The Purest of the Breed (The Community) (44 page)

“That wasn’t the arrangement,” Parthen returned.

“Couldn’t be avoided.”

Parthen paused. “Bring Tonĩ forth.”

“Send our woman down first.”

Parthen sniffed. “Your men in hiding will surely think that gives them license to shoot at my lads.”

Jaċken shrugged. “We can stand here all night.”

“I will happily do so,” Parthen countered, “rather than be made a fool. Have Tonĩ step into the open, and I might consider releasing your woman.”

Jaċken laughed darkly. “So you can use your powers on her? I’m not stupid, either, Parthen. Any discussion you have with Tonĩ will be in
my
presence, and only after you’ve released our woman.”

Parthen’s lips pulled back into something only a generous person would’ve called a smile. “I do believe you’ve forgotten who has the true negotiating power here, Vârcolac.” He pulled Marissa closer to his side. “It would be regretful if your bullheadedness forced me to use this abortifacient. Such theatrics are ever distasteful.”

A long, low growl rumbled out of Dev. Here was that thorny crux he was half out of his mind about.

Jaċken paused. On an underbreath to Dev, he said, “We’re going to have to do this.”

Dev locked rigid. He didn’t see another choice, either, but…something about this…

“All right,” Jaċken told Parthen. “I’ll let you see Tonĩ.” Jaċken leaned toward the back of the building. “Tonĩ—” he called out, and a second later two flashbang grenades arced through the air.

Dev followed their path, breathing heavily, a cold, nasty sensation wrapping around the back of his neck, like someone was holding a palmful of icy slime there.
This isn’t right
.

He leapt into a run.

The flashbangs landed near the limo, and Dev threw an arm over his face as—
wa-boom
!—they detonated with an ear-shattering explosion and filled the alley with white lightning. He was thrown onto his back and sent skidding for several feet, vaguely thanking fuck for his thick trench coat. Before he’d even come to a stop, he was back on his feet and racing for Marissa.

She was face-down on the ground!

The rear end of the limo had been knocked helter-skelter; Videön was painting the hood and Mürk was just finishing up banging his head against the wheel well, his eyeballs doing loop de loops.

Parthen stood like a god rising out of the smoke, unmoved from his original spot, his face a mask of icy rage. Bullets zinged out from the warriors in hiding. Parthen tossed the hypodermic needle aside with a flick of his wrist, said something to Videön, then got back in his limousine.

Videön jumped off the hood with a snarl and aimed his AK-47 assault rifle at Marissa.

“No!” Dev bellowed. He increased his speed beyond normal endurance, but…
Too far
. He panted, desperate, panicked. He wouldn’t be able to reach her in time… Horror slid the world out of focus as a grey puff spouted from the AK’s muzzle, a report rang out, then a jet of blood leapt from of the back of Marissa’s head.

“NO!” Dev’s heart ripped out of his chest. His boots smoked as he skidded up to his wife, his breath wheezing out of him. He fell down onto his knees beside her, his entire body numb. Flashbang remnants burned his eyes and the scent of blood over-saturated his senses. He wrenched the hood off his wife, saw blank eyes through the tangle of her hair, and let loose an anguished yell. “Marissa!” He clasped her lifeless body to his chest, his throat pumping hard with a flooding onrush of tears.
No, no, no
, this wasn’t happening. The limo’s receding tires kicked debris into his face.

Jaċken ran up to him. “Dev…” His strong hand landed on his shoulder. “Let go of her, man.”

“Get your hands off me,” Dev snarled, a wild savagery building in his chest. “You’re not taking her. I’ll fucking kill you if you try.”

Jaċken removed his hand, but his voice grew firmer. “Listen to me, Nichita, dammit. That’s not Marissa.”

He shook and shuddered. What—?

“If your mate was dead, your radar would have you flat on your back right now. Look at her,” Jaċken barked.

Slowly, shakily, he lowered Marissa to the street. He smoothed bloody hair off her face, and—the bullet had exited through her right eyeball, but still…he could tell… He hugged his own chest and fell back on his heels. All-encompassing relief stole his strength.

