by Tracy Tappan
“Why would I do that?” she asked blandly.
“Because deep down you’re a good sort, Pändra.”
She snorted and walked out.
Pändra positioned herself to the side of the line of five lads—Mürk, Tëer, Däce, Videön, and Hütch—a spot far enough away to keep the stink of their blunder off her, but not too close to Raymond, either. Jesus wept, but their formidable Fey father was brassed off.
Seated at a table draped in fine periwinkle linen with an elegant silver tea service at his elbow, Raymond was giving off rolling shock waves of power that had her widening her stance to keep from toppling onto her arse. Her four-inch heels weren’t helping matters. She was tarted-up as usual today, her outfit consisting of a pair of blue jeans that just missed being camel toe tight, a near see-though, low-cut blouse, and spiked ankle boots that made her feel like she was standing on a pair of stilts. Dressing like a whore was her one, subtle rebellion against Raymond; she knew it got up his nose. She also supposed a part of her felt the need to stick it in everyone’s face that she was a body, nothing more: a perfect female specimen who would serve as a procreation machine for the next powerful generation Raymond planned to create.
Mürk stood one step in front of the rest of the lads. He was older than her twenty-four years by two, and one of her full-brothers, along with twenty-two-year-old Tëer and seventeen-year-old, Däce. Baby-faced Däce, the only other offspring with blond hair like her own, had only recently started going on missions for Raymond. Both of his assignments thus far—the first one to nab the fifteen-year-old girl who was supposed to be Mürk’s procreating machine, and now, secondly, this mission—had ended in failure. He looked like he was going to shite himself.
Her half-brothers in the room were twenty-three-year-old Videön, whose right cheek and arm were roughened with scabs from playing street-sweeper with the roadway, and twenty-year-old Hütch, sporting a beastly black-and-purple Mohawk. The two had shared a flat with their younger brother, Jëvan, who was currently in jail, until Raymond had insisted they move back here to help deal with the ever-growing problem of the Vârcolac. Both were built like a couple of lorries, possessed the black eyes that anyone with even a tiddly of Rău owned, and jet-black hair. They were born from Raymond’s partner, Boian—one of only two pure Fey males left in the world, Raymond being the other—and the same mother as hers, Ұavell: another rare creature, being that she was the last pure Om Rău female. Like all of Boian’s offspring, Videön and Hütch were a pair of flaming wanks.
Upon first moving into this imposing Fairbanks Ranch hacienda-style mansion, the two had tried to kick seven shades of shit out of her. She’d flattened them both, of course, probably would’ve killed them if not for their immortality rings, while Mürk had stood by and laughed. A chuffer of a way for her two half-brothers to learn that, through some genetic anomaly, she’d ended up with the strength of three male Rău combined. She generally didn’t make a habit of lording her status over her brothers; as the eldest female, the most powerful of the lot of them, and Raymond’s favored child, she was undeniably the Queen Bee of their brood. But neither did she take any effing crap off of them. They all learned that rather quickly.
“Microsoft stock is holding steady.” Raymond lifted his silver-blond head from the daily newspaper he was reading. “It’s getting difficult to know what to invest in these days.” Raymond sat back in his chair and carefully folded the newspaper, his cold blue eyes settling on Mürk. “You didn’t think last night’s events warranted mention, son?” He smiled narrowly. “Wanted to get your full forty winks, did you?”
“No.” Mürk shrugged with a show of nonchalance that was impressively believable. “There was just nothin’ to mention. That message of Tøllar’s is knob-rot. He and his men were walkin’ out of the warehouse with the women when the vamps struck. The exchange had already bloody well taken place. Those three Dragons count.”
“Ah, so they fibbed, did they?” Raymond sighed. “I suppose that’s no blooming surprise. Still…” He picked up his Wedgewood teacup and took a sip. “We wouldn’t be facing this discrepancy if you hadn’t lost the fight with the Vârcolac, now would we?” One of Raymond’s brows edged upward. “I imagine it must’ve been quite a row, though. How many Vârcolac were there exactly?”
Mürk’s cheeks tinged pink.
