him doubt the information his eyes were feeding him.
All of the jars that had been set upon all of the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the ante-hall, well over a thousand, had been thrown to the stone floor of the Tomb’s entry corridor and shattered. Every single one.
Butch stopped as his shitkickers crunched over the first of the shards . . . that soon grew into a mountain.
“What is it—”
As Tohr abruptly stopped talking, Butch dropped down on his haunches and picked up a piece of enameled pottery. It looked old, but some of what had been broken was quite new, the sort of vases you could buy at Target.
“What the fuck?” someone else said as they got a look at the mess.
Butch stared up at the shelves. There was not one single jar left.
For generations of fighting, the Brotherhood had collected these vessels from the lessers they had slain, taking the hearts that were stained with evil as trophies of triumph. Whether it was a case of lifting the ID off the body before it was stabbed back to the Omega or actively torturing the enemy for information on where they stayed, claiming the jars had always been part of the victory ritual.
When Butch had joined the war, he had done it himself.
“Who the fuck got in here?” another brother said. “And why did they break all of this shit?”
Butch eyed the mound of shards and shrapnel that swelled to a point in the center of the corridor. As the torches on the walls threw strobing illumination on the jagged pile, he couldn’t imagine who could have found—
“Oh, shit!” he barked.
As everyone else fell silent behind him, he wasn’t thinking straight as he plunged into the pottery and porcelain debris, shifting through the pieces with hands that were cut by sharp edges, digging . . . clawing . . . praying.
“No, no, no . . .” He heard someone saying that word over and over again, and became dimly aware that it was him. “No . . . no . . .”
As people started to talk behind him, he ignored them.
Butch went all the way down to the stone floor. All the way down.
Then he gave up in utter defeat, twisting around to his brothers as he let himself fall back on his ass in the clearing he had made with hands that now bled red.
For a moment, all he could do was stare up at the group of males who had been enemies to him first, and then friends . . . only to culminate in blooded brothers. He knew their faces as well as he knew his own, and he loved each and every one of them as much as he could love another male.
And it was because of that love that he was suddenly completely and utterly terrified.
Tohr looked over and held his hands up in confusion, all WTF. “Cop, what’s going on here?”
“The hearts are gone,” he choked out. “The Omega . . . somehow, he got in here and he took the hearts from the jars.”
The response was immediate, voices exploding and echoing around as the brothers—and Wrath—went on an immediate offense with their guns and daggers, like they were about to go hunt down the enemy deeper into the subterranean lair.
“He’s not here!” Butch yelled over the din. When they quieted down, he likewise lowered his voice. “The Omega’s gone. He took what he needed . . . and he’s gone.”
V spoke up. “That’s impossible. There’s no way he could have found this place.”
Butch reached out and picked up one of the shards. It was a pale blue circular piece, a base, he guessed—and when he turned it over, it read “Made in China.”
Closing his eyes, he rubbed the smooth, flat surface between the pads of his thumb and forefinger. Then he reopened his lids. “No, it was him. I can feel him on this.”
“The house,” Wrath growled. “The females. The young—”
“No,” Butch interjected. “He’s not on the property. I don’t sense him anywhere here on the mountain and the mhis wouldn’t affect my read on him. He’s not here.”
“But he was,” the King said.
“Yes.” Butch tossed the shard away and got to his feet. As he brushed his bleeding palms on the seat of his leathers, he shook his head. “And we’ve got an even bigger problem than him knowing where we live.”
“What the fuck could that possibly be,” somebody muttered.
Butch turned his back on the brothers and stared at the debris. “He’s taken