Page 19 of Snag (Conduit #2)
FIVE
RECK
Zaya fucking Gage is sitting at the fucking bar attached to the fucking hotel the Outcast MC has commandeered as a temporary clubhouse, since fucking Rath took the fucking roof off their regular local last night.
The bane of my fucking existence and the object of all my beast’s desires is playing on her phone, sipping some pinkish-orange slushy drink in a martini glass, legs crossed and swinging one foot.
Seemingly permanently attached to her drink via her fucking straw, cheeks hollowing with every pull of those lush fucking lips. Just like at the club last night.
Zaya. Drinking. In the middle of the fucking day. As if she isn’t the one responsible for the chaos unleashed on this town last night, fucking destroying most of Main and First Streets. And shredding another hunk of my tattered soul right along with the other destruction.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I would have sworn that my soul didn’t have a shred remaining to be sundered. But Zaya fucking Gage is on the loose, and she’s going to destroy all of us stupid enough to stumble into her path.
The Outcast MC pledge still setting up the bar keeps stealing glances at Zaya like he might try to shoot his load.
He probably saw her dancing last night at the clubhouse.
Like her privileged fucking cunt is obtainable for anyone in this backwater town, let alone some shit barely out of his teens.
He probably shifts into a fucking donkey or muskrat.
I hover like a moonstruck moron in the doorway of the corridor leading back into the office spaces and then into the hotel itself — even as I blame my fucking beast for getting caught up at the mere sight of our duplicitous bond.
The Outcast MC have leased out the entire hotel for the next couple of months, bar and laundromat included.
I doubt it was busy in the offseason anyway.
The main building is set back from the ocean’s edge, but still close enough to hear the surf and catch a glimpse of the beach through any west-facing windows.
After having been unusually active all day, infusing power through me that I haven’t felt in years, my beast is oddly quiet in Zaya’s presence.
Even now, with her in our sight, the cu-sith is pressed into the back of my mind.
It was so present even after I wrestled control of my body back from it right before dawn that I’ve been fighting its instincts all day.
Mostly instincts to maim or outright slaughter anyone standing between us and her. Zaya fucking Gage.
The only thing currently keeping me away from the estate property is the two Authority agents, Shaw and Wilson, I’ve got posted there. Those corrupt assholes are a most effective deterrent to me storming the house— and, if the cu-sith had its way, prostrating myself at her fucking feet .
My reawakened beast loathes both Shaw and Wilson, but that’s not the only reason I don’t want them knowing anything about Zaya or my connection to her. They— the Authority— don’t need more leverage with which to cage me.
Once again, Zaya has left the estate without those fuckers noticing or notifying me.
I’m not sure why I’m fucking bothering involving Shaw and Wilson, or with even feigning that any of this surveillance is officially sanctioned. Not on the Outcast or on Zaya.
Except … I know.
I fucking know the Authority is always working both sides of anything having to do with me.
Ever since I blasted through their academy in record time and requested Cascadia and the Federation for my official placement.
Leveraging what remained of my … my what?
My morality? My worth? The last vestiges of anything good within me?
Fuck me. I just wanted to keep eyes on my family — those who need my protection and those who deserve my vengeance — so I took any and all assignments, no matter how corrupt, no matter what I had to do, to gain position and authority.
As such, while Shaw and Wilson might officially be assigned to me, I’m continually aware that they’re also my watchers.
The cu-sith that makes up one half of my permanently destroyed soul presses its claws into my brain. Metaphorically, obviously. But it still hurts like fuck. The beast is trying to get me to focus on something specific.
I sweep my gaze across the room, not getting the hint.
Last night, the cu-sith ceded my human form to me only after Zaya was carted off by my brother Rought.
She passed out— again— from whatever the fuck she did to cut down Chains like he wasn’t a senior shifter in the Cataclysm MC, with all the power that comes with such a position within the structure of an essence-tied pack.
Each shifter essence-bound through fidelity oaths or blood or bitten bonds.
