Whatever. It felt good. The whole thing felt good, and he wondered whether this was what sex was like. The afterwards, that was. Nothing but peaceful relaxation.
He thought about Zsadist coming up to him in the midst of that party months ago, a duffel bag in his hand and a hellacious demand in his eyes. Phury had been sickened at what his twin had needed, but he'd nonetheless gone with Z to the gym and hit the male over and over and over again.
That hadn't been the first time Zsadist had needed that kind of release.
Phury had always hated giving his twin the beatings he'd demanded, had never understood the why of the masochistic drive, but he got it now. This was fantastic. Nothing mattered. It was as if real life were a distant thunderstorm that would never reach him because he'd gotten out of its path.
Rhage's deep voice came from a distance as well. "Phury? I've called for pickup. You need to go to Havers's."
When Phury tried to talk, his jaw refused to do its job, sure as someone had glued it in place. Clearly, the swelling was setting in already, and he settled for shaking his head.
Rhage's face came into his lopsided vision. "Havers will-"
Phury shook his head again. Bella would be at the clinic tonight dealing with the baby issue. If she was on the verge of miscarrying, he didn't want to tip her over the edge by showing up as an emergency case.
"No Havers"he said hoarsely.
"My brother, what you've got going on is more than first aid can handle." Rhage's model-perfect face was a mask of deliberate calm. Which meant the guy was really worried.
"Home."
Rhage cursed, but before he could push for the Havers trip again, a car turned into the alley, its headlights flashing.
"Shit." Rhage flipped into action, hefting Phury up off the pavement and hustling behind the Dumpster.
Which brought them right next to the desecrated lesser.
"What the fuck?" Rhage breathed while a Lexus with chromed-out twenty-fours eased by them, rap thumping.
When it had passed, Rhage's brilliant teal eyes narrowed. "Did you do that?"
"Bad fight's'all," Phury whispered. "Get me home."
As he closed his eye, he realized he'd learned something tonight. Pain was good, and if garnered under the right circumstances, it was less shameful than heroin. Easier to get, too, as it could be a legitimate by-product of his job.
How perfect.
As Jane sat in the chair across from her patient's bed, her head was down and her eyes were closed. She couldn't stop thinking about what she had done to him and what he had done as a result. She saw him just as he climaxed, his head kicked back, his fangs gleaming, his erection jerking in her grip, while his breath went in on a gasp and came out on a groan.
She shifted around, feeling hot. And not because the radiator had kicked on.
God, she couldn't stop herself from replaying the scene over and over again, and it got so bad, she had to part her mouth for breath. At one point during the continuous loop she felt a brief sting in her head, like her neck had settled into a bad position, but then she dozed off.
Naturally, her subconscious took over where memory left off.
The dream started when something touched her shoulder, something warm and heavy. She was eased by the feel of it, by the way it slowly went down her arm and over her wrist and to her hand. Her fingers were gathered in a grip and squeezed, then splayed out for a kiss placed on the center of her palm. She felt the soft lips, warm breath, and the velvet brush of a goatee.
There was a pause, as if permission had been asked.
She knew exactly who she was dreaming about. And she knew exactly what was going to happen in the fantasy if she allowed things to continue.
"Yes," she whispered in her sleep.
Her patient's hands went to her calves and eased her legs off the chair, then something broad and warm moved in, going between her thighs, splaying them wide. His hips and oh, God, she felt his erection at her core, the rigid length pressing in through the soft pants she had on. The collar of her shirt was dragged aside and his mouth found her neck, his lips latching onto her skin and sucking while his arousal started on a rhythmic push and retreat. A hand found her breast then skirted down to her stomach. Down to her hip. Down farther, replacing the erection.
As Jane cried out and arched, two sharp points ran up the column of her neck to the base of her jaw. Fangs.
Fear flooded her veins. And so did a blast of high-octane sex.
Before she could sort out the two extremes, his mouth left her neck and found her breast through the shirt. As he sucked at her he went after her core, rubbing what was ready for him, hungry for him. She opened her mouth to pant, and something was pushed into it a thumb. She latched on desperately, nursing him while she imagined what else of his could be between her lips.
