Life Cycle (Preternaturals Book 4) Read online

  No matter what, she wasn’t going to lose her shit right now with Cain and Cole and Jane all standing around, looking at her with concern.

  She just wished she knew why Jack was breaking his pattern. There had to be a reason it was this moon that he had to have her for. It couldn’t be a case of missing her. Gross.

  “Cain?” Cole said. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Go,” Tam said. “I’m fine. Probably food poisoning from the last crappy food run your minions went on. They have to start feeding me better. I’m not a fucking cat you can just give fake food in a bag.”

  His eyes narrowed, but whether or not he was buying the lie, he nodded. “I’ll have a talk with them.”

  She needed to figure this out, and she didn’t need anybody hovering over her. She was barely keeping it together now. The last thing she wanted was to get the shakes and Cain be there to see it. The last thing she wanted to see from the demon she was angry with was pity. And she wasn’t about to ask him to fuck her again to kill her. She so was not in the mood right now. Plus, a part of her just wanted to kick his ass at least one more time. It seemed only fair, considering how much he pissed her off.

  When he’d left, she sorted through her bags for the moon chart. She did one each year for the year ahead. It contained not only the moon phases, but planetary alignments and all astronomical anomalies that might affect magical workings. It let her know the best times to do certain workings. She could do magic at any time, but some magic worked better with an extra boost.

  She rolled the parchment scroll out flat. The drawings and notations had been done in a blue pencil. She skimmed to the current month and her mouth dropped open. This full moon would also be the biggest planetary alignment in five centuries. The fact that it was happening on a full moon was even bigger. Maybe she would have noticed if she hadn’t been having a meltdown, but she tended to do each phase of the chart separately. Moon phases, then anomalies, then planetary alignments. By the time she’d gotten to planetary alignments, she hadn’t been thinking about where they were falling, or making the connection with Jack.

  He’d be willing to kill the girl before her on a random day and get less power out of her if he could get his last kill on this particular date. Thinking back, wasn’t the last planetary alignment like this close to when he’d killed his first? Jack was all about magical symmetry.

  It was too late to chase Cain down. He’d be out of the dimension by now. And the last thing she was about to do was stop another demon to say something like “Hey, could you be a dear and go grab my demon lover? I really need him to screw me right now for the good of preternatural beings and puppies.”

  She shoved the scroll and the rest of her books and tools back into the bags and hid them behind the big rock. Then she took the tarot cards with her back to her tent. Something about being out here alone in these caves spooked her now. It was too dark and sinister, and knowing there were demons in the walls wasn’t comforting. She’d much rather be back in her own brightly colored tent with her demon guards.

  When she got back, she sat on one of the large, round pillows on the ground and took the cards from their red, silk wrapping. She closed her eyes and tried to focus, breathing slowly in and out. She wasn’t sure reading her own cards would do her any good, despite Henry’s insistence.

  She needed somebody else who was good at this, but contacting her coven was out of the question. She’d kept them out of it this long, no sense endangering them so close to the end. And the end was coming, she could feel it. Most likely the end for her.

  She couldn’t ask Anna to do it, either. In the first place, divination wasn’t her gift. Incantations were her thing. It wasn’t that a witch couldn’t have more than one strong gift, Tam had two, but Anna hadn’t been a witch for as long as Tam had. Either way, she couldn’t touch the cards, and you needed physical contact with the deck.

  Tam had just laid out the spread when Anna passed through the curtain in her wispy, ghost-like way.

  “Who’s future are we looking at?” she asked, hovering.

  Tam knew her friend was trying to be casual, but it fell flat. “Mine,” Tam said, grimacing. The cards were much the same as they’d been before she’d fled her house, which meant that running to Cain, or intending to—he’d kind of just showed up on her doorstep—hadn’t changed her future to any great degree.

  There was still the death card, the tower, the lovers, and now judgment, a card that symbolized rebirth and hard and final decisions. The rebirth part was hopeful, at least, but if she had to fall off a tower and die to get there, she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Henry had told her to follow her heart, and he’d made the quip about young love in the caves, but he couldn’t possibly mean she was meant to be with Cain. Could he? Would that be so bad?

  “Well?” Anna said.

  “I know what I want the cards to say and what I think Henry means, but I can’t get myself to believe in it.”

  “And what is it you can’t believe in?”

  Tam let out a deep sigh, knowing before she said it, how this would go. “That Cain and I are meant to be together.”

  Anna let out a bloodcurdling shriek that had the guard demons darting into the tent to see what the fuss was about.

  “We’re fine. Anna is just being dramatic,” Tam said.

  The guards didn’t seem to be buying it, but since they’d been asked to guard Tam and not Anna, they went back to their post without a word of comment.

  “You are insane,” Anna hissed. “You know you can’t be with Cain. Whatever he’s making you think or feel, it’s an illusion. It’s what he does.” She made a disgusted face. “He’s done it to me, even. He’s toying with you. He’s not Luc. He’s not going to take you as his mate and love you. That’s not who he is.”

