BROKEN BLADE Read online

  She glanced around nervously and then gave me a sad, almost broken look. “I thought my dad knew about us and I was…I was scared. So I broke up with him. But when I found out about the baby, I tried to call.” She darted a look to the front of the coffee shop.

  Fear spiked. Swelled.

  Something lurked in the back of her eyes, a chained, caged beast looking out from behind her eyes. It wasn’t her…not entirely. But the baby inside her wasn’t human.

  And it showed. In that odd, inhuman hunger, in the weird, not-quite-there look to her eyes.

  The fear was the worst, though. It was gutting me. She looked like a girl who’d lived her whole life afraid. I knew what that was like.

  Don’t, I told myself. I was going to remain detached. This was just a quick and easy job because I was going out of my mind—I wasn’t getting sucked back in.

  It was already too late.

  I found myself reaching out before I could stop myself. My hand on hers. “Why are you afraid?”

  “I’m not!” It was a high-pitched, strident whisper. And a lie.

  Her eyes wheeled around and I saw as her gaze landed on the man behind the counter. The blood slowly drained out of her face. “You have to leave,” she said. “Please.” She scrawled a name on the back of the piece of paper. “His name is Kent. Call me when you know something.”

  Lies... lies...lies...

  The air was thick with them, but her fear was growing hotter and thicker, clinging to me. “Are you okay?”

  She gave me a desperate look. “Just please, leave now.”

  I left.

  Chapter Six

  The rec club on Bart Street had an official name, but nobody used it. It was just the rec club. If you needed clarification, it was the rec club on Bart Street. The official name was used in legal documentation or on Chang’s credit cards, the bills, that kind of stuff.

  Today was the first time I’d been here in almost five months.

  I didn’t let myself count the exact days, although I could.

  I could count them to the hour. My heart slammed away inside my chest as I climbed out of my car and stood there, staring at the unassuming pile of cinderblocks. I didn’t want to go inside, because if I did, they were likely to make me surrender my weapons and I didn’t think I could do my job without them.

  Not since my sword—

  Stop it, I told myself.

  I couldn’t think about that without the fear raging out of control and if that happened, I’d start smelling like dinner. It didn’t mean they’d want to attack. Shifters had serious control and they had to, but that didn’t mean I wanted to walk around smelling like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  I locked the car and headed across the street. The men at the gates were watching me. Like all Assembly territories, the grounds were marked. Ideally, the signs should warn humans: ANH turf, people. Enter at your own risk. But us non-humans had only been out of the closet for five decades and we were still struggling to be accepted as rational, thinking creatures capable of more than mayhem and murder.

  It didn’t matter that we’d all been sharing the same world for more centuries than any of us could count. Humans had only known about us for a few years and they were still struggling to accept it. It didn’t always go well.

  If a human got hurt inside those gates, even if he was trying to kill somebody else and the non-human—the NH—was acting in his or her own defense, it wouldn’t matter.

  The NHs would suffer the consequences. That was why the NH population worked to keep all but a few humans on the outside. Why they built up the reputation for being homicidal and bloodthirsty. If they kept the humans away through fear, they had fewer idiots to deal with. Safer, in the long run.

  But I wasn’t human.

  “Ms. Colbana.” That came from the one nearest my left. He had one meaty hand gripping his left wrist and his gaze was locked somewhere around the vicinity of my toes. “Chang has said you’re welcome to go straight to his office.”

  “I’d rather speak to him out here,” I said. Resting my hand on the butt of the Desert Eagle, I glanced past him to his cohort and saw that he was standing in about the same fashion. Hands in front, eyes on my feet.

  What the hell was so intriguing about my boots?

  “Of course, Ms. Colbana,” the older one said. Dude in the back. He didn’t look up as he gestured toward the guardhouse, just past the entry. “If you’d wait inside, I’ll call Chang.”

  “I’ll wait here. I’m not removing my weapons.”

