by J. R. Ward
*
Down in the training center's main exam room, Trez was having an out-of-body experience as the whirling transportation stopped and he once again had to recalibrate his location. Thank God they'd made it over in one piece. Now, if only there was help to be had here.
Cradling Selena's stiff, contorted body in his arms, he glanced over his shoulder. Doc Jane, V's shellan, was standing off to the side in full doctor garb: blue scrubs, green nitrile gloves, little booties on her feet.
She didn't approach Selena, however. She just stayed where she was, staring at them, for what seemed like forever.
Shit. Trez was no doctor type, but generally speaking, when someone with the big "DR." in front of their name had to take a TO when they first saw a patient?
Not a good sign.
Rhage and V were across the way, and they were likewise gawking at him and Selena, as if they also had no clue how to help.
Doc Jane cleared her throat. "Trez . . . ?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Will you let me look at her?"
Trez frowned. "Yeah--come on." When Doc Jane didn't move, he started to lose his temper. "What the hell's the problem--"
"Your fangs are bared and you're growling. That's the problem."
He pulled a quick self-check, and discovered--gee-whiz, he had in fact gone all Cujo on them, sinking his weight down into his thighs, flashing his hardware, and making a sound like an industrial mower in the back of his throat.
"Yeah, sorry." At that point, he noticed that he'd also backed into a corner and was holding Selena to his chest like someone was going to try to take her from him. "So I should put her down on the table."
"That would be a good place to start," V pointed out.
His body took its own sweet time as he gave it the command to move forward, and in the end, only the fact that she needed treatment by someone who had half a brain and a stethoscope got him anywhere close to the center of the room. Leaning down, he put her on the stretch of stainless steel--and he shuddered because he might as well have been handling a wooden chair: her body stayed in the exact same position she had been in when he'd found her, legs outstretched, torso twisted, arms curled up to her chest. And almost worse? Her head remained at that bad angle, wrenched around in the opposite direction of her shoulders as if she were in great pain.
His hand shook as he brushed her hair from her face. Her eyes were open, but he wasn't sure she was conscious. She didn't seem to focus on anything, periodic slow blinks the only indication she might be awake.
Might be still alive.
Trez put his face in her line of sight. "You're at the training center. They're going to . . ."
As his voice faltered, he ordered himself to get the fuck away and let Doc Jane do her job.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he backed off until he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was Rhage. And Trez was pretty sure that the gesture was part compassion, part insurance in case the bonded male in him decided to grab the reins again.
"Let them do their thing," Hollywood said as Ehlena, who was Rehv's shellan and the nurse, burst through the door. "Let's just see where we are."
Trez nodded. "Okay. Yeah."
The good doctor leaned down and looked into Selena's opaque eyes. Whatever she said was too soft to hear, but Selena's pattern of blinking changed--although it was hard to know whether that was a good or a bad thing.
Blood pressure. Pulse. Pupils. The first three checks went quick, but Jane didn't waste time announcing what the results were. She and her nurse just kept working fast, taking Selena's temperature, putting an IV into the back of her hand because the crooks of her elbows were locked up.
"I want an EKG, but I can't get to her chest," Doc Jane said. Then she glanced over her shoulder at her mate. "Do you know any syndrome that causes this? It's like a full-body seizure except her pupils are reactive."
"I don't. You want me to call Havers for a consult?"
"Yes. Please." As V stalked out of the room, Jane shook her head. "I need to know what's happening in her brain, but we don't have an MRI here or a CT scan."
"So we're taking her to Havers," Trez said.
"He doesn't have that technology, either."
"Fuck." As Rhage's hold tightened on him, Trez focused on Selena's face. "Is she in pain? I don't want her in pain."
"Honestly?" the doctor said. "I don't know. And until I get a handle on her neurological state, I don't want to give her any drugs that would depress function. But I'll move as fast as I can."
