Balor looked down at the marble white skin of his hands and felt the yearning for blood to cover them as surely as starving men yearned for bread. He knew his brother felt the same, and if tonight wasn’t successful, they really may go over the edge into bloodlust.
Looking down, he saw one of the men they had followed coming out of a small unlit building. They had followed him through the subway, gotten off and then back on again, and then they headed down through the Bronx. They weren’t sure if he was lost, following bad directions, or simply trying to shake off anyone who could possibly be following him.
It didn’t matter. Humans couldn’t understand just how good the Breed was at tracking. Wolves especially. Balor could have followed the smell of his nervous sweat for miles without having to see his quaking form. This guy was a newbie; there was no doubt about it. Now, the question was, had he led them on a goose chase or to something they could really sink their teeth into?
Roderick looked up, and with a lean to the left, he asked his brother without words if he wanted to pursue the man any farther. Balor’s lip curled in disgust, and in response, he jerked his head to the right, towards the building. It seemed the two of them had come to a stand still about what to do further. Balor wasn’t sure which answer was the right one, but he knew he was sure of following the human around.
Rod seemed to mull the decision over.
Balor’s brother was the leader and, in general, a more steady handed warrior. He knew Rod would follow his lead, but he had serious doubts that it would take him to the fight he was looking for. At best, they had probably followed the baby Hunter into a drug den to get a fix before he went off to do actual business.
“Today, you live, little Hunter.” His thick Scottish accent broke up on the wind as he watched the small shadow disappear into the darkness. Technically, they should be letting him live anyway. The order from their leader, Casstiel, was to bring in all Hunters alive for questioning.
While they had been rescued months ago, thankfully, and had sent a big fuck you to the Hunters in the way of kicking the ever living shit out of them, the Hunters had retaliated most unexpectedly. Lines that had never been crossed were shattered, and festering betrayals had come to the surface.
So now, everyone was on high alert, and things were pretty fucking tense to say the least. Casstiel’s mate, Tessa, was a human that could read other human minds, and so the directive was to bring in as many Hunters alive for questioning as possible so that the little lass could read their thoughts and hopefully uncover some desperately needed answers.
Balor agreed with them to a point, but Roderick… he wasn’t exactly the letting them live type.
Quickly, the brothers scaled down the walls until they reached the bottom. Even standing next to each other, no one could tell they had been born identical. While Roderick had kept the fire red hair of his birth, both brothers had experienced genetic mutations when converting to the Breed. They now shared black demon eyes instead of the crystal blue they had been born with, but Balor also sported obsidian hair, and that, coupled with this enormous size, made him appear to be a demon in the flesh. Once they had joined the Breed, Roderick had chosen his name because it meant fire king, but Balor… he was the demon king now.
Once they had ingested Breed blood and taken on their true forms, they had changed greatly. Balor had immediately taken control of their military forces. Men were terrified of him, and even those who stood tall seemed to crumble in front of the demon. He and Roderick had been perfectly matched in skill, but Balor was tactical. He could form a plan and flesh out a mission. Roderick, like fire, didn’t care much for plans or well thought out courses of action. He wanted to burn, and he wanted to slaughter.
Anything after that was bonus points.
The twins didn’t need to speak to each other when they met in the street. Older members of the Breed usually mastered the ability to communicate telepathically, but usually the brothers didn’t even need that.
Balor chucked his thumb out in one direction and then began walking in another. He wanted to do another quick perimeter check before they went balls deep into this building. Yet another reason why he was the boss, always cautious.
Roderick rolled his eyes, finding a second sweep utterly unnecessary. But he picked his battles wisely with his brother, and this wouldn’t be one of them.
The brothers moved silently. Centuries of doing this had trained them to the point that it wasn’t even difficult anymore. Though they were well over two hundred pounds, and nearly 6 foot 5 each, they could move like ghosts, and even if someone looked out of their window right now with the intention of seeing them, they would have a tough time.
Windows in the back were boarded up and blacked out. They peered through them but saw nothing except a dilapidated looking hallway half filled with junk. The building had probably been empty for years and crammed full of homeless and runaways. Not exactly the battle ground he was looking for, but they circled back to the front and jimmied open the door regardless.
Inside they could smell humans, filthy and crawling all over the place.
Roderick shot his brother a look that said, ‘I fucking told you.’ But Balor simply shoved him forward by the back of the head, and the two of them were off exploring.
“Nothing but broken shit everywhere,” Rod muttered pointedly.
The place was a dump. Baby strollers, shopping carts, plastic bags and dirty needles seemed to be the currency in this place.
“Would you like to join the list?” Balor gave him a hard stare, and he shut up. Though he was ready for a battle tonight, he wasn’t ready for a battle against his twin in a crack den. Though, he thought to himself, that could make for a pretty decent B rated horror film. Two werewolves enter the haunted crack house… only one man leaves… cue spooky music.
