The Shifting Price of Prey (41 page)

Malik
had
known her. She’d meant
something
to him. That’s why he’d been full of rage and had killed her mate.

Even as shock stuttered within me, the memory started up again.

Behind the woman and children stood a tall boy of around nine or ten, head down, arms crossed over his thin chest, bad-temper radiating from his stance. He was dressed in a miniature version of
Malik’s/my clothes: a tall headdress atop his turban, pantaloons, and a floor-length crimson coat that brushed the gem-sewn slippers on his feet. And secured through the embroidered belt
around his waist was a curved sabre, similar to the one I carried, a man’s blade and not a child’s toy.

I stepped into the courtyard and the woman looked up, giving me a smile full of welcome and love.

‘Malik,
canımın içi
’ –
light of my soul
– she called. ‘You are home. Safe. I trust the campaign goes well?’

The memory sharpened and I drank in the woman’s beauty; her huge, thickly lashed, dark eyes, porcelain-pale skin touched with the sun’s blush, the perfect lines of her cheek and jaw,
the tiny black crescent inked at the corner of her lush mouth.

The moment broke as child-Fur Jacket Girl jumped up and flung herself at me. I caught her, lifting her high in the air to a delighted squeal, then kissed her cheek as I carried her back to her
mother. I set her on the rug as her mother offered me the baby. As she did, her sleeves fell back to reveal intricate tattoos like black vines twisting up her arms. Dropping an affectionate kiss on
the woman’s forehead I took the chubby baby into my arms and tickled her tummy as her mother had done. She smelled of sweet herbs and aloes. I laughed as she giggled with innocent
happiness.

A sharp cough vied for my attention and I saw a shadow flit through the woman’s eyes. I handed the baby back and turned to the boy. He was still staring at his slippered feet, his bad
temper more pronounced.

‘Emir,’ I said, sketching a bow.

‘
Çorbaci
’ –
Commander –
‘Abd al-Malik. Welcome.’ He returned my bow. Then he raised his eyes to mine, his mouth splitting wide in a
knowing grin.

The memory froze again.

I, not Malik, knew that grin, even with its slightly crooked, still human teeth.

Last time I’d seen the boy I’d been fourteen and it was our wedding night. He hadn’t been a child then but a six-foot-tall gangly fifteen-year-old. Or at least, that was the
age he’d looked; as a vamp he was however many centuries old. But it didn’t matter how childish he appeared in this dream/memory, no way could I ever forget the spiteful way his lips
curved. Or the lust for others’ pain that shone in his large, doe-like brown eyes.

He was the Autarch – Bastien – my psychotic murdering betrothed.

‘Hello, my sidhe princess,’ the boy-Bastien said, as if we’d last met days ago instead of eleven years.

Terror-induced adrenalin flooded my veins. I forced myself to take a calming breath, and then another. This was Malik’s memory, twisted into nightmare. A side-effect of the Morpheus Memory
Aid interacting with his blood. Just like at the zoo. Nothing more. Bastien wasn’t real, which meant he couldn’t hurt me. But despite my mental bolstering, I still flinched as his hand
clasped the scimitar and he rolled his shoulders back in the same way that had been a prelude to him wielding another sword on my faeling friend that betrothal night. Finally killing her after days
of torture. And I couldn’t stop myself instinctively shuffling backwards to put more space between us until I bumped into the courtyard wall.

‘You’re not real,’ I whispered.

He laughed, darting to me and pinching my arm. It hurt, and I froze, shaking with panic. ‘Real is a mutable term, princess,’ he admonished. ‘Particularly when you are
trespassing in someone else’s memories.’

I swallowed. ‘Yours?’

‘Come now, sidhe. Let’s not spoil our reunion with stupidity.’ He threw his arms wide to encompass the woman, the girl and the baby. ‘This vision of domestic
sentimentality is certainly not something I would desire to relive.’ He leaned towards me and I pressed myself harder into the wall as he sniffed. ‘And then there is the nasty little
irritation that you stink of Abd al-Malik’s blood.’

This is a nightmare. Nothing more.

