The Sinner

by J. R. Ward

  He was not alone.

  Flaring his nostrils, he scented the wind that had abruptly changed directions.

  About fifteen feet away, a tall, powerfully built figure in black was standing outside Jo’s bedroom window, its back to the building, its eyes trained on the glass if it were trying to see between her venetian blinds without giving its presence away. Light slicing through the slats created enough of a glow so that its goatee and temple tattoos were obvious to someone who had seen them plenty of times before.

  What the fuck was Vishous doing here?

  As Syn’s fangs descended and his upper lip peeled off his teeth, he had to force himself not to trade his gun for his dagger. Guns were for when there was an emergency. Daggers were for when you wanted to stare your kill in the face as you took their life from them.

  And he wanted to murder the Brother. Straight up.

  Hell yeah, he respected the male in the field. How could anyone in the fighting business not value Vishous’s kind of backup? The Brother was no joke with that glowing palm of his, and even better, he kept to himself except for the occasional, spot-on, sarcastic kick in the mouth he was always ready to give anyone who deserved it.

  But all of that shit didn’t mean a goddamn thing when the male was lurking next to the private sanctuary of Syn’s female.

  Not a goddamn thing at all—

  V shoved a hand inside his leather jacket. Taking out his cell phone, he cursed and stepped away from the window. As he answered whoever was calling him, he kept his voice low, but Syn’s ears caught the syllables just fine.

  “Butch, lemme call you back for fuck’s sake. I’m just checking on that half-breed to see if she’s any closer to her trans—” Vishous frowned. “Wait, what? Cop, slow down—what are you talking about?”

  During the silence that followed, the Brother frowned so hard, those tattoos around his eye distorted. “You saw who? My mahmen? What the fuck.”

  Syn closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he discovered that he had indeed swapped weapons, and as the steel of his dagger flashed, he thought of the number of times V had sharpened it for him. Vishous sharpened everyone’s blades. At first, Syn had thought it was yet another ridiculous, fussy centralization of function, the kind of thing people worried about when they knew where their next month’s meals were coming from. For shit’s sake, he’d been doing his own blades for centuries, as had the other Bastards.

  All it had taken was one treatment and Syn had gotten over himself.

  V took that grinding and polishing to another level and you had to recognize the skill. The benefit was not an issue of safety—Syn didn’t give a fuck about that—it was an issue of efficacy. You were more lethal with what V did to those sharp and shiny weapons.

  So yup, killing him tonight was going to be a bummer.

  “—no, no, we’re not discussing a damn thing. I’m not the Dhestroyer. You are. You’re the one who should be kept indoors—”

  The venetian blinds parted, as if Jo had heard the talking. And as Syn caught sight of the dark outline of her head and hair, his heart stopped. And redoubled.

  He looked down again at the dagger in his palm and considered the way his body had taken things, literally, into its own hand. As he thought about the fact that he had armed himself, and was ready to go against an ally—and someone who would absolutely, positively be missed? And who absolutely, positively hadn’t done shit to Syn?

  It was clear what was going on.

  Fuck.

  He’d bonded with Jo.

  * * *

  Jo let the blinds on her window fall back into place. Stepping away, she put her hands up to her head. As her heart pounded, she thought about calling 911, but what was she going to say?

  Help, there’s someone talking right outside my bedroom. At least, I think they are. At least… I think I heard a male voice.

  It wasn’t an emergency to hear whispers. More to the point, it wasn’t an emergency to think you heard whispers.

  Sure, ma’am, we’ll send someone out with a flashlight to do a perimeter search. All those people who’ve been in car accidents with drunk drivers or the victims of crime can wait.

  Going out into the living area, she walked to the main door of her apartment and back. Even though it was after midnight, she was fully dressed, with her coat on. She had been putting on her ground-grippers, as she called her boots, when the low-level noise had registered.

  Her backpack was right by the exit. And hey, there was a flashlight in it.

  Plus her gun.

  “Screw it,” she muttered.

  Going over, she double-strapped things and locked her apartment up as she left. At the building’s outer door by the mailboxes, she hesitated again, trying to see into the pitch-black night beyond the security lights while her breath fogged up the glass.

  Even though she was paranoid about so much, she’d planned to go out anyway. She was exhausted, but antsy, and there was no amount of Netflixing that was going to chill her out. It was like she was a car with the gas and the brake on at the same time. So she’d already decided on a destination when she’d heard the murmurs outside her bedroom.

  No doubt it was best to not go look into them. She needed to stick to her plan—which had not included playing welcome committee to someone sent by the Caldwell mob to kill her.

  Cursing again, she shoved open the door, ducked down, and scrambled for her car, wondering if she shouldn’t be crossing the lawn in a zigzag pattern so she was a harder target. As she came up to the driver’s side, her body was shaking.

  And yet she stopped.

  Looking over her shoulder, she searched the darkness beside her building.

  “Syn?”

  It better be Syn, she thought. Or she was a sitting duck for someone who—

  “I’m not stalking you,” came a familiar voice out of the shadows. “I swear.”

