18. Chapter 18
18
Graysen
T he storm roiling behind my back was darker than the autumn night sky, a turbulent wall of swirling gray, muted black, and charcoal. Rain had swept in and forged ahead, leaving behind wet roads and dirty puddles. Beneath my Ducati, the slick road stretched onward. The blustery wind tore at my hair, my sword vibrated against my spine, and with the thunder of my bike—it felt like flying at the head of a cruel, wrathful tempest. Glorious and wicked and fucking exhilarating. I was the harbinger of the end of the world!
Ahead of me, our Bird of Prey swifted in and out of existence.
She was an otherworldly creature and a huntress. Her wraith-like appearance was that of a young woman with a thick mane of tight curls drifting like kelp in a phantom breeze. Her eyes were entirely black, as were her talon-tipped fingers. We’d clipped her dark powers, so she couldn’t swift long distances. So her bursts were short. Her dirty, tattered dress was swallowed up in a whirl of wind before she appeared a blink later, further up the road.
The speed at which we were traveling would blow any lurking cop’s radar gun, and I easily kept up with our Bird of Prey. I didn’t use my bike’s headlights, nor did my youngest brother, who followed behind in his Mustang. We didn’t need them. We could see perfectly well in the dark. Heightened senses, strength, and speed had been bred within my family bloodline for millennia.
Our Bird led us to a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. The parking lot overflowed with big rigs and pickup trucks.
I switched off the Ducati. Kicking the bike’s stand, I took in the adjoining bar and diner, the fuel stop, and the small convenience store attached. Right beside the store was a tired-looking motel with a couple of stunted, sickly palm trees out front and sad paint-chipped flamingos. The dumbasses were trying to dress this place up like Miami, which we sure as shit weren’t. We were in the middle of fuck-knows-where.
Jett climbed out of his car as I got off my bike and approached him, my boots crunching over dirt and gravel. From the interior of his Mustang came weird wheezing noises, as if someone struggled for breath. I fought back my revulsion at the strange, long-limbed creature hidden in the shadowed backseat. We’d need the changeling later when we claimed what we were hunting.
Jett leaned against the car door and dragged an indolent gaze over all the blades strapped to the outside of my boots and thighs before slipping over the deadly knives filling the bandoleer crossing my chest. He smirked. “Bit excessive, don’t you think?”
For what we were doing, tracking this particular tithe, sure, I could see what he was getting at, especially since he carried nothing but a hunting blade strapped to the outside of his combat boots. But I knew I’d need the blades later. This wouldn't be my last hunt of the night.
Our Bird glanced around with quick, darting motions of her head before her dark gaze focused in on the bar. Her soft, flat nose twitched before wide nostrils flared as she hunched forward.
Wychthorn’s mother had an ostentatious aviary full of thrushes and sparrows and finches. House Crowther’s rookery held Birds of Prey. Similar to wraiths, they were not-quite-living and were creatures with an unnatural ability for hunting. A bit like us Crowthers. Except they hunted deaths—murder victims, in particular.
Once we whispered to them what we were looking for, in their dreams, they’d drift off into a void between realms and hunt like the birds they were, seeking the very thing we wanted.
Our Bird crept toward the bar as if drawn there.
I arched a brow at Jett— At least we could have a drink before we steal a life tonight.
Jett and I followed, keeping a close eye on her. Birds of Prey were volatile creatures and anything could set her off. No one would see her, but they’d sense her presence like a haunted breath whispering down one’s spine.
It was after midnight, and the bar was thriving with patrons. Music thumped through the dirty wooden floor as we pushed through the doors. Haze filtered above and pockets of men and women drank, playing darts or pool. Our Bird shimmered and slipped through the crowd like shifting smoke. She was pulled toward the death Jett had whispered to her to find. We were looking for a specific death tonight. A death worthy of the Horned Gods .
She came to a halt, shivering with excitement, and I took in where her hunt had led her. Our Bird had found our prey. A girl with bright red hair, the kind that wasn’t natural—
Vivid scarlet red—
Red hair.
It happened instantaneously. My chest constricted like an iron band wrapped itself around my ribcage, squeezing hard. My skin went clammy, and sweat prickled my hairline—
Holy shit, I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe…
The trembling started in my hands, vibrating up my arms.
Look, just look! See, damn you.
It wasn’t her.
It’s not her!