“Oh, lad.” Tut-tutting, Raymond set down his cup with a soft clink. “It’s getting right embarrassing how effortlessly those Vârcolac are vanquishing you.” Raymond’s tone lowered to its most dangerous. “Five months ago especially.”
Pändra pinned her eyes onto the original Monet watercolor across the room and drew a secret breath, painful against the belt of tension suddenly wrapping her chest. Raymond was referring to Mürk’s failure to nab Tonĩ Parthen from Scripps Memorial Hospital.
Tonĩ Parthen was Pändra’s half-sister—same father, different mother this time—and the daughter Raymond had abandoned over twenty-five years ago to go off and sire their demon-blooded family. He’d always planned on bringing Tonĩ—his actual favorite, Pändra suspected—back into the fold to be his ultimate, Royal Fey procreation machine. Tonĩ had mucked up that plan by bonding to a Vârcolac; such a union rendered her infertile to any bloke but her vamp hubby…at least so Pändra had assumed. Raymond, however, contended that the lads’ powerful half-Fey/half-Rău genetics could overcome that. Unfortunately for Tonĩ, only an impregnation experiment would prove that yea or nay.
Mürk’s tone was succinct as he answered Raymond, but careful. “If those tossbag Underground Om Rău can’t quit their blartin’ long enough to nick those three Dragons back from the Vârcolac themselves, then me and the lads can do it.”
Pändra couldn’t hide a wince. Mürk, you nit—
“Indeed,” Raymond returned sardonically, “because your last mission into the Vârcolac’s lair was such a smashing success.”
Mürk’s jaw tightened, a reflexive attempt to avoid swallowing, Pändra would guess.
Darkness moved into Raymond’s blue eyes, a look of black, blood-icing fury. “I’m fed to the teeth with all of your bloody failures.” He set his newspaper aside with exaggerated care. “I’d say a lesson’s in order to teach you the merits of a good work ethic.”
A lesson. Oh, effing hell.
On the edge of her vision, Pändra saw Tëer go rigidly still. Videön and Hütch darted their eyes about, their years living in their own flat leaving them unprepared for Raymond’s unique brand of terror. Poor Däce definitely looked like he’d signed his pants in brown now.
“Your ring, Mürk.” Raymond pointed a finger to the front of his table with a sharp tap.
Mürk went stiff as a caber, the muscles in his face rigid, a slight patina of sweat shining on his shaved head. Without the ring, Mürk would feel pain, shed loads of it.
Pändra’s belly rolled into a tight ball, and she glimpsed a muscle in Tëer’s cheek tic. Bloody Nora, but Raymond’s punishment was going to be a huge bag of wank.
Raymond sniffed. “It’s mine to take if I wish. I’m the one who enchanted it.”
Mürk still didn’t move, perhaps feeling safe in the knowledge that no one but the wearer of the ring could touch it without receiving a dreadful shock; even Raymond, the enchanter, wasn’t immune. The one exception to that rule was Tonĩ Parthen, the very skill which had enabled the vamps to kill Rën…and an ability that also meant she’d obtained her enchantment power when she shouldn’t have. Only her offspring were supposed to own that level of power; something that baffled and fascinated Raymond to no end.
Mürk finally stepped forward, twisting his ring to remove it.
Good decision. There was no use fighting their father. Raymond always found a way to achieve his ends, and resistance would only make the castigation worse.
Mürk set his ring on the table, then bowed his head and set his shoulders in preparation.
Pändra’s abdominals cramped and her thighs ached. Something about her brother’s postur
e—his hands hanging loose when the rest of his body was so tense, the vulnerable back of his neck exposed—ate through the foundations of her defenses and stirred some sisterly devotion to life. “There’s another way we can go about this.”
Everyone turned to look at her; even Mürk angled his eyes up.
You bloody plank, Pändra. She steeled herself to meet the pale ice of her father’s eyes. “I’ve recently been able to hack into the Vârcolac’s Internet system.”
“Have you now?” Raymond’s eyebrows arched. “That’s decidedly important information, my pet.” A subtle edge of censure entered his tone.
“I planned on telling you after your morning tea.” She held his gaze. “You don’t like to be disturbed while you’re reading your newspaper.”
