Chapter Twenty-seven 14 страница

She closed her eyes, unsure if she wanted to experience that kind of frustration again, but her body was screaming for release, was already so close. . . maybe this time she could go over the edge.

“Yes, ” she said, and then she couldn’t speak because his thrusts picked up speed until he was pounding into her with enough force to slam her exhalations out of her with audible gasps.

She felt him swell, stiffen, as he dropped one hand to her sex to spread her. His shaft slipped out of her and slid between her spread folds. Moaning at the sudden, sharp, sliding strokes through her cleft, she cupped his sex with her hand, holding him against her as he came. His hot seed creamed over her sensitive tissue in a silken flood.

Behind her, he panted, his chest heaving against her back. His hard length still moved between her thighs, a hot, erotic presence that fueled the desire burning at her core. But like before, she hovered on the precipice that would go nowhere.

“Stop, ” she rasped. “Get it off. ”

The sound of fabric rustling accompanied some truly vile curses, and then he was wiping her clean, every stroke against her center a torture that kept her on the verge of climax.

“You should bottle that stuff, ” she said, when she could speak again. “I’ll bet normal women would pay a fortune for it. ”

He tossed the scrub top he’d used on her across the room. “No doubt it’s a black market commodity somewhere. ”

She sensed more than saw the tension that filled him. “What is it? ”

“Nothing, ” he muttered. “But. . . what if those bastards start thinking the same thing? ”

She rolled to face him. “You mean, they might take one of your species? And what, keep him chained? Jerk him off a few times a day? ”

Scowling, he pushed up on one arm. “You still don’t care, do you? ”

“That’s not what I meant. ” She covered his hand with hers, was glad when he didn’t pull away.

“Based on how they seem to get off on torture, I doubt gathering semen would be pleasant. Most likely they’d insert a draining tube and take it as it’s produced. ”

She shuddered. The thought of their doing something like that to Eidolon. . .

He reached over his head and pulled a blanket off the couch to cover her. “Tayla? Why do you have sex if you don’t enjoy it? ”

Talk about a mood-killer. She sat up and pulled the blanket around her. “Why the sudden interest in my sex life? ” Or lack thereof.

Eidolon remained stretched out on the floor, but he propped his head up on one fist. “I’m wondering what makes you tick. ”

“There’s not much to tell. ”

“Then tell me how it began. ”

The concern in his voice was enough to remind her that she was messed up in the sex arena, and man, did she hate reminders. “Tell you what, Hellboy. You tell me first. ”

“Fair enough. ” He cocked one leg up, drawing her eyes to the place between, where his sex, glistening from her juices, lay heavy and semierect on one thigh. “I was twenty when the urges started. ”

“Twenty? That seems sort of late. ”

“When you live to be seven hundred years old, twenty is a drop in the bedpan, ” he drawled. “When the urges start, sex is required to complete the maturation process. ”

“How much sex? ”

He shrugged. “Pretty much constant for a few days. It can be hard on a lot of us, but my parents bought me an orgesu. ” At her blank stare, he elaborated. “A female to have on hand. ”

“A sex slave? Your parents got you a sex slave? To have sex in their house? ”

“It was the logical thing to do. They couldn’t let me die. And they didn’t want me out prowling and raping as a lot of my kind are driven to do during that phase. ” He yawned, as if it were all normal. “Besides, they paid to have her released from slavery afterward. ”

She couldn’t even come close to imagining how he’d grown up if he could be so casual about the sex slave thing. “Where did you grow up? Do your parents look human? ”

His fingers brushed her cheek in a feather-light caress. “They are humanoid, but their green skin and antlers keeps them in Sheoul. It’s where I grew up, though I slipped away to come topside now and then. ” He winked. “I was the rebel of the family. ”

Tayla laughed at that. He definitely didn’t strike her as the trouble-making kind. “When did you join us up here in the sunlight? ”

“After my first transition. ” He rolled one big shoulder. “Now, enough about me. Your turn. ”

“You mean, when did I lose my virginity? ”

“Yeah. ”

Well, shit. Her experience with sex seemed so vanilla now. “I was fourteen. ”

