«I need to be able to reach you. You need to give me your number.»
«I’ll text you with it. Do you have a gun? Any weapon?»
«Yeah. I do.» Manny was already taking the licensed forty out of his closet. He’d been living in the city all his adult life and shit happened — so he’d learned his way around a gun about twenty years ago.
«Tell me it’s bigger than a nine.»
«Yup.»
«Get a knife. You’re going to need a stainless-steel blade.»
«Roger that.» He headed for the kitchen and took out the biggest, sharpest Henckels he had. «Anything else?»
«A flamethrower. Nunchakus. Throwing stars. Uzi. You want me to go on.»
If only he had that kind of arsenal.
«I’m going to get her back, vampire. Mark my fucking words — I’m getting her back.» He grabbed his wallet and was heading for the door when dread stopped him. «How many of them are there. Your enemies.»
«An endless supply.»
«Are they. . male?»
Pause. «Used to be. Before they got turned, they were human men.»
A sound came out of Manny’s mouth. . one that he was very sure he had never uttered before.
«Nah, she can handle herself with the hand-to-hand,» her brother said in a dead tone. «She’s tough like that.»
«Not what I was thinking.» He had to scrub his eyes. «She’s a virgin.»
«Still. .?» the guy asked after a moment.
«Yeah. It wasn’t right for me to. . take that from her.»
Oh, God, the idea she could be hurt. .
He couldn’t even finish the sentence to himself.
Snapping into action, he stepped out of his place and went over to call the elevator. As he waited, he realized that there had only been silence on the other end of the phone for a while. «Hello? You there.»
«Yeah.» Her twin’s voice cracked. «Yeah. I’m here.»
The connection between them remained open as Manny got into the elevator and hit P. And the entire trip down to his car was passed with the two of them saying absolutely nothing at all.
«They’re impotent,» her twin finally muttered just as Manny was getting into the Porsche. «They can’t have sex.»
Well, didn’t that do nothing to make him feel better. And going by the tone of her brother’s voice, the other guy was thinking the same way.
«I’ll call you,» Manny said.
«You do that, my man. You frickin’ do that.»
When Payne came back to consciousness, she did not open her eyes. No reason to give away the fact that she was aware of her surroundings.
Bodily sensation informed her of her situation: She was on her feet, with her wrists shackled and pulled out to the sides and her back against a stone wall that was damp. Her ankles were likewise tethered and stretched apart and her head had lolled forward into a very uncomfortable position.
When she drew breaths in, she smelled musky dirt, and the voices of males percolated up from the left of where she was.
Very deep voices. Cast with drumming excitement, as if a benefit had fallen into their clutches.
She was it.
As she gathered her strength, she was under no illusions of what they were going to do to her. Soon. And as she drew herself together, she shied away from thoughts of her Manuel. . of how, if these males had their way, they would spoil her many times over before they murdered her, taking what rightly should have been her healer’s—
Except she could not and would not think of him. That cognition was a black pit that would suck her in and trap her and render her defenseless.
Instead, she pulled at the threads of memory, melding the images of the faces of her kidnappers with what she knew from the bowls in the Sanctuary.
Why? she wondered. She had not a clue why the one with the ruined lip had set upon her with such hatred—
«I know you wake.» The voice was impossibly low and heavily accented and right next to her ear. «Your breathing pattern has changed.»
Lifting her lids along with her head, she shifted her eyes unto the soldier. He was in the shadows beside her so she could not see him properly.
Abruptly, the other voices silenced, and she sensed many stares were upon her.
So this was what prey felt like.
«I’m hurt that you remember nothing of me, female.» At that, he brought a candle close to his face. «I have thought of you every night since we first met. A hundred and a hundred years afore.»
She narrowed her eyes. Black hair. Cruel eyes of dark blue. And a harelip that he had obviously been born with.
«Remember me.» It was not a question, but a demand. «Remember me.»
And then it came back. The small village on the edge of a wooded glen. Where she had killed her father. This was one of the Bloodletter’s soldiers. No doubt they all were.
Oh, she was definitely prey, she thought. And they were looking forward to hurting her before they killed her in retaliation for taking their leader from them.
«Remember me.»
«You are a soldier of the Bloodletter’s.»
«No,» he barked, putting his face in hers. «I am more than that.»
As she frowned, he just backed off and paced around in a tight circle, his fists cranked tight, the candle dripping wax onto his curled hand.