Lover Unleashed (12 page)

Which, given the prevalence of Homo sapiens, was naught but a fern in a forest of oaks.

The stronghold suited him perfectly—and for the reasons that had first attracted him to the place. The stout walls of stone, and the moat with the bridge, were still very much in place, and they functioned well to keep people out. Added upon them were plenty of bloody fictions and full truths that cast a whispered pall over his lands and his home and his males. Indeed, for the last hundred years, he and his soldiers had done their duty to propagate the bullshit vampire myths by “haunting” the roads in the area from time to time.

Which was easy to do when you were a killer and you could dematerialized at your will.

Boo!
had never been so fucking effective.

And yet there were issues. Having single-handedly decimated the
lesser
population in the Old World, they had had to find ways to keep their killing skills sharp. Fortunately, humans had stepped into the void—although, of course, he and his brothers had to remain in secret, with their true identities protected.

Enter the human urge for retaliation.

There was but a single laudable characteristic of humans and that was their wrath when it came to those among them who committed atrocities. By the vampires’ hunting down only rapists and pedophiles and murderers, their “crimes” were tolerated far better. Fate knew that if you went for the moral types, humans were like bees streaming out of a hive to protect their turf, but the violators?

Eye for an eye, their Bible said.

And with that, his band of bastards had their target practice.

It had been thus for two decades, always with the hope that their true enemy, the Lessening Society, would send more appropriate foes for them. None had come, however, and the conclusion forming within him was that there were no more
lessers
left in Europe and none due to arrive. After all, he and his males had traveled hundreds of miles in all directions each night on their hunts for human villains, so they would have run across slayers somewhere, somehow.

Alas, there were none.

The absence was logical, however. The war had changed continents long ago: Back when the Black Dagger Brotherhood had left for the New World, the Lessening Society had followed them like dogs, leaving the dregs behind for Xcor and his bastards to clean up. For a long while it had been enough of a challenge, the slayers continuing to make themselves available and the battles proceeding apace and the fighting good. But that time had passed and humans were no true match.

At least
lessers
could be an amusing challenge.

A feeling of dense dissatisfaction crowded him as he descended the rough-honed stairwell, his boots crushing an ancient, threadbare runner that should have been replaced generations ago. Down below, the huge space that unfolded was a cave of stone, with naught but a tremendous oak table set afore a hearth that was big as a mountain. The humans who had built this fortress had lined its coarse walls with tapestries, but the scenes of warriors astride steeds of worth had aged no better than any of the rugs had: The shredded, faded fibers hung dejected from their pinnings, the bottom hems growing e’er longer until surely they would be floor coverings soon as well.

In front of the blazing fire, his band of bastards sat upon carved chairs, eating stag and grouse and pigeon that had been hunted upon the grounds of the estate and cleaned in the field and cooked in the hearth. They drank ale they steeped and fermented themselves in the root cellars beneath the earth, and they ate upon those pewter plates with hunting knives and stabbing forks.

There was little electricity in the manse—no need for it in Xcor’s mind a’tall, but Throe had different thoughts. The male had insisted that there be a room for his computers and that required pesky wiring of descriptions that were neither very interesting nor terribly relatable. But there was a point to the modernization. Although Xcor didn’t know how to read, Throe did, and humans were not only endless propagators of gore and depravity; they were fascinated by it as well—which was how prey was located throughout Europe.

The seat at the head of the table was open for him, and the second he sat down the others stopped eating, lowering their hands.

Throe was at his right, in the position of honor, and the vampire’s pale eyes were alight. “How fare thee?”

That dream, that godforsaken dream. In truth, he was scattered in his skin, not that the others would e’er know. “Well enough.” Xcor reached forward with his fork and speared a thigh. “By your expression, I would venture to say that you are with purpose.”

“Aye.” Throe proffered a thick print out of what seemed to be a compilation of newspaper articles. On the top, there was a prominent black-and-white photograph and he pointed to it. “I want him.”

