The Viper, page 5
As soon as the full blooming came, supplies would be left and the property monitored from the perimeter until the fertile hours had passed. Indeed, the only way to ease a female’s intense cravings was to mount her and service her as only a male could, and though he and his shellan were both aristocrats, biology was a force of nature that could not be negotiated with—and she was reaching her apex soon. He could sense it—and so could she, though he had, of the last two nights, felt as though she were fighting the tide. He could not blame her. The risks of the birthing bed were real, and yet his beloved wanted a young. It was all she spoke of, especially since her brother’s shellan had presented a fine son unto the family bloodline this summertime.
Thus Cordelhia was not the only one who was impatient. Her mahmen was a constant source of pressure.
As was custom in both the Old Country and the New World, when a young was born unto an aristocratic family, the mahmen of the new mahmen was invited into the house of the mated pair, for to oversee the initial rearing by the staff whilst the recovery from the birthing occurred. Following a successful rebound, the mahmen herself would then take over the proper monitoring of the doggen. In the case of Cordelhia’s brother, their mahmen had of course been denied the opportunity, and Kane gathered that she did not feel things had been attended to in an appropriate manner with her son’s progeny. She was determined to set the right example in her daughter’s household, and intended, as soon as the pregnancy was confirmed, to move in to hire new staff and train them in a fashion she considered correct.
Kane was surprised she did not anticipate redecorating the entire manor as well. Although mayhap that was on the docket and had as yet to be communicated unto him.
It was… such a joy… to have the involvement of family. Wasn’t it. Especially one’s shellan’s.
Although a birth would be a blessing from the Scribe Virgin, assuming the young was healthy and Cordelhia returned unto full health, an interminable cohabitation with Milesandhe was nothing to anticipate with glee—and mayhap his restlessness was both the fertile time and the impending descent of such an honored, nosy guest—
Unable to remain sitting, Kane’s body bolted up on its own, the accounting pages slipping off the blotter as his sleeve caught some of the parchment. Tugging at the knot of his cravat, he rebuttoned his jacket as he stepped over the ledger bits and out around his desk.
Crossing the Persian rug, he went to a brass cart laden with cut crystal decanters, all manner of liquors glowing citrine and ruby and amber in bellies that caught and refracted the light of the oil lamps. Placing his pipe between his teeth, he regarded the selection, even though there was but one liquor that he e’er imbibed.
To battle his sexual cravings, he had availed himself of very much of the sherry. Verily, as he lifted the topper of the decanter, it was impossible not to notice that it had had to be refilled once again. He did not approve of the vice, yet for the previous few nights, he had been drinking steadily from the moment he awoke until he passed out at dawn’s arrival. It was the only manner in which he could remain partially sane.
His struggle to stay within the boundaries of customary decorum was a shock for him, a reminder that beneath his fine clothes, behind his proper education, lurked an animal, with an animal’s base urges to mate, impregnate, and carry forth the species.
So, yes, either he partook or he could not stand himself.
Pouring an ale-sized portion of sherry into a crystal tumbler, he took a bit of misplaced pride that he had made it until—whate’er was the time? He glanced over to the grandfather clock in the corner. Nine forty-nine. So he had made it an hour and twenty minutes, nearly to ten o’clock this evening, before having to lean on the liquid crutch.
As he brought the glass to his mouth, he tilted his head back and his eyes went to the ceiling.
His shellan was right above, he reflected as he swallowed and swallowed.
His beloved was directly above him, a loose silken gown covering her body as she reclined against the softest pillows and her cloud-like bedding platform.
Anxiety curdled in his gut, souring the sherry’s warm glow.
They had lain together but three times in the last year, the first being on the night of their mating ceremony. That initial interlude had been an awkward, fumbling affair, him taking her virginity as he had lost his own, her bearing him atop her as a duty she would not shirk. Afterward, as she had sat down gingerly at First Meal hours later, he had worried he had hurt her, but hadn’t known how to ask a relative stranger about something so personal.
After that, he had vowed to woo her properly. Though it was his right as her hellren to demand of her his pleasure whenever he was so inclined, he wanted her a willing participant, and so he had set about getting to know her and showing her how cherished she was. With jewels and flowers, moonlit walks about the grounds, and all manner of judicious touches of the hand or shoulder, he had nurtured a connection.
And then he had tried once more. The second time he had attempted to lie with her, she had disrobed as if she were shedding her own skin, and she had laid herself out on her bed with the kind of forbearance one would expect for a healer’s examination of a boil. No matter how tempting her bare breasts had been, he hadn’t been able to sustain his hardness.
Some months thereafter, upon a final venture, he had tried to coax an arousal from her, seeking her out in the dead of daylight, taking his time, being gentle with her body. She had stopped him and insisted on intercourse. His sex had somehow retained its state, even as she had pulled him on top of her and roughly guided him in; yet he had felt a hollow sadness whilst she had born his release with a stoic resignation.
