by J. R. Ward
Rehv rose to his feet and palmed his cane. “The Brotherhood already knows about me.”
“How?” Xhex breathed.
He thought about the little lip/fang thing he and the Brother, Phury, had shared and decided to keep that on the down-low. “They just do. And now that my sister’s mated to a Brother, I’m a member of the frickin’ family. So even if the Princeps Council found out, those warriors would keep them at bay.”
Too bad his blackmailer was unaffected by the ways of the Normals. Symphaths, he was learning, made very bad enemies. No wonder his kind were hated.
“You sure about that?” Xhex said.
“It would kill Bella if I were sent to one of those colonies. You think that hellren of hers would stand for her being upset like that, especially as she’s pregnant? Z’s one mean-ass motherfucker and he is very protective of her. So, yeah, I’m sure.”
“She ever guessed about you?”
“No.” And though Zsadist knew, he wasn’t going to tell his mate. No way he’d put Bella in that position. Laws read that if you knew of a symphath you had to report him or her or face prosecution.
Rehv came around the desk, relying on his cane now that Xhex was the only one around. The dopamine he shot himself up with regularly kept the worst of the symphath urges at bay, enabling him to pass for a Normal. He wasn’t sure how Xhex managed it. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But the thing was, with his sense of touch gone, he had to use a cane or he was liable to fall. After all, depth perception got you only so far when you couldn’t feel your feet or legs.
“You don’t worry,” he said. “No one knows what either one of us are. And it’s going to stay that way.”
Gray eyes stared up at him. “Are you feeding her, Rehv.” Not a question. A demand. “Are you feeding Marissa?”
“That’s my business, not yours.”
She shot to her feet. “Goddamn you—we agreed. Twenty-five years ago when I had my little problem, we agreed. No mates. No feeding with Normals. What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m in control and this conversation is over.” He checked his watch. “And what do you know, it’s closing time and you need a break. The Moors can lock up.”
She glared at him for a moment. “I don’t leave until the job is done—”
“I’m telling you to go home, not being nice. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“No offense, but fuck you, Rehvenge.”
She stalked over to the door, moving like the killer she was. As he watched her go, he was reminded that this security stuff for him was nothing compared to what she was capable of.
“Xhex,” he said, “maybe we were wrong about the mating.”
She sent an are-you-stupid? frown over her shoulder. “You shoot yourself up twice a day. You think Marissa wouldn’t notice that eventually? How about the fact that you have to go to her brother the good doctor for the neuromodulator you rely on? Besides, what would an aristocrat like her say about all…this?” She swept her arm around his office. “We weren’t wrong. You’re just forgetting the whys of it all.”
The door eased shut behind her and Rehv looked down at his numb body. He pictured Marissa, so pure and beautiful, so different from the other females he was around, so different from Xhex…who he fed from.
He wanted Marissa, was half in love with her at this point. And the male in him wanted to claim what was his even though his drugs made him impotent. Except surely he wouldn’t hurt what he loved, even if his dark parts were out? Right?
He thought of her, wearing her lovely haute couture gowns, so properly dressed, so genteel, so…clean. The glymera was wrong about her. She wasn’t defective; she was perfect.
He smiled, his body flushing up with a burn that only hard-core orgasms could douse. It was getting to be that time of the month, so she would be calling him soon. Yeah, she would need him again…soon. As his blood was diluted, she had to feed with gratifying frequency, and the last time had been almost three weeks ago.
She would be calling him within days. And he couldn’t wait to be of service to her.
V got back to the Brotherhood’s compound with minutes to spare, materializing just outside the gatehouse’s front door. He’d hoped his kind of sex would have taken the edge off of him, but no, he was still bladed as shit.
He went through the Pit’s vestibule and disarmed along the way, all tensed up and so ready for a shower to get the smell of the female off him. He should have been hungry; instead, all he wanted was some Grey Goose.
“Butch, my man!” he called out.
Silence.
V walked down the hall to the cop’s bedroom. “You crashed?”
He pushed open the door. The king-sized bed was empty. So maybe the cop was up at the main house?
V jogged through the Pit and put his head out through the vestibule’s door. A quick glance around at the cars parked in the courtyard and his heart went snare drum on him. No Escalade. So Butch wasn’t at the compound.
With the sky beginning to lighten off to the east, the glow of day stung V’s eyes, so he ducked back into the house and sat down behind his bank of computers. Firing up the coordinates on the Escalade, he saw that the SUV was parked behind Screamer’s.
Which was good. At least Butch wasn’t wrapped around a tree—
V froze. Slowly, he pushed his hand into the back pocket of his leathers, a horrible feeling coming over him, hot and prickly like a rash. Flipping open the Razr, he accessed his voice mail. First message was a hang-up from Butch’s number.
As the second message clicked on, the Pit’s steel shutters started to come down for the day.
V frowned. There was only a hissing sound coming from the voice mail. But then a clatter had him yanking the phone away from his ear.
Now Butch’s voice, hard, loud: “Dematerialize. Dematerialize now.”
