His Words of Wrath (The Kaldr Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  Waking up with him had felt normal. The only thing that had made it out of place was hearing Aerick in the other room, moaning in his sleep about the headache he said would not go away.

  While I knew we probably should’ve stayed at the Winters’ ranch for at least another day, if only to let Aerick recover from what he adamantly assured me was not a concussion, I knew we couldn’t delay. The longer we were away from the compound, the worse it would be for the people within it. Baptiste would only be able to sate them for so long before people began asking questions. And once they started asking questions…

  I shook my head.

  I didn’t need to think about that—not now, not while I was driving back. Things would work out. They always did, one way or another.

  “Or end disastrously,” I mumbled to myself over the intermittent break in the MP3’s loop.

  I tried not to dwell on the matters at hand and instead concentrated on the road, disappointed that the gorgeous Texas landscapes would soon taper out into abysmal boredoms of deserts and flatlands. I reached down to thumb the MP3 player’s volume nodule—hoping to skip a particularly boring song I’d hated since my teenage years—when a dark figure appeared in front of the vehicle.

  I slammed on the breaks.

  The tires squealed.

  Aerick—who apparently had not been buckled in—slammed into the back seat and groaned from the impact. “The fuck is wrong with you?” he asked. “Are you trying to kill me? Because if you are, you could just—”

  I couldn’t say anything.

  Three figures stood in the middle of the road in broad daylight, one of whom was the black figure that had pursued us in the dark of night.

  “Jason,” Aerick growled, clawing at the center console to pull himself up. “I swear, if you don’t answer me right now, I’m going to shove my fist right up your—”

  He paused when his head appeared beside me.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “Shit,” he breathed, reaching up to hold his head. “This is bad. Really bad.”

  “What’re the other two?”

  “Sanguine.”

  “I thought vampires couldn’t walk in the daylight.”

  “Who the fuck told you that?”

  The tallest and most imposing of the figures—an individual whose sex I could not discern due to the cloak wrapped about their body—began to approach the vehicle. A simple wave of their hand made the banshee take flight, while a third made the third and as-of-yet-undetermined individual round the opposite side of the vehicle.

  We were trapped.

  There was nothing I could do except—

  I revved the engine and slammed my foot onto the accelerator.

  The moment I did so, the truck went dead.

  “What the fuck?” I asked.

  Just as soon as it’d died it came back to life. This time, however, the vehicle was stalled—its lights flashing in an orgasmic array of nonsensical colors. All four sets of windows rolled down—including the sun roof, which offered ample perch for the banshee that landed atop the vehicle—without so much as me moving my hands from the steering wheel. Even my MP3 player—which had been in the middle of a song—stopped working.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I whispered.

  “Nothing,” Aerick said, his hand balling into a fist and the tips of his fingers hardening into black, nailed points. “Just remain calm.”

  The tall figure—whom I could only assume was orchestrating this interaction—approached the driver’s side door, the dread pooling off its person unlike anything I had ever felt. I imagined, if it pulled its hood down, that I would see nothing more than a skeletal visage—the face of death in the flesh and bone. For that reason, I steeled my nerves and tightened my fingers around the steering wheel until my knuckles cracked and the blood began to draw away from the joints.

  “Kaldr,” the individual said, its voice low and without any discernible sex.

  “This one’s a Howler,” the banshee said from above my head, which elicited wicked laughter from the thing’s shadowy countenance. “A Howler! A Howler! The faithful dog along for the ride!”

  “Shut up wisp-dick,” Aerick growled.

  “Ooooooh,” the creature said. “We’ve got us a feisty one.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, only just aware of the creature rounding the passenger side of the vehicle, whose five fingers were still splayed to stop the progression of the vehicle.

  “We’ve been watching you,” the figure Aerick had said was the Sanguine said. “We know that you have killed the Hill Wolf.”

  “And that’s reason to stop us?” Aerick growled.

  “Quit, Aerick,” I growled back, trying as hard as I could to maintain focus on the abysmal depths beneath the creature’s black hood, beneath which I could see no face. “What do you want with us?”

  “Our trade agreement still stands, Ice Walker. Blood of the pack for continued immunity.” It turned its attention to Aerick. “You can choose to give it now or later.”

  “You’re not getting any of my blood you dirty skullfucker,” Aerick said, bearing his claws, which had continued to lengthen the digits on his right hand.

  “I’m not giving them anything,” I replied.

  “You have until sundown tomorrow,” the Sanguine said.

  The vehicle started.

  The truck surged

  Aerick—who’d been positioned between the driver’s and passenger’s seat—drifted forward as we began to pick up speed.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I asked as I looked back in the rearview mirror, only to find the three figures watching our departure.

  “It looks like I’ve got some explaining to do,” Aerick said, hopping into the front seat and buckling his seatbelt.

  “Yeah you do,” I said. I ripped the blaring earbuds from my head and tossed them into the console next to me. The next time I looked into the rearview mirror, the three figures were gone. “Tell me something first—are we safe?”

