Blood-Bonded by Force (26 page)

He entered her bedroom without knocking. She stood at the bedpost. He fed on her, avoided touching her as much as possible, then spun an about-face and left. All this was accomplished without a single syllable spoken between them. They also never spoke or had contact during the week. Although he spied on her. A lot. Why he did it, he didn’t know and couldn’t figure out right now because all of his conscious attention was focused on his brother’s deterioration.

Arc was systematically cutting himself off from everyone who was important in his life, his wife, Beth, and his kids.

Me
.

Thomal didn’t think he and his brother had exchanged more than two words in the past couple of weeks. A whole lotta mondo bizarro still sat between them. Which sucked to high heaven. Thomal missed the solidity of their former relationship, missed the easy camaraderie that had always been between them. It was like being minus a limb.

Exhaling, Thomal pulled his attention away from the swaying hanger, which he found weirdly disturbing, and shrugged on his shirt, the movement twinging the partially healed wound on his abdomen. He buttoned up, then jammed his feet into a pair of loafers, now ready for Christmas dinner at his mom’s house. Beth, Arc, and the kids would also be there. He had no idea what Pändra was—

Distracted by his thoughts, Thomal jumped slightly when his phone rang. He crossed to his nightstand and picked up his cell. “Hello.”

It was his mother. “Arc’s not coming tonight,” she told him, her voice heavy with worry and disappointment.

Ah, shit
. Thomal scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Beth will be here late,” Livy added. “The kids are with Claresta.” She was the community’s elementary school teacher, who also babysat her charges on occasion. “But Arc just called and said he wasn’t coming at all.”

This was getting fucking ridiculous. It was time for Thomal to quit waiting for his big brother to fix this, and do something about it himself. “I’ll go talk to him. Sorry about dinner, Mom.” He hung up and trudged out the door.

When Thomal stepped into his brother’s living room, he found Arc sprawled haphazardly on the couch, knees wide, one arm looped halfway along the back of the sofa, the other hand wrapped around a bottle of Budweiser, which he had propped on his knee. Arc was watching a game show on TV, and looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and an unhealthy hollowness to his cheeks. A Christmas tree sat in the corner of the room, already looking tired.

Thomal closed the door. “Hey.”

Arc didn’t acknowledge him. Just kept watching Jeopardy or whatever it was.

Annoyance and exasperation mixed in Thomal’s gut and curdled. His brother wasn’t making the slightest effort to be reachable. Walking over to the television, Thomal snapped it off. “It’s Christmas, Arc. You can’t bail on your family today.”

Arc shifted his gaze over, a dark aggression in his eyes revealing a rage so deep-seated it gave Thomal the willies. He was beginning to wonder if his brother would ever recover from what had happened.

Or if he would.

He did a lot of his own stewing and festering these days. Seemed stuck there, in fact, but the problem was, the man he usually turned to for help when he was screwed up was currently an equal mess. Maybe a worse mess. Dev should’ve been another option—he was Thomal’s best friend—but the finer nuts and bolts of how Pändra had ended up in Thomal’s life was, oh, a slightly embarrassing topic.

“Turn the TV back on,” Arc ordered.

“We need to talk,” Thomal said. “You’re heading down the tube—we both are—and it’s time we put a stop to it.”

Arc’s jaw jutted a bit as he tipped beer into his mouth. “No, we’re not,” he retorted.

That was such an obvious lie, it was insulting. Thomal’s voice wrenched tighter. “We need to clear the air between us.”

Arc’s response was a fulminating silence.

Thomal crossed his arms, a spike of his own temper triggering a surge of acid in his stomach, which wasn’t at all nice for the ulcer he felt was already brewing. “Or,” he snapped, “I suppose I could go talk to Dev about this, start off with, ‘hey, man, if you had a brother and Marissa sucked his dick before hooking up with you, would that, like, make you want to kill lots of things all the time?’”

Arc roared off the couch.

Thomal had never seen such fury on his brother’s face. It probably should’ve clued him in about what was coming next, but he was shocked momentarily stupid by the sight, so nearly got his feet tangled under him when he was suddenly being hurtled backward, Arc’s hands fisted in the front of his shirt.

