In the silence that followed, the tension rose within the group, thick and fraught in the night air. And as an abrupt wind weaved through the ring of trees behind the busted-up groundskeeping building, Butch looked over his shoulder and braced himself.
But it was not the Omega. Not yet.
“We gotta go,” he said in warning. “We need to leave here with the van and get to the mountain.”
Tohr cursed. “Can I talk to Wrath first?”
Butch refocused on his brother. “On the way. You go with Rhage and Qhuinn in the van. I need to be kept apart from the slayers in case the Omega shows up. He’ll come after me as a first priority, and if I die, you need to take those fuckers to the Tomb anyway and keep them there. You’ll want the evil to be as run-down as possible when someone else does the final takedown on the fucker.” He glanced at the other fighters. “For the rest of you, let’s confiscate these cars and bikes. It’ll give V less to toast. He has to come here first while we’re driving to the mountain.”
“If Wrath refuses access,” Tohr started.
“Then tell him to call me. There is no other option.”
Tohr caught Butch’s arm. “If Wrath says no, you’re going to find one.”
Sitting on the operating table in the mobile surgical unit, Syn let his boots dangle . . . and thought about the way Jo had sat on the countertop in that abandoned restaurant kitchen. It seemed like a lifetime ago since the pair of them had sought refuge from that police helicopter.
And now they were here. In two separate vehicles. Heading for the training center and God only knew what.
Up in front, behind the wheel, Manny didn’t have much to say either as they continued down the highway. Then again, shock’ll do that to a guy.
“How did you find her?” the human surgeon asked eventually.
The fact that the man might be Jo’s brother changed a lot of things. In the vampire tradition, bonded males always came first with respect to their females—and there was no one around who didn’t know Syn’s status after the little show he’d put on tonight.
Well . . . except for Jo that was.
Fuck.
But the next in line after a bonded male? The eldest male in the bloodline. Which, if what Jo alleged was true, meant that Manny deserved answers to questions no one but he had any right to ask.
Syn cleared his throat and felt obligated to keep all images of anything sexual out of his mind while he replayed the course of his relationship with Jo—which he knew damn well was over now.
God, this hurt, he thought.
“She’s a reporter. She was looking into a murder downtown. There were lessers around, and I was worried that they’d recognize her for what she is—even though she is not aware she’s a half-breed.” He decided to edit out the part about her pointing her gun at him. Also the Mafia hit stuff. “There were the human police all over the place, too. She didn’t want her presence to be known, so I made sure it wasn’t. I’ve only ever protected her, I swear to you.”
Manny twisted around in the driver’s seat for a second. “She doesn’t know about the change?”
“No. She’ll find out tonight, though. Or at least she better. It’s so close for her the now.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“V already knew about her.” Syn did his best to keep any aggression out of his voice. “So she’s been looked after.”
“They should have brought her in.”
There was a long pause. And then Manny said, “I know your reputation.”
Rolling his eyes, Syn muttered, “Who doesn’t. And she’s living and breathing, isn’t she. If I were going to kill her for sport, I would have already.”
There was an even longer silence that followed that little piece of caring-is-sharing, and in the quiet, Syn went back into his past, thinking of the first female he’d gone after in the Old Country. It had been back when being a mercenary had been his only job, before Balz had gotten him in with the war camp and the Bloodletter and Xcor.
In another case of his reputation preceding him, Syn had been approached in a pub by a farmer whose fields were being encroached upon by a neighboring landowner. As the conflict escalated, the farmer’s cows had been poisoned and his lake spoiled. He’d been looking to have the problem resolved.