Neha had been a gracious queen then, with her consort, Eris, at her side and laughter in her eyes at what she considered the folly of youth. Now Eris hadn’t been seen for hundreds of years and her daughter Anoushka’s execution had turned the Queen of Snakes, of Poisons, into a cold-blooded creature akin to those she kept as pets.
“This way.” Andreas swept out before him.
As they passed through the wide-open central core of the house, Dmitri saw a handsome if slender man of Asian descent working at a small desk in the corner. His eyes narrowed. “Is that Harrison Ling?”
Andreas stopped. “Yes. You know him?”
“He’s Elena’s brother-in-law.” The fool had attempted to escape his Contract, been dragged home by Elena herself. Dmitri doubted Harrison had any idea of just how big a favor she’d done him—Andreas wasn’t known for his mercy toward those who broke their Contracts. The longer Harrison had remained amongst the missing, the worse the price he’d have had to pay.
“Harrison,” Andreas said with an echoing darkness in his voice, “has done very well in learning the meaning of loyalty.”
The male looked up at that instant and the fear that crawled, oily and slick, behind his eyes was a slithering thing. Dmitri felt no sympathy for him. Unlike Dmitri, Harrison had chosen to become a vampire—and he’d made that choice not knowing whether the woman he professed to love would be able to follow. As it turned out, Beth, Elena’s sister and Harrison’s wife, was incompatible with the toxin that turned human into vampire; she would die, while Harrison remained forever young.
“The prisoners,” he said, dismissing the pathetic male from his mind.
Andreas led him outside and to a small grove of evergreens behind his home. The naked creatures hanging from the branches of two separate trees keened in terror the instant they heard the rustle of angelic wings.
Holly . . . Sorrow had the same primitive reaction. She might mouth off to Dmitri, try to play power games that gave her an illusion of control, but put her in a room with an angel and she went close to catatonic. She refused to talk about what Uram had done to her, but Dmitri had seen the carnage in the warehouse, the torn limbs and blood-slick floors, the gaping mouths full of organs plump and wet, the staring, blind eyes.
“Do they still have their tongues?” he asked Andreas, noticing the fact that both men had been turned into eunuchs, their penises and testicles removed with what appeared to have been dull blades. They were vampires. The parts would grow back—which was when Andreas would order their removal once more. Without anesthetic.
“I was planning to have them cut out again tomorrow.”
Dmitri felt no disgust at the brutality of the ongoing punishment, not when he had an excellent idea of the horrors these males had inflicted on Honor for their sexual gratification. “Leave it for now. I might need to question them again.”
Andreas inclined his head. “Do you wish for privacy?”
“Yes.”
Waiting until the angel disappeared through the trees, he prowled to the vampire closest to him. “So,” he murmured, “you enjoy taking what is not yours by force?”
8
The male’s keening turned into wild panic as he recognized Dmitri’s voice. Since he was missing his eyes, his eye sockets huge black holes in his face, sound was the only thing left to him. “I don’t know anything! I would tell you if I did!”
Dmitri believed him—the vampire was weak, would have broken at the first sign of pain. But there was a chance he’d glimpsed something without knowing it. “Tell me everything,” he said, speaking to them both. “From the first instant you were approached. If it proves useful, perhaps I won’t take over your punishment.”
Terror turned them incoherent for several minutes. He simply waited it out. Cold of heart, Favashi had once called him. But since she was a bitch who had wanted only to use him, her words held no power. Still, the accusation was true—his conscience rarely troubled him, and never when it came to retribution for those who had brutalized women or children.
“Enough,” he snapped when they continued to sob and plead.
Silence, as they choked on their very breaths. Almost half a minute later, the one he’d first spoken to opened his mouth. “I was working as a private security guard when I got a call one day. Man on the other end said he’d seen me at a big party, liked the job I’d done, and did I want to earn some money on the side with an off-the-books gig.”
“Which party?”
“He never said, but we mostly worked the premier events—wealthy vamps.”
That didn’t give Dmitri anything new, but he’d put someone on rechecking the guest lists of the parties this male had worked. “And?”
Jerking out a leg when something big and black landed on his exposed flesh, the vampire twitched violently. “It was so much money, I said s-sure.” Swallowing. “Then I asked Reg if he’d like in since the client said he needed two people.”
Reg, a thin blond male, was still crying, but silently. “I wish to fucking hell I’d said no.”
Now he did, Dmitri thought. He’d had no problem with it when he’d torn into Honor’s flesh, when he’d touched her in a way no man had the right to touch a woman without consent. Walking across to the blond, Dmitri backhanded him hard enough that something fractured with an audible crack. “Do you really think I give a shit?” he asked in a quiet, contained voice. “Now answer the question I asked.”
Spitting out a tooth, the vampire blubbered out the next series of words. “Leon had the contact. I just did what he said.”
Leon began to speak before Dmitri could remind the vampire why it wasn’t a good idea to keep him waiting. “Always by phone.” Gasped out. “Never had any face-to-face contact. Money was deposited into my account and I gave Reg his cut.”
Dmitri didn’t say a word.
“The client,” Leon continued, stumbling over his own tongue, “said she was his girlfriend, that it was some stupid sex fantasy of hers to be snatched and . . .” Thudding heartbeat, twitching skin, as if he was chillingly conscious of what Dmitri would like to do to him. “He said it was her fantasy.”
Dmitri heard the quaver beneath the irritating whine. “What was your first clue that it wasn’t?”
Reg was the one who answered. “When she broke Leon’s nose! I told him something was wrong, but he was pissed so he punched her, knocked her out.”
Dmitri spread his hand, his fingers flexing. “You’re older, Reg. Why didn’t you stop him?” he asked in a tone as soft as fresh-fallen snow.
Reg began to retch.
Dmitri said nothing until the spasms passed. Then he walked over to stroke his hand over the vampire’s face. “Answer my question.”
Sweat trickling down his temples, the blond swallowed. “The money. I wanted the money.”
“Good.” He patted the vampire’s cheek, left him quivering as he walked over to Leon.
Who was trying to break his wrists away from the rope in a futile effort to escape, a broken marionette. Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, Dmitri removed a filleting knife, pressed the cold metal to the new pink skin in front of him. “Tell me the rest.” He cut a deep line down the center of Leon’s chest.