by J. R. Ward
God, where the hell was this wild jealousy coming from?
“But he knows I don’t feel that way about him.”
“Has he kissed you?”
When she didn’t reply, Butch was very glad he didn’t know the Joe’s name and address. “You’re not using him anymore. You have me.”
“Butch, I can’t feed from you. I’ll take too—where are you going?”
He stalked across the room, shut the double doors, and locked them in together. As he came back at her, he tossed his black suit jacket on the floor and ripped open his shirt, the buttons popping off and flying everywhere. Falling to his knees in front of her, he tilted back his head and offered his throat, himself, to her.
“You will use me.”
There was a long silence. Then her scent, that gorgeous clean fragrance, intensified until it flooded the room. Her body began to shake, her mouth opening.
As her fangs unsheathed, he got an instant erection.
“Oh…yeah,” he said in a dark voice. “Take me. I need to feed you.”
“No,” she moaned, tears glowing in her cornflower blue eyes.
She made a move to get up, but he jumped at her, taking her by the shoulders, holding her down on the couch. He moved himself between her legs, bringing their bodies together, getting all up in her. While she trembled against him and pushed at him, he kept her close, nuzzling her, nipping her ear, sucking on her jaw. Before long, she stopped fighting to get away. And started gripping the two halves of his shirt to pull him in tighter.
“That’s right, baby,” he growled. “You grab on to me. Let me feel those fangs get into me deep. I want it.”
He palmed the back of her head and brought her mouth to his throat. As an arc of pure sexual power exploded between them, they both began to pant, her breath and tears hot on his skin.
But then she seemed to come to her senses. She struggled hard and he did his best to keep her in place, even though they were both going to end up with bruises. And even though he was ultimately going to lose the fight against her. As he was just a human, she was stronger, even though he outweighed her by well over a hundred pounds.
But hopefully she would give in and use him before his energy flagged.
“Marissa, please, take me,” he groaned, his voice hoarse from the struggle and now the begging.
“No…”
His heart broke as she sobbed, but he didn’t let her go. He couldn’t. “Take what’s inside of me. I know I’m not good enough, but take me anyway—”
“Don’t make me do this—”
“I have to.” God, he felt like crying with her.
“Butch…” Her body bucked and strained against his, their clothes flapping as they struggled. “I can’t hold back…for much longer…let me go…before I hurt you.”
“Never.”
It happened so fast. His name shot out of her on a yell and then he felt a searing blaze of pain at the side of his throat.
Her fangs sinking into his jugular.
“Oh…fuck…yes…!” He loosened his grip and cradled her as she latched on to his neck. He barked her name at the first erotic draw, the first hard suck on his vein, the first swallow for her. As she repositioned for a better angle, pleasure swamped him, sparks flowing all through his body as if he were orgasming. This was so the way it had to be. He needed her to take from him in order to live—
Marissa broke the contact and dematerialized, right out of his arms.
Butch fell headfirst into the empty air where she’d been, face-planting into the sofa cushions. In a messy scramble, he shoved himself to his feet and spun around. “Marissa! Marissa!”
He threw himself at the doors and clawed at the lock, but couldn’t get free.
Then he heard her broken, desperate voice on the other side. “I’ll kill you…God help me, but I’ll kill you…I want you too much.”
He pounded on the door. “Let me out!”
“I’m sorry—” Her voice cracked, then grew strong. And he feared her resolve more than anything else. “I’m so sorry. I’ll come to you afterward. After it is done.”
“Marissa, don’t do this—”
“I love you.”
He beat the wood with his fists. “I don’t care if I die! Don’t go to him!”
When the lock finally gave way, he burst into the hall and ran flat out for the staircase.
But by the time he threw open the mansion’s front door she was gone.
Across town, in the underground parking garage where the brokered fights took place, Van hopped into the chicken-wire cage and bounced on the balls of his feet. The drumbeat of him warming up echoed through the concrete levels, cutting off the silence.
