TWENTY - SEVEN

Downtown, Butch parked the Escalade in the underground parking garage of the Commodore and took the internal elevator all the way up the spine of the building. He had no fucking clue what he was going to walk into when he got to V's place, but that was where the GPS signal was coming from, so that was where he was going.

In the pocket of his leather coat, he had all the keys to Vishous's private space: the plastic swipe card to get into the parking garage; the silver one you used in the elevator to punch the top button; the copper job that got you past the dead bolts on the doors.

His heart beat hard as a little ding sounded and the elevator opened silently. All-access was taking on a whole new meaning tonight, and as he stepped out into the hall, he wanted a drink. Badly.

At the door, he took out the copper key, but used his knuckles first. A couple of times.

It was a good minute later when it dawned on him that there was no answer.

Fuck the knuckles. He pounded with his fist.

"Vishous," he barked. "Answer the goddamn door or I'm coming in."

One, Mississippi. Two, Mississippi - "

Fuck this." He shoved the key into the lock and cranked it before throwing his shoulder into the solid metal door and shoving it wide.

Bursting into the place, he heard the alarm beeping quietly. Which meant V couldn't be here. "What the hell ... ?"

He put the code in, shut the thing off, and locked the dead bolt behind himself. No remnants of lit candlewicks ... no scent of blood ... nothing but cool, clean air.

He flipped on the light switch and blinked in the glare.

Yeah, wow ... Lot of memories in here ... him coming and crashing after the Omega had gotten into him and he'd left quarantine ... V losing his ever-loving mind and jumping off the damn terrace ...

He went over to the wall of "equipment." A fuckload of other things had happened here, too. Some of which he couldn't imagine.

As he went down the display of metal and leather, his shitkickers echoed up to the ceiling, and his mind all but bounced around his skull. Especially as he got to the far end: In the corner, a set of iron cuffs hung from the ceiling by thick chains.

You got someone on them, you could lift them up and dangle 'em like a side of beef.

Reaching out, he fingered one of them. No cushioning on the inside.

Spikes. Dull spikes that would grip the flesh like teeth.

Getting himself back with the program, he marched through the place, checking in all the nooks and crannies ... and found a little tiny computer chip on the kitchen counter. It was the kind of thing that no one but V would know how to remove from a cell.

"Son of a bitch."

So there was no way of knowing where -

When his phone went off, he checked the screen. Thank God. "Where the hell are you?"

V's voice was tight. "I need you down here. Ninth and Broadway. Stat."

"Fuck that - why is your GPS in your kitchen."

"Because that's where I was when I took it out of my phone."

"What the hell, V." Butch tightened his grip on his cell and wished there were an app that let you reach through a phone and bitch slap someone. "You can't - "

"Get your ass down here to Ninth and Broadway - we've got problems."

"You're kidding me, right? You go untraceable and - "

"Someone else is killing lessers, cop. And if it's who I think it is, we've got problems."

Pause. Big-time. "Excuse me?" he said slowly.

"Ninth and Broadway. Now. And I'm calling in the others."

Butch hung up and rushed for the door.

Leaving the SUV in the parking garage, he took a mere five minutes to run over to the correct coordinates on Caldwell's street grid. And Butch knew when he was getting close because of the sickening scent in the air and the tingling resonance of the enemy deep inside of him.

As he rounded the corner of a short-and-squat, he hit a wall of mhis and penetrated the shit, coming out on the other side to a whiff of Turkish tobacco and a tiny orange flare in the way-back of the alley.

He jogged over to V, slowing only when he got to the first of the bodies. Or ... part of the first. "Hello, halvsies."

As Vishous came up and offed his glove, Butch got a quick impression of dead-meat legs and leaking innards. "Yum."

"Clean cut," V muttered. "Real hot-knife-through-butter time."

The brother was too right. It was practically surgical.

Butch knelt down and shook his head. "Can't be the result of Lessening Society politics. They'd never leave the bodies out in the open like this."

God knew, the slayers regularly went through shifts in leadership, either because the Omega got bored, or because of internal power struggles. But the enemy was incented to keep their biz off the human radar screens as much as vampires were - so no way would they have abandoned this mess for the CPD to find.

As Butch sensed the arrival of the other brothers, he rose to his feet. Phury and Z came out of the ether first. Then it was Rhage and Tohr. And Blay. That was everyone for tonight: Rehvenge often fought with the Brotherhood, but this evening, he was up in the symphath colony playing King of the Damned, and it was Qhuinn's, Xhex's, and John Matthew's rotation off.

