"Holy Mary, Mother of God They're beautiful."
"Thanks," V said on an exhale. "I make good bread, too."
The cop's hazel eyes shot across the room. "You did these for me?"
"Yeah, but it's no big thing. I do them for all of us." V lifted up his gloved right hand. "I'm good with heat, as you know."
"V thank you."
"Whatever. Like I said, I'm the blade man. Do it all the time."
Yeah just maybe not with quite as much focus. For Butch, he'd spent the past four days straight on them. The sixteen-hour marathons working his cursed glowing hand over the composite steel had made his back burn and his eyes strain, but goddamn it, he'd been determined to get each one worthy of the male who would wield them.
They still weren't good enough.
The cop took one of the daggers out, and as he palmed it his eyes flared. "Jesus feel this thing." He began working the weapon back and forth in front of his chest. "Never held anything so well weighted. And the grip. God perfect."
The praise pleased V more than any he'd ever received.
So it irritated the shit out of him.
"Yeah, well, they're supposed to be like that, true?" He stabbed the hand-rolled out in an ashtray, crushing the fragile glow at its tip. "No sense you going out in the field with a set of Ginsus."
"Thank you."
"Whatever."
"V, seriously-"
"Make that fuck you." When there was no slappy comeback, he looked up.
Shit. Butch was standing right in front of him, the cop's hazel eyes dark with a knowledge V wished the guy didn't have.
V dropped his stare to his lighter. "Whatever, cop, they're just knives."
The black tip of the dagger slid under V's chin and angled his head up. As he was forced to meet Butch's stare, V's body tensed. Then trembled.
With the weapon linking them, Butch said, "They're beautiful."
V closed his eyes, despising himself. Then he deliberately leaned into the blade so that it bit into his throat. Swallowing the flare of pain, he held it in his gut, using it as a reminder that he was a fucked-up freak, and freaks deserved to get hurt.
"Vishous, look at me."
"Leave me alone."
"Make me."
For a split second V almost launched himself at the guy, prepared to punch the bastard out cold. But then Butch said, "I'm just thanking you for doing something cool. No BFD."
No big fucking deal? V's eyes flipped open and he felt his stare glow. "That's bullshit. For reasons you are very fucking aware of."
Butch removed the blade, and as the male's arm dropped, V felt a trickle of blood ease down his neck. It was warm and soft as a kiss.
"Don't say you're sorry," V muttered into the silence. "I'm liable to get violent."
"But I am."
"Nothing to be sorry for." Man, he couldn't take living here with Butch anymore. Make that Butch and Marissa. The constant reminder of what he couldn't have and shouldn't want was killing him. And Christ knew he was already in bad shape. When was the last time he'd slept through the day? Weeks and weeks.
Butch sheathed the blade in the chest holster, handle down. "I don't want you to hurt-"
"We are so not discussing this further." Putting his forefinger to his throat, V caught the blood he'd drawn with the blade he'd made. As he licked it off, the hidden door to the underground tunnel opened and the scent of the ocean filled the Pit.
Marissa came around the corner, looking Grace Kelly-fine as usual. With her long blond hair and her precision-molded face, she was known as the great beauty of the species, and even V, who didn't go for her type, had to show love.
"Hello, boys-" Marissa stopped and stared at Butch. "Good Lord look at those pants."
Butch winced. "Yeah, I know. They're-"
"Could you come over here?" She started backing down the hall to their bedroom. "I need you to come back here for a minute. Or ten."
Butch's bonding scent flared to a dull roar, and V knew damn well the guy's body was hardening for sex. "Baby, you can have me for as long as you want me."
Just as the cop left the living room, he shot a look over his shoulder. "I'm so feeling these leathers. Tell Fritz I want fifty pairs of them. Stat."
Left by himself, Vishous leaned over to the Alpine and cranked up MIMS's Music Is My Savior. As the rap pounded, he thought about how before, he'd used the shit to drown out the thoughts of others. Now that his visions had dried up and that whole mind-reading thing had gone poof!? He used the bass beats to keep him from hearing his roommate making love.
