Marked (Servants of Fate Book 1)

  And saw red eyes peering back at him in the window glass, just like they had the night he’d found Cacy in the Veil. He froze. It was his own reflection.

  Then Cacy ground against him, erasing coherent thoughts from his mind, forcing him to close his eyes as lightning strikes of pure pleasure hit him hard. He gripped her hips and relentlessly pumped in and out, chasing only feeling. Cacy cried out, and her fingers curled into the sheets. But when she tried to look over her shoulder at him, he bent over her, bracing himself with one arm. “Close your eyes,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled back. “Don’t look at me.”

  “I see you better than you see yourself,” she replied, shoving her hips back as he slid inside her once again. Her body clenched around his, and they both moaned. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t think past the mind-blowing bliss that made him desperate with the need to move, to thrust, to ignite.

  Eli buried his face against her neck, cursing and apologizing with each breath, his pace becoming more urgent. Cacy met him stroke for stroke, demanding more of him, refusing to let him pull away again. Refusing to accept any less than everything he had. She reached up and folded her arm around his neck, slippery with sweat and taut with barely bridled energy. She wove her fingers through his hair as they moved together; every time he flexed forward, she bowed her back, inviting him all the way in. He inhaled the scent of her, now deepened by heat and want, and drew his tongue along her neck just to taste her skin.

  Her inner muscles drew tight around his shaft as her hand slid down his arm, guiding his hand between her legs. She pressed her palm over his, spreading his fingers, letting him feel where they were connected by the wet slide of his body into hers. She turned her head and nuzzled against his cheek.

  “Do you feel this?” she said softly as she drew his fingers back and forth against the meeting of iron and silk, hard and soft, all soaked with the heat of desire. “This is what you do to me.”

  And then she looked into his eyes . . . and didn’t look away. “Don’t ever stop,” she gasped as he hit her deep. Cacy’s lips parted and she arched back. Eli covered her mouth with his, kissing her hard and absorbing the hitching sound of her pleasure, letting it reverberate all the way to his bones. Letting it drive him wild. He reared back as his body took over completely, giving in to the powerful, merciless rhythm of his hips, the invasion of her soft flesh, the maddening cadence of her moans, the frenzied grasp of her hand as her nails scraped along his hip, pulling him closer, urging him on.

  The heat came from deep within him, that hidden place that had always been there, that he had never admitted to. It welled up, drawn to the surface by the tight clutch of her body, the relentless motion of her hips. It simmered at the sight of her hands fisted in the sheets, the sweat glistening along her shoulders where the wings of the raven were spread in flight. The pressure of it built with the feel of her—her full breasts bouncing in time with his thrusts, her nipples taut as he rolled them between his fingers. Almost there . . .

  Cacy’s muscles locked beneath his hands as an orgasm rolled through her. She gasped his name with every fierce spasm of her body. And it was exactly what he’d needed to ignite. He slammed into her and roared with his release, shaking the walls and windows, sending tidal waves of heat through the room. Cacy undulated against him as he gushed inside her, wringing every last shred of pleasure from both of them.

  Eli came back to himself slowly, his body tingling with the aftershocks of his climax, his throat raw, his chest heaving. He rolled to his side and pulled Cacy with him, tucking her against his body, unable to believe her response to his loss of control.

  She hadn’t pushed him away. She had demanded more.

  He bowed his head and kissed her shoulder, letting his gaze linger gratefully on the creamy hue of her skin. He pressed his forehead to her shoulder blade as relief washed over him. For a few moments there, he was convinced he’d turned into an animal, a raging storm that would destroy anything in its path, including the woman in his arms. But that wasn’t what had happened. She had weathered it—no, it had gone far beyond that. She had controlled it, controlled him, but not by trying to hold him back. She had set him free. She had been there with him, as wild as he was and just as strong. And now he was lying here, nearly paralyzed with the power of his feelings for her. He spread his fingers over her chest, pressing his palm between her breasts where her heart beat rapidly.

  She sighed and placed her hand over his. “It’s yours, you know.”