One corner of her father’s lips twitched and the ice in his eyes melted a smidge. “What is this grand plan of yours?”
“I’m figuring I can monitor their transmissions for information that will help us either (A) lure the vamps up to the surface for an ambush or (B) find a topside portal into their lair. Either option would allow us to wage war against the Vârcolac with the supplement of regular humans.”
The only other option for getting at the Vârcolac was through an underground labyrinthine network of Hell Tunnels that led from demon town to vamp town. The last time Rën, Tëer, and Mürk had traveled that route, they’d nearly fried their arses off. It was so bleeding hot that even the Vârcolac couldn’t make it through, so a regular human definitely wouldn’t be able to manage it. And the lads needed to bulk up their numbers with regulars if they wanted to win this war, subdue the Vârcolac, and achieve Raymond’s ultimate goal of obtaining Tonĩ and Alex.
Pändra glanced at her brothers. “The lads have some real nasty articles for friends that would be perfect for that.”
Raymond hooded his lids. “What you suggest will take too much time.”
“Not a’tall,” Pändra countered. “I’ve already discovered that the vamps use a group of women to transport supplies to and from their lair. We might be able to follow one to a portal and then make a move, but—” She jerked her chin at her brothers and half-brothers. “The lads will have to stay fit for that.”
Raymond snorted softly as he glanced at Mürk, still standing with his head bowed.
“Meanwhile I can send a message to the Underground Om Rău, stating our position about the three Dragons in a way that will make them feel like a bag of wet lettuce for not going after the women themselves. Good chance that’ll motivate the ratbags to carry the can for their own fecking reproducers and then we’ll get out of this completely.”
Raymond didn’t say anything. He sat in his chair with a bored expression on his face as the silence stretched out. Pändra knew that he was deliberately allowing the tension to grow, ruddy bastard, until it hung over the room like a heavy storm cloud. The mantelpiece clock tick-tocked into the quiet, pounding against Pändra’s eardrums, steady at first, then seeming to slow to the ponderous rhythm of a dirge. The urge to scream at her father built in her throat.
“Very well, then.” Raymond rose gracefully to his feet. “Press forward with your plan, Pändra. Mürk may consider himself spared his lesson, and thus standing ready at your disposal.” He passed a scathing glance over the rest of the lads. “Your sister outstrips you chaps by so many meters, you should be positively mortified by it.”
Videön grumbled something as Raymond swept out of the room.
Däce sagged in relief.
Mürk slid his eyes over to her. And one corner of his mouth curled upward.
Chapter Nine
The next morning: community of Ţărână, 9:17 a.m.
“Huh?” Dev squinted across the kitchen table at Gábor. “Were you talking to me?”
“Jesus, what’s your prob this morning, man?” Gábor slugged back the rest of his coffee. “You can’t keep your mind on shit.”
“Nothing’s the matter,” Dev tossed back. “I just didn’t hear you.” Which was a definite load of BS. He was distracted this morning, all twitchy and restless and tense. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, just that the weirdness had been with him ever since last night’s rescue, as if something was wrong, even though nothing could be.
Okay, so maybe his conscience had been a bit of a pain in the ass last night at Garwald’s, yapping that he had put Gábor’s life into unnecessary jeopardy. But he’d drowned out that voice with a half a bottle of Dewar’s. And nothing could be wrong with the three new Dragons, either, right? He didn’t hear any Om Rău alarms blaring. The women were safe and sound in Ţărână right now, probably at this very moment getting fed a special blend of truth and fiction to explain all the recent bizarre stuff that’d been going down. He had no reason to be—
“I said,” Gábor repeated, holding his empty coffee mug in the air, “are we going on another mission topside today?”
Sedge crossed the kitchen and poured more coffee into Gábor’s mug, then cuffed the man across the back of the head for not even being polite enough to ask.
Business as usual in the Stănescu kitchen now that it’d become a warrior hangout. Sedge was a sometimes-bachelor these days, since his wife, Kimberly, worked Monday through Thursday up top at a law firm in the city of San Diego. She spent those nights in a small apartment, and the rest of the time underground with Sedge.
