To the Teeth (The Complex Book 0) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  To the Teeth

  The Complex

  Erin Hayes

  Erin Hayes Books

  To the Teeth

  © 2017 Erin Hayes

  Edited by Contagious Edits

  Cover art by Shoutlines Design

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  For Chris.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Untitled

  About the Author

  Sign up for Erin Hayes’s Starter Library

  Introduction

  After a brutal war between Humans and Metas, an uneasy truce is declared in the Seldova solar system. At the conclusion of the treaty signing, the Complex is created on the lone planet, Lorn. The Complex is a blended community of Humans and Metas, all sent to test the waters for a more peaceful existence between the two races. Living under a domed community can only mean one thing for the Humans and Metas. Chaos.

  Chapter 1

  “Uh, Sissy? There’s a vampire sitting at table four.”

  I’m taking one of our regulars’ orders when my little sister, Mitsy, tugs on my apron. She points to a lone figure sitting towards the front of the restaurant where our brother, Ken, is attending him. I frown, looking at the figure with the brilliant golden eyes as he talks to Ken.

  Deep down, I know that he's not a vampire. He’s something far worse.

  My trio of tails twitches in annoyance that I’ll have to deal with this newcomer—and possibly throw him out of the restaurant—because I know that while he may be looking for a meal, we don’t offer anything that he’d want to eat.

  Well, anything that we’d offer willingly.

  “One sec, Lexi,” I tell my customer as I switch off my reader and pocket it. She gives me an understanding nod, and I stride over to table four.

  I may be a kitsune—a fox-shifter, and a bit of a doormat for the more powerful Metas—but I’m not about to let this guy threaten my family. Even though he doesn’t look very threatening at the moment.

  Stand up, Serena, I tell myself. Be intimidating. Tell him to fuck off.

  I near the table, and the shtrigu looks up at me with surprise. A shtrigu—a vampire of sorts, but not the blood-sucking kind, which I’d find preferable to this guy. No, a shtrigu sucks the life force out of you, shortening your life span.

  If they don’t drain you dry first.

  You can regenerate blood cells. You can’t regenerate your life force, which is why shtrigan are so dangerous. In order to survive, they must kill.

  And that’s why I don’t like him talking to Ken.

  The shtrigu’s golden eyes are unsettling as he looks up at me through thick, dark eyebrows. His lean frame doesn’t have an ounce of fat on it, and his cheeks are hollow. He hasn’t eaten in a while, I realize, which makes him even more dangerous. His dark hair is cropped short and freshly washed, like he’s trying to put on the appearance of being a contributing member of the Complex’s society.

  I don’t buy it.

  Still though, he’s handsome in a strung-out junkie sort of way. It doesn’t help that I like that kind of thing. Wiry men, I mean. Not drugs.

  He rakes his eyes up and down my frame, and I know exactly what he’s seeing. A short, dark-haired woman with green eyes, three tails, and fox ears on top of my head, immediately marking me as a fox-shifter. If ever there were a time when I wish I were something like a werewolf, this is it.

  “Ken, go take care of Lexi,” I say to my little brother, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

  “But, Sissy—” he starts, and I give him that look. You know the one. Ken immediately gets a fearful look in his eyes, then he glances back at the shtrigu and runs to talk to Lexi, his own three tails between his legs like a scolded dog.

  “And here I didn’t realize I deserved special treatment,” the shtrigu says, chuckling mirthlessly. There’s no humor in his eyes as he looks up at me, though.

  “Oh, you’re getting special treatment, all right,” I tell him. “I want you out of my restaurant.”

  He raises one of those thick eyebrows—galaxies, I hate that he’s so good-looking. “Why am I getting kicked out? All I wanted was a hot meal.”

  I snort. “Yeah. My little brother.” Or any one of my eleven younger siblings, but I don’t tell him that. Not when they’re so much younger and so much more trusting than I am. They don’t remember the horrors of the war that took our father.

  I do. And I’m not about to let this asshole do anything to hurt them.

  There’s been a rash of missing kids in the area. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to their kidnappings—only that they’re all Metas and young.

  You know who likes feasting on young kids because they have so much life energy? Yeah, shtrigan.

  The shtrigu gestures to the table. “No, I want a bowl of ramen. I don’t want any children.” He smirks. “Unless you’re willing to let me take one off your hands.”

  That’s not funny, even if it were a joke. I give him my best unimpressed look. I’m not about to let him know how off-kilter he’s making me.

  My mom runs a noodle restaurant called ‘Uni Versal Noodles’, a place where you can have noodle dishes any sort of way. The Metas like the variety, the Humans like the pun. It’s the best of both worlds. It’s located in a busy area we fondly dubbed ‘The Promenade’, next to a dress shop and a library. My mother is nothing if not a smart-minded businesswoman.

