The Bloodline War (20 page)

He gave his feet a stern command to retreat—
run like hell
would’ve been even better—but couldn’t get any body part to obey. “I’m sorry,” he managed to get out, “but sending you to the surface isn’t the answer. Not anymore. There’s a new faction of Om Rău, a Topside Om Rău, hunting you. They were at Scripps Hospital the same night we were, also trying to kidnap you.”

“What?” She let go of him, her lips parting in shock. “What are you saying? That I can’t
ever
go back?”

The expression on her face twisted his innards into knots. “Only under full guard.”
Yeah
.
Lame
. “If you went back to the surface to live, the Topside Om Rău would eventually find you and take you. Your bloodlines are just too valuable. And I can guarantee that, as much as you think you hate it here in Ţărână, life with the Om Rău would be a living nightmare. Trust my experience on this.”

“Good God,” she breathed, her lips bloodless. “This isn’t happening.” Tears pooled in her eyes.

A bolt of panic shot up his spine. “Toni…please, don’t cry. Okay, uh…. Vârcolac males can’t handle…we don’t do so well with that.” Despite his warning, a tear trembled along her lashes, then slid down her cheek. He watched it in outright horror, his knees turning to sand. “Just give Ţărână a chance,” he said quietly. “I know you can’t feel it, yet, but this is where you belong.” He shoved a hand through his hair.
What
in
hell
was he supposed to do with a crying woman? “I can keep you safe here,” he tried, “I promise. Nothing bad would’ve happened to you tonight if you hadn’t escaped your Protection Team.”

“No,” she cried, burying her face in her hands. “No.” Her shoulders began to shake and little hiccupping noises came out of her.

He stared down at the delicate crown of her head, his arms dangling loosely at his sides, his belly sagging into his boots. Blinking a couple of times, he finally lifted his hand, held it in a hover over her head for a second, then plunked it on top of her hair.

She froze.

He froze.
Now, uh, what
? Her crying quieted a bit. That was good. He began to pet her head.
Whoa
. Her hair felt even softer than it looked. A sinew quivered in his jaw as emotions he couldn’t name muscled his chest to the floor and pinned it there. The shape of her head felt so small and vulnerable beneath his large, callused palm.

She stopped crying.

Holy shit, he’d made her stop.
Him!
His lungs expanded. He was King of the World.

Impulsively, he grabbed both sides of her head and gently pulled her forward. She didn’t resist, just stepped closer to him. Shutting his eyes, he pressed his nose to the top of her hair and breathed in deeply.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
….

Her scent swirled through the lobes and crevices of his brain, locking inside there with a feeling of absolute rightness. He shuddered.

Angling her head up, Toni caught his gaze. Intimacy warmed the air around them, wrapping their bodies in a private cocoon.

He lost himself in the drowning blue depths of her eyes.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
….

Toni lifted a hand to his bruised cheek, touching him lightly with her fingers.

He inhaled a slow, uneven breath. Two fingers against his skin and he wanted to die.

“Lørke has the same teeth tattoo as you do,” she said softly, “but here…” She moved her fingers up to his temple.

His heart stopped, dread squeezing his chest.

She dropped her hand, but never took her eyes off him. “The man who pounded ink-soaked tacks into you,” she said, the caring tone of her voice both wonderful and terrible, “the man who made you feel trapped…that was Lørke, wasn’t it?”

The moment of intimacy between them evaporated. No, more like—
ka-blooey
!—it exploded, all the old cage doors slamming shut inside him, walls going up, guards put on full alert. He should thank her for it. Long experience had taught him that it was way fucking easier not to feel a thing rather than deal with all the pain and defeat, all of the heart-wrenching disappointment that was surely heading his way from this woman.

“Yeah, you figured it out,” he told her flatly. He paused a beat for emphasis, then shoved the three damning words past his lips. “Lørke’s my father.” He gestured at the thermos. “Drink that,” he instructed, then turned hard on his heel and walked out.

Chapter Twenty-one

Raymond leaned impatiently on his walking stick, his double-breasted camel hair topcoat buttoned tight against the evening’s brassy weather, a pair of Aspinal leather gloves covering his hands like a second skin. Mürk and Rën were standing off to his right, Rën’s incessant gum-chewing near driving him around the bend, and Tëer was kneeling on the weedy earth in front of an opening into the rocky cliff. They were all clandestinely gathered behind
The Cave Store
on Coast Boulevard in La Jolla Cove, so close to the Pacific Ocean that Raymond could hear the boom of the surf and feel the occasional mist of sea spray.

