Lover Mine (5 page)

Hopefully this human was doing a good job with the design.

When the Brothers needed tattoos for whatever reason, Vishous worked the needle and the guy was a pro at it—hell, the red tear on Qhuinn’s face and the black scrolling date around the back of his neck were spank. Trouble was, you went to V with a job like this one and suddenly there were going to be questions—not just from him, but from everyone else.

Not many secrets in the Brotherhood, and John would just as soon keep his feelings for Xhex to himself.

The truth was . . . he was in love with her. Totally over-the-line, no-going-back, not-even-dead-would-he-part kind of shit. And although his hearts and flowers hadn’t been unrequited, that didn’t matter. He’d come to peace with the fact that the one he wanted didn’t want him.

What he could not live with was her being tortured or dying a slow, excruciating death.

Or him not being able to give her a proper burial.

He was obsessed with her disappearance. Single-minded to the point of self-destruction. Brutal and unforgiving toward the one who’d taken her. But that was nobody else’s biz.

The only good thing in the sitch was that the Brotherhood was likewise committed to figuring out what the hell had happened to her. The Brothers didn’t leave anyone behind on a mission, and when they’d gone up to get Rehvenge out of that
symphath
colony, Xhex had been very much a member of the team. When the dust had cleared, and she’d disappeared entirely, the assumption was that she’d been abducted, and there were two possible ways to go:
symphaths
or
lessers
.

Which was kind of like saying, Do you want her to come down with polio or Ebola?

Everyone, including John, Qhuinn, and Blay, was on the case. As a result? It just looked as though finding her was part of John’s job as a soldier in war.

The humming of the needle stopped and the artist wiped at his back.

“It’s looking good,” the guy said, resuming his work. “You want to do it in two sessions or just this one.”

John glanced at Blay and signed.

“He says he wants it done tonight if you have the time,” Blay translated.

“Yeah, I can do that. Mar? Call Rick and tell him I’m going to be late.”

“Dialing as we speak,” the receptionist said.

Nope, John wasn’t going to let the Brothers see this ink—no matter how great it looked.

The way he saw it, he’d been born in a bus station and left for dead. Thrown into the human child welfare system. Picked up by Tohr and his mate, only to have her killed and the guy disappear. And now Z, who’d been the one assigned to reach out to him, was understandably busy with his
shellan
and their new young.

Even Xhex had shut him out before the tragedy.

So, whatever, he could take a hint. Besides, it was curiously liberating not to give a shit about anyone else’s opinion. Freed him up to nurture his violent obsession with tracking down her abductor and ripping the fucker limb from limb.

“You mind telling me what this is?” the tattoo guy asked.

John lifted his eyes and figured there was no reason to lie to the human. Besides, Blay and Qhuinn knew the truth.

Blay looked a little surprised, but then translated. “He says it’s his girl’s name.”

“Ah. Yeah, I figured. You two getting married?”

After John signed, Blay said, “It’s a memorial.”

There was a pause and then the tattoo guy put his gun down on the rolling table where the ink was. After yanking up the sleeve of his black shirt, he put his forearm in front of John. On it was the picture of a gorgeous woman, her hair breezing out over her shoulder, her eyes focused so that she looked out of his skin.

“That was my girl. She’s not here anymore either.” With a sharp tug, the guy covered up the picture. “So I get it.”

As the needle got back to work, John found it difficult to breathe. The idea that Xhex was probably dead by now ate him alive . . . and what was worse was imagining the way she might have died.

John knew who’d taken her. There was only one logical explanation: While she had gone into the labyrinth and helped to free Rehvenge, Lash had shown up, and when he’d disappeared so had she. Not a coincidence. And though no one had seen anything, there had been about a hundred
symphaths
in the cave where Rehv had been and a lot going on . . . and Lash was not your garden-variety
lesser
.

Oh, no . . . he was apparently the son of the Omega. The very spawn of evil. And that meant the cocksucker had tricks.

