The Sigma Menace Collection

by Marie Johnston

  “My apologies, Madame G.”

  The dark presence loomed over her. X kept staring at where Madame G’s feet would be but were always covered by that damn kimono. She and E had a running bet, whether Madame G wore spiked heels that could impale an eyeball or if she went barefoot. X’s money was on sadistic heels, in fuck-me red.

  “I’d ask you questions, but I can no longer trust you, so it’s a moot point.”

  Madame G paced in front of her and X strained to get a glimpse at the madam’s chosen footwear. Whoever was wrong had to wash the blood and ashes out of the trunk of their work car for two weeks. E wasn’t a Sigma lackey anymore and X’s keys were no doubt yanked permanently, but she’d hang onto the gloating rights.

  Come on spiked heels.

  “Seer said she sees you at my back when I rise over the shifters once and for all.” The pacing stopped. “So I can’t kill you,” Madame G spit out. “I want to make you suffer, but you and I both know you’ve been through everything I have to offer so it’d be a waste of resources.” Pride rang in Madame G’s voice.

  One thing commanded her respect, and it was a person who could tolerate pain and humiliation, yet still have a backbone. No Agent refused Madame G and lived. X had. Plenty of times. There were a few missions where X and E had stood before the madam, their necks bared and ready to lose their heads, because they refused to carry out certain commands like, oh, kidnapping and torturing children. Both X and E had mad field skills and brains in their pretty heads. Neither one was batshit crazy, unlike a lot of Agents, so Madame G made other use of their talents.

  Despite their transgressions against Sigma, X and her partner felt the burden of guilt at being nearly powerless as those distasteful, and morally wrong, missions they had refused were carried out by other Agents. Sure, they had done what they could to cause those missions to go awry, unknowingly setting up conditions for the Agents to fail and their prisoners to escape. Then they’d come back to the compound and hear about the innocents other Agents had brought in, who were currently in misery, or meeting their end-of-life requirements. Or there were the interferences that failed. Those weighed heavily on X’s heart.

  “But Seer didn’t say,” Madame G continued, daintily squatting down, moving her knees to one side so she could peer into X’s eyes with her depthless black orbs, “that you had to be in good condition. Therefore, consider yourself terminated.”

  Jobless, huh? Madame G continued to drill into X’s eyes. Was she expecting an aww, shucks?

  “You will hang here, X,” she hissed, making a point of not addressing her by the title of Agent, “until I dominate the pathetic species of shifters and use their slave-prophesied hides to take over all Sigma chapters. I will use my power to control those ancient, frail male vampires who dare to lead our superior species.” Madame G spit in the fresh pool of blood under X’s head.

  Damn, now she’d have to wait until the next hosing before she could ingest nutrition. No way was she going to take in any more of Madame G than had been put into her when she had been captured.

  “Make no mistake, X,” Madame seethed, leaning down further, “I will dominate. And when I do, I will drag your sorry hide up to rejoice in my celebration.”

  Reaching a long, blood-red nail down into her splatter of spit, she scraped some off the ground and jabbed her nail into the non-healing wound at X’s neck, ensuring that it would stay open and seeping for days. Usually, the Agents had a special pre-made concoction they would use to coat their knives. It would reopen the cut every few days, or a shifter like X would eventually heal themselves. But Madame G’s special form of evil exuded from every facet of her being, thus her spit had its own powerful anticoagulant. A vampire whose bite no one could recover from.

  Bitch.

  Make no mistake Madame G, X mocked in her head, I will dominate you.

  As Madame G shifted to rise, X peeked under the floor-length garment before it settled back down straightened legs. She caught a flash of a thick, silver post in lieu of a heel and a spike-lined, red leather toe box with her acute vision before the whisper of fabric blanketed them.

  In your face, E! X totally won that bet. The dark madam left the room to let X continue to bleed out. X had one other thought beyond destroying the female. Where the hell did she get those sweet shoes?

  “We need to make our move now.” Dickhead. Commander Rhys Fitzsimmons left that part unspoken. It was certainly implied, and the arrogant prick of a vampire standing in front of him knew it.

