For some reason the lesser who had taken her loved her. With all his heart. He yelled at her sometimes, and he did terrify her when he was in one of his moods, but the harder she was on him, the better he treated her. When she withheld her eyes from him, he'd go into a tailspin of anxiety. When he brought her gifts and she refused them, he wept. With increasing fervor, he worried over her and begged for her attention and curled up against her, and when she shut him out, he crumbled.
Toying with his emotions was her whole, hateful world, and the cruelty that fed her was killing her. Once she'd been a living thing, a daughter, a sister a someone Now she was hardening, setting like concrete in the midst of her nightmare. Embalmed.
Dear Virgin in the Fade, she knew he wasn't ever going to let her go. And sure as if he'd killed her outright, he'd taken her future. All she had now was just this god-awful, infinite present. With him.
Panic, an emotion she hadn't felt for a while, surged into her chest.
Desperate to go back to the numbness, she concentrated on how cold it was in the earth. The lesser kept her dressed in clothes he had taken from her own drawers and closet, and she was insulated by long Johns and fleeces and warm socks and boots. Except, even with all that, the chill was relentless, sneaking through the layers, burrowing into her bones, turning her marrow into an icy slush.
Her thoughts shifted to her farmhouse, where she had lived for such a short time. She remembered the cheery fires she'd made herself in the hearth in the living room and the happiness she'd felt to be on her own These were bad visions, bad memories. They reminded her of her old life, of her mother of her brother.
God, Rehvenge. Rehv had driven her crazy with all his domineering behavior, but he'd been right. If she'd stayed with the family, she never would have met Mary, the human who had lived next door. And she never would have crossed the meadow between their houses that night to make sure everything was okay. And she never would have run into the lesser so she never would have ended up both dead and breathing.
She wondered how long her brother had looked for her. Had he given up by now? Probably. Not even Rehv could keep going for so long without hope.
She bet he'd looked for her, but she was glad in a way that he hadn't found her. Although he was a highly aggressive male, he was a civilian, and liable to get hurt if he came to rescue her. Those lessers were strong. Cruel and powerful. No, to get her back it would take something equal to the monster that held her.
An image of Zsadist came to mind, clear as a photograph. She saw his savage black eyes. The scar that ran down his face and distorted his upper lip. The tattooed blood-slave bands around his throat and wrists. She remembered the whip marks on his back. And the piercings that hung from his nipples. And his muscled, too-lean body.
She thought of his vicious, uncompromising will and all of his high-test hatred. He was terrifying, a horror of her species. Ruined, not broken, in the words of his twin. But that was what would have made him such a good savior. He alone was a match for the lesser who'd taken her. Zsadist's kind of brutality was probably the only thing that could have gotten her out, though she knew better than to think that he'd ever try to find her. She was just some civilian whom he'd met twice.
And the second time, he'd made her swear she would never come near him again.
Fear closed in on her, and she tried to bridle the emotion by telling herself that Rehvenge was still searching for her. And that he would call upon the Brotherhood if he found any clues as to where she was. Then maybe Zsadist would come after her, because he was required to, as part of his job.
"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" The shaky male voice was muted, the tone tinny.
It was the newest captive, she thought. They always tried to reach out in the beginning.
Bella cleared her throat. "I am here."
There was a pause. "Oh, my God are you the female that was taken? Are you Bella?"
Hearing her name was a shock. Hell, the lesser had been calling her wife for so long, she'd almost forgotten she'd gone by something else. "Yes yes, I am."
"You're still alive."
Well, her heart was still beating, at any rate. "Do I know you?"
"II went to your funeral. With my parents, Ralstam and Jilling."
Bella started to tremble. Her mother and her brother had put her to rest. But then, of course they would have. Her mother was deeply religious, a great believer in the Old Traditions. Once she was convinced her daughter was dead, she would have insisted on the proper ceremony so that Bella could enter the Fade.
Oh God. Thinking they'd given up and knowing they had were two such different things. No one was coming after her. Ever.
