by J. R. Ward
In the bathroom, Tohr dried himself off and leaned into the mirror. The bite mark on his shoulder was starting to heal already, his skin reknitting over the punctures, everything sealing up nicely. Too bad—he wanted the wounds to stick around for a while.
There was pride to be had in being marked like that.
Still, he decided to wear a Hanes T-shirt instead of a wifebeater under his jacket. No reason for his brothers to see it. That shit was private—between him and Autumn alone.
Goddamn… that female was incredible.
In spite of the stress he was under, in spite of that convo with Lassiter on the staircase, in spite of the fact that he’d started to touch her only because he’d felt like he should, in the end, and as usual, it had been all about the sex, the raw, pounding sex: Autumn was like a vortex that he spun around, the erotic hold she had on his body sucking him in and then spinning him out to the surface for air… before claiming him once again.
In this, he was sad to say, he had moved on.
It pained him to admit that, and sometimes as he lay there afterward, the pair of them recovering their breath and cooling their sweat, that old familiar ache sharpened to a dagger point behind his sternum.
He didn’t suppose he was ever going to lose that sensation.
And yet, every dawn, he sought her out and he took her… and he had every intention of doing the same in another twelve hours.
Coming out of the bath, he found her still on the bed. She had curled away toward the windows and was lying on her side with the sheets drawn around herself.
He saw her naked.
Utterly. Fucking. Naked.
The image made his body get instantly hard, his sex punching out from his hips. And as if she sensed his arousal, she moaned in an erotic purr and undulated. Reaching behind herself, she pulled back what covered her and moved her upper leg forward, exposing her glistening sex.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned.
His body went to her without thought or decision, tracking her with such a locked-on focus that he wouldn’t have even killed anyone who got in his way: He’d have just trampled them and waited to commit murder until he was finished taking care of business with her.
Getting up on the mattress, he took his cock in his hand and fit himself to her from behind, head to her core. He was careful as he entered her, just in case she was still sore, and then he waited, suspending himself above her to make sure she still wanted him again so soon.
When all she did was moan his name in satisfaction, he let his hips begin to pump.
Slick, smooth, hot…
He took her without apology and liked the freedom to do that. She remained slight of stature, but she was tougher than she looked, and in the last few months he had learned to let himself go, because he knew she liked it like that, too.
Shifting one of his hands to her hip, he changed the angle of her body so he could get in even deeper. And of course, there was another added bene to this position: He could see himself going in and out of her, watching the rim of his head make an appearance before going deep, only to return to the edge of her once more. She was pink and swollen, and he was hard and glossy thanks to her—
“Fuck,” he barked as he started to come again.
He rode her while he released, feeling her orgasm with him, that sex of hers fisting him. And he watched the show until his eyes cranked shut—which was fine, because he could still see her on the backs of his lids.
After he was done, he nearly collapsed on her, but caught himself just in time. Dropping his head, he found his mouth close to the top of her spine, and he took advantage of the proximity, brushing his lips on her skin.
Knowing he should give her a break, he forced himself to ease back and pull out. Except as he slipped free, he had to grit his teeth at the sight of how ready she still was for him.
Planting his hands on her perfect cheeks, he spread her for his tongue. Shit… the taste of her and him together, the feel of her smooth, perfectly hairless sex against his mouth…
When she began to grow restless, as if she were on the verge, but not getting quite enough, he licked three fingers and slid them up inside as he continue to lap at her. That did the trick. As she called out his name and she jerked backward against his face, he smiled and helped her through the pulses that racked her.
And then it was time to stop. Period.
For the last week or so, he’d been all over her—which was the reason he’d forced himself to go to the goddamn gym today. She was looking tired, and the reason? She insisted on working during the nights, and he hadn’t been able to leave her alone during the days—
Autumn shifted around so she was lying on her belly; then she put her knee out to the side and arched her back. For more.
“Jesus,” he groaned. “How’m I supposed to leave you?”
“Don’t,” she said.
No asking twice on that one. He took her from behind again, lifting her hips, gripping them, and tilting her pelvis so he could get in deep. He ended up with a forearm around her midsection and his weight balanced on his other hand, working her, pounding her until their bodies slapped together and the bed made that noise again. He came on a curse, his orgasm exploding out of him as if he hadn’t had sex in months.
And still he was hungry for her. Especially as she found her own release.
After things quieted, he curled them over onto the mattress, spooning her as he held her against him. Nuzzling his way under her hair to her neck, he worried about the way he was treating her in bed.
As if she knew he needed some reassurance, she reached behind and stroked his hair. “You feel wonderful.”
Maybe. But he felt bad for the demands he was putting on her body. “Let me run you a bath now?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. Thank you.”
Heading back into the bathroom, he went over to the deep-bellied Jacuzzi, started the water running and then got the bath salts from the cupboard.