He was the master of all of it, the driver, the one operating the machinery. He knew exactly what he was doing to her as his fingers used the soft sweats and her wet panties to push her right up to the cliff.
A voice in her head-his-said, "Come for me, Jane-"
From out of nowhere brilliant light hit her face, and she sprang upright, throwing her arms out to shove the patient away.
Except he wasn't anywhere near her. He was in bed. Asleep.
And as for the light, it came from the hall. Red Sox had opened the bedroom door.
"Sorry to wake you guys," he said. "We have a situation."
As the patient sat up, he glanced at Jane. The moment their eyes met, she flushed and looked away.
"Who?" the patient asked.
"Phury." Red Sox nodded over to the chair. "We need a doctor. Like, ASAP."
Jane cleared her throat. "Why are you looking at-"
"We need you."
Her first thought was, the hell she was getting in deeper with them. But then the physician in her spoke up. "What's going on?"
"Real uglysitch. Run-in with a baseball bat. Can you come with me?"
Her patient's voice got there first, the dead-on growl drawing one hell of a line in the sane: "If she goes anywhere, I'm coming, too. And how bad is it?"
"He got clocked in the face. Bad. Refuses to go to Havers. Said Bella's there about the young, and he doesn't want to upset her by showing up messy."
"Goddamn brother just has to be a hero." V looked at Jane. "Will you help us?"
After a moment, she rubbed her face. Goddamn it. "Yeah. I will."
As John lowered the muzzle of the Glock he'd been given, he stared down the range at a target fifty feet away. Slipping the safety back into place, he was utterly speechless.
"Jesus," Blay said.
In total disbelief, John hit a yellow button to his left and the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper whizzed up to him like a dog being called home. In the center, clustered like a daisy, were six perfect shots. Holy shit. After having sucked at everything he'd been taught so far when it came to fighting, he finally excelled at something.
Well, didn't this make him forget about his headache.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and Wrath's voice was proud. "You did good, son. Real good."
John reached out and undipped the target.
"All right," Wrath said. "That's it for today. Check your weapons, boys."
"Yo, Qhuinn," Blay called out. "You see this?"
Qhuinn gave his gun to one of the doggen and came over. "Whoa. That's some real Dirty Harry shit right there."
John folded up the paper and put it in the back of his jeans. As he returned the weapon to the cart, he tried to figure out how to identify it again so he could use it at the next practice. Ah although the serial numbers had been filed off, there was a faint mark on the barrel, a scratch. He could totally find his gun again.
"Move out," Wrath said as he propped his huge body against the door. "Bus is waiting."
When John looked up from returning the gun, Lash was standing right behind him, all menace and loom. In a smooth move the guy leaned in and put his Glock down with the muzzle aimed at John's chest. To make the point, he lingered with his forefinger on the trigger for a moment.
Blay and Qhuinn fell in tight, blocking the way. The move in was all done real casual, like they were just randomly hanging around, but the message was clear. With a shrug, Lash lifted his hand free of the Glock and clipped Blay shoulder to shoulder as he headed for the door.
"Asshole," Qhuinn muttered.
The three buds left for the locker room, where they picked up their books and headed out together. Because John was going to use the tunnel to head back to the mansion, they stopped at the door to Tohr's old office.
As the other trainees walked by, Qhuinn kept his voice low. "We have to go out tonight. I can't wait." He grimaced and shifted his stance like there was sandpaper in his pants. "I'm half-batshit for a female, if you know what I mean?"
Blay flushed a little. "I'm ah, yeah, I could deal with some action. John?"
Pumped from his success on the range, John nodded.
"Good." Blay jacked up his jeans. "We got to hit ZeroSum."
Qhuinn frowned. "How about Screamer's?"
"No, I want ZeroSum."
"Fine. And we can go in my car." Qhuinn glanced over. "John, why don't you get on the bus and go to Blay's?"
Shouldn't I change?
"You can borrow some of his clothes. You have to look good for ZeroSum."
Lash came out of nowhere, like a sucker punch. "So you're going downtown, John? Maybe I'll see you there, buddy."
With a nasty-ass grin, he sauntered off, his body to be coiled, his muscular shoulders rolling like he was headed into a fight. Or wanted to be.