  Older Dude shot me a look. “You needn’t remove your arms, Ms. Colbana. If you’d wish to speak to Chang here or inside, it’s all the same. You’re welcome to carry the weapons.” The eye contact lasted for ten seconds and then he went back to studying my toes.

  What. The. Hell.

  I couldn’t stay outside here where they wouldn’t look at me. It was hard enough being around people who looked at me out of the corner of their eyes and guessed about what had happened, but when they just wouldn’t look at me?

  Without saying anything else, I headed inside. Just before I pushed through the doors, I glanced back. They weren’t watching me. They still had their gazes on their damn feet.

  As did the men standing just inside the doors of the rec club.

  This was the place where I’d once had a man grab my tits under the pretense of giving me a pat-down for weapons. As I started toward the security set up, one of them stepped forward, gaze downcast.

  “Ms. Colbana.”

  He gestured to the door off to the side. I knew where it led. Chang’s office.

  I all but lunged for it, so relieved to get out of there. Away from people who couldn’t look at me.

  Shame and disgust and fear and humiliation crawled inside me. It was like it was written on my skin what had been done to me. Was that why they wouldn’t look at me? Was that why they didn’t want to see me? Because of what Jude had made me into?

  His bloodwhore.

  Bile churned in my throat and when a door caught my eye, I hurled myself inside.

  It was a restroom, far more opulent than one would expect just from looking at the outside of the club, and even the general makeup of it. It was a teen’s club, made for them to roughhouse, run wild and cause trouble, all without getting into too much trouble. It wasn’t built with elegance in mind. But that was on the other side of the door.

  This was Chang’s territory and his stamp was everywhere, even in the damned women’s room. Walls the color of burnt umber surrounded me as I leaned back against the door, sucking in one desperate breath after another. After about sixty seconds, I thought I could move without shattering, so I shoved away from the door and stumbled over to the sink. It was black marble, threaded with gold and cool under my hands.

  Staring into the mirror at the pale circle of my face, I tried to understand what they’d seen that kept them from looking at me. Was it that obvious? Or did they just know?

  They just know…

  This time, when the bile crowded up my throat, I couldn’t swallow it back down and I doubled over the sink, emptying my stomach. The sour, acrid stink of sickness wrapped around me as I convulsed, time and again.

  Even when there was nothing left inside me, I retched. When the spasms finally passed, I rested my head against the marble and waited for the burning sting of shame to fade away.

  It would take years, though.

  The taste in my mouth, the stink of my own vomit pushed me to move. I straightened up and turned on the water, washing away the evidence of my weakness, while in the back of my mind I heard a familiar, mocking voice. Useless waste. Pathetic weakling—

  “Shut up, you vile old bitch.” Cupping my hands under the stream of water, I splashed it on my burning face. With the water dripping from my hands, cheeks and nose, I straightened up and looked at my reflection. The woman staring back at me was red-eyed, tired.

  And she looked weak.

  Not entirely broken, but she didn’t
look strong.

  The tattoos spiraling up my neck were a stark splash of color against the pallor of my skin and I focused on them, on each mark etched on me. The broken blade that I could barely see. The spear. The snake. The fang. Hidden by my shirt was the leopard. Not easily seen by others, but still a mark I carried on me.

  I looked at myself and saw something, somebody who was broken.

  If I acted broken, I was going to be treated that way.

  * * * *

  Chang had the door open before I reached his office and when I walked inside, he was standing in front of the desk.

  When I saw his head lower, I wanted to take off running.

  But the anger inside me took over and spilled out.

  “I’m getting damn sick and tired of seeing the top of everybody’s head. Am I that fucking hard to look at now? Do you look at me and see Jude’s Whore tattooed on my forehead?”

  Chang flinched, like I’d stabbed him with silver.

  “No, Kit. Of course not.”

  And he still stared at his damned feet.

  “Then why in the hell is everybody suddenly so interested in their shoes when I walk up?” I demanded.

