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Authors: Anne Marsh

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BOOK: His Dark Bond
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C
HAPTER
S
IX
Z
er needed a fight. No, scratch that. Make it plural. He wanted to move, wanted to pound his fists into someone until they bled—and the rogues would make a damned fine punching bag. The pounding rhythm of the house music vibrated in his bones until he was itching to move out. There were too many damn humans too damn close for his taste. Business was good, and the dance floor was filled. Brothers prowled through the crowd, making their choices. Taking what they needed.
Until they saw him come back down those damn stairs. Then they converged on him as if he’d come to announce the second coming. So much for not engaging and for taking his aggression outside.
“Is it true?” The brother closest to him muttered the words as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe them. “Did you find another soul mate?” That was the question they all wanted the answer to. Any human could be a bond mate. But a soul mate? She was one in a million. Literally.
Picking up his pace, he arrowed directly at the club’s exterior door. He’d secured the first female, and his brothers wanted to hear the deets. “Yeah,” he drawled. “She’s upstairs.” Safe.
“She meant for you?” A hint of something Zer didn’t recognize entered the male’s eyes. Fear. Hope. And, yeah, a whole lot of desperation. Going without had been marginally easier when they’d all believed that there were no soul mates.
“She chooses.”
“Straight up?”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t going to take her, even if he knew that most of the brothers watching this little exchange believed that was his right. He was their sire. Their leader. He was first in line for everything, whether it was Heavens’ smack-down all those millennia ago or the sweet, hot promise of redemption he’d just hauled into the club like a berserk caveman. And if he’d enjoyed that atavistic behavior, well, he wasn’t going to make any excuses. He was who he was.
“So, what’s the plan? What are you going to do with her? You guarantee she’s choosing?”
“Yes,” he said, and he made eye contact with each male in the hard press of bodies. “Yeah, I am.” All eyes turned to him, and, beyond the edge of the crowd of armed males, there was Brends making his way over. Figured. Just once Zer wanted to act first and think later. He’d retrieved the female, and he’d stashed her here. That was the critical point. Now, he’d do a little wait-and-see. Maybe, her presence in G2’s would be enough to draw Cuthah out. If not, he’d still be up one soul mate, and he’d use that advantage.
“We let her choose,” he repeated, letting his hand rest on his blade just in case anyone got any other ideas about the female waiting upstairs. “That rave G2’s is holding night after tomorrow—we bring her downstairs then. Anyone who wants a shot can come and do their asking then. She’ll listen, and then she’ll decide.”
The group parted to let Brends through, but that was no surprise. What was surprising was that Brends didn’t have his soul mate wrapped around his arm, but Zer figured she couldn’t be far behind. She didn’t like the club, didn’t like what they hunted here, and so she’d be close at hand, eager to pry Brends free. God help them all if Mischka learned about the female upstairs.
“Keep this on the down low,” he cautioned, and Brends’s eyes flashed. Yeah, he knew his mate wasn’t going to care for this particular secret. At all.
“You found one of the four.” Brends didn’t bother with making nice.
“Her name was on the list. Face and ID match.” He spoke lightly, but they both knew the words meant the world. Brends had his soul mate, but the others didn’t. The others were still lost. “She’s a match.”
“You think it matters which one of the brothers she chooses?” Brends’s eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t appreciate the idea that maybe his beloved mate hadn’t chosen him because he was best but merely because he was first. Yeah, Zer bet that stung. Still, he could refute the whole first-in-line argument, right? Nessa St. James hadn’t gone for
his
sorry ass. Hell, she’d have kicked him straight to the curb if she could.
“It’s not first come, first served.”
Brends looked like he wanted to disagree. “She’s not a weapon,” he pointed out.
And that was where his brother was wrong. That’s precisely what Nessa St. James was.
“We can’t keep this war up.” Vkhin’s voice slid out of the darkness behind Zer. The male made a habit of forgetting Zer’s orders—he was supposed to be guarding Nessa with Nael. Vkhin had been the other candidate for sire. Maybe the powers-that-be hadn’t chosen him because he was
too
strong. Certainly, he was older that Zer. Much older. Pure, emotionless control, a deep, still pool of a male.
Unfortunately, Vkhin spoke only the truth. The Fallen couldn’t keep up this war. Couldn’t win. Didn’t mean Zer liked hearing it, though. Shoving off the wall where he’d parked his sorry ass, he headed for the door, running a mental inventory of his weapons. Weapons, he understood. Draw. Stab. Kill. He’d had millennia to perfect that skill. Most of the time, he didn’t even have to think about it, fighting being even more natural than breathing. Unlike that last time in the Heavens, with Michael’s dark, cold eyes taunting him. He shook off the memory. No point going back down that road. Much as he wanted a do-over, all he had now was the present. The past was gone.
