by J. R. Ward
“I’m sorry?”
“There were salt licks down there for the animals—that is why my scars stuck with me. I’d always wondered if maybe he’d used some kind of symphath power or something to alter my skin. But no, there were salt licks, and salting meats.” She shook her head. “I’d forgotten about them until now. Forgotten so many precise details—”
As a growled curse came out of him, she glanced up. Tohrment’s expression suggested he wished he could kill that symphath all over again—but he covered it up, as if he didn’t want to upset her.
“I don’t think I ever told you I was sorry,” he said softly. “Back then, in the cottage with Darius. He and I were both so sorry that you had—”
“Please, let us speak no longer upon the subject. Thank you.”
In the awkward silence that followed, his stomach rumbled.
“You should eat,” she murmured.
“Not hungry.”
“Your tum—”
“Can go to hell.”
Staring up at his still figure, she was astounded by the difference in him: even after such a short time, the color was back in his face, his posture was straighter, his eyes much more alert.
The blood was such a powerful thing, she thought.
“I will feed you again.” As he regarded her as though she had lost her mind, she kicked up her chin and met his stare. “Absolutely, I will do it again.”
To see this improvement in him in such a short time, she would endure those moments of terror anew. She was e’er trapped by her past, but oh, the change in him: her blood had freed him from his fatigue—and that was going to keep him alive out in the field.
“How can you say that?” His voice was gruff to the point of cracking.
“It is simply the way I feel.”
“Obligation shouldn’t take you that far down into your personal hell.”
“That is for me to choose, not you.”
His brows drew in hard. “You were a lamb to the slaughter in that pantry.”
“If that were true, I would not be breathing right now, would I.”
“Did you like the dream you just had? Have fun with it?” As she recoiled, he stalked across to the shuttered windows and stared with fixation as if he could see through them to the garden. “You’re more than a maid or a blood whore, you know.”
With proper hauteur, she informed him, “To serve others well is a noble endeavor.”
Looking over his shoulder, his eyes found hers in spite of the hood. “But you’re not doing it to be noble. You’re under that robe hiding your beauty and your station to punish yourself. I don’t think it has anything to do with some kind of an altruistic streak.”
“You do not know me or my motivations—”
“I was aroused.” At that she blinked. “You had to have known that.”
Well, yes, she had. But—
“And if I am at your vein again, that’s going to happen. Again.”
“You were not thinking of me, though,” she pointed out.
“Would that make a difference.”
“Yes.”
“You sure about that,” he said dryly.
“You didn’t do anything about it, did you. And that one feeding is not going to be enough—you must know that. It has been too long for you. You have already come so far, but you are going to need more soon.”
As he cursed, she lifted her chin once more, unwilling to back down.
After a long while, he shook his head. “You are so… odd.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.”
* * *
From across the bedroom, Tohr stared down at No’One and had to respect the shit out of her—even though it was clear she was nuts: She was utterly unbowed, in spite of the fact that she had bite marks on her neck, had woken up screaming, and was facing off with a Brother.
Christ, when he’d heard that scream, he’d all but broken down the damn door. Visions of her with another knife of some kind, doing hell’s own amount of damage, had thrown him into action. But all there had been was her on the middle of that bed, oblivious to anything but whatever was playing in her head.
Salt licks. Fucking hell.
“Your leg,” he said gently. “How did it happen.”
“He put a steel cuff around my ankle and chained me to a beam. When he… came to me… the cuff bit into me.”
Tohr closed his eyes against the images. “Oh, God…”
He wasn’t sure what to say after that. He just stood there, powerless, saddened… wishing that so many things had been different in both of their lives.
“I think I know why we’re here,” she said abruptly.
“Because you screamed.”
“No, I mean…” She cleared her throat. “I’ve always wondered why the Scribe Virgin brought me to the Sanctuary. But Lassiter, the angel, is right. I am here to help you, as you helped me long ago.”
“I didn’t save you, remember. Not at the end.”
“You did, though.” He was shaking his head when she cut him off. “I used to watch you sleep—back in the Old Country. You were always to the right of the fire, and you slept on your side facing me. I spent hours memorizing the way the low glow from the peat played over your closed eyes and your cheeks and your jaw.”
Suddenly, the room seemed to retract in on them both, growing tighter, smaller… warmer. “Why?”
“Because you weren’t like the symphath at all. You were dark and he was pale. You were big and he was thin. You were kind to me… and he was not. You were the only thing that kept me from going completely mad.”
“I never knew.”
“I did not want you to know.”
After a moment, he said grimly, “You always planned on killing yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Why not do it before the birth?” Man, he couldn’t believe how candid they were getting.
“I did not want to curse the babe. I had heard the rumors about what happened if you took matters into your own hands, and I was prepared to accept the consequences for myself. But the unborn? It was coming into the world in such sadness to begin with, but at least it could make of its destiny what it could.”
