by J. R. Ward
And then he surprised her. “It’s weird… but I knew it was bad news. Too much good fortune. She wanted one so badly. Every ten years we fought about it when she had her needing. Finally, it got to the point where she was going to leave me if I didn’t agree to let her try. It was like choosing between taking a bullet or a blade—either way, I knew… somehow I was going to lose her.”
Using the crutch, he hobbled over to a chair, pulled it out, and sat down. As he awkwardly maneuvered his injured foot around, she realized they had yet another thing in common.
She approached him slowly and unevenly and sat at the desk beside him. “I am so sorry.” When he seemed a bit surprised, she shrugged once again. “How can I not offer condolences in the face of your loss? In truth, after seeing you both together, I don’t think I shall ever forget how much you loved her.”
After a moment, he murmured hoarsely, “That makes two of us.”
As they fell silent, Tohr stared at the small, hooded figure sitting so still next to him. They were separated by about four feet, each parked at one of the scribing desks. But they seemed closer than that.
“Take your hood off for me.” As No’One hesitated, he tacked on, “You saw the best of my life. I want to see your eyes.”
Her pale hands lifted, and they shook ever so slightly as she removed what covered her face.
She didn’t look at him. Likely couldn’t.
With dispassionate focus, he measured the spectacular angles of her features. “Why do you wear that all the time.”
She took a deep breath, the robe rising and falling such that he was forced to remember she was probably still naked under it.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
As she squared her shoulders, he thought that anyone who believed this female was weak had another think coming.
“This face”—she motioned around her perfectly angled jaw and her rosy, high cheeks—“is not who I am. If people see it, they treat me with a deference that is inappropriate. Even the Chosen did so. I cover it up because if I don’t, then I am propagating a lie, and even if it grinds upon only me, that is enough.”
“You have quite a way of putting things.”
“Is the explanation not sufficient.”
“It is.” When she went to raise the thing up again, he reached out and put his hand on her arm. “If I promise to forget what you look like, will you keep it down? I can’t judge your mood as well when you’re hiding—and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly talking about the weather here.”
She kept her hand on one half of the hood, as if she couldn’t let go. And then she locked her eyes on him—so directly he recoiled.
It was the first time she’d really looked at him, he realized. Ever.
Speaking with likewise candor, she said, “Just so that you and I are utterly clear with each other, I have no interest in any male. I am sexually repulsed by your kind, and that includes yourself.”
He cleared his throat. Pulled at his muscle shirt. Shifted in the chair.
Then he took a slow, relieved breath.
No’One continued, “If I have offended you—”
“No, not at all. I know it’s not personal.”
“It truly is not.”
“To be honest, it makes things… easier. Because I feel the same way.”
At this, she actually smiled a little. “Two peas in a pod are we, indeed.”
They were quiet for a time. Until he said abruptly, “I’m still in love with my shellan.”
“Why wouldn’t you be. She was lovely.”
He felt himself smile for the first time in… so long. “It wasn’t just her looks. It was everything about her.”
“I could tell by the way you stared at her. You were enthralled.”
He picked up one of the quills and checked out the fine, sharp cut of its tip. “God… I was nervous that night we were mated. I wanted her so badly—and I couldn’t believe she was going to be mine.”
“Was it arranged?”
“Yeah, by my mahmen. My father didn’t care about that kind of thing—or for me, for that matter. But my mother took care of things the best she could—and she was smart. She knew if I got a good female, I’d be set for life. Or at least… that was the plan.”
“Is your mahmen alive?”
“No, and I’m glad she isn’t. She wouldn’t have… liked any of this.”
“And your father?”
“He’s dead, too. He disowned me until he got close to the grave. About six months before he died, he called me to him—and I wouldn’t have gone but for Wellsie. She made me, and she was right. He formally reclaimed me on his deathbed. I’m not sure why it was so important to him, but there you go.”
“What about Darius? I have not seen him around—”
“He was killed by the enemy. Just before Wellsie was.” As she gasped and put her hand to her mouth, he nodded. “It’s been hell, really.”
“You are all alone,” she said in a small voice.
“I have my brothers.”
“Do you let them in.”
With a short laugh, he shook his head. “You are hell’s bells with the rhetoricals, you know that?”
“I am sorry, I—”
“No, don’t apologize.” He put the quill back in its holder. “I like talking to you.”
As he heard the surprise in his own voice, he laughed harshly. “Man, I’m just making all kinds of charm points with you tonight, aren’t I.” Slapping his thighs to end their conversation, he got to his feet with the help of the crutch. “Listen, I also came here to do a little research. Do you know where the library is? Damned if I can find it.”
“Yes, of course.” As she stood, she swept that hood up over her head again. “I shall take you there.”
While she went past him, he frowned. “You’re limping worse than usual. Did you get hurt?”
“No. When I move around too much, it aches.”
“We could take care of that down below—Manello is—”
“Thank you, but no.”