Only even as I told myself to wake up, I knew I wouldn’t. Somehow I’d blundered –
or been pulled? –
into the Dreamscape; where dreams and reality mix.

And now I was trapped there with the one person who churned my guts liquid with horror.

The boy-Bastien’s nostrils flared again. ‘Not only
his
blood, but sex too. My, my, what have you and my ever-faithful commander been up to, my lovely bride, that you smell
so deliciously tasty?’

No way was he biting me. Or fucking me. Or using his sword on me. I’d die first.
Or, said the scared child-voice in my mind, more likely after . . .

‘But sadly, I am not allowed to play with you, my princess.’ He stepped back and I sagged against the wall in relief. ‘Not yet, anyway, not until my pact with my commander is
done. But them I
can
play with’ – he indicated the woman and children on the rug, then lifted one elegant brow – ‘so which one shall I pick, my bride?’ He
pointed a contemptuous finger at the woman. ‘Shall it be the beautiful Shpresa, my father’s favoured
Ikbal,
despite her opening her legs for any who choose to defile her? Or
her youngest, Aisha, the little parcel of precious humanity that squeals like a stuck pig at her knees and takes all her attention?’ He moved to stand behind the child-Fur Jacket Girl
cradling her doll, and reached out to stroke her hair, jealousy twisting his mouth. ‘Or perhaps her other daughter, the delectable Dilek.’ Child-Fur Jacket Girl frowned, feeling his
touch if not hearing his voice, and hunched away from him. ‘Such young flesh Dilek has, so very pure and innocent.’

Nausea roiled in my stomach at the thought of what he might do. At what he might make me watch. Again.

The dream/memory started up again; this time it scrolled in front of me like a film I was watching.

Boy-Bastien bent to Dilek’s ear, saying something in a language I didn’t understand. A look of fear, quickly masked, crossed her face, and she turned to yell defiantly at him. He
laughed nastily, pinching her cheek and, as she batted him away, grabbed her doll, holding it tauntingly aloft. She shouted, desperately jumping up to rescue the doll from him.

The woman, Shpresa, looked up from swaddling the baby, her expression the resigned one of mothers everywhere when children goad each other. She called out sharply, gesturing at Bastien to give
the doll back. Bastien nodded, holding the doll by its head and feet as he offered it to the crying Dilek. As she went to take it, he shot a ‘watch this’ look in my direction and shoved
the doll into Dilek’s small chest. She stumbled back and he jerked his arms gleefully apart, ripping the doll’s head from its body and tossing the decapitated parts into the corner
fountain.

Dilek burst into anguished tears. Her mother gathered her up into a hug, and spoke to Bastien in a disappointed tone that indicated this wasn’t the first such incident. He shrugged his
bony shoulders, a mock air of contriteness not quite hiding his satisfaction. Shpresa spoke again, pointing at the baby, and he sidled past her, surreptitiously yanking Dilek’s hair as he did
so. As Dilek bawled louder, Bastien snatched the baby up, gripping her under her arms and dangling her at arm’s length. She wriggled, little arms and legs waving as he gave me a calculating
glance and the dream/memory halted again.

‘Babies are such fragile things,’ he said, throwing the squealing baby into the air and catching her just before she hit the paving slabs. ‘Much like a child’s doll.
Don’t you agree, my lovely sidhe?’

My heart thudded with impending dread. ‘Put her down.’

He smiled. ‘Come and join me fully in the Dreamscape.’

‘No.’ The word was out my mouth before I could think.

‘A pity. She is not as sweet as sidhe blood, I warrant, but sweet enough for me to indulge myself.’ Bastien licked his lips and buried his face in the baby’s tummy. She
squirmed with a pain-filled gurgle, then he turned her to face me. Fang marks pierced her small round stomach, bright blood dripping from the tiny, neat holes. ‘Shall I feast on this plump
chicken, tear its tiny limbs, suck on its marrow, crack its head like an almond and gorge myself on its infant mind? Shall I do all that while you watch and listen to its screams? Or will you join
me, my princess?’