It seemed to take an eternity, time grinding to a halt as all he could do was watch the complicated medical dance going on around that table. And Rhage stayed right next to him, playing babysitter sentry while Trez straddled the extremes of Shitting in His Pants and Wanting to Blow His Brains Out with no grace whatsoever.
And then the Chosen Cormia burst through the door.
The instant the female saw Selena, she gasped and brought both hands up to cover her mouth. "Dearest Virgin Scribe . . ."
Doc Jane looked over from taking a blood draw from a vein on the back of Selena's other hand. "Cormia, do you know what could have--"
"She has the disease."
Everyone went still. Except for Cormia. The Chosen rushed to her sister's side and smoothed Selena's dark hair, murmuring to her in the Old Language.
"What disease?" Doc Jane asked.
"The Old Language translation is roughly 'the Arrest.'" The Chosen wiped at her eyes. "She has the Arrest."
Trez heard his voice cut into the silence. "What is that?"
"And is it communicable," Jane interjected.
EIGHT
As sunrise threatened in the East, Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards, reassumed his form in front of a modest colonial. The house, which he and his soldiers had been using as a lair for nearly a year, was located on the far side of a boring cul-de-sac in a neighborhood full of middle-class humans halfway through their journey to the grave. Throe had secured the rental with an option to buy on the theory of hiding in plain sight, and the property had worked satisfactorily.
There were lights on in the interior, illumination bleeding out around the seams of the pulled drapes, and he imagined what his warriors were doing inside. Fresh from fighting lessers in the alleys of downtown Caldwell, they would be shedding their black blood-stained clothes and partaking of the victuals contained in the icebox and the cupboards of the kitchen. They would be drinking as well, although not blood to make them stronger, and not water to rehydrate them, but rather alcohol as an internal salve to treat fresh contusions, cuts, abrasions--
Abruptly, the nape of his neck began to tingle in warning, informing him, as if the burning of the exposed skin upon his hands did not, that he had little time to get safely indoors.
And yet he had no interest in going in there. Seeing his soldiers. Consuming food before he retired upstairs to that nauseating raspberry bedroom suite.
He had been denied that which he had counted down the hours for, and the disappointment was like his body's response to the gathering dawn: His skin ached. His muscles twitched. His eyes strained.
His addiction had not been served.
Layla had not come this night.
With a curse, he took out his cellular device and dialed a number based on a pattern he had memorized on the numerical screen. Putting the phone up to his ear, he heard his heart pounding over the ringing.
There was no personalized voice-mail greeting activated on the account, so after six tones, an automated announcement detailing the number came over the connection. He did not leave a message.
Heading over to the door, he braced himself for an onslaught of noise and chaos. His bastards would inevitably be riding waves of adrenaline, the afterburn of their high-octane existence taking a while to dissipate.
Opening things up--
Xcor froze halfway across the threshold.
His five fighters were not, in fact, talking over one another as they passe
d around bottles of alcohol along with surgical tape and gauze for their wounds. Instead, they were seated on the available furniture that had been rented to them along with the home. There was no drink in any hand, and not even the metal-on-metal sound of guns being cleaned and daggers getting resharpened.
They were all there: Zypher, Syphon, Balthazar, Syn . . . and Throe, the one who hadn't belonged, but had become indispensable.
None of them were meeting his eyes.
No, that was not true.
Throe, his second in command, was the only male staring at him. Also the only of the group who was standing.
Ah, so he had been the one to organize this . . . whatever it was.
Xcor shut the door behind himself. And kept his weapons on.
"Have you something to say?" he inquired, staying by the door, meeting Throe's stare straight on.
His second in command cleared his throat, and when he spoke his accent was that not just of the upper class, but of the highest of vampire social orders: that of the glymera.
"We are concerned about your direction." The male glanced around. "Of late."
"Indeed."
