Blood Cursed (19 page)

Famine crushed my hair in strengthening fists. His skinny body hardened and filled out with muscle. Curves swelled, skin stretched, flesh forming fiber by fiber, tightening over bone. He forced his mouth onto mine, sucking in my breath. “Mmm. That’s it. Show me more.”

I tore my mouth away. “No. Stop. Please.”

His growl rusted my mouth dry. “I’m starving, Ember. Feed me. Don’t make me hurt you.”

Green fearstain splashed between us, hot and sticky. I recoiled, but more images flooded, irresistible.

Older, fourteen going on twenty, a body I can’t control and passion-crazy moonblood I don’t want to resist. My first vampire, a gorgeous pewter-eyed maniac who promises me flowers, the pain and terror as his teeth tear my skin, the cold hollow inside as I think he’s going to kill me, the shame afterwards that I never get over.

Jobs, interviews, scratchy human clothes that don’t fit and my dirtyscarlet hair pulled back like a nun’s, typing tests I can’t do because my stupid claws keep catching no matter how I cut them, long walks home in tears because I can’t afford the train. A greasy fat human boss with sour breath and dull, glamour-piercing eyes, who grabs my wings and pushes me over a desk and whispers, It’s okay, young lady, I won’t tell a soul, not if you’re a good fairy girl and do exactly as I say. Carpet stings my knees, his vile skin scraping my fingers and his sweat’s rotten stench before bile chokes my throat and I scramble up and run.

I whimpered, but Famine just swallowed my cries. “More. Such sweet guilt, Ember. Show me why you hate yourself so much.”

“No.” I shuddered and struggled. I didn’t want to. That one hurt too much. But Famine’s kiss drenched me in ugly self-pity and I couldn’t help but drown.

Ash, my darling bloodfairy boy. My only friend, dying parched and drained to keep me safe. I cry, every sunrise in our grubby little room when he stumbles home bleeding, too exhausted to kiss me or talk to me or eat the food I buy with his trick money. His pretty brown skin bleaches and crumbles, night after night, wingpanes riddled with cracking holes, and his faded golden hair breaks off like yellow candy in my hands as I plead with him to stop, it’s killing you, we’ll find something else.

Famine laughed, rich with desire. “But he didn’t stop, did he?”

I whimpered, lost. No, Ash didn’t stop. And he didn’t die in my arms. I couldn’t even offer him that comfort. He sneaked out one night while I slept for one more trick, and I never saw him alive again.

“But that’s not the worst, is it?” Famine nuzzled my throat, nipping me. “Tell me, Ember. Say it.”

His will forced into my mind like a drugged needle. I choked and fought, but I couldn’t keep silent.

“I never tried to take his place!” Tears stuffed my throat like broken glass, and I sobbed, bleeding. “I never tried to help. I could’ve sold my blood instead, so he could recover. If we’d shared—”

“If you’d shared, maybe he’d still be alive.” Famine’s voice chewed black holes my heart. “But you never did. Why not, Ember? Such a little thing. Why didn’t you help?”

“I was frightened!” It spilled out stained in golden despair. Ash was a memory, but my guilt was alive and ravenous. “I couldn’t bear it! Those horrible vampires—”

“What? Sucking on your blood? Like they did his?”

“Yes! Ash was strong. He could take it. But I …”

“But you were weak.” Famine yanked my hair back, and green ichor splashed over his face. “You never insisted. He brushed you off and you let him. He died because you’re a coward.”

I sobbed in Famine’s embrace, despair stabbing hot blades through my heart. His fingers crept over my waist, popping the buttons. He was peeling away my dress, sniffing hungrily at me. I didn’t care.

Poor, besotted Ash. I’d said I loved him. What a dirty, lethal lie. I didn’t love anyone. Especially not myself.

“Come on, sweetie. More. What did you do then? Why did you end up with that nasty Jasper?” Famine mouthed my nipple through my bra, sharp teeth catching. The sting jolted me forward, and my mind hurtled headlong, horrid memories spilling like black poison.

Jasper that first night, hot and passionate under the swelling moon, slinky black with lies. I’m desperate and vulnerable, my body weeping pleasure in his embrace. Later, when he thinks I’m asleep, I hear him on the phone, talking his dirty business of drugs and death, and I realize who I’ve hooked up with and I feel sick. I should smile, walk away, never come back.

