Dylan (Bowen Boys, #3)(48)
He was going to make them pay, but he had to leave now. He vowed to make them pay for what they’d done…make all of them pay for it. Even as he moved back to the hotel room he was growing weaker. The man in his arms, sleeping now that he’d put him under compulsion to rest, was growing nearly too much for him to hold. He put him in one of the chairs and moved to the ties he’d bought to tie him down.
Moving slowly, his body losing blood and growing weaker by the minute, he tied the boy down. He’d learned that they couldn’t shift with the ties of plastic around their wrists and legs so tight. He didn’t remember if he’d ever heard why not, but he didn’t care so long as it worked. Lifting up the boy’s head, he put a gag in his mouth and noticed the blood on his cheek. He had the overwhelming need to run from it and settled back on the bed to watch it flow from the cut there.
“I’m exhausted. Too tired is all. There is no reason at all that I would be afraid of his blood.” Startled at the sound of his own voice yet comforted by it, Lucius moved to the head of the bed. “I will take care of you when I am rested. You’ll be a good boy and stay put, or I’ll simply tear out your throat.”
Lucius again had the feeling that the boy’s blood would harm him and staggered to the bathroom to look at his wound. He couldn’t believe that the bitch had shot him, and that she’d done it so quickly. He wondered if she heard him or felt him, and decided that it was just his exhaustion talking again. A human, a female one at that, would not be able to detect a vampire, especially one as old as him.
She’d gotten him in the shoulder. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt. He washed at it gently, not wanting to make it bleed again, and thought of the girl and the man. He wondered now if she’d be so callus or so cold and uncaring that she’d not bring him Small and the things she had on him. He frowned at his reflection and tried to think why this one person, a person so beneath him, would cause him so much trouble. Throwing the rag on the floor, he stomped to the bedroom and looked at the male.
He was younger than the girl. Perhaps five years younger, but he was big. His scent was that of a full-blooded panther, and Lucius’s mouth watered for a taste of him, even if it would only be a small one. But he still had that fear. Jerking the boy’s head up by his hair, he slapped him hard. Blood already on his cheek now mingled with fresh blood from his mouth and nose. Feeling better, he went to the bed to lie down. He was closing his eyes when he felt the first touch of his mind.
Sitting up quickly, forgetting about the heaviness of his body, he looked around the room. Someone had to be close to him or he’d not be able to feel him. When the voice sounded, he had no idea of the sex of the person but had an uncontrollable urge to run and hide. He just knew it was the girl. But it wasn’t, and his relief was so profound that he nearly missed the man’s words.
“My name is Dylan Bowen, and you have my brother.” There was a pause, long and full of shared feelings before the man continued. “You want to f*ck with me and mine, then you bring it on, buddy. I’ll eat you for dinner. And you harm one hair on his head, and there will be nothing to keep me from staking you to the ground and pissing on your body as you go up in flames.”
Lucius believed him and shivered. But there was no way that this man, any man no matter what the species, was going to take him down. He knew that as surely as he was sitting there. Straightening up on the bed, Lucius looked at the boy in front of him. He glared at the panther in front of him and wished he had a reason why the thought of drinking from him, feeding from him, terrified him so. But he didn’t want the man to know that.
“You think there is a reason for you to believe that I’ve not already dined on him?” The man laughed. “You have that bitch of a female come to me and bring me Small. I want what she has on him, as well. All of it. You’ll tell her that she will come to me at the front of the building where she lives at dusk, and to come alone. If I feel one person there that shouldn’t be, I will do as I said. If she does not bring me what I want, I will kill this being that I have taken from her. I will rip his throat out and feast upon his blood.”
The man’s laughter seemed to rattle in his mind and over his skin. Lucius was confused, not knowing if he cared so little for this panther or that he was as cold as the woman. Lucius wondered if the man might have been a good man to have on his side when he realized that he could no longer move his legs, the daylight taking his strength.
“She said to tell you that you’d better be there. She also said to tell you that Small won’t get you what you want, but she will give you what you deserve.” The laughter again. “I’m thinking you might have f*cked with the wrong woman when you messed with my wife.”
Lucius laid down his body, slowly shutting down, but his mind hadn’t yet. She was coming for him. No, that wasn’t right. She was going to bring him what he wanted, needed to make his plan work. He was going to get the man who would help him be rich beyond what he’d ever been. Closing his eyes again, he wondered about her. She was going to be difficult and thought that she might just be cocky enough to harm him. But he knew that she’d never kill him. It would be impossible for one female human to kill one such as him.
His last thought was of her. Her face was beautiful, her body strong and full of spark. Frowning as he tried to quiet his mind, he worried that she was more than he thought she was. More than he’d ever encountered in female or male.