Through that web of bonds, the more powerful filter strength to the lessers, and the lessers provide stability to leaders far more powerful— and more likely to be unhinged.
Zaya didn’t even have to touch Chains to drop him.
My memory of last night, after being nearly suffocated by a spell so fucking malignant that my beast voluntarily rose to save my undeserving ass, is hazy as fuck.
I might not have been in control of the cu-sith’s actions, but even pressed into the background of my own mind, I can see and sense what my beast can.
Zaya cutting Chains’s strings and him dropping to the pavement, dead before he hit, is clear as fuck.
I don’t know what kind of power that is, but I know there’s no fucking way someone as fundamentally irresponsible as Zaya should be the one to wield it. Not unchecked.
I mean, just walking away from the three people pulled from the primordial ooze, shaped by the fundamental energy that fuels the fucking universe, and destined to be yours to protect, to cherish? Who the fuck does that?
Zaya fucking Gage does that. Did that.
Not that I believe any of that ‘soul bound’ shit. She might have hoodwinked me as a child, manipulated all three of us as teenagers until we could barely stand to be out of her presence. But I’m not that naive now. I’m not that easily coerced. Her essence-twisted tricks won’t work on me. Not again.
The pledge saunters over to Zaya, sliding a new slushy drink toward her across the bar without asking if she wants a refill. From my perspective, she barely acknowledges him. As it should be.
He shouldn’t even be breathing the same air as her, let alone looking at her like he’s ready to beg for scraps. She could burn him through with a mere look, smirking while she leeches every last drop of —
My beast presses forward. Not enough to move me, but enough to exert pressure against my skin. Still, the typical red haze of the cu-sith’s consciousness, the need to destroy and fuck everything and everyone up, doesn’t flood through me.
With the cu-sith’s reawakening, my truth-seeking abilities are back in full force. I’ve also got this weird sense — currently lodged at the back of my throat like a malignant tumor — that I might be able to speak with the beast’s voice. Except the cu-sith only ever says one thing: die , die, die.
That’s new.
And I hate new shit.
After Zaya unleashed hell on the unwitting Outcast shifters, all because she wanted an excuse to flaunt herself in front of the entire clubhouse, I got maybe a couple of hours of sleep in my SUV.
After transforming back into my human self, I couldn’t stand to be around people.
At all. The lies — even if meant to be simple platitudes or minor twists of the truth — that flow freely from every human I get within a few feet of are a constant stabbing to my already beleaguered brain.
I couldn’t block that deluge of thoughts— or more specifically, of intent— all through the early-morning hours.
Too many people were already up and fucking yammering to each other while I was still trying to get some sleep.
I had to abandon my suite — in this very fucking hotel — and retreat to my SUV in the parking lot like some fucking novice.
That extreme sensitivity — walking around like a lie detector riddled with live wires — finally eased a couple of hours ago.
Though I’m still avoiding people in general.
And my fucking phone. One check-in call with fucking Shaw this a.m. and I thought my brain was going to explode from the shit he constantly spews.
Both Rought and Rath have been all up in my messages, but I’m just deleting them unread.
The beast shifts back within me again, finally freeing my limbs and my mind enough that I push myself toward Zaya.
Weaving through all the empty tables between us and heading for the bar.
She’s wearing a dramatically long black dress painted with dark-red flowers and green leaves.
Roses, maybe. The long sleeves cover her arms. Her light-brown hair is loose and wavy over her shoulders, and the blue of her veins are a sharp contrast to the pale skin of her neck.
She’s still too slim.
And something is off about the outfit.
The cu-sith’s claws prickle across my mind. Again.
A warning? A wariness?
I shove the beast back hard, fucking pissed that I have to do so. I’m not some newly manifested shifter. I’ve held this beast at bay for thirteen years now.
Zaya’s back is to me, and there’s no mirror behind the bar, but it’s still odd that I step right up beside her without her noticing. I don’t think she’s faking it. Even though I can’t normally sense an awry’s lies from the truth, I’m adept at reading body language.
Zaya is playing a word game on her phone.
That is so utterly mundane, it gives me pause .