Unbound

“I had to,” Eavan whispered.

“I know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Muriel took the girl and carried her into the den.

As with every other time, Eavan went to the kitchen and fixed herself a drink. She couldn’t drink on the hunt, but afterward she was shaky enough that she needed a few fingers of whiskey. Tonight was worse than usual. It had been growing worse every time she saw Daniel.

Chastity whimpered.

Muriel’s voice was too muffled to make out the words, but the tone made clear that the words were some comforting lie. Muriel could do that, lie at will. Eavan didn’t have that luxury: partially fey things could lie sometimes, but it wasn’t a predictable sometimes.

After glancing toward the closed door of the den, Eavan emptied her glass.

If Chastity survived, she’d be slipping into withdrawal soon; if she didn’t survive, she’d still be better off than with Daniel. Girls like Chastity went to bidders with sadistic habits that Eavan couldn’t bear pondering…not when so many Chastitys had been sold already. They had no control over their sexuality. Drugged to the point of being zombies, they were reduced to nothing more than sex toys to be used until they were destroyed. The beauty of sexuality was something she cherished—and couldn’t have; to have it sold for base coin was beyond intolerable.

Or Muriel’s right and I just have a fucking savior complex. Several more ounces of whiskey splashed into the glass. Or a death wish.

Eavan hated that there wasn’t a better answer to the problem, but if not for Muriel, she wouldn’t have much of a solution at all. Muriel drank enough of the girls’ blood to pull the poisons out. If they survived, Muriel had ways to get them wherever they needed to go next. Alive and out of reach: those were the goals. Beyond that, there were no constants.

It depended on who Chastity really was. If she had a home and resources, Muriel would have one of her coven use those funds to set the girl up in a new city. If not, Muriel would see her to a shelter or halfway house under some pretext. Or she’ll put her into the ground. There were far too many that ended up dead despite Eavan’s efforts. That was how Muriel got involved in the first place: the vampire had a system for dealing with corpses. Eavan had needed that system one night, and the only other resource she’d had for disposal of bodies was her grandmother, and asking Nyx for such a favor had too high a price.

Muriel’s willingness to remove the toxins was an added bonus—one that gave Eavan the ability to try to rescue girls who were much further gone on Daniel’s drugs. If not for Muriel, Eavan would’ve been at a crisis months earlier. Even with Muriel’s help, the situation was akin to attempting to hold back a wave with a single hand: it was impossible. Eavan couldn’t stop Daniel from destroying people; she couldn’t stop herself from hunting him; and she couldn’t see any way to avert the disaster that would follow if something didn’t change.

Eavan poured a drink for Muriel as the petite vampire came into the kitchen. “Well?”

“She’s alive.” Muriel took the glass and emptied it. She swished the whiskey around her mouth and spit it into the sink before adding, “You’re going to have to ante up something clean if you’re going to keep asking me to drink all these toxins, or”—she gave a coquettish grin—“you could give me a taste.”

Eavan blushed and looked away. “No.”

“You can’t really kill me, and maybe it doesn’t count as sex if it’s—”

Eavan shook her head. “Sex with women is real sex, and we’re not crossing that line. Casual sex wouldn’t be my thing even if—”

“You’re a glaistig, darling; of course it would.” Muriel lowered one hand, sliding it over the blue silk covering her hip.

Transfixed, Eavan watched—and then scowled. “No, it wouldn’t. I don’t want casual, and you don’t do commitments. Discussion closed.”

“Really?” Muriel stepped closer, much as Daniel had earlier, and whispered, “Your heart is racing awfully fast for someone who doesn’t do casual.”

“Interest doesn’t mean consent.” Eavan forced herself to look at Muriel’s face. “I can say no. I’ve been saying no for years. No sex. No death.”

“If I tried you tonight, truly pushed you, could you still say no?” Muriel was gentle, but she knew that the answer was liable to be different than it had been before the Daniel obsession. The more Eavan hunted Daniel, the harder it was control either appetite.