by Scott, Talyn
“I wouldn’t even know if she were uppity, since I only said hello before I indulged.” He skirted his brother and kept walking forward.
Rave inhaled deeply, casting a quizzical eye at Sixten. “I don’t think you indulged at all, but merely fed.”
Sixten lifted a hand from his pocket, ran it through his too long hair before he adjusted his lapel. “I do not explain my personal habits to you or anyone.”
“No explanation necessary, you just had three attractive females in a deserted alley and merely fed. I bet they didn’t taste right, either. Answer me,” he demanded. “Were they delicious? Savory until you thought you would drink them to death. Could you barely stop?”
“Keep your voice down.” He hissed low, “As if you knew anything about blood drinking.”
“Not from personal experience.”
“Then stop embarrassing yourself.” Sixten reached his father’s office building, stepped in and nodded at the beaming receptionist. Proceeding to the private elevator, he couldn’t shake off Rave. “Why are you tailing me?” he asked after the mirrored doors slid shut.
“Why are you here?”
“If you must know, my cousin, Devin, was supposed to be here managing things for Dad. He seems to have disappeared,” he said slowly. “So I’m checking things out.” A partial truth he was essentially sticking with.
“Word is, you were overseeing things from Dubai quite well. Now, mysteriously, you’re back in the good old U S of A.” He laughed. “It has nothing to do with a missing cousin. You run the show from overseas.” Sixten heard the nerves rattling under Rave’s flippant tone, before he continued his excavation. “Funny thing, Six, I went to your house on Captiva Island, before I misted here. Want to know what I found?”
“I wished a ravenous gator.” Sixten stepped into the upper corridor, passed his recently hired assistant, and absently nodded before entering his private office. Loosening his tie and settling into his chair, he flipped his screen and quickly surveyed messages on his laptop.
“Really? One less brother to watch your back, you’d like that.”
“More like one less brother stabbing me in the back,” Six replied without taking his eyes from the screen. He nearly shuddered, remembering the day he found out there was something else inside him other than a Species Breed Vampire. The very same day he met Rave, and things had not gone well since.
“Harsh,” he barked with more laughter while folding into the adjacent seat. Rave crossed his overpriced boots atop Sixten’s grandfather’s antique desk - really antique.
“This desk is priceless.” Sixten admonished, gesturing at his brother’s feet. “Leave. Go to the beach. Get some sun.”
“I found your house empty.” He went back to topic. “Why aren’t you staying there?”
Because memories haunt me, but why should you care? Instead of explaining himself, he squared his shoulders and put his fingers to his keyboard.
“There are reasons I haven’t visited you lately,” Rave softened his voice. “Too many to count,” he said carefully. “I’ve heard they may be hunting me through you.”
“Just the Species and the Weres, but what’s so unnerving about that?” Sixten oozed with open sarcasm. “It’s just your typical, everyday goings-on, right?”
He still didn’t understand how Blythe played out in all of this, though if anyone was introducing her to this depraved, immortal world, it was him. Maestru was acting cryptically in regards to her, dangling Blythe over Sixten’s head as if he had the upper hand about something. All to get him back in the Vampyr Vojaks, a lifetime of never-ending battles Sixten didn’t wish to return to - ever. Since he couldn’t pull out any more information from Maestru, short of killing him, the horrifying unknown made his fangs throb in the most malicious way.
Truth be told, if the Coven Master and his lackeys wanted to live, they’d back away from Blythe, or they would lose their heads by his claws. Anyone who wanted to play that kind of hard ball with Sixten would easily push him into an unholy alliance with his shifter brother. Yes, it would be an ugly decision that he would only make in order to protect her, but, thankfully, it wasn’t necessary today. Not when he still had a chance to stop whatever was coming.
“I’ve sent some feelers out,” Rave droned on. “Their inside-chatter will ensure you aren’t linked to me in any way other than biologically.”
“I’m not linked to you in any other way,” Sixten said with exasperation. “You can help me by going away. I don’t care what your friends try to do for me, it’ll make no difference - probably will hurt me in the end,” he hissed fiercely. “God, I’m still hungry.”
