The Beast

by J. R. Ward

  "Unlike yourself, I do not need to sing for my supper, I can buy it myself."

  Naasha spoke up, her voice filling the parlor. "Shall we adjourn for our meal?"

  As the butler eased open a pair of double doors to reveal a dining table as resplendent as any set by royalty, human or otherwise, Naasha linked her arm into Assail's.

  In a whisper, she said, "We shall be having dessert down below. In my playroom."

  Ordinarily, he would have been unimpressed by such a blatant, I'm-a-naughty-girl come-on and would have commented appropriately. But he had other priorities.

  Had Throe defected from the Bastards? Was he infiltrating the glymera through an available opening--or three--with an eye toward engineering ambitions against the crown?

  Assail was most certainly going to find out.

  "I look forward to whatever will be served," he murmured, patting her hand.

  Even if the sweets to be consumed were, temporarily, him and his cousins.

  After all, orgasms were as good a currency as any . . . and he was quite certain that Naasha and her "dearest friends" were free for the purchasing in that regard.

  TWENTY-NINE

  "Thank you so much for coming. I was, ah, hoping that we could talk about . . ."

  As Jo Early ran lines to herself, she stirred a packet of Sugar In The Raw into her cappuccino, messing up the pretty brown-and-white heart design that had been made in the foam.

  The I've Bean Waitin' coffee shop was Caldwell's indie version of Starbucks, a tall-ceilinged, narrow-walled shotgun space with padded chairs and sofas, lots of mismatched little tables, and baristas who were allowed to wear their own clothes under their black smocks. It was one strip mall over from where the real estate office was, a quick trip to make at the end of yet another too-late workday for her too-hot, too-distracted boss.

  He'd been in a dark gray suit today. With a bright white shirt and a blue-gray-and-black bow tie that, on him, was about as far away from geek as his Gucci shoes were.

  Taking a sip from the rim of the fat white bowl-cup, she gave her little speech another shot. "Thanks for meeting me. I know this sounds odd, but--"

  "Jo?"

  Jumping, she nearly dumped her 'cino all over herself. The man standing by her table was six feet tall, with shaggy black hair, black-rimmed glasses, and the kind of skinny-jeaned, tight button-down'd, floppy-jacketed, earth-toned hipster clothes she'd expect to see on somebody ten years younger. But on William Elliot, it all worked.

  Shaking herself, she said, "Hi, yes, hello, Mr. Elliot--"

  "Call me Bill." He glanced over at the coffee bar. "Let me get a latte, two secs?"

  "Sure. Please. Ah, thanks. I mean, that's great. Good luck." Shit. "I'm sorry."

  Bill frowned and eased himself down, unwrapping an army-green scarf from his neck, and opening that maroon felt coat. "Is there something wrong with my house or something?"

  "Oh, no." She pushed her hair back. "And I didn't mean to bring you here under false pretenses."

  Except she kinda had.

  "Look, I'm a happily married man--"

  Jo put both hands out. "No, God no--this is, this is actually about an article you wrote almost a year ago in December? About Julio Martinez? He was arrested back then downtown as part of a street fight?"

  Bill's eyebrows popped up over his glasses. "The gang member."

  "That's right, the one who was injured and apprehended in that abandoned restaurant."

  As the reporter fell silent, Jo wanted to kick herself in the ass. She should have known better than to get involved in any of Dougie's foolishness--even more to the point, she should have avoided getting anyone else sucked into the funhouse.

  "You know what?" she said. "I was way out of line. I shouldn't have asked you to--"

  "What exactly do you want to know about the article?"

  As she met Bill's narrowed eyes, everyone and everything else in the cafe disappeared; the sounds of hissing steam and brewing coffee, the chatter, the comings and goings, all of it went on the dim. And not because the two of them were sharing a romantic moment.

  "Are you aware of the YouTube video Julio's been in?" Jo asked. "And what he said?"

  Bill looked away. "You know, I think I will get that latte."

  The reporter got up and went to the counter. When he was addressed by name, and a, "Would you like the usual?" she wondered whether it was true that all writers were powered by caffeine.

