by Laken Cane
“Yeah,” she said. “Get one of these guys to show you to a room.” She walked to Strad. “Let’s go to bed.”
He grinned.
She walked ahead of him to her bedroom, feeling his heat at her back, his big body almost touching hers.
When they reached her bedroom he surprised her by pushing her gently aside and going in first. He flipped on the light, his sharp gaze picking apart the shadows, his fingers touching the hilts of his blades.
She stepped inside, slammed the door shut, and turned to him with her mouth open and a stern lecture ready—but he was waiting for her.
He pulled her against his chest and kissed her, hard. She was too short, or he was too tall, so he gathered her into his arms and lifted her from the floor.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, thoughts of rebuking him for trying to protect her disappearing. There’d be time enough for that later.
Right then there was just the berserker, and his fierceness, and his mouth.
She pulled her lips from his, moaning when he nipped the side of her neck, his tongue quickly easing the sting.
“You make me forget everything that’s wrong with me.” She needed to tell him. He’d know what she couldn’t yet say.
He drew back and met her gaze, his own soft, but hot. So hot. One corner of his mouth lifted in a quick smile. “You’re trying to forget something that shouldn’t be there in the first place. There’s no one more perfect than you.”
She wanted to say something silly, wanted to call him crazy, but the look in his eyes was too delicate. Too sincere.
“God,” she whispered, and pressed her lips to his.
He walked to the bed and put her down, then sat beside her to take off his boots.
She lay back and threw her forearm over her eyes, not daring to watch as he stood and began undressing. She lay still in her darkness, unsure.
She didn’t move when the bed dipped. Strad began pulling her weapons from their sheaths and holsters, then unlaced her boots.
He didn’t hesitate when he’d taken care of her boots and belts. He reached for the waistband of her pants and pulled them over her hips.
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart beat fast and hard, and she ignored the beginnings of rage stirring inside her.
Shhh, she told her monster. Shhh.
He didn’t make her lift her head or take her arm from her face so that he could remove her shirt—he ripped it open and left the ragged edges lying against her ribs.
Her fangs dropped.
“I’m going to get you through this, sweetheart,” Strad said. His hands were gentle, slow, and sure. “Trust me.”
Trust me.
Her body shook with the effort it took her not to move, not to resist, not to fight him. He was not a slayer.
He was not the church.
He was the berserker.
Her berserker.
And as she lay there unmoving, he slid his fingers softly but firmly over her skin, and he continued to talk. At times she could hear the passion and the pain and part of her wanted, still, to fight.
Part of her wanted to run.
But she let him ease her through her terror, through her rage, slowly relaxing as she concentrated on his words.
“I needed to deny my growing feelings for you, too, at first,” he said. “I needed to hide. You can be hard on a man.”
Maybe he smiled then, but she didn’t look.
She listened.
“Some part of me was hiding, running, when I took Tina into my bed.”
She stiffened, but he tightened his grip on her leg, just enough to make her feel something other than the immediate memory of that particular betrayal. The one they’d never really talked about.
“Part of me,” he continued, his voice low, “wanted to forget that my son was missing. And part of me was an asshole.
“But it didn’t relieve me of my need for you. Of my desire for you. My…craving for you. That didn’t stop. That has only gotten stronger. And not because of your bite.”
His lips were soft against her bare belly. He lifted his face but she could still feel the heat of his breath on her skin with his next words.
His terrible, beautiful words.
“I love you,” he murmured. “I love you so goddamn fucking much.”
“God,” she groaned. “No—”
But he put his fingers over her lips. “Hush, sweetheart. You needed to know. You don’t need to do anything else but lie there and let me love you. Let me show you. Let me show you for the rest of my life.”
She could fight it all she wanted, but she couldn’t force Strad Matheson not to feel anything. She couldn’t make him take back his words.
And honestly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Slowly, she took her arm from her eyes and looked at him.
She said nothing, not aloud.
But deep inside she heard her monster’s laughter, slightly mocking but more despairing.
God help me.
Chapter Eighteen
She wasn’t cured during that too short night.
The berserker’s love didn’t make her forget her rape. His touch wouldn’t make the vivid images suddenly stop attacking her brain.
But it was a start.
She called Ellis on her way into work. “Everything okay, Ellie?”
He hesitated. “Why do you ask?”
She frowned and sped around a lumbering truck. “Ellie?”
“Everything is fine, Rune. I’m good.”
He didn’t sound good. “Are you at work?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way in. Talk to you in a few minutes.”
“Rune?”
“Yeah?”
Again, he hesitated. “Nothing.”
Dammit. “I’m on my way, baby.”
“Okay.”
She was familiar with his voice when he was close to tears. She didn’t know what was going on, but something sure as hell was.
“What’s wrong?” Lex asked. She’d decided to ride into work with Rune instead of waiting for the twins, who were still eating breakfast when Rune left the house.
“I’m not sure.”
Lex was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think Levi is going to come back to us.”
“Yeah he will. I did. He will.”