It. Wasn’t. Her.

The warriors gathered around.

“Nichita…Christ, that scared the crap out of me.”

“Can you believe that asshole killed this poor woman?”

“Who is she?”

“Dev, brother, you okay?”

Dev looked up into Thomal’s face. “Yeah, I…” He placed a hand over his chest. Not even a ping. “Marissa is okay. Completely okay.” He shifted his gaze and frowned at the dead woman. “Fucking Parthen murdered an innocent just to up the stakes with us.”

“It’s a damned clear message,” Jaċken agreed grimly.

This war was only going to get worse.

Dev dragged a hand through his hair. “Where the hell is my wife?”

Sirens wailed in the distance.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jaċken said. “We’ll head someplace safe, then develop a plan for finding her.”

Thomal helped Dev to his feet, and he staggered on the way up. If it wasn’t for the oil-drum-load of adrenaline still pouring through his system, he probably would’ve collapsed, performed a groan-and-yack number, then finale’d by going unconscious. The long hours of stress had his blood-need on a steep climb, and it wouldn’t be leveling out until he could confirm with his own eyes that his wife and unborn child were all right.

Jaċken’s cell beeped. He glanced at the screen, then looked up at Dev, exhaling a breath. “It’s a message from Cleeve. Marissa has called for a transport. She’s at the downtown rendezvous point.”

Dev’s head fell back on his neck, gifting his eyes with a view of the stars. “Now
that’s
some news I can stand to hear.”

Their group raced for their cars.

“Damn,” Thomal said behind him. “How do you figure she got loose?”

* * *

Earlier…

Pändra scanned the shelves of books in her father’s library. Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce…

She didn’t really fancy any of them. She was just biding her time. Waiting.

John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Chaucer… She turned toward the bookcase across the—

He was standing in the library doorway.

She froze, but didn’t flinch. Didn’t swallow, either, even though her throat had suddenly turned to chalk. She supposed she ought to be proud of that.

“You released my hostage,” her father informed her. “An
extremely
important prisoner to me, Pändra.”

“I did,” she admitted in an even tone.

Apparently, he didn’t care overly much for the lack of remorse in her response. A barb of electricity lanced off him and shot spears under her skin, like a thousand clawing cockroaches, eating her from the inside out. Against her best efforts, her stomach sagged with fear. Her status as his favorite bedamned, Raymond’s punishment was going to be a bastarding kick in the arse.

“Explain your behavior,” Raymond demanded.

She balanced out the weight on her feet. She’d rather not, thank you. His understanding of her motivations wouldn’t lessen the degree of his castigation. But then…further defiance on her part would surely worsen it. “You let Videön torture a woman to death, Raymond. I didn’t hack into the girl’s delivery schedule for that, and I sure as bloody hell wasn’t going to let another woman get killed.” Although, in honesty, she was more taking a stand for herself than acting out of remorse for a couple of strangers. She’d reached the top limit of Raymond’s terror, damned sick of all the times she had to rush to do his bidding, and sicker still of standing at attention in his almighty sun room when anything wasn’t done to his exacting specifications. What had finally pushed her over the edge? Her computer skills had been used to take a life—
she
herself had been used. This was the first time Raymond had exploited her so directly, and even though it was true she’d been bred to be used, that had never sat well with her.

“I thought you had more spine than that, my pet.” Disappointment lay heavy in Raymond’s tone.

Admittedly, that stung. She hesitated only a heartbeat, then slipped off her immortality ring and set it on the library desk. “I have spine enough.”

Raymond glanced at the ring, then his cold, blue eyes assessed the length of her body, not as a father to a daughter, but as an enemy to an adversary.

Her lungs buckled inward as if she’d taken a hard belt to the chest.

“I have to busy myself with finding a decoy woman now. But…” Raymond sauntered toward her, the tap of his Gucci loafers across the marble floor managing to sound both elegant and lethal. “I daresay I can spare the time it takes to break that plucky spirit of yours.”