“You think I need reminding about what went down that night?” Arc snarled, ramming him into the wall by the front door. “I was forced to
watch
.” He emphasized that last word by pulling Thomal forward and slamming him into the wall again.

Air shot past Thomal’s lips. The bleak, soul-shredding anguish on his brother’s face kept him stalled out in a too-shocked-to-do-anything gear.

Arc showed Thomal a set of teeth clenched into a rigid line. “That vicious, black-eyed whore never should’ve had the chance to abuse you, Thomal. I failed!”

“Y-you…?”

“I should’ve saved you!” Arc glanced down at the hand Thomal had clutched to his injured side. He shoved himself off Thomal and snarled again, though this time softly, like a wounded animal. He turned and paced a couple of feet away.

“Are you crazy, Arc?” Thomal said to his brother’s back. “We were both locked in chains. Mürk was restraining you, too, and he’s no lightweight, and Pändra is stronger than a dammed Cyclops. No way you could’ve—”

“No!” Arc rounded on Thomal. “I should’ve been strong enough to stop them from doing what they did to you.” His face blanched a stark white. “To me.” He rammed both hands through his hair. “I promised Dad,” he added in a low tone.

Thomal breathed heavily for a couple of moments. “What does that mean?”

Arc dropped his hands. “Before Dad died, he made me promise to look after you. I…” His eyes glistened. “That night in the hotel room, I broke my word to him.”

You promised Dad you’d
…? Heat needled the back of Thomal’s neck. Did that mean his father had been pretending when he’d acted happy about Thomal going into the Warrior Class? Well, hell, if what Arc just said was true, then clearly Dake hadn’t believed in Thomal’s abilities. And, obviously, neither had his brother, seeing as Arc had bought off on Dake’s plan. Tightening his jaw, Thomal yanked his button-down shirt back into place. “You can unload that guilt trip right the fuck now, big brother. I don’t need your babysitting.”

“Yes, you do.”

The flush ran from Thomal’s nape up into his cheeks.

Arc’s voice went toneless as he started reciting facts. “That night at the DoubleTree Hotel ten months ago when we went into Tonĩ’s room to help her and Jaċken, Rën threw you out a four-story high window. The night we were at Scripps Hospital to kidnap Tonĩ, Rën nearly strangled you to death. The night the Spec Ops team saved Marissa and the other women, you got shot. You got shot again on the recent mission to save Dr. Preston. Then when you were on the op to—”

“Jesus, Arc,” Thomal cut in. “You act like I’m the only warrior who ever gets wounded. What about Dev taking an exploding Bătaie blade to the shoulder when Lørke was trying to capture Tonĩ? Or—”

“Dev purposely threw himself into the line of fire to save her,” Arc countered.

“Great.” Thomal stepped back and flung his arms out. “So when another warrior gets hurt he’s heroic, but when I do, it’s because I’m being a doofus?”

Arc drew in a deep breath, then exhaled it in a long stream. “You’ve always had to work twice as hard as the other men for half the results, Thomal. Frankly, I’ve never agreed with your decision to go into the Warrior Class. Going from paints and brushes to fighting? I mean, come on.”

Thomal’s jerked his chin in, his stomach burning so hot now that a load of saliva dumped into his mouth.

“I’ve tried to keep an eye on you, but…” Arc sank down on the couch again and grabbed his half-empty beer, his knuckles white. “You’ll excuse the hell out of me if what happened two weeks ago isn’t sitting well. I hate losing. You may be used to it, but I sure the fuck am not.”

Thomal’s face actually hurt, he was blushing so furiously now. All these years, his brother
actually
thought of him as a doofus. The concept was beyond comment. He said nothing.

Arc glanced around the couch, then jammed his hand between two cushions and extracted the remote. He clicked on the TV, the gesture a pretty damned clear dismissal.

Thomal slammed out of his brother’s house and stomped down the front steps, nearly bowling into Claresta, who was returning with Lysha, Brynt, and the baby, Garez.

