B00T3PMJTS EBOK

by Tracy Tappan

  Videön dumped the gym bag at Nỵko’s feet again and checked his chains. The links were inch-thick, probably the type of chain used to moor large boats. Obviously these guys knew what it took to hold a Vârcolac.

  “Fancy that,” Videön drawled. “The big’un’s still secure in his swaddlin’.” He glanced over his shoulder at Nỵko’s face-puncher. “Told ye, Kevin. I can always recognize a bloke who’s as off his tree as the rest o’ us.”

  “All right.” Kevin nodded at Shọn, apparently approving of him being off his tree.

  “Anyroad, back to business.” Videön unzipped the gym bag and pulled out a pair of pliers. “I’ll give ye one chance, half-Rău, to tell me where the secret entrances o’ yer lair are. Fess up, and I’ll leave ye be and get back to my evenin’. Keep yer gob shut, and”—he brandished the pliers at Nỵko—“I’ll have a go at yer happy sack.”

  Nỵko gave the tool a dull look. The grade of the metal was cheap. He had much better tools at home.

  “Naught? Brilliant. Get behind the tonk, Kevin,” Videön ordered. “All o’ ye are about to see what kind o’ griff a bloke will spill when his ballocks are bein’ torn from his body.”

  Kevin moved behind Nỵko, two others planted themselves to either side of his chair, and the last of the four stayed by the door.

  Shọn lounged at his radiator, his expression conveying nothing of what he thought of his big brother about to be castrated.

  Nỵko met Videön’s brutal black eyes with an empty look of his own. These next few minutes were going to go very poorly, and he was beyond caring.

  Videön reached between the chains at Nỵko’s waist, fumbling for his belt.

  Nỵko hunched his shoulders and curled his hands into fists on the armrests of his chair. He was done with all of this. Done with threats of torture, done with pain, done with this night’s confessions. Done with disillusionment. Done. A growl rolled like thunder out of his chest.

  Shọn came to attention off the radiator

  Smiling sadistically, Videön snapped the pliers’ jaws, tick, tick, as he yanked open Nỵko’s belt.

  A red haze unfurled over Nỵko’s vision and through a crackling in his ears he heard his growl warp into a snarl, low and bestial, a sound borne from the depths of the earth.

  Shọn shouted. “You guys need…”—crackle—“…the fuck out. Now!”

  Iron surged into Nỵko’s muscles, weighting them with power. Control slipped like smoke through his brain. Want. Fight. Hurt. He inflated his chest and the iron links exploded off his body, flinging in all directions.

  A snaking coil of fast-moving chain headed for the ex-con on the right. The man ducked so low he fell down to one knee.

  Nỵko shot out of his chair, kicking out. His booted foot rammed Videön’s stomach, propelling the half-Rău across the room. Videön’s body slammed into the wall. A kerosene lamp rocked on its base.

  Nỵko spun left, grabbing that ex-con by the hair at his temples and yanking his head down to meet Nỵko’s upward pistoning knee. Ex-con’s legs buckled. He sprawled on his back. Nose smashed. Out.

  The ex-con at the door rushed him.

  Nỵko bunched his fist and felled the man with a single bone-breaking blow to the jaw. Feet went up as body thumped down. Teeth scattered onto floor.

  Ex-con on the right pushed up from his kneel and charged.

  Kick to the side of the knee went crunch. Lots of hollering. Screams faded as body tumbled through the charred hole.

  Kevin attacked from behind, jumping on Nỵko’s back. Whirling, Nỵko crashed back against the boarded window, broke through, and scraped the body off. It fell to the street below.

  Videön roared off the wall, his eyes glinting Rău red.

  Yes. More. Nỵko’s hand locked shut around the half-Rău’s throat. He re-pinioned him to the wall, compressing windpipe.

  Videön clamped his fingers around Nỵko’s wrist and pulled. Strong. Very, very strong.

  Hissing through bared fangs, Nỵko tugged the knife off Videön’s belt and punched the blade into Videön’s left eye. Eyeball popped like juicy grape. Knife punctured back of skull. White acid blood fountained, stinging Nỵko’s right cheek.

