The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (7 page)

Stealing from men, especially men convinced they have the world in their hands, is easiest. It’s like they simply don’t believe it can happen to them. Only fools and easy marks get stolen from, they think.

And that’s what makes them easy marks.
 

I have twenty minutes, maybe a half hour to make good on the score. I duck into another coffee shop three blocks away, head straight to the bathroom and into a stall. There’s a hundred and thirty bucks in tens and twenties. Four credit cards. I choose the one least likely to be PIN protected. The wallet could earn another twenty at a pawn shop but I don’t have time. It goes in the garbage with everything else inside.
 

I walk into a mall, smiling, feeling a little better about the world and my place in it.
 

Four minutes to pick an outfit at a woman’s clothing store. Three in line at the cashier. I hold my breath as I insert the card. No PIN. I thank the bored-looking girl behind the till and race to a cell phone booth. Pick a phone and tell the guy I’m late for work.
 

“Where you work?” he asks.

“I’m uh…you know.”

He gives me an odd look.
 

Fuck, Lily. You can do better than that.

“I drive cab.”

“Really? Wow. Must meet with some wierdos.”

“Takes all kinds.”

The card goes through. They can trace the transaction to the phone, and the phone to my location if they really wanted to. But they won’t. Not for a couple hundred in stolen charges. I walk from the booth, unwrapping the phone and tossing the stolen card in the trash with the phone package. The mark will report the cards stolen and that’s it. Probably won’t even tell his wife he got robbed. Too embarrassing.
 

He’ll remember me, though, and isn’t that funny? He could look right through me all day, but now he’ll remember me. Theft and violence raise the ghosts into the light.

I change in the mall bathrooms.

Then I sit on the toilet seat, staring at the phone. They’re looking for him now. Aaron One-Eight-Seven. Might have an ABP out on him. I don’t even have his phone number. His bar is soot and ash, like my apartment. But I can probably retrace my way back to the safe house.

I could warn him he’s on the radar.
 

Not that the asshole deserves it. Trish was right. Going into that biker bar was a stupid move. Even more stupid not going to the cops after I was abducted. But there was a moment, riding that Harley with Aaron, when everything seemed to make sense. That’s the trouble with fantasies: they only make sense when nothing else does. Maybe if my life wasn’t such a mess to begin with I never would’ve taken that ride. If I had my shit together, like Trish, I wouldn’t need a biker outlaw swooping in and saving me.

Still, he did save get me off the
Guardian
.
 

That counts for something.

And the thought of a man like Aaron behind bars chills my blood. Prison would drive him mad. He wouldn’t last a week.
 

I glance at the bag containing the surveillance CD’s. They’re looking for me as well, at the station. Arson detectives. Missing persons. They’re gunna have a whole lot of questions about last night.
 

I have nothing but bad answers.

Shitballs. I feel like a train switched to the wrong track and headed for a cliff.
 

I close my eyes and lean my head against the cold tile.

Lachlan. My missing son’s name is Lachlan.

***

I wake in a panic, not knowing where I am. Bright fluorescent lights. Pungent reek of industrial cleaning fluid. Industrial grey cinderblock walls. Am I in the psychiatric ward? Another Thompson caught muttering gibberish? It’s a regular family reunion.
 

I sit up, rubbing my eyes with clenched fists. Then I remember. I’m in a mall downtown. Just stole a rich man’s wallet. Deciding whether to face the heat at the station or run after a dirtbag biker who left me in the street.

Deciding between old life and new.

Fuck him. Aaron’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. I’ve worked hard to get my life together after living on the street. I’m a cop, and if I manage to bullshit my way through today I might make detective. That’s the dream, right?
 

A career spent speaking for the dead? For the victims?

Like my mom, and those girls with their eyes burned out?

C’mon Lily,
I tell myself.
Stand up, wash your face and get the hell out of here. You got this.

I make it to the sink. Look at myself in the mirror. Big mistake. The girl staring back at me doesn’t look like a passionate police detective.
 

She looks lost. Alone. Afraid.

Something itches at the back of my neck.
 

Damn new clothes. Must’ve left the tag on.

I reach back to pull out the tag. Something brushes against my fingertips. The itching sensation gets worse. It’s stinging now, almost painful.
 

Like someone pressing a needle into me.

I run my fingers over the pain. There it is again. There’s a raised wound on the soft skin between my neck and shoulder. And an odd feeling of my fingers brushing something soft. Downy.
 

Not like skin. Like…fur.

I tear my shirt off and twist forward, straining to see whatever the hell is on my back.

The lights in the bathroom brighten so much I have to squint to see through their glare, and there’s an odd buzzing sound in my ears, like hornets kicked from their hive.
 

There’s a raised bite-mark gouged into my skin.
Aaron’s
bite mark. And it’s covered by a fine, thin patch of near-invisible silver hair.

Oh fucking fuck.
 

I can’t breathe. I look in the mirror. My face goes white with horror. I scramble to turn the cold water on, splash it across my face. This isn’t happening. It can’t be. It can’t! It’s the fucked-up light in here. The stress. The shock and lack of sleep.
 

Don’t look again, I tell myself. Don’t look.
 

You know there’s nothing there so why bother looking?

But the itching, stinging sensation says otherwise.
 

People hallucinate sensations all the time. Insects crawling over skin. A gust of cold air whenever the doctor enters the room. Tactile hallucinations. Formication. My dad has those, and the somatic variety as well. Says it feels like animals have crawled into his body, snakes and frogs and lizards, and are feasting on his insides.

Which doesn’t make me feel better.
 

At all.

I run my fingers over the stinging wound. It’s there all right. No use trying to pretend it isn’t.
 

Soft silver hair. Like…fur on a puppy.