“Hi, Thomal,” the teacher greeted him. “Merry Christmas.”

“Hey,” Thomal returned shortly, angling past her.

“I’m glad I ran into you,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to ask you—”

“Do you think we could talk later? Now isn’t the best time.”
I’m kinda busy eating myself alive with self-doubt and guilt
. Dammit, if only he hadn’t let a moment of weakness stop him from tearing out Pändra’s throat, none of this would be happening.

Claresta inhaled a quiet breath. “I know your life is out of sorts right now, Thomal, but I could really use your help. I need you to teach Hannah and Willen Crişan’s eldest boy, Ællen, how to draw.”

“I don’t do that anymore.”
Going from paints and brushes to fighting? I mean, come on
. Hunching his shoulders, Thomal stalked on.

“Ællen is having the same problems you did in school,” Claresta said softly.

Thomal jerked to a stop.

“Learning how to draw helped you, didn’t it?”

Ah, shit
. Thomal aimed a hard stare across the street at nothing. What was he supposed to say to that?

Chapter Twenty-eight

Topside: La Mesa, San Diego, five days later, December 30th

The front door of apartment 6D started to open…

John Waterson shoulder-rammed himself the rest of the way inside, sending Ria stumbling back with a sharp gasp.

He slammed the door shut behind him. “You really should check your peephole before you open the door,” he grated between his teeth, the rage he’d been nurturing for a month adding a scratchy menace to his voice. “You never know who might be lurking outside.”

“I did check. I just figured I needed to get this over with,” Ria said forlornly. “I knew you’d come for me sometime.”

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. He fucking hated stakeouts, and being forced to watch Ria’s apartment building on personal time had only fueled his vile mood.

“Oklahoma,” Ria answered. “I took my sister home to my parents, then stayed for the holidays.”

That’s right,
abracadabra
, the Mendoza case had been solved by Elsa’s miraculous return. No ransom given over, no explanations offered from the kidnappers, just—
zam
!—Elsa stork-dropped back onto Ria’s doorstep.
Sure
. Anyone who believed there wasn’t more to the case than that, John had some beachfront property in Florida to sell them. Real cheap.

“I’m sorry about what I did to you, John,” Ria said, giving him a pleading look. “But I didn’t have a choice! The man who kidnapped my sister made me.”

The man in question was the sociopath with the scar on his lip who’d abducted Kendra Mawbry six months ago the night John had been shot. SDPD had acquired a description of the perp from Elsa upon her return, although clearly Ria had always known who the bad guy was.
Thanks for nothing, angel face
.

“Your blood was Elsa’s ransom,” Ria continued. “My sister’s kidnapper said he’d r-rape and kill Elsa if I didn’t get him a pint of your blood.”

John froze. “What…? You mean specifically
my
blood?”

Ria nodded. “I overheard him talking to one of his men about it, and I guess there’s something in your blood he wants.
Needs
. Some…element.”

John took a quick step back as his heart ground to a shuddering halt. The night he’d been in the hospital after being shot, Dr. Edward Sevilli had approached John with the results of a blood test.
A strange element popped up in your blood work, John
…
nothing identifiable as strictly human.
John had been trying to convince himself this “element” was a mistake, but now here it was again.

A swallow worked its way down his throat. How in the world had Scar Lip known about John’s so-called inhuman element? And what did he need it for? Shit, the maniac must know what it was! “What is it?” he growled at Ria. “What’s in my blood?”

“I don’t—”

She let out a squeak when he snatched her up by the arms. “What’s the element?” he yelled, shaking her. Finally a chance to get some answers! “Tell me!”

“I don’t know,” she cried out, her face draining of color. “I really don’t, John, I swear!”

He released her and jerked around, forcing several deep breaths that seemed to quake his lungs on the way in and out. “Dammit,” he hissed. On top of his physical decay, now he was starting to lose it upstairs. He dragged an unsteady hand through his hair. Jesus H. Christ in a hot house, once again this case was back to blood. He had to get this figured out before he actually did go certifiable.