Born of Rage (League: Nemesis Rising) Read online

  But like a fool, his father had allowed it. Jinx had never understood his father’s tolerance, and especially not his mother’s. But then Samara Tievel had been kind-hearted to the end, especially when it came to children. Both his parents had felt sorry for Jessel and Tobin. They’d thought them harmless and had wanted to help. To give them a better life.

  How had their kindness been repaid?

  Tobin had murdered them in front of the one son who had loved his father and worshiped his mother.

  That horrific memory had lived in Jinx’s heart every day of his life and every nightmare of his sleep. It was what had turned him into the monster the League craved and what gave him no mercy on anyone.

  I am the hell you fear. Pray to your god that they never release me. That had been the promise Jinx had made to himself every single minute of his League training. If I survive, I will pay my debt in full.

  Today it came due.

  “Yeah, well, the League will get her, and she won’t be our problem anymore. While her insurance isn’t as high as the marriage would have been, it’ll be enough to make us happy.”

  “Good. I need a new pair of shoes.” Jessel laughed.

  Jinx saw red.

  But he pushed his anger down.

  This wasn’t about anger. It was payback.

  Besides, Jessel was close in age to Dakari. Genetically close, too . . .

  The rest could be forged, especially by a League high commander.

  Keep talking, bitch.

  And she did.

  With every second that passed, Jinx pressed his hand harder over his forearm. Beneath his sleeve was the tattoo he’d gotten long ago to remind himself that he’d been fighting every day of his life since he was a child.

  Not a Survivor.

  A Warrior.

  It wasn’t over when he lost. It was over when he died.

  And that wasn’t today. So long as he lived, he would battle and may the gods help anyone who stood in front of him as an opponent.

  Tobin disconnected his call with his sister and rose to his feet. Turning, he froze the instant he saw Jinx in the shadows. “Hope you got good news.”

  “I do.”

  Tobin let out a relieved breath. “She’s dead?”

  Jinx fought his urge to sneer. How pathetic that Dakari had been such a small child when last she’d seen him and yet she’d recognized him instantly.

  He was the spitting image of his father and yet this bastard didn’t see the resemblance at all.

  Maybe it was the drink or drugs. But Jinx wasn’t willing to be that kind. More like it was Tobin’s rank stupidity. Or simple lack of regard for anyone other than himself.

  Even the father he’d butchered in front of his eleven-year-old brother. Because no one mattered in the world, except Tobin and what Tobin wanted. Everyone else was expendable.

  “You know, Tobin, the Euforians have an old saying. The axe forgets what the tree remembers.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t remember that one, huh? Then about, nothing good will ever happen to those who break their oaths.” He pulled his sunglasses from his eyes. “Do you remember the oath you once made to me?”

  Tobin went pale as he finally realized who he was talking to. “Uh . . . um . . .”

  “You promised me that you would take care of Dakari. Nothing would happen to her. So long as you held that vow, I withheld my blade.” Jinx pulled out his sacred League seax. Every assassin had their one weapon of choice.

  Their favorite means of execution.

  This long, black razor-sharp dagger was his.

  “You’re supposed to be dead!” Tobin tried to run, then tripped and fell.

  “And you were never supposed to rule my father’s empire. But this is the Ichidian universe, Tobin. Every life has a price.”

  Too bad Tobin’s was worthless.

  Without blinking or hesitating, Jinx ended his brother just as he’d been taught. Taught because Tobin had sold him to the League to be used as a target for assassins to practice their lethal skills on. The idea was to hand-feed them a child so that they could learn not to feel compassion.

  To kill indiscriminately, regardless of age or size.

  They had failed their assignments.

  He had not. For that was the one rule of his species. Don’t die.

  I am not survivor.

  I’m a warrior.

  And tonight, the tree felled the axe, and Jinx kept his oath to his sister.

  Dakari would be forever safe as soon as he paid Jessel a visit . . .

  Family was all. Let them rain their hell down on him if they must. But it wouldn’t end well for them if they tried. For he was no longer a frightened little boy sold to the League to die. He was a well-honed killing machine who had no compassion for anyone dumb enough to come after him, or the tiny handful of people he cared about.

  My silence isn’t weakness.

  It only means the beast inside me is asleep. Not dead.

  The Neighbors

  Sherrilyn McQueen

  I

  think there’s something wrong with our neighbors.” Jamie stepped back from the window to frown at his mom. “Have you seen them?”

  “Just when the Thompsons moved in a few months ago and Teresa gave me her number.”

  “But not since, right?”

  With long blond hair and bright green eyes that matched his, his mom picked up his little sister’s backpack and set it on the table near him. “Teresa said that her husband’s an international antique dealer. He travels a lot and keeps weird hours whenever he works from home.”

  Jamie moved to sit down at the table to do his homework. “I’m telling you, Ma, there’s something really, really off about them.”

  “Stop reading all those horror novels and watching those creepy movies and TV shows. No more Stephen King. It’s all making you paranoid.”

  Maybe, but still . . .

  Jamie had a bad feeling that wouldn’t go away. Unsettled, he watched as his mom collected Matilda’s toys and sighed from exhaustion.

