J.R. Ward: Lover Reborn

Putting her penlight between her teeth so she could keep a gun in each hand, she searched what she could see of the rough wooden staircase. Down at the bottom there was a dirt floor, and she flashed herself to it, pivoting quickly into a defensive stance.

Lot of bunks: three sets of uppers and lowers with a single off to one side.

Clothes in big sizes. Candles for light. Matches. Reading materials.

Cell phone charging cords. One for a laptop.

And that was it.

No weapons. No electronics. Nothing that offered any true identification.

Then again, the Band of Bastards had started out as nomads, so of course their personal effects were few and very portable—and this was part of the reason they were so dangerous: They could relocate at the drop of a hat and leave no meaningful footprint behind.

This definitely was, however, their inner sanctum, the site where they were relatively vulnerable during the day—and they did protect themselves accordingly: The walls and the ceiling and the back of the door were covered with steel mesh. No getting down here, or out of here, but through that opening way above.

She went around slowly, looking for trapdoors, a tunnel entrance, anything.

They’d need an ammunition storage facility somewhere in here: Even as mobile as they liked to be, there was no way they could go out night after night buying just enough bullets to get them to the dawn.

They’d need a cache.

Refocusing on the single cot, she guessed it was Xcor’s, as their leader, and it didn’t take a genius to figure that if there was any hiding place, it would be in his area—he had just the kind of suspicious mind to not fully trust even his own soldiers.

Investigating the bed with her light, she searched for triggering mechanisms either to an alarm or a bomb or a trapdoor. Finding none, she sheathed her guns for a moment and lifted up the metal frame, moving aside. Taking out a miniature handheld metal detector, she scanned the dirt floor and…

“Hello, boys,” she murmured.

Her handy-dandy piece of equipment picked up a perfectly square outline that measured about four by two and a half feet. Kneeling down, she used one of her knives to displace the soil around the peripheral edges. Whatever it was, was buried deep—

Xhex froze as her acute hearing informed her that a car had pulled up.

It was not one of the Bastards or their cohorts, however. The emotional grid was far too uncomplicated.

A doggen , arriving with provisions?

Flashing up to the head of the stairs, she shut the door as much as she could without reengaging the lock and then went back to the buried box. Moving at triple time now, she kept one ear pinned on the footsteps creaking around on the first floor.…

On the long side of the delineated rectangle, she used her knife point to probe the packed dirt for a handle. Finding nothing, she repeated the investigation on the short—

Bingo. Brushing the earth away, she gripped a circular ring, put the penlight back between her teeth and heaved with everything she had. The lid weighed as much as a car hood, and she had to swallow her grunt—

Wow. Talk about an arsenal.

In the large box below there were handguns, shotguns, knives, ammunition, munitions cleaning supplies… all of it in a well-ordered, obviously watertight environment.

Among which was a long, black, hard-plastic rifle case.

She took the thing out and put it on the dirt floor next to her. One look at the lock and she cursed. Fingerprint activated.

Whatever. The damn thing was big enough to house one or maybe two long-noses. So it was coming with her.

With quick, sure hands, she shut the lid, kicked dirt back over it, and patted the surface so it was packed hard once more. Covering her tracks took less time than she thought, and before she knew it, she was moving the bunk into place again.

Picking up the case with her left hand, she listened. The doggen was moving around upstairs, the female’s grid as unremarkable as it had been when she had arrived: She had heard nothing, knew nothing.

Glancing around, Xhex thought it was unlikely that the maid had the key to get down here. Xcor would be too cagey for that. But still, it wasn’t safe to just hang out. Even if they gave the doggen the run only of the upstairs, one of the Bastards could get injured in the field at any time, and though she had no hesitation in fighting any one of them, or every fucking one, if the rifle was in fact in this case, she needed to get the weapon out immediately.

Time for a meet-and-greet.

As she dematerialized up to the head of the stairs, her weight on the top step released a creak from the wood.

On the far side, the doggen called out, “Sire?” There was a pause. “Wait, I shall assume the position.”

What. The. Fuck?

“I am ready.”

Xhex palmed the doorknob, opened the way, and stepped out, expecting to find some kind of Kama Sutra nightmare going on.

Instead, the older female was standing in the corner of the kitchen facing the juncture of the walls, with her eyes covered by her hands.

They didn’t want her to be able to identify them, Xhex thought. Smart. Very smart.

Timely, too, as she would have had to waste precious minutes screwing with the female’s head. Further, that “position,” as it were, was going to save the doggen ’s life later, when Xcor eventually found out that his lair had been infiltrated while they were gone.

If you didn’t see anyone ever, there was no way you were protecting an intruder.

Xhex shut the door, and the lock triggered itself, reengaging. Then she dematerialized right out of there, carrying the gun case against her chest.

Good thing it wasn’t that heavy.

And God willing, Vishous was going to be off rotation for the night.

Back at the Brotherhood compound, Tohr held the basement door open and stood aside as John passed by and hit the stairs.

Descending after the other male, Tohr’s body was stiff, especially his back and shoulders. His nightly workouts as a furniture mover were finished, though. After a final three-hour push this evening, his and Wellsie’s house was officially empty, and on its way to being entered into Caldwell’s MLS system. Fritz had met with the Realtor during the day, and the price they had set was aggressive, but not crazy. If Tohr had to carry the costs of the place for another couple of months, or even through the spring, that was fine.

Meanwhile, the furniture and rugs had been moved into the mansion’s garage; the paintings and etchings and ink drawings were up in the climate-controlled part of the attic; and the jewelry box was in Tohr’s closet above the mating dress.

So it was… done.

At the bottom of the stairs, he and John set off at a resolute pace that took them through a cavernous room and by the massive boiler that not only kicked out enough heat to keep the main part of the house warm, but threatened to fry his face and body as he strode into its orbit.

Continuing onward, their footsteps were loud, the air cooling fast as they left the boiler’s range and hit the second half of the basement. This part was cut up into storage rooms, one of which would soon hold the balance of his and Wellsie’s furniture, another of which was V’s private workspace.

No, not that kind of work.

He used his penthouse for that shit.

Vishous’s forge was down here.

The sound of the Brother’s fire-breathing monster started off as a low hum; by the time they turned the final corner, the dull roar was loud enough to drown out the sound of their shitkickers. In fact, the only thing that cut through the din was the tink-tink-tink of V pounding a hammer on red-hot black metal.