  “I think so,” Aerick said, craning his head first up to the sunroof, then all around the vehicle. “I don’t see the wispdick anywhere.”

  “What the fuck happened, Aerick?”

  “Remember how Elliot Winters was saying Pierre dealt in some pretty shady shit?” Aerick asked, settling back down in his seat. “Well… you just met of the worst of it.”

  “What do they want with your blood?”

  “If they’d just wanted my blood I would’ve given it to them,” the Howler laughed. “Anything to keep those fuckers off my ass.”

  “But they don’t.”

  “No.”

  Aerick paused. While waiting, I cast another glance at the rearview and side mirrors, still paranoid that we were being followed. The longer Aerick remained quiet, the more nervous I became, which did nothing for my already-frayed nerves.

  “They want,” Aerick said, “one of the Howlers.”

  “What?” I asked, frowning. “Why?”

  “Because Pierre made a deal with the local Sanguine.”

  “Which was?”

  “That they would stop feeding on the human population if they got a string of Howlers in exchange.”

  “A string?”

  “They must’ve bled their last one out,” Aerick sighed. “Shit. Poor Emily.”

  “Wait. Back up a minute. You said they’d stop feeding in exchange for a Howler? How the fuck are they going to do that?”

  “By feeding off the Howlers.”

  My blood—heated from the fear, adrenaline, and outright paranoia—ran cold. I’d been a Kaldr long enough to know it wasn’t a result of my magic, and given that I’d recently fed, it wasn’t because I needed sustenance. No. This was fear, pure and simple: cold, black, and completely unforgiving.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, flexing my fingers along the steering wheel. “They’re trying to make crossbreeds? Like Pierre was?”

  “Pierre was trying to make a crossbreed because h
e was out of his fucking mind,” Aerick replied. “No. The idea with feeding off a Howler is that, because of their regenerative abilities, they’ll last longer. Take a liter, they’ll get it back. Take two or three and their natural healing abilities will kick in. Same goes for when they turn—except in that case, we double in size; and when something doubles in size, that means—”

  “Double the blood,” I said. Aerick nodded.

  “Pierre used to keep control of the Howlers by threatening to sell them off the Sanguine. They’ve always been around—and are more prevalent than any Howler by a longshot—so it’s only natural that they’d need to feed. And given that their natural food source is blood…”

  “Pierre traded the Howlers to keep the Sanguine from drawing attention to your stalking grounds.”

  “Exactly.”

  I nodded. “Ok,” I said. “The first thing we need to figure out is how to deal with this.”

  “There isn’t any way to deal with this, Jason.”

  “Yes there is. There’s always another way.”

  “By what? Getting the Agency involved?” Aerick snorted. “They don’t give a shit so long as the peace is in order.”

  “But that’s the thing, Aerick. It isn’t going to be.”

  He paused.

  “I’m not going to give them any of our people,” I continued, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. “I’m not heartless like Pierre, and even though I know some of the Howlers would just as soon stab me in the back, I’m not going to give someone away just to satisfy some leech’s need to sustain itself.”

  “That’s a really bad idea if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “Thank God I’m not known for having good ideas then.”

  3

  We arrived at the compound longer after night had fallen. Lit by the crescent moon, the desert appeared like an alien landscape through the darkness, with the stars bright against the cloudy nebula and the shrubbery resembling figures sentinel upon the sands. Aerick—who’d driven the remainder of the way and who’d parked beside a lone vehicle outside what I assumed was the entrance of the compound—hopped out of the vehicle upon disengaging the engine and made his way toward a seemingly-nondescript place in the ground before crouching down, pushing a large rock aside, and thumbing a passcode into a keypad.

  “Thank God you came with me,” I said as the sliding metal grate parted to reveal the stairway beneath.

  “I don’t think Baptiste would’ve let you go by yourself,” Aerick said, then smiled. “At least with me you got a good dickin’.”

  “You’re such a gentleman,” I replied.

  “I know. Part of my charm.” He stood and gestured me forward. “Come on. Better get down here before anyone sees.”

  How anyone could I wasn’t sure, considering how far we’d driven off the road and how obscured the whole location was by a crop of rocks, but I decided not to question him and followed him into the beginning of the compound, remaining quiet as he secured the hatch back into place and then as he made his way toward the elevator. Once inside we rode down in silence—he with his hands in his pockets, me with my hands at my side—until finally we reached the bottom.

  By the time we reached the bottom, I expected to see people. Apparently it was later than I recalled, as not a soul was in the common room.

  “Guess I’ll catch you later,” Aerick said as he stalked off toward where the other Howlers slept.

  I caught his wrist before he could get too far away. “Aerick,” I said.

  “Yeah?” he replied.

  “Thank you. I mean, for going with me. And for helping me keep my head.”

  “No trouble, man. You know I’m here for you.” He gripped my hand, pulled me forward so our shoulders bumped together, then leaned his forehead against mine before planting a kiss at the tip of my nose. “I’d do anything for a cutie-pie like you.”

  “Good to know,” I smiled.