The human male depicted was a dark-haired tough fist with a broken nose and the low, heavy brow of an ape. The script under the photo and the columns of print were nothing but a pattern to Xcor’s eyes; however, he understood clearly the malevolence in that visage.

“Why this particular man,
trahyner
?” Even though he knew.

“He killed women in London.”

“How many?”

“Eleven.”

“Not a square dozen then.”

Throe’s frown smacked of disapproval. Which was a delight, really. “He cut them up while they were alive and waited until they were dead to . . . take them.”

“Fuck them, you mean?” Xcor ripped the flesh from the bone with his fangs, and when there was no reply, he cocked a brow. “Do you mean that he fucked them, Throe.”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Xcor smiled with an edge. “Dirty little fool.”

“There were eleven. Women.”

“Yes, you mentioned. So he’s a rather horny little perverted fool.”

Throe took the papers back and flipped through them, staring down at the faces of the worthless human women. No doubt he was praying to the Scribe Virgin at this very moment, hoping to be granted the opportunity to perform a public service for a race that was nothing but an induction ceremony away from being their enemy.

Pathetic.

And there would be no solo traveling for him—which was why he looked so put upon: Alas, the oath these five males had taken the night of the Bloodletter’s incineration tied them to Xcor with iron cables. They went nowhere without his consent and approval.

Although when it came to Throe, that male had been bound to him far earlier than that, hadn’t he.

In the silence, tendrils of Xcor’s dream resurged in his mind—as did the burn of knowing that he had never found that wraith of a female. Which was not right. Although he was more than willing to be the backbone of myths within human minds, he did not believe in ghosts or hauntings or spells and curses. His father had been taken by something of flesh and blood, and the hunter in him wanted to find it and kill it.

“What say you?” Throe demanded.

So like him. Such a hero. “Nothing. Or I would have spoken, yes?”

Throe’s fingers started to tap against the old stained wood of the table, and Xcor was pleased to let him sit and play drummer boy. The others simply ate, content to wait for this battle to be resolved one way or the other. Unlike Throe, the rest did not care which targets were chosen—provided they were fed, watered, and well sexed, they were content to fight whenever and wherever were chosen for them.

Xcor stabbed another strip of meat and eased back into his massive oak chair, his eyes drawn to the decrepit tapestries. Within the faded folds, those images of humans going off to war on stallions that he approved of and weapons he could appreciate irked the shit out of him.

The sense that he was in the wrong place tingled along his shoulders, making him as twitchy as his number two.

Twenty years of no
lessers
and eradicating mere humans to keep up their skills was no kind of existence for his crew or himself. And yet there were some vampires who had stayed in the Old Country, and he had lingered on this continent in hopes of finding among them what he saw only in his dreams.

That female. Who had taken his father.

Where had all this tarrying gotten him, however?

The decision he had long toyed with crystallized in his mind once again, forming shape and structure, angles and arches. And whereas previously, the impetus had always faded, now, the nightmare gave it the kind of stay-power that turned mere idea into action.

“We shall go unto London,” he pronounced.

Throe’s fingers immediately stilled. “Thank you, my liege.”

Xcor inclined his head and smiled to himself, thinking Throe might get a chance to off that human man. Or . . . perhaps not.

Travel plans were indeed afoot, however.

NINE

ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL CALDWELL, NEW YORK

M
edical center complexes were like jigsaw puzzles. Except for the fact that their pieces didn’t fit together nearly as well.

But that was not a bad thing on a night like tonight, Manny thought as he scrubbed in.

On some level, he was amazed it had all gone so easily. The thugs who had driven him and his patient here had parked in one of the thousand dark corners of St. Francis’s outer edge, and then Manny had called the head of security himself, stating that he had a VIP patient coming in the back who required total discretion. Next ring-a-ding-ding had been to his nursing staff and the line was the same: Special patient coming in. Ready the third-floor OR on the far end and have the MRI techs ready for a quickie. Final dial had been to transport, and what do you know, they had shown up lickety-split with a gurney.