"Sounds like you want a date, Lash," Qhuinn barked. "Good deal, 'cause you keep that shit up, you're going to get fucked, buddy."
Lash stopped and glanced back, the lights from overhead pouring down over him. "Hey, Qhuinn, tell your father I said hi. He always did like me better than you. Then again, I match."
Lash tapped beside his eye with his middle finger and kept going.
In his wake, Qhuinn's face closed up, just went straight to statue.
Blay put his hand on the back of the guy's neck. "Listen, give us forty-five minutes at my house, k? Then you come pick us up."
Qhuinn didn't respond right away, and when he finally did his voice was low. "Yeah. No problem. Will you excuse me for a sec?"
Qhuinn dropped his books and walked back to the locker room. As the door eased shut, John signed, Lash's and Qhuinn's families are tight?
"The two of them are first cousins. Their fathers are brothers."
John frowned. What's up with Lash pointing to his eye?
"Don't worry about-"
John gripped the guy's forearm. Tell me.
Blay rubbed his red hair like he was trying to rustle up a response. "Okay it's like Qhuinn's dad is a big deal in the glymera, right? And so's his mom. And the glymera doesn't do defects."
This was said as if it explained everything. I don't get it. What's wrong with his eye?
"One's blue. One's green. Because they aren't the same color, Qhuinn's never going to get mated and, you know, his father's been embarrassed by him all his life. Not a good sitch, and that's why we're always at my house. He needs to get away from his parents." Blay looked at the locker room door as if he could see through it to his friend. "The only reason they haven't kicked him out is because they were hoping the transition might clear it up. That's why he got to use someone like Marna. She has very good blood, and I think the plan was that it would help."
It didn't.
"Nope. They're probably going to ask him to leave at some point. I've already got a room ready for him, but I doubt he'd use it. Lot of pride. Rightfully so."
John had a horrible thought. How did he get the bruise? The one on his face after his transition?
At that moment the locker room door opened and Qhuinn came out with a solid smile in place. "Shall we, gentlemen?" As he picked up his books, his bravado was back. "Let's bounce before the good ones are taken at the club."
Blay clapped the guy on the shoulder. "Lead on, maestro."
As they headed for the underground parking lot, Qhuinn was in front, Blay behind, John in the middle.
As Qhuinn disappeared up the bus's steps, John tapped Blay on the shoulder.
It was his father, wasn't it?
Blay hesitated. Then nodded once.
Chapter Eighteen
Okay, this was either cool as hell or scary as fuck. As Jane walked along, it was like she was going through an underground tunnel in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. This setup was straight out of high-budget Hollywood: steel, dimly lit from inset fluorescent lights, infinitely long. At any minute Bruce Willis circa 1980 was going to come running by on his bare feet wearing a ratty muscle shirt and a machine gun.
She glanced up at the fluorescent panels in the ceiling, then down to the polished metal floor. She was willing to bet that if she took a drill to the walls they'd be half a foot thick. Man, these guys had money. Big money. More than you could get if you were dealing prescription drugs on the black market or servicing coke, crack, and crank addictions. This was government-scale money, suggesting vampires weren't just another species; they were another civilization.
As the three of them went along, she was surprised they'd left her unrestrained. Then again, the patient and his buddy were armed with guns-
"No." The patient shook his head at her. "You're not in cuffs because you won't run."
Jane's mouth about fell open. "Don't read my mind."
"Sorry. I didn't mean to, it just happened."
She cleared her throat, trying not to measure how great he looked standing up. Dressed in Black Watch plaid pajama bottoms and a black muscle shirt, he was moving slowly, but with a lethal confidence that was a knockout.
What had they been talking about? "How do you know I won't run for it?"
"You won't bail on someone who requires medical attention. It's not in your nature, true?"
Well shit. He knew her pretty well.
"Yeah, I do," he said.
"Cut that out."
Red Sox looked around Jane at the patient. "Your mind reading coming back?"
"With her? Sometimes."
"Huh. You getting anything from anyone else?"
"Nope."
