Soul Mates: Sacrifice Read online

  "Deep and slow," I whispered.

  "Yeah."

  Moans soon became cries and whimpers and I could feel him tightening around me. It sent fire straight to my groin. I shook as I tried to stave off the orgasm.

  "Come on, Lucien. I'm right there. Don't want to come without you getting off."

  "Hard, hard," he panted.

  The moment he shoved back, I exploded inside him, feeling like my balls were trying to shoot out my cock. Lucien gasped and buried his face into the mattress, crying out, ass milking my already spent cock, keeping me half-hard. I finally had to pull out of him so I could catch my breath.

  "Oh, God, Lucien, I already wanna fuck you again."

  "You say this like it's a bad thing. Goddamnit, Peter. I needed that."

  I smiled against his neck. "Good. So glad I could help."

  He laughed. "Come shower with me?"

  "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

  * * *

  "Why don't you fill me in on some of the things that took place while I was gone." Lucien sat at the desk and propped his bare feet on the edge. "I'd rather have a little more than bits and pieces."

  I stopped beside him, pausing the towel-drying of my hair to bend and kiss the top of his right foot. "Do we have to do this now?"

  "Yes, we do. I have been away too long and if I don't start working again soon, it could lead to chaos."

  "Chaos, huh? That sounds… terrible. Let me grab my brush and get comfortable first. You'd think whacking a few inches off my hair would've made the fucking tangles less of a problem."

  I walked to the bedside table and grabbed a brush before going back to the desk and sliding onto the edge. It wasn't as comfortable as I thought it'd be, though, so I grabbed one of the Queen Anne chairs and pulled it up in front of Lucien.

  "Why did you cut it?"

  I shrugged. "It was so full of glass and blood it was the only way to get it clean."

  "Okay." Lucien growled, eyes going dark. "Let's not go there just yet."

  "Hey, you asked."

  He stretched one leg out and nudged my legs apart. When I took the hint and spread them, he propped his feet up on the chair between my legs, ankles crossed. I took a moment to caress them, to admire them. Graceful, yet strong, perfectly shaped…

  "Peter?"

  I looked up at him. "Hmm?"

  "I asked about the club."

  Man, I'd totally missed that question. I started the long process of detangling my hair with the brush. "What about it?"

  "Has it been closed down since your accident?"

  "Yep. Didn't really have anyone to send to take care of things who wasn't already busy here."

  "I figured as much. We need to get it reopened as soon as possible. Every night that we're closed down is a night that we're losing income—as are our employees."

  "Well, they're not. I pretty much told them at the coven meeting that their pay would be adjusted for the Monday nights we're closed. I just figured it would be good to pay them for downtime, too."

  "Whatever for?"

  "Because I know how hard it is when you have bills to pay and you need those hours and that paycheck. They'll need to be paid like…yesterday."

  Lucien sighed and grabbed his ledger and a pen. "Keep talking, lover. I'll be here a while."

  I grinned and stuck out my tongue. "Let's see… I told them we'd have a coven meeting on the following Monday. I think. God, I don't even remember exactly now. Might want to get that rescheduled."

  He nodded. "Already taken care of. How about team-related issues? Tell me what you and Silver discussed."

  I paused mid-stroke with the brush. "That was a private conversation, Lucien. I promised him that what was said would remain between me and him."

  "I didn't intentionally go into your memories for it. I got bits and pieces before I even woke. But I will promise you that none of it will leave this room."

  "And that you'll not hold a word of it against Silver," I added.

  "Of course not."

  I started brushing my hair again, suddenly uneasy about this whole thing of filling Lucien in on everything he'd missed. "Team stuff, huh?"

  "Now don't be like that. You were confident enough to discuss these things in my absence. Have the confidence now to make me believe in them."

  "Sure we can't start with something easier? Like… Caleb?"

  "No. He's your concern for the time being."

  "Lucien, I can't make the decisions about him without—"

  "I can't go there yet, Peter! You'll have to deal with it for now."

  Okay, okay. So maybe team-related shit was going to be easier to tackle after all.

  "Fine." I thought for a moment, trying to figure out where in hell to start. Silver and I had discussed so much that night. "As you know, the team has been divided for a while. Vampires on one side, Lycans on the other."

  "Mostly my fault, so yes, I know."

  "Lucien," I chastised. "Don't go there."

  "Just stating fact," he said, not bothering to look up as he turned the page in his ledger.

  "Everyone came together and worked to search for you. And they seem to be getting along well since then. But I do think we need to keep a very close watch on what's going on. The last thing we need is a war between species."

  "I couldn't agree more."

