Wildblood

Chapter 3

3

Kai

Kai was rudely awoken by the ear-piercing shriek of a distressed Lambchop. Bolting upright, his senses flared with adrenaline. Needle-point legs scratched on wood, and he swung an arm over Miya’s torso, bringing his fist down onto the windowsill in a wall-shaking hammer strike.

Soft, gooey liquid caked his fingers as he unballed his fist and turned his hand over. He’d pureed a cockroach. All that remained of the critter was tarry slop and two crooked antennae.

“Oh God—nope, nope, nope.” Miya sat up and kicked her heels against the mattress, scooting back until she’d plastered herself to the headboard. She stared at his hand, covered in bug guts, then pointed to the door. “Go wash that off before it drips on me.”

Kai sighed and threw his legs over the side of the bed. The room was still dark, silver light slicing through the seam between the curtains. The murk promised a rainy day as autumn leaves ground to mulch. After returning from the bathroom with a pristine hand and a wet paper towel, he picked a ratty pair of gray sweatpants off the floor and pulled them on.

“We have to move.”

Kai faced Miya as he tied the drawstring; the elastic in the waistband was shot. “Because of a cockroach?”

“I hate cockroaches.” She hugged her knees to her chest. “Where there’s one, there’s a million. Did you know they can contaminate food with their poop?”

Kai quirked a brow and swallowed the uncharitable retort that rose in his mouth. “We can’t move. The rent’s cheap, and the landlord doesn’t ask about ID as long as we keep paying in cash.” He’d been a runaway since he was sixteen; a life of luxury had long been foreclosed.

“Why did it have to be cockroaches?” Miya whined.

Kai retrieved his hunting knife from the bedside drawer. Crawling onto the bed, he stretched over her to scrape away the rest of the goop with the blade. “Would you prefer rodents that chew through wires and shit in your food?”

“At least mice are cute,” Miya bargained. “Maybe I’ll buy some traps.”

Bug traps were useless, but he wouldn’t tell her that. Lately, she’d been stalling at every animal shelter they passed. Adopting a cat for pest control would probably appease her; she’d get a furry companion and a mass murderer in a single package.

“I’ll deal with it.” He wiped the blade clean, and she muttered her acceptance. Kai had a good track record of keeping his word, his assurance satisfying her for the moment.

As Kai sheathed his knife, a knock sounded on the door, and they both froze like squirrels in the middle of a busy road. Kai tested the air with his nose, then groaned at the familiar scent.

“Fuck me.” He tossed the knife into the drawer and marched out of the room. Nearly ripping the wooden slab off its hinges, he stood in the entryway and glared down their uninvited guest.

Thick white hair rounded her neck and shoulder on one side, her amber eyes shining under perfectly groomed brows. Ama shifted her weight and rested a manicured hand on her hip as she silently appraised him.

Behind her, their neighbor from down the hall puttered by, her gaze snagging on Kai. “Me-ow,” she purred. “Those pants are riding real low, honey.”

Ama screwed her face up, then pushed past him into the apartment. “I am so glad men aren’t my only option.”

Kai smirked and leaned against the doorframe, glancing down the corridor. Ursula was well into her sixties, but her sassy ass didn’t give a fuck. She cursed more than a mobster in a gambling den and was lewd enough to make a cat-calling construction worker sound tame.

“You better get back in there before I take you for myself,” she called as she reached her door.

“And what are you going to do with me, Ursula?” he asked playfully.

She exploded into a gravelly laugh as she glided into her apartment, leaving his question unanswered.

Kai snorted and headed back inside. Ursula was a handful, but she brought them homecooked meals whenever they were struggling to keep up, and for that alone, Kai was grateful.

He found Miya perched on the kitchen counter fully dressed in purple flannels and a black long-sleeved T-shirt.

“I looked into the missing person’s case,” Ama said as she handed her a folder. “It has all the signs of your favorite form of devilry.”

Miya held up the note from the weirdo. It was sprouting some creepy magical weed, and as far as Kai was concerned, plant matter budding from stationary was as red a flag as a Ouija board in a horror film.

