The Dark-Hunters (212 page)

And with their own children.

“Don’t look at me with that bitch’s eyes, whelp. I’ll rip your throat out.”
In fact, his father had spent the whole of Vane’s life trying not to look at him.

The one time Vane had met his mother, she had made her own position clear.

“My base form is human and that alone is why you and your Katagari brother are alive. I couldn’t bring myself to kill you as helpless puppies even though I know I should have. But now that you’re grown, I have no such compunctions. All of you are savage animals to me and if I ever see you again I will kill you as such.”

Honestly, he couldn’t blame her for that, given what his father had done to her. He had never expected kindness from others and so far he hadn’t been disappointed.

Except with the bear clan. He still didn’t understand their tolerance of him and Fang. Especially Fang, who couldn’t protect the bears or work for his keep.

Why would they take them in when their own wolf clan would kill them if they found them?

Vane let out a deep breath as the reality came crashing down on him. He was living under a death sentence with no pack to help protect or raise his young. No pack to shelter his mate. He couldn’t expose Bride to the danger that was a daily part of his life.

No matter what the Fates decreed, he couldn’t have a human mate. Bride would never accept him and his world. She didn’t belong to it any more than his mother had belonged with his father.

They were different species.

His job was strictly to protect her until his mark was gone. Then she would free and he …

“I’ll be a fucking eunuch,” he growled under his breath, hating the very idea of it.

But what else was there?

Keep her in chains like his father had done his mother? Beat her into submission?

None of that would work. Besides, Bride was his mate. He couldn’t find it in him to hurt her in any way. Unlike his father, he understood what “protective” meant.

Vane had spent his entire life guarding Anya and Fang. Taking their pack’s and their father’s abuse for them. He wasn’t about to hurt the one person the Fates had designated for him.

He heard Bride turning off the water. Flashing back to wolf form, he forced himself not to go into the room where he would meet temptation.

But then, he didn’t have to. Bride came out a few seconds later with a towel wrapped around her.

He ground his teeth at the sight of her standing there with the damp towel clinging to every curve of that damp, voluptuous body. Worse, the towel was too small and left a large gap of succulent flesh bared to his gaze.

She dropped the towel to the floor.

It was all he could do not to whine, especially when she bent over to sort through a box of clothes for her underwear.

Bride started at a strange sound from her new pet. Turning, she saw the wolf staring at her with an intensity that was extremely wild and disturbing.

A tremor of fear went through her. “You’re not going to attack me, are you, boy?”

He came over to her with his tail wagging. He jumped up unexpectedly and licked her cheek, then bounded back to the other side of the room.

Well, that was weird.

Frowning, she grabbed her panties and pulled them on, then quickly dressed in her pajamas. They were a bit tight, which was why they were in storage. Her mother had given her a whole new wardrobe two years ago when she had gone on a liquid protein diet that had caused her to drop twenty-five pounds. It had worked, but within a year every ounce of the weight had come back plus another ten pounds.

Bride sighed and put the matter out of her mind. Screw Taylor and his diets. Like her mother and grandmother before her, she was destined to be a round Irishwoman, and no amount of anything would ever change the fact that she was chromosomally damaged.

“I should have been born in the fifties when it was fashionable to be pudgy.”

Sighing, she went over to the couch to sleep. The wolf came over to her and stuck his nose close to her own.

“Sorry, kid,” she said, patting his head. “No room for you tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get a real bed, okay?”

He nuzzled her face.

“You are good company, aren’t you?” He seemed to like it best when she stroked him just under his chin. He closed his eyes and wagged his tail as she gently scratched him there. “So what am I going to name you?”

She thought it over, but only one name hovered in her mind …

“Don’t be stupid,” she said to herself. It would be ridiculous to name him after a one-night stand.

And yet …

“Would you mind being called Vane?”

He opened his eyes at that and licked her chin.

“Okay then, you’ll be Vane Two. Vane for short, though.”

Bride reached over her head to turn off the lamp, then snuggled down to sleep.