When the girl’s features came into focus, I realized she wasn’t the Horned God with bright red hair that haunted my dreams and made it so I could barely sleep.
It took a heartbeat, a second, to ease the compression around my chest, to gain my breath back, and to stop myself from shaking. I scrubbed ?at my face, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead. I flicked my hands, bunching my fingers and releasing them repeatedly until I got myself under control.
Godsdammit. Get it together, Crowther.
I shot Jett a quick glance. He hadn’t noticed, too busy monitoring our Bird of Prey.
The girl we’d hunted was young, no more than eighteen. She had red hair, the kind that looked like fire with orange and gold hues, and her pale complexion was heavily freckled. She wore dark jeans and a hoodie with frayed cuffs. A duffel bag sat at her feet. She was hitching and tried hard not to appear nervous as she talked to an older woman behind the bar.
The bartender waved a hand at a guy with a worn look and a slight beer belly. “Hey Mack,” she sang out.
He approached in a rolling gait that said he’d hurt his right hip at some point in his life. The bartender gestured to the girl—Red, I decided to name her—“This kid needs a ride.”
Our Bird’s ghostly form rippled, and a bright vibrancy shone in her pitch-black eyes. Her taloned fingers fluttered like trilling two notes, just as Red’s scent drifted over me, overriding the reek of sweat and alcohol musting up the bar. Both Jett and I realized what was standing before us. Shock slammed into me hard .
Red wasn’t just a girl.
She was something else, which radiated blindingly in this dim, stinky shit-hole.
“Hells, she’s an Unbroken Shard,” Jett breathed in awe, as he stared at Red, who’d lived with evil, in darkness and fear, and survived it all.
She hadn’t been broken, her soul still burned bright. An Unbroken Shard—the perfect life force for the Horned Gods. The perfect soul to survive their special brand of evil. And rare. Fucking rare. The Horned Gods would bleed her soul for decades until she was a husk.
Jett half-twisted my way. He was shorter than me, his physique leaner. He jabbed me with his elbow and said what I’d been thinking. “She’d make a more worthy tithe to the Horned Gods.”
I shook my head, scowling at him. “She’s too young.” However, my reluctance wasn’t because she was young. Giving her to the Horned Gods would be worse, so much worse, than whatever darkness from which she’d survived and escaped.
No. What we hunted would be enough to appease the Horned Gods. Interesting enough to pass muster and garner respect and fear from the other Houses. Respect I didn’t care for. Fear. That’s what I desired. Fear from the other Houses and earning the Horned Gods’ favor.
Jett turned back to face Red and ran a hand through his hair, pushing dark wayward strands off his forehead. “She’s going to die tonight,” he reminded me, giving me a sideways glance, bright with anticipation.
“Maybe.” I flexed my hands. I hadn’t decided yet.
Our Bird’s head snapped around as a trucker crossed our path. Her pitch-black eyes locked onto him, and her cunning gaze slithered over his beefy form.
The man shuddered, taking a cautious look over his shoulder.
She flicked her forked tongue out to taste his scent in the air. Her pale lips curled back to reveal teeth similar to a flesh-shredding piranha’s. She prepared to strike, her ghostly body drawing tight, readying to pounce. Those Birds were wild-as-fuck. Left alone, she’d likely shred him to pieces and crouch over his bloody corpse to devour him like a vulture.
I jerked my chin at Jett, catching his attention, silently communicating what I wanted—her out of here.
Lunging forward, Jett pinched the nape of her neck with a hand and yanked her back, turning around to guide her out of the bar. She went, but she fought him, frantically writhing in his hard grip, caught between wanting to devour the trucker and being enchanted with Red, whose soul burned bright.
No one paid any attention to the weapons strapped to my body. They were glamoured , along with the armor that was more like bike leathers, soft and flexible but strengthened with adamere. Anyone glancing my way would only see what they wanted. Maybe they’d see me wearing a suit, maybe a pair of hillbilly dungarees. Who the heck knew?
I got us beers and settled into a cigarette-pockmarked booth a distance away from Red but where I could observe her clearly, as well as the door, and those milling around the bar.
My fingers gripped a beer coaster, and I tapped it absentmindedly on the laminate table. A moment later, I slipped it into my pocket.
A couple of women leaned their backs against the bar with their elbows braced against the counter to purposely push their tits up. They each tried to catch my eye, but I ignored them. Tonight my attention was on Red and pot-bellied Mack. He looked mid-forties, thinning hair receding, a stupid grin on his face. Red was wary of him, but needed a ride.
