"I know. She called." Jose's face tightened. "I didn't ask for details. From the sound of her voice, she wasn't about to give me any."
Butch's knees wobbled.
"Whoa, Detective." Jose hoisted him up. "We're going to take this slow."
The instant they came through the station's back door, Butch weaved. "I need to go look for her."
"Let's just chill on this bench."
"No"
Jose loosened his hold, and Butch went down like a piano.
Just as half the freaking precinct came up in a rush. The fleet of concerned guys in dark blue and badges made him feel pathetic.
"I'm fine," he snapped. Then he had to put his head between his knees.
How could he have let this happen?
If Beth turned up dead in the morning
"Detective?" Jose got down on his haunches, putting his face in Butch's line of sight. "We've called an ambulance."
"Don't need one. Is the APB out?"
"Yeah, Ricky's doing it right now."
Butch brought his head up. Slowly.
"Man, what happened to your neck?" Jose breathed.
"It was used to hold my body off the ground." He swallowed a couple of times. "Did the weapons get picked up from the address I called in?"
"Yeah. We got 'em and the cash. Who the hell is this guy?"
"I have no fucking clue."
Chapter Seventeen
Wrath walked up the front steps of Darius's house. The door swung open before he could reach the brass handle.
Fritz was on the other side. "Master, I didn't know you were-"
The doggen froze as he saw Beth.
Yeah, you know who she is, Wrath thought. But let's be cool.
She was jumpy enough as it was.
"Fritz, I'd like you to meet Beth Randall." The butler kept staring. "You going to let us in?"
Fritz bent down low and bowed his head. "Of course, master. Ms. Randall, it is an honor to finally meet you in person."
Beth seemed taken aback, but managed a smile as the doggen straightened and moved from the doorway.
When she stuck her hand out, Fritz gasped and looked to Wrath for permission.
"Go ahead," Wrath muttered as he shut the front door. He never could understand the strict traditions of the doggens.
Fritz reached out reverently, clasping her palm in both of his and dropping his forehead to their joined hands. Words in the old language were spoken in a quiet rush.
Beth was clearly astonished. But then she had no way of knowing that by offering her hand to him, she had paid him the highest honor of his species. As the daughter of a princeps, she was a high-bred aristocrat in their world.
Fritz was going to be glowing for days.
"We'll be in my chamber," Wrath said when the contact was broken.
The doggen hesitated. "Master, Rhage is here. He had a little accident."
Wrath cursed. "Where is he?"
"In the downstairs bathroom."
"Needle and thread?"
"in there with him."
"Who's Rhage?" Beth asked as they started down the hall.
Wrath paused by the drawing room. "You wait here."
But she followed when he walked on.
He turned around, pointing over her shoulder. "That wasn't a request."
"And I'm not waiting anywhere."
"Damn it, do as I say."
"No." The word was spoken without heat. She defied him with total calmness and strength of purpose.
As if he were no more an obstacle in her path than a throw rug.
"Jesus Christ. Fine, lose your dinner."
As he stalked down to the bathroom, he could smell the blood all the way out in the hall. This was a nasty one, and he really wished Beth weren't so hell-bent on seeing for herself.
He pushed the door open, and Rhage looked up. The vampire's arm was hanging over the sink. There was blood everywhere, a dark pool on the floor, a little pond on the counter.
"Rhage, man, what's up?"
"Sliced and diced. Lesser got me a good one, right through a vein, down to the bone. I'm leaking like a sieve."
In a blurry composite. Wrath caught the movement of Rhage's hand going down to his shoulder and up into the air. Down to his shoulder, up into the air.
"Did you get him?"
"Hell, yeah."
"Oh my God," Beth said. "Oh, dear God. Is he stitching-"
"Hey, who's the cutie?" Rhage said, pausing on the upstroke.
There was a strangled sound, and Wrath moved, blocking Beth's view with his bodv.
"Need help?" he asked, even though both he and his brother knew he had nothing to offer. He couldn't see well enough to close his own wounds, much less someone else's. The fact that he had to rely on his brothers or Fritz to tend to him was a weakness he despised.
"No, thanks." Rhage laughed. "I'm a good little sewer, as you know firsthand. Now who's your friend?"
