“Your organs will fetch a nice price,” Birdie says with that sing-song tone she’s been using for the last few hours. Sunlight shifting over the damaged walls helps Tallulah guess the length of time Birdie has been at her task. It’s another form of torture to be able to count the hours, Tallulah discovers. With each minute that slips by Tallulah loses more hope that she will ever find her way back to Lyric again.
Or to Sterling—who she’d love to punch and to kiss.
Damnit, Sterling, why did you come home?
A rather sharp jab to her side has Tallulah gasping.
Birdie’s reply is a mock apology. “Oops, sorry about that, darlin’.” She sounds delighted rather than apologetic.
A true sadist that Birdie Mae Savage.
Tallulah’s body shivers, the warmth leaking out of her as more blood gushes from her newest wound. The scent is an inescapable iron tang that coats Tallulah’s tongue while it also invades her nostrils.
No, no, no! Her mind races. This can’t be it for me! Sterling!
She’s praying hard for him as the world begins to fade into darkness, and in her descent into death Tallulah swears she hears him calling her name.
At least the devil sounds kind.
35
Birdie
Sterling rushes into the room with a scream of anguish. Birdie laughs at his stupidity. Always a fool, her baby brother. Birdie kind of hates that she’ll have to end him here. Sterling was always such an amusing toy—these days Birdie’s life lacks amusement.
“Damnit, Birdie,” he shouts at her. His hazel eyes—more green than anything in this moment—are wide with fear. Sterling knows how unrelenting she is, he knows how cruel his sister can be, and that makes Birdie grin as if she’s something powerful.
A vengeful goddess that he should cower before.
“Quite the reunion, Sterling,” she says as he rushes closer. His intention the table where his whore mutt lies motionless and pale. Sterling’s devotion to this abomination irks something in Birdie. With a snarl she says, “You’re more concerned for her than you are your own sister.”
“She’s in more danger than you are, clearly.” Sterling counters, a bite to his words that’s sharper than a razor’s edge. His hands lift Tallulah’s face as if she is spun glass and the sight of his care twists something ugly in Birdie’s heart.
No man has ever been so tender with her. No man has treated Birdie Mae as if she were precious and fragile. Jealousy is a sin Birdie knows well. One that consumes her in that moment, engulfing her in its ugly fire.
“Get away from her, Sterling,” Birdie commands with a dangerous tone. “The bitch deserves to have her heart carved out.”
The blessed knife feels comfortable in her palm as Birdie approaches. Sterling glares her down, holding Tallulah’s limp body to his chest. Tallulah’s rotten blood soaks his shirt, congealing and making the fabric look tacky as it clings to his large body. Big as he may be, Birdie knows Sterling is no match for her.
“I always hate makin’ Mama cry, but if you don’t move, son, I’m gonna gut you the way I plan to gut your bitch.”
She’s closing in on him, already excited by the prospect of watching the light go out of his gaze when a body slams into her side.
Taking Birdie temporarily by surprise.
“Not such a great huntress now, are you?” A young man scoffs, his gray eyes sparkle with malice. Birdie watches as his fangs descend—ready to try a bite of her hide. He seems vaguely familiar, but Birdie has never been one to memorize the faces of her prey.
They aren’t worth the extra effort to remember.
Birdie moves to her feet. She’s hard for a fight and Sterling is a weakling who cannot give Birdie the workout she needs. The dagger twirls in her palm. Ready to sink into this boy who hides the skin of a wolf.
A pelt Birdie will gladly hang on her wall once she peels it from this creature’s bones.
“Colt,” a commanding voice calls from behind her. “We take her with us, remember?”
“You’re not takin’ me anywhere,” Birdie tells them with a snarl. “I’ll ribbon you to bits, boy.”
The one called Colt laughs in her face. “I would love to see you try.” She lunges at him, but he dodges her easily. “Is that the best you have, huntress?” Colt taunts Birdie with the title, spitting the word as if it’s a filthy curse he needs off of his tongue.
Ripping a smaller blade from the sheath wrapped around her ankle, Biride launches the small dagger in Colt’s direction.
