‹ Prequel: To Bleed for Him
As She Fades
Addiction
"Upside down,
You're taking me underground.
You're breaking me down, down, down.
You're tearing me inside out.
You bury me.
This ain't no one-night stand.
I gotta do it again and again!
She's like cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and Vicodin.
She's my addiction, my addiction.
She's cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and Vicodin.
She's my addiction, my addiction.
You're my addiction!"
- Dope
Torryn scanned the crowd for familiar faces as she waded across the packed floor, but as usual, it was nothing but a sea of angry-faced strangers. She shuddered as she found the stairwell tucked off to the side of one room and began to ascend. These people…They were too into it. She didn't mind some blood, gore, and violence, but them…They craved it in a way that she never could.
She reached the top of the stairs and began to open the door without a thought, but a thump and a cry of "Hey!" made her stop short. "Sorry," she called with a grimace. The door was suddenly jerked from her grip, and she was met with Skylar's smiling face.
"It's cool," he told her, stepping aside to let her walk past him. "I just had no idea that people opened doors that hard when someone might be standing on the other side."
"I didn't expect anyone else to be here, and I really don't think I opened it that hard," she said defensively, heading straight to the nearby couch and dropping her duffel bag — safely emptied after her visit with Raphael — onto the middle cushion. Vaguely, she remembered the night she, Antony, Skylar, Becca, and her own parents had spent in this room together, how her parents had spent the night sleeping on this very sofa, how she'd slept in a chair with Skylar lying tantalizingly close by on a couch of his own, and she marveled at just how far they'd all come. Things were almost…normal now.
Well, as normal as things could be when you're constantly surrounded by things you didn't think actually went bump in the night.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he said in placation, coming to lean against the arm of the couch. He watched her put her cell phone into the bag, a couple of dryer-scarred receipts that she'd found in her pockets, then he asked, "So, any idea who you'll be fighting on this fine, fine evening?"
She zipped the bag and turned her attention to him. His hair was wet, his clothes intact and completely free of blood, and she realized that he must have taken to showering here after fights. Is he really still managing to keep Lindsey and Madison from noticing what he does all night? She'd thought his roommates were more observant than that, especially Madison. She'd been observant enough to discover that Torryn had cheated on Skylar — and kind enough to slap her across the face for it."Yeah, just finished setting up the fight. Some werewolf girl. She looked young."
He grinned his lopsided grin. "So do you." He sighed reminiscently, his gaze drifting from her face to the window beyond. "Remember when we fought those two werewolves together last month?"
She looked toward his chest, remembering the claw marks that lurked beneath his shirt, and said softly, "Yeah, I do."
He chuckled, and she looked up to find him grinning at her even more brightly than before. "It was fun, even if one of them did tear four giant holes in my favorite shirt. I think we should do that again sometime. Maybe not against werewolves again, but something. We make a pretty good team."
She smiled. "Sure. And this time, I'll watch you a bit more carefully so no more of your shirts get ruined," she teased, and he laughed.
"Sounds perfect." His smile faded a bit, and he searched her face, his lips twitching like he had something more to say, something that mattered. But suddenly, he blurted, "I, uh, I have a meeting to get to. See you some other time? Maybe on purpose or…something?"
She smiled halfheartedly, wondering just what he'd really wanted to say…and belatedly wondering just who the hell he had to go meet at this hour. "Yeah, sure. Any time."
"Yeah, uh…Good luck," he said, then shot her another unsure smile before all but sprinting from the room.
She frowned, staring at the doorway as if it could give her answers. It had seemed like he'd been moving on so well, like he was getting back to his old, bubbly self, but then…
Shaking her head, she turned her attention to the duffel bag, making sure that it was zipped and that her pockets were empty.
As much as she enjoyed obsessing over Skylar, she had a fight to get to.
