Shades of Human (Faerie-Tail Awakening Book 1) Read online

  “It’s all in your head. It’s all…”

  A sound to my left killed my words and stalled my heart. Right by the dumpster was another puddle, the biggest in this alley that I could see. One that had been hidden in the bin’s shadow until the dark clouds above shifted. Draped in ghostly moonlight, the water there was not still. It rippled outward—

  Tense fingers broke through the surface.

  I screamed, backing away toward the main street. And then I was falling, tripping backward as one of my sneakers splashed into another pothole. As I fell, the fingers became a hand, followed closely by another, and then arms and a head appeared. My butt hit the wet ground, the jostling blurring my sight for a moment as I envisioned the gangly black monster from my nightmares.

  But then my sight leveled, seeing the buff outline of a tall male who took a few deep, testing breaths and dripped water as he slowly walked my way. “Time for your choice, Calliope. Before it’s too late.”

  My stalker’s eyes somehow shone a stormy blue even in the minimal light, revealing an air of intent that drilled right into me. He held out a hand, fingertips dripping water onto my pant legs. I slapped his hand away and shoved myself up off the asphalt. I was wet, my backside hurt, and I wanted to be anywhere but here with my new friend, Mr. Psycho. What if he killed Storage Guy? “You think I’ll choose you, Ada, Ada…” I floundered, unable to remember what his name was and unwilling to call him Sexonlegs again.

  “Adamaris.” A seductively dark smile quirked his full lips. “But you can call me Sex on legs, if you want.”

  I backed up, thinking that if I could just keep him talking I could make it out to the street and run into traffic to get help. “Ever heard of a cell phone, Adamaris? They allow the receiver of your attention to ignore you and your crazy stalker ways.”

  “You don’t have a cell phone.” He seemed unused to the words, spacing them out rather than saying them smoothly.

  And the answer was no. I didn’t. I had no one to call and no one to call me in return. No one I’d want to call me, anyway. Besides, phones cost money, money I never seemed to have. But most importantly, my stalker’s knowledge meant he’d been watching me even more than I already knew.

  Sexonlegs matched every one of my backward steps with a forward one of his own.

  “That’s beside the point. What do you want? Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  “I told you…”

  He caught my wrist and pulled me close, my body smacking into his hard one. And stupidly, I didn’t lash out and attack. The way he was looking down at me, with his intense eyes that seemed to speak a language I didn’t know but suddenly wanted to learn, froze me to the spot. The feel of his muscled body that radiated warmth despite being drenched made my heart race faster. The way his stare fell to my parted lips made my breath hitch. I bit my bottom lip, fighting for sanity. I did not want him to kiss me. But I was lying, and he knew it.

  “I need you…” Fire burned in his eyes, growing hotter as his head dipped and his lips came dangerously close to mine. He brushed past them, eliciting an explosion of tingles across my mouth and tongue. But he didn’t stop, his stubble grazing my cheek as he brushed my ponytail back over my shoulder. His mouth reached my ear, his breath warm and his words a husky whisper. “You are my betrothed. My first—”

  I jerked back, not getting far with his strong hand still clinging to my wrist. “I’ll never choose you. You’re effing crazy.” And so was I. In a dark alley with my stalker and I almost—kinda did, and so would have—let the psycho kiss me! I tugged harder. “Let me go!”

  “No.” Adamaris’s reply was clipped, the look in his eyes turning dangerous as he held tight. “You made your choice. Now sing for me.”

  This guy was barking mad!

  I punched my other fist into his gut, hitting what felt like solid steel. His face twitched, the only clue that my hit had affected him in any way. I kept tugging, legs hitting the puddle I’d fallen in and kicking up dirty water. I drove my knee up to his groin, but he jerked one leg up and to the side, blocking my attempt.

  Something popped out of his jeans pocket and bounced to the ground.

  Yanked forward and suddenly released, I fell to my knees and hissed as a tear ripped open my pants and my knee. The item was right in reach, and I snatched it with wet hands before Sexonlegs could swoop it up. It was a pale clamshell, rough on both sides and the size of my palm. Secure in my grasp it emitted a sort of hum, vibrating my hand and making me gasp.

