by Rucker, Shay
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Loose Id Titles by Shay Rucker
Shay Rucker
Mama’s Brood:
ON THE EDGE OF LOVE
Shay Rucker
www.loose-id.com
Mama’s Brood: On the Edge of Love
Copyright © January 2015 by Shay Rucker
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
eISBN 9781623006013
Editor: Larke Butler
Cover Artist: Victoria Miller
Published in the United States of America
Loose Id LLC
PO Box 170549
San Francisco CA 94117-0549
www.loose-id.com
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
* * * *
DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.
Dedication
To Ma and Da for all the support and encouragement over the decades. Hopefully I’ve created a story both of you can enjoy.
Acknowledgment
A special thanks to Lady D, Barbara Staten, and Marsha McNairy for being the first to read Zeus and Sabrina’s story and provide invaluable feedback. To all my soul-sista friends, who have shared joys, losses, adventures, and successes, I love you guys! To my very large, intelligent, and yes, certifiably crazy family, I’m blessed to call you kin.
Robert and the staff at Woody’s Café, thank you for allowing me to sit for hours as I brought this creation into being.
To my editors, Larke Butler and Kathleen Calhoun, you’re amazing. Thank you for doing what you do so well.
Chapter One
He stood over her unconscious body with the soulless blade they’d given him fisted in his hand. The blade twitched rhythmically against his thigh as he scanned the empty building; then he reluctantly looked back at her. They’d left him here with her and the weapon, and he couldn’t understand why. He knew they didn’t trust him. They didn’t even want him carrying his own blades, said he was too prone to using them…and he was. Couldn’t help himself. Fighting his compulsion was like trying to fight gravity, and he didn’t know how to fight gravity. What he knew was the satisfaction that followed the hunt, the kill. Obviously the bruised and bleeding woman on the ground hadn’t learned the same skills.
Squatting down, Zeus moved the tip of the blade toward her throat and peeled away the pendant fused to her skin by dried blood. The pendant was an oval moonstone encircled by a twining of gold and another metal that looked to be titanium. It was secured against her neck by a thin red leather cord that resembled the slash from a wire garrote. He’d never used a garrote before, had only used his blades to cut from one ear to the other. Those cuts had left his large hands soaked in blood, had left the eyes of those he’d killed looking at him desperately, then accusingly, then lifelessly. He shrugged off the memories and refocused on the unconscious woman beside him. They shouldn’t have left her with him. The more he watched her, the more a strange, hot need, almost as strong as his need for his blades, compelled him to do things, but just with her.
He looked away and scanned the space again. The nearly vacant ground floor of the two-story warehouse was dark, but the full moon’s light filtered through the windows at the top of the building, allowing him to see without the assistance of night-vision goggles. The moon’s watchful light made the business of stealth and death more visible, but luckily stealth and death weren’t about business for him. He smiled. They were a lifestyle. He tapped the blade against the woman’s collarbone.
It was a bad idea to leave her alone with him.
He flipped the blade, sliding its hilt along her throat to the scented space between her breasts. Bending closer, he inhaled deeply. She smelled earth green and spicy, like cedar. Unusual smell for a woman from the city. She had nice breasts too. Large and round, they were just the right size to fit comfortably in his hands. He peeled back the bloodstained black tank top she wore to see the shiny gray bra that almost matched the color of his eyes. His dick got hard, reminding him that he hadn’t had a woman in damn near two weeks.
They never should have left her with him. His blood was running hot, and the compulsion urging the use of his blade, urging him to take her, was powerful…overwhelming. He was never good at fighting his compulsions. Now they were pressing in against him at the same time. Maybe, he thought. Just maybe the others would understand his need to penetrate something.
The blade danced in his hand. He twirled it, gripped it, tossed it up, and balanced it, hilt first, then blade tip on his palm.
In the moments of trying to distract himself, he took in the woman’s chocolate-brown skin. Moonlight got to touch it, didn’t seem reasonable that he shouldn’t. Her hair was a wild mane of shoulder-length twists or coils or whatever the hell they were called. She’d colored it, some strands red, some brown, some her natural black. He liked the colors against her skin. I am going to penetrate her in so many ways. Her body would feel good, strong but soft, yielding and resisting. Perfect for penetration.
He stilled, taking in the woman’s full lips. The bottom one was split, the blood there crusting. Her eyes, though closed, were long lashed and tilted up at the ends. The right one was already bruised. It would likely swell shut.