  He stepped back, grunting and snorting, then glared around the room through the sweat in his reddened vision. Three men visible. Videön sagged at the wall on his eye socket spike, two other bodies lay crumpled on the floor. Nobody else standing. Shọn gone.

  Nỵko turned and leapt through the now-open window. Three stories down. Easy drop. He landed next to Kevin. The guy stirred, even though there was a large stain of blood beneath his head.

  Nỵko took off at a run.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Ţărână: same night

  Faith lifted her fist to Amsterdam and knocked on the mural of pink and yellow tulips, flexing her toes against the inside of her shoes while she waited. The doctors had been utterly negligent to have released Nỵko already. He was…God, he was probably unconscious on the bathroom floor. That’s it. She was barging in and checking on—

  The door opened and Nỵko appeared.

  “There you are,” she gasped out. “Are you all right?”

  He stared at her. His right cheek was speckled with about half a dozen small, spotted scars, like albino freckles, and a thick white bandage wrapped the upper portion of his right arm. His face was pale and blank as marble. It was beyond crazy that Nỵko was back in his room after being shot several hours ago. Thomal was still in the hospital, wasn’t he? Although he’d been shot on the side of his abdomen, which was a more serious injury, but still…Nỵko was clearly in pain.

  She set her hands on her hips. “Hey, didn’t I tell you to be careful?”

  He just kept staring at her, his eyes as expressionless as his face.

  Oh, this was bad. “I’m taking you back to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Dr. Jess took the bullet out of my arm and sewed me up.” He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be fine after that?”

  Because any normal person wouldn’t be. But Nỵko wasn’t normal, was he? He was a Vârcolac, and, honestly, she didn’t fully understand that breed’s healing capabilities yet. “At the very least this calls for one of my famous sundaes.”

  “Your what?”

  She smiled brightly at him. “I make the best hot fudge sundae in the world.” Since she only allowed herself one per month, it had to be great.

  “I don’t—”

  “Listen,” she plowed over him. “I know you’re not feeling well, Nỵko, despite your efforts to pretend you’re fine. So I’ll make you a sundae and bring it here and we can watch a movie together or something.” She widened her smile. “We never had dessert after our lunch date, remember?”

  Nỵko muttered something under his breath, then stepped out into the hallway.

  She frowned as he pulled his door almost closed behind him. That certainly wasn’t very…welcoming.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  She searched his face. “Nỵko, if you’re in pain, you should go back to the hospital.”

  “I’m not in pain.”

  “That’s a lie. I can see it in your eyes.” Beneath a thick layer of distance.

  He turned his head aside, the bones of his jaw set rigidly. “I’d like you to go.”

  “I…” Then she sighed. Why did men hate for women to see them when they were hurt? “Okay. I’ll come back tomorrow, and—”

  “No,” he cut her off. “I mean for good.” His throat moved. “Go for good.”

  Her lips parted and all of the blood washed out of her head. “What’s going on?”

  If possible, his expression flattened out even more.

  “Would you please tell me?” she pressed in a hoarse tone.

  He muttered again, then said in a tight voice, “Do you remember the story I told you about my mom stealing maps to get us three Brun boys out of Oţărât?”r />
  “Yes.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell you why she took such a risk to do that.” His looked at her with those weird blank eyes of his. “It was because of me. I was twenty years old at the time, which meant the next year I’d be maturing into my blood-need. Mom knew I’d be in serious trouble if I was in Oţărât when I had to start feeding. There weren’t any donors there, and unmarked females were obtained only through near-death fighting. She had to get me out to save me.”

  Nỵko paced a few strides away from her and stared down the hallway, his focus faraway. “We Vârcolac have only been living in these caves for about a hundred years, did you know that? Not long at all. But when we first came, the Om Rău had already been here for several centuries, and they were less than thrilled by our intrusion, even though there was plenty of room for everyone. They tried to drive us out. A lot of battling went on over the years, and in the chaos of one of those fights, my mother got dragged into Oţărât.”

  Faith studied the lines of tension in Nỵko’s back, a sinking feeling growing inside her stomach.

