by Nalini Singh
Dmitri had repudiated the same mark with blood-soaked violence, using a knife he'd taken from Isis's home. It was only fitting, he'd thought as he stripped off his rough shirt and pressed his back against one of the beams that had survived the fire that had taken everything from him.
The point of the blade was so sharp, it caused a bloody droplet to appear the instant he put it to his skin.
Gritting his teeth, he began to cut, thrusting deep enough to excise the scar tissue. He was a vampire now. The skin would heal whole and unmarked.
But vampires still felt pain.
Blackness engulfed him when he was less than a quarter of the way around the brand. Picking up the fallen blade with blood-slick hands the instant he awakened, he began again. And again. And again. Until there was no more trace of Isis on his body and his heart had grown so weak, he could feel death whispering in sweet, dark welcome.
A shadow of wings, a glimpse of searing blue. "Dmitri. What have you done?"
"Leave me." It was the only thing he had the strength to say.
"No." A wrist being thrust in front of him, his head pushed forward by an unyielding hand. "Drink."
Dmitri resisted.
Cursing, Raphael used that same blade to slice open his vein, pushing the bleeding flesh to Dmitri's lips without warning. A single taste and the newly awake predator within him took over.
He fed.
He hadn't healed that day, or in the days that followed. He'd been too young Made, the same reason why Raphael had been able to overwhelm him. But he did heal. At least on the outside.
"So young," Honor said, squatting beside the dead male, her sadness a poignant thread in her voice.
Compelled by the sound, he watched her put a gloved hand on the protovampire's jaw, open his mouth. "We already know of the fangs."
"No, I'm looking for something else." Leaning in, one hand continuing to hold the victim's jaws open, she reached back to pull a slender tube off her belt. "Would you hold the flashlight so I can see into his mouth?"
He came down on his haunches beside her, his focus on her rather than the male on the concrete. The lines of her face were elegant, her eyes not bitter or hard in spite of what she'd suffered. She'd survived with her soul intact, still had the capacity to feel compassion for the loss of a life.
Dmitri couldn't say the same. The tattered remnants of his soul had burned up in his son's funeral pyre. Such golden flames around his boy, such a wild blaze for such a small child. It suited him, Dmitri had thought as the final piece of his heart broke, suited his Misha with the deep laugh and the hunger to explore.
"Dmitri."
Glancing up, he saw too much knowledge in the mysterious green eyes that watched him, too much tenderness. "Don't you know to keep your distance, Honor?" He was a predator, would strike at her weaknesses, take every advantage.
A slight shake of her head, curls escaping the rough braid she'd done on the flight over. "I think it's too late for that." Breaking the eye contact with that quiet statement, she said, "Do you see?"
Dmitri followed her gaze. "He doesn't have his wisdom teeth." While such a lack wasn't an absolute indicator of age, when paired with his baby-faced appearance it was another sign these vampires were being Made outside of any accepted structure--the Cadre had long decreed that no mortal who had not lived a quarter of a century could be Made.
"He was vulnerable," Honor said, reaching out to brush the victim's hair out of his eyes with quiet care. "A target who could be controlled once he'd been hooked by the idea of immortality."
Again Dmitri looked at the victim's face. He wasn't completely heartless--he mourned for the young--but this man-child was old enough to have made his own decisions. At that age, Dmitri had been working the fields and courting a woman with sunshine in her smile and eyes that told him he was beautiful without her ever saying a word.
"Leave him," he said, rising to his feet. "There's nothing you can do to discover his identity." The Tower's own technicians would fingerprint and otherwise process the body.
Honor, however, didn't get up. "Anyone looked at his back?"
"It matters little." But he bent down to pull the victim's shoulders off the floor for her.
"Nothing," she said in open disappointment. "I was hoping for another tattoo. Might've given us more clues."
Standing, Dmitri waited for her to join him. They didn't speak again until they were outside the gleaming metal of the warehouse, the late afternoon sun a gentle warmth in comparison to the shadows within. "There was no need for any such marking, Honor. The brand is message enough."
