The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (16 page)

“Who…are you?”

“Muck,” Moco says with pride. “Dirt underfoot. Sewer dwellers.”

 
“So what do ya say, Princess?” Luz asks in a voice that’s all cruelty and calculation. “Got a bit more blood left to give?”

“No. No more fighting. It’s done.
I’m
done. Please…kill me…”

“I am toe clippings! I am cow shit! Take me, O Lord of Losers, O Lord of Castration,” Moco says, mocking my sacred prayer.

Luz strokes my forehead.
 

I shy away, waiting for the strike.
 

I’ve toyed with enough half-dead men to know when I’m being tortured.

“Aww,” Luz says, her voice velvet-gloved. “Our pretty Princess is afraid. All broken up inside. Heartbroken. Lost. Alone.”

I sense Luz stand and lean over me, inspecting me.

“How can you…I can’t…see?” I ask.
 

“You weren’t born in the Hole,” Moco answers. “Anyone born underground can see in pitch black.”

“Let’s go,” Luz says, pushing my head into the pile of skulls. “Fuck this guy. Whatever put him here wants him to stay. And I’ll be fucked if I want those things on the top of the pyramid scenting us through the tombs and following us back to the Hole.”

“Absolutely,” Moco says, clearly relieved.

“You got the sack of rodents, Moco?” Luz asks.
 

“Yup.”

“All right then. Have fun dying, Princess.”
 

Luz takes a few steps away, and suddenly I’m overwhelmed by the tomb’s impenetrable darkness and deathly silence. The foul dust. Ruthless cold. And the…
loneliness
, and before I know what I’m doing I fling myself at this stranger, latch onto her legs, beg and scream for her to take me with her, that I’ll do anything she asks, that I can’t die alone in this pit—

“Get the fuck
off
me!” Luz says, slamming something sharp into my shoulder over and over until a bone pops and pain makes me release her legs.

“Please…don’t leave me…please! I
know
things. About the ones like me.”

“Fucking hell,” Luz mutters.
 

“He’s not worth shit, and he doesn’t know shit,” Rata says. “Let’s kill him.
Then
lets go.”

“Nope,” Luz says in a tone like she’s pondering something. “Moco’s a coward, but he has a keen nose for opportunity. This Princess was a demon animal. He
is
a demon animal, but something happened. I want to know what. We should interrogate him.”

Luz commands Rata and Moco to check the exit tunnels to make sure they’re clear, and when they’re distracted she leans down and whispers in my ear, “I won’t hurt you. Take me with you.”

I blink, not comprehending. She’s already hurt me—
 

“I want to cut him,” Rata says, eyeing Luz suspiciously. “I found him. He should be mine to flay.”
 

“Maybe we can find out why he can’t change,” Moco says. “Maybe we can use it.”

“Yeah.” Luz’s voice is razor-edged. “Rata! Bind our new friend’s wrists to his ankles. And fucking gag him. I can’t stand the sound of his voice. We’re bringing him to the Hole. You can hurt some answers from him.”

A rush of short-lived relief floods through me. I won’t be left alone in this tomb. But I can’t let these tormentors take me to this place called the Hole. So somewhere…once we’re out from under the pyramid, I’m going to have to break free—

“Rata! You carry the Princess out ahead,” Luz barks. “Anything happens you drop him, got it? The fucking demons’ll dig into him first. Give us time to escape.”

“They’re not demons,” I say.
 

Silence.
 

After a while Luz says, “All right. What are your kind called?”

“Stricken. They’re the black-blooded ones. Do you know of them?”

“We
hunt
them,” Rata says.

I smile inwardly. The kid’s not long for this world.

“Stricken aren’t my kind,” I say.
 

“See?” Moco says. “He’s being useful already.”

“I don’t give a fuck who’s called what,” Rata snaps. “Long as it dies when I cut its head off.”

“You
should
care,” I say.

“Why?” Luz asks.

“There’s a war on,” I say, trying to think through a thick fog of memory to what Tamara said about the war. “Stricken against red blooded Purebloods.”

“Different races?” Luz asks.

“Different
species
. And then there’s me. Or…like I was.”

“What are you, besides a Princess?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been told my species is…recent. I’ve never met any of my kind.”

