Sam’s eyes widened with pleasure. “Ah, the Pantera Claw. One of my favorites.” Plucking it off the wall, he fit the grip over Jesse’s right hand. Once the leather strips were tightened into place, the three blades fit snugly between the fingers, giving the user greater control.
Stepping back, she swished her hand through the air. “Man, now I know what Wolverine feels like. This is fucking awesome.” She felt like a kid in a candy store who had a whole ten-dollar bill to spend on anything she wanted.
“The blades are spaced so they slide through the ribs for maximum penetration.”
She made another quick movement. “Like this?”
Sam nodded. “Right. It’ll go right through them. And the blades are pure silver. The wounds won’t close over once the blades come out.”
“Delivering more pain and suffering before you take off the head, I suppose.”
Sam demurred. “As twisted as it sounds, that is the idea behind being a demon killer.”
Her grin widened. “I could really go for this.”
Sam shook his head. “It’s nice but not practical. You need to be able to move with stealth, while not getting arrested.”
Jesse regretfully let him slip the weapon off. “So what would you suggest?”
“You’ve got the switchblade, which is easy to hide.” Sam reached for one of the pistols. “And this is a Beretta 84 Cheetah with a double-stack magazine and thirteen-round capacity. It’s sleek, too, with a nice satin nickel finish and custom ivory grips. Definitely has your name written all over it.”
The sound of a voice crackling over the intercom interrupted the conversation. “Come on, damn it,” Reyen barked. “Open the garage door so we can get in.”
Jesse froze.
Oh, shit.
The moment she’d been dreading had arrived.
Maddox’s pulse beat at his temples as he trailed Reyen through the massive space Sam Chen called home. He’d actually picked the warehouse up fairly cheap by paying the back taxes. It was a solid investment and even when Katrina blew through, only the first level was affected. While others were washed out of their homes, the three of them had sat pretty in Sam’s second-level apartment, weathering out the storm in relative comfort, which included a gasoline-powered generator to keep the electricity on.
Though Sam had offered to let him turn some of the remaining storage rooms into a second apartment, Maddox had declined. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the place. He did. What he didn’t like was the idea of living under constant surveillance. He wanted to be able to slip out and get away, undetected.
In other words, he didn’t want to have to answer to anyone, not even his own partners. As it stood, their alliance was already an uneasy one, threatening to unravel under the stresses and pressures leading a double life entailed.
Reyen glanced at him. “If you don’t stop bouncin’ around like a little kid, I’m gonna slap you. Your nerves are starting to get on
my
nerves.”
Maddox forced himself toward calm. It didn’t work. He was as jumpy as a cat in a frying pan full of hot grease. “You think she’ll forgive me?” The need to keep defending recent actions pricked him like a thorn. He had to pluck it out, or the thing would keep festering until it poisoned him.
Reyen shrugged. “Sam says she seems pretty understanding. If nothing else, she should be glad you have a thing for demonic broads.”
Maddox took a deep breath. Part of the reason he’d agreed to come tonight wasn’t just to apologize to Jesse.
He wanted her back.
His fingers curled into fists. They belonged together. He just knew it. He knew it in a way that flew straight into the face of reason or logic.
Since Jesse had left, he’d barely slept a wink, caught not only in the haze of regret, but also by the memories of the scorching passion they’d all too briefly shared. Even as he wanted her, he cursed the woman who caused his body to tremble through one sultry memory after another. She might as well have been standing in front of him, for her face and her body had never been more than a desolate moan away. He had not been able to force, will, or dream their single day together away. His entire body felt like one relentless ache, his core burning so hot and eager that self-immolation seemed not only possible, but imminent.
As they reached the second level, Reyen looked around. “Y’know, he’s got a pretty nice setup here. Must be nice to come from money.”
That raised Maddox’s brows. “No shit.” The little he knew about Sam Chen’s family was that his father was a foreign investment banker in China who’d moved his family to the States in the eighties. Sam had eschewed business for medical school. Although his father had his sights set on Harvard, Sam had ended up at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine. Apparently, the step down in education had been too much for his demanding father, who died of a heart attack soon afterward. His death left Sam with a nice inheritance and little need to work if he didn’t want to.