Hearing the brutal cold in Dmitri's tone, a whip that spoke of a vicious pain that might strike out at anyone in the vicinity, Honor nonetheless said, "Will you tell me about it?" because it was far too late to stand back, be rational.
"No." A single flat word, a sudden reminder that the stark intimacy of those moments by the quiet music of the stream had been an aberration. "I think it's time you went home."
She should've let it go, but her response was instinctive, springing from the same wild, dark core as her emotions toward him. "You really think you can just set me aside when I become inconvenient?"
"You're under contract to the Tower and that was an order." With that, he turned on his heel and headed back inside.
Furious at the realization that she'd been shut down for the second time that day, she twisted with the intention of confronting him . . . when she remembered the memory card in her pocket. She had no doubts the Tower had the best computer experts at its command--but the Guild had the best of the best, and, unlike with the Tower personnel, neither Vivek's nor Honor's attention would be divided by other pieces of evidence.
Vivek was in a foul mood when she arrived. He snapped at her to slot in the card and then said nothing for almost twenty minutes. Then: "I've cracked the encryption. Data's coming up on the screen to your left."
Swiveling her chair to face it, she began to scroll through the information. Most of it seemed to be business related, so Tommy had, in fact, done some work amid all his depraved play. Not much of it, though. That wasn't necessarily anything to note. A lot of the older vamps had so much accumulated wealth they spent the majority of their time in indulgent excess. The idea of it made Honor's skin itch. What was the point of near-immortality if you weren't going to do something with it?
"It is polite," Vivek muttered, "to thank someone after they do a task for you."
Blinking, she looked up to see him staring at what looked like grainy surveillance footage. "What? Oh. I thought I could cook you dinner when this was all over." When she could lay the nightmare to rest, sleep knowing her tormentors would never hurt her or anyone else again.
Vivek shifted his wheelchair to glare at her. "Feeling sorry for the cripple, I see."
"Knock it off, V." In no fine mood herself, she returned the glare. "If we're comparing the right to indulge in self-pity, I think I've got you beat."
"I was abandoned by my family."
"At least you had a family for a while. I was abandoned almost the instant I left the womb."
"I can't walk."
"I was tortured for two months and can't stand for a man to touch me in a sexual way, even a man I find wildly attractive." Until the erotic, decadent taste of him was in her every breath. "Despite my better judgment."
"It's Dmitri, isn't it?" A whir of sound as Vivek brought his wheelchair closer.
Returning her attention to the data, she let her silence speak for itself.
"First Elena and then you." A blown-out breath. "I want to show you something." Not waiting for an answer, he went to another computer and cued up a video clip on the large wall screen in front of the consoles. "Watch."
20
She watched, because Vivek, mood or not, would never waste her time, not when he knew how important this was to her. The clip turned out to be a traffic report from one of the local television stations--and then suddenly, the bubbly blonde reporter was yelling
at her cameraman to zoom in.
When he did, the first thing Honor saw was the brilliant near-white hair of the woman racing through the streets, her legs long, her grace extraordinary. An instant later, the reason for her urgency came into focus: a sensually beautiful masculine form giving chase, as fast and ruthless as a panther, his shirt splattered with the viscous red of blood.
Honor had been out of the country at the time of the infamous chase across Manhattan, and while she'd read about it, she'd never seen the actual footage. As she watched, Elena pulled out a gun, turned as if to shoot Dmitri--just as a sleek black motorcycle screeched to a stop at the corner, only a couple of feet away.
Jumping on, the hunter held on tight to the driver as the motorcycle powered away from danger. Dmitri, meanwhile, his chest barely moving in spite of the intensity of the chase, stood at the curb . . . and blew Elena a kiss.
"That," Vivek said with solemn concern, "is the man you've got the hots for. Ellie said she slit his throat and he liked it."
Goose bumps over her skin, a chill sweat breaking out along her spine. "Sometimes," she said, thinking of the violence she'd witnessed in Dmitri, the casual cruelty, "logic doesn't work."
