Lover Unleashed (59 page)

As someone shoved a glass into his mitt, he whispered in Jane’s ear, “Champagne makes me horny.”

“Really . . .”

Slipping his hand down her hip . . . and lower . . . he tugged her in against his sudden arousal. “You ever meet the hall bathroom?”

“I do believe we’ve been formally introd—Vishous!”

He stopped nipping at her neck, but kept up with rolling his hips against hers. Which was a little indecent, but nothing that any of the other couples hadn’t done from time to time.

“Yes?” he drawled. When she seemed speechless, he sucked on her lip and growled, “If you recall, we were discussing the bathroom? I was thinking maybe I could reacquaint the pair of you. Not sure if you’re aware of it, but that sink counter has been crying out for you.”

“And you do some of your best work at sinks.”

V dragged one fang up her throat. “True that.”

As his erection started thumping, he took his female’s hand—

The grandfather clock in the corner started to chime, and then he heard four deep bongs. Which made him pull back a little and check his watch even though he didn’t need to—because that clock had kept time correctly for two hundred years.

Four a.m.? Where the hell was Payne?

As the urge to go to the Commodore and bring his sister home struck hard, he reminded himself that although dawn was coming fast, she still had maybe an hour left. And given what he and Jane were about to do behind a closed door, he couldn’t really blame her for eking out every moment she had with her male—even if he was absolutely, positively not going there.

“Everything okay?” Jane asked.

Getting back with the program, he dropped his head. “It will be as soon as I get you up on that counter.”

He and Jane were in the loo for forty-five minutes.

When they came out, everyone was still in the billiards room. The music had been cranked and Lil Wayne’s “I’m Not a Human Being” was echoing up to the foyer’s ceiling. The
doggen
were buzzing around with little fancy crap on silver trays, and Rhage had a circle of laughing people around him as he cracked jokes.

For a moment, it felt like the good old days.

But then he didn’t see his sister in the crowd. And no one came over to tell him she’d gone up to the guest room she’d been using.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Jane. A quick kiss and he ducked out of the party, skated across the foyer, and went into the empty dining room. Rounding the fully set but very empty table, he got his cell from his pocket and dialed the phone he’d given her.

No answer.

He tried again. No answer. Third time? No . . . goddamn answer.

With a curse, he punched in Manello’s number, and shuddered at what he might be interrupting—but they’d probably pulled the drapes and lost track of time. And phones could defo get lost in sheets, he thought with a wince.

Ring . . . ring . . . ring . . .

“Fucking pick up—”

“Hello?”

Manello sounded bad. Gunshot bad. Mortal-injury bad.

“Where is my sister.” Because there was no way the surgeon was like that if she were in his bed.

The pause was not good news, either. “I don’t know. She left here hours ago.”

“Hours?”

“What’s going on?”

“Jesus Christ—” V hung up on the guy, and called her phone again. And again.

Cranking his head around, he looked out to the foyer and the door to the vestibule.

With a subtle whirring sound, the steel shutters that protected the house from the sun started to ease down into place.

Come on, Payne . . . come home. Right now.

Right . . .

Now . . .

Jane’s gentle touch snapped him back to reality. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

His first instinct was to cover it all up with a crack about Rhage’s impression of Steve-O in a projectile Porta-Potty. Instead, he forced himself to be real with his mate.

“Payne is . . . maybe MIA.” As she gasped and reached out with her other hand, he kind of wanted to bolt. But he held his feet to the Oriental rug. “She left Manello’s”
—hours ago
—“ah, hours ago. And now I’m just praying to a mother I despise that she comes through that door.”

Jane didn’t say anything further. Instead, she angled herself so she could also see the way in from the vestibule and waited with him.

Taking her hand, he realized that it was a relief not to be alone as the party raged on across the way . . . and his sister still did not come home.

That vision he’d had of her on the black horse, going at a screaming tilt, came back to him in the silence of the dining room. Her dark hair was flying out behind her as the stallion’s mane streaked as well, the pair on a tear . . . to God only knew where.

