Lover Reborn

by J. R. Ward

Chapter Twelve

  When Xhex walked into the Iron Mask, she felt like she was stepping back in time. For years, she had worked in clubs like this, weeding through desperate people like this, keeping her eyes peeled for trouble. . . like this little knot of tension that had formed up ahead.

  Directly in front of her, two guys were squaring off, a pair of Goth bulls all but pawing at the ground with their New Rocks. Just to the side, a chick with black-and-white hair, glittery cleavage, and a dumb-ass getup involving buckled straps of black leather was looking pretty damn satisfied with herself.

  Xhex wanted to slap her upside the head and send her packing just for that attitude alone.

  The real problem, however, was not this bonehead with the breasticles, but the two pieces of meat who were about to go Dana White on each other. The concern was not so much what they did to each other's noses or jawlines; it was the other two hundred people who were basically behaving. Male bodies flying backward in twelve different directions could knock a lot of bystanders on their asses, and who needed that?

  She was about to step in when she reminded herself that this wasn't her job anymore. She was no longer responsible for these asshats and their libidos and their jealousies, their drug dealing and doing, their sexual exploits -

  Annnnnnd here was Trez "Latimer," taking care of it anyway.

  The humans in the crowd saw the Moor as simply one of them, just bigger and more aggressive. She knew the truth, however. That Shadow was far more dangerous than any of the Homo sapiens could have guessed. If he'd wanted to, he could have ripped their throats out in the blink of an eye. . . then thrown the carcasses on a spit over a fire, basted them for a couple of hours, and had them for dinner with an ear of corn and a bag of chips.

  Shadows had a unique way of disposing of their enemies.

  Tums, anyone?

  As Trez's bulk made an impression, the dynamic onstage changed instantly: Dipshit chippie took one look at him and appeared to forget the names of the two guys she'd whipped up into a tizzy. Meanwhile, the pair of boozing bozos cooled off a little, stepping back and reevaluating their situation.

  Good plan - they were one second away from having it forcibly reevaluated for them.

  Trez's eyes met Xhex's for a heartbeat, and then he focused on his three patrons. As the female tried to sidle up to him, flashing her eyes and her breast tissue, she made all the impression of a strip steak to a vegetarian: Trez was vaguely disgusted.

  Over the din of the music, Xhex only caught a few words here and there, but she could have guessed the script well enough: Don't be an ass. Take it outside. First and only warning before you're persona non grata.

  At the end of it, Trez practically had to peel the harpy off him with a crowbar - somehow, she'd grafted herself onto his arm.

  Shaking her off with a, "You can't be serious," he stepped up. "Hey. "

  That slow, sexy smile of his was the problem, of course. And the deep voice didn't help. Or that body.

  "Hey. " She had to smile back. "Female problems again?"

  "Always. " He glanced around. "Where's ya man?"

  "Not here. "

  "Ahhhhh. " Pause. "How you?"

  "I don't know, Trez. I don't know why I'm here. I just. . . "

  Reaching out, he put a heavy arm around her shoulders and drew her up against him. God, he smelled the same, a combination of Gucci Pour Homme and something that was altogether him.

  "Come on, girlie," he murmured. "Back to my office. "

  "Don't call me 'girlie. ' "

  "Okay. How 'bout 'buttercup. ' "

  She snaked an arm around his waist and leaned her head on his pec as they started walking together. "You like your balls where they are?"

  "Yeah. I don't like the way you're lookin', though. I prefer you feisty and pissed off. "

  "Me, too, Trez. Me too. . . "

  "So we're good on the 'buttercup'? Or do I have to get even tougher with you? I'll pull out 'pookie' if I have to. "

  In the way back of the club, next to the locker room where the "dancers" changed in and out of their street clothes, Trez's office had a door on it like a meat locker. Inside, there was a black leather couch, a big metal desk, and a lead-lined blanket chest that was bolted to the floor. That was it. Well, aside from the purchase orders, receipts, phone messages, laptops. . . .

