by J. R. Ward
At least he had his in on the Council. In the aftermath, when things got messy, he was going to need the support. Fortunately, there were more people who agreed with him than did not: Wrath was nothing but a figurehead, and whereas in times of peace that was tolerable, in this era of war and strife it was insupportable.
The Old Ways could keep that male where he didn’t belong for just so long. In the meantime, Xcor would wait for the proper moment, and strike decisively.
It was time for Wrath’s reign to be relegated to a soon forgotten footnote.
“I hate waiting,” Zypher muttered.
“ ’Tis the only virtue that matters,” Xcor shot back.
In the foyer of the Brotherhood’s mansion, everyone was gathering to go out for the night, the males milling around at the foot of the grand staircase, their weapons gleaming on their chests and at their hips, their brows drawn over cold eyes, their bodies mincing about like those of stallions whose hooves could not be stilled.
From the shadows outside the butler’s pantry, No’One waited for Tohrment to come down and join them. He was usually among the first, but of late he had tarried longer and longer—
There he was, at the head of the second-floor landing, clad in black leather.
As he descended, he took the banister casually.
She was not fooled.
He had grown e’er weaker over the last few months, his body wasting away, until it was clear that only his will for vengeance animated him.
He was starved for blood. And yet he obviously refused to yield to that demand of the flesh.
So thus she nervously waited and watched at the beginning of every night and the end: Every sundown she hoped he would come down finally refreshed. Every near-to-dawn, she found herself praying he arrived back alive.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he—
“You look like shit,” one of his Brothers said.
Tohrment ignored the comment as he went over to stand next to the massive young male who had mated Xhexania. The pair were a team, from what she could tell, and she was grateful for it. The younger had to be a full-breed, in spite of his nomenclature, and she had heard many references to his prowess in the field. Further, that particular fighter was never alone: Behind him, as faithfully as a reflection, was a downright nasty-looking soldier, one with mismatched irises and a calculation to his stare that suggested he was as smart as he was strong.
She had to believe that both would intercede if Tohrment were in danger.
“Enjoying the view? I’m not.”
She hissed and spun around, her robe’s hem flaring out. Lassiter had come through the pantry without her knowing and was filling the open doorway, his blond-and-black hair and his gold piercings catching the light of the fixture above him.
His knowing eyes were always something to escape from, but at least at the moment, that white stare was not on her.
Crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her hands into the robe’s sleeves, she resumed her own regard of Tohrment. “In truth, I do not know how he is still fighting.”
“It’s time to stop pussyfooting around with him.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but took a guess. “There are Chosen here who make themselves available for feeding. Surely he could use one of them?”
“You’d fucking think.”
Standing in concert, their focus wavered for but a moment as Wrath, the Blind King, appeared at the head of the stairs and walked down to the assembled. He was dressed for war, too, and his beloved dog was not with him—he was led now by his queen, the two in such synchronization that they moved with the same posture, gait, poise.
Tohrment had had that once, she thought.
“I wish there was some way of helping him,” she murmured. “I would do anything to see him with aid as opposed to alone in his suffering.”
“Do you mean that,” came a dark response.
“Of course.”
Lassiter put his face in her vision. “Do you really mean that.”
She went to take a step back, but found herself blocked by the jamb. “Yes…”
The angel put his palm out for her to clasp. “Swear to it.”
No’One frowned. “I do not understand—”
“You maintain you would do anything—I want you to swear to that.” Now those white eyes burned. “We’ve stalled out since the spring, and we didn’t have endless time back then. You say you want to save him, and I want you to commit to that—no matter what it takes.”
Abruptly, as if the memory had been purposely put in her mind—perhaps by the angel, more likely by her conscience—she remembered those moments after her birthing of Xhexania, when her physical pain and her mental anguish had been one and the same, the balance finally equalized as the agony in her heart for all she had lost was made manifest in her very core.…
Unable to bear her burdens, she had taken Tohrment’s dagger from his chest holster and used it in a way that had made him scream.
His hoarse cry had been the last thing she’d heard.
Staring up at the angel, she wasn’t stupid, and she was no longer naive. “You are suggesting I feed him.”
“Yeah. I am. It’s time to take this to the next level.”
No’One had to steel herself before she looked back at Tohrment. But as she took in his frail body, she came to a resolve: He had buried her… so surely she could force herself to accept him at her vein in order to give him life.
Assuming he would agree to take what was offered.
Assuming she could make herself.
Indeed, even in the hypothetical, her body trembled at the thought, but her mind rejected the response of her flesh. This was not a male interested in anything from her. In fact, he would be the only male she could safely feed.
“A Chosen’s blood would be purer,” she heard herself say.
“And get us nowhere.”
No’One shook her head, refusing to read anything into that statement. Then she took the angel’s hand. “I shall serve his blood needs, if he comes to me.”
Lassiter bowed ever so slightly. “I’ll take care of that part. And I’m going to hold you to this.”