  And it was weird, this place wasn't near his work or his new house. Maybe he'd lived in the area before?

  Bill returned with a tall mug that was more beer stein than anything you'd put a latte in, and as he sat down again, she could tell he'd taken the time to get his head back on straight.

  "You've seen the videos," she said.

  The man shook his head slowly. "I interviewed Julio when he got out on bail, as part of a series on the upswing of gang-related violence downtown. Most of those kinds of kids--and he was just a kid . . . is one, I mean--a lot of them don't say a thing when they're approached. And if they do talk? It's a lot of posturing about territory, their version of an honor code, their enemies. Julio wasn't interested in any of that. He just kept going on about . . ."

  "A vampire." For some reason, her heart started pounding. "That's what he was focused on, wasn't he."

  "Yeah."

  "You didn't mention anything like that in your article, though."

  "God, no. I don't want my editor to think I'm nuts--but I did go online, and I saw the videos. Spent about three days doing nothing but watching those things all night long. My wife was convinced I'd lost my mind. Seventy-two hours later, I wasn't too sure I hadn't."

  Jo leaned in, her elbow pushing her 'cino forward until she had to keep it from falling to the floor. "Look . . . what are the chances that Julio saw something? And can I just take this moment to say, I cannot believe I'm asking that at all."

  Bill shrugged and tried out his latte. As he set the tall mug back down, he shook his head some more. "I thought it was crazy at first, too. I mean, I'm into facts--that's the reason I wanted to be a journalist even though it's a dying field. But after I saw everything that's been posted? It's just . . . there's an awful lot of stuff about encounters like that happening in Caldwell. If you audit similar content, even on a cursory level, across the U.S., it's astonishing how so much of it focuses right here in the five-one-eight. Yeah, sure, you get your garden-variety crazies all over the place, like ghost hunters and whatnot. But when it comes to vampires specifically, it's like . . ." He laughed and looked at her. "Sorry, I'm going off the rails."

  "No, you aren't."

  "Feels like it." He took another draw of his brew. "Why do you ask?"

  Jo shrugged. "The night before last, a friend of mine thought he saw something. He managed to get it on video and put it up online . . . but what he said happened is totally impossible, and there were drugs involved on his part. He took me out to this abandoned girls' school--"

  "Brownswick?"

  "Yes, that's the one." Jo rubbed her nose even though it didn't itch. "He took me out there in the morning to show me the leftovers of some kind of big fight or something. There weren't any . . . at least, not exactly. And I wasn't going to waste any more time on it, but I was bored at work last night--I went online, did a little poking around--kind of what you did. And that's how I found Julio's stuff."

  Bill cursed. "I shouldn't ask this . . ."

  "Do you want to see the footage?"

  "Damn it."

  As Bill went quiet, Jo sat back and let the man decide for himself. And she knew exactly how he felt. She wasn't into the dark side or people pretending that one existed.

  The trouble was, she couldn't quite let this all go.

  "Lemme see," he muttered.

  Jo got out her phone, located the video, and turned the little screen around. As he took her cell and watched Dougie's clip, she tracked the flickering of his facial muscles.

  When it was done, he ha
nded her iPhone back. Then he checked his watch. After a moment, he asked, "You want to go for a ride over there?"

  "Yes," she said, getting to her feet. "I do."

  *

  Mary was determined to be careful with her words.

  As she waited for Rhage to arrive at Safe Place, she paced around the front living room, dodging the cozy couches and stuffed chairs, straightening a framed pencil drawing by one of the kids, pulling the curtains back from time to time even though her hellren was going to text her when he got there.

  In spite of the fact that she was alone by all conventional definition, her head was crowded with nouns and verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

  And yet even with a countless array of word combinations at her disposal, she remained stuck in tabula rasa land.

  The trouble was that she was looking to avoid another disaster like what had happened at Havers's clinic, and unfortunately, you couldn't always tell where the land mines were. And what she was going to have to tell Bitty was not--

  "Ms. Luce?"

  Turning from the window, she forced herself to smile at the girl. "You've come down."

