J.R. Ward: Lover Mine

Of course, then he’d have a dead body to deal with and blood all over the leather.

Both of which were bores.

He looked across the seats. The one he had picked out of a cast of hundreds was your typical bottom-feeding, drug-dealing, shifty-eyed motherfucker. The kid’s history of child abuse was written in the old circular scar on his face—perfectly round and the size of the burning end of a cigarette—and his hard life on the street was in his smart, twitchy eyes. His greed was in the way he looked around the inside of the car, like he was trying to figure out how to make it his own, and his resourcefulness was obvious by how quickly he’d made a name for himself as a go-to dealer.

“More than a club,” Lash said in a low voice. “Much more. You’ve got a future in this business and I’m offering it to you on a silver platter. I’ll have my men pick you up here tomorrow night.”

“What if I don’t show?”

“Your choice.” Of course, then the fucker was going to wake up dead in the morning, but details, details. .

The kid met Lash’s eyes. The human wasn’t built like a fighter; he was more the size of someone who’d gotten his ass cheeks duct-taped together in the school locker room. But it had become amply clear that the Lessening Society needed two kinds of members now: moneymakers and soldiers. After having had Mr. D scope the Xtreme Park and watch who was moving the most product, this wiry little shit with the reptilian stare was at the top of the heap.

“Are you queer?” the kid said.

Lash allowed one of his hands to leave the steering wheel and duck into his jacket. “Why do you ask that?”

“You smell like one. Dress like one, too.”

Lash moved so fast, his target didn’t have a chance to even lean back in the seat. With a quick lunge, he rocked out the switch and laid that sharp blade right against the vital, beating pulse at the side of the white neck.

“The only thing I do to males is kill them,” Lash said. “You want to get fucked like that? Because I’m ready if you are.”

The kid’s eyes went cartoon wide and his body trembled beneath his dirty clothes. “No. . I don’t got a problem with the queers.”

Fidiot was missing the point, but whatever. “Do we have a deal?” Lash said, pressing the point of his knife in. As the penetration was achieved, blood welled up in a bubble and stayed put for a split second, like it was trying to decide whether to flow down the shiny metal or the smooth column of skin.

It picked the blade, meandering forth in a ruby red stream.

“Please. . don’t kill me.”

“What’s your answer.”

“Yeah. I’ll do it.”

Lash pressed in harder, watching the blood run. He was momentarily captivated by the reality that if he took the weapon and pushed it farther through the flesh, this human would cease to exist, like a breath of air disappearing into a chilly night.

He enjoyed feeling like a god.

As whimpering breached the kid’s chapped lips, Lash relented, easing back. With a quick lick, he cleaned off the blade and flicked the weapon shut. “You’re going to like where you end up. I promise you.”

He gave the guy a chance to recover and knew it wasn’t going to take long for the kid to get his groove back. Asswipes like this one had egos like balloons. Pressure, particularly the kind that came with a knife at the throat, caused them to collapse in on themselves. But the instant the stress was relieved, they rebounded, puffing back up into place.

The kid snapped his crappy leather jacket down. “I like where I is just fine.”

Bingo. “Then why are you looking at my car like you want it in your garage?”

“I got a better ride than this.”

“Oh. Really.” Lash eyeballed the bitch from head to foot. “You come here every night on a BMX. Your jeans are torn and not because they’re designer. How many jackets you got in your closet? Oh, wait, you keep your shit in a cardboard box under the bridge.” Lash rolled his eyes as all kinds of surprise bubbled up from the passenger seat. “You think we didn’t check you out? You think we’re that stupid?”

Lash jabbed a finger toward the Xtreme Park, where skateboarders were making like metronomes on the ramps, up and down, up and down. “You are the shit in this playground over here. Fine. Congratulations. But we want you to go farther. You join with us, you’ve got muscle behind you. . money, product, protection. You hit it with us, you’re going to be something more than a two-bit punk swinging your cock around a concrete lot. We’ve got your future.”

The kid’s calculating stare shifted toward his little slice of territory in Caldwell and then floated over to the horizon where the skyscrapers loomed. The ambition was there, and that was why he’d been chosen. What this little bastard needed was a way up and a way out.

The fact that he’d have to sell his soul to do it was going to dawn on him only when it was too late, but that was the way of the Society. From what Lash had been told by the lessers he now commanded, there was never a full-disclosure thing before they got inducted—and this was understandable. Like any of them would have believed that evil was waiting on the other side of the door they were knocking on? Like any one of them would have volunteered for what they were getting into?

Surprise, motherfucker. This ain’t no Disney World, and once you get on the ride, you are never, ever getting off.

Lash was totally fine with deception, however.

“I’m ready for bigger shit,” the kid murmured.

“Good. Now get the fuck out of my car. My associate will pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”

“Cool.”

With business concluded, Lash was impatient to move the little bastard along. The kid smelled like a sewer and was screaming for more than a shower—he needed to be hosed down like a dirty stretch of sidewalk.

As soon as the door was shut, Lash backed out of the parking lot and hooked up with the road that ran parallel to the Hudson River. He headed for home, his hands gripping the steering wheel for another reason than the urge to kill.

The urge to fuck was just as strong a motivator for him.

The street he lived on in Old Caldwell had Victorian-era brownstones running down it and sidewalks planted with trees and property values no lower than a million dollars. The neighbors picked up after their dogs, never made any noise, and put their trash out only in the back alleys, and only on the right days. As he drove past his town house and cut around the block to the garage, he was tickled fucking pink to think all these tight-ass WASPs had a neighbor like him: He might have looked and dressed like them, but his blood ran black and he was as soulless as a wax statue.

As he hit the garage door opener, he smiled and his fangs, a gift from his mother’s side, elongated as he got ready for his Hello, Lucy-I’m-home shit.

Never got old. Coming back to Xhex never got old.

After he’d parked the AMG, he got out and had to stretch his body. She put him through the wringer, she abso did, and he loved how she left him stiff. . and not just in the cock.

Nothing like a good opponent to cheer his shit up.

Cutting through the back garden and entering the house through the kitchen, he smelled grilled sirloin and fresh bread.

He wasn’t into food at the moment, though. Thanks to that convo at the park, that little shit skater was going to be his first induction, the first offering he brought to his father, the Omega. And didn’t that make him jones for some sex.

“Y’all ready to eat?” Mr. D asked from the stove as he flipped the piece of meat over. The little Texan had proved useful not only as an initial tour guide through the Lessening Society, but also as a killer and a halfway decent cook.