Know Thy Frienemy: a Darkworld novel: Destiny Walker, #2

Know Thy Frienemy

Destiny Walker: Book 2

A Darkworld Novel by

Misti Wolanski

EPUB Edition

Copyright 2013

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. People, places, and events are made up; any that aren’t made up have all been processed through the shredder of the author’s imagination and therefore bear only superficial resemblance to their originals, at best.

All trademarks, songs, books, and other writers’ characters mentioned in this text are the property of their respective owners. Their use does not indicate any association, express or implied, between their owners and the author of this work.

All effort was taken to respect real-world nations, their laws and reality, but the author is not omniscient or a lawyer, and this story is fiction. If a reader wishes to act in accordance with something mentioned in this work, the reader is responsible to verify that it is still in effect or if it ever existed in the first place.

This file is not authorized for copying by e-mail, website, or other transfer method. This work is licensed in electronic format for your personal enjoyment. If the copy you’re reading wasn’t bought for your use specifically, please respect the author and delete or pay for the e-book. Thanks!

Cover Designed by Najla Qamber

Model & Photographer: Misty Patricia

Cardo font series by David Perry

Book formatted by Misti Wolanski

• Is freedom always worth the cost, even when it would cost you everything? •

After the life-changing week she had in Destiny’s Kiss, Destiny Walker knows she’s messed up, but she isn’t stupid. Her magic’s missing at the moment, and at least a few big-name Magiks want her dead. At least as property of the director of the vampire internal affairs agency, she has protections she wouldn’t have if she were a person.

The problem with the ‘property’ thing is what kind she is: concubine. Her owner ignores that part of it, perhaps because he’s fonder of her than is good for him. Regardless, after the abuse her previous owner put her through, she perfectly happy with the haven her new owner provides. She’s not the only one he protects, and she’ll do whatever she has to to keep him safe.

No matter who’s behind the attempts to kill him.

This novel is dark urban fantasy. It contains mature themes, some violence and gore, and a few cases of objectionable language.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author’s Note

Mark 7:12–13, ASV

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

How did you like the story?

About the Author

Also by Misti Wolanski

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Frequently it takes a community to produce a book, and Know Thy Frienemy was a good example of that.

Haddie Brice let me chat with her at length about the story at various stages, told me about how guns and gun classes work, and then gave me input on what worked and what didn’t. Sarah on the Emperor’s Edge forums* kindly directed my attention to something that didn’t work and was far more offensive than I’d intended. Annamaria Equizzi fixed my Italian and caught some rather embarrassing typos, though I now want to write a story wherein I can use the word hydroflouric acid…

*If you haven’t read Lindsay Buroker’s Emperor’s Edge series, I highly recommend it. As of this writing, she even has book 1 and much of book 2 on Wattpad.

Then there are the people who donated their money to help me fund release costs. William Gunderson was particularly generous and will be having a character in his honor in book three—I’ve already designed her from his choices, and I’m hoping she won’t end up a redshirt.

All in all, I did my best to adhere to reality as much as suited the story, but this is a fantasy novel, and the narrator’s a fifteen-year-old girl with an…unusual education, who’s prone to making assumptions about herself. Some details are going to be wrong, either because I had to suit the story or because my narrator’s ignorant about that particular detail.

Destiny’s…extreme PTSD is a case in point. The cause is in the text, spread across books one and two, but Destiny hasn’t yet realized what’s going on. (Can you spot it? The first 3 people to contact me with a correct answer will get a surprise.)

I know how annoying incorrect details can be. (One thing that always irritates me about Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is the narrator calling a Tunisian crochet hook a knitting needle, even though I suspect the author did that on purpose because the narrator wouldn’t have known the difference.) I thank you for your patience with the ones I mess up, but I also won’t take offense if you decide to rant about them.

If I have any ability as a writer, God gets the credit. My current ability to write and publish stems from a series of fortunate events I can only attribute to His providence. (For those readers who are curious, I actually adhere to a different denomination of Christianity than any of the characters in my book.)

I hope you’ve enjoyed the story! If you did, be on the lookout for book three, Lord willing in Summer 2014.

MARK 7:12–13, ASV

ye no longer suffer him to do aught for his father or his mother; making void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do.

CHAPTER ONE

April 7, 2009

South Carolina, United States

C’MON, DES. SELENE’S about to cut Viktor’s head off, Alexis urges me.

I’ll never understand my flatmate’s fascination with Hollywood’s vampire movies. Seen it.

I haven’t seen my padrone’s car drive by to enter the parking garage. Spring break started today, the Tuesday before Easter, but he said he’d visit after helping his younger half-sister figure out her visa paperwork, so she could stay in the US to finish high school with me. This is despite the fact that I’m not sure how similar the school systems are, between countries, and she barely speaks English.