Upstairs was no better, the only difference being that the wood flooring had been rotted out in many places, so they had to step with caution. Broken glass and graffiti had gotten boring to look at by the time they made it to the end, and Roderick was wondering if he would still be able to follow the trail of the Hunter. The humans scattered throughout the building were sad, sorry looking cases, none of which would be of any help on tonight’s journey. A few of them reached out and asked them for things like just a little whiskey.
“Sorry darlin’.” Balor smiled sadly down at a broken looking woman in the corner. “I could use a nice pick me up myself.”
The woman nodded somberly and went back to looking out of the gutted window in front of her. Humans like this killed him because there was nothing that could be done for them. No amount of whiskey could cure this woman of what had destroyed her inside. He knew the feeling of wanting to dull the pain, but he also knew how little it actually helped and how completely terrifying the feeling of everything being dulled could truly be.
“I’ve seen enough sadness and rot for one night.” Roderick kicked an old sneaker out of his way, and shook his head as they made their way back down the stairs.
The faintest pinprick of light coming through a door crack caught Balor’s attention. There was a door that had been covered by a second busted door as if someone were trying to keep it secret.
Roderick’s face split into a smile. Now, there was something.
Easily he lifted the second door away, revealing the secret one underneath, and his brother moved forward to investigate.
Balor pressed his ear to the wood and nodded, letting him know that humans were definitely down there talking. His eyes squinted as he listened for the noises then held up the five fingers on his right hand. Five men down there.
Not really a good fight but enough to quench the blood lust for a few more days to be sure.
As softly as he would touch a lover, the demon caressed the door handle open, and the voices became a little louder.
In unison, their heads cocked to the left like animals listening for an unfamiliar sound. Balor had been off by two. Seven men downstairs, and from the
hard and clear timber of their voices, they weren’t wasted shells of humans like the rest of the poor souls in here.
Someone barked what sounded like an order, and the rest of them murmured in unison. Definitely Hunters.
Roderick couldn’t contain his excitement, and he bounced on the souls of his feet like a boxer getting ready to enter a ring.
His brother’s black eyes found his in the darkness, and they cut him down with just a look. Suddenly, he remembered that they were supposed to leave some alive to take back. Rod crossed his arms over his chest and returned the look with an equally dark one, remembering the same. They didn’t always have to follow the rules.
Two fingers were held up as Balor began to negotiate how many would live. Rod gave a hard snap of the head and held up his index finger. Only one needed to live, the leader.
Stubbornly, his brother held his two fingers up again, seriously cramping his fucking style.
Roderick held up the same two fingers but jabbed them in his brother’s direction, letting him know that if he wanted two to live, they would be his responsibility to keep alive.
Balor shrugged his massive shoulders and shoved Rod towards the black staircase. Though they had heard the men’s voices and even a small bit of what they were saying, they had no idea how far down the men were or what was going to meet them when they got to the bottom of the basement stairs.
After two very slow steps, thanks to how rotted the wood was and how easily it would creak, Balor could see that the immediate end to the stair case was a pitch black room that must be attached to a hallway because there was light coming from somewhere beyond.
The men were arguing about something that sounded like strategy, but none of them sounded very clear on what exactly they were supposed to be doing. Some of them seemed to think they should be reporting to someone immediately about the “side effects,” and the other half seemed to think it would be better to wait and see what happened.
Rod shot his brother a look, and Balor cocked a brow.
While they had been held in captivity, others had been brought in as well. The Hunters had performed horrifying experiments on the Breed members they had managed to capture, and the general thought on the matter was that they were attempting to mix their own blood with that of the Breed and create some sort of super soldier.
No one had yet seen the Hunters’ super soldiers in person however, so at this point, it was more an idea than anything. As far as anyone knew, humans couldn’t half commit to the Breed blood. They either became Breed or didn’t. In their endeavor to stay human but reap the benefits of the Breed, their soldiers had been dying from their attempts, but as with anything you’ve set your sights on, if you have enough will and enough subjects ready to die for the cause, you might just be able to pull the damn thing off.
As both brothers reached the bottom of the steps, they inhaled deeply, once again trying to see what could be ahead, and a rancid smell met them. It was Breed… but it was bastardized. Something ahead was suffering terribly, probably one of their human experiments.
“Leave that one,” Balor growled lowly in his brother’s ear. If anyone was important to bring back, either alive or dead, the human experiments would be. The labs back at the embassy would be absolutely dying to get their hands on a specimen that they could dissect and study to figure out just what the hell was happening to them and, hopefully, what they could do to stop it.
Roderick looked for a moment like he thought about arguing but clamped his mouth shut when he heard an animalistic screeching growl ahead. Whatever they had created was not right in nature, and it was suffering horribly for it.
“I’ll leave it, but you’re fightin’ it.” The flame haired brother winked at him.
“Of course.” He smiled in response, and they were off, heads held high, down the craggy hallway.