"Beth Randall, this is Rhage. An associate of mine. Rhage, this is Beth, and she doesn't do movie stars, got it?"
"Loud and clear." Rhage leaned to one side, trying to see around Wrath. "Nice to meet you, Beth."
"Are you sure you don't want to go to a hospital?" she said weakly.
"Nah. This one's just messy. When you can use your large intestine as a belt loop, that's when you hit the pros."
A croaking sound came out of Beth's mouth.
"I'm going to take her downstairs," Wrath said.
"Oh, yes, please," she murmured. "I'd really like to go down stairs."
He put his arm around her, and he knew how affected she was by the way she melted into his body. It felt so good to have her relying on him for strength.
Too good, actually.
"You cool?" Wrath said to his brother.
"Damn straight. I'm leaving as soon as this is done. Got three jars to collect."
"Nice tally."
"Would have been more if this little gift hadn't come by air mail. No wonder you like those stars so much." Rhage moved his hand around, as if he were tying a knot. "You should know Tohr and the twins are"-he grabbed a pair of scissors off the counter and snipped the thread-"continuing our work from last night. They should be back in a couple hours to report in, just as you asked."
"Tell them to knock first."
Rhage nodded and had the sense not to follow up with any commentary.
As Wrath led Beth down the hall, he found himself stroking her shoulder. Her back. Then he curled his hand around her waist, his fingers sinking into her soft flesh. She fit well against him, her head coming up to his chest, resting on his pectoral as they moved together.
Too comfortable. Too familiar, he thought. Way too good.
He held on to her anyway.
And even as he did, he wished he could take back what he'd said to her on that sidewalk. About her being his.
Because that wasn't true. He didn't want to take her as his shellan. He'd been worked up, jealous. Picturing that cop's hands all over her. Pissed off that he hadn't killed the human after all. The words had slipped out.
Ah, hell. The female did something to his brain. Somehow managed to unplug his well-developed self-control and put him in touch with his inner fricking psycho.
It was a connection he wanted to avoid.
After all, fits of insanity were Rhage's specialty.
And the brothers didn't need another hair-trigger loose cannon in the group.
Beth closed her eyes and leaned against Wrath, trying to shut out the picture of that gaping wound. The effort was like blocking sunlight with her hands: Parts of the image kept seeping through. All that bright red, shiny blood, the raw, dark pink muscle, the shocking white of bone. And that needle. Puncturing the skin, pulling the flesh out to a point, breaking through with the black thread-
She opened her eyes.
Open was better.
No matter what the man said, that was no little scrape he was dealing with. He needed to go to the hospital. And she would have argued the point more strenuously, except she'd been a little busy trying to convince her pad thai to stay put.
Besides, that guy seemed pretty darned competent at fixing himself up.
He was also one hell of a looker. Even though the gore was distracting, she couldn't help but notice his dazzling face and body. Short blond hair, iridescent blue eyes, a face that belonged on the big screen. He'd been dressed as Wrath was, in black leather pants and shitkickers, but his shirt had been cast aside. The muscles of his upper torso had stood out in sharp relief beneath the overhead light, an impressive display of strength. And the multicolored tattoo of a dragon that covered his whole back was a total stunner.
But then, it wasn't as if Wrath were going to hang out with some scrawny tax accountant-looking nancy.
Drug dealers. They were clearly drug dealers. Guns, weapons, huge amounts of cash. And who else got into a knife fight and played doctor on themselves?
She recalled that the man had borne the same circular-shaped scar on his chest that Wrath did.
They must be in a gang, she thought. Or the mob.
She suddenly needed some space, and Wrath let her go as they walked into a lemon-colored room. Her feet slowed. The place looked like a museum or something she'd expect to see in Architectural Digest. Thick, pale drapery framed wide windows, rich oil paintings gleamed from the walls, objets d'art were tastefully arranged. She glanced down at the carpet. The thing was probably worth more than her apartment.
Maybe they didn't just deal in crack, X, and heroin, she thought. Maybe they worked the antiques black market as well.
Now there was a combo you didn't run across very often.
"This is nice," she murmured, fingering an antique box. "Very nice."