"Tell me I'm not seeing this," Rhage said grimly.

"Your eyes are working just fine, true." V stabbed his hand-rolled out on the sole of his boot. "I couldn't believe it, either."

"I thought he was dead."

"He?" Butch asked, glancing at the pair. "Who's 'he'?"

"Where to start on that one," Hollywood muttered as he checked out another hunk of lesser. "You know, if I had a stake, we could make lesser-kebabs."

"Only you could think of food at a time like this," someone drawled.

"I'm just sayin'."

If there was more conversation at that point, Butch didn't hear it because his internal alarm suddenly started to ring-a-ding-ding. "Boys ... we're about to have company."

Pivoting around, he faced the alley's open end. The enemy was approaching. Fast.

"How many?" V asked as he came forward.

"At least four, maybe more," Butch said, as he thought of the fact that there was no way out behind them. "This may be a trap."

Back at the Brotherhood's training center, Manny was paying special attention to his patient.

As he worked Payne's breast with his hand, she writhed under him, her legs bicycling with impatience on the mattress, her head thrown back, her body glowing like the moon on a cloudless winter night.

"Do not stop, healer," she moaned as he thumbed her nipple in circles. "I feel ... everything...."

"You don't worry about my stopping."

Yeah, he was so not putting the brakes on this anytime soon - not that they were going to have sex. But still ...

"Healer ..." she said against his lips. "More, please."

Licking his way into her mouth, he pinched her nipple ever so slightly. "Let me get this off you," he said as he found the bottom of her johnny with his other hand. "I'm going to take care of you down below."

She worked with him as he stripped her bare and discreetly removed her equipment. When she was utterly and completely naked, he was momentarily dry mouthed and immobile at the sight of her. Her breasts were perfectly formed, with little pink nipples, and her long, flat stomach led down to a bare cleft that had his head pounding.

"Healer ... ?"

When all he did was swallow hard, she reached for the sheet to pull it across and hide her body.

"No ..." He stopped her. "Sorry. I just need a minute."

"To what?"

Climax, in a word. Unlike her, he knew precisely what all this naked was heading toward - in about a minute and a half, his mouth was going to be all over her. "You're incredible ... and you have nothing to be shy about."

Her body was insane, all lean muscle and luscious, smooth skin - as far as he was concerned, she was the perfect female, bar none. Christ, he'd never been even half this desperate for those sticks-and-stones social X-rays, with their hard-as-nails boob jobs and their stringy arms.

Payne was powerful, and that was pure sex as far as he was concerned. But she was absolutely going to leave this experience with her virginity intact. Yeah, she wanted what he was giving her, but it wasn't fair, under these circumstances, to take something she was never getting back: In the quest to return her legs to some sort of functioning, she might well go farther than she would have if it was just sex for the enjoyment of it.

This shit between them was all about purpose.

And the fact that that left him a little hollow was nothing he wanted to look too closely at.

Manny leaned into her. "Give me your mouth, bambina. Let me in."

As she did what he asked, he inched his hand back to her perfect breast.

"Shh ... easy," he told her as she nearly jacked off the bed.

Fucking hell, she was lightning in a bottle, and for a moment he imagined what it would be like to ride those rocking hips and take her hard.

Cut that shit right now, Manello, he told himself.

Disengaging from her mouth, he nuzzled his way down the side of her neck and briefly sank his teeth into her collarbone - just enough so that she felt it, not enough to hurt. And as her hands dug into his hair, he knew by the strength of her grip and the way she panted that she wanted him to go exactly where he was heading.

Palming the outside of her breast, he extended his tongue and dragged a slow trail down to that tight pink top. Circling her nipple, he watched her bite down on her lower lip, her fangs cutting into the flesh and drawing a sliver of bright red blood.

Without conscious thought, he surged up and captured what had been shed, lapping it and swallowing -

His eyes slammed shut at the taste: rich and dark, thick and smooth on the back of his throat. His mouth tingled ... and then so did his gut.

"No," she said in a guttural voice. "You must not do that."

As he forced his lids open, he watched her own tongue come out and do away with what little was left.

"Yes. I must," he heard himself say. He needed more. So much more -

She put her fingertip on his lips and shook her head. "No. You shall go mad from it."

He was going to go mad if he didn't have a whole mouthful; that's what he was going to do. Her blood was like cocaine and Scotch together on an intravenous drip: From that shallow swallow, his body had become Superman's, his chest pumped up, all the muscles in him swelling with power.

As if she were reading his mind, she grew firm. "No, no ... not safe."

She was probably right - take out the probably. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try again, assuming he got another chance at it.