Tonight there was no crowd, just three people. But he was juiced like it was standing room only.
Van was the one who’d suggested the locale to Mr. X, and he’d shown them how to break into the place. As he knew the schedule of fights, he’d been sure there wouldn’t be anyone around this evening and a big part of him wanted to have his glory, his resurrection here in this ring, not in some anonymous basement somewhere.
He tried out some kicks, so very satisfied with his strength, then eyed his opponent. The other lesser was just as lit for the hand-to-hand as he was.
From the other side of the cage, Xavier barked, “You don’t stop until it’s over. And Mr. D, on the ground unmoving is not ‘over,’ we clear?”
Van nodded, already used to being called by his last initial.
“Good.” Xavier’s palms clapped together and the fight was Van and the other lesser circled each other, but Van had no intention of letting the slow-dance crap go on for long. He moved in first, throwing punches, forcing his opponent back against the cage. The guy took the bare-knuckled pounders like they were nothing more than spring rain on his cheeks and then tossed out a mean-ass right hook. The damn thing caught Van at an angle, splitting his lip open like an envelope.
It hurt, but the pain was good, a strengthener, something that focused him further. Van spun around and sent his foot out flying, a body bomb on the end of a steel chain. Sure as shit it took the lesser down, sprawling the guy flat. Van jumped on his opponent and cranked him into a submission hold, wrenching one arm back and around so the joints strained at the shoulder and elbow. Just a little tighter and he was going to pop this sucker right off—
The lesser pulled a smoothie, somehow nailing Van in the balls with his knee. Quick switch of positions and Van was on the bottom. Then another roll and they were up on their feet.
The fight went on and on, no time-outs, no breathers, the two of them battering the holy hell out of each other. It was flipping miraculous. Van felt like he could go for hours, no matter how beat up his body got. It was like he had an engine in him, a driving force, one that was not as dulled by exhaustion or pain as his old self had been.
When the break in the action finally came, the tipping factor was Van’s special…whatever it was. Though the two of them were identically matched for strength, Van was the master at this, and he saw the opening for the win. He popped the other slayer in the gut, nailing a liver shot that would have left a human opponent shitting in his shorts. Then he picked his opponent up and slammed him down onto the ring floor. As he mounted the body and looked down, Van’s blood welled from the cuts around his eyes and dropped onto the guy’s face like tears…black tears.
The color momentarily freaked Van out, and the other lesser took advantage of the lapse in focus by spinning him over onto his back.
Yeah, not happening, not this time. Van balled his fist and rammed it into the guy’s temple at exactly the right force and the right place, knocking the lesser stupid. With a quick surge, Van kicked his opponent over, straddled the slayer’s chest and repeated the punch over and over again, battering the skull until the bone helmet went soft. And he just kept going, sticking to the task until the very structure of the man’s face let go, the head becoming a loose bag, his opponent dead and then some.
> “Finish him!” Xavier called from the sidelines.
Van looked up, panting hard. “I just did.”
“No…finish him!”
“How?”
“You should know what to do!” Xavier’s pale eyes shined with an eerie desperation. “You must!”
Van wasn’t clear on exactly how much deader he could make the guy, but he grabbed the lesser by the ears and twisted until the neck snapped. Then he eased off the body. Though he had no heart that beat anymore, his lungs burned and his body was deliciously logy from exertion…except the logy didn’t last.
He started to laugh. Already the strength was returning to him, just pouring in from somewhere else as if he’d eaten and slept and recovered for days.
Xavier’s boots landed hard in the ring and the Fore-lesser strode over, furious. “I told you to finish him, goddamn it.”
“Uh-huh. Right.” Christ. Xavier just had to suck the triumph out of the moment. “You think he’s walking away from this?”
Xavier shook with rage as he took out a knife. “I told you to finish him.”
