by Tracy Tappan
Jaċken snarled, grabbing Skull by the throat and—
“Well, heck, looks like I’m missing all the fun.”
Jaċken and Skull stopped fighting and snapped their eyes up to the door in unison. Relief jackhammered Jaċken’s heart. Nỵko!
His older brother was standing in the doorway, looking super bad-assed huge with his tall, broad, muscular body filling the entire frame. Eyes as cold and dark as black glaciers peered out from a tumble of shaggy black hair, and a savage array of black interlocking teeth tattoos ran the length of his forearms and ringed his neck. Nobody would guess that on the inside Nỵko was pure marshmallow, because on the outside, he looked one hundred percent psycho serial killer.
Thank crap for that. “About damned time,” Jaċken growled.
Eyebrows lifting, Nỵko started into the room, but made it only one step inside when there was a blur of motion off to the left.
From out of nowhere, Skull suddenly had a pair of medical scissors sticking out of his neck, a disgusting gurgling sound coming from him.
Thomal stood next to the bed, a nasty sneer on his face. “Sorry, guys, but I owed these bitches a spanking.”
A white foamy substance like shaving cream oozed from Skull’s wound. Some of it blopped onto Jaċken’s chest and began to eat through his shirt. “Jesus!” He heaved Skull off, letting the man crash unaided to the floor, and shot to his feet, tearing his shirt off and hurling it aside. “What the hell?”
Nỵko shook his head, his expression troubled as he crouched down next to Vinz and checked for a pulse. Nỵko rolled the nurse off the fallen warrior, her removal exposing a unique sunflower burst of blood on the wall.
A startled curse came out of Thomal’s mouth.
Nỵko carefully pulled the knife out of Vinz’s upper chest and held it up with one hand, the other jammed to Vinz’s wound.
The hilt was carved with intertwining black flames, not like the interwoven black teeth they were used to seeing on their pain-in-the-ass Om Rău neighbors’ knives, but still with the boiling red crystal on it that marked it a Bătaie Blade.
“Yeah, I saw it,” Jaċken said grimly.
Thomal hissed a breath. “What the hell are these jagoffs doing with an Om Rău blade?” The man already looked like warmed-over shit, both eyes red from blown capillaries and dark bruises forming around his throat.
“Maybe because they are Om Rău,” Jaċken returned.
Thomal’s blond brows arched high. “The only Om Rău in existence live next door to us.”
Jaċken tossed Nỵko a roll of gauze. “These slimeballs have black eyes, Bătaie Blades, tribal tattoos, and were strong as fuck.”
“They also bleed acid,” Thomal pointed out.
“Then we need to look into the possibility that they’re a different genetic branch of Om Rău.”
Nỵko looked up from bandaging Vinz. “A branch that just so happens to be after our women, too?”
Thomal made a guttural noise in his chest, his protective hackles going up.
Women like Antoinetta carried a bloodline that was key to the salvation of their race. Jaċken and his men of the Warrior Class protected and guarded any they found like the rare and precious commodity they were.
“We’ll debrief further when we get back to Ţărână.” Jaċken grabbed a bag and started shoving Antoinetta’s personal effects into it. “We’ve got to get out of here. Sunrise is riding up our asses, and we don’t want to get stuck in the safe house with Vinz needing to see Dr. Jess right away.” He looked at Nỵko. “What’s the SITREP?”
“No more bad guys are en route,” Nỵko replied. “I put the backup team on the stairwell to keep an eye on that. Couple of nurses heard some noise coming from this room, but Arc is pulling a flirt ’n divert.” Nỵko pushed to his feet, tossing Vinz over his shoulder as if the warrior weighed no more than a CPR dummy. “Still, we should get going PDQ.”
“Agreed.” Jaċken reached for Antoinetta. “Let’s get our target safely down to— Whoa!” He jerked back a step.
Thomal stepped up beside him. “Told you she smells really good.”
Really good? That was a massively enormous understatement. He hadn’t been able to tell before, what with so much of Vinz’s blood masking her scent, but…Jesus.