Red Sox repositioned his hat. "Well, ah let me know if you pick up shit from me, k? There are some things that I'd prefer to keep private, feel me?"
"Roger that. Although I can't help it sometimes."
"Which is why I'm going to take up thinking about baseball when you're around."
"Thank fuck you're not a Yankees fan."
"Don't use the Y-word. We're in mixed company."
Nothing else was said as they continued through the tunnel, and Jane had to wonder whether she was losing her mind. She should have been terrified in this dark, subterranean place with two huge escorts of a vampire nature. But she wasn't. Oddly, she felt safe as if the patient would protect her because of the vow he'd given her, and Red Sox would do the same because of his bond with the patient.
Where the hell was the logic in that, she wondered.
Gimme an S! A T! An O! A C! Followed by a K-H-O-L-M! What's it spell? HEAD FUCK.
The patient leaned down to her ear. "I can't see you as the cheerleader type. But you're right, we both would slaughter anything that so much as startled you." The patient straightened again, one giant testosterone surge plugged into shitkickers.
Jane tapped him on the forearm and crocked her forefinger so he'd lean back down. When he did, she whispered, "I'm scared of mice and spiders. But you don't need to use that gun on your hip to blow a hole in a wall if I ran into one, okay? Havaheart traps and rolled newspapers work just as well. Plus, you don't need a Sheetrock patch and plaster job afterward. I'm just saying."
She patted his arm, dismissing him, and refocused on the tunnel ahead.
V started to laugh, awkwardly at first, then more deeply, and she felt Red Sox staring at her. She met his eyes with hesitation, expecting to find some kind of disapproval thing going on. Instead, there was only relief. Relief and approval as the man male Christ, whatever looked at her and then his friend.
Jane flushed and glanced away. The fact that they guy was obviously not pulling a best-friend pissing contest with her over V should not have been a bonus. Not at all.
A hundred yards later they came up to a set of shallow stairs that led to a door with a bolt-based locking mechanism the size of her head on it. As the patient stepped up and put in a code, she imagined they were going to walk into a 007 kind of deal-
Well, not hardly. It was a closet with shelves of yellow-lined legal pads and printer cartridges and boxes of document clips. Maybe on the other side
Nope. It was just an office. A regular middle-management kind of office with a desk and a swivel chair and file cabinets and a computer.
Okay, no Jerry Bruckheimer/Die Hard here. Try a commercial for Allstate insurance. Or a mortgage company.
"This way," V said.
They went out through a glass door and down an unmarked white corridor to some stainless-steel double doors. Beyond them was a professional-quality gym, one big enough to host a pro basketball game, a wrestling match, and a volleyball exhibition at the same time. Blue mats were laid out across the glossy honey-colored floor, and there were punching bags hanging from under a stacked row of elevated bleachers.
Big money. Huge. And how had they constructed all this without someone on the human side of things catching on? There must be a lot of vampires. Had to be.
Workmen and architects and craftsmen all able to pass among humans if they wanted to.
The geneticist in her got a serious case of brain strain. If chimpanzees shared ninety-eight percent of the DNA of humans, how close were vampires? And evolutionarily speaking, when did this other species branch off from apes and Homo sapiens? Yeah wow she'd give anything to get a crack at their double helix. If they were indeed going to clean her mind before they let her go, medical science was missing out on so much. Especially as they didn't get cancer and healed so fast.
What an opportunity.
At the far side of the gym they stopped in front of a steel door marked EQUIPMENT/PT ROOM. Inside there were racks and stacks of weapons: An arsenal of marital arts swords and nunchakus. Daggers that were locked in closets. Guns. Throwing stars.
"Dear God."
"This is just for training purposes," said with a whole lot of meh.
"Then what the hell do you use to fight with?" As all kinds of War of the Worlds scenarios marched through her head, she caught the familiar scent of blood. Well, semi-familiar. There was a different tint to the smell, something spicy, and she remembered the same winelike fragrance when she'd been in the OR with her patient.
Across the way a door marked physical therapy, swung open. The beautiful blond vampire who'd trucked her out of the hospital put his head around the jamb. "Thank God you're here."