“I’m sure your trio is still at the café.”
“Why are you bringing up the human females, which I cannot take another drop from today?” Sixten kept his eyes on his laptop. He invented multi-tasking. With his heightened immortal mind, room after room opened when necessity dictated, and it always did. Just one of many reasons he was unparalleled and epically known in worldwide trade. Swiftly typing, he answered all emails with a righteous flourish and contemplated his entire week’s appointments while simultaneously listening to the ranting of an openly planted spy, his very brother.
“Sex slipped your mind? You had no desire to have it off with any of them, dismissing a quick afternoon nail?”
That did it. Flaring the Species, Sixten bones sharpened. Cheekbones protruded, as the stormy ice-green bled through the whites of his eyes. Claws sharpened. Shoulders broadened. Muscles swelled. Senses tripled, as fangs exploded and draped his lower lip. “I have a question,” Sixten snarled lethally.
Rave sprang quickly, standing his ground. Still hiding in the skin of a twenty-year-old college kid, he said, “Ask brother, though prepare for the answer.”
“Oh, it’s nothing of your sadistic breeding camps that I could give two shits about. I’m still the same selfish ass, so let’s talk about me.” He cut his eyes over Rave, watching him back up a few steps. “Blythe. Our engagement party. Her matron of honor fucked you. No doubt, while you paraded as me.”
“Is that why she left?”
“I welcomed you into my home, my very life. I trusted you,” he seethed. “Even though I never trusted another living soul after I left the Vampyr Vojaks’ sanctuary, I still trusted you. One of the endless regrets I have to live with daily. Because of my misplaced trust, I lost Blythe forever.”
“Let’s go to her and I’ll confess,” Rave said as if he didn’t care.
“Do you realize I told everyone she was drunk that night? I thought she had to be…. I didn’t figure it out until days later, when I got over the initial shock of her leaving me. By then, you were long gone. Weren’t you?”
Sixten was trying to hold back his Species, a creature who should never stir in the afternoon of any workday around innocent humans. He flattened both palms on his desk, steadying himself with everything he had in him. “You knew all along that Blythe left me because of what you did!” He experienced the sudden urge to kill his flesh and blood, a reincarnation of Caine versus Abel. “If you wanted her for yourself, you would have taken Blythe instead of her friend when you shifted into my form. As far as her friend goes, you didn’t want her at all.” He gave Rave a pitying look. “You just used them to hurt me. Because, once again, I had something that you didn’t: another loving family member. You only had me, and I wasn’t good enough. Due to your selfishness, you used two innocent women, one of whom I loved desperately.” All the blinders came off at once. “What the hell, Rave? Did you find it funny when she walked out of my door…out of my life?”
“I came back here to help you. After all these years, I figured you’d forgotten her by now.”
“I don’t need your type of help.” Who knew what a pure blood Habaline was thinking, Sixten’s own other half was crazy scary. “Stay away from me, you hear?”
“Should I pay her a visit, maybe ring her phone? I sense clear obligation, now, to explain what really happened. I almost feel so
rry for Blythe, and that’s saying a lot of me. My socialization skills are lacking, at least as far as humans are concerned. Even I can see how cruel I was to your female.” He added mockingly, “I’m a shifter without honor.”
Sixten’s claws barely stopped before they pierced his Grandfather’s desk. Deep calming breaths, he took them. In and out, negotiating with two halves of a whole, he fought to contain them as his brother goaded their intrinsic behavior. “I don’t know where Blythe is, and she knows nothing of our kind. It will stay that way, brother.” Rave would not go near her as long as Sixten breathed.
“You were marrying her!” Rave looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “When were you going to drop that bomb?”
“Leave me.”
“I’m sticking around for a few days.” He said as if the hounds of hell weren’t chasing him in this very city. “Above all, I don’t want the Weres putting the screws to you because they want me.”
Sixten thought he was going to retch for the second time. “Is that supposed to make me feel all warm and gooey inside?”
