by J. R. Ward
“But I’m giving you CPR—”
“I will die before kissing you, Hollywood.” Z tried to sit up, his breathing heavy. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Hello?” Manello’s voice came through the phone. “Blay?”
“Hold on—”
Qhuinn dropped to his knees next to Zsadist, and in spite of the fact that the Brother didn’t like to be touched, took hold under one armpit and helped the male get his torso off the snow.
“I have the clinic on the line,” Blay said. “What’s your status?”
In reply, Z reached up and unhinged his dagger holster. Then he dragged down the zipper of his leather jacket and ripped his white T-shirt in half.
To reveal the most beautiful bulletproof vest Blay had ever seen.
Rhage sagged in relief—to the point that Qhuinn had to catch him with his free hand and keep the guy off the ground, too.
“Kevlar,” Blay mumbled to Manello. “Oh, thank God, he’s wearing Kevlar.”
“That’s great—but listen, I need you to take the vest off and check to see if it held the bullet, ’kay?”
“Roger that.” He glanced over at John and was glad to find the guy up on his feet, two guns out straight, eyes scanning the environs while the rest of them assessed the situation. “I’ll take care of it.”
Blay shuffled over and crouched down in front of the Brother. Qhuinn might have had the balls to make contact with Zsadist, but he wasn’t going to do that without express permission.
“Dr. Manello wants to know if you can remove the vest so we can see if there was any injury?”
Z jerked his arms, and then frowned. Appeared to give things another try. After a third attempt, the Brother’s hands managed to lift as high as the Velcro straps, but they couldn’t seem to do much.
Blay swallowed hard. “May I take care of it? I promise not to touch you as much as possible.”
Great grammar there. But he was serious.
Z’s eyes lifted to his. They were black from pain, not yellow. “Do what you have to, son. I’ll keep it tight.”
The Brother looked away, his face screwed down hard into a grimace, the scar that made an S-curve from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth standing out in harsh relief.
With a stern lecture, Blay ordered his hands to be steady and sure, and the message was somehow carried out: He tore apart the fastening strips at the shoulders, the rips louder than the screaming in his head, and then peeled off the vest, terrified of what he was going to find.
There was a big round patch directly in the center of Z’s broad, muscled chest. Right where the heart was.
But it was a bruise. Not a hole.
It was just a bruise.
“Surface wound only.” Blay dug his finger into the dense webbing of the vest and found the slug. “I can feel the bullet in the vest—”
“Then why can’t I move my—”
The smell of the Brother’s fresh blood seemed to hit everyone’s noses at the same time. Someone cursed, and Blay leaned in.
“You’ve been hit under the arm, too.”
“Bad?” Z asked.
Over the phone, Manello said, “Get in there and look around if you can.”
Blay lifted that heavy limb and flashed his penlight in at the underside. Apparently a bullet had entered the torso through the vest’s small, unprotected pocket under the pit—a one-in-a-million shot that if you’d tried to re-create, you couldn’t possibly pull off.
Fuck. “I don’t see an exit wound. It’s right on the side of his ribs, way up high.”
“He’s breathing steadily?” Manello asked.
“Labored but steady.”
“Was CPR administered?”
“He threatened to castrate Hollywood if there was any kind of liplock.”
“Look, let me just dematerialize.” Z coughed a little. “Gimme some room—”
Everyone offered a variety of opinions at that point, but Zsadist would have none of it. Shoving people away, the Brother closed his eyes and…
Blay knew they had a real problem when nothing happened. Yes, Zsadist hadn’t been killed, and he was a hell of a lot better off than he would have been without the vest. But he was not able to move himself—and they were in the middle of nowhere, so deep in the woods that even if they called for backup, nobody was going to be able to get an SUV within miles of them.
And worse? Blay had the sense that the slayer that had been taken down had been something considerably more than your run-of-the-mill lesser.
No telling when reinforcements would be coming in.
The sound of a text hitting somebody’s phone sounded, and Rhage looked down. “Shit. The others are backed up downtown. We’ve got to handle this on our own.”
“Goddamn it,” Zsadist muttered under his breath.
Yup. That about covered it.
SEVENTEEN
Xcor had not expected this.
As he and his soldiers materialized to the communal feeding’s prearranged location, he had anticipated a property that was run-down or mayhap on the verge of condemnation, a place in such financial state that a female would be forced into selling her veins and her sex to stay afloat.
No such thing.
The environs of the estate were appointed to a glymera standard, the sprawling manor house up on the hill glowing with warm light, the grounds manicured to within an inch of their lives, the smaller retainer cottage just inside the gates in perfect condition despite its obvious age.
Mayhap she was a lesser cousin of some great lineage?
“Who is this female?” he asked Throe.
His second in command shrugged. “I know not of her family personally. But I did verify her affiliation with a bloodline of worth.”
All around, his fighters were antsy, their combat boots packing the snow beneath their feet as they paced in place, their breath leaving their nostrils as if they were racehorses at the gate.
“One wonders if she knows what she volunteered for,” Xcor murmured, not particularly caring whether the female did or did not.
