Minty Page 4

  He walked away slowly. He did not even want to find a female. He had found enough release. He also realized that it would have been very dangerous for the female if he had really been in that room. He knew he would have taken her in every way he could have thought possible. Fuck, she was so perfect and so desirable, but the worst part was, she would be willing to do whatever he told her to do.

  He thought of her tied and hanging, naked in a dark room, him walking around her, touching what he wanted, eating on her fear. He felt the erection and knew he had to change his train of thought. How was he going to get the blood sample? He now knew that if he got his hands on her he probably was not going to want to release her. He rejected the idea of an accident like a car or bus or fall. This was really going to take some mind power and maybe a few drinks. He would put it off until after he helped Rad in a very important local war.

  Chapter Six

  She rolled over and was aware of several things all at once. She was cold, she had no clothes on, none of her lights were on, but light was coming in through the windows, so she must be late for work. She rose up in a panic, immediately aware of how sore she was between her legs.

  She remembered the dream. It had been awful. She got off the bed slowly, looking at the mess of the blankets and her clothes. She headed for the bathroom, on the way looking at her alarm clock. It had a separate battery and showed she had about ten minutes before it would ring. So at least she had not overslept.

  As she got out of the shower she found the bottle of sleep medicine and dumped it into the trashcan. That was the worst nightmare she had experienced in years. She was sure as hell not going to take that stuff ever again. It would be better to not sleep ever again than repeat that dream.

  She got dressed when there was a knock on the door. It was the building manager.

  “Sorry, Miss Macik, but we had some type of horrid power surge and everything got fried. We have insurance, and the power company also was supposed to have this covered, so by the time you get home today I will have everything replaced, including all that fancy backup system you have in your apartment. Please don’t consider leaving—you are a good tenant and it was a onetime thing. So don’t worry, don’t worry.” Then he was gone, belt jangling, talking all the way down the hallway.

  She looked around, suddenly in a panic that her backup system had failed. Of all times, when she had been under the influence of sleeping medication, for a system failure. She stood, wondered if the lights going off had also triggered the dream sequence along with the medicine. She gathered up everything and left for work.

  * * * *

  Alex was able to bring in another eight warriors from San Francisco along with one from home, Deck, who wouldn’t leave him except when he gave the male a direct order. Deck was his self-appointed guard and sometimes a pain in the ass. They were already in as part of the whole team. Alex had to have a talk with them, because they had a tendency to feel like they were elite since they belonged to a Council Lord, but once they found out they were fighting with Radames there was no problem. Rad’s reputation was renown so it was a whole different deal. They now felt they had been twice elevated. They would be hard to live with when they returned home—that was, the ones who lived through the fight to return home.

  Rad addressed them. “This is the problem. We have the chance to take them all out and cripple this coven, to the extent that will eliminate it’s forward movement. One of our main problems is avoiding the local police, not drawing attention from mortals, even though we are going to be having an all-out war.”

  He looked at the warriors. “Here is what we are going to do. We are going to try to draw them out into separate groups, to have what looks like individual drug gang wars. So some of you will be bait. That will only work maybe two times—after that we need another trick, so we will try some hit and runs, three guys going after a larger group and running to bring them back to us. Finally, the last will be to just go in, after we have taken out as many as possible. Go in, root them out and dust them. Now I need volunteers for bait first.”

  He looked around and smiled his crooked smile. Everyone had stood up or stepped forward.

  “Okay, thank you for that.” He looked around agan and selected three to be the bait. These three grinned like they had won the lottery. He started dividing the rest up into strong fighting groups, putting a leader in charge, selecting leaders from both Alex’s and his people.

  They were out. Alex and Rad took off by themselves. With their talents, they intended to have faith in their men. They would go ahead and try to get close to the center meeting house to see what readings they picked up to help in the raids.

  The first bait deploys worked well. The first two took more dust then they had predicted, but the third proved that they gotten suspicious. They lost a good warrior. It was time for the next phase. Hit and run. By this time the word was on the street that warriors were out, so the rogues were ready to fight or chase any warrior they saw. The hit and run teams worked well. Fighting and taking their own toll until they were outnumbered, they backed up, letting themselves be forced back until suddenly a team was there behind the rogues and surprise—dust.

  The word was out on the street, the drug gangs were fighting. All the drug gangs went into hiding. The police found somewhere else to go so that they did not receive a stray bullet. The warriors did what they were trained to do.

  By this time it was still dark, but early morning, with Rad and Alex on the rotting roof of a large warehouse. Rad looked very angry.

  “What do you feel, brother?” Alex asked as he stood near his friend. He felt the minds of the nightwalkers down below, in some type of basement. There were only about five in the room. It was clear that this bunch must be the leaders. A couple of these rogues were older, very powerful. The two friends could sense that these leaders had used control and influence on their own rogues. No honor here.

  Rad’s voice was a growl. “One of the leaders is Bathromo. I thought the Council took care of him when they kicked him out of Louisiana. But he still seems pretty powerful. I don’t think they took enough of his powers away. We need to dust this fuckin’ idiot once and for all.”