  “Rhys. Dude,” the male tried placating him, “all my people aren’t in place yet. If you want this done once and for all, I need time.”

  The haughty male moved over to be in deeper shade, giving the commander some satisfaction that he was uncomfortable in the dying daylight. But it was the safest time for the male to sneak away from Sigma’s compound. He was powerful enough to withstand fading sunlight, especially under the shade of the thick trees in the woods surrounding the Guardians’ headquarters.

  “She doesn’t have time, Demetrius.” The male was willing to help Rhys save X, and that was the only thing that kept Rhys from pounding his face in.

  Demetrius rolled his pale-green eyes, regarding Rhys as he would a petulant child. “Madame G isn’t going to kill her, Commander, just keep her incapacitated for an indeterminate amount of time. I need to get my people in place.”

  When the aggravating vampire first approached him, all Rhys cared about was how Demetrius could help rescue X. And that was still all he cared about. The vampire’s grand plan meant shit to Rhys, other than it would help destroy Madame G, and Rhys could get back to his normal job of policing his species. Yes, Demetrius proposed a change so severe that it would rock the vampire world. As far as Rhys’ duty went, nothing would change. He would wake up, hunt criminals, keep his species safe, and go to bed.

  Only now, he couldn’t sleep because there was no vivacious green-eyed hybrid with the funky, glossy black hair that was shaved on the sides. With her longer hair, she constantly styled it in various formats: faux hawk, slicked back, slicked to one side, or hanging over one eye. Her hair had almost as much personality as she did. For years he stalked her dreams, keeping them terror-free so she could get some decent sleep and not be killed the next day.

  For almost three weeks, he couldn’t find her, no matter the time of day.

  As soon as he had laid eyes on her, all those years ago, he knew she was his destined mate. While he was trying to reconcile why, after centuries, he had finally met his mate and she was an evil Sigma Agent, X had nearly gutted him with her wicked silver-lined blade, leaving a nasty scar along his ribs.

  That began a long, contentious feud between the two of them, both ignoring the fact that they were meant to be together, meant to be lovers, not fighters. It only took a few skirmishes for Rhys to realize there was more to not only his mate, X, but her partner as well. He gave orders to his shifters that only he was to deal with X; the other Guardians would only defend themselves and others as needed, but in no way try to terminate her. To their credit, they followed his command impeccably. Maybe they even suspected the underlying issue.

  Rhys didn’t want to wait for this vain dickhead to tell him when he could go and save his mate. “You have intel that says she’ll be kept alive?”

  “From the evil horse’s mouth.” Demetrius lifted a heavy shoulder. “I asked her if she was offing my favorite toy. Not that it’d be hard for me to find another shifter willing to give me her potent blood,” he finished haughtily.

  The rumbles of a growl sounded before Rhys could stop it. He hated being reminded that he was basically talking to his mate’s ex-boyfriend. Not that there was anything serious between the two of them, just a little my-body-for-your-information exchange. It didn’t mean Demetrius had to act so cavalier about the pleasure of being with her. Rhys only had one physical interaction with her, and it was…it was just…She was pretty damn special.

  “Chill, my man. You know it didn’t mean
anything beyond what we needed it to be. Our relationship, if you can call it that, kept her safe and kept my identity secure. If I had to call someone a friend, it’d be Agent X.” Demetrius’ mouth twisted in grimace. “Except she told me once she hoped my true mate would be a virgin. What kind of twisted soul wishes that for a vampire like me?”

  Rhys nearly smiled in spite of himself. X knew how to get to someone. A vampire like Demetrius either hoped he’d never meet his true mate to live a lothario lifestyle or wanted a provocative seductress who was his match.

  “If you don’t get your people ready in two days, I’m going to top her virgin comment, and hope that your true mate gets pregnant after your first time together.”

  Demetrius paled and he physically recoiled. “Commander Fitzsimmons! I thought we were starting a budding bromance here, and then you have to go and say something like that.”

