Evanescent (2 page)

“Wes, would you kill for me?” A tiny smile
hedges on my lips as I clutch the blade like a threat.

“You bet I’d kill for you.” Wes dots the
homicidal intention with a kiss, and my insides rip with fire.
Wesley has far too much power over me. All of the headiness of
first love resides with him. He creates a buoyancy in my spirit
whenever he’s around. I wish he didn’t. I wish I hated Wesley with
everything in me. That would make being his enemy a hell of a lot
easier.

A series of childlike screams erupt from an
overgrown crate that Blaine and Fletch haul over—the sacrifice of
the evening, no doubt.

A ragged breath escapes me as I cast a
glance at the forest that skirts the vicinity. Cooper is out there
somewhere, amidst the creatures that roam these woods, in an effort
to watch over me.

“You don’t have to kill for me, Wes.” It
comes out soft like a dream. Everything feels like a dream in these
nocturnal woods tonight.

Kresley licks her lips while glaring right
at me. Her fingers curl around her knife like a promise. She’s the
one Wes spent his time with, surrendered the most intimate part of
himself to while we were apart, and now she wants him back with a
fervor.

Wes picks up my hand and gives a gentle
squeeze.

Forget about killing the damn birds. I’ll be
too busy making sure Kres keeps her weaponry the hell away from
Laken.

A dull laugh rattles from me as I free
myself from his fingers. I still have enough of Cooper’s Celestra
blood satiating my cellular structure, enabling me to read anyone’s
thoughts through the simple act of touch. Of course, Wes can read
my thoughts, too, but for far more nefarious reasons. I wonder if
Wes would be so eager to kill for me tonight if he knew I was
playing him. That I was onto his little game and was determined to
take him and the entire lot of our vermin breed out of the
celestial picture?

I’m pretty sure the repercussions would be
huge. Cooper Flanders would wind up dead—or worse. He would
disappear from the planet if Wes knew he was working with me to
dismantle the network of body snatchers I bore my allegiance
to.

“State your lineage.” Blaine howls it into
the wind like a battle cry that carries for miles.

He points to the person on my left and
progresses from Count to Count as each of the hooded entities state
their father’s name and pledge themselves as a member of the
Countenance.

“Conrad Paxton.” Wesley sounds off with the
lusty cry of a soldier reporting for duty. “I bear the blood of the
Counts.”

I’m thrown for a moment. Who the hell is
Conrad?

A beat of unnatural silence ticks by, and
suddenly all eyes are on me—the last and final inquiry of the
evening.

“Laken,” Fletch hisses. “Wake up.”

Crap.

I give Wes a nervous look.

“Say your father’s name and state the
Countenance.” Wes seems irritated that I haven’t been paying
attention.

The smooth scent of the evergreens wafts in
with a chilled breeze. The cries of the peafowl scream into the
night like small children begging for mercy.

My father?

Shit.

In the fertility of my imagination, my
father is a tall man with broad shoulders as wide as a baseball
bat. He speaks seven different languages, is well versed in
Shakespeare, and often recites scripture from the King James
Bible—words stream from his mouth like a song. In reality, my
father was a phantom who bent my mother over at a truck stop and
inseminated her with a rush of seed in a heated exchange of lust
that could only be classified as primal and dirty. That’s how I
came to be, my sister before me at a bar, and the younger one after
me in the depressed state of a trailer that still lies on the
property. I gleaned this knowledge through one of my mother’s
drunken confessions, her midnight murmurs that were often laced
with the kind of clarity only 80 proof Bacardi could afford.

“God Almighty,” I say it crisp and clean. My
voice echoes through the emerging fog like a siren.

A titter of laughter follows suit.

“Bold profession.” Blaine steps onto the
stone and catches the sword in his hand as if he were challenging
me to a duel. The whites of his eyes glow from beneath his hood as
the only discernable human feature. “Do you think you’re special,
Laken?” He cuts the words with a hint of sarcasm.

“I do.” I’m betting the tip of my blade
finds its way between his thighs in under thirty seconds.

Wes takes up my hand as the entire group
steps onto the Stone of Sacrifice—each with a silver seam of metal
erect at the wrist.

Shit. She can’t remember her dad’s name?

