Unbound

  “I’d rather you didn’t die.”

  “I’d rather no one died,” Eavan said.

  “Sometimes death is necessary.” Nyx made a fluttering gesture with her hand as if to shoo away an insect. “Yours is not one I’d like.”

  Eavan bowed her head. She’d lost. She’d lost months ago, but simply hadn’t known it yet. Nyx had concocted some story, hired a bodyguard, and effectively entrapped Eavan. She’d been sentenced to spending her time around a tempting mortal.

  How am I to do anything about Daniel now? Eavan wasn’t about to admit that she’d been hunting the drug dealer. Nyx was always surly over dealers. She liked her strip clubs well enough, but refused to allow any drugs in her clubs. Unlike Daniel.

  “He’s pretty.”

  Eavan turned to stare at her grandmother. “What?”

  “The man. He’s pretty. The type you try not to look at.” Nyx stretched her legs out on the divan. “I notice, child. I’ve been noticing for years.”

  Eavan didn’t dare turn her back on Nyx, so she settled for a shrug.

  Nyx laughed, sounding joyous as she often did after long days of partying.

  “I’m not like you, Grandmama. I won’t be.” Eavan’s mouth was dry. It’d been months since Nyx struck her, but the possibility was always there. “Putting him in my path doesn’t change that. You’re wasting money hiring him to ‘protect’ me.”

  “I haven’t forgotten how difficult that first time is, sweetie.” Nyx held out a hand.

  Eavan went to her. She took her grandmother’s hand as she sat at the woman’s feet. Centuries of experience hid under Nyx’s flawless skin.

  “I’m not going to do it,” Eavan whispered.

  “You will.” With her free hand, Nyx pulled the pin from Eavan’s bun. It’d been only a week since it’d been cut, but it was already past her shoulders. Nyx ran her fingers through it, loosening the strands so they drifted freely. “You’ll hunt. You’ll fuck. You’ll kill.”

  “I’m not like you.”

  Nyx squeezed her hand—gently this time. “You’re a glaistig, love. You’re exactly like me.”

  “I’m not a murderer.”

  “It’s the natural order of the world.” Nyx smiled indulgently. “The higher beasts eat the lower. Do they get upset over eating other animals? The predators thin the herd, taking away the diseased or aberrant or weak. It’s natural.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Humans do it. Kill animals. Raise them like pets and butcher them…our way is far more humane. At least we don’t wear their hides for garments. We’re far more civilized.”

  Eavan looked at Nyx’s hand-sewn leather boots. They were butter soft, custom made of the eel leather Nyx preferred these days. “And if they were able to be crafted into clothing you liked?”

  “No.” Nyx ran her fingertips over a boot. “Mortal skin isn’t as silky…Plus, it’s just gauche.”

  “Gauche?” Eavan asked. “And a stripper pole in the parlor?”

  “Practical,” Nyx said. “If you are so sure you can be a mortal, here’s your test. Prove to me that you don’t have the same lusts we all do. If not, he seems a good sort to keep around for at least one of your appetites. We picked him especially for you.”

  Eavan sighed. “Sometimes I really hate you.”

  “I know, dear.” Nyx stood and pulled Eavan into a hug. “It’s one of the reasons I respect you. Let’s go find your new temptation.”

  As if I need another one. Resisting hunting Daniel was using up all her self-control. Resisting another entanglement was the last thing she needed.

  Maybe he’s a bore…a girl can dream, right?

  5

  Cillian waited outside in the overgrown yard behind the house. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was left to grow wild, but like everything, the truth was in the details. There were plants in this yard that he hadn’t seen anywhere else in the Triangle area, ones that wouldn’t flourish, even in the Raleigh humidity, without attention. The illusion was one of disorder, but the truth was that this was cultivated fecundity. His current job depended on his noticing minutiae, on seeing past the lies people wove, and on creating his own illusions. Those were the skills that would help him pretend to know nothing about Eavan, despite the hours they’d be forced together.

  “Mr. Owens?” Nyx stood on the back porch.

  “Ma’am?” He turned to face her.

