Sin Eaters: Devotion Book One Read online

  Tamar shook her head, her arms wrapping around her waist.

  Khamun moved toward her in concern and quietly squatted down in front of her, resting a hand over her shoulder. A shock of energy went through him as his eyes shut closed. A link was just provided, and he knew she would be his family without a doubt.

  “Listen to me, and I mean this with the utmost respect, Momma Steele, but I got this. You do not have to worry about anything. The money and papers you need are due to the fact that it has to make sense with Society protocol. In order to run your life, you need money, you need status. Outside of the fact that I am your daughter’s Guardian, why my House and my family’s House have aligned with a newling Vessel family has to add up.”

  “But when they learn of Sanna—”

  “No, ma’am. We are keeping that guarded, so that the Dark doesn’t find out. There are people in Society who like to live in the gray. No, I live in the gray. These people live more near the Dark. They provide whatever intel they can to our enemies, and we have only just learned of this in the recent years, so . . . we have to keep this quiet. Even though the Dark knows of what they think she is, we will downplay this. Make this move fast, but slow as to not draw attention. As I said, your husband and his parents were very smart, as are the Satous.”

  Khamun glanced up and bobbed at Mr. Satou, who had quietly moved to stand behind Tamar. Hideo crossed his arms over his nest with a curt nod. His stern face was caring as he watched on.

  “Momma Tamar, don’t even stress. You will all have about two months to three months max of normalcy. We won’t even assimilate you all into this right away. Sanna and Kyo need to have this happen slow. I know my fam, and I will make this smooth as ice. Ya heard me?” Calvin lightly chuckled as he gave a slight smile then glanced at Khamun.

  Both men gave a silent mental fist-pound.

  Khamun replied, “Please trust us, all of you. This will not be easy.” He suddenly stood and moved by Sanna, whose head began to loll back and forth. Her fingertips gently touched his forearm. “She’s waking up,” he murmured.

  “So are the others,” Hideo said, instantly moving around the room to check everyone’s vitals.

  Sanna’s mind felt like a battlefield. Her body felt as if it had been in a thousand and one accidents as salty tears kissed her cheeks while they escaped from her closed eyelids. She had no words to describe what happened. One moment she was fine. The next, every nerve and fiber in her body felt shredded and stretched. Thousands of tiny needles slashed through her bloodstream and mind. Each slice caused wave after waves of mind-splitting migraines and seizures. All she could do was loll her head back and forth as she tried to open her eyes, the voices in the room soothing her, keeping her pulse from rising due to the concern she could hear in their tone.

  She tilted her head in pleasure as she felt her mother’s comforting soft lips press against her temple. It was like her mother always knew how to soothe the pain away with just a touch. She could never understand it, but it was what it was, and she was thankful for her mother being nearby.

  “Just breathe, sweetie. In and out slowly . . . you remember how I taught you.”

  Sanna did remember as her mother’s peaceful voice put her back into that place of content. She inhaled and exhaled. She visualized every point in her body and relaxed. Each zone in her body lit up in her mind, fluxing and waning with her control to calm down and smooth the tenderness of her pain away.

  Yeah, she remembered. She had been doing this since she was twelve, so it was nothing but a thing. So she sank into an abyss. Her body slowly melted against the softness of the sheets she felt against her skin as her breathing calmed, and she was okay again.

  She was so thirsty. Her lips hurt. She tried to lick them, but they felt raw.

  “Sanna, I have some ice water. Trust me.”

  She had to flinch and turn toward the sultry deep voice so full of concern. She knew that voice. She tried to open her eyes, but everything stayed blurry, so she opted to keep them closed.

  The light brush against her skin made her relax in serenity. She felt his touch against the back of her head and the shock of sweet cold ice water brush against her parched lips. The taste of water felt like a miracle in and of itself as her lips finally unsealed themselves and opened. Her mind suddenly went from being aware of a man’s touch to being aware of the cool liquid melting in her mouth.

  Her tongue darted out quickly as its pink tip brushed against a fingertip. Her eyes broke open as she tried to focus her eyes, due to the quick spark shooting through her body and nestling between her legs at that brief bit of contact. She knew this touch. This man. And all she could do was frown as was nursed by the hands of a man she couldn’t see.

