City of Dragons: Of Flesh and Blood (8 page)

Farley growled, and Deshi whimpered. It was sound he never made. Farley tugged Deshi’s belt loose, and tears slid down the Prince’s cheeks. Haley put a hand on Farley’s to stop him. His eyes went up. Another whimper escaped Deshi’s pinched lips, and he dropped his head. Something bad had happened to him and was still happening.

Haley shushed Deshi and stroked his arm.

“We’ll stop,” Haley said. Farley raised his eye brows. “We will stop.” She looked him dead in the eye. Farley made an unhappy sound but backed away. “It’s okay, Deshi. I won’t make you.”

The Jersey City Prince shuddered, then all at once crumpled to the floor. He rolled forward hiding his face in his arms, while his entire body shook. “I know you won’t. You never make me. You never hurt me. That’s why I came here. I’m safe. I’m safe…” His hands locked on Haley’s ankles, and he pressed his face against her legs. His tears were hot on her skin. “Oh, Haley, she’s going to kill me.”

Was he talking about Emily?

Deshi’s large hands came up, and he pulled at his shirt. The little buttons made unhappy popping noises as he forced it over his head. His back was covered in a crisscross of bruises.

The wounds had been deep. Really deep.

“Who did this to you?”

It took more than Human strength to do this kind of damage.

Deshi shook his head. “It’s not his fault. He just does what he’s told.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, Deshi. I want to know who has been beating you hard enough to leave bruises hours old, and why?” Beating, hell – punching holes was more like it.

The Jersey City Prince picked up her hand. “If I tell you, promise me you won’t kill Emily.”

Haley didn’t want to kill anyone. The fact the Prince was asking her not to meant she was going to be mad. Really mad.

“Deshi--”

“Promise me!” His grip tightened. “Please…”

“I promise.”

He looked at Farley. “You too. You promise me.”

Farley growled. “I’m not promising anything. If Emily fucked you up like that…”

Deshi wailed and pushed his face back against Haley’s legs. She looked at Farley. His gold eyes flickered with red.

Haley said, “Promise him.”

“Fuck no.”

“Farley!” Haley glared, and he did the same right back.

Farley made a face. “Fine.”

Deshi said, “Say you promise not to hurt Emily. Say it, so I know you mean it.”

Muscles jumped in Farley’s jaw. His hands clenched and his knuckles popped. “I promise not to kill Emily.”

Deshi’s shoulders sagged. He pulled himself upright and leaned against the back of the sofa. His lip was bleeding from where he’d bitten himself.

This is what a fallen angel looks like
. So much agony and beauty in a single moment.

“Emily…” The Jersey City Prince’s breath shuddered out. “That night, when she saw Farley
feed
me…she changed.” He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, and looked impossibly more broken than before. “I thought…I thought at first maybe she understood.”

Haley kneeled down so Deshi wouldn’t have to look up at her. It wasn’t right to make a Queen’s Son take such a submissive position, Male or not. Farley followed suit, but he stayed out of touching distance.

Deshi said, “Emily started asking me a lot of questions about…
feeding
. What it was like, why I hadn’t told her…that sort of thing.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?” Farley asked.

Deshi shrugged. “I didn’t want to scare her. And she wouldn’t have understood. I would have been more of a monster to her than I already am.” Haley petted his arm. He didn’t flinch so she didn’t stop. “Emily asked me if I was gay.”

Farley gave a snort. Haley could tell by his expression he was thinking the same thing she was. Humans were always trying to fit Kin into the boundaries of their culture. There was no such thing as sexual preference in Kin. It just didn’t exist. There was only the dominance scale, and rank dictated what they were. Food, sex, or both.

Unless, of course, there was a Female involved. They always took top position.

“Did you explain to her why sexuality doesn’t apply to you?” Haley was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

“I tried, but it didn’t do any good.” He rubbed his face. “I asked her again if she would Link with me.” And it was obvious her answer had been a big hell no. “I came home about a week later, and she was very excited. Happy. Emily said she had a gift for me. She said since I needed to
feed
, she wanted to help. I followed her to our bedroom…” Deshi clinched his eyes shut. “God of Man, I’ve never been so humiliated.”

