Payne frowned. She was neither blond nor particularly busty . . . but leggy? She could do leggy
Why was she even thinking like this?
Closing her eyes, she found herself praying that the male never, ever met the Chosen Layla. But how ridiculous was that
Her twins mate gently patted her arm. I know youre exhausted so Im going to let you rest. If you need me, just hit the red button on the rail and Ill come right to you.
Payne forced her lids up. Thank you, healer. And worry not about my twin. He shall return to you afore the dawns call of light.
I hope so, Jane said. I really do. . . . Listen, you rest and then later this afternoon, well start some PT on you.
Payne bid the female good day and closed her eyes once more.
Left by herself, she found herself understanding how the female felt about the idea of Vishous being with another. Images of her healer around the likes of the Chosen Layla made her sick to her stomacheven though there was no cause for the indigestion.
What a mess she was in. Stuck upon this hospital bed, her mind tangled in thoughts of a male she had no right to on so many levels . . .
And yet the idea of his sharing that sexual energy with anyone but her made her downright violent. To think that there were other females around her healer, seeking what he had seemed prepared to give her, wanting that straining length at his hips and the pressure of his lips against their mouths
When she growled again, she knew it was for the best that she had let that card with his information go. Else she would have wrought carnage upon the lovers he took.
After all, she had no problems killing.
As history had well proven.
THIRTEEN
Qhuinn entered the mansion through the vestibule. Which was a mistake.
He should have gone into the mansion through the garage, but the truth was, those coffins stacked up in the corner freaked him out. He always expected their lids to open and some kind of Night of the Living Dead to whassup the ever living crap out of him.
He so needed to get over being a pussy, however.
Courtesy of his case of the nancys, the instant he pushed his way into the foyer, he got a clear shot at Blaylock and Saxton coming down the grand staircase, the two of them all GQd up for Last Meal. Both wore slacks, not jeans, and sweaters, not sweatshirts, and loafers, not shitkickers. They were clean-shaven, cologned, and coiffed, but they were not she-males in the slightest.
Frankly, that would have made things a lot easier.
For fucks sake, he wished one of the SOBs would RuPaul their shit and go all feather boa and fingernail polish. But no. They just kept looking like two too-hot males who knew how to spend their money at Saks . . . while he, on the other hand, gutter-snaked it up in his leathers and his muscle shirtsand in the case of tonight, sported hair styled by rough sex, and cologne, if you could call it that, from the same line of slut-care products.
Then again, he was willing to bet all that separated them from the state he was in was a hot, soapy shower and a visit to the ol closet: Dollars to licks theyd been in a clinch all night. They were looking far too satisfied as they headed for a meal they were no doubt starved for.
As they hit the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom, Blays set of blues shifted over and pulled a head-to-heel on Qhuinn. The guys face didnt show any reaction. Not anymore.
That old flare of pain was nowhere in sightand not because Qhuinns recreations werent perfectly frickin obvi.
Saxton said something and Blay looked away . . . and there it was. A blush on that lovely pale skin as blue eyes met gray ones.
I cant do this, Qhuinn thought. Not tonight.
Avoiding the whole dining room scene, he headed for the door beneath the stairs and put the thing to good use. The instant it closed behind him, the chatty patter of people talking was cut off and silent darkness rushed up to greet him. Which was more like it.
Down the shallow stairs. Through another coded door. Into the underground tunnel that ran from the main house to the training center. And now that he was alone, he ran out of gas, making it only about two feet before his legs stopped working and he had to lean against the smooth wall. Letting his head fall back, he closed his eyes . . . and wanted to put a gun to his temple.
Hed had that redhead back at the Iron Mask.
Had that hetero good and hard.
And it had happened exactly the way hed predicted, starting with the pair of them yakking it up at the bar and checking out the chicks. Not long after, a set of double-Ds had gone trolling by on black platform boots. Talked to her. Drank with her . . . and her friend. Hour later? The four of them were in a bathroom, squeezed in tight.
