Lover Mine

TWO

Chronologically speaking, Blaylock son of Rocke had known John Matthew for just over a year.

But that was not a true reflection of the bromance. There were two timelines to people’s lives: the absolute and the perceived. The absolute was the universal day-and-night cycle that for them added up to something like three hundred and sixty-five. Then there was the way that time period had gone, the events, the deaths, the destruction, the training, the fighting.

He figured all told... that pegged the two of them at about four hundred thousand years.

And counting, he thought, looking over at his buddy.

John Matthew was staring at the ink designs on the walls of the tat place, his eyes going over the skulls and daggers and American flags and Chinese symbols. With his size, he absolutely dwarfed the three- room shop—to the point where it was like he came from another planet. In contrast to his pretrans state, the guy now had the muscle mass of a pro wrestler, although because his skeleton was so big, the weight was stretched out on long bones, giving him a more elegant look than those swoll’d up humans in tights. He’d taken to buzz-cutting his dark hair and this made the lines of his face seem harsh rather than handsome—with the dark circles under his eyes giving the hard-ass look some serious backup.

Life had beaten the shit out of him, but instead of folding, each strike and blow had forged him harder and stronger and tougher. He was straight steel now, nothing lingering of the boy he’d once been.

But that was growing up for you. Not only your body changed; your head did, too.

Staring at his friend, the loss of innocence seemed a crime.

And on that note, the receptionist behind the counter caught Blay’s attention. She was leaning on the glass display of piercing supplies, her breasts swelling against the black bra and black muscle shirt she was wearing. She had two sleeves, one in black and white and one in black and red, and she had gunmetal gray hoops in her nose, her eyebrows, and both ears. Amid all the tat drawings on the walls, she was a living example of the work you could get if you wanted. A very sexy, hard-core example... who had lips the color of red wine and hair the color of night.

Everything about her matched Qhuinn. She was like a female him.

And what do you know. Qhuinn’s mixed eyes had already locked on her and he was smiling tightly in his trademark gotcha way.

Blay slipped a hand into his leather jacket and felt around for his pack of Dunhill reds. Man, nothing made him jones for a smoke more than Qhuinn’s love life.

And clearly he’d be lighting up another couple coffin nails tonight: Qhuinn sauntered over to the receptionist and drank her in like she was a long, tall beer fresh from the tap and he’d been working in the heat for hours. His eyes locked on her breasts as he traded names with her, and she helped him get a clearer picture of her assets by easing forward onto her forearms.

Good thing vampires didn’t get cancer.

Blay turned his back on the Spice Channel by the cash register and went over to stand next to John Matthew.

“That’s cool.” Blay pointed at a dagger sketch.

You going to get ink ever? John signed.

“I don’t know.”

God knew he liked it on skin...

His stare shifted back over to Qhuinn. The guy’s huge body was arching into the human woman, his broad shoulders and his tight hips and his long, powerful legs guaranteeing her one hell of a ride.

He was amazing at sex.

Not that Blay would know firsthand. He’d seen it and he’d heard it... and he’d imagined what it would be like. But when the opportunity had arisen, he’d been relegated to a small, special class: denied.

Actually, it was more of a category than a class... because he was the only one who Qhuinn would not have sex with.

“Um... is it going to sting like this forever?” a female voice asked.

As a deep male rumble replied, Blay glanced over to the tat chair. The blond who’d just been worked on was gingerly tucking her shirt in over her cellophane bandage and staring at the guy who’d inked her like he was a doctor telling her the odds of surviving rabies.

The pair of girls then went over to the receptionist, where the uninked one who’d changed her mind got a refund and both of them checked out Qhuinn.

It was like that wherever the guy went and it used to be the kind of thing that made Blay worship his best friend. Now, it was a never-ending rejection: every time Qhuinn said yes, it made that one single no louder.

“I’m ready if you guys are,” the tattoo artist called out.

John and Blay headed to the rear of the shop and Qhuinn dropped the receptionist like a bad habit and followed. One good thing about him was the seriousness with which he took his role as John’s ahstrux nohtrum: he was supposed to be around the guy twenty-four/seven, and that was a responsibility he took more seriously even than sex.

As John sat in the padded chair in the center of the workspace, he took out a piece of paper and unfolded it on the artist’s counter.

The man frowned and looked over what John had sketched out. “So it’s these four symbols across your upper shoulders?”

John nodded and signed, You can embellish them any way you want, but they have to be clear.

After Qhuinn translated, the artist nodded. “Cool.” He grabbed a black pen and started making a picture box of elegant swirls around the simple design. “What are these things, by the way?”

“Just symbols,” Qhuinn answered.

The artist nodded again and kept sketching. “How’s this?”

