Silk Over Razor Blades (34 page)

‘Chuck, what are you doing?’
Ray gave her wide eyes.

Oh, God, what have I done?

She clutched her chest. ‘I had
to.’

‘Why?’

Words caught in her throat.
Even if able to speak Lenina had no idea what to say. She grabbed
her father’s hand and dragged him into the living room.

hinder you>

Bristow was already on her
feet, asp in hand. She flicked it to extend the telescopic shafts.
Her upper lip curled back. ‘What’s going on? Who’s screaming?’ She
beckoned to her companion who stood, though with less caged
violence in his motions.

‘We need to go.’ Lenina gave
them each a desperate glance. ‘Hurry. Back door.’

‘Chuck, if you’ll just calm
down—’

‘No!’ The very idea made her
stomach clench. ‘We have to run.’

A loud thump came from the
hallway.

the humans>

Lenina stared at her father.
The two officers. Her feet shuffled against the floor. Stopped.

Where could she possibly go?
They would find her. She was marked now.

Her fingers traced the dressing
on her left cheek. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

<
I
do>

A cold tingle raced down her
arms, a dozen iced fork tines. Lenina yelped and shoved against it
but the intrusion came too fast. Saar surged into her limbs and
took rough control of her body.

‘Move!’ The voice was hers. The
tone far from it.

Ray gaped. Bristow swore.
Jackson reached for her arm.

‘Miss Miller—’

‘Do not touch me, male!’ With
Lenina’s hands, Saar grabbed PC Jackson and hurled him into the DVD
cabinet. The officer hit it back first and slumped to the ground,
groaning as DVDs rained around him.

No, no, please. Not again!

Saar picked up the sofa. He
hefted it into the air like a feather and propped it against the
sitting room door on its short edge.

Sweat beaded on Lenina’s
forehead, dribbled into her eyes. The sting of it made her blink, a
temporary blindness that did nothing to hinder the force using her
body.

Please . . .

Saar turned
her body towards the kitchen door. without me>

‘I don’t want to fight
anybody.’ She lowered her voice. Pain lanced through her head as
she pressed on Saar’s influence. Like pushing against a car set in
neutral on a flat road; it would move, if only she pushed hard
enough.

The tingling itch spread to her
toes. Her legs took two steps towards the kitchen.

‘Okay, Lenina, put your hands
on her head and get down on your knees.’ Bristow pointed with the
asp. ‘Obey at once or I
will
use physical force against
you.’

Saar laughed, a deep, rolling
sound that compressed Lenina’s vocal cords to an unnatural
limit.

Ray twisted the tea towel.
Pushed forward to stand between Lenina and the irate officer.
‘Please, wait—’

From the other side of the
barricaded door came the sounds of splintering wood.

Lenina turned her focus inward.
The ancient god-touched prowled there like a once-trapped beast,
the remnants of the cage she imagined to keep him under control all
broken and twisted. ‘Please.’ She turned her back on the startled
looks thrown her way. ‘Don’t do this.’

you>

No time to ask what ‘moon
puppies’ were. ‘I’ll be okay.’

She hesitated. ‘I’ll run—I
promise—they’ll never catch me.’

Saar’s impatience trickled
through her lips as a low, angry growl. <
I’ll
kill. I’ll
show you the true god-touched way. Start with the humans>

‘No!’ Lenina shoved against
him, grunting as stars exploded across her vision. Her feet skidded
beneath her. Saar’s pressure died. His furious cries echoed in her
head and she spent precious seconds rebuilding his mental
prison.

More crashes from the
hallway.

Heavy footsteps.

Voices.

Hinges squealed in protest.

The door burst open.

Lenina scrambled aside to avoid
the sofa as it shot back three feet and toppled over upside
down.

The strangers stalked through
led by Gold Teeth.

‘That wasn’t very nice.’ He
squeezed tea from the ends of his dark, shaggy hair. His energy
crackled through the air, prickly on the skin like coarse fur.

Pale and shaky, Ray raced
forward and yanked Lenina to her feet. After looking briefly into
her eyes, he pushed her behind him. His hands formed tight, white
knuckled fists. ‘Get out.’ His voice trembled.

Lenina experienced a fierce
stab of pride for her father’s bravery. Then fear rolled in and
swallowed it.

flesh. Suck his bones>

‘Shut up,’ she hissed.

Gold Teeth scratched the
piercing in his right eyebrow. ‘Not without what we came for. Guess
that’s her.’ He inhaled noisily. ‘Must be.’

The small hairs on the back of
Lenina’s neck stood to rigid attention. Every limb, every scrap of
skin tingled. The very air seemed to scrape her flesh with razor
sharp edges. ‘Please, leave us alone.’

