Page 418 of Rage

“Time to go, little demon,” I growled, holding her tight enough that she hissed, her grasping claws digging into the flesh of my neck where she still gripped me, a master holding her hound. I ignored the pain, trusting, perhaps foolishly, that this creature would not truly harm me.

Hargrave

She was limp in my hold by the time I reached the wrought-iron gate of my townhouse. A now-stately edifice had been a baroque monstrosity when I purchased it. White marble had been weathered into black by the mist, rain and factory grime, its decorative work barely discernible even in the brightest of daylight. I’d had the entire hulking building modernized and now it gleamed, even in the late night darkness that had been compounded by mist and cloud.

I’d smoothed the corners and straightened the edges, turning the columns back to a more sedate Doric when they had been a very enthusiastic Corinthian, and toned down the more dramatic arches. The gargoyles had been banished to perches in the back garden, their snarling faces softened by the climbing roses, English ivy, and lavender. The gardener, a holdover from the estates’ previous owner who did almost no gardening in his dotage, often gave me dire warnings that the creatures wouldawaken one day and clamber back to their original perches regardless of my decorative preferences.

I had conceded defeat to that bit of information and informed the arthritic old human that should the stone sculptures suddenly gain sentience, I would be happy to surrender whatever territory along my roof or gutter they deemed theirs.

“Just a little further,” I murmured, pressing my lips to the toothtaker’s stinking, snarled hair, ignoring the stomach churning smell. She felt different in my arms, no longer a taught bowstring of half-mad fury and barely controlled violence.

“Where are we?” she replied, pliant in my hold her blinking eyes had returned to a more human shade, though they still sat too large in her gaunt, pale face.

“My home,” I told her, snarling as my guards showed entirely too much curiosity as we passed through the barrier and into the safety of my home.

Chapter Three

Edwige

I’d been left to soak in a massive tub. The cast iron monstrosity was definitely custom made specifically withhimin mind.

I wanted him to come back, as irrational as the thought was.

He had made me warm. It’s been so long since I’d felt anything besides hunger churning in my gut and the icy cold of death aching in my bones. I wanted him to come back and help me be warm again, to remind me that I also had life within this pale, scarred flesh. I’d felt it rising in me as he’d carefully peeled the blood and sludge covered chemise off my body, the touch clinical and gentle despite how I’d thought we were going to devour each other a scant three quarters of an hour ago.

He’d shed his outer layers, wearing only trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show muscular sage green forearms. A smattering of thin scars over them, the delicate, lighter marks in stark contrast to the ragged edges of the bite marks that littered my flesh. I could feel him cataloguing each of my old injuries as he gently helped me into a smallish room atthe corner of his opulent bathroom, the water streaming from a metal disc at the top warm and gentle as a spring rain.

“Magic,” he’d said to my unspoken question, “a naiad owed me a favor, and instead of the usual drown-your-enemies payment plan, I chose this instead. There is a lot of bathing in my line of work,” he’d added somewhat bashfully.

“It’s wonderful,” I sighed, keeping my eyes closed as the gentle downpour loosened the layers of dirt that clung to my skin until it felt like even my heart and soul had been gently scrubbed. He’d then set me to soak in this inane tub, with its clawed feet and curled lip. A luxury of luxuries, I could nearly swim laps in the damn thing.

A maid, who was an aging human woman with a carefully schooled look of neutrality on her face, added an oil that smelled faintly of something floral that I couldn’t quite place, it floated over the surface of the water and clung to my clean skin.

I trailed my silvery claws through it, the marks of what I was never truly left, not that I wanted them to. I loved my teeth and claws. I loved the brilliant silver of their long, razor sharp points. I loved the designs that were etched into them, the miniscule twining vines of moonflower were so finely wrought and delicate they were barely discernible unless one was looking closely. Until now, the only eyes that had seen them were mine, and the terrified ones of my victims. I tapped them against the side of the tub, filling the still, humid air with the soft tinkling of fairy bells.

“I didn’t expect them to sound like that.”

His voice made me turn, and I gazed up and up at the orc, still in his suit pants and suspenders, the shirt marred with the gore I’d been painted in.

“No one does,” I told him, a smirk twisting the corner of my pale purple lips. “I like it.”

“I like it too, toothtaker,” he replied. Coming forward, offering a him-sized towel, the length of fabric large enough towrap around me like a throw blanket. Just seeing the orc sent a bubble of warm, delicious life burning in me, and I couldn’t help but snuggle back against his broad form as he wrapped me up, and set about patting another cloth over my damp hair.

“It’s Edwige,” I said shyly, “not just toothtaker.”

“And I’m Hargrave,” he answered, smiling at my offering of a name.

“Why are you being so nice?” I asked the brusque question, tempered by how I leaned into his touch and practically purred with every pass of his hands over my hair.

“You’re mine. My beloved, my treasure,” he replied, carefully nonchalant, though I could feel the enormity of the statement behind his gently spoken words. “In orc tribes you would have been called a gift from the moon goddess.”

“When I was a witch, I would worship the moon.” I mused, allowing him to maneuver me onto a padded bench that sat before a mirror, looking at him in our reflection of the silver as he frowned down at his stained shirt, removing it and letting his suspenders fall around his muscular thighs. His bulk framed me as he began carefully combing through the tangled mass of my hair, scoffing when I suggested it might be easier to just hack it off and save us all some time.

It was nearly dry by the time he finished, running oil that he had said he used on his own mane of thick black hair through my thinner strands before quickly braiding it into a single neat rope that fell nearly to the center of my back. I was surprised when he laid me in his own bed, not so secretly pleased to continue being near him, to feel his warmth and his bulk, to smell the scent of earth, expensive cologne, and his maleness as he wrapped himself around me.

“How many are left, Edwige?” He whispered the question so softly against the shell of my ear.

“One more,” I replied, running my ornate claws over his warm skin, bringing goosebumps up in their wake. “One more mouth.” I growled the words, and I felt him pull me tighter against the broad expanse of his chest, as though he sought to shield me from the violence I contained.

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