Lover Unleashed

The stench was so strong, his nose filed relocation papers—but there weren’t a bunch of those pale-ass fools standing around, stroking each other’s knives. The place was empty.

Except then he noticed the sound of dripping. As if a faucet hadn’t been quite turned off.

After throwing up some mhis, he pulled his glove free of his glowing hand and used his palm to light the way. Walking forward, the illumination formed a shallow pool of clear-and-visi right in front of him, and the first thing he came to was a boot . . . which was attached to a camo’d calf . . . and a thigh and hip. . . .

That was it.

The slayer’s body had been cut in half, sure as if it had been deli sliced, the cross section leaking portions of the intestinal tract, the stump of the spine showing bright white in and among all the greasy black.

A resonant scratching drew him over to the right.

This time he saw a hand first . . . a pale hand that was digging its nails into the damp asphalt and retracting like it was trying to hoe up the ground.

The lesser was just torso, but it was still alive—although that wasn’t a miracle; it was how they worked: Until you stabbed them through the heart with something that was made of steel, they hung around, no matter what state their bodies were in.

As V slowly moved his palm-light upward, he got a load of the thing’s face. Its mouth was stretching wide, the tongue clicking as if it were trying to speak. Typical of the current crop of killers, this one was a new recruit, his dark skin and hair having yet to turn floury white.

V stepped over the bastard and kept going. A couple of yards over, he found the two halves of a second one.

As the back of his neck went ants-all-over in warning, he passed his glowing hand around, moving outward from the bodies in a concentric circle.

Well, well, well . . . wasn’t this a blast from the past.

And so not in a good way.

Back at the Brotherhood’s compound, Payne lay in her bed, waiting.

She was not good at patience at the best of times, and she felt as though ten years passed before her healer finally came back to her. When he did, he brought with him a thin booklike panel.

As he sat down on the bed, there was tension in his strong, handsome face. “Sorry that took so long. Jane and I were firing up this laptop.”

She had no clue what that meant. “Just tell me whatever there is to say.”

With quick, nimble hands, he opened the top half of the contraption. “Actually, you need to see it for yourself.”

Feeling as though she wanted to curse loud and often, she dragged her eyes to the screen. Immediately, she recognized the image of the room she was in. This was from before, however, because as she lay on the bed, she was staring at the bathroom. The frame was frozen like a picture, but then a little white arrow moved when he touched something and the picture became animated.

With a frown, she focused on herself. She was glowing: Any piece of flesh that showed was illuminated from within. Why ever was that—

First she sat up from the pillow, her neck craned so that she could spy on her healer. More leaning to the side. And then maneuvering downward upon the bed . . .

“I sat upright,” she breathed. “Onto my knees!”

Indeed, her luminescent form had raised itself up perfectly and hovered with precise balance as she watched him in the shower.

“You most certainly did,” he said.

“I am aglow as well. Why is that, though?”

“We were hoping you could tell us. You ever do that before?”

“Not that I was aware of. But I have been imprisoned for so long, I feel as though I know not myself.” The file stopped. “Do play it again?”

When her healer didn’t reply, and the pictures didn’t renew their action, she glanced over at him—only to recoil. His face was showing a thunderous rage, the anger so deep, his eyes were nearly black.

“Imprisoned how?” he demanded. “And by who?”

Strange, she thought dimly. She’d always been told humans were a far milder form of creature than vampires. But her healer’s protective response was every bit as deadly as that of her own species.

Unless, of course, it wasn’t about protection. It was entirely possible that her having been jailed was not attractive to him.

And who could blame him?

“Payne?”

“Ah . . . Forgive me, healer—perhaps my word choice is incorrect, as English is a second language to me? I have been under my mother’s care.”

It was nearly impossible to keep the distaste from her voice, but the camouflage must have worked, because the tension left him completely as he released his breath. “Oh, okay. Yeah, that word does not mean what you think it does.”

Indeed, humans as well had standards for behavior, did they not: His relief was as great as his tension had been. But then, it was not wrong to look for morality and decency in females—or males.

As he replayed the pictures for her, she shifted her focus to the miracle that had happened . . . and found herself shaking her head at what she saw. “Truly, I was unaware. How is . . . this possible?”

Her healer cleared his throat. “I’ve talked it over with Jane . . . and she—well, we—have a theory.” He stood up and went over to inspect a fixture on the ceiling. “It’s crazy, but . . . Marvin Gaye might just have known what he was talking about.”

“Marvin?”

With a quick shift, he picked up a chair and placed it under the camera. “He was a singer. Maybe I’ll play you a song of his someday.” Her healer planted his foot on the seat and rose to the ceiling where he disconnected something with a yank and got back down. “It’s good to dance to.”

“I do not know how to dance.”

He glanced over his shoulder, his lids dropping low. “Something else for me to teach you.” As her body warmed, he approached the bed. “And I’m going to like showing you how.”

When he leaned down, her eyes latched onto his lips and her breath got tight. He was going to kiss her— dearest fate, he was going to—

“You wanted to know what coming was,” he all but growled, their mouths merely inches apart. “Why don’t I show you what it is instead of tell you?”

On that note, he flipped a switch and put out the lights, plunging the room into a dimness that was broken only by the light in the bathroom and the line at the base of the door into the hall.

“Do you want me to show you?” he said in a low voice.

At that moment, there was one and only one word in her vocabulary : “Yes . . .”

Except then he backed off.

Just as a protest was about to jump out of her throat, she realized he’d stood in the line of illumination that streamed in from the bathroom.

“Payne . . .”

The sound of her name leaving his mouth had her struggling for air even more. “Yes . . .”

“I want you . . .” Reaching for the bottom of his loose shirt, he pulled it up slowly, exposing the carved muscles of his stomach. “. . . to want me.”

Oh, sweet destiny, she did.

And he meant what he said. The more she looked, the more those abdominals of his curled and released as if he were breathing hard as well.

His hand drifted down to his waist. “See what you do to me.” He smoothed the baggy fabric over his hips and . . .

“You are phearsom,” she breathed. “Oh . . . fates, you are.”