Jett strode back into the bar. A soft rattle of chains came from his belt, the metal loops hanging low on his cargo pants. As usual, he wore one of his silky shirts, a deep purple with a small pattern of constellations. He had rolled up his sleeves and left the top buttons undone because he enjoyed showing off his tattoos and the edge of the wyrm brand scarring his chest. He slid into the booth across from me.
I pushed over his beer and then bit back an annoyed hiss. The women I’d been ignoring breezed over with bright smiles and tight glittering tops and short skirts. “Hi,” greeted the blond who hadn’t been able to pull her hungry gaze from me since I’d strode into the bar. I grunted a response, not tearing my line of sight from Red.
Jett took over. He always had time to play.
His blatant interest swiped over the pair of them, his head tilting this way and that, trying to decide between them. Fuck, just take them both!— I mentally yelled at him. He pointed to the brunette and patted the seat next to him, the silver ring on his thumb glinting in the dim light.
The other girl slid into the booth beside me. “Brittany,” she said with a coy smile and flipped her blond hair. “You guys staying over or passing through?”
I gave her a quick glance over—pretty, but not as good-looking as she thought. She obviously liked what she saw. They all did. Her arousal smelled desperate, like she wanted to fuck her way out of her miserable existence.
I didn’t introduce myself, merely gulping down half my beer, running my tongue along malty lips. “Not interested,” was all I replied, and her face crumpled a little before she bolstered herself up with a shimmy of her shoulders.
She walked her fingers up my forearm, the chipped nail polish gleaming in the low lighting. There was a faint tan line on her finger. She’d obviously taken off her wedding ring. “I’m out for a night of fun.”
I brushed her hand aside.
For some ridiculous reason, I kept thinking of a lithe body, a top lip fuller than the bottom, and that stupid crooked grin. And instead of Brittany’s stench of desperation and dollar-store perfume, Wychthorn’s trademark scent still lingered, almost as if it were infused within my pores. It was somewhat indefinable. Spicy with a note of bitter citrus leaves softened by a fragrance that was sweetly berry-ish. And there was a hint of heat that reminded me of fire. Simply catching a faint trace of Wychthorn’s intoxicating scent drove me crazy.
Jett was busy toying with his girl’s hair. Whatever he was whispering into her ear made her blush and giggle. I tried to catch his eye— We’re here for a reason— which, of course, he deliberately avoided because Jett mostly thought with his dick.
My phone pinged with an incoming text. After discovering who it was, I grimaced, rubbing a hand over my face. What was she doing? She rarely texted me.
LittleMissAnnoying: What do your tattoos mean?
Me: Fuck, Wychthorn. I’m working here.
Did she take a hint? Of course not. Not Wychthorn. She bulldozed her tiny way into whatever she wanted.
Brittany wasn’t taking a hint, either. She purposely brushed her fake tits against my arm as she leaned over to snag her friend’s drink. “Who are you talking to?”
I made a rough noise in the back of my throat. I wanted to tell her to piss off. Instead, I finished my beer and snapped my fingers at a waitress for another. Red was still talking to Mack, trying to hide her disappointment. He wasn’t heading in the direction she wanted to go. He was going south. She wanted east.
LittleMissAnnoying: I can’t sleep and am curious. Some of your tattoos are words, a story perhaps. I didn’t recognize the language.
No, I expected not. It was an ancient language that died out after the Horned Gods lost the Final War with the mortals, and there were too few of us left. New Houses rose. A new common language.
Me: Ukkenskrit.
LittleMissAnnoying: That’s a dead language amongst the Houses. How do you know it?
Me: Our House is much older than yours. Older than every other family. We’re the only surviving House from the Final War.
LittleMissAnnoying: That I do know *smiley face* I’ve tried to find out about you Crowthers, but there’s not much written.
Smart, I’d have to give her that. But instead of trying to find out about our House, she should be peeling back the layers of the Alverac.
LittleMissAnnoying: And? So? Come on, what do they say?
Me: Gods, Wychthorn, you don’t give up, do you?
LittleMissAnnoying: Just figuring that out now?
I tapped my phone on the table, deliberating. What was the use? She was going to hound me until I told her.
Me: It’s our family’s history inked. It’s also my history. What I’ve done.
