The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (19 page)

The floor is red-hot now. In a second or two we’ll fall and not be able to stand, and we’ll burn alive. It’ll be a slow, horrible death, our bodies healing even as they burn, until we’re too exhausted to heal—

And then it’s over.

I manage to stand. There’s a hole in the glass about as wide as my elbow, and I look through and see the glass is six inches thick, fractured and opaque.
 

But it’s still fucking holding.
 

I stagger back a few steps, run at it. But I’m too weak.
 

The glass barely shudders.
 

Together
.

The thought doesn’t form as a word. It’s a feeling, a mind impression. My brother speaking to me. I stumble into the middle of the room, waver, nearly fall.
 

If I fall I’ll never rise.
 

The wolf looms beside me, fur and skin torn off its face and hindquarters. He’s healing faster than me but still much too slow.
 

This is it.
 

The leap from the woods at autumn’s last gift of prey.
 

The moment of life or death.
 

My muscles tense and shift as my wolf descends.
 

The iron collar bites into my swelling neck.
 

The final charge is a blur. I hit the glass first. My raised arms punch through and my momentum flips me over the windowsill. Glass bites into my belly. An instant later the wolf hits the remaining glass. There’s a tremendous shattering sound as the entire window plummets to the ground.

I catch movement in the corner of my eye and roll to the side. Something sharp smashes into the spot where I was only a moment before.
 

It’s a leg. A barbed, insectile leg.
 

I look up, blinking through the red haze of my kill-lust.
 

I’m stunned still.
 

The ancient Stricken bitch Senator Gladys Townshend, AKA Moby Dick, looms over me, her animal hanging way the fuck out.
 

The sight makes my jaw drop open.

“I like it better this way,” the thing in front of me says in a high-pitched, reedy whine. “It’s time the dogs understand what it means to be hunted.”

She’s some kind of beetle, big as a truck, plated body shimmering black-green, eyes compound and glowing dark red, a double pair or razor mandibles as large as my arm slicing toward me.

“That figures,” I growl, “a fucking dung beetle.”

“The Skins named me Kepri,” the bitch says. “Sun scarab. A multitude kneeled at my altar. I rested over Tutankhamen’s heart and bore him into the afterlife.”

I laugh and drop my fangs. “Trust the Skins to worship a shit-eater.”
 

The beetle rubs one of her legs under her belly, emitting a nasty scratching sound. A foul, too-sweet odor hits my nose.
 

My cock swells and throbs in my jeans.
 

“Come to me,” the beetle says, still rubbing her abdomen. “Come to me.”

I hesitate. The fucking bitch. She’s emitting a scent. A pheromone. My mind fills with the hideous thought:
you want her. She’s gorgeous. Go to her. Fuck her raw.
 

My arms drop to my sides. She’s going to make me fuck her, and after I come she’s going to cut me in half and consume my still living corpse.

“That’s a good dog,” the beetle says, inching closer. “Kneel before your alpha.”

I want her. Need her. I take a small step forward.

The beetle quivers and rubs her underside, her slicing mandibles a foot from my neck.

“S
HE
CAN
’
T
STAY
here.”

A woman’s voice. I almost recognize it—

“Maybe.”
 

A man. His voice deep. Concerned. Also familiar.
 

I try and open my eyes to see who’s speaking. But they feel glued shut. Where am I? Am I dead? I don’t care anymore. At least I’m warm. And the pain…it’s gone except for a dull thud in the back of my skull.
 

The pain is gone. That’s all that matters.
 

I want to stay like this forever.
 

“What do you think he told her?” the woman says.

“Opiyelguabiran? Who knows? The Dog-god isn’t loyal to the living.”
 

There’s a gentle whirring noise, some kind of fan or air conditioner. Other than that the room is silent. I feel like I’m adrift in a warm ocean. The water the same temperature as my skin, so I can’t determine where my body ends and the ocean begins.
 

I decide I’m dreaming the voices.
 

Decide I want to stay dreaming.
 

I know waking is far worse, although I don’t remember exactly why.
 