“What do you know?” Miya asked as Ama inspected the blooming sheet of paper.

Ama plucked the leaf from the stem and ground it between her fingertips. “Caelan Carver, daughter of Lisbeth and Gabe Carver. An odd tidbit: Lisbeth and Gabe didn’t have any children until three years ago.”

“And…?”

“Caelan is certainly no toddler.” Ama flicked the green pulp away.

“How old is she?” asked Miya.

“Fifteen. She’s been missing for a few weeks.” Ama flipped a page in the folder to a photo of the girl. “It took a bit of schmoozing on my part, but I was able to leech some interesting hearsay from a friend of a friend who works administration at the police station.”

“Go on,” Miya urged, reclaiming the note before Ama decided to take it apart.

“Apparently, Caelan appeared exactly three years ago, origins unknown. A local man found her wandering naked around Boston Common. She was disoriented and confused. Had no memory of how she’d gotten there. The man who found her gave her his jacket and called child services. After that, she was put into the system.”

Kai leaned his shoulder against the wall. The girl’s story wasn’t all that different from his, though he hadn’t materialized out of thin air. Alice found him wandering the woods outside Granite Falls, Washington, ass-naked and covered in blood. Some of it was his, but most of it wasn’t. Fortunately, his stint with child services was cut short when Alice decided to take him in. She knew the pitfalls of being shuffled between foster families, and the odds for young boys weren’t too hot. Kai was a wreck, biting anyone who tried to handle him—barely ten years old and already a delinquent. Alice figured a stable home would be his best shot, and she was right, but he still grew into a pariah. Between schoolyard brawls and trips to the shrink, he’d convinced everyone he’d be dead by twenty-five. The high school principal suggested he join the military, but his therapist insisted he’d fail the screenings. He couldn’t follow orders to save his life. Too much aggression, too little focus. Alice tried her best, and she was probably the only reason he hadn’t gone completely rancid, but he’d been a bigger pain in the ass than he was worth.

“Foster family?” Kai asked, nodding toward the folder in Miya’s hands.

Ama frowned, surprised he’d care. “No. They adopted her. She seems like a good kid. All A s and B s on her report cards, no trouble at home. The only thing a little out of place is that she doesn’t seem to have any friends.”

Miya smiled wryly. “It’s not as weird as you might think.”

“Most people can’t tell friends from pylons,” Kai added flatly.

Ama huffed. “I suppose you have a point. There is one other thing, though.”

Miya closed the folder. “What is it?”

“It’s speculative,” Ama started, “but according to station gossip, the Carvers were bickering over a peculiar habit of Caelan’s.”

Kai grunted dismissively. “What? Did they find porn on her laptop or something?”

Ama rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you could at least try not to be so boorish.”

“Why bother?” Kai shrugged. “Niceties are for conmen and customer service.”

Ama smiled tightly. “I’d like to think they make life easier sometimes.”

Hostility sputtered between them as Kai volleyed her smirk with his own. “You can put frosting on a turd, but it’s still a piece of shit.” Ironic, since Ama treated him like he was just that. She always had, though he couldn’t blame her entirely. He’d gotten Miya into trouble a few times despite his best efforts, though he always busted ass to fix his fuckups. Still, Ama was a ghoulish bestie with a PhD in judgment.

“Enough,” Miya cut in, tapping Ama’s arm. “What’s this rumor you heard?”

Ama glowered at Kai, then turned back to Miya. “A door.”

“Beg your pardon?” Miya blinked.

“Gabe Carver told police that Caelan was fixated on finding some kind of door, but Lisbeth didn’t think it was relevant.”

Kai and Miya exchanged foreboding looks. Mystery doors were never good. They led to ethereal acid trips and hellscapes made of soul-crushing regret.

“What kind of door?” Miya pressed.

“No one could say.” Ama pursed her lips. “But I do think it’s interesting that the parents disagreed on whether it was a story worth telling.”

“Any sense of why Lisbeth didn’t think it was relevant?” asked Miya.

