After that, I began to enjoy the pain. Sweet, savory pain. A rib snapped and the world went black. The itch to fix what was broken hummed beneath my skin. I smothered the feeling. With my one good eye, I blinked the darkness away. Not yet. I didn’t deserve peace yet. My foot lashed out and dislocated a kneecap—the crunch of shifting cartilage rang in my ears.
Gaia, that felt good.
Two of the men trounced me, wrestling my arms behind my back. A kick to the back of my knee drove me to the crumbling asphalt. “Strip him naked,” one of them said. “We’ll tie him up and make an example out of him. No one cheats in the cage fights.”
A stab of panic pierced my chest. I could endure any form of physical torture but that. Anything but that. I whipped my head back and connected with a groin, almost wincing when the man let out a weak whimper. With a yank, I freed my arms and rolled away. But not fast enough. A steel-toed boot struck my cheekbone.
The pain was exquisite but way too distracting. I tasted copper on my tongue. I couldn’t see anymore. Groaning, I rolled again and a foot stomped on my spine. “Take his pants off while I’ve got him pinned like the cockroach he is.”
That’s when I lost control of the anger. Rage burned so hot, so intensely, it consumed me completely.
I blacked out.
I took a long drag from my cigarette. Held my breath. Exhaled.
White smoke rose in front of me, a soft cloud that curled and twisted into the night air. A chill shivered up my spine, the alley’s brick wall cold against my back. My nose wrinkled, the burnt scent mingling with the pungent odor of trash from a pair of dumpsters wedged against the far wall of the dead-end street.
My attention was focused on the slender girl in front of me. I hummed softly, a tune I didn’t quite remember the name of, spinning a lock of blue hair around my finger as I watched her work. I didn’t make a habit of standing in grungy alleys—Nevaeh liked to slap graffiti all over the rundown walls in the slums of Nathra City. Especially when I was on patrol.
Nevaeh’s work was masterful, though. I loved watching her paint. My best friend didn’t only illustrate walls; she was a talented sketch artist and she had done all of my tattoo work. Unfortunately, she didn’t want to make a career of her talent. I had offered to give her the startup funds, to open a shop or to take art classes if she wanted.
“I don’t want to paint for money,” she had said. “This world is too dark already. I want to add some beauty to it.”
I couldn’t blame her. Still. Her skill was undeniable.
With a heavy sigh I tapped my cigarette, shaking free the ashes gathering on the end. Nevaeh’s brush paused over the rough stone as she shoved strands of long, lavender hair from her eyes. Her illustration was little more than an outline at the moment, a large snake slowly taking form. He was less intricate than most of her other designs, likely an homage to some shifter conquest of hers. I envied her ability to stay detached. Maybe it was because she had a rule against kissing them—a form of shifter intimacy that was for more than casual hookups.
Nevaeh only did what made her happy, end of story. I had never quite managed that level of aloof iciness. When I found someone interesting, I latched on hard and fast. Every time.
Which was why I was standing in a dark alley in the middle of the night, watching my only friend paint yet another mural on the wall. I had long ago given up hope that people wouldn’t disappoint me. Nevaeh was the exception.
My gaze snagged on her outfit, an almost identical copy of my own—tiny black jean shorts, fishnets too torn to be new, and a vintage t-shirt cut down to a crop top. The only real difference was the black and white canvas shoes on her feet.
As if she could feel my scrutiny, Nevaeh turned where she squatted and leaned back onto her heels.
“You don’t have to stay, you know.” She grinned, blowing a giant bubble with her gum before nodding pointedly at the pile of cigarette butts at my feet. “You’re going to burn through a week's pay at that rate.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mordecai pays me excessively. Might as well treat myself.”
“Yeah, to lung cancer.”
“Beats living under his thumb the rest of my life.” I glanced around the alley. “I suppose I should do something tonight.”
“You are doing something. You’re watching me work and keeping this alley safe.”
“And failing.” I waved my cigarette at her art. “You’re defacing the wall.”
“I call it improving.” Nevaeh huffed, loosening a band from her wrist and looping her hair into a bun. Even in the dim light from the street lamps her silver and brown eyes sparkled with glee.
Truthfully, I should have stopped her. I had been told by Mordecai to find the artist responsible for “vandalizing” his city and report them. But who was I to step in? My Enforcer position had very few perks. Not reporting my best friend was certainly one of them.
I dropped the last bit of my cigarette to the ground, stomping out the orange ember with the toe of my slick black combat boot. Stars glittered in the sky above us; brighter here, toward the Fae district. We couldn’t see them at all in the main shifter areas.
Pressure tickled along my spine—my wings threatening to break free, daring me to shift, telling me to go find trouble instead of waiting for trouble to find me. Not yet. I didn’t really feel like patrolling tonight. Mordecai trusted me at least enough that as long as the night stayed quiet, I could do absolutely nothing if I wanted.
Unless Alec told him.
I ran the thought over in my mind. Mordecai’s son would definitely report me if he caught me relaxing in the alley. But he should be sleeping.
Should be.
Nathra City had a Night Enforcer and a Day Enforcer. I covered nights, Alec days. Shifters were cruel, and the most bloodthirsty ones loved to find unassuming Fae to pick on. As Enforcers, we were to make sure things didn’t get out of hand—that the Fae weren’t being slaughtered pointlessly and the shifters weren’t being generally unruly. The laws were no sympathy of Mordecai’s—in fact, most of his rules were instilled to keep the Fae under as much control as possible.
Still, the Fae worked too many critical jobs in the city to allow the shifters to do as they pleased. Not that they had much choice. Mordecai had set traps all around the city, an invisible fence. The perimeter was a minefield with an enormous detonation radius. Escape was nearly impossible, and the few times any of the Fae had tried, Alec had dragged their bodies back into the city to use as an example.
No one escaped the dragons.
From the position of a shifter and an Enforcer, I knew we had too much power. Too much freedom. An unpopular opinion, and one I couldn’t vocalize, but it was the truth.
Once, the Fae and shifters had lived side by side. Or, at least, that’s what I understood from the small bits of history I had gathered on my own.
Two decades ago, Mordecai had changed that.
He had power but wanted more. A veritable army of shifters answered to him and they saw the Fae as no more than animals. If Mordecai and Alec treated the Fae like lower class citizens, why wouldn’t the rest of the Nathra shifter population follow their lead?
Mordecai was already powerful—too powerful—and his mind was a dark and twisted place I wanted nothing to do with. I knew firsthand what he was willing to do to innocent Fae for his own sick version of pleasure. And control. The same way he would do anything to keep me in line. A shiver raced up my spine.