V rubbed his face. He really had to get out of here. For a while he'd tried to get them to move out, but Marissa maintained that the Pit was "cozy" and that she liked living in it. Which had to be a lie. Half the living room was eaten up by the foosball table, ESPN was on mute twenty-four/seven, and hard-core rap was always playing. The refrigerator was a demilitarized zone marked with decaying casualties from Taco Hell and Arby's. Grey Goose and Lagavulin were the only drinks in the house. Reading material was limited to Sports Illustrated and well, back issues of Sports Illustrated.
So, yeah, not a whole lot of duck-and-bunny-adorable going down. The place was part frat house, part locker room. With decor by Derek Jeter.
As for Butch? When V had suggested a little U-Haul action to the guy, the cop had shot a level stare across the couch, shook his head once, and gone into kitchen for more Lagavulin.
V refused to think they stayed because they were worried about him or some shit. The very idea made him mental.
He got to his feet. If there was going to be a separation, he was going to have to be the one who initiated it. The trouble was, not having Butch around all the time was unthinkable. Better the torture he had now than an exile.
He checked his watch and figured he might as well hit the underground tunnel and head over to the big house. Even though the rest of the Black Dagger Brotherhood lived in that rock-faced monster of a mansion next door, there were plenty of extra rooms. Maybe he should just try one on for size. For a couple of days.
The thought made his stomach churn.
On his way to the door, he caught the bonding scent wafting from Butch and Marissa's bedroom. As he thought about what was happening, his blood heated even as shame made his skin go Popsicle.
With a curse, he walked over to his leather jacket and took out a cell phone. As he dialed, his chest was warm as a meat locker, but at least he felt as if he was doing something about this obsession of his.
When the female voice answered, V sliced through her husky hello. "Sundown. Tonight. You know what to wear, and your hair will be off your neck. What do you say to me?"
The reply was a purr of submission. "Yes, my lheage."
V hung up and tossed the cell phone on the desk, watching as it bounced and came to rest against one of his four keyboards. The submissive he'd chosen for tonight liked things especially hard-core. And he was going to deliver.
Fuck, he truly was a pervert. Down to the marrow. A confirmed, unrepentant sexual deviant who was somehow famous within the race for what he was.
Man, it was absurd, but then, the tastes and motivations of females had always been bizarre. And his fancy reputation was no more significant to him than his subs were. All that mattered was that he had volunteers for what he needed sexually. What was said about him, what the females needed to believe about him, was just oral masturbation for mouths that needed to be otherwise occupied.
As he went down into the tunnel and headed for the mansion, he was thoroughly bitched. Thanks to that stupid rotation schedule the Brotherhood was on, he wasn't allowed in the field tonight, and he hated that. He'd much rather be hunting and killing the undead slayers who went after the race than be parked on his ass.
But there were ways to burn off a case of the eye-splitting frustrates.
That was what restraints and willing bodies were made for.
Phury walked into the mansion's industrial-sized kitchen and froze the way you did when confronted with an accidental injury of the bloody variety: The soles of his feet got stuck to the floor, his breath stopped, his heart skipped then scrambled.
Before he could back out through the butler's door, he got caught.
Bella, his twin's shellan, looked up and smiled. "Hi."
"Hello." Leave. Now.
God, she smelled good.
She waved the knife in her hand over the roasted turkey she was working on. "Would you like me to make you a sandwich, too?"
"What?" he said like an idiot.
"A sandwich." She pointed the blade at the bread loaf and the almost empty jar of mayonnaise and the lettuce and tomatoes. "You must be hungry. You didn't eat much at Last Meal."
"Oh, yeah no, I'm not" His stomach put the kibosh on the lie by growling like the empty beast it was. Bastard.
Bella shook her head and went back at the turkey's breast. "Get yourself a plate and have a seat."
Okay, this was the last thing he needed. Better to be buried alive than sit alone in the kitchen with her as she prepared food for him with her beautiful hands.
"Phury," she said without looking up. "Plate. Seat. Now."
He complied because in spite of the fact that he came from a warrior bloodline and he was a member of the Brotherhood and he outweighed her by a good hundred pounds, he was lame and weak when it came to her. His twin's shellan his twin's pregnant shellan was not someone Phury could deny.
