They were lean and muscular, with disproportionately powerful arms and long, spadelike hands, each finger tipped by a short curved claw. Bony protrusions, like short knobby horns, thrust through their skin at random spots on their backs and shoulders. The horns were a defensive mechanism. If someone tried to pull a ghoul out of its burrow, the horns would wedge against dirt. A werewolf armed with superhuman strength would have a difficult time plucking a ghoul out of the ground. I’d seen the horns grow as long as four inches, but most of the ones decorating this crowd barely reached half an inch. Their skin was dark gray on the chest, neck, and face, the kind of gray that was most often found on military urban camouflage. Small splotches of muddy brown dotted their backs and their shoulders. If not for the watery yellow glow of their irises, they would’ve blended into the road completely.
None of them were lame, starved, or weak. The odds weren’t in my favor. I had to think of a strategy and fast.
The ghouls peered at me with oddly slanted eyes, the inner corners dipping much lower than the outer ones.
I waited. The moment you start speaking, you become less scary, and I had no intention of being less scary. The ghouls were sentient, which meant they could feel fear, and I needed every bit of advantage I could scrounge up.
A large ghoul shouldered its way to the front of the pack. Well-fed, with a defined powerful body, he crouched in front of me. If he stood upright, he would be close to seven feet tall. At least two hundred pounds, all of it hard muscle and sharp claws. The brown pattern on his back was almost nonexistent. Instead, long alternating stripes of paler and darker gray slid down his flanks.
The ghoul rocked forward. His face touched the boundary and he pulled back and stared at me. He wasn’t sure what he was sensing, but he knew that the boundary and I were somehow connected.
Some ghouls were scavengers. They were harmless and sometimes even gainfully employed. We lived in an unsafe world. Too often bodies couldn’t be recovered because they were under debris or the scene was too grisly for the next of kin to identify the remains. Putting the bodies into a mass grave was a recipe for disaster. Human bodies emanated magic even after death, and there was no telling what the next magic wave would do to that mass grave. Most often the remains were cremated, but occasionally the authorities would bring in ghouls to clean the site. It was cheaper and faster.
I’d bet my arm these ghouls weren’t licensed scavenge workers, but I had to be absolutely sure.
The ghoul stared at me. I gave him my best psychotic smile.
The ghoul blinked his yellowish eyes, tensed like a dog about to charge, and opened his mouth, stretching his lips in a slow deliberate grin. That’s right, show me your big teeth, pretty boy.
A row of thick sharp teeth decorated the front of his jaw. Toward the back, the teeth thinned out, becoming more bladelike, with serrated edges. Got you.
The ghoul unhinged his jaw. A rough raspy voice came out. “Who are you?”
“Turn around now and you’ll live.”
He clamped his mouth shut. Apparently this wasn’t the answer he’d expected. Kate Daniels, master of surprises. Don’t worry, I’m just getting started.
“We’re a licensed cleanup crew,” the leader ghoul said.
“No.”
Half a mile behind the ghouls, a dark shape moved through the field, so silent, for a second I thought I was seeing things. My mind refused to accept that a creature that large could be so quiet. Hi, honey.
The ghouls didn’t notice him. They were conditioned to pay attention to human flesh, and I was standing right in front of them, providing a nice, convenient target.
The leader ghoul turned, displaying a tattoo on his left shoulder.
Columbia, SC
014
Location of license and license number. He thought I was born yesterday.
“We’re a peaceful group,” the ghoul continued.
“Sure you are. You’re just running into the city to borrow a cup of sugar and invite people to your church.”
“You’re interfering with official municipal business. This is discrimination.”
The dark shadow emerged onto the road and started toward us. I’d need to buy him some time to get within striking range.
I looked at the ghoul. “Do you know what is so special about ghouls? You have an unrivaled adaptability. Your bodies change to match their environment faster than ninety-nine percent of anything we’ve seen in nature.”
My favorite monster crept closer on huge paws.
I raised my saber and rested the opaque blade on my shoulder. Faint tendrils of vapor escaped from Sarrat’s surface. The sword sensed trouble and was eager for it.
