ONLY BRODY CALLED THE million dollar-plus luxury tour coach the band used to travel around North America a “bus” -- a lingering trace of his British roots. The coach, when it wasn’t in active use, was kept in a shed in the warehouse district in downtown L.A.
The limousine carrying the five adults and Marit pulled into the big, brightly lit shed forty minutes after Brody got his text message. It wasn’t the first vehicle there. The driver nosed his way through a dozen police sedans and other cars already parked in the empty half of the shed. On the other side, the big, long coach with its dark, wild paintwork sat silently under the overhead arc lights. At least two dozen people stood or walked around it, most of them studying the detailed, endlessly fascinating artwork. The theme was appropriate for a death metal band—death, dying, blood, gods, demons, violence, the mystical, power, sex. The glories of music were intertwined throughout the ageless themes and the band’s logo and name ran across both sides. No one was left in any doubt when Nocturnal Rain rolled into town.
“Keep Marit in the car,” Veris told Mia. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”
“We?” Brody repeated, pausing from his slide across the seat toward the door.
“Yes,” Taylor said flatly. She pushed Brody toward the door.
Brody shook his head, but he slid out of the car and straightened up to his full six foot height. Taylor glanced at Veris as she eased out behind Brody. “There are too many people for simple theft,” she said softly, in Old Norse.
“Speak English or don’t speak at all,” Brody growled, not even looking at them. He was watching the commotion around the bus.
Veris glanced at Brody, a brow lifting. Taylor agreed. It wasn’t like Brody to snarl like that.
“Let’s go sort this out,” Taylor said, moving forward. Veris shut the car door behind her.
Brody followed her lead.
They were met halfway across the grey-painted concrete by a group of six law enforcement types. Three of them were uniformed cops. The other three wore suits, two of them badly. The third wore a suit that looked tailored and pristine. He walked right up to Brody, his eyes narrowed. “You must be Brody Gallagher,” he said. He didn’t push out his hand for a handshake, Taylor noted.
“I must be,” Brody agreed. There was a fine line between his brows. “And you must be...?”
“Lieutenant Brixton, Southwest Division.”
“They pulled you all the way out here for a theft?” Veris asked.
“Something like that,” Brixton said. He had pleasant looking eyes that gave away nothing. “Mr. Gallagher, we’re told that each of you in your band have your own lockers and beds on the coach. Is that correct?”
Brody glanced toward the coach again. Emerging from the far side, Taylor saw the other three members of his band walking in the middle of a cluster of uniformed cops and detectives.
“I’d like you to step aboard the coach and identify your locker for me,” Brixton told Brody.
Fear touched Taylor. “What department is yours, Lieutenant?” she asked. “You didn’t say.”
Brixton gave a tight smile. “No, I didn’t.” He stepped aside so that Brody could move forward. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Gallagher? It will just take a moment.”
“Which department?” Veris insisted.
“Vice,” Brixton said shortly.
Brody turned to face Brixton squarely. “What’s in the locker?” he demanded.
His abrupt movement made four of the cops travelling with Brixton jerk for their weapons, only to abort the movement.
Taylor’s breath hitched and hurried on.
Brixton dropped any pretense at pleasantness. His face hardened. “Your fellow band members have all confirmed the locker is yours, Mr. Gallagher. That’s enough for the judge. Your confirmation is a formality. As the locker is yours, you should know what is in it well enough.”
“Nothing that deserves this carnival,” Brody said flatly. Angrily.
Veris moved up to Brody’s side. “Brody, shut up. Now.”
Brixton pulled a notebook out of his inner jacket pocket and flipped it open. “We were expecting to find a certain amount of cocaine and cannabis in all the lockers and we did, in amounts usually considered for personal use. Your stash was something else entirely.”
“My stash?” Brody breathed, his tone choked.
“Brody, shut the fuck up,” Veris muttered, shaking his arm.
Brixton seemed almost happy as he looked down at his notepad and began to read. “Amphetamines, most of the social drugs, including Ecstasy, and the biggest bag of cocaine we’ve seen in a long time. Good quality stuff, too. Injectable, water-soluble high-grade cut. Then there’s the heroin. Pure white and uncut. A half-pound of the stuff, we figure. That right there will get you ten years at least, because that amount will be seen as possession with intent to distribute.”
Taylor stared at Brixton, astonished at the righteous fury in the man’s face. He was enjoying himself with this vicious taunting.
Brody was breathing hard, his hands fisted.
Veris leaned close to Brody’s ear. “Do not say a single word,” he murmured, his tone hard.
Brixton shut his notebook with a snap. “Of course, we’ll have all the official weights and measures properly listed on your arrest sheet for you,” he finished as he put the notebook away again.
“What has Brody ever done to you, Lieutenant, to deserve your malice?” Taylor asked.
Brixton sneered. “People like you, with your undeserved wealth and fame and your superior holier-than-thou attitudes…you think you live above the law, that you can get away with anything you want because of who you are. Well, you can’t.” He clicked his fingers. “Brody Gallagher, you’re under arrest for the possession of illegal substances, with intent to distribute. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”
“This is bullshit,” Brody growled as two of the uniformed cops stepped forward.
