Torture
Abel
ABEL WALKED THROUGH the back door of the restaurant.
He smelled her and looked left.
Jian-Li was sitting in her armchair in her office drinking tea, the standing lamp arched over the chair giving off soft light that barely cut the dark.
Waiting up for her sons.
Waiting up for him.
He turned that way, stopped in the door, and leaned against its frame.
“Everyone is safe?” she asked.
“So far,” he answered quietly.
She took a moment to let that sink in.
“There are others,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
She drew in breath through her nose, took a sip of tea, then stated, “And they’re evil.”
He felt his jaw get hard, but he made no reply.
He didn’t need to. She knew what had happened to Delilah and she could guess where her sons were now.
“We knew this,” she continued.
“Guess my instincts were right. Just took two hundred years for that shit to come about.”
She nodded once and said, “Then it’s good we’re prepared.”
Abel said nothing. They’d be talking about this, just not now. He had a wolf to hunt and, if he found him, hopefully successfully interrogate.
“We’re prepared, Abel,” she said again.
“Yeah,” he replied but went no further with that. Instead, he told her, “Gave my phone to Delilah. Need to borrow yours.”
Her brows went up. “Her name is Delilah?”
He nodded.
“That’s lovely,” she said.
It was. It was also apropos. She was a temptress.
But he knew that. He’d been dreaming of her for over a hundred years.
The reality was better.
Even stuck in his thoughts, Abel still saw it shift over Jian-Li’s face and felt his stomach tighten when he did.
“You’re full?” she asked.
“I am, sweetheart,” he answered gently.
She took another sip of tea, but she did it knowing she couldn’t hide behind that cup.
She knew the hole he had inside, a hole that had never been filled. He’d shared it with her, his Jian-Li—his baby girl, his sister—the last in six women of her line that grew to be his confidant.
She knew he was searching for something, knowing for years it was not there to find.
Until thirty years ago, when the empty feeling became something else. A clawing in his gut that got stronger and stronger, year after year, until it got to a point it couldn’t be ignored. It took an extreme effort of will to live day to day without jumping on his bike and riding the roads until he found whatever it was that would make the pain stop.
That night, the pain had stopped.
And Abel knew that, forty-five years ago, Jian-Li would have given anything to be the one who filled that hole. From birth, she’d grown up with him in her life. She’d loved him since she knew what that feeling meant. He’d loved her since before she was born.
But she’d fallen in love with him when she was in her twenties.
She was not the one who would fill the hole, and he’d helped raise her and knew he’d watch her grow, turn beautiful, age, and die. He’d done that before, too often. So he couldn’t give her that, even in the lesser way he might have been able to give it to her.
“I’m happy for you, Abel,” she said.
He straightened from the jamb. “Jian-Li—”
She lifted a hand and waved it, interrupting him. “I had that.”
He felt the squeeze in his chest. “I know.”
“I wanted it from you, but that was long ago,” she continued. “But you know I found it elsewhere. It’s just that he wasn’t long for this world.” Her next words were said with her eyes still kind but sharp on him, communicating more than what she was saying. “It takes time, but you come to terms with the fact that you were blessed, having once had it at all.”
She’d found a good man, Ming. He’d made her happy. He’d given her three strong, smart, loyal sons. He’d accepted all that was Abel into their family as Jian-Li’s mother’s husband had done, and her mother’s husband before him, and the mother before that, all the way back to the first who had found him and raised him from a pup.
But Ming had died twenty years ago, leaving Jian-Li broken in a way no one could fix, the second time she’d had to experience that, the first being with Abel and living day to day knowing she’d never have him, until she met Ming.
It was the measure of the man, and of his wife, that their three sons stood by her side, strong and stalwart, living their lives but keeping the family together to make certain their mother never endured another painful break that wouldn’t heal.
“I’m glad you have that now,” she went on.
Abel captured her eyes and whispered, “You know I’ve always loved you. From the moment you were placed in my arms, tian xin, I’ve loved you. And you know, no matter how long I have on this earth, that will never die.”
Her smile was sad when she replied, “I know. As you loved and mourned my mother. And my grandmother. I know, Abel.”
It had to be said, sometimes immortality sucked. In fact, immortality pretty much always sucked. It was just that some times were worse than others.
This was one of those times.
“I need to go help the boys,” he told her in order to move them both out of the sadness.
She nodded again. “My phone is on the desk.”
He went that way, snagged it, and shoved it in his back pocket.
Then he walked to her, bent low, and slid his temple along hers. “Go to bed,” he said in her ear. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He pulled away but not far, just enough to catch her gaze as she said, “I will. Be safe. Take care of my sons.”
“Always.”
She gave him another soft smile.
He lifted a finger and touched it to her chin. Her eyes went tender but forlorn. They always did these days when he touched her that way. When she was younger, a toddler, a little girl, a teen, they lit with pleasure.
