Lover Awakened (40 page)

Zsadist spent the day in the training facility. He worked the punching bag bare-knuckled. Lifted. Ran. Lifted some more. Practiced with his daggers. When he got back to the main house it was almost four, and he was ready to go out hunting.

The moment he set foot into the foyer, he stopped. Something was off.

He looked around the lobby. Glanced up to the second floor. Listened for weird sounds. When he sniffed the air, all he could smell was the breakfast that was being served in the dining room, and he went there, convinced something was wrong, but unable to tie down what it was. He found the Brothers seated and oddly quiet, though Mary and Beth were eating and talking with ease. Bella was nowhere to be seen.

He had little interest in food, but he headed for the empty seat next to Vishous anyway. As he sat down his body felt tight, and he knew it was from the heavy exercise he'd pulled during the day.

"Has that Explorer moved?" he asked his brother.

"Not up until I came here to eat. I'll check it as soon as I get back, but don't worry. The computer will track whatever route it takes even if I'm not there. We'll be able to see the path."

"You sure?"

Vishous sent him a dry look. "Yeah. I am. Designed the program myself."

Z nodded, then put a hand under his chin and cracked his neck. Man, he was stiff.

A second later, Fritz came by with two shiny apples and a knife. After thanking the butler, Z went to work on one of the Granny Smiths. While peeling the thing, he rearranged his body in the chair. Shit… his legs felt funny, and so did his lower back. Maybe he'd pushed it too hard? He shifted in his seat again, then refocused on the apple, turning it around and around in his hand, keeping the blade tight to the white flesh. He was almost through when he realized he was crossing and uncrossing his legs under the table like a fricking Rockette.

He glanced at the other males. V was flipping the top of his lighter open and closed and tapping his foot. Rhage was massaging his shoulder. Now his upper arm. Now his right pectoral. Phury was pushing his coffee cup around in circles and chewing his lower lip and drumming his fingers. Wrath was rolling his head on his neck, left, right, back, forth, tense as a high-voltage line. Butch seemed twitchy, too.

None of them, not even Rhage, had eaten a thing.

But Mary and Beth were normal enough as they stood up to clear their plates. They started laughing and arguing with Fritz that they should help him bring out more coffee and fruit.

The females had just left the room when the first wave of energy pushed through the house. The invisible surge went straight to the thing between Zsadist's legs, hardening it instantly. He stiffened and saw that the Brothers and Butch had all frozen, too, as if each one were wondering whether what he'd felt was right.

A moment later a second wave hit. The
it
in Z's pants thickened up even more, quick as the curse that left his mouth.

"Holy shit," someone said with a groan.

"This can't be happening," another growled.

The butler's door swung open and Beth came in, a tray of cut fruit in her hands. "Mary's bringing in more coffee—"

Wrath stood up so fast, his chair fell back and landed on the floor. He stalked over to Beth, whipped the tray out of her hands, and tossed it carelessly on the table. As cut strawberries and pieces of cantaloupe bounced off the silver and landed on the mahogany, Beth shot him a glare.

"Wrath, what the—"

He pulled her against his body, kissing her deep and hard, bending her back as if he were going to crawl up inside of her right in front of the Brotherhood. Without breaking their mouths apart, he picked her up by her waist and held her by the ass. Beth laughed softly and locked her legs around his hips. The king's face was buried in his
leelan's
neck as he strode out of the room.

Another surge reverberated through the house, rocking the male bodies in the room. Zsadist gripped the edge of the table, and he wasn't the only one. Vishous's knuckles were white with how hard he was holding on to the thing.

Bella… it must be Bella. Had to be. Bella had gone into her needing.

Havers had warned him, Z thought. When the doctor had done the internal exam on her, he'd said she'd seemed close to her fertile time.

Holy hell
. A female in her need. In a house with six males.

It was only a matter of time before the Brothers got raw from their sexual instincts. And the danger to everyone became very real.