  “Give me that.”

  Adamaris snatched for the shell, and I tipped back onto my butt, crab crawling on one hand back to get away. “What? This?” I held it up with no intention of letting him swipe it from me as I palmed the backup that sat snugly in my pocket and dug into my hip. He grabbed for it, and I pulled back—right as the shell popped open. I gaped at what I now realized I was holding. A compact of sorts, one that housed a photo of a stunning woman with flowing golden hair, a perfect freckle-free complexion, bone structure to die for, and smiling lips that were pouty and blushed. “Is this your girlfriend?” Heat attacked my cheeks, and I felt like I’d just been sucker punched in the stomach. “She’s beautiful.” I wanted to slap myself. Seriously! What was I thinking? Stalked once again by a guy who just told me we are meant to be betrothed and who threatened me unless I sing for him, and I was, what? Jealous?

  Like an orphan child watching their foster family, the ‘real’ family, eating through a crack in a doorjamb after being starved for a week. Hell yeah.

  The unexpected thought of some siren beauty draped over him, whispering sexy thoughts in his ear, tracing the hard outlines of his sculpted chest, planting soft, seductive kisses across his collarbone and up to his lips, it was like a drug that was just kicking in with full force. My heart somehow thumped even harder, and a hate I’d never felt for someone I had never met burned inside of me like a bonfire.

  And I thought he was the psycho?

  I was seriously messed up.

  Sexonlegs snatched the compact from my upturned hand in my quiet insanity, snapping the shell closed and shoving it back into his pocket. “It doesn’t matter who she is.” I tried to get up and run, but he caught my wrist and tugged me up, all but breathing down my neck as he squeezed his fist tight and I fought not to show him how scared I suddenly was. The look on his face as he stared down at me promised pain and the intention to deliver it. “I do not like this any more than you do. I would never have chosen you if it were up to me. You are difficult and strange. You don’t listen, and you are violent.”

  “Chosen me?” Someone else was behind this weirdo’s actions? Crap, if this was a gang thing, maybe I’d been drugged. Yeah, that had to be it. How else could it seem so real for a guy to appear and disappear through water? “And I’m violent? Are you brain damaged?”

  I scratched across his forearm, leaving tracks that made it look like he’d gone head-to-head with a giant alley cat. Still, his grip refused to budge, tugging me forward once more. But I wasn’t falling for his hard body and broody stare this time. “You want to take your chance with the queen? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now sing for me, and I’ll let you go.”

  I stopped struggling as my free hand dipped low. Good things came to those who waited, and I’d waited long enough. A smile stretched my lips wide as my quick breaths began to recover. “I think you have it wrong. It’s your turn to sing—” And then I jabbed my brand-spanking-second-hand Taser I bought into his neck.

  Adamaris choked, and his eyes flung wide with surprise. His body tensed, his hold on me turning rigid but loosening at the same time. My knee came up, driving home into his man parts with as much force as I could manage. And then he fell, every muscle taut and every limb quaking.

  For once, I didn’t stick around to see if he was all right. Sprinting from the alley and out into the empty night, I left Adamaris alone in the dark. A man who was already getting to his feet with a string of curses and grunts. A man who would never
leave me alone—because he believed I was his betrothed.

  Did someone say terminator? Come with me if you want to die.

  Who the hell was this guy?

  Chapter Eleven

  I ran up the street, breath sawing in and out of my lungs. It was late after my shift, and there was not a car in sight. Wet from my fall, my diner uniform clung to me, making it harder to run. My hair slapped my back, and my shoes squeaked with each pounding step. I was too far from the houses up the road, trapped on one side by a truck depot and thick trees on the other. I’d never make it to help in time—

  Unless the Italian restaurant just past the depot still has cleaners inside, the thought invaded my mind, and with no other options, I followed it.

  “Calliope, stop! You can’t escape this any more than I can.”