-?-
This is stupid, Skylar thought darkly to himself, scowling at the glowing windows of the familiar house — too familiar, if he was being completely honest with himself. You don't need to be here, you ass. You never need to be here…and yet, here you sit, every night, debating whether you should be here or not in the same Goddamn way.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he glared through the darkness. Just go home, moron. You don't need this. It's a waste of time, and you could die at any Goddamn time after walking through that door. You should just be thankful that you haven't died yet and walk away. I mean, really. What's the point of this? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't actually make you feel any better. It just…
He jerked the key from the ignition and shoved it in his pocket as he slid out the open door and into the night. It was getting colder by the day, the humid warmth of summer long gone but for the briefest taste in some of the early afternoon hours, and he hunched his shoulders against a sudden gust of chilly air.
Just one last time, he promised himself as he crossed the threshold, not even bothering to knock. The men milling about glanced his way for a moment, but soon resumed their conversations, games, and, in one guy's case, knife sharpening. A woman he passed on the stairs greeted him pleasantly, even called him by name, and he took that as another sign that he was coming here way too damn often.
Just one last time.
He made his way down the vacant hallway, then stopped to knock lightly at a door halfway down. "Come in," came a crisp voice from within, and he opened the door and entered cautiously, eyeing the man by the fireplace distrustfully even as he closed the door behind himself to trap them both inside. "Ah, Skylar. You're earlier than normal today, aren't you?"
"I guess so," he muttered with a shrug. He sank into an armchair at a gesture from the man, and he shifted awkwardly beneath his scrutinizing stare.
"What are you here for today, my boy? The usual?"
"No, uh…" Skylar turned his gaze to the fire roaring in the hearth, shifting again in his seat, growing more uncomfortable the longer the older man stared at him. "I, uh…I think I'd like our first time this time."
The man grinned to show a slip of sharply pointed teeth, a low chuckle rumbling through him. "As you wish."
Then, suddenly, Skylar was in the backseat of a car, his car, warmth rushing through him as Torryn's lips skipped along his jaw, her body arching beneath his.
Just one more time, he thought as he eased into bliss. And then, I'll never see the Lord again.
-?-
Antony's eyes followed Torryn relentlessly, never missing a movement as she danced around the ring. The girl she was facing — a werewolf, if he remembered correctly — had turned out to be quite a bit faster than he'd expected, but she was nothing compared to Torryn.
Of course, to him, they never were.
Torryn ducked beneath a punch, then lurched instantly upright to grip the girl's shoulder and swing her around, slamming her face-first into the chain-link fencing that walled the ring. The girl bucked before Torryn could get a more secure hold, knocking the half-Progeny back a step. The werewolf spun, fist already lashing out, but Torryn blocked it with a forearm and countered with a blow of her own. She caught the girl in the jaw, and as she fell helplessly back, Torryn followed up with a punch to the stomach, then another to the face, until the girl's back was pressed against the chain-link.
He hadn't realized how quick she'd gotten, how strong, how outright powerful. What had happened to the wary, unskilled girl he'd brought here only a couple of months ago? Where had her aversion to battle gone? Her charming uncertainty?
The werewolf wriggled her way out from between Torryn and the wall, but before she could put more than three feet of distance between herself and her opponent, Torryn caught up to her, and a surprise punch to the stomach sent the girl sprawling on the grimy mat. Antony could see blood spurting from her mouth even from where he sat, high up in the stands.
He smirked to himself. Maybe this new Torryn wasn't such a loss. The loss of innocence and cluelessness only led to the gain of brutality, after all, and what suited his style more than that?
His smile fell. But she's not yours anymore, is she? And even if she was, she's not here to complement your style. She's here to live her damn life. Still, though, he couldn't quelch the longing that rose in him, the desperate desire to have her back in his life the right way, his way, and not just lurking on the sidelines, waiting awkwardly in the hallway when the pretty, bloody ladies left his bedroom at night.
She should be mine, damn it, he went on darkly, and it was resentment that tightened his chest now. Why couldn't she just be his?
He turned from the fight now, his eyes skimming the bodies densely packed in the stands for something — someone — that boded release. A woman was already gazing pointedly up at him, her perfect white teeth showing in a charismatic smile, and when he smiled down at her, she giddily shoved a mass of shoulder-length red hair from her throat with one hand and waved up at him with the other. At the crook of his finger, at the barest of beckons, she came.