She eyed Wrath when she got no response. He was standing just inside the room, arms folded across his pecs, at the ready even though he was home.
But then, when did he ever relax? she thought.
"Have you always been a collector?" she asked, trying to buy some time so her nerves could settle. She walked over to a Hudson River School painting. Good lord, it was a Thomas Cole. Probably worth hundreds of thousands. "This is beautiful."
She glanced over her shoulder. He was focused on her, paying no attention to the painting. And there was no expression of pride or ownership on his face.
Which was not the way someone looked when their things were admired.
"This is not your house," she said.
"Your father lived here."
Yeah, sure.
But what the hell. She'd come this far. She might as well play along.
"Then he obviously had plenty of money. What did he do for a living?"
Wrath walked across the room, toward an exquisite, full-length portrait of what looked like a king.
"Come with me."
"What? You want me to walk through that wall-"
He pushed one side of the painting, and it swiveled outward to reveal a dark corridor.
"Oh," she said.
He gestured with his arm. "After you."
Beth approached carefully. The glow of gas lanterns flickered over black stone. She leaned in, seeing a set of stairs that disappeared around a turn far below.
"What's down there?"
"A place where we can talk."
"Why don't we stay up here?"
"Because you're going to want to do this privately. And my brothers are likely to show up soon."
"Your brothers?"
"Yes."
"How many of them are there?"
"Five, now. And you're stalling. Go on. Nothing will hurt you down there, I promise."
Uh-huh. Sure.
But she put her foot over the gilded edge of the frame. And stepped into the darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
Beth took a deep breath and hesitantly put her hands out to the stone walls. The air wasn't musty; there was no creepy coating of moisture on anything; it was just very, very dark. She went down the stairs slowly, feeling her way. The lanterns were more like fireflies, lights unto themselves rather than illumination for someone using the stairwell.
And then she reached the bottom. To the right there was an open door, and she caught the warm glow of candlelight.
The room was just like the passageway: black walled, dimly lit, but clean. The candles were soothing as they flickered at their posts. While she put her purse down on the coffee table, she wondered if Wrath slept here.
God knew the bed was big enough for him.
And were those black satin sheets?
She figured he'd taken a lot of women down to this lair of his. And it didn't take a genius to figure out what happened once he closed the door.
A lock clicked into place, and her heart seized up.
"So about my father," she said briskly.
Wrath walked past her, taking off his jacket. He was wearing a muscle shirt under it, and she couldn't ignore the raw power of his arms, his biceps and triceps rippling as he put the leather aside. The tattoos running down his inner forearms flashed as he peeled the empty holster from his shoulders.
He went into the bathroom and she heard water splashing. When he came back out, he was drying his face with a towel. He put his sunglasses on before looking at her.
"You're father, Darius, was a worthy male." Wrath casually tossed the towel back into the bathroom and walked over to the couch. He sat forward, elbows on his knees. "He was an aristocrat from the old country before he became a warrior. He's he was my friend. My brother in the work I do."
Brother. He kept using that word.
They were in the Mafia. Definitely.
Wrath smiled a little, as if remembering something that pleased him. "D had skills. He was fast on his feet, smart as hell, good with a knife. But he was cultured. A gentleman. He spoke eight languages. Studied everything from world religions to art history to philosophy. He could talk your ear off about Wall Street and then tell you why the Sistine Chapel ceiling is actually a Mannerist work, not from the Renaissance."
Wrath leaned back, running a hefty arm across the top of the sofa. His knees fell out to the sides, his thighs spreading.
He looked damn comfortable as he pushed his long black hair back.
Sexy as hell.
"Darius never lost his temper, no matter how nasty things got. He just stuck to the job at hand until it was finished. He died with the full respect of his brothers."
Wrath actually seemed to miss her father. Or whatever man he was channeling for the purpose of
What exactly was he trying to pull here? she wondered. Where did it get him to throw out this crap?
Well, she was in his bedroom, wasn't she?
"And Fritz tells me he loved you very deeply."
Beth pursed her lips. "Assuming I even buy any of this, I've got to wonder. If my father cared so much, why didn't he bother to introduce himself to me?"
"It's complicated."
