Page 24 of Black Hand
Aguilt I wasn’t aware I carried for everything the Syndicate had done weighed on my shoulders, and I slouched as I dragged my feet out of the house after leaving Alice as comfortable as I could make her on the couch in the small living room. The clothing I borrowed from her stretched a little tight around my shoulders and chest, so I snatched the thick sweater hanging on a hook by the door as I closed it softly behind me. There was a bite in the air that smelled like incoming rain, so I wrapped my arms around my torso like a shield, hugging the knitted garment that hung down to my thighs. We didn’t feel the elements as bad as humans did, but we were not immune to them either. Something they forgot to tell Dominic, who was pacing up and down the side of the house wearing a new path around it with his boots. I felt sorry for the crushed grass under the soles of his feet.
And, how nice of him to grab some of his clothing while he was out patrolling.
The faded t-shirt he wore was hanging on for dear life around his muscular frame, the seams ready to burst at any second every time he clenched his fists and his biceps bulged like balloons. As agitated as he was, the stomping he was doing shouldn’t have looked graceful or hot as hell, but it did. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Staying silent, I approached him, my mind racing with what I should say and how to handle him. I almost laughed at the thought of anyone handling Dominic. The male was as wild and as untamed as they came. The civil façade he presented to the outside world crumbled like dominoes the moment I looked at his eyes. There was something primal and savage there, daring me to challenge it. Leaning one shoulder on the wall with peeling paint flaking off it, I stood waiting and tracked his every move.
“I wanted to ask what you’ve done that your Council,” he spat the word as if it tasted vile in his mouth, ”would want to kill you, but I saw the evidence myself when I followed you to the human.”
He didn’t look at me or stop pacing, so I waited, tracing every move and every expression crossing his downturned face. Confusion mixed with the anger puckering his brow, which only added to the dominant air he exuded around him. He took up more space in this world than anyone had any right to do.
Who was this guy?
“I had every intention of killing you when I took you from that damn place.” His gaze bore into mine, so intent I found it hard to breathe. Lucky for me I had to learn not to show any expression when faced with a crazed male. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”
That last part was pushed through clenched teeth like an accusation. Like it was my fault he couldn’t go through with it. We stared at each other for a long time, none of us uttering a word, but I was lost for what to say to that. What could I say? Thank you for not killing me? Try harder next time?
“You can compel your own kind.” And there it was, the one thing I hoped he would skip in this talk of his. “What are you?” The menacing step he took toward me made my heart jump to my throat and lodge there.
“Atua,” I answered him evenly with no infliction in my voice. “What else could I be?”
One second he was wound up as tight as a rubber band ready to snap and glaring at me from a few feet away, and the next the wall of the house crumbled over my shoulders, his fists embedded in it on both sides of my head. The heat from his body scolded my skin, and his furious panted breaths wafted across my face until my nostrils were filled with his scent. My senses were overwhelmed.
“Don’t try to lie to me, female.” Each snarled word brought his lips closer to mine, and that caused my breath to hitch. “Is this a new trick that they’ve started testing so they can get to me?”
“I’m a little lost now.” Working hard to maintain my calm demeanor, I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from lifting in surprise. What the hell was he talking about?
“For years I’ve been picking you off one by one, giving myself time to find a way to rid the world of the vermin that you are.”
He paused as if expecting me to be offended by the insult, but I just stared unblinking at his rage-twisted face. My mind was also stuck on what he’d actually said. He had been killing off Atua and not a word had spilled out through the Syndicate. I shouldn’t have been shocked that the Council would do everything to cover that up, to hide their weakness. Yet I was. This only cemented my decision to gain his trust, as impossible as it might sound, because if he could get to them, I could get to them through him.
“And here you are, still breathing.” I flinched when he growled deep in his chest at the end of that statement. A cruel smile lifted one corner of his mouth at my reaction.
“What did my kind do to you, Dominic?” Saying his name was my attempt to calm him down enough to hear me, and it worked for a split second because that was the wrong question to ask. The story of my life.
“What they always do!” Dominic roared in my face, punching the wall next to my head again. His voice carried through the trees around us. Birds screeched in the distance, a flock of them soaring into the night sky like a dark cloud.
I wished I could be one of them.
“They will destroy anything that doesn’t further their agenda or has no purpose to them.” Seeing the predator staring at me through his now-glowing electric green eyes was fascinating enough that I had to tighten my arms around me so I didn’t reach out and touch his face. For some idiotic reason, I had an urge to smooth the strained lines with my fingers and make whatever put them there go away. “Fates forbid anyone lives that has enough power to stand up against all the heinous things they are doing to the rest of us.”
There it was, plain as a sunny day. I never wanted to see the reason he hated me so much. I should’ve known. “Who did you lose?”
“You don’t get to gloat at that, vermin.” This time I did move, slapping the palm of my hand at the center of his chest because he looked like he was about to bite my head off.
He pressed harder on my hand as if testing my strength and how far I would go.
“Unless you suffer from short-term memory loss, I lost my best friend a few days ago.” He bared his teeth at me, reminding me he could shift at any moment and it wouldn’t be fun to fight his panther. I could reason with the man, not with the animal. “She was the only family I had left.”
His angry gaze dropped to the pendant sitting inconspicuously on my throat before flicking back to mine.
“I didn’t get to choose what I was born into.” Puffing out a deep sigh, I started doubting that we would ever come to see eye to eye on anything. The hatred was so deeply embedded in Dominic that a saint would be named a sinner without judgment day.
Not that I was a saint.
“I can’t physically take it off.” Which is one thing that truly bothered me about the night Veronica had been killed. How did she remove it? “It’s spelled to mark us as Syndicate, which I’m sure you know.”
I held my breath when his arm lifted, his fingers grazing my skin when they wrapped around the chain. They curled tightly around the necklace, and without looking away from my eyes, Dominic started pulling on it. A crazy thought entered my head that he might actually do it, but it was gone just as fast when the chain cut into my skin and sent pain shooting across my shoulders and to the base of my skull. With clenched teeth, I endured it while still holding his gaze, unable to hide the hope sparking in my chest.Do it. Do it,my mind encouraged him until tears started burning the back of my eyes.
“My entire family.” His deep voice came out so soft I felt the words in the palm pressed to his chest more than I heard them.
