The Bloodline War (39 page)

Inside, the house was just as stunning. She was led through a domed foyer to a spacious living room done in blond wood with cathedral ceilings, then down a long hallway floored in Spanish tiles. The place reeked of quality and class and money.

Whose house was this?

Spike Boy headed to the last door on the left in the hallway, pulling her inside a large bedroom. Intricately paned windows were strung across the opposite wall, the outside shutters currently closed, and there was a large skylight above, displaying a panorama of twinkling stars. The furniture was expansive and beautiful, but the place was disordered, the bed half-made, clothes strewn about, its occupant clearly sloppy.

Something low in Tonĩ’s stomach pulsed. This was Spike Boy’s bedroom.

“You should be waitin’ for Raymond to get home with Videön and Hütch, Rën,” Skull said, planting himself in the doorway. His nose was still mashed out of shape, but other than that all bruising and white acid were gone. “He doesn’t even know we’ve nicked her, yet.”

Spike Boy—Rën—flung his leather jacket onto a chair. “Raymond wants me to impregnate her, Mürk. I don’t see how the old man would girn about me gettin’ to that task straight away.”

Toni went dry-mouthed with shock and fear.
Impregnate
! She stumbled sideways, the two emotions colliding within her until she couldn’t tell one from the other, the chaos nearly shutting down her mind. Without thought, she darted for the door.

Amazingly, Mürk stepped aside to let her pass.

Rën seized her by the bound wrists and jerked her backward. Pain screamed through the small bones in her wrists, and she gasped around her ball gag.

“Raymond will spit tacks if you hurt her,” Mürk warned.

“Then she’d best be docile and sweet as a lamb, hadn’t she?” Rën pressed wet lips to her ear. “Hear that, Tonĩ, love? You need to please me, right. Leave me a very satisfied man.” He ripped the cord from her wrists then yanked the ball gag out of her mouth.

She coughed and cried out, sucking in a ragged breath.

Rën tugged his T-shirt over his head, exposing an upper body strewn with scars; Gábor’s knife wound was fresh and red. His eyes took on a venal glitter as he toed off his boots, the way he looked at her making her skin crawl.

She shot a desperate glance at Mürk, her belly knotting into a hard tight ball.

Mürk’s gaze skidded from her to Rën.

“You want to have an ogle at us, mate, while I’m slippin’ her a length, is that why you’re dossin’ about?” Rën crossed to the bedroom door and shoved Mürk out into the hallway. “Right sick of you, old sod.” He slammed the door shut and rounded on her. “Get your kit off, Tonĩ, now.”

A wracking shudder shook her spine. She stood frozen in place, unspeakably terrified. Oh, this situation way out-trumped the day she’d been kidnapped by the Vârcolac. She’d been scared that day, without question, but right from the start, the men of Ţărână had treated her with nothing but absolute respect. She’d quickly learned that no one was going to do her bodily harm.

Not so here.

“I have a brother named Videön.” Rën spoke offhandedly as he unbuckled his belt. “Now he likes it when a girl cries and carries on while he’s fuckin’ her, see. He’s the real radgie one. But me?” Rën shrugged. “Either way’s fine with me. Savvy?” He shoved his pants down, stripping himself naked.

Tonĩ’s pulse beat thundered up into her head, the sight of his large, thick penis slamming another layer of horrible, inescapable reality over this appalling situation. His organ probably wasn’t any bigger than Jaċken’s, but the circumstances made it seem dangerously enormous. In a few short minutes, this man was going to try and shove that thing inside her when she wouldn’t be—
couldn’t be
—anything but bone dry.

“There’s….” She cleared her tight throat, opening up a channel for speech. “There’s no reason for doing this, Rën. I’m already mated to a Vârcolac, which means I can’t get pregnant by any man other than my husband. That includes Om Rău.”

“I can think of two reasons,” he said, leering at her breasts. “Any road, my brothers and I aren’t like the sheep-shaggin’ Underground Om Rău you’re used to dealin’ with, love. We’re half-Fey.”

“The rule still applies.” Although truth was, she wasn’t sure about that, but it seemed prudent to add it.

“As bang-tidy as you are,” he came back lazily, “it’ll be worth the experiment.”

“Worth incurring this Raymond’s—?”

“Get undressed!” he roared, “
now
, or I’ll do it for you.”

Jumping at his shout, she jolted backward, her eyes darting around the room. The walls were closing in on her, time running out, options disappearing. “C-can’t…please, can’t we do this with my clothes on? You know, j-just the first time.”