Ama hummed and clacked her nails on the laminate counter. “I imagine Gabe was concerned that Caelan might be mentally ill, and the fixation on the door is a symptom. On the other hand, Lisbeth might’ve thought her daughter’s search had some other meaning or purpose. Perhaps Caelan is merely whimsical and eccentric. Or perhaps it’s something else.”

“She’s trying to figure out where she came from,” Kai interjected.

Both women’s gazes flew to him, their sudden scrutiny clinging to his skin. He set his jaw and trained his eyes on the wall. Normally, he enjoyed attention. At the Confessional , he soaked up the hungry stares, tugging on the thread between fear and temptation. Unslaked desire was a weapon he wielded to earn his keep, so he held everyone at arm’s length, offering only a taste to whet the appetite. Men wanted to fight him, and women wanted to fuck him. Kai indulged the former impulse, but the latter was useful; the more people wanted to fuck him, the more they wanted to fight him too.

He loved those nights when he wore his brazenness like an armor made of vice. But the bravado peeled away eventually, leaving him brittle. A probing glance could feel like a knife to his jugular, and he had nothing to dull the blade. With Miya, he was naked. He’d let her into the catacombs of his fucked-up head, and there wasn’t space for anyone else. Empathizing with some fifteen-year-old stray made him want to storm out the door and undo himself at the nearest dive bar.

As though sensing him unravel, Miya hopped off the counter, the folder tucked under her arm. She placed a hand on his abdomen and inspected his injuries, her touch soothing the part of him that felt like a wild animal pacing a too-small cage.

“They’re healed,” he told her, but she grabbed his chin and angled his jaw, checking the side of his face. She’d find only a disappearing scab on his once-split lip. The bruises on his jaw had faded, and his ribs had fused back together, only a faint yellow shadow to show for his pain.

“Yeah, looks like you’re good as new.” Her tone was clipped. She hated it when he used his freakish healing as an excuse to get beat up more.

Kai’s mouth tugged into a frown, and he gestured toward the folder. “You going to chase that?”

“A missing girl who disappeared as suddenly as she appeared and is searching for an inexplicable door?” She sighed, re-opening the folder. “How could I not?”

Miya’s entire life had been flipped upside down five years ago when her parents, neighbors, and every other superstitious dipshit in Black Hollow decided she’d been kidnapped and possessed by a malevolent spirit feared by the town for centuries. In a doozy of poetic twists, it turned out that Miya was, in fact, that spirit: the Dreamwalker reincarnated—literally. Both she and Kai were living incarnations from the town’s fable: a story about a girl who got lost in the woods, and a god in the guise of a wolf who guided her home instead of devouring her. The actual event had happened lifetimes ago, and the tale should’ve ended there, but apparently, not dying in the woods when you’re a woman makes you a devil-fucking witch.

Her own people tried to butcher her, and Kai, the ominous black wolf who terrorized the town as the Dreamwalker’s familiar, only wanted to help her. As with all conflicts Kai volunteered to resolve, things got a little nasty, and the subsequent bloodbath lowered Black Hollow’s population by a few dozen dick-bags.

Not that it mattered. Miya was saddled with that trauma for life. Despite forsaking Black Hollow and guarding her full name—Emiliya Delathorne—anything that tickled those harrowing memories blew a hair up her ass until she dove in headfirst, consequences be damned. Missing girls caught between worlds never failed to yank at her heartstrings. Kai still called her Lambchop, and it wasn’t just sentimental; after five years of grueling battles, Miya hadn’t lost her tenderness. She cared in ways he never could, and although Kai had no desire to share that affliction, a part of him envied her depthless reservoir of fucks to give.

“Seems like a bad idea,” he said, though he wasn’t one to talk.

“For once, I agree,” Ama chimed in. “This case seems like trouble, and I don’t like the sound of the man who gave it to you.”

“He smelled weird,” Kai added, recalling the stench of rotting wood.

Ama placed a hand on Miya’s shoulder. “Enough reason to stay away.”

“I don’t know,” Miya ventured, scanning the first page of notes. “He was strange, yes, but I feel like he’s desperate for help.”

“Did he offer money?” Kai asked.