The compulsion was getting unbearable. He could barely breathe from it pressing on him so hard. When he felt the breeze at his back, smelled the dust from the warehouse floor kick up, he knew he’d gotten distracted, let them get too close. He struck at them fast and hard. Warm wetness refreshed his skin. He stayed low, disemboweling one. In a flash from the other direction he cut through a thigh, releasing a gush of femoral blood. He heard shots, stood, and severed an artery in the arm. Ano
ther in the neck. He and the borrowed blade danced until the death song faded into still silence.
His clothes were saturated with blood, but his body hummed with pleasure. One compulsion had been satisfied. He glanced down at the woman’s body, knowing a fast, hard fuck to round out the evening would be the closest he ever got to pure perfection.
He tried to adjust himself in his jeans, but he was too hard, too big. He unbuttoned the pants and unzipped them just to relieve some of the constriction, and the woman opened her eyes.
Those beautiful brown eyes could melt a cold soul, maybe even mine, he thought as he smiled at her hungrily.
She screamed loud enough to bring down the bloody rafters.
He gritted his teeth in frustration as he rezipped and buttoned his pants. He hated when they screamed. Fucking women. Didn’t make sense they would leave her with him.
Footsteps rushed in from all directions. He knew from the red dancing lasers that he was in the sights of at least three other killers. No, six, all six were moving in on him at a quick clip. The blade stayed flaccid against the outside of his right thigh. He had to repeat the chant in his head so it would stay that way. The chant worked best after the compulsion had been satisfied. I’m not supposed to kill these six people, Zeus recited in his head. They were here with him and the still-screaming woman.
He rolled his eyes, hoping one of the six could shut her the fuck up; she was quickly losing her appeal. If she wasn’t careful, he’d lose interest in her and she’d miss the best fucking orgasms life had to offer.
“Hey, hey, hey.” One of the men knelt next to the woman, his voice pathetically soft. “It’s going to be okay, Sabrina. It’s going to be okay. We’re here to help.” The man…Coen, that was his name. Coen. He took the woman in his arms and cradled her, rocking. The woman quieted.
The blade twitched against Zeus’s thigh again. It didn’t like Coen touching the woman. Even if he had been successful at shutting her up, Blade didn’t like seeing the woman in another man’s arms. He hadn’t fucked her yet. Once he had, he didn’t care who touched her, but he hadn’t had her yet.
The blade danced through his fingers.
“Well, shit, son. Couldn’t you at least have left one man alive?” the man behind him asked.
Zeus turned. He counted four bloody bodies on the ground around him. He looked at the man who had spoken. Big Country. He had to remember their names. Couldn’t mess up and kill one by mistake.
He held up the blade in his right hand. Blood dripped to the ground from his elbow. “Blade’s not weighted right. Next time I’ll be using one of my own.”
“Hopefully there won’t be a next time with this crazy fuck,” muttered the black-eyed Bolivian, Juarez. Zeus disliked Juarez. He didn’t like the others, but he didn’t dislike them. He disliked Juarez. He launched the blade with measured force. It pierced Juarez’s gun where it held the ammunition clip. Fucker dropped the weapon like it was a snake. Zeus smiled.
“If it had been weighted right, the blade would have gone through your hand,” he said to Juarez. But that was a lie. Zeus would have put it through Juarez’s hand if he’d wanted to. He turned to the man named Vincent, the leader of the operation. Everybody called him Price. “Using defective blades makes for unsafe work conditions.”
The other man snorted. “You’re lucky we gave you a weapon at all.”
Zeus grunted at the idea that he’d been lucky. He’d learned from experience that if he used his bare hands, his enemies wouldn’t be any less dead. And people tended to trust one’s sanity even less when one killed with one’s bare hands. Cizan, the absentee group member, had shared that bit of wisdom with him. Using your hands meant you had to be more vicious to compensate for the lack of a blade, and then people started attaching labels: psychotic, unstable, sociopath. Whatever.
“Next time I use my own blades,” he told Price.
He looked down at the woman still in Coen’s arms. She was watching him silently, maybe a little wary. Damned contrary of her to be wary of him after he’d saved her life.
“What are you going to do with her?” he asked Price.
If Price didn’t have a plan, Zeus was going to keep her for a little while. Indulge.
The woman flicked her gaze to Price before settling it back on Zeus. He tilted his head as they took each other’s measure. His dick thickened again, reminding him its need hadn’t been satisfied yet.
“Who are you? Not cops,” the woman said.
He liked her voice. It was low, husky. Didn’t reflect the fear he’d briefly seen in her gaze. He imagined that voice moaning, crying out as he buried himself deep inside her. It was getting damned hard to repress his need. A growl rose in his throat as he stepped toward her. The woman’s eyes widened, and she pressed back into Coen. The sound he made shifted from arousal to warning.