He slipped his hand down, trailed a finger over the skin of her hip that peeked through the blanket. “That’s young for a human. ”

“Yeah, well, I was a wild child. My mom was an addict and my grandparents were in a nursing home, so I was living in foster care with people who couldn’t control me. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and I did it with my boyfriend after we got drunk at a party. ” She slid a glance at him, but he didn’t judge, merely watched her curiously. “It kinda hurt. Was over in about three seconds. Earth didn’t move. So I wasn’t in a hurry to do it again. Right after that, my mom got clean and got custody of me, and I was so busy for two years that I sort of forgot about boys. ”

“Then what? ”

It went against her nature to talk about this stuff, but his touch soothed her, coaxed her, lulled her into a place that felt foreign. . . but somehow right. The way he touched her cut right through all her defenses and left marks on her that couldn’t be seen but were there nevertheless. Why he would waste his time with her, an enemy who had clawed her way out of the gutter only because Ky had rescued her from the life of a rodent, was beyond her, but for now, she wouldn’t question his motives.

“My mom was killed, ” she said quietly. “I went to yet another foster home, and one night, my foster dad came into my room. ” Eidolon’s hand that had been stroking her hip stilled, and a low-level rumble came from deep in his throat. “We fought. I took off. Later, he was found dead, and a warrant was issued for my arrest. ”

“I’m glad you killed the bastard. ”

“I didn’t. He was beat up, but alive when I left him. I think one of the other kids he molested killed him while he was incapacitated. ” She shrugged, and his hand went back to stroking her.

“What did you do after that? ”

“I lived on the streets. I did what I had to in order to survive. It wasn’t pretty. ”

Silence stretched between them. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him the truth. Maybe he was disgusted. Yeah, a demon who once kept a sex slave, disgusted. Please.

His fingers closed around her ankle, and she found herself lying on the floor again, his heavy thigh pinning hers down, his chest covering hers. “Is that what you’re doing now? ” he murmured, his warm, strong hand stroking her cheek. “Are you doing what you have to in order to survive? Are you fucking me because you need a roof over your head? ”

Tay’s first instinct was to get angry. But she was suddenly too tired to fight anymore. Especially because he knew she wasn’t sleeping with him in order to have a place to stay or to get protection or money or whatever. He wanted her to admit that something had changed between them, that she’d wanted him, not what he could give her.

“Please don’t make me answer that. ”

He drew her close, and for a moment she reveled in his embrace, something she doubted he gave often. It was certainly something she didn’t get often. Come to think of it, it was something she’d really never had. She couldn’t remember a single instance where even her mother had hugged her. It wasn’t that her mother hadn’t loved her, but there had always been a wall of guilt between them, one her mother had constructed out of the shame she’d felt for abandoning Tayla, a wall Tay hadn’t been able to topple no matter how hard she’d tried to bring her mom into the secret mother-daughter fantasy Tayla had dreamed of. The one where they were best friends. Where they could bake together and laugh at chick flicks while curled up on the couch on Saturday nights.

Yeah, her fantasies had been lame, but anything was better than the reality of cleaning up her mom’s puke and hiding her crack pipe from the cops.

Anxious to escape the memories as well as the man who was making her think about them, she pushed away from Eidolon. . . and froze as the floor lit up beneath them.

“What is that? ” She sat up, found that they were inside a pentagram, outlined in blue lights.

Eidolon’s expression went stony, completely flat and emotionless. “Make yourself comfortable for a while. I’ve been summoned for punishment. ”

“For what? ”

“For killing a human. ”

Seventeen

Eidolon had never liked vampires. Not after what they’d done to Wraith. Not after what they’d reportedly done to their father when Eidolon was just two years old.

The thread of prejudice had woven itself deep into the fabric of his soul, but his upbringing had given him enough of a sense of logic to realize that not every vampire was the same. He’d been fond of Nancy, some of his hardest-working staff members were vampires, and he’d enjoyed all of the female vamps he’d bedded.

But he would never feel anything but contempt for any member of the Vampire Council. Worms and cowards, all seventeen of them. He’d love to get even one of them under his scalpel.