“You shall not have to. My vow is my vow.”
TWENTY-ONE
Standing in the foyer with his brothers, Tohr had a bad feeling about the way the night was going to go. Then again, he’d woken up from that dream of his Wellsie and the young, the one he had had from time to time, but only truly understood since Lassiter had provided the context. He knew now that the two were in the In Between, huddled under a gray blanket in the midst of a dark gray landscape that was cold and unyielding.
They were gradually moving off into the distance.
The first time he’d had the vision, he’d been able to pick out each individual hair on his shellan’s head… and the quarter-moon whites at the tips of her fingernails… and the way the blanket’s rough fibers caught the strange, ambient light…
As well as the contours of the tiny bundle she cradled against her heart.
Now, though, she was yards off, the gray ground between them something that he tried to cross, but was unable to cover. And just as dire, she had lost all color, her face and hair now tinted with the gray of the prison she was trapped in.
Naturally, he’d been insane when he woke up.
For fuck’s sake, he’d done everything he could to move on in the last few months: Put the dress away. Gone down for First and Last Meals. Tried cocksucking yoga, transcendental bullcrap, and even gotten on the Internet to research grief stages and other psychobabble bullshit.
He’d attempted to not think of Wellsie consciously, and if his subconscious burped up a memory, he quashed it. When his heart ached, he pictured those f-in’ white doves released from cages, and dams bursting, and shooting stars, and a bunch of other dumb-ass metaphoricals that belonged on motivational posters.
And still he’d had that dream in shades of gray.
And still Lassiter wa
s here.
It wasn’t working—
“Tohr? You with us,” Wrath barked out.
“Yeah.”
“You sure about that.” After a moment, Wrath’s wraparounds swung back to the rest of the group. “So we do this. V, John Matthew, Qhuinn, and Tohr on me. Everyone else in the field, ready to come in as backup.”
There was a shout of agreement from the Brothers, and then they were all filing through the vestibule.
Tohr was the last through the door, and just as he got to the jambs, something made him stop and look over his shoulder.
No’One had stepped out from somewhere, and stood on the edge of the depiction of the apple tree in the floor, her hood and robe making her seem like a shadow that had suddenly gone 3-D.
Time slowed and then ground to a halt as he met her eyes, some strange pull keeping him where he stood.
In the intervening months since the spring, he had seen her at meals, had forced himself to speak with her, had pulled out chairs and helped to serve her as he did the other females in the house.
But he hadn’t been alone with her, and he’d never touched her.
He felt like he was touching her now, for some reason.
“No’One?” he said.
Her arms unfolded from out of her sleeves and her hands lifted to the hood that covered her face. With grace, she revealed herself to him.
Her eyes were luminous and a little scared, her features as perfect as they had been back in the spring at the Sanctuary. And down lower, her throat was a perfect, pale column of flesh… which she touched lightly with fingertips that trembled.
From out of nowhere, hunger struck him hard, the need reverberating through his body, lengthening his fangs, parting his lips—
“Tohr? What the fuck?”
V’s sharp voice broke the spell, and with a curse, he looked over his shoulder. “I’m coming—”
“Good. ’Cuz the king’s waiting for you, true.”
Tohr glanced back across the foyer, but No’One was gone. As if she had never been.
Rubbing his eyes, he wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing. Had he exhausted himself to the point of hallucination—
If he was seeing things, it wasn’t exhaustion, some part of him pointed out.
“Don’t say another word,” he muttered as he brushed past his brother. “Not one goddamn thing.”
As V started talking under his breath, it was obviously a litany of all of Tohr’s faults, real and imagined, but whatever. At least that shit was keeping the fucker’s mouth busy as they strode out toward Wrath, John Matthew, and Qhuinn.
“Ready,” Tohr announced.
None of them needed to about-fucking-time him verbally. Their expressions were loud enough.
Seconds later, the five of them rematerialized on the rolling lawn of a house so big you could keep an army in it. Tragically, only the owner was in residence, because that was all that was left of the bloodline.
They had been to so many houses like this over the last few months. Too many. And the stories were all the same. Families decimated. Hope gone. Those left behind limping, not living.
The Brotherhood did not take for granted that these visits were welcome, even though, naturally, no one turned down the king. And they did not take chances: With their guns in their hands, the formation they assumed as they approached the door was with Tohr in front of Wrath, V to the rear, John at the king’s dagger hand, and Qhuinn on the other side.
Two more meetings like this to go and they could take a breather—
What went down next proved that tits up could happen in an instant.
Abruptly, the world started spinning, the sprawling antique house twisting and turning sure as if it had eggbeaters for a foundation.
“Tohr!” someone barked out.
A hand grabbed him. Somebody else cursed.
“Has he been shot?”
“Motherfucker—”
With a curse, Tohr shoved everyone off of him and regained his balance. “For chrissakes, I’m fine—”
V crawled so far up into his grill, the bastard was practically inside his nose. “Go home.”
