The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) Read online

  #

  My impostor did have magic in her.

  I felt it as I sat astride her, stroking myself to the words of her tale, her will gathering and searching out for obstacles to push against.

  I could have done anything to her then, I knew from the way she ground against me in her need, the breathiness of her voice as she spoke, but it was more entertaining to watch her lose herself as my seed spattered her, and then be denied.

  I wanted to deny her something. To take something away from her, as so much had been taken away from me. And then walk away from her bed with strength so that she would never know how badly I needed her blood.

  None of the stories I’d heard of the bloodbound made it sound like this – I pressed a fist into my stomach where I felt hollow. To deny yourself too long was to become ravenous – Zaibann had accidentally slaughtered the ones they’d loved before, the warning stories were passed down every generation.

  I was not there yet, but – I swallowed and found an empty room to lie down in, trying to maintain control.

  I waited for hours, seeing how far I could push myself, needing to prove to myself that our bloodbond was real. When I couldn’t take it any longer I stood, ready to walk into her chambers and demand it from her – but I was surprised by the sense of someone else’s magic in the air. I dampened my own powers and crept up to find Ilylle talking to another man. A real man -- I could tell by his scent. And when he stood, I was surprised to find him wearing clothes from my time, not what I’d seen men wearing outdoors.

  Who was he, and how had he gotten here? He radiated power – and when she saw me, she looked afraid. When the man made to leave I ignored my hunger and followed him.

  He went to the chamber she’d taken me to with the false pictures on the walls. The sealed doors there opened for him and I turned to smoke to billow out before they closed again. We were in a hallway, with images of outside – just as false – projecting the top of a wide stair, but the actual door was set inside the screens to the left.

  I followed him into a large room where embroidered robes hung from the walls and gilded hats and sashes sat on shelves – all styles of clothing from my time, but made in this one. He took off all his clothing and carefully hung it up, slipped on a uniform of some kind. A new door opened for him and he walked out.

  We went through halls and doors, until we reached men, military in appearance, who stood at attention as he passed. Eventually he reached a final non-descript door, which let us out of the compound. Sunlight shone down through billows of smoke and the air around me still tasted like death. He walked carefully down three steps and into the belly of a waiting Rix-beast. I slid in right beside him, unseen.

  “Were you successful?” asked a woman sitting in front of him, after he closed the beast’s door.

  The old man shook his head. “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking back at him in a mirror.

  “Not as sorry as I am,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the dome hiding the Feather Palace behind him.

  “Not as sorry as she’ll be, either,” said the woman, with a dour face.

  “Take me home, Elissa,” the man commanded.

  I wanted to go ‘home’ with him – I wanted to reform and ask him more – what did he mean? What did they know, that Ilylle didn’t?

  Did they plot to harm Ilylle?

  I may have had no love lost for the girl, but we were bloodbound – I couldn’t let her die.

  The painful sinking sensation of need followed me, even as smoke – hunger, and fear, that something was transpiring to hurt her in the palace right now, without my protection. I needed to be able to find him again, but the old man had magic, he would notice if I marked him. The woman, however, would not. I swirled up through the beast, catching a wisp of the woman’s scent and tracing her with my gift, before exiting the monster’s metal side via a puckered seam.

  It was easy to disguise myself as smoke in new-Aranda – no one would notice it, not with everything else already in the air. The slums were no prettier in the daylight as I flew around the palace to use the exit I’d used as wind. Inside again, I sank and turned until I was in the palace and blew through the halls to reform behind Ilylle, ready to demand her blood.

  She was sitting at a desk, head bent, reading some Rix-screen intently. Her hair had parted, showing the fragile whiteness of her neck, and already I could feel the way my teeth would press upon it, the way it would give and then – my ravenous hunger frightened me, and I went still.

  “I am returned,” I said.

  My words startled her. She jumped, clutching a hand to her chest as she looked back. “Oh – it’s you. That was Yzin earlier –“

  “I need your blood.” Explanations could come later – I needed to feed now.

  She set her screen down and loosely crossed her arms. “I don’t feel like I learned anything this afternoon.”

  “Nevertheless, I need your blood.” She had so many soft places visible, arm, breast, neck. Things low inside of me were aching, starved. “It is up to you if you give it willingly,” I warned.

  Her lips pursed and she snorted softly before standing up. “I’ve given it some thought. As I do get visitors sometimes, I don’t want you biting me where it will show.” She put her right leg up on the chair she had been sitting on. “Come here, my starving King,” she said, and pulled her skirts up to show me her inner thigh.

  I paused, even after seeing so much pale white flesh. What she wanted would put her over me, would give her the frisson of control. My pride didn’t like that – but wasn’t that what she needed to learn, rather than offering me a dainty wrist?

  I needed to decide before my hunger made an animal of me. I swooped forward as smoke and reformed at her side.

  She gasped, as I sank onto my knees in front of her. I wanted to be in control but failing that, I would take what was mine. I grabbed her leg with one hand and her ass with the other and opened my mouth wide, biting into the sweetness of her inner thigh.