  It felt like a million years since she'd been around all this.

  "Guess iAm hasn't been here yet," she said, nodding to the mess on the desk. Trez's twin would never have stood for it.

  "He's over at Sal's cooking until midnight. "

  "Same schedule, then. "

  "If it ain't broke. . . "

  As they settled in, he in his thronelike chair, she on the couch, her chest hurt.

  "Talk to me," he said, his dark face serious.

  Propping her head on her hand and crossing her leg ankle to knee, she fiddled with the laces on her shitkicker. "What if I told you I wanted my old job back?"

  In her peripheral vision, she watched him recoil a little. "I thought you were fighting with the Brothers. "

  "So did I. "

  "Wrath not exactly comfortable with a female in the field?"

  "John isn't. " As Trez cursed, she exhaled hard. "And as I'm his shellan, what he says goes. "

  "He actually looked you in the eye and - "

  "Oh, he did more than that. " When a threatening growl percolated through the air, she waved her hand. "No, nothing violent. The argument - arguments weren't a party, though. "

  Trez sat back. Drummed his fingers on the clutter in front of him. Stared at her. "Of course you can come back - you know me. I'm not bound by any vampiric notion of propriety - and ours is a matriarchal society, so I've never understood the misogyny of the Old Ways. Am worried about you and John, however. "

  "We'll work it out. " How? She hadn't a clue. But she wasn't giving her fear that they wouldn't be able to any more credibility by putting it into words. "I just can't sit in that house doing nothing, and I don't want to even lay eyes on the bunch of them. Shit, Trez, I should have known this mating thing was a bad idea. I'm not cut out for it. "

  "Sounds like you're not the one creating the problem. Although I do get where he's coming from. If anything happened to iAm, I'd go fucking mental - so it's not a good idea for he and I to fight side by side. "

  "You do anyway. "

  "Yeah, but we're stupid. And it's not like we go out looking for hand-to-hand every night - we got office jobs that keep us busy, and it's only if something finds us that we take care of it. " He opened a desk drawer and threw her a set of keys. "There's one last empty office down the hall. If that detective from CPD homicide comes around again about Chrissy and that dead boyfriend of hers, we'll deal with it if we have to. Meanwhile, I'll put you back on the payroll. Timing's good - I could use some help organizing the bouncers. But - and I mean this - there's no long-term obligation. You can leave whenever you want. "

  "Thanks, Trez. "

  The two of them stared across his desk.

  "It's going to be okay," the Shadow said.

  "You sure about that. "

  "Positive. "

  About a block and a half away from the Iron Mask, Xcor stood in the lee of a tattoo parlor, the red, yellow, and blue glow from its neon sign getting in his eyes and on his nerves.

  Throe and Zypher had gone into the establishment about ten minutes ago.

  But not for ink.

  By all that was holy, Xcor would have preferred for his soldiers to be anywhere else on a mission for anything else. Unfortunately, one couldn't negotiate with the need for blood - and they had yet to find a reliable source for it. Human females would do in the pinch they were in, but the strength didn't last nearly as long, and that meant the hunt for victims was nearly as frequent as that for food.

  Indeed, they had been here only a week, and he could feel the lagging effect on his flesh already
- back in the Old Country, they had had proper vampire females that they had paid to be of service. Here, they currently didn't have that luxury, and he feared it would be a while before they did.

  Although if he became king, the problem would be solved.

  As he waited, he shifted his weight back and forth on his boots, his leather coat making a subtle creaking noise. On his back, concealed in her holster but ready for use, his scythe was as impatient as he was.

  Sometimes he could swear the thing talked to him: For instance, from time to time, a human would pass by the opening of the alley he was in; maybe it was a loner striding quickly, or a woman lollygagging as she tried to light a cigarette in the wind, or a small group of revelers. Whatever the variant, his eyes tracked them as prey, noting the way their bodies moved and where they might be hiding any weapons and how many bounding leaps it would take to put himself in their paths.

