their clothes had been consumed.
Wrath stepped into the clearing.
The creature swung around, panting.
Wrath kept his voice low and his hands at his sides. Rhage was in there somewhere, but until he came out again, you couldn't assume the beast would remember who the brothers were.
“We're cool,” Wrath said. “You and me, we've done this before.”
The beast's chest pumped up and down, nostrils quivering as it sniffed the air. Glowing eyes fixated on the blood running down Wrath's arm. A snort came out. The claws lifted.
“Forget it. You did your thing. You're fed. Now, let's have Rhage back.”
The great head shook back and forth, but its scales started to vibrate. A high-pitched protest breached the creature's throat, and then there was another flash.
Rhage fell naked to the ground, landing face-first in the dirt.
Wrath ran over and dropped to his knees, reaching out. The warrior's skin was slick with sweat, and he was shaking like a newborn in the cold.
Rhage shifted at the touch. Tried to lift his head. Failed.
Wrath took the brother's hand and squeezed it. The burn on reentry was always a bitch.
“Relax, Hollywood, you're good. You're doing good.” He took off his jacket and gently covered his brother.
“You're just going to hang here and let me take care of you, dig?”
Rhage mumbled something and curled into a ball.
Wrath flipped open his cell phone and dialed. “Vishous? We need a car. Now. You're kidding me. No, I gotta move our boy. We just had a visit from his other side. But you tell Zsadist not to fuck around.”
He hung up and looked at Rhage.
“Hate this,” the brother said.
“I know.” Wrath moved the sticky, blood-soaked hair out of the vampire's face. “We're going to get you home.”
“Didn't like seeing you shot.”
Wrath smiled softly. “Clearly.”
Beth stirred, burrowing deeper into the pillow.
Something wasn't right.
She opened her eyes just as a deep male voice broke the silence. “What the fuck do we have here?”
She bolted upright. Looked frantically to the sound.
The man towering over her had black, lifeless eyes. A harsh face with a jagged scar running down it. Hair that was practically shaved it was so short. And long, white fangs that were bared.
She screamed.
He smiled. “My favorite sound in all the world.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth.
God, that scar. It ran down his forehead, over his nose, across his cheek, and back around to his mouth. The tail end of the 5 distorted his upper lip, pulling one side into a permanent sneer.
“Admiring my artwork?” he drawled. “You should see the rest of me.”
Her eyes darted to his broad chest. He was wearing a skintight, long-sleeved black shirt. On both his pecs, small rings were evident beneath the material, as if he had his nipples pierced. As she looked back up at his face, she saw he had a black band tattooed around his neck and a plug in his left earlobe.
“Pretty, aren't I?” His cold stare was the stuff of night-mares, of dark places where no hope could be found, of hell itself.
Forget the scar, she thought. Those eyes were the scariest thing about him.
And they were fixated on her as if he were sizing her up for a shroud. Or for some sex.
She moved her body away from him. Started looking around for something she could use as a weapon.
“What, you don't like me?”
Beth eyed the door, and he laughed.
“Think you can run fast enough?” he said, pulling the bottom of his shirt free from the leather pants he had on. His hands moved to his fly. “I'm damn sure you can't.”
“Get away from her, Zsadist.”
Wrath's voice was a sweet relief. Until she saw that he had no shirt on and his arm was in a sling.
He barely looked at her. “Time to go, Z.”
Zsadist smiled coldly. “Not willing to share the female?”
“You only like it if you pay for it.”
“So I'll flip her a twenty. Assuming she lives through the sex.”
Wrath kept coming at the other vampire, until they stood nose-to-nose. The air crackled around them, supercharged by their aggression.
“You're not touching her, Z. You're not looking at her. You're going to say good-night and walk the fuck out of here.” Wrath removed the sling, exposing a bandage on his biceps. There was a red blush in the center as if he were bleeding, but he looked ready to take on the other man.
“Bet you're pissed you needed a ride home tonight,” Zsadist said. “And that I was the closest one with a car.”
“Don't make me regret it