Which had been part two of the plan. Hands were hands in cramped spaces, and when there was a lot of moving and pawing going down, you could never be sure who was touching you. Stroking you. Feeling you up.
The whole time theyd been with the chippies, Qhuinn had been strategizing on how to get rid of the females, and it had taken waaay longer than hed wanted. After the sex, the girls had wanted to hang out some moretrade numbers, kibitz, ask if they wanted to go out for a bite.
Yeah, right. He didnt need no digits, because he was never going to call them; he wasnt into kibitzing even with people he liked; and the sort of bite he could offer them had nothing to do with greasy-ass diner food.
After filing the requests under Bitch, Please in his head, hed been forced to brainwash them into leavingwhich had led him to a rare moment of pity for human males who didnt have that luxury.
And then he and his prey had been alone, the human male recovering against the sink; Qhuinn pretending to do likewise against the door. Eventually there had been eye contact, casual on the humans side, very serious on Qhuinns.
What? the man had asked. But hed known . . . because his eyelids had grown heavy.
Qhuinn had reached behind himself and turned the lock so they wouldnt be disturbed. Im still hungry.
Abruptly, the redhead had stared at the door like hed wanted to leave . . . but his cock had told a different story. Behind the button fly of those jeans . . . he got hard.
No one will ever know, Qhuinn had said darkly. Hell, he could have made it so the redhead didnt rememberalthough as long as the guy hadnt tweaked to the whole vampire thing, thered been no reason to pull out the skull Swiffer and clean things up.
I thought you said you werent gay. . . . The tone had been on the plaintive side, as if the man hadnt felt entirely comfortable with what his body wanted.
Qhuinn had closed the distance between them, putting his chest against the redheads. And then hed grabbed the back of the guys neck and yanked him over to his mouth. The kiss had done what it was designed to do: get all that thinking out of the bathroom and leave nothing but sensation behind.
Shit had gone from there. Twice.
When it was over, the guy hadnt offered his number. Hed gotten off spectacularly, but it was clear that it had been a first-and-only experimental thing on his endwhich was just fine with Qhuinn. Theyd parted without a word, each going on about his life, with the redhead heading back to the bar . . . and Qhuinn leaving to go wander the streets of Caldwell alone.
Only dawns imminent arrival had made him return here.
Fucking hell . . . he said to himself.
The whole night had been a lesson in scratching poison ivyyes, there were times in life when proxies worked: at a council meeting, for example, when you sent someone else to give your vote. Or when you needed something from a supermarket and you gave your list to a doggen . Or when youd promised to play pool, but were too drunk to hold your stick, so you got someone else to snap your balls.
Unfortunately, the proxy theory most certainly did not work when you wished you had been the one to take someones virginity, but you hadnt, and your best follow-up idea was to go to a club, find someone with a similar physical trait, like . . . oh, say . . . hair color . . . and fuck them instead.
In that proxy situation, you ended up feeling hollow, and not because youd come your brains out and were floating on a little postcoital cloud of ahhhhh, yeah.
Standing in this tunnel, all by himself, Qhuinn was utterly empty in his own skin. Ghost-towned from the inside out.
Too bad his libido was far from out of bright ideas. In the quiet solitude, he started to imagine what it would be like if it were him instead of his cousin coming down with Blay for dinner. If he was the one sharing not just a bed, but a bedroom with the guy. If he stood up to everyone and said, Hey, this is my mate
The mental lockdown that followed that little ditty was so complete, he felt like hed been punched in the head.
And that was the problem, wasnt it.
As he rubbed his mismatched eyes, he thought back on how much his family had hated him: Hed been raised to believe his genetic defect of having one blue and one green iris meant he was an abnormal freak, and theyd treated him as an embarrassment to the bloodline.
Well, actually it had been worse than that. Theyd ended up kicking him out of house and sending an honor guard to teach him a lesson. Which was how hed ended up a wahlker.
To think theyd never known about the other abnormalities he harbored.
Like wanting to be with his best friend.