Thomal glanced at Jaċken’s bare chest. “You sure you want to be the one carrying her, chief?”
Jaċken exhaled a short breath. Right, the feel of this woman’s fragrant body pressed close to his, with only her thin hospital gown as a barrier between them, would probably make it right to the top of the Bad Idea Column. “You take her,” he ordered.
But as soon as Thomal scooped up Antoinetta and settled her snugly against his chest, Jaċken had the sudden, savage—and totally irrational—urge to tear out Thomal’s perfect blond entrails.
Chapter Three
“Mürk and Rën bodged up the mission.”
Raymond stopped writing in his ledger and looked up, squinting through the glare of his desk lamp at the young blonde woman standing just inside his study, a clipboard propped on her hip.
She was dressed like a blooming tart, as was her habit, wearing four-inch pointies on her feet and a miniskirt not much wider than a belt. Her blouse showed as much cleavage as it did midriff, displaying a jeweled belly button ring, along with a black flame tattoo that curled from her navel down into parts unknown. Well, not entirely unknown from what he understood of his daughter’s escapades when she went out pubbing with the girls.
“I beg your pardon,” he asked coolly, even though he’d heard her.
Pändra hesitated, spinning the immortality ring on her finger with her thumb, the eerie red stone reflecting light like blood flecked with diamonds.
The blasted thing was more often a curse than a salvation these days, all of the progeny seeming to think they had carte blanche to rampage around like blootered bulls.
“Mürk and Rën failed to nab Toni from the hospital.”
Raymond narrowed his eyes, anger burning through his head and into his nostrils. The most important part of his plan was the attainment of Toni Parthen, and after that, her brother, Alex. Mürk and Rën were fully aware of that. “I see,” he replied acidly. “And what, pray tell, occurred?”
“I don’t know all the crack,” she said, “but the gist is that our lads got into a punch-up with some other blokes, who ended up nicking Toni from—”
He slammed to his feet, knocking the metal arm of his desk lamp into a crazy swing. “Other men have taken her?” A wave of his power burst off his body and thumped into Pändra.
She staggered backward a couple of paces, her black eyes flaring wide.
He took an immediate breath and composed himself, locking his power into a low simmer. There was no need to be uncivilized, no matter how extreme his anger. “Where are Mürk and Rën?” Those two needed to give him a full report on this catastrophe, posthaste. He felt a muscle in his jaw flicker as he added, “In jail, I presume?”
“Um….” Pändra moved forward to her former position. “No. They escaped before the police arrived.”
“I see,” he drawled. “So the lads were too frightened to face me and went on a bender instead. Why am I not surprised.” He crossed to his cherrywood sideboard and poured himself a Courvoisier. Mouth tight, he stared down at his drink, the cut crystal of the double old-fashioned glass biting into his palm.
The devil take Mürk and Rën. Raymond had been preparing for this next step for twenty-six years. He and his partner, Boian—the last two pure Fey men on earth—had kept their Om Rău female, Ұavell, churning out children during that entire quarter of a century and more, sometimes one baby a year, usually one every two years to prevent her womb from clapping out completely. Now they had eighteen progeny between them, and more planned for the future. But this year, the year Rën and Mürk, born eleven months apart, came of age at twenty-six, was the year to set his scheme in motion.
If women with the correct bloodlines could be
acquired.
More easily said than done, apparently, what with the way their missions had been going pear-shaped of late. First, Tëer and Däce had failed to obtain that fifteen-year-old girl, and now Mürk and Rën had made a dog’s dinner out of nabbing Toni. Taking her should’ve been a doss of a task, as well, since she’d been nearly unconscious in a hospital bed. When the detectives Raymond kept on permanent assignment watching Toni had informed him of the poor girl’s unfortunate car accident, Raymond decided straight away that this was the perfect time to take her. And now Mürk and Rën had bodged it. By God, Raymond would be a bloody codger before he saw his first grandchild born.
He looked up from his drink at Pändra again, the skin across his cheeks taut. “What do my detectives have to say about this? I imagine my chaps saw something.”
“Yes,” Pändra said. “I checked with Mr. Perkins and Mr. Rathburn before coming to speak with you.”