Vane sat in the dark, watching her quietly. He couldn’t believe what she was going to call his wolf form. If he didn’t know better …

But no, she didn’t have any sort of psychic powers. Maybe she had just liked his name.

He waited for her to fall sound asleep before he changed to human form again and made sure all her doors and windows were locked. Once he was certain she’d be okay for a bit, he flashed from her apartment back to his room at Sanctuary.

It was pitch-black here, too. He opened the door and headed to the next room, where Fang was staying. As he’d been since the night Vane had brought him here, his brother was in wolf form, lying comatose on the bed.

Vane sighed wearily as he crossed the room.

“C’mon, Fang,” he said, moving to the bed. “Snap out of this. I miss you, little brother, and I could really use someone to talk to right now. I have one serious problem on my hands.”

But it was useless. The Daimons had taken more than his brother’s blood. They had stolen his spirit.

The shame of what had happened to Fang was more than the wolf could face. Vane understood that. He’d felt it himself when he’d found out he was human.

There was nothing worse than being attacked and not being able to fight back. He flinched as memories assailed him.

The first time he’d turned human had been in the middle of a fight with an angry boar. The beast had stabbed him so badly that he still felt a pain in his ribs if he moved the wrong way. One minute, he’d been a wolf, and the next he’d been on his back while the boar bit, clawed, and tusked him.

Had Fang not come along …

“Get up, little brother,” he whispered. “You can’t keep living like this.”

Fang didn’t acknowledge him at all.

Vane ran his hand over his brother’s dark brown fur, then turned to leave him there.

In the hallway outside, he passed Aimee Peltier. In human form, she held a bowl of beef soup in her hands as she came from the direction of the stairs.

The only daughter of the bear clan, she was a tall, thin blonde with an exceptionally beautiful face. Her brothers had a full-time job keeping the human men from coming on to her whenever she helped out in the bar that was attached to the house.

It was a job they all took very seriously.

“Is he eating?” Vane asked her.

“Sometimes,” she said quietly. “I got a little soup in him at lunch so I was hoping he might take some more tonight.”

She’d been a godsend to him. Aimee alone seemed to be able to reach Fang. His brother seemed somehow more alert whenever she was near.

“Thanks. I really appreciate your watching over him for me.” In fact, she spent a great deal of time with Fang. It was enough to make him wonder, but Fang hadn’t moved out of his bed once since the night Vane had brought him here.

She nodded.

“Aimee?” he asked as she started past him.

She turned.

“Never mind. It was a stupid thought.” There wasn’t anything between his brother and the she-bear. How could there be?

Vane continued on his way down the hall, to the stairs.

He made his way downstairs, across the foyer, and into the small antechamber where a door connected Peltier House to the Sanctuary bar next door.

It opened into the bar’s kitchen where two Were-Hunters, Jasyn Kallinos and Wren, were guarding it innocuously from the human kitchen staff, who had no idea why no one but a select few could pass through the doorway to the other side. It was mostly because those of the bear clan who had young kept their cubs on the top floor of Peltier House. Occasionally, one of the cubs would escape their nurse and roll down the stairs.

The last thing the Peltiers needed was for someone to call animal control on them for the unlicensed zoo that made their house a home.

Of course the idea of a human coming in and finding a wolf, panthers, lions, tigers, and bears asleep in their various beds was rather amusing to Vane. Or better yet, the dragon who slept coiled up in the attic. Someone really should keep a camera handy. Just in case.

Vane inclined his head toward Jasyn, a tall, blond Were-Hawk who was one of the deadlier inhabitants of the house. The price on Jasyn’s head made a mockery of Vane’s death sentence. Mostly because, unlike Jasyn, Vane only killed when he had to. True to his animal predatorial heart, Jasyn was in it for the thrill of the kill.

Jasyn lived to stalk and to maim.

As Vane neared the swinging door that led out to the bar area, it was slung back. Kyle Peltier came running through it in human form like a bat out of hell.

Vane stepped back out of the way.

