Sweet Ruin (5 page)

Befouled.
Rune loathed his blood. Worse, she
knew
how deeply he did. Some things in his mind were too prominent to disguise from prying eyes.

He reached into his pocket, seeking the talisman he always kept near. Carved from a demon ancestor’s horn and inscribed with runes even he couldn’t decipher, it always helped him focus, reminding him to look toward the future—

Suddenly Sian’s head jerked up. “My brother is dead?” Sian’s twin, the Father of Terrors, had been as hideous as Sian was physically flawless.

Rune nodded. “Killed in a blood sport contest. Murdered in front of cheering crowds.”

Blace shook his head. “Impossible. A primordial like the Father of Terrors can’t be killed.”

“He was slain—by a mere immortal,” Rune said. “These days in the Gaia realms, they no longer fight one species against another; they’ve
allied
into armies. And more, these immortals don’t just take down primordials. They assassinate gods.”

Allixta smirked. “Perhaps your dirty blood has finally rotted your brain. Deities can’t be assassinated by immortals.”

He turned from her and addressed the others: “Several gods have perished, all in the last year. Including one of the witch divinities.” While Allixta sputtered, Rune reeled off names of old deities, extinguished forever. He studied the set of Orion’s shoulders for signs of tension.

How would a god feel about the deaths of his kind?

Orion just stared at the worlds flickering past.

“Why do you trust this information from your . . . nymphs?” Allixta demanded of Rune.

“Because I pay them well in their favorite currency: stiff fuckings with a stout cock. It just so happens I’m rich beyond measure.”

Before she could launch into a scathing response, Blace said, “These assassinations have occurred. Read his thoughts, Allixta. The information is there.”

“They seem connected,” Sian said. “It’s as if someone is trying to attract our notice. Our very presence. Who would dare?”

“A Valkyrie named Nïx the Ever-Knowing,” Rune answered. “The primordial of her species.” According to the nymphs, Nïx had orchestrated these killings. “She’s a soothsayer and a wish giver. Close to goddesshood.”

Orion often made allies of enemies—he had with Blace, Allixta, and two of the sleeping Møriør. Would the god enlist the primordial Valkyrie?

Orion raised his flattened palm. The projections slowed, then stopped on an image of a crimson planet. He tilted his head, perceiving things no one else could.

Weaknesses.

He could see vulnerabilities in a man, a castle, an army. An entire world.

The Undoing slowly curled his fingers to make a fist. The planet began to lose shape, crumbling, as if he wadded up parchment.

Was Orion mimicking the destruction? Or
causing
it?

The world dwindled and dwindled, until it . . . disappeared. A whole realm—gone. The inhabitants dead.

Orion turned to face the others. His expression was contemplative, but his eyes . . . dark and chilling, like the abyss Sian hailed from. His fathomless gaze fell on Rune. “Bring me the head of the Valkyrie, archer.”

No enlistment. Just death. Why not attempt to sway Nïx? Two seats remained at the table, and a soothsayer was always an asset. Lore held that she was one of the most powerful oracles ever to live.

Too bad she couldn’t see her own future.

Rune shrugged off his curiosity. He had no love for Valkyries anyway. They were staunch allies to the fey, a colonizing species of slavers and rapists.

Judged by the company you keep, Nïx.

Rune knew she prowled the streets of a specific mortal city—a place of ready sin—from sundown to sunup. There was a large covey of water nymphs nearby. Tree nymphs as well.

They had eyes and ears in every pond, oak, and puddle.

In the name of duty, I’ll pump them for information
. As Rune had answered so many times over the millennia: “It is done, my liege.”

FOUR

New Orleans

P
RESENT DAY

O
h, gods, Rune, so close! Pleasepleasepleaseohgods, yes, yes, YESSSSSS!”

When Jo’s super-hearing picked up a third woman screaming her way to ecstasy—from the same location—her curiosity got piqued.