  A quiet sigh escaped him and he turned away. As he did, he lifted his head and it was just another lash across my heart. He could look up now. If he wasn’t face-to-face with me, he’d look up. Son of a bitch.

  I’d called him my friend—

  “It’s not you, Kit,” he said quietly. “It’s us. We failed you.”

  Staring at the back of his head, I flexed my hand absently. Even though I knew it was a waste of time, it was still a punch in the gut, knowing I couldn’t call her.

  Useless…broken…

  Still, I didn’t need a sword to relieve the fury inside me. Pounding my fists against the nearest hard surface might help; Chang’s head would suffice.

  “You’re the woman Damon chose for himself.”

  I tensed at his voice.

  Now I was the one to turn away. Averting my head, I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Chang, don’t.”

  But it was like he didn’t hear me. “You’re his,” he continued. “And by extension...ours. If you were a shifter, this would translate to different things for us. Had he chosen a shifter for his partner, she may or may not have been somebody who’d been his equal. We don’t hold to any mindset that he has to pick his physical match.”

  I snorted. “He’d never find that.”

  “No. He wouldn’t. But he found somebody who suited him, and somebody who was his match in other ways. It was you. And as you weren’t as strong physically as a shifter, it was up to us, those who hold ourselves loyal to him, to protect you in the ways you couldn’t. If you aren’t as strong as some, we could make up for that. If you aren’t as fast, we are. It was our duty to make sure you were cared for. And we failed. You proved yourself worthy of him, but we’ve proven ourselves not worthy of you.”

  I couldn’t even describe what was going through me as those words fell between us. You’re his…

  No. No, I wasn’t. But I guess they didn’t know that. They were beating themselves up over nothing.

  Spinning on my heel, I headed over to Chang’s weapons wall. It had always soothed me. Maybe I couldn’t call them anymore, but weapons were my security blanket and just looking at them made me feel better.

  There was one katana that had always drawn my eye. He gleamed like silver magic under the lights. Absently, I touched my fingers to his hilt. His music was gone, too.

  I’d lost them all. No connection to any of them now.

  “You’re all getting worked up over nothing then,” I said, forcing the words out as I continued to stroke my hand down the blade’s hilt. “It ended the night Jude kidnapped me. Damon had dumped me. I guess word didn’t get around. You’re all kicking yourself for no reason, so just stop it already. I’m getting sick and tired of staring at people’s skulls and I don’t care what the reason is.”

  “It isn’t over for Damon, Kit. His connection to you is permanent.”

  Goodbye, Kit.

  I closed my eyes against the ache inside me. “No. It wasn’t. He walked away from me. I was in the middle of a job and I had to see it done. But it was something that was hurting him and he needed something I couldn’t give him. In the end, what he needed and what I needed didn’t meet up and he ended—”

  “If I may interrupt,” Chang said and his voice was no longer quite so malleable. No longer quite so gentle and polite. “I’m aware of what the job was.”

  I felt a flicker of heat—it was enough of a shock that I turned, hand instinctively going to the Eagle that rode my hip, but Chang was still staring outside. “I’m quite familiar with the Banner job at this point,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter. Damon was angry. But despite his anger, he wouldn’t have stayed that way.”

  I absorbed those words and tried to let them settle inside. In the end, though, there was only one thing that I could think of. “What does it matter?” I asked quietly. The thick, lush carpet muffled my footsteps as I crossed over and settled in the seat across from his desk. It was the narrower one, the one he’d often pointed subordinates to when he was questioning them, dressing them down. It was a miserably hard affair, but I couldn’t sit in the other one. It had my back to the door and I couldn’t defend myself as easily from it.

  I sat down and focused on his back. “Whether he would have stayed angry or not, whether he and I would have tried to get things to work, none of that matters because that life is no longer mine.” I brushed my fingers along the tattoo on my neck. “The woman who left here five months ago no longer exists, Chang. She died up in the mountains in Canada. I’m not her.”