  Alex grinned. “Lead on.”

  “Well, there are five against two.”

  Alex shrugged. “We will try to take it easy on them.”

  Some of the fight was easy. Rad and Alex were able to freeze two of the Vamps in the room. Alex did his usual and slit their legs, leaving them helpless, as their mental abilities were not a threat.

  Rad faced off against Bath.

  “Rad, I did not think we would ever meet again. How is that sweet female?” Bath had balls if nothing else.

  One of the others stepped forward and suddenly struck out with his knife exactly in the center of Rad’s chest, except Rad was not there. He had turned to shadow and could not be seen in the room. He was solid, behind Bath with a knife. But Bath moved as soon as Rad disappeared. Rad had to swing sideways, only wounding Bath.

  Alex was dodging, doing his slice and dice at the third rogue. He took a swing at the first one who had stepped towards Rad and made a good contact across the man’s back, cutting deep through muscles. He never took his eyes off his attacker, but that male made a mistake, looking at his comrade as the nightwalker slid down from the wound in his back. In that one instant of looking away, Alex had his knife buried up to the hilt in the rogue’s chin.

  Rad finally had an advantage with Bath, mainly because of Bath’s ego. He apparently thought the move had put him ahead of Rad, but it had only given him a second longer to live as Rad twisted faster than the eye could see. The silver blade was driven with accuracy into Bathromo’s old, old heart. Then he was dust. Rad stood for a moment, reached down, and picked up a ring from the dust.

  “Rad, do you need any info from these jerks?” Alex toed a crippled nightwalker.

  “No, do you need any release?”

  Alex looked at his friend. “No, I found some last ni
ght, I am okay with it.” He stabbed the closest. As the dust swirled, he stabbed the other.

  “Okay, let’s go check on our teams.” Rad spoke quietly, walking up the steps quickly. With their speed, both were quickly on the streets looking for their teams. But as there was only some mopping up, it was better to stand and watch instead of interfering.

  They sped to another street to make sure all was well and found everything completed and the clothes being dumped in the closest garbage can.

  Rad quietly congratulated them all. “A couple days on my credit, wherever. Have a good time.”

  Alex first took the time to order Deck, his problem body guard, back to his home. Deck wasn’t happy, but he wouldn’t refuse an order. Next Alex tapped Rex and pulled him aside. “Hey, I have a strange project that involves the pretty little sweet smelling thing we saw the other night. Means I have to act like a gentleman.” Rex looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Hey, I remember how. Don’t give me that look. Anyways, I need you to find and contact her friend, the blond with the big tits. Convince her that it would be a good idea for the four of us to go out tomorrow evening. A nice clean date, a few drinks. We act like gentlemen. Can do?”

  Rex grinned. “I’ve had stranger requests. Can I have normal sex if she is willing?”

  Alex grinned, “If you can convince her, you can fuck her till her head falls off. I just need some time with the sweet one, to see if I can figure something out. I don’t need you to fuck up their relationship. I might need the fact that the blond likes you, to get us together another time or two.”

  “Oh, she will like me. Give me some time on my computer to come up with a phone number. We will have a date.”

  Chapter Seven

  Minty got another day on the computer, so she was happy. She went in, punched the time card then went to her cubicle. She worked for a couple of hours until Angela came by.

  “Hey, take a break, I need to talk.”

  She got up and followed Angela to the ladies rest room. It was a double room with a lounge leading into the normal rest room with stalls and sinks. She went in to wash her face. She really looked tired as she glanced in the mirror.

  “Are you not sleeping again?” Angela was right beside her, so close she actually jumped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Ah, Angela, can I ask you something very personal?”

  Angela smiled at her in the mirror. “Sure, babe, I have something to ask you, but you first.”

  “Well, this is embarrassing, but have you ever masturbated?” Minty looked down as her wet hands as she felt her face grow warm with a flush.

  “Well sure, babe, who hasn’t?”

  “Well, I never did, except I think I did last night, at least in my sleep.”

  Angela looked over at her with sympathy. “Well hell girl, if you never did before, and I know you don’t have a boyfriend, your body just probably reacted. It made a request of its own. Not that unusual. By the way, speaking of men, well sort of, anyways, remember the hunks that bought us the drinks at Marty’s retirement party? Well, tall, dark, and handsome, who happens to be called Rex, has asked me out tonight. But there is a catch.”

  Minty was already shaking her head no.

  “No, Minty listen. This guy is really nice, plus he has money. I think the last three guys I dated, I had to pay for the dinners. Sorry, anyways I really, really want to go out with this guy.”

  Minty was still shaking her head no, but now with a little more emphasis.

  “Don’t say no yet, just listen to me. His friend is from out of town and he needs someone to keep his friend company, you know, just to even the table out. I already told him that it was a work night, so we could not stay out late, that you had a boyfriend, so you could go along but it would not be a serious date, just a nice evening out with friends. Please, doesn’t that sound safe? Don’t say no. It will be a couple of hours, a nice drink or two with a couple of guys that can pay their own way for a change.”

