BloodBorne Ch. 06

"Xan, wake up."

Xan grudgingly opened one eye and stared at her sister for a long moment before she said, "What is it? Do you need something?"

"No."

Xan sighed as she closed her eyes and turned over to get back to sleep. "Go downstairs and get some breakfast then."

"It's afternoon, Xan."

Not already. "Damn." Xan sat up, inwardly cursing as fatigue weighed her body down. Her eyes closed again and the softness of the bed called to her to go back to sleep. She didn't get to bed until well after sunrise; after her interlude with Liam on the balcony, it had taken her body a long time to simmer down. While he'd given her one hell of an orgasm, her body remained hungry for him. She wasn't able to trust her feet to take her to the proper room once she'd regained mobility in her legs. So she stayed on the balcony and waited, letting the faint breeze cool the fire in her veins. And once she was back in the safety of her room, she took an ice-cold shower in an effort to clear the erotic memories replaying in her mind. "All right, I'm up."

"Alexis says we're leaving in ten minutes."

What the hell? "What do you mean we're leaving?" They were getting kicked out? The danger hadn't been taken care of. How the hell was she supposed to keep Xion safe when super demon was on the loose? "Fucking Liam," she muttered. Of course they were getting kicked out; the son of a bitch didn't want her around after last night. Unbelievable son of a bitch... He really thought that he could just use her and throw her out without another thought.

He had another thing coming.

Xan threw the blankets off her as she walked to the bathroom. "I'll be downstairs in a few minutes. Wait for me there." She didn't wait for her sister to respond; she slammed the bathroom door shut and rushed through her morning rituals, thinking of the perfect way to castrate the red-headed asshole before his brothers stopped her. He had to have put Alexis up to this; there was no other reason for him to suddenly decide that she and Xion had to leave. Xan wasn't sure if she was more angry or hurt. It didn't really matter either way; Liam not only pretended to be a sensitive and caring man to get into her pants, but he found it acceptable to cast her out like week-old trash once he got what he wanted from her. Asshole.

And to think, she was starting to warm up to the thought of sleeping with him.

Xan continued to spit vicious insults at the man who'd succeeded in ruining her day as she quickly dressed and ran down the stairs. He was in for it now, that stupid piece of shit. She stormed into the kitchen and went straight to Liam, who as usual, had a scowl she wanted to punch off his face. "You really are a pathetic piece of shit."

"What the fuck?" The last thing Liam expected when he woke up this morning was to have the obviously insane woman jumping down his throat.

"Oh so now you want to forget about your hand being down my pants last night?" She shoved him backward when he only narrowed his eyes in confusion. "If you regret it, that's fine, because I can guarantee that I wasted my time on you. But did you really have to hide behind brother Silent Bob to get me to leave?"

It took a moment for realization to dawn before Liam's face contorted in rage. "You think I asked my brother to kick you out?" He barely glanced at Xion as she quietly walked out of the room. His hands balled into fists and for a moment, he wished he wasn't against hitting women. Xan was in need of some serious sense beaten into her.

"Well, it was he who told my sister to inform me that we were leaving in ten minutes."

"Yes," Alexis said from his spot near the refrigerator, "We're leaving in a few minutes."

Xan looked from Alexis, who calmly snacked on a peanut butter cup to Draco, who had turned pink from his effort to keep from laughing, to Andrae, who showed no outward emotion at all. "You meant all of us." Andrae only raised his brow as he slightly nodded yes to her statement. Humiliation washed over her and she was sure that she was now beet red. She'd just made one hell of a scene in front of his brothers, who all now looked at her as if they probably should leave her to Sherlaine. Of course Alexis meant the population of the house. Liam had simply driven past the line of sanity.

The weight of her accusation wasn't lost on Liam. "What the fuck kind of man do you think I am?" he shouted. He was beyond livid; that she really thought that he was cowardly enough to cast her out after last night... "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Obviously a lot since you're the only man I know of who could drive an otherwise sane female into a blithering lunatic of a woman!" Her head was suddenly pounding. Embarrassment kept her from looking at anyone but Liam. She wanted to kill him, but she'd done enough damage for one day. "Just let me know when we're leaving." Xan turned to leave muttering in Spanish as she went.