  “No?” He turned around and for the first time, he looked at me. There was sadness in his eyes and it bothered me. I didn’t like seeing my friends sad. I guess I still considered him a friend. “She’s not dead—I see her in front of me, Kit. You are still her.”

  “No.” I held his gaze. Not that many knew just how much had changed. I wasn’t going to educate them. But the very basic part that made me who I was—she was gone. “Jude broke her and then he killed her. I’m all that’s left and I’m still trying to figure out what that is.”

  His gaze shifted to the tattoos on my neck, lingering there. Slowly, he nodded and then he looked away again. “If that is how you choose to view it, then very well. Why are you here, Kit?”

  Pulling the phone number from my pocket, I held it up for him. “I’m looking for the cat who used to have this number. I was given the name Kent. I was also lied to. But I need to find him.”

  “Kent isn’t the name of any shifter I know.” He flicked a look in my direction, studied the number. “Cat, rat or wolf. It’s not the first name or last, to my recollection.”

  “It could be a middle name. I don’t know.” Shrugging it off, I tossed the number on his desk. I trusted his recollections but I wasn’t letting it go at that. “As I said, I was lied to. A girl is involved. She’s scared. Said he used to hang around here. She tried to call the Lair and Sam gave her the run around, I’m told. The number is the one thing I have to go on and she wasn’t lying about the number or the fact that he’s a shifter. Can you find out who had that number?” He shifted his gaze to me, his black eyes troubled. Finally, though, he moved to his computer. “Computer, search database,” he said, reciting the number.

  “Working...”

  He tapped something on the keyboard. I couldn’t tell what from where I was sitting.

  The skin around his eyes tightened a little and then he looked back up at me. “I believe the cat you need works at the Lair. Whether or not he’s on shift now, I don’t know. Doyle would be of more use to you.”

  Doyle.

  I thought of the kid I’d rescued almost seven months ago. The boy who’d then rescued me.

  “I’ll just call him,” I said woodenly. Shoving out of the seat, I headed for the door.

  “Kit. Why did you come here inst
ead of going to the Lair? If Sam knows the number, why not just ask her?”

  “Because I didn’t want to go to the fucking Lair,” I snapped, shooting him a dark look.

  He watched me soberly. “You have some issue asking Sam for the information you need?”

  I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him. “The day that idiot bitch stops me from doing anything is the day I take up knitting.”

  “Then I must assume it’s because of Damon.” He cocked his head. “Why is it a problem for you, though? If it’s over...and the woman you used to be is dead?”

  I glared at him for a long moment and then fantasized about drawing my gun and shooting nice, watermelon-sized holes in the walls of his oh-so-lovely office. Instead, I turned on my heel and left.

  Still, I carried that image with me all the way down to my car.

  I tried to hold on to it even as I drove to the Lair. Going there really shouldn’t be a problem. Not if the woman I’d been was dead. The problem was I that I knew I’d lied.

  It was just easier to think about things if the woman I had been was completely dead.

  Dead sounded so much better than broken.

  * * * *

  There had been a time when I couldn’t show up here without Damon being on the walk, coming toward me the minute I parked in the spot that he’d set aside for me, almost always with that faint smile on his face, the one that made my heart skip.

  Even now, I was having a hard time controlling my heart and damned if I could figure that out.

  I drove past the empty spot that had once been mine and turned down one of the side streets, parking nearly a half-mile away. Parking wasn’t exactly substantial around here, but that spot wasn’t mine anymore.

  A couple of the cats I saw glanced at me—weird little double-takes and then I got the same damn behavior from them that I’d gotten from Chang and it pissed me off, but what in the hell was I supposed to do about it?

  A year ago—hell, six months ago—the Lair had been a quiet place. Heavy with tension, pain and ugliness, the silence broken by the raised voices of those who’d been in good standing with the former Alpha. She’d been a crazy, evil bitch and those who were crazy, evil pieces of work had done well under her hand.