Subsequently, when she had taken great pains to assure him that she would e’er do her mated duty whenever he wished, he had felt a shame that had soured his blood. That she had carved him to his soul with her soft and sincere words was something he had kept hidden from her.
But she loved him. He never doubted that. She was incredibly attentive, and endearing, and the very best mate a hellren could ask for. Over time, the sexual relationship would grow. In this, he was certain. She had been a sehcluded female until her mahmen had given her over to Kane, a precious commodity presented in full purity to a loving steward who vowed to continue to protect and cloister her. He must make allowances for her inhibitions.
He’d just assumed they would have more time before they had to ease her otherwise intolerable cravings with the sexual act. But she knew that when her needing arrived, there would be… intimacy… to both keep her comfortable and conceive that which they both wanted—
A sound outside drew his eyes to one of the windows.
With the lanterns glowing in the study, there was naught to be seen out in the walled garden, and yet he stared into the nocturnal void.
When there was no repeat of the noise, he shook his head and poured himself a second serving of sherry. Then he turned about and walked toward his desk, though he did not know what he hoped to accomplish there.
Halfway across the study, his body wobbled, his balance listing as if he were in a wind. Immediately, his eyes shot to the ceiling. With a buffering going through his veins, and a strange pall coming over him, surely this meant the time had arrived—
His legs went loose, the fine carpet with its jewel-like colors rushing up to greet him. The impact was hard, yet curiously, he felt naught whilst the glass spilled its contents and his pipe bounced away from his grip.
Opening his mouth, he drew in a deep breath that felt all wrong. Something was impeding his respiration—
A scent registered.
And then he saw the boots… black boots entered his vision.
With his consciousness ebbing, the last thing he noticed was the fresh mud curling around the soles and the heels, as if whoever was wearing them had trampled through the flower beds…
* * *
Kane came back into his awareness on a full-body jerk, as if every vital part of himself awakened and gasped at the same moment. Disoriented, with his temples pounding, and his thoughts sluggish and confused, he tried to piece together what had—
Blood.
The smell of blood was overwhelming.
As panic enlivened him, he lifted his heavy head. Though his blurred eyes provided him with little detail, he knew where he was. He was in the flower-draped enclave of his shellan’s private quarters. And the blood was hers.
“Cordelhia…?”
Fear gave him strength to push past the logy fog and focus his eyes…
“Cordelhia!”
His shellan was lying across her bed, her bare arm hanging loosely off the soft mattress and monogrammed sheets, a river of blood running down the inside of her elbow and her wrist… before pooling in her upturned palm and dripping off the tips of her fingers.
On a wave of horror, Kane attempted desperately to propel himself up from the floor, to go unto her, to try to revive her with his voice, his touch, his vein. His body refused all call to movement, however, only his head bobbing up and down—
A scream shattered the silence.
In the doorway, his shellan’s mahmen stood in all her finery, her formal dress still complemented by her matching silk-and-fur overcoat because there had been no staff to remove it from her shoulders.
“You have killed my daughter!” she said in horror. “My daughter is dead!”
CHAPTER SIX
Standing over the body of his cousin, Lucan palmed a knife and pointed it toward the other wolven who was hiding in the bushes off the shoulder of the road. In his peripheral vision, he measured the progress of the approaching cars that were no doubt full of guards—but mostly, he noted the shadowy movement around the Monte Carlo. Someone was getting stuffed in the back—Kane. And then Apex slammed the door shut and barked at the window.
Rio better be getting behind that wheel. Belting herself in. Cranking the engine on and hitting the fucking gas.
No engine. Not yet. Fuck.
“You don’t want to do this,” he told the wolven who remained hidden. Then he nodded off into the distance. “There’s company coming. And a fight between you and me is going to guarantee that you meet my friends in uniforms. You’re not going to like them.”
There was a rustling, and then the other male revealed himself in his bare naked, two-legged form.
Oh, great. But he wasn’t surprised: “Callum.”
“Lucan, cousin mine.” The male’s eyes went up and down, not that he hadn’t already done a full inventory of his opponent. With a fighter like him, those kinds of assessments were instantaneous. “You’re just as I remember.”
“Likewise.” Lucan sank down into his thighs and brought the knife to chest level. “You don’t want to do this.”
There was zero chance that fine piece of advice was going to be taken. Callum was the oldest of the three who had framed Lucan, and the male was still powerfully built and, as always, uncompromising, his flexibility that of an anvil. An I-beam. The front grille of a tank. With white hair and glowing ice-blue eyes, he was moonlight made corporeal—and imbued with the aggression of a charging bull.
The good news? He hadn’t brought up a weapon. And given that he was naked, Mother Nature provided only one concealed-carry holster, and there was no reason to think that—
Abruptly, the wolven turned his back on Lucan and focused on the approaching vehicles. Then, without another word, he leaped back into the cover of the bushes, making no sound.
As the shadows consumed the male, Lucan looked down at the dying wolven before him. In his fantasies, he had seen his cousins kicking the bucket in horrible ways—so this should have been a good thing, an outcome that was easy to move on from.