  She made a small sound of pain as I bit down. Her blood flowed, thick, sluggish, salty, and I looked up as I tasted it surprised to find her staring down, eyes-wide and jaw-dropped. I ran my tongue against her thigh and sucked, pulling at the wound I’d made for more, as she slowly lowered one hand to rest against my cheek.

  When I was sated – when the feeling inside my stomach was full, and sanity retook my mind – I closed my eyes and pulled back, and her hand followed me.

  “Does my blood please you, my King?” she asked as I stood.

  I wanted to tell her it tasted like treachery, like poison. There was only one person’s blood I should ever know the taste of and that was Airelle’s. But looking down at her, I found that I couldn’t lie. “It does.”

  “Good,” she said, and fainted.

  #

  I woke to someone smacking my ass – hard. I jumped and startled to all fours, finding myself on my bed and Zaan there, hitting me.

  “What –“ I asked in panic.

  “You fainted. I assumed you didn’t want me to slap your face, ‘where someone might see’,” he said, clearly mocking me.

  The last thing I remembered was looking down at him, watching him suck on me and feeling…ecstatic. Wave after wave, feeling his tongue roll against me and his lips suck. I’d reached for his face, wanting to pull his mouth towards my honey --

  “Are you afraid of blood, girl? Or did my visage frighten you?”

  His voice interrupted my memories. “No.” His lips were stained red – with my own blood. And I could see streaks on a pillow, likely where he’d cleaned himself so as not to scare me. “It wasn’t that. I just –“ I shook my head, unable to explain.

  “Airelle never fainted.”

  “Airelle never let you bleed her, either.” At least I had one thing up on my ancestor. His face flushed dark, and he stood to pace.

  “That man who was in here with you. Who was he?”

  “Councilmember Yzin.
” I looked over and saw the shard of pottery where I’d left it, on the couch. He’d been trying to tell me something, hadn’t he?

  “He’s going to kill you,” Zaan said, coming to a stop.

  “What?”

  “I followed him outside and got into a contraption with him. Heard him talking over a plan with an enemy.”

  “Yzin wouldn’t –“

  “You can’t honestly report on what anyone would, my Queen. May I remind you your whole world is built on lies?”

  “But he’s the one who brings me screens. The screens that’ve been telling me the truth, all these years.” I’d started reading the newest one immediately after his departure. And approaching it like history instead of fairy tales made all the stories in it much more grim.

  “I’m going back outside, I need more information.” He turned and strode away.

  “Wait!” I jumped off the bed and ran after him. “How did you understand him?”

  “What?”

  “You heard what he was saying. Was he speaking your old tongue?” I watched my Zaibann’s brow furrow in displeasure. “I did that. I told you I was good with languages. My magic – changed you.” I poked at his armored chest with a finger. “Me.”

  “Perhaps you did. But it will take more than linguistic tricks to change Aranda – and in the meantime, if he kills you, he kills me. While you may trust him with your life, I do not trust him with mine.” He pointed back at the couch. “Read your screens. See if you can find any answers in them. I’ll be back before the end of the night.”

  And he changed right in front of me, becoming a twist of smoke that disappeared.

  “Don’t hurt him, Zaan!” I shouted, without knowing if he heard.

  I limped back to the couch and hauled up my skirts as I sat down. People in stories had injuries for days – years – while the bite on my thigh was almost healed, all I could see of it were the imprints of his teeth. My magic must make me heal quickly.

  I rubbed at the streaks of blood his attention had left behind. What was it about his communion with me that had set me off? The pain of the bite, the indecency of the place, or the way his eyes were on me as he looked up and I knew that I was feeding him, like my blood was some rare elixir? I closed my eyes, trying to find that moment again inside me, but was unable to tease it out.

  Opening them again – he’d set me a task to do, and I would do it. For my King, I thought sarcastically as I reached for my screen, and hoped I would find something in the story to exonerate Yzin.

  The story in this book was dry and cruel. A handful of persecuted rebels fought their government at great cost. So many deaths. Each one made me cry, now that I realized they weren’t just characters in a book but actual lives lost, fighting my council – and by extension, fighting me.

  But then the book changed tone, and became like the stories of my childhood. The few rebels that remained weren’t fighting the government anymore – they were attempting to free a precious jewel from an evil magician’s grasp. They had infiltrated the palace – a palace not unlike my own, I realized with some pain – but couldn’t find it anywhere.

  And that was where it ended.

  There were pages and pages of blank space at the end without words.

  The screens never had blank space at the end before – I traced my fingers over the space where words should be. Why didn’t the story have an ending?

  Because whoever had been writing it didn’t know how it would go. I sank back with the weight of my realization.

  “Food, my Queen?” Joshan asked, appearing at my side.

  “Yes,” I nodded absently, still staring at the screen. “And -- bring me a pen and some paper.”

  Chapter Nine

  Like called to like the second I was outside the palace’s walls. The portion of my power that I’d left behind on the councilman’s servant as smoke – it pulled at me now, drawing the rest of me toward it.

  I flew through the gray air, surprised that the city beneath me did not get any kinder. Rix-beasts moved on roads, but they didn’t interact with the people on the street, who appeared bent by the burdens they carried on their backs, haggling with one another frequently. No one smiled, there were no emotions at all, except for bouts of shouting when enemies met – and everyone seemed everyone else’s enemy.

