by J. R. Ward
Assail released a puff of blue smoke and rolled the cigar between the tips of his fingers.
“Did you hear what I said, asshole?” the human barked as the three behind him disappeared hands into their suit jackets.
“Aye.”
“This is going to be done the way we want, asshole.”
“That would be ‘Assail,’ kind sir.”
“Fuck you. Gimme the cash.”
“Hm. Indeed. So you have demanded.”
Abruptly the vampire’s eyes locked on that human’s, and after a moment, the autoloader in that meaty palm began to vibrate ever so slightly. Frowning, the guy focused on his hand, as if he were sending it a command.
“That is not how I do business, however,” Assail murmured.
That gun muzzle gradually began to move, shifting away from the vampire and moving in a broad circle farther and farther afield. With growing panic, the man gripped his own wrist, as if he were fighting another, but naught of his effort derailed the changing trajectory.
Whilst the weapon was gradually turned on its own operator, the other men began to shout and shuffle about. The vampire said nothing, did nothing, remaining utterly calm and in control as he froze those three in place, locking their bodies but not their faces. Oh, those expressions of panic. Rather delightful.
When the gun was up to the man’s temple, Assail smiled, flashing white teeth that gleamed in the darkness.
“Permit me to show you how I do business,” he said in a low voice.
And then the human pulled the trigger and shot himself in the head.
As the body dropped to the pavement and the sound of the shot echoed around, the remaining men’s eyes drew wide in horror even as their bodies remained immobilized.
“You,” Assail said to the one closest to the sedan. “Bring me what I bought.”
“I-I-I…” The man swallowed hard. “We don’t got nothing.”
With hauteur worthy of a king, Assail countered, “I’m sorry, what did you say.”
“We dint bring nothing.”
“And why not.”
“Because we was going to…” The man had to take another stab at swallowing. “We was going to…”
“You were going to take my money and leave me for dead?” When there was no reply, Assail nodded. “I can see the value in that. And no doubt you’ll understand what I must do now.”
While the vampire puffed on his cigar, the man who had been speaking began to reposition his own gun, the muzzle ending up upon his temple.
One by one, three more shots rang out.
And then the vampire sauntered over and extinguished his cigar in the dead mouth of the first to go down.
Xcor laughed softly as Assail returned to his vehicle.
“Do we follow him?” Zypher asked.
Wasn’t that the question. There were lessers to fight here in the downtown area, and there was no reason to care if Assail was making money off the addictions of humans. Still, there was a lot of night left to be utilized, and there might as yet be a meeting between the male and the king forthcoming.
“Aye,” Xcor replied. “But only myself and Throe. If there is a rendezvous with Wrath we will find you.”
“This is why we all need cell phones,” Throe said. “Faster, better coordination.”
Xcor ground his teeth. Since their arrival in the New World, he had allowed Throe to engage one such cellular, and no others: A fighter’s sense of smell and hearing, his instinct honed by training and practice, his knowledge of his enemy and himself, these did not come with a monthly bill, the need for recharging, or the threat of being laid aside and lost or stolen.
Ignoring the commentary, Xcor ordered, “The rest of you go forth and find the enemy.”
“Which one,” Zypher said with a hearty laugh. “There are a growing number from which to choose.”
Indeed. For Assail was not behaving like an aristocrat. He was acting like a male who might be trying to build some kind of empire of his own.
It was entirely possible this member of the glymera was Xcor’s kind of vampire. Which meant he might well have to be eliminated at some point—and not simply as collateral damage.
There was room for only one king in Caldwell.
TWENTY-TWO
As Tohr resumed form at the Brotherhood mansion, he was pissed off at the world. Rankly ugly. Rattlesnake mad.
Pushing his way into the vestibule, he prayed that Fritz just released the lock remotely and didn’t go the personal route. No one needed to see him like this—
His prayers were answered as the inner door gave way, and he marched into the foyer to an audience of nobody: All around the first floor the house was silent, the doggen taking the opportunity to attend to the upstairs bedrooms before beginning preparations for Last Meal.
Shit. He probably needed to text Phury about where Layla was—
On a sudden, gripping instinct, his head cranked around on the top of his spine, his eyes focusing on the dining room.
Some inner cue told him to get walking, the impulse carrying him through the arches, past the long, glossy table… and out the flap door into the kitchen.
No’One was at the counter cracking eggs into a ceramic bowl.
Alone.
She stopped in midstrike, her hood coming up and turning to face him.
For some reason, his heart started beating hard. “Did I imagine you?” he said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Did I imagine you in the foyer before I left.”
No’One slowly lowered her hand, the egg saved from shattering. Temporarily. “No. You did not.”
“Take your hood off again.”
It was not a question, but a demand—the kind of thing Wellsie would never have stood for. No’One, on the other hand, solemnly obeyed him.
And there she was, revealed to his eyes, her cap of blond hair terminating in the start of that rope-thick braid, her pale cheeks and eyes luminous, her face.…
“I told Lassiter…” She cleared her throat. “Lassiter asked me if I would feed you.”