“It’s different with Levi. He’s not as resilient as you are. Humans are different than us, Rune. Something inside them is…” Lex paused, then continued, her voice almost angry. “Fragile. We have to accept that.”
“Lex, Levi is one of the strongest humans I’ve ever met. Both the twins are. They may be human but something inside them is very special.”
“Magical. I know.”
“But?”
“They could have gone either way. They ended up…good. Kind. Caring. But there was a time when the twins were not the men you know today.”
Rune found it suddenly hard to swallow. “Explain.”
Lex nodded. “I’ll try. The twins are two parts of a whole. One of them contained something we’ll call good, and the other contained something we’ll call evil. But they balanced each other out.”
“Until Karin Love began to nurture the evil,” Rune said.
“She made that evil grow like toxic weeds. My mother and her slayers tortured those boys. Exposed them to every depravity, every disgusting, hurtful thing they could think of. Forced them to hurt other people. And for a while,” Lex whispered, “it seemed to be working.”
Rune shook her head. “What happened?”
“I happened,” Lex said. “I did.”
She didn’t speak again for five minutes, lost in her thoughts. Rune didn’t prompt her. She wasn’t eager to hear any more of the torments Lex and the twins had endured.
“The twins saved me,” Lex said, finally, “and I saved them. And that darkness within them, it faded. But it never really went away in one of them, and I’m terrified it’s coming back.” She put her fingers to her lips and cut o
ff a sob before it could fully form.
“When I said one of them was good and one was evil, guess which one of them was evil, Rune. Guess.”
“Fuck me.”
“Yeah.” Lex turned to Rune as they pulled into the Annex parking lot. “Ellie can bring him out of this. I know he can. He has to try. If he doesn’t hurry, Levi is going to be lost. And if Levi goes, so will Denim. Rune,” Lex went on, when Rune remained silent. “So will I.”
Rune had known Levi was struggling, that he was faltering. She’d hoped he’d pull himself out of it. But he wasn’t getting better. He was, as Ellie had said, getting worse.
Getting darker.
“I’ll talk to Ellis,” she said. But what if even Ellis couldn’t help him?
“Thank you,” Lex whispered.
“They’ll be okay, Lexi.” But she wasn’t so sure.
Lex clutched at Rune’s hand. “If love can’t save him, give him another outlet. The way you did when you gave him Bach Horner on the mountain.”
“Let’s go inside. It’s time to work.”
“You promised them you’d help them hunt and destroy slayers,” Lex said. “You promised them. Denim told me.”
Rune gripped the steering wheel. “I did.”
“Then you fucking do it, Rune Alexander. If that’s what Levi needs, you fucking keep your promise.”
Rune turned her head slowly to face Lex. “If Ellie can’t help him, then I will. I will help him find and kill slayers if that’ll save him, Lex. I swear.”
But even as she said it, she understood that helping Levi murder COS members was not going to help bring him out of his darkness.
She’d be nurturing that evil, exactly as Karin Love had done.
Lex went to join Raze and Jack, both standing at the end of the hall, and Rune headed straight to Ellis’s office.
She needed a taste of sweetness, of innocence, of the pure goodness that was her Ellie. She needed his love.
Not, perhaps, as much as Levi needed it, but she was going to get a dose just the same.
He was sitting at his desk, his chin propped on his hand, staring vacantly at his computer screen.
“Hey,” she said.
He jerked and then jumped to his feet. “Rune.”
She opened her arms as he ran to her, then caught him in a hug that made her instantly relax. It grounded her, that hug.
Neither one of them said anything.
Rune saw a shadow from her peripheral as someone came to the door. When she turned her head slightly and saw Gustav, he held his palms up and slipped noiselessly away.
She felt Ellie sigh.
“I’ve been neglecting you,” she told him.
He pulled away to smile at her, a flinching in his eyes she hadn’t seen since before she’d given him his protective necklace.
“Have lunch with me today.”
“Sure, baby. I’ll meet you here around eleven. Sound good?”
“Yes.” He stepped away from her. “That’ll be great.”
“I need to talk to you anyway. About Levi.”
He put his hand over his mouth and tears sprang immediately to his eyes.
“Ellie.” She grasped his wrist and pulled his hand away. “What the fuck is wrong?”
“I’m not perfect,” he murmured. “I’m not good.”
She shivered. “Ellie. What do you mean?”
“I—”
“I’m sorry, but we have to get to work. Elizabeth has sent some runs to our computers,” Gustav said, standing in the doorway.
Ellis wiped briskly at his cheeks. “We’ll talk at lunch,” he told Rune. He walked to his desk and sat down behind it.
Gustav sat as well, and after a brief look at Ellis, began tapping at the keys on his keyboard. “Elizabeth wanted you to know they have a team excavating the well you fell into.”
“She didn’t fall into it,” Ellis snapped. “She was pushed.”
“My mistake,” Gustav said.
“Good,” Rune said, staring at Ellis. “Anything yet?”
“No.” Gustav tried so hard to look casual he was anything but. “But she said she’d send an update to you as soon as they have something.”
“Fine. Where do you need us?” She was anxious to get to work, and hoping more than a little bit for a battle or two to get her workday started on a positive note.