“Shall I?” Throe asked.
“Yes, afore the others burst free of their wills and break into that fair cottage of hers.”
Throe dematerialized over to a quaint front door, its arched top and little lantern something one would expect to find outfitting a dollhouse. His right-hand male was not persuaded by the charm, however. The overhead illumination was abruptly cut off, surely because Throe willed it so, and the soldier’s knock was hard and quick, a demand, not an inquiry.
Moments later, the portal opened. Firelight spilled out into the night, the golden yellow beams so intense they appeared at least nominally capable of melting the snow cover—and right in the middle of that lovely illumination, the figure of a female cut a dark, curvy silhouette.
She was naked. And the scent that drifted over on the icy breeze indicated that she was very ready.
Zypher growled softly.
“Keep your wits about you,” Xcor commanded. “Lest your hunger be used as a weapon against us.”
Throe spoke to her and then reached into his inner pocket to take out the cash. The female accepted what was given and then stretched one arm up high upon the jamb, angling her body so that one luscious breast was bathed in that soft light.
Throe glanced over his shoulder and nodded.
The others didn’t wait for further invitation. Xcor’s fighters converged upon the doorway, their male bodies so large, and in such number, that the female was instantly rendered invisible.
With a curse, he closed in on foot as well.
Zypher naturally went in first, taking her lips and cupping her breasts, but he wasn’t alone. The three cousins fought for position, one going behind and arching his hips, as if he were rubbing his cock against her ass, the other two reaching for her nipples and her sex, their hands worming in as she was swarmed.
Throe spoke above the rising moans. “I shall stay outside on guard.”
>
Xcor opened his mouth to command otherwise, and then realized it would make him look like he was avoiding the scene, and that was hardly a masculine thing to do.
“Aye, you do that,” he muttered. “I shall guard the interior.”
His males picked up the female, their dagger hands finding hold on her arms, her thighs, her waist, and en masse they carried her backward into the cozy confines. Xcor was the one who shut the door and made sure there was no locking device to pen them in. He was also the one to scope out the inside of the cottage. As his bastards carried their meal toward the fire, where a large fur rug had been laid flat upon the floor, he leaned into the closest window, lifted the drapery, and checked the panes of glass. Old and leaded, with wooden struts, not steel.
Not secure. Good.
“Someone get inside of me,” the female moaned in a deep voice.
Xcor didn’t bother to ascertain whether she was accommodated or not—although her rippling groan suggested she was. Instead, he looked around for any other doors or places from which an ambush could be staged. There appeared to be none. The cottage didn’t have a second floor, the skeleton of its roof arching up above his head, and there was only a shallow bathroom, the door of which was open, a light left on revealing a claw-footed tub and an old-fashioned sink. The open kitchen was but a stretch of countertop and a few modest appliances.
Xcor glanced over at the action. The female was lying on her back, her arms T’d out from her torso, her neck exposed, her legs spread wide. Zypher had mounted her and was rhythmically thrusting into her, her head moving back and forth on the white fur as she absorbed the pounding. Two of the cousins had latched onto her wrists, and the other had taken out his cock and was fucking her mouth with it. Indeed, there was little of her that was not covered with male vampire, and her ecstasy at being used was obvious not only to the eye, but to the ear: Around the erection that was going in and out of her plump lips, her heavy breathing and erotic moans escaped into the balmy, sex-scented air.
Xcor walked over to the kitchen sink. There was nothing in the deep belly of it, no lingering remnants of a meal, no half-filled, abandoned glasses. There were dishes in the cupboards, however, and when he opened the European-size refrigerator, bottles of white wine were lined up horizontally on the shelves.
A male curse brought his eyes back to the fun and games. Zypher was just orgasming, his body bowing forward while his head kicked back—and in the midst of his release, one of the cousins was shoving him out of the way, taking his place, lifting the hips of the female and digging his arousal into her wet, pink sex. At least Zypher seemed entirely content to trade places; he beared his fangs, ducked his head under the now-heaving chest of his comrade, and nipped the breast of the female so he could feed close to her nipple.
The one at her mouth orgasmed as well, and she swallowed his release, sucking the head of the fighter’s cock in desperate pulls, then letting go and licking at her slick mouth as if she were still hungry. Somebody else soon obliged, yet another arousal plunging in between her lips, the counterthrusting rhythm of what was going on at her head as well as between her legs bouncing her back and forth in a way she seemed to get off on.
Xcor went over and double-checked the bathroom, but his first assessment had been correct: There was nowhere to hide in its tight confines.
Having secured the interior, he had naught to do but lean back against the corner that offered the greatest visual access and witness the feeding. As things intensified, his fighters lost what semblance of civility they had, taking swipes at one another as lions would over a fresh kill, their fangs flashing, their eyes wild with aggression as they jockeyed for access. They did not completely lose their heads, however. And they took care of the female.
Soon enough, someone scored his vein and put it to her lips.
Xcor dropped his eyes to his boots and allowed his peripheral vision to monitor the environs.