All three of them leaned in.

“Man,” Qhuinn said softly. “That’s vicious.”

It was. It was absolutely perfect, the kind of thing John would wear on his skin with pride—not that anyone would see the Old Language characters or all that spectacular swirl work. What was spelled out was not something he wanted widely known, but that was the thing with tats: they didn’t have to be public, and God knew the guy had plenty of T-shirts to cover up with.

When John nodded, the artist stood up. “Let me get the transfer paper. Copying it onto you won’t take long and then we’ll get to work.”

As John put a crystal jar of ink on the counter and started to take off his jacket, Blay sat on a stool and held out his arms. Given the number of weapons John was packing in his pockets, it wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to just hang his shit up on a hook.

When he was shirtless, John settled into a forward lean position, his heavy arms resting on a padded bar stand. After the tattoo artist got the image on the transfer paper, the guy smoothed the sheet over John’s upper back, then peeled it off.

The design formed a perfect arch across the span of muscles, taking up all of John’s considerable acreage.

The Old Language really was beautiful, Blay thought.

Staring at the symbols, for one brief, ridiculous moment he imagined his own name across Qhuinn’s shoulders, carved into that smooth skin in the manner of the mating ritual.

Never going to happen. They were destined to be best friends... which, compared to strangers, was something huge. Compared to lovers? It was the cold side of a locked door.

He glanced over at Qhuinn. The guy had one eye on John and one eye on the receptionist—who had locked the front door and come to stand by his side.

Behind the fly of his leathers, the bulge he was sporting was obvious.

Blay looked down at the mess of clothes in his lap. One by one, he carefully folded the undershirt, the long-sleeve, and then John’s jacket. When he glanced up, Qhuinn was running his forefinger slowly down the woman’s arm.

They were going to end up ducking behind that curtain over to the left. The front door to the shop was secured, the curtain was fairly thin, and Qhuinn would do the woman with his weapons on. So John would be safe at all times... and that itch would get scratched.

Which meant Blay would only have to suffer hearing them.

Better than the full bifta. Especially because Qhuinn was beautiful to watch when he had sex. Just... beautiful.

Back when Blay had tried to do the hetero thing, the two had tag-teamed a number of human females—not that he could have recalled any of the women’s faces, bodies, or names.

It had always been about Qhuinn for him. Always.

The nibbling pain of the tattoo needle was a pleasure.

As John shut his eyes and breathed deep and slow, he thought about the intersection of metal and skin, how the sharp entered the soft, how the blood flowed... how you knew exactly where the penetration was.

Like right now, the tattoo artist was directly over the top of his spine.

John had a lot of experience with the whole slice-and-dice shit—only on a much larger scale, and more as a giver rather than a receiver. Sure, he’d been cut up out in the field a couple of times, but he’d left more than his fair share of holes behind, and like the tattoo artist, he always took his equipment to work with him: His jacket carried all kinds of daggers and switches, even a length of chain. Also a matched set of just-in-case guns.

Well... all that and a pair of barbed cilices.

Not that he ever used those on the enemy.

No, those weren’t weapons. And although they hadn’t been cinched on anyone’s thigh for almost four weeks now, they weren’t useless. Currently, they functioned as a kind of fucked-up security blanket. Without them, he felt naked.

Thing was, those brutal ties were the only tie he had to the one he loved. Which, considering the way things had been left between them, made cosmic sense.

They didn’t go far enough for him, however. What Xhex had worn around her legs to tame her symphath side didn’t offer the kind of permanence he was looking for, and that was what had led him to his own metal-on-skin convention. When he was through here, she would always be with him. In his skin as well as under it. On his shoulders as well as his mind.

Hopefully this human was doing a good job with the design.

When the Brothers needed tattoos for whatever reason, Vishous worked the needle and the guy was a pro at it—hell, the red tear on Qhuinn’s face and the black scrolling date around the back of his neck were spank. Trouble was, you went to V with a job like this one and suddenly there were going to be questions—not just from him, but from everyone else.

Not many secrets in the Brotherhood, and John would just as soon keep his feelings for Xhex to himself.

The truth was... he was in love with her. Totally over-the-line, no-going-back, not-even-dead-would-he-part kind of shit. And although his hearts and flowers hadn’t been unrequited, that didn’t matter. He’d come to peace with the fact that the one he wanted didn’t want him.

What he could not live with was her being tortured or dying a slow, excruciating death.

Or him not being able to give her a proper burial.

He was obsessed with her disappearance. Single-minded to the point of self-destruction. Brutal and unforgiving toward the one who’d taken her. But that was nobody else’s biz.

