“You’re welcome to keep him. But I daresay you’ll risk Murk learning valuable information about your underground hole, Vârcolac, and for no discernible gain on your part. You see, my dear chaps, the moment I found Ren dead, I changed my entire operation. Murk no longer knows anything about my affairs.”
Jacken curled his lip. “I just might have to shed a man-tear over your fatherly devotion.”
Parthen offered Jacken a smile that didn’t defrost his eyes. “Shall we cease this palaver and make a mutually beneficial deal?”
Jacken shrugged. “As long as nothing you have to say includes Toni. I daresay I’ve already made my position clear on that.”
“Your position.” One golden brow arched upward. “Who are you, might I ask, to comport yourself with such authority on my daughter’s behalf?”
Jacken tightened his grip on his M-16. Here comes the fun part. “Her husband.”
Parthen burst out laughing.
Jacken had to fight like hell to keep blood from rushing into his face.
“You jest!” Parthen’s gaze made a contemptuous trip over Jacken. “Dear Lord, has Toni gone barking mad?”
Jacken showed his teeth. “As father-in-laws go, you’re not exactly curling the hair on my balls, either.”
Parthen tugged on the cuffs of his dress shirt. “As uncouth as you appear, it would seem. It’s bloody fortunate that we shan’t be holding the positions for long, isn’t it?”
The comment was followed by a deep base note of electricity thrumming through Jacken’s body. Something that might’ve been unnerving had Jacken not been so caught up in despising this fucker.
“You see, my dear boy, I have long-term plans for my daughter, and those don’t include her dipping into the primordial ooze that’s clearly your gene pool for her offspring.”
Jaw clamped, Jacken chinned at the four men by the limo. “And you think those shit-stains have better pedigrees? They’re Half-Rău, too, you dingus.”
“Half-Rău and half-Fey,” Parthen corrected. “Bred correctly, this brood of mine will have progeny with active enchantments. Hence the reason my son and daughter are so important to my endeavors. I realize that someone of your suspect intelligence might have difficulty understanding –”
“Yeah, I get it. With their royal bloodlines, Toni and Alex’s children will be some of the most powerful.”
“Ah! There you go, old tosspot! You’re not as much of a gobbin as you appear.”
“And you’re obviously not as powerful as you appear.” Jacken broke topside rules and let his fangs show in a smile. “Or else why the need for so much help?”
Parthen made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “It’s a mammoth task I’ve set myself, boy, requiring many bodies in a multitude of different places. I’m taking back everything, you see – land, money, governmental positions, power – regaining the supremacy us Fey folk used to have in this world many years ago, before the regulars came along and managed to snuff most of us.” He tilted his chin. “This is a bit of history you Vârcolac should be well familiar with, is it not? Indeed, our two races could join forces in this venture. In all truth, I’d never thought to include you Vârcolac in my plans. With your blood and sun weaknesses, you’re worthless creatures, but, after all, there’ll be a need for servants and lackeys in the new world order.”
Jacken laughed darkly. What would this egomaniac say if he knew that a few shots of Fiinţă from a lowly Vârcolac could bring today’s Fey generation into their full enchantments. “Power lies where you least expect it, Parthen. I’d remember that if I were you.” Jacken nodded toward the Pathfinder.
Nyko stepped out into the open from the side of the car.
The four Om Rău across the garage shifted and stiffened, hands going knuckle-white on their weapons. It wasn’t so much the SAW they were reacting to, as Nyko. In keeping with Jacken’s request to just look like a sociopathic Godzilla, Nyko had removed his shirt, exposing the full panorama of his body’s muscles and … artwork. Yeah, that pretty much did it.
Nyko opened the Pathfinder’s rear hatch and hauled Murk out by his shackles, plunking the man on his feet.
Parthen noticed his son’s arm cast at once; he stiffened, just barely, but it was enough.
Roth’s voice went flat and hard. “Before instigating a war with us, Mr. Parthen, it would be wise for you to note that we can get your rings off.”
More shifting from the four Om Rău, their collective tension like a blast of hot, dense air.