  “I don’t deserve it.”

  She turned to face him and threw her leg over his hip, drawing him to her. Her hand stroked down his cheek as she looked into his eyes. “I don’t believe in deserving. You haven’t deserved most of what has happened to you. But it happened anyway. So did we. We happened, Eli. I’m so thankful for that. I love you.”

  Eli stared at her, rolling her words over in his head. “Would you mind saying that again, please?”

  She smiled, her full lips curled in that painfully sexy way. “How much will you pay me?”

  He kissed her as his body awakened again, intoxicated by the heady ring of those three words in his mind. When she felt the hard jut of his erection against her leg, she made a little sound of surprise. “Oh, that was quick,” she breathed. “In that case, I think we can work out some sort of payment plan.”

  He made love to her slowly this time, gently, whispering his devotion against her skin, worshipping every part of her. It was like floating in a warm sea, bathed with the sun, weightless and peaceful. He’d never had that feeling before, that sense of being carried, lifted up and yet completely surrounded, caressed but not shackled. As he lost himself in her again, letting her body undo his control, letting her words of love devastate him, he realized what the feeling was: happiness. Even now, with his life transformed, his soul taken, his will not entirely his own, he was happy.

  Because of Cacy. This amazing woman who had saved him from himself. Her heart was his. In that moment, as she arched beneath him, her lips parted, her sweat-damp hair spread across his pillow, as he was rocked to the core by the force of his love for her, he vowed to spend the rest of his existence earning the right to call her his.

  They came together, holding on tight, trembling with the release. Cacy collapsed against his chest as he rolled onto his back and cradled her head with his hand. He was still panting, but he could feel her muscles going loose with exhaustion. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Never better,” she mumbled. “I just . . . need to . . .”

  She drifted off with a sigh, never finishing the sentence. The slow, even rise and fall of her chest told him she was asleep. It made him smile, that she felt safe enough to pass out on him. He welcomed the responsibility as much as the delicious, warm weight of her body and the tickle of her hair on his chest. He ran his fingers through the silky strands and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

  Fiery pain shot up his arm, a now familiar call to action. He glanced down at his arm to see a name appearing in spidery black scrawl. Lori Gaugin. “No,” he breathed. “Not now.” But the face in his mind erased his bliss, blotting out everything else.

  Still, Eli didn’t move, focusing his gaze on Cacy’s delicate fingers, which spread across his chest possessively.

  The pressure built in his gut, that need to find his victim boring its way through him, causing him to tense to keep from groaning with the agony. “Cacy?” He didn’t want to leave her like this.

  She whispered his name in her sleep but didn’t move. He shook her gently, trying to rouse her, but it was no good. Finally, he gave up, silently promising her he’d be back soon. He edged out from under her and yanked on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, determined to be back and naked with her again in a matter of minutes. He let the pull of the Kere tug him into the Veil somewhere near downtown. He immediately walked forward, stepping into the real world, alrea
dy looking for the woman whose face was newly stamped on his brain.

  Lori Gaugin sat in her car, which was pulled to the side of the road near a busy intersection. She frowned as she opened her door and looked down at her flat front tire.

  “Dammit,” she snapped.

  Eli walked toward her, determined to end this quickly. He reached out to brush her shoulder, the pressure in his body ratcheting to nearly unbearable levels. He shouldn’t have denied it for this long.

  A blonde woman appeared from nowhere, as if she’d stepped through a curtain of invisibility. Her long red-lacquered nails scraped up Lori Gaugin’s back, causing her to spin in place and look around. Eli blinked as the blonde woman disappeared.

  Lori took a step backward, still searching for the person who’d touched her. Her eyes met Eli’s.

  And she was run over by a passing taxi.

  Eli stared helplessly as she lay crumpled on the road, where another car rolled over her legs. She shrieked in pain, fully conscious, her eyes round with terror and glazed with agony. Eli instinctively moved forward to help her, but a hand closed around his neck and yanked him to the side. He stumbled, gasping as the icy air of the Veil surrounded him.

