Lover Unleashed (62 page)

And yup, there it was.

As Manny straightened, his hands were shaking so badly that the picture frame’s bracer flapped against the back of the matting.

Given that his voice was gone, all he could do was turn the glass around and give the three of them a chance to look at the black-and-white photograph.

Which was the spitting image of the male named Butch.

“This is my father,” Manny said roughly.

The guy’s expression went from
yeah, whatever
to bald, blanching shock, and his hands started trembling as well as he reached out and carefully took the old picture.

He didn’t bother denying anything. He couldn’t.

Payne’s brother exhaled a cloud of wonderful-smelling smoke. “Fucking. A.”

Well, didn’t that just sum it all up nicely.

Manny glanced at Jane and then eyed the man who might well be a half brother. “Do you recognize him?”

When the guy slowly shook his head, Manny looked over at Payne’s twin. “Can humans and vampires . . .”

“Yup.”

As he went back to staring at a face that shouldn’t have been so familiar, he thought, Shit, how did he put this. “So are you . . .”

“A half-breed?” the guy said. “Yeah. My mother was human.”

“Son of a bitch,” Manny breathed.

FIFTY-FOUR

A
s Butch held the picture of a man who was undeniably identical to himself, he thought, rather bizarrely, about the yellow signs on highways.

The ones that said things like BRIDGE MAY BE ICY . . . or, WATCH FOR FALLING ROCK . . . or the temporary GIVE ’EM A BRAKE before you got to a work zone. Hell, even the ones with the silhouette of a deer leaping or a big black arrow pointing to the left or the right.

At this moment, standing here in the foyer, he would really have appreciated some advance warning that his life was about to go pigslick, off-the-rails.

Then again, collisions were collisions and couldn’t be planned.

Raising his stare from the photograph, he looked into the human surgeon’s eyes. They were a deep brown, a good old-fashioned port color. But the shape of them . . . God, why hadn’t he seen the similarity to his own before?

“You’re sure,” he heard himself say. “This is your father.”

Except he knew the answer before the guy nodded.

“Who . . . how . . .” Yeah, great journalist he would make, huh. “What . . .”

There you go. Add
when
and
where
and he was Anderson-fucking-Cooper.

The thing was, though, after having mated Marissa and gone through his transition, he’d finally found peace with who he was and what was doing in his life. Over in the human world, on the other hand, he’d been estranged from everyone, running parallel but never truly intersecting with his mother and his sisters and his brothers.

And his father, of course.

Or at least the guy he’d been told was his pops.

He’d assumed that with his true home and mate here, he was done with assimilating, having reached a peaceful reconciliation with so much that had been painful.

But didn’t this just kick all that shit up again.

The human spoke gravely. “His name was Robert Bluff. He was a surgeon at Columbia Pres in New York City when my mom was working there as a nurse—”

“My mother was a nurse.” Butch’s mouth felt dry. “But not at that hospital.”

“He practiced a number of places—even . . . over in Boston.”

There was a long silence, during which Butch tested the cold, confusing waters of a possible unfaithfulness on his mother’s part.

“Anyone need a drink, true?” V said.

“Lag—”

“Lagavulin—”

Butch and surgeon both fell silent as Vishous rolled his eyes. “Why is this not a surprise.”

As the brother hit the bar in the billiards room, Manello said, “I never really knew him. Met him, like . . . once? I can’t really remember, to be honest.”

V made like a flight attendant and returned front-and-centered the liquor.

As Butch took a haul from a glass, Manello did the same and then shook his head. “You know, I never liked this shit until after . . .”

“What.”

“You boys started fucking with my head. Used to like Jack. Last year, though . . . everything changed.”

Butch nodded even though he wasn’t tracking. Man, he just couldn’t stop looking at the picture, and after a while, he found that in the strangest way, this was all a relief. Ancestor regression had proven that he was related to Wrath, but he’d never known, or particularly cared to know, exactly how. And yet here it was. In front of him.

Shit, it was kind of like he’d had a disease all this time, and someone had finally put a name to it.

You have Other-father-itis. Or was it a Bastard-oma?