  Nyx paused as Eavan kissed her cheeks; then she turned her attention on Cillian. “You’ll keep her safe.”

  “I’ll do my best to not let anyone harm her,” he said. It was the best he could offer, especially as he had no idea who or what Eavan was. Was Brennan human? That information was the sort of thing that the C.D.A. was never privy to, but it did make a difference. The first time Cillian had had his ribs broken, he learned exactly how much it could matter.

  Eavan took a step backward. “I’m not that fragile.”

  “You’re more fragile than you should be, Evvie.” For a strange moment, Nyx was the one who looked truly vulnerable. Her thus far implacable calm vanished. She licked her lips anxiously. “You’ll let him teach you what you need. You’ll be careful. He’s good at what he does…and the things you…I picked him for reasons you—”

  “Nyx.” Eavan backed down the porch stairs and looked up at Nyx. “I’m not actually in any danger. You and I both know that. Hiring him”—Eavan glanced at Cillian—“is a control tactic. It won’t change anything, but you don’t have to pretend it’s a legitimate bodyguard situation.”

  Nyx lashed out with a closed fist.

  Eavan gripped the banister in front of her to keep from stumbling. Blood slid down her chin from a cut lip.

  Cillian started forward.

  “Stay out of it.” Nyx didn’t even look his way. Her attention and her next words were for Eavan. “You’ll let Mr. Owens guard you as carefully as if there were hellhounds pursuing you, Eavan, or you’ll move into this house. I make the decisions in this family, and this one is not negotiable.”

  Eavan stood motionless, staring at her cousin as the blood dripped from her mouth. They both had all of the affect of statues.

  “Don’t challenge me, Eavan. The consequences would be very unpleasant.” Nyx’s hair seemed to move of its own accord; the dark tendrils twitched like restless serpents around her shoulders.

  Cillian stood there awkwardly. He wasn’t sure either of them should be trusted, but instinct told him that there was a threat to Eavan whether she was inside the house or on her own. It shouldn’t matter as much as it did, but he had a longtime habit of cheering the underdog.

  “Am I understood, Eavan?” Nyx asked.

  Finally, Eavan bowed her head. “You are, but I’ll prove that I don’t…need him.”

  “I almost wish you were right, Evvie,” Nyx murmured. Then, before anyone could say another word, she spun on her heel and stepped back inside the house. She didn’t close the door. Instead, she left it open so they could watch her walk away swinging her hips like an invitation. Her footsteps echoed as she went into the room, a heartbeat rhythm beat out by her sharp heels.

  And Cillian couldn’t look away. Seeing Nyx go made him feel like he was losing something—even though she made his skin crawl.

  “Are you all right?” Eavan’s voice drew his attention from the open door.

  “Are you?”

  “I’ll be better once I’m out of here.” She dropped her shoes to the ground and slipped her feet into them. Then she pulled out a tissue and wiped the blood from her face.

  He started down the walk, but stopped when he realized that she hadn’t moved.

  “Why did you take the job, Mr. Owens?” She watched him as she twisted her hair back into a tight coil. Everything in her posture screamed “challenge.” It made him want to refuse any answer. Which works out well. He couldn’t tell her anything.

  “It’s what I do right now.” He didn’t lie, not really. Watching her was his job. His supervisors were very
clear that he should accept the terms of his anonymous source’s offer—including guarding Eavan.

  “Guard people against nonexistent enemies?” She almost smiled, and the change was remarkable. She was every bit as tempting as the beautiful monster that had hired—blackmailed? manipulated?—him, and based on her family and her association with Brennan, she was also likely to be just as deadly.

  He tamped down the softness he was feeling when he’d watched her face off with Nyx.

  “Nyx seems certain you’re in danger,” he said.

  “Nyx is sure I’m in danger every time I’m not in her direct line of sight.” Eavan shook her head. “If you wanted to simply say you guard me, but not—”

  “She hired me to watch you. I’ll watch you.” He tried a falsely friendly smile. They’d do better if they were at least civil to each other. “You could make that easier on both of us if you answered questions.”

