Somehow, in spite of Xcor’s starvation, Layla felt him release her wrist just as she was beginning to feel the effect of his feeding, her blood pressure starting to dip, her head becoming only the slightest bit dizzy.
She could tell the withdrawal cost him dearly. His fangs were fully descended, and he was fighting himself, the muscles up both sides of his neck straining against his skin, his arms and legs churning in the melted, sloppy earth beneath his naked body.
He was also very, totally … completely erect.
When it had been a life-and-death situation, his nakedness had been easy to overlook. And on that front, they were still far from out of the woods—natch, as V would say. But in this split second of relief, she became vitally aware of exactly how male he was.
Xcor was phearsom, indeed.
There was no dwelling on his thick arousal, though. From behind them, lights began to flash, and then there was the sound of a powerful car engine and the crashing of trees. Layla leapt to her feet and put herself between Xcor and whatever it was—
The Range Rover broke through the forest like a charging bull, stopping just short of plowing her down. And as the driver’s side door opened, Layla’s heart jumped up into her throat.
It was just Vishous, however.
Well, “just” suggested the Brother was a benign presence, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Vishous looked positively furious, his brows down, his black hair all messed up like he’d been running a hand through it, the tattoos at his temple and that goatee making him seem even more sinister.
“You done?” the Brother demanded.
He refused to look at her so she spoke up as she nodded. “Yes.”
“I’ll get him into the—”
“No, I’ll do it.”
“You’re not strong enough—”
She bent down, forced one arm under the middle of Xcor’s back and the other under his thighs, the mud seeping into her sleeves and sticking to her forearms. She paid that no heed, however—just as she ignored the way he struggled against her, garbled protests leaving his mouth whilst she lifted him from the ground.
“Get the door,” she commanded to V.
After an initial shock, the Brother did the deed, clearing the way for her to bring Xcor over. It was a struggle, her slippers sinking into the snow, the tree branches seeming to grab at Xcor out of spite, the mud dripping down the front of her robe—and she wouldn’t have made it if he hadn’t lost so much weight.
The way she looked at it, though, Xcor was hers and hers alone to help.
Shoving him into the rear seat was an awkward affair, and he aided her by pulling his lower body in and collapsing lengthwise across the back. And she wanted to get in beside him, but even with the wasting, he was still of tremendous length and there was no room for her. She wasn’t about to leave him naked, however. Stripping off her robe, she covered him with it, tucking the thing in as best she could before she ran around to the passenger side.
With only leggings and a loose top on now, the cold got to her quick, and she was shivering as she shut herself in.
“Buckle up,” V muttered. “This is going to be rough.”
No kidding, she thought as she pulled the belt across her chest.
She expected the Brother to move them forward at a brisk pace. She did not anticipate that he’d floor the accelerator and send them careening through the trees, the headlights hitting trunks and boughs just before they did, the SUV taking strike after strike as it bounced and bashed and heaved its way toward what she hoped was the road.
But which could well be the edge of the earth.
Craning around, she checked on Xcor and tried to catch his eye—which was hard because she was going up and down and side to side, although at least Xcor was on the same schedule of movements, his body flopping and slamming about on the rear seat bench. He was doing what he could to anchor himself, one hand gripping the back of her headrest, one foot braced against the door, as everything else made like scrambled eggs in a pan.
When their stares finally met, the question of Are you okay? was asked on both sides mutely … and answered with a mutual I have no idea.
The end of the tooth-rattling trip came as quickly as the start of it all, the Range Rover bursting out of the tree line like it was throwing off a too-heavy cloak, its tires skidding on pavement, the great lurch to right itself in the correct lane the last of them, she hoped.
And for truth, as they made off at even greater speed, things were much quieter, more civilized.
Which only underscored how hard everyone was breathing.
Twisting around again, she tried to see out the back, but with the darkened windows, there wasn’t much to go on. She could only imagine the debris they’d dragged into the road in their wake—and meanwhile, Xcor was collapsed into the seats, his body lax, his respiration ragged.
But he was alive and he gave her the thumbs-up sign.
As she refocused on the way ahead, all she got was a whole lot of pavement, a white line on either side, and a double yellow in the middle. Oh, wait … there was a leaping deer sign, the unnuanced black form of the animal and its antlers set in a reflective diamond the color of a dandelion head.
No words were spoken.
None were necessary.
At first, she didn’t know where they were going—and she wasn’t about to ask. But then V made a series of turns that took them back to town. Probably to that ranch once again.