As he checked the temperature of the water and made a minute adjustment, he realized he liked taking care of her. Realized also that he’d found a lot of ways to do it. He looked for excuses to take her upstairs and feed her dinner in private. Bought her clothes off the Internet. Stopped by Walgreens and CVS to get her favorite magazines like Vanity Fair, Vogue and The New Yorker.
Always made sure there were Pepperidge Farm Milanos up here in case she got a craving.
And he wasn’t the only one looking after her and showing her new things.
Xhex came to the house to see her at least once or twice a week. Together, the pair of them would go out to the local movie theater and watch films. Or head into the better parts of town so Autumn could see the nice houses. Or hit the late-night shops and stores—where they bought things with Autumn’s own money that she earned working.
Bending down, he tested the water, tinkered with the temp again, and got her some towels.
On his side, it made him a little tetchy that she was out with the human crazies and the violent lessers and the untrustworthy winds of fate. But at the end of the day, Xhex was a straight-up killer, and he knew she would protect her mother if anyone so much as sneezed in their direction.
Besides, whenever mother and daughter went out, Autumn always returned with a smile on her face. Which in turn put a smile on his.
Christ, they’d both come so far since the spring. They were nearly two different people.
So what else was there?
Moving his hand through the churning water in the tub, he wondered with desperation what the fuck he was missing.…
FIFTY-FIVE
Two nights later, Xhex awoke with a strange conviction hounding her. Kind of like she’d swallowed her alarm clock during the day and the thing was going off in her belly.
Intuition. Anxiety. Dread.
No snooze button on that shit.
As she went and took a shower, she continued to be dogged by the sense that forces unseen and unknowable were coalescing, tha
t the landscape was going to shift, that the chess pieces of various people were about to be moved by hands not their own, to places not part of their strategies.
The preoccupation stuck with her during the short trip into Caldwell proper; persisted as she got things started at the Iron Mask.
Unable to stand it any longer, she removed her cilices and went out into the city hours earlier than she usually did. And as she dematerialized from rooftop to rooftop searching out the Bastards, she had a feeling… tonight was the night.
But for what?
With that question weighing her down, she was especially careful to stay far from where the Brothers were fighting.
The fact that she had committed to giving them a wide berth was probably the biggest factor in her delay at finding that rifle. The Band of Bastards was out in the field every night, but as the skirmishes with the Lessening Society tended to happen only in the desolate parts of the city, it was hard to get close enough while retaining a distance from John and the Brotherhood.
Yeah, she had some grids that were new in her repertoire, but it was difficult to isolate who was Xcor—and even though that was academic, because she needed only one of those soldiers to slip up, get injured and have to be taken back to their lair in a car she could track, she wanted to know her larger target intimately.
Check out his secrets from the inside.
That she had gotten nowhere so far was driving her nuts. And the Brothers weren’t crazy for it, either, although for a different reason: They wanted to just take the other fighters out, but Wrath had KO’d that one: They needed the rifle first, so the king had declared that renegade group of traitors off-limits until he got the proof he needed. Logically speaking, the proclamation made sense—no good would come out of slaughtering them all and then trying to calm the glymera with an oh-but-they-shot-me kind of thing. But the night-after-night was tough going.
At least they had one thing in their favor: It was unlikely that rifle had been destroyed.
The B.o.B. would want to keep that shit as a trophy, no doubt.
It was time to end this, however. And maybe this premonition thing she was rocking meant that she was finally going to.
On that note, and under the theory that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result was insane, she decided to stop looking for Xcor.
Nope, tonight, Assail was going to be the one she was after—and what do you know, she located his imprint in the theater district… inside the Benloise Art Gallery, natch.
A quick shift down to street level and she got an eyeball full of cocktail party going on at the facility.
As the artsy set was perfectly capable of wearing leather and considering it business attire, she slipped in—
Hot. Cramped. Lot of egocentric accents echoing around.
Jeez, in a place like this, you couldn’t tell the sexes apart—everyone had bird-wing hand gestures and nail polish on.
Two feet past the door she was promptly offered a flute of champagne—as if blowhards with delusions of being Warhol ran on Veuve Clicquot.
“No, thanks.”
As the waiter, a nice-looking guy in black, gave her a little nod and sauntered off, she almost pulled him back just for the company.
Yeah, wow, there were so many arched eyebrows and pointed noses up in the air, you had to wonder if these folks even approved of themselves. And a quick glance around at the “art” told her that she and her mother were going to have to come here—just so Autumn could get a sense of how truly hideous and overindulgent some kinds of self-expression could get.
Dumb-ass humans.
With grim determination, she parried her way through all the shoulders, turning this way and that while sidestepping around other waiters. She didn’t bother hiding her face. Rehv had handled all his deals by himself or with Trez and iAm, so no one here was going to recognize her.
And pretty quick, she identified the way to Benloise’s office. It was just so damn obvi: Two goons dressed like waiters, but not carrying trays, were standing on either side of a nearly seamless door cut into the cloth-covered walling.