  I knew I was near her as the pulling sensation increased, but I was surprised that the area I was in wasn’t any nicer. Surely a councilman, of such power as I’d felt, would live somewhere cleaner than here -- did servants not live with their masters anymore?

  But the sensation of pulling took me up the side of a building a hundred stories high, until I was looking into a window – my magic had found the woman, though we were separated by glass. She held a screen in her lap, and was staring at it intently. I quickly rose until I found a way into the building on the roof, and then sank down until I reached her door.

  “Got it.” She was talking to someone I couldn’t see. Telepathy was an advanced skill, how had I not – no, she held some other Rix-made device in her hand.

  I slunk up the wall so that I could see what she did. The thing in her lap had an image of Ilylle, talking. “I promise you that supplies are being sent. Be patient, and know that I think of you.”

  “See?” the woman said to an unknown someone. I wished I knew who was listening in. “It’s clear she doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s innocent. There’s still a chance.” She paused to listen – how? – tilting her head to one side. “I know, I know, but he says we must try. The worm nears completion. We’ve got five days at least, the high councilman cannot speed up the sun.”

  Five days.

  I was tempted to reform. It would be easy enough to torture her into telling me what I wanted – but she was my only connection to the plot. I marked her room same as I had marked her, and flew back out.

  I reformed the second my feet hit the floor of the palace. I’d been smoke for hours – longer than I’d ever managed to be smoke before. Another gift from Ilylle’s magic? Or strength given to me by her sweet blood?

  I stalked down the halls, thinking of the moment my fangs had pierced her thighs. The way her flesh was firm, then yielded, the salty-sweetness of the red that’d run out. An unfamiliar need washed over me, from the pit of my stomach to an ache in my loins – I was hungry. For her.

  I walked into her chamber and she wasn’t on the bed – but the lid to that dream-contraption was closed. Disregarding Joshan’s warning, I lifted it up.

  Ilylle was sleeping peacefully inside. The walls were pulsing in different soothing shades, and she lay on one side, her blonde hair spilled in a pool around her, lips softly open, eyes restfully closed.

  She was beautiful. Not like Airelle was, but to deny it would have made me a liar. She was like an exquisite shell washed ashore after a storm, or the blooming of a single, perfect, orchid – and I wanted her to service every part of me.

  “Ilylle, wake,” I commanded. When she didn’t stir, I reached in to shake her – and felt like my hand was burning off.

  I yanked back and looked at my hand, front and back. There were no marks or redness on it, but the pain – I’d never been subjected to pain like that before. “Ilylle,” I said with more warning. “Ilylle!”

  It was like she couldn’t hear me. I tried again, moving fast, to shove my arm in and out so that I could tap her – and again, the sensation of burning, plus a lessening of myself. I frowned and leaned over, looking around the inside of the thing, and I turned the tip of my forefinger to smoke. I dabbed it in, and it was pulled from me, lost. I sat back in wonder as I reformed it from other parts of me.

  If the Rix-abomination had eaten my magic, what was it doing to Ilylle?

  I ran for a table and dashed it on the tiles until I had a stick long enough to reach in and poke her. “Ilylle!” I shouted, hoping she’d wake up.

  Her eyes blinked open and the colors inside the thing stopped. “Zaan?”

  I tapped a hand insid
e and felt no pain. The horror was turned off. “Ilylle –“ I lunged for her and pulled her up to me. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am. Just tired. What’s wrong?” she struggled lightly against me and I put her down behind me, afraid that thing would grow legs like the zoomers, cross the room, and attack.

  “You can never go in there again.” I took up another piece of the table and advanced, prepared to destroy the thing.

  “Zaan – you can’t – my people –“

  “There is a reason you are weak my Queen – that beast’s been stealing your magic from you.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  I wished now I hadn’t healed myself, so I could show her. “I opened it and it tried to pull my magic off of me.” I turned and saw her leaning against the edge of her couch until she sat down, like an elderly matron. “Look how tired it makes you. Did you ever wonder why?”

  “Because I’m servicing my people,” she said, and then looked to me for hopeful confirmation. When I couldn’t give her any, her head bowed and her shoulders slumped. “You mean this is a lie, too? I feel like such a fool.”

  I dropped the table leg and it clattered at my feet. “You didn’t know any better. You’ve been doing the best you could with what you had.” The depth of the treachery she was lost in was astounding. I wondered at the cruelty of men who would trap her here with their lies, and then harvest her magic off of her like they were milking some cow. Where did it go and what did they do with it?

  Ilylle sobbed quietly, her head in her hands, and it was my turn to feel impotent. I stroked her back carefully, unfamiliar with being kind. “Just think how strong your powers will be now, if you never go in there again.”

  She looked up at me, tears brimming in her eyes. “But I have to go in, Zaan – if I don’t, they’ll know. They know when I go too long without using it. And they’ll keep stealing it from me, and I’ll never be strong.”

  My beautiful poor impostor. Emotions warred with logic warred with history as I stared down at the trembling curve of her lips. “I know one way your magic may be regained.”