“And you said.”
“Yes.”
All of a sudden, he pictured her in that pool, floating on her back, utterly naked, with the water’s pervasive tongue licking at her warm flesh.
Everywhere.
Tohr threw out a palm and braced himself on a cupboard. Hard to know what was rocking him most: the sudden need to be at her throat, or his utter despair at the thought of it.
“I am still in love with my shellan,” he heard himself say.
And that remained the problem: All the resolving in the world, all the turning-the-new-leaf-and-letting-go shit, hadn’t changed his emotions in the slightest.
“I know,” No’One replied. “And I am glad.”
“I should use a Chosen.” He took a step closer to her.
“I know. And I agree. Their blood is purer.”
He took another step forward. “You are from a good bloodline.”
“Was,” she said starkly.
As the fragile expanse of her shoulders began to tremble ever so slightly—like she had sensed his hunger—the predator in him awoke. Abruptly, he found himself wanting to jump over the island she was standing at, just so he could…
Do what?
Well, that was obvious.
Even though his heart and his mind were nothing but an empty ice-skating rink, frozen over and flat as fuck, the rest of him was alive, his body throbbing with a purpose that threatened to mow down good intentions, proper decorum… and his grieving process.
As he took yet more steps to her, he had a horrifying thought that this was what Lassiter had meant by letting go: In this moment, he had left Wellsie behind. He was aware of nothing except the diminutive female in front of him who was fighting to stay in place as she was stalked by a Brother.
He stopped only when he was no more than a foot away from her. Looking down past her bent head, his eyes locked on the fragile pulse at her jugular ve
in.
She was breathing as hard as he was.
And as he inhaled, he caught a scent.
It was not fear.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he was enormous.
As No’One stood in the lee of the great warrior who had come upon her, she felt the heat coming off his massive body sure as if she were in front of a raging fire. And yet… she was not burned. And she was not afraid. She was warmed in someplace so deep, so buried within her, that she did not immediately recognize it as part of her internal makeup.
All she knew for sure was that he was going to take her vein within moments and she was going to let him—not because the angel had requested it of her, and not because she had vowed to, and not to make up for something in the past.
She… wanted him to.
As a hiss boiled out of him, she knew Tohrment had opened his mouth to expose his fangs.
It was time. And she did not pull up her sleeve. She loosened the top of her robe, peeled it wide to her shoulders, and tilted her head to the side.
Giving him her throat.
Oh, how her heart beat.
“Not here,” he growled. “Come with me.”
Taking her hand, he drew her into the butler’s pantry and closed them in. The squat, cramped room was lined with shelves of colorful canned fruits and vegetables, the still, warm air smelling of freshly milled grains and the dry, cakey sweetness of flour.
As the overhead light came on and the door locked itself, she knew they had been willed so by him.
And then he just stared at her as his fangs elongated even further, the twin white tips peeking out from under his parted upper lip, his eyes glowing.
“What do I do?” she said hoarsely.
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What do I… do for you?” The symphath had taken what he’d wanted and to hell with her. And her father had naturally never permitted any male to feed from her. Was there a certain way to—
Abruptly, Tohrment appeared to pull out of the vortex, something jarring him back to a different consciousness. And yet even so, his body remained fully engaged, his weight shifting from one boot to the other, his hands curling into fists and releasing, curling… and releasing.
“Have you never…”
“My father was saving me. And when I was abducted… I have never done this properly before.”
Tohrment put a hand up to his head as if he had an ache within it. “Listen, this is—”
“Tell me what to do.”
As he trained his eyes on her once again, she thought his name was indeed apt. Lo, how he was tormented.
“I need this,” he said, as if speaking to himself.
“Yes, you do. You are so gaunt that I ache for you.”
Except he was going to stop this, she thought as his stare grew dull. And she knew why.
“She is welcome in this space,” No’One said. “Bring your shellan unto your mind. Let her take my place.”
Anything to help him. For Tohrment’s great kindnesses toward her earlier self, and fate’s cruel machinations against him, she would do anything for him to be made right.
“I may hurt you,” he said harshly.
“No worse than I have already survived.”
“Why…”
“Stop talking. Stop trying to think. Do what you must to take care of yourself.”
There was a long, tense silence. And then the light went off, the little room going dim, with the only illumination that which bled through the milky glass panels of the door.
She gasped.
He breathed harder.
And then an arm linked around the back of her waist and jerked her forward. As she hit his chest wall, it was as if she had been thrown against rock, and she blindly put her hands out to grab onto something—
The flesh of his arms was smooth and hot, the skin thin over hard muscles.
Tugging. Tugging on her braid. Then wrenching… and her hair was unbound, her scalp spared the stretch and pull of the binding, the release drawing her head back.
A large hand speared in through her tresses, tangling them, pulling downward. And as her neck stretched further, her spine was forced to follow until she was held up entirely by the strength of him.