  “Sure. I’ll answer what you need to know to do the job Nyx hired you for.” She smiled again, not full of promises like the women inside, but with barely curved lips. It was a dismissal, and in case he missed the message, she turned and walked down the flagstone path.

  Yeah. This is going to be a cakewalk. He snorted and followed her. Before she had taken a half-dozen steps down the end of the walk, he was in front of her. “Guarding you means you don’t go wandering off.”

  “I’m not an errant child, Mr. Owens. I drove here on my own; I go to and from work every day on my own. I go—”

  “No. You used to. I’ll be escorting you to and from everything for the time being.” He’d hoped that Nyx had explained the extent of his role in Eavan’s life, but if she did, Eavan wasn’t cooperating. To be sure there was no confusion, he added, “Nyx was adamant about that part of my services. I’ll be accompanying you everywhere you go, every time you leave your apartment for any reason. It’s why she rented the apartment. That way, I’ll be within reach the moment you step outside your door.”

  Eavan made a frustrated sound. “What if you have other things to do? We can come up with a schedule that—”

  “Eavan?” He waited until she looked at him, and then said, “This is my job. If I’m not able to keep up with your schedule, I’ll call one of my associates, but I suspect I can keep up.”

  “This is going to be a pain in the ass, isn’t it?” She yanked open the passenger door of her Z3 and dropped her briefcase on the seat.

  “You won’t need that.” He didn’t wince as he said it, but he did draw a deep breath, bracing himself for the next snarl that was sure to follow his clarification. “We’ll leave it here to be picked up later.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Exactly what is it that I won’t need, Mr. Owens?”

  “The car. We’ll take mine.” He gestured at his car, a nondescript black sedan that looked like the same sort innumerable car services and middle-class businessmen drove. It blended. Eavan’s topaz blue BMW didn’t. “You won’t need yours for a while.”

  “I won’t need my car?” Her hands were on her hips. Her lips were pressed together in a tight line.

  “Look. I’m not your enemy. I was hired to keep you safe…or out of trouble…or maybe just drive you crazy so you move back home. You can go back in there and talk to her, or you can cooperate.” He wondered briefly if Eavan had the same ability to hypnotize him as Nyx apparently had. If he tried to restrain her, could she control him as Nyx had done when he’d pulled his gun? He needed more answers than he had. “You need to accept that I’m like your shadow now. You aren’t going anywhere without me. If that’s going to be an issue, go talk to Nyx while we’re still standing here.”

  Eavan’s answer was a string of expletives and a glare at the close-curtained windows of her family’s house. “Talking to Nyx won’t change a thing. It rarely does.”

  He nodded once. “Okay then. So, do you want to eat while we go over your schedule? Or go to your apartment?”

  Cillian felt a touch sorry for her. It wasn’t an easy position she was in—not that his was much better. Now that Cillian had sent the data in to his supervisor and been told to work with—for?—his “anonymous” source, he had more than a few questions for Nyx. He just needed to get Eavan tucked into her apartment so he could go ask a few of those questions.

  “It’s your choice,” he added. “We could go downtown and grab a bite or—”

  “Food first,” she interrupted. “Fat Daddy’s.”

  She slid into his car, slammed the door, and stared out the window.

  “Right, then,” he muttered as he walked around and opened his door. “This should be great fun.”

  6

  Late that night, Eavan slipped out of her apartment window. She wasn’t sure if she could get out the front door without Cillian noticing. Odds were that he wasn’t staring at her door, but she wasn’t sure about video feeds. He’d mentioned surveillance in the hallway, the breezeway, the parking deck, and the back lot. Safer to slip out the window. The drop wasn’t that far. She might be predominantly mortal—and intending to stay that way—but her genetic heritage still came with a few extra benefits.

  After a surreptitious glance to assure that no neighbors were out on their balconies, she hopped up on the balcony rail so she had her back to her apartment and dropped down. The impact of the landing was muffled by the grass-covered ground.

  No one the wiser.

  With a satisfied smile, she crossed the lot and opened her car door.