"You didn't eat," Draco called out.

"I'm not fucking hungry."

The kitchen remained silent for a few moments as the men processed what they'd just witnessed. Draco rubbed a hand on his head as he said, "Liam, dude, you probably shouldn't have sex with her."

"What the fuck, Drake?" Liam turned to his brother and was surprised to find the contemplative look on the otherwise jovial man. "Mind your fucking business."

"I'm just saying, man. She looks like she has preying mantis syndrome."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Draco paused for a moment before saying, "You have sex with her and I guarantee she'll bite your head off and eat it as a post coital snack."

Liam grimaced at the graphic mental image. "You have issues."

"Not as big as yours," Andrae said. While he didn't particularly care about what his brothers did and with whom, he actually agreed with Draco. "Xan is about as sensitive as they come. She wasn't pissed at the thought of being kicked out."

"Were you not just here?" Liam asked incredulously.

"Yes, and what I saw was a woman who was under the impression that you used her. If there is one thing I learned about human females, it's that you need to treat them like the next demon you have to kill. Always cover your ass."

Liam remained silent as he thought about his brother's words. Normally he would have had something acidic in nature to say, but considering the fact that Nadia was the only female contact his brother had had before she died, he would have started a dangerous fight. He'd had about enough of that for one day. "Any bright ideas on what I should do now?" No one answered his question, confirming a long standing belief that he was related to a bunch of idiots. He looked over at Alexis, whose eyes were slightly crinkled in merriment and asked, "Can we get this done?"

Alexis nodded and led his brothers out of the kitchen. He then allowed Andrae to take the lead and within minutes they were standing in front of Xan and Xion who'd taken refuge in their room. Xion seemed content to sketch the view from their window while Xan paced the length of the room. Her face was still flushed, but Alexis wasn't sure if it was due to anger or humiliation. "We're leaving."

Xion looked up from her work and asked, "Where are we going?"

"The cemetery," Andrae replied.

"Why the hell are we going there?"

"A visit to your mother's grave has been long overdue."

Xan looked at Andrae as if he'd gone as insane as she felt. "Uh, my mother's buried two thousand miles from here."

"Not a problem. Now let's go."

Xan watched as the men huddled together so that they could get a hand on Andrae. "I guess we're not walking out the front door..." She motioned to Xion to take hold of the man's hand before she placed hers on his forearm. Before she had enough time to draw a proper breath, they were standing inside an ornate mausoleum. Very little light filtered through, but Xan was able to make out the lone stone coffin placed in the center of the structure. "Nope, no front doors."

Alexis took the lead and motioned everyone out of the mausoleum. The sun had begun its descent here, meaning they had little time to put Andrae's radical plan into effect. He walked to the headstone they sought and quickly showed his respects to the fallen warrior resting in front of them:

There was a long moment of silence as everyone reflected on the moment. Xion, who'd run off the second they'd exited the mausoleum, returned with a handful of Magnolias to place on the deserted grave. From there, she walked to her sister and took hold of the shaking hand that clutched hers tightly.

"Let's give them a moment," Andrae murmured. He waited for his brothers to follow him several feet from the gravesite before he spoke. "This won't take very long."

"Are you sure about this?" Alexis asked.

"Like I said before; if you have any other bright ideas, feel free to share." Andrae silently dared his brother to say something to change the line of action. While he did agree that this plan was filled with holes and could have ended messily, there was no other way for him to get Sherlaine's scent. Without that, there was no possible way to track him. That was a lie; there were ways to track him, but they would take massive amounts of time. Time they didn't have if they expected to keep Xan and her sister safe. "Sherlaine won't stop until he gets what he wants from her, which means that he has to have some kind of a track on her. Since she's been at the manor, his plan wasn't quite working."

"Until now," Draco murmured.

Alexis noticed the stricken look on his brother's face and turned to see the focus of his attention. There, standing at the top of the crest at the far end of the cemetery were ten figures, only one of which was human. They were all armed and ready for battle. "They're here."