  “Oh, thank God, it’s you.” Jo sagged against her car. “I was… well, never mind.”

  And actually, she’d expected to see him earlier. She’d thought he might be waiting for her in the parking lot again as she’d left the newsroom. Then she’d anticipated the ring of her doorbell at any moment as soon as she’d gotten home: through her after-work shower, through dinner—Slim Jims and M&Ms, mmm tasty—through the debate on whether to get into bed or get out of the apartment.

  And now he was here.

  Syn walked forward, emerging into the illumination thrown by the light fixture mounted on the corner of the building. As he came over to her, her eyes were greedy and so were her hands. She indulged the former. Kept the latter to herself.

  “Hi,” she said as she stared up at him.

  “Hi.”

  There was a long silence. And then she grabbed his arm and gave it a shake. “Before we say anything else, what’s your phone number? And I promise, this time, I will remember it.”

  When he didn’t start spitting out digits, she frowned. Then she closed her eyes.

  “Right,” she said with defeat. “So you’ve come to tell me that last night was a mistake that should never have happened because you’re married.”

  “What?”

  “I gotta go.” She turned back to her car door. “Take care of yourself—”

  Now he was the one detaining her, his big hand landing on her shoulder. “Where are you going? It’s late—”

  “Why do you care?” She glanced at him. “And I’m not being obnoxious with that. I’ve spent all day thinking about what happened between you and me—and what didn’t. Guilt has a funny way of dimming a man’s performance, and you clearly don’t want me to contact you.”

  He shook his head as if she’d switched languages on him. “I’m not following what you’re—”

  “You lied to me, didn’t you. You’re with someone.”

  “No. I’m not mated.”

  Jo rolled her eyes and shrugged out from under his heavy palm. “Married. Whatever—”

  “Where are you going?”
>
  “I really don’t have to answer that. If you can’t even be honest with me about where you live, what you do for a living, who you really are, and who you’re with? I don’t have to tell you a goddamn thing about myself—”

  “I don’t want you to know the truth about me.”

  Jo froze where she was. Then blinked. “So I was right. And I’m afraid that I’ve got to go. I don’t have the energy for any of this, especially not being the side piece to your significant other—”

  “I’m not mated.” Syn put his hand on the jamb of her door, preventing her from opening it. “And you’re in danger—”

  She put her forefinger right in his face. “I am getting really frickin’ tired of men telling me that tonight.”

  A frown landed on his forehead like it had jumped off a bridge. “Who else said it?”

  “It’s not important—”

  “You will answer me right now.”

  “Excuse me?” She stepped in real close. “You don’t use that tone with me. Ever. And you can take that demand and blow it out your ass.”

  His eyes gleamed with anger. “Do you think this is a joke?”

  “No. I think you are.”

  Syn didn’t move. She didn’t move. And it was not sexual tension that kept their faces so close together.

  All at once, that headache of hers came back and she groaned as she put a hand up to her temple. “Just leave me alone, okay.”

  “You shouldn’t go out there by yourself,” he said remotely.

  “What?”

  Syn looked away. “This is a fucking mess.”

  Before she could give him another push-off, he released her door. “Let me come with you. If you let me… ride along, I’ll tell you everything. Everything.”

  Jo crossed her arms over her chest. “How will I know?”

  “That I’m with you?”

  Like that isn’t going to be obvious? Jo thought.

  “That you’re telling me the truth,” she said in a bored tone.

  “You have my word.”

  Great, for whatever that was worth.

  “If you lie to me, I’ll know.” She leveled a stare at him. “I’m a reporter. I’m going to make it my business to find out what’s going on with you one way or another, and if you lie to me tonight? You better never come around me again. You taught me where to best shoot someone, remember?”

  “Yes,” he said gravely.

  “Good.” Jo wrenched open the driver’s side door. “Because thanks to you, I know how to kill a man.”

  And boy, that sounded like a really great idea at the moment.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  So start talking.”

  As Jo put the command out, Syn pulled his seat belt free of his chest and then let the strap come back into contact with his pecs. The fact that they came up to a red light seemed apt.

  When the thing turned green, she didn’t hit the gas. “Well.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Pick something random—like birth,” she said dryly.

  “I fear your knowledge of me.” He looked out of the side window. “I want a better story than the one I have to give you.”

  The beep of a car horn behind them had her moving them forward. “We all want a better story. But that’s marketing, not reality.”

  Syn thought of the hut he had lived in with his sire, the one he had burned down. He thought of the fact that he had slept next to his mahmen’s dead body for a decade, after it had rotted with a terrible stench for three months. He thought of the drunken, slobbering, abusive tormentor he had had to endure until he had sliced the male into pieces and let the sun do the work of ashing the remains.

  Maybe start with the present, he decided.

  “I’m a soldier. You’re right about that.” He looked at the local shops that they passed, and reflected how he would have so much preferred to be detailing a life where going into a store and choosing which gift, which bottle of wine, which piece of cheese, to purchase was the most strenuous decision and consequence faced. “I’m a soldier and some other things I’m not proud of.”

