“I need to know how to fight these guys, Toni.”
Toni slanted a glance at her husband as she unwrapped two pounds of ground beef. “Yes, well … I wish you luck with that.” She plunked the meat into a large mixing bowl. “Make sure you slice that green pepper into small pieces, okay?”
Jacken gave her a perturbed look from the other side of the kitchen island, a large Chef’s knife poised in his hand.
“You’re not chopping ….” She sighed, then laughed. “What do you want me to tell you, Jacken? Those Topside Om Rău seem pretty damned immortal to me.” She cracked an egg into the bowl. “You saw shave-headed guy die, I saw the young, creepy one as a corpse.” She shook in salt and pepper. “Yet, they both looked really alive when they showed up at the Water Cliffs.”
“They wouldn’t be immortal by nature.” He started cutting up the green pepper with quicksilver speed; the man definitely knew his way around a knife. “They’d have to be under the power of an enchantment, and what can be enchanted can damn well be unenchanted.”
She plunked down the salt and pepper shaker. “Why do I keep letting these things surprise me?” she asked rhetorically, then gave Jacken a droll look. “Enchanted?”
“Certain Om Rău and Fey have the ability to manipulate power through rituals.”
“Not you?”
“I wish.” He snorted. “No, only Pure-bred Om Rău.” One side of his mouth hooked upward. “But you. Soon.”
That much was true. She’d felt strange power surges inside her ever since she’d gained her Fey status two weeks ago. Nothing she knew how to use or control, yet, though.
Jacken scooped up the diced pepper and dumped it in the bowl, then glanced around the counter. “What next?”
She pointed at the can of Progresso Bread Crumbs.
His brows shot up. “Bread? In meat?”
“It’s meat loaf, and, yes, you’ll like it.” She handed him a measuring cup. “One cup.”
She hid a smile as she watched him measure out the bread crumbs with unnecessary exactitude, once again tickled by how enthusiastic he got over all things domestic.
It was a Brave New World for her husband, though, now that they were tucked away in Ţărână’s white picket fence neighborhood in a house next door to Arc and Beth. Before that, he’d lived his entire adult life in Roth’s mansion. He’d never needed to contend with life’s banalities, washing a load of laundry or shopping at a grocery store for more than beer and snacks, or cooking a meal, and now that he had a home of his own, he wanted to master it all. Anything that needed doing, no matter what it was, he wanted to do it with her. And ridiculously enough, she found herself racing home after work to do mundane chores, like make dinner or fold underwear or show Jacken how to pick out a ripe melon. Because mundane stuff turned into fun stuff when they did it as a couple.
Tenderness filled her heart as she watched Jacken upend the cup of bread crumbs into the bowl. If she thought she’d been in love with this man before, the last two weeks of marital bliss spent getting to know him, the real him, available to her now that his iron defenses were down, had catapulted her right to the top of Guineas Book contenders for the most in-love girl ever. A state of emotions which was having an unexpected effect on her.
It was putting her into a state of outright, unadulterated fear.
For the first time ever in a relationship with a man, she was truly, deeply in love. Never before had she felt like she had so much to lose. If something ever happened to Jacken, if she lost him or he left her, it would throw her into such a deep, dark pit of despair and loneliness it would make her former life look like a big sorority blowout. She’d been wracking her brain for ways to get past this fear, but had been drawing blanks, which had succeeded in keeping her at a low simmer of panic.
“Anything else?” Jacken asked.
“Um ….” She closed her eyes for a moment to banish the thoughts from her head. “Ketchup.”
She watched him open the fridge and take out a bottle of Heinz from the side shelf.
“Hasn’t Cleeve been able to find out anything?” she asked, steering their conversation back to their original Topside Om Rău topic.
“Nothing that’s frigging helpful. Only a complaint lodged last year by the bar manager of The Blarney Stone about some chick with a black flame tattoo on her belly. Apparently, the woman ripped a guy’s arms out of their sockets during an arm wrestling match.”
She gave him an arch look.
“Yeah, sounds pretty Rău-like, doesn’t it?” He handed her the bottle of ketchup. “And weird shit like that going down is dangerous for all of us, you know. It starts the police asking too many questions.”