Despite having taken an abrupt turn from med student to slayer, Sam had gone on to complete his education. By day, he volunteered his time at the overextended, underfunded clinics serving the poor. In his free time, he studied molecular biology, mainly Palindrome syndrome. He was working to identify and activate others of their kind, without having to put them through the torture of demonic infection—the single source of infection that stimulated the genetic mutation that would otherwise remain dormant through a man’s lifetime. Often they didn’t destroy the fledglings, instead using them for guinea pigs for Sam’s pursuit of scientific answers to a seemingly metaphysical phenomenon.
Sam’s dedicated
, he thought.
So is Reyen.
At the moment he was the odd man out.
Reyen barged on through the heavy metal door guarding the entrance to Sam’s abode. He headed straight for the fridge, in search of a beer.
Maddox followed. The first thing he saw was Jesse. Pointing a gun—at him. His blood immediately turned to ice. A wild suspicion flew to the forefront of his mind.
Oh, shit!
He’d been marked for extermination. He’d expected the death blow might come from Reyen.
But Jesse . . . ?
Well, damn.
He probably deserved to take a slug for what he’d done to her. Trouble was, she wasn’t aiming for a kneecap. By the way that barrel was pointed, she intended to put that bullet right between his eyes.
He winced.
Ouch.
Sam stood beside her. “That’s right,” he was saying. “Keep your arm steady and look down the sight. Don’t jerk the trigger. Just gently squeeze.”
Fighting to hold on to his composure, Maddox cleared his throat. “What’s going on?”
Jesse thankfully lowered her pistol. “Sam’s just outfitting me with some slaying equipment.” She laughed. “As much as I wanted that Pantera Claw, he’s trying to talk me into carrying something easier to conceal.”
“We can use a fourth slayer,” Sam filled it. “I know Jesse prefers a blade, but until she gets a little stronger and faster, a little more practiced with the idea of killing, I want her to have something that puts a little distance between her and the vamps. They have most of the advantages, so anything that puts them down will do.”
Pulling in a breath to restart his stalled heart, Maddox nodded. “I’d have to agree to that,” he said, fighting to keep a neutral tone. “She’s not just going to be killing Telave; she also has to look out for the Kindred.”
Jesse shuddered. “Jeez, who would willingly want to serve those monsters?”
Sam shrugged. “You would be surprised. Anyway, whenever we catch them, we take them out, too.”
Her brows rose. “Even though they’re human?”
Bottle in hand, Reyen sauntered up to join the conversation. Even though the big Indian had no taste for the fancy foreign beers Sam kept on hand, he was willing to drink them all up just to piss Sam off. “Yep,” he said between pulls. “They’re already aimin’ to go to hell. We just send ’em there a little bit faster.”
“Is that the rule?” she asked quietly.
Reyen’s gaze darkened. “That’s right. And you’d better watch your ass, demon-girl. We’ve got enough to take care of without the likes of you rollin’ in to cause trouble.”
Maddox stepped up. It wasn’t fair of Reyen to keep picking on Jesse when she’d done nothing wrong. “She isn’t the one you should be blaming,” he pointed out. “I’m the weak link, not her. You want me out, that’s fine. There ain’t enough of us to really win this fight, anyway.”
Reyen’s thick brows shot up. “Shit, man. Is that the way it’s always been in your head? Just how many Consanguines have you given a pass to when you could’ve taken them out?”
Maddox thought of Nayia, his go-to vamp for a quick bite to satisfy his need for pain. She wasn’t the only one he knew of. Yet instead of doing the right thing—which would be to take them out—he’d allowed them to survive and keep on spreading the disease. He might as well have called himself Kindred, for he’d served their purpose to feed his dependence.
“A couple,” he slowly admitted. He had no reason to lie now. He could deny it all day and no one would believe him.
Jesse was the first to react. She looked straight at him, not with hate, but with an extreme and profound disappointment. “Why?” she demanded through lips that curled in disgust. “These things destroyed my family. Even now I’m a diseased and despicable thing.” She turned her gaze to the gun in her hand. Her fingers tightened on the smooth pearl grip. “My purpose, my mission, is to destroy these things wherever and whenever I find them. Some days the hate is the only thing that keeps me going.”
