TWENTY - SIX

Alone in downtown Caldwell, Vishous stalked the night by himself, traversing the underbelly stretch beneath the city's bridges. He'd started out at his penthouse, but that hadn't lasted more than ten minutes, and what an irony that all those glass windows had felt so confining. After launching himself into the air from the terrace, he'd coalesced down by the river. The other Brothers would be out in the alleys looking for lessers and finding them, but he didn't want to be around the peanut gallery. He wanted to fight. Solo.

At least, that was what he told himself.

It dawned on him, however, after about an hour of aimless wandering, that he wasn't really looking for some kind of hand-to-hand showdown. He wasn't actually looking for anything.

He was utterly empty, to the point where he was curious where the ambulation routine was coming from, because he sure as fuck wasn't doing anything consciously.

Stopping and staring across the sluggish, stinking waters of the Hudson, he laughed cold and hard.

In all the course of his life, he'd accumulated a body of knowledge  to rival the Library of frickin' Congress. Some of it was useful, such as how to fight, how to make weapons, how to get information and how to keep it secret. And then there was some that was relatively useless on a day-to-day basis, like the molecular weight of carbon, Einstein's theory of relativity, Plato's political shit. There were also thoughts that he ruminated on once and never again, and their polar opposites, the ideas that he took out at regular intervals and played with like toys when he was bored. There were also things he never, ever let himself think of.

In and among those various cognitive outposts was a huge stretch of cerebellum that was nothing but a dump yard of bullshit that he didn't believe in. And given that he was a cynic? It was miles and miles of rotting, metaphorical Hefty bags full of trash along the lines of ... fathers were supposed to love their sons ... and mothers were gifts beyond measure ... and blah, blah, blah.

If there was a mental equivalent of the EPA, that part of his brain would have been cited, fined, and closed down.

But it was funny. Tonight's little stroll in this underpass of God-and-awful by the river had him ruminating through that landfill and pulling something out of the pile:

Bonded males were nothing without their females.

So bizarre. He'd always known he'd loved Jane, but being the tight-ass that he was, he had stitched up his feelings without realizing a needle and thread were in his proverbial hand. Shit, even when she'd come back to him after she'd died, and he'd known for that brief moment what the term overjoyed not just meant, but felt like ... he hadn't truly let himself go.

Sure, his permafrost had slicked over on its top layer from the warmth she brought to him, but the inside, the deep inside, had stayed the same. Good God, they'd never even gotten properly mated. He'd just moved her into his room and loved every minute of having her there as they'd gone about their nights separately.

He'd fucking wasted those hours.

Criminally wasted them.

And now here they were, separated by rifts that, in spite of his intelligence, he had no clue how to cross.

Christ, when she'd been holding those leathers in her hands and waiting for him to talk, it was like someone had stapled his lips together - probably because he'd felt guilty about what he'd done at his place, and how fucked-up was that? His own hand hardly counted as cheating.

The trouble was, however, that even being drawn to the type of release he'd once had so much of had felt wrong. But that was because sex had always been a part of it.

Naturally, this made him think of Butch. The solution the guy had suggested was so obvious, V was surprised he hadn't realistically considered it sooner himself - but then again, asking his best friend to beat the shit out of him wasn't exactly a casual idea to have.

He wished he'd had that option a week ago. Maybe it would have helped things ... Except that scene in the bedroom wasn't his and Jane's only issue, was it. She should have come to him first about the sitch with his sister. He should have been briefed and decided what to do with the two of them.

As anger rose like a stench inside of him, he feared what was on the other side of this emptiness. He wasn't like other males, never had been, and not just because of the Mommie Dearest deity crap: Knowing his luck, he'd be the one bonded male on the face of the planet who got past these purposeless numbs at losing his shellan ... and went somewhere oh, so much darker.

Insanity, for instance.

Wait, he wouldn't be the first, would he. Murhder had gone mad. Absolutely and irrevocably.

Maybe they could start a club. And the handshake could involve daggers.

