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‘Knew you could do it!’ Stela kissed him, his lips still tingling from magic. ‘That was the fastest kill yet, and I didn’t pick a little one.’ She winked. ‘Wanted to show you off.’
Briar knew he should say something, but no words came. He just stood there, stupidly grinning at her.
Stela drew her knife and flipped it in her hand, holding it out to him handle-first. ‘Ent over. You have to cut out its black heart.’
Briar stared dumbly at her for a moment, then shook himself, taking the knife. He strode over to the demon, catching one of its armour plates and prising the knife underneath. Cutting wards flared as Briar yanked on the plate, half cutting, half tearing its chest open.
Black ichor covered the wards on his hands. They glowed, leaching its magic, making him strong beyond belief. He dropped the knife, ripping the next armour plate off with his bare hands. He weakened the demon’s rib cage with the pressure ward, then struck hard with the impact, shattering bone.
Briar thrust his hands inside the creature. In a moment he held up its heart, and the Wardskins cheered again. They had produced a great barrel of ale and were passing sloshing cups.
‘My uncle Keet didn’t think Mudboy had it in him!’ Stela boomed to the crowd. ‘Said Briar Damaj wasn’t good enough to be Pack.’
There was jeering in response, and Stela put her hands on her hips. ‘What do the Wardskins say?’
‘Pack!’ the others shouted, punching fists in the night air. ‘Pack! Pack!’
Stela stepped up to Briar, putting her hands on the heart. They came away black with ichor. ‘Pack.’ She wiped the fluid across her breast, gasping in pleasure as her wards glowed, absorbing the power.
‘The Deliverer is strong within you,’ Franq agreed, stepping up next to touch the heart. Like Stela, he wiped the blood across his tattoos, shivering as they brightened. Then he turned to Briar, reaching out a black finger to trace a ward on his forehead. ‘Pack.’
The Wardskins formed a queue, each touching the heart and wiping ichor across their wards. ‘Pack,’ they whispered.
‘Want another taste,’ Stela said, giving the heart a squeeze, rubbing ichor onto her warded arms like lotion.
‘Ay, you going to take a bite of it, next?’ Ella Cutter jeered.
‘Don’t think I won’t!’ Stela said.
‘Hear that, Wardskins?’ Ella cried. ‘Stela’s going to take a bite of the demon’s heart!’
‘Do it!’ someone shouted from the crowd.
‘She ent got the stones!’ a girl cried.
‘You’ll slosh for sure!’ a gangly young man added, laughing.
‘Gatherers say ichor’s poison!’ someone said.
Stela looked at Franq, but the Brother did not try to stay her. Indeed, he eyed Stela and the heart intensely. Hungrily.
‘Eat it!’ the crowd boomed. ‘Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!’
Stela gave a wild smile, chomping down and tearing free a chunk of demon flesh. Her mouth ran black as she chewed, a mad look in her eyes. She retched once, but managed to swallow the mouthful.
‘Tastes like a coreling shat in my mouth!’ Stela cried, and the crowd laughed. She turned to Briar, offering him the heart. When he baulked, she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in, kissing him wetly on the mouth.
The ichor was foul on his lips, clinging and noxious, but he felt its power, even so. He felt his bile rise and swallowed hard, feeling the ichor burn its way down into him.
Franq strode at them as she pulled away. Briar half expected him to condemn them as corespawned. Instead the man stepped up and kissed Stela, tasting the ichor from her lips as Briar had.
Briar expected her to push him away, but Stela seemed to welcome the kiss, ecstatic in the rush of magic.
Briar lost sight of her as the other Wardskins swarmed forward to take their own bites from the heart. Soon the heart was consumed, everyone retching and laughing, faces black with demon blood. Unsatisfied, some went to the demon’s body, tearing into its chest and pulling out gobs of meat.
More of the Wardskins began kissing, rubbing ichor over one another’s faces and bodies. Briar saw Ella and the gangly young man move away from the demon, smeared with ichor. Ella laughed at Briar, wiggling her littlest finger at him as the man laid her back in the dirt.
Briar felt his face heat, turning away, but it was becoming a common scene atop the bluff, the few scraps of cloth the Wardskins wore being pulled away, wards glowing brightly in the night.