She heard something weird. And realized she was sobbing.
"I'm going to escape," the male said with force. "And I'll take you with me."
Bella let her knees give out, and she slid down the ribbed wall of the pipe until she was lodged at the bottom. Now she really was dead, wasn't she? Dead and buried.
How horribly appropriate that she was stuck in the earth.
CHAPTER 2
Zsadist's shitkickers carried him through an alley off Trade Street, the heavy soles stomping apart frozen slush puddles and crushing through the icy ripples of tire treads. It was pitch-dark, because there were no windows in the brick buildings on either side of him and the clouds had shut out the moon. Yet as he walked alone, his night vision was perfect, penetrating everything. Just like his rage.
Black blood. What he needed was more black blood. He needed it on his hands and kicking up into his face and splattering onto his clothes. He needed oceans of it to run onto the ground and seep into the earth. To honor Bella's memory, he would make the slayers bleed, each death his offering to her.
He knew she no longer lived, knew in his heart she must have been killed in a gruesome way. So why did he always start off asking those bastards where she was? Hell, he didn't know. It was just the first thing that came out of his mouth, no matter how many times he told himself she was gone.
And he was going to keep asking those fuckers questions. He wanted to know the where and how and with what they'd gotten her. The information would only eat at him, but he needed to know. Had to know. And one of them was going to talk eventually.
Z stopped. Sniffed the air. Prayed for the sweet smell of baby powder to drift into his nose. Goddamn it, he couldn't stand this not knowing any longer.
But then he laughed in a nasty crack. Yeah, the hell he couldn't take it. Thanks to his hundred years of careful training with the Mistress, there was no level of shit he hadn't survived. Physical pain, mental anguish, cringing depths of humiliation and degradation, hopelessness, helplessness: Been there, sweated that.
So he could survive this.
He looked up at the sky, and as his head shifted back he swayed. With a quick hand he steadied himself against a Dumpster, then took a deep breath and waited to see if the drunken sensation passed. No luck.
Feeding time. Again.
Cursing, he hoped he could squeeze out another night or two. Sure, he'd been dragging his body around by force of will the last couple of weeks, but that was nothing unusual. And tonight he just didn't want to deal with the bloodlust.
Come on, come on focus, asshole.
He forced himself to keep going, stalking the downtown alleys, weaving in and out of the dangerous urban maze of Caldwell, New York's club and drug scene.
By three A.M., he was so blood-hungry he felt stoned, and that was the only reason he gave in. He couldn't stomach the disassociation, the numbness in his body. It reminded him too much of the opium stupors he'd been forced into as a blood slave.
Walking as quickly as he could, he headed for ZeroSum, the Brotherhood's current downtown hangout. The bouncers let him bypass the wait line, easy access being one of the perks of folks who dropped the kind of cash the Brothers did. Hell, Phury's red smoke habit alone was worth a couple grand a month, and V and Butch only liked the buzz that came from top-shelf booze. Then there were Z's own regular purchases.
The club was hot and dark inside, a kind of humid, tropical cave with techno music twirling in the air. Humans crowded the dance floor, sucking on lollipop rings, guzzling water, sweating while they moved with pulsing pastel lasers.
All around, bodies were up against the walls, paired off or in triplicate, writhing, touching.
Z headed for the VIP lounge, and the human horde gave way before him, parting like velvet cloth torn open. Though high on X and coke, those overheated bodies still had enough survival instinct to spot him as a coffin waiting to happen.
In the way back, a bouncer with a buzz cut let him into the best real estate in the club. Here, in relative quiet, twenty tables with banquet seating were spaced far apart, with only the black marble tops spotlit from the ceiling. The Brotherhood's booth was right by the fire exit, and he wasn't surprised to see Vishous and Butch there with shot glasses in front of them. Phury's martini glass was sitting all alone.
The two roommates didn't look glad to see him. No they seemed resigned to his arrival, like they'd been hoping to take a load off and he'd just thrown them both an engine block.
