Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood #10) - J. R. Ward Page 0,9

not Z and Phury, or V and Butch, or Blaylock and Rhage.

That was a scythe in the left one’s hands. A big-ass, sharply honed scythe.

“Son of a bitch,” Tohr muttered.

The male with the curving blade had his feet planted on the pavement like he was a god, his weapon poised, his ugly face smiling in anticipation as if he were about to sit down to a good meal. Next to him, a vampire Tohr hadn’t see for aeons was nothing like the guy he’d once met in the Old Country.

Looked as though Throe, son of Throe, had fallen in with a bad crowd.

John and Qhuinn pulled up on either side of him, and the latter glanced over. “Tell me that isn’t our new neighbor.”

“Xcor.”

“Was he born with that puss or did someone make it for him?”

“Who knows.”

“Well, if that was supposed to be a nose job, he needs a new plastic surgeon.”

Tohr looked over at John. “Call them off.”

Excuseme? the kid signed.

“I know you texted the brothers back at the house. Tell them it was a mistake. Right now.” When John started to argue, he cut off the conversation. “You want there to be an all-out war here? You call the Brotherhood in, he calls his bastards in, and suddenly we’re balls to the wall without any strategy. We’ll handle this by ourselves—I’m fucking serious, John. I’ve dealt with these boys before. You haven’t.”

As John’s hard stare met his own, Tohr had the sense, as always, that they had been in these situations together far, far longer than just the past few months.

“You gotta trust me, son.”

John’s response was to mouth a curse, get his phone out and start hitting the buttons.

And at that moment, Xcor tweaked that there were visitors. In spite of the number of lessers ahead of him, he started laughing. “It’s the bloody Black Daggers—and just in time to save us. You want us on our knees?”

The slayers spun around—big mistake. Xcor didn’t waste a moment, striking with a circling sweep, hitting two of them in the lower back. That was his free shot. As the pair fell to the ground, the others split into two camps, half heading for Xcor and Throe, half gunning for Tohr and his boys.

Tohr let out a roar and met the onslaught with his bare hands, leaping forward and locking onto the first slayer that got in range. He went for the head, grabbing on hard, before putting up his knee and cracking the fucker’s face open. Then he wheeled the thing around and threw the loose body skullfirst into the side of a Dumpster.

As the ringing faded, Tohr faced off at the next in line. He’d have preferred to have gone more with the fist action, but he wasn’t going to dick around: At the far end of the alley, seven more newbies were dropping like snakes from a tree, dripping down the front of a chain-link fence.

He ripped out both daggers, set his boots in the pavement, and assessed an offensive strategy for the fresh arrivals. Man … say what you would about Xcor’s ethics, social skills, and GQ eligibility; the motherfucker could fight. He was swinging that scythe around like it weighed less than a pound, and he had a knack for judging distance—lesser parts were flying all over the place, hands, a head, an arm. The bastard was incredibly effective, and Throe wasn’t incompetent, either.

Against all odds, and the choice of any of them, Tohr and his crew fell into a rhythm with the bastards: Xcor drove the first round into the waiting blades at the head of the alley, while his lieutenant held the second wave in place so no one got blocked in. After Tohr, John, and Qhuinn picked the tide off, one by one the other slayers were sent to the slaughter—freshly wounded.

Whereas there had been showboating in the beginning, now this was work. Xcor wasn’t doing any flashy moves with his wide blade; Throe wasn’t jumping around; John and Qhuinn were in the zone.

And Tohr was knee-deep in revenge.

These were nothing but new recruits—so it wasn’t like the slayers were offering much in the way of skills. The sheer numbers, however, were such that the tide could turn—

A third squadron popped over the fence.

As they landed one after the other on the payment, Tohr regretted his order to John. That had been vengeance talking. Fuck the shit with avoiding a BDB vs. Band of Bastards showdown; he’d wanted to save the kills