The Beloved, page 9
“You too good for me?” came a shrill demand. “You don’t want this, bitch?”
Fucking fantastic. The last thing he needed was Nalla turning around to check out the commotion—
Some stocky muscleman with a duffle bag slung on his shoulder stepped in and became Nate’s human shield against the offense, picking up the ego slack with some soothing hey-baby’s and probably looking to get a blow job out of his efforts. With that handled, Nate got back on the trail, hoping like hell Nalla ghosted out at the next alley so he could get the fuck on with his life.
Nah. She was in no hurry.
But she was conscientious as fuck. The female was careful to stop and check both ways at each block’s intersection, whether it was an alley or a proper road crossing with a traffic light, and this was true even if there weren’t cars coming or a red light halting traffic in favor of pedestrians.
Man… she moved nice. When she was in motion, her stride was good and long, and she kept her head down, the wind blowing around her ponytail. No perfume. She smelled like fabric softener, natural shampoo, and something that was entirely about her.
He told himself he wasn’t breathing in deeply—
An intermittent vibration in his inner pocket tickled his pec four times and then cut the crap. When it immediately started up again, he knew what it was about: His father was calling about the text that the Brother had sent after Shuli had reported their little carousel ride in the Tesla to the powers that be. The cleanup was already underway, but that wasn’t what Murhder wanted to talk about.
Nate let things go to voicemail a second time.
When a third round of ringing started up, he took his phone out—
Not Murhder. His adoptive mom, Sarah.
He halted, his thumb hovering over the screen. Don’t answer it. Donotanswerit—
“Hello,” he said.
There was a silence, like she was surprised. “Ah, Nate? Hi.”
His eyes shot across the street as someone shouted at somebody else.
It was just a couple of humans yuckin’ it up as they jaywalked across Market. They were probably heading for Bathe. Like everyone in Caldwell tonight.
He refocused. “What’s up.”
“I just… wanted to know if you’re okay.”
He glanced down at his body. He was bleeding under his jacket—just a surface abrasion on his upper arm, but he could feel the wetness. His bad right knee was bitching, but he was used to that. There was bruising across his chest from the airbag, and the top of his head had an impact ache from hitting the Tesla’s roof when they’d rolled.
He was also hungry. For food… and blood.
And a little dizzy. Which could explain what he was doing out here, trailing after that female: Concussions made people stupid.
Stupid-er.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Your father’s looking for you.”
I’ll bet, he thought.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Nothing,” Nate muttered. “It was nothing. Listen, I gotta go. I’m in the field.”
“You’re fighting? After the accident?” His mom’s fake-calm self-control started to slip, a choking sound rippling through the connection. “Nate, come in so Doc Jane can get a look at you. You weren’t wearing a seatbelt and…”
As his mom went down that old, familiar rabbit hole, he closed his eyes and wished like hell he had the guts to tell the woman the same thing he had Shuli. Sarah and Murhder hadn’t birthed him; he was a responsibility they’d volunteered themselves for when the latter had raided the lab Nate had been imprisoned in, and the former, a human who had been working in the facility, had discovered what had been done to him.
If he kept pushing them away, sooner or later they just had to let go, if only because the law of attrition applied to emotions. Or at least… it should.
“I was wearing a seatbelt,” he cut in. “And you can verify that with the car’s computer.”
“Nate,” she whispered. “Please.”
Please what, he thought.
“I’ve got to go—”
The punch on his shoulders came from out of nowhere, knocking him forward, his phone flipping from his hand and cracking on the pavement.
“How you like it, asshole? Huh? You think it’s fucking okay to push women around?”
Nate turned around to the bulldog human with the duffle bag who’d deflected the temper tantrum. The knight in shining Under Armour was a gym bro looking for a squat rack, all roid muscles and not much engine between the ears, it seemed—or he wouldn’t be picking this fight. With his jutting jaw and his cologne, he probably didn’t have to look for dates, and given the way the woman with the sparkles across her chest was all superior at his six, he wasn’t going to have to search far after this heroic confrontation.
“You think it’s fucking okay, asshole? Answer me, pussy—”
The man went to punch forward with his palms again.
That was as far as he got.
Slapping a hold on both of those thick wrists, Nate pulled a pivot-and-push, pinning the guy face-first with arms behind the back against the front of a restaurant that was closed for the evening. With his fangs descending and his upper lip twitching, Nate had a thought that he was waaaaay too close to the edge. But he didn’t care enough to follow through on the whoa-Nelly to his own temper.
Putting his face in close, he said in a low voice, “Do you really want to do this tonight.”
The thick-necked human did not move. No breathing, no talking. It was as if he were frozen in time as their eyes met over that pumped-up shoulder.
Then again, Nate really did want to rip the man’s throat out. Right here, on the sidewalk with so many humans around. He could practically taste the blood.
And clearly that message had been received.
“You tell him!” the woman said. “That’s right!”
Like she didn’t understand how the upper hand in physical conflict worked.
“What are you,” the man whispered.