It was a shocking new way of doing business in Ţărână, and had required Tonĩ Parthen overruling Roth’s squeamishness about movement in and out of the town. Tonĩ had used logic as her weapon of choice, insisting that the community needed a lawyer to see to their ever-growing financial interests topside. But everyone knew Tonĩ had mostly been doing Kimberly a solid. The high-powered attorney had been miserable with the utter lack of judicial excitement in the small town of Ţărână, and now Kimberly was happy. And a happy wife equaled a happy husband. A beaming Sedge had even hinted that Kimberly was finally considering having a baby. Which meant that Sedge would probably end up playing pop solo during the week.
Dev wryly watched the broad-shouldered blond warrior pull a cookie sheet of danishes out of the oven, a padded mitt on one hand and an apron wrapped around his waist. Yeah, he could totally see the Mixed-blood as a father, and a good one at that.
“So?” Gábor prompted, now looking like he wanted to give Dev a sharp jab in the face to snap him out of whatever was up with him.
What was up with him? “Why would we go topside again?” he asked, shrugging as a knock sounded at the door.
Gábor rolled his eyes. “The Om Rău will still be going after that fourth Dragon, won’t they?”
“Actually, they won’t,” Thomal said, hobbling through the front door and into the kitchen on a pair of crutches. “Haven’t you heard?”
Dev jerked his eyebrows up at the same moment Gábor did. Thomal…on crutches?
“What’s this, Costache?” Sedge set a plate of danishes in the middle of the kitchen table. “Your heel’s not better, yet?”
“Nah, I’m fine.” Thomal danced out of his crutches, flashing a smile. “I just gotta fake wounded soldier for the newbies is all.” He leaned the crutches against a wall, then sauntered over to the table with just the slightest limp and sat down.
“Oh, that’s real fucking great.” Gábor shot a look at Dev. “Just what we need is pretty boy getting all of the OMG sympathy from the chicks.”
Choosing a danish, Thomal leaned back in his chair with a cocky grin. “You’re the only one who’s going to miss out on all the ‘poor babies,’ Pavenic.” He glanced at Dev. “Alex is going to use his FX skillies to put the bruise back on your face, brother. You need to see him before any of the newbies run into you.”
Shit, that’s right. He’d nearly forgotten all about the little present Videön had planted on his left cheek. It didn’t even hurt anymore.
Gábor exhaled hard in disgust. “That’s such bullshit. Just because I wasn’t stupid enough to get hurt, doesn’t mean—”
�
�What haven’t we heard?” Sedge interrupted, coming back to the original point. Somebody, at least, was tracking the conversation.
Thomal’s smile disappeared. “You know how Alex puts all of the Dragon women we know of in the computer so he can keep tabs on them?”
The idea was that if an opportunity arose to get ahold of a Dragon who’d said “no” the first time around, the community would be poised to pounce. Like the one who hadn’t wanted to give up her dog. The second the mutt died, wham-o, re-negotiation time.
“Ashling Lafferty,” Thomal went on, “that fourth woman meant for yesterday’s exchange popped up in the police records a little while ago.” Thomal tossed his half-eaten danish onto a napkin in front of him. “She was snatched last night—well, early morning topside time—coming out of some golf club.”
Sedge plunked his hands on his hips and scowled. “You mean in broad daylight?”
Thomal glanced away. “Yeah.”
“Hell,” Gábor mumbled.
Dev lowered his eyes to the table, subsiding into silence like the other three men, the quiet between them weighted with regret. As Vârcolac, they had many strengths to be proud of; they were stronger, faster, and better-looking by far than regular humans. They had more finely honed senses, accelerated healing abilities, and life spans that were twice as long. Focus on these, and they could feel great about who they were, even temporarily forgetting the part about the rest of the world thinking of them as monsters. Times like this, though, when one of their weaknesses meant that they hadn’t been able to help a woman who’d needed it, was not one of their proud moments.
The front door opened and closed. “Hey, guys.”
Sedge’s head popped up, his eyes instantly lighting. “Kimberly! What’re you doing home midweek?”
Gábor slouched back in his chair. “Already got fired from Bite-me, DickMunch, and Suck-it?”