It all made sense. He’d always thought his father had hated him and maybe this was the why behind that. Although it was nearly impossible to imagine his pious, straitlaced mother ever straying, this picture told the story of at least one night with someone else.

His first thought was that he had to get to his mom and ask her for specifics—well,
some
specifics.

But how was that going to work? Dementia had taken her away from reality, and she was now so far gone she barely recognized him when he dropped by—which was the only reason he could visit her at all. And it wasn’t as if he could ask his sisters or brothers. They’d written him off when he’d disappeared from their orbits, but more to the point, it was unlikely they knew any more than he did.

“Is he still alive?” Butch asked.

“I’m not sure. I used to think he was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery. Now? Who the hell knows.”

“I can find out.” As V spoke up, Butch and Manny both looked over at the brother. “Say the word and I will find him—whether he’s in the vampire world or the human one.”

“Find who?”

The deep voice came from the head of the stairs, and everyone looked up as the words reverberated throughout the foyer. Wrath was standing on the second-floor landing with George at his side, and the king’s mood was easy to guess at even though his eyes were hidden behind those wraparounds: He was in a deadly frame of mind.

Hard to know, however, whether it was the human in the foyer or not because God knew there were a thousand things riding the guy’s ass right about now.

Vishous spoke up—which was a good call. Butch had lost his voice and so had Manello, evidently. “Looks like this fine surgeon may be a relative of yours, my lord.”

As Manello recoiled, Butch thought,
Holy crap
.

Didn’t that throw another iron into the fire.

Manny rubbed his temples as that tremendous vampire with the waistlong black hair came down the stairs, a blond dog seeming to lead the way. The bastard looked like he owned the place, and given the “my lord” shit, he probably did.

“Did I hear you right, V?” the male asked.

“Yeah. You did.”

Annnnnnnnnnnd that settled another question—because Manny was wondering if he’d been having trouble with his ears, too.

“This is our king,” Vishous announced. “Wrath, son of Wrath. This is Manello. Manny Manello, M.D. Don’t think you two have met formally.”

“You’re the one who’s Payne’s.”

No hesitation on that. No hesitation on his reply either: “Yeah. I am.”

The low rumble that came out of a cruel mouth was part laugh, part curse. “And you think that we’re related how?”

V cleared his throat and jumped in. “There is a striking physical resemblance between Manny’s dad and Butch. I mean . . . shit, it’s like looking at a picture of my boy.”

Dark brows disappeared behind those wraparounds. Then the expression eased. “Needless to say, I can’t make that call.”

Ah, so he was blind. Explained the dog.

“We could ancestor-regress him,” Vishous suggested.

“Yeah,” Butch said. “Let’s do—”

“Wait a minute, can’t that kill him?” Jane interjected.

“Hold up.” Manny pulled an out-and-safe with his hands. “Just wait a fucking minute. Ancestor what?”

Vishous exhaled smoke. “It’s a process by which I get into you and see how much of our blood is in your veins.”

“But it could kill me?” Shit, the fact that Jane was shaking her head so did not inspire confidence.

“It’s the only way to be sure. If you’re a half-breed, it’s not like we can go into the lab and look at your blood. Half-breeds are different.”

Manny glanced around at all of them: the king, Vishous, Jane . . . and the guy who might be a half brother. Christ, maybe this was why he felt so differently about Payne—from the second he saw her, it was like . . . a part of him woke up.

Maybe it explained his hot-blooded temper, too.

And after a lifetime of wondering about his father and his roots, he thought . . . he could find out the truth now.

Except as they stared back at him, he remembered heading into the hospital the week before and thinking it was morning only to find out it was night. And then the shit with Payne and his body changing came to mind.

“You know what?” he said. “I think I’m good.”

When Jane nodded as if she agreed with him, he was sure he was on the right train.

Besides, they were getting distracted from the real issue.

“Payne is going to come back, someway, somehow,” he said. “And I’m not sucking on a loaded gun right before I see her again—even if it means the difference between belonging in this world or not. I know who my father is—and I’m fucking looking at his reflection right now standing across from me. That’s as far as I need to go—unless Payne feels differently.”