Miya ducked her head. “No.”

His girl was in dire need of a backbone. Amid hundreds of fake psychics trying to peddle people with imaginary family curses, Miya was the only one worth a damn, and she wasn’t even psychic.

She fidgeted as Kai and Ama bore into her, disapproval oozing from them both. “He didn’t offer anything, and there was no contact information on the note?—”

“Exactly.” Kai plucked the folder from her hand. “You should drop it. He doesn’t want to pay? He doesn’t get to use you.”

“I…I guess.” Miya visibly wrestled with herself, her eyes glued to the documents as Kai considered putting them through a shredder.

“Well, let me know what you decide, but I need to go. Dahlia asked me to buy her some citrus for the bar.” She stopped at the door, her eyes shifting to Kai. “Try not to drag her into trouble.”

Kai clenched his teeth so hard they nearly cracked. He did a lot of reckless shit, but purposefully sucking Miya into it wasn’t on the list. “Fuck off,” he barked as she left, but not before she extended him her middle finger.

“Will you two ever get along?” Miya asked.

“Probably not, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the one swinging my dick around.”

Ama always had a bone to pick with Kai, and she’d taken to taunting and patronizing him since the day they’d met. Mutual concern for Miya was the only miracle that could unite them.

“She’s right, though.” Kai palmed the back of his neck as he turned the folder over. “This case sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.”

Miya gently pried it back from him. “Give me some time to think about it. You can’t deny it sounds right up my alley. And frankly”—she gestured at his phantom bruises—“that’s rich coming from you. Doesn’t anyone ever question your supernatural healing?”

Kai made a noncommittal sound. “Wounds heal from the inside out. Important bits first. The stuff on the surface goes last, so I’ve always got something to show for the pain.” He dropped his hand to his side. “Perks of being…whatever the fuck I am.”

Miya chuckled. “A literal god incarnate?”

Kai’s lips pulled back into a rakish grin, and as though reading his mind, Miya hung her head and groaned.

“Don’t—”

“A god in the bedroom, maybe.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Don’t need to.” He leaned over and nipped her earlobe. She lightly shoved him, and he stumbled down the hall, laughing. “You flatter me plenty.”

“Put some clothes on so I can flatter you less,” Miya quipped after him.

Kai felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he re-entered their bedroom and sifted through the closet for something more presentable. He never imagined himself living with another person—not since he was a teenager slumming in Alice’s rickety bungalow. He’d been on his own since he was sixteen, finding shelter and sustenance where he could. The loneliness had garroted his ability to trust. His connections remained fleeting, superficial—a casual lay for the night or an overstated bond after too many drinks at the bar. Most of his time was spent alone—an extrovert forced into a life of introversion. Bouncing around the west coast, a whole decade passed before he found Miya in Black Hollow. He hadn’t realized how desperately he’d craved intimacy all those years, the ache for it subsumed in a bottomless pit of rage and grief.

That cavernous hole in his chest had finally shrunk over the last five years. He still didn’t trust, still lost himself in reckless escapades, but he had something—or someone—to anchor him. Alice would’ve hacked up cigarette ash if she saw him now. Then, she’d sacrifice every firstborn to garner what Miya had done to change him, but in truth, she hadn’t changed him. Perhaps she’d lit a fire under his ass, but not even a pack of three-headed hell hounds could force Kai Donovan to do something he didn’t want to. Miya simply never expected him to be something he wasn’t. She adored his irreverence, but she also gave him the space to be more. He was still himself; he was just better at it than he used to be.

Kai staved off the worst of his impulses because he chose to—because despite spending his life being the asshole, he wanted to be a friend to this one girl. It wasn’t that she was special or unique; she wanted him for exactly who he was, and he wanted her for the very same reason.

Besides, Kai was pretty sure he lacked the wiring for romantic love. People asked if Miya was his fuck buddy or his girlfriend, but he didn’t understand the distinction. Love was supposed to be the dividing line, yet that line didn’t exist for him. Sure, friendship and sex were usually separate, but Miya offered him the best of both. She was his best friend and his lover, and he cherished that more than any bullshit about romantic grandeur.