-?-
"Well, shit," Torryn muttered to herself as the form of the slender woman before her suddenly became the form of a dark-furred wolf in a wash of shimmering energy. The wolf was smaller than any she'd seen before, but then again, this particular girl was the smallest werewolf she'd come across yet. She knew better than to be fooled by size, though. Her cheek still ached terribly from one of the punches the girl had managed to land, and though she'd landed several blows of her own to the girl's face, torso, and legs, many of them hard enough to do real damage, she showed no sign of lagging beneath the pain.
The wolf rushed forward, sharp teeth bared in a snarl, and Torryn began the arduous task of dodging the quick snaps of powerful jaws. The girl had been fast in her human form, but as a wolf…
"Jesus Christ!" Torryn shouted as she faltered in the midst of a sidestep and felt those massive jaws close around her calf. Pain lanced through her entire leg, and she cried out as the wolf pulled her off of her feet.
She fell to the mat with a crash that knocked the air from her lungs, but she caught the wolf's snout even as she struggled to regain her breath. The wolf stood over top of her now, her rank, humid breath wafting over Torryn's face as the beast struggled toward the girl's throat. Torryn gripped her jaws tightly, teeth cutting into her fingers, and she held the wolf back with every ounce of strength she had. Her arms began to tremble beneath the strain, and she grimaced as the wolf's wide-open mouth inched closer.
"You're a lot stronger than I thought you'd be," Torryn gasped out, and the wolf let out a low rumble. With a surge of strength, the beast lunged forward, and her fangs just barely nipped the side of Torryn's throat as she let go of the creature's jaws and jerked her head to the side. The wolf's nose met the mat, hard, and Torryn took advantage of the girl's momentary daze. Wedging her foot between them, she lashed out with a hard kick, and the wolf flew through the air. She fell to the mat across the ring with a yelp, and Torryn leapt to her feet, rubbing at the side of her throat that throbbed lightly with fresh pain. When she drew her fingers away, she saw that they were coated with blood, and she wondered just how badly the wolf had nipped her.
Heavy footsteps suddenly set the ring's flimsy floor shaking, and Torryn looked up to see the wolf hurtling toward her, teeth bared and sporting her own blood. Baring her own teeth, Torryn crouched down in preparation. The wolf reached her, jaws spread and hot breath swimming over Torryn's throat, but before those teeth could find their mark, Torryn snaked an arm around the wolf's neck and caught her up in a headlock, then slammed the wolf into the floor hard enough to elicit a crack from one of her back legs. The wolf yowled, and Torryn danced back a couple of steps, panting.
"Don't get up, or the rest of your legs'll end up like that, too," she warned over the cheering of the crowd around her, and even she knew what an arrogant prick she sounded like. She'd learned from the best, after all. "I'm serious," she said as the wolf rose to stand upon her three uninjured legs. "This won't end well for you." But she lunged forward, heading straight for Torryn's throat once more.
Torryn caught one of her front legs this time, spinning her through the air and ramming her body into the floor with the same strength as before. Another crack filled the air; another guttural cry of pain.
"Sorry," Torryn apologized, grimacing, as the wolf turned into a naked woman beneath another sheer curtain of power. One of her legs was beginning to swell, something obviously amiss in the area below her knee, but her other leg was in one piece, if a bit bruised. Her left arm had taken the brunt of that last body slam, it seemed, and she favored it as she pulled herself slowly to her feet. With a wave of her good hand, she signaled to the ring master that she was done, and as she hobbled from the ring without making eye contact with Torryn, the man at the gate began to shout the news of her victory.
For a moment, Torryn frowned, watching the young woman limping away, but at a twinge from her own bitten calf, she remembered that she hadn't just beaten up a werewolf. She'd won a battle.
Triumphantly, she threw her arms into the air and turned toward the part of the stands that Antony always sat in, but what she saw sucked the cheer right out of her. He wasn't looking at her, wasn't even paying the slightest bit of attention. Instead, he had his nose buried in some redhead's neck, making her body tremble with laughter at something he said. Suddenly, he lifted his head and turned his crystalline blue eyes to Torryn, but she refused to meet his gaze.