Time to finish up with the guy she was strangling.

She’d pinned him up against a brick wall, unmoved as he squirmed. He’d come into her territory, carrying a pimp cane?

In Jo’s mind,
pimp cane
signaled
open season
. Then the fucker had
used
it on a prostitute, a girl younger than Jo. The chick huddled on the curb, cheek swelling as she watched Jo delivering punishment.

“You gonna come back here?” Jo asked, though he couldn’t answer. She squeezed till things broke; this guy’s windpipe was crushed. “Huh?”

Staring at her eyes, he tried to shake his head.

“You do. You die. Get me?” He attempted a nod. “And if you ever hit a woman again, I’ll come for you. You’ll wake up with me hovering over you in your bed, your very own nightmare.” She flashed her fangs and hissed.

He started to urinate—occupational hazard—so she tossed him across the adjoining parking lot.

The girl gazed up at Jo. “Thanks, Lady Shady.”

My moniker.
Somehow Jo’s alter ego had morphed into some weird-ass villain protector of prostitutes. Could be worse. “Yeah. S’cool.”

As Jo dusted off her hands, she heard another scream.
“Rune! Rune! YES!”

All three ecstatic women had called out that Rune guy’s name.
This I gotta see.

Though the girl was watching her, Jo went into ghost-mode. Invisible and intangible, she headed down Bourbon Street toward the screams, her feet never touching the ground.

Since she’d arrived in the city a few months ago, she’d been doing a lot of spying. The uncanny things—and beings—she’d witnessed here had lit a hope in her she hadn’t felt in years.

No longer did she gaze at the stars, losing herself in dreams of having her brother back with her. No longer did she pass endless days and nights¸ zoning out with comics or TV.

Jo was zoning
in
.

A wasted pedestrian stumbled through her, and shuddered. So did she. Tourists were rank. They sweated like crazy, gorged on mudbugs and garlic bread, and boozed to kingdom come, like pre-detonated puke grenades.

Would she puke if she drank from them?

She’d never bitten anybody. The smell—of whatever the guy had eaten for dinner, or the starch from his collar, or the slobbery pets he’d cuddled—warded her off. Or worse, he’d reek of cologne.

Axe
cologne.

How could she put her tongue on skin saturated with that crap? Until someone invented a fang condom, she’d continue stealing from the blood bank.

A few blocks off Bourbon, she came upon a high-walled courtyard. A water fountain splashed within. The woman was screaming even louder; the sound of slapping skin quickened.

Hmm.
Maybe Jo could possess one of the participants, live vicariously through her. Aside from an initial shudder, the “shells” never knew she was inside.

Or Jo could pick their pockets. Her rent-by-the-week motel room was filled with loot. She pretended each stolen prize was a gift to her—a bridge to get to know someone better—just as she pretended each possession was a visit.

A connection.

Having never made a friend before, how could she know the difference?

Her compulsions to steal and to possess others had grown worse lately. Maybe she needed a real connection. She’d had so little real interaction she wondered if she’d been resurrected at all.

Sometimes, she had nightmares about floating away. Who would even notice her absence?

As Jo eased toward the entry of the courtyard, a
fourth
woman’s voice sounded: “It’s so good, Rune! My gods in heavens! YES! Never stop, never stop!
Never, NEVER!
”

Jo floated to the cracked-open wooden gate, peeking around to see a wicked scene.

A half-dressed blonde was pressed against the ivy-covered courtyard wall by a tall dark-haired man with his pants at his thighs. The woman’s lithe legs wrapped around his waist as he bounced her.

Must be
Rune
. What kind of name was that?

Three other stunning women were sprawled naked on a lounge sofa, heavy-lidded as they watched him pounding the fourth.

This guy had just screwed them all? Line ’em up and knock ’em down?
Ugh.
Forget possessing any of them.