Van tensed up and leaped to his feet. But Xavier just bent over that messy, punching bag of a lesser and stabbed the thing in the chest. There was a flash of light and then…gone. Nothing but black smudges on the ring’s tarmac.
Van backed up until he hit the fencing. “What the hell…”
From across the way, Xavier pointed the knife right at Van’s chest. “I have expectations for you.”
“Like…what?”
“You should be able to do that”—he jabbed toward the disintegration mark with the blade—“on your own.”
“So give me a knife next round.”
Xavier shook his head, a bizarre kind of panic flaring in his face. “Fuck!” He paced around, then muttered, “It’s just going to take time. Let’s go.”
“What about the blood?” Man, that oily black stuff suddenly made him dizzy.
“Like I give a shit?” Xavier picked up the dead lesser’s duffel bag and left.
As Van followed him out of the parking garage, he found it really fucking annoying that Mr. X was playing it like this. The fight had been a good one and Van had won. He wanted to enjoy the feeling.
In strained silence, the two of them headed for the minivan, which was parked blocks away. As they went along, Van scrubbed his face with a towel and tried not to curse. When they got to the car, Xavier slid behind the wheel.
“Where are we going?” Van asked as he got in.
Xavier didn’t answer, just started to drive, so Van stared out the windshield, wondering how he could get away from the guy. Not easily, he suspected.
As they passed by a new skyscraper that was going up, he eyed the men pulling the nightshift. Under electric lights, the union crews were all over the building like ants, and he envied them even though he’d hated doing what they did.
Man, if he were still one of them, he wouldn’t be dealing with Mr. X’s crap attitude.
On a whim, Van lifted his right hand and looked at his missing pinkie, remembering how he’d done it. So fucking stupid. He’d been at a construction site, cutting boards on a table saw, and decided to take the guards off the machine to make the process go faster. One lapse of focus later and his finger had ended up flying through the air with the greatest of ease. The blood loss had seemed tremendous, the stuff leaking all over him, covering the saw’s flat back, soaking into the ground. Red, not black.
Van put his hand to his chest and felt nothing beating behind his breastbone.
Anxiety trembled down the back of his neck, like spiders slipping under his collar. He glanced at Xavier, the only resource he had. “Are we alive?”
“No.”
“But that guy was killed, right? So we must be alive.”
Xavier’s eyes shot across the seat. “We’re not alive. Trust me.”
“What happened to him, then?”
Exhaustion flared in Xavier’s pale, dead stare, the drooping of his lids making him look like he was a million years old.
“What happened to him, Mr. X?”
The Fore-lesser didn’t answer, just kept on driving.
Chapter Twenty-four
Marissa materialized on the terrace of Rehvenge’s penthouse and nearly collapsed. As she lurched for the sliding door, he opened it wide.
“Marissa, good God.” He shot his arm around her and pulled her inside.
Overcome with bloodlust, she gripped his biceps, the thirst in her so strong she was liable to bite him where he stood. To keep from ripping his throat open, she yanked out of his hold, but he caught her and spun her around.
“Come over here right now!” He all but threw her on the couch. “You’re about to shock out on me.”
As she hit the cushions in a heap, she knew he was right. Her body was wildly off balance, her head spinning, her hands and feet numb. Her stomach was an empty, grinding pit, her fangs throbbing, her throat dry as winter, hot as August.
But when he yanked his tie off and popped the buttons on his shirt, she mumbled, “Not at your throat. I can’t bear that…not your—”
“You’re too far gone for the wrist. You won’t get enough and we’re out of time.”
As if on cue, her vision started to dim and she began to pass out. She heard him swear and then he pulled her on top of him, shoved her face in his neck and…
Biology took over. She bit him so hard she felt his big body jerk and she sucked at him with mindless instinct. With a great roar, his strength poured into her gut and spread out to her limbs and made her body come back to life.
As she swallowed with desperation, her tears flowed as thick as his blood.
