Shadowdance(30)

Coals glowed red behind the heating stove’s black grate. “Give me the names of those who still live,” he said. “I want the ones who did the most damage. I want the bastard who took me.”

Because there had been one, the sick fuck who had first sunk his teeth into Jack’s neck. A dirty bastard who took the most, who decided who could have a turn and for how long. Jack almost doubled over at the memory, and it was all he could do not to retch.

Will studied the bone goblet before him with undue interest.

A lurching, cold feeling shivered through Jack’s veins, and he laughed without humor. “God, I am a fool.” He gripped the short hairs at the back of his head. “You’re never going to let those names go, are you?”

On a sigh Will stood, his lean face almost pure white as he moved into the shadowed space where candlelight did not reach. “If the Nex—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jack shouted.

“Well you are going to!” Will volleyed hotly. “I’ve risked my arse to help you. Bad enough that you return the favor by leaving the bodies of our agents on our bloody doorstep.”

That had rather been the point, Jack thought bitterly. What he had not been able to tell Chase last night was that the plinth of Nelson’s Column hid a favored entrance to the Nex lair. Jack took perverse pleasure in knowing that.

Jack shook his head. “I cannot fathom why you continue to work for an organization that thrives on misery.”

Will rounded the table. “We deserve the right to live outside of the shadows. Or have you forgotten those hours forced upon you, hours praying for forgiveness from a God who never showed?”

“I forget nothing. Nor will I kill innocents because I am stronger than they are. That makes me no better than the man who put me on my knees.”

“Says the one who has killed nearly ten supernaturals in cold blood.”

Jack hauled Will close. “Those were no innocents.” His teeth snapped together with an audible click. “They drank my blood.” It burned to say it, to even think it, but the truth could not be denied. And though each kill had destroyed a bit more of his soul, Jack would have done it all over again.

The heat left Will’s light eyes. “Aye. And they deserved to die for it.”

“And the ones who took more than my blood, they do not?” Jack could barely say the words through the hot constriction in his throat. “The Nex let them do it to me. You and yours kept me there.”

“I didn’t even know,” Will snapped back. “And when I learned of their debauchery, I agreed to help you, did I not?”

Jack had to believe that, had he truly known, Will would have taken him out of that hell. But there were times when he wondered if he knew his old friend and partner at all.

“Then give me the rest, damn you,” he said.

“Most of them are our top agents. I cannot reveal their names. If anyone finds out what I am doing, I’m dead. I’m risking my arse for you, but it only goes so far, mate.”

Jack cursed and raked his fingers along his skull, if only to alleviate the pressure building beneath his bones. “Did the Nex kill that shifter?”

Will’s nostrils flared. “Why the devil would we do that?” He snorted in disgust. “He was our biggest supplier. Hell, if you only knew how tasty his blood—”

Jack smashed his fist into Will’s nose. The bony protuberance crunched against his knuckles.

“Shit!” Will’s hand flew up to his face. “Stop fucking attacking me, or I will hit back.” Giving Jack a baleful glare, the bastard wiped at the blood with the back of his sleeve, and the crimson blood became a macabre beard.

“I keep waiting for you to.” Jack would welcome a good knockdown fight with him. “But we both know I can take you apart with one hand.”

“Only because I took a blood oath not to hurt you,” Will said bitterly. An oath Jack had talked him into when they were both ignorant lads of fourteen.

“Pity those oaths don’t bind shifters in the same way they do sanguis.” Jack almost grinned because, when he’d first imparted that small fact to Will, the demon had been bloody brassed off. The thought of them as children sobered Jack. He reached into his greatcoat and tossed Will a linen handkerchief. “I never thought you’d stoop to taking shifter blood.”

Wiping at his face, Will still managed to roll his eyes. “He offered it up, and gladly, you arse.” Will spit upon the ground, then eyed Jack. “We want supernaturals to rule this world. We don’t abuse them.” Jack snorted in sheer incredulity, and Will spoke over him. “That business with you was personal, and you know it.”