The Darkling Hunters_Fox Company Alpha

by Rhiannon Ayers

  “Who?” Sam asked. “And why are they important?”

  “Levi has a lot of guys working for him. Six, in particular, hold the keys to gaining access to their boss. To get traction, a new recruit must be known—and trusted—by at least three of those top guys. Think of them as generals, or gatekeepers if the military analogy turns your stomach too much. Basically, you have to make friends with the boss’s friends before he’ll agree to meet you in person.”

  Dex frowned, thinking hard. “So, that darkling you told us about, the one you met in Missoula. I’m assuming he’s one of these…gatekeepers.”

  She nodded. “Yes. He was my first ‘in.’ The second was the man I met here in Boulder. Jasper Thomas.”

  “So, you’ve got two out of three,” Sam said slowly.

  Another nod. “And I’ve been working on the third for two months now.”

  “So why not choose a different guy?” Dex asked, perplexed. “You said there’s more than three.”

  “Because this guy, Marlon Davenport, is Levi’s right-hand-man.” She paused, meeting both their eyes. “If I can get in good with him, make him like me, his trust will guarantee me a first-person intro to Levi. Knowing all three of them gives me street-cred. Having Marlon in my pocket gives me a boost of credibility that will allow me direct access.”

  Dex said nothing, but his instincts were screaming something wasn’t right.

  Sam nodded slowly. “I’m guessing your recon mission was focused on finding where this Marlon guy likes to hang out.”

  “Yes, and no.” She scanned the map, running her fingertip over street labels, and settled on a nondescript intersection about ten blocks from their motel. “That darkling club I told you about? The one here in town? I didn’t lie about that, either. Marlon runs the club, and anyone who earns an invitation has the opportunity to meet with him personally. My contact—”

  “Who was?” Dex prompted.

  She smiled humorlessly. “The former hooker whom I saved from poor dead Vinny, believe it or not. I helped her get a new start after Vinny made it impossible for her to work for Madge. I set her up with an apartment, a waitressing job, and enough cash to start over. I went to see her this afternoon. Her place was around the corner from the motel. I’d asked her to keep a lookout for anything she could find on Davenport, specifically where his secret club might be located. Unfortunately, she had both good news and bad news for me.”

  “Unfortunate ‘good’ news?” Dex said, eyebrows lifting. “That’s a new one.”

  Sydney’s smile widened. “Appropriate, nonetheless. Good news is, she figured out how to get an invitation to Marlon’s club. Bad news is, there is no club.”

  “Okay, I’m lost,” Dex muttered.

  Sam snorted. “Unsurprising.”

  “Jackass.”

  “Fuck-wad.”

  “Nerd.”

  “Dork-face.”

  Sydney rolled her eyes. “Focus, gentlemen. Save the schoolyard insults for after nap time.” She stood back from the table, arms crossed beneath her breasts. “Turns out, Marlon’s club isn’t an actual place. He moves it to a new location every time he throws a party. Sometimes, he overtakes a local bar. Sometimes it’s a retail shop. I heard the last one was held in an abandoned Sears store that still had a bunch of merchandise on display. Specifically, women’s lingerie.”

  “Bunch of drunk idiots hitting on mannequins?” Dex said, grinning. “Oh, I wish I’d seen that.”

  “I’m sure it was amusing,” Syd said with a twinkle in her eye. But then her expression sobered. “But it doesn’t help us at the moment. No one knows where, or when, the next club event will be held. Not until they receive an invitation. And the only way to get an invite is to have one extended from Marlon himself.”

  “So how do we get this much-coveted invitation?” Sam asked.

  Sydney seemed to let the “we” slide for now, but Dex saw her jaw tighten. “Marlon likes to hang out at the local kink bar. I say ‘the’ because it’s the only one in town.” She tapped the map again. “Here. The Spiked Collar. Opens at 10:00PM. We have until then to figure out a plan.”

  “I’m assuming you’ve formulated one already,” Sam said sourly, not bothering to hide the dig.

