This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(21)

An H was branded into the monster’s cheek, just below his left eye, the letter the size and shape of a college ring. (Her father wore it on his left hand, above his wedding band.)

Sloan’s thin lips drew back to reveal sharp teeth, like a shark’s, each filed to a point.

Malchai, Malchai, sharp and sly,

Smile and bite and drink you dry.

Sloan was saying something, but she couldn’t hear his words over the blaring music. She didn’t want to hear them. Sloan’s voice was all wrong, not a rattle or a growl, but something soft and cloying. She had never seen the Malchai feed, but she could imagine him, covered in gore, his voice still sickly sweet.

I can’t hear you, she mouthed, hoping he would go away. But Sloan was too patient. He reached out and touched a panel on the wall with a single sharp nail, and the beat collapsed, plunging them back into silence.

Kate didn’t lower the gun. She wondered what kind of rounds were loaded. Silver? Iron? Lead? Something that would make a dent.

“Home for less than a week,” he said, his voice so low in the wake of the music that she had to strain to hear, “and you’ve already found the weapons.”

Kate smiled grimly. “What can I say?”

“Do you plan to shoot me?” he asked, taking a prowling step closer, red eyes bright with interest, as if it were a game.

“I’ve considered it,” she said, but she didn’t fire, and then she felt a weight on the gun, and looked down to see Sloan’s hand resting casually on the weapon’s barrel. She hadn’t even seen him move. That was the way with Malchai, slow until they struck.

Sloan clicked his tongue against his sharp teeth. “My dear Kate,” he said. “I’m not your enemy.”

His fingers slid forward, brushing hers, cold and slick, almost reptilian, and she jerked away, surrendering the gun. He set it on the counter between them. “No problems today, I assume.”

Kate gestured to herself. “Home in one piece.”

“And the school?” As if he cared.

“Still standing.” The temperature in the kitchen was falling, as if Sloan were sucking all the heat out of the room. Kate crossed her arms. “You’re up early.”

“A vampire joke. How original.” He never cracked a smile, but Sloan had her father’s dry humor. Only the Corsai were truly nocturnal, allergic to the light of day. The Malchai drank blood and drew their strength from the night, but they weren’t vampires, didn’t shrink away from crosses, wouldn’t catch fire in the sun. A piece of pure metal through the heart, though, that would still take them down.

Kate watched Sloan eye the stack of medallions on the counter and recoil ever so slightly before he turned toward the floor-to-ceiling windows and the thinning light.

She had a theory about Sloan, that he wasn’t just Harker’s servant, but his Malchai. The product of some awful crime, an aftermath, just like those Corsai in the clip she’d watched. Something that slithered out of Harker’s wake. But who had he killed to gain a creature like Sloan? And how long had the Malchai been there, at her father’s side when Kate wasn’t? The question made her want to put a silver bullet through the monster’s eye.

Her gaze flicked to the brand on the Malchai’s cheek. “Tell me something, Sloan.”

“Hmm?”

“What did you do to become my father’s favorite pet?” The Malchai’s face stiffened, as if freezing into place. “Have you learned any tricks since I left? Can you sit? Lie down? Play fetch?”

“I only have one trick,” he said, lifting a bony hand to the air beside her head. “I know how to listen.”

He snapped his fingers next to her bad ear. Kate went for the gun, but Sloan got there first. “Uh-uh,” he warned, waving it side to side. “Play nice.”

Kate held up her hands, and took a step back. “Who knows,” said Sloan, twirling the weapon. “If you behave, maybe Harker will finally claim you, too.”





August felt like hell.

Every one of his four hundred and eighteen tally marks was humming faintly by the time he slumped into the subway seat and closed his eyes. His pulse pounded in his head along with the steady, distant sound of gunshots. He tried not to think about it, but it was like trying not to scratch an itch.

“How could you?” snapped a woman across the aisle. She was standing over a man reading a tablet. When he didn’t look up she slammed her hand down on the screen. “Look at me.”

“Dammit, Leslie.”

“I work with her!”

“Do you really want to do this right now?” he growled. “Fine, let’s make a scorecard.”

“You are such an ass.”

“There was Eric, and Harry, and Joe, but are we counting the ones who didn’t want you—”

She slapped him, hard—the sound was a crack in the subway car, a bang in August’s skull. Heads turned toward the fight. He swallowed hard. His influence was spreading, radiating off of him like heat. Two seats down, a man began to sob. “It’s all my fault, all my fault, I never meant to do it. . . .”

“You really are a bitch.”

“It wasn’t worth it.”

“I should have left.”

“It’s all my fault.”