Chapter 4
I lie in the undergrowth next to the road, screaming my pain and anger. If my right back leg wasn’t broken, I’d have sunk my jaws into my sister’s hide by now.
I can’t speak to her in this form, and I can’t switch to human shape until my leg has healed. That’s how it goes with us water horses—we heal quickly, but we have to stay in the form in which we were injured until the healing is done.
Valeria is barely hurt, just a few cuts and bruises from my hooves.
She heals swiftly, then transforms into her human shape—taller and curvier than me, and prettier too, according to my mother.
The golden second daughter, charmingly murderous, adored by my parents for her wild beauty and for her complete acceptance of our species’ violent way of life.
She might have gotten the best of me this time, thanks to my miscalculated leap across the road. But I’ve always been stronger, both in this form and my human one.
“Look at you.” Valeria stalks around me, bare naked, clad only in her abundant dark hair. It’s longer than last time I saw her, reaching nearly to her knees. “You’re pathetic.”
I snarl at her. Mentally I urge the bones of my broken leg to heal faster so I can change, so I can express to her how much I detest her presence here.
“When I saw you with that fisherman, I thought maybe you’d changed,” Valeria says.
“I thought, just maybe, you had matured into the person you’re supposed to be.
Someone I can look up to. Someone Mother can be proud of.
But you didn’t kill him—you nibbled at him.
You should have ripped his head off, Lowe. Why didn’t you?”
Another snarl ripples through my throat.
I’ve been asking myself the same question. In the past, when I’ve gotten to the point of licking flesh and tasting blood, I haven’t been able to hold back. From the moment my fangs puncture skin, my prey is doomed.
But I didn’t kill the scruffy diner-fisherman, maybe because he spoke to me differently at the pond than he did in the Toast & Tide.
His tone was deeper, gentler. Growly and soft at the same time.
I can still hear him saying, You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you?
You’re just starving. It’s okay, beautiful. Better me than someone else.
“You’re wondering why I’m here.” Valeria steps onto a fallen tree and walks lightly up its slanted surface, grabbing a nearby branch to steady herself.
“So I’ll tell you now, while you can’t talk back or walk away.
Mother needs you, Lowe. She’s not doing well.
Her mind is failing. She’s changing more often, and she’s not being careful with her kills.
It’s becoming a problem. Someone needs to take charge of her, watch her, supervise her when she hunts. ”
I snort and toss my head.
“You want me to do it, right? Me or Anson?” Valeria vents an irritated little laugh.
“But why should we have to? We’ve been by her side this whole time, part of the herd, upholding the legacy and following the traditions while you’ve been off doing your own thing.
It’s about time you stepped into your place.
You’re the oldest daughter of the alpha mare.
There are duties that go along with that, and responsibilities. ”
My leg is nearly healed, but I don’t dare try to stand on it yet. I turn my head away from Valeria, indicating what I think of this one-sided conversation.
“When she becomes a liability to the herd, it will be your duty to perform the bloodletting and the lykewake. You must oversee the devouring, and you must assume her position as alpha mare. Sterling is the new lead stallion since the leviathan killed Father. He’ll take you as a mate, even with your history of wandering, as long as you swear fealty to the herd. ”
I roll my body and struggle to my feet, testing the back leg. I give it another minute while Valeria lectures me about how selfish I’ve been, how much pain I’ve caused our mother, how my absence has been an embarrassment and a blot on our family line.
“Mother nearly lost her position to another mare,” Valeria says. “Even now, years after you left, the others still whisper. Mother has told so many lies to cover for you.”
My body adjusts itself, condenses, and resolves into my smooth-skinned human shape. “Lies? She didn’t have to tell lies.”
“What was she supposed to tell them? The truth? That you spend your days fighting against your identity, resisting what makes us special, as if it’s something wrong and dirty?”
“It is wrong. Eating human flesh is wrong.”
“It’s our nature,” Valeria insists. “God, Lowe—I thought I had you back tonight. I wanted us to devour that man together. But you tasted him, and then, when I came in for a bite, you turned on me. Why would you do that? We always used to share kills.”
“That was before.”
“Before you closed yourself off from the truth of who you are.”