His gaze dropped to her breasts again. “No.”

Her abdominals cramped around a surge of panic. She could feel the forceful, painful rhythm of her heart, pounding beyond her control, heightening her sense of helplessness. Bile swam up her throat and into her mouth, its acrid taste making her eyes water.

Rën planted his hands on his hips. “This can be a doss for you, Tonĩ, or hard as fuck. What’s it going to be?”

Every atom of stubborn pride inside her rebelled against being docile and sweet as a lamb, but as she passed her eyes over Rën’s body, she knew she didn’t have a hope in hell of fighting him off. She’d seen a lot of large physiques during her time in Ţărână, but Rën’s was one of the more brutally masculine bodies out there. With his massive muscles carved into curving rock, he looked to be somewhere between Jaċken and Lørke.

If she was really clever—and lucky—maybe she could hold him off for a short time, but to what purpose? Ţărână’s warriors were unconscious, for God knew how long, and even if they should awaken, they had no way of finding her. No eleventh-hour rescue was on the way.

Rën stepped toward her.

It was such a casual step, it left her totally unprepared for his hard slap. Her head whipped sideways and her bottom lip split open, blood rushing onto her tongue and chin, her ears ringing from the pain. She had only a moment to shake the fog from her brain before a powerful arm closed around her waist and hauled her off her feet. She screamed as she was tossed onto the bed, landing in a loose-jointed sprawl.

Rën followed her onto the mattress, one hand snapping shut around her throat, the other tearing at her clothes.

Wheezing and choking, she clawed at the vise-grip around her neck, her throat pumping frantically against Rën’s fist. She tried twisting and bucking, but the Om Rău, at least a hundred pounds heavier than she, skilled at fighting, and totally unaffected by feelings of morality, had her stripped in seconds.

Terror consumed her. She forgot to breathe, her throat going dry and gritty. Her eyesight grayed at the corners.

Rën let go of her throat—but only to grab her legs and jack her knees back to her ears, tilting her core upward.

The intolerable vulnerability of the position ignited a strange, savage electricity in her. It whirred and whipped, an awesome force. She grappled for control over it, but the power remained just outside of her ability to manage.
Please, somebody, help me
!
Mürk, that Raymond person, someone
! She inhaled a huge breath and screamed for as long and as loud as she could.

“Shut your face now, girl. It’s not as wretched as all that.” Rën grabbed his blood-engorged penis and poked around for entrance into her body.

Teeth gritted, she fought like a madwoman, but with her legs hooked over Rën’s broad shoulders and the weight of his muscled body easily keeping her folded in half, she couldn’t do much more than get her calves swinging furiously. She was utterly helpless. Tears streamed down her face and pooled in her ears. Icy sweat broke out all over her skin, everything inside her cringing against the imminent violation. As a last-ditch effort, she reached between her legs and grabbed Rën’s hand, pulling his member aside.

Rën gaped down at their joined hands, an expression of abject shock on his face. “How the buggerin’ shite are you touchin’ that?”

Touching…? Dear God, she was touching his ring—his
immortality
ring—and it wasn’t shocking her!

She wrestled with his hand, gouging her fingernails into his palm to force his hand to open. He was stronger than she was, and started to make a fist—then one of her nails nicked his penis, and in the moment his hand spasmed, she yanked off his ring.

“Bloody hell!” Rën snarled. “Give that back, you fuckin’ scut.”

She shoved the ring in her mouth, but before she could swallow it, Rën slapped her again, the hard edge of his palm catching the side of her eye. Stars blinked to life in front of her, and she gasped in pain.

Rën jammed his fingers into her mouth and—

The skylight overhead shattered, glass raining down, and one, two, three, Jaċken, Sedge, and Dev smashing down with the prism-like shards. Suddenly Rën was no longer on top of her, but driven to the floor by the juggernaut that was her husband.

Her head spinning, Tonĩ teetered to a sitting position and clawed through the glass on the bedspread for a sheet. Wrapping it around her naked body, she stumbled off the mattress and rushed to the nightstand, wedging herself between it and the wall. She watched through tear-blurred eyes as Jaċken roared above his victim, his eyes flashing the hellfire of Rău red. He punched Rën with a blow that sounded like a plumber’s wrench meeting a side of beef. And again. And again.

“Jaċken,” she called to him. “I-I removed his immortality ring.”