Wes sighs and a plume of disappointment
explodes from his nostrils. Wes as the fire-breathing dragon amuses
me.

Fletch shakes out a barbaric cage comprised
of long wooden sticks, and a small flock of peacocks strut out in a
flurry. A lone male trots to the center of the stone and fans his
feathers in a display of his God-given resplendence.

“Let us begin.” Blaine touches his lips to a
ram’s horn, and a dull moan escapes the curved ornament.

The birds scatter in a frenzy.

“God, forgive me.” The words quiver from
under my breath.

The cloaked figures come in low and begin
jabbing their knives at the feathered creatures.

This is my moment. I won’t let the blood of
my mother and sister rest quiet. If I’m going to integrate myself
as one of these demons, I’ll need to make a point—dirty my hands
with blood. Blood is truly the only language these monsters
understand.

I jostle my way into the crowd. My blade
hacks its way through the throng of winged creatures with the
intensity of a medieval executioner. The serrated edge of my knife
dips through the cartilage of one of the unfortunate beasts and
sticks, forcing me to step on its body to pull my weapon free. It
lets out a scream that carries to eternity, and beneath its painful
warble, I hear Lacey’s voice collapsing with fear.

I stare at the blood on my blade a very long
time as bodies swarm around me—blood and feathers rise to the sky
with the laughter of the Counts intermingled.

We’re hurting them, removing them from the
planet in the most hostile manner possible. I never wanted to hurt
anybody or anything and here I had become one of them, assimilated,
easy as breathing.

My head explodes with a pain so electric my
vision blurs, and a wave of nausea rolls through me.

A hand flops over my shoulder, and I look up
to find Grayson snarling at me with her perfect bowtie pout, her
deep-well of a cleavage prominently displayed through the plunge in
her robe. Those long blonde locks, those wide haunted eyes make her
look like the goddess of seduction even in this distorted world of
shadows.

The sharp slice of her blade strikes me just
above the elbow, and I jump back from her reach.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She brings a perfectly
manicured hand to her lips, but I could still make out her
smile—hear the glee in her voice. “Did I nick you?”

I could stab her. In this dark chaos, I
could gut both her and Kresley and chalk it up to a happy
accident.

“Laken!” Wes shouts from the opposite end of
the stone.

A hard wallop crashes over my skull, and I
drop to my knees. A trickle of warm liquid runs down my temple,
highlighting the headache I already had brewing.

The world blinks in and out of focus. The
crowd begins to clear from the stone as Wes speeds over, but it’s
the birds that hold my attention—dozens of them squawking in pain,
their bodies writhing from their wounds. These were far more than
simple punctures. These animals were set up to suffer, agonize for
hours—days, with inflictions that would prove to be lethal.

There is no truer analogy of the Counts than
this right here. The capture of an innocent creature—making it
bleed in the name of the Countenance and their false values.

My body quakes as I take in the mayhem. To
do nothing would be to yield to the wickedness—to bow to it, become
it.

I jab my knife against the stone as I crawl
to my knees. I need to do something—I need to help.

The most humane way to kill a beast is by
breaking its neck. Death, in and of itself, is sometimes the most
sought after respite from suffering.

I try to stand, but my foot glides in a
slick of blood.

Wes reaches for me, but I give him a violent
push in the opposite direction.

Instead, my blade finds the long velvet
necks of each one of those birds as I carry out a decapitating
spree that goes on for what feels like hours.

“Shit, Laken!” Fletch roars in disbelief at
the carnage I’ve inflicted. “What the fuck?”

“They were suffering.” I glance up at the
crowd with their hoods pulled back, their eyes locked in horror. I
rise to my feet, the blade steady in my hand—blood dripping to my
ankles. I latch my gaze over Wes as I try to steady my breathing.
“I won’t let anything, or anybody, suffer.”

Especially not Celestra. Although it’s not
their
heads I’m after.

It’s the Counts.

Cooper

Henderson Hall is pumping with bodies that
gyrate to the over processed bass.

I push through the crowd, making my way
toward the back. All I really want to do is find a nice spot to
keep an eye on the door. Laken texted an hour ago and said she was
just about to step in the shower—that the slaughter went well.

