by Reinke, Sara
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, however, they both froze, eyes flown wide, as a voice from outside, somewhere in the woods, filtered in through the closed window shutters.
“Aaron!” the voice called out, echoing against the ceiling of tree crowns and rolling through the dusky shadows of the forest. “Aaron Davenant! Are you out here?”
“Fuck me,” Julien hissed, scrambling to sit up. “That’s Jean Luc!”
“Are you sure?” Mason was already in motion, leaping to his feet and grabbing his pants.
“Not really,” Julien replied drolly, sparing Mason a glance as he snatched his shirt from the floor. “All of my brothers sound the bloody hell alike. It could just as easily be Allistair, Vidal, or Jerard.”
From outside, the voice called out again, more sharply this time. “Hullo! Aaron—are you in there?”
“Why is he way out here looking for Az?” Julien wondered aloud, but then his brows furrowed, his body tensing in sudden realization. “That son of a bitch…if Father’s been laying into him again…”
It was no secret that Lamar beat his sons. While Julien had always been quick to dismiss his own wounds, when the matter came to his younger siblings—and in particular, his nine-year-old brother Aaron—it was altogether different.
“He told me the next time Father hit him, he was running away,” Julien said, stumbling to his feet as he yanked his shirt over his head. “Goddammit, and I’ve been here instead of home so I could’ve…”
“You could have what?” Mason asked, stepping down into one boot, while reaching for the other. “Gotten in Lamar’s path, pissed him off so that he beat you instead?”
“Frankly, yeah,” Julien snapped back in reply. As soon as the words left his mouth, it was obvious he regretted them. His expression softened, growing helpless and worried. “Aaron’s just a kid, Mason,” he pleaded. “I’m supposed to protect him. If I don’t, who else in my bloody damn family will?” He cut a glance toward the springhouse door and uttered a bark of rueful laughter. “Jean Luc? And now Az is all alone out there somewhere, probably scared half out of his wits. I have to go look for him. God only knows what Father’s done.”
“Who’s in there? Hoah!” Jean Luc called out again—so close to the springhouse now, they heard the snapping of twigs and the crackling of leaves underfoot, and the wet snuffling of a horse, the jangle of its tack. “I heard voices. Come out now! I know you’re there!”
“Wait here,” Mason said to Julien, reaching down and taking the lantern in hand. “I’ll take care of this.”
“What?” Julien’s eyes widened. “Are you bloody mad? You can’t go out there, Mason.”
“If your father finds out you were here with me, he’ll kill you,” Mason said. It was no exaggeration, either, and they both knew it.
“Then you stay in here.” Julien scrabbled to his feet. “I’ll get rid of Jean Luc.”
Mason arched his brow. “And where are you going to tell him you left your pants?”
“The same place you left your shirt,” Julien retorted with a pointed glance at Mason’s bare chest.
But no matter his protests, there was no way in hell Mason meant to let Julien step out of that springhouse and face his brother. Not knowing in his heart what would happen if he did.
“Wait here,” he said again. Before Julien could do more than sputter in objection, he opened the springhouse door and stepped out into the encroaching nightfall beyond.
* * *
“Hullo,” Mason called, pulling the door closed behind him and holding the lamp aloft. “Who’s there?”
He heard a rustle among the thickets, and to his right, saw the shadow-draped silhouette of a horse and rider move into view. The horse plodded forward into the circumference of his light, and the rider uttered a hoarse laugh.
“I’ll be goddamned,” he said, and Mason could see now that Julien had been right—it was his older brother, Jean Luc. “If it isn’t the good doctor, Mason Morin. What brings you out to this part of the woods so late in the evening?”
“I could ask you the same,” Mason said, his brows narrowing as he tried to summon courage in his voice he didn’t necessarily feel. If the truth be told, he was damn near trembling with alarm. Not only could he and Julien be in danger from Lamar if their relationship were discovered, but from their fellow Brethren as well. Their laws were very specific when the matter came to homosexuality; it was considered as abhorrent and outlawed as sexual relations with humans. Even more so. And the punishment was nothing less than death. “What do you want?”
