by J. R. Ward
"I told her...to think of you, when she felt like she couldn't hold on any longer."
Dog's stumpy tail wagged back and forth, like Jim had done the right thing.
Yeah, hopefully she was using Dog down there to sustain her.
Shit knew there was nothing else.
"I gotta find the next soul," Jim muttered before taking another hit of the cigarette. "Gotta find out who's on deck next. We gotta win this, Dog."
As that cold, wet nose gave him a nuzzle, he was careful to exhale over his shoulder.
The fact that Nigel maintained he knew the soul at bat told him absolutely nothing. He'd known a shitload of people during his life.
He could only pray it was someone he could bring around.
Matthias knew the moment he was no longer alone: The light around him intensified, which meant a door had been opened, and that didn't happen for no reason.
His right hand curled in on a reflex, as if there should have been a gun against his palm. But that was all he could do. His body was immobile from pain, sure as if he were chained to whatever he was lying on--a bed. He was in a bed...and the ambient beeping told him what kind. A hospital. He was still in the hospital.
Was he never going to get over--
His thought processes ground to a halt at that point.
Nothing but a black hole.
No idea what had gotten him here. No clue why his body hurt so much. No...Jesus, he knew his first name was Matthias and that was it.
Panic opened his eyes fully--
There was a horrified woman standing at his bedside, her hands up to her face, her expression one of shock. One of her eyes was bruised and there was a bandage on her forehead. Darkish hair was pulled back. Pretty eyes. Tall...she was tall--
Beautiful eyes, actually.
"I'm so sorry," she said hoarsely.
Huh? "About..." His voice was rough, his throat raw. And one of his eyes wasn't working right--
No, the thing wasn't working at all. He had lost half of his vision a while ago. That was right, back when he was...
He frowned as his thoughts fell off that cliff again.
"I hit you with my car. I'm so sorry--I didn't see you coming. It was so dark out, and you came into the road before I could stop."
He tried to reach out a hand, a compulsion to calm her overriding his pain and confusion. "Not your fault. No...no tears. Come..."
On some level, he couldn't believe anyone would cry over him, now or ever. He was not the type of man who inspired that kind of reaction.
Not him, no. Why that was true, though, he didn't know....
The woman came a little closer, and he watched with his one eye as she extended her soft, warm hand...and slid it against his palm.
The contact made him feel warm all over, like he'd been submerged in a bath.
Funny, he hadn't been aware of being cold until she touched him.
"I'm squeezing," he said in his broken voice. "In case you can't tell."
She was tactful and didn't comment on the fact that she clearly hadn't had a clue he was putting any effort into the contact. But he was. And as their eyes held, for some reason he wanted to point out that he hadn't always been broken. Once, not long ago, he had been able to stand proud, run far, lift much. Now he was a mattress with a heartbeat.
Not because she'd hit him with her car, though. No, he'd been broken for a while.
Maybe his memory was coming back?
"I'm so sorry," she said again.
"Is that how you..." He motioned up to his own face, but the gesture just made her focus on him--and her wince suggested it was tough for her to look at how ugly he was. "You were hurt, too."
"Oh, I'm fine. Have the police come and talked to you yet?"
"Just woke up. Don't know."
She took her hand from his and rummaged around in a bag the size of a small duffel. "Here. This is my card. They spoke with me while I was getting treated, and I told them I accept all responsibility."
She turned the thing to face him, except his vision refused to focus.
And he didn't want to look anywhere but into her eyes.
"What's your name?"
"Mels Carmichael. Well, Melissa." She touched her own chest. "I go by Mels."
As she put the card on the little rolling table, he frowned, even though it made his head pound. "How were you hurt?"
"Call me if you need anything? I don't have a lot of money, but I--"
"You weren't wearing a seat belt, were you."
The woman looked around like maybe she'd gotten that from the police earlier. "Ah..."
"You should wear a seat belt--"
The door burst open, and the nurse who strode in was all business, making like she owned the place.
"I'm right here," she announced, as she marched over to the machinery behind the bed. "I heard the alarm."
His immediate impression was of a lot of breasts. Tiny little waist. Long brunette hair thick as a duvet, shiny as a china plate.
And yet she made his skin crawl. To the point where he tried to sit up, so he could get the hell away from--
"Shh...it's okay." As the nurse smiled, she all but shoved Mels Carmichael away. "I'm here to help."
Black eyes. Black eyes that reminded him of something else, somewhere else--a prison where you were choked by darkness, incapable of getting free--
The nurse leaned down, bringing them closer together. "I'm going to take care of you."
"No," he said strongly. "No, you will not...."
"Oh, yes, I will."
Warnings shifted around the edges of his consciousness, things he couldn't quite capture sending up alarms like smoke trails before bombs exploded. He got nowhere with any specifics. His memories were like camouflaged bunkers in a landscape viewed with night goggles; he knew his enemy had set up fortifications, but damned if he could visualize them in any detail.
"If you don't mind," his nurse said to Mels, "I need to take care of my patient."
"Oh, yeah. Of course. I'll just...yeah, I'll go." Mels leaned around the other woman to glance at him. "I guess...I'll talk to you later."
