by Laken Cane
“I think those boys can take care of themselves,” Jack said. “I’m going home.”
“Jack?”
He glanced at her. “I don’t think we have a choice, Rune. We need them.”
Raze finally walked over. “If they fuck up, I’ll kill them.” He didn’t lower his voice.
The twins stared at Shiv Crew with cool eyes. “If we fuck up, you deserve to try.”
Not exactly comforting words, but what did she expect? “Okay, boys. You’re in. I’ll take you back to the station, and tomorrow you can come in to fill out paperwork.” She pointed her chin at Z. “Z will be the one to show you the ropes, give you info you need, and take you to RISC for badges. Jack will take you to shop for weapons. Anything else you need, come to me.”
They looked surprisingly grateful. Levi even put his knuckles to his mouth, as though otherwise he might release a sob. It was weird.
Maybe they just needed to belong.
“Thank you,” they said, in unison.
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
Raze never said another word but stared after them with a frown. He wasn’t settled, but then, none of them were.
Only time would tell if taking on the twins was a good idea.
Chapter Four
During the next two weeks, the twins settled in as though they’d always been part of Rune’s crew. She could feel them begin to relax, and better yet, she began to relax.
With the twins, anyway. Jeremy was giving her trouble. He was stingy with any information he’d retrieved from the vampire, and his reticence was pissing her off.
She strode into his office, determined that this was the morning he was either going to be straight with her, or she was quitting. Only that was a lie she couldn’t entertain for more than a second. Shiv Crew was all she had.
“Am I part of this team or not?” She wanted to be calm, but they’d had that argument repeatedly, and she was getting sick of it. “What the hell is wrong with you, Jeremy? You don’t trust me? You don’t trust my men? What?”
He leaned back in his chair, his sigh adding to her anger. “Rune. Do we have to talk about this right now? I have a meeting in—”
“Does this meeting have anything to do with the vampire? With the girl? Where is she anyway?” She put her hands on his desk and leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. She was not letting him put her off again. “I want to see her.”
He stood, and when he came toward her, she straightened and held a hand up. Damn him. “Stop, Jeremy.”
But he came on, stepped into her space, and grabbed her upper arms. “Rune. It’s not up to me. I told you that.”
“You’ve told me a lot of shit. I want to know what you’re not telling me.”
His face darkened briefly. Whatever bad thought had crossed his mind was there and gone in a millisecond. Maybe she’d actually imagined it. “There are two things I can tell you.” He kept his fingers wrapped around her arms, but his grip eased to a less painful hold.
“What?”
“First, the girl you rescued didn’t make it.”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Fuck. Fuck.” God, she hated the monsters.
“Second thing. The director sent orders for some changes to SCRU. This has been in the works for a few months, from what I’ve been told.”
Jeremy was handsome. Terribly handsome with his shiny blond hair and his toned body. His blue eyes were serious and sensuous and probing, and he knew her better than anyone else on earth, other than Ellis. Which meant he knew some of her secrets. He had to know them, because he was the one she’d chosen to deal with them.
But right now, if he opened his mouth and said what she thought he was going to say, she was going to slug him.
She put her fingertips against his lips. “No.”
His lips moved against her fingers. “He’s had a man hired to oversee SCRU. You’re getting a new boss.”
She groaned. “Fuck you!”
His voice softened. “He understands how valuable Shiv Crew is, Rune. How valuable you are. Without you, even RISC would be useless. You bring in the fucking monsters.”
She jerked out of his grip. “And yet you keep everything important from me, and the director has decided to give my job to some loser who knows nothing about us. About Shiv Crew or the monsters.” She shook her head, fighting tearless sobs of rage and disappointment. “This can’t be happening.”
He said nothing.
“Who is it? Do we know the asshole?”
He cleared his throat, and when she looked up at him, he looked away. That was not a good sign. “It’s Percell. Mitch Percell.”
“You’re lying.”
But he wasn’t. Oh, the bastards. Percell was an idiot, a blowhard, a pompous ass, and he was getting her job? They’d butted heads more than once when they’d worked together on a couple of particularly disturbing cases. She was a cop, and he was an attorney who seemed determined to drive her nuts. The man simply would not listen. No one was right but him. He knew everything, and everyone else was simply wrong if they didn’t agree with him.
“I’m sorry, Rune. Listen, just try to get to know him. Work with him. It’ll be okay.”
She stared. “You fucking recommended him, didn’t you?”
He spread his hands. “He’ll do a good job.”
“What am I, then? What the fuck am I?”
“You knew when we took you from the PD you being behind a desk was only temporary.”
“I don’t care about a desk. I care that with someone else running the place it’s going to go to hell. I’m not going to take shit from him, Jeremy. You know there will be trouble.”
He just stared at her, his gaze shuttered. Didn’t matter. She knew what he was thinking. She had two choices. Take it or walk away.
“You’re part of Spiritgrove law enforcement, Rune. SCRU isn’t a separate entity that can keep doing such important work unmonitored.”
“RISC monitors the hell out of us, Jeremy. So does the state. Why the hell do we need that son of a bitch Purcell? He’s so full of himself it squeezes out his ears.”