The only good thing in the sitch was that the Brotherhood was likewise committed to figuring out what the hell had happened to her. The Brothers didn’t leave anyone behind on a mission, and when they’d gone up to get Rehvenge out of that symphath colony, Xhex had been very much a member of the team. When the dust had cleared, and she’d disappeared entirely, the assumption was that she’d been abducted, and there were two possible ways to go: symphaths or lessers.

Which was kind of like saying, Do you want her to come down with polio or Ebola?

Everyone, including John, Qhuinn, and Blay, was on the case. As a result? It just looked as though finding her was part of John’s job as a soldier in war.

The humming of the needle stopped and the artist wiped at his back.

“It’s looking good,” the guy said, resuming his work. “You want to do it in two sessions or just this one.”

John glanced at Blay and signed.

“He says he wants it done tonight if you have the time,” Blay translated.

“Yeah, I can do that. Mar? Call Rick and tell him I’m going to be late.”

“Dialing as we speak,” the receptionist said.

Nope, John wasn’t going to let the Brothers see this ink—no matter how great it looked.

The way he saw it, he’d been born in a bus station and left for dead. Thrown into the human child welfare system. Picked up by Tohr and his mate, only to have her killed and the guy disappear. And now Z, who’d been the one assigned to reach out to him, was understandably busy with his shellan and their new young.

Even Xhex had shut him out before the tragedy.

So, whatever, he could take a hint. Besides, it was curiously liberating not to give a shit about anyone else’s opinion. Freed him up to nurture his violent obsession with tracking down her abductor and ripping the fucker limb from limb.

“You mind telling me what this is?” the tattoo guy asked.

John lifted his eyes and figured there was no reason to lie to the human. Besides, Blay and Qhuinn knew the truth.

Blay looked a little surprised, but then translated. “He says it’s his girl’s name.”

“Ah. Yeah, I figured. You two getting married?”

After John signed, Blay said, “It’s a memorial.”

There was a pause and then the tattoo guy put his gun down on the rolling table where the ink was. After yanking up the sleeve of his black shirt, he put his forearm in front of John. On it was the picture of a gorgeous woman, her hair breezing out over her shoulder, her eyes focused so that she looked out of his skin.

“That was my girl. She’s not here anymore either.” With a sharp tug, the guy covered up the picture. “So I get it.”

As the needle got back to work, John found it difficult to breathe. The idea that Xhex was probably dead by now ate him alive... and what was worse was imagining the way she might have died.

John knew who’d taken her. There was only one logical explanation: While she had gone into the labyrinth and helped to free Rehvenge, Lash had shown up, and when he’d disappeared so had she. Not a coincidence. And though no one had seen anything, there had been about a hundred symphaths in the cave where Rehv had been and a lot going on... and Lash was not your garden-variety lesser.

Oh, no... he was apparently the son of the Omega. The very spawn of evil. And that meant the cocksucker had tricks.

John had seen a few of his fancy dancies up close and personal during the fight at the colony: If the guy could palm up energy bombs and go nose-to-nose with Rhage’s beast, then why couldn’t he snatch someone right from under everyone’s noses. The thing was, if Xhex had been killed that night, they would have found a body. If she was breathing, but had an injury, she would have telepathically reached out symphath-to-symphath to Rehvenge. And if she was alive, but needed a little vacation, she would have left only after she was sure everyone else was home safe.

The Brothers were working off the same logical assumptions, so they were all out looking for lessers. And although most of the vampires had left Caldwell for out of state safe houses after the raids, the Lessening Society, under Lash’s rule, had turned to drug dealing to make ends meet, and that went down mainly around the clubs here in town on Trade Street. Trolling seedy alleys was the name of the game, with everyone looking for things that were undead and smelled like a cross between a bled-out skunk and a Glade PlugIn.

Four weeks and they’d found nothing other than signs that lessers were moving product on the street to humans.

John was going insane, mostly from all the not-knowing and the fear, but partially from having to hold his violence inside. Although it was amazing what you could do when you had no choice—he had to appear normal and levelheaded if he wanted to be a part of this, so that was what he presented himself to be.

And this tattoo? It was a stake shoved into the territory he was in. His declaration that even if Xhex hadn’t wanted him, she was his mate and he would honor her, alive or dead. Here was the thing: People felt the way they did and it wasn’t their fault or yours if the connection was one-sided. It just... was.

God, he wished he hadn’t been so cold when they’d had sex the second time.

That final time.

Abruptly, he cut off his emotions, putting that genie of sadness and regret and rejection back into its bottle. He couldn’t allow himself to break down. He had to keep going, keep searching, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Time was moving forward even though he wanted to slow it down so that they had a better chance of finding her alive.

The clock was not interested in his opinions, however.

Dear God, he thought. Please let me not fail in this.