"I know," Andrae replied. What he didn't know was how many were in the shadows, waiting for the signal to attack. His senses were on high alert; there were at least thirty demons around them, and each one of them had a scent that assaulted his nose. He held a hand out to keep Liam from going to Xan and said, "No sudden movements. They're waiting for us to try to cover them."

"We can't fucking stand here all night." The instinct to start fighting and to get Xan the hell away from danger was overwhelming. He was tempted to lash out at his brother for his careless attitude, but the last thing anyone needed was for their enemies to think they could divide and destroy. "Well what the fuck do we do now?"

"We wait for it." Andrae handed Liam a pair of leather gloves and watched as Draco positioned his knuckle knives for battle. It would have been an easier fight if they had a few more bodies on their side, but they would have to make due. He shifted his gaze when then wind gave him a telltale sign of the imminent attack. "Invisible attackers approaching at five o'clock."

Liam was only able to turn toward the direction of the attack before he was shot backward by an invisible bolt of energy directed at his midsection. Mere seconds was all it took for him to realize that the energy came from the opposite direction. Before he could shout a warning, the invisible demons launched their attack, dropping their guard and becoming visible to his brothers. Sherlaine fought dirty, choosing to employ Dickindron demons to keep them busy. Liam slammed his wrists together to get his protractible wrist blades to shoot out and slice of the neck of the demon stupid enough to get too close. Blood splattered as he pushed the crumpling body out of the way. His goal was to get to Xan and her sister before they were grabbed. Not that he had much to worry about; Xan had already taken down two demons and was working on the third, scissor kicking it back while keeping close to her sister.

Xion, bless her little heart, did not panic and seemed to know exactly how to move to make sure she stayed behind her sister's back without hindering her fight. "Son of a bitch," Liam groaned when his face was viciously turned sideways by the blow he hadn't anticipated. He fought back, delivering a roundhouse that forced the demon down sideways. A simple downward slash eliminated the threat and allowed him the opportunity to get closer to Xan. Liam shoved an over-eager demon toward Alexis, who'd also worked to get to Xan. He would have grunted in approval at the way his brother deftly twisted the demon's neck one-hundred-eighty degrees if he hadn't been busy trying to cover the infuriating woman's back. Once he reached her, he positioned himself at her back and pushed Xion between them.

Xan would have thanked Liam for his aid had she not been busy trying to keep the Dickindron demons at bay. It was obvious that they weren't interested in hurting her; each demon that approached made moves to grab and restrain her, no doubt to bring her to Sherlaine. Unfortunately for them, she wasn't in the mood for house calls and made quick work of taking each one down.

That was of course, before Mordecai demons decided to join the fight. With human bodies, these demons specialized in feasting on human souls by draining bodies of blood. They were vicious fighters with massive strength she could barely fight. She'd never known a human strong enough to fight them. It was possible that her demon ancestry aided in fighting them, but still, she needed Liam's strength if she ever expected to win. "Switch!" she called out.

Liam ducked and stepped to the side, bringing up his fist at the Mordecai demon in front of him. It flew back into Andrae who'd shifted into his demon form at the sight of the new threat. Considering Mordecai demons were the reason he no longer had Nadia, he had the opportunity to lose control and tear the head off of the demon in mere seconds.

"Where the fuck is Sherlaine?" Liam asked.

"Disappeared!" Andrae shouted as he grabbed another demon to decapitate. "Ah fuck."

Liam noticed the aggravated slant to his brother's eyes and turned just in time to watch Xan fight back the one demon they tried to keep from her. "God-fucking-damn-it!" He ran forward and shoved Sherlaine back, enraged that he'd been stupid enough to forget about him. That was probably the plan; he'd brought all his minions with him to ensure they would be distracted enough to grab Xan himself. Not on his watch. "Get the fuck away from her."

"Her?" Sherlaine looked at the human standing in front of him. Yes, she was definitely female; the small breasts were easily hidden beneath the masculine shirt she wore. Her features were also softer than the last time he saw her. "Women really do make the world go round." With a flash of light, he teleported from in front of Liam who'd moved to slit his throat to the woman. He grabbed hold of her arm and felt the bone break from the tightness of his hold. While he did not mean harm to the woman, he did like the shout of pain she emitted; the guttural sound made the blood rush through his veins at an accelerated rate.