Emo-ass motherfuckers that they were -

With a snarl, V pivoted in the direction of the prevailing wind, and he would have offered up a prayer of thanks if he didn't hate his mother so much: In and among the tendrils of fog, riding upon the vapors of gray and white humidity, the sweet smell of the enemy gave him purpose and a definition that his numb state had not just lacked, but seemed likely to reject.

His feet started to walk and then jog and then run. And the faster he went, the better he felt: To be a soulless killer was far, far, far better than to be a breathing void. He wanted to maim and murder; he wanted to tear with his fangs and claw with his hands; he wanted the blood of slayers on him and in him.

He wanted the screams of those he killed to ring in his ears.

Following the sickly stench, he cut over into the streets and weaved in and out of alleys and straightaways, tracking the scent as it grew stronger and stronger. And the closer he got, the more relieved he became. There had to be a number of them - and even better news? No sign of his brothers, which meant first come ... first served.

He was saving this for himself.

Rounding the last corner of the quest, he plowed into a short, squat stretch of urban armpit and skidded to a halt. The alley had no outlet on the other side, but like a chute system for livestock, the buildings on either side were directing the wind that came off the river outward, the herd of molecules scrambling and picking up the smells on their hooves and galloping it straight into his sinuses.

What ... the ... hell ... ?

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."

"Tell me that's a good thing?"

"It is ..."

She stared at the rigid length that was confined and straining against the front of his no longer billowy slacks. So thick and smooth. So big. The mechanics of sex were not unknown to her, but up until now, she hadn't been able to fathom why they would appeal to a female. Looking at him now? Her heartbeat would cease and her blood would turn to stone if she didn't have him within her.

"Do you want to touch me?" he growled.

"Please ..." She swallowed through a nearly closed throat. "Oh, yes ..."

"First, look at yourself, bambina. Lift your arm and look at yourself."

She glanced down just to humor him so they could get on with things -

Her skin was aglow from the inside out, as if the heat and the sensations he called forth from her had manifested themselves in illumination. "I know not ... what this is...."

"I think it's the solution, actually." He sat down next to her feet. "Tell me if you feel this." He gently touched her lower leg, laying his hand upon her calf - "

Warm," she choked out. "Your touch is warm."

"And here?"

"Yes ... yes!"

When he went to move it upward, onto her thigh, she furiously yanked the coverings off of herself so she would have no impediments. Her heart was thundering and -

He laid his palm upon her other leg.

This time, she felt ... nothing.

"No, no ... touch me, touch me again!" The demand was harsh, her focus manic. "Touch me - "

"Hold on - "

"Where did it go - do it again! By all that is holy with your God, do it anew - "

"Payne." He captured her frantic hands. "Payne, look at yourself."

The glow was gone. Her skin, her flesh ... was normal. "Damn it all - "

"Hey. Beautiful. Hey - look at me." Somehow her eyes found his. "Take a deep breath and just relax.... Come on, breathe with me. That's it. That's good.... I'll get it back for you...."

When he bent toward her, she felt the gentle stroke of his fingertips on her neck. "You feel this?"

"Yes ..." Impatience warred with the effect of his deep voice and his slow, meandering touch.

"Close your eyes - "

"But - "

"Close them for me."

When she did as she was told, the pads of his fingers disappeared ... and were replaced by his mouth. His lips brushed her throat and then sucked at her skin, the subtle pull unleashing a welling heat between her legs.

"Feel this?" he said in a gravelly voice.

"Fates ... yes ..."

"Then let me keep going." With subtle pressure, he urged her back against the pillows. "Your skin is so smooth...."

As he nuzzled at her, the sound of his mouth made delicious clicking sounds below her ear, and those fingers of his traveled back and forth on her collarbone ... then dipped down. In response, a curious, languid warmth boiled in her torso and tightened up her nipples, and she became aware of her whole body ... every inch of herself. Even her legs.

"See, bambina, it's back.... Look."

Her lids were heavy as stones as she opened them, but when she glanced down, the glow was a huge relief - and made her hold on to the sensations he was calling out of her.