Drawing back on the reins, Jean Luc drew his stallion to a halt. “I’m looking for my brother,” he said. “Not the one you killed, mind you…at least, not that I’m aware of.”
“I haven’t seen any of your lot,” Mason replied, ignoring Jean Luc’s attempt to bait him. “Now get on your way.”
“Who’s out here with you?” Jean Luc demanded. “I heard voices a moment ago.” Glancing over Mason’s head, he called out, “Get out here now. Who’s there?”
The furrow between Mason’s brows deepened. “There’s no one,” he snapped. “I’m here alone.”
“Really now?” Jean Luc arched his brow. “If that’s so, Morin, then why are you half-dressed?” As his horse shuffled its feet, grinding its teeth nervously against the metal plate of its bit, he swung his leg around and dismounted, fallen leaves crunching beneath the heavy soles of his boots. “You know what I think?” he asked, tromping forward. “I think you’re nowhere near as alone out here as you claim. I think you’ve been out here tonight plowing between some winsome lass’s thighs…am I right?”
He made a point of tipping his head back and sniffing loudly. “I don’t smell the stink of human in the wind—which tells me you’re likely laying in rut with one of our sort. One of those Trevilian sluts, perhaps—no different than their whore-kin, Eleanor? Or maybe it’s Eleanor herself. Maybe she’s tired already of Augustus Noble’s cock pounding into her, and she’s found another distraction.”
Even from a distance, Mason could see his gait was clumsy and stumbling, could hear the distinctive slur in his words. He caught the pungent whiff of brandy in the air as Jean Luc spoke.
“You’re drunk,” he said. “Go home, sleep it off, before you do something you’ll regret in the morrow.”
“Or maybe…” Jean Luc continued on as if Mason hadn’t spoken with a thin smile. “Maybe that was the plan all along—yours and Eleanor’s. Maybe that’s why you left my brother to die on the dueling field—so you could enjoy the fruits of Augustus’s victory right along with him.”
“That’s preposterous,” Mason told him evenly. “And I did not leave Victor to die. Your father refused to allow him any care. His wound was mortal. Even if I’d—”
“You know how long he lay there, drowning on his own blood?” Jean Luc asked. “Twenty-three minutes. I had my pocket watch in hand. You and your rot bastard of a father—you let Victor suffer like that for twenty-three minutes. And for what? A taste of Eleanor’s pussy?” His crooked smile widened and he uttered a low chuckle. “Perhaps, then, I’ll take a taste, too—and a piece of it besides—when I’m through with you…see for myself what the fuss is about.” Again, he cut his gaze beyond Mason toward the springhouse. “You hear that, you bloody bitch?” he shouted. “When I’m finished with your pretty boyfriend here, I’m coming for your ass next!”
“There’s no one here but me,” Mason said. “Now get on your horse, Jean Luc, and get the hell out of here.”
“Or what, Morin?” Jean Luc shot back. “You’ll make me? You’ll take out your pig-sticker and try to stab me with it, like you did with Victor? Do your worst, you coward fuck. My father will sing my praises all the more when I bring your cock home to him—split from your form by your own bloody blade.”
“I didn’t—” Mason began, but no more than this escaped his lips before Jean Luc swung at him, his hand closed into a fist. His knuckles smashed into the side of Mason’s face,
leaving him blinking against a sudden scattering of sparkling lights as he floundered backwards, caught off guard and knocked off balance. The lantern fell to the ground, the glass shattering, the flame abruptly dying, and then Mason toppled with it. He landed hard on his side and felt the tickle of blood in his nose split seconds before it came streaming from his left nostril, a sudden, gory flood.
“You’re a murderer!” Jean Luc cried, coming at him again, his fists already in motion. He didn’t give Mason the chance to catch his breath, never mind get on his feet again; he started to pummel Mason. “A bloody goddamn murderer who left Victor to die!”
One of his blows caught Mason in the eye, another in the ear, and a third, the mouth. Mason held up his hands, helpless to reclaim his wits, unable to stop the rain of punches that fell upon him furiously, brutally. As he crumpled into a fetal position, crying out hoarsely, Jean Luc drew his foot back and punted him viciously in the groin, then again in the ass. His voice had dissolved into a garbled stream of obscenities and indistinguishable sounds. Mason managed to glance up and see him towering above him, spittle flying from his lips, his eyes glazed over with the blackness of the bloodlust.