Jo floated to the side to see him better. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and apparently he had serious stamina. He was attractive, she supposed. His eyes were nice, the color of dark plums, and she liked his thick black hair. It was carelessly cut and longish, with random small braids. But he had rough-hewn features—a fighter’s crooked nose and a too-wide jaw.

His long, lean body, however, was smoking hot. He must be nearing seven feet tall, would tower over her five and a half feet, and every inch of him was ripped. A thin shirt highlighted his broad chest and chiseled arms. His bared ass was rock-hard. His powerful thighs would nicely fill out those black leather pants bunched above his knees.

He had a bow slung over his back and a quiver strapped to his calf. A knife holster was clipped to his wide-open belt.

She shrugged; she’d witnessed weirder things on Bourbon Street. If he pulled out a little more, she’d be able to see his dick—

Whoa.
Brow-raising. The brow-raising-est she’d ever seen.

How could he last this long? He wasn’t even out of breath. Maybe she’d have more sex if other guys had his staying power. Her handful of quick-draw hookups hadn’t been worth the admission price of a condom.

As she watched this tall stranger working his body—sometimes stirring his lean hips, other times withdrawing to the tip to slam back in—she wondered what his tanned, smooth skin would feel like. Smell like. When Jo was in ghost-mode, her super-keen sense of smell was weakened.

She’d bet Rune didn’t wear Axe.

Her gaze locked on the pulse point in his neck. The slow, steady rhythm was hypnotic.

Beat . . . beat . . . beat
. . .

Amazingly, the tempo wasn’t speeding up.

How would he react if she pierced that pulse point with a fang? What would he taste like?

And still he was going. His stamina had to be supernatural. Plus, the women were almost too pretty. Jo suspected these people were otherworldly.

What she called
freaks
.

From her hidden vantages along New Orleans streets, she’d spied paranormal people doing inhuman deeds. Which made her wonder—what if she wasn’t some kind of abomination who’d been resurrected from hell? She might be one among many.

She reached for her necklace, fingering the string of misshapen bullets. She never took it off, still kept it as a token of the night she’d risen from the dead.

But her discovery of other freaks had made her start rethinking herself, her world.

Her decision to remain away from Thad.

She’d approached some of these strange beings with questions on her lips:
What am I? How did I come to be? Are there others like me?
Yet they’d fled her.

She had a feeling this male wouldn’t. She could talk to him once he got finished! She’d be on guard, of course, ready to bare her claws and fangs if things went sideways. . . . Jo supposed she
still
was like a feral cat.

Appearing lost, the blonde leaned up to kiss him, but he averted his face. Interesting.

The other three whispered to each other:

“I forget myself sometimes too.”

“Can you imagine what he could do with that mouth? If only . . .”

“Why’d he have to be a bane?”

The man must be able to hear their soft voices. He narrowed his eyes, his lips thinning with irritation, even midthrust. Jo felt sorry for him.

“Have you ever seen his black blood?”

“His cock isn’t poisonous, and that’s all that really matters.”

Poisonous? Black blood? He was definitely a freak!

The bouncing blonde cupped his craggy face. “MORE! I’m so close! Don’t stop, Rune,
don’t stop
!”

He stopped.

“Noooo!” the woman wailed.

“You want more? I won’t disappoint you, dove.” His deep voice had an unusual accent Jo couldn’t place. “But you can’t disappoint me. Promise me you’ll do as I’ve asked.”

He was using sex to manipulate the chick? What an asshole. Strike feeling sorry for him.

The woman’s expression grew frantic. “I will! I swear, SWEAR! Just
pleasepleaseplease
keep going!”

Rune chucked her under the chin and grinned at her; she seemed to dissolve. “Good girls get rewards, don’t they?”

Jo would laugh in his face if he talked to her like that. The blonde nodded helplessly.

He resumed with a harsh shove. The woman convulsed on his big dick, babbling between cries.

“This is what you want, dove?” he demanded. “My cock’s all that really matters, is it not? You can’t live without it, can you?” So arrogant!