ELEVEN

Ravasz. Sbarduno. Grilletto. Trekker.

The word trigger banged around V's skull in all the languages he could put it into, his brain spicin' his vocabulary up for shits and giggles - because it was either that or the thing would cannibalize itself.

As he rocked his Google Translate, his feet took him through his penthouse at the Commodore over and over again, his relentless pacing turning the place into a multimillion-dollar hamster-wheel equivalent.

Black walls. Black ceiling. Black floor. Night view of Caldwell that was never what he came here for.

Through the kitchen, through the living room, through the bedroom and back.

Again. And again.

In the light of black candles.

He'd bought the condo about five years ago, when the building was still under construction. As soon as the skeleton had risen down by the river, he'd been determined to own one-half of the top of the skyscraper. But not as some kind of home - he'd always had a place away from where he slept. Even before Wrath had consolidated the Brotherhood into Darius's old mansion, V had been in the habit of keeping where he crashed and stashed his weapons separate from his ... other activities.

On this night, feeling as he did, the fact that he had come here was both logical and ludicrous.

Over the decades and centuries, he'd developed not only a reputation in the race, but a stable of males and females who needed what he had to give. And as soon as he'd taken possession of this unit, he'd brought them here to this black hole for a very specific kind of sex.

Here, he'd shed their blood.

And he'd made them scream and cry out.

And he'd fucked them or had them fucked.

V paused by his worktable, the old wood battered and marked not just from the tools of his trade, but from blood and orgasms and wax.

God, sometimes the only way to know how far you'd come was to return to where you once had been.

Reaching forward with his gloved hand, he took hold of the thick leather bindings he used to keep his subs where he wanted them.

Had used, he corrected himself. As in past tense. Now that he had Jane, he didn't do those things anymore - hadn't had the impulse.

Glancing over at the wall, he measured his collection of toys: Whips and chains and barbed wire. Clamps and ball gags and razor blades. Floggers. Lengths of chain.

The games he played - had played - were not for the faint of heart or the beginners or the casually curious. For hard-core subs, there was such a fine line between sexual release and death - both got you off, but the latter was your last shot. Literally. And he was the ultimate master, capable of taking others where they needed to go ... and one thin inch past that.

Which was why they all came for him.

Had come for him -

To him, he corrected.

Fuck.

And that was why his relationship with Jane had been a revelation. With her in his life, he hadn't felt the burning need for any of this. Not for the relative anonymity, not for the control he exerted over his subs, not for the pain he enjoyed inflicting on himself, not for that sense of power or the pounding releases.

After all this time, he'd thought he'd been transformed.

Wrong.

That internal switch was still with him, and it had been flipped to the "on" position.

Then again, the urge to commit matricide was stressful as shit - when you couldn't act on it.

V leaned in and fingered a leather flogger that had stainless-steel balls tied on its ends. As the lengths filtered through the fingers of his ungloved hand, he wanted to throw up ... because standing here, he would have given anything for a slice of what he'd had before -

No, wait. As he stared at his table, he revised that. He wanted to be what he once had had. Before Jane, he'd had sex as a Dom because it was the only way he'd felt safe enough to get through the act - and part of him had always wondered, especially as he was cracking the whip, so to speak, why his subs had wanted what he'd given them.

Now he had a pretty good idea: What was banging around his inner skin was so toxic and violent, it needed a release valve that was cut from its own cloth....

He walked over to one of his black candles without being aware that his shitkickers were crossing the floor.

And then the thing was against his palm before he even knew he was gripping it.

His craving brought the flame upward ... and then he tipped the lit tip toward his chest, hot black wax hitting his collarbone and rivering down to streak under his muscle shirt.

Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back as a hiss sucked through his fangs.

More wax on his bare skin. More sting.

As he got hard, half of him was on board and the other half felt like a total skeez. His gloved hand had no problems with a split personality, however. It went for the button fly on his leathers and sprang his cock.