  It was good that her Z was home instead of still at Nyx’s, but when Eavan thought about strangers driving her car, it felt more like injury than insult. She hated the fact that he’d had some stranger drive her car home. She slid her hand over the wheel affectionately.

  She left her car door slightly open, put it in neutral, and coasted to the bottom of the hill. Once she hit the intersection, she slammed the door and popped the clutch. The squeal of tires and almost-but-not-quite-out-of-control swerve as she slammed through the gears was exhilarating.

  Driving was one of the passions she could indulge. No sex. No murder. No stalking. Okay, a little stalking, but no killing anyone. A woman needed releases for pent-up energy, and there was only so much workouts and toys could do to let off stress. Sometimes speed was essential to sanity.

  On this, at least, Nyx had always been tolerant. She had reduced rates on a number of vices for the local police in exchange for looking the other way on Eavan’s driving habits. It had started as a sixteenth birthday present and evolved into status quo over the last eight years.

  Eavan could navigate the streets of Raleigh and Durham and a number of cities within a four-hour radius. Having the I-95 corridor, I-40, and I-85 all but at her doorstep meant that her penchant for speed was easily indulged. Finding a mechanic who disabled Nyx’s GPS tracking toys regularly added a layer of privacy the past two years that had made Eavan feel almost like a normal woman.

  Not now. Not with Cillian holding a leash. Eavan made her way to the beltline and just drove for a while before she headed downtown. It helped, but the anxiety was still riding her. She took a few side streets, turning at the last possible moment each time, focusing on the importance of control and precision. It’s not going to change a thing. I am not going to change how I live. This could be a short-term problem, a test to be passed. Or failed.

  That was the real problem: Eavan felt herself getting closer and closer to crossing lines that she swore she’d never approach. This business with Daniel had become an obsession. It needed to end so that she could regain control of her life. It made control of both appetites feel precarious. If she could scare him away from the drug trade or find some information to get him arrested, maybe she could stop hunting him—because she was hunting him. She knew it, even if she wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, and she needed to get it in check before Nyx found out.

  Eavan parked the car down by Moore Square and headed toward one of Daniel’s warehouses. It wasn’t any trouble to let herself inside the warehouse:
she’d lifted a key one night flirting with Daniel. Soft-soled shoes muffled her steps as she crossed the concrete floor. This was what she did, who she was. Every instinct she’d had told her that she was where she should be—except the ones that told her that naked with Cillian was a better plan.

  Equally unhealthy urges.

  She could control them though. She’d been doing so for twelve years. A glaistig’s dual needs for sex and death—preferably together—coincided with the onset of menses. It had taken her six years to learn to smother those urges until they were just a whisper. She’d slipped and hunted a few times, but she’d never killed or fucked anyone. She’d walked away from every hunt before it became an obsession.

  Until now.

  Now, both of Eavan’s urges were screaming to life.

  The smart move was to stay away from Daniel, to stay out of his clubs. Something there made all of her family uncomfortable—and made Eavan feel like electricity was battering all her synapses simultaneously. That sensation had never been quite as all-consuming as it was right now.

  Because he’s near me.

  She stood in the shadowed recesses of a room, half hidden by towering shelves, peering between the wooden crates that were stacked at the end of the aisle of shelves. In front of her in a bare bit of concrete in the center of a darkened warehouse stood Daniel—her prey. He wasn’t Other, but he was tangling with things that made him resonate like he was more than mortal. She could feel it. What are you doing? There was more to her reaction to him than the actions he’d undertaken. The taint of the magicks he used wasn’t enough to explain her compulsion where he was concerned, but she had no other explanation.

  She did, however, know she couldn’t ignore what he was doing. Drugging women and selling them like chattel was inexcusable.

  He needs to be stopped.

  The .38 was heavy in her palm before she realized she’d reached into her bag. The stainless steel vein down the back of the grip didn’t burn her hands or weaken her as it would if she were truly a full glaistig. With her mortal blood still dominant, iron and steel barely gave her a twinge. Instead, the gun felt right in her hands; the desire to sight down on the tainted mortal was a compulsion inside that grew from a whisper to a roar.