  Aerick flashed a grin before he disappeared.

  In the aftermath of his departure, I stood there for a moment, reveling in the kindness he’d shown before thoughts of what had transpired earlier began to plague my conscience. It immediately soured my mood—to the point where, when I turned and began to make my way toward my own quarters, I was immediately struck with a fit of anxiety.

  What was I going to do when the Sanguine came knocking? I couldn’t give anyone up, and I definitely couldn’t risk moving us to a different location when they were already aware of where we were. Fighting was an option, but what would happen when the ambassadors of the bloodsucking variety didn’t come back? Would they send more? And if so, how many? And would we be able to fight them off?

  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t expected this. I’d anticipated encountering them eventually, if only out of principal, but this… this was unlike anything I could’ve ever imagined.

  When I opened the door and stepped into my room, my first inclination was to stalk toward the bed and immediately collapse into it. Knowing, however, that I’d suffered through the immense summer heat and likely smelled as a result of it, I wandered into the bathroom, stripped out of my clothes, and stepped into the shower.

  My first thought was of Guy and I those first few hours in the Winters family ranch.

  Kissing.

  Hugging.

  Loving.

  On the floor, against the wall.

  I shivered as my soap-lathered hand slithered down my body and to my cock, aching with need for release after a day filled with stress, unease and danger. It hardened beneath my grasp and I stroked—gloriously—for what felt like hours, what seemed like days, sliding my thumb along its engorged head and tightening my grasp as I neared climax. I thought of the way my lips had been on him, of how his cock had been inside me—of how, on the floor of a shower like this, we’d engaged in sex comparable to the universe expanding beneath the tiny bubble of what would eventually become the cosmos. My ass throbbed, my balls tightened. I jerked—reflexively—as I came, and collapsed against the wall as I continued to shoot, sighing with relief as the tension traveled down my lower back and faded with the throbbing pulse of my prostate.

  I sighed.

  Though knowing it would only sate me temporarily, I stepped out of the shower, wrapped myself in Pierre’s old robe, then made my way to the bed—where, beneath the dirty sheets and blankets, I closed my eyes and tried to dream.

  Only nightmares followed.

  4

  I rose the next morning knowing, without a doubt, that the day’s activities were likely to bring about scrutiny, and as such violence. For that reason, I crawled from bed, dressed from the waist down, brushed my hair, cleaned my teeth, then looked at my reflection in the mirror, sore at the fact that I was so out of place here while at the same time thankful that I had intervened in such a drastic way.

  I had to keep telling myself: I did it for the good of the people. For myself. For the Kaldr.

  “And now for the Howlers,” I whispered, reaching up to run a hand across my face.

  Two colors had once ringed my eyes, two fates, two bloods.

  If I were to accomplish anything today, I had to use my experience from both sides to my advantage.

  After slipping my shirt over my head and checking to make sure I looked as presentable as possible, I walked out of my quarters and began to make my way toward the common room.

  Aerick must have mentioned something, because everyone was already there.

  “Hey,” I said, lifting a hand.

  “We’ve been waiting,” Baptiste said.

  I looked from he, to Poem, then Aerick—who, though seated near the back of the room, stuck out like a sore thumb in the current circumstance. He lifted a hand and waved back, though his smile was anything but grim.

  “So,” I said, stepping further into the room. “I assume all of you already know what’s going on.”

  “Only what Aerick has mentioned,” Poem spoke up, “and that was to come here because you had something to say.”<
br />
  “Yeah. I do.”

  The men and women of the Hill Country Howler clan looked at me with suspicious and unwavering eyes.

  Rather than wait for the tension to build, I took a deep breath and said, “We have a problem.” Then, before anyone could speak up, added, “With the Sanguine.”

  Everyone remained silent.

  Their faces—once morbidly content in their complacency—soured instantly.

  “Oh God,” Poem said. “It’s time.”

  “I ain’t lettin’ nobody take me!” a Howler cried.

  “Me either!” another added.

  “Or me!”

  “Or me!”

  “QUIET!” I yelled, surprised that the strength in my voice was enough to calm the room and quell any further argument. “No one’s taking anyone. That’s our problem.”

  “And why the four of you,” Aerick said, pointing at each man and women who’d spoken up, “need to shut the fuck up.”

  “Look,” I said. “I know that Pierre used to sell people off to the Sanguine in order to maintain some kind of… order… whatever that may be. But now that I’m in charge, that’s not going to happen anymore. What I need to know is if any of you have any ideas that might lead to a solution.”

  “Kill them,” Baptiste said.

  “Or draw straws,” Poem added.

  “Oh, honey,” Aerick chuckled. “That’s about the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. And trust me—I’ve heard some pretty bad ones.”

  “The asslicker’s heard a lot of things,” the Central American man said. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “Hey!” Aerick cried. “Don’t rag on eating ass until you’ve tried it. And as to me hearing a lot of things, let me tell you something I heard about you—”

  “Please,” I said, once again raising my hand. “Stop fighting.”