“And me?” Dontaine asked.
Halcyon had given his blessing and his assurance that I could not pass the demon darkness inside me to Dontaine through sex.
Dontaine had given his word that he would protect me with his life, with his blood, whatever I desired of him. So generous were the men that I loved. How could I be any less so?
I took his hand—so different it was from the one I had just held, with nails blunt and short, skin pale, palm callused—a warrior’s hand. Yet they both felt right in mine. With our fingers clasped together, I turned toward home with lightness in my heart and a smile on my face.
“Dontaine, do you happen to know what a condom is?”
He shook his head.
“Let me tell you about them.”
THREE
I AWOKE TO bright daylight with a wolf’s painful howl still echoing in my ear. An animal’s call normally wouldn’t wake me from a sound slumber. We were surrounded by a vast acreage of woods and swampland, after all. But it hadn’t been an anonymous cry I had heard. It had been Wiley’s, the Mixed Blood boy no older than fourteen or fifteen who had grown up wild in the swamp. His howl had vibrated with rage and fear, its sound like that of a wild animal caught in a trap.
I threw on jeans and T-shirt, secured my daggers, one silver, the other not, and crept down the long-winding staircase, avoiding all the creaky spots until I reached the front door. The others slept on undisturbed, and I did not call them because the sunlight that fell softly upon my skin would burn theirs. An hour under its rays would redden their skin. Four hours under it, and they would die. But not I. My one-quarter mixed human heritage ensured that while I had all the Monère’s strengths, I had none of their weaknesses. Besides, with the sun high in the sky, I had nothing to fear. The most dangerous threats to me—another Monère or demon dead—were all tucked away in darkness, caught up in their dreams. I wondered for a moment if demons dreamed. Wondered if I hadn’t dreamed, myself, imagining that cry. Then it came again. The long, mournful howl of a wolf in distress. Wiley.
I ran east, from where the sound drifted, and covered the distance quickly in loping bounds and unchecked speed. I found him by his heartbeat, pounding rapidly, half-hidden behind a fallen tree trunk, his wrists and ankles bound by ropes. He grew tense when he saw me, and twisted wildly, making muffled sounds under the gag tied over his mouth.
“Shhh, Wiley. It’s okay, it’s just me,” I said, trying to calm him, but he only struggled harder. I frowned as I approached him, and wondered if human hunters had done this? If so, why? The Mixed Blood boy was dressed in clothes I had bought for him, wearing at least the trappings of civilization. He was not half-naked or as obviously wild as he had been when we had first found him. His hair had even been trimmed. By Tersa, no doubt. Why, then, would someone have tied him up like this? And how had a human managed it even? For that matter, why had mere ropes held him? He was more than human strong, young though he was. Then part of the puzzle became clear when he twisted and I caught sight of the silver handcuffs half-hidden beneath the thick rope. Silver weakened the Monère. Made them only human strong.
Not humans. Other Monère, I realized too late.
Something struck me on the back of the head.
Pain. Splinters of white. Then nothing as darkness swallowed me.
WHEN I AWOKE, it was to a raging storm. Not just the one in my head, where I had been struck a painful blow, but a real one. A blinding bolt of lightning split the sky, followed almost immediately by a booming crash of thunder. It was almost as if the heavenly gods were having a temper tantrum, a scary one. Fat raindrops pelted the metal roof of the car I was in, and thick sheets of rain hurled itself against the windows. The noise from that was almost as nauseating as the deafening thunder had been.
I was laid out on the backseat of a car, with metal restraints biting into my wrists. Ropes tied my feet together. Fucking great discoveries, along with the headache. I didn’t know how much time had elapsed, or if the handcuffs were silver or dark demon metal. The first I could break. Maybe even the second now. If I was bound with the latter, I would find out soon enough.
Two men—two Monère—were in the front seats. I knew this not by how they dressed, because oddly enough they were dressed like humans—less formal. They risked daylight casually, also like humans. From the back they looked like two ordinary men. But I felt their presence, their power, with that unique sensing we had of like to like. The driver was the stronger of the two, with his dark hair cut short and layered in a contemporary fashion. The one beside him emanated less power, felt younger, actually, in a way I couldn’t explain, although both looked like big men from the back.
Wiley. What had they done with him? With that thought, and a simple flexing of my wrists, I broke free of the handcuffs—only silver, I saw. The ropes around my ankles snapped like threads, and I was reaching for the driver with mayhem and maybe murder on my mind, depending on the answers I beat out of him, when the other man turned and looked at me.
He was a boy, or rather a young man around my age, in his early twenties. A beautiful one at that, with a long and lean face cut with high cheekbones, framed dramatically by a curtain of dark, longish hair. He looked model pretty, like he should have been gracing the cover of a fashion magazine or maybe flirting with giggling girls in college. Not kidnapping a woman.
Soft brown eyes stared at me, startled, arresting my forward lunge. Something about those eyes, or maybe the young power I felt emanating from him…Whatever it was, something about the innocence I saw there checked my murderous intent.
“Dad, she’s awake.”
Now “Dad” I would have gladly pounded on. He would have been an equal match for me. But not the boy. I opened the door and jumped from the car. Because of the blinding sheets of rain, the vehicle had slowed enough to make the maneuver less dangerous than it might have been at a higher speed. I landed on my feet running, drenched in an instant. There was just flat land and the highway cutting through it, no other cars ahead or behind. The sun had just set, with only a few rays of lingering light, stealing my biggest advantages from me—daylight and human witnesses.
True night would fall soon, making it much more likely for them to pursue me. Like a bad thought, I heard the car screech to a stop and the doors open. Yup, they were coming after me. But then I fully expected they would. My capture during the daytime had to have been carefully planned—keeping to the shade until they snatched me, and then suffering the bite of the sun, which they had to have felt discomfort from, even through the tinted windows of the car.
I ran all-out into the nearby woods, the silver handcuffs still hanging from my wrists. I’d only broken the chain between them. I tore the separate pieces of metal off me and flung them away. A quick glance down my side told me they had taken my daggers. No weapons. But that was okay. My strength was weapon enough.
They closed the distance between us, moving faster than I was because they tapped into their animal selves—used it to fuel their strength while still in their upright forms, to enhance their senses, increase their speed. I could have done something similar had I not worried that attempting it would bring that tiny demon piece in me out to the fore. It shouldn’t, but the boy’s face…His soft doe eyes flashed in my memory’s eye and I knew I couldn’t take the chance. I didn’t know the parameters or triggers of what I held inside of me well enough to risk it. So I ran unaided. And they inevitably caught up to me as I hit what had probably once been a mild trickling river, but was now a frothing mass of seething water that had almost overswelled its banks. It was more than twenty feet across, something I could have probably jumped. Probably. But I was loathe to do so. The current was strong, and my swimming skills lousy. I turned, ran parallel down along the bank, looking for a narrower point to jump across.