“But you didn’t.” Famine licked my belly, tasting me. “You were too afraid.”

I nodded, sobbing. Jasper had an evil, sunflash temper. I was scared of what he might do to me if I angered him.

But also because he might leave me. Because I needed protection, too weak and scared to survive on my own. Because this dangerous, selfish, beautiful fairy boy might be the last good thing I ever got in my life.

A shattering smile, some stolen kisses, a couple of scorching nights of passion, and before I know it, I’m living in his apartment, wearing clothes he bought me, jewels he gave me, the haircut he chose for me, living the decent life I’ll never afford without him because I’m bloodfae, talentless, just a useless prettygirl.

Tiptoeing around when he’s in a nasty mood, hoping I won’t shuffle or sigh or drop something at the wrong moment and make him mad. Lying awake beside him at four in the morning, wondering how the hell I got here, if tomorrow he’ll lose interest and throw me out and I’ll be left on the street with nothing but a false candy smile and a body full of vampire-bait blood. I don’t want to die like Ash. I have no choice.

Later, when he starts hitting me, I cry in the shower where he can’t see the tears. I know he doesn’t love me. How could anyone love me? But I’m too afraid of being alone to leave.

I spluttered, green fluid splashing my naked chest. Jasper kept me around because I made him look good and gave him all the sex he wanted, at least all he wanted from me. My girlfriends didn’t talk to me anymore. I’d no time for them. I spent my hours shopping, getting haircuts and beauty treatments, desperate to be more beautiful, more fashionable, the perfect girlfriend. Jasper insisted.

Famine grinned. “Only he didn’t, did he? Not in so many words.”

I sobbed. No, it was that hot, calculating look in his darkviolet eyes, the one that said,
Better take care of yourself, Emmy. I can have any girl I want. Better make sure it’s you.

It was my own gut-numbing fear.

“Self-absorbed little tart.” Famine’s whisper savaged my soul. “Preening and cowering, wasting your life away to please a man who doesn’t care.”

“Because he’d leave me and I’d be alone!” The words spilled out, scarlet with despair and agony and tears. I was humiliating myself. I didn’t care. I just wanted to scream it to the world, cut that horrid swelling disgust from my heart so it couldn’t hurt me anymore.

“You’re too scared to be alone, aren’t you?” Famine’s lips caressed mine, and he whispered between kisses to savage my soul. “Too scared to live. And now Jasper’s dead and you’re lost. Scrabbling in the dark. Offering yourself to any man who’ll flatter and adore you and make you forget what a worthless piece of meat you are. Your fresh pink fairy boy, for instance. Pretending there’s something more so you can lie to yourself all over again.”

I howled, tears splashing. He was right. I hadn’t just wanted Diamond because I was moonstruck or horny or infatuated by his smile. I’d wanted him because sex was the only way I knew to get him to like me. If he gave me the chance, I’d do anything to make myself into the girl I thought he wanted. And it’d start all over again.

I slumped, unable to fight any longer. My wings drooped limp with fatigue and pain.
You win, Famine. Drink me up. I don’t care.

Famine smiled, his breath ragged on my lips. “I know, sweetie. It hurts. It’d be a relief to die here, wouldn’t it?”

His words pierced me like a poisoned blade, and for a horrible moment, all I could think was
yes
.

My heart screamed, but I couldn’t unthink that cowardly thought.

I shivered and sweated, self-disgust hacking at my bones. I’d really rather die than face myself? After all I’d been through, trying to save my soul, I couldn’t even fight this hellspelled madman off with a
no thanks
? I couldn’t even scream,
fuck you, do your worst, you’ll have to kill me first
. The only defense I had to Famine’s ugly mindrape magic was to hang here and wallow in steaming self-pity.

I didn’t respect myself. I hated my life. But I was too shit-scared to do anything about it.

And because of that, no one would ever love me. How could they? I’d never love myself. I didn’t have to fail Kane’s test to go to hell. I already lived there. And no matter how I lived, I’d die alone.

I sobbed, lost. Utter despair loomed black and smothering, a cruel specter of death. Famine had unearthed my deepest, most secret fear, and he’d done it as easily as a crazy pink fairy smearing fingerpaint on the wall.

Famine groaned, pleasure or tension shuddering his body rigid. “Yes, Ember. Feed me. Let me have it. Don’t hold back.”