Throe appeared to wait for something further in response. When none came, he uttered a curse of frustration. "Xcor, where has your ambition gone? The King has a single, half-breed heir and you suddenly forget about our collective quest for the throne? You put our goals aside as if a bowl now empty of its contents."
"Battling the Lessening Society is a full-time endeavor."
"Mayhap if you were in fact fighting."
"The slayers I killed tonight were of my imagination, then?"
"That is not all you do at night."
Xcor bared his fangs. "Be of care where thee tread the now."
Throe cocked his brow in challenge. "Shall I not say it in front of them?"
As he felt his males' eyes swing over to him, he wanted to hit something. He had thought his meetings with Layla had been unwitnessed. Clearly, that was a miscalculation.
And if he told Throe to stay silent? He might as well condemn himself to something worse than what he had been doing.
"I have nothing to hide," he growled.
"I beg to disagree. You spend too much of your time under that maple tree, like some lovesick--"
Xcor materialized in front of the male, such that a mere inch separated their faces. He did not touch Throe, but the soldier stepped back nonetheless.
His second in command did not back all the way down, however. "Do you wish to tell them who she is? Or shall I."
"She is irrelevant. And my ambitions are restrained by no one."
"Prove it."
"To whom." Xcor tilted his head and jutted out his jaw. "To them? Or is it you who has the problem."
"Prove that you are not going soft."
In the blink of an eye, Xcor withdrew his steel dagger and pressed it to the male's jugular. "Here? Now?"
As Throe gasped, the sharp tip nicked his flesh, a line of bright red blood gracing that oh, so shiny pale blade.
"Shall I prove myself on you," Xcor said darkly. "Would that suffice."
"You are distracted," Throe snapped. "By a female. You are weakened by her!"
"And you are deranged! I choose not to kill the rightfully elected King of the Race--and that is a crime over which you attempt to secure a mutiny among my fighters?"
"You were so close! We nearly had the throne! The dominoes were aligned, the glymera was going to do your bidding--"
Xcor pressed that dagger in again, ending the tirade. "Is this traitorous meeting about my ambition--or yours? Permit me to inquire precisely whose loss you are mourning."
"You are not leading us anymore."
"Let us ask them." Xcor broke off and stalked around the room, looking at the bent heads of his soldiers. "What say you all. Are you going with him or staying with me?" As curses broke out in the tense air, he pivoted to Throe. "Because that is what you're doing, is it not? Presenting them with a choice--either you or me. So, I say, let us proceed to the endgame with all due haste. Where dost thou stand, bastards mine?"
There was a long pause.
And then Zypher lifted his eyes. "Who is she?"
"That is not the question I posed to you."
"That's the question we want answered."
Xcor felt his temper rise. "She is none of your business."
There was no way in hell he was going to explain the liaisons with his Chosen.
Zypher's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. "Jesus . . . you've bonded with her."
"I have not."
"I can smell it, too," someone said. "Who is she?"
"She is of no consequence."
Throe spoke up, loud and clear. "She is a Chosen. Who lives with the Brotherhood."
Annnnd herewith the chaos he had previously anticipated: The room erupted with male voices, all of them talking over one another, snippets of the Old Language mixing with English and German curse words.
Meanwhile, Throe took out a pristine handkerchief and pressed the white square to the wound at his throat. "I fail to understand why she meets with you--just what do you have over her? There must be some kind of inducement--money? Or is it a threat of some kind?"
Xcor let the insult stand, as it wasn't just close to the truth; the male had hit the nail on the head. The only reason the Chosen Layla met with him was that he knew the location of the Black Dagger Brotherhood's mansion, and she was terrified he was going to sack the property: There had been one night, nearly a year ago, when he had followed her blood trail and stumbled upon the great secret. And Throe was right--he had leveraged the discovery to his benefit.
She had promised him her body in exchange for his keeping the site sacrosanct.
And though he had yet to call upon her in a carnal way, out of respect for her pregnancy, her virtue, and her station . . . he would have her.
