Lover Reborn (38 page)

Across the room, the Brother Phury likewise curled up a fist and started smacking it into the open palm of his free hand. As he approached, he said in a nasty tone, “And this is to make sure you don’t follow up on that bright idea.”

Throe smiled at them both. The more they beat him… the more likely he would have to feed again.

They were right, too: He did want to be with her—although “making love” was a far better term.

And those moments with her were so worth whatever they gave him.…

Up at the mansion, Tohr sat on the bottom step of the grand stairwell, his elbows on his bent knees, his chin on a fist, his cell phone faceup next to him.

His ass was numb.

In fact, after having sat where he had for the last—how long? five hours?—he was probably going to have to get Doc Jane to surgically remove the carpet fibers from his caboose—

The security check-in station let out a beep, and he burst up, striding over to the panel, double-checking the screen, releasing the door lock.

Lassiter came in alone, likely because Doc Jane had returned to the Pit. And the angel was naked as a jaybird… and just frickin’ fine. No bullet holes, no scars, no contusions.

“You keep looking at me like that and you’d better buy me dinner afterward.”

Tohr glared at the angel. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Lassiter shook his finger. “You, of all people, do not need to ask me that. Not about last night.”

On that note—and utterly unconcerned about the nakey—Lassiter sauntered into the billiards room and headed for the bar. The good news was that at least when he was behind the thing pouring liquor, his longshoreman and those two buoys were not in full view.

“Scotch? Gin? Bourbon?” the angel asked. “I’m having an Orgasm.”

Tohr rubbed his face. “Can you never say that word around me when you’re buck-ass nekkid?”

That set off a round of, “Orgaaaaasmmm, orgaaaaasmmm, orgaaaasmmm,” to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth. Fortunately, the fruity bullshit the fucker put into his glass cut the chorus off as he swallowed it on a oner.

“Ahhhhh…” The angel smiled. “Think I’ll have another. Care for one? Or did you have enough this afternoon.”

A quick mental picture of No’One’s breast in his hand made his cock hop all over that plan. “Lassiter, I know what you did.”

“Outside? Yeah, the sun and I get along. Best doctor there is—and no copay. Woo-hoo.”

More with the drinking. Which suggested that bravado might just be a little forced.

Tohr parked it on one of the stools. “Why the hell did you put yourself in front of me?”

The angel went about making himself number three. “I’ll tell you the same thing I did Doc Jane—I got no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Those were bullet wounds all over you.”

“Were they?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you prove it?” Lassiter did a little turn with his arms up. “Can you prove I was even hurt?”

“Why deny it?”

“This isn’t a denial if I have no fucking clue what you’re going on about.”

With another charmer of a smile, he bottomed up again. And then immediately started making number four.

Tohr shook his head. “If you’re going to get plastered, why can’t you do it like a real man.”

“I like the taste of fruit.”

“You are what you drink.”

The angel glanced up at the clock. “Shit. I missed
Maury
. But I DVR’d
Ellen.
”

Lassiter went over and stretched out on the leather couch—and Tohr counted himself lucky that the bastard at least had the decency to wrap a throw blanket around his naughty bits. As the television came on, and Ellen DeGeneres danced down a row of housewives, it was obvious that conversation was not on the angel’s to-do list.

“I just don’t get why you did it,” Tohr muttered.

It was so unlike the guy, always out for himself.

At that moment, No’One appeared in the arches of the room. She was in her robe with the hood in place, but Tohr saw her naked and undone, and his body juiced to life.

As he slid off the stool and went to the female, he could have sworn Lassiter murmured, “That’s why.”

Approaching the female, he said, “Hey, did you get the food?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But I was worried when you didn’t come back. What happened?”

He glanced back at Lassiter. The angel appeared to have passed out, his breathing even, the remote resting on his chest in a lax hand, the drink beading up with condensation on the floor beside him.

But Tohr didn’t trust the out-cold appearance.

“Nothing,” he said roughly. “It’s… nothing. Let’s go upstairs and have a rest.”