Remi Peltier, one of the identical quads with long curly blond hair, tackled Kyle to the floor just in front of Vane’s feet and started slugging his younger brother. Kyle tried to fend him off, but it was impossible. Remi was a much older, stronger bear who loved to fight.

Vane grabbed Remi and pulled him away before he hurt the cub. “What are you doing?”

“I’m killing Gilligan,” Remi snarled, trying to get past Vane to grab Kyle again.

“I happen to like the song,” Kyle said defensively, wiping at the blood on his lips as he moved to stand behind an unamused Jasyn.

Wren handed the cub a towel to blot his face.

Remi curled his lips. “Yeah, but we don’t just play that damned song for the hell of it, you idiot. Half the friggin’ clientele ran for the door.”

Mama Bear came in from the Peltier House side to see Kyle bleeding.

“What on earth?” she asked, taking him by the shoulders so that she could examine his split lip. “
Mon ange,
what happened?”

All maturity left Kyle as he faced his mother. He even let a portion of his short blond hair fall into his blue eyes. “Remi attacked me.”

Remi twisted his arm out of Vane’s grasp. “He played ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ on the jukebox,
maman.
”

Nicolette rolled her eyes at her youngest cub. “Kyle, you know we only play that when the Dark-Hunter Acheron comes through our doors as a courtesy alert to our clientele. What were you thinking?”

Vane stifled a laugh. Acheron Parthenopaeus was the leader of the Dark-Hunters. He was a man of many dichotomies and unbelievable power, and most everyone Vane knew was scared shitless of him. Whenever he entered the bar, most Weres, and all Daimons headed for the door. Especially if they had something to hide.

Kyle gave her a sullen look. “That it’s a good song,
maman,
and I wanted to hear it.”

Remi rushed for Kyle’s throat, but Vane pulled him back.

“He’s too stupid to live,” Remi snarled. “I think we should cut his throat and save ourselves the heartache.”

Wren gave a rare laugh while Jasyn went stone-faced.

The human staff stayed wisely out of it, and went about their business as if nothing were happening. But then they were used to the brothers and their constant bickering among themselves.

Nicolette growled at her older son. “We were all stupid at his age, Remi. Even you.” She patted Kyle on the arm and urged him toward the door to Peltier House. “You’d best stay away from the bar for the rest of the night,
cher.
Papa and your brothers will need time to cool their tempers.”

Kyle nodded, then looked back at his brother and stuck his tongue out.

Remi made a bear sound that caused every human in the kitchen to stare.

The look on Mama’s face said there would be hell to pay once she had her older cub out of the sight and earshot of the humans.

“I think you’d best head back to the bar, Remi,” Vane said, letting him go.

“Fine,” Remi snarled. “Do us all a favor,
maman.
Eat your young.”

This time it was Jasyn who laughed, then sobered the instant Nicolette gave him a gimlet glare.

Shaking her head, she told the kitchen staff to go back to work.

Vane started for the bar.

“Vane,
mon cher,
wait.”

He looked back at her.

She moved to stand by his side. “Thank you for saving Kyle. Remi has never learned to govern that temper of his. There are times I fear he never will.”

“It’s all right. He reminds me a lot of Fang. When he’s not comatose anyway.”

She looked down, then frowned. Lifting his hand, she stared at his marked palm. “You’re mated?”

He balled his hand into a fist. “It happened earlier tonight.”

Her jaw went slack before she pulled him back into her house. She shut the door, then faced him. “Who?”

“A human.”

She cursed in French. “Oh,
cher,
” she breathed. “What are you going to do?”

Vane shrugged. “There’s nothing to be done. I’ll guard her for the duration, then leave her to her life.”

She gave him a puzzled stare. “Why would you damn yourself to so many years with no woman or mate? If you let her go, you may well never mate again.”

Vane started to leave, but she pulled him to a stop.

“What should I do, Nicolette?” he asked, using her real name instead of
Mama,
which most called her. “I’m a living example of why we need to breed within our own species. The last thing I want is to spread my disease to another generation.”

She looked appalled by his words. “You are not diseased.”

“No? Then what would you call it?”

“You are blessed, as Colt is.”