Raymond arched a single eyebrow. Smart girl. “And?”
Pändra glanced down at her clipboard. “Perkins said there were seven men total at the hospital, although it appears only four actually got into a row with Mürk and Rën; one man was dragged out injured and unconscious, I imagine due to our lads. Two men,” she glanced up “—and here’s the important part—had black eyes and tribal tattoos.” She lowered her clipboard. “By the way Perkins and Rathburn described the tats, they sound like the same as Mum’s.”
Raymond snorted elegantly. “That would make the two men Om Rău.”
Pändra shrugged noncommittally.
Raymond frowned over that. “Ұavell is supposed to be the last of that breed.” The rest of the Om Rău race, it was rumored, had killed each other off. Hardly surprising, that. They were such ghastly creatures.
“I can’t be sure, of course. I didn’t see the tats myself.” Pändra shifted from foot to foot.
He took a sip of his drink. His daughter’s feet must be near wrecked in those ridiculous shoes.
“Mürk and Rën will have to confirm it.”
“Well, I shan’t be waiting for those two dimmocks.” He set down his glass. “Best I go have a little chat with your mum.” Lord, the very thought soured his stomach. He preferred to have contact with that woman only when it was his turn to impregnate her, and that was about as much of a lark as doing the business with a leaf shredder. And probably gave him about as many injuries. “Am I correct in assuming that your neglect to mention Toni’s whereabouts indicates that no one has the remotest idea where she is?”
Pändra fidgeted again; maybe she was wearying of her role as the bearer of bad news. “Perkins said he and Rathburn followed the getaway van for a good half hour, but the blokes eventually lost them.”
As I suspected. He was surrounded by incompetents. He headed for the study door. “When the lads get home,” he told his daughter as he passed her, “send them to me straight away.”
Pändra blank-faced the request.
She must have realized that the poor chaps would be enjoying one of his more inventive castigations.
* * *
Kimberly Stănescu jammed her thumb into the remote control button, flipping channels quickly and aggressively, her jaw set. She wasn’t watching anything on the television, just waiting for her husband to finally get his butt home. Outside her living room window sunlight was fading into dusk—or rather, the huge stadium lights mounted on the cave ceiling that passed for this underground community’s version of sunlight were dimming.
At last! She heard the distinctive clomp of her husband’s Timberland hiking boots on the walkway outside.
The front door swung open and Sedge came inside, tossing his duffle bag negligently into a corner of the foyer. “Hey,” he said.
She hey’d him back, flipping to the next channel with a hard jerk of her hand.
He paused a moment. “Is something wrong?”
“Really?” She slammed the remote onto the coffee table. “You’re going to ask me that after you’ve just come home from kidnapping another woman?”
“Jesus, please don’t start, Kimberly, okay?” He moved through the foyer into the kitchen. “Today’s mission sucked and I feel like crap.” Opening the refrigerator, he pulled out a Heineken. “Vinz got stabbed, you know.”
She surged to her feet and marched into the kitchen after her husband. “Yes, I do know.” It’d been one of those moments of sheer, unadulterated terror when she’d opened her front door and found Roth Mihnea, the leader of the community, standing on her doorstep with a grim look on his face. She’d thought Roth had come to tell her that it was Sedge who’d been killed. Which would’ve fit in perfectly with her life to date. Because things were going about as right for her as if she’d spent all of her days spilling salt, breaking mirrors, and walking under ladders.
She plunked her hands on her hips. “If you’re waiting for me to feel sorry for Vinz, then you’re going to stand there till you petrify, Sedge. Because here’s the thing. Vinz wouldn’t have been injured in the first place if you warriors hadn’t been out kidnapping another woman!”
Sedge didn’t respond. He twisted the Heineken cap and she heard it siss open.
“Damn it, Sedge, I can’t believe you took another one! Have you heard nothing I’ve had to say about this?” How ridiculously naïve she’d been to think that Gwyn Billaud, the woman who’d been taken after her, would be the community’s last kidnap victim. How completely idiotic to assume that anyone in this barbaric town had actually listened to Kimberly or learned one single thing from forcing Gwyn down here into danger and then losing her.