He glanced irritably at his Rolex, visible by virtue of the security lighting attached to the back of the store. It was after midnight. “Best you haven’t called us out here for naught, son.” Raymond had just been about to get a leg over with a lush sort from his polo club when he’d received Tëer’s message.

Tëer gestured at the machine on the ground in front of him. “Subterranean vibrations are registerin’ on the meter, so the elevator should be movin’.”

Hidden just inside the cliff face were elevator doors—supposedly one of the secret passageways of the Underground Om Rău. So, yes, fancy that, the creatures did exist. It’d been quite the kerfuffle getting that information out of the demonic mother of his children; Ұavell apparently feared being reacquired by some chap named Lørke, a demon she’d escaped from some years back.

It’d been another scrap persuading the old gal to reveal the whereabouts of the doorways into the Om Rău’s underground den. His leg was still feeling a bit out of sorts from that violent confrontation. ’Struth, he found fisticuffs to be dreadfully barbaric, but Ұavell’s pure Om Rău bloodlines lent her a certain immunity to his power. However, that was neither here nor there. The information had been acquired; it just remained to be seen if it was outdated or not. Tëer had been watching this entrance for twelve days and nights, and had seen no comings and goings.

Tëer wearily scratched the black flame tattoo on his left jaw with the backs of his fingers, his young face looking knackered from his long stint of vigilant camping out. “They’re probably just comin’ from really deep in the—”

There was a metallic
clank
of an elevator coming to a stop, then the
shish
of doors sliding open.

Tëer hopped to his feet and moved to Raymond’s left side.

Two men stepped through the rocky doorway, both of them tall, muscled, wretchedly soiled, and dressed in ill-fitting dark clothing. One had fiery red hair and several safety pins stuck through his earlobes. The other had black hair and black teeth tattoos surrounding his enormous biceps
à la
Ұavell, and like the tattoos of the men who’d kidnapped Toni, apparently. Both had the black eyes which marked them as definitely Om Rău.

Well, bully for Ұavell. The old broad had been correct.

“Tally-ho, mates,” Raymond greeted them.

The two came to a dead halt, their surprise at finding four strangers standing there turning into shock when they noted the black flame tribal tattoos on Mürk, Rën, and Tëer.

“Who the fuck are you?” Red Hair demanded, flashing a steel tongue stud in the process. “And how the fuck do you know about this portal?”

“A little Om Rău birdie told us.” Raymond smiled, sorely tempted to pull out his handkerchief and press it over his nose; the two smelled atrocious.

Red Hair slitted his lids. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Such language, lad.” Raymond
tushed
. “But, yes, let’s crack on with matters.” He planted his walking stick firmly in front of him and leaned on it with overlapped hands. “Nearly a fortnight ago some of you blokes nicked a Dragon female from Scripps Memorial Hospital. Strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, height about five-five.”

Red Hair scratched his crotch. “She got big titties?”

Rën stepped forward, a hot, territorial aggression boiling off him.

Toni was Rën’s by right of him being Boian’s eldest son, and the lad evidently didn’t care to hear his woman’s attributes being discussed. Perhaps from this Om Rău’s personal knowledge of them? Raymond nearly sighed. Rën’s temper could be quite annoying at times. If Raymond had his druthers he’d pair Toni with Mürk instead, but the genetic muck-up such a coupling would produce made that impossible.

Raymond held up a staying hand to Rën. “She would be the one, yes.”

“So.” Red Hair drew a battered flask out of his jacket pocket. “What about her?”

“You blokes took her erroneously, old tosspot. She’s ours.” Raymond let another smile curve his lips. “And we want her back.”

Red Hair shrugged. “Shit happens, Pops. ’Fraid you’re gonna hafta live with the screw up.” He took a pull on his flask. “That girl’s too much of a fuckable twinkie to give her up.”

Rën snarled.

The black-haired Om Rău sniggered and reached for his buddy’s flask.

Red Hair jerked it out of his reach.

“
Or
,” Raymond countered in a steely tone, “you and I could negotiate a trade for her.”