Parthen’s eyes turned so glacial, the blue of the irises became almost transparent. He chuckled, the sound equally wintry. “Do you have any notion who you’re toying with, lads?”
Sparks of pain shot down Jacken’s arms and deep into the bones of his legs. He kept his face blank, though, knowing Parthen was checking for a reaction.
“I believe,” Roth said, sounding remarkably calm, considering he was probably undergoing an internal barbecue, too, “that you’re the one misjudging us.”
Parthen inclined his head. “It appears we are at an impasse. I shall leave peaceably now, Vârcolac. I’m a man of my word, and there shall be no violence today. But eventually” – he sighed, as if truly regretting what he had to say next – “I’ll have to destroy you. Surely you must realize that.” With a final, sideways glance at Murk, he turned and strode back to his limousine.
Chapter Forty-Four
SpongeBob SquarePants let out an inane giggle as the cartoon sea sponge made some equally inane remark about Krabby Patties. Jacken turned his wrist where it rested on his wife’s shoulder and checked his watch. Five minutes into the show and he felt like his brains were melting out of his ears.
“We don’t have to keep watching this,” he told her. “I can call Raln and tell him to un-fuck the programming.”
“It’s mind-numbing.” Toni shifted closer. She was cuddled up next to him on their living room couch, her legs curled under her. “I kind of need that right now.”
“Might I suggest football, then?” He peered down at his wife as she squirmed again, and frowned. “Do you need more pain meds?”
“Actually, yes.” She straightened off him. “Would you mind getting them?”
“Of course not.” He hopped up, grabbed the bottle of Motrin from the kitchen, then headed back into the living room. “You should’ve asked Dr. Jess for Vicodin or Percocet.”
“It’s just some bruises.”
Bruises that looked a helluva lot worse the day after receiving them from Spike Boy. May the fucker rot in Purgatory. Jacken crouched down in front of his wife, and shook three pills out of the bottle into his palm. He twisted his mouth at her. “You know, you never used to look like this before you started hanging out with Vârcolac.” And now twice in less than a month.
“True.” She gave him one of those warm, wifely smiles that turned his soft spot into absolute goo. “At least I’m not bored.”
He set a hand on her knee. “Never again,” he said quietly. “You have my solemn vow on that, Toni.”
“I know.” She moved some strands of hair off his brow with her fingertips. “I feel safe with you, Jacken, don’t worry.”
“Good.” He hadn’t earned that, yet, he knew, but he would.
“What are you going to do about Murk?”
He braced his forearms on his thighs. “Well, your dear old dad made a good point. Skull is pretty damned useless to us. No sense torturing him for information he doesn’t have, which leaves us stuck with either detaining him in one of our jail cells for the rest of his life or outright killing him.”
“No.” Toni sat up straight. “I don’t want you to hurt him, Jacken.”
He exhaled a rough breath. “Yeah, I know.”
“Can you …? I want you to let him go.”
He gently placed the pills in her hand. “Toni, I realize you’re weirded-out about him right now, but he’s our enemy –”
“He’s my half-brother.” She rested her head on the back of the couch and s
tared at the ceiling. “Look, you’re right; my mind is blown from discovering I have I-don’t-know-how-many half-siblings, and I know I’m making an emotional decision with this.” She looked up, leaned forward, and touched his jaw. “I just can’t deal with the thought of those options you mentioned, no matter how much of a bad guy he is.”
He hooked one side of his mouth into his cheek. “Releasing him might come back to bite us in the ass,” he pointed out.
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”
“No.” Fact was, he didn’t want Skull to remain in Ţărână, either. Jail cell or not, the man tainted the surroundings. Plus, Toni had touched his face. “You’re the boss.”
She slanted a look at him. “Not when I’m on this couch.”
He laughed deep in his chest. Yeah, she’d actually been doing a great job of separating out “wife” from “leader” with him. He took her hand and pressed his thumb over the pills he’d put in her palm. “Remember when you gave me those Ibuprofen tablets at Garwald’s?”