My boss shooed me out of work today, too, saying she didn’t have permission from my padrone to use me. He wouldn’t mind, but she doesn’t know him well enough to know that.

Which has left me stuck in my flat with nothing to do, accompanied by the the moody blond bohemian-punk flatmate whose idea of proper seating is a beanbag.

Alexis glances away from her movie to scowl at me, gray eyes narrowed beneath the fire engine red highlighting one side of her blond bangs. Your sugar daddy will get here when he gets here. No stopping that short of killing him.

I watch back out the window, scratching my wrist under the braided black bracelet that declares me a vampire’s property, with the manta ray charm that declares which one I belong to. Is that him behind the white SUV? No, that looks like a Wyrwulfs 4EVA sticker glinting on the back window. My padrone isn’t old enough to care about any old-school spelling of werewolf.

He’s my owner, not my pimp. I glance at the scar burned into the crook of Alexis’s collarbones, one that matches the sigil of her own former master and marks her as self-freed. Just last week, I learned the scar is trackable, making her ‘ionized’ in the jargon of the Darkworld of gargoyles and vampires and freaks and other types of Magiks. He isn’t going to pass me around.

So he says, Alexis grumbles.

And in the movie, Viktor makes shocked sounds as half his head slides off.

Ambrogino isn’t like that! I knew him back when I was still a person, too. If his mother or older sister were my padrona, I’d have cause to worry about whom they’d give me to, but he won’t share me.

Alexis smashes the coffee table as she gets up from the beanbag. Then why won’t he free you?!

Ice lands in my stomach, but she’s a girl—and not a werewolf—so it’s easier to gulp it away. Because I ticked off a sadistic sorcerer last week and I’m safer from him if I’m his confiscated property?

She turns the TV off right before her grip snaps the remote in two, though the plastic cracks. "Screw that. How the hell are you safer stuck as property of that fangface that loves ticking off folks older and more powerful than he is?!"

That must be where I learned it from. More repercussions if I’m harmed. It’s not unheard-of for a woman to be safer as slave than she’d be as a freewoman. Case in point: the mother of my friend Jordan, who’s the daughter and heiress of Dickens, the werewolf alpha who rules all the packs in the continental US.

Alexis’s growl sounds like stones grinding together. "You’re property, Destiny!"

Phantom pain spears my stomach, and I clutch my fists against the urge to scratch myself. I know.

A brisk knock at the door interrupts us. Alexis turns with a snarl, but I scurry around her to get the door first.

My padrone stands there, all six-foot-something of him in a crisp gray suit that’s accented by a Rolex. Perks of running the vampire internal affairs agency.

Direttore Ambrogino Romazzo tugs the cuffs of his fluffy white dress shirt. Am I interrupting?

Of course not! Alexis snaps. Come on in. Make yourself at home. Screw your slave girl, while you’re at it. Her sheets are clean. I’m going for a fly. And she jumps out the window.

Gargoyles can exit all dramatically like that. The revised lease from the new landlords even makes provision for it.

My padrone unhappily stares after Alexis. Would you like dinner?

I’m starting to think he avoids being alone with me on purpose. There’s lasagna in the fridge.

Sounds delicious, he replies graciously, his expression reflecting no more than polite interest. But I fancy something more exotic, tonight.

With my Japanese grandmother and magical wackiness, I could qualify as ‘something exotic’.

Breathe, Destiny. He doesn’t mean it like that. Just breathe.

He stiffens, an acknowledgement that he hears my thundering heart and smells my budding panic. Get ready to go somewhere nice. I’ll wait outside. And he steps out and shuts the door behind him.

The bind-rune on my lower back—a tattoo in the shape of my padrone’s sigil, a stylized manta ray like the charm on my bracelet—buzzes, poised to compel me to obey, but my master didn’t put a time limit on his order. I make myself take slow breaths and wrestle my pulse back under control.

It helps that I’m pretty much injury-free—just a few bruises, mostly, left over from the end of last week—and he’s in the hallway. My little black sleeveless dress is fine for ‘somewhere nice’, but I go to my room to freshen up. I brush my bottle black hair, and tie it back into something reminiscent of neatness. I hacked it off myself with an old pocketknife last year, so there’s only so much that can be done for it.

The buzzing on my back lets up once I’m ready to go.

The bind-rune’s happy, but the mirror shows some coyote-brown at the roots of my hair. Ulgh. I’ll have to get more dye—or maybe I’ll bleach it, this time. That would be cheaper.

Or I could just let my padrone pay for the dye. He probably would, if I asked him rudely.

I pull on my black boots and join him in the hall outside, locking the door behind me. Doesn’t look as though he’s wearing an Armani, tonight, but with a puffy dress shirt like that, he doesn’t need more ornamentation. What’s with the blouse?

He blinks, reflexively straightening his cuffs. I beg your pardon?