A scared male: “But—but—”
“Now! For fuck’s sake, get your ass out of here…” Sounds of muffled flapping.
“Why are you doing this? You’re just a human—”
“I am so sick of hearing that. Leave!”
There was a metallic shifting, a gun being reloaded.
Butch’s voice: “Oh, shit…”
Then all hell broke loose. Gunshots, grunts, thuds.
V leaped up from his desk so fast he knocked his chair over.
Only to realize he was trapped inside by daylight.
Chapter Four
The first thing Butch thought when he came around was that someone needed to turn that faucet off. The drip, drip, drip was annoying.
Then he cracked an eyelid and realized his own blood was pulling the Kohler routine. Oh…right. He’d been beaten and he was leaking.
This had been a long, long, very bad day. How many hours had he been interrogated? Twelve? Felt like a thousand.
He tried to take a deep breath, but some of his ribs were broken, so he picked hypoxia over more pain. Man, thanks to his captor’s attentions, everything hurt like a motherfucker, but at least the lesser had sealed up that gunshot wound.
Just to keep the questioning going longer.
The only saving grace to the nightmare was that not one thing about the Brotherhood had passed his lips. Not a thing. Even when the slayer went to work on his fingernails and between his legs. Butch was going to die soon, but at least he could look Saint Peter in the eye and know he wasn’t a squealer when he got to heaven.
Or had he died and gone to hell? Was that what all this was about? Given some of the shit he’d pulled on earth, he could see why he’d ended up in the devil’s guesthouse. But then wouldn’t his torturer have horns, like demons did?
Okay, he was flirting with Looney Tunes here.
He opened his eyes a little farther, figuring it was time to try to separate reality from mind-grinding nonsense. He had a feeling this was probably his last shot at consciousness, so he should make it count.
Vision was blurry. Hands…feet…yup, chained down. And he was still l
ying on something hard, a table. Room was…dark. Dirt smell meant he was probably in a basement. Bald lightbulb revealed…yeah, the torture tool kit. He looked away from the spread of sharp things, shuddering.
What was that sound? A dim roar. Getting louder. Louder.
As soon as it was cut off, a door opened upstairs and Butch heard a man say in a muffled voice, “Master.”
Soft reply. Indistinct. Then a conversation, with one set of footsteps pacing around, causing dust to filter down from the floorboards. Eventually, another door squeaked open, and the stairs next to him started to creak.
Butch broke out in a cold sweat and lowered his eyelids. Through the cracks between his lashes, he watched what came at him.
First guy was the lesser who’d been working him out, the guy from over the summer, from the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy—Joseph Xavier was his name, if Butch remembered correctly. The other was draped from head to foot in a brilliant white robe, his face and hands completely covered. Looked like some kind of monk or priest.
Except that was no man of God under there. As Butch absorbed the person’s vibe, he couldn’t breathe from his repulsion. Whatever was hidden by that robe was distilled evil, the kind that mobilized serial killers and rapists and murderers and people who enjoyed beating their children: hatred and malevolence in an upright, solid form.
Butch’s fear level shot through the roof. He could handle being knocked around; the pain was bitch, but there was a definable end point marked by when his heart stopped beating. But whatever was hiding under that robe held mysteries of suffering the likes of which were biblical. And how did he know? His whole body was revolting, his instincts firing off to run, save himself…pray.
Words came to him, marching through his mind. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…
The robed figure’s hood turned toward Butch with the boneless swivel of an owl’s head.
Butch slammed his lids shut and hurried through the Twenty-third Psalm. Faster…needed to get the words into his mind, faster. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters…. He restoreth my soul; Heleadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake…
“This man is the one?” The voice that reverberated through the basement tripped Butch up, making him lose his rhythm: It was resonant and carried an echo, something out of a sci-fi movie with all that eerie distortion.
“His gun had the Brotherhood’s bullets in it.”
Get back to the Psalm. And do it faster. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—
“I know you wake, human.” The echoing voice shot right into Butch’s ear. “Look upon me and know your captor’s master.”
Butch opened his eyes, turned his head, and swallowed compulsively. The face staring down into his was condensed blackness, a shadow come to life.
The Omega.
The Evil laughed a little. “So you know what I am, do you?” It straightened. “Given you anything, has he, Fore-lesser?”
“I’m not finished.”
“Ah, so that is no. And you have worked him well, given how close to death he is. Yes, I can feel it coming to him. So close.” The Omega bent down again and inhaled the air over Butch’s body. “Yes, within the hour. Maybe less.”
“He’ll last as long as I want him to.”
“No, he won’t.” The Omega started to circle the table and Butch tracked the movement, terror getting tighter and tighter, strengthening in the centrifugal force of the Evil’s pacing. Around, around, around…Butch trembled so badly his teeth clapped together.
The shaking dried up the second the Omega came to a halt at the far end of the table. Shadowy hands lifted up, grasped the white robe’s hood, and pulled it off. Overhead, the bald lightbulb flickered as if its illumination were sucked in by the black form.
“You are letting him go,” the Omega said, that voice like a wave, filtered and enhanced by the air in turns. “You are leaving him out in the woods. You are telling the others to stay away from him.”
