Lover Unleashed - J. R. Ward [169]
Both of them straightened up. “Look at me,” the leader said.
Her lids were so heavy that she had to struggle to obey. And the moment she did, she felt a searing pain at her temples. That didn’t last long, though, and afterward . . . she was just floating.
Which was why she didn’t pay much attention to the distant, muffled scream that came from next door a little later—not the room that Mack was in, but the one on the other side of her.
Boom! Thump. Bump . . .
Karrie started to fall asleep at that point, dead to the world, the cash glueing to her palm as what had been wet turned to dry.
She wasn’t worried about anything. In fact, she felt amazing.
Fuck . . . who had she been with . . . ?
As Xcor stepped outside the whore’s motel room with Throe directly behind him, he shut the door and looked left and right. The facility that his soldier had chosen for this carnal diversion was on the outskirts of town. Run-down and rotting in places, the single-story building had been cut up into some fifty little cupboard-like boxes, with the office all the way down on the left. He had wanted the terminal room on the other end for privacy, but the best Throe had been able to do was the next in from that.
Though, truly, what were the chances of occupancy? There was hardly anyone here.
Scanning the parking spaces in front of them, he saw a black Mercedes that was desperately trying to look newer than it actually was . . . and a truck with a cap over its bed. The other two cars were way down at the far end, by the office.
This was perfect for the kind of purpose they’d fulfilled. Secluded. Populated with people who wanted no one in their business and were prepared to extend a similar courtesy to others. And the exterior lighting was poor: Only one out of every six bulbs by the doors worked—hell, the lighting fixture next to his head had been smashed. So everything was dim and dark.
He and his band of bastards were going to have to find females of their race to service their blood needs long-term, but that would come. Until then? They would partake from the likes of what he and Throe had just fucked, and they would do it here in this deserted place.
Throe spoke quietly. “Satisfied?”
“Aye. She was well and good.”
“I’m glad—”
A scent upon the air drew both of their heads toward the door to the terminating room. As Xcor inhaled deeply to confirm what he had caught a mere whiff of, the smell of fresh human blood was an unwelcome surprise.
Unlike the expression on Throe’s face. Which was an unwelcome nonsurprise.
“Do not even consider it,” Xcor bit out. “Throe—Fuck.”
The fighter was turning to the door with a thunderous expression—his aggression no doubt inflamed because that was female blood being spilled: The fertility was obvious in the air.
“We have no time for this,” Xcor spat.
In a manner of reply, Throe kicked the fucking door in.
As Xcor cursed, he only briefly considered dematerializing out of the scene; all it took to cure the impulse was a look inside. Throe’s ridiculous heroic streak had opened the way to a mess. Literally.
A human female was tied down onto the bed, with something crammed into her mouth. She was almost dead—and too close to the edge of her grave to save. Her blood was everywhere, on the wall beside her, dripping onto the floor, soaking into the mattress. The tools of whoever had done this were on the bedside table: two knives, duct tape, scissors . . . and half a dozen small clear jars with colorless fluid in them and tops that were set aside.
There were things floating in the—
A slam echoed out of the bathroom. As if a transom or window had been opened and shut.
As Throe ran in, Xcor lunged forward and caught the other male by the arm. In a quick one/two, Xcor unclipped the steel cuff he kept on his weapons belt and clamped it on the thick wrist of his soldier. Hauling back with all his weight, he hauled the male around, swinging him like the ball on the end of a chain. There was a thump on the far wall as the cheap plaster stopped the vampire pendulum.