Christ, he so didnt need a mirror to see himself for the coward and the fraud he was . . . but there was nothing he could do about it. He was locked in a cage with no key that he could find, years of his familys derision boxing him in and cramping him: The truth behind his wild side was that he was a straight-up pussy. Blay, on the other hand, was the strong one. Tired of waiting around, hed declared who he was and found somebody to be with.
Fucking hell, this hurt . . .
With a curse, he cut off the premenstrual monologue and forced himself to get walking. With each footfall, he tightened himself up, duct-taping his messy inner workings together and fortifying his leaky pipes.
Life was about change. Blay had changed. John had changed.
And he was next on the list, apparently, because he couldnt keep going like this.
As he entered the training center through the back of the office, he decided that if Blay could turn over a new leaf, so could he. Life was what you determined it to be; regardless of where fate put you, logic and free will meant you could make your cabbage patch anything the fuck you wanted.
And he didnt want where he was: Not the anonymous sex. Not the desperate stupidity. Not the burning jealousy and nagging regrets that got him nowhere.
The locker room was empty, as there were no training classes going on, and he changed by himself, getting naked before pulling on black running shorts and a pair of black Nikes. The workout room was likewise an echo chamber, and that was just as well.
Firing up the sound system, he flipped through the shit with the remote. When Gorillazs Clint Eastwood came on, he went over to a treadmill and got on the thing. He hated working out . . . just despised the mindless gerbil nature of it all. Better to fuck or fight, hed always said.
However, when you were stuck indoors because of the dawn, and were determined to try to give celibacy a shot, running to get nowhere seemed pretty frickin viable as an energy suck.
Juicing up the machine, he hopped on and sang along.
Focusing on the white-painted concrete across the way, he pounded one foot after another, again and again and again, until there was nothing to his mind or his body except the repetitive footfalls and the beat of his heart and the sweat that formed on his bare chest and stomach and back.
For once in his life, he did not go for breakneck: The speed was calibrated so that his pace was a steady churn, the kind of thing he could sustain for hours.
When you were trying to get away from yourself, you gravitated to the loud and obnoxious, to the extremes, to the reckless, because it forced you to scramble and hang on with your clawing nails to cliffs of your own self-invention.
Just as Blay was who he was, Qhuinn was the same: Even though he wished he could be out and with the . . . male . . . he loved, he couldnt make himself go there.
But by God, he was going to stop running from his cowardice. He had to own his shiteven if it made him hate himself to the core. Because maybe if he did, hed stop trying to distract himself with sex and drinking, and figure out what he did want.
Apart from Blay, that was.
FOURTEEN
Sitting beside Butch in the Escalade, V was a six-foot-six, two-hundred-fifty-pound contusion.
As they sped back to the compound, every inch of him was pounding, the pain forming a haze that calmed the screaming inside of him.
So hed gotten something of what hed needed.
The trouble was, the relief was beginning to fade already, and didnt that get him pissed off at the Good Samaritan behind the wheel. Not that the cop seemed to care. Hed been dialing that cell phone of his and hanging up and dialing again and hanging up, like the fingers on his right hand had a case of Tourettes.
He was probably calling Jane and thinking better of it. Thank fuck
Yeah, Id like to report a dead body, he heard the cop say. No, Im not giving my name. Its in a Dumpster in an alley off Tenth Street, two blocks over from the Commodore. Looks to be a Caucasian female, late teens, early twenties . . . No, Im not giving my name . . . . Hey, how about you get down the address and stop worrying about me. . . .
As Butch got into it with the operator, V shifted his ass in the seat and felt the broken ribs on his right side howl. Not bad. If he needed another hit to chill him out, he could just do some sit-ups and get back on the agony-go-round
Butch tossed his cell onto the dash. Cursed. Cursed again.
Then decided to share the wealth: How far were you going to let it go, V? Until they stabbed you? Left you for the sun? What was going to be far enough?
V talked around his swollen lip. Dont front, true.