  The problem is, she’s an overwhelmed single mother, as evidenced by my eleven siblings running amok throughout the restaurant. I even wince as I hear some dishes break in the back.

  Daisy and Michael, I think to myself. They’re the most mischievous out of the bunch. And with a group of eleven kids all the exact same age, that’s really saying something, but they stand head and shoulders above everyone else in that department.

  I try not to let my annoyance show on my face. The shtrigu and I watch each other warily. He could break me like a twig. I know this and he knows this. So, I’m nearly bristled and baring my teeth at him. He doesn’t smell like he’s scared at the least.

  If anything, he’s…amused.

  He chuckles and sits back in his chair, crossing his arms. “How’d you know what I am? A lot of people—even Metas—don’t know what a shtrigu is.”

  “I did my research before we ever moved to the Complex,” I tell him. “You put a bunch of Metas and Humans together, and you can bet your teeth I’m not coming in here b
lind.”

  He rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “I don’t use my teeth to feed.”

  “I do. Only, I eat tofu instead of people’s life force.” I bare mine at him. “Now, if you’d so kindly vacate your table for a paying customer—one that will eat some noodles and not my staff—we can go about our busy lives.” I gesture to the door.

  The shtrigu looks surprised at my frankness, but he sighs and gets to his feet. Holy shit, he’s tall. Not giant-tall, but tall enough to make me reconsider how I’ve been talking to him. I would have come up here armed with a segif aimed at his head.

  He’s intimidating.

  He leans forward and I jump back, skittish for the brief second, but he’s just tipping his head to me. “Nice to meet you,” he says, “kitsune.”

  Those damn golden eyes. I don’t want to break eye contact, because it’s a sign of weakness. Not because I’m drawn in. Certainly not that.

  The hair on my tails are on end, and I snarl at him. “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

  He waves to someone behind me, and I glance to see who. Ken gives him a bewildered wave back, his eyes wide. Frightened. And I hate seeing that expression on him.

  “Get out,” I growl to the shtrigu.

  He gives me one last glance before turning on his heel and heading out the door, melting into the swell of people outside our shop.

  It’s only when he’s gone that I breathe a sigh of relief. I know that the Complex is meant to be a beacon of peace and hope for Humans and Metas, but there are some Metas beyond compassion.

  I’m going to have to teach Ken about stranger danger. And—I wince at the sound of another stack of plates breaking—I’m going to have to put some of the kits in timeout.

  Just another day at ‘Uni Versal Noodles’ and this grand experiment that is the Complex.

  “I wish you wouldn’t kick out customers,” Mom sighs as she stirs the pot of noodles on the stove. She ladles some of them into a bowl and hands it off to my little brother, Johnny. “Take that to table six,” she says.

  “Sure thing,” Johnny says, running with the hot, steaming bowl.

  “And don’t drop it!” Mom yells after him. Then her brows knit together as she looks back at me. “Kicking out customers is bad for business, Serena,” she tells me.

  I groan. “Mom, he was a shtrigu.” At her blank look, I add, “They suck the life force from people. He was talking to Ken, and you know how vulnerable he is.”

  “Hey,” Ken shoots back as he chops up some veggies for soup on the other side of the table.

  “We’re going to have a talk later,” I tell him pointedly. “But, Mom, you can’t expect me to be all right with a shtrigu here around the kits.”

  Mom wipes her hands with her apron. “I don’t know, Serena. Maybe all he wanted was some food.”

  “I doubt it,” I mutter under my breath.

  “How are we supposed to live in harmony with Humans if you’re kicking out Metas?”

  “Mom, you didn’t meet him,” I say. I don’t mention to her that he’d been incredibly handsome and made my insides melt under his smoldering gaze. It’d be hard to convince her that he was a bad guy if I tell her how much he affected me.

  She looks more tired than usual, but I do know that Aaron and Kimmy have some sort of cold at the moment, which is keeping her up all night. Like anytime someone in the family gets sick, it spreads through all the younger kits before it finally wears Mom and me out and we’re sick for weeks at a time. Her black hair is streaked with gray now and her five tails are speckled with white.

  I haven’t realized how worn out she looks until now.

  I wish she had a few moments to herself. That’s the main reason why I’m here—I could have gone anywhere in the Seldova system, but I chose to stay with her to help out with all the children. I was an only child for fourteen years. Then my mother had a litter just before my father died in the war and I’ve been helping her ever since.

  The kits are ten years old now. By the time we’re out of the Complex, they’ll be two years older and I’ll be 100,000 S-Co richer. And then I can find my own way in life, because Mom will be rich enough to hire a babysitter. Or three. The kits won’t get paid, but 100,000 S-Co is enough for Mom to bask in luxury to the end of her days.