She hesitated in the middle of squeezing Heinz into a measuring cup. Police …. “Oh, God, I’m just remembering the night the police called me in to consult on the murder investigation for that creepy corpse. The kid was wearing some kind of strange ring.”
“Yeah? Strange, how?”
Shrugging, she finished filling the cup. “I guess it gave off some kind of an electric shock if anyone tried to remove it.”
“Holy shit, I think that’s it.” Jacken planted both hands on the kitchen island. “That’s how those assholes are achieving their immortality. Their rings are enchanted. That’s right. Skull was wearing a ring the night he tried to steal you at Scripps. I remember because it tore a strip of skin off my face, here” – Jacken drew an invisible line high up on his cheek with the tip of his index finger – “when the fucknut punched me.”
She set down the ketchup. “Well, good, you have it figured out. Now you can help me mix the meat loaf.” She bobbed her eyebrows at him. “It’s the funnest part.”
“Oh?” His expression lightened as he strode around to her side of the kitchen island. “Why’s that?”
“We get to do it with our hands.” She stuck her fingers into the bowl.
He drew up behind her, extended his arms on either side of her body, and put his hands in the bowl next to hers. She began to knead the ingredients together, and he copied her, resting his chin on her shoulder.
“Doesn’t it feel good.” She chuckled. “All that stuff squishing between your fingers?”
“It feels great,” he said, making it clear what he really meant when he pressed his hips forward against the curve of her rump.
“Jacken. For Pete’s sake, we’re making dinner.” She tried to sound scolding, but it was difficult to be convincing with a long, hard phallus prodding her buttocks.
“Last I checked, sweetie pie, we were grownups. So I think we can have dessert first if we want.” He lowered his lips to the curve of her throat and kissed her, the tip of a fang grazing her skin.
Excitement spun through her tighter than an over-wound top. Groaning softly, she rolled her head to the side, giving him more access to her neck, blatantly inviting him to take a vein.
“You’re shameless,” he murmured.
“Very true.” Marriage to a Vârcolac was proving to have more than its fair share of magnificent perks, but being fed on was definitely the humdinger. The intimacy of the act itself was a total turn-on, Jacken’s need for her life-sustaining blood something indescribably special, but she’d be a huge liar if she didn’t admit to really getting off on the Holy Moly ecstasy Fiinţă gave her. By itself, the stuff was an Elixir of the Gods, but an orgasm-Fiinţă combination was like sending her whole body, especially her vagina, on a rollercoaster ride through Nirvana, Mount Olympus, Heaven or any other celestial sphere where pleasure was unutterably fantastic. Was it any wonder she was always game?
She laughed softly as Jacken nipped at her collarbone, then ducked away from his teasing lips. He wouldn’t feed on her tonight; every two to three days was about the schedule he kept, and he wasn’t due. “Enough now, husband. We have to get this blob of food cooked.”
They scooped up the meat loaf mixture and patted it into a loaf pan.
“Stick it in the oven, would you?” she said, washing her hands
. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She dried her hands and tossed the dishtowel on the counter, then headed into the bathroom at the base of the stairs. She plopped down on the toilet, her body still humming with desire, but … there was also a strange, hard twist in her belly. She stared forward, absently unwrapping an O-stick. Rule Number Something of marriage to a Vârcolac male: test ovulation cycle regularly. She urinated on the stick, then checked the results.
“Hey,” Jacken called to her. “How long should I set the timer for?”
She stared at the O-stick another second, then tossed it in the trash. She rose from the toilet, pulled up her jeans, buttoned them, refastened her belt, her movements mechanical. She washed her hands, then exited the bathroom.
“One hour,” she told Jacken as she entered the kitchen.
* * *
The punching bag was gashed open from top to bottom and gutted, cotton stuffing littering the floor mats like baby synthetic snowballs. Large pieces of steel were joining the puffs as Sedge systematically ripped chunks of metal frame out of the middle of the bag.
Three other warriors were training inside the gym along with him, all of them pretending to work out while they really kept a wary eye on him.