“Gag him,” Luz says.

“Let me walk,” I say while Rata grips my hair and jerks my head to the side, readying the gag. “Keep my wrists bound and gag me but let me walk. I’ll tell you something valuable if you do.”

I can almost hear Luz’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “You’ll tell us everything when we get to the Hole and start cutting your skin from your bones. Rata likes to begin with the scalp and work his way down—”

“This is valuable to you
now
.”

“He’s bullshitting us, Luz,” Rata says. “Let me cut him. Only a little. Just to teach him—”
 

“Shut up, moron,” Luz hisses. “Maybe the Princess is bullshitting. But so what? If he trie to run we bury our spears in his back. Simple. Leave his ankles free. Let him walk.”

“That’s a shit move,” Rata warns.

“Fuck you, Rata. Remember who’s leading this scavenge?”

Silence.

“Rata? Tell me who’s leading this scavenge,” Luz repeats.

“Luz of the Silent Path,” Rata says, his voice thick with hatred.

There. That hatred and rivalry.
 

I can work with that.

“Thanks Rata,” Luz says. “Now. Princess? I’ll keep your legs free. So tell me what’s so important about the…Stricken?”

“You said you cut off the Stricken’s heads to kill them,” I say while Rata puts his hands under my arms and tugs me to my feet. All I’m hoping is to make Luz believe I’m worth keeping alive until an opportunity for escape presents itself. “But that doesn’t kill them.”

“Fuck you,” Rata scowls. “I have their stinking black-blooded heads in a pile outside my cave.”

“Wonderful,” I say, trying to hide my disdain. “But the ones you thought you killed…they healed.”

“What?” Luz asks.
 

“They healed. It would take a long while. But they healed.”

“Ha! Fucking liar! They grew new heads?” Rata scoffs.

“Yes.”

“Your head count’s going
way
down, Rata,” Moco says, clearly enjoying seeing Rata’s position undermined.

“Bullshit,” Rata mutters, digging his elbow into my ribs. “Lying sack of shit animal.”
 

“Then how do we kill the Stricken?” Luz asks.

“Cut off their heads and burn them. Rip out their hearts and consume them. Or, if you don’t feed on Stricken, you burn both head and heart.”

“Fire?” Moco says.
 

“Yes.”

“Fire is the Breath of Evil,” Rata says.

“
La Mugre
are forbidden to use it,” Luz says.

“You better get over that. Quick. Fire weakens them when you fight, and it’s the only way to make sure they stay dead.”

“What about you?” Luz asks. “If I cut off your head, will you heal?”

“I would have,” I say, thinking of the Spotted Stalker roaming in my blood and the overwhelming sense of weakness and frailty in me now.

Rata slips a steel cord around my wrists. “You wanna be real quiet when we move,” he says as he binds me. “Be a treat if I have to cut you.”

T
HE
PICKUP
TRUCK
explodes in a blinding flash, lighting the shithole Rusted Spike Saloon on fire and blowing me on my ass in the parking lot. Red-hot shrapnel whizzes past my head. Scorching heat burns my hair, dries the spit in my mouth.

But the explosion doesn’t kill me.

Fuck you, world.

I asked for
one
thing. A quick death.
 

The Stricken piling out of the bar get blown into the air and land around me burning and screeching. My two shadow-hunters dart through smoke and flame, tearing at the Stricken and feeding on their hearts. I feel every bit of nourishing black blood…and I gotta say, I haven’t had a feed like this in a long while, and the taste of black blood is what finally drives me to stagger to my feet.
 

The world may be upended.
 

The hunter hunted.
 

But I’m still an apex predator, and I still relish the kill.
 

There’s a Stricken rolling and shrieking on the ground a few yards off, his leather Satan’s Spawn cut melted to his fur. He’s gone half-wolf, his claws scratching at his burning clothing. I’m on him in a single leap, biting at his throat. His jugular pops with a wet hissing sound and his ugly yellow eyes widen when he realizes he’s a goner.
 