  Crossing his arms, Rhys ruefully shook his head, not wanting to warm up to the guy. “When you meet your mate, you won’t care who she is or isn’t, because you’ll realize you weren’t living before you met her.” Demetrius waved Rhys’ words off, so he kept going. “And when you realize you made another life with your most cherished, you’ll find out how superficial everything else is.”

  “Wise words. For some other dude. Let’s move onto the important stuff.”

  As Demetrius began a rundown of how to put their plan in place when the time came, Rhys couldn’t help but hope he’d be around to witness the full-of-himself male get taken down by the love of his life. Then, if Rhys and X, or Alex as he’d begun thinking of her, were still around, they could kick back, throw in a bag of popcorn, and watch the show.

  Chapter 2

  Before hearing the click of the door unlock, X sensed the male who was about to enter. Mild surprise fluttered X’s eyelids open. Was she dreaming?

  Heavily-booted feet silently made their way across the filthy floor until the male settled down in front of her.

  She glanced up to meet the serious hazel eyes of her shifter mate and gave a weak, wry smile. “Hey Rhys, how’s it hanging?” Grimacing at her attempt to chuckle at her joke, she went for a sigh instead.

  “How ya doing, Alex?” His voice was soft and concerned, and she was growing really fond of him calling her Alex. She was too far removed from the innocent eighteen-year-old Alexandria King that had been brought here.

  He looked like he wanted to touch her, caress her bare skin, but was worried it would cause more pain. He wouldn’t be wrong.

  “Oh, you know. Just been hanging around.” Her voice was raspy, parched from lack of water. She was only given enough nourishment to keep her alive.

  “I’m going to get you down.”

  She tried shaking her head, but it made her head pound and blood trickle out faster. “You know I’m not leaving here until my job is done.”

  Caressing her cheek with a work-roughened fingertip, he stopped her argument. “We’ll get to that once we get you down and fed. And armed. Then we’ll wrap your business up or die trying.”

  Interesting. And this totally isn’t a dream. “Howdya get into the compound?”

  Irritation flitted across his face. “I had help from a surprising source. It seems there have been others planning a coup.”

  A lazy grin drifted across X’s face. “Big D?”

  When Rhys’ nodded, her spirits lifted. Maybe they could actually make this happen. She knew Demetrius had been up to something, coming to co-lead Freemont’s Sigma chapter. The Vampire Council had sent him, worried Madame G was putting their species at risk with her insane experiments and the way she began turning so many of her recruits into Agents without proper conditioning.

  Demetrius had arrived with his cock-of-the-walk swagger and blew off his duties, letting Madame G continue with free rein. Suspecting he also had plans that went against Sigma, X had formed an unusual alliance with the vampire, and he’d helped her and E undermine Madame G’s plans.

  She had also suspected he had been lacing the compound with his own vampire Agents, ones that weren’t loyal to Madame G, or Sigma. That had to be true, otherwise Rhys wouldn’t be getting her very far.

  “Ready for this?” He waited for her response before trying to get her down.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Joints that had been stretched for three weeks, a body that hadn’t been allowed to heal, and a head that had been blood-logged from hanging upside down all that time—it would hurt. So bad. Even more than when they dropped her, sprayed her off, and strung her up again.

  He rose to standing and moved to her side. He wouldn’t have to reach up far to unhook her ankles since he was a tall male. She was nearly six feet tall, but he was half a head taller than she was and wearing his shitkickers.

  She caught his scent when he moved. He smelled divine. Like a pine forest. She probably smelled like a slaughterhouse floor. Yes, they hosed her off every day or two, but really, she stank.

  His large, hot hand settled between her shoulder blades, and her eyelids actually drifted shut in bliss. No contact for weeks except for boots and fists. It was glorious. Until he started raising her body to cradle her upper half in one arm and undo her bindings with the other.

  Nausea hit strong and hard, along with invisible forces slamming into her skull. Against her will, she groaned.

  “I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere, regretful.