In the candlelight, he watched himself bring the candle down and hold it over his erection ... and then tilt the lit wick toward the floor.

A black tear slipped free of the heat source and went into a free fall -

"Fuck ..."

When his lids loosened enough so that he could open them, he looked down to see the hardened wax on the rim of his head, the little line of it paving the way to where it had dropped off.

This time he moaned deep in his throat as he lowered the candle tip - because he knew what was coming.

More moaning. More wax. A loud curse that was followed by another hiss.

There was no need to go pneumatic. The pain was enough, the rhythmic drop on his cock shooting electric shocks into his balls and the muscles of his thighs and ass. Periodically, he moved the flame up and down his shaft to get clean shots at fresh flesh, his arousal leaping every time it got hit ... until there had been enough foreplay.

Sweeping his free hand under his sac, he went vertical with his sex.

The wax hit right on the sweet spot, and the sharp agony was so intense, he nearly went down on the floor - but the orgasm was what saved his legs from going loose, the power of the release stiffening him from head to foot as he came hard.

Black wax everywhere.

Come all over his hand and his clothes.

Just like the good ol' days ... except for one thing: It was really fucking hollow. Oh, wait. That had been part of the GOD, too. The difference was that back then, he hadn't known there was something else out there. Something like Jane -

The sound of his phone chiming made him feel like he'd been shot through the head, and even though it wasn't loud, the quiet shattered like a mirror, the shards of it showing him a reflection of himself he didn't want to see: Happily mated, he was nonetheless here in his chamber of perversion, getting himself off.

He hauled back and Curt Schillinged the candle across the room, the flame extinguishing in midflight - which was the only reason the whole fucking place didn't get burned down.

And that was before he saw who the call was from.

His Jane. No doubt with a report from the human hospital. For fuck's sake, a male of worth would have been outside the OR, waiting for his sister to come around, supporting his mate. Instead, he'd been banished for being out of control, and had come here to spend quality time with his black wax and his hard-on.

He hit send as he stuffed his still-hard cock back in his leathers. "Yeah."

Pause. During which he had to remind himself that she couldn't read minds, and thank fuck for it. Christ, what had he just done?

"Are you okay?" she said.

Not in the slightest. "Yeah. How's Payne?" Please let this not be bad news.

"Ah ... she made it through. We're en route back to the compound. She did well and Wrath fed her. Her vitals are stable and she seems to be relatively comfortable, although there's no telling what the long term result is going to be."

Vishous closed his eyes. "At least she's still alive."

And then there was a whole lot of silence, broken only by the quiet whir of the vehicle she was traveling in.

Eventually, Jane said, "At least we're over the first hurdle, and the operation went as smoothly as it could - Manny was brilliant."

V judiciously ignored that comment. "Any problems with the hospital staff ?"

"None. Phury worked his magic. But in case there's someone or something we missed, it's probably a good idea to monitor the record systems for a while."

"I'll take care of that."

"When are you coming home?"

Vishous had to grit his teeth as he did up the buttons of his fly. In about a half hour, he was going to have a ball so blue it was a U of K fan: Once was never enough for him. It took five or six times to get him what he needed on an average night - and there was nothing even close to average doing right now.

"Are you at the penthouse?" Jane said quietly.

"Yeah."

There was a tense pause. "Alone?"

Well, the candle was an inanimate object. "Yeah."

"It's okay, V," she murmured. "You're allowed to think like you are right now."

"How do you know what's on my mind."

"Why would there be anything else?"

Jesus ... what a female of worth. "I love you."

"I know. And right back at you." Pause. "Do you wish ... you were there with someone else?"

The pain in her voice was nearly eclipsed by composure, but to him the emotion was bullhorn clear. "That's in the past, Jane. Trust me."

"I do. Implicitly. You would cut off your good hand first."

Then why did you ask, he thought as he squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head. Well, duh. She knew him too well. "God ... I don't deserve you."