Within fifteen minutes of finishing the MRI, the patient was here in OR VII, getting prepped.

“So who is she?”

The question came from the nurse in charge, and he’d been waiting for it. “An Olympic equestrian. From Europe.”

“Well, that explains it. She was mumbling something and none of us could understand the language.” The woman flipped through some paperwork—which he was going to make sure he snagged after all this was through. “Why all the secrets?”

“She’s royalty.” And wasn’t that the truth. As he’d ridden along with her, he’d spent the entire trip staring at her regal features.

Sap. Stupid-ass sap.

His head nurse glanced out into the corridor, her eyes wary. “Explains the security detail—my God, you’d think we were bank robbers.”

Manny leaned back for a peek as he scrubbed under his nails with a stiff brush. The three who had come in with him stood in the hall about ten feet away, their huge bodies dressed in black with a lot of bulges.

Guns, no doubt. Maybe knives. Possibly a flamethrower or two, who the fuck knew.

Kinda cured a guy of the whole government-is-just-full-of-paper-pushing-pencil-necks idea.

“Where’re her consent forms?” the nurse asked. “There’s nothing in the system.”

“I’ve got all those,” he lied. “You have the MRI for me?”

“Up on the screen—but the tech says that it’s with errors? He really wants to redo.”

“Let me look at it first.”

“Are you sure you want to be listed as the responsible party for all this? Doesn’t she have money?”

“She has to be anonymous, and they’ll reimburse me.” At least, he was assuming they would—not that he really cared.

Manny rinsed the brown blush of Betadine off his hands and forearms and shook them off. Keeping his arms up, he hit the swinging door with his back and entered the OR.

Two nurses and an anesthesiologist were in the room, the former double-checking the rolling trays of instruments set on blue surgical drapes, the latter calibrating the gases and equipment that would be used for keeping his patient asleep. The air was cool to discourage bleeding and smelled like astringent, and the computer equipment hummed quietly along with the ceiling lights and the operating chandelier.

Manny beelined for the monitors—and the instant he saw the MRI, his heart jumping-jacked on him. Going slowly, he reviewed the digital images carefully until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Looking to the windows in the flap doors, he remeasured the three men standing right outside the room, their hard faces and cold eyes locked on him.

They were not human.

His stare slipped to his patient. And neither was she.

Manny went back to the MRI and leaned in closer to the screen, like that was somehow going to magically fix all the anomalies he was seeing.

Man, and he’d thought the Goateed Hater’s six-chambered heart was odd?

As the double doors opened and shut, Manny closed his lids and took a deep one. Then he turned around and confronted the second doctor who had come into the room.

Jane was scrubbed in so that all you could see was her forest green eyes from behind a plexi-surgical mask, and he’d covered her presence by telling the staff she was a private doctor for the patient—which was not a lie. The little ditty that she knew everyone here as well as he did he kept to himself. And so did she.

As her eyes shifted to his and locked on without apology, he wanted to scream, but he had a goddamn job to do. Refocusing, he pushed the things that weren’t immediately helpful out of his mind, and reviewed the damage to the vertebrae to plan his approach.

He could see the area that had fused following a fracture: Her spine was a lovely pattern of perfectly placed knots of bone interspersed between dark cushioning disks . . . except for the T6 and T7. Which explained the paralysis.

He couldn’t see whether the spinal cord was compressed or cut through completely, and he wouldn’t know the true extent of the damage until he got in there. But it didn’t look good. Spinal compressions were deadly to that delicate tunnel of nerves, and irreparable damage could be done in a matter of minutes or hours.

Why the hurry to find him? he wondered.

He looked over at Jane. “How many weeks since she was injured?”

“It was . . . four hours ago,” she said so quietly no one else could have heard.

Manny recoiled. “What?”