She was right.
About twenty minutes later, he pulled them into the safe house’s garage and they all waited in place as the panels trundled back down.
Vishous got out first, and Layla wasn’t but a split second behind so she could tend to Xcor. Opening the door by his head, she took his arm and helped as he fought to shuffle himself around and keep the muddy robe in place over his nakedness. When he was on his feet, she snagged the long sleeves, tied them together around his waist, and twisted the white fall so that only his hip and the side of his thigh and lower leg were visible.
“Lean on me,” she demanded as she hitched herself up under him and put her hand around his middle.
Vishous had gone into the house already, but he’d left the door open for them, the kick stop in place on the tile floor.
“I’m taking you downstairs,” she said. “There are two bedroom suites and a sitting area there.”
Xcor leaned on her pretty heavily, especially as they went up the three shallow steps into the house. And as she considered the logistics, she had no idea how they were going to make the descent into the cellar.
“Where are we?” he asked roughly.
“It’s a safe house.”
“Of the Brotherhood’s?”
“Yes.”
Vishous was in the kitchen, lounging against the counter and lighting up a hand-rolled, and he didn’t spare them a glance as they went by him. He had, however, once again paved the way for them, the door they needed to get through open wide, the light on so they could make their way safely underground.
Boy, that stairwell was skinny.
Xcor solved the tight-squeeze problem, however, by breaking away from her and relying on the railing. When he got to the bottom, he bee-lined for the stuffed sofa that was opposite the wide-screen TV. As he collapsed on it, she wasn’t sure what let out a bigger exhale, him or the cushions.
There was a red and black blanket folded over the back of the matching armchair and she snagged it, removing the dirty robe from his lower body and replacing it with something cleaner.
She took a moment to breathe. And then it was back into action. “I’ll bring you some food.”
When he didn’t argue with her, just sank further into the couch, she wondered if the trip into town hadn’t done what Mother Nature had failed, and what V had declined, to do. But no … he was still breathing.
Layla took the stairs quickly, and as she came up into the kitchen, she shut the door quietly. There were things that she and Vishous needed to say to each other—and yet he didn’t seem to want to talk at all. He was utterly self-contained as he stared at the lit end of his hand-rolled, his brows down low, his expression so flat it was as if he were a cartoon representation of himself.
She went over and put her hand on his arm. “Vishous, thank—”
“Don’t touch me!” He jerked away from her. “Do not fucking touch me.”
His eyes glowed with anger as he jabbed his cigarette at her. “Don’t get this shit twisted. We are not ‘in’ this together. We are not cohorts in Xcor. I’m not buying this romantic fantasy you’re rocking. What I am doing is leaving you here with a murderer and an open landline. If you’re alive to take the phone call about your fucking kids later, hey, you win the lottery. If he decides to slaughter you and then call his friends to come over and party with your corpse? Sorry, not sorry. Either way, I don’t give a fuck. You want him? Now you got him.”
V stalked his way to the table and picked up the cell phone he’d left behind.
Then he was gone, heading out through the slider and disappearing into the night.
After a moment, Layla walked across and shifted the lock into place. Then she turned back around and started rifling through the cabinets, looking for cans of soup.
The first thing Trez did when he got back to the restaurant was go into iAm’s office and hit the mess on the desk. He didn’t have to work very hard to find what he was looking for. The female’s résumé was right on the top, and he checked out the header.
Did he dare?
That question was answered as he returned the piece of paper to the pile of bills and orders, and snuck out of the back part of Sal’s like a criminal. Dematerializing, he proceeded to a not-so-hot section of town, to a rooming house that made him want to scream. The damn thing was three stories high, a block long, and had at least half a dozen windows that were boarded up. Its paint job had been fresh white back in the 1970s, but had faded to piss yellow, and the couple coming out of its metal double doors looked like they could have been homeless with their dirty clothes and filthy hair.
Had he even gotten the address right?
Shit. Yes, he had.
She shouldn’t be here, in this nest of grubby humans. For godsakes, was she staying aboveground with just drapes between her and the sun during the day?
What was she thinking?
As Trez strode across the street, he worried it wasn’t a choice.
When he got to the entrance, he looked through the chicken-wire glass panels. It was hard to see clearly because the damn things hadn’t been cleaned in a decade or two, but on the far side, there appeared to be a “lobby” of sorts with lights out in the overhead fixtures, a carpet that could have counted as tile for all its nap, and a wall of mailboxes where half the little portals were broken and lolling like the tongues of dead animals.