Christ, he needed a fight. The rogue within was riding him hard, the creature struggling to punch through the surface. When he caught sight of his face in one of the mirrors some sick fuck had walled G2’s with, he recognized the cold-eyed bastard all too well. He looked like death prowling across the floor. Walking, breathing sin incarnate, that was him. “I’m out of here,” he growled.
His brothers let him lay in a course for the door, but they came right along.
“You in?” he growled. If he had to pick up a posse, they could damn well fight for him.
“I’ll fight,” one of the Fallen said cheerfully. Male sounded as if Zer had brought him flowers. Damn hothead would get himself killed long before the soul thirst ate him alive, but that was part of Keros’s charm. He didn’t think. He just
did
. Brends claimed Keros was working his way through the penal code, one act at a time, and Zer didn’t disbelieve him. Last he’d heard, Keros had been running arms for some of the hotter-headed human tribes on Russia’s southern border. Male probably had his reasons—and Zer didn’t care what they were—but he made an order of Uzis sound like take-out pizza. Eventually, Zer would have to step in before Keros made a mess too large to clean up.
Not tonight, though. Tonight, all Zer wanted was a fight.
He strong-armed the outer door open, sucking down the cold night air. The weather was an icy wake-up call to all his senses. When he looked up, he could see the watery silver light from the moon overhead and the dying glow of the mazhlights. Almost dawn, but still more than enough time to do some hunting. Take out his frustrations on M City’s rogue population. Left or right. His direction didn’t matter.
“Do me a favor. Let’s roll,” he said to the pair closest to him. Keros and another tough male named Tarq. They’d do. “I’m feeling restless tonight.”
Tarq’s smile was slow in coming and frightening when it finally cracked his face. Only the promise of blood woke the brother up. “Fighting or fucking?”
“Fighting.”
Fighting, he understood.
The weather still screamed winter, cold and bleak. An almost arctic wind trickled down the dark street as he strode along. Humans, he couldn’t help noticing, gave him a wide berth. They were smarter than they looked. That, or the leather duster billowing around him and the steel-toed shit-kickers eating up the pavement were ample warning. He dressed like a badass, and his clothes were a warning label.
“You sure about this?” Vkhin’s expressionless face examined his.
“Yeah.” He was more than sure. He didn’t really care about protecting the humans in M City from rogues, but fighting was a habit now that he couldn’t shake. He’d fought for the Heavens, had served as a Dominion for centuries before the Fall. Laying it down was second nature.
“You going to tell me where you’re headed?”
It didn’t matter. “Left,” he said. If possible, Vkhin’s face grew even emptier. Not like Zer hadn’t disappointed him before. Whatever Vkhin felt about his sire’s decision, Zer reminded himself savagely, it wasn’t
new
. Nothing was new anymore. “You want me to march right on up to the Heavens? Leading an army of three? Hell, Vkhin, I can’t even go myself.”
Vkhin slid his hands into his pockets. “Maybe you could. Maybe that female up there is your soul mate.”
Zer shook his head. Left, it was. He was so done with this shit. “You got to feel, Vkhin, to have a soul mate. Me, I don’t have anything left.” Just the rogue inside and the never-ending urge to kill. To finally, finally drink his fill. A tendril of something snaking out from the left had his senses going on high alert, the beast sitting up at attention.
Vkhin just looked at him. “You got to try first.”
“I spent the first two millennia trying. Now, I’m going to settle for a little ass-kicking. Piss off if you don’t want to play.”
C
HAPTER
S
EVEN
T
he handbag-jacking motherfucker in the alley needed to stop.
The handbag in question was impossibly feminine—hot pink vinyl with a cheery little sequined flower stitched to the zipper. Flowers like that didn’t exist in nature, any more than the monster putting the handbag’s owner in a lip-lock did.
Zer palmed his blades and assessed the situation. Vkhin had melted into the darkness, making it clear that if any killing was done in this alley, Zer was doing it.
It was night, but it was almost always night in M City now. The days were shorter than normal, and there was way less light. Some of M City’s residents—the ones who were still human—blamed the Fallen for the darker days, and maybe they were right. The former angels had been thrown out of the Heavens for gross acts of rebellion, and they’d brought their vices with them. Zer’s kind were sinners and killers, and they made no bones about it. The hulking shape at the far end of the alley, however, didn’t belong to one of his fellow Fallen.
Not anymore.