There was a time when he would have become aroused at the sight—not because he was particularly interested in the sex, but more in the same manner that when he saw food, his stomach would grumble. And accordingly, in the past, when he had had the need to take a female, he had done just that. Usually in the dark, of course, so the dear girl wouldn’t be offended or afeared.
He could well imagine the strained expressions males sported when they were in their erotic throes did little to improve his looks.
Now, though? He felt curiously unplugged from it all, as if he were watching a team of males move some heavy furniture or perhaps rake a lawn.
It was his Chosen, of course.
Having had his lips against her pure skin, having looked into her luminous green eyes, having smelled her delicate scent, he was utterly uninterested in the well-used charms of that female in front of the fire.
Oh, his Chosen…he had never known such grace existed, and moreover, he could not have e’er surmised that he would be touched so completely by that which was antithetical to him. She was his opposite, kind and giving when he was brutal and unforgiving, beautiful to his ugliness, ethereal to his filth.
And she had marked him. Sure as if she had struck him and left a scar deep within his flesh, he was wounded and weakened by her.
There was naught to be done.
Lo, even the memory of the moments he had shared with her, when she had been fully clothed, and he had been so gravely injured, were enough to stir him at his hips, his sorry sex stiffening for no good reason a’tall: Even if they had not been on different sides of the war for the throne, she would never have let him come to her as a male does when he is enthralled with a female of worth. That breezy autumn night when they had met under that tree, she had been performing a valid service in her own mind. It had naught to do with him in particular.
But oh, he wanted her nonetheless….
Abruptly, the female before the fire arched under the shifting, orgasming weights atop her, and he refocused on her. As if she sensed his sexual arousal, her blissed-out, fuzzy stare drifted over in his direction, and brief surprise flickered across her face—or what little he could see of it around the thick forearm offering her nourishment.
Shock widened her eyes. She evidently had failed to notice his presence—but now that she had, fear, not passion, clearly flared within her.
Unwilling to disrupt the action, he shook his head and flashed her his palm in a stop motion to reassure her that she was not going to have to bear his bite—or worse, his sex.
The messaging apparently worked, because the dread left her expression, and as one of his soldiers presented his cock for attention, she reached out and began stroking it over her head.
Xcor smiled to himself in a nasty way. This whore wouldn’t have him, and yet his body, in all its biological stupidity, insisted on responding to that Chosen as if the sacred female would e’er look twice at him.
So silly.
Checking his watch, he was surprised to find that the feeding had been going on for an hour already. So be it. Provided his males complied with his two basic rules, he was content to let this continue: They had to remain substantially clothed, and their weapons had to be holstered with the safeties off.
That way, if the tenor changed, they could defend themselves quickly.
He was more than willing to give them the time.
After this interlude? The lot of them were going to be at their full strength—and with the way things were going with the Brotherhood…they were going to need to be.
EIGHTEEN
“No. Fucking no way.”
Qhuinn had to agree with Z’s read on Rhage’s bright idea.
The bunch of them had struggled through the woods, with Rhage bearing most of Z’s weight while everyone else circled the pair, ready to pick off anything or anyone who threatened from the fringes. They were now back at the airplane hangar, and Hollywood’s solution to their mobility problem seemed like a complication with mortal implications, not anything that was actually going to help.
; “How hard can it be to fly a plane?” As everyone, including Z, just looked at him, Rhage shrugged. “What. Humans do it all the time.”
Z rubbed his chest and slowly sank to the ground. After gathering his short breath, he shook his head. “First of all, you don’t know if…the damn thing…can even get airborne. It probably has no gas…and you’ve never flown before.”
“You wanna tell me what our other option is? We’re still miles from any plausible pickup location, you’re not improving, and we could get ambushed. Let me at least get in there and see if I can get the engine to turn over.”
“This is a bad call.”
In the quiet that followed, Qhuinn did the math himself, and glanced over at the hangar. After a moment, he said, “I’ll cover you. Let’s do this.”
Bottom line, Rhage was right. This foot-race of an evac was taking too long, and that lesser had disappeared before they’d stabbed him, not the other way around.
Had the Omega given his boys some special powers?
Whatever—a smart fighter never underestimated the enemy—especially when one of his own was down. They needed to get Z to safety, and if that meant an airlift, so the fuck be it.
He and Rhage filed into the hangar and flicked on their flashlights. The airplane was right where they’d left it in the back corner, looking like it was the ugly stepchild of some much prettier mode of transportation that had long since fled the scene. Closing in, Qhuinn saw that the propeller appeared to be sound, and, although the wings were dusty, he could hang his weight off of them.
The fact that the door hatch squeaked like a bitch when Rhage opened the way in was less than good news.
“Whew,” Rhage muttered as he recoiled. “Smells like something died in there.”
Man, must have been one hell of a stinky if the Brother could differentiate it from the rest of the smell inside the hangar.
Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.
Before Qhuinn could offer a second read on the stench, Rhage turned himself into a pretzel and squeezed through the oval hole. “Holy shit—keys. There are keys—can you believe it?”