  “Lørke, my father, had no reason to keep her. Om Rău and Vârcolac generally can’t interbreed. But he wanted to use Urzella as his toy, and, uh…” Nỵko flinched. “To make the things Lørke wanted to do to my mom possible without her enduring excruciating pain, she had to bite and bond with him.” Lines grew at the sides of his eyes. “By escaping into Ţărână, she consigned herself to death by removing herself from her blood source. Going back wasn’t an option. She said she’d rather die than live under Lørke in Oţărât, a sentiment I could totally understand, but still…” A muscle in his face twitched. “Watching her waste away into a blood-coma was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Worse knowing it was for me she’d sacrificed her life.”

  Faith swallowed. A sick knot pushed into the center of her chest. She knew the visceral agony of losing a parent, how it felt like a soul could scream forever and it would still never be long enough to make the pain go away. But sitting bedside as a parent slowly died had to be debilitating on a level she couldn’t fully understand.

  “My mom died because of me.” Nỵko swung around, his eyes coming alive now, both haunted and fierce. “And now I’ve lost my little brother, Shọn, and again it’s. All.”—he pounded his thick chest to emphasize each word—“My. Fault. I look around me, Faith, and I see my other brother, Jaċken, half-crazed with worry over Tonĩ. Will Raymond get hold of her and hurt her? Will everything be okay when it’s time for the baby to come? Dev almost turned himself inside out when Raymond kidnapped Marissa, and two months ago, Arc lost his noodle when his wife went into labor while the whole community was shut down. I can’t do it, Faith. I don’t want a family anymore, not a wife or kids or any of it to worry over. I can’t deal with knowing that, when it gets right down to it, there’s not a single thing I could do to save them if they needed saving. Just the opposite, I seem to be the reason people get hurt. Bad things happen to good people, Faith, you said so yourself. It happens all the freaking time, but I’m sick and tired of being the one caught up in the middle of all that, feeling nothing but helpless.”

  Faith lost her breath as her heart reached out to this man. She’d never thought to see someone of his size and strength laid so low by pain and vulnerability and self-loathing. It nearly tore her in half. “I wanted to give up, too, when my parents died. I still want to curl into a ball because of my injured knee, but I don’t. And you can’t give up, either.”

  Shaking his head, Nỵko walked back over to his bedroom. “I’m out of the hero business, Faith. Everyone’s going to have to save themselves from here on out.” He pushed his bedroom door open. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see you anymore.”

  She grabbed his arm to stop him, tears stinging her nose. He was setting her aside, and…it shouldn’t feel so awful and desperate—she barely knew this man—but it did. How in the world had she grown so attached to Nỵko in only one date? Since he loved watching you dance. Since he understood what it’s like to lose a childhood to responsibility and hardship. Was her heart already heading into this?

  She stared at his face. He looked handsome to her now: his messy hair, boyish, the solid block of his face, masculine, his off-center nose, charming, his black eyes, deep and mysterious. Even his lethal bulk no longer disconcerted her. A woman could depend on shoulders as broad as Nỵko’s, lean on them if she had to and know they’d hold up under just about any burden. Which all meant, yes. Her heart was heading into this.

  “You’re hurt right now,” she said in a shaky voice. “And if anyone can understand that pain, I can. So when you’re feeling better, I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll pick up where we left off today. Like you said we would.”

  Something moved across Nỵko’s expression. She could’ve sworn he’d momentarily wavered, but the emotion was gone too quickly for her to be sure. “There are tons of single men in this town: Jeddin, Breen, and Kasson from the Warrior Class are all great. Oh, wait, Kasson’s dating Rachel. But there’s Mekhel over in the lab, and Balc, who’s an electrician and a cool guy.” His tone was strangely blasé, too offhand for there not to be agony behind the names of all these future husband possibilities. “I’ll talk to them, let them know I’ve no longer got a claim on you.”

  “No.” She let go of his arm and stepped back, dragging her knuckles across her nose. “I don’t want anyone else.”