“We’ll sort it out,” Veris promised.
“Do you understand your rights as they have been explained to you?” Brixton demanded as the cops shoved between Taylor and Veris and yanked Brody’s arms back.
“Daddy!” Taylor heard, muffled, from the limousine. There was a pounding on the windows.
“Oh, god,” Brody moaned. “She can see me.”
The cuffs were ratcheted onto his wrists with a loud, horrible sound of metal against metal. Brody drew in a sharp, harsh breath, his gaze focusing inward. “Veris…” he breathed.
Veris gripped his shoulder, his expression alarmed. “Stay focused.”
Taylor glanced from one to the other man, her heart hammering. There was something happening to Brody that she didn’t understand, that Veris knew and she didn’t. After so many years, there was something they had failed to share with her and it was threatening Brody now.
The uniforms were dragging Brody toward a marked sedan. Another one opened the back door. The inside of the door had no handles and was lined with wire caging. There was more caging between the front seat and the back. The back window was also caged in. The back seat was slashed and stained. So was the floor.
One of the cops with his hand on Brody’s arm used his other hand to push down on the back of Brody’s head to make him duck as they tried to fold him into the back of the car.
Taylor drew in a shuddering breath.
Abruptly Brody threw himself backwards, out of the grip of the cops. He pushed on the side of the sedan with his boot and shoved harder, giving himself impetus. “I’m not going into that.” He was breathing raggedly. Hyperventilating.
Brody, who had faced down Saracens, Fatamids, French, Germans and more across a dozen wars and even more battles, looked like he was having a full-on panic attack.
“Oh yes, you are,” Brixton declared and waved.
Three more police surrounded him. Brody stood half-a-head higher than most of them, but they had numbers on their side. They hustled him with sheer body-weight toward the car.
Veris cupped his face in his hands briefly, then pushed his hands through his hair. Taylor saw that his hands were trembling, but other than those telling signs, he looked utterly unmoved. He shifted on his feet, a subtle movement that put him close to the nose of the sedan, a strategic position from where he could help Brody if he had to. But for years Brody and Veris had chosen to move inside the rules of human society. Veris could not act now unless he broke with that decision.
Brody was staring at the inside of the police cruiser, his black eyes wild and glittering with an emotion Taylor had never seen in them before. Fear.
The cops got him within two feet of the cruiser before Brody reacted again. He reared back with a roar, the back of his head connecting squarely with the nose of the detective who had a grip on Brody’s neck. The detective squealed and fell backwards, blood streaming from his broken nose, temporarily blinded by pain.
Brody wrenched himself sideways, pulling himself out of the grip of the man on his right. He kicked him in the stomach, sending him staggering back five or six tottering steps, past where Veris stood at the hood of the cruiser, to turn and drop to his knees, his hands to his stomach, noisily trying to breathe.
The third cop was staggering backwards as Brody had unexpectedly rammed into him with his lunge sideways. Brody turned and kept moving into him, until the cop tripped over and fell onto his back. His head rapped painfully onto the concrete. Brody landed on his chest with one knee, driving the wind out of him.
Then Brody stood and wrenched at the cuffs on his wrists, twisting them and pulling them apart with his arms. A normal human wouldn’t be able to break them, but Brody wasn’t normal, or human. He growled deep in his throat, straining at the twisted chains. They gave with a low shriek of stressed metal and gave way.
Brody turned his head, questing, looking for escape. His hair had escaped the band he normally wore it pulled back in and now it spilled over his shoulders and back in long black wavy locks, completing the wild, angry man impression.
Taylor kept still. She didn’t know if the beast in Brody was loose or not. She didn’t know what was happening. For the first time in eight years, she didn’t know Brody at all and she was touched by fear.
“Now,” Brixton yelled.
Guns fired. But not normal guns. Taylor saw red darts shoot towards Brody. But they had wires attached to them. She realized her perceptions had been stepped up. Events were moving very fast, but she was processing them fast enough to see them happen almost in slow motion.
The Taser darts, four of them – Four! her mind whispered in shocked wonder – hit Brody in the chest and abdomen, burying through his tee-shirt, deep into his flesh. He jerked, but didn’t start shaking like she had imagined Taser victims might. He looked down at the darts, his brows rushing together.
“Right,” he declared. He reached for the darts and plucked them out, two at a time and tossed them away. Then he rushed at Brixton, his bloody hands out.
“Brody, no!” Veris yelled.
Taylor’s voice wouldn’t work. The fear had her by the throat.
Brixton’s eyes widened.
But the fact that Brody was going for Brixton protected him. The cops wouldn’t try to shoot him because they feared they might get Brixton.
Instead, they simply piled themselves on top of Brody. It took nine of them and three night sticks wielded with fierce determination before Brody was subdued. The only way they subdued him was to render him unconscious.
But Taylor stopped watching long before they reached that point. She rushed to Veris and deliberately turned her face into his chest. There was no comfort to be found in Veris’ arms for he trembled as badly as Taylor did.
“He will survive this,” Veris told her under the sound of the shouting and the cries. “He will survive and we will put him back together again. As long as he survives, that is all we need.”