All Jane's physician instincts came online as she walked into a tiled room and saw the soles of a pair of shitkickers hanging off a gurney. She pushed ahead of the men, shoving them out of her way so she could get to the guy lying on the table.
It was the one who'd hypnotized her, the one with the yellow eyes and the spectacular hair. And he really needed attention. His left orbital region was crushed inward, the lid so swollen he couldn't open the thing, that half of his face twice the size it should be. She had a feeling the bone above his eye was collapsed, and so was the one on his cheek.
She put her hand on his shoulder and met him in the eye that was open. "You're a mess."
He cracked a weak smile. "You don't say."
"But I'm going to fix you."
"You think you can?"
"No." She shook her head back and forth. "I know I can."
She wasn't a plastic surgeon, but given his healing capabilities, she was confident she could address the issues he had without marring his looks. Assuming she had the right supplies.
The door swung wide again, and Jane froze. Oh, God, it was the giant with the jet-black hair and the black wraparound sunglasses. She'd wondered if she hadn't dreamed him, but evidently he was real. Totally real. And in charge. He carried himself like he owned everything and everybody in the room and could do away with it all in a swipe of his hand.
He took one look at her next to the guy on the gurney and said, "Tell me this is not what's happening."
Instinctively Jane stepped back in the direction of V, and just as she did, she felt him come up behind her. Although he didn't touch her, she knew he was close. And prepared to defend her.
The black-haired one shook his head at the wounded guy. "Phury for fuck's sake, we need to get you to Havers's."
Phury? What the hell kind of name was that?
"No," was the weak response.
"Why the hell not?"
"Bella's there. She sees me like this going to freak She's already bleeding."
"Ah shit."
"And we have someone here," the guy said wheezed. His one eye moved over to Jane. "Right?"
As they all looked in her direction, the black-haired one was clearly cranked out. So it was a surprise when he said, "Will you treat our brother?"
The request was nonthreatening and respectful. Evidently he'd been upset primarily that his buddy was down for the count and not getting treated.
She cleared her throat. "Yeah, I will. But what do I have to work with? I'm going to want to knock him out-"
"Don't worry about that," Phury said.
She shot him a level stare. "You want me to put your face back together without general anesthesia?"
"Yes."
Maybe they had a different pain tolerance-
"Are you insane?" Red Sox muttered.
Okay, maybe not.
But enough with the talk. Assuming this boy with the Rocky Balboa puss healed as fast as her patient did, she had to get operating now, before the bones knit together wrong and she had to rebreak them.
Looking around the room, she saw glass-fronted cabinets full of supplies and hoped like hell she could put together a surgical kit from what was around. "I don't suppose any of you have medical experience?"
V spoke up, right at her ear, almost as close as her clothes. "Yeah, I can assist. I'm trained as a paramedic."
She eyed him over her shoulder, a lick of heat going through her.
Get back in the game, Whitcomb. "Good. You got any kind of local anesthesia?"
"Lidocaine."
"How about some sedatives? And maybe a little morphine. If he flinches at the wrong time, I could blind him."
"Yeah." As V started for the rows of stainless-steel cabinets, she noticed he was wobbly. That walk down the tunnel had been a long one, and even though he seemed healed on the surface, he was still just days out of open-heart surgery.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "You're going to sit down." She glanced over at Red Sox. "Get him a chair. Now." When the patient cracked his mouth to argue, she blew him off by heading across the room. "Not interested in it. I need you on the ball while I operate, and this could take a while. You're better, but you're not as strong as you think you are, so sit your ass down and tell me where to get what I need."
There was a heartbeat of silence, then someone barked a laugh while her patient cursed in the background. The kinglike one started to grin at her.
Red Sox rolled a chair over from the whirlpool bath and shoved it right into the backs of V's legs. "Park it, big guy. On your doctor's orders."
When the patient sat down, she said, "Now, here's what I'm going to want."
She listed the standard scalpel, forceps, and suction supplies, then asked for surgical wire and thread, Betadine, saline solution to rinse, gauze padding, latex gloves
She was amazed at how quickly it came together, but then, she and her patient were on the same wavelength. He directed her around the room succinctly, anticipated what she might want, and didn't waste words. The perfect nurse, as it were.
