J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4 - J. R. Ward [613]
The lesser pulled a smoothie, somehow nailing Van in the balls with his knee. Quick switch of positions and Van was on the bottom. Then another roll and they were up on their feet.
The fight went on and on, no time-outs, no breathers, the two of them battering the holy hell out of each other. It was flipping miraculous. Van felt like he could go for hours, no matter how beat up his body got. It was like he had an engine in him, a driving force, one that was not as dulled by exhaustion or pain as his old self had been.
When the break in the action finally came, the tipping factor was Van’s special…whatever it was. Though the two of them were identically matched for strength, Van was the master at this, and he saw the opening for the win. He popped the other slayer in the gut, nailing a liver shot that would have left a human opponent shitting in his shorts. Then he picked his opponent up and slammed him down onto the ring floor. As he mounted the body and looked down, Van’s blood welled from the cuts around his eyes and dropped onto the guy’s face like tears…black tears.
The color momentarily freaked Van out, and the other lesser took advantage of the lapse in focus by spinning him over onto his back.
Yeah, not happening, not this time. Van balled his fist and rammed it into the guy’s temple at exactly the right force and the right place, knocking the lesser stupid. With a quick surge, Van kicked his opponent over, straddled the slayer’s chest and repeated the punch over and over again, battering the skull until the bone helmet went soft. And he just kept going, sticking to the task until the very structure of the man’s face let go, the head becoming a loose bag, his opponent dead and then some.
“Finish him!” Xavier called from the sidelines.
Van looked up, panting hard. “I just did.”
“No…finish him!”
“How?”
“You should know what to do!” Xavier’s pale eyes shined with an eerie desperation. “You must!”
Van wasn’t clear on exactly how much deader he could make the guy, but he grabbed the lesser by the ears and twisted until the neck snapped. Then he eased off the body. Though he had no heart that beat anymore, his lungs burned and his body was deliciously logy from exertion…except the logy didn’t last.
He started to laugh. Already the strength was returning to him, just pouring in from somewhere else as if he’d eaten and slept and recovered for days.
Xavier’s boots landed hard in the ring and the Fore-lesser strode over, furious. “I told you to finish him, goddamn it.”
“Uh-huh. Right.” Christ. Xavier just had to suck the triumph out of the moment. “You think he’s walking away from this?”
Xavier shook with rage as he took out a knife. “I told you to finish him.”
Van tensed up and leaped to his feet. But Xavier just bent over that messy, punching bag of a lesser and stabbed the thing in the chest. There was a flash of light and then…gone. Nothing but black smudges on the ring’s tarmac.
Van backed up until he hit the fencing. “What the hell…”
From across the way, Xavier pointed the knife right at Van’s chest. “I have expectations for you.”
“Like…what?”
“You should be able to do that”—he jabbed toward the disintegration mark with the blade—“on your own.”
“So give me a knife next round.”
Xavier shook his head, a bizarre kind of panic flaring in his face. “Fuck!” He paced around, then muttered, “It’s just going to take time. Let’s go.”
“What about the blood?” Man, that oily black stuff suddenly made him dizzy.
“Like I give a shit?” Xavier picked up the dead lesser’s duffel bag and left.
As Van followed him out of the parking garage, he found it really fucking annoying that Mr. X was playing it like this. The fight had been a good one and Van had won. He wanted to enjoy the feeling.
In strained silence, the two of them headed for the minivan, which was parked blocks away. As they went along, Van scrubbed his face with