  And all the while his scythe whispered to him, urging him to take action.

  Back in the Bloodletter's time, humans had been fewer and less robust, good for both target practice and as a source of sustenance - which was how that race of tailless rats had ended up with so many vampire myths. Now, however, the rodents had taken over the palace of the earth, becoming a threat.

  Such a shame he couldn't go to work on Caldwell properly. Take it over not just from the great Blind King and the Brotherhood, but the Homo sapiens, too.

  His scythe was ready; that was for certain. She all but tingled on his back, begging to be used in that voice that was sexier than anything his ears had actually heard from a female.

  Throe emerged from the shop and came into the alley. Immediately, Xcor's fangs elongated, his cock getting hard not because he was interested in sex, but because that was just what his body did.

  "Zypher's finishing up with them right now," his lieutenant said.

  "Good. "

  As a metal door opened down the way, both of them ducked their hands into their leather dusters and gripped guns. But it was just Zypher. . . with a triumvirate of ladies, all of whom were about as attractive as garbage next to a dinner plate.

  Beggars, choosers and all that, however. Besides, each had the foremost requirement: a neck.

  On the approach, Zypher was grinning, but being careful not to flash his fangs. In his accent, he drawled, "This is Carla, Beth, and Linda - "

  "Lindsay," the one on the far end called out.

  "Lindsay," he corrected, reaching over and pulling her in closer. "Girls, you met my friend - and this is my boss. "

  The soldier didn't bother with names - why waste the breath? Yet regardless of the improper introduction, they seemed excited: Carla, Beth, and Lin-whatever-the-fuck smiled at Throe, all green-light in the eye. . . until they looked at Xcor

  Even though he was mostly in the shadows, a security light had been motion-activated above the door they'd come out of, and clearly they didn't like what they saw. Two of them dropped their eyes to the ground. The other just got busy fiddling with Zypher's leather jacket.

  The intrinsic rejection was not an unheard-of reaction. In fact, no female had ever looked upon him with approval or attraction.

  Fortunately, he couldn't care less.

  Before the silence could get awkward, Zypher said, "Anyhow, these lovely ladies are about to go to work - "

  "At the Iron Mask," Lin-whatever spoke up.

  " - but they've agreed to meet us out here at three o'clock. "

  "When we get off," one of them tacked on.

  As the trio fell into a set of annoying, naughty giggles, Xcor was no more interested in them than they were in him. Indeed, his ambitions were far loftier than the likes of Zypher's. Sex, like taking blood, was an inconvenient biological function, and he was far too smart to ever fall for that romance bullshit.

  If one was determined to go that route, castration was easier, less painful, and just as permanent.

  "So, do we have a date?" Zypher said to the woman.

  The one who'd all but crawled into his clothes whispered something that brought his head down. As his brows tightened, it wasn't hard to figure out what the gist was, and the woman didn't look too unhappy about his answer.

  She purred.

  Then again, that was what unspayed alley cats did, Xcor supposed.

  "It's a date," the vampire said, glancing at Throe. "I have promised that we shall take care of these three very nicely. "

  "I've got what we need. "

  "Fine. Good. " He swatted the ass of one, then another. The third, the woman trying to get into his coat, he tilted back and kissed hard.

  More giggling. More coy looks that were not entirely about the fact that these were prostitutes on the way to getting paid.

  Just as they were leaving, each one of the women looked back at Xcor, their expressions suggesting he was like a disease they were soon to be exposed to. He wondered who was going to get the short end of the stick when they all reconvened - because sure as the day was long and the nights always too short, he was going to have one of them.

  It simply cost extra in these kinds of situations.

  "Fine specimens of virtue," Xcor said dryly when he was alone with his soldiers.

  Zypher shrugged. "They are what they are. And they'll be good enough. "

  "I am endeavoring to find us proper females," Throe said. "It is not easy, however. "

  "Mayhap you need to work harder. " Xcor looked up to the sky. "Now let us get to work. Time is wasting. "