Matthias had to look around the nurse as well, his stomach muscles clenching as he shifted his weight--
The nurse blocked the view. "Close the door behind you, will you. That'd be great. Thanks."
And then they were alone.
The nurse smiled at him and leaned her hip on the edge of the bed. "How about we clean you up."
Not a question. And, man, he suddenly felt naked--and not in a good way.
"I'm not dirty," he said.
"Yes, you are." She put her hand on his forearm, right where the IV lines went into his vein. "You are filthy."
From out of nowhere, strength began to funnel into him, the energy burrowing in and inflating his flesh with health, sure as if he had had good nights of sleep and days filled with rest and plenty of food.
It was coming from her, he realized. Except...how was that possible?
"What are you doing to me?"
"Nothing." The nurse smiled. "Do you feel different?"
Staring into her eyes, the dense, cloying black seemed as irresistible as it was repulsive--and he didn't know how long they stood there like that, linked by her hand, that one-way exchange like a miracle drug.
"I know you," he thought out loud.
"Funny when you feel that way about a stranger."
The power entering him felt evil, and very familiar. "I don't want--"
"Don't want what, Matthias? Don't want to feel better, be stronger, live forever?" She eased down even closer. "Are you telling me you don't want to be a man again?"
His lips started to move, but nothing came out, a sluggishness coming over him as she retracted her touch. Hazy and confused, he tried to rouse himself, but it was as if, in the aftermath, he'd been drugged.
"I'm going to wash you now," she said, her lids lowering, her smile speaking of blow jobs, instead of bedpans.
As s
he went over to the equivalent of a bar sink, Matthias inhaled, his ribs expanding without pain, his exhale even and smooth. All the aching had gone away, giving him a sense that it had been years since he'd inhabited his body without difficulty. Centuries?
"What date is it?" he mumbled as she ran water into a basin.
The nurse glanced over her shoulder. "That's right. You have amnesia."
A moment later she reapproached the bed, bringing the rolling table with her. As she pulled the sheets down to his hips and loosened the ties on his johnny, he lifted his heavy head and stared at himself. The top half wasn't so bad, just a scar here and there. Lower half was a mess.
The washcloth was soft and warm.
As the nurse stroked his chest, her skin was so smooth and glowing, it was like it had been airbrushed, and her hair was impossibly thick and luscious. She even had lips like a piece of fruit, glossy, with the promise of sweetness.
I don't want her, he thought.
But he couldn't seem to move.
"You need to put some weight on," she commented, drawing the washcloth over his pecs. "Too thin."
That stretch of terry went ever lower, lingering across his abdominals, more lover than health care provider. And with sudden clarity, he knew there had been a time when she would have been impressed--those women he'd contracted with for sexual exercise had always been struck by his body back in the day--
Wait, was this really happening?
When she went to push the covers down further, he stopped her. "No, don't."
"Yes, definitely."
With her eyes locked on his, she removed his hand from her wrist and wrenched everything off. The violence in the act made him stir somewhere deep--why, he didn't know.
"Did I strike a chord," she said, even though she knew she had. Somehow...she knew he'd liked things dangerous. "Did I. Matthias."
"Maybe." His voice was stronger all of a sudden. Deeper....
"How about now?"
She touched him on that place that defined his gender, the cloth rasping over his cock.
As she licked her lips like she was enticed, he had to laugh out loud. For whatever inexplicable reason she was breaking all kinds of protocol, she was about to get a whole lot of going-nowhere--and that was going to solve the problem of his not wanting this: It didn't matter if she got herself good and naked and did jumping jacks on top of him; that flaccid stretch of flesh wasn't going to stand up and notice.
Even with the amnesia, he knew that like he knew he couldn't see out of one eye. It was fact; not a recollection.
"My memory isn't the only thing I've lost," he said dryly.
"Really."
When she stroked where she shouldn't, he jumped. But then, impotence didn't mean you had no feeling. Just meant you couldn't do anything about--
That river of power tunneled into him again, this time stronger. And with a moan, he arched back, automatically rolling his hips up to the source.
"That's right," she said, her voice warping. "Feel me. I'm in you."
That long-missed sexual surge rocketed through him; the aggression and the need to penetrate something he knew he hadn't felt for so long. God, the reminder that he was in fact male, not some broken, androgynous--
Ah, shit, this was good. Fuck...so good.
"Look at me," she commanded him as she worked his cock. "Look at me."
He'd been so distracted by the novelty, he'd forgotten who was doing him, and the sight of her drained the sensation out of him, his emotions going impotent even as his body went to town. She was beautiful, but she was...as lush as poison ivy.
"Don't you like this, Matthias?"
No, he did not. He didn't like this at all. "Not in the slightest."
"Liar. And we need to finish what we started, you and I. Yes, we do."
Devina entered the Saks Fifth Avenue at The Caldwell Galleria Mall at close to five a.m. Stepping through the glass and into a storefront display of mannequins in pastel dresses, she posed with them for a moment, arching her back and feeling her breasts stretch the seams of her blouse under her coat.
Spring was in full swing, and that was good news for her thighs.
Maybe while she was here, she'd pick up a few things off the racks.