* * * * *
Alexander tapped on the scarred duty officer’s door and waited.
When a feminine voice called out “Come in,” instead of the masculine tones he’d been expecting, he instantly adjusted his expectations and stepped through the door and shut it.
“You asked for a word with me, Lieutenant Stevens?” he said and tried not to stare. Lieutenant Sydney Stevens was beautiful. Not just pretty. Not just attractive. Not just sexy in a twenty-first century, applied and studied way. She was bone-deep, genetically-gifted, glowing with perfection beautiful.
Alexander had grown up in a land famed for beautiful women—doe-eyed creatures with silky black hair, thick black lashes and allure in their eyes so potent a man could drown in their power. Poets had written songs and books about the fame of the women of the east and the temptation they represented. Theirs was a dark attraction. Spice and honey. An addiction that could kill a man with its potency, for the women of the east had spent centuries honing their charms.
But Sydney Stevens was light and ethereal flame against the centuries of charm that Alexander had steeled himself against. She slid past his shield and the impact was like a blow to the chest. Not just the chest; his groin stirred—for a human. This one wore a gun strapped across her shirt.
Alexander shoved the touch of confusion and arousal deep into the back recesses of his mind and painted a polite expression of enquiry on his face as the blonde, classically beautiful detective Sydney Stevens looked up from her computer screen. Her arched brows came together. “You’re not the Nordic giant that was with the perpetrator, earlier,” she said, standing up.
She was tall for a woman and slender. The tailored pants and business shirt hid most of her feminine charms, but couldn’t hide the width of her hips, or the fullness of her breasts. It made the gun belt strapped over her shoulders look all the more alien.
“If you are referring to Dr. Gerhardsson, he is attending Mr. Gallagher in a professional capacity, in the lock-up’s aid station. I am representing the family’s interests at this moment.”
Detective Steven’s eyes narrowed. “They must trust you a great deal, Mr...?”
“Dr. Alexander Karim,” he told her. “And yes, they do. Is there a reason you wanted to see us, detective? Are you in charge of Mr. Gallagher’s case now?”
“As it happens, yes. Lieutenant Brixton has been….” She frowned again. “Temporarily reassigned.”
“That sounds dangerously close to an admission that the lieutenant was overzealous and has been slapped back into place and off the case,” Alexander said, probing.
Her expression didn’t change by a millimeter. “If you try to get me to agree I said so in court I will lie my face off, Dr. Karim, but yes, he was.”
Alexander hid his surprise. “Is that why you asked to speak to us?”
“No.” She moved back around to her side of the desk. “I’ve been speaking to detectives on the scene of the arrest and I’ve read a couple of early transcripts of reports from the scene. I was going to tell you to get yourself as good a lawyer as you could afford and fight the arrest, but that was before I heard that Gallagher had made bail.” She looked up at Alexander. “So then I wanted to speak to the people who could scrape together over seven hundred thousand on a Sunday evening. I have an idea that good lawyers aren’t going to be a problem for you.”
“Probably not.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “You wanted to speak to us to…what? Measure the opposition?”
“I was merely curious,” the detective said. She sat back in her chair. “I’ve spoken to every detective and officer that was part of the arresting party and nothing adds up properly. Gallagher didn’t resist arrest until they tried to put him into the cruiser, but he had no history of claustrophobia that he admits to and there’s nothing on record.”
“If you’re asking me for insight, you know I will answer none of your questions, detective,” Alexander told her gently.
She smiled ruefully. “I know,” she said. “Although I wish it were possible.”
“That’s an odd notion, coming from a detective,” Alexander returned. “What about your fine ideas about due process?”
Sydney Stevens sat back in her chair. “Due process doesn’t always give a detective the full story. It just gives facts. I like the connective tissue behind the facts. The emotions that join the facts together. The tendons.”
“A remarkable idea for a police officer.”
“A forward idea, certainly,” she agreed coolly. “One that often gets results.”
“It’s a brave idea to promote, especially for a woman detective to try to champion.”
She smiled and her face lit up with joy. “Yes, I’ve been told that. Frequently.”
Alexander found he was holding his breath as the warmth from her smile washed over him and left his skin tingling in its wake. “What other revolutionary and shocking ideas do you have up your sleeve?” he asked, fighting for a calm countenance.
She stood up once more, giving him another look at her long legs as she came around the desk. She reached for the handle of her office door behind him and he understood that the interview was over.
But she didn’t open the door.
“Where were you born, Dr. Karim?”
“I…er…Israel,” he said truthfully, giving the modern name for his place of birth.
Detective Stevens reached out and gently pushed aside the opening of his casual collarless white shirt, to reveal the heavy, stylized gold fish symbol charm hanging from the chain on his neck. “The secret symbol of persecuted Christians, yet you have the look of a Muslim.”
“I was born into the Muslim world,” he told her.
“You converted?”
“Yes.”