Outside the hospital, of course.

They’d summoned him through his personal portal, as they always did, though they probably hadn’t expected him to respond so quickly. This was the first time he’d seen the summons when it came, and he’d taken only a few minutes to shower and don a robe. Tayla had asked questions, but he’d avoided them, telling her only to help herself to whatever she wanted in the kitchen and make herself comfortable.

Now he stood in the Vampire Council chambers, where they stared at him, their haughty asses planted in gilded, thronelike chairs arranged in a semicircle around the portal that had brought him here. Red and black tapers burned in copper candelabra, adding to the mystical and theatrical atmosphere. If there was one thing vamps loved, it was drama. Hollywood had invented the Gothic vampire melodrama, and the vamps had adopted it as fashion.

Eidolon really, really did not like vampires.

Come forward.

The mental compulsion came from the Key, a silver-haired vampire named Komir. Eidolon resisted the command, willed his feet to remain where they were. He was here to answer for a crime, but this wasn’t his species’ Council, and fuck if he was going to obey as if it were.

“My respect for your work only goes so far, incubus, ” Komir said, and Eidolon smiled.

“My medical work, or my work on the females of your species? ” It was something Wraith would have said, which seemed appropriate, given that Eidolon was here to pay for Wraith’s transgressions.

“Both, ” a female to the right said, her voice an appreciative husky murmur he suspected would go even huskier just before climax.

“Silence, Victoria, ” Komir snapped, and then gestured to one of the two burly enforcers flanking Eidolon. “Escort him to the platform. ”

The platform that was stained with the blood of countless others, that would soon be stained with Eidolon’s. Again.

“Hold, ” he said. “One of yours was recently taken by Ghouls. What do you know of them? ”

Komir’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you care? ”

“Because the victims end up in my hospital, dead or dying. ”

Victoria sighed. “More vampires are killed by The Aegis every day than are taken by the black market operators in an entire year. We don’t care. Neither should you. ”

Idiots. Shrugging off his robe, he strode naked to the platform without the aid of the enforcer thugs. He cleared his mind as he mounted the stone steps and stood beneath the reinforced wooden structure from which chains dangled. Numbing himself out was the only way to deal with this and, probably, the only way to survive.

A massive warrior vamp, whose name Eidolon didn’t know, stood. “Your brother Wraith has taken more than his limit of humans this month. Are you here to receive his punishment? ”

“I am. ” Though he’d really like to know how they always knew when Wraith killed a human. Thousands of vampires existed in the world, and they couldn’t all be policed. Yet the Council seemed to keep a running tab of Wraith’s kills. Granted, Wraith took pleasure in flaunting them, but still. . .

“The incubus is ready. ” Komir’s lip peeled back to reveal fangs as sharp as a 33 gauge hypodermic needle. “Let it begin. ”

The twenty-four hours were up. More than up, and since Eidolon hadn’t called, Gem was taking matters into her own hands. She’d have done it sooner, despite her promise to the other doctor, but she’d been stuck at the hospital on a sixteen-hour shift.

Shift over, and she was going to confront Tayla, and she was going to do it now.

She took the stairs to Tayla’s apartment two at a time. As she topped the second-floor landing, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She crept to the apartment door, listened.

No noise from inside.

Still feeling the tingle of goosebumps crawling over her skin, she turned the doorknob. Unlocked. The door creaked open.

The rich, fresh odors of blood and death swirled around her, soaking into the walls and becoming another layer of scent in the ancient apartment, which had been ransacked. She entered, noted the boxes in the corner. No, not ransacked. Packed. Someone was moving Tayla’s things out.

A bloodstain marred the floor near the godawful orange couch. Humans wouldn’t see the soiled area, but it was there. Recent. It had been cleaned up within the last hour.

Where was Tayla?

Voices in the stairwell jammed her heart up into her esophagus.

“Shit, man, did you leave the door open? ”

“Don’t think so. ”

The unmistakable sound of metal blades clearing weapons’ housings echoed in the hallway.

Slayers.