As he turned her away with a subtle touch on her shoulders, she said, “You sure?”

“Yeah.” And they really were going to rest. He was suddenly exhausted.

He spared one last glance over the shoulder as he headed into the foyer. Lassiter was exactly where he’d been… except there was the smallest hint of a smile on his face.

Like everything had been worth it, as long as Tohr and No’One were together.

A
s the night wore on, Throe walked the streets of Caldwell by himself, unarmed, dressed in hospital scrubs… and stronger than he’d been since he’d arrived in the New World.

His beating at the hands of those two Brothers had healed up almost immediately, and the Brotherhood had released him shortly after that second feeding.

He still had a number of hours before he was due to meet Xcor, and he passed the time with his own thoughts, walking in running shoes that had been a gift from the enemy.

During his stay with the Brotherhood, he had learned nothing about where their facilities were located. He had been unconscious when brought into their compound—and locked in a van with no windows when he’d left. After a drive of some time, no doubt due to a circuitous route, he’d been deposited by the river, and left to his own devices.

Naturally, the van had had no license plate, and no distinguishing features. And he’d had the sense that he was being watched—as if they were waiting to see if he tried to follow it as it departed from him.

He did not. He stayed where he was until it had driven off… and then he had started upon his walkabout.

Xcor’s brilliant maneuver had succeeded in gaining naught. Well, aside from likely saving Throe’s life. What little he had discovered about the Brotherhood was nothing that couldn’t have been guessed at: Their resources were extensive, judging by the amount and sophistication of the medical equipment he’d been treated with; the number of people he’d seen or heard walking in the hall was just as impressive; and security was taken very seriously. Indeed, theirs appeared to be an entire community, hidden from human and
lesser
eyes alike.

Everything had to be underground, he thought. Well guarded. Camouflaged to appear as if it were nothing in particular; for even during the raids, when so many of the race’s homes had been found and wiped out, there had been no rumor that the king’s household had been hit.

So Xcor’s plan had yielded little on Throe’s part but animosity.

And for a moment, he questioned whether he would show up to meet his former leader or not.

In the end, he knew such rebellion would remain unrealized. Xcor had something Throe wanted—the only thing, really. And as long as those ashes were retained by the male, there was naught to be done but grit one’s teeth, duck one’s head, and push onward. It was, after all, what he had been doing for centuries.

Except he would not make the same mistake twice. Only an idiot would not recall this visceral reminder of where things really stood between them.

The answer was to get the remains of his sister back. And as soon as he did? He would miss his fellow soldiers in the same manner he ached for his family, but he would take himself out of the Band of Bastards—forcibly if need be. Then perhaps he would put down some roots somewhere else in America—there would be no returning to the Old Country. He might be too tempted to try to revisit his bloodline, and that would not be fair to them.

Toward the end of the night, at around four a.m. judging by the moon’s position, he dematerialized to the rooftop of the skyscraper. He had no weapons on which to draw for protection—but he had no intention of fighting. As far as he had been taught, his sister could not enter unto the Fade without the proper ceremony so he had to live long enough to bury her.

As soon as he did, however…

Up high above the streets and other buildings of the city, in the curiously silent stratosphere where there were no horns or shouts or rumbles of delivery trucks coming in early, the wind was strong and bracingly chilly in spite of the humidity in the air and the warm temperature. Overhead, thunder rumbled and lightning skipped along the underside of storm clouds, promising a wet beginning to the day.

When he’d started his journey with Xcor, he had been a gentlemale better tutored in the fine art of leading a female upon the dance floor—as opposed to engaging in hand-to-hand combat. But he was no longer who he had been.

Accordingly, he stood out in the open without cowardice or apology, feet braced and arms at his sides. There was no weakness in the line of his chin, the contour of his chest, or the straight angle of his shoulders, and no fear in his heart at what might step out to greet him. All of that was because of Xcor: Throe had technically been born male, but it wasn’t until he had run afoul of that fighter that he had truly learned how to live up to his gender.