I know for a fact it went better than well.
I saw the whole thing materialize like some horror movie through a
pair of night vision goggles that Flynn let me borrow.

A soft body rubs against me from behind. I’m
guessing its female, equipped with 46 double D’s. A hand emerges
from between my legs and cups me with a firm squeeze.

“Whoa.” I take a solid step forward, and
Grayson bounces into my line of vision.

“Gotcha!” She winks. Her breath washes over
me with some serious beer blowback. “Wanna play?” She wraps a
finger around one of her lone blonde curls and pulls it through her
lips in an effort to get my dick riled up.

“I’m good.” I swipe a soda off the table in
a lame attempt to keep my hands busy.

“Oh hon, you’re not gonna have any fun with
that.” She snatches the can from me and backs me into a wall.

Crap.

I sink down a little trying to free myself
from her indelicate stronghold as she lands her chest in my face,
round and soft like flesh-covered pillows.

Her lips come in for the kill—then in an
unexpected move, she flies back with a jolt and lands flat on the
floor.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Laken feigns a look of
surprise.

My entire body loosens when I see her.

Laken showing up on the scene like some
estrogen powered superhero makes my lips curve with a devilish
smile.

“I didn’t see you standing there,” she
continues to Grayson. “I just tripped right into you.”

I try to hold back a laugh. Our eyes lock,
and the room disintegrates to a black and white world of shadow and
light. Laken brings the color. Laken is water and oxygen, and
everything I need to survive, but I don’t tell her that—most likely
never will.

Kresley is quick to the rescue, offering her
buddy a hand off the floor as the two of them glower at Laken.
Grayson cuts me a look that could smash my balls like a hammer, so
I break our gaze and stare out at the crowd for a moment.

“If you ever get tired of playing with
little girls, let me know.” She gravels it out so low it sounds
like a threat.

Kres gets in Laken’s face, and for a second
I’m thinking the claws are coming out.

“I’ll find Wes and send him over.” Kres
bites down over her pink lip as she twists into Laken. “I wouldn’t
want him to miss his ‘girlfriend’ hitting on another guy.” The two
of them stalk off into the crowd. I wish they’d magically
disappear. I wish a lot of people would disappear from Ephemeral,
and Laken’s “boyfriend” is at the top of the list.

“That went well.” Laken bats those dark
lashes at me. Just one look at those sea glass eyes, and my stomach
tightens in a knot. “I mean”—she glances down, holding back a
smile—“I really didn’t see her.”

A silent laugh rumbles through me.

“And, I’ve got someplace I really ‘don’t
mean’ to take you.” I slip my hand low over her waist and walk her
backward into the kitchen. Laken smolders into me like she wants
this, like she wants
us
.

I pull her inside the pantry and secure it
shut by way of my shoe.

“Tell me everything.” I rub my lips over her
ear as I whisper the words.

“Coop.” She buries her face in my chest. “It
was horrible. I did the unthinkable— I
killed
.” She blinks
up with tears lining her lashes.

“It’s okay. You did what you had to.” I let
out a breath. “You’re in now. Wes knows he can trust you, that’s
all we need.”

We. My chest rumbles at the thought.

“There is a
we
.” Laken says it meekly
while stroking the back of my neck with her fingers. “We’re a team
remember?”

“Yes—I do.” I pull her in and take in the
scent from her hair. “We’re a team.” But Wes is out there waiting
for her, and the Counts have my balls hogtied at the moment.
“Homework assignment.” I pull back trying to sound playful, but
really I’m getting down to brass tacks. “Tell Wes you’re ready for
the next step—that you want to dig in deep. If you’re hungry
enough, he won’t deny you.” God knows I wouldn’t.

Laken presses out a soft smile, her fingers
still spinning slowly over the back of my head.

“I know you wouldn’t deny me anything,
Cooper Flanders.” Her breathing grows erratic, she pushes in close
as if she’s about to kiss me, but I pull out of reach like the
moron I am.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t want you to
have any feelings of remorse—or guilt around Wes. He’s like an
animal. He’ll pick up on it. The last thing we want is for him to
put up a wall.” Which is true, but I could’ve said all that crap
after she landed her mouth over mine.