"Yes, you do. Come home. See your sister - "

"You were right to tell me to go. I'm sorry I was an asshole."

"You're allowed to be. This is stressful stuff - "

"Jane?"

"Yes?"

He attempted to form words and failed, the silence stretching out between them once more. Fucking hell, no matter how much he tried to put sentences together, he found that there was no magical combination of syllables to properly phrase what was in him.

Then again, maybe it was less a function of vocabulary, and more a case of what he'd just done to himself: He felt like he had something to confess to her, and he couldn't quite do it.

"Come home," Jane cut in. "Come see her, and if I'm not in the clinic, find me."

"All right. I will."

"It's going to be okay, Vishous. And you need to remember something."

"What's that?"

"I know what I married. I know who you are. There's nothing that's going to shock me - now hang up the phone and get home."

As he told her good-bye and hit end, he wasn't sure about the noshock thing. He'd surprised himself tonight, and not in a good way.

Putting his phone away, he rolled up a cigarette and patted his pockets for a lighter before remembering he'd tossed his Bic POS back at the training center.

His head cranked around and he looked at one of those goddamn black candles. With no other option, he went over and leaned in to light his hand-rolled.

The idea of going back to the compound was the right idea. A good, solid plan.

Too bad it made him want to scream until he lost his voice.

After he finished his smoke, he meant to extinguish the candles and go straight home. He honestly did.

But he didn't make it.

Manny was dreaming. Had to be.

He was dimly aware that he was in his office, lying facedown on the leather couch that he regularly crashed on for REM catch-ups. As always, there was a set of surgical scrubs wadded under his head for a pillow, and he'd kicked off his Nikes.

All this was normal, business as usual.

Except then his little nap warped on him ... and suddenly he wasn't alone. He was on top of a woman -

As he reared back in surprise, she stared up at him with icy eyes that were blazing hot.

"How did you get in here?" he asked hoarsely.

"I am in your mind." Her accent was foreign and sexy as hell. "I am inside of you."

And then it dawned on him that beneath his body, she was so very naked, and warm - and holy Christ, even with his confusion, he wanted her.

It was the only thing that made any sense.

"Teach me," she said darkly, her lips parting, her hips rolling under his own. "Take me."

Her hand moved between the two of them and found his erection, rubbing at it, making him moan.

"I am empty without you," she said. "Fill me. Now."

With an invitation like that, he didn't give anything else a second thought. Fumbling around, he shoved his scrubs down his thighs and then ...

"Oh, fuck," he groaned as his hard cock slipped up her slick core.

One shift over and he would be buried deep, but he forced himself not to breach her sex. He was going to kiss her first, and more to the point, he was going to do that right because ... she'd never been kissed before -

Why did he know that?

Who the fuck cared.

And her mouth wasn't the only place he was going to go with his lips.

Pulling away a little, he ran his eyes down her long neck to her collarbone ... and went even lower - or at least tried to.

Which was his first clue that something was off. Although he could see every detail of her strong, beautiful face and her long, braided black hair, the sight of her breasts was hazy and staying that way: No matter how much he frowned, there was no clarity coming. But whatever, she was perfect to him no matter what she looked like.

Perfect for him.

"Kiss me," she breathed.

His hips jerked at the sound of her voice, and as his erection slid against the very heart of her, the friction made him groan. God, the feel of her pressed up tight to him, with the head of his cock having parted her and burrowed in, searching for that sweetest spot....

"Healer," she gritted as she arched back, her tongue coming out and dragging over her lower lip -

Fangs.

Those two white tips were fangs, and he froze: What was underneath him and ready for him was not human.

"Teach me ... take me ..."

Vampire.

He should have been shocked and terrified. But he wasn't. If anything, what she was made him want inside her with a desperation that left him in a sweat. And there was something else ... it made him want to mark her.

Whatever the hell that meant.

"Kiss me, healer ... and don't stop."

"I won't," he moaned. "I'm not ever going to stop."