“How could I forget?” Her eyes sparkled at him. “It was the first time I saw you smile.”
“It may have been exactly then,” he gently closed her hand around the pills, “that I fell in love with you.”
She cocked a brow at him. “It wasn’t during the letter opener incident?”
He chuckled. “Maybe a little then, too.” He kissed her closed fist. “Two against the world, Mrs. Brun. You and I. For always and forever.”
“Ah.” She bent forward and brushed her mouth over his, the best kiss she could manage with her split lip. “I like the sound of that.”
* * *
Raymond lounged back in the cushioned deck chair on the terrace of his new Fairbanks Ranch mansion, his legs crossed, his palm cupping a snifter of Louis Royer Old Grande Champagne cognac. It was a luxurious libation, costing him nearly five hundred dollars a bottle, but he was in an unbearable mood at discovering it was going to be such a considerable chore getting Toni back. He bloody well needed the palliative.
Sipping his cognac, he watched the sun make steady progress toward the horizon. Behind him inside the house, servants moved briskly about unpacking boxes, and then a presence arrived at his back, one he recognized.
“The prodigal son returns,” Raymond said dryly.
Murk moved to the other cushioned chair and sat.
“How did you find me?” Raymond asked, watching the orange ball of the sun sink into a gauzy nest of clouds.
“I borrowed a cell phone and called Pandra’s secret line.” Murk held up his casted arm. “I’m going to need another ring.”
Ah, yes, he’d just dash off and do that straight away. “I can’t imagine you escaped the Vârcolac’s lair.”
“The cockheads just let me go.” Murk shrugged. “Must’ve been something you said.”
After only one day, too. Those blood-consuming beings showed some aptitude for appreciating logic, then. “Any weaknesses to report?”
“No.” Murk kneaded his brow wearily. “They kept me shut away in a prison cell the whole time.”
Jorgé, the Parthen butler, appeared on the terrace. “May I get anything for you, Master Murk?”
“Jesus suffering fuck, a beer would be bostin for this sodding headache.”
“Yes, sir.”
Murk dropped his hand and looked at Raymond. “There’s something you need to know.”
Raymond drifted the snifter back and forth under his nose, enjoying the rich smell of the cognac. “My breath is bated, son.”
Murk allowed a dramatic pause to develop, which was rather cheeky of him. “Toni’s the one who took our immortality rings off.”
Raymond turned his head toward his son, a stillness enveloping his body.
“She’s acquired her enchantment power,” Murk added unnecessarily. Because, what else?
The piece of information he didn’t have, however, was by what means. “How, pray tell, was she able to do that?”
Murk slouched deeper into the chair. “I haven’t got a baldy notion.”
Raymond turned back to the sunset and took a long sip of his drink. The sky was streaked a beautiful, brilliant tangerine. “That’s something,” he murmured, “I most assuredly need to discover.”
Jorgé moved like a ghost onto the terrace, setting a jar of beer and a small dish of peanuts at Murk’s elbow. He disappeared just as unobtrusively.
Murk picked up the beer and took a gulp. “What are you going to do?”
“Reacquire her, of course.” Raymond gestured negligently. “Kill every last Vârcolac, if need be. No more hospitable pellets.”
“So we’re at war with them?”
Raymond set down his snifter and folded his hands in his lap. “Yes, son, we’re most definitely at war.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Three months later, June.
Beth stepped into her kitchen, a book clutched to her breasts, and stopped short.
Arc was perched on a high stool at the kitchen island, the heel of one boot hooked on a rung, the other foot planted on the floor. He was wearing her favorite jeans, Levi’s 501 button flies, and a tight blue T-shirt that set off the color of his eyes to perfection, as well as the sleek bulk of his muscles. Reading the sports page with an open Coke bottle at his elbow, he was the absolute picture of sexy masculinity.
She ran her tongue across her lips. God, why were her horny monkey hormones still raging so intensely into her fifth month of pregnancy? Honest to Pete, couldn’t she just be like other pregnant women and get nauseous and exhausted?
“Hi, baby,” Arc glanced up at her. “What’s up?”