  “Of sorts,” Sydney agreed, tipping her head in his direction. She took a deep breath. “There was a reason I was posing as a hooker. Marlon, it seems, has a penchant for them. Most of the time, he only invites his darkling friends to his little club events, along with a few local scumbags he finds interesting. But since they’re all male, he also needs to provide entertainment. Thus he is happy to invite hookers to his shindigs, especially if he wants to fuck them himself.”

  Dex’s heart rate sped up. “That’s your plan? Pose as a hooker and get him to invite you in? That’s insane.”

  “Not really,” Sam said with a grimace. When Dex rounded on him, the taller man just shrugged. “Police do it all the time, Dex. Officers pose as hookers and arrest johns who proposition them. Probably the most common sting operation in the book. Besides, if it’s the only way in…”

  “There’s a catch,” Sydney said before Dex could voice his outrage. She met his scowl with a carefully blank expression. “Marlon also knows about the police-sting playbook.” Sydney paused, a look of pure disgust twisting her features. “He knows what cops can—and can’t—do on an undercover mission.”

  Dex opened his mouth to demand an explanation, but Sam spoke up right then. “Undercover officers can’t accept money for actual sex,” he said in a dark, grim voice. “Which means he can test them to see if they’ll…comply.”

  Sydney nodded, very slowly. “Exactly. Marlon’s solution to that sticking point is to force all hookers to have sex at least once during the party. Preferably, within his line of sight. He gets his rocks off, and undercover cops get outed without him having to make a scene. Win-win, as far as he’s concerned.”

  Dex’s blood pressure spiked to dangerous levels as he realized the implications. If Sydney went in there, alone, posing as a hooker… “No,” he snarled, practically spitting venom, “absolutely not. You are not going in there just to get raped. No fucking way, Syd. No fucking way.”

  Syd rolled her eyes skyward. “Dex—”

  “No fucking way,” Sam echoed just as harshly. He moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dex. “We are not letting you do this, Sydney. I don’t care how important this guy is to your plan. If that’s the only way to get close to him, then getting close to him is out of the question. We will tie you up and put you in a coma if that’s what it takes to stop you from doing this. Don’t think we won’t.”

  Sydney said nothing, letting the silence grow heavy and daunting. After a long pause, she said quietly, “I wasn’t wild about the idea, either, guys. It may not seem like it to you, but I do have standards. Kindly give me that much credit.”

  Dex’s lips twitched as he held back several colorful expletives. Sam’s fists tightened at his sides. Neither man said a word.

  Sydney inclined her head in an ironic gesture of thanks. “Now, pay attention, please. I didn’t want the two of you involved in this. But now that you are, I think I’ve come up with a plan that will utilize all three of us. And, before you ask, no, it doesn’t involve me getting raped.”

  “Explain,” Sam barked, not budging an inch. Dex, for his part, still couldn’t get words past the murderous rage clogging his throat.

  Sydney pulled out a chair and sat down primly. She crossed her legs at the knee, folded her hands in her lap, and looked up at them like a queen assessing her soldiers before a battle. “Marlon’s primary function as Levi’s top general is to recruit new men for Levi’s supposed darkling army. Marlon usually travels the country, throwing his parties in various towns, looking for new recruits. He’s only here, now, because of Levi’s little get-together. He actively seeks out criminals who are already treading the path toward damnation, and he offers them a place in Levi’s crew.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Th
at’s where you two come in.”

  Sam’s shoulders relaxed, just a little, but his expression stayed hard. “So, we go undercover,” he said, obviously thinking out loud. “Pose as wannabe criminals looking to join the Big Man’s network. Right?”

  Sydney nodded. “And I go in with you, as your ‘date’ for the evening. With any luck, Marlon will be intrigued enough to invite us to his club, whenever and wherever that might be. We go in, case the place, and try to ingratiate ourselves to Marlon. If all goes well, he’ll also extend an invitation to join him at the Big Man’s con-fab five days from now.”

  “So…it’s a sting operation,” Dex rumbled, still not liking it but seeing the potential. “With you there as our date, instead of a free-range hooker, we might get away with ignoring the ‘sex on site’ rule.”

  The corners of Sydney’s lips twitched. “Oh, no. No way to avoid that. Marlon will test us. If we don’t consummate the act on site, he’ll kill us before we leave the premises. That is an absolute guarantee.”