  “Not your fault,” she tried to murmur, but it came out more like, “mayoufau.”

  Oh hell, her head fucking hurt and the cut at the side of her neck wasn’t helping. The movement was making it ooze even more blood, not that she had a lot left to spare. It wasn’t getting heavily persuaded out of her body by gravity anymore, but she could feel the effort of her body trying to heal the Madame G-inflicted wound.

  There was nothing in her belly to vomit up, and the commander’s hard body holding her was pure pleasure. To ease her pounding head, she turned her face into his shoulder, letting his heat sink in. She was extremely glad he was clad in head-to-toe black because any other color would be hell on her sensitive eyes.

  “Two of Demetrius’ vampires just came on for your guard duty. As long as no one bothers them, they’ll guard us.” Rhys had to pause while he grunted and worked the lock at X’s ankles. “So,” she heard a clang of metal, but her ankles remained firmly bound, “we’ll go next door so you can clean up and feed.”

  If she had any saliva left, her mouth would water. She had only fed from Rhys once before, and due to her hybrid genetics, from now on it would have to be him. Some vampires developed an aversion to blood not from their true mate after meeting them. The thought of other’s blood turned her stomach. He was the true mate to her vampire half.

  “The hell?” He shifted her to hold her more firmly as he beat on the lock at her ankles. “It’s rusted.”

  The angle he was trying to open it from, while cradling her upper body, couldn’t be helping, either. She was about to suggest he hang her back down so he could use both hands, when her legs swung free.

  Rhys smoothly caught her under her knees. He remained still, while she stiffened and winced against the sudden movement in her muscles. Her feet were cold and numb, and she didn’t have a lot of blood left to rush into limbs that had been strung high above her head. All in all, the lower half of her body didn’t hurt nearly as bad as her upper half.

  When she settled into him, he strode toward the door and gave it two soft taps. The heavy metal swung out. Agent R was waiting on the other side. He gave Rhys a nod. He looked X in the eyes and jutted his chin up. She narrowed her eyes on him as understanding dawned. Dude had balls.

  Agent R—she wouldn’t have guessed he would be under Demetrius; he had played his part well for Sigma. He and two female vampire Agents had tracked E and his family down deep in the woods and captured them. They brought him in, but somehow hadn’t mentioned the female shifter they had also tranqed, but didn’t bring in along with E and his family.

  Now it made sense
. Demetrius had used Irina Bellamy to get Rhys to listen to him. If she had been brought in, it would’ve been nearly impossible for the Guardians to rescue both Irina and E’s family. X would’ve been compromised and killed if she had tried to help the shifter escape. Not even Madame G could fault her for helping her partner. Well, not any more than she had. Helping Irina would have pushed her luck too far with the madam.

  Rhys carried her down the hall to a locker room used by the guards. On the way, she sensed Agent Z. Or Zitch, as X called her, replacing the “b” because the Agent was one. X liked her.

  Zitch had been involved in her punishment, along with Agent R. They had only done their job and nothing more, unlike the other Agents who tried to fuck with her. X could respect that, even as she felt the echoes of their booted feet assailing her body. She’d been in the same situation before, forced to dole out punishment she really didn’t care to perform.

  Rhys entered the locker room, locking the door behind them. X raised her head, grateful the commander had left the lights off. Weeks spent upside down in a dark room meant her eyes were hypersensitive.

  A shower. Nice.

  X held onto Rhys’ broad shoulders and lowered her legs down to the floor. He adjusted his hold to around her waist, while she gingerly put weight on her numb feet. His hot hands were like brands against her skin.

  “Want to shower before you feed?” He spoke quietly, intimately.

  She nodded, knowing he could see well in the dark.

  He helped her to the shower, keeping an arm around her waist the whole time, while she stutter-stepped on her sore, rubbery legs. Standing to the side of the showerhead, he fiddled with the knobs until a nice, warm spray rained down.

  She was about to dismiss him, not wanting an audience for cleaning the blood and grime off her skin, when he said, “I’ll get a towel. The Agents put your gear on the bench.”