“There are three things in need of immediate attention,” Gustav said. “You can split your team however you want to.”
“She’s aware of that,” Ellis said.
“What,” Gustav said, “is your fucking problem?”
“Guys,” Rune said, spreading her hands. “Come on. Give me a job, then you two can chat.”
“My problem is that you manipulated me,” Ellis said. “You took advantage—”
“I took advantage!” Gustav snorted and swiveled his chair to face Ellis. They seemed to have forgotten Rune was in the room. “You wanted it as much as I did. I didn’t force you to fuck me.”
“No,” someone murmured, and all three of them turned to look toward the door.
The twins stood there.
Levi’s face had lost all its color, and even Denim had paled. His scar stood out in stark relief against the pallor, and Rune knew he was feeling Levi’s pain.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“Levi,” Ellis cried, and leaped to his feet. But when he started to run to the twins, Denim was the one to halt him.
“Best not,” he said. “Keep him away, Rune.”
Levi smiled, and it was that smile, not Denim’s words, that caused Rune to shoot out a hand and yank Ellis to her.
“Stay put, Ellie,” she said, when he struggled to escape her grip.
Levi didn’t say a word, but he stared at Ellis with such bright hatred that Rune had to fight not to shield Ellis from the force of it.
But then that hatred faded and there was nothing left in his eyes but…
Nothing. Just nothing.
And finally, he turned and walked away, Denim at his back.
Chapter Nineteen
“Raze,” Rune said, her finger tightening on her gun’s trigger. “Can you make them out? I’m going to a different position. My view is impeded by a rock the size of a fucking house.”
Rune had sent floaters to one of the hills right outside Wormwood. Eugene had offered them telescopes, and, surprisingly, his blessing.
“The second you see pikes, you call me,” she’d told them.
It’d taken most of the day, but finally, she’d gotten the call.
“You’re not going to believe this.” Raze’s voice slid into her ear, somehow comforting as she lay in the dirt, alone.
“What?”
“They’re with a group of slayers.”
Strad was speaking almost before Raze had finished his sentence. “Stay where you are, Rune. I’ll be with you in two minutes.”
“You and Jack keep your posts, Strad,” she ordered, sure that the shiver running through her body was not detectable in her voice. “Raze and I can handle it.”
“There are eight slayers that I can see,” Raze said, when Strad was quiet. “But I’m counting six pikes.”
“The pikes are kissing slayer ass,” she murmured. “Fucking pike alpha really is a son of a bitch.”
“COS and Others,” Jack said. “Working together.”
“These Others are idiots,” Rune said. It wasn’t the first time COS used Others, and it wouldn’t be the last. When the slayers were finished with them, they’d kill their asses. And the Others just kept letting them do it.
“We’ll lose radio signal when we go inside, Rune.” Raze hesitated. “Will you be okay?”
He wanted to tell her to stay outside the gates, that the crew could handle it. She heard it in his voice. “I’ll be better than any of you assholes,” she said. “Don’t do that, Raze.”
“Sorry,” he muttered.
She jumped to her feet. “I need to talk to the pikes. Get me a live one—Sean
Colley if possible. And kill the fucking slayers.”
She’d known the church wasn’t finished. She’d also known they had some big fucking balls. Or maybe the slayers lingering in River County were desperate.
She’d sent the twins, Lex, and Owen on other assignments, and that was a good thing. Levi would have found it impossible to maintain control with COS members so close. He’d have started killing and wouldn’t have stopped.
And she needed one of the pikes alive.
As she sprinted down the hill and toward the slayers, she glanced over to see the berserker at her side, running with her.
She’d known he’d run to her the moment Raze had mentioned COS. The twins weren’t the only members of the crew who wanted to kill slayers on sight.
And Strad thought, despite her massive skills, that she needed his protection.
Hell. Maybe she did.
I love you so goddam fucking much…
She shot out her claws and waded into the midst of the shocked slayers, whose attempts to scatter and flee came too late.
And even as she slashed open chests and throats and faces, the guilt of not saving COS for the twins jabbed at her conscience.
She watched Strad collar Sean Colley. She’d never seen the pike’s face but he had the same air of authority about him that all alphas possessed.
The berserker thrust his spear into its sheath and with his free hand grabbed a female pike, whose bleeding body had shriveled and wrinkled in the moments since the attack.
They all were shriveling.
It must have been a reaction to stress, because they were too near their pond to have dehydrated.
There was a lot to learn about fish shifters.
The berserker dragged the pikes away, leaving Rune, Jack, and Raze to finish the slayers.
That had to have been difficult for him.
After the slayers lay in bloody bits and pieces on the ground, she spared them only a quick, satisfied glance before leading her men to Poison Pond.
Strad crouched at the water’s edge, holding the two pikes by the chains of silver he’d locked around their throats.
They couldn’t shift, but the water would seep into their thirsty, dry bodies and keep them alive.
She hoped.
Strad looked up at her. “You okay?”
She pointed her chin at the pike alpha. “He said anything?”
