Two Polluted Black-Heart Romances Read online

  “Enjoying this.”

  “Sabrina, listen to me.” Weston sounded panicked.

  “You want to finish?” Sabrina said with a smirk. “I know, just give me a moment out here, the sun feels great.”

  “No, Sabrina. I need you to release your wings. Do it now.”

  “So you can pin them down while you fuck me? You know, I—”

  “Damn it, Sabrina. Listen to me. I’m having trouble holding you. The cross currents… There’s something below…” He tried to explain. “There’s an energy—a force. It’s like a drain, sucking everything down.”

  Another loud rumble from below released a cloud of smoke and dust. Sabrina’s apartment building swayed again, this time so drastically it nearly hit her where she hung midair.

  “What the hell?”

  “Your wings!”

  Sabrina heard a cracking sound and watched one of the neighboring buildings begin to shake and crumble.

  “Holy shit, Weston. Put me down.”

  The rumbling returned, twice as loud now, reverberating through the air. It felt like someone was pounding their fist on her ear drums while they punched her in the stomach.

  “We’re next. Release your wings now, princess!”

  With as little effort as clenching a fist, she unfurled her wings from their hiding spot beneath her skin. They flashed bright as they crackled into existence. Sabrina had not released them in many hours. It felt good to stretch them, and no sooner had she done so than Weston’s hold on her ceased.

  Gravity yanked at her hips and legs. Sabrina felt heavy again, but she didn’t fall. Her wings held her steady.

  “Fly away! Fly away now!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Go now!” was the last thing he said before the building suddenly sunk into the ground, breaking into pieces under its own weight.

  “Weston!”

  Sabrina flapped her wings, but the collapse of the building created a down draft that pulled her with it. She flapped harder and harder, even kicking her legs out as if she were swimming, but it didn’t keep her from dropping.

  When moments ago she had done nothing to stop from falling, now she did everything.

  An updraft hit her so hard, it threw her easily a hundred feet away from where she had just been. She gasped for air, and coughed hard. It took all her strength, but she righted herself and leveled out.

  Weston’s voice unexpectedly surrounded her. “Can you fly now?”

  “Weston?” She was relieved he was alive.

  “I’m here.”

  Sabrina looked down. The streets looked like a warzone. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t plan to be here any longer to find out.”

  Cade’s Lament

  Cade paced back and forth at the entrance to the cave. He had spent the night arguing with his clan mates and felt that they’d wasted time, which at this precise junction of their immortality, was more precious than ever.

  He was left with the most troubling task: wake Dunyasha and give her the bad news. He pondered just how angry she would be; she had plenty of reasons to be livid. Cade had left his clan years ago and had not returned. He had broken their laws and her commands; he figured he had two strikes against him already.

  Cade considered his options, and the advice of his childe, Nicodemus. Nicodemus had suggested they kill the Germans. If the wraiths had nothing to destroy, then perhaps they would not be dispatched. It was a solid theory, however Cade wondered if it was not just Nico’s pride, mixed with his bloodlust to finally rid himself of the pair, that came up with the idea. While it solved one problem, it created another. Dunyasha would not be pleased if he and his childe killed two of hers. Cade knew how his sire had felt when she’d lost Alexander and Lydia; she had been devastated and enraged. Cade could not fault her; the thought of losing Nico made him equally incensed.

  All in all, there just didn’t seem to be a clean way out of this mess.

  “Yo, buddy?” Joe called out from Cade’s feet, where he had returned to his form of a dog.

  “Yeah, Joe?”

  “I got news.”

  “News?”

  “Yeah, something’s happened back in Beverly Hills.”

  Cade looked down at the slime. How would he know that?

  “You got a phone I don’t know about, Joe?”

  “I told you, pally, we’re hive minded too. We communicate with one another kinda like Bluetooth. There must be a few other slimes or molds nearby ’cause I’m getting something.”

  “Like picking up enemy radio communications?”

  “Yeah.” The slime tilted his head funny and replied sarcastically, “Like that.”

  “So what do you hear?”

  “Pollution, brother. It struck again.”

  “Beverly Hills?” Cade asked. “What does this thing want? What’s its aim? Its objectives? It attacked the hospital and now Beverly Hills. That makes no sense.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  Cade sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You have something to say, say it.”

  “What was in the hospital and Beverly Hills?”

  Cade thought for a moment. His first answer was Moselle and Jackson, but it did not add up. What would they be doing in Beverly Hills? Then it dawned on him.

  “Sabrina?”

  “Bingo, pal.”

  “It’s after Sabrina?”

  “She is the fairy princess in this story.”

  Cade looked out the cave opening, into the blazing sun of the day. It burned his eyes and slowly reduced his vision to a pulsating white glow. Cade closed his eyes and imagined his motorcycle, way out there on the side of the road. Even if he could find it, there was no way to drive it blind.

  “I need to go to her.”

  “And what, lead the wraiths right to her?”

  “I—”

  “Hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to her, buddy. I’m just saying you got problems on two fronts now, don’t you?”

  Cade nodded. “I do.”

  “So what happens when you fight a two-front war?”

  “You’re forced to separate your forces.”