But now, knowing she was lost to him, had always been lost to him, then Ming was lost to her, and now that Abel was finally found, the melancholy was difficult to behold.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. That was hers, but more, he knew from experience it made it worse to try and take it away.
“Rest well, tian xin,” he murmured.
“I will.”
He smiled into her eyes, straightened, and moved away.
He was at his bike in the alley when Xun and Wei rode in.
They stopped close to him and he saw they had no wolf.
When their engines died, Xun announced, “We lost him. We need you to track.”
He swung astride his bike as he replied, “Let’s go.”
They started up their bikes again as Abel did the same and they took off, Abel leading.
So he could catch the scent, they went back to the alley where the fight had happened, but he stopped well short of it, Xun and Wei stopping behind him.
Cop cars with flashing lights were blocking the alley, yellow police tape cordoning it off. There was a flash, black SUV parked on the street close to the police vehicles as well as a black Porsche. There were also a meager number of onlookers, meager as it was late and this was a business district. And the fire Abel had lit to be certain the vampires were disposed of had been put out.
They had no other choice but to drive by so he could catch the scent.
Abel turned his head to his brothers, jerked up his chin, got two return gestures, then he gave his bike gas, gliding by the scene, Abel hoping that no one looked their way. The bloodstains on their dark clothes had dried and darkened, imperceptible in the night (unless you were vampire or wolf and could smell it), but he and his two brothers still had stains on their skin.
He looked down the alley as he went by, seeing two dark-haired, well-dressed men who were not cops standing on the sidewalk outside the alley.
One was speaking to a police officer.
The other was on his phone.
But his eyes followed Abel.
Abel smelled them both and knew they were what he’d learned from their scent that night.
Vampires.
Since they were, they would no doubt smell him.
And the blood he and his brothers had all over them.
Fuck.
He buried the urge to put on more gas until they were well away from the scene.
But he’d picked up the scent and followed it, straight to the bay. They made it there without cop cars chasing them or gaining any company. He didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t trust it and he didn’t let his guard down.
He stopped his bike in the deserted parking lot by the rocky beach, swung off, and moved over the rocks toward the water, feeling Xun and Wei following him.
He stopped at the edge where the gentle waves were lapping the shore, this also being where the scent died.
“Gone swimming?” Wei asked.
“Yep,” Abel answered.
“So we lost him,” Xun stated, frustration in his tone.
“Yep,” Abel repeated, also feeling frustration along with the disquiet gnawing at his throat.
“You have any dreams, premonitions, or freaking anything about the shit that went down tonight?” Wei asked.
This was a pertinent question.
Abel dreamed. He did it every night and had done it for as long as he could remember.
They were vivid dreams, most of them recurring. The last hundred years the majority of them were about Delilah, fucking her, eating her, her blowing him, him feeding as he finger fucked or banged her to orgasm, wild, unrestrained, like he sensed she was, like he sensed was how she lived her life.
He’d also dreamed of her laughing, burying her face in his chest, her dark hair all around, her mirth vibrating through his skin, his flesh, straight into his heart. And he’d dreamed of her behind him on his bike, her tits pressed deep into his back, her hair flying around, whipping his face, her cheek resting on his shoulder blade. And of her sitting back, feet up on the table, ankles crossed, chopsticks in her hand, white carton held up before her, noodles dangling from her mouth as she grinned at him, his brothers, and Jian-Li.
And last, he’d dream of watching her die on a street somewhere he did not know, drained by vampires and then torn apart by wolves.
In his two hundred and five years, he’d never sensed or even smelled another being like him.
But he’d dreamed of them. Dreamed of the danger they represented. Dreamed of them harming his family. Dreamed of them taking Delilah. Dreamed of them ripping her throat out, just like what had nearly happened that night.
Now they were there.
“Nope,” he answered.
“Great,” Xun muttered.
He turned to his brothers, who were once like his sons, who would become his fathers, the never-ending cycle of life that ended in sorrow. A cycle that went on without relief. Would go on without relief, but now would include Delilah.
He would have her.
He would love her.
Then he would lose her.
It takes time, but you come to terms with the fact that you were blessed, having once had it at all.
He hoped like fuck Jian-Li was right.
“I need to get back to Delilah,” he declared.
Xun’s brows went up as did the corners of his lips. “Delilah?”
“Don’t let her near a pair of scissors,” Wei advised, eyes to Abel’s overlong hair, lips also grinning.
“Her namesake was not the one who used the shears,” Abel educated him.
Wei looked to his brother, mumbling, “Whatever.”
Abel took in two men he’d watched grow in their mother’s womb. He’d watched them learn to crawl, to walk, to speak. Men he’d started to train the minute they could coordinate their limbs. Men who showed him the blind devotion they showed their mother, tonight not the first time they’d demonstrated it, though it was the first time their lives were in peril when they did.