"Where is he?" Z asked, nodding at his twin's martini.
"Making a red smoke buy in the back," Butch said. "Ran out of O-Zs."
Z sat down on the left and leaned back, taking himself out of the light falling on the glossy table. As he glanced around, he recognized the faces of meaningless strangers. The VIP section had a hardcore of regulars, but none of the big spenders interacted much beyond their tight groups. In fact, the whole club was permeated by a "don't ask, don't tell" vibe, which was one of the reasons the Brothers came here. Even though ZeroSum was owned by a vampire, they needed to keep a low profile about who they were.
Over the last century or so, the Black Dagger Brotherhood had become secretive about their identities within the race. There were rumors, of course, and civilians knew a few of their names, but everything was kept on the QT. The subterfuge had started when the race had fragmented about a century ago and tragically, trust had become an issue within the species. But now, though, there was another reason. The lessers were torturing civilians for information on the Brotherhood, so it was imperative to keep on the down-low.
As a result, the few vampires who worked this club weren't sure the big males in leather who sucked back drinks and dropped bills were Black Dagger members. And fortunately, social custom, if not the way the Brothers looked, prevented questions.
Zsadist shifted in the booth, impatient. He hated the club; he really did. Hated having so many bodies so close to his. Hated the noise. The smells.
In a chatty tangle, a trio of human females approached the Brothers' table. The three of them were working tonight, though what they were serving up didn't fit in a glass. These were your typical high-class hookers: hair extensions, fake breasts, faces molded by plastic surgeons, clothes out of a spray can. There were a lot of their kind of movable feast in the club, particularly in the VIP section. The Reverend, who owned and ran ZeroSum, believed in product diversification as a business strategy, offering their bodies as well as the alcohol and the drugs. The vampire also loaned money and had a team of bookies and did God knew what else from his back office in service to his mostly human clientele.
As the three prostitutes smiled and talked, they presented themselves for a buy. But none of them were what Z was looking for, and V and Butch didn't pick them up either. Two minutes later, the women headed off to the next booth.
Z was goddamned hungry, but he had one nonnegotiable when it came to feeding.
"Hey, daddies," another woman said. "Any of you looking for some company?"
He glanced up. This human female had a hard face to match her hard body. Clothes were black leather. Eyes were glassy. Hair was short.
Fucking perfect.
Z put his hand into the pool of light on the table, lifted two fingers, then rapped twice on the marble with his knuckles. As Butch and V started shifting in the seat, their tension annoyed him.
The female smiled. "Well, all right."
Zsadist leaned forward and uncoiled to his full height, his face becoming illuminated by the spotlight. The whore's expression froze solid as she took a step back.
At that moment Phury came out of a door to the left, his spectacular mane of hair reflecting the shifting lights. Right behind him was a hard-ass male vampire with a mohawk: the Reverend.
As the two came up to the table, the owner of the club smiled tightly. Eyes the color of amethysts missed nothing about the prostitute's hesitation. "Evening, gentlemen. You going somewhere, Lisa?"
Lisa's bravado came back with a vengeance. "Wherever he wants, boss."
"Right answer."
Enough with the yakkies, Z thought. "Outside. Now."
He pushed open the fire door and followed her into the alley behind the club. The December wind blew through the loose jacket he'd put on to cover his weapons, but he didn't care about the cold, and neither did Lisa. Even though the icy gusts teased her cropped hair and she was close to naked, she faced him without shivering, chin up.
Now that she'd committed herself, she was ready for him. A real professional.
"We do it here," he said, stepping into the shadows. He took two one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and held them out. Her fingers crushed them before she disappeared the cash into her leather skirt.
"How do you want it?" she asked, sidling up to him, reaching for his shoulders.
He spun her around to the brick wall, face-first. "I do the touching. Not you."
Her body tensed and her fear tingled in his nose, a sulfurous sting. But her voice was strong. "Watch it, asshole. I come back with bruises and he'll hunt you down like an animal."
