“Yeah?” Exhaling wearily, he got up and crossed to the small kitchen. He braced a hand on the counter and rubbed his dry eyes. Hell, he needed some shut-eye. But when his body was shared with another, it made that escape impossible.
Instead, he removed the absinthe from the bottom cupboard, unscrewed the bottle of green liquid, and guzzled some down, hoping for a moment’s respite. He gasped, the alcohol scraping off a layer from his throat to gullet, and still no ease for the wicked. Well, he didn’t expect any different.
He turned and found Aba standing in the doorway, hair rumpled, wearing his usual cotton pajama bottoms and an old navy tee, studying him. By human standards, his sire appeared to be in his forties, his pale skin barely lined, and his short hair dark. Yet, at times, his deep brown eyes revealed his ancientness, but only to Nate. In truth, his sire was older than the civilized human world.
“Go, get some extra zzz.” He recapped the bottle. “I have work to do.”
“You’re exhausted.” Aba stepped into the kitchen. “Whatever it is can wait a few hours. Rest.”
“There is none for one like me.” The gut-churning sensation of suffocating, knowing there was no way out of this life, tightened like a noose around his neck. For the rest of his life, just to live, he’d have to feed off another’s fear when gore and death were what his beast side required.
“I’m sorry for what you endure,cnati.” No emotions showed on Aba’s impassive features. How could they, when he didn’t have a soul?
“Don’t.” Nate unclenched his fingers and dropped the bottle on the table. He didn’t want to hear it. “What’s done is done,” he said, tone flat. “I have to go.”
Yeah, he was a bastard. Living with self-hatred did that to a person.
He stalked out into the workshop and stopped between the two SUVs. With a wave of his hands, he summoned a portal. The asphalt creaked and groaned, forming fissures, then it gave way, revealing a swirling darkness. He didn’t need a portal summoning stone like most Dark Realm dwellers did to open a gateway, but he had to watch his back constantly. There was always some asshole after the unattainable, and Nate certainly was that. His jaw ground down at the thought.
Aba saved you.
Damn. He pressed his fingers to his dry eyes, then turned, meeting the emotionless stare of his sire where he stood a short distance from him. It seemed he did possess a hint of conscience somewhere in his empty self, after all. But only for this male, who’d put his own life on the line for Nate many times over.
“Aba,” he rasped, using the demon endearment for father, not revealing his inner torment. “Azgor awaits me. I can’t leave him hanging for long.”
“You should have never given in to him.”
“I didn’t give in.” His expression hardened. “I chose to do this job. No regrets.”
“And I wish you hadn’t.” Aba’s chest rose and fell, then he nodded. While he might mimic emotions to get by living in the human world, Nate knew he cared.
“Be careful,cnati,” he cautioned. “You can never reveal the reality about yourself to anyone. I know some in the Dark Realm provoke you, but you cannot be drawn into more fights. I fear for you.”
Too late.But he didn’t say so, didn’t want to burden his sire with the truth. “I’ll be fine. Maybe the dark gods will finally watch out for me,” he drawled.
Aba didn’t even give him his usual fake smile.
Nate glanced at the swirling portal. The thing looked like an open maw, waiting to swallow him whole, then back at his sire. “One way or the other, I will get your soul back.”
“Don’t. I’m fine. No emotions are better for me, anyhow. I don’t want you stirring Azgor’s wrath further. I knew what would happen when I stole the symbiotic blood from him.”
To save me.
As if in response to his thoughts, the symbiont on his spine, connected to the beast, clawed at his mind. Nate gritted his teeth and rubbed his temples.
Yeah, he knew the old story of how he breathed again. It wasn’t something he wanted regurgitated when nothing could change his fate. He stepped backward into the swirling gateway, and fell…
* * *
Sweltering heat enclosed Nate as he landed in a crouch on the dry, cracked ground. The familiar stench of sulfur made his nose twitch. He’d lived half his life in this world, and while the heat didn’t bother him, the stench still made him want to jam his fingers into his olfactory cortex and yank it out.
Keeping his breathing shallow, Nate rose, and with a wave, he shut the portal. He glanced up at the perpetually dark skies, currently sporting streaks of orange and purple for what constituted day in the Dark Realm, and scanned for unwanted creatures, especially wyverns flying about with their whipping poisonous tails and breaths of fire.
The beast within stirred in anticipation, sensing freedom close.
Yeah, that’s never gonna happen!
A streak of pain stabbed his head in retaliation, spikes digging into his brain—