Front? Butch swung his head around, his eyes positively violent. Excuse me?
Dont pretend . . . you dont know what this is like. Ive seen you on a bender. . . . Ive seen He coughed. Ive seen you drunk on your feet with a glass in both hands. So do not go holier-than-thou on me.
Butch refocused on the road. You are a miserable son of a bitch.
Whatever.
Yup, that was about it for the convo.
By the time Butch tooled up in front of the mansion, both of them were wincing and blinking like theyd been hit in the puss with Mace: The sun was still buried on the far side of the horizon, but it was close enough to put a blush in the sky that was only a few megawatts south of deadly to a vampire.
They didnt go into the big house. No fucking way. Last Meal was about to get its knife and fork on, and given both their moods, there was no reason to feed the gossip mill.
Without saying another word, V walked into the Pit and beelined for his bedroom. There was no seeing Jane or his sister looking like this, for real. Hell, given what his mug felt like, there might be no seeing them even after a shower.
In the bath, he started the water and disarmed in the darkwhich involved all of taking his one dagger out of the belt holster around his waist and putting it on the counter. His clothes were filthy, covered with blood and wax and other shit, and he let them fall on the floor, unsure what he was going to do with them.
Then he got under the spray before it was warm. As the cold water hit his face and pecs, he hissed, the shock shooting down into his cock and hardening himnot that he felt any interest in doing something about the erection. He just closed his eyes as his blood and the blood of his enemy sluiced off his body and got sucked down the drain.
Man, after he got his shit washed up, he was so going to put a turtleneck on. His face was fucked-up, but maybe that could be explained away by his having been in a fight with the enemy. Turning himself into a black-and-blue canvas from head to foot?
Not so much.
Hanging his head and letting the water run off his nose and chin, he tried desperately to go back to the numb floats hed had in the car, but with the pain fading, his drug of choice was losing its grip on him and the world was getting too clear again.
God, the sense of being out of control and pissed off choked him sure as if there were hands around his throat.
Fucking Butch. Do-gooder, nosy-ass, interfering son of a bitch.
Ten minutes later, he stepped out, grabbed a black towel, and stemmed-to-sterned the terry cloth as he walked into the bedroom. Popping open his closet, he willed a black candle on and . . . got an eyeful of wife-beaters. And leathers. Which was what happened to your wardrobe when you fought for a living and slept naked.
Not a turtleneck in sight.
Well, maybe the damage wasnt so bad
A quick pivot to the mirror on the back of the door and even he had to pause. He looked like hed been clawed by Rhages beast, great stripes of angry red welts wrapping around his torso and pouring over his shoulders and his pecs. His face was a fucking joke, one eye so swollen that the lid was nearly inoperable . . . his lower lip split deep . . . his jaw looking like he was a squirrel stashing nuts.
Great. He was like one of Dana Whites boys.
After he grabbed his dirty clothes and stuffed them into the back of the closet, he stuck his swollen balloon head out in the hall, and took a listen. ESPN was chattering away down on the left. Something liquid was pouring to the right.
He headed for Butch and Marissas room buck-ass naked. No reason to hide the bruising from ButchSOB had seen it happen.
As he stepped into the doorway, he found the cop sitting on the end of his bed, elbows on his knees, glass of Lag in his palms, bottle between his loafers.
You know what Im thinking about right now? the guy said without looking up.
V could guess it was a hell of a list. Tell me.
The night I watched you throw yourself off the balcony at the Commodore. The night I thought youd died. Butch took a swig from his glass. I assumed we were over that.
If its any consolation . . . so did I.
Why dont you go see your mom. Talk this shit out with her.
Like there was anything that female could say at this point? Id kill her, cop. I dont know how Id do it . . . but Id kill the bitch for this. She leaves me to that sociopath of a fatherbeing precisely aware of what hes like, because, hello, she sees all. Then she keeps herself a secret from me for three hundred years, before she turns up on my birthday and wants to put me out to stud for her stupid-ass religion. But I could have punted on that shiz, true? My sister, my twin, though? She put Payne away, cop. Held her against her will. For centuries. And never told me I even had a sibling? Thats too fucking much. Im done. V stared at the Lag. You got some juice to spare there?