“Yours has not been an easy road, then.” She gave him a small smile. “I know something about battling odds, Dr. Karim. I daily have to fight to be taken seriously, just to begin. As for getting ahead, well…” She gave him an impish grin. “I tend to side with the underdog as a result.” She opened the door. “I have a feeling that there are dynamics…facets to your friends well worth exploring.” Her face and expression took on a dreamy, distant expression. “The reports drop such interesting hints.” Then she blinked and the professional was back in place. All levity was gone. “They’re the underdogs, Dr. Karim, and all their money and influence is worth spit this time. Tell them that. Tell them they need the best lawyer in the world because even though the department fucked up royally on this, the heat coming down from elsewhere will make all that go away. Memories will get hazy, reports will get lost or misinterpreted or completely fabricated. Tell them to cover their asses, or just plain take cover.”
Alexander stepped out the door and turned to face her. “But you’re the lead detective on this,” he pointed out.
“I’ll be doing my professional duty on this, Karim. I won’t drop the ball. But I won’t be throwing it so hard it leaves bruises, either. I’m not Brixton.” She started to close the door. “And we never had this conversation.”
“That’s a pity,” Alexander replied.
“Why?”
“I have a feeling that there are dynamics and facets to you well worth exploring…if only we had ever had a chance to meet and talk.”
She shut the door without responding. But not before Alexander caught a glimpse of her gorgeous green eyes widening in surprise.
Alexander rested his hand flat on the glass a moment before moving on. It was a promise.
* * * * *
“I’m fine, I tell you,” Brody said tiredly, his head rolled back against the back of the big chair. His hands were resting loosely on his thighs. It was about three in the morning and Taylor’s energy was flagging. She could feel sleep trying to claim her despite the crisis, but the fact that Brody looked tired bothered her enough to stop her from simply relaxing and letting sleep take her.
The room was the main one of a small suite of a major mid-priced hotel chain on the outskirts of L.A. The furniture was anonymous, but comfortable. Mia and Marit were asleep in the small bedroom next door.
Veris let go of Brody’s wrist, where he had been monitoring his heart rate and got to his feet. “Taser burns healed?”
“Yes,” Brody said flatly. He wore one of the hotel’s toweling robes and was still slightly damp from the shower. They could no longer see the angry red marks through the blood-stained holes of his tee-shirt, for which Taylor was grateful.
Alexander pressed his hands together. He was sitting cross-legged on the end of the smaller queen-sized bed. A king-sized bed sat empty, next to it. “You were in deep distress, my friend. We are concerned.”
“Yup,” Brody said, not moving.
Taylor sat up from the curled up ball she had been in on the padded luggage rack. She knew what she had to do. Injecting all the disgust and scorn she could conjure into her voice, she said loudly: “Oh leave him stew in his own self-pity party. He’s just being an egotistical princess.”
But Brody still didn’t move.
Taylor bit her lip, looking at Veris. He looked as concerned as she felt as he looked down at Brody.
Alexander sat opposite Brody, frowning, his rolled up sleeves pushed back past his elbows, looking like he could pull a medical answer from thin air if he just concentrated hard enough.
Taylor realized that both Veris and Alexander hoped the answer was physical. They both wanted Brody to be fixed with a pill or a treatment. They wanted to make him better without having to dip inside the black pool they’d glimpsed inside him earlier tonight.
So it was up to her.
She rose to her feet, feeling the pull of tiredness across her back and behind her eyes and in the strain of holding her head up. She walked over to Brody’s chair, picked up his hands and put them on the arms of the chair. Then she straddled his hips with her knees. It put her head at almost the same height as Brody’s—or would, when Brody was sitting up straight.
Taylor slid her hands into his hair and under his head, feeling the soft locks between her fingers. She lifted his head, forcing him to look at her. His black eyes, with the thick lashes and brows, focused on her.
“I don’t know what happened there tonight, Brody,” she told him softly. “Veris knows some of it, clearly. Enough to try to protect you. But there’s something in your past you haven’t told me about. Something big—”
Brody’s eyes blanked out on her. She saw it happen. His gaze turned inwards and fear washed over him.
Veris’ hand came down on her shoulder. “Don’t, Taylor,” he said.
In that second she put it together. The handcuffs, his resistance to being forced into the back of the cruiser. Veris’ attempt to protect him. “God, I am so stupid,” she breathed. She stroked Brody’s brow. “This goes back to when you were a slave, doesn’t it?”
Brody shuddered. “Sixteen hundred years,” he whispered. “It haunts me still.”
Taylor drew Brody’s head to her shoulder and wrapped her arms around him, as far as she could reach. He was trembling, a fine movement that worked through his body.
“Can you talk about it, Brody?” she murmured. “Can you tell me like you told Veris?”
“Even I don’t know this story,” Veris said softly, just behind her. “I just know that he was enslaved when the Saxons swept through Britain during the first waves of occupation after Camlann. Brody was thirteen or so and he stayed a slave for seventeen years until he died and was turned by another slave.” Taylor heard Veris’ cat-like steps as he moved around the chair until he could see her face. “Now you know what I know,” he said bleakly.
“I have always known that much,” Taylor said.
Veris stroked the back of Brody’s head with a gentle touch. “I have chosen never to probe further.”
“Because you feel guilty for fighting on the side of the people who enslaved him,” Taylor told him.
Veris dropped his hand. He took a breath. Then another. “Right through the gut.” He glanced at Alexander. “I’m sorry for dragging you through these intimacies, Alex. I hadn’t planned on them.”