  “Ma . . . Ky-Kyo?” she croaked, but her throat closed with dryness again as the man who held her fed her more water.

  “Amara?” Her head was pounding as awareness hit her.

  “We are all here, sweetheart, and doing fine. Just rest.”

  Sanna heard her mother’s soft voice flow over her in a healing embrace as she spoke.

  “That migraine was a doozy.”

  “Yes. Yes, ma’am.” Sanna gulped more water as she shifted then pushed the glass, and arousing hand, away with it. All she wanted to do was not feel like an invalid, but in the end she knew it was a hit-or-miss in trying to move out of the bed she currently lay in.

  Inwardly sighing, she heard quiet movements in the room. Oh, damn. I’m still at the hospital. Gotta push this off. Make sure my brothers are okay, she thought.

  As she tried to move, she didn’t hear the additional voices mutter their good-byes or the silent lock of a door.

  “I’m going to step back and let you all take care of this while watching the hospital. Calvin and Kali will stay behind, since they are family. They know how to call if problems occur.” Khamun glanced at his crew and strolled out of the room, his hands sliding into his jeans.

  “Oh, man, he is so fine. Why is he leaving, Momma? And what happened?” Amara groaned as she sat up.

  “Mara, he got called away. He’ll be back. Now lay down and let the doctor look you over, sweetheart.”

  Amara shut her eyes with a groan as she complied and lay back with a flash of a sly smile.

  “Hey, Sanna.” Amara laughed in a singsong voice. “I found you your future husband.”

  Sanna slapped a hand over her face. You are too much sometimes, she thought. She turned on her side in the hospital bed and rolled her eyes with an exasperated whine. “Lord!”

  Chapter 9

  Waking up in a hospital, doctors combing over her, while her brothers and sister lay in the same condition, was not her cup of tea. Every thought under the sun ran through her mind. She needed to make sure her brother Darren was okay. She needed to make sure Take, Meme, and Kiyo were okay. She needed to reassure her mother that everyone was okay so she could rest, and that she was okay. But, of course, her dear mother was having none of it.

  Sanna had to drop the quick pseudo-paternal concern as doctors checked her. Incessant questions hit them all left and right, bombarding not only them but also their waking brothers with questions none of them was able to answer due to the poking and prodding of the hospital staff.

  Now that the medical jabbing and blood drawings were over and she was finally discharged, Sanna lay in a truly comfortable bed in her hotel room in downtown Chicago, oblivious to the world around her. Her brother Darren’s voice made her smile as she sat up and watched him fuss with their mother.

  “Ma! I love you, but I’m good now. I don’t need another nurse, unless she’s a vixen with a fly shape. Trust . . . it’s not that bad.” Darren ducked from his mother’s searching hands then swiped against his head as he glanced at Sanna and rolled his eyes and ducked again.

  Sanna had to laugh while she watched. “Man, sitting there with your leg in a cast, you are so damn lucky that’s all you got, Dare.”

  “Hey, Sanna, shuddup! Okay, damn. But I love you.” Da
rren half-laughed and groaned while holding his sore side, his head shaking in the process. Deep-set gold-rimmed chocolate eyes flashed.

  Tendrils of light flickered and swirled like a pool of water in sunlight as Sanna blinked. She swore she saw some power in that innocent blink.

  “All that cussing around your momma now, huh? Take, sit down and calm that mouth, Darren-Bishop-Steele! We didn’t bring your butts back here to get hurt again.”

  Breathing hard with a deep laugh, Takeshi’s grey-green eyes also flashed with a jade-tinted spark that had Sanna hopping off the bed. She almost crawled over her sister’s sleeping body as she rushed to the bathroom.

  She needed to get herself together. She was clearly seeing things, and she did not need to add hallucinations to her list. Ringing out a wet face towel and dabbing at her face, Sanna stared in the mirror, her chocolate eyes wide with a slight panic. She’d had strange dreams during her conniption, as she liked to call it. People spoke to her, telling her to help protect, to stop a darkness that was spreading.