  Fire ignited in Dex’s lower belly. He told himself to ignore it; the situation she described was not only terrible, but illegal, and a serious offense for any law-enforcement officer. Not to mention just plain wrong. To be forced to “perform” in a public place like that, to be forced to expose himself in such a vulnerable moment, would be degrading, humiliating, and wholly inappropriate.

  Didn’t seem to matter. It still turned him on.

  Sam cleared his throat—loudly. “But…we…we’re just, you know, playing the parts, right? I mean, how are we going to pretend like we’re…I mean, how are we going to get away with…putting on an act?”

  Sydney met his eyes. “Easy. We won’t be acting.”

  Both men went silent. Dex’s cock throbbed against his upper thigh, his shaft hard enough to pound nails. He risked a surreptitious glance toward Sam’s crotch—and saw the tell-tale bulge behind his partner’s zipper.

  My partner…

  Dex gulped hard, backing away from the table. The other two probably thought he was disgusted by the idea, that his reaction betrayed his revulsion at the very thought. But that wasn’t why he backed away so quickly.

  In that split second, before his brain caught up with his hormones, he’d almost reached out to stroke—

  He shuddered, too wound-up to even complete the thought.

  “What’s wrong, Dex?” Sydney said, voice soft.

  He forced his voice through the gravel in his throat. “There…there has to be another way.”

  Sam stood in the same place, head down, not looking at either of them. “Perhaps the two of you should go alone. Maybe just…leave me out of it.”

  The dejected, defeated tone of Sam’s voice flipped a switch in Dex’s brain. Rage exploded through him like a mortar shell. He rounded on Sam, fists clenched. “Will you stop fucking talking like that? For Christ’s sake, Sam, I never said anything about wanting you to leave!”

  “You didn’t have to,” Sam snarled, his own features twisting as he went from dejected to pissed off between one breath and the next. “I can read your mind, remember? Had to learn how to do that a long fucking time ago just to be able to keep your dumb ass out of trouble. I got the message, so you can stop beating me over the head with it. I get it, Dex, okay? Move on and let it go, or so help me God I’m going to beat your ass to death.”

  “Uh, I think I missed something…?” Syd said from the direction of the table.

  “No, you didn’t,” Sam said at the same time Dex muttered, “It was your fault, anyway.”

  “Excuse me?” Sydney cocked an eyebrow. “What the hell do I have to do with this?”

  Dex opened his mouth and shut it again.

  Sam snorted. “See? Told you. You didn’t miss anything. Case closed.”

  “Dex?” Syd asked pointedly. “What the hell is going on with you?”

  Oh, no. No. She was not going to get away with putting it all on him.

  “You ordered us to talk earlier,” Dex growled, eyes on Sam. He gestured with an out-flung hand. “And this is what I got—Sam spouting bullshit nonsense and putting words in my mouth without once making a goddamn bit of sense.”

  “Fine, you want to talk?” Sam cried. “Why don’t you start by telling the truth, Dex?”

  “The truth about what!” Dex shouted, wanting to tear his hair out.

  “About how you hated having my cock in your girlfriend!” Sam’s eyes were wild, almost inhuman. “For fuck’s sake, man, do you think I’m blind? You keep giving me that look, but you act like I don’t know what it means!”

  “What look? What are you talking about?” Honest confusion cooled some of Dex’s anger, but not much. “Seriously, man, what look?”

  “That one,” Sam grated. “The one you just gave me. Like you want to tear me apart, or, or, eat me alive, or some shit.”

  Dex froze. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He hadn’t realized his feelings were so obvious—or that Sam would so spectacularly misinterpret them. He stood there, classic “deer-in-the-headlights” stance, unable to think of a single thing to say.

  Sam’s shoulders heaved with every breath, his arms shaking with some pent-up emotion. He stared at Dex, the muscles in his jaw standing out as he ground his teeth, waiting for a response. When Dex said nothing, Sam seemed to deflate, all emotion draining out of him. His gaze dropped to the floor. “Like I said, man, I get it. Since you guys have a decent game plan, I guess I’ll just…leave you alone.”

