“I got what I always wanted.” Nate pushed to his feet and grunted, his wound protesting his movements. He opened the little box and tipped the red orb of light onto his palm, its heat incinerating his skin—fuck! It hurt more than the stab wound in his belly did.
Jaw locked, he lifted his sire’s t-shirt and slapped his hand against his father’s chest.
Aba’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back, his pale features flushed, chasing away the pallor he usually sported. He gasped, pressing his hand over Nate’s as emotions seeped into his eyes, not fake, but true, and they grew wet with tears. “What did you do,cnati?”
“Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”
“You are my child. I would give my life for yours. Tell me.”
Nate was aware Aba had lost his first family—his consort and their offspring in the ongoing faction battles—a long time ago while he was away on the job. He’d never cared for another until he had Nate.
“You did,” Nate reminded him. The pain in his palm and belly tore through him like claws, and he welcomed both. It took away the chill settling in him once again. He shuffled for the stairs. “It’s nothing, Aba. Just a new job. I’m going to lie down.”
In his darkened room, with everything crowding his mind, along with the new threat to thelaika, Nate sagged against the door. Hell, he should have warned her earlier instead of teasing her, something he’d never done with another. But knowing her, she would shrug it off and think he uttered lies.
Guardians were a damn pain in his ass.
He moved away from the door, shrugged off his clothes, and, wearing only his boxer briefs, he gingerly laid down on the bed. Moonlight filtered through the undraped windows, which would have distracted him, but since he rarely slept, he didn’t care. He exhaled a shallow breath, ignoring his throbbing wound, the beast side stirring, scraping at his mind shields, sensing his weakness.
Shit, he’d have to feed soon to settle it or risk it fighting him. And that would be disastrous. His mind leaped back to years ago, to the first time he went through the change at fourteen, finding out the truth of what he was…
“I don’t get sick, Aba,” he moaned, tossing on the bed, sweat pouring down his face. He’d been this way for days, excruciating agony ripping down his spine. “Make it go away.”
“I know,cnati. Hold on to me.” His sire dabbed a cold, wet towel over his hot face and chest. “It’ll pass soon.”
But more sweat dripped, soaking the bedding. He’d had his symbiont since childhood, and it had only demanded dark blood, which Aba had gotten for him by procuring demons, then clearing their minds after Nate had fed from their slit wrists.
Now, this.
His fingertips hurt with a piercing pain, bones cracking—
“Aba!” he yelled. “What’s happening to me?” Heheld out his thin arms, staring in horror as his fingernails morphed into black talons.“Something’s inside me!”he shot off the bed, shaking his hands to get rid of it.
Aba tossed the towel aside and hurried around to Nate’s back. “It’s your symbiont—”
“What?” Pain and hunger encapsulated his entire body.Kill, kill, feed!The thoughts stabbed his mind.
Nate tore out of the garage apartment, moving like the wind, speeding into the street and stumbling into an alley. He stopped dead, his senses growing, everything sharper, more acute, his newly heightened hearing attuned.
A figure stumbled his way…human, his aura, a happy glow…drunk.Not him.
Nate stalked the narrow lane. Another figure exited a building, the rage in the demon’s pulsing blackish-red aura snagging Nate, and he charged.
“Yesss!”a sibilant hiss echoed in his head as Nate slammed his thin shoulder into the huge demon’s chest—
“You stupid mongrel!” The demon shoved him into the wall. “I will kill you for that—”
Hunger taking hold of him, Nate rammed his talons into the demon’s chest, slashing through muscle and bone, and fisted his prey’s beating heart.
Terror flashed in the demon’s eyes. “Hades! What kind of sorcery is this? A child—”
Nate slammed his mouth onto the male’s, and he siphoned the demon’s emotions, drinking in the terror and fear, his fingers tightening in his frenzied feeding, squeezing hard…
The crushing pain within Nate eased. He yanked his hand free, and the demon collapsed to the ground, his body decomposing and vanishing within seconds. The pulpy, mushed-up organ on his palm caught fire.
No. No! Nate reared back in horror, knocking into someone behind him. He spun around.
“By the dark gods…” his sire whispered.