She saw him smirk, though. That, she never failed to see.
You're taking me underground.
You're breaking me down, down, down.
You're tearing me inside out.
You bury me.
This ain't no one-night stand.
I gotta do it again and again!
She's like cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and Vicodin.
She's my addiction, my addiction.
She's cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and Vicodin.
She's my addiction, my addiction.
You're my addiction!"
- Dope
Torryn scanned the crowd for familiar faces as she waded across the packed floor, but as usual, it was nothing but a sea of angry-faced strangers. She shuddered as she found the stairwell tucked off to the side of one room and began to ascend. These people…They were too into it. She didn't mind some blood, gore, and violence, but them…They craved it in a way that she never could.
She reached the top of the stairs and began to open the door without a thought, but a thump and a cry of "Hey!" made her stop short. "Sorry," she called with a grimace. The door was suddenly jerked from her grip, and she was met with Skylar's smiling face.
"It's cool," he told her, stepping aside to let her walk past him. "I just had no idea that people opened doors that hard when someone might be standing on the other side."
"I didn't expect anyone else to be here, and I really don't think I opened it that hard," she said defensively, heading straight to the nearby couch and dropping her duffel bag — safely emptied after her visit with Raphael — onto the middle cushion. Vaguely, she remembered the night she, Antony, Skylar, Becca, and her own parents had spent in this room together, how her parents had spent the night sleeping on this very sofa, how she'd slept in a chair with Skylar lying tantalizingly close by on a couch of his own, and she marveled at just how far they'd all come. Things were almost…normal now.
Well, as normal as things could be when you're constantly surrounded by things you didn't think actually went bump in the night.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he said in placation, coming to lean against the arm of the couch. He watched her put her cell phone into the bag, a couple of dryer-scarred receipts that she'd found in her pockets, then he asked, "So, any idea who you'll be fighting on this fine, fine evening?"
She zipped the bag and turned her attention to him. His hair was wet, his clothes intact and completely free of blood, and she realized that he must have taken to showering here after fights. Is he really still managing to keep Lindsey and Madison from noticing what he does all night? She'd thought his roommates were more observant than that, especially Madison. She'd been observant enough to discover that Torryn had cheated on Skylar — and kind enough to slap her across the face for it."Yeah, just finished setting up the fight. Some werewolf girl. She looked young."
He grinned his lopsided grin. "So do you." He sighed reminiscently, his gaze drifting from her face to the window beyond. "Remember when we fought those two werewolves together last month?"
She looked toward his chest, remembering the claw marks that lurked beneath his shirt, and said softly, "Yeah, I do."
He chuckled, and she looked up to find him grinning at her even more brightly than before. "It was fun, even if one of them did tear four giant holes in my favorite shirt. I think we should do that again sometime. Maybe not against werewolves again, but something. We make a pretty good team."
She smiled. "Sure. And this time, I'll watch you a bit more carefully so no more of your shirts get ruined," she teased, and he laughed.
"Sounds perfect." His smile faded a bit, and he searched her face, his lips twitching like he had something more to say, something that mattered. But suddenly, he blurted, "I, uh, I have a meeting to get to. See you some other time? Maybe on purpose or…something?"
She smiled halfheartedly, wondering just what he'd really wanted to say…and belatedly wondering just who the hell he had to go meet at this hour. "Yeah, sure. Any time."
"Yeah, uh…Good luck," he said, then shot her another unsure smile before all but sprinting from the room.
She frowned, staring at the doorway as if it could give her answers. It had seemed like he'd been moving on so well, like he was getting back to his old, bubbly self, but then…
Shaking her head, she turned her attention to the duffel bag, making sure that it was zipped and that her pockets were empty.
As much as she enjoyed obsessing over Skylar, she had a fight to get to.