And then, with a blur of sudden motion, he was gone. Mason heard Julien utter a hoarse, furious cry as he tackled his brother, knocking Jean Luc sideways and away from Mason. The two tumbled together on the ground, with Julien winding up straddling Jean Luc’s hips. His pupils, too, had fully engorged with the bloodlust, and his mouth hung open, his lips curled back to reveal the wicked lengths of his gleaming fangs. Julien reared his fist back and drove it forward with brutal force, ramming the bridge of his knuckles into Jean Luc’s mouth. Without hesitating, he drew his hand back and punched him again. Then again. Then again. He began alternating fists, driving them into his brother’s face with ruthless ferocity, while Jean Luc flailed helplessly beneath him, shrieking like a wounded bird.
“Julien…” Mason groaned, pushing himself up from the ground. He couldn’t count the blows, Julien’s fists moved so fast, but he could hear the sounds—moist, horrible, crunching—as they hit home, knocking teeth loose, splintering bones, pounding into flesh. He could smell Jean Luc’s blood as it spattered and sprayed; with every swing of Julien’s arms, it flew in a wide arc.
“Julien!” he cried, because even with his head reeling from Jean Luc’s attack, he couldn’t believe the ferocity he witnessed; the sheer, violent rage Julien wordlessly unleashed. He stumbled to his feet, rushing to get his arms around Julien, to haul him backwards and away from Jean Luc before he killed him—because Mason had no doubt in his mind that he would, that something wounded and murderous he’d only ever seen in those fleeting glimpses of hardness in Julien’s face and eyes had now come fully to the surface, and he wouldn’t stop.
“Julien…!” he gasped, his arms locked around Julien’s waist as he dragged him, nearly hoisting him off his feet, away from Jean Luc. Julien struggled against him, snarling and snapping like an enraged dog, and God, in that moment, Mason didn’t know him at all; he was terrified of him. “Julien, goddammit, stop!”
He shouted this in Julien’s mind, too, and it served as the proverbial slap in his face, snapping him from whatever spell he’d fallen under. Immediately, his body went lax in Mason’s arms, his fists drooping to his sides, the fight draining out of him. He hung his head and gasped for labored breath.
“Stop,” Mason said again, and even though Julien nodded, Mason didn’t loosen his grasp in the slightest, keeping his hands locked together just beneath Julien’s sternum. “Just stop.”
Jean Luc lay on the ground, his face a bloody, battered mess. Already his eyes were beginning to swell shut with bruising, his lips puffing out like overstuffed leeches. His cheeks and chin were smeared with blood, his mouth lacerated, his nose misshapen and bashed. With a groan, he started to move. His hands trembled as he pawed at the ground, trying to roll himself onto his side so he could get his feet beneath him. He kicked weakly, moaning and whimpering as he limped to his feet, then swayed unsteadily, nearly crashing to the ground again. He blinked at Julien and Mason—taking into account their state of dress, or lack thereof—and his eyes widened with stunned realization.
“You…” he croaked, staring back and forth between the two of them. “You were…”
“Go home, Jean Luc,” Mason told him, his voice cold and remarkably steady, considering inside he felt tremulous and afraid. “Go on now. Get your ass on your horse and get out of here.”
“You’ve been out here buggering,” Jean Luc whispered, still swaying unsteadily. He tried to laugh, and blood peppered out of his mouth. “The two of you…you’re a couple of…bloody damn Mollies…!”
“Call me a Molly again.” Julien lunged unexpectedly forward, nearly breaking free from Mason’s grasp. Jean Luc uttered a frightened squeal and floundered backwards, wheeling about and stumbling for his horse. “Come on, you bastard—say it again!”
“They’re going to burn you for this,” Jean Luc gasped, scrambling up into his saddle and with a sharp jerk of the reins, turning the stallion. “You…crazy rot, Father’s going to see to that. They’ll burn you both.”
“You tell anyone and you’ll burn with us!” Julien cried, fists bared as Jean Luc kicked his horse, spurring it to a gallop. “You hear me? I’ll say you were with us—I’ll say it was the three of us together, you son of a bitch!”