When Mary walked through the butler's door, Rhage went after her like a tank, tearing the coffeepot out of her hand and pitching it on the sideboard so it skidded and sloshed. He pushed her up against the wall and covered her with his body, his head dropping down, his erotic purring so loud it made the crystal on the chandelier tinkle. Mary's shocked gasp was followed by a very feminine sigh.

Rhage had her up in his arms and out of the room in a flash.

Butch looked down at his lap and then up at the rest of them. "Listen, I don't mean to get nasty, but is everyone else… ah…"

"Yes," V said through tight lips.

"You want to tell me what the hell is happening here?"

"Bella's gone into her needing," V said, throwing down his napkin. "Christ. How long before nightfall?"

Phury checked his watch. "Almost two hours."

"We'll be a mess by then. Tell me you have some red smoke."

"Yeah, plenty."

"Butch, do yourself a favor and get off the property fast. The Pit is not going to be far enough away from her. I didn't think humans would respond, but since you are, you'd better go before you get sucked in."

Another assault hit them, and Z collapsed back against the chair, his hips surging involuntarily. He heard the groans of the others and realized they were in deep shit. No matter how civilized they pretended to be, males couldn't help but respond to a female in her fertile time, and their sexual urges would increase as the needing progressed and strengthened.

If it weren't daylight they could have saved themselves by getting away. But they were trapped in the compound, and by the time it was dark enough for them to get out, it would be too late. After prolonged exposure, males would instinctually resist leaving the female's vicinity. No matter what their brains told them, their bodies would fight the call to get away, and if they did depart from her, they would suffer withdrawal pangs that were worse than their cravings. Wrath and Rhage had outlets for their response, but the rest of the Brothers were in trouble. Their only hope was to numb themselves out.

And Bella…
Oh, God
… She was going to hurt more than all of them combined.

V rose from the table, steadying himself on the back of his chair. "Come on, Phury. We need to start smoking up. Now. Z, you're going to her, right?"

Zsadist shut his eyes.

"Z? Z, you're going to serve her—
right
?"

John looked up from the kitchen table as the phone rang. Sal and Regin, the family's
doggen
, were out getting groceries. He picked up the call.

"John, that you?" It was Tohr on the downstairs line.

John whistled and took another bite of his white rice and ginger sauce.

"Listen, school's canceled for today. I'm calling all the families now."

John lowered his fork and whistled an ascending note.

"There's a… complication at the compound. But we should be back on tomorrow or the night after. We'll see how things go. In light of this, we've moved up your appointment at Havers's. Butch is going to come get you right now, okay?"

John whistled twice, in little short puffs.

"Good… he's a human, but he's cool. I trust him." The doorbell rang. "That's probably him—yeah, that's Butch. I can see him on the video monitor. Listen, John… about this therapist business. If it creeps you out, you don't have to go back, okay? I won't let anyone make you."

John sighed into the phone and thought.
Thank you
.

Tohr laughed softly. "Yeah, I'm not much for the emotive crap either—Ouch! Wellsie, what the hell?"

There was a rapid conversation in the Old Language.

"Anyway," Tohr said into the phone. "You text-message me when it's done, okay?"

John whistled twice, hung up, and put his dish and fork into the washer.

Therapist… training… Neither one was something to look forward to, but all things being equal, he'd take whatever shrink he was going to see over Lash any day. Hell, at least the appointment with the doc wouldn't last more than sixty minutes. Lash he had to deal with for hours.

On the way out he picked up his jacket and his notebook. As he opened the door the big human on the front stoop smiled down at him.

"Hey, J-man. I'm Butch. Butch O'Neal. Your taxi."

Whoa
. This Butch O'Neal was… well, the man was dressed like a
GQ
model, for one thing. Under a black cashmere coat he had on a fancy pin-striped suit, an awesome red tie, a bright white shirt. His dark hair was pushed off his forehead in a casual, finger-brushed way that totally rocked out.

And his shoes…
wow
. Gucci, really Gucci… black leather, red-and-green band, shiny gold stuff.