No fucking way.
But despite knowing the baby was only part of whatever twisted nightmare/illusion Bastien was making, my fear of what he might make me watch unglued my feet. I took a
step towards him and said, ‘Yes.’

The baby, the woman, the child-Fur Jacket Girl and the courtyard disappeared.

The white sloping walls of my attic bedroom snapped into focus around me.

It was night. The room dimly lit by the moonlight shining through the window. I was dressed in my usual sleep vest and shorts. But even as my mind tried to reject the change, a hand gripped my
throat, fingers digging in, almost but not quite choking, and jerked me up on to my feet so Bastien could stare down at me. The gangly boy was gone; in his place was the grinning, teenage
six-foot-plus Autarch. He flashed sharp fangs, a triumphant expression on his teenage face.

‘W
ell, well, my lovely sidhe princess. I am delighted you have agreed to join me fully in the Dreamscape.’ He raked his gaze down my
body then his mouth twisted. He ripped my vest top down the front and prodded disdainfully at the rose-coloured bruises marking my breasts and belly.

‘Although I must remark you were prettier at fourteen; now you appear to be damaged goods.’

I punched him in the gut. He doubled over, the metallic stink of recently ingested blood belching from his surprised mouth, his fingers loosening on my throat. I followed with an uppercut to his
chin, snapping his head backwards. Then I reached up, grabbed his ears, yanked his head down and headbutted him on the bridge of his nose, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone. I shoved him,
wondering why he wasn’t fighting back. Was it surprise or luck? And how long before I ran out of both? He staggered slightly, and as he swiped at the blood streaming from his broken nose,
fell on to his butt, laughing.

I clenched my right fist.

A ball of angry dragonfire erupted from the emerald ring on my hand.

And Ascalon sprung into my grip.

I didn’t know if you could die in the Dreamscape, but if you could, then I was going to kill Bastien.

Adjusting my grip around the knobbed hilt, I slashed it through the air, aiming for where Bastien’s neck would be when he automatically ducked.

He didn’t duck.

The sword hit his shoulder, the sharp blade slicing through his torso as if he wasn’t there. It exited the other side of his body and I moved back, automatically falling into a ready
stance as I held my breath, eager for the top half of him to tumble off and blood to spurt like we were in some sort of CGI film.

It didn’t.

Instead he laughed again and, as time seemed to slow, his doe-brown eyes filled with viscous red blood, blotting out his pupil, iris and sclera. Mesmerised, I stared, expecting the blood to
spill like tears down his cheeks. Instead, bone cracked as his nose reset itself, the blood on his face disappearing back into his skin as he healed. His lips curved in a cruel smile and he jumped
up, stuck his arm out and closed his fingers around my neck again. His nails dug into my throat, piercing the flesh with needle-sharp pain, and I felt hot wetness trickle down my chest.

My pulse thundered in my ears. Ascalon had cut through him. The sword was blessed and bespelled to kill all unless they were an innocent. Bastien was no innocent. But Ascalon had done nothing.
Did that mean you couldn’t die in the Dreamscape? Yet I’d hurt him. He was hurting me now. And I was bleeding. So why the fuck hadn’t it cleaved his torso in two? Why wasn’t
he dead? Had I imagined I’d hit him? Maybe he’d moved vamp-fast and I hadn’t registered it.

Gritting my teeth, I tried again, a two-handed thrust up through his gut, aiming for his heart. Again the sword met no resistance, only this time his body seemed to shimmer translucently for a
millisecond. Then he chopped at my wrists and elbows in quick succession. I cried out, agonising pain shooting through both arms as bones broke, and the sword clattered to the floorboards from my
useless hands.

‘Stop moving, my pretty sidhe, else I will rip out your throat.’ He leaned closer and opened his blood-soaked eyes wide. ‘Losing the muscle, sinew, tendons, blood vessels,
cartilage, windpipe and voicebox
hurts.
Even one as difficult to kill as you will find it hard to heal that.’

He was right. I
knew
he was right. I
knew
I might not heal it at all. I
had
to do as he said. It was the only way . . .