It was the building equivalent of a colon … dank, windowless, with brown sludge staining the walls.
“You need in?”
A human male who smelled like old booze and cigarettes pushed his way past, opening the door with a swipe card and keeping on his merry way.
As Trez contemplated his own entry, he had some thought that it would be better for both him and Therese if he let this shit go. Let her go.
But he went inside anyway.
There were a couple of hardies in the far corner, nodding off like they had recently injected themselves, and their bloodshot eyes passed over him with the marked lack of enthusiasm characteristic of H addiction. No bliss anymore for them. You only got that in the beginning during the rose-colored part of your relationship with opiates.
The elevator was out of service, a half-assed caution tape tied in several places across its closed panels, a handwritten sign taped cockeyed with a Band-Aid to the wall. The sight of it made him think of the Otis in The Big Bang Theory—and he was willing to bet this place’s bad boy had been broken longer.
There was only one set of stairs and they were cramped and smelled like urine. And as he made his ascent to the third floor, the noises he heard along the way were not any more optimistic and lighthearted than the rest of the dump: yelling, coughing, loud music from bad speakers, thumps like someone was banging their head into the wall repeatedly.
Jesus Christ.
On the top floor, he looked left and right. It went without saying that there wasn’t a little plaque telling people which way for which apartments. Oh, yeah … of course. Right in front of him, at eye level, there was a bald stain on the cracked wall where one had been ripped off.
’Cuz you could repurpose something like that. For a dinner plate. Or a level to help cut your drugs on.
She stayed in 309, and it turned out to be down on the left.
Goddamn, he hated the number of her apartment. He didn’t like threes or nines in sequences. Four-oh-two was a good number. Eight-oh-four. Two-twenty-four.
He was a divisible-by-two guy. He didn’t like threes, fives, or nines.
Seven was okay, he thought as he came to stand at her door, but only because two together equaled fourteen.
Thirteen was the bane of his existence.
“You looking for that girl?”
Trez cranked around. Directly across the hall, a guy in a wife-beater and a shitload of tattoos was lounging in the doorway like he owned the place, a real King of the Douche Bags. He had a handlebar mustache, bags under his eyes like canvas sacks, and cologne courtesy of the crack he’d been smoking.
“You her pimp or something?” The human stretched his neck and then scratched over his jugular. “How much is she? She’s fresh—”
Trez closed the short distance between them, grabbed the guy by the face, and forced the piece of shit back into his den of self-destruction.
As Trez kicked the door shut behind the two of them, the John-who-wasn’t-gonna-get-none started flapping his arms like he was trying to take flight—and hello, roommate on the couch.
Trez used his free hand to pull out his gun and point it to the other guy across the room. “Shut the fuck up.”
The junkie over there just put his palms high and shrugged, like people being manhandled and Glocks getting popped were part of his daily life—and he was not about to get involved in anyone else’s shit.
Trez shoved the propositioner against the wall, keeping a palm lock on that face. “You don’t go near her. If you do, I’m going to take all your drugs and flush them down the toilet in front of you. And then I’m going to kidnap you and drop you off at county hospital downtown where they’re going to hold you against your will while the court decides what rehab to mandate you into. Do you hear me? You fuck with her and I’m going to inject your sorry ass into the system—and the next time you see any kind of a hit is ninety miserable fucking days from now.”
After all, you didn’t threaten someone like this with a gun. They were already dead, for fuck’s sake.
Nah, you tortured them with the thought of third-party-enforced sobriety.
And no, Trez didn’t feel an obligation to help either of these rats without tails. Killing yourself with chemicals was a God-given right of both species, and he was not interested in interfering in the course of somebody else’s addiction. He was, however, more than happy to use any weakness to his advantage.
He glanced over at Couch Man to make sure the sonofabitch was hearing this, too. “I have her apartment rigged. I know where she is every second of the day.” He smiled tightly to keep his fangs to himself. “You two or anyone around here get near her, I’m going to know.”
Then he refocused on the one he had a hold on, squeezing those features so hard the man’s dumb-ass mustache merged with his eyebrows, like a Muppet whose operator was having a hand spasm.
When Trez finally let go, the bastard’s face was all Halloween mask, swollen and misshapen, the ’stache off angle like a pair of glasses that had been broken.
Trez looked pointedly at the couch again.
“Yeah. Sure,” the guy over there said. “You got it. She no for no one.”