Taylor glanced at Alexander, where he sat. He had propped his head on his hand and watched with open interest. Now he shrugged. “Forgive me for being fascinated. The persistent remains of human psychology in you, after so many centuries have abused you, is a wondrous thing.”
“You make it sound like a blessing,” Brody ground out against Taylor’s shoulder.
“But it is,” Alexander said, sounding surprised.
Brody lifted his head to look at him. “I’ll trade you a day in the slave pits in Constantinople, Alex. Then talk to me of blessings.” His voice was hoarse.
“Constantinople?” Veris said sharply.
Brody pushed himself back against the chair once more. “That’s where I was taken and sold. Sold a few times, until I shot up to my full height and they suddenly realized I’d make a great chariot driver.”
Veris sank onto the edge of the bed that Alexander was sitting on. “Chariot racing,” he breathed, looking ill. Then his gaze dropped to the floor. “Miklegarth,” he muttered. It sounded like a curse, but Taylor jumped, for she recognized the Old Saxon rendering of “Constantinople”.
What was it about Constantinople and chariot racing that would cause Veris such distress?
Veris lifted his head again to look at Brody. “What year?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Brody replied.
“What year were you taken there, then?”
“I don’t know,” Brody replied. “Not for sure.” He shrugged. “It took forever to get there, anyway. Many of us died on the way.”
Veris winced and looked at Taylor. “You were right. The guilt bites deep.”
“For something you had nothing to do with?” Brody asked.
Veris shrugged. “You are not the only one carrying a burden, it seems.” His stance and his words were casual, but his gaze slid away from Brody’s face, proving that Veris was more affected than he was choosing to show.
Brody’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “And you two keep wondering why I love you. Then you say something like that, or do something like this.” He trailed his hand down Taylor’s hair, which hung around her hips these days. Unlike Mia, she left her hair loose as often as possible, because Veris and Brody loved to stroke it and slide their hands into it, or hold her head still with it as they plundered her mouth or other parts of her body.
Brody’s fingers slid into her hair, rubbing up against her scalp, making her shiver. But he didn’t take his kiss.
“Veris,” he said, his voice thick. “Come and kiss her.” Brody bent her head back and her lips up in offering.
Taylor moaned, her body abruptly turning hot, her blood slow and thick and languorous with heat and need.
Veris’ mouth covered hers and his tongue drove deep inside. She could feel the pressure of his canines against her teeth, even with their lips between them. It was a familiar touch, one that reassured her.
When Brody’s hands touched the bare skin of her stomach, she sighed into Veris’ mouth as her pulse accelerated. “I don’t think I should be the focus tonight,” she breathed against Veris’ lips.
He licked her upper lip. “Neither do I.” He smiled as he turned his head to Brody and slid his hand into Brody’s long locks and tilted his head back. Brody’s breath escaped with a harsh sigh as Veris bent over him and kissed him, his lips hard against Brody’s.
Taylor’s body tightened and thrummed as she watched the two men kiss, one dark haired, one pale. She still thrilled at the sight of them together, even now, eight years after meeting them and three years of their very special marriage later.
With a gasp, she remembered Alexander and looked over at the queen-sized bed. It was empty. Alexander had discreetly withdrawn, probably to the other bedroom. She had not heard the main hotel room door open and close and Veris had been insistent that no one go anywhere in public alone.
With a sigh of relief, Taylor pulled off her tank top, then her bra. Her breasts were already swollen, the nipples hard with excitement. She reached between her thighs and pulled Brody’s robe undone and opened it up. It didn’t surprise her to find his cock rampantly erect and throbbing. She trailed her forefinger along the length of him.
At her first gentle touch, Brody groaned, the sound pulling from deep within him. He was more than ready. He was powerfully aroused.
“You like the idea of being used by us, don’t you?” she murmured and slid her tongue along Brody’s extended neck, as Veris continued to raid his mouth.
His hips lifted, his pelvis thrusting with a little compulsive jerk.
Yeah, he liked it.
Taylor lifted herself from the chair and stripped away the rest of her clothing. As she wriggled out of her jeans, she found her gaze pulled back to Veris and Brody. Their heads together, their mouths pressed against each other.
Taylor’s body burned at the sight.
Naked, she pressed herself up behind Veris and undressed him as he leaned over Brody, until he was as bare as she. Taylor could see his shoulders lifting with his accelerated breathing.
She stroked his stiff and jutting cock, making him moan into Brody’s mouth.
Veris pulled Brody to his feet, away from the chair, so that Veris stood behind him. Brody’s robe was tossed onto the chair.
Taylor circled the two men as Veris pulled Brody’s hair aside and licked his way along the line of Brody’s neck, following the great artery. Brody had fed tonight, after they had left the station. Veris always found Brody especially arousing after he had fed.
Veris made a breathless sound, like a groan without sound, as he ran his tongue over Brody’s renewed pulse. He slid his arm over Brody’s shoulder, pulling him up against his chest.
Brody’s eyes closed in pleasure.
