Lover Mine (50 page)

And then John heard that voice. That snarky-ass, cocksucking voice.

“Bet you never expected to hear from me again.” Lash’s tone was one of grim satisfaction. “Surprise, motherfuckers, and guess what? I’m about to do you a favor. You might want to know that there was a mass induction into the Lessening Society tonight. Farmhouse out RR 149. Happened around four a.m., so if you get off your asses and head there as soon as night falls, you might find them still throwing up all over the place. FYI, wear your waders—it’s a mess. Oh, and tell Xhex I can still taste her—”

V canned the speakerphone.

As John’s lips peeled off his fangs, and he let out a soundless snarl, the painting on the wall behind him trembled.

When George whimpered, Wrath soothed the dog and pointed the letter opener across the way. “You’ll get your chance at him, John. I swear it on my father’s grave. I need your head in this game now, though, dig?”

Easier said than done. Reeling in the urge to kill was like restraining a pit bull with one hand behind his back.

Next to him, Xhex frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“We cool?” Wrath demanded.

When John finally whistled an assent, Vishous exhaled a cloud of Turkish tobacco and cleared his throat. “He didn’t leave an exact address for this so-called massacre. And I tried to trace the number he called from and got nothing.”

“The question I’m wondering,” Wrath said, “is what the fuck’s doing. He’s head of the Lessening Society—so if his tone was all I’ve-got-the-biggest-balls-of-them-all? Hey, cool, I get that shit. But that wasn’t my read.”

“He’s tattling.” Vishous stabbed out his hand-rolled in an ashtray. “That’s what it sounded like to me—although I’m not willing to bet my big balls on it.”

Now that John had his inner pit recaged and was able to think properly, he was inclined to agree with the Brother. Lash was a self-serving shit, and about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake, but the thing was, when you couldn’t rely on morality, you could absolutely bank on narcissism: It made the bastard utterly predictable.

John was sure of this—to the point where he felt like he’d been through it all before.

“Is it possible he’s been dethroned,” Wrath murmured. “Daddy-o maybe decide that the son was not so amusing after all? Or did the evil’s shiny, pretty new toy break
—
is there some shit in Lash’s bizarre biology that’s just coming out now? I want us to go in assuming it’s an ambush. . . .”

There was broad consensus in the room for the plan, as well as some cheap shots involving Lash’s ass and various kinds of large-bore instruments of impact: size- fourteen boots being the most likely to come to pass, but hardly the most creative.

For example, John seriously doubted Rhage could in fact park his GTO in the guy’s sun-don’t-shine. Or would want to.

Man . . . what a turn of events. And yet it wasn’t really surprising—if what they were guessing had actually happened. The Omega was known to go through
Fore-lessers
like shit through a goose, and blood wasn’t necessarily thicker than evil, so to speak. And if Lash had been kicked to the curb, his calling the Brotherhood out to pull a middle finger on his father was brilliant maneuvering—especially as
lessers
were weakest right after their inductions, and therefore incapable of fighting back.

The Brothers could clean house.

Jesus Christ, John thought. Destiny could make for strange bedfellows.

 

 

Xhex was on a low boil as she stood next to John in a study that, but for the desk and throne, could have been mistaken for a French female’s parlor.

The sound of Lash’s voice coming from that phone made her feel like her stomach had been scrubbed down with ammonia, the burning, churning routine doing a nasty on that poor, well-intended turkey sandwich she’d just had.

And Wrath’s assumption that John was going to defend her honor didn’t calm things down in there.

“So we infiltrate,” the Blind King was saying. “At nightfall, all of you go out 149 and—”

“I’ll go now,” she said loud and clear. “Give me a pair of guns and a knife and I’ll go check it out right now.”

Okaaaaaay. Short of pulling the pin on a hand grenade and chucking it into the center of the room, she couldn’t have commanded more attention.