It strikes true, lodging in the muscle of his thick bicep, and he releases a terrible roar. The demonic sound of a wolf in touch with his baser instincts—a worthy prey Birdie thinks with a delighted grin.
“Bitch,” Colt snarls. His fingers lengthen—claws curling down from his nail beds—as his animal soul rises to the surface. Taking over the boy known as Colt, his transformation turns him into something less human.
Something evil.
His large, disfigured hand wraps around the small hilt of her throwing dagger, and Colt rips it from his flesh with ease. Birdie hears the blessed silver clatter to the darkened floor of the abandoned farmhouse. She doesn’t bother to search for the small blade, there’s time enough for that after she’s ended this wolf boy.
Birdie can send one of the trainees to fetch her things during the clean up.
“I thought you could do better than that,” Colt snarls. Clearly infuriated, and his rage delights her in ways sex never has. “Should’ve aimed for my throat.” Colt widens his stance, defensive as he watches Birdie bounce from foot to foot.
“I’m just gettin’ started you dirty cur,” Birdie spits as she lunges for him again. Colt laughs at each swipe of her blessed blade, dodging her easily. He’s quicker and smarter than most of the lowly wolves she’s been sent to tame. Better on the defensive than he is on the offensive, Birdie realizes when he keeps avoiding her attacks.
Colt takes her by further surprise when he moves so quickly he disappears from her sight. In a panic, a state she is rarely in, Birdie glances around. Claws shredding her sides causes Birdie to scream. Blood a warm river that spreads through the cotton of Birdie’s favorite shirt—damn him—she stumbles but doesn’t fall the way a lesser huntress might.
Birdie Mae Savage will not kneel until the last of her breath is stolen from her lungs.
“Not so easy when we’re trained to kill you, is it?” Colt mocks.
His laughter becomes a grating sound in her ears as the other wolf—the one she foolishly forgot about in her blind rage—grabs Birdie from behind.
Holding her in the iron band of his arms, the one she doesn’t know whispers a cruel question against Birdie’s ear. “How does it feel to be the leashed beast, Birdie Savage?”
It’s not that easy, boy.
Birdie stamps the heel of her boot into the one holding her’s shin. When he howls, she knows her poisonous dart struck true.
“Remington,” Colt shouts at the other wolf. “Shit.”
Using their distraction to her advantage, Birdie pulls out of Remington’s loosened hold. Colt tries to grab her, but he’s not fast enough. He’s too preoccupied with the wolf that looks like an older version of himself. Another distraction she uses to her advantage—ripping the necklace from around her neck Birdie cracks open the locket.
Tossing the powder into Colt’s face.
“Colt,” Remington gasps. The fast acting poison in his own blood stream causes him to cough up a thick, blood clot with the words.
Birdie grins, pleased that these children are no longer an issue.
Colt falls to the ground, clawing at his own chest. Shredding skin and meat as his blood fills the room with the sharp tang of copper.
Her favorite flavor in war.
With a cackle, Birdie turns to where Sterling is scrambling away. Trying to move the dead weight that is Tallulah Grace—her stupid brother’s fear dulls his wits and Tallulah’s blood makes lifting her a slippery task.
&n
bsp; 36
Sterling
Watching Birdie approach with a thick spatter of blood speckled across her face, makes Sterling panic. Tallulah is heavier than she should be—the exhaustion of the past few days catching up with Sterling. Adding fear to an already turbulent mix slows him down, makes Sterling weaker, and he’s a wounded kitten before a lion.
“Sterling,” Birdie’s tone is similar to the sweet trill of a robin’s song. Too airy and beautiful for this horrible moment. “Oh Sterling,” she continues.
Her boots hit the old wooden floor with an unhurried pace. Why shouldn’t she feel calm? The two people who might’ve been able to stop her are near-death messes upon the floor. Sterling clings to Tallulah with the dawning horror that this will be the last time he holds her in his arms.
No. He thinks, staring down into her beautiful face. A face made waxen by blood loss. A face that should be vibrant with life.
