A Warm Heart in Winter (Black Dagger Brotherhood 18.50)

He was still looking annoyed as he slumped to the snow.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Black Dagger Brother Zsadist, blooded son of the Black Dagger Brother Ahgony, bonded of the fair and well-bred Bella, proud sire of Nalla, and brother of Phury, Primale of the Chosen, was cooling his jets on the corner of Market Street and 14th when the first of the punk-ass motherfuckers hauled by him at a dead run, black-and-gray parka flapping, boots stomping, fear scenting the air in his wake with an acrid burn that was a cross between a marshmallow too close to the campfire and Cascade dishwashing pods.

Talk about a snooze. Given that it was after dark in downtown Caldwell, all kinds of humans were running this kind of footrace, twelve million kinds of bad decision making resulting in exactly this sort of panicked, rethink-sprint.

Like he cared.

Except then number two came tooling along. This guy was wearing a similar parka, which wasn’t necessarily a thing, and seemed slightly less terrified—but he smelled like bong water spilled on an old carpet, so it was possible that his body was making a more accurate survival assessment than his THC-dusted brain was. But again, not Z’s problem. Humans had an extraordinary capacity for stupidity, and who was he to get in the way of consequential learning—

Inside his ear, there was a low-level brrrrng. Then Vishous’s voice: “Z? We need you three blocks to the north. Qhuinn’s down. Manny ETA four minutes. Abdominal stab.”

“Fuck,” he muttered as he leaned into his shoulder. “Leaving now.”

He would have dematerialized, except you didn’t do that unless you knew exactly where you were re-forming and he wasn’t far. He started running, the daggers that were holstered handles down on his chest moving with his torso’s power as if they were a part of his body that he’d been born with. His guns and his ammo were the same, everything lock-holstered to his shoulders and his hips, nothing slapping against him, the whole arsenal coming with and right in reach.

And what do you know. He was looking to shoot something all of a sudden. Qhuinn was not only a member of the Brotherhood, but he’d also saved Z’s life one night. So yeah, there was loyalty all over the place.

When he got to the corner of a storage building that was every bit as bright and shiny as a discarded hubcap, he choked up on his leg churn. Fresh blood on the breeze. Nothing gunpowdery, so no bullets. At least not yet—

Footfalls were coming fast on an approach toward him, and a split second later, a lanky kid with a busted-up, bloody face tooled around the side of the building, right into Z’s path. To avoid a head-on collision, Z punched at the fucker’s pecs, and like a pool ball on a billiards table, things went ricochet, the body in motion spinning off and slamming into the metal siding with a cymbal crash.

If Qhuinn hadn’t been wounded, Z would have grounded the little shit the old-fashioned way.

With a shovel and a grave marker.

Instead, he followed the trail of blood in the snow to the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s tow truck. The vehicle, which was supposed to be reserved for AAA situations of the vampire variety, was front-winch-in to the trunk of a BMW sedan the color of cabernet sauvignon. One of the car’s doors was wide open, and a human girl, mid to late teens, was kneeling over a facedown and fetal-positioned Qhuinn. Another human girl, younger, was leaning out of the front seat, one hand clamped over her mouth, eyes the size of basketballs.

The brother was leaking. Badly. And that copper tint to the cold air was the equivalent of a fire alarm, something you couldn’t see but made your ears ring.

Z went right for his brother. As he bent down, the girl who was with him backed off.

?

?Is he d-d-dead? Is he dying?”

“I’m fine,” Qhuinn muttered. “I just ate too much for First Meal.”

Z wanted to roll the male over and see what was doing, but he didn’t have the medical training necessary to do that safely. “Yeah, that Henkel you had for dessert really put you over the edge.”

“FYI, I don’t think it’s that fancy.”

“Swiss Army?”

“Prison shank maybe—”

“He w-w-won’t let me c-c-c-call the p-p-police.”

Z looked at the girl. She had to be seventeen, he was guessing. Jeans. Boots. Parka in pale blue. Nice, middle class, not the kind who should be out in this part of town at this time of night. Instead of fucking around and asking a bunch of questions, he barged into her brain and went directly to her file cabinet of memories.

Ah, yes. Mild rebellion against Daddy run amok—and then things really went wrong.

“Relax,” he told her.

“I d-didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Oops in one hand, shit in the other, see what you get the most of, he thought.