Jean Luc didn’t answer. He didn’t as much as look back as his horse ran off into the night, disappearing into the darkness beyond the trees. The thundering rush of its hoof beats faded, and only then did Julien relax, his breath shuddering from him in a heavy sigh.
“He won’t say anything,” he whispered, reaching up to clasp his hands against Mason’s restraining arms. “It’s alright. I know he won’t. Come on, let me go. I have to find Az.”
CHAPTER NINE
Mason awoke with a start at the fleeting brush of soft fingertips against his arm. Of course, he didn’t realize they were fingertips at first; he jerked in bed, his legs tangling in the thin, threadbare blankets, mistaking the tickling sensation for an insect or spider. His eyes flew wide and he sat up with a gasp, completely disoriented. For a moment, he expected to find himself in his chateau in Lake Tahoe, or his house in California, his spacious king-sized bed, and Jaime, his sometime-errant lover asleep beside him.
Instead he saw a tiny room, no bigger than a bathroom or walk-in closet, with no furnishings other than the narrow twin-sized cot on which he’d been asleep—and from which his legs extended past the rusted metal footboard from the ankles down—and a TV-tray sized folding table with digital alarm clock beside him.
“What the—?” he croaked, confused and alarmed. Then he caught sight of the girl standing next to his bed and immediately remembered where he was, what had happened to him.
“Sofiya?” he said, raking his fingers through the thick crown of his hair, pushing it back from his face. “What…what is it?” He glanced at the alarm clock and realized the time: twenty minutes past three in the morning. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
She blinked at him, her lithe frame shadow-draped, her dark hair framing her face. He remembered that she couldn’t speak English, and mopped at his hair again with his hand, trying to clear the cobwebs of exhaustion from his mind enough to figure out how to communicate with her.
Andrei had given him a tour of the narrow old Anglo-Italianate-styled rowhouse before showing him to the cramped quarters on the uppermost fourth floor that served as his quarters. It might have been beautiful once, even elegant, with vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors, its crown molding and cornices all elaborately carved. Now, it was worthy of demolition; no running water save for that which leaked in abundance through the weather-beaten roof, broken plaster, peeling wallpaper, chipped paint and twining cracks all through the walls and ceilings. The smell of cigarette smoke, marijuana, urine, and decay were all thick and heady in the air.
As Andrei had told him before, more than a doz
en young women, including Sofiya, called the brownstone home—fresh-faced immigrants from Eastern Europe, most of whom had been lured by the promise of high-paying jobs or wealthy American husbands. But instead of these dream lives, they found themselves in a nightmare, servicing the sexual demands of Nikolić and his men. They were forced into compliance through the use of shock collars similar to Mason’s, and through the use of illegal drugs, primarily heroin. Only a few of the guards stayed at the brothel to watch over the girls, but Mason had seen plenty more coming and going on a fairly consistent basis.
It had taken a seeming eternity for him to fall asleep. Through the thin walls of his bedroom, he’d listened to the squeaking of bedsprings, interjected with a woman’s soft, whimpering cries and the distinctive slap of skin against skin. He’d heard men laughing, the muffled sounds of loud pop music filtering up through the floorboards, and footsteps—more than he could count—stomping and pounding up and down the hallways and staircases. He felt almost thankful for the goddamn collar Nikolić had forced him to wear, because it prevented him from sensing the thoughts of those around him—especially the sad-faced, timid girls like Sofiya he’d met during his tour, time and time again.
With sudden horror, he realized Sofiya might be there to offer him sexual favors. He’d already declined the advances of three such girls—one of whom had scars up and down her arm, as if she’d been sliced open by razors, and who told him he could also feed from her if he’d wished.
“Šef say it on the house,” she’d said in broken English, with a dazed sort of smile. He’d smelled something strange about her—the heroin she’d been high on gave her blood an unusual odor—and she’d seemed unbothered when he’d politely declined.
“Sofiya, I…” he began, feeling awkward and dismayed. When she reached out and clasped him by the hand, his alarm mounted, and he tried to draw back. “Listen to me, ma chère. I…I can’t…”