Chapter 8

CHAPTER

EIGHT

The door was hidden behind the curtain just like Salem had said.

I guessed whoever they hired to turn this place into a gothic haven thought that exposed bricks weren’t black and edgy enough, so their solution was to hang thick slabs of velvet across the walls. Tugging on the curtains and fishing out the opening did break the immersion of the kinky crypt, and the plain, brown wooden door with a faded “employees only” sticker across it was a mood killer. They could have at least sprung to paint the damn door or get a bat-shaped sticker or something. A little effort goes a long way, guys.

While the ugly door wasn’t worthwhile enough to paint, they did spring for a keypad lock to keep nosy people from trying to get inside. The thumping, electric bass of the music warped into a dramatic flair, killing any chance I had to try and listen for any life inside the locked room. There was no telling if Marthas had someone inside guarding his treasures or not, but knowing him, he’d be paranoid enough to keep someone close by.

I was going to need to move fast, in and out, and neutralize anyone who was in my way. How the hell I was going to casually meander out of the club carrying the stolen goods was the part of the plan I hadn’t figured out yet, but I was decently sure I could muster something when the time came. The first piece of the puzzle was figuring out the combination of the lock in front of me, or hoping like hell the very expensive lock picking tools I had bought would be able to crack it open for me.

Out of base, lizard-brain instinct I gave the handle a jiggle to see if maybe luck was on my side.

Turns out, it was.

But not the good kind.

The doorknob caved immediately, the keypad never beeping or acknowledging my existence. It was unlocked. No alarm set.

Not good. Red flags. Tons of red flags.

Marthas was a paranoid bastard with the same amount of business sense as he did a mean streak, so having his back office casually unlocked was a huge fucking deal. My heart started demanding to leave through my ribcage as I eased my gun from the hidden holster, inching the door open just enough to peek inside. The room was lit by a standing lamp near the entrance, a dated, pattern carpet stretching out in awful zigzags. I ducked low and eased the door open more, keeping my body to the side of the door in case someone tried to shoot at the uninvited guest.

I waited a few beats, hopeful I wasn’t going to be shot dead as I budged the door open enough to peek fully inside. A short hallway ended at another door labeled “office,” neighboring a private bathroom that was dark inside. I eased in, closing the door behind me and locking it.

A lazy camera flirted above the office door with a lazy red wink, alerting me that my movements were being watched. Shadows moved under the bottom of the office door, and I kept close to the ground as I darted over to confirm the bathroom was unoccupied. There was a chance that whoever was inside knew I was there from the camera, and I was praying to whatever god wanted me that it wasn’t Marthas.

That guy was huge, and like previously stated, mean as hell.

I had the fabulous displeasure of seeing what he did to guys who got on his bad side, and it usually ended with pliers, hot pokers going in no-no areas and teeth being extracted in less than friendly ways. Dude was cruel, and very thorough.

Plus, you know.

The whole…banging his boyfriend behind his back in his own club…thing.

Total misunderstanding, but there was no talking Marthas of the Broken Horns down when he was that level of murder.

This could be a trap. This could be a huge setup that I was merrily barging into.

But I had made it this far, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to flee now. Those artifacts were mine and I had stolen them fair and square. If anyone was going to get rich off them, it would be yours truly.

I crept, low and steady, inching to the office door to try and listen in. The bass of the club rumbled the soles of my shoes, but was far enough away to allow me to get a baseline on the activity inside. Footsteps moved around the office slowly, either unbothered or unaware of my presence. One of those scenarios was great. The other, not so much. They sounded heavy, someone formidable, and I exhaled the nerves tightening around my lungs.

This was going to suck.

My fingers touched the device around my neck, checking the button was still set to “off.” Zane didn’t know yet, and I was alright with that. I could handle myself, but knowing I had a Thrall in my back pocket did help bolster my resolve. If shit went sideways, I could flip the switch and have him come running.

