Lie Down with Dogs Read online

  I slumped in my cell. “That’s why you’re still alive.”

  Not her fae lifespan, as I had assumed, but the inability to age. Ironic that Linen collected death-touched fae not to kill them, but to keep them alive.

  “None of us will die. Not until he lets us.”

  Being immortal was one thing. Being mortal and having the right to die stolen from you was another situation entirely.

  But the essence of life as a food source?

  The Morrigan’s tithes were paid in corpses. Empty husks were all I left her, but then again, I was unique. Besides Shaw, I couldn’t name another marshal who fed on souls, let alone consumed them the way I did. Either way I was handing the Morrigan an empty can and asking her to drink. She did, which meant she got something from it, but what? Did she feed off the same thing as Balamohan? Did that mean the essence of life was an element separate from the soul entirely?

  I wasn’t sure.

  When magical beings such as fae died, was a type of retroactive magic triggered to release at the end? Was all the magic inherent in a person distilled and then trapped inside an empty husk until it dissipated or was consumed? Did it exist in the tissues of the deceased? Was that why she consumed the bodies of her tithes?

  Instead of snacking on victims with an eye toward maintaining balance like Linen, was she gulping down entire helpings of the stuff? Did she require more to keep her immortality intact?

  I wasn’t sure of that either.

  “You were talking in your sleep earlier.” Branwen sounded amused. “Your voice woke me.”

  Fragments of my talk with Nasir came to mind. “What did I say?”

  “You mentioned having a body to bury. That was all I heard.” She sounded apologetic. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  A shiver rippled through me, and I covered my stomach. “I was having a weird dream.”

  “I don’t dream,” she confided. “What was yours about? If it’s not too personal to ask.”

  Personal had flown out the nonexistent window days ago. “I dreamed a djinn offered to grant me one wish.”

  “What did you ask for?” A dreamy quality filled her next word. “Freedom?”

  “Sort of.” I thought about Jenna and told Branwen a white lie. “I wished for home.”

  Thierry. Thierry. Thierry.

  My name swirled through my ears. I kept my eyes closed and called out, “Branwen?”

  The chanting quieted.

  An ear-splitting roar took its place.

  The razor edge of fear sent my heart fluttering into overdrive. “Branwen? What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know,” she screamed. “The walls. He’s tearing them down.”

  Slowly, I leveraged myself onto my feet and set my palms against the stone. My limbs trembled, and my head bobbled. I took Branwen’s word on the walls. Muzzy as my head was, they felt like stacked Jell-O cubes to me.

  I strained for a glimpse through one of the cylindrical feeding holes. “Who’s out there?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “He keeps screaming your name.”

  Shaw.

  He wasn’t yelling now. I slumped against the rock and prayed I was right.

  My heart pumped. My breaths labored. My ears rang. All those things I heard, but not a peep from outside.

  My knees wobbled, and I collapsed in a heap. “Are you sure? Did he say who he was—?”

  The ground trembled beneath me. Bits of rock and dust peppered the top of my head.

  A ferocious cry penetrated the stone wall. “Thierry.”

  “Shaw?” I called as loud as I could. My voice broke, so I tried it again. “Shaw? Is that you?”

  Rock shuddered, and the holes punched into the front of my cell went dark.

  “What is that thing?” Branwen’s breaths came harder now.

  “That’s my...” I couldn’t find the right word. “It’s Shaw.”

  A pause. “Is he safe?”

  I told her the absolute truth. “I don’t know.”

  More rock crumbled, and she squealed, “Is he some type of enraged troll?”

  “Worse.” Trolls were stupid. “He’s an incubus, and he’s starving.”

  “He’s your mate?” Her voice shot up several octaves, so high the word mate was a screech.

  “I— No.” I flattened myself against the rear wall. “It’s not like that.”

  Incubi didn’t mate. And certainly not to me.

  Then again, what did I know? Shaw’s brother had been married. What did that make his wife if not his mate?

  “Thierry,” Branwen said in a voice sterner than any I had heard her use. “There is only one reason why an incubus starves himself.”

