by J. R. Ward
“For what?”
“The Party Planning Committee.”
“Did Fritz mandate this?” Weird. The Black Dagger Brotherhood’s butler supreme was more like the spit-and-polish military-shoe type.
“No, Lassiter.”
Blay closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the cushions of the sofa. “Well, I think that is just great.”
“You don’t look like you think it’s great. You look like you ate too much.”
Ah, so he was imitating the unicorns.
He releveled himself. “Is the Party Planning Committee working on anything specific right now?”
A Golden Girls–themed celebration of Taco Tuesday? Rainbow Dash does the second Saturday in December because… it was not the first or the third Saturday? No, wait, George’s birthday was coming up. Maybe they’d all have hamburgers and play with chew toys to honor Wrath’s beloved guide dog?
At least that last one didn’t seem so bad.
Bitty tapped her steno pad. “We’re gathering a list of parties. Vampire and otherwise. And then we’re going to plan them as training.”
“Oh, that’s smart. And I’ve never had wedding cake, no. But I’m sure Fritz and the doggen can whip one up for you.”
“That’s our idea. I mean, I know we don’t do wedding cakes. As a species, I mean. But they’re really pretty.”
“They are. I’ve seen pictures.”
“What did you serve at your mating ceremony with Uncle Qhuinn?”
Blay opened his mouth. Closed it. “Well, we just had a party of sorts. I mean, not a ceremony. It was more like a…”
“Like what?” When he didn’t immediately reply, Bitty said, “So you’re not properly mated?”
“Oh, we are. Definitely.”
“Then you saw the Scribe Virgin before she left us?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“But I thought when people got mated, that’s what happened. They did their vows, and she blessed the union if it’s a good one, and then the carving in the back of the hellren comes. After that is the party with cake that’s not for a wedding, but that might have many layers separated by raspberry jam, with buttercream frosting on top.”
Blay thought back to the night he and Qhuinn had finally gotten their act together. God, there had been so much denial and confusion and pain, on both sides, for so many years. And then the false starts and worse heartbreak and all kinds of never-going-to-happens. Finally, though, he’d gone to that club and found his male sitting alone at the bar, turning down offers for sex. Which had been kind of like watching Rhage go “I couldn’t possibly” to a bag full of Big Macs.
Unprecedented.
He remembered slipping his gold signet ring on Qhuinn’s finger and claiming him as family. In that bar. Yeah, because life-changing events didn’t necessarily happen at beaches in the moonlight or in front of roaring fires with champagne flutes. Instagram pics were great, but they were curated to be great. Real life went down when and where it did, regardless of whether things were photogenic.
“But it’s different for us,” he said. “Uncle Qhuinn and I have known each other our whole lives. And when we decided to commit to each other, we had a lot of history behind us. A base of knowledge and familiarity.”
“What’s that have to do with a ceremony?”
“You don’t need the ceremony if you have that much history. And we had a great party. Everyone in the household dressed up—even Uncle Qhuinn had on a tuxedo. My parents came, and he and I danced to ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ in the foyer.”
“Journey.”
“You know the song?”
“Uncle Zsadist sings it the best.”
“I agree with you on that. And as for the back carving and everything, we’ve always meant to do that.”
But since that night when potential had turned into actual, when happily-never-after had lost its “n,” a lot of shit had happened. They had the twins now, and young were some next-level overwhelm, capable of layering a whole new level of exhaustion on top of fighting to protect the vampire species and living a regular life. Still, he wouldn’t change a thing, and Rhamp and Lyric were starting to show their personalities, which was exciting: Rhamp was fierce as his sire, meeting you right in the eye even as you cradled him in his blanket—despite the fact that the full extent of the kid’s fighting arsenal was explosive diarrhea. Which, okay, fine, could clear a room faster than a flash-bang. Lyric, on the other hand, was a watcher, and much more reserved than her brother. But when she smiled? She was the sun.
“Being mated officially doesn’t affect who we are to each other,” Blay said.
Bitty smiled. “Oh, I know that. Your eyes change color when you look at him.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. They get deeper blue. Plus you blush a lot. Why do you blush like that? Is it something he does?”
Clearing his throat, Blay ruffled through the pages of the magazine, watching the line drawings flap by in the midst of their frames of text. He stopped on one that depicted a fish on a bicycle.
“Well, ah,” he said. “Um, I don’t really think I blush—”
“And Uncle Qhuinn smiles when he’s with you. He doesn’t smile much anywhere else.”
Blay frowned. “Oh, sure he does. He’s really happy. He’s got me and the twins, and Layla and Xcor, who are excellent co-parents with us. Plus he’s a member of the Brotherhood.”
“I guess he’s just happier with you.” Bitty shrugged. “Okay, I’m going to put ‘wedding cake’ down on my sample list.”
“What else you got on there?”
“Fourth of July cake. Fruit cake. Bundt cake. Pineapple upside-down cake—”
“What’s Fourth of July cake?”
“It’s a red, white, and blue cake. Then there’s funfetti, red velvet, Black Forest, pavlova, Yule log—”
“Wait, so are you researching holidays and celebrations? Or cakes.”