Eventually, he would take what was his and mark her as his own--
Shit, had he bonded?
Xcor refocused on Throe and his Bastards. "Let us concern ourselves with this mutiny and not anyone's imagination. So what say you. All of you." There was a long pause. "Any of you."
He supposed, as he awaited a response, the fact that Throe remained upright and breathing was proof that Xcor had, in fact, somewhat softened. Trained by the Bloodletter, he had not forgotten what he had learned in the war camp, but of late, he had come to realize that brute force and bloodshed were simply one means to an end--and there were others that could be more effective.
For example, Wrath had proven the point with the way he had handled the final assault against his throne. That king and his mate had shut down even the most foolproof attack against his rule--and they had done so not only without one life being lost, but with a castration so complete, the very powers of the glymera had been stripped away.
And Wrath, as a leader now chosen by his people, had unassailable power.
Throe broke the silence, addressing the fighters. "I believe I have made myself clear. I feel strongly that we should resume the quest for the throne. We shot Wrath once--we can get at him again. He might be democratically elected, but he cannot continue to rule if he isn't breathing. And then we need to remarshal support within the now-disenfranchised glymera. By coordinating a constitutional strategy with the former members of the Council, we can argue that Wrath overreached his powers and--"
"You are a fool," Xcor said quietly.
Throe spun around and pegged him with a hostile glare. "And you are a failure!"
Xcor shook his head. "The people have spoken. They chose to put Wrath on the throne he had previously inherited, and there is no fight to be won when there is not one front, but one thousand. Traditional laws and cultural norms are flimsy mantles of power and influence. Democracy, however, when it is truly exercised, is a stone fortress that cannot be surmounted, blown asunder, or burrowed under. What you fail to understand, second in command, is that there is nothing further to battle with--assuming t
hat you are conducting this assault with any hope of prevailing."
Throe narrowed his eyes. "Tell me something, has your Chosen been educating you? I don't think I've ever heard anything close to that come out of your mouth before."
Xcor forced himself to stay quiet.
He and his fighters had been banded together long before Throe had come into the mix. But if those males could not see past this ill-fated ambition? Then Throe could have them all.
Xcor would bow to none herein.
In the silence that followed, Throe looked around at the fighters who had once shunned him for his dandy weakness, but had grown to respect him as a warrior over the last two centuries. "Manipulation is most successful when waged by one of the female sex. Think not that he speaks propaganda the now? Fed to him by precisely that which can most seduce his mind, his body, his emotions? You have smelled the bonding for yourself. Know that the soul follows the heart, and his is no longer with us, with our goals, with what we may accomplish. This is not strength that addresses you, but the sort of weakness he once deplored in others. See? Even now, he stays quiet!"
Xcor shrugged. "I have no taste for pontificating."
"Did you even know the definition of that word six months ago?" Throe countered.
"What say the lot of you?" Xcor glanced around with a sense of abiding boredom. "The choice is yours, but know this. Once it is made, like ink in the skin, it is indelible."
Zypher was the first to get to his feet. "I have but one allegiance."
With that, he went over to his gear and unsheathed his steel dagger. Slicing his own palm open, he approached Xcor and put out his hand.
Xcor shook what was proffered and found that he had to clear his throat. Balthazar was next, taking the same knife and cutting himself, putting forth his blood--and Syphon moved with equal efficiency, pledging himself.
Syn watched it all with lowered lids, staying still. He was, as always, the wild card--but even he rose and came across to Xcor. Taking the blade, he stabbed his palm and twisted, his upper lip curling up as if he liked the pain.
Xcor accepted the last of his soldiers' vows and then he looked over at Throe. Bringing his dripping red palm up, he bared his fangs and hissed, biting his own flesh and then licking the combined blood clean.
"As if this would go another way." He smiled cruelly. "You have never been one of us."
Throe's handsome face twisted into a nasty expression. "You forced me to join you. You did this to me."