“Fuck.”
He had a mate to protect, friends to save, and a fight that was rolling up on him. He needed to take cover, get a gun back, and pray that somehow they could hold out long enough to do mortal damage to this particular squad of guards.
Before the next group showed up.
Why the fuck wasn’t he moving. “Fuck.”
Against everything that made any sense, he shoved his knife into his waistband, bent over, and picked up the wolven who had betrayed him and framed him for murder. As he marched down the embankment with the body, he cursed his DNA. Pack animals found it nearly impossible to leave someone from their clan behind. Even when there were reasons why they should never, ever give a goddamn about that relative.
He didn’t make it to goal.
Before he reached the Monte Carlo, the lineup of blacked-out SUVs arrived and the shooting started, the guards firing off rounds even before the vehicles braked. As bullets whizzed by Lucan’s head, he ducked and weaved as best he could, while his cousin’s loose limbs flopped around and made balance the kind of challenge he didn’t need.
Plus Jesus, the sonofabitch had been a member of the clean plate club. His cousin weighed as much as a piano.
Rio’s voice was loud and welcome: “I’m covering you!”
It was the sweetest thing his mate had ever said to him, and man, she had good aim. The instant she started firing, the high-pitched pings of bullets hitting steel panels were a symphony to his ears, and they were also a game changer: Incoming fire stopped altogether.
Not that that was going to last.
His boots grabbed for traction as he rounded the trunk of the car that he’d stolen a lifetime ago, and as soon as he had cover, he all but tossed his cousin’s body to the ground like it was a log.
A sharp whistle brought his head around, and Apex threw him something. Oh, look. Fucking Christmas.
Lucan caught the gun he’d given the male and didn’t check to see how many bullets were in the magazine. He just popped off rounds as his mate did the same—while Apex jumped in the back of the car and moved those two injured males down in their seats.
“I’m out of bullets,” Rio said.
This was announced just as Lucan squeezed his own trigger and came up with a big, fat nothing. And the guards were no dummies. The instant there was a breather in the ammunition shower coming at them, they got their lead back on, the Monte Carlo now functioning as a bunker, all kinds of metallic drumroll making Lucan wonder how long it was going to take for that gas tank to get hit and light them all up like a Roman candle.
Given what Kane had already been through, there was no reason to volunteer the prisoner for another BBQ.
He looked at his mate. “You have to drive out. It’s the only way—”
The shattering of safety glass was an explosion of sparkles, everything going disco in the moonlight as the window of the open rear door got hit at just the right angle. Jumping on his mate, he covered her with his body.
And heard the shouts of the guards.
They were getting ready to advance with all guns blazing.
Lucan unsheathed that knife again. Closed his eyes. Breathed in deep.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.
She twisted around and grabbed his arm, her eyes wide with fear. “No, you don’t go up there.”
“Fresh out of options and you know it. When I give you the chance, you take it and get them all out of here—”
“I’ll go.”
As the male voice interrupted, the two of them turned their heads to Apex.
Considering the source of the offer, Lucan was as stunned as if the Gray Wolf herself had appeared from out of the ether and announced, I’ll take it from here, boys.
Lucan opened his mouth—
Right as the screaming started up on the road.
* * *
One by one, they came on stretchers.
Back at the prison camp’s makeshift clinic, Nadya stepped aside as guards brought in her new patients, one after another after another. And even though the uniformed and heavily armed males were in charge, they waited for her to indicate where to and which bed.
She had heard talk that they were mercenaries, but they obviously had some care for each other. Or maybe they were just worried what the head of the guards would do to them if there were no more guards for her to be head of.
Seven beds. That was all Nadya had. Well, six—
“No,” she said sharply. “You may not put him there.”
Not where Kane had lain. Never.
When there was no more room—that she would allow—she directed the incoming to an empty stretch of shelving.
“Pull those two vacant sections together. Suspend the stretchers between them, so that their horizontal supports form a kind of bed frame. It’s the best we can do.”
The guards didn’t hesitate, didn’t question. The ones that were empty-handed followed her orders, hefting that which would have been dead weight to her across the floor, and arranging the banks of shelves just as she’d prescribed. And the system worked, the stretchers turning into hammocks.
“We need to put them higher so I can duck beneath them—”
Two more patients were brought into the storage room.
She nodded to the makeshift bunk. “Over there—no, wait. Not him. I need to see… him.”
The guards brought the second of the males over, and Nadya regarded the injured as if from a vast distance. As a result of a neck wound, the front of his uniform was stained with fresh blood, his loose, black, many-pocketed shirt like a sponge that wasn’t doing a very good job. Below the belt, there was another gunshot in the thigh, and some ancillary injuries at the knees.
His face was pale and streaked with dirt and blood. His eyes were closed. His mouth was lax, the fangs sheathed and flashing white in the midst of the pink foam that had bubbled up out of his throat.
He was an utter stranger whose face she would never forget.
“Put him over there.” She pointed to Kane’s bed. “He will go there.”