I should’ve never come home.
God…fuck…no. He swallows, brushing the dark wavy hair away from her mouth. If you’re listening, Devil, I’m here and willing. You come save her and I’ll give you every fucking tarnished bit of my soul.
“Prayin’ aint gonna help,” Birdie whispers. She knows Sterling better than he’d like to believe, and Birdie Mae can surely tell that he’s a praying fool as he holds his dying love at her feet.
“You’re gonna be meaner than hell right up til the end, ain’t ya?” Sterling asks with a laugh that is hollow with empty grief.
“And long after you’re gone, Sterling,” her fingers press against his beard. A touch Sterling recoils from, disgusted by the caress. Another cruel smile lights Birdie’s face, “When I’m done with you, baby brother, I’m gonna go carve up that boy your damned loved made.” Hissing down into his face she promises him, “I’m gonna undo that blight you put on our name.”
His knuckles brush the floor, dragging across splintered wood, rock, and something cold. Sterling glares up into her face, “You will never undo what’s mine, Birdie Mae.”
A bright, cold sound erupts from her thin throat. “Oh, Sterling, you are the stupidest boy I’ve ever known.”
Birdie is fast as she goes for the dagger in her belt.
Sterling proves faster.
The cold blade doesn’t have time to grow warm in his palm—Sterling snatches the silver of it from the floor and has the blade driven through the center of Birdie’s throat in a matter of seconds.
She chokes on her own laugh. One that never spills from her mouth—what comes from that vile orifice is a thick cough of blood.
Horrified Sterling pulls Tallulah backwards, watching as Birdie stumbles forward clutching at her chest. She tries to speak, but the sound is a wet gurgle that makes Sterling wince. She scrambles towards where he clutches Tallulah to him, but doesn’t get far when Remington—coughing up a little blood of his own—shoves a clawed hand through her back. Birdie’s blood bursts out of her chest, along with her heart, speckling Sterling with a fine coppery scented mist.
He can’t say a word.
Sterling just sits there, struck dumb, when Remington growls, “Fuck off to Hell, bitch.” He coughs again, pulling a strange silver amulet from around his neck. Smearing the metal through Birdie’s blood, Remington says, “Alexis, The Avenging, I—Remington Lowell—offer this sacrifice in exchange for your services.”
A golden light fills the dilapidated building, bringing a calming warmth along with it, and when the glow calms Sterling finds a man standing at the center of where the light originated.
Eyes as green as spring grass hold Sterling’s gaze for a moment. He feels rooted to the ground. Immobilized by a man who doesn’t look to be older than his mid-twenties. A slight smile ticks up the corner of the pale mouth of the stranger, and, as if he can hear Sterling’s thoughts, he murmurs. “I assure you, Sterling Savage, I am much older than that.”
He walks closer to where Tallulah is lying, limp within the circle of Sterling’s immobilized arms.
Behind the new arrival, Colt is still trying to thrash about. Despite the fact that Remington is holding his brother’s arms tight—begging Colt to calm down.
The man’s fine featured face turns to where the two Lowell brothers are hanging on to life by a fine hair, and with the face of a saint he says. “Be healed.”
With two words Colt stops thrashing and Remington quits releasing wet sounding gasps.
The wounds in Colt’s skin stitch themselves together, leaving behind baby fresh skin.
Cold slithers down Sterling’s spine, he’s never heard of being able to perform such feats. A chuckle comes from the man kneeling by Tallulah—again Sterling believes he’s being read from the inside out.
“Can you fix her?” he asks despite his discomfort.
“Of course Alexis can,” Colt responds with a hiss, peeling off the ruined tatters of his blood soaked shirt. A disgusted curl curving his mouth as he tosses the ripped cotton aside.
“Easy,” Alexis says to Colt. “He’s a Child of Michael—they don’t teach the majority of those children about me.” His unnaturally green eyes slide towards Birdie. “Though, I can’t imagine Michael will be thrilled with me for this mishap.” Sterling doesn’t know what he means by that, and isn’t sure he wants Alexis to elaborate.
