Chapter 7

Holding onto my arm, I squeezed tight to stem the blood and ported back to the carnival. My Ferris wheel sat empty. Kemen leaned against the fence, head resting on his fist with eyes half closed.

“Kemen,” I snapped, more from the burn of the wound than any true anger.

He took one look at me and then was by my side, moving faster than I’d ever seen him move before. “Is that?” He pointed at my face; at the blood I was sure was a muddy brown color by now.

“Not all mine.” I shrugged off his grip on my elbow.

“Let me take a look at that, Pandora.” His liquid amber eyes pleaded, he licked his lips, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. He was always nervous around blood. So un-demon like.

“It’s fine.” I hugged my arm to my chest, not wanting to be touched and have Lust stir to life. I wanted to think, not rut like some wild animal.

“Here.” He grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked, tearing a long strip out of the bottom and handed me the cloth. “At least tie that around it.”

I grabbed it, neon green stenciling of Ozzy standing out in bold relief as I wrapped it around my arm in a tight pressure hold. “Thanks,” I said between clenched teeth, sucking in a breath against the sharp pain. “Where’s Luc?”

Kemen hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Last I saw him he was walking the perimeter with a piece of tail on his arm.”

Stupid vamp must have cut a vein, because within seconds the swath was soaked clear through and blood was seeping down my arm. In another five minutes, the vein would mend so that the bleeding stopped, but I couldn’t walk around looking like some axe murderers latest victim.

“I don’t care if he’s got his little friend hanging out, you tell him to come here or I’ll snap it off,” I said, walking toward the gears where I kept a first aid kit stashed.

He grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face him. “Pandora, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head.

He cocked his brow. “This is not, nothing.” There was genuine concern in his voice.

I dabbed at the blood with a cotton swab soaked in a saline cleaning solution, the seepage was already beginning to slow. It touched me to hear him worry. I was a big girl and this really was nothing, but it was still nice to be fretted over. Made a girl feel special.

I pressed my hand to his chest and very gently said, “I really need to speak with Luc.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked, I could tell he wanted to say more, but finally his shoulders slumped and he gave a swift nod, then vanished.

I hung up a sign on the fence: Ferris ride down for repairs , so I wouldn’t be bothered and finished cleaning up.

I removed the bandage, noticing that the blood was now clotting and grabbed gauze dressing and then reached for the tape. All I had was two almost empty spools of green and pink tape with smiley faces on them.

“Ugh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, remembering the inordinate amount of pleasure Luc had taken when he’d bought it for me over a year ago. Each and every awful method of torture ran through my head and I vowed to take revenge as I taped it on.

I smelled the faint odor of sulfur. I turned. Luc’s zipper was undone; his shirt half open, clearly Kemen had taken my words at face value. I smiled; I do so love that lazy sloth.

His eyes were huge with worry until they settled over the bandage on my arm and his lips quirked.

I narrowed my eyes. “You laugh and I’ll cut your tongue out.”

He licked his lips in a lazy, half taunting way—calling my bluff. “So what was so urgent that you made Kemen haul my ass out the tent with threat of pain to my...”

“I followed a pack of vamps tonight...”

He went from sexual teasing to ferocious predator between the span of a breath. “You what?” he asked, voice nearly a scream. “Alone!”

“Down kitty, you’re frothing at the mouth.”

Luc grabbed my shoulders, shaking me forcefully. “What were you thinking?” He didn’t give me time to answer. “You weren’t, that’s what.”

I flicked his hands off me. “Spare me your lectures, Luc, we have bigger fish to fry. The vamps killed a girl.”

He finally seemed to be hearing me, his agitated jerky movements stopped and his lips thinned. “How many?” He’d gone frost bitten. Face shuttered and breathing those slow, deep breaths that meant he was on the verge of turning homicidal.

I licked my lips. If he hadn’t liked what I’d said, then he was really not gonna like this. “There were four.”

He narrowed his eyes, planted his hand on the fence over my shoulder, leaned in and sniffed me, his nose running along my hair. I really hated that nose of his. He was a walking lie detector, able to scent out a lie—or an omission—through the pheromones a body secreted. Yeah, seriously.

“Did you kill them all?”

Hmm, to tell the truth or not to tell the truth, that is the question.

“Dora,” he said low, and I could hear him growing impatient.

“Three,” I finally admitted, though reluctantly.