"Yeah, it's really hard to walk up to your daughter, stick your hand out, and say your name. Real tough stuff." She walked across the room, only to find herself next to the bed. She quickly paced elsewhere. "And what's up with the warrior rhetoric? Was he in the mob, too?"
"Mob? We're not the mob, Beth."
"So you're just freelance killers as well as drug dealers?
Hmmm Come to think of it, diversification is probably a good business strategy. And you need a lot of cash to keep up a house like this. As well as fill it full of art that belongs in the Met."
"Darius inherited his money and he was very good at taking care of it." Wrath leaned his head back, as if he were looking up at the house. "As his daughter, all of this is yours now."
She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, really."
He nodded.
What a crock, she thought.
"So where's the will? Where's some executor ready to pass papers? Wait, let me guess, the estate's been in probate. For the last thirty years." She rubbed her aching eyes. "You know, Wrath, you don't have to lie to get me in bed. As much as I'm ashamed of myself, all you have to do is ask."
She took a deep, sad breath. Until now she hadn't realized that a small part of her had believed she'd get some answers. Finally.
Then again, desperation could make a fool out of anyone.
"Look, I'm going to take off. This was just-"
Wrath was in front of her faster than she could blink. "I can't let you go."
Fear licked her heart, but she put up a good front. "You can't make me stay."
His hands lifted to her face. She jerked back, but he wouldn't let go.
The pad of his thumb stroked her cheek. Whenever he got too close, she became spellbound and it happened again. She felt her body swaying toward his.
"I'm not lying to you," he said. "Your father sent me to you because you're going to need my help. Trust me."
She yanked away. "I don't want to hear that word on your lips."
Here he was, a criminal who'd almost killed a cop in front of her, and he was expecting her to buy a line of bull that she knew was false.
While he was stroking her face like a lover.
He must think she was a moron.
"Look, I've seen my records." Her voice didn't waver. "My birth certificate lists my father as unknown, but there was a note in the file. My mother told a nurse in the delivery room that he'd passed away. She was unable to disclose a name because she went into shock from blood loss thereafter and died herself."
"I'm sorry, but that's just not what happened."
"You're sorry. Yeah, I bet you are."
"I'm not playing games-"
"The hell you aren't! God, to think for even a moment that I might know one of them, even secondhand" She stared at him with disgust. "You are so cruel."
He swore, a nasty, frustrated sound. "I don't know how to get you to believe me."
"Don't bother trying. You have no credibility." She grabbed her purse. "Hell, it's probably better this way. I would almost rather he'd died than know that he was a criminal. Or that we'd lived in the same town all my life but he never came to see me, wasn't even curious enough to know what I looked like."
"He knew." Wrath's voice was very near again. "He knew you."
She spun around. He was so close he overwhelmed her with his size.
Beth leaped away. "Stop this right now."
"He knew you."
"Stop saying that!"
"Your father knew you," Wrath shouted.
"Then why didn't he want me?" she yelled back.
Wrath winced. "He did. He watched over you. All your life he was never far away."
She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself. She couldn't believe she was tempted to fall under his spell again.
"Beth, look at me. Please."
She lifted her lids.
"Give me your hand," he said. "Give it to me."
When she didn't respond, he placed her palm on his chest, over his heart.
"On my honor. I have not lied to you."
He became utterly still, as if giving her a chance to read every nuance of his face and his body.
Could this be the truth? she wondered.
"He loved you, Beth."
Don't believe this. Don't believe this. Don't-
"Then why didn't he come for me?" she whispered.
"He hoped you wouldn't have to know him. That you'd be spared the kind of life he lived." Wrath stared down at her. "And he ran out of time."
There was a long silence.
"Who was my father?" she breathed.
"He was as I am."
And then Wrath opened his mouth.
Fangs. He had fangs.
Her skin shrank in horror. She shoved him away. "You bastard!"
"Beth, listen to me-"
"So you can tell me you're a fucking vampire?" She lunged at him, punching his chest with her hands. "You sick bastard! You sick bastard! If you want to role-play your fantasies, do it with someone else."
"Your father-"
She slapped him, hard. Right across the face.
