The Curse (Belador #3)(9)
As if the night hadn’t been full of enough surprises, her other closest friend, Vladimir Quinn, reached her next. She hadn’t seen him in weeks. Two men couldn’t look less alike than Tzader and Quinn. Tzader was an ebony Adonis sculpted of lethal edge and cut muscle that stretched his gray T-shirt at the chest, where fair-haired Quinn’s deadly air had a certain elegance set off by a black cashmere sport coat and crisp slacks. Only Quinn could look pristine after a battle.
Russian by birth, Quinn spoke with a British accent gained through an Oxford education. Right now that accent held undisguised fear, clearly for her. “How badly did he hurt you, Evalle?”
“I’m good. My throat will be sore for a day or two, but he didn’t crush my windpipe.” She took in Quinn’s narrow face, thinner now than when she’d last seen him. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in three weeks, other than a brief e-mail right after her release from VIPER prison, saying he was glad she’d been freed. Tzader had told her only that Quinn had gone away to heal from a particularly bad mind lock he’d performed for an investigation.
Quinn let out a gush of air and ran his hand over his hair. “I had no idea this was going on or I’d have tried to return sooner.”
“How long have you been back in town?”
“Just got in. I was on the way from the airport to my hotel when I heard Tzader’s call to arms.”
She wanted to ask him where he’d been and why he’d disappeared without letting her know before he left, but in her evil mood the questions would sound too much like interrogation.
Speaking of the reason she’d been in a foul mood for weeks, she hadn’t heard a word from Storm either, not since she’d gotten a vague e-mail that same night Quinn had vanished.
And Tzader wondered why she’d been so pissed off for days?
Storm had partnered with her on several VIPER missions … and had stirred up her emotions. She harbored doubts about whether the blunt e-mail she had received from Storm had actually been from him.
Maybe sent from Storm’s cell phone, but not typed by his hand. She couldn’t think about him right now. Not without risk of exposing how every one of the past twenty-two days had been a challenge to get through without giving up hope of ever hearing from him again.
Evalle shoved those thoughts away so she could function. She had another question for Quinn—something that had haunted her since the last time she’d seen him—but that would have to wait until a better time, too.
More Beladors crowded around them. Devon Fortier’s face popped up nearby. The Cajun was headquartered in Savannah, but Tzader had pulled in as many Belador assets as possible to supplement VIPER teams in Atlanta when the gang wars erupted.
Devon whistled low and made an mm-mm sound. A female operative at VIPER once described his voice as a night wind sneaking through the backwoods of Louisiana. Devon wore his sun-streaked golden hair pulled taut in a ponytail, but a wavy strand had escaped and dangled over his forehead. The perpetual shadow on his cheeks and strong jaw gave him a devil-may-care appeal … for a woman who welcomed trouble.
He sent a sly look at Evalle and said, “Another Kincaid massacre. You’ve been on a tear this week.”
“Hey!” She regretted trying to yell at him, swallowed and said, “I didn’t do all of this.” She had been taking her frustration out on a few gangers and trolls, but just like tonight’s carnage, she’d only inflicted injuries as a result of self-defense. “Is everything under control? Any of ours hurt?”
Devon wiped sweat off the side of his face. “No, our people are good. We had the humans contained when Tzader sent us this way to set up an ambush for the Rías. Most of the gangers ran. I put some Cajun mojo on the others to keep them in La La Land until cleanup gets here to wipe their minds.”
Not sure what power or majik Devon possessed, Evalle just nodded, glad the Beladors hadn’t been injured while linked to her. “Who killed the Rías?”
“That would be me, my dear,” Quinn admitted with a hint of disappointment in his voice. “None of us was going to reach you in time, so I …”
“Used your mind lock … and blew up his head?” she finished, hating that he’d had to use extreme force for her. Quinn had an unusual ability to mind lock with other beings, and could damage or destroy a mind, but he kept his power under a tight tether and had never before physically exploded a head that she knew of. Plus, he couldn’t use deadly force through his mind lock unless he received prior approval or was under mortal threat himself.
“That’s a graphic way of stating it,” Quinn said. “But basically, yes. Tzader authorized the kill. I tried to stop the beast by taking control of his mind, but he didn’t drop fast enough, so I used kinetics to assure he didn’t touch you.”
Tzader snorted. “Think I remember it more as an order than authorization.”
Evalle cocked her head at Tzader. “Thought only Brina, or Macha, could give that approval.”
Tzader shifted, lowering his voice. “With the threat hovering over Brina, Macha gave me clearance to give the order if I saw fit.” Tzader and Quinn could be over-protective to the point of aggravating, but she appreciated them more than they’d ever know. They were the closest she’d ever come to having brothers, or any family.
She cast a quick glance at the dead Rías and winced. The beast had shifted back into a human form, so now she had to look at a headless, naked human body.