Allegorical? he wondered. Or just the yearnings of her brother that she finally be free . . . ?

Jane and he were still standing there together, staring at a door that did not open, when the sun officially rose twenty-two minutes later.

As Manny paced around his condo, he was going balls. Absolute balls. He’d meant to leave his condo shortly after Payne had, but he’d run out of gas and had ended up spending the whole night staring out . . . into the night.

Too fucking empty.

He’d been just too fucking empty to move.

When the phone had rung beside him, he’d checked the number and come briefly alive. Private caller. It had to be her.

And considering his mind had been going over what he’d said to her again and again, he’d needed a second to pull things together after all that useless spinning. That speech he’d rolled out had, at the time, seemed so rational and reasonable and smart . . . until he’d stared down the barrel at a future that was beyond vacant and deep into black hole.

He’d accepted the call not expecting anything male on the connection. Much less her brother.

Much less the bastard going all surprise-surprise when Payne wasn’t at the condo.

While Manny marched around in circles, he stared at his phone, willing it to ring again . . . willing the fucking piece of shit to go off and have it be Payne telling him she was okay. Or her brother. Anyone.

Any-cocksucking-one.

For chrissakes, Al Roker could call him with the goddamn news she was all right.

Except the dawn arrived way too soon and his phone stayed way too quiet. And like a loser, he went into his recent-calls list and tried to hit back “private caller.” When all he got was a dial tone again, he wanted to throw the cell across the room, but then where would that leave him.

The impotence was a crusher. A total crusher.

He wanted to go out and . . . shit, find Payne if she was lost. Or bring her the fuck back home if she was out by herself. Or—

The phone went off. Private caller.

“Thank fuck,” he said as he accepted it. “Payne—”

“No.”

Manny closed his eyes: Her brother sounded like hell. “Where is she.”

“We don’t know. And there’s nothing that we can do from here—we’re trapped inside.” The guy exhaled like he was smoking something. “What the fuck happened before she left? I thought she’d be spending all night with you. It’s cool if you two . . . you know . . . but why did she leave so early?”

“I told her it wasn’t going to work out.”

Long silence. “What the
fuck
are you thinking?”

Clearly if it hadn’t been all bright and sunny outside, motherfucker would have been knocking on Manny’s door, looking to kick some Italian ass.

“I thought that would make you happy.”

“Oh, yeah. Abso—break my sister’s fucking heart. I’m all for that.” Another sharp exhale, like he was blowing smoke. “She’s in
love
with you, asshole.”

Didn’t that stop him in his tracks. But he got back with the program. “Listen, she and I . . .”

At that point, he was supposed to explain the stuff about the results of his physical and how he was all freaked out and didn’t know what the repercussions were. But the trouble was, in the hours since Payne had taken off, he’d come to realize that however true that shit was, there was a more fundamental thing going on at the core of him: He was being a little bitch. What the go-away had really been about was the fact that he was shitting in his pants because he’d actually fallen in love with a woman . . . female . . . whatever. Yeah, there was a tremendous overlay of metaphysical stuff he didn’t understand and couldn’t explain, blah, blah, blah. But at the center of it all, he felt so much for Payne that he didn’t know himself anymore, and
that
was the terrifying part.

He’d pussied out when he’d had the chance.

But that was done now. “She and I are in love,” he said clearly.

And damn him to hell, he should have had the balls to tell her. And hold her. And keep her.

“So like I said, what the
fuck
are you thinking.”

“Excellent question.”

“Jesus . . . Christ.”

“Listen, how can I help—I can be out in daylight, and there is nothing I won’t do to get her back.
Nothing
.” Energized by obsession, he headed for his keys. “If she isn’t with you, where would she go. What about that place . . . the Sanctuary?”

“Cormia and Phury went there.
Nada
.”

“So . . .” He hated thinking like this. “What about your enemies. Where are they during the day—I’ll go there.”

Cursing. More exhaling. Pause. Then a flicking sound and an inhale, as if the guy were lighting up another cigarette.

