Page 11

The Next City…

I usemy finger to fill in the space around his eyes with black paint. He looks more demon than any of us like this with his dark brown eyes. I move on to paint his nose and then the outline of his teeth over his white cheeks. We slick back his hair out of his face, accentuating his cheekbones even more.

“I can’t wait to come all over this pretty face later,” I tell him as I finish. He rolls his eyes and pushes me away to get a look at himself in the mirror. He’s been with me for over a week now, and every night I have to perform, he lets me paint his face as another way for me to stake my claim on him.

Then, after everyone leaves, we ignore everyone else and fuck like rabbits as I feed from him. We’ve discovered my little Fated likes me to bite him near his groin, drinking from him as I stroke him to climax. The noises he makes as I pull and pull from the wound could probably wake the dead.

“Opening in five!” the ticket master shouts from outside our tent.

“Come on, you two!” Mara sings from the front of the tent. “Stop fucking and come join the show!” Kali skims along my skin, settling in her usual spot on my collarbones as I pull my shirt over my head. Her tongue pokes out a few times, making me twitch and smile.

“That tickles,” I tell her, stroking her head.

Cash walks up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.

“Let’s go before Mara decides to drag me out by my ear again,” he says, a look of real fear in his eyes. A few nights ago, he had screamed like a little girl as she ripped him out of bed by his ear, still naked as the day he was born, to join whatever party she was throwing that night.

“Come join the revelry!” she shouts again.

“Coming!” he shouts back, kissing my neck before and pulling out a cigarette as he moves through the curtain to join her. Once he’s gone, I’m struck sick, bending over and vomiting into the water basin in front of me. It’s all blood, seeing as the only thing I’ve eaten today is Cash.

I watch as it swirls and morphs with the water, forming the shape of what looks like a dog. My stomach turns again, and I fight against the urge to empty the rest of the contents into the bowl. Dread sweeps through my body, causing me to break out in a cold sweat.

If this means what I think it does, we’ve been found, and Hell is coming for us.

“Rune!” Mara’s shrill voice pierces through to my skull.

“Fucking coming!” I shout back, wiping my mouth and fixing the bit of paint around my mouth before following them out into the oncoming crowd.