“Have you lost your mind—”
“You’re a liability here. I’m calling in for backup.”
Tohr was ready to argue, but Wrath just shook his head. “You need to feed, my brother. It’s time.”
“Layla’s prepared for it,” Qhuinn tacked on. “I’ve been keeping her going on this side.”
Tohr looked at the four of them and he knew he’d lost. Christ, V already had his phone to his ear.
He also knew on some level they were right. But, God, he didn’t want to face that ordeal again.
“Go home,” Wrath commanded.
V put his cell away. “Rhage’s ETA is—bingo.”
As Hollywood appeared, Tohr cursed a couple of times. But there was no fighting them… or his reality.
With all the enthusiasm of someone facing a limb amputation, he returned to the mansion… to go find the Chosen Layla.
Fuck.
Through his binoculars, Xcor watched the venerable Assail stride into a massive kitchen and pause at a window that faced the direction of the bastards.
The male was still sinfully handsome with dark, viciously black hair and tan skin. Features were so aristocratic, he actually looked intelligent—although that was the thing with the glymera. Often people with fine countenances and fit bodies were mistakenly assumed by others to have the brains to match.
As the vampire fell into some kind of activity, Xcor frowned and wondered if he wasn’t seeing things. Alas… no. It appeared that the male was indeed checking the mechanism of a gun as if he were used to doing so. And after he tucked the weapon under that precisely tailored black suit jacket, he picked up another and went through the same motions.
Strange.
Unless the king had warned him there could be trouble on the visit? But no, that would be daft. If you were the seat of power for the race, you would not want to appear under siege.
Especially if in fact you were.
“He’s departing,” Xcor announced as Assail appeared to head for the garage. “He is not meeting Wrath. At least not tonight—or certainly not here. Let us cross the river. Now.”
In a flash, they dematerialized, reassuming their forms in the stand of pines at the edge of the property.
He’d been wrong about the landscaping, Xcor realized. There were circular patches all over the lawn where the grass was filling in, and here, around the back of the house, there was a neatly stacked pile of not simply logs, but whole trees.
As well as an ax buried in a stump, and a bow saw… and corded wood newly cut for burning.
So the male had some doggen, at least. And apparently a respect for how important it was to not provide coverage for attackers. Unless the removals had been for the sake of the view?
Not much but forest on this side of the house.
Indeed, Assail did not appear to be the average aristocrat, Xcor thought grimly. The question was why.
The door to the garage bay closest to the house began to rise soundlessly, its ascent unleashing an ever-broadening pool of light. Inside, a powerful engine revved, and then some variety of low-slung, shiny black thing eased out in reverse.
As the vehicle stopped dead and the door began to descend, it was clear Assail was waiting patiently for the house to be secured before he left.
And then when he took off, it was not fast; and it was not with his headlights on.
“We follow him,” Xcor commanded, collapsing the binoculars and securing them at his belt.
By dematerializing at intervals, they were able to track the male down the river toward Caldwell. The pursuit presented no challenge at all: In spite of being behind the wheel of what appeared to be a sports car of some speed, Assail seemed to feel no urgency… which, under other circumstances, Xcor would have chalked up to the male being a typical aristocrat with nothing better to do than look good i
n a leather seat.
But mayhap not so in this case.…
The car stopped at all the red lights, avoided the highway, and penetrated the downtown area’s alleys and streets with the same lack of alacrity.
Assail went left, then right… left again. Another left. Still more turns, until he was in the oldest part of the city thicket, where the brick office buildings were dilapidated, and missions and food kitchens serving the homeless were more common than for-profit businesses.
A more circuitous route there could not have been taken.
Xcor and his band of bastards kept on him by flashing from rooftop to rooftop, a practice that became tricky as the conditions degraded.
Except then the car stopped in a tight alley between a tenement house that had been condemned and the crumbled shell of a walk-up. As Assail got out, he puffed on his cigar, the sweet smoke drifting up on the currents of air to Xcor’s nose.
For a moment, Xcor wondered if they had been lulled into a trap—and as he went for his gun, his soldiers did likewise. But then a large black sedan made a fat turn and rolled into the lane. As it halted afore him, Assail’s preferred positioning became clear. Unlike the new arrivals, the vampire had parked at the head of a four-way, so that he could go in any direction.
Wise if one wanted to get away.
Humans emerged from the other car. Four of them.
“You here alone?” the one in front asked.
“Aye. As you asked.”
The humans shared looks that suggested the male’s compliance was crazy. “Do you have the money?”
“Aye.”
“Where is it?”
“In my possession.” The male’s English was similar to Xcor’s—thickly accented—but there the comparison ended. That was a high-class drawl down there, not a rough brogue. “Have you my goods.”
“Yeah, we got it. Let’s see the cash.”
“After I inspect what you have brought me.”
The man doing the talking took out a gun and pointed it at the vampire’s chest. “That’s not the way we’re going to do this.”