by J. R. Ward
From the midst of his battlefield assessment, plans began to formulate instantly, and the first was to get Manny over here. The next was to call V and get some mhis up. If the Omega was gone, the Brother should be safe to—
Butch grabbed onto the front of Syn’s jacket. Hazy hazel eyes seemed to not want to focus as he struggled for words.
“Tell me,” Syn said urgently. “What can I do for you?”
Butch’s shaking hand lifted. “Take care of my sister.”
Syn wheeled around, and that was when he saw her. There. Against the alley’s damp and dirty foot, Jo was lying in a heap, her red hair tangled, her limbs all at bad angles.
In a rush to get to her, Syn almost dropped the Brother like a piece of trash—
The first gunshot caught Syn by surprise, sizzling past his left ear. The second hit him in the meat of his shoulder. The third went into his arm.
Years of training took over as his brain got jammed by adrenaline. He ducked and covered, protecting Butch as he dragged the floppy bag of Brother out of harm’s way. Turned out he made a passable bulletproof vest: Another lead slug went into him somewhere in the chest and something must have hit his calf. But Butch was spared. The bad news was that there wasn’t much to hide behind, the alley having been peeled of the normal shit—like big trash containers and abandoned cars—that typically accumulated in Caldwell’s colon. Plus there were the Brothers who were struggling to wake up and defenseless as newborns, and Jo, who he feared was dead.
An inset doorway was the best that he could do, and he propped Butch up as there was a pause in the shooting. The sonofabitch with the gun was exchanging clips.
This was Syn’s only chance.
Diving a hand into his jacket, he—
Felt only slippery shit.
He couldn’t seem to grip anything, and he pulled out his hand in confusion. Red, everywhere. He’d been shot in the palm.
Putting his body in the way to protect Butch, he went leftie—and at that moment, the lights came back on in Caldwell. Sure as if someone had cranked the dimmer switch back in the direction of wouldja-look-at-that, suddenly he could see his enemy. A dark-haired human dressed in black.
The mobster’s son. Carmine Gigante Jr.
He had to have been driving that SUV Syn had bounced off of.
Syn’s shoulder injury meant his second-choice hand was numb, some kind of nerve cut. So when he went for his gun, he had no strength in that hold, either.
Gigante’s progeny didn’t have that problem. Junior readily brought his weapon up again, and this time he had plenty of sight to go by. The muzzle pointed directly at Syn. A death shot, if there ever had been one—
The gun went off with a pop and Syn knee-jerked into his torso—but it wasn’t like he could stop the bullet. Gasping, bracing, trying to stay conscious…
The mobster dropped to the pavement, his weapon skittering away from his palm, the back of his skull cracking as it fell back onto that filthy, hard asphalt.
Syn looked down at himself in confusion.
“T-t-torso.”
He nearly tripped on himself as he wheeled to the voice of his female. “Jo?”
His beautiful, brave, extraordinary female was holding her double-gripped gun straight out with stiff arms. Everything was shaking on her, her legs, her shoulders, her head—even her teeth were chattering. But those arms and those hands were rock fucking solid.
“You t-t-told me…” she stuttered. “Aim for the torso. It’s the b-b-biggest target.”
Syn let out a strangled sound as he lunged for her. His body was full of lead and leaking like a sieve, though, so it was a messy reunion. Not that he gave a shit.
He disarmed her as he landed next to her on the ground and pulled her against him.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said as he held her to his heart.
“I c-c-can’t stop shaking,” she said into his throat.
“It’s over. It’s okay… it’s over.”
Closing his eyes, he allowed himself one brief moment of reunion. Then he got on his communicator and started barking out orders. When the responses came in, from Manny, from V—and especially from Doc Jane as she materialized out of thin air right next to Butch, he relaxed a little and pulled back.
Staring into Jo’s wide, shell-shocked eyes, he brushed her hair out of her face. “Are you okay?”
She was trembling so badly, her molars were castanets, and speaking was hard. “You weren’t going to kill me, were you.”
“What?”
“You weren’t. You were protecting me. You killed Gigante to keep me safe.”
Syn shook his head. “None of it matters anymore. As long as you’re all right—”
“You were trying to save my life.” Jo grabbed the front of his leather jacket. “I’m so sorry. I was wrong about you. I was so wrong—”
“Shh. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I do. Syn, I—”
“Everything is forgiven,” he said because he had the sense it was the only thing that would calm her, and he was worried about whether she’d been shot.
Plus, that was a true statement. He would always forgive her, even though, in this case, there was nothing to excuse. At all.
“I love you,” she said. “You and only you. No matter what the future is, I need you to know that. I need to say the words to you.”
As her miraculous statements registered, Syn lost his voice—or he would have spoken back to her what she had said to him. Lacking words, he touched her hair with awe, and as if she understood what he meant, she turned her face into his bloody palm and kissed it. Then she kissed it again. Then she—
The moan she let out was part relief, part starvation. And then her lips locked onto his bullet wound, the suction hesitant. At least for the first draw. For the second, however, she swallowed hard and moaned again, turning her whole body to the source of the blood flow, seeking sustenance.