“He’s here. You just have to deal with it.”
“He’s here fucking now?”
“Yes. He’s in that meeting I’m going to be late for.”
Everyone was in the know but her. “You people think I’m nothing but a blade, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry. For now, it’s what it is. Don’t fuck up and maybe…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, and she didn’t need him to. There was nothing she could do about it. Not yet. But someday, things were going to change. She had to hang on until then.
Finally she shrugged. “Fine. Let him deal with all the paperwork. I hate that shit anyway.” But the unfairness of it was nearly too much. Rage ran in silent rivulets through her body.
His relieved smile came through like the sun through clouds. “That’s right. And you’ll be freed up to do what you do best. Bring me the monsters, and…” He slid his fingers over her ribs, stopping just short of her breast. “Other, better things.”
She shoved him away hard, her hands clenching into fists.
He hit the wall, his eyes narrowing in a dark look she knew so very well.
He came at her fast and jerked her against his chest. His mouth was hot as he opened it over hers, but she kept her lips shut in angry defiance. She shuddered as a thrill of desire shot through her and wished like she’d wished a million times before that she was whole enough to get away from him.
But God, how she craved what he did for her.
He buried his hands in her too-long hair, holding her head still as his teeth mashed her tender lips, insistent and punishing.
He insinuated his knee between her legs and rammed it up hard against her sex, wringing a small moan of pain from her.
She opened her mouth to him at last but only to bite his lip. And the moment she tasted blood, she was his. She sucked the wetness away and welcomed his invading tongue, diggi
ng her fingernails into his back.
Jeremy Cross was the type of man more than happy to give her exactly what she needed.
Subconsciously, she’d known what he was when she’d chosen him to deal with her. With her hated, horrible monster.
After all, Jeremy hated the monsters—as much as he might try to pretend otherwise. Her monster recognized that hatred.
Someday he might go too far and kill her, but that knowledge wasn’t enough to fix her. To make her stop. Allowing herself to be hurt, to be punished, was the only way she could get through life. The only way she could deal with the pain and guilt of the past.
Did she need psychiatric help? Yeah. Would she take it? Not in a million years. A bunch of self-important assholes couldn’t fix her.
She whimpered beneath his bruising teeth, leaving the choices to him. He knew she was at work. If he marked her and her men saw, they’d tear him to pieces.
He tightened his fingers around the back of her neck, leaving bruises her hair would cover. He was good at knowing where to leave marks.
Whatever getting hurt did for her, hurting did the same for him.
She wasn’t sure what that made either one of them.
He cupped her breast and began squeezing—slowly, relentlessly, waiting for her sign that it hurt her.
Finally, when she was afraid he was going to crush it beneath his merciless grip, she screamed into his mouth. Panic and pain and release. Relief. That’s what he gave her.
He made her okay, at least for a little while, with who she was, what she was. And most important of all, with what she’d done.
He pushed her away from him. He was breathing hard, his face flushed, eyes hot.
“I’m late for my fucking meeting. Maybe I’ll visit you tonight.”
His words were more of a threat than a promise, and as she watched him walk out the door she wished for the millionth time that she could beat the hell out of him and walk away forever.
Jeremy Cross was a monster. Human, but a monster nonetheless.
But the things he did to her helped her. If not for him she’d go back to the dangerous encounters with strangers, and even in her darkest moments she knew that was fucked-up.
Jeremy understood her.
He did.
God knew she didn’t understand herself.
Fuck me. I’m pitiful. And he’s a psychopath.
Her cell rang, yanking her out of her thoughts. “Yeah?” Her hands shook as she held the phone to her ear, and she realized as she answered that she’d forgotten to look at the display.
“Rune.”
Raze. She took a deep breath and pushed Jeremy—as well as the worries about how fucked-up she was—to the back of her mind. Neither was going away completely, and there was always time for thinking about them both when she lay trying to sleep. “What’s up, Raze?”
“I broke into the twins’ apartment. You need to get over here.”
“What is it?”
But he’d clicked off. This was not going to be good. Dread made a fist in the pit of her stomach as she left Jeremy’s office. She was already becoming attached to those boys but had a feeling she shouldn’t have let her guard down quite so fast.
She walked quickly down the hall, eager to get out into fresh, cold air. The sun was hiding, so she didn’t bother with dark glasses. She and the sun weren’t exactly good friends.
She rounded a corner fast, and slammed into what felt like a brick wall. She bounced off it and landed on her ass, skidding back a good six feet before finally coming to a stop. Embarrassed and pissed off, she jumped to her feet.
“Matheson! Can’t you watch where you’re going?”
Strad Matheson was Jeremy’s lackey, although he and Jeremy both argued that point. All she knew was that he skulked around and did Jeremy’s bidding…if someone as big and freaky as Strad could actually be described as skulking.
On the outside he seemed calm, quiet. But when one looked a little deeper, Strad’s energy was almost visible and just waiting for an opportunity to explode upon the unlucky person standing close to him.