  He didn’t say more. Just bowed his head and closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Topside: Nunu’s Bar, downtown San Diego, two days later, December 24th

  Faith instinctively clutched her purse close to her chest as their group approached the grubby beige door of Nunu’s. She couldn’t believe Tonĩ had chosen to meet Aunt Idyll at a dive bar, although considering the topic of conversation was going to be the Symbol Killer, it probably did make sense to go someplace obscure and private. Plus, there probably weren’t many establishments open on Christmas Eve night.

  Three of the Special Ops Team members stayed outside to surround the building: Thomal, Gábor, and a black-haired Vârcolac named Vinz, whom she remembered from that life-changing night in Ţărână’s garage. He had long sideburns and was Nỵko’s substitute.

  Why had Nỵko been left behind? Faith had gnawed on her fingernails for the entire twenty-minute elevator ride to the surface as she’d considered options. Because his arm hurt? His arm hadn’t hurt two days ago when he’d been shot, so that was doubtful. Plus Thomal was here, and he’d suffered a worse injury. Was the team worried that Nỵko would stick out like a sore thumb at a topside bar? He would, but he could’ve manned the perimeter like the others. Or had Nỵko purposely opted out of this mission because he knew the Teague twins would attend a meeting with their aunt and he was, once again, avoiding Faith. She clutched her purse harder. That was the most likely and thus the most painful.

  Warriors Dev and Jaċken accompanied Tonĩ, Kacie, and Faith inside. The dimly lit bar had cushioned burgundy-colored booths lining the walls and lamps of yellow-and-burgundy stained glass hanging from the ceiling over each. Faith relaxed a bit now that they were inside. With its offbeat color scheme and wood-burning stove, Nunu’s wasn’t without a certain quirky charm. Kind of a circa-1940s Sam Spade meeting place…although back then there wouldn’t have been all the TVs playing sports.

  As they passed the large polished wood, U-shaped bar to head to the back booth where Aunt Idyll already waited, the bartender tossed them a friendly smile.

  “My girls!” Idyll jumped up, stepping over her small suitcase to open her arms to Faith and Kacie.

  They rushed into their aunt’s hug.

  Open a Webster’s Dictionary and look up the definition for a Pagan priestess or shaman—or shamanka, as a female priestess would be called—and there’d be a picture of Idyll O’Shaughnessy. She fit nearly every stereotype. This evening’s outfit consisted of long ropes of beaded necklaces, bangles stacked on each wrist, hoop earrings, open-toed s
andals, and a floor-length beatnik-style dress made out of the kind of rough-woven, patchwork fabric one might find on a carpet bag. The dress was sleeveless, exposing Idyll’s slender arms; the forty-seven-year-old woman still had a svelte body concealed beneath the roomy folds of her clothing. One non-stereotypical part of Idyll was her hairstyle. It was cut short, layered, and colored a chestnut brown with blonde, streaking highlights—very modern and fashionable.

  Tears pooled in Faith’s eyes as the comforting fragrance of incense enveloped her, and she squeezed Idyll harder. She never thought she’d miss her crazy aunt so much, but when life went topsy-turvy, even a grown woman needed her mother, surrogate or not.

  Idyll leaned back and beamed at them. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you two. I was overjoyed when you said you were coming west for Christmas, although”—she glanced around Nunu’s—“I figured we’d be eating cooked goose at home by now.”

  Another non-stereotypical thing about Idyll; she wasn’t a vegetarian.

  “Sorry, Auntie,” Kacie said. “Our life has taken a bit of an unexpected detour.”

  “Well, it’s served you beautifully, Kacie. Such roses in your cheeks!” Idyll gushed. “I’ve never seen you look better.”

  Kacie glanced at the group. “Aunt Idyll could always tell us apart.”

  “Yes, well, this one”—Idyll cupped Faith’s cheeks between her soft palms—“always had the serious eyes.” She gave Faith a tender smile. “Not much has changed, I see.”

  Faith ducked her head, gently extricating herself from her aunt’s hold. There hadn’t exactly been much to be happy about for a while. Over the past two days especially, faced with Nỵko’s unwavering rejection, her mood had plummeted to something more bleak and downcast than even when she’d first arrived at Ţărână. Which was saying something.