A chill went through her, a bone-deep cold she hadn’t felt since she was a child and her parents had shared Aegis horror stories. The nightmares had plagued her into her teens, had come roaring back with a vengeance when she learned her own sister had become a slayer. A butcher.

A monster.

Gem shot to the bedroom, which was empty. No furnishings, no boxes.

Nowhere to hide.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here, ” a deep voice said.

“Who would steal anything from this shithole? ”

Laughter belonging to several people filled the tiny apartment.

“Let’s just get this done. We have demons to string up. ”

A wail of terror welled in Gem’s throat. There were five of them, at least. She might feel comfortable going up against one, maybe two. But five trained killers? She was outnumbered, outgunned, and she definitely didn’t have a death wish.

Quiet as a were-rat, she slipped into the closet. The restraining tats circling her neck, wrists, and ankles burned, making themselves known. Inside, her inner demon was clawing to get out.

She prayed it didn’t get its wish.

Tayla put her time alone in Eidolon’s condo to good use. Mainly, she snooped, partly to learn more about him, and partly to keep from thinking about what had happened between them.

Because what had happened had shaken her to the core. She’d needed him. Wanted him. Had let her guard down and couldn’t get it to come back up. He’d exposed every single one of her vulnerabilities, and somehow, she had to find a way to mash them back into the place she’d been keeping them.

Shaking off the thoughts she’d been trying to avoid, she went back to snooping while Mickey followed her, chattering endlessly as he explored every nook and cranny.

Eidolon’s living room, decorated in masculine browns, greens, and leather, revealed nothing except that he had expensive tastes.

A search of the den turned up little more than what was on the surface—wall-to-wall bookshelves filled with medical titles and strangely bound texts, most of which she couldn’t read.

Her stomach growled before she made it to either of the bedrooms, so she detoured to the kitchen. The contents of the fridge were a surprise; not that she’d expected quarts of blood and Tupperware containers full of brains, but the fresh fruits and veggies, lunch meats, and soy milk didn’t match up to her expectations. Then again, mixed in with the ketchup, margarine, and jars of pickles were containers she didn’t recognize, marked in languages she didn’t know.

Probably the brains and blood.

She reached for a package of sliced ham, but a thumping noise drew her up short. She closed the fridge door, snagged a knife from the block on the counter, and slipped quietly into the hallway. Easing along the wall, she followed the sound of raspy breathing, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

Knife ready, she stepped into the den. Eidolon was on his hands and knees just outside the circle, every inch covered in blood, his head hanging so she couldn’t see his face.

“Oh, Jesus. ” She crossed to him in three strides and sank to her knees in front of him. “Hellboy? ”

A shudder wracked his body. She wanted to comfort him with a touch, but where? Deep slashes scored the skin of his back, his arms, his legs. . . even the soles of his feet had been laid open like overplumped hot dogs. Bone and muscle erupted from the shredded flesh, and blood dripped to the floor in a gentle patter of grotesque rain.

“I’m taking you to your hospital. ” Unsure exactly how she was going to accomplish that, she pushed to her feet because she had to do something.

“No. ” His voice was low, gurgling, as if he’d been flogged on the inside as well as the out. “Call. . . Shade. ”

“I don’t want to leave you, ” she said, but when his only response was to shudder again, she ran to the foyer, where he’d left his cell phone on a shelf.

With trembling fingers, she cycled through his address book to Shade’s cell number, and dialed.

“What’s up, E? ” Shade’s voice, deeper than Eidolon’s, echoed in her ear.

“It’s Tayla. Look—”

“Where is he? What did you do to him? ”

She lowered her voice and drifted farther away from the den. “I didn’t do anything to him. But he’s hurt. We’re in his condo. . . he went through that portal, and when he got back. . . ” He’d looked like he went through a meat grinder. “He’s messed up. Bad. ”

“Shit. ” The sound of something breaking on the other end of the line was loud enough to make her jerk the phone away from her ear. “Turn up the heat as far as it’ll go. He’s probably in shock, but you can’t put a blanket on him because it’ll wick the blood out of his wounds. I’ll be there as soon as I can. ”

He hung up, leaving her with the distinct impression that this had happened before. Sickened by the thought, she located the thermostat, set it for eighty-five degrees. As the hum of the heater filled the apartment, she hurried back to the den.