After sliding a plate over next to hers, he sat down across the granite island and told himself not to look at her hands. He'd be okay as long as he didn't look at her long, elegant fingers and her short, buffed nails and the way-
Shit.
"I swear," she said as she sliced more breast meat off, "Zsadist wants me big as a house. Another thirteen months of him pestering me to eat and I won't fit into the swimming pool. I can barely get my pants on anymore."
"You look good." Hell, she looked perfect, with her long dark hair and her sapphire eyes and her tall, fit body. The young inside of her didn't show beneath her baggy shirt, but the pregnancy was obvious in her glowing skin and the way her hand frequently went to her lower belly.
Her condition was also evident in the anxiety behind Z's eyes whenever he was around her. As vampire pregnancies carried high maternal/fetal death rates, they were a blessing and a curse for the hellren who had bonded with his mate.
"Do you feel okay?" Phury asked. After all, Z wasn't the only one worried about her.
"Pretty much. I get tired, but it's not all that bad." She licked her fingertips, then grabbed the mayonnaise jar. As she fished around inside, the knife made a rattling noise, like a coin being shaken around. "Z's driving me nuts, though. He's refusing to feed."
Phury remembered what her blood tasted like and looked away as his fangs elongated. There was no nobility in what he felt for her, none at all, and as a male who had always prided himself on his honorable nature, he couldn't reconcile his emotions to his principles.
And what was doing on his end was definitely not reciprocated. She'd fed him that one time because he'd needed it desperately and because she was a female of worth. It had not been because she was driven to sustain him or because she craved him.
No, all of that was for his twin. From the first night she'd met Z, he'd captivated her, and fate had provided that she be the one who truly saved him from the hell he'd been locked in. Phury may have rescued Z's body from that century of being a blood slave, but Bella had resurrected his spirit.
Which was, of course, just one more reason to love her.
Damn, he wished he had some red smoke on him. He'd left his frickin' stash upstairs.
"So how are you doing?" she asked as she dealt out thin slices of turkey, then layered on lettuce leaves. "Is that new prosthesis still giving you problems?"
"It's a little better, thanks." Technology these days was light-years ahead of what he'd had a century ago, but considering all the fighting he did, his lost lower leg was a constant management issue.
Lost leg yeah, he'd lost it, all right. Shot it off to get Z away from that sick bitch Mistress of his. The sacrifice had been worth it. Just like the sacrifice of his happiness was worth Z being with the female they both loved.
Bella topped the sandwiches with bread and slid his plate across the granite. "Here you go."
"This is just what I needed." He savored the moment as he sank his front teeth into the thing, the soft bread giving way like flesh. While swallowing, he was struck with a sad joy that she had prepared this food for his belly, and she had done it with a certain kind of love.
"Good. I'm glad." She bit into her own sandwich.
"So I've wanted to ask you something for a day or so."
"Oh? What?"
"I've been working down at Safe Place with Marissa, as you know. It's such a great organization, full of great people" There was a long pause-the kind that made him brace himself. "Anyway, a new social worker has come in to counsel the females and their young." She cleared her throat. Wiped her mouth with a paper towel. "She's really great. Warm, funny. I was kind of thinking that maybe-"
Oh, God. "Thanks, but no."
"She's really nice."
"No, thanks." With his skin shriveling up tight around his body, he started eating at a dead run.
"Phury I know it's not my business, but why the celibacy?"
Shit. Faster with the sandwich. "May we change the subject?"
"It's because of Z, right? Why you've never been with a female. It's your sacrifice to him and his past."
"Bella please-"
"You're over two hundred years old, and it's time you started to think about yourself. Z's never going to be completely normal, and no one knows that better than you and me. But he's more stable now. And he's going to get even healthier over time."
True, provided Bella survived this pregnancy of hers.
Until she came out of the delivery healthy, his twin wasn't out of the woods yet. And by extension, neither was Phury.
"Please let me introduce you-"
"No." Phury stood up and chewed like a cow. Table manners were very important, but this conversation had to end before his head exploded.
"Phury-"
"I don't want a female in my life."