“What happened to the fourth vamp?” His voice was silky, deadly.

Hair the shade of liquid gold framed his head like a halo, eyes the color of purest indigo stared back at me through a face carved for sin. He pressed his heated body along the length of mine. Every hard line trembling with suppressed rage. As mad as he clearly was I could still feel his thickness growing against my thigh. He looked like some avenging angel. But this angel had fangs that wouldn’t hesitate to rip someone’s throat out. Namely mine.

“It’s dead,” I whispered.

“Who...killed...it...Pandora?” He ran his sharp teeth along the curve of my ear, warm breath fanning my neck, making me shiver. I was as turned on as I was scared.

I debated how best to put it.

He grabbed my bandaged arm, thumb digging into the wound that had finally begun to close. I felt a rush of heat and knew he’d torn me open again.

“That bloody hurt. You bastard.”

“I will not ask again.”

I twisted my lips, wanting to spite him, but knowing it served no purpose other than my own greedy need to make him beg for it. “I don’t know, okay. I don’t have a clue.”

He cocked his head to the side, hand relaxing. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Would you like me to spell it out for you? I D-o-n-’t know. Clear enough?”

Luc snarled, and I laughed, which startled him. I’m sure he’d been expecting me to pounce, not giggle.

“You know, you’re really cute when you show me your fangs. Show me again,” I teased him, running my hands up his bare chest.

“You’re sick, you know that, right?” He shook his head, mouth tilting at the corner.

I breathed a small sigh of relief, my joke cutting through the thick fog of tension. I don’t mind admitting, having Luc’s entire focus fixed on you is creepy and not in a creepy cool kinda way either.

He combed his fingers through his hair, shoulders slumping. He looked tired and I wasn’t sure if it was this situation, the carnival, or something else. I wasn’t going to ask either.

“The bodies still out there?”

I nodded. “I’ve got the clearing warded so no one stumbles across it.”

“Did you cut out the hearts yet?”

I thought about the kid and swallowed hard. Someday I will deal with all the things I’ve done and maybe even mourn the necessity of it. I wasn’t usually squeamish, but his death had unnerved me. What could have made a thirteen-year-old boy choose the life he’d chosen? A real waste of a promising life. “No.”

Luc hooked my chin. “What’s wrong?” His voice was soft, soothing.

I moved away from him, turned my back and hugged my arms to my chest, feeling cold inside. There wasn’t much humanity left in me, I was more demon than human, but I cherished what little bit there was. I knew Luc didn’t want me to admit to having feelings, but I did. So what if it made me weaker than the others? Or less neph than I should be? Maybe I didn’t want to embrace my darkness the way the others did, and I knew that if I cut the kid’s heart out I’d step completely over the gray line I’d always towed. I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up that last piece of me.

He slipped his arms around my waist, resting his head on my shoulder. “Dora, you can tell me.”

I closed my eyes and no longer cared what he or anybody else thought. “I can’t do it.” I turned and shoved him away, more mad at myself than him. “I can’t do it and I won’t, so don’t ask.”

He studied me, face an unreadable mask. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, disappointed, or otherwise. “Can you guide us to the clearing?”

I clipped my head.

“Okay.” He nodded. “I’ll grab some of the others and meet you back here in ten minutes.”

My heart twisted, grateful that he wouldn’t try to pry the truth from me. I suspected he already knew it in some way, but I valued the respect he’d shown in not pursuing it further.

“I have to make a phone call first.”

“Grace?” I asked.

He nodded. “We can’t wait on her any longer, we need whatever Intel she’s got, don’t you think?”

He really didn’t need to ask my permission, it was a courtesy for him to even do so. I was only second in command, he was Big Boss Man, but I nodded anyway.

“Yeah, if she doesn’t already know, then I think this would interest her.”

He started misting.

“Oh and, Luc,” I said softly, “thanks.”

He vanished. If he heard, he never said.

Returning exactly ten minutes later with Vyxyn and Bubba in tow, Luc ushered me to his side. I quickly discarded the bandage and tape. The wound was semi-closed, no longer bleeding and fact was, I’d rather walk around with an open sore than have to stare at those awful smiling faces another second.

“Yeah,” I asked when I got close enough. He pulled me aside so we had a little privacy.

“Talked to Grace, day after tomorrow she wants to meet up. She asked for you, I said yes.”

“Luc, you know I hate the city.”