Hopefully he wasn’t too deep into his activities. Though it would be kinda hilarious to make him do a mad dash to find me with his pants around his ankles. That would serve him right for being a cute goth boy magnet. Stupid walking corpse and his pretty vampire hair.

It was time to commit, to rush headfirst into something dangerous and terrifying and hope like hell I’d come out the other side. I lived for these encounters, these life-or-death moments that reminded me that I was, in fact, still very much alive. My heart thundered, my temples pounded, and my drive to keep clinging to this strange, terrible existence punctuated with bursts of euphoria drove me to swing the office door open and aim my gun in the face of whoever was inside.

A large back was to me, hunched over a desk he was in the middle of rifling through, and I breathed out in relief that it wasn’t Marthas.

“Hands up, handsome,” I said to the stranger. “You move too fast and I’ll drop you.”

The guy froze, the muscles in his shoulders bunched under the shirt that stretched across them. The lack of horns narrowed him down to either human or jinn, and I had a cold realization wash over me that I didn’t have my magical charm in my pocket. If this guy was jinn and wanted to wield some influence magic at me, I was going to be in for a ride.

“Hands,” I reminded him. “I’m known for my aim, not my patience.”

Reluctance rippled over him as he lifted his hands, his spine slowly uncurling from his perch. He wore a plain black shirt and jeans, but I could see the outline of his gun at his ankle and knife in his back pocket. His hair was cropped short, a deep, rusty brown color that most people had to dye to achieve. His skin was a light brown, almost golden, and I appreciated how nice it looked in the soft lighting.

If I wasn’t pointing a gun at him or in the market to steal from his possible employer, I might have asked for his number.

“I mean this in the most non-sexual way: get on your knees. You move too fast and I’m going to?—”

“Risk firing a gun in a crowded club? I know you’re not that stupid.”

His voice curdled in my stomach.

Sour, rotten, terrible nostalgia diseased my heart, stealing my breath away so completely I had to gasp to restart my lungs.

He turned, hands still raised, glaring at me with a decade of hate and betrayal; the same look I had tried to desperately drown through years of chemical ecstasy.

Nothing had changed. He was bigger now—we both were—but he looked exactly how he did the night I turned my back on the family.

Austin still hated my fucking guts.

And it still broke my heart.

“Austin.” I adjusted my grip around my weapon. “You’re looking tall.”

“You’re not.” He gave me a slow once-over. “I told you those gross, cheese puff things you ate as a kid would stunt your growth.”

“Hey. I’m a solid five-ten. That’s average for a human,” I defended a little too enthusiastically. “Plus, I like dudes being taller than me. It makes me feel cute.”

“Makes you look punt-able.”

“If memory serves me right, I won most of our grappling matches in practice.” I glanced quickly behind him to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding behind the desk. “I’m nimble, like a cheetah.”

“I was really hoping these years would have made you less chatty, Wilde,” Austin sighed. “You gonna shoot me or just talk me to death?”

“I can do both things.” I drew the hammer back on my weapon. “Let’s start with the basics. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Testing out my new bondage gear,” he said with the arid sarcasm from my childhood. “What the fuck you think I’m doing here?”

“You’re here for Marthas?” I narrowed my eyes when he didn’t respond. “He isn’t involved in vampire shit, and sure as hell doesn’t mess with necromancers. He’s a thug, a gun seller, and drug runner. Nothing that the Saint’s Army would care about.”

Austin bristled with annoyance, his frown set so deep in his features that it aged him by ten years.

“Then your boss has done a phenomenal job keeping secrets from you, Wilde.”

“ Boss? ” I barked a laugh that was more in line with a clown horn honk. “Marthas hates me.”

“Smart man,” he said with a tone so arctic it made me shiver. “I have strict orders that if you get in my way, I should deal with you however I see fit.”

“Are we still talking about your new bondage gear?” I tried to shake him, but he deflected it with the ease of a fellow smart-ass.

“Sure. I’ll let you try out the clamp that goes on your balls. The safe word is ‘backstabbing asshole who I loved like a brother.’”