She let out a huge sigh of relief that they had a surgical drill. "And I don't suppose you have a magnifying headset?"
"Cabinet by the crash cart," V said. "Lower drawer. Left side. You want me to scrub in?"
"Yup." She went over and found the set. "We have X-ray capability?"
"No."
"Shit." She put her hands on her hips. "Whatever. I'll go in blind."
As she put the headset on, V. got up and went to work on his hands and forearms over the sink in the far corner. When he was done she took his place, then they gloved up.
She came back to Phury, meeting him in his good eye. "This is probably going to hurt even with the local and some morphine. You'll probably pass out, and I hope it happens sooner rather than later."
She went for a syringe and felt the familiar sense of power come to her as she set about fixing what needed to be repaired-
"Wait," he said. "No drugs."
"What?"
"Just do it." There was a gruesome anticipation in his eye, one that was not right on so many levels. He wanted to be hurt.
She narrowed her stare. And wondered if he had let this happen to himself.
"Sorry." Jane pierced the rubber seal of the lidocaine vial with the needle. As she drew out what she needed she said, "There is no way in hell I'm going in without you numbed up. You feel strongly to the contrary, find yourself another surgeon."
She put the little glass bottle down on a steel rolling tray and leaned over his face, syringe up in the air. "So what's it going to be? Me and this knockout sauce or gee, no one?"
That yellow stare flared with anger, like she'd cheated him out of something.
But then the kinglike guy spoke up. "Phury, don't be an ass. This is your vision we're talking about. Shut up and let her do her job."
The yellow eye closed. "Fine," the guy muttered.
It was about two hours later that Vishous decided he was in trouble. Big trouble. As he stared at the rows of neat little black stitches in Phury's face, he was overwhelmed to the point of silence.
Yeah. He was in mega trouble.
Jane Whitcomb, M.D., was a master surgeon. An absolute artist. Her hands were elegant instruments, her eyes sharp as the scalpel she used, her focus as fierce and all-consuming as that of a warrior in battle. At times she'd worked with a blurring speed, and at others she'd slowed down until it seemed like she wasn't moving at all: Phury's orbital bone had been broken in a number of places, and Jane had put him back together step by step, removing chips that were white as oyster shells, drilling into the cranium and running wire between fragments, putting a small screw in his cheek.
V could tell she wasn't completely happy with the end result by the hard look on her face as she'd closed. And when he'd asked her what the problem was, she'd told him that she would have preferred to put a plate in Phury's cheek, but as they didn't have that kind of kit handy, she was just going to hope the bone knit fast.
From start to finish she'd been totally in control. To the point where it had turned him on, which was both absurd and shameful. It was just that he'd never met a female-a woman-like her before. She'd just cared for his brother superbly, with skill V himself couldn't hope to match.
Oh, God He was in such fucking trouble here.
"How's his blood pressure?" she asked.
"Steady," he replied. Phury had passed out about ten minutes in, though his breathing had remained strong and so had his BP.
As Jane wiped off the area around the eye and cheekbone and started to pack it with gauze, Wrath cleared his throat at the doorway. "What about his vision?"
"We won't know until he tells us," Jane said. "I have no way of ascertaining whether his optic nerve has been damaged or whether there was any retinal or cornea damage. If any of that has happened, he's going to have to go to another facility to get it repaired, and not just because of the limited resources here. I'm not an eye surgeon, and I wouldn't even attempt that kind of operation."
The king pushed his sunglasses up a little higher on his straight nose. Like he was thinking of his weak eyes and hoping Phury didn't have to deal with that kind of problem.
After Jane covered the side of Phury's face with gauze, she ran a length of bandage around his head like a turban, then put the instruments she'd used in the autoclave. To keep from watching her obsessively, V got busy throwing out the used syringes, pads, and needles along with the disposable tube from the suction draw.
Jane snapped off her surgical gloves. "Let's talk infection. How susceptible is your kind?"
"Not very." V lowered himself back into his chair. He hated to admit it, but he was tired. If she hadn't made him take a load off, he'd be totally dead on his feet by now. "Our immune systems are very strong."
"Would your doctor have him on antibiotics as a prophylactic?"