I kneel over him and drive my hand through his ribcage, half expecting his blood to burn me like it did Nash way back when. But it doesn’t, and I feel his beating heart in the moment before I free it from his fucking chest. I make damn sure the Stricken sees me holding his heart above him, then bring it to my lips—

A bullet slams into my back, knocking the heart from my hands and flattening me into the dirt. The dying Stricken’s lying beside me, coughing black blood. He lives just long enough to give me a fucking wink.
 

More bullets pop.
 

One zips by my head. Another slams into my shoulder.
 

The pain makes me howl.

I roll to the side, spring to my feet, fear and adrenaline moving me beyond pain.
 

The roaring Harley’s are close now, maybe a mile or so down the road, but I don’t have time to worry too much because there’s a Stricken walking at me with a big ‘ole Dirty Hairy style revolver raised and popping rounds. Dude’s got long goat-like legs and a human torso and a head like a rat or weasel, and he’s grinning as he uses me for shooting practice, his sharp teeth glinting in the flickering orange light.
 

A bullet punches into my shoulder and then I’m airborne, leaping at him. The rat-thing manages to get his arms up before I slam into him. We hit the ground hard, biting and snapping and clawing, fighting not so much to live but to kill, and his claws slide across my cheek, aiming for my face and my wolf howls and I knee the fucker hard in the balls, hoping to wind him.
 

The rat-faced thing chuckles, flips me over and wraps his hands around my neck.
 

Just my luck.
 

Fucker’s nutless.
 

The rat-thing’s behind me, strangling me, and he’s strong and agile, his goat hooves dancing in the dirt as I struggle and thrash, my lungs burning, my vision dimming, and when I look up I see a nightmare pack of six more Stricken strolling at me, taking their fucking time, not too worried over me even though their shithole clubhouse is in flames, the fire licking into the night sky—

The first Stricken reaches me. He’s a huge barrel-chested bastard wearing motorbike riding gear and enough gold bling to make a gangster pop wood. Threaded through a few of the larger gold chains around his thick neck are human skulls. The skulls swing from side-to-side as he shuffles forward, knocking together with a hollow sound that seems way too loud in my ears.
 

Fucker’s got to be over three hundred pounds. He’s got a wild boar’s head and a wide, snot-dripping snout ringed in razor-sharp tusks, and I can tell by how the others look at him he’s this crew’s alpha.

The ugly boar-boss flicks his wrist in my direction.
 

The rat-thing releases his hold on my neck.
 

I drop into the dirt, gasping and clutching my throat.

I try and push to my feet, fail, end up lying on my side, staring at the boar’s boots. Two-inch long steel spikes stick out from the each boot.

The boar reaches down, grips me by the hair, lifts me into the air so I’m at eye level with him. I’m shaking, streaked in red and black blood, full of bullets and damn near pissing myself. Not from fear—I’m well beyond fear—but simply because I’m too weak to control my basic functions.
 

All three shadow-hunters have vanished.
 

I don’t have the strength to summon them back, and the thought of that sicko doctor down in the meat-locker bunker escaping into the night makes me spit in rage.
 

The boar-boss looks at me with his sharp, beady black eyes, runs a long grey tongue over his wide lips and says, “You fucked my bike.”

“Fat sack of shit…prolly couldn’t ride worth a fuck…” I manage.

The boar throws his head to the sky and laughs. The rest of his crew chortle along with him, and when he stops they all go silent.
 

“I know you,” the boar says, squinting at me. “I
seen
you before.”

“Your moms—”

The boar slams his massive fist into my belly, knocking the breath from my lungs. I thrash and twist while the bastard holds me strong, staring at me like a man inspecting a flopping fish on a line, and when my hair begins tearing from my head the boar-boss wraps his other hand around my throat.

“Gunna squeeze ‘till your eyes pop out, you filthy fucking mutt,” the boar growls, his eyes narrowing. “I
do
know you,” he sneers, nodding at me and licking his lips. “You’re that MC Prez from the coast. Pureblood Predator? Yeah, I remember you.”

The boar shakes me back and forth in the air. “You killed a few of my boys back in the day.” The boar whirls me around so I’m facing what’s left of his crew, then shouts, “Hey assholes! Know what we got here? A fucking Pureblood Predator. Remember them red-blooded bitches? Yeah. So who wants to take a swing?”

The boar alpha releases his grip on my throat just enough for me to draw a long breath.