Lover Awakened (54 page)

As if the fragrance were an answer of some kind, Bella came into the room, shut the door, and started to roll up her sleeve.

Butch glanced at Phury and saw that the guy was trembling, his eyes glowing like the sun, his body… Well, he was obviously getting aroused, put it like that.

Okay, time to go…

"Cop, I need you to stay while we do this." Phury's voice was more like a growl.

Butch groaned, even though he knew damn well why the Brother wouldn't want to be alone with that female right now. He was throwing off erotic heat like a stallion.

"Butch?"

"Yeah, I'll stay." Even though he wasn't going to watch. No way. For some reason that seemed like being on the fifty-yard line while Phury had sex.

With a curse. Butch leaned onto his knees, put his hand up to his forehead, and looked down at his Ferragamos.

There was the scratchy sound, as if the tissue paper on the exam table was shifting because someone was getting up on the thing. Then a whisper of cloth.

Silence.

Shit
. He had to look.

Butch took a peek and then couldn't have peeled his eyes away to save his life. Bella was up on the table, her legs dangling over the side, her exposed inner wrist on her thigh. Phury was staring at her with hunger and an awful, cursed love on his face as he eased down onto his knees before her. With hands that shook, he took hold of her palm and her upper forearm and bared his fangs. The damn things were huge now, long enough to keep him from closing his mouth all the way.

With a hiss, he lowered his head to Bella's arm. She twitched all over as he struck, though her dull eyes just stared straight ahead at the wall. Then Phury jerked, released, and looked up at her.

That was quick.

"Why did you stop?" Bella asked.

"Because you're—"

Phury glanced over at Butch. Who flushed and looked down at his loafers again.

The Brother whispered, "Have you bled yet?"

Butch winced.
Oh, yeah
. This was way awkward.

"Bella, do you think you're pregnant?"

Holy shit
—this was awkward.

"Would you like me to leave?" Butch asked, hoping they would kick him out.

When they both said no, he went back to watching his shoes.

"I'm not," Bella said. "I'm really not… you know. I mean, I'm… cramping, okay? Next thing is bleeding and then it's all over."

"Havers needs to check you out."

"Do you want to drink or not?"

More silence. Then another hiss. Followed by a low moan.

Butch glanced over. Phury was crowding Bella's wrist, her slender arm buried in a cage of his body as he took greedy pulls. Bella was looking down at him. After a moment she took her hand and put it on his multicolored hair. Her touch was tender. Her eyes shimmered with tears.

Butch got up from the chair and slipped out the door, leaving them to their business. The sad intimacy of what was passing between them needed to be private.

Outside the room, he eased against the wall, somehow still caught up in the drama though he wasn't watching it anymore.

"Hello, Butch."

He snapped his head around. Marissa was standing at the other end of the hall.

Good Lord.

As she walked over to him he could smell her, that clean ocean scent drilling into his nose, into his brain, into his blood. Her hair was up and she was wearing a yellow gown with an empire waist.

Jesus
… Most blondes would have looked half dead in the color. She was radiant.

He cleared his throat. "Hey, Marissa. What's doing?"

"You look well."

"Thanks." She looked fantastic, but he kept his mouth shut about that.

Man, it's just like getting stabbed
, he thought.
Yeah
… Seeing this female and getting nailed with six inches of steel in the breastbone were just different faces of the same nasty coin.

Shit
. All he could picture was her getting into that Bentley with that male.

"How have you been?" she asked.

How had he been? He'd been a mooning idiot for the past five months.

"Good. Real good."

"Butch, I—"

He smiled at her and straightened. "Listen, can you do me a favor? I'm going to go wait in the car. Will you let Phury know when he surfaces? Thanks." He smoothed his tie down and buttoned his suit jacket, then pulled his overcoat together. "Take care, Marissa."

He made a beeline for the elevator.

"Butch, wait."

God help him, his feet stopped.

"How… have you been?" she said.

He considered turning around, but refused to let himself get sucked in. "Like I said, Jim Dandy, thanks for asking. Take care of yourself, Marissa."

Shit
. He'd just said that, hadn't he?

"I want to…" She stopped. "Would you call on me? Sometime?"

That had him pivoting around.
Oh, sweet Mary, mother of God
… She was so beautiful. Grace Kelly beautiful. And with her Victorian speech and her genteel manner, she made him feel like a total loser, all babbles and shuffles in spite of his expensive clothes.

"Butch? Maybe you could… call on me."

"Why would I do that?"

She flushed and seemed to wilt. "I had hoped…"

"Hoped what?"

"That perhaps…"

"What?"

"You might call on me. If you had some time. Perhaps you could come… calling."