  When he turned, the blonde was standing in front of him. She wore a skin-tight shirt, a short skirt, and high heels. Her red-lacquered claws matched her eyes.

  Eli recognized her. She looked different here in the Veil, and far more vicious, but there was no doubt it was the woman who’d tried to buy him a drink the day he’d died.

  “What’s up, gorgeous?” The woman smiled. “I’m Mandy,” she said, her voice raspy and low.

  Eli rubbed his neck, and his hand came away dripping with blood. She held up her claws and waved at him. “This could have turned out differently if you’d only let me buy you that drink.” She pouted. “I hate to damage anything so edible-looking.”

  She lashed out so quickly he barely saw it happen. He looked down to see his blood splatter onto the soft gray sidewalk, from four deep gashes beneath the shredded fabric of his T-shirt.

  A growl rolled up from his throat as his own claws lengthened. This woman was a Ker, but obviously not his friend. In fact, Eli was certain she was the one who had Marked him that day. She had been in the bar, too, just after he’d left Moros. She had put her hand on his chest, right where Cacy had seen the Mark.

  That meant she was the rogue. She was the one who was after Galena. And now she had Marked Eli’s victim, leaving him with Lori Gaugin’s face in his mind and name on his arm, his need to Mark still unsatisfied. He snarled and bared his teeth at Mandy, a familiar rage building in his chest, almost overcoming the awful pressure twisting his insides. “Try that again.”

  She grinned. “So brave. So stupid.” Her claws came rocketing toward him, but he caught her wrist and twisted her arm behind her. She kicked at him with her spiked heels and raked long furrows down his shins. Something silver flashed in front of his eyes, and a sharp pain stabbed through his throat, distracting him for a moment, which was all she needed to break loose from his hold.

  She took a few steps back, licking her lips. He staggered forward, nearly doubling over from the now-unbearable pain. It felt like someone had cut him open, shoveled hot coals into his body, and sewn him up. She watched him with a knowing smirk. “You didn’t Mark your kill, my friend. So disobedient of you.” Her blonde hair bobbed around her shoulders as she nodded toward the street. Traffic was piling up, and a transparent crowd of onlookers surrounded the wounded woman, whose screams were so loud they could be heard in the Veil. She was dying. Slowly. Painfully.

  Mandy nodded, like it was her intention for the woman to suffer. Eli suddenly understood why Cacy was suspicious of the Kere. As if to drive the point home, Mandy lifted her fingers to her lips and licked his blood from her fingertips with obvious relish. Her glowing red eyes lit on his. “And now you’ve stolen a Scope. You’ve only been a Ker for a day, and look how much trouble you’re in. Moros will not be pleased.”

  Through the haze of his agony, Eli raised his head, finally noticing the cool, heavy weight cinched tight around his neck. Somehow, Mandy had looped it over his head. “Who did you take this from?”

  “Let’s say it’s a fitting trophy for you to be found with. Now, I’m off to deal with your sister.” She winked at him and disappeared.

  Eli focused everything he had on getting back to his apartment, on getting to Galena and Cacy before Mandy could hurt them. But all he could see in his mind was the dying woman, and all he could feel was the burning pressure building inside his body, slowly reducing him to ash.

  A shrieking growl spun him around, his eyes skimming the street and sidewalk. There, half a block away, a shadowy creature was limping toward him, its arms outstretched. A Shade.

  Moros had told him the Shades would attack a Ferry to try to climb back into the real world, and Eli was wearing a Scope around his neck, the perfect invitation to target him. He tried to rip it from his body, but his own claws were so long and his fingers so clumsy he almost tore his own throat out.

  “Shit,” he said, stumbling back, burned by the blood gushing from his chest. His legs crumpled beneath him. He landed on the sidewalk on all fours and began to scramble toward the dying woman, thinking that maybe if he touched her, the pain would stop and he could fight back, and then he could get back to the two people in the world who mattered most to him. Even if, at the moment, he couldn’t quite remember who they were.