Taylor leaned over to the nightstand between the beds and reached into her purse and withdrew the small tube of lubricant that she carried with her, always, and pressed it into Veris’ spare hand. Then she lowered herself to her knees and ran her hands down Brody’s thighs to his ankles and separated them, forcing him to spread his feet wide.
Brody gripped the back of the cast-aside chair for balance, his eyes wide open as he stared down at her. Excitement glittered in his eyes and his expression was hungry. He knew what she intended. His cock was throbbing. Jerking against his abdomen.
Taylor circled the heavy velvet skin of his testicles with her finger.
He hissed.
Veris’ hands griped Brody’s hips. “She teases. I take.” His voice was hoarse with building pleasure.
From her low vantage point, Taylor was able to watch Veris nudge his cock, slick and gleaming with lubricant, into Brody one slow inch at a time. Brody curled his fingers over Taylor’s shoulder, his breath shuddering, as Veris took him.
Taylor waited until the moment Veris was completely inside Brody, then she plunged her mouth over Brody’s pulsating cock, pushing it deep into her throat, as she cupped and gently rolled his balls in her hands.
Brody cried out, his fingers clamping on her shoulder. His hips thrust, driving his cock deeper into her mouth.
Taylor accepted it, letting her lips slide over the shaft and back up again, to tease the oh-so-sensitive head of his cock and the underside with her tongue. She could feel her own body tightening, tingling with pleasure, but that wasn’t the point here and now. Brody was.
He was trembling, gasping. Veris and she knew exactly how and what Brody liked best and with both of them concentrating on him, Brody was helpless to do anything but explode.
Brody’s cock swelled and pumped in her mouth, warning her, but Taylor just smiled both mentally and around his shaft and kept working her lips and tongue at the delicate flesh.
Brody thrust his hands into her hair and clenched desperately. “Agh, Taylor!”
He came in hard, surprisingly hot spurts that Taylor took and swallowed silently. Brody’s cum, like Veris’, wasn’t salty or bitter. It was neutral, without semen or active biological matter. But it tasted different from Veris’.
She swirled her tongue in the shallow divot of the eye of his cock, and let him go, sitting back.
Brody was still breathing hard. He straightened up, studying her with his eyes narrowed as Veris let him go. “No,” he said softly. “You don’t get off that lightly,” he said, his voice a dangerously low growl.
He reached for her.
Taylor was still on her knees. She threw herself backwards, twisting out of the way, which put her on her hands and knees facing the opposite direction. It was a bad move. It made her far too vulnerable, because Brody was vampire and wouldn’t hesitate to use his speed and strength against her in private.
Even as her hands landed on the dark green carpet, Brody’s arm curled around her waist from behind, his fingers spreading out over her abdomen. “Got you,” he growled.
His cock pushed into her folds, finding her pussy entrance with unerring aim, and slamming home with a hard, deep thrust.
Taylor gasped at the sudden, unexpected possession, adjusting to it.
“You’re hot. Wet,” Brody muttered against the back of her shoulder. “Anyone would think you were ready for me.”
“I was waiting for Veris,” she said. This was an old game, an old joke.
“I have better fish to fry,” Veris growled.
Taylor turned her head to look over her shoulder and saw Veris standing over Brody. His eyes were narrowed and his cock was still hard and beating upright. “Yes, do him again,” she said. “Make him scream.”
Brody closed his eyes and thrust into her, his hand shifting to dip into her cleft, bumping up against her sensitive clit. “That’s what I planned for you, wife.”
“Together, then,” she whispered, as her climax stirred and leapt at his touch.
“You might have to hurry,” Veris gasped as he claimed Brody once more.
Taylor moaned, her hips thrusting backwards. “No…problems.” Her climax swirled and gathered as Brody’s fingers stroked and massaged and his cock slid in and out of her, stroking the inside of her pussy and all the nerve endings there. She could hear Brody’s labored breathing as Veris took him, and the little catches in Veris’ breath, the erotic hitches and gasps. That drove her pleasure steaming toward the peak.
Taylor managed to hold in her scream, in deference to Alexander in the next room and the people sleeping there. But she screamed with a clamped jaw and her vision faded for a moment.
Brody’s guttural climax was muffled against her back, but the power of his hard, deep thrusts as he came told their own story. His fingers dug into her shoulder as he strained against her, his pelvis grinding against her ass.
Veris groaned just once, but the groan was cut off quickly. He, too, remembered Alexander.
* * * * *
Alexander kept his back to the door, his butt on the floor and concentrated on the sound of the sleeping people on the bed to the left of his crossed feet. If he focused on the rhythm of their breathing, then he could block out the sounds of passion, love and eroticism he could hear through the paper thin door at his back. The door might block noise for normal humans, but for a vampire, it was useless. He could hear everything, if he chose to.
If he was polite, if he was decent, he would choose not to eavesdrop.
A good Christian wouldn’t listen.
Problem was, he wasn’t a good Christian. His whole body was wracked with desire and envy. With need.
Once upon a time, he had thought himself in love with Taylor. That moment had long gone. His admiration and respect for Taylor was limitless, yes, and he loved her in all ways except romantically. He could even lust after her and understand why Brody and Veris crossed time and fought so doggedly to keep this human woman in their lives. But he was not in love with her.