As John’s emotional grid went dark with oh-no-you-don’t, she started the countdown before the explosion hit.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

“That’s a kind offer,” the king said as he slid into full cajole-the-female mode. “But I think it’s best—”

“You can’t stop me.” She dropped her arms to her sides—and then reminded herself that she wasn’t about to physically attack the guy. Really. She wasn’t.

The king’s smile was about as warm as dry ice. “I’m sovereign here. Which means if I tell you to hang tight, you’re going to goddamn well do that.”

“And I’m a
symphath
. Not one of your subjects. More to the point, you’re smart enough not to send your best assets”—she motioned around the room at the Brothers—“into a possible ambush set up by your enemy. I’m disposable—unlike them. Think about it. You going to lose one of them just because you didn’t want me to get a little sun today?”

Wrath laughed hard. “Rehv? You want to weigh in on this as king of her kind?”

From across the room, her old boss and dear friend, the fucker, stared at her with amethyst eyes that knew way too much.

You’re going to get yourself killed
, he thought at her.

Do not hold me back
, she returned at him
. I’ll never forgive you.

Rehvenge’s jaw clenched so hard she was surprised that when he finally opened his mouth, he didn’t spit out his teeth in pieces. “She can go do what she wants. You can’t save someone if they don’t want the fucking lifeboat.”

The male’s anger sucked most of the air out of the room, but she was so focused she didn’t need her lungs to work properly anyway.

Obsession was as good as oxygen. And anything that had to do with Lash was fuel to her fire.

“I need weapons,” she said to the group. “And leathers. A phone for communication.”

Wrath growled low and deep. Like he was going to try and lock her down in spite of Rehv’s pass.

Walking forward, she planted her palms on the king’s desk and leaned in. “Lose me or run the risk of losing them. What’s your answer there, Your Highness.”

Wrath rose to his feet, and for a moment she got a clear sense that although he was on the throne, he was still lethal as hell. “Watch. Your. Tone. In my fucking house.”

Xhex inhaled deeply and calmed herself down. “I apologize. But you’ve got to see my point.”

As the silence expanded, she could feel John looming—and knew that even if she could break through the king’s roadblock, she was still going to have a hell of a time getting around the male by the door. But her departure was not open for discussion from anyone.

Wrath cursed low and long. “Fine. Go. I won’t be responsible if you get yourself killed.”

“Your Highness, you never were responsible. No one but me is—and no crown on your head or anybody else’s is going to change that.”

Wrath looked in V’s direction and all but snarled, “I want this female covered with weapons.”

“No problem. I’ll hook her up right.”

As she went to follow Vishous out, she stopped in front of John and wished she had a different hand to play—especially as he took her biceps in a hard grip. But the fact was, an opportunity was out there and she had until sundown to take advantage of it: If there were any clues to where Lash was, she’d better use them to get to him if she wanted a clear shot at the bastard. Come nightfall? John and the Brotherhood were going to get unleashed on the situation—and they weren’t going to hesitate to kill their target.

Yes, Lash had to pay for what he’d done to her, but she needed to be the one to collect on that debt: She was batting a thousand when it came to burying those who had wronged her, the living, breathing “bitch” in that jolly little saying about payback.

Quietly, so no one else heard, she said, “I’m not someone you need to protect, and you know
exactly
why I have to do this. You love me like you think you do, you’re going to let go of my arm. Before I rip it out of your hold.”

As he paled, she prayed she wasn’t going to have to get forceful.

But she didn’t. He released his grip on her.

Heading out the door of the study, she marched past V and barked over her shoulder, “Time’s wasting, Vishous. I need some steel.”

A
s Xhex took off with V, John’s first thought was to go downstairs, put himself in front of the door that opened into the great outdoors, and physically block her from leaving.

Second thought was to go with her—although that would just turn him into the vampire equivalent of a Roman candle.

Jesus Christ, every time he thought he’d reached a new low with her, the rug got pulled out from under him and he landed at an even harder, hellish place: She’d just volunteered to go into a total unknown that she herself admitted was too dangerous for the Brothers. And she was doing it without backup and without any way of him reaching her if she got hit.