What? Butch thought.
“What?” the Fore-lesser said.
“The Brotherhood has among its weaknesses a paralyzing loyalty, do they not? Yes, paralyzing fidelity. They claim what is theirs. It is the animal in them.” The Omega held out its hand. “A knife, please. I am of a mind to make this human useful.”
“You just said he was going to die.”
“But I’m going to give him a little life, as it were. As well as a gift. Knife.”
Butch’s eyes cracked wide open as an eight-inch hunting number was exchanged.
The Omega placed one hand on the table, put the blade to the tip of its finger, and bore down. There was a crack, like a carrot had been cut.
The Omega leaned over Butch. “Where to hide, where to hide…”
As the knife came up and hovered over Butch’s abdomen, Butch screamed. And he was still screaming as a shallow slice was made into his belly. Then the Omega picked up the little part of itself, the black digit.
Butch fought, yanking against the binds. Horror had his eyes bulging until the pressure on his optic nerves blinded him.
The Omega inserted its fingertip into Butch’s gut, then bent low and blew over the fresh cut. The skin sealed up, the flesh knitting together. Immediately, Butch felt the rotting inside him, sensed the evil worming around, moving. He lifted his head. The skin around the cut was already turning gray.
Tears raced to his eyes. Seeped down his raw cheeks.
“Release him.”
The Fore-lesser went to work on the chains, but when they were off, Butch realized he couldn’t move. He was paralyzed.
“I will take him,” the Omega said. “And he will survive and find his way back to the Brotherhood.”
“They’ll sense you.”
“Perhaps, but they will take him.”
“He’ll tell them.”
“No, because he won’t remember me.” The Omega’s face tilted toward Butch. “You won’t remember a thing.”
As their stares met, Butch could feel the affinity between them, could sense the bond, the sameness. He wept for the violation of himself, but more for the Brotherhood. They would take him in. They would try to help him in whatever way they could.
And sure as the evil in him, he would end up betraying them.
Except maybe Vishous or the brothers wouldn’t find him. How could they? And with no clothes on, surely he would die from exposure fast.
The Omega reached out and wiped the tears from one of Butch’s cheeks. The shimmer of wetness was iridescent against those translucent black fingers, and Butch wanted what had come out of him back. Not to be. Lifting the hand to its mouth, the Evil savored Butch’s pain and fear, licking…sucking.
Despair scrambled Butch’s memory, but the faith he’d thought he’d foresworn spit out another line of the Psalm: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
But that was no longer possible now, was it? He had evil inside him, under his skin.
The Omega smiled, though Butch didn’t know how he knew it. “Pity we don’t have more time, as you are in a fragile state. But there will be opportunities for you and me in the future. What I claim as my own always comes back to me. Now, sleep.”
And like a lamp being clicked off, Butch did.
“Answer the fucking question, Vishous.”
V looked away from his king just as the grandfather clock in the corner of the study started to go off. It stopped at four chimes, so it was four in the afternoon. The Brotherhood had been in Wrath’s command central all day long, prowling around the ridiculously elegant Louis XIV salon, saturating the delicate air of the place with their anger.
“Vishous,” Wrath growled, “I’m waiting. How will you know how to find the cop? And why didn’t you mention this before now?”
Because he’d known it was going to create problems, and their shopping c
art of shit was already full.
As V tried to think of what he could say, he looked at his brothers. Phury was on the pale blue silk couch in front of the fireplace, his body dwarfing the piece of furniture, his multicolored hair now back down past his jawline. Z was behind his twin, up against the mantel, his eyes back to black because he was enraged. Rhage was by the door, his beautiful face set in a nasty expression, his shoulders twitching as if his inner beast was likewise rip shit pissed.
And then there was Wrath. Behind a dainty desk, the Blind King was all menace, his cruel visage set hard, his weak eyes hidden behind black-framed wraparounds. His heavy forearms, marked on the insides with tattoos of his pure-blooded lineage, were planted on a gold-embossed blotter.
That Tohr was not with the group was a gaping wound to all of them.
“V? Answer the question or so help me God I’ll beat it out of you.”
“I just know how to find him.”
“What are you hiding?”
V went over to the bar, poured himself a couple fingers of Grey Goose, and hammered the shot. He swallowed a number of times and then let the words fly.
“I fed him.”
A chorus of inhales floated around the room. As Wrath rose in disbelief, V poured himself another hit of Goose.
“You did what?” The last word was bellowed.
“I had him drink some of me.”
“Vishous…” Wrath stalked around the desk, shitkickers hitting the floor like boulders. The king got face-to-face close. “He’s a male. He’s human. What the fuck were you thinking?”
More vodka. Definitely time for more Goose.
V swallowed the shot and poured number four. “With my blood in him, I can find him and that’s why I had him drink. I saw…that I was supposed to. So I did it, and I would do it again.”
Wrath wheeled away and paced around the room, hands cranked into fists. As the boss man walked off frustration, the rest of the Brotherhood looked over with curiosity.