“Both.”
He thought of Rhage’s famous appetite. “Is your dad on this committee?”
“How did you know?”
With a wave, the girl strode off with her list, and Blay intended to return to the article he’d been reading. Too bad his eyes refused to get with the back-and-forth program. He just kept staring at that fish with its bicycle. The rainbow trout was anthropomorphized, dressed in a suit and pedaling with his back fins, the basket in front filled with what looked like groceries.
None of the drawing made any sense. Not the clothes, not the food, not the breathing without water. Then again, it was just a cartoon, free to be some kind of metaphor, the point of the pen-and-ink artistry unclear to Blay at the moment.
Maybe it was merely a whimsical sketch, like a vase of flowers for the eye in the midst of an article about something serious.
He checked his watch. A little after ten p.m.
The night seemed long as a lifetime, and he couldn’t wait for Qhuinn to get back from his shift on rotation. The pair of them were allowed to be in the field together, but they were never paired up, and sometimes, like this evening, one of them was off while the other was working. It was fine. There were always the daylight hours.
Blay smiled as he thought of the bed they shared.
And what they did in it.
Okay, fine, no wonder he blushed so much around his mate. But that was nothing Bitty ever needed to worry about.
Forcing his eyes to get going with the busywork of tracking letters, words and sentences, he had to push aside a lingering distraction. The sense that something was off-kilter in the universe, some kind of calamity due to arrive at any minute, was the worst company a guy could have.
Especially when the male you loved more than anybody else in the world was out in the cold in the field.
Blay let his head fall back again. The ceiling was about thirty feet up, and it had old beams that were varnished the same tone as all the mahogany wood of the shelves, the hearth mantel, the floor. Whenever he retreated to this room, he alw
ays thought that this must be what the inside of a jewelry box was like, the glow of gold from all the spines of the ancient tomes like an extension of the crackling fire, the sense of protection and being among that which was rare making him feel kind of special himself.
He looked to the archway. Voices of doggen and Brothers and fighters wove together, some louder than others depending on whether they were next door in the billiards room, coming down from the grand staircase, or out in the dining room.
The mansion was never truly quiet.
And on a night like tonight, when he was on edge for no good reason…
It was such a reassurance to know that he was not alone.
CHAPTER THREE
As Elle landed facedown in the snow, she flipped onto her back and braced herself for a knife, a gun, a fist—whatever came at her. Mostly, the defensive response was because she wanted to fight for her life, but she was also a coward because she couldn’t watch Terrie’s face while she got murdered. She already knew her sister was screaming in the driver’s seat. She could hear it. And the fact that this was Elle’s fault, all of it, from the drive, to the wrong exit, to the bad turn, to the snowbank, was—
“Relax, kid.”
The voice above her was grave and very deep, the kind of thing a radio-show host would use when making a public service announcement. It was also slightly bored, as if sniveling, panicked teenage girls and their bigmouthed sisters hadn’t been on the man’s list of things to do tonight.
Elle paused with her flailing on the snowpack. “What?”
“You can stop freaking out, okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The guy was absolutely enormous as he loomed over her, and she had a feeling he wasn’t just a tow truck guy. After all, his leather jacket was open, and there was something strapped, handles down, to his huge chest. Knives? And what else from Fortnite could be under there? Add those piercings and the laser-eye routine, and she was pretty sure that he was speaking in a foreign language and she’d translated “I’m going to fuck you up” incorrectly.
When he extended his arm, she shrank back and covered her face with her hands. When nothing happened and nothing hurt, she peeked out from between the picket fence of her fingers. The man was leaning over her… with an extended open palm. That had nothing sharp and shiny in it.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated.
Elle glanced back at her dad’s car. Terrie had both of her hands covering her mouth like she was worried that saying anything, even inside the car, might spook the big man into disastrous action.
The guy rolled his mismatched eyes. “Come on, kid. I don’t have all night. Shit or get off the pot.”
“You shouldn’t curse around children,” Elle mumbled.
“Children aren’t in this part of town at ten o’clock at night. You were an adult when you took that car out, sweetie, and now you’ve got an adult-level problem. Hearing the word ‘shit’ better be something you can handle because it’s the least of your worries.”
Well… shit… he had a point.
“You talk like my dad.”
“That’s because I am one, so I have the same rule book yours does.”
“Rule book? And you have a kid?”
“Two. So I’m viewing this as a training exercise for when they can drive.”
Elle put her hand in the man’s and was pulled up to her feet so fast she almost fell on her face again. He kept her upright by planting a palm on her shoulder and steadying her.
“I’ll get you out of that snowbank,” he said, “and then you gotta head off to wherever you belong. Things aren’t safe down here.”
As he stomped back to his tow truck, Elle pulled her coat into place around her torso and stared at his stalking stride. God, his black boots were the size of her head, and he might have sounded like her dad, but he sure didn’t move like Basile Allaine. This man prowled like you didn’t want to mess with him, like he was really strong and knew it, like he might not mind having to set someone straight. Her dad was an international tax attorney.
