Wildblood: A dark urban fantasy-noir by A. J. Vrana

Author:A. J. Vrana [Vrana, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Parliament House Press
Published: 2024-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

28

Kai

The chair was too comfortable. Kai seesawed on the edge, seeking a more familiar sensation—a rough plastic lip digging into his thigh, a wobble from a bent leg. But the armchair was a bearhug of soft cushions and round corners—the antithesis to the harsh lines and splintering bar stools he called home.

“Well, this is unusual.”

Dr. Hristina Krunić sat across from him in her throne, the backrest wider and taller than any piece of furniture had right to be. She crossed her legs and rhythmically tapped her foot against the table leg in front of her, her hands clasped over a pad of paper backed by a clipboard.

“What’s unusual?” asked Kai, stiffer than a bottle of back-alley moonshine. It’d barely been a few days since he’d gotten her number and done the intake forms with Miya’s help. He’d hoped for a little more leeway, but apparently, the woman worked fast.

Her mouth twitched into an uneasy smile. “I don’t usually get mobsters in my practice.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a mobster.”

What kind of a therapist opened with that? Wasn’t she supposed to blather on about safe spaces and free expression? Then again, she seemed about as welcoming as a shark maw—a portrait of icy professionalism: dark hair carefully arranged in a neat bun, thick-rimmed glasses that half obscured her brows, and a sharp navy blue pantsuit that matched the Ivy League frame encasing her PhD diploma.

Her eyebrows raised a fraction. “Really.” The word held no inflection. “What are you then?”

Kai considered how to respond, how to make sense of it for her. He could tell her what he’d told Miya—that he was a wolf in sheep’s skin—but that seemed a trite half-truth, a crutch he leaned on when he had no interest in justifying his choices. Would she believe him if he told her he was the reincarnation of a dead god no one knew the name of? That the god had a brother who’d followed him across lifetimes as a vengeful spirit made of bottomless spite? Or would she write him off as delusional? Kai’s childhood therapist thought the demon tormenting him was a PTSD-related hallucination. He’d railed against the diagnosis, his conviction hinging on a flimsy distinction between literal and figurative haunting. Even if the medical explanation of his experience was wrong, his therapist was right in all the ways that mattered. Angry apparitions aside, he was still fucked up, and that made those forces louder, stronger, more insistent. The ghost left him, but he stayed haunted. A pair of phantom horns in the ass.

And that was why he was here…or so he kept reminding himself.

“I’m…a fighter.”

“A fighter,” she repeated flatly.

“I fight for a living,” he clarified.

“So, you define yourself by your profession?”

Shifting in the chair, he finally leaned back. “Wouldn’t call it a profession.”

“Then?”

“Just something I do for money.” He paused, then added, “I’m good at it.”

“Do you like it?” she asked, and Kai was surprised to hear genuine intrigue in the question.

“Well enough.” It wasn’t a lie, though he’d prefer a real challenge to a performative dance.

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