"You would make a wonderful hellren, Phury."
He wiped his mouth on a dish towel and said in the Old Language, "Thank you for this meal made by thine hands. Blessed evening, Bella, beloved mated of mine twin, Zsadist."
Feeling cheap that he didn't help clean up, but figuring it was better than him having an aneurism, he pushed through the butler's door into the dining room. Halfway down the thirty-foot-long table, he ran out of gas, pulled free a random chair, and dropped into the thing.
Man, his heart was pounding.
When he looked up, Vishous was standing on the other side of the table, staring down at him. "Christ!"
"Little tense there, my brother?" At six-feet-six, and descended of the great warrior known only as the Bloodletter, V was a massive male. With his blue-rimmed ice white irises, his jet-black hair, and his angular, cunning face, he might have been considered beautiful. But the goatee and the warning tattoos at his temple made him look evil.
"Not tense. Not at all." Phury splayed his hands out on the glossy table, thinking about the blunt he was going to light up the instant he got to his room. "Actually, I was going to come find you."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Wrath didn't like the vibe at this morning's meeting." Which was an understatement. V and the king had ended up chin-to-chin on a couple of things, and that wasn't the only argument that flew. "He's taken us all off rotation tonight. Said we need some R amp; R."
V arched his brows, looking smarter than a matched set of Einsteins. The genius air wasn't just an appearance thing. The guy spoke sixteen languages, developed computer games for kicks and giggles, and could recite the twenty volumes of the Chronicles by rote. The brother made Stephen Hawking seem like a candidate for vo-tech.
"All of us?" V said.
"Yeah, I was going to hit ZeroSum. Wanna come?"
"Just scheduled some private biz."
Ah, yes. V's unconventional sex life. Man, he and Vishous were on such opposite ends of the sexual spectrum: Him knowing nothing, Vishous having explored everything, and most of it on the extremes the untrodden path and the Autobahn. And that wasn't the only difference between them. Come to think of it, the two of them had absolutely nothing in common.
"Phury?"
He shook himself to attention. "Sorry, what?"
"I said, I dreamed of you once. Many years ago."
Oh, God. Why hadn't he just gone straight to his room? He could be lighting up right now. "How so?"
V stroked his goatee. "I saw you standing at a crossroads in a field of white. It was a stormy day yeah, lots of storms. But when you took a cloud from the sky and wrapped it around the well, the rain stopped falling."
"Sounds poetic." And what a relief. Most of V's visions were scary as hell. "But meaningless."
"None of what I see is meaningless, and you know it."
"Allegorical then. How can anyone wrap up a well?" Phury frowned. "And why tell me now?"
V's black brows came down over his mirrorlike eyes. "I God, I have no idea. I just had to say it." With a nasty curse, he headed for the kitchen. "Is Bella still in there?"
"How did you know she was-"
"You always look ruined after you see her."
Chapter Two
Half an hour and a turkey sandwich later, V materialized to the terrace of his private downtown penthouse. The night was a bitch, all March cold and April wet, the bitter wind weaving around like a drunk with a nasty attitude. As he stood before the panorama of Caldwell's twin bridges, the postcard view of the twinkling city bored him.
And so did his prospects for the evening's fun and games.
He supposed he was similar to a long-standing coke addict. The high had once been intense, but now he serviced the monkey on his back with no particular enthusiasm. He was all need, no ease.
Planting his palms on the terrace ledge, he leaned way over and got sandblasted in the face with a rush of icy air, his hair blowing back all fashion-model and shit. Or maybe more like in superhero comics. Yeah, that was a better metaphor.
Except he would be a villain, wouldn't he?
He realized his hands were stroking the flat stone they rested on, caressing it. The ledge was four feet high and ran around the building like the lip of a serving tray. The top of it was a three-foot-wide shelf just begging to be leaped off of, with the thirty feet of thin air on the other side the perfect breezy prelude to death's hard fuck.
Now, this was a view that interested him.
He knew firsthand how sweet that free fall was. How the force of the wind pushed at your chest, making it hard to breathe. How your eyes watered and the tears streaked up your temples, not down your cheeks. How the ground rushed up to greet you, a host ready to welcome you to the party.
