Lover Unleashed

“Remember me.” It was not a question, but a demand. “Remember me.”

And then it came back. The small village on the edge of a wooded glen. Where she had killed her father. This was one of the Bloodletter’s soldiers. No doubt they all were.

Oh, she was definitely prey, she thought. And they were looking forward to hurting her before they killed her in retaliation for taking their leader from them.

“Remember me.”

“You are a soldier of the Bloodletter’s.”

“No,” he barked, putting his face in hers. “I am more than that.”

As she frowned, he just backed off and paced around in a tight circle, his fists cranked tight, the candle dripping wax onto his curled hand.

When he returned front and center afore her, he was in control. Barely. “I am his son. His son. You stole from me my father—”

“Impossible.”

“—unjustly—What?”

Into his stuttered silence, she said loudly and clearly, “It is impossible that you are his son.”

When her words registered, the blind fury in his face was the very definition of hatred, and his hand shook as he lifted it up over his shoulder.

He slapped her so hard she saw stars.

As Payne righted her head and met him in the eye, she was not going to have any of this. Not his mistaken belief. Not this group of males sizing her up. Not the criminal ignorance.

Payne held the stare of her captor. “The Bloodletter sired one and only one male offspring—”

“The Black Dagger Brother Vishous.” Hard laughter echoed. “I have heard well the stories of his perversions—”

“My brother is not a pervert!”

At this point, Payne lost all control, the anger that had carried her through that night she had killed her father coming back and taking over: Vishous was her blood and her savior for all he had done for her. And she was not going to have him disrespected—even if defending him cost her her life.

Between one heartbeat and the next she was consumed by an inner energy that illuminated the cellar they were all in with a brilliant white light.

The cuffs burned away, falling down to the packed dirt floor with a clanking.

And the male before her leaped back and braced into a fighting stance while the others grabbed for weapons. But she was not going to attack—at least, not physically.

“Listen to me now,” she proclaimed. “I am birthed of the Scribe Virgin. I am of the Chosen Sanctuary. So when I say unto you the Bloodletter, my father, bore no other male issue, that is fact.”

“Untrue,” the male breathed. “And you—you cannot have been born unto the Mother of the race. There is none born unto her—”

Payne lifted her glowing arms. “I am what I am. Deny it at your peril.”

The male’s complexion drained of what color had been in it, and there was a long, tense standoff, as conventional weapons pointed in her direction and she glowed with holy fury.

And then the head soldier’s fighting stance relaxed, his hands falling to his sides, his thighs straightening. “It cannae be,” he choked out. “None of it . . .”

Fool male, she thought.

Kicking up her chin, she declared, “I am the begotten issue of the Bloodletter and the Scribe Virgin. And I say to you now”—she stepped forward to him—“that I killed my father, not yours.”

Lifting her palm, she peeled back and slapped him across the face. “And do not insult my blood.”

As the female struck him, Xcor’s head whipped so far and so fast to the side that he pulled his shoulder in the attempt to keep the damn thing stuck to his spine. Blood immediately flooded into his mouth, and he spit some of it out before righting himself.

Verily, the female before him was majestic in her fury and her resolve. Nearly as tall as he was, she stared him straight in the eye, her feet planted, her hands in fists she was prepared to use against him and his band of bastards.

No ordinary female, this. And not just because of the way she had dissolved those cuffs.

In fact, as she met his gaze full-on, she reminded him of his father. She had the Bloodletter’s iron will not just in her face or her eyes or her body. It was in her soul.

Indeed, he had the very clear sense that they could all fall upon her and she would fight them each and every until the last breath and beat of her heart.

God knew she slapped like a warrior. Not some limp-wristed female.

But . . .

“He was my father. He told me that.”

“He was a liar.” At that, she did not blink. Nor did she duck her eyes or her chin. “I have witnessed within the seeing bowls countless bastard daughters. But there was one and only one son, and that is my twin.”

Xcor was not prepared to hear this in front of his males.

He glanced over at them. Even Throe had armed himself, and on each of their faces was impatient rage. One nod from him and they would set upon her, even if she incinerated them all.

“Leave us,” he commanded.

Not surprisingly, Zypher was the one who started to argue. “Let us hold her whilst you—”

“Leave us.”

There was a beat of immobility. Then Xcor screamed, “Leave us!”

In a flash, they peeled off and disappeared up the stairwell to the darkened house above. Then the door was shut, and footsteps rang out from up above as they paced around like caged animals.

Xcor refocused on the female.

And for the longest time, he just stared at her. “I have searched for you for centuries.”

“I was not upon the Earth. Until now.”

She remained unbowed as he confronted her in private. Totally unbowed. And as he searched her face, he could feel a glacial shift in the ice fields of his heart.

“Why,” he said roughly. “Why did you . . . kill him.”

The female blinked slowly as if she didn’t want to show vulnerability and needed a moment to make sure she put none out. “Because he hurt my twin. He . . . tortured my brother, and for that he needed to die.”

So perhaps the lore had a veracity after all, Xcor thought.

Indeed, like most soldiers, he had long known the gossiped story of the Bloodletter having demanded for his begotten son to be pinned upon the ground and tattooed . . . and then castrated. The tale had it that the wounding had been but partial—it was rumored that Vishous had magically burned through the binds that had held him and then escaped into the night before the cutting had been complete.

Xcor looked over to the cuffs that had fallen from the female’s wrists—burned off.

Lifting his own hands, he stared down at the flesh. That had never glowed. “He told me I was born unto a female he had visited for blood. He told me . . . she didn’t want me because of my . . .” He touched his malformed upper lip, leaving the sentence unfinished. “He took me and . . . he taught me to fight. At his side.”

Xcor was vaguely aware that his voice was rough, but he didn’t care. He felt as though he was looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of himself he did not recognize.

“He told me I was his son—and he owned me like his son. After his death, I stepped into his boots, as sons do.”

The female measured him, and then shook her head. “And I say unto you that he lied. Look into my eyes. Know that I speak the truth you should have heard long, long ago.” Her voice dropped to a mere whisper. “I know well the betrayal of blood. I know that pain which you feel now. It is not right, this burden you carry. But base not a