LittleMissAnnoying: Like a kill-tally?
I almost huffed a laugh. Despite being as annoying as fuck, I liked her mouthiness.
Brittany shifted beside me, lifting her chin to sniff, her ego bruised at being ignored.
Me: Gods, you’re a smart-ass.
LittleMissAnnoying: Takes one to know one *wink*
Me: Whatever did I fucking do to be stuck with you?
Actually, I knew that, and that thought somewhat dampened my mood to be speaking to her until she replied—
LittleMissAnnoying: Right back atcha *wink* Try not to die tonight. Wait… What the heck am I saying? Go right ahead and accidentally fall on that sword of yours.
Me: In your dreams.
LittleMissAnnoying: *sigh* A girl can dream, can’t she?
Me: Hang on… You’re in bed. Tell me, little bird, what do you wear to bed? A ridiculous ruffled nightie covered in pink unicorns and sparkly moonbeams? Or is it like your aversion to shoes… Please tell me you’re naked… Then send a pic proving it.
LittleMissAnnoying: BURN IN HELLS CROWTHER!
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I loved this—the push and pull between us. My mind conjured up what she might look like naked, spread out on that bed of hers. And I started to harden once more.
Brittany leaned across the sticky table talking to her friend, darting furious looks my way, pissed that she didn’t have my attention. “Bathroom,” I heard her mutter, and she slipped from the booth, the other girl reluctantly following, much to my amusement and Jett’s annoyance.
Jett jerked his chin at me. His wavy hair swayed an inch below his jawline as he glared at me through narrowed eyes. He asked, impatiently tapping two fingers on the tabletop, “Have you found out what she is?”
There was a mixture of curiosity and distaste flowing through his words. He wasn’t referring to Red, he was asking about Wychthorn.
Jett asking about Wychthorn… It grounded me, like falling from a great height to slam into concrete.
What am I doing enjoying bantering with Wychthorn?
“We’re running out of time.” He threw a bottle cap at me. Hard. Fast. My reflexes took over, and I snatched it out of the air before it struck my left eyeball.
“Fucker,” I snarled, hurling it back.
Jett, just as swift as me, captured the bottle cap in his palm. “We need to know what she is, so we can contain her,” he hissed. “One month, Gray. That’s all the time we have left.”
I relaxed into the booth as much as I could with a sword strapped to my spine. A waitress came over, handing us fresh beers before clearing the table of empty bottles. When she retreated, I took a sip of beer before answering. “Ease up, brother. I got this.”
This weekend I was going to hunt my little bird and find out exactly what she was. She thought she hid it well, and she had. She had shielded herself in a way that many others couldn’t, and while they were quickly caught out, she remained undiscovered. But I’d always known her secret. I’d felt her uniqueness the first time I’d been near her presence when we were children, long before we’d signed the Alverac.
I should have said something back then to my aunt. If I had, maybe we wouldn’t be where we were today.
But Wychthorn’s fate and my own were intertwined—colliding on one fateful night, twelve years ago.
Tonight, I’d observed the way she’d carried herself with the Pellans, the stiffness at odds with her normal fidgeting. Too many people had overwhelmed her senses. Whatever gifts she had, she was clearly dealing with them on her own. She had no one to mentor her.
I swallowed down a mouthful of cool, malty beer. “She’s strong,” I told Jett. She’d been a writhing hellion with strength and no skill, and I hadn’t realized her strength before. That wasn’t necessarily other . Strength and speed and heightened senses had been bred into our family line for millennia. Having unnatural healing powers, like me and my siblings—was a borderline gift.
“She has truesight ,” I added, tipping my beer neck toward my brother. Again, truesight was something the Horned Gods couldn’t dispute. They didn’t like it, but they couldn’t contest it. “Senses honed like ours, too.” I knew she’d been listening in to Carola and Corné’s conversation about the mistress. Who the fuck was she trying to kid, passing it off as a rumor? But that still didn’t make her other .
But Wychthorn had revealed herself to me. The air had stirred in her bedroom with no open windows. No one was permitted to manipulate the elements. The Horned Gods would claim her as other simply for that.
It wasn’t all she was. I knew it, felt it. That was only the tip of what kind of other she was. Her powers seeped out of her as she fell apart, experiencing overwhelming sensations as I rubbed my cock against her pussy. It wasn’t just her trembling beneath me. The bed and walls of the room had too.