He went back to her nipple, sucking it in and flicking. When she arched again, he pushed his arm under her and lifted her up to him. All he could think about was getting in between her legs with his mouth ... but he wasn't sure how that was going to go over. He needed to keep her in this sweet zone of arousal - not spook her with the kind of shit men liked to do to their women.

He settled for taking his hand where he wanted his lips to be, sweeping his palm slowly down her rib cage and to her stomach. Lower, to her hips. Lower, to her upper thighs.

"Open for me, Payne," he told her, switching to her opposite nipple and working it with a suck. "Open yourself so I can touch you."

She did just as he asked, her graceful legs parting.

"Trust me," he said roughly. And she could. He already felt bad enough that all these firsts were happening with him. He was not going to violate the boundaries he'd set for them.

"I do," she moaned.

God save them both, he thought as his palm slipped into the juncture - "

Fuck ..." he groaned. Hot and slick, silky smooth. Undeniable.

His arm shot out, the sheets went flying, and his eyes whipped down to lock on the sight of his hand nestled in close to the core of her. As her body arched up, one of her legs fell to the side.

"Healer ..." she groaned. "Please ... don't stop."

"You don't know what I want to do to you," he said to himself.

"I am in pain."

Manny gritted his teeth. "Where."

"Where you have touched me and gone no farther. Do not stop this, I beg you."

Manny's mouth opened and he breathed through it.

"Do this thing you want to me, healer," she moaned. "Whatever it is. I know you are holding back."

A growl came out of him and he moved so fast that the only thing that could have stopped him was her saying no. And that word was evidently not in her vocabulary.

In a flash, he was between her thighs, his hands spreading her wider, her sex laid open and weeping in the face of his male urge to dominate and mate.

He gave in. Fuck him, but he let himself go and kissed her core. And there was nothing gradual or gentle about it; he dived in with his mouth, sucking at her and tonguing her as she cried out and scratched at his forearms.

Manny came. Hard. In spite of the number of times he'd orgasmed out there in the office. The tingling buzz in his blood and the sweet taste of her sex and the way she moved against his lips, rubbing herself, seeking even more ... it was all too much.

"Healer ... I am ... on the verge of - I know not what I - "

He licked his way up off the top of her sex and then returned to get serious in a slow, thorough way. "Stay with me," he said against her. "I'm going to make you feel good."

Flicking his tongue lightly, he took one of his hands down and stroked her without entering her, giving her exactly what she wanted, just at a speed that made her struggle with impatience. But she was going to learn that this anticipation before the release was almost as good as the orgasm she was about to have.

God, she was incredible, that hard body of hers flexing, her muscles going tighter, her chin just visible on the far side of her perfect breasts as her head fell back and kicked the pillows off the bed.

He knew just when the snap in her sex happened. She gasped and grabbed the sheet that covered the mattress, ripping it with her nails as she stiffened from head to foot.

His tongue sneaked in.

He simply had to penetrate her a little ... and those subtle pulses he felt left him dizzy.

When he was sure she had been finished properly, he pushed himself back - and nearly bit his own lip in half. She was oh, so ready for him, glossy and glowing -

Abruptly, he shoved himself from the bed and had to pace it off. His cock felt like it had swollen to Empire State Building dimensions, and his balls were July Fourth blue - so desperate for a release they had their own marching band and fireworks brigade. But that wasn't all. Something in him was roaring at the fact that he wasn't inside of her ... and the urge was about more than merely sex. He wanted to mark her in some way - which made absolutely no sense.

Strung out, panting, on the edge, he ended up planting his hands on the jambs of the door to the hall and leaning in until his forehead was against the steel. In a way, he almost hoped someone barged in and knocked him the fuck out.

"Healer ... it persists...."

For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn't sure he could go through it again with her so soon. It was nearly killing him not to - "

Regard me," she said.

He forced his head up, looked over his shoulder ... and realized that she wasn't talking about sex: She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs hanging off the side and inching toward the floor, her  glow illuminating her from within. At first, all he could really see were her breasts, and the way they hung so full and rounded, the nipples tight from the cool air in the room. But then he realized she was rotating her ankles, one after the other.

Right, see ... this was not about the sex, but her mobility.

Got that, asshole? he told himself. This was about her walking: sex as medicine - and he'd better not forget it. This was not about him or his cock.

Manny lurched over, hoping that she wouldn't notice the remnants of the release he'd had. But he didn't have to worry. Her eyes were locked on her feet, her concentration fierce.

"Here ..." He had to clear his throat. "Let me help you stand."