Chapter Seven

Topside: somewhere in San Diego, same night, close to midnight, Pacific time

Thomal breathed heavily through roundednostrils, his teeth gnashed around the gag in his mouth. He probably should've been scared shitless, considering he was chained to a chair in a seedy downtown hotel room, and the Topside Om R?u ass-can who was in the room with him looked like he planned to do some serious tap dancing on his balls. But he could only muster pissed-out-of-his-skull. A slanting glance at Arc, similarly bound to a chair next to his, confirmed his brother was in an identical foul state. It didn't help either of their moods that they'd landed in this goatfuck by seriously screwing up.

We're only talking a few questions, right? had been the absolute wrong attitude to take. Thomal had been way too chill about this mission, which had left him unprepared to find that lip-scarred Om R?u lunatic, Videon, already at Ria Mendoza's house. Yeah, go figure. A B?taie Blade had been used during the crime against Ria's sister, so, surprise-surprise, an Om R?u had been at her house. Fuck me…

Videon had opened the door with a Taser gun already pointed and ready to deploy.

Thomal and Arc had proceeded to stand in place like a couple of dickless wonders and let the Om R?u take them out with about as much effort as shooting fish in a barrel. After that, they'd been tied up and transported to this shithole of a hotel room, then for some reason, handed over to Murk. Maybe Videon's schedule was too full of ripping the wings of butterflies and skinning live cats for him to waste time River Dancing on the balls of a couple of dickless wonder Varcolac. Maybe Videon knew how much Murk hated Arc—Arc had viciously broken Murk's hand about nine months ago—and so he'd done Murk a solid.

As far as hate went, the feeling was way fucking mutual on Arc's end.

The hand-breaking incident had been in retaliation for Murk shooting Arc: a little disservice that had made it impossible for Arc to save Thomal—and his own self, for that matter—from a four-story fall down to some nasty pavement kissage.

All in all, as far as hate went, Thomal and Murk had their own baggage. On the night of Toni's kidnapping at Scripps Hospital, Thomal had stabbed Murk in the neck with a pair of medical scissors. So Thomal would probably have his own turn at the table for whatever Murk was dishing.

Blah, blah, blah. Bottom line was: tonight was going to be filled with some major hurt. Kind of might've been better if the community hadn't released Murk back when they'd had the Om R?u in their custody. But Murk was Toni and Alex's half-brother, and that had clearly colored the decision.

Murk moved to loom over Arc. "Time to duff you up now, vamp. Figure bouncin' you off every wall in this room will be a good place to begin." He ripped Arc's gag out of his mouth. "You think?"

"Yeah, sounds good." Arc smiled. His fangs weren't fully elongated, but still nice and pointy. "Unshackle me, little man, and we'll get our game on."

Murk chuckled, a dark noise deep in his chest that—

The hotel door swung open and a woman strode inside with a couple of Laurel and Hardy lowlifes: one tall and skinny, the other short and fat.

Thomal's attention snapped into extra-sharp focus. Something was…very wrong about her.

She was dressed raunchy as a two-dollar crack whore, her body squeezed into a short leather skirt so tight it molded the mound of her mons, and her tits were hiked nearly to her chin by a bright red satin snap-up lingerie-thing resembling an old-time corset. And, of course, no sleazy outfit would be complete without a pair of red stiletto fuck-me pumps. But more than the sleaze-factor, the weird thing was that she didn't look entirely real.

Thomal had spent his whole life around stunning women, but this chick went so far beyond striking that there wasn't even a word for her. Thick golden hair fell in a gleaming cascade down her back, her face was artful perfection with its thin nose, flawlessly molded cheekbones, and erotically lush mouth, and she had the most killer body he'd ever seen on a female, athletic and muscular along her set shoulders, tight abs, and long legs, yet also soft and rounded in womanly places, her hips slightly flared and her breasts full. The most wrong part about her, though, were her eyes. They were exceptionally black, even for an Om R?u, and very flat, as if the woman was dead inside.

Thomal fought back an involuntary tightening in his throat. Can you say "bad to worse," anyone?

"Bloody buggers," Murk ground out. "How did you find me, Pandra?"

"Having a bit of a razzle here, are you, Murk?" The slut called Pandra slicked a cigarette out of her purse. "Very unsporting of you, love, not to invite me along." She set the cigarette between her lips and gave Murk a hard stare.

"I've got shite I'm wantin' to work out with this bloke." Murk cut a gesture at Arc. "So bog off."

Pandra lit her cigarette, squinting at Murk through the coil of rising smoke. "I can help you with your endeavors, brother dear."

"I don't want your soddin' help."

Pandra tutted. "How cheeky. I let you come out to play with me when you wanted to, and this is the bleeding thanks I get? But no bother. I'm in the mood to fight you for him, so we're brill."