Disoriented and off balance, she momentarily lost her purpose, just as he had before darkness had been wrought.
Searching for his face, she found it. But there was no grounding to be had. She could not see the features, could not find him in the male body she was up against.
Instantly, his visage became nothing but anonymous planes and angles. And his body was not that of Tohrment, the Brother who had attempted to save her, but some stranger.
There was no turning back, however, no undoing the spin of the wheel she had unleashed.
His grip, his arms, his body tightened up even more until she was crushed against him. And as she stiffened, he brought his head downward, a chuffing growl emanating from that deep rib cage of his, a dark, rich scent nearly permeating her sense of fear.
There was another hiss, followed by a razor-thin scratch that started at her collarbone and rose e’er higher.
Panic o’ertook her.
His presence, his hold on her, the fact that she couldn’t see properly, everything about the experience shifted her back into the past, and she started to struggle.
Which was when he struck.
Violently.
No’One cried out and attempted to push away, but his fangs were already in deep, the pain sweet like a bee sting. And then the sucking, the powerful sucking that was accompanied by a wild trembling in his body.
Something hard protruded from his hips. Pressed into her belly.
Using all her strength, she tried again to get free, but her efforts were a countervailing breeze in the face of a hurricane gale.
And then… his pelvis began to move against her, gyrating, that arousal of his pushing at her robe, searching for a way inside as he took deeply from her, groans of satisfaction rising up in the air between them.
He did not even feel her fright, so consumed was he.
And her conscious mind could not regrasp the fact that she had wanted this from him.
Staring up toward the ceiling, she recalled other times she had fought to no avail, and prayed, as she had before, for this to pass soon.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, what had she done…
The body against Tohr’s yielded everything there was to give, blood, breath, and flesh. And goddamn them both, but he took, took hard and ravenously, drinking deep, and wanting more than just the vein.
He wanted the core of this female.
He wanted in her as he drank from her.
And this was true even as he was acutely aware that this was not his Wellsie. Her hair didn’t feel the same—No’One’s fell in smooth lengths, not thick curls. Her blood didn’t taste the same—the rich flavor against his tongue and the tang at the back of his throat were altogether different. And her body was thinner and more delicate, not robust and powerful.
But he still wanted her.
His godforsaken cock was roaring without excuse—ready to take and take and… own, as well. At least sexually.
Shit, this fireball of want and need was nothing like the pale anemic feeding he’d had with the Chosen Selena. This was what it should be, this abandonment, this shedding of the civilized skin to reveal the animal at the marrow.
And goddamn him, he went with it.
Repositioning No’One, he let his hold around her waist go downward until he was gripping her lower back, and then her hip… and then her ass.
Abruptly, he pushed her into the glass cupboards, the panes on the doors rattling. He didn’t mean to be rough, but it was impossible to fight the need. And worse, in the recesses of his mind, he didn’t want to.
Lifting his head, he let out a roar that stung even his own ears, and then he bit her again, his control snapping at the feast of his starved senses.
The second bite was higher
and closer to her jaw, and his sucking became even more intense, her nourishment speeding to the fibers of his muscles, strengthening him, restoring him, making him physically whole once more.
The sucking… fuck him, the sucking…
When he finally lifted his head, he was drunk on her, his mind spinning for different reasons than from blood hunger. Next would be the sex, and he actually looked around for a bed.
Except… they were in the butler’s pantry? What the hell?
Christ, he couldn’t even remember how all this had happened.
He was sure, however, that he didn’t want her bleeding out, so he dropped his head to her throat. Elongating his tongue, he stroked up the column he had nailed twice, feeling velvet and tasting her and smelling her—
The scent that entered his nostrils was not a commercial perfume.
And it was not a female’s lush arousal, as he had sensed in the beginning.
She was terrified.
“No’One?” he said, as he felt her trembling for the first time.
With a hoarse cry, she began to sob, and in his shock, he went momentarily numb. Then, as sensation returned, he felt all too clearly her nails clawing into the backs of his upper arms, her delicate body trying to get free.
He let her go immediately—
No’One slammed into the corner cupboard and then went for the door, jerking at the knob, rattling it so forcibly the opaque glass was liable to break.
“Hold on, I’ll let you—”
The instant he sprang the lock she took off, flying through the kitchen and out the other side as if she were running for her dear life.
“Shit!” He tore after her. “No’One!”
He didn’t care who heard him as he called her name again, his voice echoing up through the dining room’s high ceiling as he blew past the long table and then shot into the foyer.
As she ripped across the depiction of the apple tree in the floor, he recalled the memory of her that night they had tried to bring her home to her father’s, her nightgown streaming behind her, turning her into a ghost as she ran across the moonlit meadow.
Now her robe streamed behind as she headed for the stairs.
Tohr’s panic was running so high he dematerialized in pursuit, reassuming form halfway up and yet still not in front of her. Continuing to chase her on foot, he followed her past Wrath’s study, and down the hall to the right.