Ignorance is bliss—safe.
All thoughts about the strange world they live in flee Sterling’s mind when Alexis draws closer to Tallulah. His pale hands move to cover the largest of Tallulah’s wounds. Using a language that is unlike any Sterling has encountered Alexis whispers some sort of chants. A command to whatever forces serve him to stitch her back to new. Sterling watches with a slack mouth as Tallulah’s skin knits itself together, leaving her skin like new in the wake of the magic’s progress. Same as had been done to Colt, but seeing the phenomenon up close is another kind of thrilling.
If Sterling had to guess he would say that this is what the stars witnessed when the universe was crafted into existence.
The process takes some minutes for Tallulah’s skin to weave her body back to new. When the work is finished, Tallulah’s body looks the exact way it had when Sterling last touched her.
However, despite being woundless, Tallulah remains motionless within Sterling’s arms. Something he’s about to point out when Alexis bends over her.
His unnaturally pretty face presses near hers and into Tallulah’s slack mouth Alexis pushes his own breath.
“Breathe.” Alexis commands after he does this.
A second later Tallulah gasps for air.
37
Lyric
Merle sits on the bed beside Lyric—both of them silent as they soak up each other’s presence.
Lyric finds it calming to listen to the house creak while people beyond the walls laugh and mill about.
Life is normal outside of this stagnant purgatory.
Lyric wants his life to go back to the simple monotony he once took for granted. To the days when their biggest worry was a gator in the yard eating the chickens. Not a father who brought more problems than a guitar and possible groupies.
He wants the antagonist of his life to remain that dickhead jock, Bryce Wilson. Lyric doesn’t want his biggest adversary to be the grandfather who wants to turn him into a wolfskin rug.
“What if Mama never comes home?” Lyric has been ruminating on that highly probable scenario since Sterling left with the other wolves. Men like Lyric who smelled of death and blood.
An unsettling realization has shifted through his young world. The understanding that, at one time, his uncles and his pawpaw were wolves like the ones who came to rescue Tallulah.
Killers.
Monsters.
“If she doesn’t come home you’ll have to go with the two men you saw downstairs.” That’s a fate Lyric doesn’t want.
Lyric looks up sharply, his heart thundering in his chest, “What?”
“Orphaned wolves are always trained to be soldiers for witches. They are the wolves who do
n’t have a choice.” Merle tells him with sad, blue eyes. An expression that tells Lyric his grandpa doesn’t want that fate for him either.
Lyric is confused, chewing on his lip he asks, “Why?”
Merle lets out a sigh, crossing his big arms while he thinks on his answer. He’s never looked old to Lyric, but he’s aged an eternity in the last day. Like a fragile elderly man who can’t do anything on his own—which is a terrifying thought to the grandson who used to think of him as a god.
Merle isn’t supposed to be anything less than eternal.
“We were born into servitude for witches. Do you remember the fable of the first wolf?”
Lyric snorts, “Yeah. Tallulah loved that stupid bedtime story. I think that’s the only one she ever told me.”
“Fables, for us, are often rooted in truth.” Merle tells Lyric with a sage voice.
“So there’s a bunch of guys out there stupid enough to pledge their line to a witch in the woods to get laid?” Lyric asks with skepticism. It’s an awful story in Lyric’s opinion, but that could have something to do with the fact that he’d already felt unwanted by his unknown father. Thinking the guy could’ve been one who sold him into servitude to a witch for a bigger dick was a whole other can of worms that Lyric didn’t like to think about.
Merle chuckles. “Ten or so men, actually.” At Lyric’s curious glance he elaborates, “We all derive from the same ten shifter families.”
“So there’s a line of shifters named Grace?” Lyric frowns, kicking his foot against the chair that isn’t far from his borrowed bed.
“Not exactly,” Merle replies. “We aren’t direct descendants of our line. Remington and Colt—the two you met today are direct descendants of Thomas Lowell. An idiot who cursed his children. As a fledgling family of the Lowell line the Lowells are the ones we call when things get out of hand.”
The Grace of a Savage Page 14