Demons have a natural aversion to confining spaces. Maybe it has something to do with the thought of being locked in the dark, or maybe with the curse we’re all destined to face, whatever it is, any metropolitan area always feels like its crashing down on me. Choking me and hemming me in. I can handle my trailer, that’s home. It’s safe. Warm. But a city built up with skyscrapers and closed in shops...that made me break out in a cold sweat thinking about it.

He shoved his hands down his pockets. “Yeah, but I have a carnival to run. Be more than happy to trade responsibilities with you.”

I snorted. “Dream on.”

He shrugged. “Fact is, Dora, I trust you more than the others.”

And it really was as simple as that. I rolled my eyes.

“On the upside you’ll get to visit with Grace, it’ll do you good.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I guess. I just wish she’d pick a different meeting spot. You’d think after all these years working together she’d know by now...”

“Blah, blah, blah.” Vyxyn sauntered up, tucking a strand of her bright bubblegum pink hair behind her ear. She drummed her lacquered pink nails on her hip. It was hard to say what caught the eye more, her fluffy cat ears headband or her Alice in Wonderland meets circus clown on acid attire. She was a visual kei, a meld of punk and goth with a Japanese flair. “You two harpies done yappin’ yet? Or can I get back to my ride? Because I swear if my prey gets away before I’m done, I’ll kill one or both of you.” She snapped her gum.

Vyxyn meant it too. Her demon was Envy. She was doomed to covet what she didn’t have. For Luc and I, it was our power over the family. Vyxyn didn’t like anybody, not us, not anybody. She was a loner with brain’s enough to know she wouldn’t survive on her own, so she’d joined the family. Not out of loyalty but more so out of a sense of preservation.

To trust her was a mistake. She was the kind that to turn your back would wind you up on the floor, knife sticking out of your chest while she sat on you pilfering everything, right down to the last stitch of clothing.

“Shut it, Vyxyn,” Luc snarled, “we’ll leave when I say we’ll leave.”

Her green eyes grew wide, started to swirl.

I smiled.

“What's your problem?” she snapped, clearly not happy.

Would it be terribly naughty of me to goad her on? I smirked, wanting to so bad.

Her nostrils flared, heavily mascara’d eyes narrowing into slits of unadultered rage.

“And just where were you earlier? I ran past your station and you weren’t there.” It hadn’t been her break time, I knew that because I made the schedules.

She said nothing.

Bubba punched her in the head. She stumbled. It’d been a love tap, if he’d wanted to hurt her, trust me, he could have ripped her head clean off with one of his blows. “Answer her,” he said, with his perfectly accented country boy twang.

I really wish I knew why the big brute had adopted that crazy accent. But Bubba’s was a mind better left unexplored.

Vyxyn’s eyes were no longer simply green, they were sun warmed emerald with bands of jade throughout. She flexed her fist, staring at a calmly leering Bubba. She ground her jaw and took a step toward him. Vyxyn might try to flex on him, but I bet my soul she’d say nothing. Very few of us dared to confront him.

In so many ways I hurt for Bubba, for that self-imposed exile of his, but in another more selfish way, I’m grateful to never get too close. He’s an enigma I’m content to leave alone.

She turned the force of her anger back on me. “None of your business,” she spat.

I crossed my arms, my capacity for kindness nearing its breaking point. “Where’s Kemen?” I said, never taking my gaze off Vyxyn.

She rolled her eyes. “He begged off with a case of the lazies, you want I can go get him. One can only hope he’ll pass out long enough to let a vamp get through and...”

If looks could kill, she’d be dead. My blood boiled, made me hot and jittery and...demonic. I wasn’t turning into a bat with wings, but I could feel my nails growing, sharpening into claws, my eyes swirling, my skin bristling with power. Lust could be a vengeful whore when she wanted to.

Luc must have noticed, because he grabbed my elbow and looked at her. “Enough!” he roared. “Pandora, you lead the way. Bubba, you take the rear, watch that our kitten doesn’t try anything stupid.”

I took a deep breath, turned from Vyxyn to Luc, focusing on his hand brushing up and down my arm in a soothing rhythm and shoved the demon back down into shadow. Now was not the time to lose it.

“My pleasure,” Bubba said, lips rolling into a startling smile, the type that makes your heart thump and your knees weak.

I shivered, disturbed by it to the point that if I’d been offered a choice of sleep with Bubba or take a dip in acid...I’d have chosen acid.