  Minty looked at her friend. The silly woman had her hands together in a mock prayer, her mouth murmuring over and over, please, please, please.

  “God, Angela, I haven’t been out in years. I have nothing to wear and I am so tired I can hardly hold my head up.”

  “Look, come home with me. Just keep your jeans on, but I have a couple of really cute blouses that would be perfect for you. Also, the guys are going to pick us up at my place. That will help, because they won’t know where you live. And, oops, I already said yes.” Angela shrugged her shoulders and looked at Minty with wide eyes.

  Minty let out a deep sigh. “Oh all right, but if anyone gets drunk, or starts groping, or telling dirty stories, I am out of there, taking a taxi home.”

  “Deal.” Angela grinned from ear to ear.

  She had very little recollection of the afternoon, but she joined Angela in her convertible. They were soon at Angela’s apartment that was on the first floor of a nice townhouse. Angela pulled her to a big closet and threw the doors open. Minty laughed at the explosion of color.

  “Oh, Angela, these are not my style.” She looked at the beautiful reds, yellows and multi colored blues.

  “You are so right, but wait, I have just the thing. It is back here.” Angela rooted around, pushing hangers from one side to another, then came out with a soft green gauze top. It was in layers of material so thin that you could see through each layer but, as one layer wrap slanted over another, it was a tease and nothing could be seen. It was cut in long uneven lengths so that some soft ribbons fell almost to her knees and some stopped at the waist, and the same happened when she put it on.

  There really were no sleeves, just the soft material that moved over the shoulders, but if she put her arm straight out, her shoulders had only a thin strap. When she dropped her arms, the ribbons completely hid her from shoulder to waist. The satin ribbon that it all was attached to at the top, formed a soft V in front and back that framed her neck but was not too low to embarrass her. But no matter what she did she could not hide the straps of her bra.

  “No, no, take off the bra. You won’t show anything through all those layers.” So Angela helped her remove the bra without taking the blouse. It was a woman thing.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. She did have to admit she liked what she saw. The soft color and material brought a color to her skin that was a complement, even to the pale color from lack of sleep. She noticed that the color also had turned her eyes to the same green. That often happened with hazel eyes—sometimes they would be brown, sometimes a yellowish green, now a grass green.

  “Okay, sweety, a little makeup to cover up the dark under the eyes and you are going to knock the socks off your date.”

  She grabbed Angela’s hands. “It is not a date, remember. I will be out of there as soon as I feel the least bit uncomfortable.”

  But Angela was already changing into a red dress that showed off both her legs and her bust line. So she applied makeup, took the brush to her hair and with a peek out front was ready as the doorbell rang.

  “Wow, an Audi.”

  The tall dark haired guy was smiling down at Angela as if he had already found his supper. Angela took time to lock the door as she accepted his offered arm. Minty followed them out to the curb and there he was, leaning against the car. She almost turned around right there, but he stood up and opened the back door of the car, smiling at her.

  Angela was already being settled into the front seat. Minty could not think of any good reason to turn and run, so she entered the car, did not take his offered hand, but just slid into the roomy back seat. She found she could breathe as he just closed the door, walked around the car, and slid into the other side, leaving room so that he wasn’t touching her.

  Angela was bubbling away in the front seat. Rex seemed to be answering, but she was in a daze, not able to register their words. Then she realized the man beside her had said something.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” She tilted her head only a
little towards him, but not towards his face. He was just too beautiful to stare at.

  “I said my name is Alex. I understand yours is Minty. Very unusual.”

  She finally looked over at him in the dark car, the lights of passing cars not quite reflecting into the back seat. He was looking at her, but she felt it wasn’t too intense, so she took a moment to examine who was sitting beside her.

  He was impeccably dressed—polished loafers, knife creased slacks in a dark color, a white shirt open at the collar showing the muscles in the neck, the chest exposed at the folded back brilliance as it sat neatly against the dark jacket. The jacket seemed to be made of soft leather, but he wore no jewelry except for a very large ring on the first finger of the hand that rested on his leg. He was a very large man, but she felt it was all muscle, no excess weight on this man. He must work out every day.

  Then there was the face, which was framed by the blond hair that he wore long, curled against the collar. She could see the unusual blue eyes, the shape of the chin along with the bold nose. It was what you saw on the carved statues in Rome. Too beautiful, yet all masculine. The one item that made her look away quickly was the mouth. There was where the threat lay. Anyone who was foolish enough to look at the good looks of this man and think he might be a weak momma’s boy with all that pretty face, only had to look at that mouth. She did not know why, but somehow she felt the threat was all written on those lips. This man was very dangerous.

  Finally she felt it rude not to answer. “We don’t get to name ourselves—someone else looks at us as babes and attaches a title.” She looked out the window wondering where they were going.