The noise was the first clue, the inhuman growling of a rogue who’d scented prey. A thick blanket of midnight had settled on the street. The gray sidewalk disappeared into the cavernous entrance to the underground Metro. The news kiosks were metal-shuttered for the night, although those vendors moved few papers during the daylight hours. Papers had been replaced by packets of condoms and serving-sized bottles of alcohol, the kind with a non-reusable screw top. Drink it or dump it, but no planning for tomorrow. This late at night, no one was in sight. The human residents had abandoned the premises to the night.
Somewhere, however, the rogue had found himself a girl. A little hooker in a too-short vinyl skirt and faux-fur-lined boots. He’d already done the business he’d paid her for, because the thick, hot smell of sex and semen mixed with the too-crisp night air. He’d pinned the human female way up the alley, clearly counting on either the shadows or the noxious smell of days-old trash to keep his business private. The darkened face and twisted, brutal jut of the male’s jaw identified the predator as rogue.
No rogue hunted for souls in M City. M City was Zer’s territory.
The rogue clearly scented Zer’s approach, not that Zer was going for subtlety. He was no damn knight-errant, but he was the enforcer of his kind’s laws. What the rogue was doing to his human companion was an act of psychic vampirism that wouldn’t end well for anyone. Zer figured if he’d managed to refrain from draining a human soul so far, this bastard could, as well. So, he took it as a personal insult that the rogue was drinking her dry, the psychic stench growing fouler with each deep swallow, dark ribbons of aura peeling off the girl.
“Hello, darling.” Palming his first set of blades, Zer threw. “Time to break up your party.”
For a moment, Zer was backlit, silhouetted against the mouth of the alley. The blade sliced the rogue’s arm, forcing him to drop the girl. She was almost gone; she didn’t so much as budge from her awkward sprawl.
Christ
. He was going to have to move her before he could get down to business.
Behind him, Tarq and Keros had his back in the usual fighting triad. Vkhin had vanished to do some reconnoitering of his own. Motioning sharply, Zer indicated they should fan out, welcoming the soft hiss of blades being pulled. Tarq took the shadows; Keros moved in for the girl, then hesitated.
“Let me,” Keros said.
Yeah, Keros thought there was a good chance Zer would merely take the rogue’s place. He wasn’t wrong.
Zer nodded once about the girl but not the rogue.
He wanted to do this. He needed to do this. “This one’s mine, Ker.”
The rogue charged, fyreblade flashing.
Zer evaded smoothly, ducking under the blow. Coming up, he pulled his own blades and caught the bastard right in the gut. Not a kill wound for their kind but enough to slow the rogue down. Make him clumsy. No one regenerated that fast. Right on cue, the fyreblade wobbled.
The rogue cursed in a harsh, inhuman stream of syllables. Turning, he came back for Zer with the persistence of the newly damned, because, fuck, there was no walking away now. Not that Zer had ever seen one of them back down from a fight. Mindless beasts. This one couldn’t keep his eyes from sliding over to the human female. He was still thinking dinner, even when it was his immortal soul on the line.
The fight wasn’t going to be long enough to work off all the aggression Zer had trapped inside him, and that pissed him off. This time, when the rogue attacked, Zer brought the blade up, slicing it across the rogue’s neck in a lethal swipe. Blood spurted, and the look of unexpected surprise crossing the rogue’s face let Zer know the bastard hadn’t really believed he could lose.
“Yeah, you got that right.”
The fyreblade clattered to the ground. Keros moved in to pick it up. “Might be useful.” His voice didn’t change, as if Zer had simply taken out the trash.
Blade might be useful, but already the fyre was flickering, dying, and, sure enough, it winked out altogether as Zer stepped up to the crumpled pile of rogue and finished the job he’d started. Head separated from neck. Too young, too recent a convert, to have gotten the hang of his new strength or even to remember what to do with the fyreblade. Now he
was
simply trash.
Flipping the body onto its stomach, he anchored it in place with a booted foot. Before he could second-guess his instincts, he drew the sharp edge of his blade down the dead male’s back, the fabric of his clothing parting easily on either side. Dark skin. A few battle scars framed by the desecrated fabric. In other words, nothing he hadn’t expected to see. The Dominions had lost their ability to heal effortlessly when they’d lost their wings and their place in the Heavens. Still, something wasn’t quite right.
“Light,” he snapped, still staring down at the smooth, dark skin. What he
didn’t
see were the souvenir ridges of scar tissue, Michael’s little parting gift. Where he
should
have seen the evidence of former wings, there was nothing but a tattoo. The red edges of the ink faded even as he watched, filling the air with the stink of mazhyk.