  She saw her family and friends, swallowed up by the approaching darkness. She heard a clicking noise, a sound so nerve-straining that no matter how much she tried to ignore it or run from it, it sliced through her, making her fall to her knees and become swallowed by the darkness. She swore she could still feel herself being surrounded by the darkness, its sticky slick texture running over her body.

  Tears sprung in her eyes as she swore she felt thousands of spiders crawling over her while the darkness toyed and tried to reach to places she didn’t want it to touch. Each dreamed seemed to intensify, become more fluid, more real. And as soon as the darkness got close enough to snatch her, the familiar touch of a man always pulled her from it. She felt his power replace the darkness, leaving her energized and in sudden need as she watched his blurred form shattered the very darkness with his and her own power. A power she felt spreading from her spirit to connect with his. That was when she woke up.

  Now she was seeing that same power that flowed through her in her dreams now ebbing in her family and in her close friends. She swore could read their souls at times. Soul-reading. That’s the only way she could understand it, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to name it that either.

  “Sis, you okay? I gotta drain the snake!”

  Sanna jumped at Takeshi’s silky voice filled with unease, and loud knock, as she turned off the running water. “I’m fine, Take. I’m sorry. Here you go,” she said. She opened the bathroom door and watched him with worry as he hopped on his crutches into the bathroom.

  “Er . . . ” Sanna opened her mouth but stopped mid-sentence as Takeshi gave her a sidelong glance.

  “Don’t. I love you, and you are my sis, but I don’t need you touching my johnson. I got it.” He flashed a goofy smile and looked her over with his own apprehension before closing the door.

  She exhaled and grounded herself. She could never understand how fast they all healed, yet they always did. Shaking it off, she turned to head to the table sitting with her birth brother.

  “Ma, get them to talk!” Sanna yelled. She stuck her tongue out at Darren as he shot her daggers of death.

  Tamar chuckled as she tried to lighten the mood. “Speak on it, son of mine.”

  Darren rolled his shoulders and neck. While her little bro ran a hand over his wavy low-cut fade, the swirling tribal tat disappearing into his collarbone seemed to shimmer as Sanna gripped her leg.

  “We were on the South Side chillin, doing what we do. Just got accepted to intern with Temple and Company. So we were celebrating with the bros.”

  “Okay, son, skip to the part where my baby boy ended up falling from a fire escape,” Tamar curtly interrupted. Her nails suddenly tapped the table as she watched Takeshi ease into a chair next to her.

  Amara and Miya were still soundly asleep as everyone quietly conversed and ate.

  “Umm, that was my fault?” Take downed his orange juice and rubbed the back of his neck under his shaggy, jet-black hair.

  “We were talking with some sexy—I mean, these women, Selena and Iris. They wanted some air, so we headed outside to talk on the balcony and what not then boom!” Takeshi narrowed his eyes, anger suddenly bubbling from beneath the surface. “These big burly guys came out of nowhere and started shit, I mean, began to antagonize us.”

  Both Sanna and Tamar tilted their heads to the side in a mirrored reaction as they tried to process what was said.

  Momma Tamar took the words out of Sanna’s mouth as she incredulously asked, “Excuse me. Say what?”

  “Long story short, Ma,” Darren quickly replied, narrowing his eyes at his godbrother, “they started saying some crazy crap, calling us pure, virgins, fresh meat, and other crazy bull. Talking about how tasty we’d be and how fun it would be to turn us, whatever the fuck that meant. Then they rushed us, them and those chicks. Of course, we couldn’t go down like that and had to defend ourselves. We ended up on the fire escape.” Darren bit his lower lip in anger as he continued, “I promise you these dudes and the chicks seemed to turn into some crazy-ass shit, and the chicks sat back watching and laughing.” His hands suddenly shook at the memory.

  “Dare cold-clocked one of the guys. Hit him so hard, the dude’s jaw ripped off! Shit was insane! And I don’t know, but everything moved fast after that, as if on fast-forward. I pretty much don’t remember anything else but slamming into Dare as we both fell over the railing.”

