Chapter Seventeen
Down at street level, L.W., a.k.a. Wrath, blooded son of Wrath, the great Blind King, and the Queen Elizabeth, heard a vicious yell and turned in the direction of the sound.
He was two blocks east and north of where he guessed it was coming from, and he might have missed the ugly blaring holler if the wind hadn’t carried the aggression to him.
As he pivoted in the snow, his shitkicker grabbed and squeaked, and the pain that shot out from his hip nearly made him Polo the Marco with a couple curses of his own.
“Fucking humans,” he muttered as he forced himself to keep walking. “Always making noise.”
His body was beat to shit, the injuries racking up in layers and not clearing like they used to. Like he needed them to. And this was even after he’d fed recently.
What a shit show that had been. But he wasn’t thinking about Bitty and what he’d done to her. Not here. Not now.
That’s what the daylight hours were for. Out here in the dark, he was on the clock.
Stalking the base of one of the skyscrapers by the city library, he felt the cold air swirl around him, but was numb to the frigid temperature. He didn’t let the snowbanks slow him down, either. As he came to the Lincoln Street intersection, he up-and-over’d yet another mini-mountain with a jump—
Only to land in the path of an oncoming SUV.
Holy horn blare, Robin.
The driver stomped on the brakes and went into a controlled skid that brought the Range Rover right up to the tips of L.W.’s shitkickers. At which point, the man behind the wheel lost no time rolling his window down and cursing up a fucking blue streak.
L.W. put his hand on the front grille and pushed the entire vehicle back a couple of feet. Then he bared his fangs and snarled.
Cue the oopsies.
“My bad,” the man mumbled as that window went riiiiiiight back up. Then in a muffled voice: “Sorry I was in your way. No problem, good to go.”
Babble, babble, babble.
For a split second, L.W. imagined punching out the safety glass, and grabbing the bastard by the throat. Even as sore as he was, all it would take was a good yank, and he could drag the fucker into the street. At which point they could have a little dance.
His cell phone going off in his pocket cut short that impulse. Which ultimately might—or might not—have been overridden on a cooler-heads-prevailing kind of thing.
This better be the intel I’m looking for, he thought as he saw who it was.
L.W. continued across the intersection as he answered. “What did you find.”
Rhampage, blooded son of the Black Dagger Brother Qhuinn and the Chosen Layla, adopted son of Blaylock, son of Rocke, and the Bastard Xcor, didn’t waste time.
“I don’t have the address.”
L.W. stopped again and glared up at the facade of the Caldwell Public Library. “What do you mean.”
“I can’t find it anywhere,” the fighter snapped. “The Brotherhood hasn’t put the address of where those two torture victims were found in the scene reports.”
“They’ve hidden it on purpose.”
“No shit.” There was a pause. “You sure your father hasn’t said anything about you going out into the field on the low-low? Maybe they hid it from us because they don’t want you going there.”
“My father doesn’t matter in this.”
“Are you fucking serious right now.” There was the hiss of a vape. “We’re one more bright idea away from house arrest, and your dad’s got more than the juice to make that lockdown a reality.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Look, maybe we take a break from our little side hustle. Just until things cool down.”
L.W. bared his fangs again. “Another six civilians get killed and that’s your fucking solution? We back off? Have you seen the pictures of the bodies. Rolhand had his upper lip nailed back to his cheekbones and his fangs pulled out—”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, relax—”
“Have I?” L.W. demanded. “The Brotherhood and the fighters need a bigger presence in the field, not smaller. Lash is a fucking machine making new lessers. We’re running out of time.”
Actually, he was the one running out of eyesight. But he wasn’t bringing that shit up. Like everything that had happened with Bitty, his piss-poor peepers were another no-go zone.
“I want to know where Emile and Rolhand were taken last night,” he gritted out. “And I want to personally find the slayers who hurt all of Shuli’s boys and have some fun with them.”