Stela had vanished. Briar wandered through the cavorting Pack looking for her. The chaos was surreal amid the magic flooding his senses. Stela was nowhere to be found atop the bluff. He moved down the pathway into the woods.
He heard her grunting and picked up his pace, not knowing what he would find. He burst through the trees to see Stela naked on all fours, growling. Brother Franq knelt behind her, bido pulled aside to reveal a cock thrice the size of Briar’s. His hands were on her hips, pulling her onto it.
Briar clenched his fist, every instinct screaming at him to strike the man. To kill him. To tear open his chest as he had the demon’s and feast on his heart.
But then Stela looked up. ‘Briar! Don’t be shy! I’ve openings for two.’
She beckoned, and Briar froze, terrified. The thought of joining them was horrifying. A perversion of the beauty they shared. He was repulsed, but his cock betrayed him, hard in his breeches.
He shook his head sharply, turning and running into the trees.
‘Briar, wait!’ Stela cried. He heard Franq’s bellow as she threw him off. He picked up speed at the sound of her feet, pounding across the forest bed after him.
Briar zigzagged through the trees, but while Franq’s angry shouts receded into the night, Stela kept pace. ‘Corespawn it, Briar! Will you please stop and talk to me?!’
He kept running, but he had no plan. The territory was unfamiliar, his thoughts still reeling. Stela gained ground until she could reach out and catch his arm. ‘What in the dark of night’s gotten into you?!’
Briar whirled to face her. ‘You were … You …!’
Stela crossed her arms. ‘Ay, I was what? Don’t belong to you, Briar Damaj, just because you stuck me.’
Briar shook her arm off. ‘Din’t say you did! Know you want more than the little stinker with the small cock.’
Stela’s expression softened. ‘Heard me and Ella, din’t you? Night, I’m sorry, Briar. Din’t mean it cruel.’
Briar barked a laugh. ‘Else could it be?’
‘Just girl talk,’ Stela said, giving him that wicked smile. ‘Don’t mean you won’t still get your turn.’
‘What?’ Briar stumbled back as Stela stalked in.
‘Like you, Briar,’ Stela said. ‘Din’t lie about that. Felt safe with you at my back last night.’
Briar backed into a tree and she was against him, still wearing nothing but tattoos and ichor. His heart thudded in his chest.
She put a hand between his legs, squeezing. ‘Did good work on my front, too, when the scrap was over. Small cock or no, I ent letting go a man who can kick a demon’s arse and curl my toes when it’s done.’
She kissed Briar again, breath still hot with magic and hinting at the noxious ichor of the corie.
Stela took his chin in her free hand as their lips parted, turning him to meet her eyes. ‘We don’t own each other in the Pack. I’ll stick who I want, when I want, and you should, too. Ella may joke, but don’t think she ent curious after what I told her.’
She undid the laces of his breeches, freeing him. Everything seemed to be spinning, but in that one place he felt rigid – ready to explode. ‘But not tonight.’ She took him in her hand, skin on skin. Briar shut his eyes and gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. ‘Tonight is your night, Wardskin. Let’s get the first one out of the way, and then you can have me as you please.’
She pushed him back against the tree, mounting him standing. She ground her full weight down on his crotch, reaching back between their legs to fondle his seedpods. Briar howled, and Stela gave a whoop of delight, picking up the pace as they gripped and scratched at each other.
Stela slipped off him when it was done, taking a few unsteady steps before turning around and kneeling on all fours. She turned to look him in the eye, smiling. ‘This is what Franq wanted. Now he’s pulling himself and it’s yours.’
The words teased a primal hunger – the exquisite pleasure of thrusting aside a rival and taking what was his. And why not? Dominance was the natural order of the world. Wolves did it. Cories did it.
Gonna be like them now?
He looked at Stela, covered in ichor, beckoning, and something churned in him. Was this the life he wanted?
He shook his head, reaching down to pull up his pants. ‘No.’
Stela threw him an angry look. ‘No? What in the Core do you mean, no?’
Briar finished lacing himself up. ‘Last night in the Briarpatch, I thought …’
‘What, Mudboy?’ Stela snapped, springing to her feet. ‘That we were one spirit the Creator tore in half?’