After dropping his old sweats, he yanked on a pair of dark green cargo pants and a black tank top.

“I’m off to Marty’s,” he told Miya as he strode into the kitchen. “Need anything?”

She idly stared into the fridge with a pout. “Something for breakfast?”

Kai nodded, “Got it,” then headed out the door.

The corner store, creatively called Connah Store , was about as clunky and generic as its name. Boasting aisles dedicated to junk food and over-the-counter meds, the shop reserved a meager fridge on the back wall for dairy and stray pieces of fruit. The only drawback was Marty, the overeager owner who responded to warnings about as well as a tub of ferrets. He was a syrupy little man with the complexion of unripened goat cheese and the survival instincts of an end table, but over the last year, he’d grown on Kai.

After collecting what he needed and paying, Kai fled before Marty accosted him. As he stepped outside, a familiar scent struck him—an intrusive, pungent odor that stood out like curdles of mold on a bed of fresh berries. Whirling, he caught sight of a shadowy figure dressed in a long taupe coat. He stood at the edge of the road with his feet firmly planted on the asphalt—a human frame that could barely contain whatever not-so-human thing was inside. Unconcerned with incoming traffic, the man’s head quivered and cricked to the left until deep brown eyes settled on Kai, boring into him like alloyed steel drilling through earth.

It was the stranger from the King of Spades .

Kai stepped forward, and the man wandered straight into oncoming traffic. As his ratty fishing boots hit the pavement, a too-warm breeze washed over the street, assaulting Kai with that same fusty stench from the night before. His stomach flipped, and white-hot pain blossomed just above his tailbone, scalding his spine.

Panic set in. It’d been five years since he’d endured this particular torture. The unbidden change was supposed to be a distant memory, yet the mere sight of this creep stirred it to the surface. Kai’s tongue scraped over his canines, suddenly longer as they prodded his lip. He thumbed the sharpened point, his face twisting into a snarl when the tooth pushed back against the pad of his finger, fighting to emerge. His skin blazed, every pore prickling as coarse black fur threatened to sprout from his flesh. Kai’s chest seized, and his breath hitched in a wild bid to stem the tide. He had to get the fuck out before his body splintered, breaking away the human to remake the wolf.

My, my , a raspy voice invaded his thoughts, abrading his senses like iron wool on rust. What big teeth you have.

A car horn blared as an SUV barreled forward and swerved, just barely evading the madman who’d waltzed into the lane. The car skidded by, obscuring Kai’s line of sight, though he kept his eyes trained on the spot where the stranger stood. Sweat dribbled over his brow, the heat of it like lava pooling around his eyelids. He hunched over, uselessly gripping the shopping bag as though it would spare his hands from morphing into paws. The car regained equilibrium and pulled over. The road opened in front of Kai, but the stranger was gone. He’d vanished into thin air, and the pain of Kai’s transition bled from his bones. The driver of the SUV stumbled out of his vehicle, arms thrust out as he stared at the road, bewildered. Only the faint residue of musky wood and moss remained—anomalies in a city that smelled of fumes and mortar. Whatever traces lingered in the air, they were impossible for Kai to track, dissipating into the wind like a ghost in search of home.

Kai didn’t tell Miya about what he’d seen in the street. Was the stranger following her? Checking whether she’d look for that missing kid? Miya may have been accustomed to occult shenanigans, but her jobs thus far were child’s play—mundane hauntings and mischievous spirits rearranging refrigerator magnets. Most spirits didn’t mess with the Dreamwalker when she told them to sod off. She wasn’t just a witch; she literally straddled realms. Spirits normally didn’t have form, but any entity stuck with her was vapor turned to bone. And bones could be crushed, ground to dust.

No one fucked with a woman who could shunt ethereal pricks straight into hell without an appointment. Miya didn’t need an invitation; she came knocking on the devil’s door when she damn well pleased. It used to scare the shit out of him—seeing what she was capable of—but he’d learned to trust her power, encourage it even. But on this side, she was vulnerable like anyone else. Here, where flesh, blood, and red earth reigned, Kai was the vanguard, and the stranger in the fishing hat had a foot in his domain.

