On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (35 page)

He put his back against a tree that wasn’t as massive as the ones growing around his cabin. The salt in the air kept the area around Kragen’s house more brittle than the vegetation on Zeus’s land. The fog continued to roll around him like an army of ghostly spirits waiting for him to add to their ranks. He heard cursing. His chin slipped down to his chest as he chuckled.

He couldn’t help it. He loved the moment when men discovered fear, realizing they weren’t the baddest things walking the earth. Outside of being with Sabrina, there was no greater satisfaction than when the blade performed the ritual of separating spirit from flesh, allowing the dead to make their way into the world where Cizan’s god ruled.

“We go back?” a voice muffled by the dense layers of fog asked.

“Go back to what? You think the boss’ll be okay with us telling him we didn’t get the man that’s been fucking his woman?”

Ah, Eddie was out here. The man who had intended to rape him back in that room was still trying to stay on his tail.

“Boss ain’t gotta know,” the other man said.

“You’re new to this crew, so I’ll tell you once, that’s not how we roll.”

Zeus slipped around a tree and went to ground. Pain. It was everywhere. Almost unbearable, but he took it because he only had moments.

The three men arced around the last dead man—one at the head, one on the side, and one at the feet. Sweat slid into Zeus’s eyes, aggravating his already unreliable vision as he crept forward. He gripped his blade tighter, squeezing out every ounce of power the blade was willing to give.

Zeus lay behind the man at the head, attempting to appear a misted-over shadow or some outgrowth of foliage. The minute the man farthest away, Eddie, bent down to check over the body, Zeus balanced on his good arm and leg, then flowed upright. The man near the head turned. Zeus’s blade pierced the side of his neck. He yanked hard when it lodged, causing blood, flesh, cartilage, and bone to spew one way as the man’s half-decapitated head lolled the other.

Two.

Zeus pushed the near headless body at the man standing to his left. The body caught a round of bullets before the gun went silent. The man who’d fired the gun was struggling to push his dead comrade off him as Eddie threw a punch that connected with Zeus’s already bruised jaw. After the initial impact, his mind contained the pain. His returning punch knocked Eddie to the ground, and fast as he could, Zeus flew into the man with the gun, sinking his blade, in rapid succession, into the man’s chest and abdomen, hitting heart, liver, and kidney.

Zeus fell to his knees, trying to shake off the impending darkness as the man bled out.

One.

The last of the huntsmen, Eddie, rose from where he’d landed at the dead man’s feet. He was laughing, the sound crowish in the thick mist.

“Man, you come all this way only to find yourself right back where we started. Guess the saying ‘you can’t run from your destiny’ is true.” He tossed his gun behind him, rubbing a hand up and down his crotch. “Destiny. That’s what it’s called when I get a second chance to ram my dick down your throat and up your ass. I’ll make you my bitch before I bag you and get a hefty bonus for my efforts.”

Zeus felt the blood of all the other kills coating his skin. He knew he looked like something spit from hell, but Eddie wasn’t afraid. He was aroused by the sight of Zeus. It meant something to defeat the killer of killers. What Eddie was feeling was the power play that existed between a sadist and his intended victim.

“Get off raping men?”

The man grinned as he unzipped his pants. “I’m not particular.”

Zeus spit out a stream of blood. “Don’t like men fucking me, Eddie.”

“Guess I’ll have to like it enough for both of us. And after, I’m gonna go back to the house, and when my boss gets done with your woman, I’m gonna do the same thing to her that I do to you. I will be the last thing you two share in this life.”

Eddie approached slowly. Dude was huge. He could give Big Country a run for the most bulked-out muscle strapped on a human frame.

Zeus took a step, and his leg buckled. Eddie kicked out, knocking the knife from Zeus’s hand before slamming his fist into Zeus’s face. The darkness was falling fast. Zeus blinked back starbursts as he fell sideways, covering the dead man’s head and part of his torso. Reaching beneath the body, Zeus found his hand lodged as Eddie kicked him onto his back.

“You ready to beg yet?” Eddie asked as he stood, straddling Zeus. His dick was erect and free of the pants and boxers that hung low on his hips.

Zeus squinted, trying to see Eddie’s face beyond the man’s erection. He snorted. He wasn’t one to judge a man’s dick, but Eddie’s was pretty unimpressive.

“Won’t feel a thing.” Zeus laughed, nodding toward Eddie’s dick.