And he knew his next play.
He’d already known it. He’d known it for decades.
He’d never liked it.
But now that it was upon him, he fucking detested it.
“There were vampires at the scene with the cops,” he told them.
“Fantastic,” Xun said through a sigh.
“Tell Chen and sleep with an eye open,” Abel ordered.
He got nods before they turned back to their bikes, mounted them, and headed back to the city. But instead of going straight home, Abel led them to where he’d first picked up Delilah’s scent outside the Mad Helmet.
He followed her fading scent, along with the now-dead creatures that had hunted her, and pulled over when he saw it on the sidewalk by some trash cans. Xun and Wei stopped with him and waited as he climbed off his bike, walked to the purse, and retrieved it.
He swung the long strap of the black suede bag, with its minimal studs and maximum fringe, over his head, smiling for the first time that night.
Delilah Johnson.
Total biker bitch.
Seeing as he bought his first Harley in 1922 and had never been without one since, he was getting the impression Delilah Johnson was made for him.
He swung his leg over his bike, ignoring the grins he was getting from his brothers, and headed them toward home.
They all parked in the alley, Wei moving directly to the back door of the restaurant where he’d find the stairs and go to the apartment above, where his mother lived.
His brothers all lived elsewhere. Tonight, they’d see to their mother.
And Abel.
Xun followed Abel to the grate.
Abel stopped and turned to him. “That bitch you’re bangin’ who works at The Chain?”
Xun nodded.
“Need you to connect with her. See if she can get into Delilah’s room, pack up her shit, and get it out, all without anyone who might be watching noticing. The maid’s cart or something. She needs incentive to do it right, there’s five hundred dollars in it for her.”
Xun smiled. “Probably she’d take a different incentive.”
Abel shook his head before replying, “Then give her that. I really don’t give a fuck what you give her. Just get Delilah’s shit. Last name’s Johnson. The sooner she gets it, the happier I’ll be.”
“I’m on it.”
Abel lifted his hand and Xun clasped it, they thumped forearms and disconnected.
Abel moved to the stairs and descended them. When his head cleared the top, Xun dropped the grate and rolled the Dumpster over it.
Chen gave him shit for the precautions he took, city after city, everywhere they moved, doing it frequently so no one would notice the family getting older but Abel not.
But Chen didn’t have his dreams.
And probably, after that night, Chen’s shit about what he called Abel’s “dungeons” would end.
He walked to the door, pulled it open, and moved into his room.
The light by the chair was shining, the rest of the space dark.
The first thing he did was move with human speed to the pile of her clothes on the floor by the bed. He moved slowly because he wanted to be quiet and not cause a breeze or give Delilah anything to sense that might wake her.
He didn’t look at her as he gathered them up, went back to the door, opened it, and tossed them out. He stood in its frame, taking off his own bloodstained clothes and boots and tossing them out with Delilah’s.
He closed the door, closing away the scent that gave him the near-irresistible urge to become wolf or bare his fangs and sink them into something with no intent to feed.
That done, he went to the table and dumped her purse there. Then he moved to the sink and quietly cleaned the rest of the blood from his skin, going back to the door to toss the bloodstained washcloth with the clothes.
Back inside, behind closed doors, he put on another tee and jeans and moved again to the bed.
He stood beside it, looking down at Delilah Johnson.
She was asleep on her side, hair still wet and spread across the pillow. One hand under her cheek, cheek in her palm. The other hand was curled into the covers, in her sleep, holding them tight to her chest as if protecting herself.
Her milky-green eyes, with their fans of dark lashes, were closed, but even in the dark, with his preternatural vision, he could see the rose in her cheeks against the flawless pale of her skin.
She was wearing his tee. Wearing his tee against that pale skin, using it to cover her abundant tits, the swells of her generous hips, that round ass.
His cock started to harden.
A century of her in his dreams, he would have assumed, finally having her, it would be difficult to move slowly with her.
He would never have guessed that every moment in her presence where he couldn’t take her mouth, thrust his cock in her cunt, would be torture.
One side of him—wolf, vampire, or possibly both—was urging him to connect with her, claim her, fuck her savagely and pour his seed inside her, then pull out and coat her with it. He could smell her laying there, sleeping. He could taste the wild tang of her he knew from his dreams. And he knew down to his balls that his cum and her juices mingled would be the most beautiful essence he’d ever smelled in his life—or ever would.
He needed it. His body demanded it. The animal in him strained to it just as the monster in him craved her blood on his tongue.
He moved to the armchair, folded into it, and reached out to turn off the light.
He straightened his legs in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. He rested his hands loosely on his upper thighs. He dropped his head to rest against the back of the chair.
And he forced his eyes to close.