“Before I decided I didn’t want to be a psychotic monster who gnaws the flesh off people’s bones,” I snap.
“You don’t have a choice.” Valeria tilts her head, her expression almost pitying. “You can fight it all you want, but tonight is proof that you can’t win. The scent of blood, the flavor of flesh, the crunch of bone—the whole experience still calls to you.”
“Maybe. But I have a choice, Val. I’ve got systems in place to help myself stay human, to purge negative emotions without having to transform and hunt.”
“Then you’re only being half of yourself. And you’ll die sooner. If you don’t feed properly, your lifespan will be reduced. You’ll get a measly hundred years if you’re lucky.”
“I can deal with that.” I head up the bank toward the road. “I’m going home.”
“Home to that strange little town of yours, where they don’t let humans in?”
“They let humans in sometimes, for festivals or surf competitions.”
“But you don’t really live in the town with the rest of them, do you? You live outside the limits, at the riding stable.” Her voice gives the last two words a bitter twist. “I find it revolting that you keep horses as pets.”
“They aren’t pets. I rescue and rehabilitate them.”
“But you make them work for you.”
“The horses we use for trail rides actually enjoy it,” I tell her. “I’m very careful about the clients I accept. It’s easy work for the horses, and in exchange they get the best of care.”
“Tell yourself whatever you want. Your life here is utter perversion. And it’s disgustingly selfish of you to keep expecting Anson and me to shoulder all the responsibility for Mother.”
“Let me get this straight.” I plant both hands on my hips.
“You want me to come back to the herd so I can supervise Mother’s hunts until she’s so frail that she loses everyone’s respect, and then you want me to take her out into the surf and cut her throat with my teeth.
You want me to watch while the herd eats her down to bones, and then you want me to mate with some new lead stallion I don’t even know.
I’m supposed to stick around, suck up to the snarky mares of the herd, and become part of the strange inbred mess that our species has become? ”
Valeria hisses her frustration through her teeth. “You constantly focus on the negative. You ignore the glorious history of our kind—”
“Bloody and psychopathic, you mean.”
“Fine!” She stalks toward me, her eyes hotly rose-colored, her teeth sharpening to points.
“I tried to do this the nice way, but since you’re so resistant, we’ll try something else.
Marlowe Reilly, you have been summoned by the alpha mare of Herd Aerouant.
You will return to the Paddock and serve the collective.
If you refuse, there will be consequences. ”
“Like what?”
My sister smiles, slow and wicked. “Like the destruction of the life you’ve built. You can’t fool me, Lowe. The people of your precious town don’t want you around, not really. They don’t trust you enough to let you live within the town limits.”
“If I lived within the wards, I wouldn’t be able to get enough business for the riding stable,” I counter.
“Explain it all you want—we both know the truth. Your existence here is a fragile thing. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to comply with the summons, and if you don’t, I will destroy it all.
The house you live in, the women who work for you, the buildings, the fences—everything.
And the handsome fisherman fellow from the pond, too.
You wanted him. Don’t deny it, I could smell it on you.
Not just hunger, but lust. I will take him away, along with everything else, and when it’s all gone, you will have no choice but to return to us. ”
My own teeth change shape, developing daggerlike points. “That man means nothing to me. I don’t even know his name. Leave him out of this. And don’t you dare even think of touching Tess or Ashala, or any of the horses.”
“They’re meat-bags, Lowe. Blood and flesh and organs. Fat and viscera and bone. Nothing more.” Her transformation continues, her joints unhinging and her bones stretching. “Forty-eight hours.”
She shifts into her equine shape and delivers a long, whinnying shriek before galloping away in the opposite direction from Crescent Cove.
It takes me a minute to complete my own transformation. I’ve fought against it so effectively for so long that any shift is usually compulsive, involuntary. I’m out of practice at shifting when I need to, rather than when I have to.
As I race back through the woods toward the coast, I consider everything Valeria said.
She promised me forty-eight hours. If she has one good quality, it’s that she keeps her word.
And she’s right about one thing—violence and murder are part of our nature.
If I know her, she’s half-hoping I’ll tell her no so she can start destroying everything I love.
Two days, and then she’ll unleash bloody retribution for my failure to take my place in our family’s herd.
How am I going to get rid of her?