Jett made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat, as if saying he couldn’t do what I’d been chosen to do. Not because of what we intended to do with Wychthorn once we’d claimed her on her twentieth birthday. More about enduring her company on those days she and I were forced to be together this year.
Because most of his life, Jett had been raised to loath Wychthorn .
But I, out of all of us, had the right to hate her with my very essence.
The suffering Wychthorn had caused.
The pain I’d endured.
I’d failed Ferne. I’d failed my mother.
All because of her.
And yet…and yet—
BLOCK IT! —I ordered. And I shoved those strange, tangled feelings I had for Wychthorn down deep.
The girls returned from their bathroom hiatus. Brittany appeared to be in a cheerier frame of mind, probably because of the tequila she’d slammed down her throat on her way back here. She slipped into the booth, sitting too close for my liking. She pressed a hand against my thigh, her other hand reached out for my cheek and I batted both away with a scowl— for fuck’s sake, how fucking handsy —before turning my attention to Red.
She was gone—
Hellsgate!
She wasn’t here. She wasn’t anywhere in the bar.
“Jett,” I growled, shoving Brittany off the booth.
She almost fell on her ass, shrieking, “What the hell!” But fucked if I cared.
“Get our Bird,” I ordered Jett, who tossed a wad of cash on the table and pushed past the brunette. And then I was gone, bulldozing my way through the patrons, heading straight for Mack. Grabbing hold of his shoulder, I spun him around and barked, “Where’s the redhead?”
He blinked, but he instinctively realized what stood before him. Trouble. His eyes grew bigger as he took in my size, felt the anger humming from me, and saw the stance that said— Don’t fuck with me. He needed to decide quickly if he wanted this kind of trouble, or wanted to limp out of here with both legs.
He tried for bravado. “What’s it to you?”
I snarled at the stupid fuck. “Where. Is. She?”
He swallowed, his shoulders shrinking inward, and wisely replied, “She left. With someone else. Headed for Tocomo.”
“Who did she leave with?”
“I don’t know.”
I bolted from the bar, shoving through the door. Cool, damp air washed against my skin as I ran over the wooden veranda and leaped over a short flight of steps. My feet slammed onto the ground. Mud and gravel splashed in a dirty cloud around my boots .
In a blur of unnatural speed, I dashed across the parking lot and reached Jett. He was pulling our Bird of Prey from his car, grinning madly. We might have screwed up, but the hunt was still on, and this little kink in our plan only added to the exhilaration. Besides, Red couldn’t have gotten away too far.
Swinging a leg over my Ducati, I engaged the engine, and it thundered to life. Jett’s Mustang roared a second later. Its body was a matte-black with a post-apocalyptic feel to its shape with all the recent additions I’d fitted, jacking it up for speed. The Mustang burned from the truck stop ahead of me, spraying gravel in its wake.
We followed our Bird of Prey, as she ate up the distance between Red and us in short bursts of swifts in an easterly direction.
Charging down the road, streaking through the night, a few minutes later, we came upon the red taillights of a rig transporting logs. Our Bird slowed down, keeping pace, and Jett and I dropped back. Whoever was driving the hauler had our Red.
We followed, roughly ten minutes longer, waiting patiently for the event to unfold, when the rig suddenly slowed and drunkenly weaved across the road. The cab’s passenger door swung open, and a dark shadow tumbled out—
Brake lights flared—
The squeal and stench of burning rubber stained the night air—
Metal crunched loudly as the rig slid sideways, grinding to a shuddering halt.
I pulled my bike over to the side of the road, Jett too, and we killed our engines.
Listening carefully, a pained moan floated from the roadside edge where Red had thrown herself to escape the rig.
The girl got to her feet, limping, but she hobbled as fast as she could across a rutted field, toward a cornfield beyond. An earlier rain shower had turned the earth into sludge. The moon made a brief appearance and then disappeared again, plunging everything into darkness. But I could see her clearly. Despite her terror, she kept her head straight.
Whatever she’d endured in life before this moment, this right here revealed fearing for herself wasn’t new. Anyone else would panic, blindly running back down the road, desperately hoping for a car to flag down.
Not Red.
She was heading for the cornfield. She could disappear into the world of tall, swaying corn and whoever hunted her would lose her. If she got there in time.
Because whoever drove the rig had jumped down from the cab and had taken off after her in pursuit.