by J. R. Ward
Sex with countless strangers in club bathrooms? Threesomes with males and females? Piercings? Tattoos in various places?
And this guy didn’t “approve” of smoking. Like it was a vile habit no one in his right mind would bother with.
In the bathroom, the hair dryer he and Sax shared went on, and Blay could imagine that blond hair he had just grabbed onto and pulled back hard flowing in the artificial breeze, catching the light, shining with highlights that were natural.
Saxton was beautiful, all smooth skin and sinewy body and perfect taste.
God, the clothes in that wardrobe of his. Amazing. Like the Great Gatsby had jumped out of the pages of the novel, gone down to Fifth Avenue, and bought out whole blocks of haute couture.
Qhuinn was never like that. He wore Hanes T-shirts and fatigues or leathers, and still sported the same biker jacket he’d had from just after his transition. No Ferragamos or Ballys for him; New Rocks with soles the size of truck tires. Hair? Brushed if it was lucky. Cologne? Gunpowder and orgasms.
Hell, in all the years Blay had known the guy—and it had been since birth practically—he’d never seen Qhuinn in a suit.
One had to wonder if the guy knew that tuxedos could be owned, not just rented.
If Saxton was the picture-perfect aristocrat, Qhuinn was a straight-up thug—
“Here. Tap your ashes in this.”
Blay jerked his head up. Saxton was naked, perfectly coiffed and scented with Cool Water—and holding out the heavy Baccarat ashtray he’d bought as a summer solstice gift. It was also from the forties, and weighed as much as a bowling ball.
Blay complied, taking the thing and balancing it in the palm of his hand. “Are you off to work?”
Like that wasn’t obvious?
“Indeed.”
Saxton turned away and flashed a spectacular ass as he went to the closet. Technically, the guy was supposed to be living next door in one of the vacant guest rooms, but over time his clothes had migrated in here.
He didn’t mind the smoking. Even shared every once in a while after a particularly energetic…exchange, as it were.
“How’s it going?” Blay said on an exhale. “Your secret assignment, that is.”
“Rather well. I’m almost finished.”
“Does that mean you can finally tell me what it’s all been about?”
“You shall find out soon enough.”
As the flapping of a shirt emanated from the walk-in, Blay turned his cigarette around and stared at the glowing tip. Saxton had been working on something top-secret for the king since the fall, and there had been no pillow talk about it—which was probably only one of the many reasons Wrath had made the male his private lawyer. Saxton had all the discretion of a bank vault.
Qhuinn, on the other hand, had never been able to keep a secret. From surprise parties to gossip to embarassing personal details like whether you’d gotten laid together by a cheap whore at—
“Blay?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Saxton emerged, fully dressed in a tweed Ralph Lauren three-piecer. “I said, I’ll see you at Last Meal.”
“Oh. Is it that late?”
“Yes. It is.”
Guess they’d screwed their way through the first place setting of the day—which was how they’d rolled ever since…
God. He couldn’t even think about what had happened a mere week ago. Couldn’t even put into mental words how he felt about the one thing he’d never worried about coming to pass—right in front of his own eyes.
And he’d thought being rejected by Qhuinn was bad?
Watching the guy have a young with a female—
Shoot, he needed to respond to his lover, didn’t he. “Yes, absolutely. I’ll see you then.”
There was a hesitation, and then Saxton came over and pressed a kiss to Blay’s lips. “You’re off rotation tonight?”
Blay nodded, holding the cigarette out of the way so the male’s beautiful clothes didn’t get burned. “I was going to read the New Yorker and maybe start From the Terrace.”
Saxton smiled, clearly appreciating the appeal of both. “How I envy you. After I’m finished, I’m going to take a few nights off and just relax.”
“Maybe we could go somewhere.”
“Maybe we could.”
The tight expression on that lovely face was quick and sad. Because Saxton knew that they weren’t going anywhere.
