewhat refused to acknowledge.

  This bond didn’t guarantee love, but it was almost always present. And love, I had come to find out, was immensely dangerous. It strangled you. Choked you. Falling in love with one person made me off-kilter, but falling in love with more than one was damn near suicidal.

  Briefly, my eyes flitted around the remaining kings. Besides Lupe, none of my princes were present.

  Not my princes, I scolded myself.

  The Shadow King was clothed in darkness, hidden in the corner of the room. I wanted to chuckle at the similarities between Ryland and his father. As descendants of Pride, they refused to show their faces to people they didn’t deem as “worthy” - a word I hated intensely. That definition was skewed by bias and prejudice.

&
nbsp; A female and a human? Most definitely not worthy in their eyes.

  The Incubus King, descended from Lust, sat directly beside him. On his other side was the King of Vampires whose line originated from Gluttony.

  With a confidence I didn’t feel, I turned my attention towards the King of Genies. As a descendant of Greed, he fed off the selfishness of others. My heart hammered at the similarities between him and his son, Devlin. The same olive-toned skin and violet eyes, shining as if there was a candle lit beneath the surface. The same curly brown hair. The same broad shoulders leading down to tapered waists. The King, however, had streaks of gray in his shoulder-length hair.

  And his eyes…

  They were what I imagined standing in freezing water would feel like. Numbness would begin in your toes, slowing snaking upwards until it clamped around your heart. Your breathing would turn shallow just as unconsciousness claimed you.

  While the Mermaid King’s eyes were malicious, the King of the Genie’s were empty. Cold. Frigid. The eyes of a man who had his innocence chipped away by time and environment.

  Would that happen to Devlin?

  The mere thought filled me with unease.

  I tried to picture Devlin as cold, untouchable, evil...but the thought eluded me. It just didn’t fit with the man I knew and once loved. Still loved. Maybe.

  “So this is the winner,” the Mermaid King said, diverting my attention. He was watching me with narrowed, piercing eyes. I was fully dressed, but it felt as if I was naked. With one glance, I could tell he wanted to tear me apart, rip me to shreds. Piece by piece.

  I resisted the urge to bow sardonically. The last thing I wanted to do was show any type of reverence to these monsters.

  Planting my hands on my hips, I waited, a quirk to my brow.

  It was the Vampire King that moved first, gliding across the distressed wood until he was nose to nose with me. Out of my peripheral, I noted Lupe stiffening imperceptibly. His nostrils flared at the other man’s proximity to me. It wasn’t jealousy. No, it was fear. Fear for me. There was no mistaking the predatory intent in the King’s beady black eyes, such a contrast to Jax’s own striking shade of green. It was rumored that the more someone fed, the darker their eyes became.