As Wrath and Rehv walked up to him, the study came back into focus and he realized everyone else had left—except for Qhuinn, who was hovering in the corner, frowning at his cell phone.

Rehvenge exhaled hard, clearly in the same fuck-me boat John was in. “Listen, I—”

John signed fast:
What the fuck are you doing, letting her go out like that?

Rehv drew a hand over his brush-cut mohawk. “I’m going to take care of her—”

Rehv growled deep and low. “Watch your attitude, kid.”

Right. Okay. Such the wrong thing to say on the wrong day: John got right in the guy’s grille, bared his hardware, and thought loud and clear:
That’s my female going out there. Alone. So you can
fuck
my attitude.

Rehv cursed and nailed John with hard eyes. “Be careful with that ‘your female’ stuff
—
I’m just telling you. Her end game doesn’t involve anyone but herself, feel me?”

John’s first instinct was to punch the bastard, just pop him in the headlights.

Rehv laughed hard. “You want to throw down? Fine with me.” He put his red cane aside and dumped his sable trench coat on the back of an ornate chair. “But it’s not going to change a damn thing. You think anyone can read her better than I can? I’ve known her for longer than you’ve been alive.”

No, you haven’t
, John thought, for some strange reason.

Wrath stepped between them. “Okay, okay, okay . . . go to your corners, boys. This is a nice Aubusson carpet you’re standing on. You get blood on it and I’ll have Fritz so far up my ass I’ll be coughing on his hankie.”

“Look, John, I’m not trying to bust your balls,” Rehv muttered. “I just know what it’s like to love her. It’s not her fault that she’s the way she is, but it makes for hell on other people, trust me.”

John dropped his fists. Shit, as much as he wanted to argue, the purple-eyed son of a bitch was probably right.

Strike the “probably.” He
was
right—John had learned that the hard way. Too many times.

Fucking A
, he mouthed.

“That pretty much covers it.”

John left the study and went down to the foyer with some vain hope that he could talk her out of leaving. As he paced over the mosaic floor, cutting paths over the depiction of the apple tree, he thought of that embrace they’d shared outside of the locker room. How the hell had they gone from being that close to . . . this?

Had that moment even happened? Or had his stupid-ass nancy side just pulled it out of thin air because he was a sap?

Ten minutes later, Xhex and V came out from the secret door beneath the grand staircase.

As she strode toward across the foyer, she was as John had first met her: black leathers, black boots, black muscle shirt. There was a leather jacket hanging from her hand and enough weapons strapped to her body to outfit a SWAT team.

She paused when she came up to him, and as their eyes met, at least she didn’t bother feeding him a line of bullshit like,
It’s going to be all right
. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to stay. Nothing he could say was going to derail this—the resolve was in her eyes.

As things stood now, he found it very hard to believe she had ever wrapped her arms around him.

As soon as V opened the vestibule’s door, she turned away and slipped through without a word spoken or a look back.

Vishous locked up again as John stared at the heavy panels and wondered exactly how long it would take to claw his way through them with his bare fucking hands.

The rasp of a lighter was followed by a slow exhale. “I gave her the best of everything. Forties. Matched. Three clips for each gun. Two knives. New cell phone. And she knows how to use the shit.”

V’s heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed and then the Brother took off, his boots making a heavy rhythm across the mosaic floor. A second later, the hidden door Xhex had emerged from clamped shut as the guy went down into the tunnel to go back to the Pit.

Helplessness really didn’t suit him, John thought, his mind starting to hum in the same way it had when Xhex had found him on the floor of the locker room shower.

“You want to watch TV?”

John frowned at the quiet voice and glanced to the right. Tohr was in the billiard room, sitting on the couch that faced the wide-screen over the ornate fireplace. His shitkickers were up on the coffee table and he had his arm running along the back of the sofa, the remote facing the Sony.