Rehvenge held Marissa loosely, hating the starvation that rode her so hard. She was such a fragile, delicate thing. She should never be in this desperate state, and he ran his hands up and down her willowy back, trying to calm her. While she cried silently, he got pissed. Christ, what was wrong with that male she was so into? How could he force her to come to another?
Ten minutes later, she lifted her head. There was a little streak of blood on her lower lip and Rehv had to grab onto the sofa arm so he didn’t lean up and lick it off.
With satiated grace but a face marked by tears, Marissa eased back against the leather cushions at the other end of the couch and cradled herself with her thin arms. She closed her eyes and he watched the color float back into her wet cheeks.
God, look at that hair of hers. So fine. So lush. So perfect. He wanted to be naked and unmedicated and hard as a stone, with those blond waves all over his body. And if he couldn’t have all that, he wanted to kiss her. Right now.
Instead, he reached for his suit coat, grabbed his handkerchief, and leaned over to her. She jumped as he blotted her tears, and she took the linen square from him quickly.
He went back to his corner of the sofa. “Marissa, come stay with me. I want to take care of you.”
In the silence that followed, he thought about where she was staying—and figured the male she wanted had to be at the Brotherhood’s compound. “You’re still in love with Wrath, aren’t you.”
Her eyes flipped open. “What?”
“You said you couldn’t feed from the male you wanted. Wrath’s mated now—”
“It’s not him.”
“Phury, then? As a celibate—”
“No, and I—I just can’t talk about it, if you don’t mind.” She looked down at his handkerchief. “Rehvenge, I would really love some time alone. May I sit here for a little while? By myself?”
Even though he wasn’t used to being dismissed, especially not from his own turf, he was so willing to cut her some slack. “Stay as long as you like, tahlly. Just close the slider when you leave. I’ll remote the alarm after you go.”
As he put his suit coat on, he left his tie loose and his shirt collar open because she’d chewed him raw and the bite marks were too tender to be covered. Not that he cared in the slightest.
“You are so kind
to me,” she said, staring at his loafers.
“Actually, I’m not.”
“How can you say that? You never ask for anything in return—”
“Marissa, look at me. Look at me.” Dear Virgin in the Fade, she was beautiful. Especially with his blood in her. “Don’t kid yourself. I still want you as my shellan. I want you naked in my bed. I want you swelling up with my young in your body. I want…yeah, the whole thing with you. I don’t do this to be nice, I do it to get under your skin. I do it because I hope I can someday, somehow get you where I want you to be.”
As her eyes peeled wide, he kept the rest to himself. No reason to air the fact that the symphath in him wanted to crawl around in her head and own every emotion she ever felt. Or share the reality that sex with him would be…complicated.
Ah, the joys of his nature. And his anomaly.
“But I want you to trust in something, Marissa. I won’t ever cross the line if you don’t want me to.”
Besides, Xhex was probably right. Half-breeds like him did better going solo. Even if symphaths weren’t discriminated against and could mate and live like Normals, they should never be with someone who was defenseless against their dark side.
He pulled on his floor-length sable coat. “This male of yours…he better get with the program. Damn fucking waste of a female of worth like you.” Rehv grabbed his cane and headed for the door. “If you need me, call me.”
Butch walked into ZeroSum, went back to the Brotherhood’s table, and took off his Aquascutum raincoat. He was going to be here for a while. Which wasn’t a news flash, was it? Hell, he should just pitch a damn pup tent and move in.
As the waitress came up with a Scotch, he said, “Any chance you can just bring me a bottle?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“Okay, come here.” He crooked his finger at her. When she leaned down, he put a hundred-dollar bill on her tray. “This is just for you. I want you to keep me nice and poured.”
“Absolutely.”
Alone at the table, Butch reached up to his neck, his fingertips running over the puncture wounds. As he felt where he’d been bitten, he tried not to imagine what Marissa was doing right now to someone else. To an aristocrat. To a well-bred bastard who was better than him, platinum to his nickel. Oh, God.