“When I became a man, I put away childish things,” Rave quoted in a booming, masculine voice, then cocked his head and smiled. “Isn’t that on a bumper sticker somewhere?”
“I doubt it.” It suddenly dawned on him, a surefire way to get Rave going on his way. “Did you try to kidnap and then bed Ciaran’s queen?”
“Where would you hear such a thing?” Rave grinned wickedly.
“It’s all over the Captiva Coven.” Apparently, he was proud of it and might stay longer just to brag. “They paint you as a dangerous, breeding rapist.”
“I’ve never raped.” Rave went from flippant to indignant with one breath. “Look at me.” Gesturing over his body, he said, “Even in my truest form, I’m glorious. Who can say no to this? Who would want to?”
“Rebecca Walker did.”
“She no longer intrigues me.”
“All beautiful women intrigue you.” That was when Sixten’s worries got the best of him, thinking about those what ifs. What if shifters had imprisoned Blythe in one of Rave’s camps? What if his very brother had taken her? The shifters would’ve used his Blythe for the singular, sick purpose of reviving a race that should have never walked on this earth to begin with. “Although, I doubt you were cruel to any female. Still, you don’t understand the concept of rape, do you?”
“They were pampered, all of them.”
“Then I doubt they wanted to leave…”
Rave cleared his throat, but refused to look guilty. “We satisfied the females and helped them nurture their young.”
“Satisfied and nurtured?” he scoffed. “Well, I heard some male offspring have never even touched another being. Even though they have grown far past adulthood, at no time have they mated or simply enjoyed the company of another, because you’ve kept them secreted away from any form of a normal social structure. Your plans are above everything and everyone, aren’t they?” A tight knot formed in his chest. “Meanwhile, members of your colony are chomping at the bits. Biding their time, before one of them takes you out, since they all have you to blame for their imprisonment.”
“The breeding camps were recently overturned in Scotland.” An idle smile hovered over his lips. “You know that.”
Sixten gave him an ‘ah come on’ look. “Where are the males, Rave?” His brother refused to answer so he continued, “Unfortunately, I understand your logic, and that’s scary in its own right.” He shrugged helplessly. “Maybe the others haven’t figured it out, but I think I have. Although I’m sure you have some more tucked away somewhere, you’re nervous over the loss of the Scotland females, because your compound is producing all males.” Rave’s smile wobbled as Sixten continued, “And you wouldn’t dare to breed a male offspring who was only half Habaline when you could continue to use your pure blood males for that purpose. At least, not for a while, right? Not until the purebloods are fighting? After all, when in battle, why take chances on the possibility of weak links?”
“They are not for you to worry about.”
Sixten rounded the desk, sad that Rave didn’t refute his incredible claims. “What’s going to happen when they finally escape you?”
“Enough.”
“Crazed Habalines that haven’t touched a female, yet their instincts have to be driving them insane.”
“Enough, I said!”
However, Sixten was just getting started. “Do you think they’ll forgive you so easily?” His words nailed Rave with pitiless precision. “Allow you to run free when they can imprison you the same way you imprisoned them? Torture you for centuries without death’s mercy. Do the words ‘turnabout’ and ‘fair play’ mean anything to you?”
For the briefest moment, Rave reformed to his true self. With keen eyes that burned as brightly as a thousand flickering, candle flames. He looked a little lost when he said, “Life sacrifices for life. There are always perfect lambs readied for the altar. If I still had such males, why would they desire independence they’ve never yet tasted, especially when they know nothing of its existence?”
Sixten laughed harshly and warned him, “Freedom always finds a way, brother.”
Chapter 9
Blythe was mildly irritated with Sven, which happened daily. If he hadn’t been pestering her to wax his back, conveniently forgetting that she was merely his bookkeeper, he’d been flirting with every man and woman who graced Sven’s Men and Day Spa since the minute Blythe started working this afternoon.
He was a total fraud.