His body ran with sweat, his hair soaking wet by now, and his muscles quivered like undercooked egg whites. He’d been going at the bag for hours. As soon as he’d put his wife to bed, he’d sneaked out of the house and come here to empty himself of his rage. But it wasn’t working. His mind was a seething mass of pictures he couldn’t shut down or control. It wasn’t working! Sedge cranked back his head and let out a sharp yowl.
Okay. No one was even pretending to train now.
“Yo, Stănescu.” Dev approached, although he stopped at a safe arm’s length away from him. “What’s going down, man, you all right?”
Breathing heavily, Sedge lurched forward and hugged the punching bag like he was an exhausted boxer, which he was. “I can’t get the images out of my head, Dev.” He staggered sideways, swinging slightly on the bag, his feet sloppy beneath him. “I’m trying, but – fuck! – I can’t. I keep seeing him beating on her, breaking her little bones, punching her in the stomach until she … she ….” He jerked backward, snarling, and ripped out another hunk of metal, snapping it in two and hurling it aside.
There was a beat of stunned silence.
“Who?” The dark syllable came out of Vinz.
Sedge panted. “Kimberly’s ex.”
“Holy fuck,” Arc hissed. Married, too, Arc was probably the only one who could truly relate to why Sedge was spinning off the flywheel.
Now Dev moved close enough to place a firm hand on Sedge’s shoulder. “Listen, Stănescu, you erase those images from your head right now, you hear me? Because I’m guaranteeing you that we’ll find this dickhead so you can go a few rounds with him.” He gave Sedge’s shoulder a hard squeeze. “We clear?”
Sedge bared his teeth. “Kimberly won’t tell me the bastard’s name. She’s afraid I’ll kill him and end up in jail.”
Arc swiped a towel over his face. “Hell, I bet Cleeve or Alex could track down the scrote on the ’Net with just a little information.”
“Exactly,” Dev agreed. “We’ll get you through this. Whatever we need to do so you can avenge your mate, we’ll do. You need to hear me on this.”
Sedge nodded shortly, his throat spasming. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, I hear you.”
“All right.” Dev whacked his shoulder. “Now hit the showers before you fall over and break your –”
The gym intercom squawked. “This is an all-warrior call!” Cleeve’s tinny voice rushed out of the small speaker. “Emergency at the Brun household!”
Sedge, Dev, Arc, and Vinz weren’t the first warriors on the scene. Thomal and Breen were already circling the couple who was rolling around on the street and grappling, Toni screaming and kicking at Jacken, Jacken tearing at her clothes.
Sedge stopped dead in his tracks at the sight, unable to believe his eyes. This wasn’t …. Bonded couples never fought physically. Male Vârcolacs were wired to protect their mates; if one ever got it into his mind to hurt her, his cells would pull him to a screeching, and painful, halt.
“Help us!” Thomal shouted. “Toni ovulated and now Jacken’s glazed out!”
Oh, shit, glazed … that was why. But, wait, that still wouldn’t explain the level of violence Jacken was –
Breen darted into the fray, trying to grab hold of Jacken, but was thrown back with a bloody lip.
Thomal swore. “That chemical change has made him go Rău. Shake a leg!”
Sedge lowered his chin. Shit, Jacken was in the middle of a combo Rău-fit and procreation glaze-out? They could write off stopping him, then.
“Stănescu,” Arc barked. “You grab Toni and get her into lockdown. The rest of us – blitzkrieg!”
All five warriors leapt on top of Jacken at once.
Sedge launched himself forward, grabbing Toni under the armpits and dragging her out from the dogpile.
A vicious snarl coiled out of Jacken.
Holy crap! Sedge hiked Toni into his arms and raced for the mansion like a cherry bomb was jammed in his butt crack. Behind him, it sounded like Jacken was roaring loose from his captors.
Oh, damn me. He really wished he hadn’t just exhausted himself at the punching bag.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Raymond set his Courvoisier on the edge of the billiards table and racked a set of balls. He chalked his cue stick lazily, feeling quite relaxed in this, his den, the only room which was truly his own in the Rancho Santa Fe mansion he shared with what felt like a shedload of other people. Entrance into his masculine haven was by express permission only, and tonight he’d deigned to invite his partner, Boian, to join him for a game of Snookers.
