The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (11 page)

This is life: we run and run, and when we stop we realize what we desired all along.
 

Death. Freedom.

My forearms are thick, roped in veins and covered in rosettes tattooed in black and yellow ink. Each rosette tattoo marks a man I released from this life of hell. The rosettes reach to my shoulders. Soon they’ll spill down my chest and neck, eventually covering my entire body.
 

Unless someone manages to free me first.

The cage is in the middle of a huge space with white walls and concrete pillars and floor-to-ceiling windows that look out of a city blanketed in sickly yellow smog.
 

I don’t know the name of this city.

I squint against the sunlight pouring from the windows.
 

It pains my eyes.

Breath is life.

My heartrate has finally slowed. I’m ready.
 

Champaign glasses tinkle. The stench of cigar smoke burns my nostrils. The murmur of idiotic small talk fills the room. Today the audience is only a half dozen or so, but two interest me. A white-skinned couple, elegantly dressed. A man, slightly older than me, strong-jawed but with soft, decadent brown eyes. A man of great power and wealth, like all who come here to observe me release my offerings into death. And a woman, pale and delicate, with quick, gold-speckled green eyes and beautiful red-gold hair.

The pale couple sits together in a corner, away from the other guests. Their eyes never leave me. They look…like they know something about me, a secret I do not know, and the feeling of my weakness and their superiority makes me squeeze the deer’s foot in my hand. Usually I ignore the audience. But today I find myself thinking of tearing the wire cage open and rushing at the pale couple, ripping the man’s intestines from his belly and strangling the pretty woman with them.
 

The thought of offering the woman makes my heart quicken.

The Keeper slides a metal pipe into the cage.
 

It rattles against the floor, then rolls to a stop.
 

I stay very still.
 

Run my thumb across the deer’s foot.
 

The elevator, out of sight down a narrow hallway, arrives at the Cloud Temple with a quiet ding.
 

I hear the doors slide open.
 

Now arrives the man I will release. My sacrifice.

I set the deer’s foot in the corner and remain seated, my head bowed, staring at the floor.

Heavy footsteps ring down the hallway.

“This fucking broken little bitch?” my sacrifice screams in rough English when he sees me sitting on the floor. His voice is thick and raw, like he smokes and screams all day. I wonder what he is in his other life. A truck driver? A gang member? An army sergeant?
 

Yes. That’s it. I think he’s military.
 

I have no other life. That’s the difference between me and the others. They kill for money. Or sport.

I kill because there is all I am.

The cage door rattles open. The day’s second sacrifice steps inside.

He stinks of booze and chemicals.

“The Blood Giver, huh? That what they call you?” the offering sneers, cracking his knuckles.
 

I keep my head bent low, but I can see his ugly bare feet.
 

He is white-skinned.
 

“What a cute little spic cunt you are,” the offering says. “The Blood Giver. Fuck that. I’m the Blood Taker. Lets do this.”

Many times the offering calls himself the taker.
 

I grow tired of hearing it.
 

This offering will die very bloody.
 

Not for the audience. For me.
 

The offering sneers and kicks the metal pipe to the side of the cage.
 

I like what this says. It tells me the offering is proud. Too certain of himself. He’s underestimated me by judging the pipe unnecessary to bring my death.

I raise my head.
 

“Fucking freak cunt,” the offering says, meeting my eyes for the first time. “Why yer eyes like that? Huh? You got some fucking spic disease?”

My eyes are like this, I feel like telling this almost dead man, because the One I Am Slave To has blessed me with letting blood for his glory and magnificence.
 

This offering of blood is a short, very broad white-skinned man with pale blue eyes and a shaved head and thick, heavy jowls that remind me of the killing dogs the Keeper sometimes adds to the cage to make the spectacle of sacrifice more interesting to the privileged audience.
 

There is much blood in this offering’s heavy body.
 

Rivers of it.

“Stand the fuck up,” the offering growls.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Keeper says with a gesture toward the cage. “Permit me to present this contest of strength and fighting prowess between our esteemed athletes, the infamous and undefeated Blood Giver…and…” someone whispers in the keeper’s ear, then he says, “…the Russian Maul. The contest will begin at the bell and please, no matter what happens, do not approach the cage. I repeat: do not approach the cage!”

The audience claps politely. They look bored when they arrive in the Cloud Temple. Their lives are an endless song of luxury. They possess more than anyone in the history of the world and still they are bored. Unhappy. Unfulfilled.

No one looks bored now.

What are you searching for?
I sometimes feel like screaming at them. But I don’t have to. I know what they desire. And soon, when the One I Am Slave To frees me, I will give them what they desire most.
 

Death.
 

The Keeper rings a silver bell.
 

It chimes into heavy silence.

“Stand up,” the offering named the Maul says, taking a step toward me. “Stand up or I swear I’ll snap your fucking neck with you on your knees, staring at my cock. Make-up and yellow fucking eyes or not.”

My eyes and the yellow and black bands I paint across my face every morning.
 

Yes.
 

The offering’s afraid now. He stinks of it.
 

My prey has taken his first leap into the forest, on the run.

He’ll tire quickly.
 

Maul looms over me, reaches down with his left hand, grips me by the hair, lifts me to my feet. He’s shorter than me but built much heavier. He has a ragged scar running from his left eyebrow back behind his ear.
 

He notices me inspecting the scar and smiles. “You ready to die?” he whispers.

His breath smells like a sewer.

I don’t answer. My heart beats slow and regular. My breath steadies.

“You’re not afraid? That’s all right. I’ve killed men like you. Men who’re ready. You do yourself a favor and keep being a little spic bitch. Don’t fight too much and I promise to make it quick.”

Maul ploughs his heavy fist into my belly.
 