  I leaped over the parking lot barrier, seeing my stalker gaining on me. I yelped as his reaching fingers caught the tie of my apron, tugging it undone. Hurry. Run faster. He’d gone from convulsing in the alley to barreling down on me. He was right behind me now, a scary determination in his eyes and a glow of agitation reddening his sweating face.

  You’ll never make it. You need help.

  My inner voice was right. Even if I made it to the restaurant, I’d never get inside before he caught me. My only hope was to call for help while I tasered him again. My mouth opened, but the words choked back in my throat. I’d never asked for help, let alone begged for it. It was part of my promise. But what choice did I have? Mamma would want me to escape this. She would want me to survive.

  I slammed into the glass door. “Hel—”

  Adamaris caught my arm and spun me around to the left. My fist sailed, cracking him in the face. He barely budged, anger clenching his jaw. But then my Taser shot out, aiming for his gut. “No you don’t.” Adamaris caught my wrist and my knee came up. He relented as I drove up toward his crotch, clearly remembering my last attack. His hold slid free, and I lost my footing as my gripless sneakers slipped on forming ice as he shoved me back. WTF? Flinging toward the large picture window that glimpsed the empty tables inside with their red and white tablecloths, I couldn’t stop the momentum. I was going to hit—with force.

  I closed my eyes and braced for impact, for the rain of glass that would cut me to ribbons.

  But it never came.

  I hit the ground hard and my face shot up. I gasped at what I saw. Not the quiet street and empty restaurant. Not my stalker bearing down on me. I was in the car graveyard across the river from my loft—next to a bus that had one large window remaining right above my head. Had I just? No effing way! Appearing through the water was a drug-induced hallucination. There was no way I’d just traveled from across town and mortal danger through a glass window. It was impossible. It was crazy…which is precisely how I was feeling.

  A scream had me scrambling up off the dirt, my hands and backside hurting from the gravel base beneath me. The sound hadn’t come from my stalker. It hadn’t even been male. The scream came again, definitely female and definitely in trouble. A need to help, no matter what the danger was, burned like fire in me. I darted through the carcasses of cars, finding the alley that led to the small bridge across from my loft. Down in the dark without any streetlights, a woman cried and scrambled back from the wall of a brick building.

  “No. Please. I tried to do it. I tried. Give me more time. I just need another day!”

  I ran toward her but pulled up short. Leaning up against the brick was a tall, narrow mirror. Catching the appearing and disappearing moonlight, it looked like it was new, the frame carved out of a pattern of gold roses. I began to wonder what kind of wasteful idiot threw out a perfectly good mirror when boney fingers reached out through the surface.

  “No effing way.” My heart lodged in my throat, choking off my air supply. My head spun. I couldn’t catch my breath.

  The dark-skinned spindly figure appeared, using its claws on the gilt edge to pull itself from the mirror. Its face poked out, chin long, nose hooked, and long ears pointed. A foot appeared as it laughed, sending shockwaves through my body. “The wish is sealed. Your payment is due.”

  The voice that emerged chilled me to the bone, freezing my marrow and threatening to shatter me to pieces. The voice from my nightmares.

  The woman shrieked as the monster clawed into her ankle and crawled further out of the mirror. I wanted to run away, to make it back to my loft and hide under the covers like I did when I was a child and heard the voices or woke from my night terrors. But I couldn’t. Help was something I never asked for or accepted, but it was something I always volunteered. I’d been left alone and helpless at the age of four, and I would not leave anyone else to suffer like I had, no matter what the danger was.

  Steadying the shakes that tried to take me to my knees, I breathed in deeply. This was it, the most heroic and stupid thing I had done in my entire life. “Hey! Get away from her!”

  The monster stabbed its claws into the woman’s leg, and she shrieked louder. But no one would hear it in the area we were in. Being Sunday and late at night, the other warehouses were all empty until work resumed in the morning. The monster’s eyes locked on me. “A soul for a soul…come and get me.”

  Today was the day to finally end the horror and the fear. It was time to face the thing that haunted my sleep and my memories.

  I took off at a dead run as the monster hauled on the woman’s leg, dragging her along the ground toward the mirror. She screamed and cried, nails scraping and breaking off over the asphalt as she tried to get away. The monster only pulled faster—and the woman’s foot dipped into the mirror that rippled like it was made of water.

