Lover Awakened

known for his misogyny… hell, he was feared for it. Why Bella mattered to him was anyone's guess. Then again, no one, not even Phury, as his twin, could predict the male's reactions.

While echoes of Z's brutal work cut through the isolation of the forest, Phury felt himself cracking under the interrogation even as the lessers stayed strong and gave up no information.

'I don't know how much more of this I can take,' he said under his breath.

Zsadist was the only thing he had in his life other than the Brotherhood's mission to protect the race against the lessers. Every day Phury slept alone, if he slept at all. Food gave him little pleasure. Females were out because of his celibacy. And every second he was worried about what Zsadist would pull next and who would get hurt in the process. He felt like he was dying from a thousand cuts, slowly bleeding out. A target by proxy for all his twin's murderous intent.

V reached out with a gloved hand and clasped Phury's throat. 'Look at me, my man.'

Phury glanced over and cringed. The brother's left eye, the one with the tattoos around it, dilated until there was nothing but a black void.

'Vishous, no… I don't…' Shit. He didn't need to hear about the future right now. Didn't know how he would handle the fact that things were only going to get worse.

'The snow falls slowly tonight,' V said, rubbing his thumb back and forth over a thick jugular vein.

Phury blinked as an odd calm came over him, his heart slowing to the rhythm of his brother's thumb. 'What?'

'The snow… it falls so slowly.'

'Yes… yes, it does.'

'And we've had a lot of snow this year, haven't we?'

'Uh… yes.'

'Yeah… lot of snow, and there's going to be more. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next month. Next year. The stuff comes when it comes and falls where it will.'

'That's right,' Phury said softly. 'There's no stopping it.'

'Not unless you're the ground.' The thumb stopped. 'My brother, you don't look like the earth to me. You're not stopping him. Ever.'

A series of pops and flashes broke out as Z stabbed the lessen in the chest and the bodies disintegrated. Then there was only the hiss from the shattered car's radiator and the heavy pump of Z's breathing.

Like a wraith he rose from the blackened ground, the blood of lessers streaking his face and his forearms. His aura was a shimmering haze of violence that warped the scenery behind him, the forest beyond him wavy and indistinct where it bracketed his body.

'I'm going downtown,' he said, wiping his blade on his thigh, 'to look for more.'

Right before Mr. O went back out hunting for vampires, he released the clip from his nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson and eyed the inside of the barrel. The gun was overdue for a cleaning, and so was his Glock. He had other shit he wanted to do, but only an idiot let his heat degrade. Hell, lessers had to be on top of their weapons. The Black Dagger Brotherhood was not the kind of target you wanted to get sloppy with.

He walked across the persuasion center, making a little detour around the autopsy table they used for their work. The one-room layout had no insulation and a dirt floor, but because there were no windows, the wind was mostly kept out. There was a cot that he slept on. A shower. No toilet or kitchen because lessers didn't eat. Place still smelled of fresh boards, because they'd built it only a month and a half ago. Also smelled of the kerosene heater they used to warm it up.

The only finished fixture was the shelving that ran from dirt to rafters down one whole forty-foot-long wall. Their tools were laid out, nice and neat, on the various levels: knives, vises, pliers, hammers, Sawzalls. If something could rip a scream out of a throat, they had it.

But the place wasn't just for torture; it was also used for storage. Keeping vampires over time was a challenge, because they could poof! on you if they were able to calm themselves and concentrate. Steel prevented them from pulling the disappearing act, but a cell with bars wouldn't have sheltered the things from sunlight, and building a solid-steel room was impractical. What worked nicely, though, was a corrugated-metal sewer pipe set vertically into the ground. Or three of them, as the case was.

O was so tempted to go over to the storage units, except he knew that if he did he wouldn't make it back out into the field, and he had quotas to meet. Being the Fore-lesser's second in command gave him some extra benes, like having the run of this place. But if he was going to protect his privacy, he had to dial in an adequate performance.

Which meant taking care of his weapons, even when he'd rather be doing other things. He pushed a first-aid kit out of the way, grabbed the gun cleaning box, and pulled a stool over to the autopsy table.

The only door in the place swung open without a knock. O glared over his shoulder, but when he saw who it was, he forced the pissed-off expression to bleed out of his puss. Mr. X was not welcome, but the Lessening Society's tough-ass in charge could hardly be denied. If only for reasons of self-preservation.

Standing under a bald lightbulb, the Fore-lesser was not a good opponent if you were looking to stay in one piece. At six foot four, he was built like a car: square and hard. And like all members of the Society who were long past their initiation, he was paled-out. His white skin never blushed and didn't get windburned. His hair was the color of a spider's web. Eyes were the light gray of an overcast sky and just as glowless and flat.

With a casual stroll, Mr. X started looking around the place, not measuring the order of objects, but searching. 'I was told you just got another one.'

O put the cleaning rod down and counted the weapons he had on his body. Throwing knife at his right thigh. Glock at the small of his back. He wished he had more. 'I picked him up downtown about forty-five minutes ago outside of Zero-Sum. He's in one of the holes, coming around.'

'Good work.'

'I'm planning on going out again. Right now.'

'Are you?' Mr. X paused in front of the shelving and picked up a serrated hunting knife. 'You know, I've heard something that's pretty goddamned alarming.'

O kept his yap shut and moved his hand onto his thigh, closer to the butt of his blade.

'Not going to ask me what it is?' the Fore-lesser said as he walked over to the three storage units in the earth. 'Maybe that's because you already know the secret.'

O palmed his knife as Mr. X lingered over the mesh metal plates that covered the tops of the sewer pipes. He didn't give a shit about the first two captives. The third was no one's business but his.

'No vacancies, Mr. O?' The tip of Mr. X's combat boot nudged at one of the sets of ropes that disappeared down into each of the holes. 'I thought you killed off two after they had nothing worthwhile to say.'

'I did.'

'So with the civilian you caught tonight, there should be one empty pipe. Instead, you're jam-packed.'

'I caught another.'

'When?'

'Last night.'

'You are lying.' Mr. X kicked off the mesh cover of the third unit.

O's first impulse was to surge to his feet, take two running strides, and punch his knife into Mr. X's throat. But he wouldn't make it that far. The Fore-lesser had a nifty trick of freezing his subordinates in place. All he had to do was look at you.

So O stayed put, shaking from the effort of keeping his ass on the stool.

Mr. X took a penlight out of his pocket, clicked it on, and angled the beam into the hole. As a muffled squeak came out, his eyes peeled wide. 'Jesus Christ, it really is a female! Why the hell wasn't I told?'

O slowly rose to his feet, letting the knife hang by his thigh in the folds of his cargo pants. His grip on the handle was steady, sure. 'She's new,' he said.

'That's not what I hear.'