"Do not go there. Don't even try it." Her hand stung, and she tucked it in against her belly. She wanted to cry. Because she was hurting. Because she'd tried to hurt him back and he seemed utterly unaffected by the fact that she'd hit him.
"God, you almost had me, you really did," she moaned. "But then you had to take it one step too far and flash those fake teeth."
"They're real. Look closely."
More candles came on in the room, lit by no one.
Her breath left her in a rush. Abruptly, she had the sense that nothing was as it seemed. The rules were off. Reality was sliding into a different realm.
She raced across the room.
He met her at the door and she crouched, as if she had a prayer of keeping him away from her.
"Don't come near me." She grabbed for the handle. Threw her whole body into it. The thing wouldn't budge.
Panic ran like gasoline through her veins.
"Beth-"
"Let me go!" The door handle cut into the skin of her palms as she wrenched it.
When his hand came down on her shoulder, she screamed. "Don't touch me!"
She leaped away from him. Careened around the room. He tracked her, coming at her slowly, inexorably.
"I'm going to help you."
"Leave me alone!"
She dashed around him and dove for the door. This time it opened before she even got to the handle.
As if he'd willed it so.
She looked back at him in horror. "This isn't real."
She bolted up the stairs, tripping only once. When she tried to work the latch on the painting, she broke a nail, but eventually got it open. She ran through the drawing room. Burst out of the house and-
Wrath was there, standing on the front lawn.
Beth skidded to a halt.
Terror flooded her body, fright and disbelief seizing her heart in a fist. Her mind slipped into madness.
"No!" She took off, running in any direction as long as it was away from him.
She felt him following her, and she threw her legs out harder and faster. She ran until she couldn't breathe, until she was blinded by exhaustion and her thighs were screaming. She ran flat-out and still he followed.
She fell down onto grass, sobbing.
Curling into a ball, as if to shield herself from blows, she wept.
When he picked her up she didn't fight him.
What was the use? If this was a dream, she would wake up eventually. And if it was the truth
She was going to need him to explain a hell of a lot more than just her father's life.
As Wrath carried Beth back down to the chamber, fear and confusion poured out of her in waves of distress. He laid her down on the bed and yanked the top sheet free so he could wrap her up. Then he went to the couch and sat down, thinking she'd appreciate the space.
Eventually she shifted around, and he felt her eyes on him.
"I'm waiting to wake up. To have the alarm go off," she said hoarsely. "But it's not going to, is it?"
He shook his head.
"How is this possible? How" She cleared her throat. "Vampires?"
"We're just a different species."
"Bloodsuckers. Killers."
"Try persecuted minority. Which was why your father was hoping you wouldn't go through the change."
"Change?"
He nodded grimly.
"Oh, God." She clamped her hand over her mouth as if she were going to be sick. "Don't tell me I'm going to"
A shock wave of panic came out of her, creating a breeze through the room that reached him in a cool rush. He couldn't bear her anguish and wanted to do something to ease her. Except compassion wasn't among his strengths.
If only there were something he could fight for her.
Yeah, well, there was nothing at the moment. Nothing. The truth wasn't a target he could eliminate. And it wasn't her enemy, even though it hurt her. It just was.
He stood up and approached the bed. When she didn't shrink away from him, he sat down. The tears she shed smelled like spring rain.
"What's going to happen to me?" she murmured.
The desperation in her voice suggested she was talking to God, not him. But he answered anyway.
"Your change is coming fast. It hits all of us sometime around our twenty-fifth birthday. I'll teach you how to take care of yourself. I'll show you what to do."
"Good God"
"After you go through it, you're going to need to drink."
She choked and jerked upright. "I'm not killing anyone!"
"It's not like that. You need the blood of a male vampire. That's all."
"That's all," she repeated in a dead tone.
"We don't prey on humans. That's an old wives' tale."
"You've never taken a human?"
"Not to drink from them," he hedged. "There are some vampires who do, but the strength doesn't last long. To thrive, we need to feed off our own race."
"You make it all sound so normal."
"It is."
She fell silent. And then, as if it just dawned on her, "You're going to let me-"
"You're going to drink from me. When it's time."
