CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
The blond attacker threw his head back, ready to tear my throat out, but halted there for a moment.
Blood rained down on me before my mind could process what was happening.
A red-soaked hand extruded from his chest, clutching a heart in its palm.
With a sickening, wet sound I never wished to hear again, it disappeared back through the wound.
Then the warmth of his blood seeping through my clothes elicited panic, and I scrambled underneath the corpse to get him off of me, but the vampire’s head lolled toward me with lifeless eyes, and his body collapsed down on mine yet again.
My frantic gaze drifted up the tall, blood-covered frame standing over me to find forest green eyes staring back at me through a sea of red.
“Yael…” Without a word, he grabbed the corpse with one hand and cast it aside.
I shot to my feet, wavering slightly as a feeling of relief washed over me.
“How did you…” My voice trailed off, disbelief cutting off my question before I could ask it.
Because it didn’t matter. He’d come when I needed him most. The how seemed irrelevant.
My eyes drifted to the dead vampire lying askew on the sidewalk next to us, and I shuddered. “He was going to kill me.”
“He wasn’t going to kill you,” he said, stepping so close that the bloodied leather of his jacket brushed against my chest. “He was going to take you away.”
Confusion tugged at my brows. “How do you know that?”
I turned to face him and found a wolfish smile that looked wrong on him staring back.
“Because that was always the plan.” His words ricocheted through my addled mind while I watched his face slowly morph into another I recognized—and feared.
Paralyzed by my inability to comprehend what was playing out before me, I was spun around by the ringleader of the trio and my wrists were trapped behind my back.
“You should have told me to kill myself when I was done,” he said as the reality of the situation fully sunk in.
With a violent shove, he drove my arms upward, which pitched my upper body forward until my face slammed into my knees.
“Too bad you won’t be getting a second chance at that. ”
Though my body was flooded with fear and adrenaline, one thing I knew for sure: I was fucked if I didn’t get away. With no time to formulate a solid plan, I leaned into my inner Riff Raff bitch and did what I did best.
Act first and think later.
From my disadvantageous position, I had few options, but I only needed one good one.
With that in mind, I flung my leg backward as hard as I could, driving it upward with every ounce of force possible.
It collided with something hard enough to elicit a whoosh of breath from the asshole holding me captive.
He lurched forward, and for the briefest moment, his iron grip on my wrists faltered.
I yanked them with a surge of strength and wheeled around while he was still slightly bent over, sucking in a painful breath as he clutched his balls in his other hand.
That feral stare went wide when I clapped my hands around the back of his neck.
“Don’t move,” I said before he had the chance to retaliate.
Fear overtook his expression, and I smiled back, relishing his regret.
“Looks like I might be getting that second chance after all. Lucky for you, I’m not a soulless killer.
But you will forget everything that ever happened at The Riff Raff.
You’ll forget what you did, who I am, and what I can do.
You’ll never speak my name. When I release you, you’ll leave the Devil’s Playground and never return. ”
The moment I released him, he stood up like a puppet on a string and walked off into the darkness, taking the shortest route out of our fucked-up little neighborhood.
My body began to shake as the adrenaline and power rush I’d experienced began to fade, so I turned and ran back to The Riff Raff, the truth of what I’d narrowly escaped becoming more real with every heavy footfall on the pavement.
By the time I crashed through the side door, covered in blood and sweat, my heart was racing so fast I thought I'd pass out.
Instead, I found Ravi standing in the middle of another gory scene.
Relief flooded his expression when he saw me, but it quickly gave way to horror when he took in my blood-soaked appearance. “Myra! My god—”
“I’m okay.”
“What happened?” he asked as he rushed to my side, and I gave him the bullet-point highlights of what had gone down as quickly as I could between ragged breaths. His narrowed eyes assessed me. “Is that everything?”
“I think so. It all happened kinda fast.”
“Does this have anything to do with why you showed up at my apartment the other night?”
While that thought hadn’t occurred to me during the chaos, it was entirely possible that it did; that Argo had figured out my involvement in Damian’s disappearance and sent some goons after me.
It made sense in a way I wished it didn’t, but I wasn’t about to tell Ravi that because, for starters, I didn’t know if it was true, and beyond that, I wasn’t sure it would have helped even if it was.
“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to sound convincing.
Disappointment flashed in Ravi’s expression. “Do you remember what I said to you the night I took you in?”