  “And how do you win?”

  Cade looked to the back of the caves, where his family mingled. “With overwhelming human resources.”

  “Or in your case, inhuman resources. Right, buddy boy?”

  “Right.” Cade nodded and then looked back down at Joe.

  Joe spun around in a circle and then faced the group. “So who do you trust? Clearly not Dumb and Dumber over there.”

  “Excuse me?” Cade furrowed his brow.

  “Well, I assume you’re gonna lead the charge to protect Sabrina on one front. Who are you going to put in charge of the other? Who stays behind and protects the homeland?”

  “As it stands, Nicodemus.”

  “But…” Joe prompted.

  “But once I wake Dunyasha, tell her about the Germans’ folly, and the impending attack from the wraiths—”

  “She’s gonna want her best soldier at her side,” Joe finished for him. “And that’s you, right?”

  “It sure is, Joe. Always has been.”

  “So where does that leave you?” Joe asked.

  “It leaves me with the same choices I had before.” Cade sighed. “I stay or I break the rules.”

  Cade sat down on a rock. It was not long before he found a new solution to mull over.

  I could send Dolby out to see what kind of damage was done. Perhaps the video did not show anything? Perhaps it was too dark or pointing at the wrong angle. Maybe I’m worried for no reason at all. Dolby could… Cade realized something while he looked at the man. He can’t go alone; he would need an escort. Damn it.

  Cade shifted his attention back to the twins. They were seated on the ground away from the others, whispering back and forth. Cade could barely hear what they said. He knew the Germans wanted the freedom to run loose; to feed. Dunyasha never allowed them that. She liked to
keep them on a short leash, but Cade considered setting them loose. If the pair ran free, it would at least put some distance between them and the cave where Dunyasha sleeps. He very much liked that idea.

  If the wraiths do come for the twins, it would be for the best that they’re separated from the others. Contain the collateral damage.

  Cade looked at the Vojvoda. The old man napped peacefully atop a large slab of limestone. Poor Petar, he wouldn’t stand a fighting chance in a serious confrontation. He always seems happiest when he’s sleeping.

  “I can’t do this,” he said to Joe. “I can’t wake her.”

  “No?”

  “No. I need a better idea—a new plan.” He nodded to Joe.

  Cade dwelled on his thoughts as Natalia walked his way. She had changed clothing again. She wore her black gown and feathers now and held a fist-sized rock in her right hand that she pounded into her left, but that was not what bothered him most. He did not like the look in her eyes; it spelled trouble.

  “Natalia.” Cade stood and bowed his head to her as she approached him.

  “I’m restless, Cade.”

  “I can see.” His eyes went to the rock, which she gripped tightly in her hand.

  “I find myself tired of sleeping.” Natalia pitched the rock over Cade’s head and out of the cave. “I no longer want rest. I want to run and eat and fuck.”

  “I know, Natalia.”

  She reached out and rested her open palm on Cade’s chest. “If you wake her, there will be no chance to do any of those.”

  “I know.”

  Natalia stepped closer and nuzzled along Cade’s neck, up to his ear, where she whispered, “And I know you don’t want to wake her.”

  He nodded.

  “I know why too, Cade.”

  He tried to take a step back, but she had a grip on his pants that did not allow him to. “Natalia, this is not the time…”

  “You know what else I know about you, Cade,” she said before she placed a small kiss on his lips. “You never run out of schemes.”

  “This time is different.”

  “So you have run out?”

  He smirked. “Well…”

  “Then tell me,” she said as the hand that rested on his chest slowly slinked down his stomach.

  “I was thinking Dolby could run a little reconnaissance.”

  Natalia put an end to her seduction, stepped back, and smiled. “Reconnaissance?”

  “Yes.” He knew he had her hooked now. “Would you like to join him? You two would go to the nearest town and—”

  “That sounds like a wonderful plan. I will go.”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “Cade, would you question a willing woman?”

  “Never.”

  “Good. Then explain what you need to Dolby. I’m going to go change into something more fitting for a night on the town.”

  “Thank you, Natalia.”

  “Thank me later.”

  Cade watched her saunter off. Once she had disappeared into the darkness of the caves, Joe stirred from behind a stalagmite.

  “I don’t know how you keep resisting that one,” Joe said. “Man, what I wouldn’t do to bite her—”

  “Joe, she would eat you alive.”

  “Spoken by someone who knows, right, pally? How many times you hit that?”

  “More times than I can count, and each time was like playing with a loaded gun.”

  “You vampires have all the fun,” Joe grumbled. “I mean, what have I done since getting here? I got into the head of a washed-up eighties pop star. And it wasn’t even Debbie Gibson. Lucky me, right?”

  Cade looked down at the slime. He had just given him another idea.

  “Joe, can you insert a thought or idea into someone’s head?”

  “Of course.”

  “Even if it’s a lie or alters an existing perception?”

  “Yo, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning if I couldn’t.”

  “Good. I have a new-new plan,” Cade said cheerily. “We do this right and it solves one major problem.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t asking me to get inside the heads of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”

  “Afraid so, Joe.”