  "I don't understand why we're waiting."

  "Could you come here for a minute?"

  The little girl had on the ugliest black coat you'd ever seen. It was two sizes too big, under-stuffed with down feathers, and molting at the various seams, tufts of white and gray escaping around the stitching. Clearly, the thing had been made in the boys-aged-twelve-to-fifteen vein, and yet Bitty had refused a new one, even though there were coats both new and donated to choose from in all kinds of colors and styles in the back hall.

  A sense of exhaustion weighed Mary down, like someone had sneaked up behind her with some chain mail and draped her shoulders in the stuff: the kid wouldn't even accept a toy or a frickin' coat . . . and Mary thought there was a chance in hell she could get Bitty to open up in the slightest? About the most traumatic events in her life?

  Good luck with that.

  "Sit down," Mary instructed, pointing at a chair. "I need to talk to you."

  "But you said we were allowed to go?"

  "Sit down." Okay, maybe she needed to work on her tone. But she was so frustrated with the situation she was ready to scream. "Thank you."

  As Bitty looked at her from the armchair, Mary gave up sugarcoating anything. Not because she wanted to be cruel, but because there was no other way to phrase these things.

  "We can go to your old house."

  "I know, you told me."

  "But we're not going alone." As Bitty looked as though she were going to throw out a why, Mary talked over any protest. "It's just not safe. We are responsible for your well-being, and the two of us going out alone to a property that has been abandoned in a human part of town for quite some time is simply not going to happen. That is non-negotiable."

  Mary braced herself for an argument.

  "All right," was what came back at her.

  "It's my hellren." At that very moment, her phone let out a bing! "And he's here."

  Bitty just sat in that armchair, with its flower-print fabric and the knit throw hung over its back and the long-necked lamp that peered over one side as if the thing were checking to make sure any inhabitants were okay.

  "He's a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and I would trust him with my life. And yours." Mary wanted to go over, kneel down, take the girl's hand. She stayed put. "He's going to drive us there and bring us back."

  And he'd already been out to check the house.

  On that note, hopefully he wasn't here to say that thing had been razed to the ground. Or looted. Probably should have checked her texts first.

  "There is no other way." Mary surreptitiously glanced at her phone. Rhage's message merely said that he was ready when they were. So guess it was thumbs-up. Assuming Bitty was still on board . . . "You don't have to go, but if you do decide you still want to, it's only going to happen with him. It's your decision."

  Bitty shifted off the chair in an abrupt way. "Then we go."

  She didn't meet Mary's eyes as she walked by, heading for the front door. And as Mary watched the girl, something was triggered in the back of her head. There was no time to tease whatever it was out, though.

  Only staff members had clearance to unlock things, and Mary put in a code on the pad to the left of the heavy panels. There was a clunk and a shift, and then she was able to open the way out. Moving to the side, she waited for Bitty to pass by, and then shut and relocked the door.

  Rhage was standing at the property line, on the patch of well-mowed but dying grass over on the right. The moonlight made his blond hair flash in the darkness, and did nothing to highlight the black of his leathers and jacket.

  Thank God it looked like he'd kept all his weapons hidden.

  Bitty stumbled down the steps, her feet tripping over obstacles that were no doubt in her head, and certainly not on the concrete. She kept her chin up, though, even though her stare stayed at ground level.

  As Mary fought the urge to put her hand on the girl's shoulder, she felt that flare in the back of her mind again--but she was too concerned about how the meet-and-greet was going to go to worry about it.

  Rhage, however, was perfect. He didn't move as they approached him. Kept his hands visible and down by his sides. Inclined his head as if he were doing his very damnedest to appear shorter.

  Which was a total losing battle, but very dear of him.

  Bitty stopped a good eight feet away and seemed to burrow into that awful coat.

  In the meantime, Mary deliberately went up to Rhage and took his hand as she pivoted back around. "Bitty, this is my husband. I mean . . . hellren. Rhage, this is Bitty."

  For some reason, Rhage's voice made the center of Mary's heart ping as he said gently, "Hi. Nice to meet you."

