Where Winter Finds You

by J. R. Ward

  Then again, with Trez as his brother, he had so much existential baggage to carry around, it was a wonder he could stand the weight of his shoes and clothes.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he released his hold.

  That blowout between them had been bad, but it had been coming since the moment Therese had been hired. And he should have known better than to bring her on. Sure, the fact that she looked like Selena wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t mean he was obligated to employ her. He should have referred her to another job. With his network of contacts in the Caldwell foodie scene, he should have—

  Who the hell was he kidding. Trez would still have been in bad shape.

  Except the argument would have been over suicide, not some female.

  And of course he wanted to see his damn brother happy. Was the male even serious about that shit? What he did not want was Trez fooling himself and using someone else—and iAm stood by that message, straight up. Still, he probably could have done a helluva lot better getting the point across and now he’d driven the male off. Like he hadn’t known that Trez had been outside for a good half an hour tonight? Waiting in a running car outside of the reach of the security cameras. In the cold.

  For the server to get off.

  No doubt so he could get her off.

  And P.S., he actually didn’t think Therese was going to be the one hurt most when things went tits up. Trez was. The male wasn’t going to survive another crushing disappointment, but iAm hadn’t wanted to put that into words. For one, it was too painful. For another, he didn’t want to give the guy any ideas.

  FFS, every frickin’ night iAm was braced for the phone call that Trez was dead. Like that instability needed a doomed romance with a doppelganger added to it? He knew exactly where his brother was in that head of his. In that heart of his. And if Trez decided to peace out, he would make sure that somebody else found the body—he would be determined to spare iAm that trauma. So as a result, anytime iAm’s cell went off, he felt like he was getting shot through the chest—and needless to say, this had given him a new hatred for telemarketers.

  Groaning, he gave extending his arms over his head a try. In a way, this gut-churn over what his brother was doing, where he was, who he was with… was just a continuation of the way it had always been between the two of them. Trez had forever been on the run from his destiny of mating the queen of the s’Hisbe—and iAm had run after him. Someone had to protect the male. Guard his six. Make sure he didn’t completely self-destruct.

  Plus, there had been the reality that Trez was all he’d had in this world. With their parents and the tribe left behind, what else had there been?

  Except then, the deck of destiny had ended up getting shuffled and it turned out the priests had been wrong. iAm was the one to mate the queen—a fate he had been oh, so very happy to live up to as it turned out. And you’d think with that burden lifted, all would be chill. Nope. Instead of his brother being released from the burden of pain, Trez had been saddled with the heaviest agony there was.

  Selena’s death had been so fucking unfair.

  Maybe it was all in the stars, though. According to the tradition of the s’Hisbe, astrology determined everything, and it was clear that Trez had been born under an alignment of sorrowful portent. Back when Selena had showed up on the scene, iAm had been suspicious at first, but then, as time had passed, he’d been so sure things were finally going to change. That the sucky era was over. That the second phase, the better part, could now commence—

  iAm’s instincts fired, the bonded male in him overriding even the fears for his blooded kin.

  Rising to his feet, he was about to go around his desk when his female materialized in between the jambs of his office doorway.

  For a moment, although he had seen her merely the night before, he had to drink in everything about his mate. maichen was tall and regal, her dark skin set off by a spectacular set of gold-threaded robing, her hair falling down her back in hundreds of braids strung with golden beads. Her eyes were kind and worried as they sought his own, and her hands went to her belly.

  iAm’s heart pounded with terror. “What did they say. The priests.”

  “She is very healthy.”

  “She?” he breathed.

  maichen’s smile was gentle and ancient as she came unto him, moving when he was unable to. “She. Our next queen, born unto us. As the stars had provided.”

  A daughter. He was going to be the father of a daughter. A princess who would be queen someday, as provided by the heavens. By the traditions. By the grace of fate.

  Wrapping his arms around his mate, iAm held maichen close and breathed in her beautiful scent. But then he got woozy. Before he could think about sitting back down, his body made the decision for him. All at once, he fell off his feet, his chair catching his weight and holding it, when he no longer could.

  “A little girl,” he said with both hands on his face. And then he sat upright. “Whataboutyou?”

  The words came out so fast, he was going to repeat them, but his mate just stepped in between his knees and stroked his shoulders. “I am fine. I am perfectly fine. I promise you.”

  Annnnnnnd cue the world going around in another circle. He was totally dizzy even though he was sitting down—it was like his body had known there was another wave on his horizon.

  “You need to go see Doc Jane,” he mumbled as he turned his head to put his ear to her lower belly through the royal robing. “I believe in conventional medicine, and I can’t risk you or… our daughter.”

  Daughter. They were having a daughter. Provided everything went all right.

  “I will go see your healer.” maichen ran her fingertips over his skull trim, in that way he liked. “We shall go together.”

  “Yes. Please.”