Butch corked the bottle and tossed the thing. As V caught it in his palm, the cop said, Waking up dead is not the answer, though. And neither is getting your ass kicked like that.
You volunteering to do it for me, then? Because Im going crazy and it needs out, Butch. For real. Im dangerous over here. . . . V took a pull on the booze and cursed as the slice in his lip made it feel like hed sucked on the wrong end of a hand-rolled. And I cant think of any way to get it out of mebecause I sure as fuck am not going to fall into my old habits.
Not tempted at all?
V braced himself and then went for another drink. Through his grimace, he said, I want the release, but Im not going to be with anyone except Jane. No way Im coming back to our mated bed with the stank of some slut all over my cockit would ruin everything, not just for her but for me. Besides, what I need right now is a Dom, not a suband theres no one I can trust. Except maybe Butch, but that would cross too many lines. So Im caught. I got a screaming harpy in my head and nowhere to go with it . . . and its making me fucking mental.
Jesus . . . hed said it. All of it.
Go, him.
And the reward was another suck on the bottle. Goddamn, my lip hurts.
No offense, but goodyou deserve it. Butchs hazel eyes lifted, and after a moment, he smiled a little, flashing that cap on his front tooth as well as his fangs. You know, I was really getting into hating you for a minute there, I truly was. And before you ask, the turtlenecks are down at the far end of that rack. Take some sweatpants, too. Your legs look like theyve been hit with a clawhammer, and that ball of yours is clearly about to explode.
Thanks, man. V walked down the lineup of clothes that were suspended on fine cedar hangers. One thing you could say about Butch was that his wardrobe was full of options. Never thought Id be glad that youre a clothes whore.
I believe the term is sharp dresser.
With that Boston accent of his, the words came out shahhp dressah, and V found himself wondering if thered ever been a time when he hadnt heard that Southie twang in his ear.
What are you going to do about Jane?
V put the bottle on the floor, pulled a cashmere turtleneck over his head, and was pissed to find it barely covered his navel. Shes got enough on her plate. No shellan needs to hear her male went out for a good beatingand I dont want you to tell her.
Howre you going to explain your puss, smart-ass?
The swellings going to go down.
Not fast enoughyou go to see Payne like this
She doesnt need the viewing pleasure, either. Im just going to stay scarce for a day. Paynes in recovery and is stableat least, thats what Jane told me, so Im going to go to my forge.
Butch held out his glass. If you dont mind?
Roger that. V poured some for his boy, took another drink for himself and then yanked on some bottoms. Holding his arms out, he did a turn. Better?
All I see are ankles and wristsand FYI, youre pulling a Miley-frickin-Cyrus with that belly flash. Not attractive.
Fuck off. As V grabbed another hit from the bottle, he decided that getting drunk was his new plan. I cant help it that youre a goddamn midget.
Butch barked a laugh and then got back to serious. If you pull this shit again . . .
You asked me to take your clothes.
Thats not what Im talking about.
V tugged at the turtlenecks sleeves and got absolutely nowhere with them. Youre not going to have to step in, cop, and Im not going to get myself killed. Thats not the point. I know where the line is.
Butch cursed, his face going grim. You say that, and I believe you think its true. But situations can spiralespecially that kind. You can be riding that wave of . . . whatever it is you need . . . and the tide can turn against you.
V flexed his gloved hand. Not possible. Not with thisand I really dont want you talking to my girl about this, true. Promise me. You need to stay out of this.
Then you have to speak with her.
How can I tell her . . . His voice broke, and he had to clear his throat. How the fuck can I explain this to her?
How can you not. She loves you.
V just shook his head. He couldnt imagine telling his shellan he wanted to be hurt physically. It would kill her. And he absolutely didnt want her to see him like this. Look, Im going to take care of this myself. All of it.