“Price, handle him, or I’m gonna put one between his eyes,” Coen said, finger on the trigger of his gun, gaze never straying from Zeus. Smart man.
“Everyone relax,” Price ordered. “Kragen’s men are dead, and we’ve got the woman. Let’s clear the building and regroup at Mama’s House. Zeus, you, Coen, and Bride will ride with me and Ms. Samora. Big Country, Lynx, Juarez, strip any info you can and follow us home.”
Big Country nodded.
“Ms. Samora, Sabrina, you okay to stand?” Price asked, extending his hand toward her. Zeus didn’t react when she reached out, trusting Price. “I know you’re scared, confused, but I promise we’re here to help you. This is asking a lot, I know, but can you look at the dead men who kidnapped you, tell us if you recognize any of them?”
“Can’t you just tell me what’s going on?” she asked. She was attempting to avoid looking at the men on the ground. “This shit is not real,” she whispered.
“They’re dead. That’s real. Touch ’em if you don’t believe it,” Zeus suggested. Hell, he could comfort too.
“Do you recognize any of them?” Price asked again.
“Keep him the hell away from me,” she said, looking at Zeus as if he were the one who had kidnapped and beaten her. Zeus smiled, and she stepped closer to Price. He would have told her that Price couldn’t keep her from him, but everything he did and said seemed to antagonize her. He’d let her believe Price could protect her, but he couldn’t wait to see her reaction when she discovered that nothing and no one could stop him if he decided to reach out and touch.
“These two broke into my apartment,” she said, indicating the gut-wound guy, then the slashed-throat guy. “Never seen him,” she said pointing to the femoral-artery guy. “And…Jesus Christ.” Her hand rose to cover her mouth. “Jesus Christ, that’s Barry, he works—”
“Worked,” Zeus corrected.
“Front desk security at my office building.”
“Big Country, scrub it down. Come on, Sabrina. We’re going to get you to a safe place and talk about what’s going on.”
“Jesus Christ,” she mumbled again as Coen led her out of the warehouse.
Bride, who was more resistant to conversing than Zeus, shouldered her semiautomatic and trailed Coen and the woman, Price taking point.
Zeus took one last look at his work. Big Country walked over, stopping at his side and sharing in the moment. Big Country. Brown-haired, green-eyed Louisiana guy was as tall as Zeus but wider, solid, like he’d been fighting gators since he was old enough to walk.
“Why leave her with me?” he asked.
“Juarez said you’d kill her before they did. Coen said you’d keep her safe. Price needed to know you were stable enough to work with the Brood.”
“I’m not.”
“I know.”
“Puto bastard,” Juarez muttered as he went to set explosives.
“You guys got history?” Big Country asked as they watched Juarez walk away.
“No. But I have a feeling his future will be painted in blood.”
“I’ll make sure Price lets you have your weapons in the future.”
&nbs
p; Zeus grunted and walked away. He had blades hidden all over his body; he didn’t need Big Hick to do shit on his behalf.
Outside the warehouse he took a deep breath. The air was cool, crisp, slightly weighted with moisture. He caught Sabrina’s scent, his eyes lighting on the custom-made black SUV. She was inside, hidden behind the darkly tinted windows that reflected moonlight and wispy clouds. Even though he couldn’t see her, he knew she was watching him. His mouth hitched up slightly on one side as he walked to the vehicle, imagining he held her gaze. Opening the back door, he climbed in and slipped in the third row of seats, directly behind her. Bride sat in the passenger seat in front of her and Price sat opposite Bride, in the driver’s seat. Coen sat beside Sabrina in the second row, and Zeus sat at their backs. Foolish to leave themselves so vulnerable.
The woman must have felt the same way, because she kept glancing nervously over her shoulder. He didn’t move, simply sat there and stared at her. He closed his eyes when the SUV rolled forward and inhaled her scent, letting it fill him. Soon he would wear her essence as if it was his own. He would get so close to her that it would bind to him more completely than the blood drying against his skin. The compulsion to have her would drive him until he fulfilled its need. There was no resisting the compulsions.
He breathed in deep again, fingers coaxing his blade to dance in the darkness of the SUV’s interior. Images of the brown-skinned woman’s breasts merged against images of his most beloved weapon. Theirs would be a powerful union.
THE OLD WAREHOUSE exploded when they were about four hundred meters away. Sabrina jumped, her heartbeat accelerating when she looked back at the destruction. The bloody man behind her was superimposed upon the reddish-orange flames of the burning building. He appeared demonic as he sat there watching her with those metallic-gray eyes. The intensity of them made her skin crawl. She didn’t like being the focus of his attention, yet from the moment she’d fought herself free from unconsciousness, she’d known she had it.