He wasn't sure he'd made the right decision to save himself that time he'd jumped. At the last moment, though, he dematerialized back up to the terrace. Back into Butch's arms.
Fucking Butch. Always came back to that son of a bitch, didn't it.
V turned away from the urge to pull another flier and unlocked one of the sliders with his mind. The penthouse's three walls of glass were bulletproof, but they didn't filter sunlight. Not that he would have stayed here during the day even if they did.
This was not a home.
As he stepped inside, the place and what he used it for pressed into him as if the force of gravity were different here. The walls and the ceiling and the marble floors of the sprawling one-room spread were black. So were the hundreds of candles that he could light at his will. The only thing that could be classified as furniture was a king-size bed that he'd never used. The rest was equipment: The table with the restraints. The chains mounted into the wall. The masks and the ball gags and the whips and the canes and the chains. The cabinet full of nipple weights and steel clips and stainless-steel tools.
All for the females.
He took off his leather jacket and tossed it onto the bed, then ditched his shirt. He always kept his leathers on during the sessions. The subs never saw him completely naked. No one did except for his brothers during ceremonies in the Tomb, and that was only because the rituals demanded it.
What he looked like down below was no else's fucking biz.
Candles flared at his command, the liquid light rebounding off the glossy floor before being sucked up by the black dome of the ceiling. There was nothing romantic in the air. The place was a cave where the profane was performed on the willing, and the light was only to ensure proper placement of leather and metal, hands and fangs.
Plus, candles could be used for a purpose other than illumination.
He went to the wet bar, poured himself a couple of inches of Grey Goose, and leaned back against the short stretch of counter. There were those among the species who thought coming here and withstanding intercourse with him was a rite of passage. Then there were others who could find their satisfaction only with him. And still more who wanted to explore how pain and sex could mix.
The Lewis-and-Clark types were the ones who interested him least. Usually they couldn't handle it and had to use the safe word or safe hand signal he gave them in the middle. He always let them go readily, though any tears were theirs to soothe, not his. Nine out of ten times they wanted to try again, but that was a no-go. If they broke too easily once, they'd probably do it again, and he wasn't interested in coaching lightweights into the lifestyle.
The ones who could take it called him lheage and worshiped him, not that he gave a shit about their reverence. The edge in him had to get dulled, and their bodies were the stone he used to grind himself down on. End of story.
He walked over to the wall, picked up one of the lengths of steel chain, and let it slid through his palm, link by link. Although he was a sadist by nature, he didn't get off hurting his subs. His sadistic side was fed by his lesser kills.
For him, the control over their minds and their bodies was what he was after. The things he did to them sexually or otherwise, the things he said, what he made them wear it was all carefully calibrated for effect. Sure, there was pain involved, and yeah, maybe they cried from the vulnerability and the fear. But they begged him for more.
Which he gave to them, if he felt like it.
He glanced at the masks. He always put them in masks, and they were never to touch him unless he told them where and how and with what. If he had orgasms during the course of a session, it was unusual and regarded by the subs with great pride. And if he fed, it was only because he had to.
He never degraded those who came here, never made them do some of the nasty things he knew damn well some Doms favored. But he did not comfort them in the beginning, the middle, or the end, and the sessions were on his terms only. He told the people where and when, and if they pulled any jealous entitlement horseshit, they were out. For good.
He checked his watch and lifted the mhis that surrounded the penthouse. The female who was coming tonight could track him because he'd taken her vein a couple months ago. When he was through with her, he would fix it so she would leave with no memory of the location where she'd been.
She would know what happened, though. The marks of the sex would be all over her.
As the female materialized on the terrace, he turned around. Through the sliders she was an anonymous shadow of curves in a black leather bustier and a long, loose black skirt. Her dark hair was coiled up high on her head, as he'd required.
She knew to wait. Knew not to knock.
He opened the door with his mind, but she also knew better than to come in without being summoned.
He looked her over and caught her scent. She was totally aroused.
His fangs elongated, but not because he was particularly interested in the wet sex between her legs. He needed to feed, and she was female and she had all kinds of veins to tap into. It was biology, not bewitchment.