Funny, he wasn't handsome, not in a Mr. Perfect kind of way, at least. The guy had a nose that had clearly been busted once or three times, and his hazel eyes were too shrewd and too exhausted to be classified as attractive. But he was like a cocked gun: He had a steely intelligence and a dangerous power about him that you respected. Because the combination was a flat-out killer, literally.

"John? We cool here?"

John whistled and stuck out his hand. They shook and Butch smiled again.

"So you good to go?" the man asked a little more gently. Like he'd been told John had to go back to Havers's to "talk to someone."

God
… Was everyone going to know?

While John shut the door, he imagined the guys in his training class finding out, and wanted to throw up.

He and Butch walked over to a black Escalade with darkened windows and some serious chrome on the wheels. Inside, the car was warm and smelled like leather and the awesome aftershave Butch was wearing.

They took off and Butch hit the stereo, Mystikal pumping through the car. As John looked out the window at the flurries and the peach light that was bleeding from the sky, he really wished he were going anywhere else. Well, except to class.

"So, John," Butch said, "I'm not going to front. I know why you're heading to the clinic, and I wanna tell you, I've had to go to the shrink, too."

When John looked over with surprise, the man nodded. "Yeah, when I was on the police force. I was a homicide detective for ten years, and in homicide you see some pretty
f
'ed up stuff. There was always some deeply sincere guy with granny glasses and a steno pad bugging me to talk. I hated it."

John took a deep breath, oddly reassured that the guy hadn't liked the experience any more than he was going to.

"But the funny thing was…" Butch came to a stop sign and hit a directional signal. A second later he shot out into traffic. "The funny thing was… I think it helped. Not when I was sitting across from Dr. Earnest, the share-your-feelings superhero. Frankly, I wanted to bolt the entire time, my skin crawled so bad. It was just… afterward, I'd think about what we'd talked about. And, you know, he had some valid points. It kind of cooled me out, even though I'd thought I was fine. So it was all good."

John cocked his head to one side.

"What did I see?" Butch murmured. The man was silent for a long time. It wasn't until they pulled into another very ritzy neighborhood that he answered. "Nothing special, son. Nothing special."

Butch turned into a driveway, stopped at a pair of gates, and put down the window. After he hit an intercom button and said his name, they were allowed to pass.

When the Escalade was parked behind a stuccoed mansion the size of a high school, John opened his door. As he met Butch on the other side of the SUV, he realized the guy had taken out a handgun: The thing was in his grip and hanging by his thigh, barely noticeable.

John had seen this trick before. Phury had armed himself in a similar way when the two of them had gone to the clinic a couple of nights ago. Weren't the Brothers safe here?

John looked around. Everything seemed really normal, for a big-money estate.

Maybe the Brothers weren't safe anywhere.

Butch took John's arm and walked quickly to a solid-steel door, all the while scanning the ten-car garage behind the house, the oak trees on the periphery, the two other cars parked by what looked like a kitchen entrance. John jogged to keep up.

When they were at the back door Butch showed his face to a camera, and the steel panels in front of them made a clicking noise, then slid back. They went into a vestibule, the doors closed behind them, and then a freight elevator opened up. They took it down one level and stepped out.

Standing in front of them was a nurse John recognized from before. As she smiled and welcomed them, Butch put the handgun away in a holster under his left arm.

The nurse swept her hand toward a hallway. "Petrilla is waiting."

Squeezing his notebook, John took a deep breath and followed the woman, feeling as if he were going to the gallows.

Z stopped in front of his bedroom door. He was just going to check on Bella and then he was going to make a beeline for Phury's room and get himself good and stoned. He hated any kind of drugged-out feeling, but anything was better than this raging urge to have sex.

He cracked the door and sagged against the jamb. The fragrance in the room was like a garden in full bloom, the loveliest thing that had ever shot up the inside of his nose.

The front of his pants pounded, the
it
screaming to get out.

"Bella?" he said into the darkness.

When he heard a moan, he went inside, closing the door behind him.

Oh, God. The perfume of her
… He started to growl deep in the back of his throat, and his fingers cranked into claws. His feet took over, marching him to the bed, his instincts leaving his mind behind.