-?-
This is stupid, Skylar thought darkly to himself, scowling at the glowing windows of the familiar house — too familiar, if he was being completely honest with himself. You don't need to be here, you ass. You never need to be here…and yet, here you sit, every night, debating whether you should be here or not in the same Goddamn way.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he glared through the darkness. Just go home, moron. You don't need this. It's a waste of time, and you could die at any Goddamn time after walking through that door. You should just be thankful that you haven't died yet and walk away. I mean, really. What's the point of this? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't actually make you feel any better. It just…
He jerked the key from the ignition and shoved it in his pocket as he slid out the open door and into the night. It was getting colder by the day, the humid warmth of summer long gone but for the briefest taste in some of the early afternoon hours, and he hunched his shoulders against a sudden gust of chilly air.
Just one last time, he promised himself as he crossed the threshold, not even bothering to knock. The men milling about glanced his way for a moment, but soon resumed their conversations, games, and, in one guy's case, knife sharpening. A woman he passed on the stairs greeted him pleasantly, even called him by name, and he took that as another sign that he was coming here way too damn often.
Just one last time.
He made his way down the vacant hallway, then stopped to knock lightly at a door halfway down. "Come in," came a crisp voice from within, and he opened the door and entered cautiously, eyeing the man by the fireplace distrustfully even as he closed the door behind himself to trap them both inside. "Ah, Skylar. You're earlier than normal today, aren't you?"
"I guess so," he muttered with a shrug. He sank into an armchair at a gesture from the man, and he shifted awkwardly beneath his scrutinizing stare.
"What are you here for today, my boy? The usual?"
"No, uh…" Skylar turned his gaze to the fire roaring in the hearth, shifting again in his seat, growing more uncomfortable the longer the older man stared at him. "I, uh…I think I'd like our first time this time."
The man grinned to show a slip of sharply pointed teeth, a low chuckle rumbling through him. "As you wish."
Then, suddenly, Skylar was in the backseat of a car, his car, warmth rushing through him as Torryn's lips skipped along his jaw, her body arching beneath his.
Just one more time, he thought as he eased into bliss. And then, I'll never see the Lord again.
-?-
Antony's eyes followed Torryn relentlessly, never missing a movement as she danced around the ring. The girl she was facing — a werewolf, if he remembered correctly — had turned out to be quite a bit faster than he'd expected, but she was nothing compared to Torryn.
Of course, to him, they never were.
Torryn ducked beneath a punch, then lurched instantly upright to grip the girl's shoulder and swing her around, slamming her face-first into the chain-link fencing that walled the ring. The girl bucked before Torryn could get a more secure hold, knocking the half-Progeny back a step. The werewolf spun, fist already lashing out, but Torryn blocked it with a forearm and countered with a blow of her own. She caught the girl in the jaw, and as she fell helplessly back, Torryn followed up with a punch to the stomach, then another to the face, until the girl's back was pressed against the chain-link.
He hadn't realized how quick she'd gotten, how strong, how outright powerful. What had happened to the wary, unskilled girl he'd brought here only a couple of months ago? Where had her aversion to battle gone? Her charming uncertainty?
The werewolf wriggled her way out from between Torryn and the wall, but before she could put more than three feet of distance between herself and her opponent, Torryn caught up to her, and a surprise punch to the stomach sent the girl sprawling on the grimy mat. Antony could see blood spurting from her mouth even from where he sat, high up in the stands.
He smirked to himself. Maybe this new Torryn wasn't such a loss. The loss of innocence and cluelessness only led to the gain of brutality, after all, and what suited his style more than that?
His smile fell. But she's not yours anymore, is she? And even if she was, she's not here to complement your style. She's here to live her damn life. Still, though, he couldn't quelch the longing that rose in him, the desperate desire to have her back in his life the right way, his way, and not just lurking on the sidelines, waiting awkwardly in the hallway when the pretty, bloody ladies left his bedroom at night.
She should be mine, damn it, he went on darkly, and it was resentment that tightened his chest now. Why couldn't she just be his?
He turned from the fight now, his eyes skimming the bodies densely packed in the stands for something — someone — that boded release. A woman was already gazing pointedly up at him, her perfect white teeth showing in a charismatic smile, and when he smiled down at her, she giddily shoved a mass of shoulder-length red hair from her throat with one hand and waved up at him with the other. At the crook of his finger, at the barest of beckons, she came.
