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  Jaċken gave his wife an incredulous look. “How the hell did you spot that?”

  “I don’t know. I just…did.” Tonĩ swept her gaze over the warriors. “That blood mark is what I think it is, isn’t it?”

  Thomal cursed below his breath. The red stain on the wall was in a unique, symmetrical starburst pattern, one that could’ve only been created by the enchanted exploding knives both the underground and topside demonic Om Rău used to devastating effect. So, yeah, it was what Tonĩ thought. The boyfriend had been killed by a Bătaie Blade.

  “Shit,” Dev confirmed.

  Thomal frowned at the TV screen. This didn’t make shit for sense, though. “What would an Om Rău want with a Mendoza?” he asked. Dark-eyed and dark-haired, a Latin girl was the farthest thing away from the fair, blonde Dragon females that both the Vârcolac and Om Rău races needed…and fought each other to possess.

  Jaċken crossed his arms. “Good question, Costache. Let’s find out.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s a little after eight at night topside now.” He looked directly at Dev. “If you hurry, your team can probably arrive at this Ria woman’s house around nine or so, get some questions answered. I want full optics on this as soon as possible.”

  “Got it.” Dev bought off on the mission without hesitation, but Thomal caught a flicker of disappointment pass through his friend’s eyes.

  Dev and Marissa’s baby crib was being delivered today, and Thomal knew Dev was excited about putting it together. Why deprive a man of his pleasure for something as benign as a fishing expedition?

  “Why don’t I take point on this?” Thomal said, tossing his empty coffee cup into Tonĩ’s trash can. “Charm is needed for this mission, right?” He flashed the men a cocky smile. “And who better to finesse answers out of a woman than a Costache?”

  A laugh rumbled out of Dev. “True enough. Take Arc with you as backup, then. He’s been on half duty for a while with Beth’s pregnancy and wants to get back in the game.” Dev smirked. “He’s the one with the real charm, anyway.”

  Thomal didn’t actually flip his team leader the bird, but put plenty of that sentiment into his return look.

  Tonĩ sat down behind her desk. “Just make sure you and Arc are back by two o’clock for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve got a twenty-two-pound turkey cooking.”

  Chapter Six

  Topside: Manhattan, New York, same day, EST 2:00 pm

  Faith Teague edged her computer mouse sideways until the arrow on the screen hovered over the email entitled new ballet company. She double-clicked it. How many times had she read this email today? A dozen? More? She read it again as the subtle aroma of cucumbers and tomatoes wafted around her.

  “So what’re you going to tell him?” Her sister, Kacie, glanced at the computer screen from behind the kitchen counter, where she stood chopping salad fixings.

  This Soho apartment Faith shared with her sister was quaint, but small, and space needed to be maximized. Hence the kitchen table where Faith sat doubled as an office desk. “What do you think I’m going to tell him?” Faith replied. “A huge and enthusiastic yes.”

  Kacie grabbed a handful of mushrooms, but paused before slicing into them. Two small lines appeared between her brows.

  It was an expression Faith knew well—on her own face. In family photos, it was always Faith who looked out at the world with the practicality those two small forehead creases represented, while Kacie usually wore a big, vivacious grin. But since her identical twin sister possessed the same face as Faith’s, the expression was hauntingly familiar.

  “He’s asking me to serve as Artistic Director of his new ballet company.” Faith shoved the hair pins deeper into her bun, a task she probably performed a hundred times a day. Her copper hair was unusually thick and rebelled against all attempts to contain it. Something her theatre hairdressers had lamented fervently over the years.

  Kacie fingered a mushroom, still not chopping. Not speaking.

  “And he wants you to join his troupe as well. Insists on it, in fact.” Faith swept out her hand in a gesture that encompassed her sister. “Why wouldn’t we both want to say yes to this opportunity?”

  Kacie’s amber-gold eyes—that arresting color which had earned them both so many comments over the years, second only to the extraordinary happenstance of their identicalness—filled with skepticism. “It doesn’t make sense, for one. I’m a nobody. A dancer in the corps de ballet.”

  “Oh, twaddle. Don’t say that.” Faith smiled supportively. “You’re a beautiful dancer.”