“Kinda wordy.”

“I’m done fucking around, Wilde,” he hissed, anger starting to break through. “I don’t have time for your bullshit and I’m not here to reconnect with you.”

I adjusted my fingers to keep them from shaking, the tips had gone wet and cold.

“You’re here looking for the artifacts, aren’t you?” When he didn’t respond, I knew I was right. “What do you want with them? Why does Magnus want them?”

“Your fingers are shaking, Wilde.”

“Can we stop with this alpha bullshit, Austin?”

The hate fueling him curled his lip into a vicious snarl. It took a cheap shot at my heart.

“No, we’re not doing that,” he snapped. “We’re not on a chummy, first name basis, Wilde. We’re not family anymore.”

“I get it, you hate me. Join the club. Everyone hates me.” I steeled my grip and took a step to the right, glancing at the upturned office behind his large frame. “From the looks of this place, you came up short. And I’m also guessing you were the human that took out the imp at the warehouse.”

“If you tell me where Marthas has them, I’ll give you a quick death,” Austin promised, failing to reel in the malice in the offer. “Far better than you deserve.”

“I’m not about to hand over any information to you without knowing why the Saint’s Army wants some old relics stolen from a dead jinn’s place. If you guys want them, that means they’re not just expensive shit to sell. They’re important. Why?”

“Last chance, Wilde.” Austin rolled his head from side to side, three quick pops ran along his spine. “Keep being defiant, and I’ll happily remind you who actually won those grapples.”

I exhaled the nerves I felt inching up my chest, my stomach alive with terror worms wiggling around in harmony with my thundering heartbeat. I rolled the dice, hoping that there was some small part of him that was still the boy I knew before I fucked everything up.

I really wanted Austin to not hate me so much that he couldn’t remember a time when we were brothers. I had to believe that was true.

My gun’s clip slid free, the bullet in the chamber ejected, and I disarmed my weapon before tossing it aside. I mirrored how he held his palms; I showed him surrender.

“Cards on the table,” I told him, my former best friend. “I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t work with Marthas. I’m the one who stole those artifacts in the first place. I know they’re supposed to be relics of the Gods. If they’re really…godly or whatever…I can help you.”

Austin’s jaw ticked, his hands dropping to his sides. He didn’t give an inch in his hatred, his eyes burned like hazel coals.

In that moment of withering under his stare, feeling small and horrible, I could smell the wood fire smoke of my deception, follow the embers dancing in the night sky. Witnessing the hurt in my brother’s eyes, I could see the plumes of smoke rising from the structure that had been my phoenix nest.

They had trusted me.

Loved me.

And I had burned it all away.

If I had any strength in me, any humanity left, I would have told him how sorry I was, how much he had meant to me, how badly I missed everyone.

“Please,” I managed. “Let me help.”

It was too much to ask. The bridge was so burned it was in cinders, my plea throwing the ashes in his face.

Austin moved with all the rage and hurt from that night, fermented over a decade of silence and resentment.

It wasn’t until his fists were curled into my shirt did I have the unfortunate realization that the drugs had kicked in.

Salem hadn’t been lying when she said you would feel everything at an eleven, because I felt every inch of the desk he threw me over. My shoulder screamed when I landed on it, paper and pens clamoring beside me in a storm of office supplies. While my brain chemicals were dumping endorphins in the wrong direction, I had the passing thought that the carpet felt plush under my palms as I tried to push myself up. It was a silver lining in the absolute ass kicking I was about to receive.

Austin rounded the desk as a totally sober, pissed-off, highly trained fighter with all the right in the world to take his frustrations out on me. But I couldn’t let him kill me. Not yet. I had so much shit to do, and I couldn’t trust Zane to keep Twig away from Kevin. I was not going to be responsible for a kitten’s death, even if her would-be murderer was a very cute betta fish.

I was hauled to my feet by the back of my shirt and spun around to face him, his fist cocked back to knock my jaw off.

