I tried not to let my disappointment show on my face. “I’m just making daisy chains, Daddy Davenport.”
Davenport grunted; he eyed the ground with distaste and to my surprise, eased himself onto the soggy grass.
“It has come to my attention that you are spending a lot of time with Weber, Sinclair, and Hart.” Davenport's gaze zeroed in on mine and pinned me to the spot. “I feel I have to remind you to act with the conduct of a Hunter while you are in the compound and to not do anything that Corporal Gardiner would not do.
“Relax.” I breathed a laugh. “I’m not about to proposition anyone for sex.”
I had standards—standards that didn’t include people whose job it was to kill my kind. No matter how at home I felt with them. Or how attractive I found them.
“I’m gone in a few weeks anyway.” I reminded him.
“You’ve gotten close to some of my Hunters,” Davenport said gravely. “I don’t want to see them led astray.”
My eyes widened. “By one of the tricky, slippery, Fair Folk?” I said, playing along with my mask as a Mimic Sidhe.
“Exactly.” Davenport's eyes narrowed.
“You're not just saying that because you’re tempted, commander?” I asked with a hint of a condescending smirk.
“You’d know if I was tempted, Girl.” Davenport’s voice rumbled. The sound traveled straight to my female parts. Delicious.
“Jealous?” I suggested with a purr.
His eyes hooded, but he stood up abruptly and straightened his spine. “Maybe another time.” He suggested. I protested when he turned to leave but Davenport smiled softly. “Show me your real face, and I’ll show you mine.”
I wondered what he meant by that.
That evening, still paranoid from Davenport’s rejection, I stepped under the scalding spray of the shower and scrubbed my host's body until my skin turned pink.
Davenport had implied that he wanted me. The real me. My personality. Not the face I wore.
To his knowledge, I was wearing a mask. He didn’t realize that if I slipped out of my shell, I would be nothing but smoke and nightmares.
I grabbed the shampoo and poured enough into my open hand that the silver goo dripped from my fingers. I swore and looked down only to find that the water had gone red.
Horror made my head swirl. I reached out and gripped the shower curtain. I was bleeding? I searched my legs for cuts but found no injury. Demons didn’t bleed. There weren’t many weapons we couldn't heal from immediately. Adding to the fact that I didn’t have my own body, which made the slow fat droplets of blood on the porcelain more surreal.
I reached between my legs. My fingers came away crimson.
“I’m dying,” I whispered. Wiggling my fingers. “Seven Circles! Shax Shit! Devil's dirty underwear! Fuck!” I wailed, staggering out of the bathroom, still naked, dripping water and blood onto the tiled floor and then the carpet. I grabbed a white towel and pressed it between my legs.
I was going to bleed to death.
Had something broken inside my host? Was it the poison? Or maybe whatever had put Frankie in a coma had messed up her insides? Was I going to start vomiting blood next?
A cramp built in my lower stomach and spread to my lower back. I swore loudly.
Someone knocked on the door. Hunched over, crying like a kicked dog, I waddled to my door and pulled it open.
“Can you keep it down in there?” Riley Fisher flicked her mop of curly mahogany hair over her shoulder. Her gaze traveled over my naked state before resting on the towel between my legs.
“What happened to you?” She gaped. “Are you okay?”
“I’m dying!” I howled. Ripping the towel free, I brandished it at her. “Look!”
Riley flinched. Her eyes rolled to the heavens. “Have you lost your mind?” She pushed past me and slammed the door shut. “Get in the shower now.”
“I’m bleeding,” I told her. My hysteria failing and slowly being replaced with glum acceptance.
“Yes. You idiot.” Riley shot me a look. “You’re on your period. You've probably had one a month since you were thirteen.”
“A period?” I repeated slowly.
“Riding the crimson wave. You're on. Aunt Flo is visiting.” Riley waved her hand. “Get in the shower. I'll go and get some supplies from my room. You owe me.”
My eyes were wide as I watched the petite woman disappear in a flurry of movement. I did as she said because she honestly scared me a little. When I came out of the shower, my bed was covered in pink and blue boxes.
“There,” Riley growled, throwing a packet at my head. I turned the box over in my hands.
“I'm all for weird sex acts. But this is chocolate, it’s not going to help with the bleeding.” I frowned.
Riley sighed. Exasperated. She tugged the chocolate from my grip and tossed it on the bed. “What the hell is wrong with you? What happened to you in the hospital?”
My lips tightened. “This is a normal human thing?”
Riley gave me a long look. After explaining the fine art of tampons and sanitary pads, Riley said that she would talk to Dr. Daniel. She then left. I was more confused than ever. I had never been in a meat suit long enough to experience anything like this before.
The other bodily functions were standard. Breathing. Eating. Peeing. I had never thought about the concept of menstruating before. Demons were created, not born.
Drudes did not have physical relationships. They did not take a single partner, preferring to be part of the Cluster—belonging to all and none.
I had set myself apart from my kin long ago. More interested in other realities, magics, and stories than others of my kind.
I had never experienced a physical relationship. Or a meaningful one.
I had never had to think about reproductive cycles. Though I had read something in Frankie's report about a contraceptive implant. Dr. Daniel had looked aghast when I had asked him what that meant.
I stuffed the Hersey bar into my mouth, barely pausing to swallow. My head hit the pillow. I fell asleep as soon as my eyes closed.
I stood on the top of a three-story building, watching the empty streets below. The edges of my vision fuzzed and blurred if I moved my head too quickly, telling me that I had stumbled into someone else’s dream.
A lone dark figure ran through the streets, pausing at the dead end of a dark alleyway, and scrambling backward like a trapped rat. Dressed in black trousers, ripped in various places, Hugo Sinclair hugged his chest. Pressing his hands against the slowly leaking wounds on his arms and back, he curled over as if he wanted to make himself as small as possible. The cuts looked like nail marks.
The mob rustled, their sound like an approaching hoard of chittering roaches. Pouring from the various buildings in the dream-scape.
Hugo clasped onto the fire escape of my building, just as the group of people with feverish lust and devotion started to follow. Their arms outstretched as the incubus hung from the iron railings, his feet dangling as he pulled himself up.
Golden skin, ashen in the dim moonlight. Blonde hair pushed back, streaked with dust and sweat. It was criminal for someone to look so delicious and disheveled.
Hugo's ice blue eyes widened. The streetlamps cast an orange glow over his face, his long eyelashes drew long spider leg shadows down his cherubic face.
“It's you.” He whispered reverently.
I looked down, only to find that my human suit had dissolved, and I stood in my true form. Hollow eyes. Tendrils of darkness and starlight. I nodded but said nothing. My gaze fixed on the Soulbond mark craved into his chest, above his heart.