No, it wasn’t the dark roots under his bleach job that made him phony, nor could she blame it on his fake Swedish accent that often wandered into the lands of India and sometimes France. She leaned back in her chair, shaking her head sadly. Without batting a guilty eyelash, Sven handed his private number to every customer who asked, shamelessly using his good looks to drum up more business. The poor souls never realized they weren’t receiving preferential treatment, and they would find out the hard way that Sven’s heart was at no time involved. He was a pig rolling in mud, and Blythe couldn’t stand his selfish callousness.
That wasn’t the half of it. Unfortunate for her, Blythe knew firsthand what Sven’s roaming eyes, fingers, mouth, and hardened body could do in between greeting his customers. In the past, she’d never put up with that kind of crap from any employers. Times changed. A desperate perseverance took hold of her, making her choices terribly unfair. For the sake of her brother and the great need that she had for Sven’s higher than average pay, she marginally tolerated Sven’s gross misconduct and overall creepiness for the past three months she’d worked there. Thankfully, she’d deftly avoided being alone with him at any given time.
Blythe had to admit that today was exceptionally rough, since Sven’s mama had taken the day off. He was walking on air, as if his parents had gone on an extended vacation, leaving his teen self at home and fully in charge. He’d probably down a six-pack later and turn on some porn in the break room just to warm up, or maybe he’d plant a Kama Sutra popup book on her desk when she took her next trip to the bathroom.
Nah, she tapped a fingernail on her keyboard, rethinking it. All that would be too tame for Sven. He was such a calculating weirdo that she wouldn’t put anything past him. Blythe never knew what Sven would come up with next, so she was always on her toes. Unbeknownst to Blythe, she’d inadvertently thrown down the carnal challenge when she originally started her job. She refused to bend over his desk, and in his supreme arrogance, he couldn’t fathom why. In the sexual arena of his brain, Sven’s virility rose to the challenge, and every ‘no’ that left her lips incited him even more. Things were starting to get a little desperate on both sides. With him chasing intently and Blythe running to preserve any aspect of her lost dignity.
“So, Blythe,” he said, moving in for the kill. Since he was too close, his minty-fresh breath blew her hair around. “Let’s have an early dinner and catch the new play on Third Street. It’s opening nigh
t,” he continued when she simply stared at him. Without a doubt, he’d just brushed his teeth – maybe threw in some mouthwash, hoping he’d shove his tongue down her throat. “I’ll buy you a shimmering dress that’ll slide over your amazing curves like water. That boutique across the street has a marvelous silver gown in the window.” She was still staring. “Every man in the theater will hate my guts when I walk in with you on my arm wearing that.”
He was just too flattering. “Well, Sven, even though it’s every girl’s dream to be a shimmering adornment on a successful man’s arm, unfortunately, after I leave here, piles of paperwork are waiting for me at INKS. Then, I have to put in some time at Six Feet Under.” She clenched her fists in her lap. “I took yesterday off, catching up is necessary.” Because she didn’t have time to be sick. “Thanks for thinking of me.” When you were only thinking of yourself, she mentally chided.
“At least, let me take you out to an early dinner. Trixie says you love that French bistro around the corner.”
Thanks, Trixie. “Not tonight, Sven, but I appreciate the offer.”
While leaning over her chair, he gave her the same weary sigh that she heard from Ryan countless times. I’m weary, too, Sven. Bracing a hand on each armrest, he corralled her. “You’re not going to give me a snowball’s chance in hell, are you?”
Her skirt was riding up her thighs, so she squeezed her knees together to ward off any undue attention in that area. “We work together.” She eased her butt to the edge, prepared to make a ‘drop and roll’ over the side of her chair. “Keeping a professional distance would be a lot harder after giving in to crazy impulses.” I have to keep this job. She adopted her best forlorn expression as she continued, “So… I’ll try to stop ogling you all the time.” She followed a dramatic wince with the saddest smile she could muster on such short notice. “And you pretend I’m another hard-working employee like Trixie…or even your mom.” She knew he was smarter than this. But as far as Sven’s overinflated ego went, it always needed a good stroking.