As he dipped his head to bring his lips to hers, his cock went off in an explosion, the orgasm shooting out of him and going all over her -

Manny came awake on a gasp that was loud enough to rouse the dead.

And oh, shit, he was coming hard, his hips grinding into the sofa as delicious, hazy memories of his virgin lover made him feel like her hands were all over his skin. Fucking A; even though the dream was clearly over, the orgasm kept coming until he had to lock his teeth and jack one of his knees up tight, the jerking pumps of his cock fisting the heavy muscles of his thighs and chest until he couldn't breathe.

When it was all over, he sagged face-first into the cushions and did his best to grab for some oxygen, because he had a feeling round two was going to get its groove on soon. Tendrils of the dream tantalized him and made him want to go back into that moment that had not existed and yet felt as real as the consciousness he had now. Reaching into his memory banks, he tugged at the filaments of where he'd been, bringing the female back into -

The headache that plowed into his temples all but knocked him out - sure as hell, if he hadn't already been horizontal, he would have landed on the damn floor.

"Fuuuuck ..."

The pain was astounding, like someone had nailed him on the skull with a lead pipe, and it was a while before he had the strength to shove himself onto his back and try to sit up.

The first attempt at vertical didn't go well. The second was successful only because he braced his arms on either side of his torso to keep from pulling a down-and-out again. As his head hung like a deflated balloon off his shoulders, he stared at the Oriental rug and waited until he felt like he could make a beeline for the bathroom and fire back some Motrin.

He'd had these headaches a lot. Right before Jane had died -

The thought of his former chief of trauma brought on a new wave of someone-please-shoot-me-between-the-eyeballs.

Breathing shallowly and purposely thinking of absolutely, positively, fucking nothing somehow got him through the attack. When the agony had mostly passed, he lifted his head experimentally ... just in case a minute change in altitude brought on another pounder.

The antique clock behind his desk read four sixteen.

Four a.m.? What in the hell had he done all night since leaving the horse-pital?

As he thought back, he remembered driving out of Queens after Glory had come around and his intention had been to go home. Clearly, that hadn't happened. and he had no clue how long he'd been asleep in his office. Looking at his scrubs, there were drops of blood here and there ... and his kicked-off Nikes were in the blue booties he always operated in. Apparently, he'd worked on a patient -

A fresh flare of pain burst into his mind, causing him to brace every muscle in his body and fight for control. Knowing that biofeedback was his only friend, he let all cognitive processes go lax as he breathed slowly and evenly.

Focusing on the clock, he watched the hands click to seventeen ... then eighteen ... then nineteen....

Twenty minutes later, he was finally able to stand up and lurch over to his bathroom. Inside, the private room was Ali Baba gorgeous, with enough marble, crystal and brass to be castle-worthy - or in the case of tonight, make him curse at all the bright-brights.

Reaching in through the glass door of the shower, he cranked the faucets on and then he headed to the sink to pop open the mirror and grab the bottle of Motrin. Five tablets at once was more than the recommended dosage, but he was a doctor, damn it, and he was advising himself to take more than just two.

The hot water was a blessing, rinsing away not only the remnants of that incredible release, but also the strain of the last twelve hours. God ... Glory. He hoped like hell she was doing well. And that female he'd op -

As he felt another stinger coming on, he dropped whatever thought had been about to take root like it was poison and focused only on the way the spray hit the nape of his neck and split off his shoulders, falling down his back and his chest.

His cock was still hard.

Rock-hard.

The irony that the damn thing remained all wakey-wakey, in spite of the fact that his other head was totally scrambled, was no laughing matter. The last thing he felt like doing was more palm aerobics, but he had a feeling this arousal he was rocking was going to be like lawn sculpture: there for the duration unless he took care of it.

When the soap slipped off the brass holder and landed on his foot like an anvil, he cursed and hopped around ... then bent down and picked the bar up.

Slippery. Oh, so slippery.

