Chapter 17 DARE
SEVENTEEN
DARE
The blade slips out of the man’s chest with ease. His final, weak heartbeat thrums up the black metal of the dagger, all the way to the hilt in Dare’s grip.
He watches death steal the man’s face.
It starts with the face. Muscles relax, features slacken, the jaw slips to the side.
Then the eyes fade.
Life has a certain spark. Even the ugliest of lives wear that gleam in the eyes.
This is Dare’s favourite part of the kill—when that spark dwindles.
Lifeless legs slump from under the man’s weight. He’s slow to fall, as though still clutching onto a frayed thread of life, but like all the other humans that the unit has found in this concrete jungle, the man falls to the ground—
And nothing.
No final fluttering heartbeat, no long breathy exhale, no final gasp.
Death is quiet.
Dare draws in a deep breath. His chest expands against the chill of the winter air.
Dagger loose in his grip, he lowers his hand to his side and lets his lashes shut on the blood and smog and shouts—and he homes in on the quiet at his boots.
He finds peace in the man’s death.
A moment’s reprieve from the noise.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
A frown tugs at his brow.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Peace disturbed, Dare blinks his eyes open and throws a stony glare down at the dead man.
But that man’s heart does not beat.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Someone’s heart is beating.
Someone’s heart is racing…
But not just anyone.
There’s something in that beat…
A call to him, and him alone.
A song written and played just for him.
The frown digs deeper into his face. He lifts it to the smoke thickening in the air, gathering in a smog before billowing up and becoming lost in the darkness.
Dare sees through the smoke as effortlessly as he would look through a glass pane. He feels the sudden gleam alight his eyes, a focused thrill from the sensation stirring in his chest.
The hunt.
Unmoving from the mouth of the lane, he swerves his focused gaze from folk to person, fae to human, living to dead. Their heartbeats thrum in the air like any other. But none of those are the heartbeat calling to him.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
This one is different, as though Mother herself is tapping at his chest with her fingertip, stirring him from his peace, and the vibrations of it hum in his bones.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
He doesn’t just hear it. He feels it.
The gravelly scream of a human tangles in the air, chased by pounding bootsteps.
Dare watches as a man scrambles past him.
His arms are flailing, as though he can swim his way through the street and propel himself into a faster run.
Dare should lift the blade in his hand, let the human run into it himself—the human who doesn’t notice the motionless warrior standing in the mouth of the alleyway.
It’s a skill of Dare’s, a talent, to blend in with the darkness, belong with the shadows, become a statue that merges with its surroundings—then strike at the perfect moment.
But Dare just watches as the human runs past… and right into the length of a black and gold sword.
A warrior towers over the stunned, skewered human.
Daxeel’s gloved grip firms on the hilt of the sword, then he yanks it out.
Before the human can even die or fall at his boots, Daxeel has forgotten him, and he moves for Dare, a question on his furrowed brow.
Dare’s stillness has attracted attention.
Two more dark males come up the lane behind him, their quiet curiosity found in their soft, slow steps.
Dare watches Daxeel approach, and he reads the frown on his bronzed face too easily, he hears the question in his silence:
‘What is it?’
‘What do you sense?’
‘What does Fate tell you?’
Dare doesn’t answer the unspoken questions.
Instead, he lifts his fine nose to the rush of frosty air pushing through the street, laced with smoke, and he studies the scents layered in it.
Still, two dark fae are nearing.
Dare senses their advance behind him, hears it, smells it, feels it. Where his brothers are elegantly lethal beasts prowling through woods, Dare is a spectre, a ghost between worlds.
He sinks into a silence, and listens.
Again, that heartbeat invades his senses.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
The fear in that beat is frantic. It’s a panic thick enough to spread through the body, but wrestled with steady, deep breaths, a futile attempt to self-soothe.
But where is it coming from?
His lashes lower until his sight is darkened completely, and he stills, feeling through the dense smoke, the blood, the fear of surviving humans imprisoned within the unit, the rush that thrills his brothers…
And he finds it.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
That heartbeat…
It isn’t coming from the streets.
It’s coming from up there.
Dare’s eyes gleam with a sudden thrill that rattles his insides. His hand tightens around the hilt of the dagger. And his stare fixes on the fogginess above, the roof of a grey-toned tower of dwellings. A monstrosity, a sculpture of ugliness like no other he can imagine.
But that is not ugly.
The face peering over the edge of the roof. The green eyes so pale and stark that they strike as more of a stone grey.
Dare knows those eyes.
He knows the stony hues that melt over the faintest of greens.
He knows the mousy hair falling into the pallor of that familiar face.
Dare’s smile is instinctual. It curves over his mouth, lazy and vicious. Because he is looking up through the smog at unfinished business.
I found you.
Daxeel traces his unwavering stare to the tower roof, but it’s another behind Dare who asks, “What do you sense?”
In answer, Daxeel raises his sword in a blur, aims it down the alleyway over Dare’s shoulder, and a warning flashes in his eyes. ‘Quiet,’ that gesture commands. ‘Wait.’
Silent stares pierce into Dare’s pale, hard flesh. The patience of their trust in his instincts. But they must wonder, hope even, that he’s sensed a group of humans, some who might put up a fight and quench some of their bloodlust.
He doesn’t tell them what he really senses.
Her.
The kinta.
Bee.
And she is staring right back at him.
Their gazes are locked, a moment that ripples through the air, thickens the breath in his chest and wets her eyes with tears of pure fear.
You should be afraid, Bee.
You should run.
She does.
A thunderous rumble hums up Dare’s chest, a shudder of instinct as his prey shoves from the wall of the roof and disappears.
A growl rumbles up his throat, and the brothers around him tense with their own hunting nature.
Dare gives chase.
The others follow, boots smacking down on the harsh ground of the concrete jungle.
Better run fast, kinta.