“Let me tell you what I see. Your color has changed from brown to gray, because you no longer have to blend in with the dirt. Your stripes tell me you spend a lot of time moving through the forest. Your horns are short, because you no longer hide in your burrows.”
The ghouls shifted closer. Their eyes glowed brighter. They didn’t like where this was going.
“Your claws aren’t long and straight to help you dig. They are curved and sharp to rend flesh.”
The ghouls bared their teeth at me. They were a hair away from violence. I had to keep talking.
“Your pretty teeth have changed, too. They’re no longer narrow and serrated. They are thick, strong, and sharp. The kind of teeth you get when you need to hold struggling prey in your mouth. And your fancy tattoo is two years out of date. All ghouls’ licenses in Columbia now have the year tattooed under the license number.”
The ghouls had gone completely silent, their eyes like dozens of tiny shiny moons all focused on me. Just a few more seconds . . .
“Kill her,” another ghoul chimed in. “We have to hurry.”
“Kill her. He’s waiting,” a third voice chimed in.
“Kill her. Kill her.”
They seemed awfully desperate. Something weird was going on.
“Who is waiting?” I asked.
“Shut up!” the leading ghoul snarled.
I leaned forward and gave the leader ghoul my hard stare. “You look plump. You’ve been raiding the countryside and growing fat from gorging yourself on the people you’ve murdered. I gave you a chance to leave. Now it’s too late. Pay attention to this moment. Look at the stars. Breathe in the cold air. This is your last night. These are the last breaths you will take. I will kill every one of you.”
The leader ghoul snarled, dropping all pretense. “You and what army?”
I began pulling magic to me. This would hurt. This always hurt. “That’s the great thing about werelions. You don’t need an army. You just need one.”
The ghoul twisted his face. “You’re not a werelion, meat.”
“I’m not.” I nodded behind them. “He is.”
The leader ghoul spun around.
Two gold eyes stared at him from the darkness. The enormous lionlike beast opened his mouth and roared. Until I met him, I had never heard an actual lion roar. It sounded like thunder. Deafening, ravenous heart-dropping thunder that severed some vital link between logic and control of your body deep inside your brain. It was a blast of sound so powerful, I had seen hundreds of shapeshifters cringe when they heard it. A wolf howl heard in the middle of the night raised the hair on the back of your neck, but a lion’s roar punched through all of your training and reason straight to the secret place hidden deep inside that screamed at you to freeze.
The ghouls stopped, motionless.
I opened my mouth and spat a power word. “Osanda.” Kneel.
Power words came from a long-forgotten age, so ancient that they commanded raw magic. Few people knew about them and even fewer could use them, because to learn a power word, you had to own it. You made it yours or it killed you. I knew a handful of power words, far more than anyone else I’d met, but using e
ven one came with a heavy price tag. For my father, the power words were a language, one he spoke fluidly and without repercussions. They didn’t hurt him, but I always paid a price.
The magic ripped out of me. I braced for the familiar twist of agony. The backlash bit at me, tearing through my insides, but this time something must’ve blunted its teeth, because it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I remembered.
The magic smashed into the petrified ghouls. Their knees and elbows crunched in unison and they crashed to the asphalt. It would buy me at least ten seconds. If the magic wave had been stronger, I would’ve broken their bones.
I swung my sword. Sarrat met a ghoul’s bony neck and sliced through cartilage and thick hide like butter. Before its dead body fell to the ground, I thrust my blade into the chest of the second ghoul and felt Sarrat’s tip pierce the tight ball of its heart.
The lion’s body roiled, snapping upright. Bones thrust upward; powerful muscle spiraled up the new skeleton. A blink and a new monster lunged forward, a nightmarish mix of man and lion, seven and a half feet tall, with steel-hard muscle sheathed in gray fur and curved, terrible claws. A ghoul leaped at him. He grabbed the creature by its throat and shook it, as if he were snapping a wet towel. A sickening snap echoed through the night and the ghoul went limp.