  Her sister exhaled. “And what about you? You can’t do it, Faith. Your knee hasn’t fully recovered. This man”—she gestured at the open email with her kitchen knife—“does he even know that?”

  “My knee is all but sound,” Faith responded firmly, stiffening her spine.

  Kacie hacked a plump mushroom in half with a single stroke of her knife. “Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, Faith. You know I can tell it isn’t.”

  Faith and Kacie enjoyed—or suffered—the identical twin oddity of sometimes being able to feel each other’s pain. Many days her twin’s healthy knee ligament probably twinged as much as Faith’s unstable one.

  Faith’s eyelashes twitched as she was suddenly catapulted back in time, reliving the sequence that had devastated her life. Coupé-chassé-coupé-jeté en tournant—and clunk. She’d torn an inner knee ligament coming out of that turn.

  Air leaked past Faith’s lips as her stomach iced, same as it did when the doctor had told her that her Medial Collateral Ligament, or MCL, had been severely damaged. Besides being told both of her parents had died from E. coli poisoning when she was ten years old, she’d never received worse news. Maybe that made her small-minded. How many people in the world were worse off than she was? But dancing and performing on stage were the only dreams she’d ever had, and now they were…put on hold.

  How long and hard had she fought to become a success? At the prestigious Joffrey Ballet, she’d studied dance 24/7 while Kacie had bounded off to NYU to enjoy a normal university experience. After four years of grueling work at Joffrey, Faith had thankfully been discovered by a choreographer from New York City Ballet during a summer intensive program. That next spring, at the age of twenty-two, she’d joined their company. Which naturally had led to more punishing work, first in the corps de ballet, then as a soloist, then as a principal, and finally she’d reached the pinnacle so many ballet dancers aspired to but few achieved; she was hailed as a prima ballerina by press and public. She’d enjoyed the spotlight as a star for one year before she hurt her knee—one. Not nearly enough. Not at only twenty-six years old.

  She stiffened her spine another notch. “I can dance, Kacie.”

  “Only with a brace on,” Kacie reminded her with a levelheadedness Faith should’ve celebrated in her flighty sister.

  Except she didn’t particularly care to hear anything logical right now.

  “You can’t wear a brace onstage,” Kacie added unnecessarily.

  “Well, I’m not ready to quit.”

  Kacie stared down at the mushrooms.

  Why wasn’t Kacie agreeing with her? Their opinions matched as inevitably as their appearance. “So here’s what we’ll do,” Faith said in the matter-of-fact tone that always got Kacie hustling along in the right direction. “We’ll fly out to San Diego next week and meet with this man. I’ll tell him about my knee and we’ll hear what he has to say. After that, we can travel to Los Angeles for Christmas with Aunt Idyll. We haven’t seen her in a long time, and we owe her a visit.”

  Kacie chewed on her bottom lip.

  Faith pushed to her feet, impatient now. If Kacie wouldn’t go, Faith certainly couldn’t. Her sister needed to stop hemming and hawing. Because Faith needed to go. “What harm could it do just to talk to this”—Faith glanced at the name at the end of the email—“this Raymond Parthen?”

  “I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Kacie finally conceded. Looking up, she smiled tentatively. “Oka
y, let’s go.”

  Chapter Seven

  Topside: somewhere in San Diego, same night, close to midnight, Pacific time

  Thomal breathed heavily through rounded nostrils, his teeth gnashed around the gag in his mouth. He probably should’ve been scared shitless, considering he was chained to a chair in a seedy downtown hotel room, and the Topside Om Rău ass-can who was in the room with him looked like he planned to do some serious tap dancing on his balls. But he could only muster pissed-out-of-his-skull. A slanting glance at Arc, similarly bound to a chair next to his, confirmed his brother was in an identical foul state. It didn’t help either of their moods that they’d landed in this goatfuck by seriously screwing up.

  We’re only talking a few questions, right? had been the absolute wrong attitude to take. Thomal had been way too chill about this mission, which had left him unprepared to find that lip-scarred Om Rău lunatic, Videön, already at Ria Mendoza’s house. Yeah, go figure. A Bătaie Blade had been used during the crime against Ria’s sister, so, surprise-surprise, an Om Rău had been at her house. Fuck me…

  Videön had opened the door with a Taser gun already pointed and ready to deploy.