“Who’d you make a deal with?” He muttered a curse when he spotted the female victim lying on the ground behind the rogue, where she’d been tossed like so much garbage.
His damn mind took him straight back to that last night in the Heavens. The night he’d learned precisely what an Archangel could do to a female body. When Esrene had fought off her attacker—an attacker who outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds—he’d snapped her legs so she couldn’t run. And then he’d played with her. Mentally, Zer reigned in his thoughts. He didn’t want to go there. Not again.
Bastard had gutted the female Dominion like so much prey, sliding his blade into the soft, vulnerable curve of her belly and ruthlessly drawing the blade upward, splitting her chest open the way he’d too clearly split her open lower with his own body. Zer thought of Esrene and admitted that she’d been, in the end, reduced to a catalyst. Michael had sacrificed her without hesitating. He’d known Esrene’s death would infuriate the Dominions, and Zer had fallen right into his trap.
He’d incited a rebellion.
A rebellion he’d lost.
Behind him, Vkhin had reappeared and was phoning in for a cleanup. Although they could have left the body there, Zer knew the limits of the humans living in his territory. There would be full-blown panic, and panic was never good.
None of his people were dead or injured. That was a good night.
What wasn’t good was the truth lying at their feet. That rogue could have been them. Would someday
be
them, unless they found soul mates. This one had simply given up sooner, slid faster.
Zer was hanging on by his fingernails, and they all knew it. He looked at Vkhin. “You don’t hesitate,” he warned and he knew he didn’t have to explain. Vkhin knew. After all, he fought with the same inner rogue Zer did, and that was just one of the many reasons Zer trusted his brother with his back. “You pull the blade the instant I step out of line, and you do it fast.”
“I promise.”
Zer hadn’t earned a quick death, but the simple truth was: he was too dangerous for anything else. Right now, however, he needed to feed. Fast.
Zer charged the doors of G2’s for the second time that day and made for the stairs. What he wanted—who he wanted—was so very close. When, in response to an unspoken signal, the guards stepped in front of him, blocking his path, he growled.
Fighting the urge to draw his blades and carve his own goddamn path to the elevator, he realized the Change was flickering over his features. He could feel the darkness in him fighting, clawing for release.
Christ, he was in trouble.
He wanted to bound up the stairs. Take her. Drink her. She was waiting for him, damn near gift-wrapped—and he was going to take care of this damn thirst that was riding him.
Nael’s hands curling around his forearms were an unwelcome surprise. Those hands were loose, but they could and would tighten. “You don’t want to do this.”
Oh, he did. “You aren’t going to stop me, Nael. Don’t make this into a fight you’ll lose.”
He was the damn sire, and he had battle lust pounding through him. The soul thirst was a painful hunger raging through his body, and G2’s looked like a banquet of souls. The sweet, luscious psychic strands called out to him, teased raw nerve endings with false promises of pleasure. Relief. Unfortunately, he didn’t want what was for sale down here. No, he wanted
her
.
Nael bowed his head, but the bastard didn’t move. His hands were still resting loosely on Zer’s own damn sleeves.
“I’ll take you there if you need to go.” Nael’s dark eyes watched him. Didn’t blink. “But what you need is down here, sire.”
“No, it’s not.” What he needed was up there, waiting for him in his suite. Part of his mind was trying to remind him of something, that there might be a reason he didn’t want to do this.
Nael reached behind him, beckoning without looking. A female sauntered from the dance floor. Another random stranger. Something flashed in Nael’s eyes and was gone. “You let me do this for you, and then you go to her. Take a breather first.”
The air was ripe with the heady scent of the female. She was all lush promise, wide open, her gazing sliding from Nael to Zer and back again.
“This will make you feel better,” Nael murmured. “Trust me.”
She wasn’t the right female, but the thirst was taking over, and Zer was just man enough to mourn the loss of those brain cells. Yeah, he wasn’t right in the head. The wall of males sliding between him and the elevator made that clear. Part of him was just sane enough to be grateful. His brothers had his back and wouldn’t let him jack this up too badly.
Male hands pressed him down into a seat.
“Trust me,” Nael said again, and, this time, Zer didn’t know to whom Nael spoke. The female was nodding, though, and Zer recognized that covetous look. She wanted whatever she could get, and she’d come to the right damn place.
“Time to fall, love,” Nael whispered, swinging her up onto Zer’s lap. She settled in like she was coming home, curling her fingers in his leathers.
A lapful of sweet, warm female. The wrong one, but fuck that. He couldn’t have the one he wanted. He was too far gone, and
she
deserved better than a beast.
BOOK: His Dark Bond
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