Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (130 page)

“Tell me what happened,” he said darkly.

“We showed up at the prearranged meeting place.”

“Skating rink, waterfront park, or under the bridge.”

“The bridge. We arrived”—Ehric motioned to his twin, who stood silent and watchful beside him

—“on time with the product. About five minutes later, the three of them showed up.”

“As
lessers
.”

“They had the money. They were ready to make the transaction.”

Assail whipped his head around. “They didn’t come to attack you?”

“No, but we didn’t figure that out until it was too late.” Ehric shrugged. “They were slayers who

came out of nowhere. We didn’t know how many of them there were, and we were not taking any

chances. It wasn’t until we searched the bodies, and found the correct amount of money, that we

realized they’d just come to do the deal.”

Lessers
in the trade? This was a new one. “Did you stab the bodies?”

“We took the heads and hid what was left. The money was in a backpack on that one on the left,

and naturally, we brought the cash home.”

“Phones?”

“Got them.”

Assail started to slide a cigar out, but then didn’t want to waste the taste. Reclosing the bags, he rose up from the carnage. “You are certain they were not aggressive?”

“They were ill-equipped to defend themselves.”

“Being badly armed does not mean they weren’t there to kill you.”

“Why bring the money?”

“They could have been dealing elsewhere.”

“As I said, it was in the correct amount and not one penny more.”

Abruptly, Assail motioned for them all to proceed into the house, and oh, the relief that came with clean air. With the screens slowly descending over all the glass, and the coming dawn getting shut

out, he went to the wine bar, retrieved a double magnum of Bouchard Père et Fils, Montrachet, 2006

and popped the cork.

“Care to join me?”

“But of course.”

At the circular table in the kitchen, he sat down with three glasses and the bottle. Pouring the trio, he shared the chardonnay with his two associates.

He didn’t offer the cousins any of his Cubans. Too valuable.

Fortunately, cigarettes made an appearance and then they all sat together, smoking and taking hits

of bliss off the knife edge of his Baccarat.

“No aggression from those slayers,” he murmured, leaning his head back and puffing upward, the

blue smoke rising above his head.

“And the exact amount.”

After a long moment, he returned his eyes to level. “Is it possible the Lessening Society is looking to get into my business?”

Xcor sat in candlelight, alone.

The warehouse was quiet, his soldiers yet to come home, no humans or Shadows or anything

walking above him. The air was cold; same with the concrete beneath him. Darkness was all around,

except for the shallow pool of golden illumination he sat at the outer rim of.

Some thought in the back of his mind pointed out that it was getting dangerously close to dawn.

There was something else, too, something he should have remembered.

But there was no chance of anything getting through his haze.

With his eyes focused on the single flame before him, he replayed the night over and over again.

To say that he had found the Brotherhood’s location was mayhap a stretch of the truth—but not a

total fallacy. He’d been following that Mercedes out into the countryside incremental mile by

incremental mile, with no real plan of what he could or should do when it stopped…when from out of

nowhere, the signal of his blood in his Chosen’s body had not just been lost, but wildly redirected—

sure as a ball thrown against a wall sharply changed its trajectory.

Confused, he had scrambled about, dematerializing this way, that way, up and back—as all the

while, a strange feeling of dread came over him, like his skin was an antenna for danger and it was warning of imminent harm. Backing off, he had found himself at the base of a mountain, the contours of which registered, even in the bright, clear moonlight, as fuzzy, indistinct, unclear.

This had to be where they stayed.

Mayhap up at the top. Mayhap down the far side.

There was no other explanation—after all, the Brotherhood lived with the king to protect him…so

undoubtedly, they would take precautions the likes of which no one else would, and perhaps have at

their disposal technologies as well as mystical provisions that were otherwise unavailable.

Frantic, he had circled the vicinity, going around the base of that mountain a number of times,

sensing nothing but the refraction of her signal and that strange dread. His ultimate conclusion was that she had to be somewhere in that vast, thick acreage: He would have sensed her traveling beyond it, in any direction, if she had come out on another side, and it seemed reasonable to assume that if she had gone to her sacred temple, upon some alternate plane of existence, or—Fates forbid—died, the

resonant echoing of himself would have disappeared.

His Chosen was there somewhere.

Returning to the warehouse, to the present, to where he was now, Xcor rubbed his palms back and

forth slowly, the rasping of the calluses rising up into the quiet. Over on the left, on the edge of the candlelight, his weapons were laid out one by one, the daggers, the guns, and his beloved scythe

carefully arranged next to the messy pile of outer clothing he’d removed as soon as he’d chosen this particular spot on the floor.

He focused upon his scythe and waited for her to talk to him: She often did that, her blood-thirsty ways in lockstep with the aggression that flowed in his veins and defined his thoughts and motivated his actions.

He waited for her to tell him to attack the Brotherhood where they lay. Where their females were.

Where their young slept.

The silence was worrisome.

Indeed, his arrival in the New World had been predicated upon a desire to gain power, and the

biggest, boldest expression of that drive was overthrowing the throne—so, naturally, that was the

course he had chosen. And he was making headway. The assassination attempt in the fall, which had

without a doubt put death sentences upon his and his soldiers’ heads, had been a tactical move that had very nearly finished the whole war before it had gotten started. And his ongoing efforts with Elan and the
glymera
were promoting his agenda and shoring up his support in and among the aristocracy.

