The Focal Point
Already at the crackle of the first flame, I knew it. I knew it, as one always knows in dreams. It was there, the knowledge, palpable, and yet one had no access to it, but it slipped away, escaped the groping fingertips like the finest sand.
Dream. Memory. Blended into a whirlpool that wrapped around the throat, crushing it, with an iron grip.
Heat raged around me, fire licked at my skin, yet it was dark. Pitch black. Like on the day when I saw those eyes before me for the first time.
Enveloped in shadows, a solid veil behind massive iron bars, whose consecrated silver served only to halt the terror lurking behind them. Chains scraped across the ground, their weight echoing in the sound, not a light whisper, not a delicate clink, but a screeching, one that begged me to run. Warned me of the danger they held back.
And to which the eyes belonged.
Flames.
Two rings of glowing fire, above, very high up, breaking through the blackness. Red-orange suns from which the embers licked, burning wildly, filled with hate, searing with the murderous intent of a forest fire and cut through by elongated, black holes, whose deadly suction tugged at my sanity.
Rattling sounded, deep hissing, then warmth flowed over me, a wave of heavy air, a breath. So close. In front of me. I felt it. Felt the power of the being before me, felt how the earth trembled as it shifted its weight, felt claws cutting, at the ends of fur-covered wrists, held by thick rings, bound to the wall behind.
No distance in the world could protect me from the sheer mass that lurked before me in the darkness, pressing against my lungs, grinding my bones, shattering my skull, unable to comprehend what was there before me. Unable to grasp. But the gravity, this pull. A vacuum that drew me in, a current that dragged me along.
Then, suddenly, from one second to the next, the scenery changed. I did not move. It did not move. Two fixed points, facing each other, gazes locked, while the walls, the chains, the iron bars, the darkness around us melted away. The blackness melted. Fire consumed it.
Fire, whose roar was impossible to ignore. Whose greed and destructiveness covered everything, gnawed, smashed, what I had known.
Leaving only me.
Only me.
And It.
Him.
The demon.
In its mighty form it towered over me. A mountain, a skyscraper, devouring the horizon and drenching the sky in hellfire, its eyes burning brightly, bright enough to hold back the flames, bright enough to turn me to ash. Just one thought. One movement.
A lowered head. Horns reaching for the faltering sky, whose all-encompassing presence could not overcome the black spot before me.
The center. The focal point.
And I would-
A stack of documents landed with a slap right in front of my elbow, where I had placed my head. “Sleeping on the job again?” came a voice from the top of the small mountain, its ominous, work-promising shadow resonating with my dream. “I guess being the boss’s sister allows you that luxury.”
Slowly, I lifted my head from my makeshift pillow and yawned demonstratively at the nuisance, trying not to pay attention to the biting smell that had followed me out of my dream. The smell of burning flesh. My flesh.
“What do you want, Clay?” I asked him, straightening up and running my fingers through my hair. My fingers trembled, almost getting stuck. Not again, this memory. Just when I thought I had finally escaped the flames, the nightmares, they were back. No matter how long I had fled from them, the moment I set foot in this godforsaken city again, it was as if nothing had ever happened. They had welcomed me back. These memories. Even though the institute no longer existed, after the fire that had leveled everything to the ground. Everything. Experiments. Researchers. Test subjects. Data. Everything.
Except for me.
To avoid thinking about it further, I focused on the nuisance in front of me, while my fingers fidgeted with the ring on my left hand.
“Be a dear and take care of this, seems like you have nothing else to do,” he said, giving me a contemptuous grin that not only aroused in me the desire to introduce my boot to his teeth but also showed his curved fangs. An indication of his werewolf blood, which was so diluted that all he had inherited from his ancestors were the little fangs and a deadly allergy to chocolate. Sometimes I toyed with the idea of giving him a box of chocolates.
In response, I simply raised a black eyebrow and fondly thought of my silver dagger, which would make an excellent hybrid piercing.
“Don’t worry, just small fry. A few ghouls here, a little imp there. Even you can handle that!”
Hell, how I despised this braggart. He, like the other half-breeds, thought highly of his heritage. “Sounds right up your alley.” With that, I devoted myself to my own woefully neglected work, cursing the fact that the Demon Containment Bureau had sunk so low as to hire these creatures.
Instead of finally leaving, Mr. Wanna-Be-Big-Bad-Wolf loomed over me. “Sorry, no time, Daddy’s got a date with the higher-ups. Caught something big today. Half-blood of a High One.”
Okay, that made me look up again. Incredulous. “Did you just call yourself ‘Daddy’?”
Once again, annoyingly, he didn’t react to my comment the way I would have liked. No. His grin widened, and he leaned in over the mountain of documents, bringing his face close to mine. “If you’re good, you can call me that too.” His gaze fell on my left hand. “Saw one of those online recently. I know what that means.”
Just as he looked, I glanced down at the leather, thin, black band around my ring finger, to which a small, silver ring was attached.
Softly, right next to my ear, he whispered, “Feel free to call me if you need someone to hold your leash, kitty. Or to give you a proper whipping.”