  And then I was there as the monster disappeared, my hand spearing through the glass to catch its boney arm. I gagged at the feeling of its skin, all papery and slick at the same time, like a corpse that had been hung out to desiccate and dry out. But I refused to let go as I tugged the woman’s leg out that was now swallowed up to its knee.

  Jabs of pain punctured my forearm inside the mirror, and I cried out as I pulled my arm back out. The monster’s other hand had me, talon-like nails tunneling through my flesh to hit bone. It had us both, and I did the only thing I could think of. “C’mon Tasey,” I said, giving a name and I hoped luck to my only weapon as I freed it from my pocket. Flicking the switch, blue buzzed between the prongs as I planted the business end into the black arm that clung to the woman. “Time to burn.”

  The monster squealed and released its claws suddenly, leaving holes that leaked blood on the woman’s ankle. She clambered up as the monster emerged in a rush to knock the Taser from my hand. It hissed then chuckled, clutching me by my throat. “Now you’re mine, little girl.”

  “Run!” I choked, struggling to get the words out as the monster’s nails bit into my neck. “Get out of here.”

  The woman with tears streaming down her dirty face stared at me for a moment, almost hesitating as she backed up slowly. “Thank you…” The mixed expression of horror, relief, and grief melted from her face, replaced by a lopsided smirk. “…for making it so easy.”

  “What—?” I choked out, but then she took another step back and plunged down into the asphalt, disappearing through an icy puddle.

  And that’s when it all clicked.

  Not my inner voice. The monster’s. It had forced me to beg for help, transported me, and lured me into a trap.

  I had just delivered myself up on a gullible all-you-can-devour platter.

  I flung around, forced to face the mirror as the monster bared its crooked yellow teeth at me. Its eyes glowed brown to green, then blue, then red, blazing with the wicked smile that stretched its lips. “Time to come home, Calliope.” Its taloned hand uncurled slowly from my neck, finger waving to beckon me closer. Not that I was going anywhere fast. Its other talons still tunneled into my arm, releasing trails of red that dripped onto the wet ground. “Let me take your fear away. Let me show you the truth. Don’t you want to meet your father?”


  My father? I took a step closer, complying rather than pulling away. “You know my…” I shook my head, clearing the cobwebs that had so quickly blanketed my mind and my need to survive. This thing was not going to trick me into accepting anything from it. My father was dead—as dead as I soon would be if I didn’t stay sharp. I tugged, mouth gaping at the hot pain that stabbed up my arm—and tripped on something hard and square beneath my feet. Falling onto my backside, a new bruise bloomed over the earlier one.

  The monster tugged me closer again. The tips of my shoes kissed the rippling mirror.

  I frantically pushed at the ground—and my free hand hit something. Curling my fingers tight, I swooped up the broken brick I’d tripped on. My arm wound back as the monster released me and lunged with reaching hands. I flung the brick forward. “My father died before I was born!”

  The monster snarled, snapping back into the mirror as the brick hit. The surface erupted outward, spraying a million pieces of glass that nicked my sheltering arms. The clatter of raining glass as it shattered down onto the asphalt came and went. The monster’s cackling laughter vanished too, leaving only the dead of night as I shot up to my feet and stared. The shards melted into the ground, disappearing as the mirror frame crumbled into a disintegrating cloud of gold dust that coated my face. I coughed and pounded my chest, feeling a tingle that danced across my face and down my body before it too fled.

  I’d done it. I killed the monster—and I survived.

  This nightmare was finally over.

  Chapter Twelve

  I slammed the door to my loft behind me and cursed straight away. “Seriously?” I whirled, adrenaline still pumping after taking out the monster. The thing from my nightmares was gone, shattered into a million pieces that could never be put back together like vanishing dust on the breeze. I was safe, or at least I thought I was—until I noticed the life-size hulk of a man sitting on the end of my bed. “Get out before I tear you a new one. I took out that thing and don’t think I won’t do the same to you.”