Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

expressed an interest in having a girl who was injured. That was his turn-on.”

“And how did you escape?” the prosecutor asked.

“The man who bought me turned out to be a friend, and he helped me get out of the compound and dressed my wounds so that I wouldn’t die of an infection. He saved my life. He died for me.”

The prosecutor withdrew and the Belikovs’ defender stood up. She was a woman, a hard-ass red-from-the-bottle type who wore too much makeup and was fond of jabbing her finger into my face.

“Isn’t it true that this friend was at the time of his demise a convicted criminal?” the translator said.

“In Russia,” I said. “And in America. Not here.”

“And isn’t it true that you offered Mr. Belikov sexual favors in exchange for your release?”

I blinked. Grigorii must have told her about the moment in the lab. “I felt I had no choice,” I said. “When you’re a woman in a vulnerable position…”

“And after Mr. Belikov refused your disease-ridden body, you attacked him?” the translator said. She crinkled her nose, as if having to repeat such obvious grandstanding made her slightly ill.

I locked eyes with the defender. “After Mr. Belikov threatened to rape me if I didn’t comply, I decided enough was enough and I stabbed him in the groin with a pair of surgical scissors, which is far less than he deserved. In my opinion.”

The court rippled at that, and the magistrate banged his gavel down. “You’re excused,” the translator said after a moment. “Thank you.”

I left the defense box and decided I needed air. Any kind of air, even the sweltering summer day outside. I needed to be out of sight of the Belikovs’ hard gazes and the memories they stirred.

I was back to seeing Dr. Merriman, the police shrink in Nocturne City, and I was here in Ukraine testifying against her advice. She said I had post-traumatic stress, that seeing my captors again would just aggravate it.

I told her that the motherfuckers needed to be put away for good, and that if they somehow walked, I was going to be there to kill Grigorii with my bare hands. That had shut her up.

“Luna?” Will jogged out of the courtroom after me, and I paused on the wide steps to wait for him, breathing the slightly cooler air.

“It got pretty Law & Order in there, huh?” I said, trying to keep things light.

After I’d told Will about killing the man in the brothel, about how Dmitri had died, about how I felt like I was one step away from tearing someone’s throat out most days, and that I had no hope of holding the were back the way I’d used to, he’d gotten quiet. There had been two or three days of awkward conversation until I’d finally gone home to my own apartment, even though I couldn’t sleep and obsessively checked the locks on all of the windows and the front door.

Will hadn’t left. He hadn’t even asked for the ring back. All of the unsaid words between us were starting to feel like a heavy load on my back.

“I … I had no idea,” he said. “Luna, even when you told me, you didn’t tell me.” He didn’t reach for me, because we seemed to have forgotten how to be close to each other as my interest in sex waned and my nightmares got worse.

“It happened,” I said with a shrug. “And I’d really like to stop talking about it, believe me, but the Belikovs need to go away.”

Will shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d had to take unpaid vacation to come with me to the trial, after Interpol had finally tracked down Grigorii and Ekaterina in Thailand, trying to get cheap surgery for Grigorii’s disfigurement. They were already reaching out to the locals, Ekaterina having a stake in a dance hall on the outskirts of Bangkok, already running “exotic” girls from the back rooms.

Dr. Gorshkov was still at large, but somehow I had the feeling that without Petra’s money and Grigorii’s desire to build his own private hit squad of mutant weres, he’d be less than no trouble.

“I’m going to stick with you,” Will blurted. I held up my hand to tell him that reassurance wasn’t really what I needed, but he pressed on. “Just listen to me. I knew when I proposed that our life wasn’t going to be all American dreams and great sex. I knew that we both had our baggage. I’m going to stay. No matter what they did to you, I’ll be there. I’ll hold you while you sleep and I’ll be there when you’re ready to be with me again. That’s my decision and I’m sticking to it, so please don’t try to drive me away anymore. It’s getting sort of old.”

I felt wetness prick my eyes, salt that wasn’t sweat. “I do love you, Will,” I said softly.

He gave me a lopsided smile. “I can tell.”

Before I could say anything else, about how relieved I was that he wasn’t bolting for the hills, I caught a familiar scent. Cloves and sweat, the smell that was his alone.

“Hello, Luna,” Dmitri said.

Will cocked an eyebrow. If there was one thing he was good at, it was picking up on weirdness. “You all right?”

“No, I…” I stared at Dmitri, at the court reporter who passed through him, lugging a briefcase. “I’m a little dehydrated,” I finished lamely.

“Should have said so,” Will told me, and went down the steps to a vendor selling water and soda.

“So that’s Will,” Dmitri said with a smirk. “I thought he’d be taller.”

I folded my arms. “You’re dead and you’re still an ass.”

“What can I say?” he told me. “Don’t have a lot of time for chitchat.”

I knew from Lily that my new mojo didn’t work unless the dearly departed in question had serious unfinished business. “What’s wrong, Dmitri?” I said, and earned looks from everyone passing by. I ignored them.

“Margarita and Masha are on their way to the States,”