The thought reminds me of the dogfaced man, the thing I hallucinated fighting. The spirit-eater, Aaron called him, which makes me laugh now, it’s so fucking
insane
, and when I hear my laughter echoing in the bathroom I realize I am not well.
 

Not well at all.

I can’t go to the station. Not like this. Maybe not ever again.

I need to know what’s happening to me. Need answers.
 

And I know who might have them.

I dig my fingernails into my shoulder so hard I have to bite my lower lip to keep from screaming, and when I lift my fingers to my face I see a clump of silver-white hair caught in my nails, smeared with dark red blood.
 

Now I see why they don’t put real mirrors in public bathrooms in malls and gas stations. Why they use a shiny sheet of aluminum instead.

They do it so people like me can’t shatter the glass.

Can’t use the sharp pieces to hurt ourselves.
 

I
WANT
TO
ask Anik not to leave me alone to steal from the Absent. But he won’t listen. He said he’s stubborn, and it’s true. It’s because of the land he was born in. It demands a stubborn will, like a spark that refuses to fade. Those without this spark wither and die during the months of darkness.
 

It’s because of his will that I’m still alive.
 

I don’t know whether to thank him or curse him.

And without me he would have died making love to Sedna. This is how the bonds of a pack are forged. One rises when the other weakens, and then again in reverse, over and over, until the thought of living apart fades and there is only trust.

All this white snow. Like powder.
 

It makes me think of the Essence the priests fed me on the Ark. A powerful drug, Anik has told me. I am addicted, he said. If he means I want the Essence more than I want to live he is right.
 

I am addicted.
 

Anik is sleeping beside me. I miss his gentle brown eyes. I miss him carrying me, the feel of his body warm beneath his t-shirt. I miss his lips touching mine. I’ve never experienced the touching-of-lips before.
 

Once I saw Priest Gabriel do this touching to a Vessel whose name I forget. It was late at night, and I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes when this happened I would slip from my sleeping hammock and walk very quietly to the ship deck to watch the stars and listen to the waves lapping against the ship’s hull.
 

That night I heard a sound like someone having a bad dream. A moaning sound. It was coming from Priest Gabriel’s chambers. I walked to his door, very quietly, which I am good at, and peered under his door. At first I thought Priest Gabriel was consuming the Vessel, his face was pressed to hers so hard and long while she squirmed in his arms. They were standing. Both were without clothing. Seeing the naked skin of other Hopefuls and Vessels was nothing new—the Priests sometimes told us the Everlasting had bid we go for days without clothing.
 

But the Priests were always covered, and seeing Priest Gabriel without his burgundy robes made me flush warm. I remember wanting to be that Vessel. I remember thinking the sensation tearing through me was named Envy, and wicked, and so I slid away and returned above deck, very ashamed, afraid my wickedness would be discovered and prevent me from becoming a Vessel for Priest Gabriel.

That night the stars seemed to burn very bright.

They burn bright now as well.
 

I want the warmth that arrives when Anik presses his lips to mine. I want him to press his lips over every part of me, even the secret places.
 

Especially the secret places.

I’ve never known this need before.
 

It makes me feel happy and afraid.

But there are two others that need us. She, the All Encompassing. And the Third. I don’t know why I call him the Third. Maybe because the All Encompassing is not really like us.
 

We three—Anik, me, and the Third—are united under her.

The Third is very far away. Lost to us. It will take all of our strength to bring him home. He’s convinced he’s alone. That he needs no one. But he’s wrong. He needs us most of all.
 

The time when I nearly experienced drowning in the cold ocean now seems like another life. I understand I was reborn during my swim from the Arc. That I shed some part of me, left it floating in the water to be destroyed by thundering waves. I understand that with Anik and the rest of my pack I have purpose.
 

That hope and Anik’s warmth is all that’s keeping me alive.
 

Sedna has done something to me. I inhaled the dust of her desiccated corpse. She’s inside me. I wonder if that’s partly why Anik pressed his lips to me. Does he sense her living in me? Will I become her?

I miss the ocean.
 

I never knew there could be such hunger.
 

It gnaws at me, a terrible, blind hunger.
 

What emptiness exists in me, to create such maddening hunger?

I scratch at the mark on my wrist. Three red disks. Like the Three united under the All Encompassing. Like three eyes. I remember the day Priest Gabriel gave me the mark. It was on my day of being accepted as a Vessel. I enjoyed the Purification Ceremony, then Priest Gabriel entered the room carrying a small blowtorch. He looked silly, wearing thick gloves to protect from being burned. I looked up at him, into his lovely green eyes, and knew I would permit him to do whatever he wanted with me.
 

Ascension or not. I wanted to be his.
 

Gabriel lit the torch, an odd blue-green flame, then heated a metal rod until it glowed red. Lifted my wrist and plunged the round metal tip into my skin three times. I remember the smell more than anything. Sweet. If I felt pain, it was only because I understood that I should.

“It’s a blessing to smile during the mark,” Priest Gabriel said as he burned me.

“Am I smiling?”

“Yes.”

“Am I in Truth?”

“Yes.”

That made me feel happy. I was no longer only a Hopeful. I was a sacred Vessel. One step closer to bearing a Guardian and Ascending into the Everlasting.
 

I brush the snow out of my eyes. I don’t remember when it began snowing. A while ago, from the look of the fresh snow obscuring Anik’s tracks. I wonder how long we’ve lain here. Should I wake him? He’s so tired.
 

Maybe we should rest a little longer. We’re both so tired.
 

It’s dark now. The wind howls above us, sending drifts of snow settling into the ravine. The ravine is nice. It’s sheltered from the wind.
 

The snow is burying us both alive.
 

It feels warm. Soft.
 

Like Anik’s embrace.
 

I lay my head down and close my eyes, praying not to dream.