  As iAm held the warm, strong body of his female, he felt like a pussy for not getting to his feet properly or sitting her in his lap. The night had been a rough one, though. He had never thought he would get mated. Never thought young were in his future. And here that amazing future was coming to him… with the discord around Trez the inevitable chaser of bad news.

  “Did you see him tonight?” maichen asked.

  She always seemed to know where his mind went. And there was only one “him” in his world. No name was required.

  “He came by.”

  “How is he?”

  “The same.” He shook his head. “Worse, actually. And that was before we got into it.”

  “Did you tell Trez?” maichen asked while putting her hand back on her belly. “About…”

  “I couldn’t. I just…” He looked up at his mate. “How can I? It is too cruel. He lost everything, and now I have not only you, but a young. It’s too much—and please don’t take that the wrong way.”

  As she stared at him sadly, he reflected that when you mated someone, you took on their struggles. But man, he wished like hell he hadn’t brought this shit to her door.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she said.

  Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, and knew why he’d been so harsh with his brother earlier. He’d wanted to share his good news with the other most important person in his life. But with things as they were—and the way they had always been—he had no real kin of his own. He had never had kin of his own. He’d had a responsibility, one borne out of love but a weight just the same. He had a constant worry, a pit in his gut… a curse thanks to a fate that was his own even as it was not.

  Once, just once, he’d like to be able to have the relationship flow in the other direction. In his way. He wanted to get some support and concern instead of constantly giving it.

  But come on, how selfish was he? It wasn’t like Trez had volunteered for any of this crap, and blaming the male for reality was a douche move. Like when their souls had been bargaining to come down onto the planet for a life span, had Trez really looked over the Happy Days story line and decided, Naaaaah, I’d much rather be in the Takes a Licking section.
<
br />   Of course he hadn’t. And iAm needed to be more supportive.

  “I owe my brother an apology,” he said with defeat.

  * * *

  Sitting across from his female, Trez was scrambled in his head, but calm on the outside. At least he thought he was calm. No tapping heels, drumming fingers… or twitches of the eyebrows or mouth that he could tell.

  So things were looking up. And hell, not only had there been a good ten or fifteen minutes since anybody outed a gun, there had also been a respite from people jumping out of windows. They kept this trend up, he might actually sleep through the day.

  Yay.

  “You don’t really live here, do you,” his female said as she continued to consume her one-Raisin-per-spoonful-Bran.

  For a split second, he tried to configure a lie in his head. Something about moving in soon. Just having moved in. Trying the place out for moving in. But he was tired, and all that fiction building seemed like too much work. Besides, his female was smart, and it didn’t take a genius to notice the lack of personal effects.

  Or the total non-clothes in the closet or bureau upstairs, if she checked.

  “I mean”—she motioned around the kitchen and out into the living room with her spoon—“no personal effects, no photographs. No mess.”

  Bingo.

  And yet: “I’m pretty neat, though. Just ask my brother. He and I lived together for years.”

  She stirred the milk around, the spoon seeking soggy flakes that refused to be corralled. “So this is the house you want me to rent, huh.”

  “You do like it. You said so yourself.”

  “And I already know how to take my clothes off in the bedroom.”

  Trez felt a shot of lust go through him. That sight of her backside, her spine, her shoulders… with the tease that as soon as she turned around, he was going to get to see her breasts? He’d been on the verge of coming.

  Except then the groceries arrived. Man, if he never heard another knock in his fucking life, it would be too soon.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as she tilted her bowl and got more serious about navigating the end of the cereal. “I mean, I can—”

  “I really want to have sex with you.”

  Her eyes flipped to his, and instantly, the chemistry was back—and he welcomed the influx of arousal. He was not lying; he did want to be inside of her. But there was another piece to it. He needed the doubts and the fears and the grief that were simmering just below his surface to shut the fuck up. He didn’t want to think about his argument with iAm. He didn’t want to think about her in that club of idiots last night, some asshat with a gun and a hard-on for a woman who didn’t want him shooting shit up because his ego got kicked in the hey-nannies. And he didn’t want to think his female was so reckless as to fly-be-free from a second-story window.

  And there were other things. Things he really, really couldn’t bear looking at.

  The sex, however, would eclipse all that glare.

  And sometimes shade was needed when the heat was on.

  “Well, then,” she said as she got up and took her bowl to the sink. “Maybe we need to try again?”

  Trez exhaled long and slow, and focused on those black slacks of hers, the white shirt, the hair that was so thick and curly and shiny as it ran down her shoulders.

  “Yes,” he said with a growl. “Let’s do that.”

  And so help him God, if anyone—or anything—interrupted them this time, he was going to solve that problem with a fist. Or maybe a crowbar.