Sherlaine smiled when she grabbed hold of his arm and made sure she drew blood with her feminine act of raking her nails over his skin. He grunted in pain and mimicked the action a scant second before punching her hard enough to send her flying through the air. At the same time, he allowed the overzealous redhead to kick him sideways as he rubbed his blood soaked fingers over his open wounds. From his position on the floor, he glanced over at the Mordecai demon mere steps away from the woman. He looked at the Brethren member set to attack him and at the same time heard the running footsteps of the Belial demon. With a smile, he murmured, "You'll be hearing from me soon."

Liam roared in rage when Sherlaine vanished in front of him. He would have loved nothing better to kill that damned demon again, but the sight of Xion cowering behind a tombstone forced him to refocus his attention. He barely noticed the fact that the remaining demons made quick work of retreating as he rushed toward the child. She'd curled herself into a ball and covered her ears as she trembled. Liam gathered her into his arms and worked to soothe her, moving closer to Alexis and Draco in case Sherlaine planned a second attack. He looked his brother over and noticed that the worst of their injuries were a few bruises. Xion clutched him while she trembled in his arms. "It's ok, they're gone now."

"The key!"

Liam looked over to where Xan lay clutching her arm and almost dropped Xion in shock. The Mordecai demon had a hold of her arm and was in the process of lifting her into his arms when he was suddenly blasted back by an invisible force. Andrae materialized behind the demon after it landed on the ground and ripped his head off. Xan seemed to hover in air as she was carried toward the rest of the group. She cried out in pain as she tried to free herself and only succeeded in bothering her already pained arm. "Ah, fuck!" she shouted.

"Calm down," Alexis commanded, "You're safe."

"Who the fuck is this?" The second she asked the question, Xan was given a view of her savior. With the same face as Draco, it was obvious that this man was Roman, the twin he often spoke highly of. The only distinguishing factors on his face were the immaculate goatee and diamond stud in his ear. Seeing his face immediately calmed her and stopped her struggles. "Nice to finally meet you." He nodded and gave a sly smile in response, and because of that, she was sure that he was the cool to Draco's crazy.

"You could have made yourself seen sooner, asshole," Liam muttered. He continued to stroke Xion's back as she clung to him. Her shaking worried him, but he knew that she would get better the second she was in the familiar setting of the manor.

"Needed the element of surprise." Roman turned to Andrae and smiled as he said, "I see you still feel the same about Mordecai." His smile widened when his brother responded with a very graphic hand gesture. "Just saying."

"I got the read on Sherlaine," Andrae announced, "Let's go." He waited until his brothers had a hand on him before teleporting back to the manor. Everyone stood in the foyer, quiet as they recovered from what they'd just gone through. Andrae took Xion from Liam so that he could work on Xan's arm. He didn't like the way she desperately clung to him as she shook. "We should have left the kid here."

"This house too large to leave a child her age on her own."

Andrae shrugged at Alexis' comment as he watched Draco and Roman embrace each other. The twins hadn't seen each other in a few weeks, which naturally meant that they would soon retreat to their adjoining rooms to spend time with each other. They were worse than women, those two, especially when it came to their emotional dependency on each other. He couldn't exactly blame them; he remembered the comfort of having someone there to lean on. "I didn't think he'd bring as many reinforcements as he did."

"He knew that we're involved," Liam muttered as he worked on healing Xan's injuries. He admired the fact that she barely made any noise while he worked on her; pain usually increased tenfold when his powers took effect before the injured person became extremely fatigued. "Of course he'd bring a shit load of demons to distract us."

"He wasn't expecting Roman," Draco announced cockily.

"He will next time," Andrae replied.

"There won't be a next time," Alexis corrected. "We've wasted enough time in simply trying to get a trace on him. We still don't know what he wants from Xan and what he wants to use it for. Most importantly, we have no idea how to kill him. We can't afford a next time."

"I think that's the longest I've ever heard him speak," Draco murmured. He smiled mischievously when his usually monosyllabic brother glared at him. "Well it was."