Chapter Forty-five

Two and a half weeks later: Community of Ţărână, November 28th, Thanksgiving, 4:15 p.m.

Half-clothed and panting, Marissa rocked her hips steadily back and forth on top of Dev’s lap, her legs straddling his muscled thighs, the two of them pressed together in the large, brown leather easy chair in their living room. She hadn’t been able to stop herself; as soon as they’d left the party, Marissa had started messing around with Dev, touching and kissing him, and by the time they’d reached home, they’d been too excited to make it upstairs.

They’d just returned from Thanksgiving at the Bruns’ house, surrounded by friends and family, which Marissa had
really
needed. With the holidays fast approaching, she was feeling a little bereft of family. This would be her first Christmas without her mom, plus Natalie still wasn’t in her life—there was just too much wreckage on the road between the sisters for Marissa to have figured a way around it, yet—and on top of that, Dev was estranged from his mother.

But this afternoon’s get-together had confirmed that she
did
have family. Tonĩ was now Marissa’s…well, her something-or-other, now that Tonĩ’s brother, Ãlex, was married to Marissa’s sister-in-law, Luvera. How many dates had those two lovebirds gone on after Luvera had spent a weekend in jail for fraternizing with a male Vârcolac? All of three? Ãlex now sported a beautiful blue-and-red dragon tattoo on his back, with an eye, the enchantment designator of a Soothsayer, sitting just off his dragon’s nose.

Jaċken’s brother, Nỵko, had also been at Thanksgiving. But not Shọn. In a shocking decision, the court had temporarily banished the youngest Brun from the community as punishment for his crimes, sending him to live topside in Tonĩ’s former house, now equipped with metal shutters. Shọn would work night shifts stocking shelves at a grocery store and go to twice-weekly therapy sessions with Karrell, the community therapist: a Vârcolac married to a regular who’d been living topside for some years now.

In other drama, Homicidal Maniac Jøsnic still hovered as a threat, but the Topside Om Rău had been thwarted in their plans to breach the community. As it turned out, Candace hadn’t given up any information about their entrances, despite what she must’ve gone through. A plaque to honor her sacrifice had been mounted in the grand entrance hall of the mansion. No Traveler went topside without a guard these days, but since most of the business they conducted had to be done during the daytime, a warrior escort wasn’t a long-term solution.

Kimberly was still working topside, even though she was now a known associate of the Vârcolac. She’d moved to a different office and had hired a full-time bodyguard. And, no, a human male was no match for a demon Om Rău, but a guard would provide an extra set of eyes and a cell phone to call for help, and, anyway, it would just have to do. Sedge wasn’t about to allow anyone to stop his wife from doing the work she absolutely adored.

As for Marissa? She wasn’t going anywhere for awhile. She wouldn’t even think of asking Dev to let her out of his sights after the debilitating scare he’d had, and, frankly, that was no skin off her nose. She was ready to settle down and be at peace, done chasing after some remodeled version of Marissa. If she truly believed in herself, well, then, she’d better get going with that. She wasn’t naïve enough to ignore the reality that she’d still struggle with self-doubt on occasion, but right now she was happy and satisfied.

Being constantly surrounded by people who loved her really helped.

Ah, yes, Marissa’s best gal pals had been at the Brun party, too. Tonĩ-Marissa-Beth were the Three Musketeers these days, Kimberly was the Fourth when she was around, plus Hadley was a regular buddy. All four women had been at the party, having a hoot together. Beth had her new baby with her, a boy named Garez who’d been born during the full shutdown without a hitch. The baby’s father, Arc, hadn’t been present, though, or Thomal.

The Costache brothers had gone topside on a routine mission to investigate another Topside Om Rău kidnapping, and they hadn’t made it back in time for the Thanksgiving feast. No incoming messages suggested why they were late, but no one was too worried about it. The community’s communication system was still a little glitchy since the shutdown, and the two warriors still had several hours until sunrise.