“She loves him, you know,” the woman says, her voice hesitant. “Regardless of what a dog he is. She’s chosen her bloodmate.”

A fluttering sound, like wings, then the man says: “We have to try. There’s still time. Show her the truth of him. What he’s done. Permit her choose.”
 

The man’s voice has grown stern. Hard.

I flinch in my sleep.
 

“Is she stirring?” the woman asks.

“No.”

“Are you certain? Best check her.”

A woman’s hand caresses my cheek, then a sharp pinch.
 

But it doesn’t hurt. I feel a million miles away.
 

“Shit, Star. Leave her be. She has enough tranquilizer in her to kill an elephant.”

“You don’t know that. Who knows how the Risen react to human drugs?”

“She needs to stay here after she wakes. Rest.”
 

“No. She must be returned to the Purebloods,” the woman says, her voice rising in determination. “She must bring them to war against our father. Then…we show her what the Purebloods are. What her lover did. She’ll turn to us.”

“But not yet.” The man sighs. “She’s so weak. I lifted her from that car and she felt…weightless. Scarcely there. Like Opiyelguabiran has already claimed her. And what lives within?” The man’s tone becomes breathless. Afraid. “It will consume her. I scent it.”

“We will not allow that to happen.”

“She going to die, Star!” the man shouts. “We have a chance to help her. Not her creature. Not the All Encompassing. But
her
. Lily Thompson. Show her the truth now. Maybe…maybe we’re wrong. Maybe she doesn’t need to Become in order to defeat the Fallen. Maybe she can do it…with her Risen pack at her side. Look at her! She might die in this bed.”

“Her Risen pack will kill her unless she reveals who she is,” the woman scoffs. “You saw Rodas. He’s a maniac. He’ll murder her with a grin. No. She must Become. She must claim her place as alpha of the Risen and kill the First Fallen.”

“You carry the Fallen’s seed,” the man says.

“I’ve sacrificed, yes,” the woman says, her voice thick with tears. “What would you have had me do? The Fallen is my alpha.”

“I couldn’t—”

“Protect me? Is that what this is about? This sudden weakness and hesitation? Yes, you failed to protect me. Were you so delusional to believe you could? Against the First Fallen? Because I wasn’t. I understood the risks all along. And how the fuck is what happened to me suddenly about
your
bruised ego—”

“It’s not. Star. I’m sorry.”

“Find your nerve, brother. We’ve come too far to succumb to weakness and doubt.”

No one speaks for a long while.
 

“Such power!” the man says, breathless. “What if we’re wrong? What if she can’t defeat him?”

“It matters nothing at all. If we don’t set her against the Fallen we all die. We have no choice.”

“Still…”

“Is it odd, brother, loving someone you’ll never have?”

The man doesn’t answer for a long while. Then he says: “That Pureblood dog’s mark changed her. I didn’t believe it would. I hoped you were wrong. But it did. Now I regret sending her to that biker bar. Sending her to
him
. I should’ve held her hand and ran with her. Across the world.”

“The Fallen would’ve found you. He would have feasted on your heart and made her his unwilling mate.”

“If there was any other way—”

“There isn’t,” the woman says firmly. “A millennia of being hunted. Now we arrive at the cusp. The Blood Moon rises. The All Encompassing. Chaos and order. Steady your nerve, brother! This is larger than what you and the Skin girl once shared. Imagine! Stricken and Purebloods united. Eons of hatred and murder ended. The First Fallen’s wrongs undone at last. And only
she
can murder him—”
 

“Do you care?” the man asks. “Whether she lives or dies?”

“Not in the slightest,” the woman says. “Not after what that sick bastard did to me. Yes. I felt his power. More than you will ever know. But more…I felt his depravity. He’s…he’s worse than evil, Connor. Only his hunger matters to him. He’s the One Without Value. I want him to
suffer
for what he’s done. To me! To all our kind! I want my blood to run red. I want all of the Stricken’s blood to run red.
She
can do that. End our shame. Lift the Fallen’s curse.”