Thats what Im afraid of, V. Butch swallowed the rest of his Scotch on a oner. Thats . . . our biggest problem.
Jane was watching her patient sleep when her cell phone went off in her pocket. It wasnt a call, but a text from V: Am home & goin 2 forge 2 wrk. Hw P? & u?
Her exhale was not about relief. Hed come back about ten minutes before full-on sunrise, and he wasnt seeing her or his sister?
Screw this, she thought, as she stood up and walked out of the recovery suite.
After doing a handoff to Ehlena, who was in the clinics exam room updating the Brothers files, Jane marched down the corridor, hung a left into the office, and went out the back of the supply closet. No reason to futz around with the lock codes; she just ghosted through
And there he was, about twenty yards down the tunnel, walking away from her . . . having passed the training center on his way to go even deeper into the mountain.
The fluorescent ceiling lights illuminated him from over his head, hitting his huge shoulders and his heavy lower body. Going by the gloss, his hair looked wet, and the lingering scent of the soap he always used was the confirmation that hed just showered.
Vishous.
She said his name once, but the tunnel was an echo chamber that batted the syllables back and forth, multiplying them.
He stopped.
That was the only response she got.
After waiting for him to say something, to turn around . . . to acknowledge her, she discovered something new about her ghostly state: Even though she wasnt technically alive, her lungs could still burn sure as if she were suffocating.
Where did you go tonight, she said, not expecting an answer.
And she didnt get one. But hed halted right under a ceiling fixture, so even from a distance she could see his shoulders tightening up.
Why arent you turning around, Vishous.
Dear God . . . what had he done at the Commodore? Oh, Jesus . . .
Funny, there was a reason that people built lives together. Although the choices you made as husband and wife were not bricks, and time was not mortar, you were still constructing something tangible and real. And right now, as her hellren refused to come over to herhell, even show her his facean earthquake was rumbling under what she had thought was solid ground.
What did you do tonight, she choked out.
At that, he pivoted on his heel and took two long steps toward her. But it wasnt to get close. It was to step out of the direct light. Even still . . .
Your face, she gasped.
I got into a fight with some lessers. As she went to move forward, he held up his palm. Im fine. I just need some space right now.
Something about this was off, she thought. And she hated the question that jumped into her mindto the point where she refused to let it out.
Except then all they had was silence.
Hows my sister? he said abruptly.
Through a closed throat, she replied, Shes resting comfortably still. Ehlenas with her.
You should take some time off and have a rest.
I will. Uh-huh, right. With things like this between them, she was never going to sleep again.
V dragged his gloved hand through his hair. I dont know what to say right now.
Were you with someone else?
He didnt even hesitate: No.
Jane stared at him . . . and then slowly exhaled. One thing that was true about her hellren, one thing you could always take to the bank, was that Vishous didnt lie. For all the faults he had, that was not one of them.
All right, she said. You know where to find me. Ill be in our bed.
She was the one who turned away and started walking in the opposite direction. Even though the distance between them broke her heart, she wasnt going to badger him into something he wasnt capable of, and if he needed space . . . well, she would give it to him.
But not forever, that was for sure.
Sooner or later, that male was going to talk to her. He had to or she was going to . . . God, she didnt know what.
Her love wasnt going to survive forever in this vacuum, though. It just couldnt.
FIFTEEN
The fact that José de la Cruz hit a Dunkin Donuts drivethrough on the way into downtown Caldwell was one hell of a cliché. Collective wisdom had all homicide detectives drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, but that wasnt always the truth.
Sometimes there wasnt time to stop.
And man, screw the television shows and the detective novels, the reality was, he functioned better on caffeine and with a little sugar in his bloodstream.
Plus he lived for the honey dips. So sue him.
The call that had woken him and his wife up had come in at close to six a.m., which considering the number of nighttime ring-a-dings he got was almost civilized: Dead bodies, like live ones with medical problems, didnt play by nine-to-five rulesso the nearly decent hour had been a novel benediction.