Sam Chen folded his arms across his chest with resolution. “That’s right. If you’re not going to stand with us, Maddox, then you’re against us. The weak link has to go. We can’t have you on the team if we can’t trust you.”
Sucking down the final dregs of his beer, Reyen looked impressed. “Shit, I couldn’t have said it better myself.” A wolfish smile stole across his insolent face.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Maddox ran his fingers through his hair.
Oh, heaven above, give me strength.
It looked as if he’d been caught red-handed. But he had to admit his guilt. His actions had put his partners in danger. “Feels like an intervention,” he muttered.
“Exactly,” Sam said. “You have to deal with this now.”
“And you already know what I’ve said about that,” Reyen growled.
“Yeah. My ass is grass, and you’re going to mow it.” For the longest moment the ardent desire to descend into complete oblivion was first and foremost in Maddox’s mind. He looked toward Jesse. She was the one he’d most betrayed. She should decide if he stayed or went.
Maddox closed the distance between them. Even though he’d rather talk to her alone, intimately, he’d already figured out that wasn’t going to be an option. He’d hurt her once. She was being careful now, wary. He had neither her trust nor her heart. He’d have to work hard to earn both if he really wanted her back. Words, he realized, meant nothing. He’d have to let his actions speak for him.
He hoped it wasn’t too late. “What do you say?”
Handing the pistol back to Sam, Jesse shook her head. “It’s not for me to decide.”
Maddox caught her face between his hands, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes were reluctant to obey, climbing by halting fractions from the yellow-tinged bruises that still covered his neck to his eyes. “I think it is,” he said in a voice meant to travel no farther than her ears.
“I’m not ready,” she answered in a low, pained tone.
For several long moments they stood locked together, wrestling with the specter of the demons they shared between them.
He pulled closer. “Please. If I have to beg you, I will.” Her mouth was just a breath away, but the distance he’d have to cross to close it felt interminable. “Give me another chance.”
Jesse pulled away from him. “I can’t give you what you want, Maddox.” As she spoke, her gaze lowered to his neck. The tip of her tongue slipped out, tracing her sensual lips. “I’m not ready.”
Maddox lifted a hand self-consciously, pressing ice-cold fingers against the healing ridges of the ragged punctures serrating his neck.
No
, he thought.
She hasn’t forgotten tasting me
. By the look on her face, she wanted it as badly as he did. Except she had the strength to resist the forbidden.
His hand dropped. “I guess I’ll have to accept that.”
Though Jesse’s features were remote, her gaze simmered with untapped desire. “Until you prove you’re worth having, I don’t want to get involved. It’s like Sam said. You have to deal with it or you have to walk away.”
Maddox shot a glance toward Sam. Reyen had warned him that the two of them had done some talking. No doubt Sam had filled her in on a few vital pieces about his past. Well, turnabout was fair play. He knew her tragedy. Now she knew his. There could be no more secrets or lies between them.
His gaze drifted toward Reyen. “You want me to go?”
Reyen grunted and lifted his hand, showing his tattooed palm. “I want you to screw your head on straight, my brother. This fight with the Telave is going to get harder before it gets easier. The dark days are only beginning.”
One vote for him. It was a start. “Sam?” he asked.
Sam puckered his lips thoughtfully. “I’m with Reyen.” He sighed expansively. “The times are changing, and not for the better. We need to find more of our kind—and kill more of theirs.”
Two votes—his odds were improving.
Maddox nodded before again turning to Jesse. Eyes burning, his breath was dry in his throat. He swallowed heavily and forced himself to speak. “And you?”
Her eyes shone bright as polished metal and twice as keen. “You’ve been touched by evil,” she said, softly repeating the words he’d once spoken to her. “But that doesn’t mean the rest of your life has to be misery and damnation. Fight it, Maddox. Be strong. If not for yourself, then be strong for your friends.” She paused, her throat working painfully, before she softly added, “And for me.”