Elle blinked. For some reason, she thought of how her mom had once been a lawyer. A long time ago. Now, she wasn’t anything professional, and that was another reason Elle had wanted to go out tonight. Sometimes, it was too hard to stay inside with all the things going on in her head.
She went back over to the BMW. Before she could hit the door handle, Terrie threw things open and exploded with talk, her words carbonated and shaken up from the scare, releasing in a rush.
“OhmyGodIthoughthewasgoingtokillyou—”
“Just stop, okay. He’s going to pull us out.”
“Do you have money to pay him?”
“Sure, I do.” No, she didn’t. “Just relax, will ya.”
Instead of getting in, she reshut the door on Terrie because she couldn’t handle anything right now. Fortunately, she didn’t have to do much else. The tow truck came over and eased front-in to the back of their dad’s car, and then the man with the piercings and the knives got out and went to a winch mounted on his bumper. There was a whirring sound, and moments later, a hook the size of a boxer’s fist and a wire thick as a boat rope was pulled over to the BMW’s rear.
“Um…” Elle cleared her throat. “I don’t have any money to pay you. I mean, not on me. But I can mail in—”
“Don’t worry about it,” the man said without looking at her. “I gotchu.”
The fact that the guy was fixing a problem for free that she had created on a stupid impulse made her feel small, and not just in terms of physical stature.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The man bent down with a flashlight, and latched the hook to something under the—
Later, Elle would wonder what exactly made her look over her shoulder. It wasn’t a sound, and she certainly didn’t have eyes in the back of her head. But some tickling sense on the nape of her neck had her turning her head.
The three figures in the shadows were as distinct as ghosts in a fog bank, nothing clear about their outlines or whether they were moving. And yet she was absolutely certain of their presence.
They were watching. And not in a Good Samaritan, how-can-we-help-ya kind of way.
“Um, mister—”
As she pivoted back around, the tow truck guy was already on it. He had straightened from the winch and was staring over her head, at the shadows.
“Hey,” he said evenly, “how ’bout you get in your car.”
Elle bobbleheaded that idea. “Yup, I’ll just—”
“And lock the doors.”
“Should we call the police? I mean, can we call the police—”
“Lock the doors. I’ll take care of it.”
Elle lunged for the driver’s side and yanked at the handle. When nothing opened, she glared at her sister, who seemed to be in a cognitive freeze-up as she looked back and forth between the tow man and those three people standing next to the warehouse.
Great. Terrie was broken. Could her sister never be a help—
“Open this right now,” Elle bit out.
Terrie fumbled with all kinds of switches, her hands slapping at the dashboard, the steering wheel, the console—when there was finally a pop, Elle yanked the door open, and pitched herself inside, slamming things shut and punching the lock mechanism.
“Wh-h-h-hat—who are they?” Terrie said.
Three men came out of the shadows. Three men with ski hats pulled down low over their foreheads and hands that were out of sight as they walked forward through the snow.
“Elle? What are we going to do?”
“It’s fine.” She punched the locks again even though it wasn’t like she could more-lock the doors. “Get down.”
“What?”
Without looking away from the approaching trio, Elle shoved her sister toward the passenger side’s wheel well. “Shut up, and get down there—”
“I can’t fit—”
As Terrie argued, Elle’s heart pounded and she put her
face into her sister’s. “Please. I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s safer there.”
“You said it was fine.” Terrie’s lower lip trembled. “You told me we were fine. I’m scared.”
“It’s going to be okay. Just get down.”
“What are you going to do?”
At least this was asked as the girl folded herself up under the glove compartment, becoming a pink marshmallow Peep crammed badly into some very non-Easter packaging. Elle went back to staring at those men. The closer they came, the younger they got, until she decided they were only a year or two older than herself. The one in the middle was the shortest, but he seemed to be in charge, walking in front of the taller two. They all had parkas on, gray and black, but not like it was a uniform, more like they had the same style.
She looked to the tow truck man. He was leaning back against the door of his vehicle, his arms hanging casually down at his sides. He seemed totally unconcerned, and was not taking out a cell phone and calling 9-1-1. Had he already done that? No. He couldn’t have.
The boys fanned out, like they had done this before, and knew that spreading wide would give them a better attack.
“What you doin’, old man,” the one in the center said as they stopped in a semicircle.
His voice was muffled on account of the BMW being so well insulated and sealed up.
Did they have guns? Elle wondered. Safety glass didn’t go far when it came to stopping bullets.
“I’m never taking you out again when I shouldn’t,” she whispered. “Ever.”
“I’m not going to tell Dad,” Terrie said in a small voice.
“Huh?” the punk demanded out by the tow truck. “What the fuck you doin’?”
Elle narrowed her eyes on the tow man. He was staring at the one who was talking, eyes unblinking, body utterly still. She had a thought that the punk needed to be careful. As much as he seemed to think he was in control, something about what was going on here was not in his favor; he just didn’t seem to be aware of it yet. Then again, maybe Elle was the one who was reading this wrong.
Yeah, ’cuz really, her judgment had been so great tonight already.
Then again, the way the tow truck man was staring at the punk was… way too focused.