  “I know that! Jesus, give me a little credit for not being a stupid twit. I didn’t say it was what the cards meant. I said it was what I wanted them to mean. Well, maybe not the mating part. You’re right about that one. Cain won’t mate with anybody. I’m not as good at reading my own future. I’m not unbiased enough. But it seems like Henry thinks it, too, so maybe...”

  “You saw Henry again?”

  “Séance,” Tam clarified. “In the caves a little while ago. He noticed the thing with me and Cain and commented. He seemed supportive, at least.”

  Anna shuddered, far from comfortable with Tam sleeping with the enemy. Tam couldn’t explain to her that the enemy was the only person she felt safe with and the only time she wanted to be here anymore. If they could have something together, he was someone she could never lose to death. He was solid and forever, and he understood—maybe not the cycling part—but all the rest—the endless continuity of it all. He was old enough that next to him, she didn’t feel like a freak.

  Regular people thought they wanted to remember their previous lifetimes, but if they did, they would be pressed down by the crushing weight of it. Forgetting was a mercy she hadn’t had the opportunity to partake in for far too long. She wanted to drink the cup of forgetting and start over. She wanted a clean slate, but a part of her also wanted Cain, to see where it went, to see if she could be genuinely happy again.

  Maybe when all this was over, if she survived it, they could see where things might lead. It didn’t have to be a forever thing. Maybe they could just have something for a while.

  “He’s not being faithful to you,” Anna said, as if she could see the wheels in Tam’s head turning. And most likely she could. “He can’t be faithful to you. He’ll never change.”

  “I don’t care about that,” Tam said. And she really didn’t. She was too old for that silliness.

  “How can you not care?”

  Tam shrugged. Over the past several years, there hadn’t been many moments where she’d felt completely disconnected from her friend, but this was one of them. How could she explain her general lack of jealousy? She’d been like this for a few centuries now. Jealousy seemed so stupid once enough living
time had passed and you’d settled into life in a way a seventy-year lifespan didn’t allow. Average humans saw things in terms of forever when they couldn’t even properly conceptualize that term and “til death do us part”. But when death never really came for you, as it did for all your lovers, you saw each encounter as more temporary, and the possessiveness and clinging stopped making sense.

  If she had something with Cain, they’d have it until they didn’t, whether or not he was feeding from other women. She looked up to see that Anna was still waiting for a real answer.

  “Look, Anna, you just can’t tie somebody down like that. If they want to be with you, they do. If they don’t, they don’t. If they want to be with you and other people, you can choose to accept it or walk away. I just want somebody who is there, someone who can’t die on me. I don’t care what else they’re doing.”

  If Cain mated with her, it would be only her: it was the price the demon paid. But it was a price Cain never would pay. And she was okay with that. It was nice to know she’d have the option to break the cycle and get out of all this—that she and the demon could have something that didn’t have to be everything. Then they could part and go along their separate courses.

  Though their blood had mingled, she didn’t think he’d ever go through with it. That had been a weird crazy moment. It was an accident. From what Anna had described of the incubus-human mating ritual, there was no way to do the real thing accidentally. There was no way she’d ever be doing that with Cain. Could she be his part-time concubine? Yes, without question. But Anna wouldn’t understand. She was too different in this way.

  Anna shook her head. “I don’t get you. This is just lust. If you’re not jealous... If you could share him and not have a problem with it, it can’t be love.”

  “Possession and restriction aren’t love.”

  If her pride wasn’t in the way, she’d ask Cain to keep her. He might do it if he knew she wouldn’t tie him down or restrict him. He could still be the badass glutton hunting and feeding like always. She didn’t want him to give up who he was. She just wanted a constant in her life. Maybe he could feel the same way. Maybe they’d have a chance to talk about it when this was over.

  Anna sighed. “Can I at least take this to mean you don’t have a death wish anymore?”

  A small smile. “I think I could stick around a little longer.”

  When Cain finally did get tired of her, and her of him, he could take her out for real and let her start over. She wanted it to be him when the time came.

  ***

  Cain hadn’t spoken a word to Jane or Cole as he’d followed them out of the demon dimension and back into the human world to the hive where the Cary Town wolf pack lived. He was too lost in thought. Despite his feigned anger, he was glad he and Tam had been interrupted.

  He was out of good answers for why he kept missing opportunities to kill her. When he’d lost control and taken too much, he’d backed off just soon enough to save her. The fear he’d felt in that moment dwarfed any emotion he’d ever felt. He didn’t want to examine that. The longer he could stay in denial, the happier he’d be.

  By the time she’d come around, he’d gotten himself under control enough to give nothing of his emotional state away. He just didn’t want her gone. Was that a crime? It was okay not to be bored with someone in a week. He wasn’t bored with his brother. He wasn’t bored with his friendships with Daria and Jackson. Why should it be so strange that a woman who shared his bed could interest him in a long lasting way? And if she did, wasn’t that a good thing? He’d been feeling less excited about his demon existence before Tam, everything blending and merging together, no joy in the hunt anymore. He’d been doing it to do it, to prove he still had it. Whatever it was.