He would always owe that to the soldiers he had been with for so long—

From behind the mechanicals, a figure stepped out, the wind catching a long coat and blowing it free from a heavy, deadly body.

Instinct and training overrode intent as Throe fell into a fighting stance, prepared to face his—

As the male took a step forward, the light from the fixture above the rooftop door caught his face.

It was not Xcor.

Throe did not ease his stance. “Zypher?”

“Aye.” Abruptly, the soldier lurched forward, and then broke into a run to close the distance between them.

Before Throe knew it, he was encompassed in a rough embrace, held in arms as strong as his own, against a body as big as his own.

“You live,” the soldier breathed. “You are alive.…”

Awkwardly at first, and then with a strange desperation, Throe latched onto the other fighter. “Aye. Aye, I am.”

With an abrupt shove, he was pushed back and examined from head to foot. “What e’er did they do unto you?”

“Nothing.”

Those eyes narrowed. “Be in truth with me, brother. And afore you answer, one of your eyes is still black-and-blue.”

“They provided me with a healer, and a… Chosen.”

“A Chosen?!”

“Aye.”

“Mayhap I should try to get stabbed.”

Throe had to laugh. “She was… like nothing on this earth. Fair of hair and skin and countenance, ethereal, though she lived and breathed.”

“I thought they had been fabricated.”

“I do not know—mayhap I have romanticized it. But she was exactly as rumors describe them—lovelier than any female your eyes have beheld.”

“Do not torture me thus!” Zypher grinned briefly, and then regained his seriousness. “Are you well.”

Not a question—a demand.

“They treated me as a guest for the most part.” Indeed, except for the shackles and the beat-down—although given that they were protecting a precious gem’s virtue, he had to say he approved of what they had wrought upon him. “But aye, I am recovered fully, thanks to their healers.” He looked around. “Where is Xcor.”

Zypher shook his head. “He’s not coming.”

“So you are to kill me then.” Odd that the male would task another with what surely he would relish.

“Fuck, no.” Zypher unshouldered one side of a rucksack. “I am to give you this.”

From out of the pack, Zypher produced a large, square brass box with ornate markings and inscriptions.

Throe could only stare at the thing.

He had not seen it for centuries. In fact, he had not known it had been taken from his family until Xcor had threatened him with it.

Zypher cleared his throat. “He told me to tell you he releases you. Your debt to him is settled and he is returning your dead unto you.”

Throe’s hands shook badly—until they accepted the weight of his sister’s ashes. Then they were steadied.

As he stood there in the wind and drizzle, poleaxed and unmoving, Zypher paced about in a tight circle, his hands on his hips and his eyes on the gravel that covered the skyscraper’s roofing panels.

“He hasnae been the same since he left you,” the soldier said. “This morning, I found him cutting himself to the bone from the mourning.”

Throe’s eyes shot over to the male he knew so well. “Indeed?”

“Aye. He did so all day long. And this night, he has not even gone out to fight. He is back at the safe house, sitting by himself. He ordered everyone but me away, and then gave me this.”

Throe brought the box even closer to his body, holding it tightly. “Are you sure I am the cause for such upset,” he said dryly.

“Very much so. In truth, he is not like the Bloodletter in his heart. He wants to be—and he is capable of much against others that I personally am not. But to you, to us… we are his clan.” Zypher’s stare was filled with candor. “You should come back to us. To him. He shall not act thus again—those ashes are your proof. And we need you—not just because of all you do, but who you have become to us. It has been but twenty-four hours and we are broken without you.”

Throe glanced up at the sky, at the storm, at the violent, churning heavens above. Having once been damned by circumstance, he couldn’t believe he would even consider being damned by consent.

“We will all be incomplete without you. Even him.”

Throe had to smile a little. “Did you e’er think you would say such.”

“No.” The laugh that floated over upon the gusts was deep. “Not about an aristocrat. But you are more than that.”

“Thanks to you.”

“And Xcor.”

“I’m not sure if I’m ready to give him any credit.”