Murk's black eyes held Pandra's for a long moment.

The taller of Pandra's two lowlifes sniggered.

Pandra sniffed. "I owe you a good pasting, after all."

Thomal exchanged a quick glance with Arc. What the hell is going on?

With a low, hissed curse, Murk shook his head. "You're a prize hatstand these days, you know that? Would you just talk to Raymond, for fucksake, and save us all the rest of your spleen. It's been two weeks."

Pandra jetted out a lungful of smoke. "Raymond doesn't fancy talking to me, and I can't say I care for the same." She gestured at Arc, her cigarette trailing a ghostly tail of smoke. "So are you going to let me help with this bloke or will you and I be having arms?"

Murk sneered. "Well, I don't know, ducky. I suppose that depends on what you plan on doing to the chap."

"Why, I plan on fucking him, Murk."

Murk froze.

Thomal froze, too.

In fact, every man in the room had gone extremely motionless.

"That's shite," Murk accused, his tone suspicious. "You're havin' a laugh."

"Am I?" Pandra stabbed out her cigarette in the nightstand ashtray, then began to unsnap her corset-thing, snick, snick, snick.

Murk's eyebrows lifted as she flung her top aside.

Pandra unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, exposing a warped mess of black flame tattoos on her belly cut through with a bumpy red scar.

Her lowlifes' jaws came unhinged nearly in unison.

She was wearing a naughty black-and-turquoise bra and panty set, and was even hotter than Thomal had originally thought, supple and nubile as a she-cat. Obviously, she was also dead serious about her plans to bang Arc. Thomal's pulse kicked into a higher gear. From the side of his vision, he saw Arc's cheekbones grow hard and prominent against his skin.

Pandra started for Arc, and Thomal's upper lip lifted around his gag.

"'Allo there, my good man." Pandra placed a hand on the back of Arc's chair and leaned toward him.

Arc's nostrils flinched at the same moment Thomal's did.

She reeked of that disgusting corrosive smell, like battery acid or brake fluid, which was particular to Topside Om R?u, whose immortality rings made their blood acid.

Without warning, Pandra punched Arc in the gut.

Exhaling a blast of oxygen, Arc toppled out of his chair and crashed to the floor, his chain bindings clanking together.

Thomal gnashed a string of curses around his gag. What the hell was up with this half-R?u bitch? His brother had never been taken to the mat with only one hit before.

Pandra grabbed a fistful of Arc's shirt and ripped it off his body.

"Shit the bed!" Murk exclaimed. "Look at that dragon on his back."

"Shift your arse, Murk," Pandra commanded. "Hold the bloke good for me. I need to get his trousers off."

Blood roared into Thomal's ears as Murk stomped over and hauled Arc to his feet, bear-hugging him tightly against his body.

Pandra reached for the zipper on Arc's jeans.

Snarling and snapping, Arc kicked out and arched his body, shoving Murk backward a couple of paces.

"Jesus wept," Pandra hissed.

"Well, he's bastarding strong, Pandra," Murk gritted, struggling to push Arc back toward her.

Sweat ran down Thomal's cheeks as he strained at his chains.

Pandra grabbed her purse off the nightstand and took out a length of telephone cord. "Use this." She handed it to Murk. "Be careful not to top him, though, you hear?" She gave Arc a thin smile. "Ready for a second go?" She slammed another punch into Arc's stomach.

Arc folded in half, retching and coughing. In the moment that he was weakened, Murk slipped the cord around Arc's neck and pulled it taut, tugging Arc upright.

Thomal's heart ricocheted into his ribs as his brother's face stained an alarming shade of purple.

"Each of you sit on a leg," Pandra ordered her lowlifes.

The two men scurried over to Arc and grabbed hold.

Pandra reached for Arc's fly again, and before Thomal knew what was happening, his brother's pants were down.

"Now that's a good'un," Pandra murmured, wrapping her hand around Arc's dick.

Acid rushed up Thomal's throat along with a shout, the muscles in his neck spasming as he tried to push the yell past a mouthful of gag and bile. The bones in his wrists throbbed from the fight he was waging with his chains.

A threatening sound erupted from Arc. He managed to drag-step sideways a couple of paces before Murk tightened his hold on the garrote, and the lowlifes put all of their body weight into restraining his legs.

"There, there, be a good laddie." Pandra stroked Arc's shaft, her blood-red fingernails evil-looking against such sensitive flesh.

Murk and the two lowlifes followed the motion of Pandra's hand, mesmerized.

Another sound boiled out of Arc, nastier than the last.

Pandra quickened her strokes.

Nothing happened.

Murk cracked off a laugh. "The git's got a lazy lob."

Pandra glanced up sharply. "Ease back, Murk. The chap can hardly get a stalk when he can't fecking breathe." She slid her hand over Arc again, up and down, tip to root and back again.