"Don't worry. You're going to walk away from this just fine."
But she was still scared. And he was blessedly numb to the emotion.
Usually fright in a female was the only thing that could turn him on, the only way the it in his pants would get hard. Lately, though, the trigger wasn't working, which was just fine with him. He despised the response of that thing behind his zipper, and because most females were scared shitless of him, the it got aroused a hell of a lot more often than he wanted. Not at all would have been better. Shit, he was probably the only male on the planet who wanted to be impotent.
"Tilt your head to the side," he said. "Ear to your shoulder."
Slowly she complied, exposing her neck to him. This was why he'd chosen her. Short hair meant he wouldn't have to touch anything to clear his way. He hated having to put his hands on them anywhere.
As he stared at her throat, his thirst rose and his fangs elongated. God, he was dry enough to drain her.
"What are you going to do?" she snapped. "Bite me?"
"Yeah."
He struck quickly and held her in place as she thrashed. To make it easier on her, he calmed her with his mind, relaxing her, giving her a kind of high she was no doubt very familiar with. While she settled down, he swallowed as much as he could without gagging, tasting the coke and alcohol in her blood as well as the antibiotics she was on.
When he was finished, he licked the puncture marks so the healing process would get its groove on and she wouldn't bleed out. Then he popped her collar to hide the bite, cleaned himself from her memory, and sent her back into the club.
Alone again, he sagged against the bricks. Human blood was so weak, it barely got him what he needed, but he wasn't about to drink from females of his own species. Not again. Ever.
He looked up at the sky. The clouds that had brought the flurries earlier were gone, and between the buildings he could see a slice of the clear pincushion of stars. The constellations told him he had only two hours left to be out.
When he had the strength, he closed his eyes and dematerialized to the only place he wanted to be.
Thank God there was still enough time to go there. To be there.
CHAPTER 3
John Matthew moaned and rolled over in his bed onto his back.
The woman followed his lead, her naked breasts pressing down on his broad, bare chest. With an erotic smile, she reached down between his legs and found his heavy ache. He kicked his head back and moaned as she stood his erection up and sat down on it. While he gripped her knees, she fell into a good, slow ride.
Oh, yeah
With one hand she played with herself; with the other she tantalized him, sweeping her palm over her breasts and up to her neck, taking her long, platinum blond hair with her as she went. Her hand moved higher to her face, and then her arm was over her head, a graceful arc of flesh and bone. She arched back and her breasts pushed out, the hard tips distended, rosy. Her skin was so pale it looked like fresh snow.
"Warrior," she said, grinding. "Can you handle this?"
Handle it? Damn straight, he could. And just so they were clear on who was handling what, he grabbed her thighs and thrust his hips up until she cried out.
When he retreated, she smiled down at him, working against him faster and faster. She was slick and she was tight, and his erection was in heaven.
"Warrior, can you handle this?" Her voice was deeper now from the exertion.
"Hell, yeah," he growled. Man, the second he came, he was going to flip her over and pound into her all over again.
"Can you handle this?" She pumped even harder, milking him. With her arm still over her head, she was riding him like a bull, bucking against him.
This was great sex awesome, incredible, great
Her words began to warp, distort fall below the register of a female. "Can you handle this?"
John felt a chill. Something was off here. Something was way off
"Can you handle this? Can you handle this?" Suddenly a man's voice was coming out of her throat, a man's voice was sneering at him. "Can you can handle this?"
John struggled to throw her off, but she was clamped on to him, and the fucking wouldn't stop.
"Do you think you can handle this? Do-you-think-you-can-handle-this? Doyouthinkyoucanhandlethis?" The male voice was screaming now, roaring out of the female's face.
The knife came at John from over her headonly she was a man now, a man with white skin and pale hair and eyes the color of fog. As the blade flashed silver, John reached up to block it, but his arm wasn't heavy with muscle anymore. It was thin, emaciated.
"Can you handle this, warrior?"