And not just because a Sandals all-inclusive was so not in their future.
“Be well,” Saxton said, brushing his knuckle down Blay’s cheek.
Blay nuzzled that hand. “You, too.”
A moment later the door opened and shut…and he was alone. Sitting on the messy bed, in the silence that seemed to crush him from all sides, he smoked his cigarette down to the filter, screwed it out in the ashtray, lit another.
Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the sound of Saxton moaning or the sight of the male’s back arching or the feel of skin on skin.
He could not.
And that was the root of the problem, wasn’t it.
* * *
“Let me get this straight,” V drawled over the cell phone connection. “You lost your Hummer.”
Qhuinn wanted to put his head through a plate-glass window. “Yeah. I did. So could you please—”
“How do you lose eight thousand pounds of vehicle?”
“That’s not important—”
“Well, actually, it is if you want me to access the GPS and tell you where to find the damn thing—which is why you’re calling, true? Or do you just think confession without detail is good for the soul or some shit.”
Qhuinn gripped his phone hard. “Ileftthekeysinit.”
“I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
Bullshit. “I left the keys in it.”
“That was a dumb-ass move, son.”
No. Fucking. Kidding. “So can you help me—”
“Just e-mailed you the link. One thing—when you recover the vehicle?”
“Yeah?”
“Check to see if the jackers took a moment to put the seat forward—you know, get comfortable and shit. Because they probably weren’t in a rush, what with having the keys.” The sound of Vishous’s yukking it up was like getting paddled in the nuts with a car fender. “Listen, I gotta go. I need both hands to hold my gut as I laugh my ass off attcha. Later.”
As the call went dead, Qhuinn took a moment to rein in the desire to throw the phone.
Yeah, ’cuz losing that, too, was going to really help the situation.
Going into his Hotmail account, and wondering just how long it was going to take to live this one down, he got a bead on his frickin’ car.
“It’s heading west.” He tilted the phone so John could see. “Let’s do this.”
Dematerializing, Qhuinn was dimly aware that the level of his rage was disproportionate to the problem: As his molecules scattered, he was a lit fuse waiting to connect with some dynamite—and it wasn’t just about him being a dumb-ass, or the missing car, or the fact that he was looking like an idiot to one of the males he respected most in the Brotherhood.
There was so much other shit.
Taking form on a rural road, he checked his phone again and waited for John to show up. When the fighter did, he recalibrated and they went farther west, closing in, cross-referencing the direction…until Qhuinn ghosted onto the precise strip of ice-covered asphalt his fucking Hummer was on.
About a hundred yards ahead of the vehicle.
Whatever SOB was behind the wheel was going sixty miles an hour in the snow, heading for a curve. What a…
Well, calling them stupid was exactly the kind of kettle-black thing the night had devolved into.
Let me shoot the wheels, John signed, like he knew a gun in Qhuinn’s hand was not the best idea.
Before the guy could up-and-out his forty, though, Qhuinn dematerialized…right onto the hood of the SUV.
He landed face-first int
o the windshield, his ass getting hit with the kind of breeze that turned him into a bug on all that glass. And then it was a case of oh-heeey-gurl-heeeey: Thanks to the glow from the dashboard, he caught the OMG! on the faces of the pair of guys in the front seat…and then his bright idea turned into goat fuck number two of the evening.
Instead of hitting the brakes, the driver wrenched the wheel, like he could maybe avoid what had already landed on the Hummer’s hood. The torque threw Qhuinn free, his body going weightless as he wrenched around in space to keep his eyes on his ride.
Turned out he was the lucky one.
As Hummers were designed and built for things other than aerodynamics and braking facility, the laws of physics grabbed onto all that top-heavy metal and rolled the shit. In the process, and in spite of the snow cover, metal met asphalt, and the high-pitched scream soprano’d out into night—
The thunderous impact of the SUV nailing some kind of solid object the size of a house cut off all that caterwauling. Qhuinn didn’t pay much attention to the crash, however, because he landed as well, the paved road smacking him on the shoulder and hip, his body doing its own version of greased pig down the snow-packed pavement—
CRACK!