His serpentine grip dragged harder, stronger, tearing my heart up my throat and out the top of my head. Bright agony flooded, and I couldn’t help but give him what he wanted.

I screamed.

In the next room, Vincent crouches in the dark, rose-tinted glasses clinging to his nose in hungry sweat. Blackness swamps him, even his virus-sharp eyes detecting no light. But the fairyspelled lenses give him pain-vision, and through the wall he sees Ember, locked between floor and ceiling, her lovely wings thrashing useless. She’s screaming as Famine does what Famine does, and dark passion quivers in Vincent’s hungry heart.

She’s so vulnerable. So tender inside. Just watching her makes him shiver, a hot frisson of hunger and sorrow. To caress her weeping body, kiss her trembling lips, pierce that coffeecream skin and ease her smooth rich blood into his mouth and swallow …

It’s both sick and beautiful, and Vincent grimaces in the dark, his teeth aching hard. There was a time when he’d have rescued her. But this is the world he lives in now, he and the virus-mad beast in his blood, and the beast likes it here.

Screams rend the air like claws, and his mouth drips with hungry spit at the luscious scent of all this torment. Screw it. He’s thinking too much. It’s easier just to eat, and forget about it. One day he’ll atone for his monstrous appetite in hell.

But not for a very long time.

The air crackles azure, his lust spilling out, and in the distance someone cackles and howls, overcome.

He sucks in hot breath, calming. Gotta keep it in. Gotta keep it to himself. Famine’s basement will kill you, and vampires don’t die easy.

Let’s just do what we came for.
Ember, rich and delicious under the moon. But not before Diamond gets his fill of despair.

He slips sweaty fingers into his pocket. He doesn’t have the pinkdick bastard’s number. But Ember does. And she so thoughtfully left her bag in his car. Nice tiger’s eye gemstone in there, too. He’s not up on the whole story, but he gets the feeling Famine will like that. Demons, souls, gems, whatever. It’s all just a game.

She has two phones, his and hers. Vincent picks the cracked one, and covers the screen with his hand so as not to break the blackness as he finds the number and calls.

Diamond picks up in half a ring, harmonics ripe with worry. “Candy? You okay?”

Vincent grins. “Oh, she’s peachy. Guess where I am, asshat?”

Diamond’s voice ripples cold. “Up shit creek in a razorwire canoe is where you are, buttwad. Let me talkify her.”

In the next room, Ember writhes and moans, her dress ripping in Famine’s hungry claws, and the air bleeds green like witch’s oil with her torment. Vincent squirms, palms itching to touch. “Sure. Oh, wait, sorry. She’s kinda tied up with Famine right now.”

“Ooh, I’m gonna have fun hurting you.”

“Hey, she asked me to bring her here, mate. What was I meant to do? Lie to her, like you?” Vincent pushes his glasses up with trembling fingers, fixated on the thrust of her thighs as she struggles, the glowing sweat oozing from her skin, her heaving half-naked breasts. So lovely and vulnerable … “Can’t believe you let a cherry pie like her outta your sight. Shoulda known better. Anyway, just wanna let you know she’ll be late home. She’s playing a double feature tonight. Hey, maybe you can help me. First date nerves and all. Does she like it fast or slow?”

“Just you keep on talkifying, moron.”

Vincent laughs, sweaty desire prickling his skin. “What for? So you can feel like you’re protecting her for a few seconds longer?”

A hot glassy hand clamps down on his throat.

His breath squeezes away. Hard fairy flesh slams into his back, ramming him facefirst into the hot brick wall.

Brutal scarlet fairylight refracts like sunflash in his lenses, scorching him blind. He sucks back an agonized howl, razors slicing his optic nerves ragged, and the phone drops from his numb fingers and smashes.

“No, fuckstick.” Diamond’s whisper scorches Vincent’s ear, and gloating fairy fingers slide up his cheek like a kiss. “It’s so I can find you in the dark.”

22

I screamed, and the world screamed back.

Noise ruptured, flesh ripping and hearts breaking and feelings torn to shreds. Fear cramped my muscles, unbearable. My wings shrieked taut. My stomach wrung tight like a chamois, and it sucked my breath away.

But I still managed to scream, and scream, and scream again.

At last I squeezed my eyes shut, exhausted, but some malicious magic in the glasses dragged my eyelids open. The air glowed with my pain, a shimmering neongreen sunset. Fairy perfume clotted my nose, and I knew it came from
him
.