  Thomal and Arc had proceeded to stand in place like a couple of dickless wonders and let the Om Rău take them out with about as much effort as shooting fish in a barrel. After that, they’d been tied up and transported to this shithole of a hotel room, then for some reason, handed over to Mürk. Maybe Videön’s schedule was too full of ripping the wings off butterflies and skinning live cats for him to waste time river dancing on the balls of a couple of dickless wonders. Maybe Videön knew how much Mürk hated Arc—Arc had viciously broken Mürk’s hand about nine months ago—and so he’d done Mürk a solid.

  As far as hate went, the feeling was way fucking mutual on Arc’s end.

  The hand-breaking incident had been in retaliation for Mürk shooting Arc: a little disservice that had made it impossible for Arc to save Thomal—and himself, for that matter—from a four-story fall down to some nasty pavement kissage.

  All in all, as far as hate went, Thomal and Mürk had their own baggage. On the night of Tonĩ’s kidnapping at Scripps Hospital, Thomal had stabbed Mürk in the neck with a pair of medical scissors. So Thomal would probably have his own turn at the table for whatever Mürk was dishing.

  Blah, blah, blah. Bottom line was: tonight was going to be filled with some major hurt. Kind of might’ve been better if the community hadn’t released Mürk back when they’d had the Om Rău in their custody. But Mürk was Tonĩ and Ãlex’s half-brother, and that had clearly colored the decision.

  Mürk moved to loom over Arc. “Time to duff you up now, vamp. Figure bouncin’ you off every wall in this room will be a good place to begin.” He ripped Arc’s gag out of his mouth. “You think?”

  “Yeah, sounds good.” Arc smiled. His fangs weren’t fully elongated, but still nice and pointy. “Unshackle me, little man, and we’ll get our game on.”

  Mürk chuckled, a dark noise deep in his chest that—

  The hotel door swung open and a woman strode inside with a couple of Laurel and Hardy lowlifes: one tall and skinny, the other short and fat.

  Thomal’s attention snapped into extra-sharp focus. Something was…very wrong about her.

  She was dressed raunchy as a two-dollar crack whore, her body squeezed into a short leather skirt so tight it hugged the mound of her mons, and her tits were hiked nearly to her chin by a bright red satin snap-up lingerie-thing resembling an old-timey corset. And, of course, no sleazy outfit would be complete without a pair of red stiletto fuck-me pumps. But more than the sleaze-factor, the weird thing was that she didn’t look entirely real.

  Thomal had spent his whole life around stunning women, but this chick went so far beyond striking that there wasn’t even a word for her. Thick golden hair fell in a gleaming cascade down her back, her face was artful perfection with its thin nose, flawlessly molded cheekbones, and erotically lush mouth, and she had the most killer body he’d ever seen on a female, athletic and muscular along her set shoulders, tight abs, and long legs, yet also soft and rounded in womanly places, her hips slightly flared and her breasts full. The most wrong part about her, though, were her eyes. They were exceptionally black, even for an Om Rău, and very flat, as if the woman was dead inside.

  Thomal fought back an involuntary tightening in his throat. Can you say “bad to worse,” anyone?

  “Bloody buggers,” Mürk ground out. “How did you find me, Pändra?”

  “Having a bit of a razzle here, are you, Mürk?” The slut called Pändra slicked a cigarette out of her purse. “Very unsporting of you, love, not to invite me along.” She set the cigarette between her lips and gave Mürk a hard stare.

  “I’ve got shite I’m wantin’ to work out with this bloke.” Mürk cut a gesture at Arc. “So bog off.”

  Pändra lit her cigarette, squinting at Mürk through the coil of rising smoke. “I can help you with your endeavors, brother dear.”

  “I don’t want your soddin’ help.”

  Pändra tutted. “How cheeky. I let you come out to play with me when you wanted to, and this is the bleeding thanks I get? But no bother. I’m in the mood to fight you for him, so we’re brill.”

  Mürk’s black eyes held Pändra’s for a long moment.

  The taller of Pändra’s two lowlifes sniggered.

  Pändra sniffed. “I owe you a good pasting, after all.”

  Thomal exchanged a quick glance with Arc. What the hell is going on?