“If she betrays her bloodmate,” the man answers. “And helps the Fallen Become so she can murder him.”

“She will. Once we show her the truth of Aaron Arud. She will.”

***

I wake in a room overlooking the ocean. The clouds are so low and grey it feels like I’m enveloped in mist. I’m thirsty. I try and speak but no sound comes.
 

I lift my hand to push the blankets aside but nothing happens. Am I paralyzed? I remember…heat. Snapping mouths. A dog smiling down at me.

Then the grey mists swirl in, swallowing me.
 

I close my eyes.

***

A pin-prick of light. Far away but drawing nearer. I strain to bring it into focus and it flashes out.

“Tell me, doctor.”
 

It’s the same man as before.

“She’s waking.”

“Will she be in pain?”

A long, paternal sigh. “Pain is what’s waking her.”

“Maybe we should…give her more sedative? So she can rest?”

“You plan on keeping her here forever, Mr. Lerrick? The sooner she wakes the sooner rehabilitation can begin.”
 

“It’s only been twelve hours.”
 

“I’m sorry. Blood loss. Shock. And mental…instability no doubt created by her physical trauma. Your fiancee has suffered a tremendous setback.”

“She’s not my fiancee. She is yet to accept my proposal.”

A long silence, then: “Keep an eye on her. I’ll return to add morphine in two hours.”

***

Murder doesn’t always happen in the dark.
 

It’s a beautiful spring day. Blooming plum and cherry trees spill their blossoms down our street. I’m coming home from school. I’m excited because tomorrow is Saturday and my mother and I have plans to visit the Japanese gardens. I love the gardens, the cool stone walls and benches and arcing bridges. The neatly manicured trees. Birds flitting overhead, building their nests. The noise of the city is just outside, but inside the gardens it’s quiet and peaceful. Calming. I’m too young to articulate it yet, but the gardens give me hope I can create a calm, quiet place within myself.
 

A refuge.
 

I’m twelve, almost thirteen. My birthday is in two weeks.
 

Another reason spring is my favorite season.

I turn off the sidewalk and hop up the three steps into our yard. Push open the gate. One of the hinges has torn from the old wood, making the bottom edge of the gate scrape against the paving stone path leading to our house. It bugs me, the sound of the gate scraping against the pavers.
 

Scritch. Scritch.

Daddy says he means to fix it. But daddy says a lot of things. Like he won’t be gone so much this year. Gunna get his own truck, do contract jobs. Start taking it easy. He’s a long-haul truck driver. Gone twenty out of thirty days. Most weeks it’s just mom and me.

There’s a black-barked cherry tree in our front lawn. Not too old, but big enough to cast a pink circle of blossoms. Like a pool of flowers. I step off the paving stones and onto the grass. Glide across the pink petals, imagining I’m walking on a pool of water turned pink by the sunset.

Then it’s up the flight of stairs, trying for two at a time like daddy but my legs get tired and at the top I’m forced to pause, rest against the rail.

That’s when I see the front door is cracked open.
 

At first I don’t know what the red stuff on the hardwood is.
 

“Mom? Are you making a mess? Are you painting?”

Mom buys ugly cheap furniture from little stores that smell of mothballs and old people. She takes the furniture home and sands it down in the back yard, then paints it in bright pinks and yellows and blues, happy colors, and sells the painted furniture through newspaper adds.
 

“This is how we can afford to go to the Japanese Garden this weekend,” she told me last night over dinner.

I’m frozen on the patio, looking beyond the partially open door and into my house. Except it doesn’t feel like my house anymore. None of the things I feel about home are there.
 

The house feels…empty. Unwelcoming. Like a stranger’s house.
 

This is maybe one of those times when I should cross the street to Mrs. Delaney’s house and tell her I’m not feeling comfortable. Maybe Mrs. Delaney will give me ginger snaps and after a while I’ll feel all right and the door to my house will be closed and there won’t be red paint smeared across the front entry and patio.
 

But I’m not six. I’m twelve.
 

Only little kids run to the neighbor’s house when they’re afraid.