His momentum was stopped short as well, something hard catching him in the head—
Cue a spectacular light show, like someone had lit off a firecracker right in front of his face. Then it was Tweety Bird time, little stars going around his vision as pain in various places started to check in.
Pushing against whatever was closest to him—he wasn’t sure whether it was the ground or a tree or that red-suited fatty, Santa Claus, he eased himself over onto his back. As he flopped flat, the cold went to his head and helped to dull things.
He intended to get up. Check the Hummer. Beat the shit out of whoever had taken advantage of his blond moment. But that was just his brain playing with itself. His body had taken over the wheel and accelerator, and it had no intention of going anywhere the fuck.
Laying as still as he could, and breathing out uneven clouds of frost, time slowed down and then began to morph. For a second, he became confused as to what had put him in this at-the-side-of-the-road condition. The accident he’d caused?
Or…that Honor Guard from before the raids?
Was this back-flat on the asphalt thing a memory of his past or something that was actually happening?
The good news was that sorting out reality gave his brain something to do other than continue to hammer away at the get-moving stuff. The bad news was that the memories from the night his family had disavowed him were more painful than anything he currently felt in his body.
God, it was all so clear, the doggen bringing him the official papers and demanding some blood for a cleansing ritual. Him throwing that duffel bag over his shoulder and walking out of that house for the last time. The road stretching in front of him, empty and dark—
This road, he realized. This actual road was the one he’d gone down on. Or…was down on…whatever. When he’d left his parents’ house, he’d intended to head out west, where he’d heard there was a clan of rogue assholes just like him. Instead, four males had shown up in hooded robes and beaten him to death—literally. He had gone to the door of the Fade, and on it, he had seen a future that he hadn’t believed…until it happened. Was happening—right now. With Layla…
Oh, look, John was talking to him.
Right in front of his eyes, the guy’s hands were going through the motions, so to speak, and Qhuinn intended reply with some kind of update—
“Is this real?” he mumbled.
John looked momentarily confuzzled.
It had to be real, Qhuinn thought. Because the Honor Guard had come to him in the summer, and the air he was inhaling was cold.
Are you okay? John mouthed as he signed.
Shoving his hand into the snowy ground, Qhuinn pushed as hard as he could. When he didn’t budge more than an inch or two, he let that speak for itself…and passed the fuck out.
THREE
The sound of coke getting sniffed up a deviated septum made the man outside the door tighten his grip on his knife.
Fucker. What a fucker.
The first rule of any successful dealer was that you didn’t use. Addicts who funded your business used. Associates you needed to leverage used. Bitches you needed out on the streets used.
Management did not use. Ever.
The logic was so sound, it was fundamental, and nothing different than, say, going to a casino that had a six-million-square-foot facility, enough catered food for a small country, and goddamned gold leaf everywhere—and being surprised that you lost all your money. If taking drugs was such a hot frickin’ idea, why did people regularly die from the shit, destroy lives over it, get thrown in prison thanks to it?
Dumb-ass.
The man turned the knob and pushed. Of course the door was unlocked, and as he walked into the squalid room, the stench of baby powder would have overwhelmed him—if he hadn’t gotten used to the smell on himself.
That nasty nose-pincher was the only thing he hadn’t liked about the change. Everything else—the strength, the longevity, the freedom—he’d been into. But damn, the smell.
No matter how much cologne he used, he couldn’t get rid of it.
And yeah, he missed being able to have sex.
Other than that, the Lessening Society was his ticket to domination.
The sniffing stopped and the Fore-lesser looked up from the People magazine he’d made the lines on. Beneath the residue, some dude named Channing Tatum was staring at the camera, all hot as fuck. “Hey. What’re you doing here?”