Here’s the thing about Austin: he’s what I would refer to as a “bruiser.” He hits like a freight train and doesn’t expect anyone to get back up afterward—and rightly so, because they usually don’t. Getting socked in the face by this guy would be lights out, even if you’re experienced in getting smacked by large guys who are often very angry at you.

If I were to throw a punch, it would tickle him.

So, I had to go with something a little spicier.

The coffee mug I scooped off the desk shattered into dust when I cracked it across his skull, giving me just enough wiggle room to roll away with my jaw still attached. It was painfully obvious that he had kept up with his training more than I had, because he tackled me before I got halfway across the room. Normally, feeling a guy his size on top of me was fantastic, but it was less fun when he started beating on my kidneys.

His fists were like bricks, solid and unforgiving. The blast of pain from his assaults made me scream. My body was on fire with chemically-induced nerve ending overload, bypassing the lovely safety measures of going numb when the pain got a little too intense. His weight crushed me, the carpet smelled like old beer and cigarettes, and I was fairly certain in that moment that my left kidney was about to divorce me.

My world spun in a halo of desk lamps and pain as Austin forced me onto my back, his knee pinning my right elbow to the gross—but still so soft —carpet. My instincts were on overdrive, my left hand reaching to try and take out his eyes or at minimum knock some hesitation into him.

He was cruel to go for my throat, he knew what it would do to me, and he was right. The moment I felt his grip tighten, I panicked. I went from tactical training to raw terror, my free hand slapping and grabbing at his arm.

Austin hated me so much. So much. The anger in his eyes made me weak, left me stupid and fragile. He loomed over me, his face red from strain and bitter hatred.

It gutted me to see tears in his eyes.

It was too much. It was too damn much.

I tried to navigate around my fear, around the terrible panic that drove my movements. I tried so, so hard to tell him how sorry I was.

Austin’s knife flashed its blade with a flick of his wrist, the concealing handle folding away with the mechanical dance. The tip stung as it bit through my shirt and into the meat of my chest, only a few inches more and I would be back in the void, only this time I could finally commit to settling down there. It was my one-way ticket, the end of my shitty saga of heartbreak, loneliness, loss, and hurt—with side stories of betta fish and epic sex.

The Tale of Dallas Wilde: He Was a Real Piece of Shit. Foreword by Kevin.

Austin’s throat bobbed, his hand shook as he strangled me. I watched a tear slide down his nose, and I prayed like hell he’d kill me before I saw him cry.

Death didn’t come for me like I had imagined. Instead, he materialized as a large, pale, snarling man with red eyes and hair he was trying to grow out.

Austin’s face lifted in shock as Zane pulled him off me with such power and ferocity that he didn’t have time to react. My vision swam as blood rushed back to my brain, my lungs kicking into full speed as I vacuumed air into them. Zane had tucked his arms under Austin’s, pushing them up so he couldn’t do anything other than flail them in defiance.

A flash of fear ripped across Austin’s features as Zane gripped his hair and shoved his head to the side, neck exposed to the fangs of a raging Thrall.

Zane bared his teeth, opened his mouth, and his eyes blazed like the fires of hell.

“No!” My words ripped from my throat like sandpaper, my throat as raw as my chest.

Zane hesitated, the flames in his eyes dying. Austin didn’t waste the opportunity. It was a simple yet effective move, the full body weight of the stomp on Zane’s foot made him yell in pain, his grip failing enough to give Austin his opening to escape. The trained Saint’s Army soldier spun and sank his knife deep in Zane’s chest, the force knocking him back into the disheveled desk.

For a heartbeat I was sure he was going to rip the damn thing out and do the same to me, murder me while I lay winded and gasping on the floor. I didn’t have it in me to fight.

I didn’t know what to do when he ran.

I watched Austin bolt out of the office in a flash, the chaos dying without so much as a “fuck you” on the way out.

I didn’t know how long I stared at the office door that hung open, the distant club music thumping away in blissful obliviousness of the madness just beyond the walls.