No doubt Nate was showing off some hard-core dental hardware. But he didn’t care about that either.
“You can take the woman,” he said softly, “and get the fuck out of here. Or we can do this, you and me. Your choice. Make it now.”
The second he loosened the pressure, the man slipped out and took off, running across the traffic, dodging cars to the soundtrack of blaring horns, his duffle bag slapping his ass like a jockey on the final leg of a horse race.
The half-naked woman stared at the departure in disbelief.
“I’m sorry I pushed you,” Nate said to her.
“Ah…” She glanced back to him, her brows flickering like she was trying to decide whether or not she needed to be afraid. “What did you say to him?”
“Do you really want to know.”
Her head went back and forth slowly. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“You better get over to Bathe. You don’t want to catch a cold.”
“Okay. I’ll… do that.”
Nate nodded to her, and then he looked down toward Nalla. Who somehow hadn’t noticed him or the humans.
Let the female go, he told himself.
Bending down, he picked up his phone and was relieved it still worked. And when he walked away, resuming his stupid trail, there was no more from the woman in pink. Maybe she even had the sense to get out of the winter chill by going home and sobering up. He doubted it. Then again, he probably should go home and start digging a hole for Mickey Trix. Instead, he was shadowing a female who was none of his business—
Baby powder.
Flaring his nostrils, he breathed in deep just to make sure his aggression wasn’t translating into some kind of olfactory delusion that the enemy had shown up. But then he saw—a block away—that a figure had stepped into Nalla’s path. The pair stared at each other for a moment… and then she backed away, into a fucking alley, out of sight.
The lesser followed her.
Of course it did.
Nate took off at a dead run, pounding the pavement as he went for one of his knives—no, a gun, he wanted one of his guns—beneath his leather jacket. Arriving at the curb cut, he skidded around the corner, and pointed his .357 Magnum hand cannon down the brick-faced chute.
Fuck.
The slayer was directly in front of Nalla. So any lead that went through it was going right into her.
“You don’t want the female,” Nate called out. “Come for me.”
The lesser’s head turned and Nate got a quick image of its profile, the lean bones of the face showing through its white skin, its white hair gleaming in the darkness, its eyes flashing with unholy white light.
And then everything went slo-mo.
For some reason, a knife flashed in an arc at the slayer’s shoulder level—and then the thing went for its own throat with both hands, the blade it had been holding falling to the asphalt and bouncing away. As the undead lurched forward into a bow, Nalla came into full view, and… ohhh, shit. Her face was a dead mask of composure, no fear or shock distorting her features. She might as well have been at a grocery store feeling up avocados—
The female moved so fast, she was nearly impossible to track.
She double-fisted her knife, wound up like she had a bat in her hands, and went grand slam, burying the blade in the ear of the slayer. Horrific noises geysered up as the torso jerked to the left, and she let the weapon free itself by keeping a strong hold on the hilt. Then she just took the fuck over. With a solid kick to the side of its head, she sent the undead bastard on a tumble to the ground, and as soon as it was on the pavement, she shoved the lesser onto its back, straddled its hips—
She stabbed both of the eyes.
Her aim was absolutely perfect, the tip of her weapon piercing the meat of the peepers in two quick down strokes. After that, she just stood over her prey and seemed to enjoy the show as black blood dripped off her dagger. When the arms and legs finally slowed down with their jerking and flopping, she dismounted and ended the show with one final penetration directly into the center of the chest.
As the bright light flashed and the pop! sounded out, she jumped back so she didn’t get singed by the disintegration—and the way her calm face and lithe body were silhouetted against the illumination was something he was never going to forget.
Well, he wasn’t going to forget any of it—and how fucking weird was it that, for a split second, he wondered if they weren’t soul mates: They’d both opened attacks by slitting the throats of their enemies. If that wasn’t compatibility, what was? Fuck toothpaste caps and sleep schedules.
As the flash of the lesser getting sent back to its maker faded, and there was only the smell of burnt marshmallows and dead animal, she turned to him calmly.
“Do you mind lowering your weapon? Unless you perceive me as a threat, of course. Which would be pretty ridiculous.”
Nate blinked and glanced down at his Magnum. Then he cleared his throat. “Duck for me, would ya?”
“What?”
“Duck.”
The female frowned and glanced behind herself. “Fuck—!”
As she went flat to the asphalt, he fired two bullets into the slayer who’d come out of the shadows behind her. The thing fell back like a sack of potatoes, landing with a thump, but the job wasn’t done. You had to stab them though the sternum, driving a length of steel into the empty cavity where their heart had once been, if you wanted to eliminate them.
“I’m totally not threatened by you.” Holstering his gun, Nate took out a blade of his own and looked at the female who was prone at his feet. “Not in the slightest—”
Pop!
Okay, that sound didn’t make any sense. Who the hell was shooting?
“Nate! Shit!”
“What?”
As the female pointed at his waist, he looked down and things got real fuzzy, real fast. Sure enough, there was a strange fire in his gut, like he’d eaten a ghost pepper or two, and as he put a hand over a red smudge on his Hanes t-shirt, he felt a fresh warmth and wetness.
