They took me on a trip through the alleys. I kept alert—they were under my sway, but they could still try to betray me. Not that I had anything of value, but they didn’t know that for sure.
My scent continued to do its devious work, but with each step I took, my nerves got worse. Was I afraid I could kill them, even if there were three? It was a risk…
The problem lay not in that, but back in the bed at the inn. My Satyr might be ravenous, but it ached for Riley. And I did, too.
My preferences diminished my scent, but didn’t eliminate it. By the time we reached our destination, both females were draped over me—their hands already groping beneath my cloak—and the male was nibbling on one of the female’s necks.
The room they took me to was tiny, but relatively clean, and it had a large bed that undoubtedly served all three. I was just happy not to be humping in the filthy alley. The females stripped their clothes with a languid seduction that should have had me quivering in seconds. The male, already sporting an impressive erection, pulled one over to the bed.
I was starving for fulfillment, but my Satyr refused to rise to them. As one of the females lifted my cloak and undid my laces, I closed my eyes and let my imagination roam. It wasn’t three fingers that stroked me, it was four. The eyes looking up at me as she closed her hot, wet mouth around me weren’t pink, but rimmed in green.
But although my body started to respond to the imagery, my hands pushed her away. This wasn’t right. I might not be able to have Riley, but I couldn’t betray her like this, either.
I redirected the female toward her friends. Her brow wrinkled in confusion as I backed away.
And then, I fled. Through the door, and back out into the alley. I didn’t even pay attention to where I walked. My only aim was to get away.
I was in real trouble here. The bloodmagic had changed me. Increased my need, and what it took to satisfy. To fulfill. Until I fed, I was a risk to all around me.
If I had been an ordinary Satyr, it would have been no big deal. But dancing with my power had a much higher price tag—I could suck someone dry of every ounce of their life essence and leave them with smiles on their faces, but very, very dead.
There was no shortage of willing partners in this place. But now that I’d met the one Fate had decreed for me, I was destined to never find what I sought.
Completion of heart and soul and mind.
Something that would only come with the power offour. Because I had no doubt that Marcus and Havoc were part of it. But even with all of them, I might still end up lethal.
There was just no way to know for sure.
That left only one other option. I turned down an alley, and then another. Slowed my pace, added a slight stagger.
It didn’t take someone long to respond to the bait. He came out of the deeper shadows of a doorway and palmed a knife from his waist.
Seconds later, the knife dropped from his fingers. I pinned him against the wall with my hands at his throat.
And the fiend within me sucked him dry.
Then I dropped him. I didn’t waste power on killing him, but rather left him lying in the disgusting alley. I prowled another alley, finding another victim.
And then another.
I stopped at four. I tried to ignore the way this made me feel—where was the creature of love and lust that I had once been?
Maybe it had only ever existed in my mind. Maybe Isobel was correct. I’d always been this, and just never acknowledged it.
A creature of death.
26
Marcus
The Watcher collected Kiko on our way back into the treehouse and showed us that her retirement stronghold held even more surprises.
She took us to the ground floor of the guest house—which, as it turned out, was an armory.
We came down the stairs, and I was instantly rapt. Because I recognized Emmanuel’s handiwork hanging on the walls. Knives, mostly. But a few swords, too.
I regarded Cara with astonishment. “I thought you were a healer.”