Assail was up on the second floor. She could sense him clearly.…
But getting to him was a thing: It was tricky to try to dematerialize into spaces unknown. There was probably a staircase on the far side of what was being guarded, but she didn’t want to Swiss-cheese herself by re-forming in the middle of it.
Besides, she could always catch the guy on the exit. Chances were good he’d come in through the back, and would leave the same way: He was cagey, and his visit was not about the frickin’ art.
Good thing, too, as it was difficult to see Q-tips glued to a Tupperware bowl mounted on a toilet seat as anything other than trash.
Heading deeper into the building, she slipped through a staff-only door and found herself in a concrete-floored, concrete-walled warehouse space that smelled like chalk dust and crayons. Up above, caged fluorescent lights were set into the high, unhung ceiling, and exposed ductwork and electricals burrowed through joists like moles in a lawn. Desks were set back, and file cabinets were out to the sides, the center of the space remaining clear, as if large installations were regularly rolled in from the rear alleyway.
The double doors straight ahead were made of steel and had security alarm contacts on them—
“May I help you.”
Not an inquiry.
She turned around.
One of the bouncers had followed her inside, and he was standing with his feet spread and his blazer open like he had a gun in there.
Rolling her eyes, she waved a hand and put him in a temporary trance. Then, placing a thought in his mind that there was nothing unusual going on, she sent him back to his post—where he would relate to his big-ass buddy that, in fact, there was nothing unusual going on.
Not exactly rocket science with these Homo sapiens. But just to be on the safe side, she fritzed out the security cameras as she went toward the back doors. Shit. One look at the way the steel panels were wired and she decided not to push on through and risk an incident involving the police.
If she wanted to be in the alley, she was going to have to work for it.
With a curse, she headed back for the party. It took her a good ten minutes to weed her way through all the denizens of questionable taste and undeniable ego, and as soon as she was out in the night air, she dematerialized up to the roof and walked to the far side.
Assail’s car was parked down in the alley below, facing out.
And she wasn’t the only one looking at it.…
Holy… crap…
Xcor was in the shadows, waiting for the male as well.
Had to be him—whoever it was had a lockdown on his inner core to such a degree, there was little superstructure to be read: By habit or by trauma, or likely some of both, the three dimensions had shrunken in on each other until they formed such a gnarled, tight mass, it was impossible for her to get a bead on any emotion whatsoever.
Man, she’d seen imprints like this from time to time. They usually meant real trouble, as the individual was capable of anything.
For example, you’d need precisely this kind of knotted center to have the balls to make a run at the king.
This was her target. She knew it.
And now that she had locked into that mangled grid, she backed off, dematerializing to the roof of a tall building a block away. She didn’t want to spook the son of a bitch by getting too close, and from here, she still had an adequate sight line to the Jag.
Shit, if only her radar had greater reach: She could go maybe a mile with her symphath side, but that was pushing it, her instincts strong, just short-range. So if he dematerialized a great distance away? She was going to lose him.…
As she waited, she wondered once again about Xcor’s connection to Assail. Unfortunately for that aristocrat, if he was funding the insurrection, even indirectly, he was going to find himself in the crosshairs.
Not a good
place to be.
About a half hour later, Assail emerged from the gallery’s ass and looked around.
He knew the other male was there… and he addressed some sort of comment to precisely where Xcor stood.
The cold breeze and ambient noise of the city killed the sound track of whatever exchange occurred between the pair, but she didn’t need dubbing to get the gist: Assail’s emotions shifted around until she had to approve of the dislike and mistrust he felt toward whoever he was talking to. The closed-up male, naturally, gave nothing away.
And then Assail took off. And so did the other grid.
She trailed the latter.
Like so many things in life, in retrospect, what happened to Autumn around eleven o’clock that evening made sense. The clues had been there for months, but as was rather often the case, when you were going about your life, you misinterpreted the guideposts, misread the compass needle’s position, mistook one thing for another.
Until you were at a destination that was nothing you would ever have chosen, and not something you could get away from.
She was down in the training center, taking out a pile of hot sheets from the dryer, when the storm hit.
Later, much later, a lifetime later, she would remember with clarity the feel of that soft heat against her torso, the warmth burrowing into her gut and making sweat break out on her forehead.
She would remember forever turning to the side and putting the fluffy white sheets on the counter.
Because when she stepped back, her needing hit for the second time in her life.
At first, it just felt as though she were still holding on to the sheets, the warmth remaining with her, along with a weight upon her belly sure as though she was as yet carrying the load.
As perspiration dripped down the side of her face, she glanced over at the thermostat on the wall, thinking that it was malfunctioning or set too high. But no, it read seventy degrees.
With a frown, she looked down at herself. Although she wore naught but a T-shirt and a pair of what they called “yoga” pants, it was as though she had on the parka she wore out with Xhex—