God . . . his mother, he thought abruptly. Had she known?

As Vishous crossed his arms over his chest, Manny braced himself for an arguement.

“I like your white ass,” the guy said instead. “I really do.”

Considering what the bastard had walked in on not so long ago, this was a surprise. But he’d take it. “Okay, we agree. My woman wants it—I’ll do it. But otherwise, I’m good with who I am.”

“Fair enough,” Wrath pronounced.

At that point, there was nothing but silence. Although what was there to say? The reality of where Payne was—and was not—hung around everyone’s neck.

Manny had never felt so powerless in his life.

“’Scuse me,” his semi-brother said, “I need another drink.”

As Butch peeled off and went into the other room, Manny watched him disappear through an elaborate archway. “You know, I’ll second that on the hooch.”

“My house is yours,” the king said darkly. “Bar’s that way.”

Fighting back an odd urge to bow, Manny nodded instead. “Thanks, man.” When knuckles were presented, he tapped them and then gave Jane and her husband a nod.

The room he walked into was like the best horse racing hospitality suite anyone had ever seen. Hell, they even had a popcorn machine.

“More Lag?” the guy muttered from across the way.

Manny pivoted and found himself measuring one fuck of a bar. “Yeah. Please.”

He brought his glass over, and gave it to the man. And when the sound of Scotch splashing seemed loud as a scream, he wandered up to a sound system that could probably be used to play Madison Square Garden.

Pushing the buttons, he called up a mix of . . . gangsta rap.

Quick shift and he was into the high-def radio, on a search for the metal station. As Slipknot’s “Dead Memories” started banging, he took a deep breath.

Nightfall. He was just waiting for nightfall.

“Here,” the cop said, delivering the liquor. With a grimace, he nodded to one of the speakers. “You like that shit?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s one way we ain’t related.”

Payne’s twin put his head into the room. “What the hell is that
noise
?” Like someone had decided to speak in tongues. Or maybe bust out some Justin Bieber.

Manny just shook his head. “It’s music.”

“Only if you say so.”

Manny rolled his eyes and retreated into a very dark, dangerous place in his mind. The reality that there was nothing he could do for his woman at the moment made him want to hurt something. And the fact that it appeared he had some vampire in him was exactly the kind of revelation he did not need on a day like today.

God, he felt like death.

“Pool, anyone?” he said numbly.

“Fuck, yeah.”

“Absolutely.”

Jane stepped in and gave him a quick hug. “Count me in.”

Guess he wasn’t the only one desperate for a distraction.

FIFTY-FIVE

A
s Payne sat on something padded with her hands in her lap, she surmised that she was in a car because the subtle vibrating sensation was similar to what she had felt when she had traveled beside Manuel in his Porsche. She could not visually confirm such, however, because just as the Bloodletter’s soldier had promised, she was blindfolded. The scent of the male in charge was beside her, however; although he was frozen in place, so someone else had to be piloting the vehicle.

Naught had happened to her in the intervening hours betwixt their confrontation and this ride now: She had passed the daylight time sitting on the leader’s bed, knees tucked in against her chest, both of the guns next to her on the rough blanket. No one had bothered her, however, so after a while she’d stopped prickling at each noise from above and relaxed some.

Thoughts of Manuel had soon commanded the majority of her attention, and she had played and replayed scenes from their tooshort time together until her heart ached from the agony. Before she’d known it, though, the leader came back down to her and asked her if she required a repast before they left.

No, she hadn’t wanted to eat.

Thereafter, he had blindfolded her with a pristine white cloth—one so clean and lovely that it made her wonder where he had come up with it. And then he took her elbow in a firm grip and led her slowly up the stairs he had carried her down previously.

It was hard to know exactly how long they had been in the car. Twenty minutes? Maybe a half hour?

“Here,” the leader said eventually.

Upon his command, whatever they were in slowed, then stopped, and a door was unlatched. As fresh, cool air wafted in, her elbow was taken once again and she was steadied as she stepped out. The door shut and there was a bang—as if a fist had been knocked on a part of the vehicle.