-?-
"Well, shit," Torryn muttered to herself as the form of the slender woman before her suddenly became the form of a dark-furred wolf in a wash of shimmering energy. The wolf was smaller than any she'd seen before, but then again, this particular girl was the smallest werewolf she'd come across yet. She knew better than to be fooled by size, though. Her cheek still ached terribly from one of the punches the girl had managed to land, and though she'd landed several blows of her own to the girl's face, torso, and legs, many of them hard enough to do real damage, she showed no sign of lagging beneath the pain.
The wolf rushed forward, sharp teeth bared in a snarl, and Torryn began the arduous task of dodging the quick snaps of powerful jaws. The girl had been fast in her human form, but as a wolf…
"Jesus Christ!" Torryn shouted as she faltered in the midst of a sidestep and felt those massive jaws close around her calf. Pain lanced through her entire leg, and she cried out as the wolf pulled her off of her feet.
She fell to the mat with a crash that knocked the air from her lungs, but she caught the wolf's snout even as she struggled to regain her breath. The wolf stood over top of her now, her rank, humid breath wafting over Torryn's face as the beast struggled toward the girl's throat. Torryn gripped her jaws tightly, teeth cutting into her fingers, and she held the wolf back with every ounce of strength she had. Her arms began to tremble beneath the strain, and she grimaced as the wolf's wide-open mouth inched closer.
"You're a lot stronger than I thought you'd be," Torryn gasped out, and the wolf let out a low rumble. With a surge of strength, the beast lunged forward, and her fangs just barely nipped the side of Torryn's throat as she let go of the creature's jaws and jerked her head to the side. The wolf's nose met the mat, hard, and Torryn took advantage of the girl's momentary daze. Wedging her foot between them, she lashed out with a hard kick, and the wolf flew through the air. She fell to the mat across the ring with a yelp, and Torryn leapt to her feet, rubbing at the side of her throat that throbbed lightly with fresh pain. When she drew her fingers away, she saw that they were coated with blood, and she wondered just how badly the wolf had nipped her.
Heavy footsteps suddenly set the ring's flimsy floor shaking, and Torryn looked up to see the wolf hurtling toward her, teeth bared and sporting her own blood. Baring her own teeth, Torryn crouched down in preparation. The wolf reached her, jaws spread and hot breath swimming over Torryn's throat, but before those teeth could find their mark, Torryn snaked an arm around the wolf's neck and caught her up in a headlock, then slammed the wolf into the floor hard enough to elicit a crack from one of her back legs. The wolf yowled, and Torryn danced back a couple of steps, panting.
"Don't get up, or the rest of your legs'll end up like that, too," she warned over the cheering of the crowd around her, and even she knew what an arrogant prick she sounded like. She'd learned from the best, after all. "I'm serious," she said as the wolf rose to stand upon her three uninjured legs. "This won't end well for you." But she lunged forward, heading straight for Torryn's throat once more.
Torryn caught one of her front legs this time, spinning her through the air and ramming her body into the floor with the same strength as before. Another crack filled the air; another guttural cry of pain.
"Sorry," Torryn apologized, grimacing, as the wolf turned into a naked woman beneath another sheer curtain of power. One of her legs was beginning to swell, something obviously amiss in the area below her knee, but her other leg was in one piece, if a bit bruised. Her left arm had taken the brunt of that last body slam, it seemed, and she favored it as she pulled herself slowly to her feet. With a wave of her good hand, she signaled to the ring master that she was done, and as she hobbled from the ring without making eye contact with Torryn, the man at the gate began to shout the news of her victory.
For a moment, Torryn frowned, watching the young woman limping away, but at a twinge from her own bitten calf, she remembered that she hadn't just beaten up a werewolf. She'd won a battle.
Triumphantly, she threw her arms into the air and turned toward the part of the stands that Antony always sat in, but what she saw sucked the cheer right out of her. He wasn't looking at her, wasn't even paying the slightest bit of attention. Instead, he had his nose buried in some redhead's neck, making her body tremble with laughter at something he said. Suddenly, he lifted his head and turned his crystalline blue eyes to Torryn, but she refused to meet his gaze.
She saw him smirk, though. That, she never failed to see.