“Hey, ” she murmured, as she sank down next to where he shivered on his hands and knees, in the same position as when she’d left him. He said nothing, but the straining muscles in his jaw told her why; he’d clenched his teeth so hard he couldn’t speak.

Nausea rolled through her. Who had done this to him? Other Seminus demons? Were they not allowed to kill humans? The questions ate at her, but until Shade arrived, the only thing she could do was to try to take Eidolon’s mind off his pain.

“I like your apartment, ” she said. “I snooped. Hope that’s okay. Didn’t find anything weird. ”

She let a teasing note filter into her voice, because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she wasn’t surprised at what she’d found in his apartment. Normalcy.

“So, uh. . . when do you think we’ll know what kind of demon my dear old dad was? I hope it isn’t something really horrible. ” She almost laughed, because just a few days ago she’d made no distinction between really horrible and not as horrible when it came to demons.

Eidolon’s breathing grew more regular and less labored, so she kept talking, inane chatter about stupid things like her bad grades in school, her favorite food—oranges—her desire to learn to ice skate. By the time Shade stalked into the room, Eidolon knew more about her than anyone in The Aegis ever had, though she had no way of knowing if he actually heard what she’d said.

Shade didn’t spare her a glance as he dropped his medical kit and knelt at Eidolon’s head. “Hey, man, I’m here. You’re going to be all right. ”

As though his brother’s presence had allowed him to feel again, Eidolon moaned, and the pain buried deep in the sound made her heart bleed.

“What did they do to him? ” she whispered, and Shade’s flat eyes focused on her as if he had just realized she was in the room.

“Looks like a combination of fists and a cat o’ nines. ” He slid his gaze over Eidolon’s frame and added, “They also used teeth. ”

Ice formed in her chest. This was her fault. He’d been defending her when the Guardians attacked her in her apartment. He’d killed to protect her. “He didn’t deserve this. ”

“Let it go, slayer. ” Shade turned back to Eidolon, his expression softening as he gently took his brother’s face in his palms and lifted his head. “Those bastards really worked you over this time, didn’t they? ”

“This time? He said he’d never killed a human before. ”

“He hasn’t. ”

She wanted to ask what he’d done to deserve the other beatings, but the cold rage in Shade’s expression didn’t invite questions.

Shade inspected his brother’s face, his touch tender and light. When he finished, he lowered Eidolon’s head and spoke in a soothing, low tone as he ran his hands over his ribs, belly, and extremities. Eidolon’s teeth chattered, but he didn’t make any other sounds even though the exam must have been excruciating.

“Slayer, open my jump bag and hand me the syringe in the right inside pocket. ”

Glad to have something to do, she fetched the item and handed it to Shade, who injected the contents into Eidolon’s shoulder with professional efficiency. The guy might have the fun-loving personality of a pissed-off pit bull, but he exuded confidence in his medical abilities, and, she couldn’t help but notice, a raw masculinity that was every bit as powerful as Eidolon’s.

“Was that for the pain? ”

“Antibiotic. ” Shade pulled some tubing and a bag of blood from his kit. “Painkillers are against the rules. ”

“Rules? There are rules for being beaten nearly to death? ”

Instead of answering, he started an IV with the blood, and hung the bag from the door handle. When he finished, he laid his large palm on the back of Eidolon’s neck, one of the few uninjured areas, caressing in slow circles.

“Bro, your pulse is off the charts, and your resps are all over the place. I need you to relax. ” Shade closed his eyes, and for a moment it seemed as though Eidolon’s tension had slipped away, but then he convulsed, and his breathing grew labored again.

Without thinking, Tayla covered his hand with hers. Shade’s eyes flew open, and at his dark stare, she jerked her hand away, afraid she was hurting rather than helping.