  Bitty just stared at her shoes, her face unreadable. Which was pretty much her standard operating procedure, as the Brothers would say.

  "Okay. So." Mary glanced across the lawn. "Let's head over to the Volvo--"

  "Actually, we need to take my car," Rhage cut in.

  "Ahh--"

  Rhage squeezed her hand. "We need to take my car."

  When she looked into his face, she took a deep breath. Of course. He had weapons in the trunk, ones that he was prepared to use in addition to whatever was under that jacket of his--and it wasn't like doing a transfer of deadly arms to the Volvo was going to help this awkwardness along.

  "All right." Mary nodded toward the GTO. "Bitty, you ready to come with us?"

  As Mary stepped forward, the little girl shuffled along behind, keeping her distance.

  "So this is my ride," Rhage said as they got to the car. "I'll just unlock this here, and Mary can help you into the back, 'kay? Only have two doors, sorry."

  Mary waited for Rhage to open things and go around to the other side before even attempting to put Bitty into the rear. Maybe the girl would like to sit up front? Except then she'd be next to Rhage.

  No, the back was better.

  Holding the top half of the front seat forward, Mary glanced over her shoulder. "Come on, Bitty--I'll even sit back . . ."

  No reason to finish. The girl wasn't hearing it. She wasn't even looking in Mary's vague direction.

  Shit.

  THIRTY

  For most of his nights on the planet, Rhage was only vaguely aware of how big he was. But at the moment, even though he was on the far side of three thousand pounds of steel and engine, he felt like he was an enormous, muckling nightmare.

  And OMG, that kid had haunted eyes.

  As Rhage waited for Bitty to say something, anything, in response to Mary, he couldn't help but measure how much taller the girl was than the memory he had of her from that horrible night of the rescue. Not that he'd spent much time at all with her--he'd been too busy fighting to have anything more than a foggy recollection of her brown-haired little self cowering in her mother's arms.

  Man, he wanted to dig up that father of he
rs just so he could kill him all over--

  "Bitty?" Mary prompted. "We should either go or head back inside."

  Rhage was prepared to wait out here all night if that was what it took for the kid to make up her mind, but his mate had a point. This was a safe neighborhood--relatively speaking. Which was to say it was much better than that den of lessers they'd attacked at that prep school, but not nearly as secure as inside the house.

  "Bitty?"

  And that was when the young looked at him for the first time.

  The was no shift of her head, no change in her expression, but suddenly the moonlight caught her eyes properly and they flashed.

  Later . . . Rhage would reflect that that split second was one of two defining moments in his life. The other being his hearing Mary's voice the first time.

  "Is this really your car?"

  Rhage blinked. And had to take a moment to make sure he'd heard the question right. "Ah, yes. Yes, this car is mine."

  Bitty walked over to the hood and extended her small hand to the GTO's shiny, smooth body. "It's so pretty."

  Rhage looked at Mary--who seemed equally flummoxed.

  "The, ah, the paint job is custom."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It was specially made just for her."

  Bitty glanced up at him in surprise. "It's a girl?"

  "Oh, yeah. Sexy--I mean, hot--er, good muscle cars are always girls. It's 'cuz you gotta take care of 'em like they deserve."

  "Muscle car?"

  "That's what she's called. She's a GTO. When I got her, she was a wreck, but I had her redone--I brought her back to life. She's old, but she'll blow the doors off any Porsche on the road."

  As Mary started making can-it motions with her hand, he clammed up.

  Except then Bitty asked, "What's a muscle car? What does it mean, blow doors off?"

  "Well . . . would you like to hear the engine? I'm warning you up front, it's loud--but it's supposed to be. There are a lot of horses under that hood."

  Bitty recoiled, and yeah, he got an impression of just how sheltered she was, how little she had been exposed to.

  "There are horses in your car?"

  "Here," he said, holding up the key. "I'm going to start her up--and pump her with some gas. But you might want to cover your ears, 'kay?"

  Bitty nodded and clamped her palms on either side of her head like her skull was in danger of popping off her spine.