Vivek parted his lips, then seemed to think better of what he'd been about to say. "Just, be careful. And if you ever need to disappear, all you have to do is ask." He headed to one of the computers before she could respond. "I'm copying the data over here, too. I'll run search algorithms through the whole file using key words while you go through the e-mails."
It was twenty minutes later that Honor saw it. An e-mail string hidden amongst all the other business ones, the subject header an innocuous project name. The only reason she'd even scanned it was because it appeared at the beginning of her period of captivity.
The first message said: Did you get an invitation?
The response was as simple: I'll call you.
Two days later: I haven't felt this alive in over a century.
The response: I'd forgotten what it was to hunt down my prey.
Except the cowards had done no hunting. They'd simply taken advantage of a trapped woman laid out for their ugly pleasure. Pulse pounding in her temples, she checked the e-mail address of Tommy's friend. It didn't surprise her in the least when it proved to identify the writer. "They never even considered anyone would come looking." After all, Honor hadn't been meant to leave that pit. Ever.
"Leon and his friends aren't as sophisticated as my guests." A lingering kiss that made her empty stomach revolt. "It'll be interesting to see what remains after they've gorged themselves. But first . . ."
Icy jets of water hitting her, creating bruises upon bruises. The pungent scent of bleach in the room, the spray shifting to the concrete for long minutes. Her mouth being wrenched open.
"Now, let's clean you up. I wouldn't want your body to betray me when they find it in the trash."
It only took Vivek a couple of minutes to match a physical address and bio with the e-mail she'd found. "Jewel Wan," he said, bringing up a picture of a woman of Chinese ethnicity, the centuries of vampirism having worn away all traces of humanity to leave her a stunning sculpture carved in ice, her eyes gleaming black diamonds that matched the ones she wore around her neck.
"She's a society fixture," Vivek continued. "Spends a significant amount of time with humans."
Glossy, straight hair stroking over her skin as small feminine hands caressed her ribs. "So much muscle even now." A sweet kind of a voice, intrinsically feminine. "The boys are so rough, aren't they?" Touching her with a delicacy that sought to lull. "I'll make sure it doesn't hurt."
But it had.
Honor hadn't known it was possible to fight the pleasure in a vampire's bite before her abduction, but she'd learned to do it in that torture chamber after the first three times the architect of her capture sent her into an orgasm that had her throwing up afterward, the rape no less painful for having being done through her blood.
Jewel Wan hadn't been pleased at her defiance.
Laughter, soft and vicious. "I will enjoy breaking you. When I'm done, you'll call me mistress and beg for my touch."
A cold, cold thing sliding through her veins, engulfing her chest. "Give me her address."
Vivek twisted his chair around. "She's four hundred and fifty years old, Honor." Unhidden alarm in his voice. "Not powerful for that age, but more than powerful enough to snap your bones regardless of her size."
Cutting pressure against her side, nails pushing in until they pierced the flesh. Fingers curling around her rib. "Now"--a malicious whisper--"who is your mistress?"
Her rib twinged where Jewel Wan had fractured it. The hole in her side had healed, the scar so tiny she didn't even notice it usually, but today it pulsed a rigid lump. "I'll look it up myself." It wouldn't be difficult, considering the vampire's social status.
"No, wait. Here." Vivek brought up the address. "Please don't be stupid."
Her mind was screaming at her to stop, to think, but overwhelming that was the sensory memory of those sharp-nailed hands, that hair of liquid silk. Touching her. Hurting her. Bile rose in her throat but she forced it down, memorized the address, and left. Vivek called out after her, but she wasn't listening, the roar inside her a violent thunder.
Jewel Wan lived on an estate in the Hudson Valley, which meant Honor would need a car. However, when she went upstairs to requisition one, she was told a freeze had just been placed on her ability to access Guild resources.
Vivek.
Not bothering to argue, she strode out into the heavy but flowing traffic before rush hour. It took only seconds to hail a cab, direct it to the nearest car rental place. She swiped her credit card, filled in the paperwork with impatient hands, and fifteen minutes later she was on her way out of the city in a small, maneuverable SUV.