After putting the Dial back where it belonged, he let his hand go south to grip his shaft. As he drew his palm up and back, the warm water and the slick, soapy routine were effective, but still a poor substitute for what it had felt like to be against that woman's -

Sharp. Shooter. Right through his frontal lobe.

God, it was like there were armed guards surrounding any thoughts of her.

With a curse, he shut his brain down because he knew he had to finish what he'd started. Bracing an arm against the marble wall, he let his head drop while he pumped himself. He'd always had a tremendous sex drive, but this was something else entirely, a hunger that punched through any veneer of civility and ran down deep to some core of himself that was a total news flash.

"Shit ..." As the orgasm hit, he gritted his teeth and let loose against the flushed walls of the shower. The release was just as strong as the one on the couch had been, sacking his body until his cock wasn't the only thing twitching uncontrollably: Every muscle he had seemed to be involved in the release, and he had to bite his lip to keep from yelling.

When he finally surfaced from the rock-'em, sock-'em, his face was mashed up against the marble and he was breathing like he'd sprinted from one side of Caldwell to the other.

Or maybe all the way to Canada.

Turning into the spray, he rinsed off again and stepped out, nabbing a towel and ...

Manny looked down at his hips. "Are. You. Kidding."

His cock was just as erect as it had been the first time: Undaunted. Proud and strong as only a dumb handle could be.

Whatever. He was done servicing it.

Worse came to worst, he could just disappear the damn thing in his pants. Obviously, the "relief" method wasn't working, and he was out of energy. Hell, maybe he was coming down with the flu or some shit? God knew, working in a hospital you could pick up a lot of things.

Including amnesia, evidently.

Manny wrapped a towel around himself and walked out into his office - only to stop dead. There was a strange scent lingering in the air ... something like dark spices?

Wasn't his cologne, that was for certain.

Striding across the Oriental in his bare feet, he opened his door and leaned out. The administrative offices were dark and empty, and the smell wasn't anywhere around.

With a frown, he looked back at his couch. But he knew better than to allow himself to think of what had just happened on it.

Ten minutes later, he was dressed in fresh scrubs and had had a shave. Mr. Happy, who was still making like the Washington Monument, was tucked up in his waistband and tied in place like the animal it was. As he picked up his briefcase and the suit he'd worn to the track, he was beyond ready to put the dream, the headache, the whole godforsaken evening behind him.

Walking out through the surgical department's offices, he took the elevator down to the third floor, where the ORs were. Members of his staff were doing their thing, operating on emergency cases, dealing with patient setup or transport, cleaning, prepping. He nodded to folks, but didn't say much - so as far as they knew, it was business as usual. Which was a relief.

And he almost made it to the parking lot without losing it.

His exit strategy came to a screeching halt, however, when he got to the recovery suites. He meant to go steaming past them, but his feet just stopped and his mind churned - and abruptly, he felt compelled to go into one of the rooms. As he followed the impulse, his headache was Johnny-on-the-spot with a return to life, but he let it roll as he pushed into the isolated bay that was all the way over by the fire exit.

The bed against the wall was neat as a pin, the sheets tucked in so tight they were all but ironed flat across the mattress. There were no staff notations on the dry-erase board; no beeping of machines; and the computer wasn't logged into.

But the scent of Lysol lingered in the air. And so did some kind of perfume ... ?

Someone had been in here. Someone he'd operated on. Tonight.

And she had -

Agony overwhelmed him, and Manny pulled another sag-andgrab, latching onto the doorjamb and leaning in to keep standing. As his migraine, or whatever it was, got worse, he had to bend over -

Which was how he saw it.

Frowning against the pain, he stumbled over to the bedside table and got down on his haunches. Reaching underneath, he patted around until he found the folded, stiff card.

He knew what it was before he looked at the thing. And for some reason, as he held it against his palm, his heart broke in half.

Flattening the crease, he stared at the engraving of his name and title and the hospital's address, phone, and fax. In his handwriting, in the white space to the right of the St. Francis logo, he'd written his cell phone number.