“You know, you shouldn’t smoke,” Manny heard himself say.

“Vampires don’t get cancer.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Okay, here’s the deal. We don’t have a specific locale for the Lessening Society. The slayers tend to imbed themselves in the human population in small groups so it’s nearly impossible to find them without serious disturbance. The only thing . . . Go to the alleys by the riverfront downtown. She might have met up with some
lessers
—you’re going to look for evidence of a fight. There’d be black oil everywhere. Like engine oil. And it would smell sweet—like roadkill and baby powder. It’s pretty fucking distinctive. Let’s start with that.”

“I need to be able to reach you. You need to give me your number.”

“I’ll text you with it. Do you have a gun? Any weapon?”

“Yeah. I do.” Manny was already taking the licensed forty out of his closet. He’d been living in the city all his adult life and shit happened—so he’d learned his way around a gun about twenty years ago.

“Tell me it’s bigger than a nine.”

“Yup.”

“Get a knife. You’re going to need a stainless-steel blade.”

“Roger that.” He headed for the kitchen and took out the biggest, sharpest Henckels he had. “Anything else?”

“A flamethrower. Nunchakus. Throwing stars. Uzi. You want me to go on.”

If only he had that kind of arsenal.

“I’m going to get her back, vampire. Mark my fucking words—I’m getting her back.” He grabbed his wallet and was heading for the door when dread stopped him. “How many of them are there. Your enemies.”

“An endless supply.”

“Are they . . . male?”

Pause. “Used to be. Before they got turned, they were human men.”

A sound came out of Manny’s mouth . . . one that he was very sure he had never uttered before.

“Nah, she can handle herself with the hand-to-hand,” her brother said in a dead tone. “She’s tough like that.”

“Not what I was thinking.” He had to scrub his eyes. “She’s a virgin.”

“Still . . . ?” the guy asked after a moment.

“Yeah. It wasn’t right for me to . . . take that from her.”

Oh, God, the idea she could be hurt . . .

He couldn’t even finish the sentence to himself.

Snapping into action, he stepped out of his place and went over to call the elevator. As he waited, he realized that there had only been silence on the other end of the phone for a while. “Hello? You there.”

“Yeah.” Her twin’s voice cracked. “Yeah. I’m here.”

The connection between them remained open as Manny got into the elevator and hit P. And the entire trip down to his car was passed with the two of them saying absolutely nothing at all.

“They’re impotent,” her twin finally muttered just as Manny was getting into the Porsche. “They can’t have sex.”

Well, didn’t that do nothing to make him feel better. And going by the tone of her brother’s voice, the other guy was thinking the same way.

“I’ll call you,” Manny said.

“You do that, my man. You frickin’ do that.”

FIFTY-TWO

W
hen Payne came back to consciousness, she did not open her eyes. No reason to give away the fact that she was aware of her surroundings.

Bodily sensation informed her of her situation: She was on her feet, with her wrists shackled and pulled out to the sides and her back against a stone wall that was damp. Her ankles were likewise tethered and stretched apart and her head had lolled forward into a very uncomfortable position.

When she drew breaths in, she smelled musky dirt, and the voices of males percolated up from the left of where she was.

Very deep voices. Cast with drumming excitement, as if a benefit had fallen into their clutches.

She was it.

As she gathered her strength, she was under no illusions of what they were going to do to her. Soon. And as she drew herself together, she shied away from thoughts of her Manuel . . . of how, if these males had their way, they would spoil her many times over before they murdered her, taking what rightly should have been her healer’s—

Except she could not and would not think of him. That cognition was a black pit that would suck her in and trap her and render her defenseless.

Instead, she pulled at the threads of memory, melding the images of the faces of her kidnappers with what she knew from the bowls in the Sanctuary.

Why? she wondered. She had not a clue why the one with the ruined lip had set upon her with such hatred—

“I know you wake.” The voice was impossibly low and heavily accented and right next to her ear. “Your breathing pattern has changed.”