Page 52 of This Ravenous Fate
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Mei poked her head into Layla’s room early one morning. “Layla—”
“No,” Layla said flatly. She dragged the tip of a dagger across her fingertip, watching her blood bead, then admiring the quick seal of her skin.
Mei huffed from the doorway. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask for.”
“I don’t care. You can show yourself out,” Layla muttered. She relaxed when she heard the door close behind Mei.
“Layla.” An icy voice made Layla’s blood freeze in her veins. Valeriya stood in the doorway, her sour expression cutting into Layla. “Next time, when your clan member calls for you, you answer. I have done the same for you for many years. It would be a slight against me if you did not return the gesture in my clan,” Valeriya said sharply.
Layla dropped the knife onto her lap and sat up. She tried topull a neutral expression, but could not hide her discomfort. “My apologies, Valeriya. Mei and I are not on the best terms right now,” Layla said quietly.
“You need to fix that. Both of you.” Valeriya nodded to Mei, who swiftly left the room, closing the door behind her. The entire atmosphere seemed to shift whenever Valeriya entered a room. One glance at her told any person that she was just an ordinary woman—beautiful, with her smooth brown skin and dark green eyes, but still ordinary. Any reaper could tell she was an immortal soul with the face of a timeless beauty. Layla sensed her subtle heartbeat now, blood pooling like a calm creek in her veins. Her eyes held centuries of experience in them and they had always drawn Layla in. Years spent living in the States, not yet united, terrorizing the weakhearted men at night. The ones who threatened their wives would end up on a stake several yards from the forest line, their chests gaping and heartless. Rumors surrounded Valeriya like snakes on a vine. The one Layla knew to be true was that she kept the hearts of all of her victims. Carnage and gloom forever in her crimson wake.
Nothing promised violence like Valeriya’s calculating gaze. She stood before Layla now, hands clasped behind her, shoulders squared and eyes tense while she watched Layla’s face.
“When you came to me as a child, you were bloody and aimless and without family.” Valeriya was only just beginning, but already, Layla’s heart ached. One mention of her family threatened to crack open the vault of feelings she kept locked away.
An unpredictable bomb, a true reaper.
Valeriya’s voice hardened as she continued, “You were alone, Layla, and the youngest reaper I had met since testing first began. I don’t understand why you would spend all this time building stability for yourself if you’re just going to throw it away. And for a worse than bad reason, you’ve thrown away your life to help the Saints.The Saints, Layla. The same people who got you into this mess in the first place.”
Irritation seeped into Layla. She clenched her fists so hard, her nails nearly tore the blankets on her bed. “The Saints offered me more of a choice than you have in these trying times—”
“Really.” Valeriya’s frame went rigid, and the green of her eyes turned so dark they looked almost black. “You speak to me as if I did not let you in off the street five years ago, as if I did not sing you to sleep when nightmares shook your body and you couldn’t stop screaming that girl’s name and calling for your parents. Your dead parents.Dead. Because of the Saints. Not me, not Mei, not any of the reapers—”
“It was reapers who killed my parents!” Layla screamed. She couldn’t hold her rage back anymore. She was done trying. The vault burst at the locks, hinges flying off rusted metal, and her emotions came pouring out of her. “I watched them tear into my mother’s chest while she screamed. I watched them rip out my father’s throat while he cried for my mother. If the Saints called the reapers onto my parents, then that’s their doing, but the reapers took the bait. They took my parents from me, they took my whole life from me. Don’t tell me who killed my parents because you weren’t there to see it. I saw all of it. I rememberevery second. And I will not allow anyone to tell me how to grieve the life that I should be living.” Layla’s voice quavered with every emotion she had let fester and tear at her for the past few years. Her soul rose into her throat, desperate for a way to stop the hurting that consumed her from the inside out, and for a moment, she thought she might lunge for Valeriya. She imagined her fangs and nails tearing at Valeriya’s perfect polished skin until she bled as red as Layla felt on the inside.
But Layla braced herself. She planted her feet against the floor and let her fangs sink into her gums instead. The familiar tang of her blood filled her mouth and Layla let out a soft sigh as a coolness soothed her fiery nerves.
“It was a betrayal, nonetheless.” Valeriya, the ever-cold pillar of strength and ancient history, did not flinch. A small shadow of darkness unfurled in her eyes, but she merely lifted her hand and opened the door to leave. She stopped in the doorway, still facing Layla. “Remember how the result of their orders tormented you so badly, you wound up standing on the edge of the Clarice’s roof. Months after your deadly attack and you were ready to die again. Ma fille, you’ve come so far from that night you tried to take your own life with the Saint bullet. I would hate for anything to happen to you.” She left without giving Layla a chance to respond.
My daughter. My girl.
That old nickname gave Layla pause. It had been ages since her mentor had called her that—the first time the words slipped out of Valeriya’s mouth, they seemed to startle her. They almost never came out again. Until now. Layla felt Valeriya’s honesty; the vulnerabilityalone made her nerves relax and her thoughts slow down. This was her home now. And she had to fight to keep it.
A droplet of blood dribbled down her chin and splashed onto her bedsheets. The tiniest splotch of ruby bloomed across the white cotton, instantly jerking Layla back to memories of similar imagery.
Mei in her bed, choking on others’ blood while Layla tried to coax her into a fitful sleep. Weeks before then, Layla pinning Mei’s wrists to the headboard while she lapped at the fresh blood falling from the puncture marks on Mei’s throat. Years before then, Layla on top of Elise in her previously picturesque bedroom, then wrecked by Elise’s blood.
And lastly, days before the attack, when Layla had sat, hand in hand with Elise, watching the sunset while Elise played the notes of her favorite song with one hand.
Layla marveled at that image now, just as much as she had marveled then. How Elise played so elegantly with only one hand, seeming to put as much concentration into the notes as she put into stroking Layla’s knuckles along with the music. The song was perfect, the sunset was marvelous, but the only thing Layla could focus on was how lovely her best friend looked in the light and how beautiful she made her feel.
A flame had come alive in her that day, years ago at the piano. How brightly her embers burned for Elise then, Layla wondered if the reapers that claimed her life had fully extinguished them.
***
“Don’t look her in the eye. Don’t speak to her. Don’t even breathe at her,” Elise said sharply. A fire raged in the fireplace beside her, which only made it harder to shove tight leather gloves onto her increasingly sweaty hands.
Sterling watched her with parted lips. “How does one breathe at someone?” he asked.
Elise rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen you do it before. Or heard it, actually. It’s awfully loud.”
“Okay, Lise.” Sterling paced the sitting room, one hand on the gun in his chest holster. “So if I cannot look at, speak to, or breathe at Layla Quinn, then what exactly are you bringing me along for?” he wondered out loud.
“Sterling.” Elise stopped messing with her gloves and looked at him. Her brow flattened into a frustrated line. “I need you as my damage control. Also, it’s probably better that I have an alibi tonight.”