  Darren casually shrugged as he kept his cool and cleared his throat. “I remember Take, your ass moved like something out of a movie, bro. Your eyes were glowing. The chicks tried to stab you in your chest, but the knife or whatever that shit was they had in their hands broke in two. Then you blocked me, and we fell. I saw some folks from the party surround those punk asses.”

  Take smiled broadly. “Yeah, I do remember that. Whoever those other people were, they came in and went ape shit on them. It was sick!” He took a swig of his orange juice.

  Dare reclined in his chair, one arm resting over the back of it while he glanced to the side, as if his mind was processing a million thoughts. “That’s truth right there. That’s when I blacked out.”

  Takeshi bowed his head in a nod, flipping a piece of toast between his fingers as if it were a card. “Yeah, I blacked out too.”

  “Excuse me, babies, I need a second to process this,” Tamar said, slowly standing as she wrung her hands.

  Before Sanna could ask her mother if she was okay, she watched her head out into the hotel hallway. Sanna plopped back down. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I swear I dreamed that happening,” she softly muttered.

  Darren turned in his chair as he studied his sister before reaching and resting his hand over hers. “Seriously? Another one of those dreams, sis?”

  “Yeah, and guess what? I’m pissed at you both for leaving crap out.”

  Takeshi looked toward the door as he frowned, dropping his voice into a low rumble. “What do you expect? Momma Tamar was on the verge of breaking down, sis. How could we tell her that they tried to rip us from limb to limb?” Leaning forward, Takeshi almost hissed, images from the night hitting his system like a case of PTSD. “And how could we tell her that no matter how hard we fought back, they kept coming and coming? That they spoke some crazy-ass language that Dare could understand, and I couldn’t until I touched him?”

  Sanna’s eyes lit up in amazement as she sharply inhaled. It was like she could see the fight in front of her eyes as Take passionately spoke.

  “Or do we tell her that was when we returned the favor to them guys that bled reddish black? Or that somehow as we were in the alley after the fall, that we were okay and that I looked at a nearby wall and prayed it would crumble on the assholes and it did? How can we tell her that? Huh?” Take leaned back in his chair, his hands running down his face as he exhaled. “They were like roaches. They kept popping up, until those cats from the party showed up and handled it.”

  Sanna studied the swirling thorn-lik
e kanji tattoo that started from the middle of Takeshi’s thumb and index finger that crawled up his forearm. She debated in telling them what happened to her and Kyo, but she knew her younger brother would pry it out of her. So as she opened her mouth to spill all, it didn’t shock her when Darren interrupted her.

  “Tired of you always trying to be Pops, San. You got a kitty, so stop. We already have Momma. Now tell us, big sis. What happened? Something felt wrong that whole day, and I knew it had to do with you, so talk, sis.”

  Sanna frowned as she squeezed her brother’s hand. “Okay, damn! Dare, I’m sorry.” She leaned forward and thumped Takeshi on his temple as he chuckled. “We had a similar thing happen to us.”

  Sanna recounted what happened in her beloved restaurant Aset and how Kyo saved her life. She had to hold her ears as both men stood on their crutches hollering at her.

  Amara and Miya woke up to both men’s thundering anger as Kyo and her family strolled through the door. Pushing through the forming crowd, Tamar shook her head, her curly mane falling around her face.

  Yeah, Sanna knew this was going to be long day.

  He ran as if something chased him, instead of him chasing something. More like someone. A lazy smile flashed across his face as he lifted his hand, squeezed and sent his anointed bullets into the legs and arms of the screaming man in front of him. Coolly laughing, he slowed his pace and calmly stalked toward the fallen form. He sheathed his gun and removed his trusty sword from its spinal harness. He was the Reaper, assessing his hunt.

  Mrs. Tamar had let him know what had happened with her son and godson. As soon as she let him know that, he then asked for clear-cut directions to the area where it all went down, and his hunting began.

  Quickly making his way to the coordinates, he combed the streets of Chi-town, which was nothing for him. The city used to be his training grounds when he was younger. Even with all the changes in his past, his home base was here, and the streets were his.