“Of course I remember—”
“The only thing I asked of you was that you never do anything to endanger this bar and those that work here. But now I find myself standing in a pool of someone else’s blood in the kitchen—my kitchen—unable to shake the feeling that you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying, Ravi!”
His wizened eyes narrowed. “Omission is just a different shade of it, Myra. Do not pretend otherwise.”
“Listen, all I know is that they were involved in the fight here the other day that landed me that amazing shiner. That’s all.”
Ravi looked at me for a moment longer before he leaned closer to the remains to assess them. “I don’t recognize him.”
“Because there’s not much left to recognize,” I said, looking away from the gory mess decorating the kitchen, “but he was here that night along with the other two.”
“And where are those two now?” Ravi turned his worried face to me.
“One is lying in a pool of blood down the road, sans a heart. The one that ripped it out of him fucked off when I used the Siren’s Song on him before he could drag me off to some unknown location.
” A reel of emotions played in Ravi’s expression, ranging from horror to confusion to blistering rage.
If he’d been there, I could only imagine what he would have done to the one I let live.
“Before you panic, I told him to forget me and everything that happened, and then I ordered him out of the Playground never to return, so he won’t be a danger anymore. ”
“You should have brought him here,” he said with a growl. “I have questions that need answers.”
“And maybe I would have if he hadn’t caught me so off guard.
” I faltered for a moment, the vision of Yael’s face splattered with blood as he held the heart of the vampire assaulting my mind again.
Then I explained to Ravi in greater detail how I’d escaped The Riff Raff and everything that had followed as he looked on, eyes scrutinizing and brows furrowed with anger.
But when I got to the end of the story, I found myself unsure of how to explain what I’d seen.
“The one I compelled must have followed us because of the kill order I’d given him.
He put his hand through the chest of his buddy who’d chased me down.
All I could see was this gaping hole in his chest and the light leaving his eyes before he fell on top of me.
When he did, I could finally see the one who’d killed him,” I explained, hesitating for a second, “and it was Yael—or at least I thought it was. By the time I realized it wasn’t, my top priority was getting out of there in one piece. ”
“He was going to harm you because he’d fulfilled your order and was no longer under your spell,” he said, realizing how dire the situation had been. “And you were caught off guard because he was wearing the visage of Yael.”
“Maybe… he wasn’t at that point, but it still felt too real.”
“I don’t know of any creature capable of imitating another like that,” he said, and I wondered if maybe he was some rare type of shapeshifter—or if my power glitch had somehow made it happen.
My face must have been tense as I tried to work out the logistics, because Ravi sighed and reached over to pull me into his arms. “It’s okay, bitiya… it’ll be okay.”
But it wasn’t okay—not by a long shot.
From the day Ravi took me in, I’d been reasonably safe in the Devil’s Playground—especially Serpent’s Tongue.
Not safe from all harm, but certainly from the threat of death.
His protection cast a wide net through our little slice of Seattle, and as long as I stayed within its bounds, I’d survive.
Over time, I’d developed a sense of security, however false, and it meant I’d rarely had to rely on the Siren’s Song.
That night had ripped whatever security I’d built right from my hands.
Not only had I been attacked, but they’d done so inside my place of refuge; the one place no one should have been able to get to me.
The power I’d vowed to keep secret—this coveted bit of magic revered for its ability—had worked initially.
But with the element of surprise gone, all it had taken was one hand clapped over my mouth to render me helpless.
And that feeling echoed through every cell in my body.
I would never survive in the Playground if my secret got out, and if Ravi’s protection was no longer effective, it would only be a matter of time before it did.
My future there would be short if I didn’t find Yael’s sister so I could earn my return to the Deep—to my home.
And though that had always been the plan, it had never felt like the only plan.
Until now.
“I have to get out of this place,” I mumbled to myself as I pulled away from Ravi.
“Of course,” he said, draping his jacket around my shoulders. “I’ll take you home.”
Home…
A strange sadness simmered in my chest at his sentiment, and I shrugged away from his offering, numb to the words “I wish you could” that escaped my mouth as I made my way to the kitchen door and out into the night.
As we walked in silence, the image of the shifter somehow wearing Yael’s visage played over and over again in my mind like a warning, and I wondered if it wasn’t an omen of some kind—a reminder that there was danger beneath that handsome, polished facade.
And if I wasn’t careful, he might just be the death of me.