John had seen a few of his fancy dancies up close and personal during the fight at the colony: If the guy could palm up energy bombs and go nose-to-nose with Rhage’s beast, then why couldn’t he snatch someone right from under everyone’s noses. The thing was, if Xhex had been killed that night, they would have found a body. If she was breathing, but had an injury, she would have telepathically reached out
symphath
-to
-symphath
to Rehvenge. And if she was alive, but needed a little vacation, she would have left only after she was sure everyone else was home safe.

The Brothers were working off the same logical assumptions, so they were all out looking for
lessers.
And although most of the vampires had left Caldwell for out of state safe houses after the raids, the Lessening Society, under Lash’s rule, had turned to drug dealing to make ends meet, and that went down mainly around the clubs here in town on Trade Street. Trolling seedy alleys was the name of the game, with everyone looking for things that were undead and smelled like a cross between a bled-out skunk and a Glade PlugIn.

Four weeks and they’d found nothing other than signs that
lessers
were moving product on the street to humans.

John was going insane, mostly from all the not-knowing and the fear, but partially from having to hold his violence inside. Although it was amazing what you could do when you had no choice—he had to appear normal and levelheaded if he wanted to be a part of this, so that was what he presented himself to be.

And this tattoo? It was a stake shoved into the territory he was in. His declaration that even if Xhex hadn’t wanted him, she was his mate and he would honor her, alive or dead. Here was the thing: People felt the way they did and it wasn’t their fault or yours if the connection was one-sided. It just . . . was.

God, he wished he hadn’t been so cold when they’d had sex the second time.

That final time.

Abruptly, he cut off his emotions, putting that genie of sadness and regret and rejection back into its bottle. He couldn’t allow himself to break down. He had to keep going, keep searching, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Time was moving forward even though he wanted to slow it down so that they had a better chance of finding her alive.

The clock was not interested in his opinions, however.

Dear God, he thought. Please let me not fail in this.

“I
nduction? What, like it’s a fucking club?”

As the words bounced around the inside of the Mercedes, Lash tightened his hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. He had a switchblade in the inside pocket of his Canali suit and the urge to out the blade and slice this human’s throat open was goddamned tempting.

Of course, then he’d have a dead body to deal with and blood all over the leather.

Both of which were bores.

He looked across the seats. The one he had picked out of a cast of hundreds was your typical bottom-feeding, drug-dealing, shifty-eyed motherfucker. The kid’s history of child abuse was written in the old circular scar on his face—perfectly round and the size of the burning end of a cigarette—and his hard life on the street was in his smart, twitchy eyes. His greed was in the way he looked around the inside of the car, like he was trying to figure out how to make it his own, and his resourcefulness was obvious by how quickly he’d made a name for himself as a go-to dealer.

“More than a club,” Lash said in a low voice. “Much more. You’ve got a future in this business and I’m offering it to you on a silver platter. I’ll have my men pick you up here tomorrow night.”

“What if I don’t show?”

“Your choice.” Of course, then the fucker was going to wake up dead in the morning, but details, details . . .

The kid met Lash’s eyes. The human wasn’t built like a fighter; he was more the size of someone who’d gotten his ass cheeks duct-taped together in the school locker room. But it had become amply clear that the Lessening Society needed two kinds of members now: moneymakers and soldiers. After having had Mr. D scope the Xtreme Park and watch who was moving the most product, this wiry little shit with the reptilian stare was at the top of the heap.

“Are you queer?” the kid said.

Lash allowed one of his hands to leave the steering wheel and duck into his jacket. “Why do you ask that?”

“You smell like one. Dress like one, too.”

Lash moved so fast, his target didn’t have a chance to even lean back in the seat. With a quick lunge, he rocked out the switch and laid that sharp blade right against the vital, beating pulse at the side of the white neck.

“The only thing I do to males is kill them,” Lash said. “You want to get fucked like that? Because I’m ready if you are.”