"Give me your mouth," he said roughly. "Let me in."

His voice was guttural, but his kiss was gentle and teasing, pulling at her lips and stroking, before he licked at her. And then she felt his hand on her outer leg.

"I feel you," she said into his kiss, tears coming to her eyes. "I feel you."

"I'm glad." He eased back a little, his face serious. "I don't know what this is - I'm not going to lie. Jane isn't sure, either."

"I do not care. I just want my legs back."

He had a moment's pause. But then he nodded, as if he were taking a vow to her. "And I'm going to do whatever I can to give them to you."

His eyes drifted to her breasts, and the response was immediate -  with every breath she took, the fabric that covered her nipples seemed to stroke across her and make her even tighter.

"Let me make you feel good, Payne. And we'll see where this takes you."

"Yes." She lifted her hands to his face and pulled him to her mouth once more. "Please."

Verily, as she would take nourishment from a vein, now she drew upon the warmth of his lips and the slick entrance of his tongue and the energy he called out of her.

Moaning into him, she was submersed in sensation, from the weight of her body on the bed, to the blood coursing throughout her, to the pulsing need between her legs and the delicious ache at her breasts.

"Healer." She gasped as she felt her thigh get swept over by his palm.

He shifted back, and she was gratified that he was panting as well. "Payne, I want to do something."

"Anything."

He smiled. "May I unbraid your hair?"

For certain, her tresses were the last thing on her mind, but his expression was so rapt and intense, she could not deny him the request - or any part of herself. "But of course."

His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he reached for the end of her braid. "I've wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you."

Gradually, inch by inch, he freed the heavy weight of the black waves she kept long for no other reason than she was too disinterested to tend to them. Given his profound regard for what he revealed, however, she began to wonder if mayhap she'd far underestimated their significance.

When he was finished, he spread the lengths out o'er the bed and just sat back. "You are ... indescribably beautiful."

Having never viewed herself as even feminine, much less "beautiful," it was an astonishment to hear the reverence in not just his words, but his voice.

"Indeed ... you tie my tongue," she said once again to him.

"Let me give you something else to do with it."

As he joined her on the bed and lay beside her, she turned into the cushion of his pectorals and the hard expanse of his stomach. She was big compared to other members of her sex, her body retaining the power that had come from her sire's side to the point where she often felt ungainly in comparison to other females: No willowy grace as the Chosen Layla had for her - in truth, she was built for fighting, not spiritual or sensual service.

Here with her healer, however, she felt rather perfectly proportioned. He had not the tremendous heft of her twin brother, but he was bigger and thicker than she was, in all the places a male should be: Lying with him in the dim room with their bodies so close together, and the temperature rising everywhere, she was not something that should not be, a malformation of girth and bulk, but an object of desire and passion.

"You're smiling," he whispered next to her mouth.

"Am I?"

"Yeah. And I love it."

Over at her hip, his hands burrowed into her nightgown and she felt it all, from the light drift of his pinkie finger to the smooth skin of his palm to the hot trail his touch left behind as he slowly went upward. Closing her eyes, she arched into him, very aware that she was asking for something, yet unclear as to what exactly she was in search of - but she knew he would give it to her.

Yes, her healer knew exactly what she needed: That hand of his went up her rib cage and paused beneath her heavy, tender breasts.

"Is this okay?" she heard him ask from a great distance.

"Anything," she gasped. "Anything to feel my legs."

Except even as the words left her, she sensed that what drove her was less her paralysis and more a greed for him and his sex - "

Healer!"

The sensation of her breast being captured in a gentle caress was a wondrous shock, and she jerked up, her thighs spreading, her heels pressing into the mattress beneath them both. And then his thumb passed up and over her nipple, the stroke shooting a blast of fire to her core.

Her legs sawed on the bed, the tight coil in her sex driving them. "I'm moving," she said roughly - and almost as an afterthought. What seemed important now was joining with him and having him ... come ... inside of her.

"I know, bambina," he avowed. "And I'm going to make sure you keep it up."

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