Fuck. Her transition was here—
Rearing away from his palm, Jo let out a plaintive howl, her eyes confused and focused at the same time. “What’s happening? What’s… happening to me?”
“It’s okay,” he soothed her, “I’m going to give you a better draw.”
Biting into his wrist, he made sure the punctures were nice and deep, and then he brought the wellspring to her lips.
“Latch on,” he told her. “Drink of me so that I may give you strength.”
When he realized he had spoken in the Old Language, he nearly translated, but she didn’t require the vocabulary. She formed a perfect seal over his vein and started to take from him in earnest, her eyes frightened as they held his own, her trembling getting worse instead of better.
“I will not leave you,” he said. “Until it is done—”
“Syn, we need to get you looked at—”
At the sound of the male voice, he jerked Jo even closer to him, his body forming a cage around her own. As he let out a vicious warning growl, the circle of Brothers, who had formed around them without him realizing it, jumped back like they had seen a rattlesnake in the grass.
All at once, the alley was bathed in red.
Upper lip curled back, fangs fully extended, Syn was ready to attack—
He shook himself back to reality. Clearing his throat, he said, “Shit. Sorry.”
Butch pushed his way through the crowd. In a fond tone, he murmured, “I gotta approve of how you follow directions, Syn. I asked you to take care of my sister and you are. It’s a real example for others.”
Feeling suddenly shy, Syn stared down at his female and tenderly brushed her cheek. “If she’ll have me, I’d like to care of her for the rest of her life.”
* * *
It was all such a blur.
As Jo’s hormones went wild and her body was taken over by an unstoppable force, she had trouble putting the events that led up to her transition in proper order. Then again, did any of that really matter? She was with Syn and she was… doin
g something that would have been repugnant and shocking at any other time in her life.
Instead, it was natural. It was… right.
With her lips to his wrist and the taste of dark wine down the back of her throat, she gave in to what her body seemed destined to do: take from him to survive.
And as she drank, the chill that had trembled through her very bones gradually abated, replaced by a warmth that flowed freely, filling her up from the inside out.
Closing her eyes, she kept taking what Syn provided her, aware that she was being moved, that there was some kind of relocation happening, not that she could track much of what was going on. And then there was movement, subtle and uneven. A soft, engine-like purr. Was she in some kind of vehicle?
Summoning her eyesight, she lifted her lids… and saw a whole lot of medical equipment in a cramped space. And was she on the floor?
“It’s okay.”
All it took was the sound of Syn’s voice to make everything all right. Not that she had been worried, anyway. With him, she was safe.
“We’re in the surgical unit,” he said softly. “Manny’s driving us back to the training center. We just left downtown.”
She wanted to release his vein to speak, but her mouth refused to follow that order.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured, “the partition is shut. We’re alone.”
As if she were worried about privacy? The only thing she cared about was that he was with her.
Nursing from his life spring, she memorized his features. The deeply set eyes. The Mohawk. The hollow cheeks and strong jaw. His wide shoulders. His heavy pectorals and thick, powerful arms…
Another need began to rise inside of her.
And as if he read her mind, his lids lowered. “Yes,” he purred. “I can give you that, too.”
Somehow, he managed to reposition her flat on her back on the cold, hard metal floor—not that she cared—and she helped him with her jeans as best she could, kicking off her boots, dragging the lengths down with socked toes. All the while, she was aware of making mewling noises, begging him, pleading with him.
Her core needed him as much as her changed demanded his blood.
She felt his fingers slip and slide against her sex first, and then there was a pause.
“I love you, Jo,” he said roughly.
Releasing his vein, she stared up into his harsh face. “I love you, too.”
Jo cried out as he entered her, his thick erection filling her up. And then he started pumping, slowly at first, just a rocking—and she intended to follow his rhythm. She could not. She had to relatch with his wrist so all she could do was absorb his thrusts. Faster. Harder.
Jo closed her eyes again. In the back of her mind, she knew this was unfair to ask of him. Given that he could not find release, it would only hurt him in the end.
But the sex was something he seemed determined to give her.
No matter the cost to himself.
That was the man—male, rather—she loved, however. He would do anything, absolutely anything…
… for his female.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Syn must have checked that that partition, separating the treatment space from the mobile surgical unit’s cockpit, was locked in place a hundred times.
Okay, that was an exaggeration. But only a slight one.
He did not want anyone to see Jo undone as she was, being intimately serviced by her male—had she really told him she loved him?—and that especially included one of her brothers. Not that he was worried about defending his female, even against a member of her own bloodline.
He may have turned over a new leaf with his talhman, but he was still a killer. His reaction as he’d been approached while feeding his female proved it.
Looking down into the face of his shellan, he watched the way her head moved back and forth as he penetrated her and retreated, penetrated and retreated. The feel of her hot, wet core was going straight to his head, and then there was the sight of her at his vein. His hips jerked and began to pump on reflex, something taking over him.