V extended his arm and crooked his finger at her. She came forward, trembling, as well she should. He was in a particularly sharp mood tonight.
"Lose that skirt," he said. "I'm not feeling it."
She immediately unzipped the thing and let it fall to the floor in a rush of satin. Underneath, she wore a black garter and black lace-topped hose. No panties.
Hmm Yeah. He was going to cut that lingerie off her hips with a dagger. Eventually.
V walked over to the wall and picked out a mask with only one opening. She was going to have to breathe through her mouth if she wanted air.
Tossing it to her, he said, "On. Now."
She covered her face without a word.
"Get up on my table."
He didn't help her as she fumbled around, just watched, knowing she'd find her way. They always did. Females like her always found the way to his rack.
To pass the time, he took a hand-rolled out of his back pocket, put it between his lips, and picked a black candle from its holder. As he lit his cigarette, he stared at the little pool of liquid wax at the foot of the flame.
He checked on how the female was progressing. Well-done. She'd positioned herself faceup, arms out, legs spread.
After he restrained her, he knew exactly where to start tonight.
He kept the candle in his hand as he stepped forward.
Under the caged lights of the Brotherhood's gym, John Matthew assumed the ready position and focused on his training opponent. The two of them were as well matched as a pair of chopsticks, both thin and insubstantial, easily broken. As all pretrans were.
Zsadist, the Brother who was teaching the hand-to-hand tonight, whistled through his teeth, and John and his classmate bowed to each other. His opponent said the appropriate acknowledgment in the Old Language, and John returned the statement using American Sign Language. Then they engaged. Small hands and bony arms flew around to no great effect; kicks were thrown out like paper airplanes; dodges were made with little finesse. All their moves and positions were shadows of what they should have been, echoes of thunder, not the bass roar itself.
The thunder came from elsewhere in the gym.
In the middle of the round, there was a tremendous WHOOMP! as a solid body hit the blue mats like a bag of sand. Both John and his opponent glanced over then abandoned their meager mixed-martial-arts attempts.
Zsadist was working with Blaylock, one of John's two best friends. The redhead was the only trainee who'd been through the change so far, so he was twice the size of everyone else in the class. And Z had just rugged the guy.
Blaylock sprang to his feet and once more faced off again like a trooper, but he was just going to get his ass handed to him again. As big as he was, Z was a giant as well as a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. So Blay was facing a Sherman tank with a fuckload of fighting experience.
Man, Qhuinn should be here to see this. Where was the guy?
All eleven trainees let out a "Whoa!" as Z calmly clipped Blay off balance, tossed him sunny-side down on the mats, and cranked him into a bone-bending submission hold. The instant Blay tapped out, Z got off him.
As Zsadist stood over the kid, his voice was as warm as it ever got. "Five days out of your transition and you're doing good."
Blay smiled, even though his cheek was mashed into the mat like it had been glued down there. "Thank you" He panted. "Thank you, sire."
Z extended his hand and hooked Blay off the floor just as the sound of a door opening echoed through the gym.
John's eyes bulged at what came in. Well, shit that explained where Qhuinn had been all afternoon.
The male coming slowly across the mats was a six-foot-five-inch, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound likeness of someone who'd weighed about as much as a bag of dog food the day before. Qhuinn had been through the transition. God, no wonder the guy hadn't Y-messy'd or texted during the day. He'd been busy growing a new body.
As John lifted his hand, Qhuinn nodded back like his neck was stiff or maybe his head was pounding. The guy looked like shit and moved as if every bone in his body hurt. He also fiddled with the collar of his new XXXL fleece like the feel of it was bugging him, and he kept jacking his jeans up with a wince. His black eye was a surprise, but maybe he'd bumped into something in the middle of the transition? Word had it you flailed around a lot when you were changing.
"Glad you showed," Zsadist said.
Qhuinn's voice was deep as he replied, a totally different cadence from before. "I wanted to come even though I can't work out."
"Good call. You can chill over there."
As Qhuinn went to the sidelines he met Blay's eyes and they both smiled real slow. Then they looked at John.