Lover Reborn

“My business is whatever I determine it to be.”

“Your ways will not work here.”

“And what ‘ways’ are those?”

“There are laws here.”

“So I have heard. And I am fairly confident you are breaking several in your endeavors.”

“I refer not to human ones.” As if those were entirely irrelevant—and at least on that they could agree. “The Old Law provides—”

“We’re in the New World, Assail. New rules.”

“According to whom?”

“Me.”

The male narrowed his eyes. “O’erstepping already?”

“Your conclusion is your own.”

“Then I shall let it stand. And I shall take my leave of you now—unless you have plans to shoot me. In which case, I shall take you with me.” He lifted up his other hand. In it was a small black handset. “Just so we’re clear, the bomb that is wired to the undercarriage of my car will go off if my thumb contracts—which is precisely the kind of autonomic jerk that will occur if you put a bullet in my chest or my back. Oh, and mayhap I should mention that the explosion has a radius that more than includes where you are, and the detonation is so efficient, you will not be able to dematerialize out of the zone fast enough.”

Xcor laughed with genuine respect. “You know what they say about suicides, don’t you. No Fade for them.”

“It’s not suicide if you shoot me first. Self-defense.”

“And you’re willing to test that out?”

“If you are.”

The male appeared utterly unconcerned with the choice, at peace with living or dying, uncaring of the violence and pain—and yet not unplugged, either.

He would have made an exceptional soldier, Xcor thought. If he hadn’t been castrated by his mommy.

“So your solution,” Xcor murmured, “is mutual self-destruction.”

“What is it going to be?”

If Xcor had had his backup in place, there would have been a better way to handle this. But no, the bastards were nowhere around. And it was a fundamental tenet of conflict that if you were facing a well-matched enemy, who was well-provisioned and well-couraged, then you did not engage—you retreated, remarshaled, and lived to fight under circumstances more favorable to your own victory.

Besides, Assail had to be kept alive long enough so that the king could come to see him.

None of this sat well, however. And Xcor’s mood, already dark to begin with, went utterly black.

He didn’t say anything further. He simply dematerialized to another alley about half a mile away, letting his departure speak for itself.

As he re-formed by a shut-up newsstand, he was furious with his soldiers, his ire from the confrontation with Assail transferred and magnified as he thought of his males.

Initiating a search of his own, he went from abandoned building to club to tattoo parlor to tenement until he found them at the skyscraper: As he took form, they were all there, loitering as if they had naught better to do.

Violence replaced the very veins in his body, threading throughout him—to the point where he began to feel the hum of insanity within the confines of his skull.

It was the blood hunger, of course. But the root cause did nothing to temper the emotions.

“Where the fuck were you?” he demanded, the wind ripping around his head.

“You told us to wait here—”

“I told you to come find me!”

Throe threw up his hands. “Goddamn it! We all need phones, not just—”

Xcor launched himself at the male, grabbing him by the coat and throwing him up against a steel door. “Watch. Your. Tone.”

“I am right in this—”

“We are not having this discussion again.”

Xcor shoved himself away and walked off from the male, his duster getting thrown to the side from the hot, gale force blowing o’er the city.

Throe, however, would not leave it alone. “We could have been where you wanted us to be. The Brotherhood has cell—”

He wheeled around. “Fuck the Brotherhood!”

“You’d have better luck doing that if we had methods of communication!”

“The Brotherhood are weak for their technological crutches!”

Throe shook his head, all aristocrat-who-knew-better. “No, they’re in the future. And we can’t compete with them if we’re in the past.”

Xcor curled his hands into fists. His father—rather, the Bloodletter—would have pushed the son of a bitch right off the side of the building for this insolence and insubordination. And Xcor did take a step forward toward the male.

Except no, he thought with cold logic. There was a more useful way to handle this.

“We go into the field. Now.”

As he leveled his stare at Throe, there was one and only one acceptable response—and the others knew this, judging from the way they got their weapons out and readied themselves to engage the enemy.

And ah, yes, Throe, ever the dandy who appreciated social order, even in a military situations, naturally followed suit.

But then again, there were other reasons for him to follow orders over and above an affinity for consensus: It was that debt that he believed he would be working off forever. It was his commitment to the other bastards, which had grown over time and was mutual—to a point.

And, of course, it was his dearest, departed sister, who was, in a way, still with him.

Well, she was more with Xcor in practicality.

Upon his nod, he and his soldiers traveled in sprays of loose molecules down into the system of alleys. As they went, Xcor recalled that night long ago when a fine gentlemale approached him in a dirty part of London for a deadly purpose.

The disposition of the request had been rather more involved than Throe had contemplated.

To get Xcor to kill the one who had defiled his sister had required much more than just the shillings in his pocket. It had required his whole life. And servicing the debt had turned him into something so much more than a member of the glymera who had happened to have a Brotherhood name: Throe had lived up to his blooded legacy, far surpassing any expectations.

Far surpassing every expectation: In truth, Xcor had struck the deal to use the male as an example of weakness to the others. Throe was supposed to have been a humiliated foil for the true soldiers, a downtrodden, whining pussy who was broken over time and then made to serve them.

Not where they had ended up.

Down at ground level, the alley they re-formed in was rank and sweaty from the summer’s heat, and as his soldiers fanned out behind him, they filled the confines from brick wall to brick wall.

They always hunted in a pack; unlike the Brotherhood, they stuck together.

So all of them saw what happened next.

Unsheathing one of his steel daggers, Xcor gripped the handle hard. Spun around to Throe.

And sliced the male in the gut.

Someone shouted. Several cursed. Throe curled around the wound—

Xcor caught the male’s shoulder, retracted the weapon, and stabbed again.

The scent of fresh vampire blood was unmistakable.

There needed to be two sources, not just one, however.

Resheathing his dagger, he pushed Throe backward so that the male fell flat on the ground. Then he took one of Throe’s blades from its holster and ran the sharp edge down the inside of his own forearm.