Christ
. He'd already done that and she'd refused to see him. No way he was volunteering for another crash course in ego bashing. This woman, female… whatever… was totally capable of whipping his ass, and he didn't need more of that kind of rash, thank you very much. Besides, Mr. Bentley was showing up at her back door.

At that thought, an evil, very male part of him wondered if she was still the untouched virgin she'd been when he'd met her over the summer. Probably not. Even if she was still shy, now that she was away from Wrath she must have taken a lover. Hell, Butch knew firsthand the kind of kiss she could lay on a man; there had been only that one time, but she'd had him tearing the arm off a chair, he got so cranked. So, yeah… she'd definitely found a man. Maybe a couple. And she'd show them a hell of a ride.

As she opened her perfect, pink, godforsaken rosebud of a mouth again, he cut her off. "No, I'm not going to call on you. But I do mean what I said. I hope you… take care of yourself."

Okay, that was three times with the little phrase. He needed to hit the road before he sported a fourth.

Butch strode over to the elevator. By some miracle the thing opened the moment he punched the
up
button. He stepped inside and kept his eyes from her.

As the doors closed, he thought she might have said his name one last time. But knowing him, he was just imagining it. Because he really wished she—

Oh, shut up, O'Neal. Just shut up and drop it.

When he strode out of the clinic, he was walking so fast, he was practically running.

Chapter Forty-three

Zsadist tracked the lone pale-haired
lesser
into the maze of downtown alleys. The slayer was moving quickly in the falling snow, alert, scanning, looking for prey among the straggling bar riders who were out in the cold in their club clothes.

Behind him Z was light over the ground, running on the balls of his feet, keeping close but not too close. Dawn was coming fast and hard, and even though he was skimming the edge of night right now, he wanted this kill. All he needed was to get the slayer away from prying, human eyes…

The right moment came as the
lesser
slowed and considered the intersection between Eighth and

Trade Street

. It was just a pause, a short internal debate on whether to go left or right.

Zsadist struck fast, materializing right behind the slayer, wrapping an arm around the bastard's neck, and pulling him into the darkness. The
lesser
fought back, and the struggle sounded like flags flapping in the wind as two male bodies thrashed and jackets and pants whipped around in the cold air. The
lesser
was on the ground within moments, and Z looked into its eyes as he lifted his dagger. He plunged the black blade into a thick chest. The pop and flare faded quickly.

As Z stood up, there was no satisfaction at all. He was on a violent kind of autopilot. Ready, willing, and able to kill, but moving in a dream state.

Bella was all that was on his mind. Actually, it went deeper than that. The absence of her was a tangible weight hanging from his body: He missed her with a crippling kind of desperation.

Ah, yes
. So the rumors were true. A bonded male without his female might as well be dead. He'd heard that piece of bullshit before and never believed it. Now he was living the hard-core truth.

His cell phone rang and he answered the thing, because that was what you did when it went off. He had no real interest in who was on the other end.

"Z, my man." Vishous said. "Got a really weird message in the general voice mail. Some guy wanting to speak with you."

"He asked for me by name?"

"Actually, he was a little hard to follow because he was so wired, but he mentioned your scar."

Bella's brother? Z wondered. Although now that she was back out in the world, what would that male have to bitch about?

Well… other than the fact that his sister had been serviced in her need and there was no mating ceremony on the calendar. Yeah, that was something a brother would get pissed over.

"What's the callback number?"

Vishous recited the pattern of digits. "And he left the name Ormond."

Guess Bella's big, bad older bro wasn't it. "Ormond? That's a human name."

"Couldn't tell you. So you might want to take this careful."

Z hung up, dialed slowly, and waited, hoping he'd managed to hit the right numbers.

When the call was answered, there was no hello on the other end of the line. Just a low male voice that said, "Out of my network and untraceable. So it must be you, Brother."

"And you are?"

"I want to meet you in person."

"Sorry, I'm not into dating."

"Yeah, I can imagine with that face of yours you don't have much luck there. But I don't want you for sex."

"I'm so relieved. Now who the fuck are you?"

"My first name is David. Ring any bells?"

Fury clouded Z's vision until all he saw were the marks on Bella's stomach. He squeezed the phone until he heard the thing squeak, but he was through with the hotheaded stuff.

Forcing his voice into a drawl, he said, " 'Fraid not, Davy. But refresh my memory."

"You took what is mine."

"I steal your wallet? I would have remembered that."

"My woman!" the
lesser
screamed.

Every marking instinct in Z's body fired off at once, and there was no holding back the growl that came out of his mouth. He whipped the phone away from his face until the sound faded.

"… too close to dawn."

"What was that?" Z said with a nasty edge. "Bad connection."

"You think this is a fucking joke?" the
lesser
spat.