Death's Mistress

A translucent hand, watery bright, pushed up my tank top. The move bared my chest and the thin ridge of too-sensitive skin that ran from breastbone to belly button. His mark, which had never entirely faded.

A single finger traced the impression, leaving a chill, watery outline behind. It highlighted the difference between the slightly slicker, redder tones of the old burn and my unmarked skin. “Do you know what this is, dhampir? Have any of your Dark Fey friends dared to tell you?”

“A scar,” I spat, remembering clearly the excruciating pain that had created it. I’d thought I was dying, that my very flesh was being burned from my bones. But he’d wanted information from me, and letting me die would have been counterproductive.

So he’d just made me wish I could.

“It’s more than that. An animal that gives particularly good sport is marked by us and released, to be hunted again. It is a sign to others of my kind that you are my prey alone.”

“I’m honored,” I said, refusing to give in to the panic that was leeching up my spine.

“You should be.” The finger moved across my chest to circle a nipple, its icy-cold peaking the tender flesh.

“Give me what I want, and perhaps we will hunt again someday.”

“Go to hell!”

He smiled, fingers grasping my breast, suddenly so cold they burned. “You first.”

His head lowered the last few inches, and I froze at the first touch of his mouth, soft, cold and wet. A clammy tongue ran deliberately over my lower lip before nudging for entrance I was too shocked to deny him. And a frozen thickness slid past my lips.

It was inhumanly cold and impossibly long, freezing my tongue as it coiled around it in a parody of affection. I twisted my head, my gut roiling with revulsion, but the hand on my breast moved up to my jaw, jerking me back to face him. Fingers dug into my flesh as that terrible face paused, mere millimeters from mine.

“Last chance.”

I stared into those strange inhuman eyes and knew he wasn’t bluffing.subrand had never pretended anything but contempt for humans, or for most of the fey. He hadn’t been joking with the animal comment. I was no more than that to him, and he would kill me with no more conscience than he’d slay a deer.

I was suddenly profoundly grateful that I didn’t know where Aiden was.

“Nothing to say?” he mocked.

“I hope Caedmon kills you slowly.”

He laughed. “Do you know, I am almost sorry to have to end your life?”

But apparently not sorry enough to stop. The pressure on either side of my jaw increased, forcing my mouth open. And, immediately, that terrible protrusion was back.

It was slimy, cold and spongy, totally unlike any human flesh as it pushed into my mouth. And everywhere he touched froze. My breast where his hand had rested was hard and cold, like a mound of ice, my lips were numb and my tongue felt thick in my mouth, too heavy to talk, too heavy to scream.

I thrashed, but he pressed against me, grinding our hips together as that icy snake of a tongue coiled into me. It widened as he poured more of himself into it, distending my throat, threatening to choke me. Starbursts of bloody violet flared behind my eyes as a fury rose up in me, my body aching for motion, to act and to strike….

But I couldn’t move as that frozen mass worked its way downward, like an icy stake headed for my heart. But the heart wasn’t the target, I realized dully, when it suddenly liquefied. Granite wetness filled my mouth, my nose, and gushed into my lungs, until I could see nothing, hear nothing, except my own frantic heartbeat.

I felt him suddenly explode around me, the rest of his form drenching me in icy water as his hold released. I felt myself falling, felt my half- frozen body hitting the hard concrete of the floor and splashing in the icy puddle of his doppelgänger. Then nothing but darkness.

CHAPTER 7

I came back to consciousness with someone whacking me on the back hard enough to expel my lungs. Or at least what was in them. I rolled to the side, ripping myself free of the ice I lay on, coughing and retching a pink-tinged flood.

It went on for a while, me trying to draw in a breath in between eruptions and only making it half the time. Then my stomach decided to get in on the act. A hand held my hair back from my face, as I gagged and retched and choked.

I finally looked up to see Claire haloed in the wash of light spilling down the cellar stairs. Her red hair was everywhere, curled untidily against her neck and stuck to her skin. Her right hand and arm were still armored with iridescent scales as if she’d simply forgotten to change it back. Her left hand gripped mine hard enough to threaten the bones.

My lips moved, but for a moment, no sound came out. It felt like there was a rubber band inside my throat, pressing. Or a hand.

“Dory!” Claire leaned over me, her curls tumbling into my face. “Dory, say something!”

I cleared my throat. “Don’t slap me,” I told her, worried about the talons at the end of that paw. And then I threw up some more.

She dragged me against her, holding me almost too tight for me to breathe, sobbing out things I couldn’t quite understand. Gessa was there, a slash across her forehead drizzling black blood into her eyes. She smeared a line of it onto my face, gri

“I take it we won?” I croaked.

“They’re gone,” Claire said viciously, wiping a hand across her eyes. “I think creating the storm drained a lot of their power, and when they couldn’t get in—” Her arms tightened.

“Please don’t squeeze,” I said thickly.

She let me go, and I sagged back against the concrete for a moment, waiting to see if my stomach pla

“I guess there’s a reason we’re not all dead?” I asked, to cut off my own thoughts.

“Manlíkans are just wards encasing an element,” Claire told me distractedly. “They were used for war games back in Faerie, like practice dummies, and—” She waved frantic hands. “Why am I even talking about this? I disrupted them.”

I rolled my eyes up at her. “Not to sound ungrateful, but you couldn’t have done that earlier?”

“I thought if I started attacking them, the house wards might fall, too. And then it would take minutes for them to cycle back on and the Svarestri would get in—”

“They were already in,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t as she burst into tears. “It’s okay,” I told her. “We’re all okay. Aren’t we?”

“I can’t find the children,” she told me, her voice shaking. “I’ve looked everywhere! “They must have taken them—”

“I don’t think so.” I pushed myself into a reclining position with my good wrist as Gessa trotted back downstairs. She had a blanket and a bottle of water, and I accepted both gratefully. I washed out my mouth and spit on the floor because, really, it couldn’t get any worse. Then I wrapped the blanket around me and tried sitting up.

My stomach stayed more or less where it was supposed to be, but something crunched under my butt. I fished the remains of a fortune cookie out of my pocket and read the tiny scrap of paper inside: Your guardian angel got laid off.

No shit, I thought, and started laughing, even though it hurt.

I looked up to find Claire gaping at me, eyes huge and horrified. I sobered up, wiped my lips and levered myself to my feet. The room spun alarmingly, but she caught me around the waist. “Upstairs,” I told her, grabbing the banister.

“They aren’t there! I looked everywhere. This was the last place I checked because I’d already been down here. That’s why I almost didn’t find you in time—”

“But you did,” I reminded her, as the room steadied somewhat. “And I think I might know where the kids are.”