The black-haired Om Rău tried to take the flask again. A shoving-slapping-hitting match ensued, which ended in Black giving Red a hard purler to the face and then seizing the coveted flask.

Growling, Red swiped a hand across his bloody mouth. “No way a cum-chugger like you has anything I’d want to trade for.”

“No?” Raymond raised his hand, palm out. He generally didn’t use such theatrics when activating his power, but he wanted to make right certain these two gobbins understood who had the true negotiating power here. “How about your continued good health?” He blasted a shock of energy off his hand.

The two Om Rău shot backward, hit the rocky cliff, and rebounded. Stumbling forward, they convulsed for several moments, then stood in place, blinking and twitching. The supernatural red light in Black’s eyes pulsed in and out steadily, while Red, who Raymond was beginning to discern was more humanoid, tamped down the glow in his own eyes.

“You psychotic dickend,” Red hissed, “back the fuck off. We don’t have her. It’s the Vârcolac who took her. I just
seen
her.”

“Vârcolac?” Raymond snapped his brows down. “Are you under the assumption I’m soft in the head, boy? Vampires have been extinct for centuries.”

“Well, then, you’ve been misinformed.” Without warning, Red caught Black a perishing smacker on the jaw.

The poor sod, still unsteady on his feet, crashed to the dirt, his arms and legs sprawling.

Red snatched the flask out of Black’s hand. “They live underground, same as us, but in their own part. They’re just real good at keeping themselves hidden from people up here, is all.”

“That’s a load o’ shite,” Rën bit out. “I
saw
the man at the hospital who took our woman. He had black eyes and the same kind of tattoos on his forearms that your knobber friend here has on his arms. That makes him an Om Rău.”

“I ain’t lying, jizzbeard, so you can go plow yourself up the ass. The cocksucker you saw at the hospital was a Brun, and he’s Vârcolac, sure enough. Just a Half-Rău.”

Half-Rău
? Raymond deepened his frown. How was that possible? “Vârcolac and Om Rău can’t interbreed.”

Red shrugged. “Guess it’s what you’d call an amolly…animally….”

“An anomaly,” Raymond provided drolly.

“That’s it.” Red chugged the rest of whatever was in the flask

Raymond compressed his lips, his patience growing thin under this convoluted run of turnabouts. His own progeny were Half-Rău, but a mixture of
Fey
and Om Rău. He knew what to expect from that combination, but didn’t have the foggiest notion what sort of creature would come from pairing an Om Rău with a vampire. “Will
they
negotiate with us?” he pressed.

Red dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “No way, Pops. Those Vârcolac ain’t givin’ up their pussy for nuttin. They protect their women good, too. Seven Dragons those bloodsuckers have gotten ahold of, and we’ve only been able to steal one.”

Raymond stiffened. These ruddy Vârcolac had succeeded in obtaining
seven
Dragon females? How in botheration had he missed this? He gripped his walking stick in a rigid fist. Well, shame on him for not paying sufficient attention to the possibility of competitors while waiting for the two eldest boys to come of age. His full attention was engaged now, however. “You wouldn’t happen to be privy to where the Vârcolac’s portals are, would you, dear boy?”

Red stepped warily to the side as Black finally managed to hoist himself to his feet. “Naw, not topside. But there’s a way into the Vârcolac side from our town. If you wanted to try and snatch the twinkie yourselves, I could take your dickfucks here”—Red gestured at Rën, Mürk and Tëer—“down into Oţărât. That is,” he hooded his eyes, “for a price.”

“Dare I ask what that might be?” Raymond drawled.

“Ten Dragon females.”

“Exorbitant,” Raymond countered. “Ten Dragon females for only
one
in exchange. That wouldn’t make sound business sense on my part, would it?”

Red showed his dirty teeth in a smug smile. “But, see, the big tittie one’s special to you.” He tapped two fingers to his temple, presumably indicating his mind. “My own little birdie told me that.”

It seemed that Red’s more human lucidity had the potential to be a proper pain in the posterior, too. “Very well,” Raymond agreed. Not the best of all situations, but he didn’t exactly have an alternative, not short of outright war. These Underground Om Rău controlled the only access to Toni. “We have an accord, lad, save that ten Dragons will take some time to procure, and I want my woman now.”