As the rhythm of his pelvis increased, Syn began to pant, the pleasure ramping up inside of him even though it had nowhere to go. But what the fuck did he care. Beneath his surging body, Jo was in ecstasy, her arousal scent thick in the air, her body absorbing his thrusts, both her hands locked on his forearm to make sure his vein didn’t go anywhere away from her mouth.
Giving himself up to the sex, his body rode the wave, closing in on the terminal moment that would not come, the lip of pleasure from which he would never fly, the culmination that was an ever-moving target he would never close—
Syn’s eyes squeezed closed and his molars locked.
Sweat broke out across his face, down his neck… and over his chest under his clothes.
Slapping into the seat of Jo’s pelvis, he groaned deep in his throat as the pleasure pinpointed into pain, the worst it had ever been because his female was the very best he had ever—
The orgasm crackled through Syn’s body as his hips locked into place, all of the tension releasing in an explosion of sensations that brought a sacred easing, an indescribable floating peace, a soaring exhalation as he ejaculated over and over again, filling his female up.
Syn dropped his head down, his forehead against the corrugated floor of the surgical van. For a moment, he thought he was losing consciousness, everything spinning. But then he returned to his body.
And continued to pleasure his female.
It was a new landscape of experience, and he explored it with her, the pleasure rising up again, finding that potential, renewing the ascension. The second time it happened for him, as he approached the release, he wondered if it wasn’t going to fail on him. After centuries of impotence, he expected more of the same even after his first data point to the contrary.
He was wrong.
He orgasmed again.
And again.
And again.
As did his female.
It turned out his body just knew what it wanted. And it had saved itself through entire eras of progress and innovation and revolution and evolution…
… for the one female it wanted to give itself to.
What a wise choice, Syn thought with a smile as he started to ride the waves once more.
* * *
Butch needed to be driven back to the mansion in the R8.
Even after V materialized downtown and went to work on him, he didn’t have the energy to do more than respirate. Fortunately, his best friend was on it. In fact, Vishous was straight-up empowered. In spite of doing his cleansing routine, and throwing up mhis around the scene in the alley, he was snappy as a spring motherfucker.
Then again, winning the war had a way of perking a brother up. Especially after Butch and his roomie had just conference-called their females and gotten to play the victorious warriors returning to the home front with the spoils.
Which, okay, fine, were nothing but some serious bragging rights. What the fuck did it matter, though! The happiness in Marissa’s and Jane’s voices was more than enough of a reward. Plus, hello, everyone was coming back with a heartbeat.
Although Syn was going to need some surgery. Assuming the Bastard didn’t let Jo drain him dry in the back of that RV. At least Manny was watching over them like a hawk.
Letting his head lull in the direction of his bestie, Butch rolled his eyes. “I still can’t believe it. It’s over. It’s done. The Omega is gone.”
“But we got a replacement.” V glanced over. “Your little friend.”
“Balance, right?” Butch went back to looking out the front windshield. “It’s all about balance. Did you know your mom had another sister?”
“No. But there’s a lot I don’t know about her.”
“Well. There you go.”
As V’s phone went off with a text, he nodded at the unit in the console. “Check that will you. I’m feeling like I want to keep my eyes on the road tonight. Fuck only knows wha
t happens next.”
Butch snagged the Samsung and put in his roommate’s passcode. As the thing came alive, he went into the text that had just come through. When he saw who it was from, he nearly put the screen back facedown.
Tossing the damn cell out the window also had an appeal.
Things were going so well. Couldn’t they have a moment’s peace—
“What is it?” V glanced over. “Something wrong?”
Butch sat up in the passenger seat a little higher. “Um… it’s, ah… here lemme open it. It’s a link.”
“From who?”
Yeeeeeah, maybe we’ll just wait on that, Butch thought. “Lassiter” was not a name he wanted to be tossing out all willy-nilly—
“What… the… fuck,” he breathed.
V’s foot came off the gas, that surgical RV they were trailing getting ahead of them. “What.”
Butch shook his head and restarted the video. “It’s Curt Schilling.”
Vishous’s recoil was so great, the other brother nearly snapped his neck. “The Curt Schilling?”
“TheCurtSchilling.” As in the Boston Red Sox right-handed, bloody-sock’d pitcher who had led the team to its first World Series Championship in eighty-six years, finally breaking the Curse of the Bambino after an agonizing drought. “The fucking Curt Schilling!”
“What’s he doing on my phone!”
“I don’t know!”
Okay, fine. It was quite possible the two of them were sounding like ten-year-old little boys. But it was TheCurtSchilling.
“Play it! Play it! Play—”
“I am! I am! I am—”
V wrenched the R8’s wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes, halting them on a shoulder of the road. Then the pair of them knocked heads as they leaned down to the screen.
Curt Schilling—TheCurtSchilling—looked into the camera that was videotaping and seemed a little confused as he spoke.