Tohr threw out a hand and stopped her before she went out the door. “The hood. Leave it down, please.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “There’s no one here but us. You’re safe.”
FOURTEEN
As John Matthew stood on the shores of the Hudson River about fifteen minutes north of downtown Caldwell, he felt like he was a thousand miles away from everyone.
At his back, he had the prevailing breeze as well as a small hunting cabin that, if you didn’t know what it was, you’d write off as something not worth the effort to knock over. The place was a fortress, however, with steel-reinforced walls, an impenetrable roof, bulletproof windows… and enough firepower in its garage to make half the population of the city see God up close and personal.
He had assumed Xhex would come here. Been so convinced, he hadn’t bothered to track her.
But she wasn’t—
A flare of headlights off to the right brought his head around. A car was coming down the lane, slowly approaching the cabin.
John frowned as he got an earful of the engine: low, deep, a mean growl.
That was no Hyundai or Honda. Couldn’t be a Harley, too smooth.
Whatever the hell it was meandered by and kept going, all the way to the tip of the point where that big-ass house had been put up. A few moments later, lights began to go on inside the mansion, illumination pouring out of its curved porches and stacked, three-story straightaways.
Damn thing looked like a spaceship about to take off.
Not his biz. And it was time to go, anyway.
With a mute curse, he scattered his molecules and zeroed in on the armpit of Caldie, that stretch of bars, strip clubs, and tattoo places down around Trade Street.
The Iron Mask had been Rehvenge’s second club, a dance/sex/drug facility created to cater to a Goth demographic unserviced by his first establishment, ZeroSum—which had had more of a Eurotrash kind of vibe.
There was
a line to get in—always was—but the two bouncers, Big Rob and Silent Tom, recognized him and let him in ahead of everyone else.
Velvet drapes, deep-seated couches, black lights… women in black leather with white makeup and hair extensions down to their asses… men clustered in groups, strategizing on how to get laid… moody music with lyrics that made you think fondly of eating a bullet.
But maybe that was just his mood.
And she was here. He could sense his blood in Xhex, and he headed through the crowd, zeroing in on the signal.
As he got to the unmarked door that led into the staff-only part of the club, Trez stepped out of the shadows. Natch.
“What’s doing,” the Shadow said, offering his palm.
The two clapped a grip, knocked shoulders, and slapped each other’s backs.
“You here to talk to her?” When John nodded, the guy opened the door. “I gave her the office beside the locker room next to me. Go on back—she’s just checking her staff reports—”
The Shadow stopped abruptly, but he’d said enough.
Jesus Christ…
“Ah, yeah, she’s back there,” the guy muttered, like he was sooo staying out of this one.
John ducked in and strode down the corridor. When he got to a closed door, he didn’t see a sign with her name on it, but wondered how long that would last.
And he knocked, even though she had to know he was here.
When she called out, he pushed in—
Xhex was in the far corner, bent over and pulling at something on the floor. As she looked up with a glare, she froze; which told him that, in fact, she hadn’t noticed he’d arrived.
Great. She was so into her new old job, she’d forgotten about him already.
“Ah… hey.” Glancing back down, she resumed what she was doing, yanking at—
An extension cord whipped out from underneath the file cabinet, the sharp-toothed end going flying.
Before it ripped around and caught her a good one, he leaped forward, snatched a hold on the thing, and took the hit himself, the sting of pain lighting off on his rib cage.
“Thanks,” she said as he handed it over and stepped away. “It was jammed back there.”
So… you’re going to work here now?
“Yeah. I am. I don’t think that other option is realistic. And”—her eyes got hard—“if you try to tell me I can’t—”
God, Xhex, this is not what we are. He motioned back and forth over the desk that separated them. This is not us.
“Actually, I guess it is, because we’re here, aren’t we.”
I don’t want to stop you from fighting—
“But you have. Let’s not pretend otherwise.” Xhex sat down in the office chair and leaned back, a squeak rising up. “Now that you and I are mated, the Brothers, even your king, take their cues from you—no, wait, I’m not finished.” She closed her eyes as if exhausted. “Just let me talk this out. I know they respect me, but they respect a mated male’s prerogative over his shellan more. It’s not specific to the Brotherhood—it’s the very fabric of vampire society, and no doubt it’s because a bonded male is a dangerous animal. You can’t change that, and I can’t live like that, so yeah, this is where we are.”
I can talk to them, make them—
“They’re not the root problem.”
John felt a sudden urge to punch a wall. I can change.
Abruptly her shoulders dropped, and her eyes, those gunmetal gray eyes, grew stark. “I don’t think you can, John. And neither can I. I’m not going to sit home and wait for you to come back at dawn every night.”
I’m not asking you to do that.
“Good, because I’m not going back to the mansion.” As John felt the blood drain out of his head, she cleared her throat. “You know, that whole bonding thing… I know you can’t help it. I was pissed off when I left, but I’ve been thinking it over ever since then, and— Shit, I know if you could feel different, be different, you would. The reality is, though, we could spend another miserable couple of months figuring that out, and learn to hate each other in the process—and I don’t want that. You don’t want that.”