  It would be simpler once Jack was destroyed and he could get Tam out of his dimension and back into her own house. But would he be able to get her out of his mind? What excuse would he make to keep coming back? And would he even need to make one?

  He snapped back to the present as a computerized code was punched into a panel inside the pack’s network of caves. “Welcome, Cole,” the pre-recorded voice said as the metal door whooshed open.

  The wolves in the main den were unusually silent, watching the news on the big television.

  “This one is bad,” Cole said, clearly having seen the reports already. It must all be on repeat. Humans liked to do that. “It’s a child.”

  “Not really,” Cain said. The witch must have made an attempt to take herself out like Tam had—before Jack could get to her. She must have failed and restarted a new cycle. Whatever she might look like on the outside, she wasn’t some defenseless street urchin.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s what the humans will think. They see a kid there. They don’t know that’s a two-thousand-year-old magic user. They don’t even believe in magic.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” A male wolf approached their circle and pushed a button on the remote. “They’ve been talking about the last letter and the new letter all day. Mara transcribed it.” The wolf handed a piece of notebook paper with careful block lettering on it to Cole. He read it and then passed the paper to Cain.

  Dear Boss,

  By now deep down people know it’s me. Maybe not everyone, but that will come soon enough when I reveal myself to the world in person. Eleven down, one more to go.

  I’ll take the last one soon, then this bloody and unpleasant mess will be over and the humans will find out what goes bump in the night. I will lead them to freedom. They’ll know I have never been a threat to them, only to that which is unnatural. I will be their savior.

  Be afraid. Your hunting of humans will end, and I will run this world while you starve in caves and crypts, hiding from the sun. The apocalypse the holy books foretold is drawing near.

  I’m excited for the finale. I hope you are, too.

  Yours truly,

  The Cycler

  Cain read the letter a couple more times. Even if they succeeded in killing Jack, even if the crazed lunatic wasn’t able to raise an army to carry out his plans, he’d planted the seed. If the humans accepted what they were seeing, the genie was out of the bottle and there was no memory wipe by vampire or demon that could put it back in again. In a way, it was amazing the secret had been kept so well this long with all the security breaches and the magic users, themselves humans. It was bound to come out eventually.

  He looked up as the sound on the television got louder. The protesters were in greater numbers than before, carrying much of the same signs and a few new ones. They demanded that the vampire and demon and werewolf problem be taken care of, calling for the government to admit they’ve been lying and keeping secrets.

  As far as Cain knew, the human governments had been kept just as much in the dark as every other human, but it was natural to blame those in authority. Several of the protesters wore costumes: vampire fangs, werewolf masks, demon horns. It looked like a cross between a PETA protest, Mardi Gras, and a Halloween party.

  A pretty female newscaster appeared on the screen behind a desk back in the newsroom, her hands clasped in front of her. “Well, Jim, it’s certainly getting heated. This is the most interesting case we’ve had in a long time, though even if he’s not just insane, it’s hard to understand how The Cycler can justify the brutal killing of a child. Certainly that innocent little girl can’t be part of an evil element.”

  The correspondent said something unintelligible that got swallowed up by the crowd around him, while the newscaster maintained her practiced look of sad concern. “I’m sorry, Jim, you’re breaking up.” She looked straight out into the living rooms of the viewers. “And now a look at the polls. We’ve been monitoring nationwide public opinion on this breaking story for the past couple of weeks, and the results of the last poll may startle you. A shocking 56% of Americans believe something supernatural is involved in this case and that The Cycler is telling the truth. 28% believe he’s lying and simply seeking publicity or
suffers from mental illness, while the remaining 16% are undecided.”

  “What about other countries?” Cain asked. “How do they rank in this sort of thing?”

  Cole shook his head. “About the same, according to the Internet. We’ll know more tonight at the meeting when Anthony rises and speaks to the other vampire leaders.”

  The channel changed again, and this time it was a talk show with three women dressed in colorful robes, sitting on a stage. A fourth woman, dressed more normally in a chic, black pantsuit, held a microphone out to her guests.

  “My coven has been practicing real magic for ninety-three years now. That’s how long we’ve been together as a group.”

  The host looked confused. “You mean your family has a line of witches over several generations?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s true also, but I mean me, my coven—the three of us and a few other girls and a couple of guys back home. We’ve been together for close to a century now.”

  “But, that’s not possible.” The microphone shook the barest amount.

  “Anything is possible.” The witch held out her hand palm up, and a ball of fire appeared, much like what Cain created.

  The host leaped back, looking terrified, while the cameras panned the audience for a reaction shot.

  “Why would they do this? It could backfire on them,” Cain said.

  Cole shrugged. “That episode aired two hours ago, they’re re-showing it. The women say they need to come out of the broom closet and that that they don’t know what The Cycler killed, but it may not even be human. It’s been outed as a hoax, though. The network is claiming it was special effects. No one can find the witches again for comments. My guess is someone at the network was threatened by something big and scary and that the witches who talked were killed. I don’t have any evidence of that, of course, but it looked pretty real to me, what do you think?”