with his arm above his shoulder. At the last instant, he ducked into a ball, rolled on the mats, then shot up off the ground with the blade, hitting the bag from underneath. If it had been a real combat scenario, the knife would have gone into the lesser's gut. Deep.
He twisted the hilt.
Then he sprang to his feet and spun around, imagining the undead falling to its knees, holding on to the hole in its abdomen. He stabbed the bag from up top, seeing himself bury the blade in the back of the neck-
"John?"
He whirled around, panting.
The female who approached made him tremble-and not just because she'd surprised the shit out of him. It was Beth Randall, the half-breed queen, the female who was also his sister, or so blood tests proved. Strangely, whenever she was around, his head went on a little vacation, his brain seizing up, but at least he didn't pass out anymore. Which had been his first reaction to meeting her.
Beth came across the mats, a long, lean female dressed in jeans and a white turtleneck, her dark hair the exact color of his. As she came closer, he could smell Wrath's bonding scent on her, a dark perfume specific to her hellren. John suspected the marking happened through sex, as the spice was always strongest at First Meal when they came down from their bedroom.
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"John, will you join us up at the house for the last meal of the night?"
I have to stay and practice, he signed in American Sign Language. Everyone in the household had learned ASL. and the concession to his weakness, to his lack of voice, irked him. He wished they didn't have to make any allowances for him. He wished he were normal.
"We'd like to see you. And you spend so much time here."
Practice is important.
She eyed the blade in his hand. "So are other things."
As he continued to stare at her, her dark blue eyes looked around the gym as if she were trying to find an appealing argument.
"Please. John, we're... I'm worried about you."
At one time, three months ago, he would have loved to have heard those words from her. From anybody. But no more. He didn't want her concern. He wanted her to get out of his way.
When he shook his head, she took a deep breath. "All right. I'm going to leave more food in the office, okay?
Please... eat."
He inclined his head once, and when she lifted her hand as if to reach out, he stepped away. Without another word, she turned around and walked back across the blue mats.
When the door shut behind her, John jogged back to the far side of the gym and crouched to start running. As he took off once again, he lifted his blade high, rank hatred powering his arms and legs.
Mr. X flipped into action at high noon, walking into the garage of the house he recharged in, getting into the don't-notice-me minivan that disguised him among Caldwell's human traffic.
He had no interest in his assignment, but you acted when the master called in a command and you were the Fore-lesser. It was either that or you got canned, something Mr. X had been through once before and not enjoyed: Having the Omega slap a pink slip on you was about as much fun as eating a barbed-wire salad.
The fact that Mr. X was back on the flipping planet and in this role once again was still a shocker to him. But it seemed as if the master had grown tired of his revolving door of Fore-lessers and wanted to make one stick.
As Mr. X had evidently been the best of the lot in the last fifty or sixty years, he'd been called into service for another round.
Reissued out of hell.
And so he was going to work today. As he pushed the key into the ignition and the Town & Country's anemic engine coughed over, he was utterly uninspired, no longer the leader he'd first been. But it was hard to get motivated in this kind of lose/lose situation. The Omega was going to get pissed off again and take it out on his number one. It was inevitable.
In bright noonday sun, Mr. X headed out of the fresh and perky subdivision, passing by Monopoly houses that Page 52
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had been built in the late 1990s. The things all shared a common architect, the gene pool of features locking the homes