Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood 10)

Lifting his forearm, he checked his watch. Again. Where were his soldiers?

Splitting off from the group to follow Assail had brought him here, but before he had departed, he'd told the others to find him after they had finished their first round of fighting - a locating task that shouldn't have been difficult. All they had to do was rooftop-to-rooftop surveillance in the part of the city where drug dealing was at its most prevalent.

Not hard a'tall.

And yet here he was, alone.

Assail was still inside the building opposite, likely consorting with more of the ilk that he had killed the night before. The place of business he'd entered was ostensibly an art gallery, but Xcor was old-fashioned, not naive. All manner of goods and services could be contracted out of any sort of "legitimate" establishment.

It was nearly an hour later when the other vampire finally reemerged, and the light over the back exit caught his densely black hair and his predatorlike features. That low-slung car he ambulated in was parked off to the side, and as he walked around it, a pinkie ring of some sort flashed.

Moving as he did, dressed in black as he was, he looked. . . exactly like a vampire, actually. Dark, sensuous, dangerous.

Pausing at the car's door, he put his hand inside his jacket to get his keys -

And turned around to face Xcor with a gun. "Do you honestly think I don't know you're watching me?"

That pronunciation was so old-world and so very thick, the accent turning the words into practically a foreign language - or what would have been one if Xcor wasn't so intimately familiar with the original dialect.

Where were his fucking soldiers?

As Xcor stepped out, he had an autoloader of his own, and it was not without satisfaction that he watched the other male recoil slightly as recognition dawned.

"Did you expect a Brother, mayhap?" Xcor drawled.

Assail did not lower his muzzle. "My business is my own. You have no right to shadow me. "

"My business is whatever I determine it to be. "

"Your ways will not work here. "

"And what 'ways' are those?"

"There are laws here. "

"So I have heard. And I am fairly confident you are breaking several in your endeavors. "

"I refer not to human ones. " As if those were entirely irrelevant - and at least on that they could agree. "The Old Law provides - "

"We're in the New World, Assail. New rules. "

"According to whom?"

"Me. "

The male narrowed his eyes. "O'erstepping already?"

"Your conclusion is your own. "

"Then I shall let it stand. And I shall take my leave of you now - unless you have plans to shoot me. In which case, I shall take you with me. " He lifted up his other hand. In it was a small black handset. "Just so we're clear, the bomb that is wired to the undercarriage of my car will go off if my thumb contracts - which is precisely the kind of autonomic jerk that will occur if you put a bullet in my chest or my back. Oh, and mayhap I should mention that the explosion has a radius that more than includes where you are, and the detonation is so efficient, you will not be able to dematerialize out of the zone fast enough. "

Xcor laughed with genuine respect. "You know what they say about suicides, don't you. No Fade for them. "

"It's not suicide if you shoot me first. Self-defense. "

"And you're willing to test that out?"

"If you are. "