Famine hovered on glowing sapphire wings, his violet skin gleaming. Sweat shone on muscles no longer wasted but slim and tight, his long indigo hair sifting like darkspun glass. Only his red albino eyes remained, glinting sickly at me, a reminder that any life he retained, he’d stolen from me.

Did he do this every night? Starve white, so hungry he had to devour some innocent creature to stay alive? Or was he just a glutton, sucking life from others to feed his grotesque appetite?

I struggled, thrashing my head. I wanted to look away, but those horrid pink lenses peeled my eyelids back.

And a fiery blue gleam dragged my eyes front.

There. On his narrow chest. A lump swelled his skin, just a few inches below his throat. His newly fresh skin parted there, and a gemstone winked, seablue.

Jasper’s ring muttered and writhed on my finger, and I gulped. Famine’s gemstone. Embedded in his flesh.

My nerves hacked raw with razor certainty. I’d have to kill him. Or at least knock him insensible, so I could cut it out. No fucking loss. I’d felt sorry for Crimson. This guy deserved a rotten shock.

But that didn’t make it any easier. Not chained to the ceiling with fearfever quivering my blood.

Famine swooped behind me, his fresh body heat taunting mine. He rubbed his cheek against my wing’s edge, intimate. My membrane recoiled, and he laughed, warm and ripe with hunger. “We’re not done yet, Ember. We’ve explored your fear. Now I want to taste your pain.”

God, it was good to hear him say that.

Strange relief cooled my burning bones. Even if I wouldn’t like what happened next, pain was so … ordinary. It made him more fathomable. Less dangerous. Like a common thug.

My blood thrilled, hopeful. I could already feel him, the sweet twisted hardness of his cock sliding against my bottom. Maybe Famine was like any other guy. Get him focused on his dick, he’ll stop paying attention and I can get free.

I spat, even though I knew I couldn’t hit him. “Screw you, sickfae. You’re not special, you know that? Just another horny guy who wants to touch. Go right ahead. I don’t give a fuck.”

But my body trembled, writhing on panic’s razorcut edge, and when he grazed a warm claw over my breast, I felt it deep down in my belly, and I knew with quivering certainty that this wouldn’t be so easy. He’d already raped me, mentally at least. I didn’t know if I could take it again.

He tweaked my nipple, and I couldn’t help but gasp. It didn’t feel good. But it sure as hell felt. Hard. Tense. Relentless. Magenta syrup flooded the air, stirring in with green, that squirmraw sensation mixing with my fear.

He did it again, cupping my breast and teasing my nipple hard. I cried out, helpless. My nerves strung taut like a marionette’s strings, and Famine knew exactly how to play them to get the reaction he wanted. Not pleasure. Humiliation. The disgust of reacting to his caress.

“Get off me!” I thrashed, but the manacles held fast. My wings throbbed with hot blood. A thick ache swelled between my legs, not arousal but panic response, all those fight-or-flight chemicals screaming in my veins. I longed for relief, but I didn’t want him to touch me. My body would react, and I’d scream and shudder and break apart, and he’d get every scrap of the evil self-hating emotion he wanted from me.

Famine’s dark chuckle tingled through my wingjoints like sparkling blackjewel. My arms strained in their steely prisons, my wings jerking backwards on a taut knife’s edge. And then he licked me, hot and deliberate, right where wing meets shoulder.

It felt horrible. It felt beautiful. I gasped, dark loathsome sensation rippling through my body, and squeezed my eyes shut on Famine’s black laughter.

Diamond tears his darkglamour apart and flashes into sight.

Vincent howls, blinded by the glare. Diamond grabs Vincent’s pink glasses and rips them off, ramming his knee into the skanky bloodsucker’s balls for good measure. “Upshut, fuckweed.”

Swiftly he jams the glasses on his own nose and blinks himself dim. His glow winks out like a dead Christmas tree. Now Vincent can’t see.

Good fucking riddamance. Through Famine’s hell-glasses, the air streams crimson with foul vampire hunger, along with all the other torn-up emotions that string the atmosphere tight like piano wire.

Diamond’s anger stirs like rotten egg, and he longs to yank the lenses off and crush them. He sneakified in here dim in the dark, with nothing but glassfae tricksies to light his way. He’d prefer impenetrable darkness to this sick suffermad rainbow. But he must find Ember.