  He half slid, half crawled along the gelatinous sidewalk, punching through the soft surface of Lori Gaugin’s car, nearly drowning in the suffocating jellylike mass before emerging from the other side. He landed in a sprawl a few feet from the crowd, who were mere shadows in the Veil. The Shade shrieked again, the wet slap of its feet against the sidewalk spurring him to action. It would be on him in a few seconds. He stretched his hand out, but it passed through Lori’s transparent body, the lurid orange Mark of death right in the center of her back. She wasn’t dead, so she wasn’t solid in the Veil. He needed to be in the real world to touch her. He closed his eyes, trying to get there, but a body landed on his back, knocking him onto his stomach.

  “It’s mine, it’s mine,” chanted the Shade as its spindly, slimy gray arms wrapped around his neck.

  Eli arched his back and flipped the Shade over his shoulder. It was a female, with long patchy red hair, bone-white skull showing through the bare spots. He sat back as it rolled toward him. “Shauna?”

  Oozing blue eyes blinked at him. “I killed you,” she grunted. But she’d stopped grasping at him. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, like she was trying to decide what to say. Her jagged teeth protruded from her mouth. Some of them had fallen out, and a clear fluid leaked from the corners of her lips.

  Eli tried to remember everything he knew about the Ferrys, but he could barely push any words that weren’t Lori Gaugin Lori Gaugin Lori Gaugin past his lips. “Didn’t”—Lori—“one of your family come”—Gaugin—“to guide your soul?”

  Shauna looked down at herself, her dress covered in greasy patches of corpse wax, her skin sagging from her bones in loose, fragile folds. She was rotting alive, a fact of which she seemed keenly aware. Her decaying fingers reached up to touch her face. “I ran from him here in the Veil. It was all his idea. He told me to do it. He said you were dangerous and a threat to our family. He said he’d tell my parents about my boyfriend. I wasn’t supposed to die.”

  Eli grunted as another bolt of fire struck inside him. He’d scarcely heard a word she said. His arms gave out, and he hit the sidewalk, Lori Gaugin’s face crowding out all his other thoughts.

  Shauna leaned toward him, giving off the sick-sweet smell of putrefaction. “Mine. I need it.”

  Eli tried to fight her, but he could barely move. She removed the Scope from his neck and hugged it against her rotting breast, cooing to it. Then she turned to him, her streami
ng, nearly liquefied irises focused on his. His fingers twitched in agony as he stared helplessly at her. He was supposed to be doing something. He was supposed to be somewhere else. But all he could think was Lori Gaugin Lori Gaugin Lori Gaugin.

  Lori Gaugin . . . He swore he could see her right in front of him, sitting up, getting to her feet. He grabbed for her, but his shaking hand missed her legs by several inches.

  A bright white light nearly blinded him. It got bigger, shining like the full moon, then disappeared abruptly.

  His pain disappeared, too. Eli ran his hands over his ravaged neck and chest, still weak but no longer in agony. He pushed himself up. Shauna the Shade was standing in front of him, a Scope in her upturned palm. She had guided Lori Gaugin’s soul to Heaven, cutting off his bone-deep compulsion to Mark, saving him from being reduced to cinders right there on the sidewalk. In the space now available in his head, Cacy’s delicate face appeared. Next to her was Galena. And next to her was Mandy, lacquered claws reaching. Eli closed his eyes, needing to get back and make sure that image never became a reality.

  “Wait. I need your help,” Shauna lisped. One of her teeth fell out and landed on the sidewalk. “Please.” She grabbed his arm in a shockingly strong grip while she brushed her thumb over the etched scales on her Scope with her other hand. Another beam of sparkling light shot up from its surface. “Tell my parents I love them and that I’m in Heaven. Please take my Scope to them.”

  When he nodded, she opened the Scope wide and stepped through, leaving it to fall to the sidewalk. His heart crashing within his ravaged chest, his thoughts racing, Eli grabbed the Scope.

  Someone had blackmailed Shauna into killing him. Someone had given Shauna’s Scope to Mandy. And that someone wanted Galena dead.