Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

Blood trickled against her palm as the thorns bit into her flesh.

Minh pulled in a deep sniffing breath and the bed creaked as she leaned against the edge of the mattress.

Whatever the Mongrels had splashed onto Paige and Nadya was working because the Full Blood couldn’t seem to smell either of them. The fresh trickle of blood could have been a danger, so Paige lifted her weapon toward the putrid mattress that was already soaked through with enough bodily fluids to mask even the bitter scent of a Skinner’s weapon. At least, that’s what she hoped.

The bed groaned as the Full Blood leaned even closer.

On the floor, huddled against the bed frame, Nadya tightened her grip around the FAMAS she’d inherited from her dead partner.

Paige’s body was twisted into an aching knot. Her head and shoulders were angled to keep from cresting over the top of the bed. Her legs were tucked into an extreme squat and her spine felt like a length of rope that had been pulled taut and stretched over someone’s knee. No matter how much the air stank, her lungs demanded to be filled. Rather than give in to any of that, she maintained her position, held her breath, clenched her lips shut and kept her hand pressed against the leaking remnants of what had once been another human being. All the while, she waited for the swipe of claws through her face or the sharp impact of fangs in her throat. Then again, when dealing with Full Bloods there was always the chance of being killed before you even knew you were hurt.

When Minh drew her next breath, she coughed it right back up. As the bed creaked back to its original position, Paige lay down to watch Minh’s paws swell to accommodate her upright form. Now the only thing she had to worry about was being spotted if Minh decided to use her new height to look over the bed.

Minh turned and walked back out of the room. She paused in the hallway, took half a glance over her shoulder, then let out another hacking breath. Apparently, Paige thought with relief, a hyperkeen sense of smell wasn’t always such a good thing when confined in a room with a rotting corpse.

As the Full Blood approached the next room, Paige looked over at Nadya, who was staring intently back at her, but neither woman dared make a sound. Paige pointed to the Nadya and stabbed that finger toward the spot where they were currently hiding. She then pointed at herself and waved at the door. Judging by the intensity in the Amriany woman’s eyes, Nadya had no intention of staying put while she scouted ahead.

They engaged in a brief staring contest before Paige conceded with a roll of her eyes. Keeping low and close to the wall, she maneuvered around the bed while trying desperately not to bump into anything. Leaving the concealing stench behind made her nervous, but she wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to find out what the hell was going on in the next room.

After leaving the room where two women had been hiding, Minh shifted into her human form for all of two seconds before deciding the house was unfit for her lean, lightly tanned nakedness. By the time she got through the doorway to the bedroom with the pit in the floor, her figure had settled somewhere between woman and beast. Her movements gave her all the grace of a drunk stumbling in after a late night, which Paige guessed was due to the ley lines or whatever sort of energy was flowing up from the exposed section of ground. Although she wasn’t sure about that yet, Paige was confident that she hadn’t been spotted. No Full Blood would have allowed a Skinner to see them in a state like that.

Minh dropped to her knees and reached out to the pit with both hands. Her fingers splayed apart, and when they couldn’t go any farther, her hand shifted into something that allowed them to become even more of a trembling tangle. The noise she made started as a wail but slowly rose to a howl. Paige found herself transfixed by Minh’s cry, almost to the point of walking into the other bedroom just to be closer to its source. Fortunately, Nadya was there to place a cautious hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. Still, from where she stood she got a good look at Minh’s powerful back as the Full Blood bowed down to sink her claws into the exposed dirt. Every coarse strand of fur stood on end, then Minh’s head snapped up. She was about to let out another howl but managed to choke it down.

“It’s a real kick, ain’t it?”

Spoken in a thick cockney accent, the question struck an immediate chord with Paige that made her want to jump up from where she was hiding and sink her weapon into the other Full Blood’s neck.

Liam had strode through the front door on two legs but still wearing the pelt of a wolf. By the time he entered the smaller bedroom, he’d shifted down into a human body covered with a thinning mat of fur. He was nothing but a skinny naked man when he crouched near the pit in the next room and allowed his hands to hang between his knees in what might have been a lazy effort to conceal himself.

Minh’s response was a series of grunts and growls that could have been made while she was in pain or in the middle of a vigorous copulation.

“Yeah,” Liam said. “I know just how you feel. It’s dangerous to be here, though. Too much for the senses to be this close to a source this pure.” He stretched out both hands while fur eased out from beneath his skin and layers of muscle piled up like thick waters coming in at high tide. He’d grown a long snout by the time he lifted his head to gaze up at the ceiling. When he opened his mouth, his human teeth slowly extended into blunted spikes. “Considering how strong it is here, I’m surprised we didn’t get two new pups to take Henry’s place. Wouldn’t that have been a riot?”

Paige made it to the edge of the doorway by the time Minh snapped her head to look over her shoulder. Since Liam had swelled up to his brawnier form, however, there might as well have been another wall between her and the other bedroom.

“Speaking of riots,” he continued, “there’s one going on right now. You should make the rounds and keep the wretches in line.”

“I can’t,” she growled. After the creaking of a few bones, she was able to speak a little clearer. “I can’t control them. They don’t listen to me like they listen to you.”

“You just have to show them who’s boss,” Liam replied.

“Or perhaps there’s another reason. Perhaps Esteban was right when he said you’ve been here drinking more than your share of the Torva’ox for longer than you admitted.”

“I made it no secret that I was here.”

“Did Randolph know?” Minh asked.

The sound he made started as a snarl but shifted into a hacking laugh. “It’s his territory. If he didn’t know something like that, he would have been picked off a long time ago.”

“That’s not the arrangement, Liam. We’ve lived in our own territories so the Torva’ox would be drawn to us equally.”

Now that she’d heard that strange word spoken by a physical voice instead of a recording or secondhand translation, Paige sifted once more through her mental files. She still couldn’t come up with anything.

“And that won’t work anymore, darlin’,” Liam continued. “More humans know about us and the leeches and every other thing that’s been hiding for so long. What they don’t know already, they’re learning about, thanks to insane fools like Misonyk or those fucking Nymar who’ve been making the headlines. And when the Nymar do try to tend to their business without making a spectacle, the Skinners have been stirring things up to the point where it’s gotten tougher for anyone to go about their business like we used to.”

From where she was standing, it was difficult for Paige to tell whether Minh’s response was a laugh or a growl.