He tried to let her go her own way. Tried to let her walk out of his life. But he couldn’t let her go. The idea of her facing Famine alone …

Vincent fangsnaps and struggles, but Diamond jams him tighter against the wall, flashing a glance left and right. Walls. Open doorway. More doors. Shadowfied people doing sick shit.

Famine’s never changes. Rosa brought him here once, bored or titillated. He didn’t like it, but he did what she wantified. He always did everything she wantified. But not anymore.

He scrabbles in Vincent’s pocket and rips Ember’s bag free, crushing Vincent’s hip into the wall with sparkle-ripped strength. No way he’d come down here soberfied. Not after Ember left, practicamally in tears, her disappointment searing his soul like ironfairy rage. If he’d truthed her from the beginning, they could’ve come here together, and she’d be safe.

He snaps sharp teeth on Vincent’s ear, rich blood splashing hot. “This bag hers? Keeping a souvemanir? You make me spew.”

“Spew away. I eat my souvenirs. How about your balls?” Vincent snarls, black with oozing hatred, and he coils thick vampire muscles and whiplashes free.

But Diamond’s ready. And he grabs Vincent’s arm and hurls, letting the cocky prick’s momentum do the job.

Vincent stumbles, and spins blindly into that open doorway, and quick as a snakyshifter scumbag, Diamond pirouettes on flashing wings and slams the door shut.

The door rattles as Vincent flings himself against it, raining distant curses. Diamond holds on grimly and forces the rusted iron bar home. “Till you rottify, pusbrain.”

Thick scarlet fury spills under the door like blood, and Diamond spits and walks away.

Ahead, the pinklit corridor looms dark, edges wavering in tunnelblack gloom. It’s Famine’s sick faesight that the glasses show, this shadowy world trapped in spelled fairyglass, outlines and see-throughs and secrets floating on breath. Only they’re secrets Diamond doesn’t want to hear, rainbowbright like flayed bodies. But he forces himself to look, his blood throbbing tight with rage. She’s here somewhere. Can’t leavify. Can’t abandon her. Can’t let Famine hurt her.

He darts around a doorway, where a fat black spriggan in leather taunts a wriggling fairy girl with his long pointysharp blade. She’s tied to a post, her mouth stuffed with her own severed applegreen hair, and the spriggan’s started on her wings, stabbing the sensitive membranes with holes while she chokes and bleeds murky despair stained with blood.

Diamond swoops in on heat-drenched black air, and kicks the spriggan’s head against the wall.

Thunk. The sweaty body drops soundlessly. Diamond plucks the sword up before it falls, and cuts the fairy girl’s ropes, snickersnack. “You okay, darlin’?”

She just thrashes and spits, and flutters off bleeding.

Diamond whirls in midair and searches on, the blade light in his hand. Darts his glassfae sight through doorways and around corners, searching for a spicy Emberwhiff. Watches on the colored emotion currents for something familiar.

Hell, he barely knowifies her. Only that she smells of blossom and her kiss sparkles like peppered honey, and when she smiles, some coldcrystal thing in his heart melts like hot chocolate fudge—

His pulse backflips. In the corner, honeyed scent flowing cherryred, mixed with the musky moonspice of her blood.

It’s Ember, chained hands and feet, spilling fear and loathing like green vomit. And a cruel-eyed fairy, glowing triumph-blue. Shadows crush around him like dead ghosts, his spindly hands on her body. She’s half-naked, luscious flesh spilling out, her rich girlscent a bold lure.

Ember, shuddering in pain as she forces back a scream. And Famine, mindsense maniac, shining with magic and mayhem and malicious intent. He’s tearing her mind out. Scraping it open for everyone to see. She’s howling and struggling and clawing with invisible will to keep it in, but the air’s snaking green with her evil, hate-rich dreams, and Diamond squeezes his eyes shut but he can’t not seeify.

He can’t stop seeifying her. With Jasper. With other faceless men who hurt her. With a nameless, dying bloodfae boy. But always alone. Feardrenched. Her own shivering prisoner.

Diamond’s scarlet rageflash lights the air. She’s chained to the bricks, helpless. And even he can’t match Famine’s spellifications. He doesn’t have a prayer.

But he doesn’t think. He doesn’t hesitate. He just dives for that precious scent, somersaults with his wickedsharp blade scything, and kicks the door open in midair.