With a graceful slice, the dagger landed square in the middle of his chest. A blazing pain lit off from where it penetrated him, the violent burning sluicing through his body, ricocheting around inside of his skin until he was alive with agony. He gasped for breath and choked on his own blood, choked and gagged until he could get nothing into his lungs. Railing around, he fought against the death that was coming for him
"John! John! Wake up!"
His eyes popped wide. His first thought was that his face hurt, though he had no idea why, because he'd been stabbed in the chest. Then he realized his mouth was stretched open, accommodating what would have been a scream if he'd been born with a voice box. As it was, all he was doing was letting out a steady stream of air.
Then he felt the hands hands were pinning his arms. Terror returned, and in what was for him an awesome surge, he threw his little body off the bed. He landed face-first, his cheek skidding on the low-napped carpet.
"John! It's me, Wellsie."
Reality came back at the sound of the name, shaking him free of the hysteria like a slap.
Oh, God It was okay. He was okay. He was alive.
He launched himself into Wellsie's arms and buried his face in her long red hair.
"It's all right." She pulled him into her lap and stroked his back. "You're home. You're safe."
Home. Safe. Yes, after only six weeks this was home the first he'd ever had after growing up in Our Lady's orphanage and then living in hovels since he was sixteen. Wellsie and Tohrment's was home.
And he wasn't just safe here; he was understood. Hell, he'd learned the truth about himself. Until Tohrment had come and found him, he hadn't known why he'd always been different from other people or why he was so scrawny and weak. But male vampires were like that before they went through the transition. Even Tohr, who was a full-fledged member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, had apparently been small.
Wellsie tilted John's head up. "Can you tell me what it was?"
He shook his head and burrowed deeper into her, holding on to her so hard he was surprised she could still breathe.
Zsadist materialized in front of Bella's farmhouse and cursed. Someone had been in the place again. There were fresh tire tracks through the powdered snow in the driveway and footprints to the door. Ah, shit There were a lot of footprints, so many back and forth to whatever car had been parked there that it looked as if things were being moved out.
This made him anxious, like little bits of her were disappearing.
Holy hell. If her family dismantled the house, he didn't know where he would go to be with her anymore.
With a hard eye, he stared at the front porch and the long windows of the living room. Maybe he should pack up some of her stuff for himself. It would be a bastard thing to do, but then, he wasn't above being a thief.
Once again, he wondered about her family. He knew they were aristocrats of the highest social order, but that was about it, and he didn't want to meet them to find out more. Even on his best day, he was shit-awful with people, but the situation with Bella made him dangerous, not just nasty. No, Tohrment was the liaison with her blood ties, and Z was always careful not to run into them.
He went around the back of the house, entered through the kitchen, and turned off the security alarm. As he did every night, he checked on her fish first. Flakes of food were scattered across the top of the water, evidence that someone had already taken care of them. He was pissed off that he'd been robbed of the opportunity.
Truth was, he thought of her house as his space now. He'd cleaned it up after she'd been abducted. He'd watered the plants and taken care of the fish. He'd walked the floors and the stairs and stared out of the windows and sat on every chair and sofa and bed. Hell, he'd already decided to buy the damn thing when her family sold it. Though he'd never had a house before or many personal possessions, these walls and this roof and the shit sheltered insidehe would own it all. A shrine to her.
Z made a quick trip through the house, cataloging the things that had been removed. It wasn't much. A painting and a silver dish from the living room and a mirror from the front hall. He was curious why those particular objects had been chosen and wanted them back where they belonged.
As he came into the kitchen again, he pictured the room after she'd been abducted, all the blood, the glass shards, the busted chairs and china. His eyes went down to a black streak of rubber on the pine floor. He could guess how it had been made. Bella struggling against the lesser, being dragged, the sole of her shoe squeaking as it left a trail.
Anger crawled around his chest on all fours until he was panting from the ugly, familiar feeling. Except Christ, the whole thing didn't make sense: him searching for her and obsessing over her shit and walking around her house. They hadn't been friends. Hell, they hadn't even been acquaintances. And he hadn't been nice to her on the two occasions he'd met her.