Jaċken paused long enough to notice that, yes, Rën was bleeding normal red blood, not white acid. He had two long knives slicked from his belt in a heartbeat, one in each fist. Fangs bared and dripping, Jaċken stabbed the blades into either side of Rën’s throat, then crosscut his arms, slicing Rën’s head off with a sickening crunch. More red blood gouted from the ragged stump.

Tonĩ leaned behind the nightstand and vomited. Doctor or not, she was done with this night.

“Tonĩ?” Jaċken heaved to his feet, the front of his shirt plastered to his body with blood, his eyes searching wildly for her. Spotting her in her hidey hole, he raced over and crouched down before her. “Are you all right? Jesus—!”

She launched herself out of her nook and into her husband’s arms. “Th-thank God you got here when you did.” She trembled against him. “That Om Rău almost…almost….”

“I saw,” he said in a clogged voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner, honey.” He leaned back to look at her, brushing his thumb over her split lip. “Shit,” he hissed.

She wrapped her hand around his wrist. “How did you get here at all?”

“Dev and Sedge were topside tonight on another mission and received your emergency call on their cells, too. They came to the Doubletree Hotel, roused us, and then we followed the homing signal in your purse.”

“My purse?”

“Anyone who goes topside gets wired up with a tracking device. Us warriors have it in our cell phones. It’s one of our normal security measures.”

“Well, it would’ve been nice to have known that. I felt really damned hopeless.” Tonĩ laid her cheek against her husband’s chest, not caring that she was getting herself all bloody. “You guys have to be better about filling in your new co-leader.”

Jaċken laughed shakily. “Yeah.”

“I want to go home.”

“I bet you do.” Jaċken’s tone was gruff. He kissed her hair.

Arc slipped silently through the broken skylight above, landing on cat feet. He was covered in dirt and grime and his nose was bleeding. “What the hell,” he swore, glancing at the headless corpse. “You guys were supposed to save that dick wad for me.”

Jaċken came to his feet, drawing Tonĩ up with him. “What that lowlife did to my mate way surpasses what he did to you and your brother, Costache.”

Arc’s gaze raked over Tonĩ’s sheet-clad body, her bloody mouth and bruised eye. He paled a little. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. Tonĩ, are you—?”

The door was front-kicked open by Mürk and the bald Om Rău stormed inside the room, a rifle jacked back against his shoulder. “Everyone get your hands where I can see them!” he shouted, pinning the barrel briefly on each of them.

Sedge and Dev slowly raised their hands in the air, the smirks on their faces making it a mocking gesture. Arc and Jaċken didn’t comply, both of them just glaring.

“Up!” Mürk snarled, “or I drop you.”

“Now would be nice.” Dev drawled the comment.

Mürk’s brows snapped low in confusion, but in the next moment, a belt whipped over Mürk’s head from behind and looped around his neck. “Howdy, cue ball,” Gabor said, jerking the belt into a tight garrote. “Not fun having someone sneak up behind you, is it?”

Mürk wheezed and reddened.

Dev plucked the rifle out of Mürk’s hand. “Gimme that.”

Gábor shoved Mürk farther into the room. “You gonna end this guy,” he asked Jaċken, “same as that other?”

Mürk angled his gaze to Rën’s lifeless body, fear rocketing through his eyes and his face staining a deeper shade of red.

Jaċken bent to unsheathe a knife from his boot. “Fuckin’-A.”

Mürk fought to get away, the white line of his teeth showing.

Jaċken cupped Tonĩ’s cheek with his free hand. “I know it’s been one hell of a night, honey, but do you think I could ask you to get Skull’s ring off?”

“What?!” Mürk thrashed against Gábor’s hold. “No! Bugger off, you piggin’ grot!”

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Jaċken assured her.

Nodding mutely, she clutched the sheet tightly around her body and started forward.

Jaċken kept a steadying hand on her lower back as he led her to a spot in front of Mürk.

Mürk fought harder. “Get her away from me!”

Dev stepped forward and slammed a brutal fist into Mürk’s midsection.

As Mürk sagged against the garrote, Jaċken grabbed the Om Rău’s arm and forced it up, presenting his hand to Tonĩ.

She swallowed convulsively. “You’re going to have to pry open his fingers.”

“Oh, please,” Arc drawled nastily, “allow me.” He seized Mürk’s wrist and twisted sharply, breaking it with a brittle snap. Mürk’s hand flopped open.