But what he had learned this night…

Fates, nearly a year’s worth of work and sacrifice and planning and fighting paled in comparison

to what he had discovered this night.

If his hunch was correct—and how could it not be?—all he had to do was marshal his soldiers

and begin a siege as soon as night fell. The battle would be epic, and the Brotherhood and First

Family’s home permanently compromised no matter the outcome.

It would be a conflict for the history books—after all, the last time the royal homestead had been

hit had been when Wrath’s sire and
mahmen
had been slaughtered before his transition.

History repeating itself.

And he and his soldiers had a serious advantage that those slayers back then had not possessed:

The Brotherhood now had several bonded members. In fact, he believed they were all bonded—and

that was going to split those males’ attentions and loyalties as nothing else could. Although their primary directive as the personal guard of the king was to protect Wrath, their very cores would be torn, and even the strongest fighter with the best of weapons could be weakened if his priorities were in two places.

Moreover, if Xcor or one of his males could get hold of even one of those
shellans
, the

Brotherhood would fold—because the other thing that was true of them was that the pain of their

Brothers was agony of their own.

One female of any of theirs would be all that was required, the ultimate weapon.

He knew it in his soul.

Sitting in the candlelight, Xcor rubbed his dagger hand against his other palm, back and forth,

back and forth.

One female.

That was all he needed.

And he would be able to claim not only his own mate…but the throne.

FORTY

Qhuinn knew he’d put Blay in a totally unfair position.

Talk about pity fucks. But oh, God…looking into those blue eyes, those goddamn

bottomless blue eyes that were open to him in the way they’d once been…it was all he could

think about. And yeah, technically it was sex in terms of where he wanted his various body

parts—well, one specifically. There was so much more to it than that, though.

He couldn’t put it into words; he just wasn’t that good working with syllables. But his desire for

the connection was why he’d gone in for the kiss. He’d wanted to show Blay what he meant, what he

needed, why this was important: His whole world felt like it was crashing and burning, and the loss that was happening just one door down the hall was going to hurt for a very long time.

Yet being with Blay, feeling the heat, making that contact, was like a promise of healing. Even if it lasted only as long as they were in this room together, he would take it, and hold it dear…and relive the memory when he needed to.

“Please,” he whispered.

Except he didn’t give the guy a chance to reply. His tongue snaked out and licked at that mouth,

slipping inside, taking over.

And Blay’s answer was in the way he allowed himself to get pushed back into the cushions of the

couch.

Qhuinn had two vague thoughts: One, the door was only closed, not locked—and he took care of

that by willing the brass bolt into place. His second oh-hey-now was that they couldn’t trash the

place. Going H-bomb all over his bedroom was one thing. This sitting room was public property, and

done up all nice, with silk throw pillows and fancy-dancy drapes, and a whole lot of stuff that looked easily rippable, crushable, and, God forbid, stainable.

Besides, he had already wrecked his Hummer, torn up the garden, and then blendered his

bedroom. So his Destructor quota had been waaaaaay reached for this calendar year…

Naturally, the most reasonable solution to not giving Fritz more to worry about was a quick trip

down the hall to his own place, but as Blay’s talented hands shot around to the front of Qhuinn’s hips and started working his fly, he tossed that bright idea right into the shitter.

“Oh, God, touch me,” he groaned, thrusting his pelvis forward.

He was just going to have to be neat and tidy about this.

Assuming that was possible.

When Blay’s palm shoved into his leathers, Qhuinn’s body went into an arch, his torso bowing

back as he started to get worked. The angle was kind of wrong, so there wasn’t a lot of friction, and his balls were getting pinched to fuck in the crotch of his pants, but holy hell, he didn’t care. The fact that it was Blay was enough for him.

Man, after how many years of blow jobs, hand jobs, and jerking off, this felt like the first time

anyone had ever touched him.

He needed to return the favor.

Snapping into action, he threw his chest forward, bringing their faces close. Man, he loved the

look in those blue eyes as Blay stared up at him, hot, wild, glowing.

Willing.

Qhuinn grabbed on hard and brought their mouths together, grinding against those lips, shooting

his tongue out, taking like a crazy—

“Wait, wait.” Blay yanked back. “We’re going to break the couch.”

“Wha…?” The guy was apparently talking English, but damned if he could translate. “Couch?”

And then he realized that he’d pushed Blay so far back into the arm, the thing was starting to bend out. Which was what more than five hundred pounds of sex would do to a piece of furniture.

“Oh, shit, sorry.”

He was starting to retreat when Blay took control—and Qhuinn abruptly found himself off the sofa

and onto the floor on his back, his legs shoved together, his leathers being yanked down to his ankles.

Perfect. Fucking. Idea.

Thanks to the fact that he went commando, his cock was all about the airtime, thick and straining

as it popped out and lay, aching and swollen, upon his belly. Reaching down, he gave it a couple of strokes as Blay ripped off the shitkickers that blocked the way and tossed them aside. Pants were the next good-bye, and as God was his witness, Qhuinn had never been so glad to see a pair of leathers

flying over a shoulder in his life.

And then Blay got to work.

Qhuinn had to shut his eyes as he felt his thighs get parted and a pair of fighter’s hands drag up the inside of his legs. He immediately let go of his erection—after all, why have his palm in the way

when Blay’s could—

It wasn’t the guy’s hands that gripped him.