  It’d been hard for all of them over the last few months since his dad had been killed while off on a “business” trip.

  As Jamie opened his chemistry book, a motion outside caught his attention. Frowning, he slid out of his chair to get a closer look.

  He gaped at the sight of his neighbor carrying a strange-shaped baggie out of his detached garage and tossing it into the trunk of his car . . . which, now that he thought about it, was never parked in the garage.

  Neither was Teresa’s.

  His neighbor struggled with the weight and odd shape of whatever was in that bag.

  Was it a body?

  C’mon, dude. Don’t be stupid. It’s not a body.

  But Jamie had seen plenty of horror movies where they moved corpses, and that was what it looked like. It didn’t even bend right.

  Definitely rigamortis.

  “James? What are you doing?”

  He pulled back to see his mom glaring at him. “Being my usual delusional self. You?”

  “Wondering what I got into while pregnant that caused your brain damage. Must have been those lead paint chips I craved.”

  “Ha, ha.” He returned to his homework, but as he tried to focus on chemistry, he couldn’t get his mind off what he’d just seen.

  The way his neighbor had carried that bag . . .

  It had to be a body.

  Unable to concentrate, he got up to look outside again. The moment he did, he saw his neighbor’s wife, Teresa, with a huge white bucket that held some kind of thick red liquid she was spreading around the driveway.

  Red?

  Water?

  Nah, man. It was too thick for water. Looked like blood. Diluted maybe, but definitely hemoglobin-like substance.

  He started to call for his mom, but the moment he opened his mouth, Teresa looked up and caught sight of h
im in the window.

  Terrified and shaking, he quickly hit the deck on his belly.

  Oh God, she saw me!

  What was he going to do? I know what blood looks like. Even diluted. And that had been blood she’d been dumping.

  Maybe she’s a taxidermist.

  Yeah, right.

  “Jamie?”

  He flinched at his sister’s call. Crawling across the floor, he didn’t get up until he was in the hallway. “What’cha need, Matty?”

  With honey-blond curls and bright blue eyes, his little sister stared up at him from the couch. “Can you come help me? I can’t get the TV on the right channel.”

  “Sure.” He moved toward her to check it out. The battery on the remote was low.

  After changing it for her, he returned to the living room to put it on the kids channel she preferred, then froze as he heard the news.

  “Another body was found near Miller’s Pond. Mutilated. The headless remains were burned beyond recognition. At this time, the authorities are investigating every lead. So far, they’re at a loss over this horrific crime that appears to be related to a set of six murders over the last four months.”

  Jamie was frozen to the spot as he heard those words.

  Six murders.

  Four months.

  “Give me that!” Matilda jerked the remote from his hand and changed channels.

  Sick to his stomach, Jamie bit his lip. Now that he thought about it, those murders had only started after the Thompsons had moved in.

  Six months ago. Just a few weeks after his father had been killed outside of Memphis.

  Weird.

  It’s nothing, dumb ass. Get back to your chemistry.

  Yeah, but what if . . .

  “Jamie?”

  He turned at his mother’s irate tone that usually denoted one bad habit he had. “I put the seat down!”

  She growled at him. “It’s not the toilet seat. I just got a call from Teresa. Are you spying on her?”

  Well, yeah, but he wasn’t dumb enough to give her the truth with that tone of voice. “No.”

  Hands on hips, she glared at him. “You better not be! She said she’s going to call the cops and report you for stalking if you do it again.”

  “‘Cause I was looking out the window of my house? Really? When did that become a crime?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, boy. Now do your homework.”

  Grousing under his breath, Jamie returned to his book, but not before he called his best friend.

  By the time he’d finished his assignment, Ed was at his back door with an evil grin on his nerdy little face. Barely five-foot-three, Ed wasn’t the most intimidating person on the planet, but he was one hell of an opponent on any science or math bowl team.

  “So, you think your neighbors are weird.”

  “Shh.” Jamie looked over his shoulder to make sure his mom wasn’t there before he pushed Ed out onto the back stoop. “Yeah. There’s something not right. You feel up to some snooping?”

  “Always. It’s what I do best. . . . Only time my compact body mass comes in handy.”

  Ignoring his mini-tirade, Jamie turned the back light off and crouched low as he made his way from the porch to the grass. Like a military assault squad, they headed across his back yard, toward the Thompson’s.

  Halfway to the Thompson garage, Ed pulled back with a frown.

  “What?” Jamie whispered.

  Blanching, Ed held his hand up for him to see. “It’s blood.” He looked around. “The ground’s saturated with it.”

  Sick to his stomach, Jamie lifted his hands to see them stained red. Just like Ed’s. “Is it human?”

  “How would I know? Blood’s blood. And this is definitely blood.” Ed’s eyes widened. “You think they’re the serial killers the cops are looking for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Biting his lip, Jamie moved toward the detached two-car garage to look for clues. It took several minutes to jimmy the lock.

  As silent as the grave, he and Ed moved into the small building that was covered in plastic.

  Like some serial killer’s lair.

  Ed stepped closer to him. “We need to get out of here and call the cops.”