  The thundering in my chest intensified until my heart felt bruised. Hope shouldn’t hurt so much.

  “Are you all right?” A rising note of panic spiked her tone. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t,” I lied. “I’m fine.”

  A sniffle from her cell had my hand rising to touch the rock between us.

  Lock it down, Thierry. Do your job. Help Shaw. Keep Branwen talking, keep her calm. Hell, maybe talking would keep me calm.

  I kept my tone light. “How do you know about incubi?”

  “When you live as long as I have, you try everything once.” Her voice wavered. “I shared a bed with an incubus for six months, and every visit he warned me against his cousin. His cousin lived out in the barn with their livestock, and I was never to go there.”

  “Okay.” Curious despite our situation, I urged her on. “What happened?”

  “One night my lover stayed out late, and boredom got the best of me.” She cleared her throat. “I sneaked out to the barn and saw him, the cousin. He was a rabid thing. He tried to snap my neck, but I hid in a mare’s stall. My scream brought my lover running. He had been at the house looking for me.” Her voice gained strength. “He showed me a chain around his cousin’s ankle. When I asked what had turned him mad, he said it was love.”

  Pulled from her story, I frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  “Incubi unions are taboo. They are forbidden within incubi society. If one loses his mate, he will starve himself to death rather than feed from another. Incubi who bond are shunned by their families. When their mates die, most are killed as a mercy.” Branwen yelped in surprise when heavier rubble pattered us. “Be careful, Thierry. Please.”

  No, no, no. Branwen had lost her ever-loving mind.

  Shaw was off his rocker because he was starving. Hunger. That was it. My magic had cauterized his mojo. That’s why we were stuck together. Not some mystical, fated mumbo jumbo. Wonky magic was at fault. Even if— Not possible. He cheated on me. Soul mates didn’t screw around with harpies.

  “Thierry.” That was Shaw again.

  “You’re going to frighten her,” a muffled voice warned.

  He raged at it. “Get out of my way.”

  “Not until you call your hunger under control.”

  I covered my mouth to hold back the sobs. Diode. He had come too.

  “I am in control.”

  “Calm down, or I will put you down,” the prim cat stated.

  A full five minutes passed. The wall must have thinned, because now I heard ragged breathing.

  “I’m okay,” I yelled. “Shaw—Jackson. I’m all right.”

  “Thank the gods,” Diode breathed.

  Shaw didn’t say a word, but the wall separating us quaked. Minutes ticked past. Noises grew sharper. Sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard had me slapping hands over my ears and humming. At some point, I had crushed my eyes shut. A block of rock bounced off my hip at the same time as a burst of glorious light blasted me in the face. Too bright. I couldn’t open my eyes to see my rescuers.

  But then, I didn’t have to. I was scooped up and carried into the cavern’s fresher air.

  Shaw’s voice was unrecognizable when he grated out my name.

  “Stop sniffing her,” another familiar voic
e snapped. “Get your ass in gear, Shaw.”

  My eyes still weren’t working, but I turned my head toward the sound. “Mai?”

  “Everything will be okay, Tee.” She touched my face. To Shaw she growled, “Keep those hands where I can see them. Get moving. Back down the tunnel. Now. Just like we planned. Go, man, go.”

  “No.” My arm flailed behind me. “Branwen—”

  “We brought reinforcements,” Mai soothed. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”

  Shaw jerked forward with a snarl, and I got the feeling Mai had popped him hard on the ass. His hold on me tightened before he grunted and air whistled past my ears. He absorbed the impact of our landing from a jump that had my stomach hovering over my head, then he hit the ground running.

  I bit my lip to keep from crying out as his frantic sprint jostled me.

  He stumbled, shoulder bouncing off the cavern wall. I clutched his shirt while he recovered.

  “Damn fox,” he muttered under his breath.

  I was betting Mai had shot between his legs in fox form. It was the only way she could keep up with him. A gentle ripple of magic brushed against my senses. It was familiar enough that I recognized it as Mai shifting to her human form.