Man, he regretted that. During those few moments he'd had with her, he wished he hadn't been so Well, not throwing up after he'd found out she was aroused by him would have been a good fricking start. Except there'd been no way to suck back the response. No female other than that sick bitch mistress of his had ever been wet for him, so he sure as hell didn't associate slick female flesh with anything good.
As he remembered Bella being up against his body, he still wondered why she'd wanted to lay with him. His face was a goddamned mess. His body wasn't much better, at least not on the back. And his reputation made Jack the Ripper look like a Boy Scout. Damn it, he was angry at everyone and everything all the time. She'd been beautiful and soft and kind, a regal, aristocratic female from a privileged background.
Oh, but their contradictions had been the point, hadn't they? He'd been the change-of-pace male for her. The walk on the wild side. The savage creature who would shock her out of her nice little life for an hour or two. And even though it had hurt to be reduced to precisely what he was, he'd still thought she was lovely.
From behind him, he heard a grandfather clock start to chime. Five o'clock.
The front door to the house opened with a creak.
In a soundless rush, Z unsheathed a black dagger from his chest and flattened himself against the wall. He angled his head so he had a view down the hall to the foyer.
Butch held up his hands as he walked inside. "Just me, Z."
Zsadist lowered the blade, then put it back in its holster.
The former homicide detective was an anomaly in their world, the only human who'd ever been let into the Brotherhood's inner circle. Butch was V's roommate, Rhage's lifting partner in the gym, Phury's clothes-whore buddy. And for reasons of his own, he was obsessed with Bella's abduction, so he had some shit in common with Z, too.
"What up, cop?"
"You heading back to the compound?" The guy's question might have been framed as an inquiry, but it was more like a suggestion.
"Not right now."
"Close to daylight."
Whatever. "Phury send you for me?"
"My choice. When you didn't come back from what you paid for, I figured you might end up here."
Z crossed his arms over his chest. "You worried I killed that female I took into the alley?"
"Nope. Saw her working the club before I left."
"So why am I looking at you right now?"
As the male glanced down like he was putting words together in his head, his weight moved back and forth in those expensive loafers he liked. Then he unbuttoned his fancy black cashmere coat.
Ah so Butch was a messenger. "Spit it out, cop."
The human rubbed his thumb over his eyebrow. "You know Tohr's been talking to Bella's family, right? And that her brother's a real hothead? Well, he knows someone's coming in here. He can tell because of the security system. Every time it's shut off or turned on, he gets a signal. He wants the visits to stop, Z."
Zsadist bared his fangs. "Tough."
"He's going to put up guards."
"Why the hell does he care?"
"Come on, man, it's his sister's place."
Son of a bitch. "I want to buy the house."
"That's a no-go, Z. Tohr said the family's not putting it on the market anytime soon. They want to keep it."
Z ground his molars for a moment. "Cop, do yourself a favor and get out of here."
"Rather drive you home. Damn close to daybreak."
"Yeah, I really need a human telling me that."
Butch cursed on an exhale. "Fine, go crispy if you want. Just don't come back here again. Her family's been through enough."
As soon as the front door shut, Z felt a flush come over his body, like someone had wrapped him up tight in an electric blanket and cranked the dial. Sweat broke out on his face and his chest, and his stomach rolled. He lifted his hands. The palms were wet and the fingers sported a fine tremble.
Physiological signs of stress, he thought.
He was clearly having an emotional reaction, although damned if he knew what it was. All he picked up on were the ancillary symptoms. Inside of himself there was nothing, no feeling that he could identify.
He looked around and wanted to set fire to the farmhouse, just burn the thing down to the ground so no one could have it. Better that than knowing he couldn't go in anymore.
Trouble was, torching her place was like hurting her.
So if he couldn't leave a pile of ashes behind, he wanted to take something. As he thought about what he could carry with him and still dematerialize, he put his hand up to the slender chain stretched tight around his throat.