As those beady, strung out eyes struggled to focus, the “Boss” looked like he’d given a blow job to a powered doughnut.
“I got something for you.”
“More? Oh, my God, how did you know? I only got two ounces left and I—”
Connors, a.k.a. C-Rider, moved fast, taking three steps forward, throwing his arm out wide, and swinging the knife in a fat circle—that terminated in the side of the Fore-lesser’s head. The steel blade went in deep, slicing through the softer bone of the temple, piercing the buzzed-up gray matter.
The Fore-lesser went into a seizure—maybe because of the injury…more likely because his adrenal glands had just pumped a million cc’s of holy-shit into his bloodstream and the stuff wasn’t mixing well with the cocaine. As the little shit flopped off his chair and shimmied his way down to the floor, the knife stayed with Connors, disengaging from the side of the skull, its blade marked with black blood.
Connors met the shocked stare of his now-former superior and felt really good about this promotion he had going on. The Omega himself had come to him and offered him the job, no doubt recognizing, as they all did, that a sk8tr punk was not who you wanted in charge of any organization bigger than a poker game. Yeah, sure, the guy had been useful in growing the ranks. But quantity was not quality, and it didn’t take the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines to see that the Lessening Society was being overrun by lawless, ADHD juvies.
Hard to promote any kind of agenda with that kind of rank and file—unless you had a real professional running shit.
Which was why the Omega had put all this in motion.
“Wh-wh-wh—”
“You been fired, motherfucker.”
The final part of the forced retirement came with another stabbing motion, this one taking that blade and driving it right into the center of the chest. With a pop! and a show of smoke, the regime change was complete.
And Connors was the head of everything.
Supremacy made him smile for a moment—until his eyes went around the room. For some reason, he thought of that Febreze commercial, the one where they’d shit up some place, spray like madmen, and drag “real people, not actors” into the scene to sniff around.
Man, except for the food remnants—which were a no-show, because slayers didn’t require eats—everything fit: the mold on the ceiling, the ra
tty furniture, the dripping over at the sink…and especially the crap that went along with a multi-chemical addiction, like syringes, spoons, even the two-liter Sprite-bottle meth lab over in the corner.
This was not a seat of power. This was a common crack house.
Connors went over and snagged the little shit’s cell phone. The screen was cracked and there was some kind of sticky patch on the back. The thing was not password-protected, and when he went into the messages section, all kinds of kiss-asses had blown up the phone, the texts blah-blah-blahing congrats about the induction ceremony that was going on tonight.
But the Fore-lesser hadn’t known about it. Wasn’t his gig.
Connors wasn’t going to retaliate, however. Those brown-nosing douches were just trying to stay alive and would suck anyone’s dick to keep breathing: He fully expected the same list to be hitting him up, and he wanted them to. Spies had their purpose in the grand scheme of things.
And, man, there was work to be done.
From what he had figured out during his own blessedly short period of ass-kissing, the Lessening Society had few assets left in terms of weapons or ammo or property. No cash, because what did come in from petty robberies had gone up the little shit’s nose or into his arm. No master list of inductees, no troop organization, no training.
Lot of rebuilding needed to happen fast—
A cold draft shot into the room, and Connors turned around. The Omega had arrived from out of nowhere, the Evil’s white robes shining brightly, the black shadow underneath looking like an optical illusion.
The repulsion that went through Connors was something he knew he was also going to have to get used to. The Omega always enjoyed a special relationship with his Fore-lesser—and maybe that was why word had it they rarely lasted very long.
Then again, given who he picked…
“I took care of him,” Connors said, nodding to the scorch mark on the floor.
“I know,” the Omega replied, that voice warping through the fetid, chilly air.
Outside, a gust of wind blew snow against the windows, the gap on one sill letting some snowflakes in. As they entered the space, they fell to the floor in a shimmer, the temperature cold enough to sustain them, thanks to the master’s presence.