Rhamp took another hit of his vape and exhaled in a whoosh. “You’re telling me this is for Shuli? For the roommate you hate? I don’t buy that for a second so spare me the Good Samaritan routine. You just want to interrogate lessers—”
“Is that wrong? What, I’m supposed to bandage their fucking boo-boos and send them back to Lash?”
“I don’t think you’re just looking for information when you hurt those undead sonsabitches.”
L.W. curled up both his fists, until the cell phone cut into his palm. “What’s that supposed to mean.”
“I’ve seen your face. You like it. You’re a helluva lot more sadistic than you admit.”
“Fuck you.” As a pair of humans jogging down the library’s steps glanced over at him, he lowered his voice.
“Those were your boys, too, Rhamp. I’m surprised you’re not more fired up—or are you getting afraid.
Did you see those pictures and get rattled, buddy?
Mmm? Worried that’s what’s going to happen to you and it’s making you lose your nerve? ”
Rhamp’s voice grew uneven. “I’ve got Emile’s and Rolhand’s sisters calling my phone and weeping.
I got their cousins asking me how they can go hunting—when they’re aristocrats who wouldn’t know how to hold a gun to save their fucking lives.
I’m not losing anything but patience with your fucking attitude. ”
“Then leave.”
“You know what your problem is—”
“I don’t care what your opinion of me is, and spare me the emotions of others. It’s never been persuasive before, and it’s not starting now.”
“That why you keep asking if I’ve seen Bitty? Because you don’t give a shit about people?”
L.W. growled into the cold breeze. “She’s not my Kryptonite. If that’s why you’re bringing her up—”
“FYI, I know what you said to her, when you showed up half dead at Safe Place. Everybody knows what you said to her when she offered you her vein.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, L.W. bit out, “This conversation is over.”
“You insult her in the single worst way a male could ever insult a female. And then you just walked away from that, right? Suuuuuuuure you did. Never thought of it again. Never, ever thought of her again—”
“Just get the address where they found those two males,” he snapped. “I don’t care how you do it. Oh, and you can go fuck your- self.”
Cutting the connection, it was all L.W. could do to stop from doing some screaming himself.
What kept him from going nuclear on the vocal was the fact that he was on the edge of the field and there were slayers somewhere around him.
And as he glared over at the lion statues that flanked the columned entrance of the library, he was frustrated that he couldn’t go where the best hunting was.
This was an unlikely part of town to find slayers.
It was way too brightly lit, and there were too many humans, even though it was after dark on a cold night.
There was only one thing that the Lessening Society and the Brotherhood agreed on in this war: No one wanted those rats without tails involved.
He needed to be in the shitty part of town, where the drug-house walkups and the abandoned buildings were. Where the CPD Public Safety monitoring system didn’t have cameras everywhere. Where the streetlights were broken, and if there were humans around, they didn’t want trouble.
Where the lessers stalked the streets looking for fighters so they could try to bring a Brother’s head home to their master on a stake.
He’d find slayers there. He always found slayers there.
The problem was, if he ran into a member of the Brotherhood or the Band of Bastards in the high-number avenues of the city? If he crossed paths with one of the fighters?
The complications were going to be historic.
And his father might very well kill him.
Which considering L.W. was supposed to be banned from the schedule for his own safety was just too fucking stupid—
A scent registered and his head craned to the left. The prevailing wind was coming from the south tonight, ushering a not-quite-as-cold kind of frigid winter air, and on the surging currents, the smell of death and baby powder was a welcome stench.
Well, maybe tonight was looking up, after all.
Slipping one of his silver daggers out of the holster on his chest, he doubled back and moved like the predator he was through the shadows.
As his blood hummed with deadly intent and his fangs dropped even lower, he had to admit that Rhamp probably had a point about him getting off on hurting those fucking assholes.
But the guy was wrong about the why. It wasn’t just because it was what he’d been bred to do. And it wasn’t just because he was honestly enraged by the deaths last night.
When he was hurting the enemy, he wasn’t thinking about Bitty.