  "Did you know that the Lycans are breeding again?"

  He looked up, eyebrows raised. "I wasn't aware that they'd stopped."

  "The lack of little cubbies at coven functions didn't give that away, huh?"

  "Maybe it was more of a case of not wanting to know what was going on—or not going on, in this case." His brow knitted in confusion. "What do you mean by breeding exactly?"

  "From what I've been told, the chance of passing on the Lycan gene between born werewolves is only twenty-five percent. But now, we have born Lycans breeding with infected ones, resulting in a sort of 'hybrid' werewolf. The chances of the genes being passed on now is up to fifty percent."

  "What are the qualities of these hybrid wolves?"

  "That, I don't know."

  "Then I suggest we bring in someone that can do some baseline tests."

  "Good idea. We need to at least know if these 'hybrids' can infect people. If they can, this is going to lead to some new rules and laws about the circles those children play in."

  He nodded in agreement. "What else is there?"

  "There's quite a bit we discussed about the team situation. One thing was that instead of having the team do things as a whole, it needed to be divided up into sub-teams according to job specialties and level of expertise required."

  "Break it down further so I'm sure we're thinking the same things here."

  "A house team: they never leave the grounds while they are on duty. There'd be house patrol and ground patrol. Sentry: werewolves in the day, vampires at night. Someone to watch over us as we sleep. An enforcement team. A hunting team. A clean up and disposal team. We need to get people in the right positions instead of throwing them onto the team and giving them blind orders. The people in these positions need to know what they're doing—and how to do it well. Unfortunately, this is going to take some members off the team entirely and we'll need to find a place to put them where they can still serve, but out of the action, so to speak."

  "You do realize that, in order to do this, we are short some qualified team members?"

  "That's where recruitment comes in. Imagine, Lucien: guys with know-how and experience. Soldiers, mercs, ex-cops, ex-law enforcement. Guys that are good at what they do and have a history of serving under command. Well, maybe not the mercs, but you get the point." When he looked up at me, eyes narrowed, I inclined my head. "Right?"

  "Large-scale recruiting? You do realize that might become a very costly idea…"

  "Yeah. Because along with that, they're going to want and need upgraded weapons. However, we've possibly got one way to fund it. Hire out them out to the Council. Let them be the guys who g
o in and fix things."

  "The Council has their own team, Peter."

  "Oh, I'm well aware of that now. But you know what? Out of all those guys, there were two that knew what the fuck they were doing. One of them, I'd only know if I saw him again. The other was Tomas. They just… They stood out, you know? They knew what they were doing, took charge and led, yet they still took orders. Do you realize just how valuable a team full of men like that could be for us?"

  He stared at me for a long while, but I could practically see him trying to work out the specifics of it all. "If we decide to do this, it would take some creative financing. Sure, we're okay to run it for a hundred years or so, but we need to make sure the income for it is there even further down the road."

  I fought like hell to keep myself from grinning. This was going over pretty damned well. "We'd need to do some heavy psych evaluations first, too. Make sure we're getting good stock."

  "I like that. Good stock." Lucien laughed. "Is there anything else?"

  "Silver mentioned that he intended to challenge Caleb for his position as former team leader."

  "I don't see how much of a challenge can come of that considering where Caleb's at and the fact that he no longer holds the position."

  "I know. So, what do we do about that? The team's already been too long without a leader and I think Silver would be perfect for the position."

  "There's only one thing we can do. Dog law."

  I raised a brow. "And that is?"

  "Anyone who thinks they have the power to lead will fight for it. All at once, no weapons, no preparations in advance. Last man standing takes the position."

  "Oh…that. Well, whatever you think is best."

  "I'm fairly certain that Silver will come out the winner either way. However, this is the only way for him to get the position and the respect he needs to use it."

  "'Don't respect the position, you respect the man that holds the position.'" I quoted Silver's words to Lucien. "I think you're right. And I think that's it."

  Lucien pointed to the door to the bedroom. "Tell me about this monitor."

  I turned to see what he was asking about, then it hit me. I hadn't filled him in on the elaborate security system that had been installed – and was still in the process of being installed, in certain areas – inside the mansion.

  "That would be a part of our new security system. The monitor is because I was getting paranoid about opening the door up to just anyone."

  "This is our private wing; no one should be down here that isn't supposed to be."

  "Caleb's room is down here, Lucien. While you were gone, I was waiting on Silver. There was a knock at the door and when I opened it, Silver wasn't there. No one was."

  "But someone was there."

  "Yeah." I shrugged. "Mainly, it was for my peace of mind. I've kept the knowledge of the security system to a minimum. The only people who know are us, Simon, Silver, Nikolas, and Reid."