Bile burned Thomal's throat and nose. Sweat soaked his shirt. He flexed and released his fingers. If he concentrated hard enough, maybe he could make his hands small enough to slip through.

Air rushed in and out of Arc's closed teeth, his chest expanding and contracting, his face sopping with sweat, worse than Thomal's. Still no lift-off.

"Well, fuck me backward," Murk said in a snarky tone. "It appears the almighty Pandra has lost her touch."

"Not effing likely." Pandra stepped back and studied Arc. After a moment, she made a noise of understanding and crossed to her purse, this time pulling out a comb. No…sch-nick. A knife punched out of the top of the handle. It was a switchblade. She waved off her lowlifes. "Chivvy along, lads. What I have to do now isn't for your ruddy perving."

"That's not fair," the tall lowlife whined.

Pandra's fist flashed out so fast, Thomal barely saw it. A solid thwack announced knuckles meeting flesh, and then the complainer was lying flat on his back, lids closed and mouth flabby. Not doing a whole lot of moving.

"Get him out of here," she told the short one.

The guy's lips quavered. "I can't carry Duane."

Pandra's chin edged down. "Move him or join him, Bo Bo."

Somehow the short lowlife managed to grunt-drag the taller one outside. The door shut, and Arc's rapid breathing filled the hotel room. The whites of his eyes showed as he craned to keep his gaze on Pandra and her knife.

"So what're you about, Pandra?" Murk asked, his attention also on the switchblade. "I thought you didn't want to snuff the wanker."

"I'm going to make the vamp pop his fangs." She flipped the blade into her other hand. "I couldn't do that in front of my lads, could I?"

Murk frowned. "Why the hell are you goin' to do that?"

"He's Varcolac, durbrain," she said in the impatient tone of someone dealing with an especially stupid stupid person. "He likely needs the scent of blood to get a knob on, you ken?" She pulled off her immortality ring and set it on the nightstand, then slashed the switchblade across her finger. A line of red blood pebbled to the surface of her skin.

Thomal's nostrils twitched.

Pandra moved toward Arc, her strides lithe and feline, her black eyes glittering with feral intensity.

Arc thrashed against Murk again, but with that cord around Arc's neck and his hands and feet bound in chains, he couldn't do much of anything to free himself.

Murk tightened his grip, and Arc jerked and wheezed.

Pandra swiped a finger across Arc's upper lip, smearing the area under his nose with her blood.

Arc let out a short howl.

Thomal's bones rattled from it and he pressed his eyes closed briefly, feeling his brother's pain. The blood of anyone but Beth, Arc's bonded mate, would smell utterly wrong.

Pandra made a noise of satisfaction. "Ah, there're your wicked ivories. Let's see how your plonker does now, shall we?" Pandra dropped to her knees at Arc's feet.

Thomal exhaled through his nostrils in abject shock when Pandra grabbed Arc's cock in her hand and swallowed the head of it between her red lips. Sweat streamed through Thomal's lashes. No. This isn't happening. A loud buzz droned through his brain, trying to shut down functions. He could do no more than stare, his teeth rhythmically chewing his cloth gag as Pandra rode down Arc's shaft, taking him deep into her throat, then pulled slowly back off his length, her mouth wrapping him in a tight grip. She paused at the satiny cap to work it with several quick, hard sucks.

Arc's dick went rock-hard.

Murk grunted.

"There's ol' Percy," Pandra said, a note of triumph in her tone.

The muscles in Thomal's crotch tautened. He started to tremble, from boots to scalp; he couldn't stop the body-quakes.

Pandra licked a circle around the rim of Arc's cock with her tongue, and a sound echoed through the room, horrible and raw, the kind of noise an animal might make when it was being slaughtered.

His brother.

Panic sent Thomal staggering to his feet. He yelled, bit the ragged gag in two, and yelled again. "Stop it! For shit's sake, stop, you're killing him!"

Pandra turned her head towards Thomal, her eyes dark and blank. "Nobody ever died from getting gobbled, love."

"You don't understand." He huffed the words out, never so close to losing it as he was right then. "You don't know how it is with Varcolac. He's married, bonded to his wife, which means that every instinct inside him will fight against being with another woman. Look, he's bleeding from his ears—just look!"

Pandra rose to her feet and peered at the side of Arc's head, where, see that, you little whore, blood had pooled in the cup of Arc's ear. His eyes were also narrow and glazed, his breathing erratic.

"You don't want to kill him," Thomal went on hoarsely. "I heard you say that."

Pandra jerked her head around, her brow darkening.

"But if you keep messing with him, he'll fucking implode, I swear it."

She crossed her arms beneath her black-and-turquoise hooker bra. "We're in a bit of a spot, then, chum, because I'm not ready for this bash to come to an end."

Thomal lurched forward a step. "Then take me."