  “Set her down,” Mai ordered. Shaw knelt before settling onto the ground with me on his lap. Mai took my hand, placed it on something warm and slick and held it there. “Feed, Tee.”

  I recoiled from the word and protectively clutched my belly, twisting on my side to dry heave. I tumbled from Shaw’s lap onto the cold parquet floor. I reached out, and warm fur ran through my fingers.

  A sandpaper tongue swiped my cheek. “Justice is yours to serve.”

  “My magic...” I feebly held on to Diode to orient myself. “I can’t feel it.”

  “Killing me...won’t save her,” a soft voice wheezed.

  Sheer panic popped my eyes open, and I winced against the light, but not before I saw him. Linen. His trademark linen suit hung in tatters. His torso and head were shredded. The methodology told me his attackers had toyed with him, bleeding him, inflicting small pains, probably working him over before he cracked like an egg and directed them to my cell.

  My guys weren’t good with restraint. And both of them had left their distinct marks on him. The bone-deep, long swipes of Shaw’s claws were particularly evident against Diode’s more precise cuts.

  Shaw had carried me into the study where Jenna served me for the first and last time.

  Mai’s fresh scent washed over me as she shoved the cat aside. “You need to do this.”

  I touched my face and joked. “Do I look that bad?”

  No one laughed.

  “Leave us,” Shaw barked. “Go.”

  “Can you control yourself?” Diode prowled closer to Shaw.

  “For a little longer,” he gritted out from between his teeth.

  “Are you insane?” Mai’s fists clenched. “He could kill her when he’s like this.”

  “I don’t want you to watch.” I turned my face into my shoulder. “Please.”

  “Okay. It’s okay.” She touched my arm. “We’ll do it your way.”

  Trembles spread from her hand into me. For her nerves to be this shot, Shaw must have incubused-out.

  Without looking, I knew his bronze skin would be snow white. His eyes would swirl opaque and fierce. His claws would be unsheathed. I imagined his blunt fangs, which I had glimpsed only one time, capped the snarl I heard in his voice.

  “Hurt her and I’ll wall your ass up and leave you here,” she growled. “Do you understand me?”

  My head snapped up in time to witness a curt nod that appeared to test the limits of his restraint.

  A shadow fell across my shoulder. Company was standing in the doorway, awaiting orders.

  Diode collected Mai with a hip bump, and they left. I called after them, “Check on Branwen.”

  “It was...a mistake...” Linen panted, “...placing the crown jewels of my collection...together.”

  Shaw’s punch landed so quickly all I saw was Linen’s head snap back on impact.

  “Shut. Up,” Shaw enunciated crisply.

  Unable to get onto my knees, I scooted toward Linen using my hands and the thigh my weight rested on. He was too broken to flee when I palmed his bare shoulder with my right hand, and there was no remorse in his eyes when his gaze drifted up to meet mine.

  “By the power vested in me as a marshal of the Southwestern Conclave, I condemn you to death for your crimes.” My nails pierced his skin when he tried shrugging me off him. “Your soul will now be extinguished and your remains walled up and left to gather dust inside the prison you created.”

  A whispered Word released my glove from my left hand. No light rushed to illuminate my runes, and no heat warmed my palm. My magic hovered out of reach.

  Linen’s laughter at my impotence made things worse. I was hungry. So hungry. The adrenaline dump from being rescued had kicked my body into high gear, but power that usually leapt into my fingertips fizzled out before I could harness its spurting energy.

  “I can’t,” I admitted to Shaw.

  He sat on his haunches, leaving inches between us. “You have to.”

  “I don’t feel the magic.” And though I used to pray it would vanish, I was desperate for it now.

  “You’re close.” He sounded oddly calm. “Your magic is fuel, and your tank is almost empty.”

  Close. No further explanation needed. He meant that I—we—were dying.

  “I could help her...with that.” Linen choked on his ragged laughter.

  His head snapped back again, and this time his smartass reply didn’t materialize.

  Shaw had broken his jaw.

