Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(15)

So where do people go for buys, apart from the clubs down on Trade? Is there a crack row? And who are the big suppliers Rehv worked with? If Lash is trying to deal, he's got to be getting the shit from someone. One last breather for Qhuinn. We've been down in the alleys, but up until now, it's getting us nowhere. Just humans dealing with humans.

Trez eased back off his palms and you could practically smell the

wood burning as his brain worked. "Lemme ask you something."

Sure, John signed.

Trez looked around and then met John's eyes again. "Privately."

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FIVE


As theShadow threw out the demand, John saw Qhuinn and Blay both

stiffen and knew where his boys were coming from. Trez was an ally, but he was also dangerous by definition. Shadows ran by their own code and no one else's and they were capable of things that would make symphaths gag.

But when it came to Xhex, he was willing to walk into any ring of

fire.

Long as I have a pad and pen, we're good to go, John signed. When neither Blay nor Qhuinn translated, he frowned and elbowed them both.

Qhuinn cleared his throat and stared across the bar at Trez. "As his ahstrux nohtrum, I go anywhere he does."

"Not in my house, you don't. Or in my brother's."

Qhuinn rose to his feet, like he would throw down with the Shadow if

he had to. "That's the way it works."

John slid out of the booth and planted his body in Qhuinn's path

before the motherf*cker got all linebacker. With a nod toward the back, where he was assuming he and Trez would go, he waited for the Shadow to lead the way.

Naturally, Qhuinn just had to open his pie hole. "Fuck that, John."

John wheeled around and signed, Do I have to give you a goddamned order? I'm going with him and you're staying out here. Period. End of.

You suck, Qhuinn's hands spelled out. I'm not just jacking you for kicks and giggles--

The sound of a doorbell going off broke the argument up as they both

looked to the Shadows. After iAm glanced at the security monitor under the bar, he said, "Our two-thirty meeting is here."

As he strode around the counter and headed out for the front door,

Trez focused on Qhuinn for a long moment, then said to John, "Tell your boy it's hard to protect someone when you're dead."

Qhuinn's voice grew hard as a punch. "I'd go to the death for him."

"You keep up the attitude and that will not be a hypothetical."

Qhuinn bared his fangs and hissed down low in his throat, becoming

the deadly animal that humans made up all kinds of horror mythology

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around. As he glared at Trez, it was pretty clear that in his mind, he was already mounting the bar and going for the Shadow's throat.

Trez smiled coldly and didn't budge an inch. "Tough guy, huh. Or are you all show."

Hard to know which fighter to back. The Shadow had tricks up his

sleeve, and yet Qhuinn was looking like a bulldozer prepared to take down a building. But whatever, this was Caldwell, not Las Vegas, and John wasn't a bookie to take odds.

The right answer was to not let the unstoppable force meet the

immovable object.

John balled up his fist and slammed it on the table. The crack was so loud, it brought everyone's head around, and Blay had to catch his Coke on the upswing as it bounced into the air.

After John grabbed the undivided attention of the combatants, he

fingered up two birds and flashed one in each of their directions: Being mute, it was the closest he was going to get to telling them to chill the f*ck out.

Qhuinn's mismatched stare swung back to the Shadow. "It's just like you would do for Rehv. Can't blame me for that."

There was a pause . . . and then the Shadow eased up a little. "True enough." As the testosterone surge faded to a dull roar, Trez nodded. "Yeah .

. . true enough. And I'm not going to hurt him. If he's a gentleman, I'll be a gentleman. I give you my word."

Stay with Blay, John signed, before turning around and heading for the Shadow.

Trez led the way into a hall that was wide and stacked with cases of

beer and liquor. The kitchen was at the far end, separated by a pair of flap-doors that made no sound when you went through them.

Brightly lit and with a red tile floor, the heart of the restaurant was neat as a pin and the size of a house, with a bank of stoves, a meat locker, and yards and yards of stainless-steel countertops. Pans hung up above and down below and something gorgeous was stewing on a front burner.

Trez went over and lifted the lid. After a deep inhale, he glanced over with a smile. "My brother is a helluva cook."

Sure was, John thought. Although with Shadows you always had to

wonder what the protein was. Rumor had it they liked to eat their enemies.

The guy replaced the top and reached up to a stack of pads. Taking

one of them off the pile, he slid the thing across the counter and snagged a pen from a cup.

"That's for you." Trez crossed his arms over his huge chest and leaned 50

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back against the stove. "When you called and asked to see us, I was surprised. Like I said, Rehv lives under the same roof you do, so it's not as if you aren't aware of what he's doing up north in the colony. Therefore you must know, as your bosses do, that he's searching the northern-most corner of the labyrinth this week . . . and you must also be aware that he's found absolutely, positively nothing that leads him to believe Xhex was captured by a symphath."