With a shopping tingle sparkling in her veins, she popped around the side of the backsplash and disabled the motion detectors with a wave of her hand. For a second, she thought she'd let the video surveillance cameras stay on--just for shits and giggles.
Nothing more fun than being watched--even if it was just by a paunchy human sitting behind a security desk at the tail end of a night shift he'd probably slept through half of.
She was here for a serious reason, however.
Her stilettos made a clipping sound over the polished marble floor, and she liked the echoing noise, walking harder so her dominion over the emptiness reached out in every direction. God, she loved the smell in the air: floor polish and perfume and cologne...and wealth.
Passing by the handbag boutiques that were set against the wall, she checked out Prada, Miu Miu, and Chanel. The merch looked great even in the dim glow of the security lighting, and she cracked when she got to Gucci. Slipping through the chain-link security gate, she nabbed a python bag in dark green, and then kept going.
Man, short of sex, high-end department stores were the best high there was: Thousands and thousands of square feet full of things, all of which were well-ordered, tagged, and cataloged. And protected.
A total OCD-gasm.
So she had to watch herself. She could feel the bonding happening, and if this kept up, she would be in danger of grafting a sense of ownership onto all these precious things. And that wasn't good for anyone. She'd have to kill the humans who came in to buy them, and that was exhausting.
But it did make her think that she should get her Lenovo on and go digital with her own collections.
Next virgin that she slaughtered to protect her mirror? She was going to have to reanimate them and get them to geek-out her things.
After all, there were a lot of computer programmers out there who couldn't figure out how to get their boney asses laid.
Cutting into the center of the first floor, she found the makeup counters clustered together, the Chanel its trademark black and glossy, the Lancome all glass cases...and the Yves Saint Laurent, which had a lot of gold around its stand-up displays.
Flickering in behind the counter, she sprang the lock on the cupboard that was down by the floor, and as she lowered herself onto her haunches, her palm lit the way, illuminating the tiny labels on the butt ends of the packaging.
1 Le Rouge was easy to find, and she took one from the careful arrangement, flipped open the box, and slid out the shiny metal tube. Lovely, so lovely, all unscratched, never been touched. She nearly trembled as she twisted and exposed the perfectly formed column of lipstick.
The smell, flowery and delicate, made her eyes roll back.
The therapist was right: The panic attack hadn't lasted forever in that office, and as Devina had gone about her work afterward, the separation anxiety from that tube she'd tossed had gotten plowed over with her focusing on other things. The anxiety had resurfaced, however, when she'd gone back to her private space and sat in front of her mirror, ready to go down to her wall and enjoy some private time with her children.
Cue the trouble.
Her thoughts had quickly spun out of control, images of all manner of trash compaction and oozing Dumpsters and overcrowded, stinking landfills making her want to cry.
She could have gone back for the specific tube, but she wanted to honor at least part of the therapist's religion: It would have been very much part of her cycle to become obsessed with getting that one particular lipstick back, and execute that plan no matter what got in her way.
Except she couldn't keep going down that road--and so she was here and not at that office, and she had this fresh, pretty new tube to replace the one that she had sacrificed in the name of self-improveme
nt.
There were five more in her color, all stacked one on top of another in the cutest little tower. Reaching forward, she wanted to take them all as backup for her backups, but she stopped herself. Closed the cabinet. Flickered out of range.
She was proud of herself as she walked away.
Enough with the break; time to get back to work.
Returning to the window display she'd come in through, she stopped in front of one of the mannequins. The thing had a straight blond wig on and had been dressed in a flowery creation Devina wouldn't have been caught dead in--
It was galling to wonder what Jim Heron would think of her in it.
No doubt it was right up his alley, feminine, pretty, not too revealing. Modest.
That fucker. That lying double-crosser.
Naturally, the fact that he'd played her so well in the last round only made him more attractive....
Devina frowned as the therapist's voice came back to her. Cognitive behavioral therapy...a rewiring of the brain through experience.
The demon leaned in and fingered the fake hair, the long, straight fake hair that was the color of a canary diamond.
Sissy Barten, Jim's precious darling, had had hair just like this. Would have loved a dress like this. Would have stood in the back and waited for Jim to approach, never forward, ever fucking virginal.
It was enough to make her want to kill them both--and with that stupid little girl, that would be an "again" thing as she'd already sliced the kid's throat open over that tub--
Devina began to smile. Then laugh.
With a quick jerk, she yanked off the wig, stripping the plastic model bald...and headed out through the glass.
It had to be a dream, right?
Adrian had to be dreaming. Except, damn, this felt real, everything from the velvet couch under his ass to the cold beer in his hand to the heat in the club visceral and authentic.
He was afraid to turn his head. Terrified to discover that he was alone here in this noisy, desperate place filled with hollow people who were just like him.
If he were alone, Eddie really was dead.
Taking a swig of the longneck, he braced himself, and pivoted--
Adrian slowly lowered the bottle, exhaling all the oxygen out of his lungs. "Hey, buddy," he whispered.
Eddie's red eyes swung around. "Ah...hello." The guy shifted in his seat. "Listen, are you okay?"
"Yeah, just..."