And yet she had not been cursed… maybe because of her circumstances—God knew, she had suffered enough on her way to the exit.
On that note, he shook his head again. “About the feeding. I appreciate your offer, I really do. But somehow, I can’t imagine a repeat of that scene downstairs is going to do either of us any good.”
“Admit that you feel stronger.”
“You said you haven’t dreamed of that shit since it happened.”
“One dream is not—”
“It’s enough for me.”
That chin of hers went up again, and damned if that habit wasn’t… well, not appealing, no. No, it was not appealing.
Really.
“If I can live through the events,” she said, “I can get through the memories.”
In that moment, staring across the room at her show of will, he felt a tie to her, sure as if a rope had linked the pair of them chest-to-chest.
“Come to me again,” she announced. “When you are in need.”
“We’ll see about that,” he dismissed. “Now, are you… okay? Here in this room, I mean? You can lock the door—”
“I shall be all right, if you come to me again.”
“No’One—”
“It is the only way I have to make things right with you.”
“You don’t have to make anything right. Honest.”
Turning away, he went to the door, and before he stepped out, he glanced over his shoulder. She was staring at her entwined hands, that hooded head of hers bowed.
Leaving her with what little peace she had, he took his grumbling stomach to his room and disarmed. He was righteously starved, his appetite for food carving a bottomless pit out of his lower torso—and though he would have preferred to ignore the demand, he didn’t have a choice. Order
ing up a tray from Fritz, he thought of No’One, and told the doggen to make sure she got some eats as well.
Then it was shower time. After he turned on the water, he undressed and left the clothes on the marble floor where they landed. He was in the process of stepping over the mess when he saw himself in the long mirror over the sinks.
Even to his uncaring eye, it was obvious his body had rebounded, the muscles tightening under his skin, his shoulders back where they should be instead of down around his diaphragm.
Too bad he didn’t feel better about the recovery.
Getting into the glass-enclosed space, he stood under the jets, braced his arms out, and let the water run off his flesh.
When he closed his eyes, he found himself back in the pantry, at No’One’s throat, working her vein. He should have taken her wrist, not her throat—matter of fact, why hadn’t he—
Abruptly, the memory went full-bore on him, the tastes and scents and feel of that female against him shutting his mind down and cranking up his senses.
God, she had been… a sunrise.
Opening his eyes, he stared down at the erection that had made itself known at the first image. His cock was in proportion to the rest of him—which meant it was long, thick, and heavy. And capable of going for hours.
As it strained in a demand for attention, he feared the arousal was like the hunger in his gut: going nowhere until he did something about it.
Yeah, whatever on that. He was not some posttrans with a perma-boner and a hairy palm. He could choose whether or not he jerked off, for fuck’s sake—and that would be a big NO.
Snagging the bar of soap, he sudsed up his legs, and wished he was V—no, not with the black candles and shit. But at least if he had that vampire’s mind, he could think of, like, the molecular makeup of plastic, or the chemical composition of fluoride toothpaste, or… how gasoline powered cars.
Or he supposed he could think of dudes—which, given that he wasn’t attracted to them, might well lead to a merciful deflation.
The problem was, he was just Tohrment, son of Hharm… so he was stuck trying to remember how to make Toll House cookies: He didn’t know shit from Shinola about science, he didn’t give a crap about sports, and he hadn’t read a newspaper or watched the TV news in years.
Plus those were the only goddamn anything he knew how to make… what did you put in them? Butter? Crisco? Spackle?
As nothing came to him, he began to worry that his Food Network channel was not only incompetent, but wasn’t going to do shit for his dumb handle.
He gave it another shot. And could only remember how to open the goddamn bag of chips.
Stalled, stiff at the hips, and despaired, he closed his eyes… and thought of his Wellsie, naked and in their bed. Of how she tasted and felt, of all the ways they’d been together, of all the days spent interlocked and panting.
Gripping himself, he pinned the pictures of his mate to the forefront of his mind, plastering them over anything that had to do with No’One. He didn’t want that other female in this space; he might have to take care of business, which he didn’t want to do, but he could damn well set boundaries.
He sure as hell couldn’t pick his fate, but his fantasies were totally up for grabs.
Stroking his shaft, he tried to remember everything about his red-haired beauty: the way her hair had looked across his chest, the gleam of her bare sex, how her breasts had peaked when she was on her back.
It was just part of a history book, though, and the illustrations had faded—as if his mind had lifted the ink from the pages.
His concentration lost, he popped open his lids and got a hi-how’re-ya of his hand wrapped around that stupid-ass arousal, trying to pump off something, anything.
It was like milking a Coke machine—getting him nowhere. Well, except for a vague sting where the skin got pinched at the head.
“Goddamn it.”
Dropping the whole bad idea, he got busy with the soap, running the bar over his chest and under his armpits.
“Sire?” Fritz called out from the other room. “Would you require aught else?”