  Joe shook. “You won’t hear me or many other slimes say this much, but, yeah, that’s gross.”

  Ghouls Gone Bad

  Sabrina stood on the roof of a high-rise half a mile from where her apartment building had been. She stared off at the horizon, the sun at her back. The cityscape looked different, like a mouth missing a front tooth.

  As difficult as it was for her to believe, her once lush penthouse apartment was gone and only a pillar of smoke rose into the sky in its place.

  “My father invested in that place,” Sabrina said to Weston. “When we first moved to America, the building was only half completed. He invested a lot of money making sure it was well above code. He wanted to make sure I had a safe place to live.”

  “Earthquakes can—”

  “What if that wasn’t an earthquake, Weston?”

  Sabrina wrapped her arms around herself; she felt defenseless. She turned her eyes down, expecting to see her own naked skin but didn’t. “What the hell?” she gasped.

  “I’ve got you,” Weston said casually.

  Apparently, Weston’s learned a new trick. She stretched out her arm and gazed at it as she turned her palm over. “Invisible…”

  “Nah, translucent.”

  Sabrina sighed. Invisible. She felt like crying. Nothing matters anymore, she thought. The wraiths are here. They destroyed my home—an entire building just to get me.

  She shivered, but not from the cold air that blew all around her—it was from the insurmountable odds before her.

  “Are you sure no one followed us?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Not even the wraiths?”

  “The wraiths? Sabrina…” He sounded exhausted when he said her name. “That was an earthquake.”

  “You said it yourself. You sensed something.”

  “Well, I really don’t think it was the wraiths that I sensed,” he said. “Why would they do this? They have much more important tasks.”

  “And you would know, right?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aren’t all wraiths air spirits?”

  He was quick to answer. “No.”

  “I thought they were.”

  “The wraiths are—were elemental spirits,” Weston explained. “Now they are simply vengeful spirits.”

  “But they are spirits and were elementals. So they could’ve been air spirits.”

  “The wraiths are not out to get you, Sabrina.” When he groaned, it sounded more like a howl of wind. “Look, you can’t stand out here naked all day.”

  “I know. We should go.”

  “Where to? Where do you want to go?”

  Sabrina turned her back on the sight. She had seen enough. “I have a storage unit. My old furniture and some of my old clothes are stored away.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Near my parent’s old place. North Hollywood.”

  “Good. I’ll have him meet us there.”

  “Him?” Sabrina’s asked, curios. “Him who?”

  “Me,” Weston said. “The other half of me.”

  Sabrina had always wondered if spirits could divide themselves. “I knew it!”

  “When the building started to collapse, I split. The other me is in the rubble. He-I—we managed to save a few things for you. Not much.”

  “My cell phone?”

  “Yes.” He chuckled.

  “My music notebook.”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. “That’s all that matters now.”

  When Sabrina touched down in the middle of the storage unit lot, she told Weston to carefully check the perimeter. Beyond the possibility that her life was at risk, she just wanted a few moments alone.

  Sabrina knew th
e air spirit was gone when her body returned to view.

  “Barefoot and naked on the beaches of Ibiza? Nope,” she grumbled. “Barefoot and naked in the dirty streets of Los Angeles? Yep.”

  Sabrina stared down at the padlock on her storage unit’s door. She shook her head and chuckled to herself. The key. Of course. The key.

  She remembered why her parents had picked this exact company to store her stuff; there were two reasons actually. One was its lack of security cameras; the other was its otherworldly management. Sabrina concentrated on the energy that coursed through her body and focused it to her wings. Unafraid of being caught with her wings out here, she amped them up, something she rarely got to do outside of her own home.

  ZAP!

  Sabrina flicked the lock with the tip of a wing, just as she had many times before to ignite her cigarettes. This time, the amped up heat melted the metal and the lock dropped to the sidewalk with a clang. She considered striking it again just for fun. Hitting that chunk of metal again might give me sense of satisfaction and—

  “Hey, lady, you lose something?”

  The voice interrupted her thoughts and startled her so badly she jumped. She grabbed the bottom of the storage unit door and lifted it as fast as she could so she could hide inside. However, the storage unit smelled stale; the air was thick and unbreathable. Sabrina choked and quickly stepped back out.

  Better to be caught naked, wings out, and breathing than unconscious on the floor.

  “Lady?”

  Across from her unit was one that was open, the voice coming from inside.

  “Who’s there?” she called.

  “Lonzo.”

  “Lonzo? Seriously?” Sabrina crinkled her nose. “Like the basketball player?”

  “Who? No. I—I think my parents named me after a character from a movie—movie—movie—book.”

  Sabrina could not see anything in the storage unit across from her, it was so dark inside.

  “Okay. Look, I just need to get some clothes; then I’m outta here. So, stare if you want to but—”

  “I can’t see you—me…you—me,” Lonzo stuttered. “I’m blind.”

  “Blind, huh?” Sabrina didn’t believe it. “So, Lonzo, you like…live in there?”

  “I do.” The man coughed loudly.

  She faced her unit. Where’s Weston? He should be protecting me. Hell, I’d be happy if he’d just circulate this stale air. Sabrina flipped the light switch but nothing happened.