Between Books: Volume Four

By

L. A. Banks

Between Books: Volume Four
After The Bitten, Before The Forbidden
April 2005

Los Angeles ...

It rolled through him like quiet thunder, rippled through his system from his spinal column outward, instantly lowered his fangs, and then vanished. Black out. What the hell...?

Yonnie untangled himself from the three naked, voluptuous females that were regenerating beside him, sat up in his lair bed beneath Club Vengeance, and pushed away from it to stand. He staggered toward the in-lair bar and immediately opened a black bottle. The females he’d left sprawled out on the bed slowly stirred and stared up at him.

“Baby, what is it?” the one with long braids asked, her dark smoky eyes roving over him as the two other weaker females drew closer together in silent panic.

Yonnie held up his hand, focusing his inner vision he strained to comprehend Carlos’s weak transmission. It was coming in fits and starts.

Find others like us.

Brothers tricked into the life.

Raise an army!

“Done!” Yonnie shouted in response, ignoring the lair kittens as adrenaline pumped through his system and spiked battle rage. “Where you at, man?”

Elevation bites. No new turns. Only those like us. Played.

“My word, man—you can count on me. You injured?”

Carlos’s voice sounded weaker than he’d ever heard it; a thread of mild hysteria was running through it that had set his teeth on edge. Rivera hadn’t answered the question. There was a turbine whine inside his head, too. It sounded as though Carlos was mentally hollering through a tornado. Pure fury could do that to a brother, though.

“You injured?” Yonnie repeated, panic creeping into his thoughts.

I’m fucked. No time. Just do it!

Yonnie leaned against the bar slowly and closed his eyes.

“How bad, man? We’ll get an extraction team to—”

No! Harpies.

“Level Seven?” Yonnie’s words drew withering screeches from the three huddled females in his bed. Gooseflesh rose to Yonnie’s arms. “Shut up!” he ordered.

“Our Councilman is under Inquisition?,” the sister with braids whispered through her now lowered fangs. She gathered the two third-generation females into her arms as they pressed against her pendulous breasts and stared at Yonnie in fear.

Again, Yonnie held up his hand for silence and began to pace. He focused on Sydney, Australia, sensing for other Masters that could have ambushed Carlos while topside. Nothing. He shot a mental question back: Was Level Seven sent for you or to quell the dispute?

Nothing.

Fear began to permeate every cell within Yonnie’s body as he turned the black bottle up to his mouth, polished it off, then strained to listen harder. Nothing. He dropped the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing blood across it as he let it drop to his side and made a fist. Still nothing.

He looked at the females huddled on the bed with disgust. “Whoever’s got the fullest tank, get over here pronto and feed me so I can get this order!”

Instantly, three well-fed females were at his side. The second-gen threw her braids over her shoulder and offered her throat. He didn’t even look at her as he quickly gathered her into his arms, knocked her jaw back with his chin, and tore into her jugular vein. His concentration was singular; feed to strengthen and acquire knowledge. There was not enough time to coat the bite with pleasure—this was a raw nick. The brutal siphon made her temporarily go limp in his arms, but he pulled up before he flat-lined her.

“Thanks, baby. I’ll make it up to you later,” he muttered. “Replenish her,” he told to the others, gently letting her fall into their grasp. This wasn’t about play time; the territory was going to war. His top brass was behind enemy lines, daylight soon approaching as a barrier, and Harpies were on the scene. Some foul shit was in the air.

Yonnie paced to a far wall and splayed his fingers wide as he pressed his hands against the marble. “Talk to me, man!”

Honor all my marks. Protect Damali at all costs. Her family is my family.

“Oh, shit…” Yonnie brought his hands away from the wall for a second. “What just went down?”

Silence.

Three sets of panic-stricken eyes greeted him as he stared at the bed. He’d fed hard, but none of them should have come away that pale. Their tawny range of brown complexions had practically gone ashen.

“Natasha?” Yonnie said slowly as he watched the second-gen he’d fed from. Either his eyes were playing tricks on him or her face was gradually beginning to age. Her heavy breasts that once had large, pert, coffee colored nipples began to sag. Her narrow waist that gave rise to ample hips became wider and flabby. Her luscious, thick thighs that touched in the center when she walked had become loose and wrinkly. Scars and battle wounds began to pit and create keloid tissue over her once flawless dark ebony skin. This beauty of a female was literally disintegrating right before him in his bed!

“Baby, you all right?” Yonnie measured the panic in his tone, trying to ask the question as calmly as possible.
The two sisters that had just fed her shrieked and scampered up the wall shielding their faces as she began to smolder. Plumes of sulfuric smoke filled the room. One almond hued beauty dropped to the floor next to the black marble bed and combusted on impact, the other willowy mahogany siren simply torched where she sat, screaming while Natasha burst into flames in the center of his bed.

Yonnie was on the ceiling in seconds, reflexes instantaneous as he battle bulked and peered at the carnage in horror. A black hole opened in the center of his lair and sucked the ashen females and the bed right down with it, then sealed shut.

He glanced around, terror keening his senses. How could a feed bite do something like that? But oddly he felt stronger. How could that be? Why? Nightfall here was in the offing; daylight soon approaching where Carlos was. Then he felt it.

Bright light scored the inside of his retinas. Pain so visceral that it made him lose his grip on the ceiling, felled him. Daylight? His main man had bought daylight? No! Couldn’t be—there had to be some other explanation! Until her knew for sure, he’d never accept that as an answer!

Lying on the floor, panting, sweating, Yonnie attempted an SOS beacon to his boy, Stack, to no avail. He wiped his brow to get the insistent perspiration out of his eyes and realized he was sweating pure blood.

He tried to push up on his hands and knees, but his arms trembled at the attempt. He couldn’t sense Carlos anywhere, not even as ash. He allowed his mind to sweep the territory for Carlos’s marks. Nothing. No human vibration detected in Carlos’s zones. He honed in on Damali. Nothing? Oh, shit… no wonder his boy was freaking out. Raise an army—sho’ you right! Another Master jacked the Neteru? From Rivera? No wonder Harpies were in the mix.

If he knew his Councilman, Rivera was about to turn Hell out. Had the brother lost his mind, though—torching everything in his own territory from paranoia? This was beyond dangerous… what did three innocent lair kittens have to do with the bull? To his mind, there was only one explanation; Rivera was so pissed off that he’d smoked any distraction within his lieutenants’ lairs. That had to be it. Okay, aw’ight. Made sense. Yonnie stared at the place on the floor that had taken his bed and women with it. Dayum… the brother was not hardly playing when it came to Damali. As soon as the sun set, he’d gather a war party and start the elevation turns.

Gulping huge inhales, Yonnie allowed his voice to rent the air in a loud bellow. “We gotchure back! Carlos, man—what just happened?”