He’d also nearly forced Kai into a transition.

Which was why he kept quiet about what he’d seen in the street. Miya had enough on her plate, and Kai was too freaked out to broach the subject. The last thing either of them needed was another mystery.

They spent the rest of the day watching schlocky horror films on an old laptop and drinking to every cliché in the repertoire. After guzzling half a dozen shots, Kai fessed up to having another fight that evening—a detail he’d omitted mostly by accident. Miya’s mood instantly soured; she’d taken the night off from the King of Spades, leaving Crowbar and Bastien to manage the place by themselves. They bickered about it for a few minutes—something about Kai being inconsiderate and impulsive—then fucked the argument away against the adjacent wall. A neighbor upstairs stomped on their ceiling, yelling at them to knock it off, but that only emboldened Kai to wring his name from Miya’s lips.

Sex was his favored method of conflict resolution. Intimacy had a way of blunting his edges, whittling away his stubbornness until he finally puzzled out how to use his words. Miya wasn’t wrong; he had a selfish streak and chased thrills when she needed him to hit the brakes.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her hair as they lay on the couch afterward, limbs tangled and sweaty. He meant it. It always took him a while, but he really meant it.

“I know,” she sighed, her cheek pressed to his chest. “I just wish you’d told me so I didn’t plan my night around you.”

“I’ll take a break after tonight,” he promised. “Payload’s double, so we’ll be good for a little while.”

Miya squirmed in his hold. “Do I need to get another job? I can quit this spirit detective stuff and work retail.”

“No.” Kai wound his arm tighter around her, staying her writhing. “Do what you love, but for fuck’s sake, start charging for it.”

Miya snorted on a giggle. “I’m working on it, I swear.”

Kai pulled himself up against the back rest, hauling Miya with him. “Fighting at Connor’s bar is the only way I know how to make money, but I don’t just do it for the cash. I like fighting.”

She was silent for a moment, her nose brushing across his collar bone. “I know you do, and honestly, it’s fine. I’m not a huge fan of Sergei’s schemes—pushing it to three rounds, forcing you to take hits you don’t have to—but I know it’s a necessary evil, or it wouldn’t be convincing. I guess I’m upset it occupies a completely different part of your life.”

“You mean that I keep you out of it?” he asked. “Sergei’s Russian mob. The less of me they have to exploit, the better.”

“I don’t hate what you do,” Miya clarified, “but I’m not keen on the mob part.”

“I’m just a fighter.” He gave her a light squeeze. “Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like more than to show you off at the Confessional.”

“You can,” Miya insisted. “If the mob wants to find your weaknesses, they will.”

Kai tipped his head back, the corner of his mouth tugging into a frown. “I’m trying not to give them a reason to look, Lambchop.”

Miya peeled herself from his body, then rummaged through the pantry for a bag of potato chips. “If you’re just a fighter,” she said through a crunch, “then they shouldn’t have a reason to.”

Touché. Kai kicked himself off the couch. Unmotivated to pluck his clothes off the floor, he dressed like molasses, then stalked up to Miya and snatched a potato chip from her fingers with his teeth.

“We’ll hash something out while I’m on break.” He didn’t want her to feel like his dirty secret. Snaking his arms around her, he pulled her against his chest—an apology delivered through a flimsy veil of affection. “I’ll be back as soon as the fight’s over.”

Miya nodded, nuzzling his shirt as her hand rustled around the inside of the bag.

After planting a kiss on her forehead, Kai grabbed his change of clothes. The guilt was already creeping in, sinking into his bones where he couldn’t reach it—a tarry residue worming around his marrow.

He resolved to tell Sergei that he’d be off for the next few weeks. For the last month, he’d spent almost every night at the Confessional, and it was starting to wear on his closest friend. Kai glanced at her on his way out, returning her tepid smile. Whether it was retribution against a smarmy mongoose at a dive bar or mass murdering cockroaches, Kai always honored his intentions.

For Miya, he’d carve his heart out to keep a single promise.