Called By the Dark

She blinks rapidly, and a disbelieving laugh comes out of her mouth. “Sure.”

I tilt my head. “Do you not believe I can give that to you?”

Her mouth opens and closes. “I mean, you brought me back from death and then swept me off to some place that doesn’t even exist, and then took me flying with your wings. Believing isn’t the issue.”

“Then what?” I run my fingers down her arm. “I want to understand.”

“I-I can’t just kill someone. That’s illegal. And immoral. And… I mean, my sister’s a cop.”

“Those men,” I tell her, “are responsible for nearly two dozen murders across the city. They’re responsible, in fact, for murdering the victim in the case your sister is working. She’s close to a breakthrough, but she’s not quite there yet. You would be doing the city—the world—a favor.”

Sazahn’s eyes are wide. She slowly shakes her head. “I-I couldn’t. I couldn’t live with myself.”

I smile reassuringly. “My love, you could. I promise you that.”

“But that’s…murder,” she whispers.

“No. No.” I cup her face and kiss her lips, then stare deeply into her eyes. In them, I see the flames in my pupils reflected. “My darling. What they did to you and your friends and all of those people in the club was murder. What you would be doing is an act of vengeance. Righteous vengeance.”

“I don’t…I don’t think I’m strong enough to do something like that,” she says, swallowing. “I’d—I’d probably puke then faint. And I’d go crazy with guilt. I’m not a saint, but I’m not a killer.”

“I would help you,” I murmur. “I can help you now. Would you like to see who these men really are? What they’ve done? What they’re capable of?”

I sit up and flip my palm up toward her, like before. Sazahn draws her hand back a little. She’s nervous.

“I don’t know,” she says, a tremble in her voice. “Gaderel, I’m scared.”

“You have nothing to fear,” I tell her. “Nothing. I will keep you safe, always.” I have never meant anything more than these words in my existence. I failed her tonight when she was killed, but now I see the greater path before her. The darker path. She had to be killed in order to be reborn.

She hesitantly shifts onto her knees before me, the bedsheet held loosely to her body, and slips her hand into mine. I close my fingers around hers.

As before, her pupils dilate, shifting rapidly back and forth as she views the images I show her. Images from all of the crimes the men tonight have committed. The murders. The rapes. The trafficking. The torture. The children they’ve brutalized for their own amusement and at the behest of their superiors. I know the screams of their victims resound in Sazahn’s ears. I know the shrieks of pain from the children and their small voices begging the men to stop hurting them echo in her mind, over and over.

Tears form in her unseeing eyes.

Then her upper lip curls, baring her teeth ever so slightly.

It is a primal physical reaction, one that she likely doesn’t know she’s displaying; the very essence of an ancient expression of living creatures in the face of an enemy. She is angry. Furious.

Enraged.

I smile. Good.

Her wrath perfumes the air, a pheromone I’ve never scented before. My body instantly responds, cock hardening and reaching for her.

I break the vision, breathing hard, and pull the sheet away from her body.

Her eyes refocus on mine, pupils returning to their normal size. She’s confused by this sudden shift; there are many emotions swirling inside her.

“Your rage is beautiful,” I say through clenched teeth. “I can smell it. Taste it. You want their blood. You want them to suffer. Don’t you?”

I meld my own emotions with her and amplify the pheromone so that her human nose can detect it. Her emotions shift to make room for a new one.

Bloodlust.

“Yes,” she whispers, trembling. Not with fear this time.

“Yes?” I breathe, and cannot help myself. I slip my fingers between her parted thighs, where she sits on her knees. She’s slick and hot, like I knew I would find her. She moans, eyes closing. “You want them to pay for what they’ve done, don’t you?”