“Do I always have to get hit in the stomach?” he muttered as his knees started to go loose.
And fucking hell, the lesser he’d just dropped had a gun.
“Run,” he croaked. “You gotta get… out of… here…”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zsadist got to the 1075 Cedar Post Road location first. Re-forming in the darkness, he did a quick instinct check in the glen of birches, and when nothing pinged his radar, he stepped out of the tree line and stared across the winter meadow that rose to meet a two-story cottage. With the fresh snow that had fallen, the acreage was like a vanilla sheet cake.
Up ahead, the stone structure had little old lady written all over it. From the exterior, it looked like the kind of place where cookies were baked in the oven every day, there were doilies under everything, and housekeeping was done scrupulously and by hand. The fact that the curtains were never opened because there weren’t any real windows, and there were cameras mounted on the perimeter like it was a sting operation in full swing?
Nothing to see here. Nope. Nada.
Instead of ruining the perfect snow—because its pristine nature was like a security camera for the ground—he dematerialized onto the back porch. Exactly three seconds afterward, the copper lock was remotely sprung and he opened the first of the steel-reinforced panels. The outside one had been faced with a wooden faker that, like the front entry, always had a seasonally appropriate wreath hanging on it. The other two in the short hallway beyond had no camouflage because why bother. If you got to them, you were either welcome or you were going to be killed.
Each lock released for him and then reengaged behind him as he passed through, and finally, he was in the kitchen with its rustic table and chairs, the Aga, and the deep-bellied porcelain sink. No doggen keeping the coffee and Danish coming because there were no civilians in the waiting room tonight—and just as well. He was rank-mooded and best left to his own devices, and the last thing anybody needed was him making the pastry chef cry because he’d turned down a cherry-filled something and a cup of java with a tone that was less than airline-stewardess pleasant.
Helping himself to a Granny Smith from a bowl of mixed varieties, he unsheathed a black dagger and started peeling things on a oner as he opened the way into the sealed corridor. This restricted-access, fireproof, bombproof hallway formed the steel-wrapped core of the structure, and there were four reinforced doors opening off of it as well as one down at the far end.
The front half of the Audience House was cut up into a jigsaw circuit of rooms and hallways that were controlled remotely by V’s off-site security staff. Civilians were let in the main entry into reception on the right, where they were greeted and signed in. They were then shown farther down into one of the confidential triage offices, where Saxton’s team of paralegals registered their causes of action, determined whether there was a civil or criminal issue, and assigned them a case number—or if the audience was about a mating or the blessing of a young, set into production a certificate with ribbons. When it was time, the civilians were taken back around to see “Wrath,” and then the final room, out in front on the left, was the disposition of the audience, including whatever kind of follow-up was required, whether that was an official investigation or a filing receipt or some kind of collections activity—or the presentation of the finished mating or blessing certificate set with the King’s seal.
Saxton had developed the process, Tohr had designed the spaces and the layout, and Vishous had wired everything up with security, monitoring, and good old-fashioned booby-traps. There were lots of doors and hallways. Lots of dedicated off-site security staff. Lots of moving civilians around the central sealed corridor. Lots of secret things that could be triggered to defend against any kind of attacker.
It was all about protecting Rahvyn as she pretended to be Wrath.
And it had been working well for the last decade since they’d relocated from the safe house they’d been using as a stopgap measure. As far as any of the civilians knew, their audiences with the King were better run, better tracked, and more efficient than they’d ever been. And not one of them knew about the explosion that had changed everything thirty years ago. The repair on Darius’s former principal residence had been started immediately, the rear entry rebuilt and repainted within a day by doggen carpenters, a ruse that it had been a gas leak gone boom! fed to the humans in the neighborhood and the cops that had come to investigate.
The reality that the King had been killed was a secret that had been protected for a long time now—so long that the nights when the real Wrath had seen members of the species and mediated their disputes and conferred royal favor upon their milestones seemed like something that had been done back in the Old Country. Hell, the second generation of young didn’t even know the truth. They’d all been little kids when it had happened—well, except for Bitty. But her memories had been altered because it was safer for them to all live the lie.
L.W. was the only one who knew. After all, it was one thing for the King and Queen to be formal with each other in public. When your moms was sleeping alone every night?
Rahvyn and Beth had saved the species in so many ways, all so that L.W. could take the reins. Like father like son, though. The male had no interest in the throne. All he wanted to do was fight, and every night he rolled the dice with greater recklessness. So maybe they were stuck with this lie permanently—and by permanently, until someone noticed that Wrath was two thousand years old or something, and showing no signs of the sharp decline that vampires exhibited at the end of their lives.
It was wrong, all wrong. The whole damned thing, but what could you do?
Other than kill lessers, of course. And hunt Lash down.
As a spike of anger nailed Z in the chest, he checked the clock on his phone and then went back to working on his apple peeling. When he was finished, he dropped the bright green spiral into a trash can and took his first cleave off the rounded swell of fruit.