  "Xander does not know? I wasn't aware that you were having problems with him while I was gone."

  "No, no, no. I just forgot to tell him."

  "Will you tell him now?"

  "Probably not." I shook my head slowly. "At least not any time soon."

  Lucien closed his ledger and set it and his pen on the desk. "Throw some clothes on, lover. Let's take a walk."

  * * *

  Although he hadn't said where he wanted to go when he mentioned taking a walk, I soon found out that he wanted me to lead the way to point things out to him and show him the basic designs of the system. The designs Silver had made up were in the secured room with Reid, though, so I figured it would all work out pretty well.

  As we walked, I remembered the painting Xander and I had found at Reid's old place.

  "Before you were taken that day, did you tell Xander to get Reid's things moved from his place to the mansion?"

  "I did. Why?"

  "Just curious. After what happened, I wouldn't have been surprised if that'd been some part of the scheme to get you alone."

  "No…" Lucien sounded thoughtful. "I wanted him to have things here. To feel like this was his home."

  "Oh, Lucien. Where he was before was certainly not home. The address we had for him was the place that he and Paul shared. Lucien… Reid was going back to a rat-infested apartment just to be in the place that he and Paul shared. Mostly, to stare at a painting on the wall Paul had done of the two of them together."

  "A painting?"

  "Yeah. Right on the sheetrock. Xander and I managed to cut it out and leave it whole. I thought maybe we could find someone to get it fixed up and protected in a frame."

  "I think Reid would like that."

  I stopped in front of the secured room and knocked on the door. "Reid, it's me, Peter."

  Reid opened the door a few moments later, looking tired and disheveled. His eyes went wide as he saw Lucien and he dropped to one knee.

  "Masters."

  "Get up, Reid," I said with a chuckle. "I want you to get us authorized for the system and then I'd like you to show Lucien how it works. You free to do that?"

  "Of course."

  Reid opened the door wide to let Lucien and me in, then closed the door. There was a hiss and the sound of locks clicking back into place.

  I raised a brow. "More locks on the door?"

  "Better ones. Not even a werewolf can get through the door now," Reid answered. "This is the most secure room in the house, except for your bedroom and the escape route, of course."

  Lucien sat in one of the chairs and leaned over to look at the screen in front of Reid. "This looks like a good setup, but is it something you intend to handle on your own?"

  "Honestly? This is going to require a twenty-four-seven watch. Silver and I have been handling it so far, but—"

  "I'll get you some help as soon as possible. Until then," Lucien frowned. "Well, some of it may involve going over recorded feed instead of getting it via live feed."

  Reid thought for a moment. "I could set up a temporary connection to my room so that I would hear any alarms that might be triggered."

  Lucien nodded. "Do that, then. We'll figure out the rest as soon as possible."

  "I should get you both scanned in. Your hand-sigs are fine, but I'll need optical scans to give you full access to both the system and the room."

  "Do Peter first. I'm going to play with your computer here and see if I can learn a few things."

  Reid looked horrified for about half a second, but quickly hid it. "Yes, sir."

  "He's only teasing," I said to Reid.

  "Just in case," he whispered.

  I grinned, as did Lucien, but he turned away so Reid wouldn't see it. He then started typing away at the computer, switching screens here and there. From the Middle Ages to the age of computers—Lucien seemed to fit in well in any time period.

  Reid went through the process of getting me in a chair and arranging me in just the right way. He grabbed a small instrument that was connected to one of the computers by a long cord. It looked similar to the optical scanner that Silver had used to access the room a few days ago, but this one was larger.

  "I'm going to cup this over your eye. Try not to blink."

  That was easier said than done. When you're trying not to blink, it just makes the need to blink seem even more necessary. After a few seconds at each eye and Reid checking the computer after each one, he stepped back.

  "All done."

  "Lucien, honey, I think that's your cue."

  Lucien stood, but when he did, a buzzer went off. He looked at Reid, then looked at me. "What's—?"

  The door opened and Silver stepped in, smiling, nodding his head politely to the three of us. "Good evening."

  "Hey, Silver," I said with a grin. "How's it going?"

  "Good, good. Just had a few minutes' break from supervising things down the hall. I had some numbers and specs to give Reid here on the vid-cams in the dungeon area."

  We'd had some cameras there before, but they we
ren't compatible with the new system and most of them were no longer working. "Got some of them replaced?"

  "A few. I'd like to see how much we can tweak them before we go all out for more."

  "Always nice to save money when we can," Lucien added with a wink.