Alexander brought his knees up and rested his elbows on them. Then he leaned his forehead on the heels of his hands and made himself face the other facts as cleanly as he acknowledged his lust for Taylor.
Because it wasn’t just lust for Taylor. He wanted all of them.
He had watched Brody and Veris kiss and the truth had exploded in his mind like a fireworks display.
It wasn’t simple lust, either. He wanted what they had. Lust and love. The whole nine yards. Until Alexander had met Veris, Taylor and Brody, a ménage belonged in the realm of the pornographic and that was all. It had never occurred to him that a ménage could be something so beautiful, so wonderful and full of love—and so erotic, too. These three had opened his eyes.
Now, he wanted what they had.
Only the Christian church called what they had a sin and them sinners. Never mind that Alexander was already a condemned abomination because he was vampire…
Alexander pulled out his Ichthys pendant and looked at it. Why had he chosen the secret symbol and not simply worn a cross?
He put the pendant back inside his shirt, hauled himself to his feet and stretched out on the second empty bed. He might as well get comfortable. He could be here a while.
* * * * *
Brody carried Taylor over to the bigger bed, while Veris pulled back the covers. Brody tucked her under the sheets and blankets. “Sleep,” he murmured. “You’re very tired.”
She kept her arms around his neck. “Stay for a while,” she said. “Please?”
Brody settled down next to her. Veris drew the blanket over them both, then slid under the sheets with them, settling down behind Brody. He propped his head on his hand, so that he could see them both.
Brody sighed, curling his hand over Taylor’s waist and drawing her up against him. “This is where I was meant to be,” he murmured. “Between the two of you.”
Veris kissed his shoulder. “I’m starting to think, Brody, that you and I were just the dress rehearsal for the three of us.”
Brody brushed Taylor’s hair from her face and back over her shoulder, nodding. “We had to learn how to survive together in order to make the three of us work.” He laughed softly. “We’re both so fuckin’ stubborn, we needed a thousand years to do that.”
Sleep was pushing insistently at her mind, but Taylor struggled to clear it away. “You’re ready, aren’t you?” she whispered. “Ready to turn me.”
“I’ll never be ready for that,” Veris said gently. “But I know I never want to lose you. Ever. Not even for the sake of watching you live a normal human life. If that means I must find a way to turn you, then I will. But I’m hoping you will let Brody do it. He sees it as a gift. I do not…not yet, anyway.”
“Brody?” she whispered.
“I will,” he said, “If you want me to.”
Her eyes closed and she struggled to open them again.
“But not right now,” he added. “Sleep, Taylor. We have enough to worry about right now. When all this fuss is over, we’ll talk about it again.”
She felt his lips on her temple and realized her eyes had shut again.
“Wake up, Taylor,” Brody told her. His arms were around her and her head was resting on his shoulder.
“You just told me to sleep,” she complained.
“That was six hours ago.” Brody chuckled.
“Mummy! Come and eat! There’s pancakes!” Marit’s high, sweet voice sounded very happy, like she had already eaten more than her share. Taylor groaned.
“There is also crisp bacon, just as you like it,” Veris murmured by her ear. “And coffee.”
“Coffee!” She tried to move.
Veris laughed. “I’m not sure whether I’m sad or glad I missed out on a coffee addiction. The smell is divine, but the lengths people go to for their daily hit is astonishing.”
Taylor paused from struggling out of the sheets and blankets to kiss Brody. He looked normal. Peaceful. She stroked his cheek. “Good morning. Did I sleep on you all night?”
“You know I don’t mind.”
“You know I love it, that’s why you don’t mind.”
He smiled. “True.”
She smacked his chest lightly.
Veris held out a robe for her so she could slide into it without flashing the entire room as she climbed out of the bed. As she tied the robe closed, he grabbed the lapels and pulled her close for his own good morning kiss. His was much more thorough and arousing. By the time he let her go and pushed her toward the table, Taylor was breathing hard and thinking about tugging him into the bathroom.
Mia had already poured her a cup of coffee and was pushing the cream over.
Taylor sat down. Hunger beat down her arousal.
For now.
She was through a full pancake and two strips of bacon and her first cup of coffee when Brody asked her for his cellphone.
“In my handbag,” Taylor told him. His cellphone had been part of his personal effects she had signed for and collected at the station at one in the morning just before they’d headed for a random hotel on the outskirts of L.A.
Taylor settled back to sip her second coffee and nibble on a third strip of bacon, while she and Mia between them coaxed Marit into eating a bit more bacon and a bit less maple syrup.
Veris was working on his big laptop and Alexander was reading over his shoulder.
“Oh, sweet lord,” Brody breathed, where he sat on the still-made queen-sized bed. He spoke softly, but the room was almost silent and there was something in his tone that made every adult turn to look at him.
Taylor found herself on her feet. There was a stricken look on Brody’s face as he stared at his cellphone.
Veris pushed back from the desk. “Tell me,” he demanded.
Brody held out the cellphone. Veris took it, turned it around and read it. His face hardened. “Fuck,” he said.
“Veris,” Taylor said and glanced at Marit, who was watching him.