Eddie retaliated by stomping his foot over the bullet wound in Zeus’s leg. Zeus bit back the curse rattling around in his chest and throat. It was the closest he had ever come to screaming in pain.

When he opened his eyes, Eddie was shirtless, and his hand was stroking his bared erection. All else around them was darkness, and Zeus knew this darkness. Knew he was losing this battle, but he couldn’t stop the descent.

“She likes…brown skin. Like yours. But loves…”

Precum dripped onto Zeus’s chest. “I expected more fight from you, killer. Got you rambling, and I haven’t even put you on your knees.”

“I’ll be better. After this.”

“You’ll be dead after this.”

Zeus smiled through the pain. “Already dead. But it never stopped me.”

Zeus pulled his hand from beneath the body. The backup blade he’d hidden beneath, after taking the man out, whispered as it sliced clean through flesh. Eddie’s worthless appendage fell against Zeus’s abdomen before tumbling onto the ground.

Screams. Ear-shattering screams. They would have shaken a feeling man to his very soul, but Zeus could only reflect on how much of a bitch it would be to go into the afterlife without your dick attached. Eddie crumpled to the ground next to Zeus, clutching between his legs. Zeus made it to his knees. Life-preserving instinct must have kicked in, because the other man, still holding on to the gaping wound, scooted on his side toward the gun he had tossed away, but it was too late. Zeus buried his blade into Eddie’s thigh, then his abdomen, then his chest. But not in the heart. He had no heart.

“Eddie?”

The man attempted to struggle. To fight. His fist connected with Zeus’s already busted nose, destroying the reset Sabrina had done earlier. The impact disoriented Zeus for a moment, but he was beyond feeling. He reacted by pounding the hilt of his blade against Eddie’s temple twice, leaving the man dazed.

“Can you even be called a man?” he asked Eddie as he slit the muscles and tendons on each side of Eddie’s shoulders, rendering him unable to lift his arms. He sliced through the corresponding places on Eddie’s thighs, essentially making him a quadriplegic.

“This,” Zeus said, sweeping the dripping blade over the length of Eddie’s body. “This is how I chain a man. And this,” he said, holding up his bloody fist, showcasing his blade. “This is the last thing you fuck with in this life.”

Zeus straddled Eddie’s body and placed the tip of his blade right below the hollow of Eddie’s throat. Zeus closed his eyes, nearly losing consciousness. The image of Sabrina in the doorway of Kragen’s house flashed through his mind. He shook his head slowly and opened his eyes. “My woman. She loves skin like yours.”

He tried to wipe the blood away from Eddie’s chest to give himself a clean palette, but the flow continued.

“Doesn’t it sound something like love to want to give the woman who loves you anything she loves?”

He looked at his blade, and he looked at Eddie, feeling a little ashamed. It was always best to have the right tools for the right occasion. “It’s not a filleting knife, but it’ll have to do, Eddie.”

Zeus dragged the blade’s tip across the other man’s clavicle and reset at the hollow of Eddie’s throat, cutting down to his belly button. He tried to keep the blade steady and shallow despite the way Eddie bucked beneath him.

It was a testament to his skill and an honor to the blade that he could skin the man with so many of his own injuries, yet render skin from flesh he did.

“Stop screaming, Eddie. It’ll be over soon.”

Eddie didn’t stop. Zeus closed his eyes. Eddie’s wails were causing the pain in his head to expand, almost fracturing his mind. Zeus lifted the blade and let it fall with finality. Gurgling sounds, then silence. Zeus sighed.

The sound of the ocean waves battering against immovable stone met him in the silence. He cocked his head. Was that thunder he heard in the distance? He had no time to wonder. The darkness wouldn’t be stopped. He slid off the partially skinned body and fell to the ground, looking up into a mist-cloaked world that held no answers about how he could save Sabrina before he died.

* * * *

“Is he dead?”

“God, I hope so.”

Silence. Then laughter.

“Hell, son, didn’t know you had the hater gene in you.”

Fingers touched Zeus’s neck. He gripped the blade that had been loose in his fingers and moved to ram it into whoever hovered over him.

“Hold on, Humpty Dumpty,” a voice said as a foot slammed down on his wrist, pinning it to the ground. “You kill Lynx, ain’t nobody else got the skill to put you back together again.”

Zeus opened his eyes, one nearly swollen shut, and looked up at the group standing around him. The Brood.