“This is why I said that fucking device was a bad idea,” Zane was raging, pulling the knife from his chest with a pained hiss. His blood was black and thick, corpse blood instead of vibrant crimson.

It hit me like an acid wave of horror that the blade in his hand could have very easily been blessed, that it could have disintegrated him into nothing. It made me sick. It made me feel cold and nauseous.

“Are you okay?” I heard myself ask. I didn’t feel present, more like a passenger in a sinking car.

“I just got a knife in the chest so, no, I’m not okay .” The blade hit the ground with a tumbling rattle, and I felt my heart go with it. “Who the hell was that?”

It was a valid question. He had every right to ask who it was that had almost killed me, who’d pushed a few inches of metal into his chest. I would have asked the same thing, probably more forcefully and just as annoyed.

But that question was the final push for me, and I did something I had never done in front of another person before.

Especially not a vampire Thrall.

I started crying.

My world melted into liquid, my chest seized with strangling sobs. The pressure of repressed, unpracticed crying made my head start to pound, my body not used to the ejection of emotions quite like this. In a feeble attempt to hide the evidence of my misery, I covered my face with my palms and bit my lip hard enough to sting, failing hilariously to stifle the process.

Zane didn’t have a follow up question, which meant the room was now silent except for my rough, raw gasps of pure despair. Eventually even my pathetic attempts to keep my noise to a minimum slipped, and I let out a few real, gut-wrenching sobs that were too strong to be contained.

I didn’t know how long I lay on Marthas’s office floor crying my damn eyes out. It felt like an eternity, and my body felt like I had been wrung out and thrown into a ditch by the time I got my hiccupping tears under control. My palms were slick with tears as I scrubbed my face, my lip sore from where I had bit it, and my chest stuttered like an engine that wouldn’t turn over.

Zane had sat beside me at some point, his hip almost touching mine, keeping watch in case someone walked through the door. I appreciated his silence as I heaved myself upright, my brain sloshing behind swollen eyes. Had a devil appeared in that moment and offered me an ice pack in exchange for my soul, I would have taken the deal. I did my best to will the aches into submission, to try and dull the overwhelming pulse of emotions that thumped through my bloodstream, but it was like fighting gravity.

I lied to myself that the breakdown had been because of the drugs. Sure, maybe it had pushed me into being a touch sensitive about confronting my past, but there was no denying that this emotional breakdown had been a long time coming. At some point, even through years of thorough denial and mentally burying everything, your mistakes and trauma come out somehow.

Mine was in my trail of bad relationships and a breakdown in a gang leaders office in front of a vampire.

No big deal.

I inhaled some mucus back into my nose and forced my eyes open. The carpet didn’t feel soft under my hands anymore.

“This day sucks,” I announced.

Zane grunted in agreement, only daring to glance my way after I took a full, albeit shaky, breath.

“I know you’re going to think I’m teasing you, or trying to be a jerk, but I’m not. I mean this authentically, and without any judgment. Alright?”

I nodded that I understood, keeping my words limited so I didn’t fall back into the cycle of sobs again.

Zane asked simply, with no hint of malice or his regular arid, vampire attitude, “Do you want a hug?”

The very loud and confident facets of my personality voted to retaliate in various versions of “fuck off” or to punch him for even offering. How dare this undead asshole pitch something like that to me, a professional vampire hunter, a killer of the damned, slayer of necromancers and overall badass. I didn’t need pity, especially not from him.

I wasn’t feeling very loud and confident in that moment. In that moment, the professional vampire hunter, killer of the damned, slayer of necromancers and overall badass needed a hug.

I nodded, or more, I jerked my chin down in a weak agreement to the offer.

For a dead guy who was the constant source of migraines, Zane didn’t half-ass his hugs. He pulled me close like I was someone who mattered to him, both arms around me so that one hand squeezed my shoulder. While he was cold to the touch, the embrace was warm with sincerity. Zane tucked his head against mine, making a point to angle himself so that his mouth was nowhere near my neck.