He was not asking the doggen for porn. That was blech on so many levels. “Ah, no, thanks, my man.”
“Very good. Have a blessed sleep.”
Yeah. Right. “You, too.”
After the outside door was shut again, Tohr shampooed his head like he supposed all males did: Squeeze out a crapload, rub it into your hair like you were trying to get a stain out of a carpet, and then stand under the spray forever because you’d used too much of whatever Fritz had bought you.
Later, he would decide it would have been best to keep his eyes open.
As soon as he shut his lids to keep the suds out, the warm rush down his torso turned into hands, and the urge to orgasm came back even stronger than before, his cock throbbing, his balls getting tight—
Instantly, he was downstairs in the pantry again, his mouth locked on No’One’s smooth throat, his suction and swallowing filling his belly, his arms squeezing her hard against his body.…
Your shellan is welcome here.
He shook his head at the sound of her voice in his inner ear. But then he realized that was the answer.
Regripping himself, he told his brain that the images were of his Wellsie. That the feeling, the sensation, the scent, the taste… it was his Wellsie, not another female.
It was not a memory.
It was his mate back to him—
The release was so sudden, he actually recoiled, his eyes going wide, his body jerking not from the orgasm but the surprise that, yes, in fact, he was actually having one in RL, not in some dreamscape.
As he stroked himself and rode the crest, he watched himself come, his sex doing what it was supposed to, kicking out jets that hit the wet marble wall and the glass pane of the door.
The sight was less erotic than biological.
It was just a function, he realized. Like breathing and eating. Yeah, it felt good, but so did a deep breath: in this vacuum of emotion, in this lonely shower, it was really just a series of ejaculations that coughed through his prostate.
Feelings gave sex meaning, whether it was in a fantasy or with your mate… or if you were with someone you didn’t like all that much, for that matter.
Or didn’t want to want, an inner voice pointed out.
When his body was done, he feared it was just a round-one situation, because he was still every bit as erect as he had been when this had started. But at least he didn’t feel like he had cheated on his mate. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all, and that was good.
Rinsing off, he got out, dried himself with a towel… and took the stretch of terry cloth with him into the bedroom.
He was pretty certain that after he ate, things were going to get messy when he lay down, and not from any kind of indigestion.
But it was… okay. As okay as he could ever get, he supposed.
The sex he’d had with his mate had been monumental, shattering, fireworks-making—transformative.
This shit was about as sexy as a head cold.
As long as he didn’t think of…
He stopped himself and cleared his throat, even though he wasn’t speaking out loud.
As long as he didn’t think of anyone else of the female persuasion, he was good.
TWENTY-FIVE
The following evening, Xcor stood in the recessed doorway of a brick building in the heart of downtown. Set back by nearly three feet, the space formed a coffin of sorts, providing him shadows to conceal himself with, as well as cover from stray bullets.
On his own, he was utterly and completely pissed off as he surveyed the area and kept an eye on the sleek black car he had followed.
Lifting his forearm, he checked his watch. Again. Where were his soldiers?
Splitting off from the group to follow Assail had brought him here, but before he had departed, he’d told the others to find him after they had finished their first round of fighting�
�a locating task that shouldn’t have been difficult. All they had to do was rooftop-to-rooftop surveillance in the part of the city where drug dealing was at its most prevalent.
Not hard a’tall.
And yet here he was, alone.
Assail was still inside the building opposite, likely consorting with more of the ilk that he had killed the night before. The place of business he’d entered was ostensibly an art gallery, but Xcor was old-fashioned, not naive. All manner of goods and services could be contracted out of any sort of “legitimate” establishment.
It was nearly an hour later when the other vampire finally reemerged, and the light over the back exit caught his densely black hair and his predatorlike features. That low-slung car he ambulated in was parked off to the side, and as he walked around it, a pinkie ring of some sort flashed.
Moving as he did, dressed in black as he was, he looked… exactly like a vampire, actually. Dark, sensuous, dangerous.
Pausing at the car’s door, he put his hand inside his jacket to get his keys—
And turned around to face Xcor with a gun. “Do you honestly think I don’t know you’re watching me?”
That pronunciation was so old-world and so very thick, the accent turning the words into practically a foreign language—or what would have been one if Xcor wasn’t so intimately familiar with the original dialect.
Where were his fucking soldiers?
As Xcor stepped out, he had an autoloader of his own, and it was not without satisfaction that he watched the other male recoil slightly as recognition dawned.
“Did you expect a Brother, mayhap?” Xcor drawled.
Assail did not lower his muzzle. “My business is my own. You have no right to shadow me.”
“My business is whatever I determine it to be.”
“Your ways will not work here.”
“And what ‘ways’ are those?”
“There are laws here.”
“So I have heard. And I am fairly confident you are breaking several in your endeavors.”
“I refer not to human ones.” As if those were entirely irrelevant—and at least on that they could agree. “The Old Law provides—”