“What happened?” Haley slid closer and brushed her fingers through his hair.

Deshi sighed. “Emily said she’d found this group on the internet. They provide services.” And the Prince said “services” like it was a dirty word. Haley had a feeling, for him, that’s exactly what it was. “Half-breeds. They provide half-breeds to
feed
Kin.” He shuddered. “He had a handler…Like he was a dog or something. The Human even made him wear a collar. God of Man, Haley, he couldn’t even speak.”

But Half-breeds were sometimes more animal than anything else. Queens were selective for a very good reason.

Deshi sighed. “I went along with it. The first time wasn’t so bad when he
fed
me.”

“Then what happened?”

“They came back, the Human and his half-breed. Two days later when I came home, Emily was in the same giddy mood. She wanted to watch me
feed
again. But this time…this time I had to let the half-breed
feed
from me.” And there it was. If there was a taboo among Kin, this was it. Half-breeds did not feed from Kin. They were considered an abnormality, equal to animals. And on top of that, Deshi wasn’t just any Kin, he was a Prince to the Queen of Jersey City. Farley’s eyes went wide.

“But that’s not all of it, is it, Deshi?” Haley made it a statement. The Male shook his head. “Tell me.”

He took a breath and told her how he’d been reduced to
feeding
a half-breed, reduced to being a punching bag, then forced to let the Male dominate him. Emily would watch while the Male cracked his bones and tore chunks of flesh from his body.

Mutilated him. Broke him.

Only when he was destroyed was she satisfied. Then Emily would instruct the half-breed to
feed
him.

“Last night I came home, and it was…terrible.”

It was all terrible. Haley had a hard time imagining how much worse last night had been.

“I’m not healing like I used to.” Deshi touched his arms and then his torso. “Last night I thought I was going to die.” Farley moved closer and pressed his head against Deshi’s shin. The Jersey City Prince stared at him for a long moment before he finally put a hand on Farley’s shoulder. “I told Emily I couldn’t play her game anymore. That…that what she was making me do wasn’t acceptable. I tried to tell her it was like a Human taboo, that half-breeds are animals, that
feeding
him was wrong...I told her I should have been
his
dominant, but she was…the things she…” Deshi bit off his words. “She screamed at me. She told me she was trying to fulfill my
needs
, that I should be grateful, that if I loved her…”

Yeah, that sounded like Emily all right. Haley sighed.

Deshi’s baby blues came up. “Last night, I told her I couldn’t do it anymore, and we had to find another way. I even suggested letting Farley come over. If watching me
feed
on or be
fed
on by another Male was what she wanted…”

Farley pulled himself up and tucked his shoulder against Deshi’s ribs. “I’ll do it for you. I hate her, but if it would make things easier for you, I’ll do it. Whatever you need. Just tell me.”

Deshi stroked Farley’s head and back. “I know.”

“But she didn’t want Farley to
feed
you,” Haley said. Deshi shook his head.

Of course not. What Emily wanted wasn’t about meeting Deshi’s needs. It was about punishing him.

Deshi clenched his eyes shut as Haley pulled him to her. Because the Jersey City Prince was so much taller, he almost had to lie on his side to put his face in her neck.

And for a very long time Haley and Farley held him because there was nothing else they could do.

Orin stood under the blistering spray of water shooting out of the old brass showerhead. He’d been standing there for at least an hour, and if it wasn’t for the godsend of hot water on demand, he would have run out a long time ago.

He should have been washing, scrubbing. The high velocity spray was doing an effective job of scraping the blood and body fluids from the creases of his skin, but it couldn’t wash the things he done from his mind.

Lucky for Orin, the two men had been nothing but professional. The first ten minutes had been all stop and start and flinching if they got to close. In spite of the roar in his chest, pounding pain of his teeth, and the heartbeat between his legs, he almost made them leave.

But dealing with Kin who didn’t want to be what they were, was part of their job. The blonde had serviced Orin before, and Orin, in his desperation, let him try the old standby of breaking past his usual inhibitions. No touching required, which was great. Just breathing. An exchange of scents…

And as soon as the Lesser-Bred’s taste hit Orin’s palate, all his cultured humanness went on hiatus and the thing he tried so hard not to be took over.