He sighed and handed her the phone. She took it, almost afraid to read whatever it was. She looked down. Brody had been reading an email. It was quite short. The email address was unknown to her. There was a quote. The whole email simply said: “While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. Lenin (1870 - 1924), ‘State and Revolution’, 1919”
There was no signature, but none was needed. Taylor knew who would send such a pointed quote to Brody of all people.
Tira.
Taylor handed the phone to Alexander, feeling a little sick. “Is this a warning or the formal slap on the wrist?” she asked.
Brody spun to face her, his jaw slack with shock. “Last night was Tira’s doing?”
Taylor pointed at the phone. “That seems to imply it was.”
Veris crossed his arms. “You told her to leave your family out of it, Brody. So she did. She made it very personal indeed.”
“But…so fast?” He licked his lips as if they were dry.
Alexander put the phone on the desk. “Vampire speed. An army of clerks at her disposal. She has been researching you all for days, if not years. She knew of your activities, your intimate information, when she arrived last night. This could have been arranged in minutes, or even prearranged and executed with a couple of calls when she left.”
“I would have done it that way,” Veris growled. “Given us no time for a pre-emptive strike.”
“That’s what you were planning, wasn’t it?” Taylor asked. “A pre-emptive strike?”
“It’s one thing I had thought of,” Veris agreed with a growl. “But the call from the police cut right through any plans at all.” He swore softly, with a sideways glance at Marit. “It was a strategically brilliant move she made. Fast, ruthless and it gave Brody exactly the right message.”
Marit, perhaps sensing the strained atmosphere, climbed down from her chair and clambered onto the bed where Brody sat. She threw her arms around his neck from behind and rested her head on his back.
Brody drew her around and into his lap. “Come here, munchkin.”
Taylor sighed. “So she planted the stuff on the coach?”
“We’ll never be able to prove that in court,” Veris said. “We’ll just look stupid if we try. A death metal band member that doesn’t do drugs? They’ll laugh us out of court.”
“We could prove it if we taped her doing it,” Taylor pointed out patiently.
Everyone but Veris looked puzzled.
Veris exploded. “No!” He shook his head. “Absolutely not! We can’t fuck around with it that way. Not this close to our real time selves. God knows what we’d do to history.”
“Time travel is time travel. This close, any ripples we set up would be miniscule at best. The risks are negligible. You’re just panicking because you’ve never thought of using it this way.”
“Time travel?” Brody repeated. His frown disappeared. “You mean go back and tape her?” He straightened up.
Mia stood up. “I’m going to take Marit for a walk down to the indoor pool and the amusement park. Marit?” She held out her hand. “Let’s get some juice, huh?”
Marit’s puzzled expression fled. “Sure!” She crawled out of Brody’s lap and hurried over to take Mia’s hand.
Mia picked up a room key. “Text me on my cell when it’s a good time to come back, Taylor, okay?”
Alexander stood. “I’ll go with them.”
Taylor nodded. “Thanks, Mia. Alexander.”
Veris crossed his arms as the door closed. “I’m not panicking,” he said flatly.
“Yes, you are,” Brody shot back. “Taylor’s right. If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it’s a fucking duck. What difference does it make if we jump two days or two millennia? We go back, tape her planting the stuff and stash the tape somewhere safe. Come back here and collect the tape. Voilá. Proof for the courts.”
“The courts will want to know how we got the tape,” Veris insisted. “Where it came from. We can’t tell them we jumped back in time. We have to show a clear line of logic demonstrating how the evidence was collected and stored. It’s called the chain of evidence and if it’s broken the evidence is worth snot in a court of law.”
“Christ, you’re trying to teach me the laws of evidence?” Brody cried. “We’re talking about forty-eight hours! Something can sit in sealed locker for forty-eight hours.”
Veris hesitated. “Okay,” he agreed.
Brody pushed his hands through his hair. “Yes, it can,” he pushed. “My barrister days are dusty, but I know that much. As long as the seals are good, you’re covered. Find a barrister, a lawyer. Check with them. Who do you know, Veris? Someone high up. Know any appeal lawyers? Judges? Anyone who will take a call from you right now?”
Veris frowned. “I know one or two.”
“Call them. Ask them.”
“Which one?” Veris asked reasonably.
“All of them,” Taylor replied. “Consensus of opinion rules. We don’t do this unless they all agree.”
Brody held out his cellphone. “Here, use my phone.”
Taylor pushed it away. “Think Tira won’t be tracing it?” she asked. “Use the hotel phone,” she told Veris.
He nodded. Twenty minutes later he put the phone down and sat back. “It’s unanimous,” he agreed heavily, looking down at his notes. “Two copies, one sealed and unbroken and identical to the working copy, both dated and witnessed, will cover us.”
“So why do you sound so unhappy about it?” Brody demanded. “Is it that you don’t like me being right for a change?”
Veris looked up. His expression was rueful and there was a pinched, painful look in his eyes. “You know that’s not it,” he said. He stood up. “If we do this…if we go back two days to catch Tira planting the stash in your locker—”
“If?” Brody repeated.
“If we do it,” Veris continued firmly, “then you stay here, Brody. I won’t jump with you.”