‘That you understood,’ Briar said.
‘We killed two demons and stuck each other,’ Stela said. ‘What’s there to understand?’
‘World’s bigger than this,’ Briar said. ‘Folk struggling for their lives outside Gatherers’ Wood, and all the Pack are doing is …’
‘Hunting and killing the demons that prey on them,’ Stela growled.
Briar shook his head. ‘Prey on them yourself. Stealing ale and supplies, even from your own family. Ent looking to protect them when night falls. You just want …’ He swept a hand at her.
Stela put her hands on her hips. ‘Just want what, Mudboy?’
There was danger in her eyes, but now that he had started talking, Briar was past caring.
‘To bathe in ichor and rut,’ he said. ‘And corespawn any that ent Pack.’
Stela lashed out at him. The magic made her fast, but Briar had tasted it, too. He took a quick step back, avoiding the slap.
‘So what, you’re just gonna walk away?!’ Stela demanded. ‘No one walks away from Stela Cutter, you quickshooting little stinker, least of all you.’
She snatched at him, and Briar batted her arm aside with his right hand. There was a flare of power as the impact ward struck, throwing her off her feet.
Briar looked at her in horror. Stela wasn’t a demon, but covered in ichor, the wards reacted as if she were. He could still taste it in his mouth, and spat.
Then he turned and ran into the night.
Briar returned to Mistress Leesha’s keep, slipping unseen past the night guards and into her private garden. If Stela or the other Painted Children were hunting for him, this was the last place they would think to look.
The hogroot patch looked inviting, but sleep was far from Briar’s thoughts. Just the opposite, his limbs shook with unreleased energy.
So he paced until he knew the garden intimately. There were three entrances – two grand and inviting, and one carefully hidden against one of the manse walls, obscured by flora.
Briar dug a small burrow in the hogroot for future use. He practised sharusahk. Anything to keep his thoughts from drifting back to Stela Cutter.
Leesha had shown an affinity for Duchess Araine’s gardens, walking the rows at least twice a day. Sure enough, while the sky was still brightening, the hidden door opened and the mistress slipped out among the herbs.
When he was certain she was alone, Briar stepped out to face her. ‘They’re dangerous.’
Leesha’s hand snapped into one of the many pockets of her dress, but then recognition caught up. ‘Night, Briar! One of these days you’re going to end up with a faceful of blinding powder.’
Briar nodded at the distance between them. ‘Can’t throw powder that far.’
Leesha tsked. ‘Are you all right, Briar?’
He didn’t know how to answer. He’d washed every inch of himself, but still he felt the ichor on his skin, tasted it in his mouth. Stela’s scratches had already healed, but he could still feel them itch.
‘Who’s dangerous, Briar?’ Leesha asked.
‘The Children,’ Briar said. ‘Ent fighting to keep the wood safe. Fighting because it feels good to fight. Magic makes us feel unbeatable.’
‘Us?’ Leesha asked. She stepped close, taking one of his hands and turning it over. She gasped at the ward there.
Briar pulled his hand away. ‘Thought they were like me. Ent. Ent like me at all.’
‘Briar, what’s happened?’ Leesha asked.
‘Ate a coreling’s heart tonight,’ Briar said. ‘Made’m … drunk. Wild. Only going to get worse.’
Leesha looked taken aback. ‘Idiot girl,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Told us himself! Said he ate them.’ She growled, clenching her fists.
‘Ay?’ Briar asked, confused.
‘The tattoos are only half the reason Arlen Bales can ripping fly,’ Leesha said. ‘It’s the corespawned meat!’
Briar looked at her dumbly, having no idea what she meant. After a moment she collected herself, looking back at him. ‘I need you to go back, Briar. I need you to convince them to meet with me.’
Briar shook his head. ‘Ent going back. Not now, not ever. Going home.’
‘Home?’ Leesha asked. ‘Elissa and Ragen won’t head north for weeks yet.’
‘Not north,’ Briar said. ‘Home. Lakton.’
6 (#ulink_11ab5f2b-5aa9-56e9-aef7-0976989140b0)
Everam Is a Lie (#ulink_11ab5f2b-5aa9-56e9-aef7-0976989140b0)
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