She let out a strangled sound, like she'd wanted to cry out, but her gag reflex had kicked in.
"Beth, I know this is hard-"
"You do not."
"-because I had to go through it, too."
She looked at him. "Did you learn you were one out of the blue also?"
It wasn't a challenge. More like she was hoping she had common ground with someone. Anyone.
"I knew who my parents were," he said, "but they were dead by the time my transition hit. I was alone. I didn't know what to expect. So I know what the confusion feels like."
Her body fell back against the pillows. "Was my mother one, too?"
"She was human, from what Darius told me. Vampires have been known to breed with them, although it's rare for the infants to survive."
"Can I stop the change? Can I stop this from happening?"
He shook his head.
"Does it hurt?"
"You're going to feel-"
"Not me. Will I hurt you?"
Wrath swallowed his surprise. No one worried about him. Vampires and humans alike feared him. His race worshiped him. But none were ever concerned for him. He didn't know how to handle the sentiment.
"No. It won't hurt me."
"Could I kill you?"
"I won't let you."
"Promise?" she said urgently, sitting up and gripping his forearm.
He couldn't believe he was taking a vow to protect himself. At her request.
"I promise you." He reached his hand out to cover hers, but stopped before he made contact.
"When will it happen?"
"I can't tell you that for sure. But soon."
She let go, settling against the pillows. Then she curled on her side away from him.
"Maybe I'll wake up," she murmured. "Maybe I'll still wake up."
Chapter Nineteen
Butch drank his first Scotch in one swallow. Big mistake. His throat was raw, and it felt like he'd French-kissed a blowtorch. As soon as he stopped coughing, he ordered another from Abby.
"We're going to find her," Jose said, putting his beer down.
The other detective was sticking to the light stuff, but then Jose had to go home to his family. Butch, on the other hand, was free to behave as badly as he wished.
Jose played with his mug, twisting it around in circles on the bar. "You shouldn't blame yourself, Detective."
Butch laughed and threw back Scotch number two. "Yeah, there's a huge list of people who were in my car with that suspect." He lifted his finger to get Abby's attention. "I'm dry again."
"Not for long." She jiggled right over with the single-malt, smiling at him while she tipped the bottle into his glass.
Jose shifted in his bar stool as if he didn't approve of Butch's Scotch velocity and the effort of keeping his lip zipped was making him squirm.
As Abby went over to another customer, Butch glanced at Jose.
"I'm going to get ugly wasted tonight. You shouldn't stick around."
Jose" popped some peanuts into his mouth. "I'm not leaving you here."
"I'll cab it home."
"Naw. I'll hang until you're through. Then I'll drag you back to your apartment. Watch you throw up for an hour. Push you into bed. Before I leave I'll get the coffee machine set up. Aspirin will be right next to the sugar bowl."
"I don't have a sugar bowl."
"So it'll be next to the bag."
Butch smiled. "You'd have made a great wife, Jose."
"That's what mine tells me."
They were silent until Abby poured number four.
"The throwing stars I peeled off that suspect," Butch said. "Where do we stand with them?"
"Same as the ones we found at the car bomb and around Cherry's body. Typhoons. Three-point-one ounces of four-forty stainless steel. Four-inch diameter. Removable center weight. You can get 'em off the Internet for about twelve bucks a pop or buy them through martial-arts academies. And no, there were no prints."
"The other weapons?"
"Flashy set of knives. The boys in the lab got a real hard-on for them. Composite metal, diamond hard, beautifully made by hand. No identifying manufacturer. Gun was your standard nine-millimeter Beretta, model 92G-SD. Real well cared for, and naturally the serial number had been etched off. The freaky thing was the bullets. Never seen anything like 'em. Hollow, filled with some kind of liquid. The boys think it's just water. But why would someone do that?"
"You gotta be kidding me."
"Uh-huh."
"And no prints."
"Nope."
"On anything."
"Nope." Jose finished the bowl of peanuts and trolled his hand to get Abby's eye for more. "That suspect's slick. Neat as a pin. A real professional. Wanna bet he's moved up north from the Big Apple? He doesn't sound Caldwell homegrown."
"Tell me that while I was wasting time with those damn EMTs we checked with the NYPD."