Lover Reborn

cookies. “Until dawn, my friend.”

Left by himself, Tohr briefly considered the merits of punching the mirror—but then figured he might endanger his chances of going out and finding some lessers to kill. And right now? That prospect was the only thing keeping him in his own skin.

Blood. Sweat. Tears.

Cursing, he took a shower, shaved, and went out into the bedroom. No’One was already gone, likely so that she could make it down to First Meal separately from him. She did this every night, even though the show of discretion couldn’t possibly fool anybody.

You know as well as I do how much you haven’t done.

Damn it to hell, Lassiter probably did have a point—and not just about the whole sex thing.

As he thought about it, he realized he never explained himself to No’One. Like, there was no way she didn’t know that he’d had a nightmare again—him popping off the bed like it was a toaster and moody-ing around was a neon sign in the room. But he never talked about it with her. Never gave her an opening to ask about it.

He didn’t really talk to her about anything, actually. Not his work out in the field. Not his Brothers. Not the ongoing struggles the king was having with the glymera.

And there were so many other distances that he maintained…

At his closet, he ripped out a pair of leathers, stepped into them, and—

The waistband jammed at his thighs. And when he pulled them again, they stayed put. Yanking them even harder, they… split at the fly into two halves.

What. The. Fuck.

Goddamn pieces of shit.

He grabbed another pair. And ran into the same problem—his thighs were too big for them.

Going through his closet, he checked all his sets of fighting clothes. Now that he thought about it, things had been getting tighter lately. Jackets constricting his shoulders. Shirts ripped under the armpits at the end of the night. Thighgate.

Glancing over his shoulder, he caught his reflection in the mirror over one of the dressers.

Damn, he was… back to the size he had once been. Strange that he hadn’t noticed until tonight, but his body, now on a regular feeding schedule, had blown out to its previous dimensions, his shoulders corded with muscle, his arms bulging, his stomach rippled, his thighs swollen with power.

No’One was responsible for this. It was her blood in him making him this strong.

Turning away, he went over to the phone by the bed, ordered up another pair of leathers in a bigger size, stat, and then parked it on the chaise.

His eyes locked on the closet.

The mating dress was still in it, pushed to the rear, hanging where he had put it when he’d resolved to try to move on.

Lassiter was right: He hadn’t taken things as far as he could. But, God, having sex with someone else? As in actual sex? There had only ever been his Wellsie.

Shiiiiit… this nightmare he was in just kept getting more “mare.”

But, God, that vision as he’d woken up, of his shellan ever farther away… even more faded… her exhausted eyes tortured and gray as the landscape.

The knock on the door was too strong to be Fritz.

“Come in.”

John Matthew peered around the jamb. The kid was dressed for fighting, his weapons on, his mood dark.

“Going out early?” Tohr said.

No, I’ve switched shifts with Z—just wanted you to know that.

“What’s wrong?”

Nothing.

What a lie. The truth came out in the sharp edges to the kid’s words, his hands forming the positions of ASL with hard corners on the letters. And he wouldn’t look anywhere but the floor.

Tohr thought of the messy bed across the way, and the fact that No’One had left one of her spare sheaths on the chair over by the bureau.

“John,” he said. “Listen…”

The kid didn’t look at him. Just stood there in the open doorway, head down, brows down, body twitching to leave.

“Come in a minute. And shut the door.”

John took his time and crossed his arms when he was done closing them in.

Crap. Where to start.

“I think you know what’s going on here. With No’One.”

None of my business, came the signed response.

“Bullshit.” At least that got him some eye contact—too bad, since he promptly stalled out on the reveal. How could he explain what was going on? “It’s a complicated situation. But no one’s taking Wellsie’s place.” Shit, that name. “I mean—”

Do you love her?

“No’One? No, I don’t.”

So what the hell are you doing here—no, don’t answer that. John paced around, hands on hips, weapons catching the light in subtle flashes. I can guess.

In a sad way, Tohr thought, the anger was honorable. A son protecting the memory of his mother.

God, that hurt.

“I’ve got to move on,” Tohr whispered hoarsely. “I have no choice.”

The fuck you don’t. But like I said, it’s none of my business. I gotta go. Later—

“If you think for one moment that I’m having a party in here, you’re too wrong.”

I’ve heard the sounds. I know exactly how much fun you’re having.

As he took off, the door shut with a crack.

Fantastic. This night got any better and someone was going to lose a leg. Or a head.

THIRTY-SIX

Generally speaking, the scent of human blood wasn’t nearly as interesting as that of a lesser or a vampire. But it was equally recognizable, and something that you had to pay a little attention to.

As Xhex threw a leg over her Ducati, she sniffed the air again.

Definitely human, coming from west of the Iron Mask.

Checking her watch, she saw she had a little extra time before her meet-and-greet, and whereas in the normal course of business she wouldn’t give any kind of mess involving humans even a drive-by, in light of current events in the black-market trade, she dismounted, took her key, and dematerialized in that direction.

Over the last three months, there had been a rash of killings downtown. Well… duh on that. But the ones she had been interested in were not the sloppy gang-related drive-bys, or the heat-of-passion trigger fingers, or the drunken hit-and-runs. Her group fell into the fourth big catchall—drug related.

Except not in your run-of-the-mill kind of way.

The deaths were all suicides.

Middlemen were capping themselves left and right—and really, what were the chances that so many of those motherfuckers would develop a conscience at the same time? Unless, of course, someone was putting a moral additive in the Caldwell water system. In which case Trez would be out of business on a couple of different levels—and he wasn’t.