“Um, I brought home your suit for the cocktail party. It’s in the living room.” Shock of shockers and miracle of miracles, eight new Dragon women were being brought into the community next week—Toni had dangled some big money carrot in front of them, or something—and upon arrival, they would be introduced to some of the town mucky-mucks at a shindig in the mansion’s Garden Parlor. What a gas. Beth just loved parties, especially the dressing-up part. “You’re going to look great in it.”
He chuckled. “Well, yeah, my wife’s the best fashion designer ever.”
She stepped up to the island, letting her eyes drift to the curved muscle in his thigh. Heat shimmied in her belly. “Try not to look too good.”
He gave her a smile of overblown arrogance. “Not possible, babe.” He noticed the book she was holding. “What’s that?”
“Oh, I went to the library and picked out an idea for our classic.”
“Hey, cool.” Arc set aside the sports page. “Let’s see it.”
The warmth in her belly turned into something tender. Arc was trying really hard to have a deeper relationship with her. In the last few months they’d talked about all kinds of different topics, and recently he’d even agreed to read a classic novel with her and then discuss it. It was so touching. Probably wasn’t fair what she was about to do, but …. Straight-faced, she laid out her choice on the kitchen island in front of him: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
Arc’s brows shot up. “Jesus God, Beth.” He reached out and flipped to the last page. “This is 1296 pages!”
“And,” she stipulated, holding up a finger, “we can’t have sex until we’ve read it all and discussed it.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
She crossed her arms. “You won’t read it without proper motivation, Arc. I know you.”
“I so totally will.”
“Ha! Maybe over the course of two years.”
“C’mon, Beth, be reasonable.” He rubbed a hand along his jaw. “All right, how about this: we can have sex after we’ve read and discussed each chapter?”
“That would be every night.”
“Ah.” His eyes glinted.
“Arc!”
“Okay, okay, here’s another idea.” He opened a drawer in the kitchen island and pulled out two paperbacks, setting them next to hers: Animal Farm by George Orwell and On
e Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The first was about a hundred pages, the second barely over two hundred. A couple of tug boats compared to her Titanic. “We could read one of these.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “You’re such a stinker! What did you do, go to the library and ask Hannah for the shortest classics she could find?”
“They’re supposed to be good books, and one’s a Russian author, same as yours.” He smiled at her, obviously proud of himself.
She latched her eyes onto his smile, his mouth. “Well ….” Shut up, horny monkey! She reached out absently for one of his books, her eyes remaining pinned on his white teeth, his alluring canines. “I always have wanted to read Animal Farm. But, um, no sex till we’re done reading it.”
He sighed. “Yeah, all right.”
“Okay, then.” She edged around the kitchen island. “So ….” She bit her bottom lip as she maneuvered in front of his stool, positioning herself between his thighs. “That means we should probably have sex now, you know ….” She slid her hands slowly over the hard contours of his shoulder muscles. “Just to tide us over.”
He was on his feet so fast the stool clunked over behind him. Grabbing her by the waist, he whipped her around and set her on the island, his hands warm and eager as he shoved up her skirt.
She spread her legs, arched her head back, and moaned. “God, I’m such a pushover.”
“No, babe,” he bent his lips to the curve of her throat. “I am.”
* * *
Kimberly threw open the door to her house and barreled into the living room. “Sedge!” she called out. “Oh, hey –!” She skidded to a stop. “What the hell’s this!?”
Sedge was standing by the coffee table with a huge smile on his face, several candles lit and a bottle of champagne chilling in a silver bucket. “Whoa, now, Mrs. Stănescu. You need to watch your language now that you’re a junior associate with Bitterman, Zanhunch, and Pickett.”
“Toni told you already? That blabbermouth.” Kimberly laughed as she said it, not at all upset, of course. If it wasn’t for Toni Parthen insisting that a lawyer was needed to see to the community’s ever-growing investments and financial interests topside, Kimberly might still be unhappily writing unpublished papers or contemplating rock gardens. She glanced down at her watch. “I was offered the job all of an hour ago.”
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