I carved the third ghoul into two separate pieces and sliced the fourth one’s throat.
The ghouls woke up. They swarmed us. The leonine beast swung his claws and disemboweled a ghoul with a precise swipe. Intestines rained onto the road. The bitter stench of ghoul blood mixed with the unmistakable sour reek of a gut wound singed my nostrils.
Claws ripped through my clothes, drawing agonizing scalding-hot lines across my back. You want to play? Fine. I needed a workout anyway.
My saber became a razor-sharp wall. It cut, sliced, and pierced, ripping flesh and hissing as the ghoul blood that bathed it boiled from its magic. I moved fast, sidestepping claws and blocking teeth. Another fiery gash stung my back. A ghoul clamped onto my boot and I ripped my leg free and stomped his skull into the pavement. A welcome heat spread through me, turning my muscles flexible and pliant. The world turned crystal clear. Time stretched, helping me. The ghouls lunged, but I was faster. They raked at me with their claws, but my blade found them first. I savored it all, every second of the fight, every drop of blood flying past me, every moment of resistance when Sarrat caught my target on its edge.
This was what I was raised and trained for. For better or worse, I was a killer. This was my calling, and I made no excuses for it.
A ghoul loomed before me. I sliced it down in a classic overhand stroke. It fell. Nobody took its place. I pivoted on my toes, looking for a fight. To the left the werelion tossed a broken body to the ground and turned to me. A single ghoul hugged the ground, caught between us.
“Alive,” the werelion snarled.
Way ahead of you. Let’s find out who the mysterious “he” is. I started toward the ghoul, sword in hand.
It shivered, looked right, then left, looked at the werelion, then at me. That’s right. You’re trapped and not going anywhere. If it ran, we would chase it down.
The ghoul reared, jerked its clawed hands to its throat, and sliced it open. Blood gushed. The ghoul gurgled and collapsed on the ground. The light went out of its eyes.
Well, that was a hell of a thing.
The lion monster opened his mouth and a human voice came out, his diction perfect. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey, honey.” I pulled a piece of cloth out of my pocket and carefully wiped down Sarrat’s blade.
Curran stepped over to me and put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. I leaned against him, feeling the hard muscle of his torso against my side. We surveyed the road strewn with broken bodies.
The adrenaline faded slowly. The colors turned less vivid. One by one the cuts and gashes made themselves known: my back burned, my left hip hurt too, and my left shoulder ached. I’d probably wake up with a spectacular bruise tomorrow.
We’d survived another one. We’d get to go home and keep on living.
“What the hell was all this about?” Curran asked me.
“I have no idea. They don’t typically gather into large packs. The biggest marauder pack ever sighted had seven ghouls, and that was considered a fluke. They are solitary and territorial. They only band together for protection, but clearly someone was waiting for them. Do you think Ghastek is connected to this?”
Curran grimaced. “It’s not like him. Ghastek only moves when he has something to gain. Having us kill ghouls doesn’t help him in any way. He knows what we can do. He had to realize we’d go through them.”
Curran was right. Ghastek had to know we’d dispatch the ghouls. He wouldn’t have used us to do his dirty work either. For all of his faults, Ghastek was a premier navigator, a Master of the Dead, and he loved his job. If he wanted the ghouls dead, he would’ve sliced this group to pieces with a couple of vampires, or he would’ve used this opportunity as a training exercise for his journeymen.
“This isn’t making any sense to me,” I said, pulling traces of my blood toward me. It slid and rolled in tiny drops, forming a small puddle on the pavement. I pushed it to the side, solidified it, and stomped on it. It shattered under my foot into inert powder. Blood retained its magic even when separated from the body. For as long as I could remember, I had to guard my blood because if it were examined, it would point to my father like an arrow. There was a time where I had to set any trace of my blood on fire, but now it obeyed me. I couldn’t decide if it made me a better fighter or just a worse abomination. “They seemed desperate. Driven, almost, as if they had some sort of goal to get to.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Curran told me. “It’s almost midnight. I say we go home, get cleaned up, and climb into bed.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Hey, is there any of that apple pie left?” Curran asked.