So you’re done with me, he signed. Is that it?
“No! I don’t know— I mean, fuck.” She threw her hands up. “What else am I going to do? I’m so frustrated with you, with me, with everything—I’m not sure I’m even talking any sense.”
John frowned, finding himself in the same tough spot she was in. Where was the middle road?
There is more to us than this, he signed.
“I want to believe that,” she said sadly. “I really do.”
On impulse, he walked around the desk and stood over her. Gripping the armrest, he turned the chair toward him and put out both his palms, offering them to her.
There was no demand. No aggression. She would choose or not choose.
After a moment, Xhex placed her hands in his, and when he pulled her up, she didn’t fight him.
Slipping his arms around her, he brought her close—and then moving with power, he bent her off balance, holding her in his powerful arms, keeping her from the floor.
With eyes boring into hers, he brought their lips together once, briefly. When she didn’t slap him, kick him in the nuts, or bite him, he dropped his head and took her mouth properly, plying her to open for him.
When she did, he melded her body to his and kissed the ever-living shit out of her. One of his hands ended up on her ass, squeezing; the other got clamped on the back of her neck. As a groan came up her throat, he knew he’d proved his point.
Although he had no immediate solution to the bonded-male situation, he knew this connection between them was a for-sure, in a world that had suddenly seemed filled with maybe-not.
He stopped the kiss. He put her back down where she had been sitting. He went to the door.
Text me when you want to see me again, he signed. I’m giving you your space, but know this: I will wait forever for you.
* * *
Good thing for the chair, Xhex thought as the door closed behind John.
Yeah, wow. Whatever her head was cramped up with, her body was as fluid and easy as warm air.
She still wanted him. And he’d made his point. They did fit together—at least like that.
Holy hell, did they fit together.
Shit, what to do now?
Well, one idea… would be to text him to come back, lock them in together, and break in her new office improperly.
She even reached for her phone.
In the end, however, she texted something altogether different.
We’ll figure this out. Promise.
Putting the phone down, she knew it was up to her and John to find their own future—work it out of the unforgiving, rocky shoals of passing time in a way that fit what they both needed.
She’d assumed that would be fighting side by side with him and the Brotherhood, and so had he.
Maybe that was still the way. Maybe it wasn’t.
As she looked around her office, she wasn’t sure how long she would be here—
The knock that interrupted her was a single strong one.
“Yeah,” she called out.
Big Rob and Silent Tom walked in, looking as they always did—like they were about to drop some hotshot on his head for behaving badly. And as much as she was still focused on John, it was good to have some business-as-usual up in her face. She had spent a lot of nights making sure a club ran smoothly.
This she could do.
“Talk to me,” she said.
Naturally, Big Rob did the obliging. “There’s a new player in town.”
“In what line of business?”
The guy tapped the side of his nose.
Drugs. Wonderful—but hardly a surprise. Rehv had been the kingpin for a decade, and now that he’d departed the scene? Opportunity, like nature, hated a vacuum—and money was a great motivator.
Frickin’ great. The underworld of Caldwell was alread
y a three-legged table from hell; more instability they did not need.
“Who is it?”
“No one knows. He’s come out of, like, nowhere, and just bought half a million in powder from Benloise, in cash.”
She frowned. It wasn’t like she doubted her bouncer’s sources, but that was a lot of product. “Doesn’t mean it’s going to be sold in Caldwell.”
“We just picked up this from a disorderly in the men’s bathroom.”
Big Tom tossed a cellophane packet on the desk. The thing was your standard-issue quarter-ounce serve-up, except for one little detail. It was stamped with a red ink seal.
Fuck…
“I got no idea what that writing thingy is.”
Of course he didn’t. It was a character in the Old Language, one that didn’t have an equivalent in English. Typically it was stamped on official documents, and it represented death.
The question was… who was trying to take Rehv’s place—who happened to be of the race?
“The guy you got this from, did you let him go?” she asked.
“He’s waiting for you in my office.”
Xhex got up and came around the desk. Nailing Big Tom in the arm with a quick punch, she said, “I always did like you.”
FIFTEEN
Up in the Sanctuary, No’One led Tohrment to the library, and expected to leave him to his investigations, whatever they might be. When they arrived at their destination, however, he opened the door for her, and beckoned her forward.
Of course, she stepped over the threshold.
The temple of books was long and thin and tall, built rather on the dimensions of a folio standing on its end. All around, leather-bound volumes, filled with the careful strokes of generations of the Chosen, were set in white marble cases in chronological order, the stories therein nonfictional accounts of lives lived far down below, and witnessed upon water’s transparent screen.
Tohrment stood for a moment, his crutch keeping him stable as he cocked his bandaged foot up.
“What are you looking for?” she asked as she glanced at the nearest shelves. The sight of the volumes made her wonder about the future of keeping the past. With the Chosen exploring the real world, they were not recording as much, if at all. This long tradition could well be lost.