  “Being in the military most certainly is something to be proud of.”

  “It’s not what I’ve done when in service that I want to apologize for.” He took a deep breath. “It’s true that I’m a bodyguard. Of a very powerful male—man. An extremely powerful one who has many enemies.”

  “That explains how you acted with the delivery guy.”

  “It’s my nature. And my training. Sometimes…” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes both conspire to get the best of me.”

  “And you really do live with him? That man you guard.”

  “Yes, in his home, with his wife and his child. He has a number of personal guards and I am one of them.”

  “Who is he?” She glanced over. “Unless you can’t tell me that?”

  “I am paid to be discreet. I’m sorry. And I can’t take you to where I live for the same reason.” He looked at her pointedly. “But I’m not lying about this. I am telling you everything I can—and maybe, in the future? I might be able to tell you even more. Not the now, though.”

  They continued on, going into the commercial part of town. No more mom-and-pop stores with homey themes best suited for Instagram snapshots and baby showers. Now there were tile stores, and carpet stores, and places that sold electronics, tires and cars.

  “Is that why you’re downtown so much?” she asked. “Helping your boss.”

  “A lot happens there. It’s a dangerous place.”

  “True.” Jo glanced over, and in the light glowing from the dashboard, her face seemed reserved, but no longer angry. “That’s why you said what you did to me that first night, huh. About me being in danger. About me dying.”

  “You need to be careful.”

  “Women can take care of themselves.”

  “They shouldn’t have to.”

  “Which brings us to my next question.” She refocused on the road ahead, her ten-and-two grip on the wheel tightening. “What’s up with your wife.”

  “I told you.” Syn shook his head. “I don’t have one.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That is the one thing you can be completely sure of,” he said bitterly. “You know that I have a problem when it comes to sex. What female would have me? I cannae get her pregnant.”

  “There’s more to a relationship than having children.”

  “Not for most females, and who can blame them. Besides, it’s never been a priority for me.”

  “Sex?”

  “Marriage.”

  There was a long pause. “Were you injured?” she asked as they came up to another traffic light. “You know, while fighting overseas? Is that why you can’t… I mean, I’m no medical expert. I don’t know how these things happen or work.”

  He recalled his first rutting. It had been with a female of the species who he had paid to allow him to take her vein. Evidently, she had found him attractive and had mounted him while he had been feeding from her. He could still picture her riding up and down on his hips, her stained peasant blouse open, her pendulous breasts swinging back and forth on her chest like saddlebags on a galloping horse.

  It was common for males to become sexually aroused when they indulged their bloodlust. He’d learned this over time. But that did not mean they wanted to have sex. Or, in his case, when he’d lost his virginity, consented to the act. After it was all done, she had kissed him and dismounted with an air of satisfaction. Taking the money, she had left him on the cot, her juices drying on his hard cock, a dirty feeling staining the inside of his skin.

  The sense that she had taken something from him had persisted for nights.

  “It’s not an injury,” he said tightly. “It’s just the way it’s always been.”

  “Have you been checked out by a doctor?”

  “Sure,” he murmured so she’d stop asking questions on the topic.

  “And there’s
nothing they can do about it?”

  “No.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  Syn took a deep breath, and as he let it out, he hoped the exhale took some of the sting in his chest with it. “I don’t spend any time thinking about it.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  I’ve bonded with you, he thought to himself.

  “So tell me about her,” Jo said softly. “And don’t deny she exists. I can see it in your face.”

  “I’m looking away from you,” he pointed out as he deliberately focused on a Panera restaurant. Then a Ford dealership. Then a Sunoco gas station.

  “Fine, I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You are now. And I can tell.”

  Syn was not about to go into the bonding thing with her. So in his head, he moved on to that female from the Old Country, picturing her front and center so that all other considerations were hidden—even though, as much as he had always been told, humans couldn’t read the thoughts of others.

  So it wasn’t like Jo could get into his skull and see what he was skirting.

  “That female was not meant for me,” he said. “So I don’t think I ever loved her in the way you mean. We were never together.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “She lived in the same village I did. Back… home. In the Old Country. I knew her because I was—” He swallowed. “Anyway.”

  “What,” Jo said. “Please, just tell me. This is really helping.”

  There were streetlights mounted up high on poles, and as they passed them by, the illumination came through the sunroof’s transparent panel. As the gentle strobing bathed he and Jo to a slow beat, he found that he was glad they were in a car and she had to focus on the road ahead. On the other drivers out with them, though there were few. On the red lights and the intersections.

  There was no way in hell he could have gotten through any of this if she’d been staring him in the face.

  “I was poor,” he said. “Not the poor where you want things you can’t have. Not the poor where you’re bitter about what other people are doing or what they own. Poor like you don’t know if you’re going to be eating at nightfall. Like you aren’t sure whether there will be clothes for you to wear. Like if you get sick, you’re going to die and you’re okay with that because all you know is how hungry and thirsty and tired you are.”