The air bursts from my lungs. I crumple to the floor, spitting blood.

“You like that?” Maul says. “How ‘bout another?”

He lifts me from the floor. His second punch snaps several ribs.
 

The audience boos and screams. They paid for a fight. I am not giving them their money’s worth.
 

The desire to rip the cage open and behead every stinking person in the room strikes me. This desire. It’s been arriving more and more—
 

“Fucking
fight
me,” the Maul screams. “You chickenshit bitch. You have to
fight
.”

Something stabs me in the calf. A bolt of electric pain races through my bones. My teeth tingle and sting and my mouth tastes of ash and burned blood.
 

The Keeper. He’ll shock me out of my trance if I’m not careful.
 

He’ll ruin the sacred offering.
 

I smell my hair melting from electric heat.

“C’mon then!” Maul screams, pacing around the cage and flexing his broad shoulders. “The Blood Giver? The feared and hated Heart Eater? What a load of shit.”

Maul steps to me, wraps his meaty fingers around my neck. “I’m gunna tear your fucking throat out, you filthy spic freak,” he sneers. “Then I’m gunna fuck your dead body. Give these fine folks a real show. Easiest fifty grand ever.”

Maul’s fingernails pierce the skin under my jaw. He’s shaking. His pale blue eyes bulge madly.

He’s close.
 

I see it now: the certainty of victory in his eyes. The bloodlust.
 

It’s best to release an offering when they’re close to murder.
 

The death spell is at its purest and most powerful. The One I Am Slave To demands this.
 

My lungs burn as the Maul squeezes my throat.
 

A few seconds more.
 

Just a few seconds more.

Yes. Now.
 

Quickly, like I’m lifting a burning coal from a fire, I reach up and pluck out the Maul’s left eye.

Only his left.
 

I could have done both, but then he’d be blind, and much too easy to free to the Night Wind.

Maul shrieks, clamps both hands on my throat and squeezes harder.
 

This is good. He’s a fighter.
 

The weak ones usually drop me in pain and shock when they realize they’re half-blind.

The Maul’s eye dangles against his cheek. There’s something comical about how it hangs there, swinging around like a testicle.

My choked, sputtering laughter fills the penthouse Temple.
 

I wonder what the Maul sees with one eye torn out? The floor below him and the my face in front of him at the same time?

The thought makes me laugh some more, even though my lungs are about to burst.
 

Black spots gather in front of my eyes.
 

Blood and spittle fly from the Maul’s face.
 

He’s screaming something I can’t understand. Cursing me in his native language.

The audience falls silent. Death has a peculiar ability to silence the living, especially those who live in fear of it. Death is sacred. We all sense this. We’ve built temples and cathedrals since the beginning of time to honor this truth.
 

Death is sacred. He demands blood.

I am the Blood Giver.

It is my role.

The Maul’s biting his lower lip bloody in his rage, shaking me back and forth like an errant child. I reach down and grip his testicles, pulling and twisting. Maul’s grip on my neck weakens, but still he holds on, realizing now that perhaps my death will not arrive so easily. Realizing perhaps he will have to work for his fifty thousand dollars.

This realization. It always arrives far too late.

One of Maul’s testicles crunches in my hand.

The offering named Maul shrieks and releases me. I collapse to the floor at his feet, gasping, each breath searing my lungs.

Maul limp-shuffles for the lead pipe, picks it up, smashes it into the metal cage again and again in his fury and pain, making the entire cage rattle. He’s out of his mind now. Then he turns to me, grips his dangling left eye between his thumb and forefinger and tears it from his face.

The audience gasps.

“Dirty fucking spic,” Maul says in his broken English.
 

I stagger to my feet, face the offering square on and begin the prayer: “O master, O Lord of Far, O Lord of Night, O Night, O Night Wind…”

“You better fucking pray,” the offering says, whistling the metal pipe through the air.
 

“…O Night Lord have you mistaken me for another? I who am a commoner, a laborer. In excrement and in filth my life is lived…”

The Maul laughs and yells at the audience, “I don’t need to be paid for this one. I’ll kill him for free.”

The audience chuckles and raises their champaign flutes.

“…I am unreliable. I am filth. I am an imbecile. I am stillborn. Why do you darken the sky for one such as me? For what reason do you offer such a wondrous gift?”

My voice quiets.
 

“You finished?” Maul says, the gaping, bleeding hole where his left eye was making my mouth water.
 

“No,” I answer. “Your blood must be offered.”

“You got it all wrong, spic,” the Maul screams, charging at me, the metal pipe raised over his head.

Maul swings the pipe down, far too slow. I step to the side, slam my fist into his kidney as he stumbles past and crashes into the cage. I move into the center of the cage as he whirls, shrieks, and charges again. This time he feints high, alters his swing at the last minute and brings the pipe sideways, aiming for my head.

I am flesh and blood. Like he is.
 

I don’t doubt the metal pipe will crush my skull.
 

But first he has to hit me.
 

I leap aside again.
 

The Maul screams in frustration. “Come ‘ere, you chickenshit motherfucker!”

I permit him charge one more, and this time I drop to the floor, sweep my right foot into his legs and send the offering crashing to the ground.
 

The pipe flies from the Maul’s hands, rattling against the concrete.

A few in the audience stand. They are the ones who have wagered the most on me winning or losing.
 

The pale-skinned couple remain seated, their faces impassive and unreadable.

“Place me on the reed mat, O Night Lord, Wind Lord, Lord of Blood…”

The offering scrambles to his feet, growls and runs at me. Ducking his clumsy punch, I bring my clawed hand across his cheek, raking my long fingernails deep into him.
 

Maul pauses, presses his hand to his cheek, looks at his blood through his single eye.
 

His eyes widen.
 

There.