Lead Demon

Leanna's Interest

He didn’t answer, just tightened his grip on his staff and stared out into the dark. His sSebastianch flipped over, and once more the thought flickered through his head, What is wrong with me?

He let go, and Seven stumbled, nearly careening off the roof’s edge. When he steadied himself, Tomás was a step back, hands clasped behind him and an insidious smile slashed across his perfect face.

“The army is coming,” he said. His words were calm, and a frightening juxtaposition to the rage that seemed to lurk within. “They will be here before dawn. You cannot stop them. If I were you—and I’m most assuredly grateful I am not—I would be gone before they arrive.”

Seven tried to catch his breath. He hadn’t realized just how fast his heart was pounding, just how much he wanted to run. But whether he wanted to run away from or toward Tomás, he couldn’t tell. f*****g incubus. They were renowned for their ability to draw desire from their victims. He couldn’t believe he was falling for it.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

Howls didn’t reason. They didn’t talk or tell you their names. Howls killed. The fact that Tomás didn’t follow any of these rules scared the s**t out of Seven.

Again, Tomás’s head c****d to the side. The grin didn’t slip and, for a moment, he just stood there, considering, as rain dripped down his delectably disheveled hair. Seven kept his focus on the man’s eyes; he couldn’t be trusted to let them wander anywhere else. It already took all of his concentration to keep his thoughts focused, to not imagine what the man would look like n***d, or how they would feel pressed against each other.

His pulse doubled every time he considered it.

“Because,” Tomás finally said, “my sister, Leanna, has an interest in you. And what she desires, I, too, covet.”

That name rang a bell, this one louder than the first. Leanna was the Kin who controlled America. The one who ran the Farms and dictated where the necromancers attacked. For many, she was an embodiment of the Dark Lady herself.

Tomás’s name clicked into place.

Tomás was also one of the Kin, one of the six most powerful Howls in the world—the direct descendants or creations of the Dark Lady. They were the ones who ran the world now; the monsters who had humanity under their thumbs. Seven’s eyes widened.

“Bingo,” Tomás said. “Tell the boy what he’s won.”

“What the hell?” Christal yelled. The roof door slammed shut.

Seven looked past Tomás at Christal, who was holding a covered plate. The next moment, Tomás was beside her, a single hand around her neck.

The plate fell to the ground and shattered.

“You will be inspired, I think, to tell others you have seen me.” Tomás didn’t raise his voice, but it still cut through the rain, as if aimed for Seven’s ears alone. “Perhaps to warn them of my presence. Perhaps to try and save yourself. That would be a very bad decision.”

Tomás barely moved, but the c***k that resonated said enough.

He let go, and Christal crumpled to the roof, her neck crushed.

Tomás stepped forward, not even looking at Christal. Seven wanted to throw up. Bile twisted in his sSebastianch, but with Tomás’s every step toward him, the sensation faded, replaced by a growing desire to pull the man closer, to tear the world down and bathe in blood and flame. Seven forced down the imagery. Or tried to.

“I have marked you, Seven. I will follow you everywhere you go. And if you so much as speak my name aloud—” he was now so close that Seven’s skin burned “—I will kill everyone you tell. Slowly. In front of you. I will make you wish I let you die.”

He smiled sadistically. Seven couldn’t take his eyes off Christal’s limp body. Tomás had killed her, not by draining her heat, but by snapping her neck. He’d killed for the hell of it.

Until now, Seven had thought Howls only killed for food.

“What do you want from me? Why?” Seven’s voice shook, but it still carried. That was enough.

“I want you to do your job,” Tomás said. His grin widened. Any larger, and it would split his face. “A job you are proving more than capable of doing—killing the minions of the Dark Lady.”

Thunder crackled overhead. Tomás burst into giggles.

“Oh, She is watching. Yes, She is.” He looked up into the sky and raised his hands. “But what do I care, Mother? What do I care, when you are dead dead dead?” He hopped around when he said it. One rotation, and he snapped back to attention, calmly staring at Seven with his head tilted to the side. “You will help me. But you cannot do that if you stay. Your friends cannot beat this army, Seven. Not when the army is coming for you.”

Seven opened his mouth to speak, heart thudding with Tomás’s final statement, but Tomás was there again, faster than lightning, faster than anything human. One hand gripped Seven’s jaw. The other snaked behind his waist, pulling their hips close. Seven couldn’t help the moan in the back of his throat. Tomás very clearly noticed.

“Run along, little mouse.” He bit Seven’s lower lip. Fear and shock and desire pulsed through Seven’s chest. When Tomás let go, it took all of Seven’s control not to bite back. “Run before the monsters get here. I want to make sure you live long enough to play with.”

Then he was gone.

Seven staggered at the sudden loss and fell to his knees. Once again, he couldn’t stop staring at Christal’s body. He could no longer hear his thoughts in the drowning silence and rain. Gingerly, he touched his own neck, feeling Tomás’s handprint burning ice-hot. He hunched over and heaved.

He cowered there, curled over in the rain, his knuckles dug into the concrete.

He waited for Tomás to reappear.

He waited for Christal to wake up, for it all to have been a dream.

He waited.

Christal stayed dead.

The nightmare stayed reality.

And on the horizon, he felt a surge of power flare.

For the briefiest moment, Seven thought it was the enemy attacking.

There was no one else out there—at least, no one from his troop—that could use that much power. A power that was racing toward the outpost, strobing against the sky like lightning.