I pass him and open the stairwell door for him. He catches it, and we start jogging down the stairs.

Isn’t that shirt sorta girly? I ask.

Ambrogino Romazzo, director of the vampire equivalent of the FBI, glances at his fluffy shirt. It’s comfortable.

And a comfortable shirt is sufficient reason to look girly? I’m sure it is.

It’s silk, he insists, darting ahead of me to catch the door to the parking garage. He gives me a pointed stare when I try to take the door from him. I roll my eyes as I pass him, and he snorts. "It is not ‘girly’."

Somebody’s defensive. What, you pick it up at the secondhand shop? Maybe they put it in the wrong section.

I doubt that. He leads the way to his car.

This is fun. Why? People make mistakes. Maybe someone misread the tag. What side are the buttons on? Left’s for women.

He flushes.

I just humiliated my owner. Merda.

Of course, a lot of manufacturers aren’t holding to the gender conventions, these days, I hear myself babble, fingertips burning in remembered pain from how vampires like punishing miscreants, though I’m too aware that I am wearing black and therefore am fair game to feed from as a blacksnack. "Maybe it was in the right section after all, just made to look like a girl shirt—"

"Kiss." He grabs my hand as he refers to my old name, the name I had legally changed last year, to help me hide from my previous owner long enough to keep his baby from him.

We stand there in the parking garage, my current owner holding my hand, for a long moment.

I gulp. Des, I correct him, though I have no right to.

Kiss, he gently insists. Then he manually unlocks the car, tucks his arm under mine, and escorts me to the shotgun seat. How did I miss seeing a navy blue sedan? His mother taught me better than that.

He gets in, and we head to dinner. Minutes pass, and he doesn’t comment on my insulting him.

I watch the evening traffic outside the window and try not to think about how my flesh should be buzzing, right now, surrounded by all this iron. Should be.

Thanks to burning out my magic last week, it isn’t. No magic, and probably not even my immunity to magic. We haven’t exactly been eager to test that latter one.

We reach the restaurant, which is some weird word that I’m not even gonna try to pronounce. My English is good—essentially native, thanks to my mother—but it has its limits. What’s this?

This world has space for all God’s creatures, beside the mashed potatoes.

Um, What?

Ambrogino smiles, showing fang. This restaurant’s slogan.

I take a moment to process that. "Caspita. With all the animal rights groups around, that takes some nerve. Sounds like a guy place."

Thank you. He studies the parking lot before bowing graciously and assisting me out of the car. There’s a predatory sharpness to dark caramel-colored eyes, reminding me that however foppish he looks, he singlehandedly tracked down and ate his half-sister’s rapist.

Actually, he hunted and ate my kidnapper landlord, too, this past Friday.

A lot of my life right now stems from last week.

We enter the restaurant, claim the Romazzo reservation, and are seated at a spotless table. The waiter looks as though he’s done this awhile, and his black slacks and dress shirt are newer than my thrift store dress.

The waiter rattles off the introductions and today’s specials.

My mind goes full stop. "You serve kangaroo?!"

His smile says my reaction’s not entirely uncommon. We do.

I look at my padrone. I gotta try that.

Ambrogino’s lips quirk. Without inquiring what it tastes like?

"It’s meat. And it’s a marsupial. Doesn’t matter what it tastes like." I wonder if Jordan ever eats here. Werewolves plus wild game has to be a winning combination, even for a seventeen-year-old wynwolf who doesn’t like bacon.

The waiter chuckles. Can I get you anything to drink?

"Tea—hot tea," I hastily correct my order. Do not want sweet tea. Rock candy should be hard, thanks. If you have it. Coffee if you don’t. Water either way. Though the coffee served by most restaurants around here isn’t much better than the rock candy cold tea.

The waiter nods. And for you, sir?

Water, with lime and without ice, please. A bottle of merlot. The ostrich fillet. And does this establishment recognize…? He pulls a card out of his wallet and shows it to the man.

The waiter stiffens. I’ll have to check with my manager. One moment, please. He hurries off.

Recognize what? I ask.

Ambrogino pops his neck. Magik law.

The manager reaches our table, mumbles something I can’t hear well enough to make sense of.

My padrone waves him off. Never mind. I have no desire to cause problems for you. Miss Walker can do without any merlot.

I blink. I didn’t order merlot.

He raises his eyebrows. "I did."

The manager and waiter disperse to their respective duties, and our waters arrive promptly. Ambrogino sips his. Are you ready for finals?

Yes. Okay, so that answer makes me sound like a jerk, since this is my first year of formal schooling since I was twelve, but it’s amazing what you can learn when you can either study schoolbooks or mull over what further torture will be coming that night.

That sadistic sorcerer I ticked off? He was my owner. And a werewolf.

Phantom knives slice my