Be rational, Honor. You go there and she'll kill you.
The thought was barely complete when another part of her mind said, Not before I put a few holes in her.
What about the others? the tiny, still-coherent part of her asked. The ones you won't find because you're dead?
"I'll fucking well find her!" The voices went silent, overwhelmed by the red haze of a rage so vicious, Honor hadn't known until that moment that she could hate with that depth of fury.
Two hours and a hundred ignored phone calls later, she looked down the evening-grayed straight of the empty road and saw a helicopter sitting in her path. "No. No!"
Braking to a halt, she shoved open the door and strode out to intercept the man walking toward her. Dressed in black, he appeared a darker piece of the falling night, but his chest felt very much real when she slammed her hands against it. "Get that thing out of my way!"
Dmitri's eyes were full of a quiet, simmering anger when they met her own. "I thought you had a brain, Honor."
"Yeah, well, seems I don't." Seeing his unyielding expression, she stalked back to the car. There were other ways to get to Jewel Wan's showcase of a home.
Except Dmitri slammed the car door shut before she could reach it. "Jewel allows trained attack dogs to roam free on her estate and has a standing guard of four who all carry substantial weaponry."
"Take your hand off the door." Sliding out her gun, she pushed the barrel into his heart hard enough to bruise. "At this range," she said, flicking back the safety, "I'll do enough damage to put you down for hours."
"Why this one?" A quiet question that cut her like a knife, destroying the ice that had carried her this far. "Valeria you handled with preternatural calm. Jewel drives you to insanity."
Her muscles spasmed. Wrenching away the gun before she shot him by accident, she flicked on the safety and turned to look at the road she'd driven down only minutes before. When he came to stand at her back, she knew he was blocking the pilot from seeing her. That small act, it shattered her. "She didn't hurt me." A rough whisper. "Not until the very end."
"Yet your hatred for her is so deep it blinds." He touched his hands to her bare fo
rearms, and she was startled when she didn't pull away, when she allowed him to align his chest to her back, the masculine heat of him seeping through to her very bones.
It did nothing to wipe away the shame and humiliation that had her stomach in knots, but it melted the final fragments of ice, leaving her acutely exposed, vulnerable. "Except for the leader and his games at the start, the others," she said, shivering with a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature, "no matter what else they did, only tried to force pleasure on me with their bite."
Dmitri rubbed his hands down her arms, his breath hot at her temple.
"Everything else," she continued, sinking into his heat, "was about power, about control." When that failed to crush her, they'd amused themselves by making her scream instead. "But Jewel, she injected me with something . . . and then she touched me." So delicate, so gentle, so horrifying.
It was near impossible to get air into her lungs now, her breath jerky, her blood pumping in erratic bursts. But she said the words, because the shame was too huge a thing to keep inside any longer. "She made me orgasm. Over and over." Her body's betrayal had broken something deep within her, taken the last shred of defiant pride.
Dmitri's hands clenched tight on her arms. "It's not only men," he said, his voice rigid with control, "who can be aroused against their will."
Shuddering, she turned into his embrace, pressing her face against his chest. Except for Ash's quick hugs, it was the first time she'd allowed anyone to hold her since the abduction, the first time she'd been able to bear it. Maybe it was because her humiliation was so strong she had no room for fear . . . and maybe it was because he understood in a way no one else ever would.
"I hate her, Dmitri." It was a hard, jagged thing inside of her, this hatred. "More than anyone else."
Dmitri stroked his hand over her hair, bending his head to whisper a dark promise in her ear. "I can do to her what she did to you." Black satin around her senses. "It would be nothing to break her until she was a whimpering, crawling shell."
Her response was immediate--and violent. "No. You don't touch the bitch." Then, perhaps because she was half mad, she added, "You do and I swear I'll shoot off both your hands at the wrists." He was hers, and she didn't care if that was the obsession speaking, didn't care that she'd told herself not to make a claim. Dmitri was hers.