‘Can’t do that, girlie. I need
you.’

‘Why?’

Another smile. ‘Reasons.’

PC Jackson rolled on to his
back, with a muted groan. A second avalanche of DVDs slid from the
broken shelves. Their clatter filled the silence. No one else
moved.

Gold Teeth stepped forward.
‘Kallisto, leader of England’s Red Fang chapter extends a personal
invitation to you to join her in her home. I, Darryl Wulfsun, have
come to escort you.’

Saar’s power pulsed, a quick
stab of nervous energy a finger’s breadth from panic.

Ray stiffened and reached back
with his arms, as if to protect her within the circle of his flesh.
‘She’s not going anywhere with you.’

‘Daddy . . .’ She grabbed his
hand. The fingers were stiff and hard beneath hers. ‘Don’t.’

The second man, all greasy,
slicked back hair and shifty eyes, gave a sigh and tapped his
watch.

‘I know, I know.’ Darryl
shrugged. ‘But we’re not supposed to hurt anyone.’

PC Bristow shoved her way to
the middle of the standoff and stared up at the bigger man. The top
of her head barely reached his chest. ‘You have five seconds to get
down on your knees with your hands on your heads.’

‘Humans.’ Darryl snarled, a
terrible ripple of sound like the grumbles of a wild beast. ‘I
don’t take orders from humans.’ A pale yellow colour seeped across
the whites of his eyes, blanking them out until nothing remained
but the gleam of lupine gold and a perfectly round, black
pupil.

Lenina shrieked. Bristow
paled.

Be ready>

PC Bristow gave a wordless
bellow and cracked her asp against Darryl’s shoulder. She followed
with a punch, aimed at his face. He didn’t even flinch. Darryl
caught her fist and jerked it to the side, one large, sweeping
motion. Grinning, he drove an answering punch into her
breastbone.

The crack sent a wave of
weakness through Lenina’s knees. She clutched her father and tried
to hold back the scream bubbling up into her throat.

Bristow’s fingers flexed on the
asp. Released. Dry, wheezing coughs slipped from her mouth along
with a dribble of blood. She fell, clutching her chest.

Darryl Wulfsun stepped over her
twitching body and placed his hands on his out-thrust hips. ‘So,
girlie, about that invitation?’

<<<<>>>>

Walking The Razor’s
Edge,
second in the
Saar’s Legacy
trilogy

Out Now

Ileandra Young is one face of
the Da Shared Brain who also writes erotica and romance as
Raven
ShadowHawk
. Ileandra enjoys writing fantasy (both urban
and traditional) and aspires one day to write a piece so long (and
therefore thick) that the book would form a good self-defence
weapon in the hands of a fan (even been hit by War and Peace? It
hurts!).

Her interests include reading
large books (see above), roller derby, and gently correcting people
who believe that vampires should sparkle.

Discover more about Ileandra on
her
blog
or
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This page could be a
mile long but I’d prefer that it isn’t. There are so many people I
need to thank I’m just going to rattle them all off.

Here we go.

David Soden, Mum, Dad,
‘Uncki’ Charlie, Gemma Ward, Celine Connolly, Sally Edmans, Ava
(Jordanna East)terby, Karen Perkins, Dave Johnson, Louise Burke,
Lisa French, David Gilchrist, the writers of Leicester’s Phoenix
Writers Critique Group, Joseph Hitchman, Ian Fielding, Stephanie
Fung, Victoria Plunkett and Rachel Phillips.

All of you, in a way
large or small, abstract or direct, have helped me get this work
out into the open. It’s taken me years (I’m not kidding, I’m
talking YEARS!) but we’re here. We’ve done it.

Thank you all so very,
very much. This is a dream finally pulled from my mind and made
real. It’s your victory as much as mine.

Thank you for your
support, help, readings, critiques, firm shoulders, listening ears
and all the rest in times past and recent. You’re all stars to
me.

Saar’s Legacy: Book
One

Silk Over Razor
Blades

Published in May 2015
by Little Vamp Press

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any
means, electronic, mechanical, printing and subsequent photocopying
or otherwise, it is intended for the use of the purchaser
only.

Basically, thank you
and well done if you went out there and spent a few pennies to buy
this fine example of modern literature. If you’ve come to this book
through nefarious means then feel just a tiny bit guilty. Go on.
You’re cutting into my chocolate fund.

All characters and
words the work of Ileandra Young.

All characters,
locations, names or incidents appearing in this work are fictitious
and a product of the author’s overactive and slightly crazed
imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead,
vampire, ghost, zombie, lycanthrope, faerie or daemon is purely
coincidental. Promise.

The moral right of the
author has been asserted.

Copyright © Ileandra Young
2015