Lost in his idiocy, he didn’t notice as my fingers slid under the table to the holster at my waist, finding the handle of my dagger. In one fluid motion, I sprang up, grabbed the arm he had propped on the wooden surface in front of me, and pulled it backward, gravity pulling his upper body onto the table. With a gasp, Clay landed on the piece of furniture, sending papers flying like very boring feathers. Before he could right himself, the blade of my dagger was at his bare throat, causing him to freeze immediately, his dark eyes widened.
From above, I surveyed him, a hint of a smile playing on my lips. From the tousled show-off hairstyle held in place with too much gel to the polished shoes desperately trying to look like genuine leather but clearly weren’t.
It was quiet at the surrounding tables, all the other hunters had paused their mundane work and were staring at us.
“Oh, you know what that means?” I asked him, tilting my head, the blade of the dagger gently traversing his tanned skin. “Because you saw it on the internet?” Cold laughter. “You have no idea. But,” now it was me who lowered my head, so I could hear his shallow breaths as he tried to present less of a target for the blade, which left a superficial burn. Half-breeds. “Don’t worry, I’ll still take care of your sorry ass, pup, and I’ll take it all night until you can only whimper and maybe, then, you understand the difference between right and left.”
‘Daddy’ opened his mouth, seemed to search for words, but I cut him off by tightening my grip on his arm until he hissed in pain.
“Ah, ah, ah, did I allow you to speak?” My smile widened, suddenly considering actually dealing with this street mutt.
“Sera!”
The call thundered through the office, a voice like a hurricane, deep, rumbling, loud, under which you instinctively lowered your head, ducked, so as not to be targeted by that voice. Or its owner.
“Party pooper,” I grumbled and let go of Clay, taking a step back. My dagger returned to its holster. “Captain Steel.” I saluted in the direction of the voice.
In the doorway to his secluded office, of course he didn’t work in the same room as us mere mortals, stood our esteemed boss, filling the entire entrance. One would never guess him to be twenty-six, but his angular, hard features had always made him appear older, just like the piercing ice-blue eyes that bored into mine, an exact mirror image of his.
It was unsettling, still, to see him before me, after the time when I didn’t know if he was still alive until one day he stood before me. A stranger. With my eyes, my straight nose, my narrow lips, my black hair. But taller, built like a damn killing machine, and incomparable to the impulsive, wild boy from back then, who had a fuse instead of patience. The man there was cold, controlled, aloof. And yet the only reason why I was back in this city, with a well-paying job and the nagging question of who exactly stood before me. And when my twin disappeared. When Rayn was lost.
The boss’s eyes shifted from me to the half-wolf. “Mr. Lennings, I have time for you now.”
At the pompous, expressionless talk, I gritted my teeth.
That couldn’t be my brother.
Clay hastily scrambled to his feet. “Of course, Sir. Thank you, Sir.” A final, angry glint in my direction, and my colleague hurried to obey the command.
I watched his hurried steps with satisfaction. “Don’t forget the lubricant, Daddy. Makes ass-crawling easier!” I called after him, giving my brother a meaningful nod.
He appraised me stoically, his expression unchanged, and said coolly, “If you don’t stop wasting your time, Miss Steel, the quota will once again land in the negatives because of you. And there will be no bonus for the apartment.” With that, he turned away and disappeared into his office, Clay close on his heels.
I narrowed my eyes at them until the door closed, then turned away. “Asshole!” I exclaimed and plunged my dagger into the surface of my desk, where it quivered and stuck.
As if I wanted this job!
As if I enjoyed being stuck here!
As an independent hunter, it had been so much better. No paperwork, no taxes, no responsibility! Just contracts and bounties.
‘No security.’
‘No health insurance.’
‘No protection.’
That was the problem with independent, freelance hunters. Once you made a name for yourself, you were as good as dead. And taking down one of the High Demons unfortunately meant that every lowly shadowling knew your name.
Without all of this, I would be dead.
A sigh escaped me as I crouched down and began gathering up the paperwork, feeling the stares of the others at my back. But no one said anything. They left me alone with my thoughts.
As I piled the sheets into a loose stack, my gaze fell on my hands. The left adorned with the ring, the right encased in a glove to conceal the burn scars. No one here needed to know that I bore a demonic burn.
My thoughts returned to Clay’s remark. Another sigh. The BDSM scene wasn’t what it used to be since the mainstream caught wind of it. Thanks to Fifty Shades of bullshit and all the other crap. Yes, it had its advantages, sure, but at the same time, there were always these idiots who had jerked off to some porn, read one or two books, and thought they knew everything there was to know. Couldn’t tell a top’s ring from a bottom’s. And when you engaged with them, they boasted about how tough they were and how they didn’t need a safeword, but as soon as you handled them a bit roughly, they started crying.
As far as I could tell, the wannabe doms were even worse.
Still, for a moment, I had considered it. A manifestation of my frustration. At first, I thought it wouldn’t be bad to stay in one place, to properly furnish the apartment, to expand the collection. But it also meant I couldn’t just disappear from the city if someone got clingy. Couldn’t avoid all the crap that came with it. After the third rose outside my door, I had given up. I couldn’t stand the stalking and begging. It bored me.
The fact that there were no good assignments at the DCB didn’t make it any better. My work led to frustration, my kink led to frustration, and all I was left with were sleepless nights and nightmares.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