Hating himself didn’t change the fact his biology had been sated and he felt good. Or at least better than he’d been feeling for the past few weeks.

But what he
needed-craved-wanted
was his own.

Beast.

Orin found the green and white bar of Irish Spring, and he scrubbed it against his skin until he left ugly red welts. From head to toe he hurt himself, assaulting his body because he was powerless to control the metaphysical biology binding him together. Orin lost count of the times he repeated the process, but he eventually rinsed and shut the water off.

Feeling renewed and abhorring the sensation, Orin dragged a towel over his limbs and torso and forced himself to get dressed. By the time he had his shoes on, he decided he didn’t want Mary to come here tonight. The sins of what he’d done permeated the air, and no amount of Febreeze was going to kill it.

He dialed her number as he headed up the sidewalk towards the Ancient Histories Building where he taught. He had absolutely no intentions of taking Mary inside, but it still seemed wrong to meet her there. Or maybe just unprofessional.

Right before the phone clicked over to voicemail, she picked up. “Hey, I’m on my way.”

“Change of plans.”

“Oh?” The tone of her voice said she was scared he was going to back out. But ten more tons of self-loathing wouldn’t have kept Orin from tending her
need
.

“Can we go to your place? If not, I can get us a hotel.”

“Sure…no. I mean, my place is fine. Orin, is something wrong?”
Yeah. Everything about me is fucked up.
“No, nothing’s wrong. I just…”
I can’t do this at my house. Not tonight. Not after…
“I just don’t want to go home right now.” He knew Mary would know what he meant. While her hunger was intermittent, sometimes going weeks without a Rise, Orin was Kin and didn’t get a reprieve. And the hate of what he had to do was something she completely understood.

After all, the depression and self-loathing had almost killed her after her Shift. In some ways her strength to face what she had become made Orin ashamed. She was so much stronger than he was.

“Where do you want me to pick you up?”
“I’ll wait for you at the AH building. South end of the parking lot.”

“Be there in five.”

She made it there in a little less than four.

Mary pulled up in her Taurus and gave Orin the passenger door. He did a quick look-see, but this area of campus was a long way off from the night life. The only place with any signs of movement was the coffee shop at the end of the block.

Orin popped the door and climbed in.

“Hey.” Mary’s beautiful lavender eyes hit Orin head on. And no matter how foul his mood was, he was powerless to stop the shit-eating grin from spreading across his mug.

“Hey, yourself.” God of Man, he loved her smile.

Mary put the car in drive, headed out of the parking lot, and joined the rest of the motor-driven herd easing up and down the sleepy streets.

Athens likes to present itself as a typical small town, a regular Civil-War- meets- Starbucks kind of place. But unlike a lot of small Georgia cities, it doesn’t roll up the sidewalks come nightfall. On the contrary, when the sun dips below the horizon, the clubs get full and the parties churn out drunken frat boys like a Pez dispenser.

And because most of the roads are nothing more than black-topped horse trails, traffic can be as debilitating as any big city street. Mary took a left off of Washington and headed down the neighborhood-laden side roads where street lamps made puddles of light in the yards of old twenties-style shotgun houses.

Orin said, “So how have you been?”

“Good, real good.” Orin knew Mary really meant she was dealing. But it was all any of them could do. The only other option was death; and while dying was a permanent solution, it simply wasn’t acceptable for either of them. “What about you?” Mary tossed him a quick look in the dark. Orin knew from personal experience her eyesight was better than Human.

Not wanting to lie, he said, “I’ve had better days.”

“Are you still having a good ole boy problem?”

Orin laughed. He’d almost forgotten. Last time they’d met up, a couple of local rabble rousers decided to follow him home and do a little shit kicking. They were young and drunk, and it didn’t take much to scare them off. A flash of fang and a good old-fashioned growl. Only problem was they took off on foot and ran right out in front of one of the city buses.

All three of them survived, but they’d walk with a limp. It had taken two hours of explaining and Ray coming down to the station to vouch for Orin before the cops even entertained his side of the story.