Serpent's Kiss
Dare groaned. His shoulder hurt, his lower back was screaming at him to please find it a heating pad or some ice, either one, it wasn’t going to be picky, and to top things off, his Ex had been blowing up his cell phone for the past two hours, leaving rambling streams of profanities between begging and threats. All in all it had been a shit day and all Dare wanted was to fall on his couch, pop some painkillers and wash them down with an ice cold beer. From that point he didn’t really care what was on TV as long as the background noise drowned out reality. He’d about had it with reality for the day.
His keys clattered when they hit the battered end table, and in a rustle of leather he’d shed his jacket and dumped it on a chair. He pulled his gun from the holster on his back, checked that the safety was on and laid it on top of the jacket, shedding the holster next and then the leather throng that held his long hair back. Heavy, silken waves of black, red and gold shimmered as they spilled around his face and he rubbed at his temples, glad that the heavy mass was no longer pulling at them.
It was seven steps to the kitchen and he yanked the beer from the fridge as he was yanking open the drawer where he kept his Vicodin. The beer he used the edge of the counter to open, the sudden action sending a riot of pain reverberating up his arm. Two wasn’t going to cut it tonight, so he quickly shook three pills from the bottle and eyed how many were left. Son of a bitch, he was gonna have to go back to the docs and soon, that or him and Mr. Daniels and Mr. Morgan were gonna be getting far more up close and personal than they usually did.
As he turned around, already debating which would be the better option, a quick, questionless trip to the liquor store or thirty minutes parked on his ass in a waiting room and another thirty-forty dealing with his doc, who also happened to be his brother. God he wished Dami would give him a break with all the questions ‘cause his brother’s cerulean stare and folded arms never failed to crack Dare just a little, or maybe what cracked him open and spilled his secrets upon the floor was that looking at Dami was like looking at everything he was supposed to be, if he hadn’t been born damaged and flawed.
He caught sight of his mismatched eyes in the mirror as he headed to the living room, desperate to put the day behind him. As always, seeing those eyes reminded him of how defective he really was, and not just on the outside, but the inside too. His green eye was blind, save for those moments when it decided to peer into the soul of another and bring their future roaring like a waterfall of images through his head.
The twisted part of him, the cold, sick, sadistic nature that set him apart as much as his stare, loved when those images spelled out pain, misfortune, and death, death was a high that left him not needing the drugs of the bottle gods. What kind of monster fed off the hurt of others the way vampires fed off blood, hell, he was worse than any bloodsucker, at least they spared their victims pain when they could, left them with pleasant, sometimes even erotic memories and licked the wound closed to hide where it had been. Him, he just busted lives open wide, sucking in all that delicious fear, doubt, paranoia, oh god but he loved when he got the paranoid ones, he’d fuck with them for days before allowing the visions to play out the way they were supposed to. Drop them a little hint here, a little clue there, let them known disaster was breathing down their necks and watch as they scrambled to do everything in their power to avoid it. Only there was never anything that they could do.
He was caught between self-loathing and longing for just the kind of paranoid son of a bitch that might help him forget this day when his eyes landed on his couch. Sitting where he’d planned to drop his ass and rest was a woman with blood diamond scales running down her arms and the brightest ruby eyes he had ever seen. Crimson lips parted to reveal a pair of brilliant white fangs and her hair was the color of sunsets, all red and orange hues spilling down her back. A pattern of scales ran up her forehead like a widow’s peak, and covered her cheekbones. Her ears were mere slits set against the silver and red prismatic colors and when she turned, he was sure he heard rattling and looked down to see a snakes tail coiled on his plush leather cushions.