“Yes.” The word emerged in spite of his resolve to deny it.
The bound man started blubbering, tears and snot running down his fleshy cheeks.
“He’s no innocent, Kalen,” Malik soothed. “He has raped and murdered, left many battered and broken. Including his wife and three children. Like the slime you called ‘father.’ Look.”
With a push, Malik shoved several of Billy’s memories into Kalen’s head. They rolled like old, grainy footage of a home movie, and the scenes were real. The bastard grabbing a waitress from the Grizzly, forcing her to blow him behind the bar, knowing she wouldn’t tell or else he’d spin his own tale through the town, ruining her reputation. Other scenes were of Billy and his buddies burying a body outside town. Someone they’d killed for owing one of them less than a hundred bucks.
But the worst were the kids. He’d abused his children horribly, beating them with his belt and scalding them with cigarettes, hot water. Just last week, the little one had spilled something on the greasy carpet, and the bastard had forced the child to drink half of a bottle of carpet cleaner. In their backwoods craphole of a shack, the boy had almost died. The man promised his terrified wife they were all dead if she breathed a word to anyone.
Disbelief and horror at what Malik had planned here tonight became eagerness. Morphed into a terrible, seething rage that demanded justice for the ones Billy had hurt. Killed. Especially the children. And it was justice. No one else would do anything about this piece of filth.
“Do you see?” Malik asked.
“Yeah. He’s a piece of shit.” Power surged through his veins. The need for blood sang through him.
“What shall I do with him, boy?”
“Show him what hell really looks like,” Kalen said coldly. “Then kill him.”
Miles away, in the darkness of his quarters, Nick’s pacing in his bedroom was brought up short by an awful vision.
He’d been restless tonight, just as he always was when one of his own was suffering. And this man was in agony.
“Kalen,” he whispered hoarsely. “No.”
But he couldn’t stop what was happening. There was no way he’d find Malik’s hideout without Kalen’s help, and the Sorcerer was already there.
Kalen’s storm was on the horizon now, the thunder rolling. Lightning just beginning to flicker in the sky. The choices he made tonight, and the ones to come, he’d have to live with for the rest of his days.
However few those were.
The vision intensified.
“Oh, Jesus. No! Don’t do it!”
But it was far too late. The Unseelie had finally managed to get his talons into Kalen, and the seduction had begun. The gradual slide into the pit of hell.
God help them all.
“No, no, please! I—I’ll leave town! My wife and kids won’t never have ta look at me again!”
Malik smiled, and his canines lengthened to protrude over his bottom lip. “They won’t have to do that anyway.”
With that, the Unseelie began to change. Kalen barely had time to register that Malik had dropped his glamour before his clothes disappeared and his form began to grow. His skin darkened to a grayish purple hue, and his straight black hair cascaded to his waist. His ears grew long, pointed at the tips, and his facial features sharpened to cruel angles.
His height quickly towered to at least seven feet. But the most frightening and impressive of all were his wings. Unlike Sariel’s beautiful, feathered wings of electric blue, his father’s were dark and leathery, almost black. They spanned nearly the entire basement in width, some fifteen feet.
The whole package that was Malik, undisguised, was cruelly magnificent. Something straight out of a nightmare.
And now he was Billy’s nightmare. The man stared up at his tormentor, mouth open, no longer making a sound. He was learning now, at the very end of his existence, just how pathetic and insignificant he was in the grand scheme of the world. How powerless. A mindless bug headed for a zapper.
Kalen almost felt sorry for him. Except when he thought of what the asshole had done to his own kids.
“I’m not from hell, Billy,” Malik said, his voice much lower and more gravelly than before. “I
The ape was beyond speech, his eyes fixed on the Unseelie in horror.
Malik reached out a hand, extended his index finger, and ran one razor-sharp claw down Billy’s fleshy cheek. A thin line of blood trickled from the slice, over his jaw and down his neck. “And as a piece of undisputed filth, unworthy of being loose among even the weakest of humans, I cannot allow you to live. Even you with your limited cognitive ability can understand this by now, I’m sure.”
Totally entranced, Billy nodded.
“Very well.”
The Unseelie moved so fast, Kalen hardly saw what happened next. His arm shot out and he stabbed his claws deep into Billy’s stomach. The man screamed, a high-pitched keen of sheer terror that bounced off the walls and became a gurgle as Malik thrust up, effectively gutting him.
Then Malik used his other hand to grab Billy’s scraggly hair and yank his head back. The cords of the man’s neck were exposed, and the Unseelie licked his lips in anticipation. And then he lowered his head and struck, tearing into the vulnerable throat of his captive, ripping it out. Drank and slurped, grunting in satisfaction.
Feeding on his prey.
Now he knew why. The witch had been preparing Kalen for this night. For joining Malik, embracing his destiny. He never had to be helpless again, as he had been at fourteen. Never again had to endure the mockery of those like Aric. Never had to be alone. Because Malik understood.
The Unseelie raised his head, wiped the blood from his lips, and smiled.
“I told you that I do understand, my pet.” Releasing his dead prey, he beckoned Kalen to him. “Come here.”
Kalen obeyed, stepping so close he had to look up into that stunning, sharp face. “Yes?”
The other male lifted an arm and, with one claw from the opposite hand, sliced a cut in his wrist. Dark blood the color of merlot welled instantly. “Drink,” he commanded.
Kalen hesitated, then took the wrist uncertainly, his heart pounding hard in his chest. A distant voice begged him not to do this, warned that this step would be irrevocable. Would bind him to the Unseelie until one or both of them died.
“Drink, and never be alone again,” Malik said softly.
Kalen’s tongue flicked out, tested the thick stream. The taste exploded on his tongue, sweet and rich as the finest red wine. A bolt of pleasure seared to his gut, his limbs, his cock, and he groaned, latching on more firmly.
God, it was so good. So fucking fine. He wanted more, would do anything to get it as often as his companion would allow him.
“Stop.” The order barely filtered through to his consciousness.
Kalen blinked up at Malik and released his arm. Reluctantly. He licked his lips. “Please . . .”
Malik stroked his hair, studied him almost lovingly. “There will be plenty more. Do not worry. We are bonded
