He'd always wanted to be alone in his head. How ironic that he found the silence deafening.
"V? We okay?"
He looked down at Rhage. The brother's perfect blond beauty was still blinding, even with all the lesser blood on his face. "Ride's coming soon. We'll get you home to your Mary."
Rhage started to mumble and V just let him go. Poor miserable guy. Curses were never a party.
Ten minutes later, Zsadist pulled right up onto the football field in his twin's BMW, busting through a shrinking, dirty snowbank and mud-tracking it in. As the M5 came through the snow, V knew they were going to trash the leather in the backseat, but then Fritz, butler extraordinaire, could get stains out like you wouldn't believe.
Zsadist got out of the car and came around the hood. After a century of being half-starved by choice, he was now packing a good two hundred eighty-five pounds on his six-foot-six frame. The scar on his face remained obvious, and so did his tattooed slave bands, but thanks to his shellan, Bella, his eyes were no longer black pits of hatred. For the most part.
Without saying anything, the two of them manhandled Rhage over to the car and stuffed his massive body into the backseat.
"You poofing it home?" Z said as he got behind the wheel.
"Yeah, but I need to clear the scene." Which meant using his hand to fry-clean the lesser blood that was splattered everywhere.
"You want me to wait?"
"No, get our boy home. Mary's going to want to see him ASAP."
Zsadist scanned the vicinity with a quick head twist. "I'll wait."
"Z, it's cool. I won't stay here alone long."
That ruined lip lifted into a snarl. "If you're not at the compound by the time I get there, I'm coming for you."
The Beemer took off, back tires kicking up mud and snow.
Jesus, Z really was backup.
Ten minutes later V dematerialized to the compound, just as Zsadist was pulling in with Rhage. As Z took Hollywood inside, Vishous looked around at the cars parked in the courtyard.
Where the hell was the Escalade? Butch should be back by now.
V took out his phone and hit speed dial. When he got voice mail, he said, "Hey, buddy, I'm home. Where are you, cop?"
As the two of them called each other constantly, he knew Butch would check in soon enough. Hell, maybe the guy was getting busy for the first time in recorded history. It was about time the sorry SOB shelved his obsession with Marissa and got a little sexual relief.
And speaking of relief... V measured the light in the sky. He figured he had about an hour and a half of darkness left, and man, he was twitchy as shit. There was something going on tonight, something bad in the air, but with his visions gone, he didn't know what it was. And the blank slate was making him mental.
He fired up his cell again and hit a number. When the ringing stopped, he didn't wait for a hello. "You will get ready for me now. You will wear what I bought for you. Your hair will be bound and off your neck."
He waited to hear the only three words he cared about and they came right away, the female voice saying, "Yes, my lheage."
V hung up and dematerialized.
Chapter Three
ZeroSum was doing excellent business lately, Rehvenge thought as he looked at the tallies. Cash flow was strong. There was growth in the sports booking receipts. Attendance was up. God, he'd owned the club for how long now? Five? Six years? And it was finally cranking enough income that he could take a deep breath.
It was a despicable way of making money, of course, what with the sex and the drugs and the booze and the betting. But he needed to support his mahmen and, up until recently, his sister, Bella. Then there was the blackmail overhead he had to cover.
Secrets could be so expensive to keep.
Rehv looked up as the door to his office opened. As his chief security officer came in, he could smell the lingering scent of O'Neal on her and he smiled a little. He liked being right. "Thanks for taking care of Butch."
Xhex's gray eyes were direct as always. "I wouldn't have if I hadn't wanted him."
"And I wouldn't have asked if I hadn't known that. Now, where are we?"
She sat down opposite his desk, her powerful body as hard as the marble he was resting his elbows on. "Nonconsensual sex in the mezzanine men's room. I took care of it. The woman is pressing charges."
"Was the guy walking after you were through with him?"
"Yeah, but he was wearing a new pair of earrings, if you know what I mean. I also found two minors on the premises and kicked them out. And one of the bouncers was taking kickbacks from the line, so I fired him."
"Anything else?"
"We had another OD."
"Shit. Not our product, though, right?"
"Nope. Outside junk." She pulled a small cellophane bag out of the back pocket of her leathers and tossed it on his desk. "I managed to snag this before the EMTs arrived. I'm hiring some extra staff to deal with the situation."
"Good. You find that freelancer, you bring his ass to me. I want to take care of him personally."
"Will do."
"You got anything more for me?"
In the silence that followed, Xhex leaned forward and linked her hands together. Her body was all tight muscle, nothing but hard angles except for her high, small br**sts. She was deliciously hermaphroditic, although fully a female so far as he'd heard.
The cop should feel lucky, he thought. Xhex didn't have sex that often, and then only when she found the male worthy.
She also didn't waste time. Usually. "Xhex, talk."
"I want to know something."
Rehv eased back in his chair. "Is this going to piss me off?"
"Yup. Are you looking for a mate?"
As his eyes started to glow purple, he tilted his chin down and stared at her from under his brows. "Who said I was? And I want the name."
"Deduction, not gossip. According to GPS records, your Bentley's been by Havers's a lot lately. I happen to know Marissa is unattached. She's beautiful. Complicated. But you've never cared about the glymera. You thinking about mating her?"
"Not at all," he lied.
"Good." As Xhex's eyes nailed into him, it was obvious she knew the truth. "Because it would be crazy for you to give it a shot. She'd find out about you - and I'm not talking about what goes down here. She's a member of the Princeps Council, for chrissakes. If she knew you were a symphath, that would compromise both of us."
Rehv rose to his feet and palmed his cane. "The Brotherhood already knows about me."
"How?" Xhex breathed.
He thought about the little lip/fang thing he and the Brother, Phury, had shared and decided to keep that on the down-low. "They just do. And now that my sister's mated to a Brother, I'm a member of the frickin' family. So even if the Princeps Council found out, those warriors would keep them at bay."
Too bad his blackmailer was unaffected by the ways of the Normals. Symphaths, he was learning, made very bad enemies. No wonder his kind were hated.
"You sure about that?" Xhex said.
"It would kill Bella if I were sent to one of those colonies. You think that hellren of hers would stand for her being upset like that, especially as she's pregnant? Z's one mean-ass motherfucker and he is very protective of her. So, yeah, I'm sure."
"She ever guessed about you?"
"No." And though Zsadist knew, he wasn't going to tell his mate. No way he'd put Bella in that position. Laws read that if you knew of a symphath you had to report him or her or face prosecution.
Rehv came around the desk, relying on his cane now that Xhex was the only one around. The dopamine he shot himself up with regularly kept the worst of the symphath urges at bay, enabling him to pass for a Normal. He wasn't sure how Xhex managed it. Wasn't sure he wanted to know. But the thing was, with his sense of touch gone, he had to use a cane or he was liable to fall. After all, depth perception got you only so far when you couldn't feel your feet or legs.
"You don't worry," he said. "No one knows what either one of us are. And it's going to stay that way."
Gray eyes stared up at him. "Are you feeding her, Rehv." Not a question. A demand. "Are you feeding Marissa?"
"That's my business, not yours."
She shot to her feet. "Goddamn you - we agreed. Twenty-five years ago when I had my little problem, we agreed. No mates. No feeding with Normals. What the hell are you doing?"