Page 44 of Tethered Souls
His smile is flat. “Could do a good news, bad news in that case.”
I laugh wryly, imagining just how well that’ll go. Hey, bad news is our kid needs to be murdered. Good news, so do I. She’d probably kill me herself. And then Khalid would have to kill her because that’d technically be treason despite me already having a death sentence. Because politics.
“Then again,” Talon says, “they might both be good news to her.”
My gaze sharpens, demanding he elaborates.
He stares at me. “You don’t know Micha specialized in killing kids? Any time a bulletin went out for anyone under fourteen, she took it. Some people say she keeps trophies of them. Teeth, fingers, hair, you know? Others say...she does something else with them.” He gives me a pointedlookthat has my fingers tightening on my glass.
“Mother wouldn’t have picked her if she did.”
His lips tighten ever so slightly, and the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise. There’s a hardness in his eyes, an unresolved anger as he raises his tumbler to his lips. He doesn’t take a drink though, suddenly remembering perhaps that it isn’t a soothing brandy in his hands but a touch of demonic fire. Placing it down on the desk beside him, he settles into silence.
But I need to know what anger he is hiding. If whatever it is is the reason he might’ve tried to kill me…
Fighting through the fog of the helfire, I study him. There was surprise in his eyes that I didn’t know her speciality but no disgust. Dead kids are nothing new in our line of work. We might be at peace with the vampires, the hardships of war no longer forcing us to do the unthinkable, but there are two thousand years of war crimes on all sides. What counts as a child today was either a soldier or a breedmare only a few decades ago – and with Mother, Antonio, and Aleric all being much older than that, their memories are still sharp. Their lines between what is a child and what is an adult is heavily blurred, and that confusion still bleeds into the bellies of the three gangs.
As for the vampires who feast on blood, they have a preference for the younger “animals.” Veal instead of beef. Lamb instead mutton. Most things on the American meat market in all practically – their farm animals forced to grow so fast their bones break from the strain, making them unfit to walk. The vampires have followed suit in their morality, seeing them with the same eye as humans do chickens and sheep and cows.
When Talon was but a teenager, he fell in love with a bloodbank – one of the humans passed around Aleric’s gang like a bong for everyone to take a puff from. Mother and I both warned him away from her, knowing the outcome of one of their “farm animals” is always a brutal death, but young love is foolish and irresistable.
The day she was eventually bled dry was the last day Talon ever cried. So I am certain his anger isn’t directed at Micha. He doesn’t care enough about nameless kids. He has seen too much shit, is almost numb.
Which means the anger is personal.
“How many Ricks did we move last month?” I ask again, steering the conversation to something less emotional so I have a baseline to work from. To compare his lies to. His anger.
“Ten percent more than last January, and this month is looking to be even higher.”
“Already?” The incubus potions are one of our biggest products, giving those who take it a fancy new dick with various bells and whistles, but we’re only in the second week of February.
Talon nods. “I reckon we’ll hit quota around Valentine’s. I thought of a good slogan – ‘ain’t cheating if it ain’t your dick’ for men and ‘ain’t cheating if it ain’t real dick’ for women.” He looks so fucking chuffed with himself. “I’ve emailed that out to the other capos today, so should see a rise in sales across the board.” A slow smirk spreads across his face. “Want a couple Ricks to take home tonight?”
“No.”
“The cum bucket helps with pregnancy.” It creates a rigid sac, knot-like, that fills up with extra cum right below the head.
My eyes narrow, but I don’t repeat myself. Using any of our products myself is a rule I will not cross. None of my capos are allowed to use anything other than Ricks, and if they do, they’re monitored. Addiction leads to distractions, loose fists on their territory, stealing from the top… An ever downward spiral that only ever ends in death. Either by their hand or mine.
Chuckling, Talon holds up his hands. He ducks his head and breaks eye contact, instantly and casually submissive. I focus on the muscles of his face, but his jaw doesn’t clench. His nostrils don’t flare. His eyes don’t harden as he stares at the floor, having tried to duck his head so I can’t see his hidden rage. His hands don’t twitch with the burn of magic. His feet don’t kick in a restless need to jump the distance between us and kill me. There are no signs of him hating me. Nothing to give suspicion to his loyalty.
My eyes narrow slightly.
“You bringing anyone to the party?” I ask, steering him towards more personal topics. Swirling the black liquid in my glass, I relax back in the chair. But my senses sharpen on him, picking up every twitch of his jaw muscles, every released hormone, every sharp inhale and exhale as dark clouds thunder across his eyes.
“No,” he says, his lips tight, his emotions written across them in broad strokes. And I know he’s thinking about the guest list, how Aleric will be there. Both Bosses have been invited out of respect to the treaty that is technically still in place, but Talon doesn’t give a shit about Antonio Garcia. He doesn’t even care that he’s slaughtering his way through the vampires; in fact, he applauds it, of the belief that we should just sit back and let it happen. Or actually help the wolves get rid of them for good.
“Aleric will be there,” I say, goading him, pushing buttons I know are there.
Jackie, his first love, didn’t just get drained dry during a party that got a bit out of hand. They waited until Talon took her on their first date – a picnic beneath the stars on the night of a meteor shower. She loved space, dreamed of being an astronaut, and Talon had bought her a promise ring inlaid with a real meteorite. He promised to buy her from Aleric – the only way a bloodbank can be free outside of death and then free her immediately after. He’d applied to colleges on her behalf, knowing she hadn’t because she didn’t expect herself to still be alive, having sold herself to the Blood Fangs in order to save her brother, to buy him protection when they lived on the streets. He had promised her so many things, and I want to think she died believing them. That for once in her miserable life, she found hope.
But Jackie was too experienced for that.
Talon left her on the beach while he went back to the car to grab something. And when he got back, he found her on death’s door, with “Witch Whore” written on her forehead in her own blood. She died in his arms, and her lost dreams, their lost future has haunted him ever since.
His lips tight, Talon barely manages to stop his growl. “I’ll behave. Just don’t fucking seat us together.”
There is pure anger in his words, but it isn’t at me. I study him, making sure, and then I finally start to accept his innocence. My chest expands in relief, only to instantly cave back in. Because if he isn’t the traitor, then who is?