  “Not without some evidence.”

  “Yeah, no, I’ve seen this movie. Nerdy white boy dies first. I’m out of here.”

  He grabbed Ed’s arm as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Hold on a minute.”

  Jamie went to the workbench where someone had left a map of their small Mississippi town and a card case.

  A card case that held driver’s licenses.

  What the hell?

  Opening it, Jamie saw men and women from all over the country. What kind of . . .

  His thoughts scattered as he saw his dad’s license there.

  Why would they have his dad’s license?

  Confused and terrified, Jamie looked back at the map that had his house and those of every family in town marked with a red highlighter.

  “Jamie,” Ed snarled between clenched teeth. “I hear something.”

  As they started back for the window, Jamie froze at the sight of a mirrored wall.

  Footsteps moved closer.

  Ed ran for the window with Jamie one step behind him. They were both sweating and shaking by the time they were outside the garage. But as soon as their feet were on the ground, headlights lit up the entire yard.

  They were trapped.

  If they tried to get back to Jamie’s house, they’d be seen for sure.

  With no other course of action, Jamie crouched under the open window and listened as the driver turned the car off and got out. Footsteps echoed as the driver walked into the garage.

  “Hey, hon?” Mr. Thompson called out. “Have you been messing in the garage again?”

  Lights came on in the house an instant before Teresa walked the short distance to the garage. “What now, Bob?”

  Ed ran for Jamie’s house while Jamie stayed behind. Rising slowly, he peeked in through the window to see the Thompsons standing in the center of their obvious kill zone.

  “Someone’s been flipping through my journal. Was that you?”

  “No. I haven’t been in here.” She walked over to the mirror.

  Jamie gasped at what he saw there.

  Oh shit! I knew it!

  He lifted his phone and quickly snapped a photo of her, then he did what Ed had done. He scampered across the lawn as fast as he could. Running into his house, he slammed the door and pulled down all the window blinds.

  “Mom!”

  Ed met him in the living room where he was holding on to Matilda for everything he was worth. “I thought those things were myths made up by teachers and parents to scare us.”

  “What?” his mom asked.

  Jamie swallowed as his mother stared at them as if they were crazy. His breathing ragged, he held his phone out to his mom. “We’ve got to call the cops!”

  “For what?”

  “Our neighbors, Ma!” He showed her the picture of them standing in front of the mirror . . . casting a reflection. “They’re humans . . . slayers. And they’re here to destroy our colony!”

  Fire & Ice

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Chapter 1

  S

  o you’re one of those badass League assassins, huh? You sure don’t look like much to me.”

  Unamused by the rodent who’d just risen to challenge him, Adron Quiakides paused his drink halfway to his lips. His blood rushed through his veins like lava as he narrowed his gaze on the beefy male in front of his booth that barely qualified as a human.

  Then again, that applied to pretty much everyone.

  Especially him.

  With a tired sigh, he raked a bored stare over the idiot. Adron’s elite military training allowed him to size the bastard up in a nanosecond. Dressed black on black because he thought it made him look tougher, t
he stupid fuck wore an abundance of weapons in plain sight—which meant he didn’t know how to use any of them properly.

  Obviously, he was hoping the sheer number alone would deter anyone from messing with him.

  Fucking amateur.

  Even more offensive than the weapons, his clothes were two sizes too small, in order to show off his engorged muscles that were out of proportion to the rest of him, no doubt from heavy steroid abuse. He stood with his hip cocked, blustering and preening for a group of like-minded “friends” who were laughing at his inflated braggadocio.

  Bully. Trash.

  Free assassin too incompetent in his trade to pay his own bills.

  He probably lived off a girlfriend or boyfriend he knocked around whenever his ‘roid rage became more than he could handle.

  In short, he wasn’t worth the cost of a blaster charge to eliminate him from the gene pool. Lucky day for him because in the past, Adron wouldn’t have hesitated to perform that public service.

  So rather than rise to the anger, Adron sighed and knocked back his drink with one gulp, then poured himself another. “You have three seconds to evaporate or I’m going to spray your brain matter all over your crew behind you.”

  The man laughed as he sneered at Adron’s black silver-tipped cane resting against the table. “You’re a pathetic cripple. What can you do besides get drunk and glower? I’m surprised they even let something like you in here with the rest of us.” He turned toward his friends so that he could continue to mock Adron’s condition. “Help me. Help me. I’m so scared. Please don’t hurt me, League Assassin!” That was a falsetto that made Adron wonder what elevator door had trapped the man’s genitals. “Look, I’m crying like the little bitch I raped last night.”

  And that quashed his mellow instantly as it was the one thing he had no tolerance for. With his fury rising, Adron felt that old familiar cold seize him.

  Without hesitation, he kicked the table over, knocking the man back. Even though his body screamed out in agony, protesting against his movements, he rose, yanked one of the blasters from the bastard’s belt, and aimed it between his eyes.

  One shot.

  One kill.

  That was the assassin’s creed he’d been taught, and true to his training and the promise he’d given the stupid fuck, he dispatched one more piece of vermin out of this plane of existence.