“Oh, I’ve heard,” Sedge returned, tipping the beer to his mouth and drinking it down.
She seamed her lips together. Well, that’s just great. She loved it when men chugged beer around her. It was, like…memories galore. “You men of the Warrior Class think you’re such heroes, saving your people from possible extinction with what you’re doing. But do you know what you really are? Criminals! No better than a bunch of thugs.”
Sedge lowered his beer and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, thank you. You’ve made that abundantly clear in the past.” He set his beer on the kitchen island. “This is the same argument we’ve been having for two years, Kimberly, and it gets us nowhere. There’s nowhere to go with it. I wish there were, but I’m in an impossible situation here. I have a job that requires me to follow orders, so I follow them, but that means I end up doing something you hate.” His gaze darkened. “That I hate.”
She curled her hands into fists. “If you hate it, then stand up to Roth.”
Sedge shook his head. “You know I don’t have the power to change anything around here. But even if I could get Roth to stop sending warriors topside on kidnap missions, how in the world is that going to help you, Berly? It won’t. Nothing will change for you. You’re stuck down here with me, no matter what.” The muscles around his throat tightened and a raw thread of pain entered his voice. “I know you’re miserable. That’s more than clear. I wish I could send you topside daily to your lawyer job—you have no idea how much I want that—but security issues make that impossible. Too many comings and goings risk exposure, and Roth is really paranoid about it. You know that, Berly, okay, so…. I’m truly sorry for how unhappy you are. I mean that from the depths of my heart. But I don’t know what I can do about it.”
She just stared at him, her chest hitching as she fought back tears. It was more or less the same speech she’d heard for the two years of their marriage, and, as always, Sedge was right. There wasn’t anything he could do to free her, barring killing himself. She was well and truly trapped, and the worst part was that she’d colluded in her own entrapment by marrying him. Worse still, her marriage had handed a victory to Roth, who’d abducted her down here for the very purpose of hooking her up with one of the men. It was the stupidest thing she’d ever done in a long list of stupid things in her life, letting herself fall in love with Sedge.
He wasn’t even particularly her type. She did
n’t like big men, not since her ex-boyfriend, Tim, anyway, and Sedge was huge, nearly six foot four and as wide as the side of two barns. His long mane of blond hair, spread in thick waves across his shoulders, only served to enhance the sheer breadth of him and emphasize his muscular power.
But behind all the muscle he was sweet and doting, and had a pair of puppy-dog brown eyes that spoke of a good soul. Those qualities in themselves had been difficult enough to resist, but men of his kind also fiercely protected their women, and the allure of the safety Sedge could provide her had ended up proving too tempting. Unfortunately, she also hated herself for that. In her logical mind, she told herself she should be strong enough to look out for herself—she was, damnit! She didn’t need a man! Of course, this fueled the conflict inside her head which invariably had her performing a push-pull dance with Sedge that was far from healthy. She knew it, saw herself doing it, but just couldn’t seem to stop.
“There’s got to be something meaningful you can do down here,” Sedge insisted. “Then—”
“Ha! Like what? Build rock gardens?” She braced her hands on the kitchen island and leaned toward him. “Do you know what I did before you people stole my life? I worked for the Peace Corps for two years before I went to law school. After I graduated, I was in-house counsel for an environmental group, saving trees and ocean and air, and right before you kidnapped me, I’d just won a case where I helped to uphold the First Amendment rights of the United States Constitution.” She straightened and threw out her arms. “I used to save the world, Sedge. After that, what the unholy hell do you think I can find to do in this stupid little town that would feel meaningful?”
Sedge bowed his head. “Tell me,” he implored hoarsely. “Just tell me what I need to do to make you happy, and I’ll do it. Anything.”
She took a step back from him, torn between how moved she was by his obvious love for her and yet how clearly ineffectual he was at making her happy. She felt nearly consumed by an acute disappointment in her husband, because she believed he really would stop the kidnappings if he weren’t so damned indoctrinated into the community’s system of sole leadership.