He wasn’t even human, not really—not in her eyes—yet had proven himself a faithful addition to law enforcement. Jeremy relied on him for everything. Jeremy also argued that Strad was indeed human—he just channeled the bad boys of his ancient ancestry when he got mad.
Strad was a berserker. When he was just lurking in dark alleys and the like, he could be as still as a vampire. But when he got angry…
She’d seen him in a battle only once, and he’d scared the bejesus right out of her. And she didn’t scare easily.
He’d seen that fear in her eyes, and that was just one more thing that made her hate him. We hate what we fear.
He didn’t like her either. Sometimes she got the feeling his dislike stemmed from his suspicion of her Otherness.
She wasn’t even sure exactly what she was. Her adoptive parents hadn’t lived long enough to help her understand. They’d snatched her from the small River County orphanage where she’d been left when she was three, and then they’d died and left her an orphan all over again.
God, she still missed them. Missed that unconditional, all-enveloping love and acceptance.
It was her fault they were dead. Her monster had killed them.
She nearly moaned aloud as the thought slid through her mind. Strad stood watching her, his blue eyes contrasting beautifully with his long black hair, and she grasped gratefully at the distraction.
“Would you mind moving out of my way?” She kept her tone even but was sure he could see the contempt in her eyes. She never tried to hide it from him.
Not a flicker of emotion lit his gaze. He studied her as though she were a strange animal behind a glass window.
His lips parted in a small smile, or smirk, rather, and she could happily have pulled a shiv and stuck it into his heart. “Well? Out of my way, Berserker!”
There, that struck a nerve. He narrowed his eyes, and it seemed as though the entire building went silent, holding its breath at her stupidity and Matheson’s famous rage.
He did not like being called Berserker, and would like it even less when it was said with such derision. Not many would have dared provoke the giant. He was at least three hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle, and taller than Raze by close to an inch. He was a mountain of intimidation.
And when he was pissed…
She yanked her gun from her side holster as his big hand moved—she thought he was going for the seven-foot-long silver spear that rested in a sheath at his back. He merely rubbed his chest, then raised an eyebrow as she pulled her gun on him.
Fuck him for always making her show her fear.
From behind her came the sound of nothing, and she could feel the stares stabbing her in the back. Dammit. This little scene was going to make the rounds, and by tomorrow, they’d have her running and screaming. Or shooting him. Probably both.
Jeremy, as usual, would blow a fuse.
She sighed and shoved her gun back into its bed. “I know you did that on purpose, Berserker. And that just makes you an asshole.”
She walked around him, because the son of a bitch would have stood there all day. She had more important things to deal with than Strad the Lackey.
She had to go find out whether she could keep the twins, or if she’d have to kill them before the day was over.
Not a pleasant chore.
Chapter Five
The front door was shut but not locked, so she pushed it open and walked on in. If the twins arrived while she and Raze were snooping it wouldn’t go well.
She unsnapped the strap on her holster and thumbed off the safety on her gun. Just in case. “Raze?”
The apartment was neat and uncluttered, and there were few signs of men as young as Levi and Denim living there. No video games scattered on the floor, no pizza boxes on the coffee table, no sixty-inch flat screen on the wall.
Just…quiet and all that neatness. It made her nervous.<
br />
A wide, arched doorway on the other side of the living room showed her the kitchen, which appeared empty. She put her hand on her gun and inched her way toward an alcove she assumed led to the bedrooms.
She stood in a short dark hall. A white toilet and the corner of a pedestal sink were visible through the one open door at the end of the hall. The other three doors were closed.
Flipping on the hall light switch chased back the shadows enough for her to see that nothing hid in a corner or clung to the ceiling. She’d had a spider the size of a potato fall on her head once, and that experience had given her a slight phobia about dark ceilings. And spiders.
“Raze?” Her voice was louder and impatient, but shit, where the fuck was he?
Finally a door opened and he stuck his head out. “In here. Hurry.”
Shit. She strode into the room without hesitation, but her heart was pounding hard enough to hurt.
Raze stepped aside. “I knew they were keeping something from us. Look.”
The blood drained from her face. “Fuck no, Raze. No way.”
He crossed his arms, his muscles bunching. “Good thing I found her instead of Z.”
The bedroom held a dresser, a rocking chair, and a bed. Tied to the bed was a small black girl, perhaps twenty years old. Her hair was matted, and though the linens on the bed appeared clean, they were as rumpled as the simple white dress she wore.
She had her face turned toward them. She was very obviously blind. Her eyes were pure black, as though the pupils had enlarged and completely covered the irises. Every few seconds they’d shake crazily, darting back and forth with a speed nearly impossible to follow.
Then they’d stop, and the girl would tilt her head, perhaps receiving information through her unusual eyes and taking time to interpret it.
“Why didn’t you release her?” Rune wasn’t sure why she whispered, but it seemed like she should.
Raze shook his head. “Every time I’d get near her she’d…” He gestured helplessly. “Go on, see for yourself.”
“She’s lovely,” Rune said, flinching in shame when she realized she was stalling.
He pointed to the bed. “Go on.”