Hair. Dark hair in a braid. His hands undoing - "

Mother ... fucker." He threw out a palm to the floor, but went down anyway, hitting the linoleum hard before rolling over onto his back. As he cradled his head and strained against the agony, he knew his eyelids were bolted open, but damned if he could see anything.

"Chief ?"

At the sound of Goldberg's voice, the sharpshooter at his temples faded a little, as if his brain had reached out for the auditory lifesaver and been dragged away from the sharks. At least temporarily.

"Hey," he moaned.

"Are you all right?"

"Yup."

"Headache?"

"Not at all."

Goldberg laughed briefly. "Look, there's something going around. I've had four nurses and two admins take to the floor just like you have. I've called in for extra staff and sent the others home to bed."

"Wise of you."

"Guess what."

"Don't say it. I'm going, I'm going." Manny forced himself to sit up, and then, when he was ready, he pulled his sorry ass off the floor by using the rails of the hospital bed.

"You were supposed to be gone this weekend, Chief."

"I came back." Fortunately, Goldberg didn't ask about the horse race results. Then again, he didn't know there were any to be shared. Nobody had a clue about what Manny did outside the hospital, mostly because he'd never thought it was important enough compared to the work they did here.

Why did his life feel so empty all of a sudden?

"You need a ride?" his chief of trauma asked.

God, he missed Jane.

"Ah ..." What was the question? Oh, right. "I took some Motrin - I'll be fine. Page me if you need me." On the way out, he clapped Goldberg on the shoulder. "You're in charge until tomorrow at seven a.m."

Goldberg's response didn't register.

Turned out that was a theme. Manny wasn't tracking at all as he found the north bank of elevators and took one down into the parking garage - it was almost as if that last round of the owies had TKO'd everything but his brain stem. Stepping out, he put one foot in front of the other until he got to his designated space....

Where the fuck was his car?

He looked around. The chiefs of service all had assigned parking spots, and his Porsche was not in its slot.

His keys were not in his suit pocket, either.

And the only good news was that as he became royally incensed, the headache backed off completely - although that was obviously the result of the Motrin.

Where. The. Hell. Was. His. Goddamn car.

For shit's sake, you couldn't just bust a window, roll start it with the clutch, and head out. You needed the pass card he kept in his -

Wallet was gone, too.

Great. Just what he needed: a stolen billfold, a Porsche on the way to an illegal chop shop, and a go-around with the cops.

The security office was down where you checked out of the garage, so he hoofed it along instead of calling because gee-frickin'-whiz, his cell phone had been taken, too, natch -

He slowed. Then stopped. Halfway to the exit, in the row where patients and families parked, there was a gray Porsche 911 Turbo. Same year as his. Same NYRA sticker on the back window.

Same license plate.

He approached the thing like there was a bomb taped to its undercarriage. The doors were unlocked, and he was cautious as he popped the driver's side open.

His wallet, keys, and cell phone were under the front seat.

"Doc? You all right?"

Okaaay. Apparently, there were two theme songs of the night: no memories and people asking him the one question he was guaranteed not to answer truthfully.

Looking up, he wondered what exactly he could say to the security guard: Hey, has someone turned my marbles in to Lost and Found?

"What you doing parked down here?" the guy in the blue uni asked.

I don't have a clue. "Someone was in my spot."

"Damn, you should have called, my man. We'd have fixed that quick."

"You're the best." At least that wasn't a lie.

"Well, take care - and get some rest. You don't look so hot."

"Excellent advice."

"I shoulda been a doctor." The guard lifted his flashlight on a wave. "Night."

"G'night."

Manny got into his phantom Porsche, started the engine, and threw her into reverse. As he drove over to the garage's exit, he took out his pass card and used it without a problem to open up the gate. Then on St. Francis Avenue, he hung a louie and headed downtown for the Commodore.

Driving along, he was certain about one and only one thing.

He was losing his ever-loving mind.

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