Bricks were broken and crumbling along the walk, and with the flickering of light ahead, it reminded Balor of a time, so very long ago, when he had marched his brother and his men into a cave off the waves in their motherland, not certain if they were marching for death or victory. His men had stood tall with him, much as his brother still did today, and though not all of them had made it back from that battle, the ones who had lived joined him in the Breed that day and had been with him as brothers from that day until the day that the Hunters had come and taken them from him.
Rage pumped through his veins for a moment, and he let the anger flow hotly before calming it. He couldn’t change time or bring his men back from the dead. All he could do was avenge them now and meet them when his own time came.
Not tonight though boys, he thought quietly to himself. No matter how much he missed them, it couldn’t be tonight.
He thought back to the embassy and the auburn haired beauty who lay there. Remembrance had saved his life. She was another human who had come to the Breed because she had the unique ability to heal those with broken bodies. He had come to her after his time in captivity and was moments from death. She should have let him die. They both knew that he was too far gone for her to heal him, too close to death for her to follow him.
She wouldn’t let him go though. He wasn’t sure if her heart was just that big or if she had felt the immediate bond between them – the same as he did. She was his mate, and as sad as that made him feel for her, there was nothing he could do to change it. She had saved his life, but it had cost her so dearly. She nearly followed him down into death and now laid in a coma, her body ever so slowly healing itself. Her mind, locked away in some sort of dream, helped keep her from experiencing the overwhelming amount of pain that her body was going through.
Day after day, he visited her, hating himself every time he saw her. They had run from him in fear once he had joined the Breed. They called him a demon, and they were right. He had tortured the one woman meant to be his, solely for love and protection. Though her heart continued to beat, no one knew how long it would take for her to wake or if she could ever leave the coma state. He may as well have killed her outright for how harshly he had snuffed her life out.
Her only existence now was pain and suffering, and that was his fault entirely. If he was a less selfish man, he would carve his heart out of his chest and die for causing her pain. Maybe then, she would return to health since her body no longer had a magical tie to his wellness? Instead, the disgusting hope that he could keep her comfortable now, until she woke up and forgave him, twisted through his consciousness, making him hate himself even more. He didn’t want her to forgive him. He wanted her to hate him and plunge the knife in with her own hands for all he had done to her.
“Aye, focus,” Rod snapped, noticing his brother’s faraway look.
“Mmm,” Balor agreed as the light from the outside room nearly reached their boot tips.
Both brothers stopped for a moment, hidden by darkness, and took in as much as they could about the scene before them.
The men were arguing over someone who was crumbled in pain on a surgical table in the middle of the room. The thing was in agony, its body going rigid and then tightly taunt with pain. If it had been any other person aside from a Hunter, he would have felt sorry for the poor soul.
“He did it to himself and against orders,” a tall, lean man in the corner barked. “We should kill him now and bury the body before we’re all punished for insubordination.”
“We can’t leave him!” A bald man pointed a long finger in his direction. “Are we men, or are we savages? Because the last I checked, we hunted savages.”
Oh that’ll be us then. Roderick laughed, his voice snaking into Balor’s mind.
I’m going to show them real savagery, he replied, always the darkness to his brothers light.
The laugh dried up in Rod’s throat, and he waited for his brother’s order to charge. He wanted to blitz them and get the fight on immediately, but he knew his brother, as dutiful as always, was trying to figure out who was in charge so he could take him, along with the creature, back to Casstiel an
d the rest of the defense department.
“Both of you fuck off.” A man leaning against the darkened wall walked into the light, and the rest grew quiet.
Bingo.
“We will kill him now but only to end his suffering. We’ll face our leaders with the corpse and our heads held high because we’re men and not cowardly dogs. Any who feel’s differently can speak now and go before them as a corpse as well.” He finished his speech, and Balor thought it wasn’t a half bad point of view.
Too bad they would all be slaughtered in just a few seconds now.
Balor pointed out the leader and the creature. Roderick nodded, and they were in agreement. Everyone else was fair game for death except for those two, but it would ultimately be up to Balor to keep them alive as Rod wasn’t exactly the careful or keeping type.
They bumped fists and in identical steps, walked into the light, now letting their boots tap and echo loudly against the stones.
Immediately the men stopped and stared wide eyed in their direction.
“The savages are here lads,” Balor spoke on a snarl.
The Hunters were stunned but not for long. The fists were flying just the way the boys liked them to be, and soon the battle was on properly. They knew the Hunters had to have had weapons somewhere around as they never traveled lightly, but the brothers had gotten the upper hand on them, and so far, no one had had the chance to draw.
This is how Balor liked his fights. Knuckles cracking on skin, bones either holding steady or shattering under the force of another. He like the raw, real, thrill of it.
Guns made even the weakest man a power player, but here, pure strength and skill clashed with pure strength and skill as it was intended.
It’s true, humans were not as strong as those of the Breed, but they were crafty and resilient. Over the years they had made armors and weapons that had closed the gap and made them substantial enemies.
Balor’s head jerked to the side as he heard his brother cry out and the unmistakable sound of a taser being used. He really fucking hated when they used tasers.
Such Violent Delights: A Holiday Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 45