  What it said about me that violence stirred my appetite I was afraid to know.

  The scent of blood, Shaw’s nearness and the relentless hunger managed a spark on my palm. A grateful tear spilled down my cheek when I reached for the magic and it leapt into my hand, eager and ready, clawing its way higher up my arm.

  The stink of burning flesh made my stomach tighten as new runes joined the old. My magic was growing, runes up to my elbow, consuming more real estate on my body.

  The jolt of energy made my fingertips smoke, and then instinct kicked in.

  I grasped Linen’s bare wrist with my left hand.

  Raw, desperate power blasted out of me and electrified him. The dark, rich pocket of energy I sensed in him sickened me, because I knew where it came from and who had given it to him. But my magic only worked one way, and either I consumed it all or it went to waste.

  My body quivered as streaming ribbons of green power ripped him apart from the inside out.

  It was as if I had flung out a lasso, and the steer I roped was putting up the fight of its life. I knew it was going down. It was running on instinct, but so was I, and mine were honed sharper by deprivation. I yanked on that magical thread until Linen’s soul tore free, smashing into me like a cinderblock to the chest. I slumped forward, gasping to fill my empty lungs.

  The surge blazed over his skin. It crisped the topmost layers, which sloughed off onto the floor where Shaw ground them to dust under his boot. Only the meat and bones remained in a gnarled, charred heap.

  My left hand lifted to my throat from habit, but the days of summoning the Morrigan were over. I fisted the pendant and would have ripped it off my neck, but I had to retrieve my skins from storage first. As much as I hated to, I forced my hand lower. I could stand to wear her mark a bit longer.

  “How do you feel?” At some point Shaw had moved a safe distance away. Skin washed out, eyes white, but hanging on to his control.

  I took my time answering. “I feel—” My teeth clamped down on my tongue, and my eyes rolled back in my head. Muscles locked up, and my head smashed against the floor when I jerked backward. Tremors kept me writhing and moaning.

  My eyes had been bigger than my stomach.

  “Too much,” I slurred.

  “Shh.” Shaw’s knees du
g into my side. “This might hurt.”

  It didn’t.

  Once his left hand clasped mine and my runes brushed his skin, I felt nothing at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A familiar sight greeted me when I wiped away the sleep matting my eyes shut. “Hey.”

  Shaw, who must have been staring at me since our eyes met when mine opened, simply nodded. He occupied a worn pleather recliner positioned at the foot of my hospital bed. His shirt was clean, if rumpled. Hair twisted in clumps all over his head. Several of his reddish-brown curls stood straight.

  I continued my assessment, knowing he was conducting a similar examination of me.

  His tan skin held a healthy glow. Bright copper eyes, a sign he was in control, hadn’t blinked. The tension radiating from him sent my pulse sprinting, and my monitor beeped. Noticing it, Shaw dialed back his intensity, and I found I was able to breathe again. Too bad I smelled bleach instead of him.

  Swallowing took effort. My throat was dry, my lips cracked. “Branwen?”

  “She’s fine.” He pushed from his chair and headed to a rolling tray positioned next to my bed. Déjà vu washed over me, bringing with it memories of the first time he had played nurse for me. That seemed like a lifetime ago. And yet, here we were again. “She’s a guest of the conclave for the time being.”

  Guest, huh? “What about the others?”

  He poured chilled water over a cup of ice chips and stuck in a bendy straw before holding it out to me. “Two hundred were evacuated. Linen’s records show more, but we aren’t sure if they’re...” His lips pressed shut. “We haven’t found them yet, but we will. We rounded up a dozen lesser fae in Linen’s employ. Several are directing the rescue crews in exchange for not being executed for their crimes.”

  The first sip of water was bliss. I took another. “I take it someone else negotiated for their cooperation?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “I was removed after killing four of Balamohan’s guards at the tunnel entrance.”

  As the weight of his admission settled around me, I noticed a wide-mouth vase filled with red and yellow tulips sat in the window across the room. I nodded toward them. “Mable?”