  He turned, moving slowly, and headed for the door.

  “Dex,” Sydney said softly, getting his attention. An emotion he couldn’t even begin to name floated behind her eyes. “This might be a good time for a confession.”

  Confession? Was she insane? Sam was ready to rip his arms off; he would shoot Dex without a second thought if he found out what Dex had been thinking since his first night with Sydney. He couldn’t risk that. No way in hell. He might not know how to deal with his new-found interest in his best friend, but he sure as hell didn’t want to drive the other man away before he had a chance to sort it out.

  He just wasn’t ready to confront it. Not yet.

  Distraction, deflection, delay. The three most useful techniques for withstanding enemy interrogation. Although right now, Dex wasn’t trying to outlast an enemy—he was his own worst enemy.

  “I think you’re right, Syd,” Dex heard himself say, his voice far calmer and cooler than he had any right to expect. He pulled in a deep breath, then focused all his attention on Sam’s broad back. “Well, Sam? Don’t you have something you need to say to Sydney?”

  Just as Dex intended, the question was enough to startle Sam into turning around. “Me? To Sydney?”

  Dex took half a step closer, keeping eye contact. “We talked about it earlier. Before you lost your temper. You have something to say to her, Sam. Something you should have said a long time ago.”

  He saw the moment Sam connected the dots—his face went pale, his eyes widening. Sam darted a glance toward Syd. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No?” Sydney purred, getting both men’s attention. “Interesting. I was about to get onto Dex for changing the subject, but your reaction makes me think there’s more to this than meets the eye.” She rose from her chair, gliding halfway across the room like a panther in full stalk. “I think I need to hear this confession, Sam Spencer.”

  “Syd…don’t…”

  “Tell her, Sam,” Dex insisted. “I’d tell her for you, but this is something that’s gotta come from the source.”

  “You’re both crazy,” Sam said weakly. He backed away a step, but not like he wanted to get away. More like he was losing some kind of internal battle.

  “That topic is not under discussion at present,” Sydney said with a little chuckle. “We are discussing things we don’t know, not things that are patently true. Aren’t you the one who began this conversation with the phrase ‘no more secrets’?”

  Sam’s tongue flicked out, just the t
ip swiping his lower lip. He cast a desperate glace toward Dex, then focused on Sydney. “And you’re the one who made a deal with Dex…to keep your secrets a little longer.”

  She stepped closer to him, mere inches separating her body from his. Dex’s lower belly tingled at the sight, but he kept himself in check. This was between the two of them, now.

  “I did make that deal,” Sydney said, her voice now a soft, sensuous purr. “But I also gave Dex one of my secrets early. Would you like to hear it, Sam? Fair trade?”

  Nothing fair about the way she’s looking at him, Dex thought wistfully. If that look were directed at me, I’d be on my knees already.

  Sam swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked down into her eyes. “I…I…uh…”

  Sydney traced the tip of her index finger down the center of his chest. “Fair enough. I’ll start. You see, when Dex came to my door last night, I was a bit reluctant. Not because I didn’t want him—that ship sailed the moment I first saw you both standing there in nothing but your boxer shorts—but because I was afraid of what he might think of me. What he might think of my darkest, truest desire.”

  Sam let out a little whimper. Dex agreed whole-heartedly.

  Sydney looked down, her gaze following the line she was tracing on Sam’s heaving chest, while he kept his eyes on the top of her head. “But Dex didn’t react the way I feared. In fact, he was intrigued. Interested. Dare I say…enticed by the idea.” She paused, peeking up at him through her lashes. “Would you like to know what I confessed?”

  Oh, God…Syd was going to out him. Shit, shit, shit. Dex stood there, unable to react. It was like someone had poured plastic in his veins—stuck tight, unable to do a thing to stop whatever happened next.

  Sam seemed to be in the same state because his mouth popped open, but no words escaped. Sydney must have taken that for assent, because she turned her face up to him, stood on her tip-toes, and whispered, “I told Dex I held him at arm’s length for so long, not because I didn’t want him, but because what I really wanted…was both of you.”