  With a low, hissed curse, Mürk shook his head. “You’re a prize hatstand these days, you know that? Would you just talk to Raymond, for fucksake, and save us all the rest of your spleen. It’s been two weeks.”

  Pändra jetted out a lungful of smoke. “Raymond doesn’t fancy talking to me, and I can’t say I care for it either.” She gestured at Arc, her cigarette trailing a ghostly tail of smoke. “So are you going to let me help with this bloke or will you and I be having arms?”

  Mürk sneered. “Well, I don’t know, ducky. I suppose that depends on what you plan on doing to the chap.”

  “Why, I plan on fucking him, Mürk.”

  Mürk froze.

  Thomal froze, too.

  In fact, every man in the room had gone extremely motionless.

  “That’s shite,” Mürk accused, his tone suspicious. “You’re havin’ a laugh.”

  “Am I?” Pändra stabbed out her cigarette in the nightstand ashtray, then began to unsnap her corset-thing, snick, snick, snick.

  Mürk’s eyebrows lifted as she flung her top aside.

  Pändra unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, exposing a warped mess of black flame tattoos on her belly cut through with a bumpy red scar.

  Her lowlifes’ jaws came unhinged nearly in unison.

  She was wearing a naughty black-and-turquoise bra and panty set, and was even hotter than Thomal had originally thought, supple and nubile as a she-cat. Obviously, she was also dead serious about her plans to bang Arc. Thomal’s pulse kicked into a higher gear. From the side of his vision, he saw Arc’s cheekbones grow hard and prominent against his skin.

  Pändra started for Arc, and Thomal’s upper lip lifted around his gag.

  “’Allo there, my good man.” Pändra placed a hand on the back of Arc’s chair and leaned toward him.

  Arc’s nostrils flinched at the same moment Thomal’s did.

  She reeked of that disgusting corrosive smell, like battery acid or brake fluid, which was particular to Topside Om Rău, whose immortality rings made their blood acid.

  Without warning, Pändra punched Arc in the gut.

  Exhaling a blast of oxygen, Arc toppled out of his chair and crashed to the floor, his chain bindings clanking together.

  Thomal gnashed a string of curses around his gag. What the hell was up with this half-Rău bitch? His brother had never been taken to the mat with only one hit before.

  Pändra grabbed a fistful of Arc’s shirt and ripped
it off his body.

  “Shit the bed!” Mürk exclaimed. “Look at that dragon on his back.”

  “Shift your arse, Mürk,” Pändra commanded. “Hold the bloke good for me. I need to get his trousers off.”

  Blood roared into Thomal’s ears as Mürk stomped over and hauled Arc to his feet, bear-hugging him tightly against his body.

  Pändra reached for the zipper on Arc’s jeans.

  Snarling and snapping, Arc kicked out and arched his body, shoving Mürk backward a couple of paces.

  “Jesus wept,” Pändra hissed.

  “Well, he’s bastarding strong, Pändra,” Mürk gritted, struggling to push Arc back toward her.

  Sweat ran down Thomal’s cheeks as he strained at his chains.

  Pändra grabbed her purse off the nightstand and took out a length of telephone cord. “Use this.” She handed it to Mürk. “Be careful not to top him, though, you hear?” She gave Arc a thin smile. “Ready for a second go?” She slammed another punch into Arc’s stomach.

  Arc folded in half, retching and coughing. In the moment that he was weakened, Mürk slipped the cord around Arc’s neck and pulled it taut, tugging Arc upright.

  Thomal’s heart ricocheted into his ribs as his brother’s face stained an alarming shade of purple.

  “Each of you sit on a leg,” Pändra ordered her lowlifes.

  The two men scurried over to Arc and grabbed hold.

  Pändra reached for Arc’s fly again, and before Thomal knew what was happening, his brother’s pants were down.

  “Now that’s a good’un,” Pändra murmured, wrapping her hand around Arc’s dick.

  Acid rushed up Thomal’s throat along with a shout, the muscles in his neck spasming as he tried to push the yell past a mouthful of gag and bile. The bones in his wrists throbbed from the fight he was waging with his chains.

  A threatening sound erupted from Arc. He managed to drag-step sideways a couple of paces before Mürk tightened his hold on the garrote, and the lowlifes put all of their body weight into restraining his legs.