Lover Unleashed - J. R. Ward [52]
Hell, maybe it was V? Which would explain the late routine.
Shit, perhaps this wasn’t as dire as they’d all thought. It sure as hell was close enough to the Commodore to justify the GPS reading, and when you were going hand-to-hand, it wasn’t like you could hit a pause button and text an update on your ETA.
As Butch rounded the corner, the Escalade’s headlights swung around into a long, narrow alleyway that was the urban equivalent of a colon: The brick buildings that formed its walls were grungy and sweaty, and the asphalt lane was pocked with filthy puddles—
“What the . . . fuck?” he breathed. Taking his foot off the accelerator, he leaned into the wheel . . . like maybe that would change what he was seeing.
At the far end, a fight was in progress, three lessers going hand-to-hand with a single opponent.
Who wasn’t fighting back.
Butch threw the SUV into park and broke out of the driver’s side, hitting the pavement at a dead run. The slayers had triangled Vishous, and the motherfucking idiot was slowly turning in the circle—but not to kick ass or to watch his own back. He was letting each of them have a go at him . . . and they had chains.
In the permaglow of the city, red blood was flowing on black leather as V’s massive body absorbed the licking strikes of the links that flew around him. If he’d wanted to, he could have snagged the ends of those chains, pulled the slayers in, and dominated his attackers—they were nothing but new recruits who still had their own hair and eye colors, street rats who had been inducted an hour and ten minutes ago.
Christ, given V’s self-control, he could have focused himself and dematerialized out of the ring if he’d wanted to.
Instead, he was standing with his arms out at the shoulders so there was no barrier between the impacts and his torso.
Bitch-ass bastard was going to look like a car-crash victim if he kept this up. Or worse.
Coming up to the ass whipping, Butch pulled a run and jump and pancaked the nearest slayer. As the pair of them hit the pavement, he grabbed onto a fist of dark hair, yanked back, and sliced deep across its throat. Black blood exploded out of the thing’s jugular and it flopped around, but there was no time to roll the slayer over and inhale its essence down into his lungs.
Time for cleanup later.
Butch leaped to his feet and caught the ripcord end of a flying length of chain. Giving a good pull, he leaned back and rocked a spin of his own that whipped the lesser out of V’s flagellation zone and Tasmanian-deviled it into a Dumpster.
As the undead saw stars and made like a welcome mat for future garbage hauls, Butch pivoted around, and was ready to end this thing—except surprise, surprise, V had decided to wake up and take care of biz. Even though the brother was clearly injured, he was a force to be reckoned with as he spun out a kick and then attacked with his fangs bared. Closing the distance with his incisors, he bit into the lesser’s shoulder and locked on like a bulldog; then he black-daggered the fucker in the gut.
While the thing’s intestinal tract hit the pavement in a sloppy mess, V cut the Colgate hold and let the slayer slump down and sprawl.
And then there was nothing but raw breathing.
“What the hell . . . were you . . . doing?” Butch bit out.
V bent at the waist and braced his palms on his knees, but clearly that wasn’t enough relief from the agony he was in: Next thing Butch knew, the brother went down on his knees next to the slayer he’d gutted and just . . . breathed.
“Answer me, asshole.” Butch was so pissed, he was of half a mind to kick the SOB in the head. “What the fuck are you doing?”
As cold rain began to fall, red blood dripped out of V’s mouth, and he coughed a couple of times. That was it.
Butch dragged a hand through his dampening hair and turned his face up to the sky. As dappling drops hit his forehead and cheeks, the cooling benediction calmed him down some. But did