Broken Soul

Bruiser ignored him and followed his former master to the island. He shot me a look that lasted half a heartbeat, intense and cutting. His eyes then shot to Derek. Pointing me to look at the Enforcer, a direction, an order, a suggestion of some kind. I hadn’t fought beside Bruiser like I had with Eli. The battlefield communication wasn’t yet in place; I had no idea what the look meant, except to be alert and wary and ready for anything. I could sense Bruiser’s worry even over the smell of sex that permeated the place. “Would you care for a glass of wine?” Bruiser asked. “I think you will find the vintage agreeable.”

Leo lifted the bottle, read the label, and raised a single eyebrow, but over the reek of sex I could detect a rising change in his scent pattern, from banked discontent to something more peppery and hot. The beginnings of anger. “Outside of Pellissier Estates in France, there are fifteen bottles of Pellissier Cabernet, 1945. My cellars contain ten of them, or they did.”

“They still do,” Bruiser said, ignoring the less-than-subtle accusation that he might have pilfered from the MOC’s wine cellar. He poured the dark red wine into each glass. “I bought this and one other at auction last year for a dreadful sum. Though the fast aeration is a desecration, this bottle seemed an appropriate sacrifice for the moment.”

I managed not to react to the word sacrifice, until Bruiser picked up the knife and sliced his fingertip. He held it over one of the glasses and let the blood drop into the wine. Suddenly I could hear everything: cars outside on the street below, the sound of my heartbeat, the plink of blood meeting wine, the slight shift of Derek’s leathers at the door. In my peripheral vision, I made sure his hands were still empty, and I could feel his eyes on me, gauging me. I forced myself to remain sitting, compelled my body to relax against the low back of the chair, a false ease that might fool Derek, but would never fool Leo. Slowly Leo’s mouth opened, and his fangs dropped down. They were ivory-toned in the dim light, tinted darker by the flickering candle, as if they were lightly coated with old blood.

Sacrifice, Bruiser had said. For taking me to bed. Which meant that, even with the fancy dismissal as blood-servant, Leo’s claim on me still stood, and Bruiser’s careful interpretation of the edict wasn’t going to protect us. In Leo’s eyes, Bruiser had stolen from the Master of the City. Leo thought it okay to sleep with anyone and everyone in singles and batches, but he wasn’t much on sharing what he had claimed.

To make his anger worse, according to Del, Leo was missing Bruiser. Whom I had just stolen.

But despite Leo’s claim, he had never owned me. I would not be owned.

Beast is not prey, she thought at me.

The plink of blood slowed and stopped. And I knew what Bruiser wanted even before he looked at me. Questioning. Was I willing to offer blood for the supposed wrong I’d done to the MOC?

“No,” I said, heat blossoming in my gut. “I never belonged to you.” I pointed at Leo. At the words, his pupils widened and his sclera began to tint scarlet. The scent of scorching pepper and the smoke of burning papyrus grew stronger. “I was never yours to give away or keep. I was never yours at all except for the job.” I pointed at the bloody wine. “And I don’t offer sacrifice of my blood. Not to anyone.” I pointed to Bruiser. “You should have remembered that.”

Bruiser blinked, something dawning in his eyes. “Too late,” I said fiercely, surging from the chair and to the door. Derek shifted, the movement not subtle, intending to be seen, a warning that he would defend his boss.

To Leo I said, “You can take this job and shove it into the sun.” Barefoot, anger like a flame tossed carelessly into a pile of deadwood, I picked up my keys and walked out of the apartment. And slammed the door. Inside I heard the sound of furniture breaking and a roar of rage. Stupid men.

My cell rang moments later. I ignored it. It rang again. I turned it off as I drove away.

Stupid men.

Stupid, stupid men. I tried to put the memory of Bruiser—all the memories of Bruiser I had formed in the last day—out of mind, but it wasn’t working. I got angrier as I drove, as the images of Bruiser flashed before me. Bruiser stretched out on his bed. Bruiser stretched out on me. Bruiser’s face when I slammed my way out of his apartment. Worry. He’d been afraid. “Well, I can take care of myself,” I said. But . . . Leo had lost his temper when I’d left. There had been the sounds of fighting. Anger and apprehension were boiling in me by the time I neared my home, and my increased body temp released all the scents accumulated over the last hours. Passion and tenderness and sex. Such fantastic sex.

I wanted it. I wanted time to roll back and stop there, Bruiser atop my body, heaving breaths, voice ragged, calling my name. And I wanted it gone, wiped away forever as if it had never been. I cursed when a traffic light stopped me, backlighting me in a bar’s bright, neon beer signs, through the broken windows. In frustration, I beat the steering wheel with my fists. The wheel bent. The driver behind me backed away and took a side street. I laughed, the sound broken and hurting.

Beast said nothing. Nothing about the hours in bed, nothing about the smells, nothing about Leo or Bruiser. Despicable Bruiser, who gave in to the old ways of his old life. No. Beast said nothing at all. She was totally silent, motionless inside me. Which just made me angrier.

I didn’t want to be with people, but I had no place else to go, except to check into a hotel, and that seemed no safer than anywhere else, and might endanger humans. While I was trying to decide, my muscle memory took me the short blocks back to my house. I was forced to park a block down due to traffic, which happened only during tourist event weekends, and I had no idea which tourist event was taking place now. I stomped from the SUV—when was my bike gonna be fixed?—and down the street and through the side gate. I keyed open the door, slammed it too, said a brusque hello to the Youngers as I stormed past, then slammed the door to my bedroom.

Stripping off Bruiser’s shirt, I pitched it into the garbage. The jeans followed. They smelled like Bruiser. And me. And hours in his bed. Maybe I should burn them. I turned the shower to hot. Then to hotter. I tossed the silver stakes into the corner of the small space, stepped under the scalding spray, and slammed the shower door. And proceeded to scrub myself with a loofah that one of Katie’s working girls had given me for Christmas. It was saturated in perfumed soap and I hadn’t been able to force myself to use it, until now, when I needed the stench to hide the other stench.