“No, ” he said, grasping her wrist. A low growl erupted from deep in Eidolon’s chest, and Shade’s eyes narrowed. “Well, now, that’s interesting, ” he murmured, and very carefully placed her hand over Eidolon’s again. “Your touch seems to calm him. Leave it there until I put him to sleep. ”

Gently, she stroked his fingers, the ones that had saved her life and brought her pleasure, and a few minutes later, Shade nodded.

“He’s out. He should stay that way for a couple of hours. ”

“He’ll be all right though, yes? ”

“Yeah. We’re not easy to kill. Just FYI, Aegi. ” He gathered his gear and gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen, where he washed up. “If Wraith calls, don’t speak a word of this. If he comes over, don’t let him in. ”

“Why not? ”

He hesitated for so long she didn’t think he’d answer, but as he dried his hands, he said, “Eidolon was punished, not for something he did, but for something Wraith did. Wraith can never know. ”

“So this wasn’t about what happened at my apartment? I don’t understand. ”

“You don’t need to. ”

“Yeah, I do. I’m not going to hurt Eidolon, or I would have done it instead of calling you, right? ”

Shade bared his teeth at her. “If you hadn’t, I’d have—”

“I did, ” she snapped. “So tell me why he’s nearly been killed for something your brother did. ”

“I. Don’t. Like. You. ”

“Feeling’s mutual, buddy. So spill already. ”

Shade blew out a harsh breath, as if that would cool him off. At least it got him talking. “Wraith is part vampire. But he’s also a Seminus demon. Vampire and Seminus law don’t always mesh, and he falls into a crack between the two. Neither Council can agree on how he should be punished for various transgressions. But they both want someone to pay. ”

“Why Eidolon? ”

“Because Wraith wouldn’t survive it. ”

This was seriously twisted, and it fired up all her protective instincts, which she hadn’t known she even possessed.

“I don’t understand why Wraith would allow this to happen. Why doesn’t he stop doing whatever it is that gets Eidolon beaten? ”

“Wraith thinks he’s untouchable. . . he has no idea Eidolon is suffering. If he did, if he knew what E has gone through. . . ” Shade shook his head. “We’d lose him. He can never know. ”

“That’s crazy. You’ve got to tell him. This has to stop. What if next time they kill Eidolon? ”

“It’s none of your concern. Like I said, not a word. If you even hint to Wraith that this has happened, I’ll take you out, slayer. ”

She slapped her palms on the counter and leaned forward to snarl, “Try it, asshole. ”

Shade’s eyes flared gold, reminding her of the man suffering in silence in the other room, reminding her that now wasn’t the time to pick a fight with the demon who had helped him. He seemed to come to the same conclusion, and the gold melted away, to be replaced by the eerie brown-black, which always seemed to shift, as though a shadow lurked behind his eyes.

“You look like Eidolon, ” she said quietly. “But you’re so different. ”

He grunted. “All Seminus demons are nearly identical to their siblings, but our behavior varies because we’re raised by different species. ”

“But. . . Wraith. He’s blond. ”

“Bleached. ”

“His eyes are blue. ”

“That’s because they aren’t his. ”

“They aren’t his eyes? ”

Shade slung his bag over his shoulder, done with the conversation. “E will be healed by morning. Try to get him to drink fluids, and. . . ” He trailed off, averted his eyes before boring those chips of stone back into her. “Stay with him. He usually goes through this alone. ”

He slammed out of the apartment, leaving her standing in the kitchen, her heart pounding. Emotion like she hadn’t experienced in years nearly brought her to her knees.

The brothers loved each other fiercely, something she wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. They protected each other, healed each other, and clearly, they’d die for each other. She doubted anyone but her mother would have died for her, and even then, most of Tayla’s life, her mother had been too stoned to lay her life on the line for anything but the next fix.

What would it be like to have family like that? she wondered as she filled a glass with orange juice she’d found in the fridge.

And then she stopped wondering because that road would only lead to the corner of Self-Pity and Pathetic Idiot.

She slipped into the room with Eidolon, where he appeared to be sleeping peacefully despite the fact that he was still on his hands and knees—the only parts of his body that hadn’t been beaten. Already some of his wounds had started to heal.

Yeah, his wounds were closing, but hers had just opened up.