That simple gesture meant the world to me.

Since we were already crossing some boundaries, I decided to just lean into the damn moment and accept the hug for all it was worth. I couldn’t remember the last time I just hugged someone like this, a true, base connection of comfort and safety. Zane was solid when I wrapped my arms around his torso and pressed my forehead into his shoulder, holding on in hopes the ache in my chest would subside.

It was too much to face in one day. Seeing Austin had been a decade of festering guilt and shame body slamming into me all at once. I was beyond relieved to feel the emotional blocker still hanging from my neck, smooshed between myself and the vampire Thrall I guess I didn’t hate completely anymore.

I kinda liked that he smelled like old flowers. This close, I could make out the more subtle notes of rose and deep, cold earth; the kind of wet soil after a rainstorm. His hair was softer than I had imagined it, the tips tickled my skin.

Zane adjusted his arms around me as I clung to him, his hand drifting up to rest at the base of my skull. His fingers were icy as they slipped through my hair, encouraging me to rest my head and relax. A shiver of guilt stabbed at me knowing that it was my fault he was so corpsy lately, because I didn’t like him drinking my blood. Yet even with him starving and dealing with me crying on the floor, he still cared enough to?—

Cared enough.

Now that is a bitch of a thing to wrap your mind around after an emotional backhand.

Did Zane, the big, mean, beastly vampire Thrall, actually give a tiny bit of a shit about me?

Is that what was happening?

“This day is weird,” I said into his shoulder, wiping my face on his shirt.

“Yeah. Hey—” He eased his hand off my head and snarled down at me. “Are you wiping snot on me?”

“Be nice to me. I’m having a bad day.”

“Get off me.” Zane dropped his arms from around me and examined his shirt, more bothered by my face leakage than the stab wound in his chest. “You’re a damn animal, do you know that?”

“I’ve been told.” I wiped the rest of my tears on my wrists before accepting his outstretched hand. Zane hauled himself up then pulled me to my feet, knocking some debris off his jacket that I was still wearing. I thought for a moment he was checking me for injuries, but he was actually making sure his jacket wasn’t ripped.

That was fair. I did get tossed over a desk and thrown around a bit. I decided him fussing over the borrowed jacket didn’t trump him offering a non-judgmental hug, so I didn’t comment on it being a dick move.

The club wasn’t nearly as interesting or exciting after getting my ass kicked, both in a literal sense as well as emotionally. We weaved through the masses after we made a discreet slip out of the upended office, dodging the happy, drunk people enjoying their night. The cool night air was bliss on the hot skin under my eyes, the crisp sting of the temperature drop lovely on my aching skull. I watched my breath bellow out in a steam of cautious relief, staving off the needling revelation that we had failed in snagging the artifacts, that the Saint’s Army was in the city, and that I still didn’t have an invite to the fucking gala Marthas was going to be at.

There was something warm threading its way through my chest, and I wasn’t sure where to place it within the mix. I still needed to untangle it from the complicated weave of hatred that made up the foundation of my existence, but I didn’t have the energy to yet.

“I guess it’s safe to assume you didn’t get them,” Zane said after Rubber Gloves was far behind us.

“No.” I rubbed the grit from my eyes. “Marthas had already moved the artifacts. We’ll need to get into that gala if we want any chance in obtaining them.”

“Not the artifacts.” Zane cut me a look. “The goth boys.”

I blinked at the cheeky fucker, confused for half a heartbeat before I remembered our bet.

“Fuck you, Zane.”

“You were so confident , hunter,” he teased with an annoying air of superiority. “Did you manage at least one?”

“While you were off getting black lipstick on your dick, I was focusing on the mission,” I spat back.

“Right.” Zane nodded. “How’d that go?”

“I don’t like you,” I decided. “I don’t like you and I did wipe snot on you. Deal with it.”

Despite my declaration that I hated him, his laughing made me grin.

I guess he wasn’t all that bad.