“I think so.”
“Oh good. Let’s go home, baby.”
Our home. It still hit me like a punch, even after months of us being together—he was right there, waiting for me. If something attacked me, he’d kill it. If I needed help, he would help me. He loved me and I loved him back. I was no longer alone.
We were walking to my donkey when he said, “Sweet cheeks?”
“I couldn’t help it. Ghastek’s got a stick up his ass the size of a railroad tie. Did you see the look on the vampire’s face? He looked constipated.”
Curran laughed. We found Cuddles and went home.
CHAPTER
2
OUR HOUSE SAT on a short street in one of the newer subdivisions. In a previous life, the subdivision was part of Victoria Estates, an upper-middle-class neighborhood, a quiet place with narrow streets and old towering trees. It was as close to living in the forest as one could get and still stay in the suburbs. Then the magic came, and the trees of Hahn Forest to the south and W. D. Thomson Park revolted. The same strange power of magic that gnawed skyscrapers to mere nubs nourished the trees, and they grew at unnatural speed, invading neighborhoods and swallowing them whole. Victoria Estates fell prey to the encroaching woods without a whimper of resistance. Most people moved.
About four years ago an enterprising developer decided to reclaim the space and cut a new kidney-bean shape out of the forest, building post-Shift houses with thick walls, barred windows, sturdy doors, and generous yards. Our street lay on the inside of the bean, closest to the woods, while two other roads spun out of it to the north and west in widening arches. Ours was a short street, only seven houses on the other side and five on ours, with our home in the middle.
As we turned onto our road, I stretched my neck to see the house. It was a big three-story beast, sitting on roughly five acres, all fenced in, with a stable and a pasture in the back. I loved every brick and board of that house. It belonged to me and Curra
n. It was our family home. I’d lived in an apartment before. I’d lived in some hellholes. I’d even lived in a fortress, but this was the first house in a long time where I felt completely at home. Every time I left it, I had a terrible suspicion that when I came back, it would disappear, collapse, or be burned to the ground. When I somehow managed to obtain something nice, the Universe usually taunted me with it just long enough for me to care and then smashed it to pieces.
I couldn’t see our home yet—the bend of the street was in the way. I resisted making Cuddles clop faster. She had had a tiring night.
Curran reached over and covered my hand with his clawed furry one. “One month left.”
Two months ago, on January 1, Curran and I officially stepped down as the Beast Lord and Consort of the Pack. One day we were in charge of a thousand and a half shapeshifters and the next we weren’t. Technically we had stepped down a few days prior, but the official date was January 1, for convenience’ sake. We had ninety days to formally separate our finances and business interests from the Pack. If anyone decided they wanted to leave the Pack as part of our staff, they had to do it before that time ran out.
Today was March 1. Thirty days and we would be completely free.
Formally, we remained part of the Pack, but we weren’t subject to their chain of command. We could no longer participate in governing the Pack in any capacity. For these ninety days, we couldn’t even visit the Keep, the huge fortress Curran had built during his reign as the Beast Lord that served as the Pack’s HQ, because our presence would undermine the authority of the new alpha couple as they tried to get established. After the separation period was over, we wouldn’t be turned away from the Keep, but it was understood we’d limit our time. Just the way I liked it.
Guilt bit at me. The Pack was Curran’s life. He’d ruled it since he had hammered it together from isolated shapeshifter packs when he was only fifteen. He was thirty-three now. He’d walked away from seventeen years of his life, because he loved me.
Last December, after my father and I had our little spat over Atlanta, he gave me a choice. Either I stepped down from my position of power in the Pack or he would attack the city. Tens of thousands of lives on one side, being the Consort on the other. I chose to walk away. We weren’t ready to fight Roland. People would die because of me, and in the end we would lose. I couldn’t take the guilt, so I left the Pack to buy us time. Curran chose to be with me. The Pack wasn’t happy with his decision, but he didn’t care.