The kid’s eyes went cartoon wide and his body trembled beneath his dirty clothes. “No . . . I don’t got a problem with the queers.”

Fidiot was missing the point, but whatever. “Do we have a deal?” Lash said, pressing the point of his knife in. As the penetration was achieved, blood welled up in a bubble and stayed put for a split second, like it was trying to decide whether to flow down the shiny metal or the smooth column of skin.

It picked the blade, meandering forth in a ruby red stream.

“Please . . . don’t kill me.”

“What’s your answer.”

“Yeah. I’ll do it.”

Lash pressed in harder, watching the blood run. He was momentarily captivated by the reality that if he took the weapon and pushed it farther through the flesh, this human would cease to exist, like a breath of air disappearing into a chilly night.

He enjoyed feeling like a god.

As whimpering breached the kid’s chapped lips, Lash relented, easing back. With a quick lick, he cleaned off the blade and flicked the weapon shut. “You’re going to like where you end up. I promise you.”

He gave the guy a chance to recover and knew it wasn’t going to take long for the kid to get his groove back. Asswipes like this one had egos like balloons. Pressure, particularly the kind that came with a knife at the throat, caused them to collapse in on themselves. But the instant the stress was relieved, they rebounded, puffing back up into place.

The kid snapped his crappy leather jacket down. “I like where I is just fine.”

Bingo. “Then why are you looking at my car like you want it in your garage?”

“I got a better ride than this.”

“Oh. Really.” Lash eyeballed the bitch from head to foot. “You come here every night on a BMX. Your jeans are torn and not because they’re designer. How many jackets you got in your closet? Oh, wait, you keep your shit in a cardboard box under the bridge.” Lash rolled his eyes as all kinds of surprise bubbled up from the passenger seat. “You think we didn’t check you out? You think we’re that stupid?”

Lash jabbed a finger toward the Xtreme Park, where skateboarders were making like metronomes on the ramps, up and down, up and down. “You are the shit in this playground over here. Fine. Congratulations. But we want you to go farther. You join with us, you’ve got muscle behind you . . . money, product, protection. You hit it with us, you’re going to be something more than a two-bit punk swinging your cock around a concrete lot. We’ve got your future.”

The kid’s calculating stare shifted toward his little slice of territory in Caldwell and then floated over to the horizon where the skyscrapers loomed. The ambition was there, and that was why he’d been chosen. What this little bastard needed was a way up and a way out.

The fact that he’d have to sell his soul to do it was going to dawn on him only when it was too late, but that was the way of the Society. From what Lash had been told by the
lessers
he now commanded, there was never a full-disclosure thing before they got inducted—and this was understandable. Like any of them would have believed that evil was waiting on the other side of the door they were knocking on? Like any one of them would have volunteered for what they were getting into?

Surprise, motherfucker. This ain’t no Disney World, and once you get on the ride, you are never, ever getting off.

Lash was totally fine with deception, however.

“I’m ready for bigger shit,” the kid murmured.

“Good. Now get the fuck out of my car. My associate will pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”

“Cool.”

With business concluded, Lash was impatient to move the little bastard along. The kid smelled like a sewer and was screaming for more than a shower—he needed to be hosed down like a dirty stretch of sidewalk.

As soon as the door was shut, Lash backed out of the parking lot and hooked up with the road that ran parallel to the Hudson River. He headed for home, his hands gripping the steering wheel for another reason than the urge to kill.

The urge to fuck was just as strong a motivator for him.

The street he lived on in Old Caldwell had Victorian-era brownstones running down it and sidewalks planted with trees and property values no lower than a million dollars. The neighbors picked up after their dogs, never made any noise, and put their trash out only in the back alleys, and only on the right days. As he drove past his town house and cut around the block to the garage, he was tickled fucking pink to think all these tight-ass WASPs had a neighbor like him: He might have looked and dressed like them, but his blood ran black and he was as soulless as a wax statue.