“You break,” Boian said, puffing on a Cuban.
“Very well.” Leaning over the table, Raymond sighted along his cue, then broke the rack with a hard hit on the head ball. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the red balls whiz around the green tabletop.
There was a knock on the door.
Both men turned their heads sharply toward the sound.
Boian jerked the Cuban out of his mouth. “Damn it all to hell,” he snarled in what sounded like real anger.
Raymond slid a sideways glance at his partner. Was it any blooming wonder Boian’s progeny always seemed to spring directly from Yavell’s womb in a nasty temper?
Raymond was tempted to ignore the knock, but someone would have to be completely insane to disturb him for any reason other than mortal danger. “Enter,” he called.
Pandra stepped inside, dressed in her typical shagbag inelegance, her frock a see-through red mesh piece that showed off a matching red bra and knickers.
Jesus wept.
“It’s about Toni,” the girl wisely announced immediately.
Raymond propped his cue stick on the floor and leaned on it. “Explain.”
“The private investigator you assigned to follow Shannon Parthen, Mr. Rathburn, just rang. Toni is out in town tonight with her mother.”
Raymond lifted a single eyebrow into a pleased arc. “That is important news, my pet.” He turned back to the table and placed the white cue ball for his second shot. “Send the lads out to fetch her.”
* * *
The Field Irish Pub, located on 5th Avenue in the heart of San Diego’s bustling Gaslamp district was always hopping, and tonight was no exception. At eight o’clock, the Happy Hour crowd was in full swing. Toni was amazed she and her mother had found a place to sit, but they’d managed to snag one of the cozy, dark wood booths near the bar. Both strawberry-blonde women now had a frothy Guinness, Toni having forgone her usual martini tonight, “when in Rome” and all… or Ireland, as was the case here.
Odd that such a hip young place was one of her mother’s favorite hangouts, but Shannon Parthen, née O’Rourke, loved all things Irish, and this pub was one of the most authentic in the city. The walls were covered wit
h enough Irish paraphernalia to make any Dubliner feel right at home, and there was generally a lively Irish ditty playing.
“He’s teaching me to play golf.” Shannon was talking about her latest boyfriend, laughing lightly as she added, “if you can imagine me, of all people, trying to –”
Shannon stopped speaking, her mouth falling inelegantly open and her eyes widening to their fullest.
A strange burp of silence rolled through the crowd next, an almost imperceptible pause in noise and action before everything resumed normal activity.
Oh, crap. Toni didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to know who’d just entered the bar. Such a total crowd reaction could’ve only been brought about by the entrance of too-gorgeous-to-be-true men. “Damn,” she grumbled. “Remind me to punch Alex in the face the next time I see him.” How else could she have been unearthed among hundreds of bars in San Diego if not for a certain rat fink brother?
“Oh, my,” Shannon breathed shakily as Arc Costache came to a stop at the edge of their table.
Gábor Pavenic headed to the bar, lounging negligently against it on one bent arm, his bull skull tattoo bulging. A statuesque brunette smiled cautiously at him, and his return cockeyed grin nearly sent her sliding off her stool. Thomal, meanwhile, was being mobbed by a gaggle of simpering co-eds. Jacken wasn’t with them, and a small pain speared through Toni that made no sense. The moment she’d finished her two-day stint in lockdown, she’d come up here for a weekend escape with her mother in order to get a break from him. Right?
Toni swept a gesture back and forth between Arc and Shannon. “Arc Costache,” she introduced, “my mother, Shannon Parthen.”
Shannon cast Toni a quick you know this man? look before offering her hand to Arc. “A pleasure.”
Lavishing a grin of roguish charm on Shannon, Arc shook her hand. “I can see where Dr. Parthen gets her good looks. May I?” He used his hold on Shannon’s hand to slide her over in the booth, his smile remaining annoyingly in place as he sat down. “You’ll excuse me for barging in on your girl time, but I work at your daughter’s new place of employment, and –”
The Community Series, Books 1-3 Page 28