“Sabrina.”

“Gone. House was empty when we got here.”

“Basement,” he said as he struggled to sit up. Bride assisted him. “Hidden.”

“Big Country here is good at finding hidden spots. It’s empty.”

Zeus remembered the thunder. “Car?” he asked, trying to remember the brand of car they had shoved him into. “Lincoln.”

Big Country rubbed a slow hand over his jaw. “Passed one on the road not ten minutes back.”

“Kragen,” Zeus grunted.

A flurry of curses and recriminations rang out in the darkness.

“Help me up.”

Zeus’s request silenced the Brood.

“Did the half-crazy man just ask for help?” Price asked.

“Half?” Lynx said. “He ripped through the poor bastard’s throat.”

“Gives another meaning to the term deep throatin’ it,” Big Country said.

Zeus was lifted off the ground by Big Country and Bride. He balanced on one leg, not trusting that the other would support him.

“Chief’s got eyes on all Consortium and Kragen-related locations within a hundred mile radius. He’ll show up at one, I’m sure,” Coen said, rubbing his head as he eyed one of the bodies. “Think I would have wanted to be this one,” he said, toeing the first of the four men Zeus had killed in this spot.

“Yeah, definitely wouldn’t want to be him,” Lynx said, pointing to the man lacking the eyeball.

“Tell y’all what, I’d rather be any one of these poor fucks if I can keep my skin and dick attached,” Big Country drawled.

“Jesus, Zeus,” Price said, rubbing his head.

He didn’t understand what the big deal was. Every one of the dead men had tried to kill him. He just refused to let them. With Bride’s help, he limped his naked ass toward the Suburban, its headlights illuminating the bodies on the ground.

“Take me to the cabin,” Zeus said once he’d settled on the blanket Price had covered the middle seat with. The others piled into the vehicle.

“What fucking cabin?” Price asked.

He gave them directions as Lynx draped a blanket over his lower body and worked on the new injuries he’d accumulated as well as the ones Sabrina had doctored earlier. He didn’t reject the second dosing of pain medications. He needed to find Sabrina. Kill again. He would kill until the fear of losing her disappeared or his body gave out.

“How’d you find me?”

“We went to extract Sabrina only to find her motel room busted up to high hell. The guy at the front desk gave descriptions we reasoned were Kragen’s goons. Big Country deep scanned the properties nearby. We figured Kragen had to be close to get there before we did, and oh my lucky charms, what did we find? This place deeded to a Mr. Reed Miller. Kragen’s assistant.”

“Unfortunately we also happened to find you bare-assed and half-dead,” Coen muttered.

“Sabrina loves me and my ass.” Zeus smiled, once again feeling smug.

Price frowned at him in the rearview mirror. “Was that a smile on your lips?” He looked over at Lynx. “Did that creepy-ass mothafucka just smile?”

“Coulda been gas,” Big Country said. “Ya know, like babies.”

Zeus tuned out the chatter about how delusional he was, and laid his head back and half closed his eyes. Not a couple of weeks ago the constant banter between the Brood could have driven him to homicide. Now it eased him, distracted him from the fear he felt over the situation his woman was in. I am becoming more normal, he thought as he mentally cataloged which weapons he could use to quickly slaughter with only one arm at full strength. The image of the short-handled, dual-sided ax filtered through his drug-induced peace, further calming his mind. The original ax blade had taken down hundred-year-old tree trunks, which meant it could hack through the human body with little effort on his part.

“But what if?” Lynx said in a reflective silence. Zeus opened his eyes. “What would it mean if Zeus was able to find someone to love him, yet none of us have?”

“Who the hell would want something as merciless and deceitful as a woman’s love?” Price said. “Might as well strip naked, cover yourself in blood, and walk into a cage full of starved lions.”

“Looks like Zeus already did.” Coen snorted, eyeing Zeus from the passenger seat.

“Okay, this foolishness ends,” Big Country said decisively. “We’re all capitalistic-minded men, and I tell ya it’s bad business to waste time on entanglements with women. You put a couple hundred on the table, and that’ll pay for the best kinda lovin’ a man can hope to have…the temporary kind. Of a sexual nature, mind you.”

“Pathetic,” Bride said behind him. Zeus heard the flick of her lighter, the sound and smell of paper and tobacco turning to ash.

“Turn up here,” Zeus said as they approached the road to his cabin.