He couldn’t sense the Omega. Anywhere.
Back before his death, he’d known his sire’s presence sure as he recognized his own reflection, the dogged awareness of the evil who had spawned him like the sky above him, the ground beneath his feet, the air around him.
A law of nature.
And now… all he sensed was an absence of that particular chord within the musical arrangement of his reality. A bass note that was gone.
Had the Brotherhood finally done it? Had they eliminated that which had hunted them?
Twisting about, he glanced behind himself and tried to pick up on the echoes of any lessers…
Unless his resurrection had wiped out his ability to recognize the footprints of evil in Caldwell… it seemed like he was all alone. The sole survivor of some kind of Armageddon that had wiped out not only the Lessening Society, but its very origins, its creator and master.
Putting his hands on his stomach, he ran his palms down the ribbing of muscle and briefly clasped his sex. Then he touched his face. His throat. His pecs.
He had a substance. He had form. He had thoughts and free will.
Was it possible that the Omega had somehow known he wouldn’t survive whatever had happened? And in a last-ditch effort to have a part of him live on, carry on… he had brought back that which he had forsaken?
As the male considered where he’d woken up, he realized the bedding platform had been the Omega’s. The private quarters… had been the Omega’s. He knew this because he had been summoned there from time to time.
He wasn’t forsaken, he realized. He was the evil’s goddamn lifeboat.
Was it conceivable that he had not been discarded, but that his rotting had been tied to the Omega’s accelerating decline?
He would never know.
He was here now. That he did know.
And he knew one other thing.
That smoking hot brunette had helped bring him back to the earth. He had no clue who the hell she was or why she’d been going on about true love and other fantasies of a romantic variety. He didn’t care. Down in his father’s private quarters, the male had been aware, but going nowhere until she had summoned him—and she had some tricks up her own sleeve, apparently.
If their paths crossed again, he was going to enjoy submitting her.
But right now, he needed a plan. He needed resources. He needed…
The male let his head fall back. There was no seeing any stars, assuming they were not covered by clouds. Too much ambient light. He was sure they were up there, though, and in any event, their presence did not depend on his eyes for validation. They just were.
Like destiny.
And fate.
He was back in Caldwell. He didn’t know how much time he had, what his life span was, what kinds of powers he could marshal.
He was his father’s son, however.
Picturing Wrath, son of Wrath’s face, the male started to smile.
His purpose couldn’t be any clearer—although it would not be to honor the entity who’d brought him into existence, failed him, and then resurrected him. Finishing what he had started before things had gotten off course would be for his own satisfaction.
“Thank you, father mine,” Lash growled into the night, “I’ll take it from here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As Erika led Balthazar down into her basement, she held her breath. She’d turned the light on before she’d started the descent and the good news was that there were no interior walls in her cellar. Just steel supports that were four inches in diameter.
Easy to look around.
And there was nothing behind the open staircase or through the doorway into the utility bath.
“It’s clear,” she said. Not that that was necessary.
While he cased the place for himself, she saw the subterranean square footage with fresh eyes and was glad she’d finished it—well, sort of finished things with carpeting and some furniture and a fresh coat of paint. When she’d done the renovation, about two years ago, it had seemed like an unnecessary extravagance considering the only thing she did on the lower level was her laundry. But back then she’d been recently promoted to homicide, she’d had a little extra money, and she’d figured as long as she didn’t get precious about her choices, it was affordable. And maybe she’d been trying to turn the townhouse into a proper home. Which had seemed like a healthy thing to do.
Yeah, total failure on that one. No amount of Benjamin Moore was going to morph the three levels and a roof into a “home.” It was still her apartment, her camp-out, her tent. Her temporary, rather than her permanent.