  Trez’s body got up out of the chair and went to her as if called, and the tension that had clawed into him left as if it had never been. As she reached for him, he reached for her, their mouths finding each other’s, the kiss as natural and easy as everything else had been bumpy and uneven only moments before. Licking into her, he savored the feel of her breasts against his chest, her hips under his hands, her mouth moving with his own. She was all that he needed, all that he knew, and he wanted to be here again. He wanted to never leave here.

  This was his female. She was Selena, back unto him. No matter what iAm thought or said, or how crazy it was, or all the impossibles and the doubts, Trez only needed this connection to prove the reality that his heart already knew for sure.

  Just as he started to pull her shirt out from her waistband, he noticed the window over the sink. With no shutters down, they were liable to flash the entire neighborhood—if not right here, then because he was about a second and a half away from laying her out on the table in front of that slider and putting his tongue in all kinds of places other than her mouth.

  “Upstairs?” he said against her lips. “Before I—”

  “Yes,” she moaned.

  Breaking off the kiss, he took her hand and all but ran up the staircase. And as soon as they got to the top landing, he shut the stairwell’s door and killed the lights with his mind—and then he drew her over to the warm, flickering glow of the fireplace. Their mouths met again, and he eased her down on the soft rug, taking his time with the descent.

  Or, rather, forcing himself to.

  He wanted to tear her pants off with his fangs. Rip her panties down her thighs. Mount her like a beast. Then he wanted to flip her over and take her from behind. And after that? He wanted every position physically possible, all over the bedroom floor, the bed, the bathroom—

  “Oh, shit.” He whipped his head around toward a cold draft that he hadn’t paid any attention to. “Sorry, let me go close that.”

  Vampires could manipulate a lot of things with their minds, but not in a house that had been secured by Vishous. The Brother would have coppered the hell out of those puppies so that no one could use their mental powers to get in if the illusion shutters were up.

  His female tugged at his shirt. “I’ll will it down—”

  “It’s manual operation only.” He kissed her lips quick. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “You do not have to worry about that. Trust me.”

  Springing to his feet, Trez tore off like there was a drowning victim in the damn tub. And as he slammed the sill back in place, all he could think of was getting back—

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror that ran across the wall above the two sinks. He stopped dead, even though he’d rather have just kept the fuck going—and not only because his female was waiting for him.

  His eyes were too wide. His face was flushed and sallow at the same time. His breathing was way too heavy.

  Trez hated everything about himself in that moment. And the only thing he despised more was his life. iAm was right. He was out of control, careening into something he didn’t have the emotional capacity for—

  It’s fine, he mouthed to the image directly across from himself. I’m fine. We’re fine. It’s all fine.

  With a resolve born of desperation, he looked away. Then he strode away. Reentering the bedroom, he—

  Okay. Stopping dead again. But at least this time it was for a good reason.

  A fine reason. A reaaaaally fucking fine one.

  “I thought I would try this one more time,” his female drawled from over in front of the fire.

  She was lying exactly where he had left her, on that rug, before the hearth—but she had taken off her clothes. All of them. And she was sprawled with the kind of abandon that made a male lose track of time: Her head was back, her hair spilling out around her, her neck a graceful line from her perfect chin to her collarbones… and her breasts were caressed by the firelight, the nipples peaked and pink, the swells creamy and full.

  Trez licked his lips. And kept on looking. Her stomach was a gentle drift to her hips, and the cleft of her sex was nestled in thighs he was desperate to part. Her legs were long and graceful—and given the way they churned?

  If her scent wasn’t already making it clear she was ready to receive him, then the anticipation in the way they rubbed together was a big damn tip.

  “You should only ever wear fir
elight,” he groaned as his hand went to his throbbing arousal.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As exposed as Therese was, as naked and vulnerable as she was, she felt nothing but free. There was no embarrassment, no anxiousness, no concern that she was less than perfect or anything less than what Trez would want. And that was when she knew how deeply she trusted him.

  When he started forward, she put her hand up. “Wait.”

  He stopped on a dime. And to reward him, she sensuously rolled over onto her stomach. Laying her head down on her arm, she moved one of her legs up the other… then pivoted her hips, flashing her ass toward him.

  “Fuck…” he breathed.

  “I thought you should see the back, too.”

  “Just as good as the front, let me tell you.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to join me? And I’m not only talking about the horizontal.”

  Trez took the hint, yanking his silk shirt out of the waistband of his pressed slacks. Then, even though it was no doubt expensive, he tore the halves apart, buttons flying free and twinkling like falling stars. Holy… crap. Yes, what was underneath totally did not disappoint. He had a hard, ribbed stomach, and a hard, heavy set of pecs, and a hard, wide shoulder span. Oh, and talk about firelight. His dark skin was smooth across the expanse of all his muscles, and the illumination moved restlessly over the ridges and hollows of his torso. He had no tattoos that she could see, but he had scarifications across his chest and abdomen—she didn’t recognize what they symbolized, but she assumed it was a Shadow tradition.