  She deserves it.

  There’s another crash somewhere near the pantry, and I groan. If my brothers and sisters don’t kill her first.

  Whatever happened to me living my own life? I’m twenty-four years old for galaxies’ sake.

  “Serena, can you take care of that?” Mom asks, absorbed by her food prep.

  “Yep,” I say.

  Less than two years. And then I’ll be on my own.

  Chapter 2

  I lie in bed, reading a novel on my mini-tab, wishing I were anywhere else in the galaxy. Stupid sense of responsibility.

  My mother and I share a room while the other eleven kids sleep in the living room. Our living quarters aren’t the biggest—we couldn’t afford the swanky rooms on the outer ring of the Complex’s housing domes, so we’re stuck in a cheap one-bedroom on the inner ring. The kids don’t mind for the most part, as they just sleep in their fox forms in a dog pile in the middle of the floor.

  But me? I like my privacy. And Mom’s snoring loudly on the bunk next to mine. She does that after a long day at the restaurant, and they all seem to be long days now.

  As such, I don’t think I’ve gotten more than four hours of sleep since we moved to the Complex.

  I try distracting my mind by reading a scintillating ebook one of our Human customers lent me, but it only serves to take me back to the shtrigu that was at the restaurant today. His gorgeous eyes, the way he smiled that wasn’t a complete smile.

  Cocky.

  Aggravating.

  I force back a growl and toss my mini-tab aside, unable to take it anymore. Maybe I can shove the pillows so deep into my ears, I can drown out Mom’s snoring.

  I remember I wanted to be a pilot when I was younger, fighting in the war.

  Then the war took everything away from me. Including my dreams. They seem so far away now, and it’s not just because Mom’s snores are chasing them away.

  It’s because life has become a prison.

  I roll my eyes, and I clamp the pillow even tighter to my ear.

  Then I hear a crash in the other room, quickly follow by a scream. I sit bolt upright, as does Mom. We glance at each other with wide, frightened eyes as more hysterical screaming joins the first.

  “The kits!” Mom says to me in a hushed, panicked voice.

  She throws the covers off and gets to her feet in one fluid motion. I’m right behind her as she opens the door to reveal my brothers and sisters sobbing their eyes out. Some have transformed back into kids, while others are backed up against the wall, and still, even more run between Mom’s and my legs as they hide in our room with terrified yelps. I nearly trip over one as he knocked into my shins.

  Something’s very, very wrong. There’s…smoke?…wafting about the tiny apartment, and it assaults my heightened senses, scrambling my nose. I can’t smell anything other than the smoke.

  “What happened?” Mom demands, her tone both fearful and wary.

  Then I notice that the front door is open. No, not just open, I realize. It’s been cut open with a torch. I can still see the molten metal where the rectangle was cut out, giving anyone from the front access to our apartment.

  “It’s Ken,” Audrey, the runt of the litter, sobs. She’s in her child form and rubs at her eyes, tears flowing down her face. “He—he’s gone.”

  My mother freezes, as if the floor were knocked out from under her. She staggers and clutches at the doorframe. “What? How?”

  I hurry to the front door and stick my head out the hole, looking down the hallways outside the apartment. Whoever took Ken must have gotten out of here quickly because I see no trace of them. I sniff the air—whiffs of Ken are still in the air, but the entire area has
been deodorized along with the smoke, meaning that I can’t figure out which direction they went.

  His kidnapper must have known what they were doing. Like they’ve done this before.

  My blood runs cold. The shtrigu. Has to be. After all, Ken had been talking to him earlier at the restaurant. He’d made that joke about feeding off my siblings, which I did not appreciate.

  And now I realize that he’d been serious.

  I inhale deeply, trying to pick up the shtrigu’s scent. I remember him smelling like cinnamon and the forest after a rain. Not unpleasant, but I sneer at the memory. If I ever get my hands around that asshole…

  I don’t smell the shtrigu here—of course not, he’s a professional at kidnapping Meta children and feeding off them. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave his scent where shifters could sniff him out.

  I briefly contemplate choosing a direction and running, seeing if I can’t get a scent and track them down. They say that the most critical point for getting a child back is in the first 48 hours—I’m sure that stat goes down exponentially when it’s a shtrigu doing the kidnapping.

  I decide against it with a snarl and a pissed-off twitch of my tails. I have ten other siblings who are terrified right now and a mother who can’t even stand up straight.

  I have to stay.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Mom,” I say, ducking back into the apartment. I see that Mom’s sitting against the wall, her face a mask of desolation and fear. There’s not enough room for all her tears on her cheeks, so water streams off her face in rivulets.

  I shiver, having recollections of when Dad died. She looked the same way, paralyzed by the fear of what’s to come. She stayed like that, immobilized, for days.