by J. R. Ward
"I think you're right," she said.
Trez exhaled in relief. Thank God she was buying it--
"You do need to go."
"What?"
"Until you can be honest? I think you need to stay away. Because either you're lying to yourself or you're lying to me. Either way, you need to--as the Brothers would say--get your shit together."
He shook his head. "Yeah. Wow. Not how I saw this going."
"Me neither."
"Okay. Then. So."
As she just stared over at him, the room ran out of its air supply. At least as far as he was concerned.
Trez cleared his throat. "Fuck . . . I'll go then."
He stalked out, using the door that led into the corridor rather than run the risk of running across Doc Jane and Ehlena in that examination room.
Yeah, 'cuz he really felt like having an audience right now.
Thank fuck iAm had left and gone to check in at shAdoWs, The Iron Mask and Sal's. His brother was the last person he wanted to be around at the moment.
Moving quickly, he stalked down the corridor and paused before stepping in front of the glass door of the office. When he didn't hear any voices, he peered around. Empty.
Score.
He made it through the supply closet and out into the tunnel without a hitch, and he even jogged down to the staircase. Codes were entered. Steps were mounted. The door under the stairs was opened quietly.
The sound of a vacuum cleaner running in the library was not a surprise. But the lack of any Brothers anywhere was. Usually, at this time of night, the ones who were off rotation were chilling in the billiards room, watching tube. Playing pool. Drinking.
He took advantage of the ghost-town routine and headed for the bar. As he came up to the top shelf display, he paused for a moment to consider his options and then chose Woodford Reserve. And Grey Goose. And a bottle of chard that was sitting out, unchilled, on the granite counter.
Like he was really going to fucking care what he drank.
The grand staircase was a piece of cake, and he was not surprised to find the King's study empty as Wrath spent most of his nights out meeting with his civilians. Making the turn toward the hall of statues, he pared off before all that marble and opened the door to the stairs that took him up to the third floor.
The First Family's suite of rooms was hidden behind a bank vault, but his room and his brother's were right out in the open, just two normal doors close together.
In spite of the argument with Selena, he wasn't going to bolt to the Commodore. He wanted to be on site in case she . . .
Yeah.
Closing himself in, he put his three new best friends on the bedside table, and turned on the lamp. The velvet drapes were drawn, and he left them that way as he continued on to the bathroom, shedding his clothes. With a crank of the showerhead, he got the water rolling, and he was careful to leave the lights off.
No reason to meet his own eyes in the mirror.
He waited until things got steamy before stepping into the marble enclave. He'd had more than enough of things that were uncomfortable, thank you very much.
Soap--everywhere. Rinse--everywhere. Shampoo--on his head, followed by conditioner. Razor--on his jaw, his chin, his cheeks.
Then it was a case of out with the towel and naked into his bed.
He got under the covers from habit, his brain studiously checking out of absolutely all thought, only common practice driving him to a place and situation where he could get drunk horizontally.
Cracking the lid on the Grey Goose, he took a good pull and ground his molars as the burn fired down his throat and lit up his gut like Fenway Park.
As V would have said.
How in the hell had the night ended up like this.
*
iAm was not about to waste time with shAdoWs, The Iron Mask or Sal's. Screw that. There was more than enough competent staff at all three to take care of business. He'd just told his brother the lie because he didn't want Trez even more freaked out.
Materializing on the terrace of their condo, he glanced at his watch and then went inside. Pacing around, he turned on some lights, checked the refrigerator even though he knew there was nothing much in it, and poked around the cabinets.
He hadn't eaten since . . . Sal's the night before, actually. And he hadn't fed in . . . shit, he didn't know how long.
Probably needed to handle that, but as always, he had little interest in the vein. Not that he didn't appreciate and respect the Chosen who served him and his brother. He just didn't like the whole business of sucking at someone's wrists when she was a stranger. Yeah, yeah, duty, whatever.
Guess he was far more Shadow-ish than his brother.
In their culture, anything physical like that was sacred. Which sucked, because biological necessity forced him to feed probably six times a year, and every time he did, it was an exercise in self-discipline--and not because he wanted to bang whoever it was.
He was, at his ripe old age, still a virgin.
He blamed the celibacy on the shit with Trez, and the teachings and traditions of his kind, which he sometimes felt like he took waaaaay too seriously--
Wow. He was so wound that he was talking to himself.
About shit he already knew.
Which wasn't even that interesting to begin with.
He paced around. Checked his watch again and then looked to the terrace. Where the fuck was--
"That you?"
iAm wheeled around at the male voice that came from the bedrooms. Striding forward to the hall, he palmed his forty, but given the inflection? Not much was going to be a problem.
And sure enough, as he rounded the corner into what had been his crib, he found s'Ex stretched out on the bed, the sheets wadded up around his naked body, a double-size bottle of Ciroc nestled in his arms like a baby.
"I thought you were in mourning," iAm said as he tucked his gun away.
"Am." s'Ex held up the half-empty bottle. "This is my Kleenex."
"Doesn't the Queen want you in the Territory"
"Not really." The male slashed his hand through the air. "Too embarrassing. I'm okay to fuck behind closed doors, but out in the open? No good. Course, all woulda been forgiven if the chart'd been right. But no."
iAm leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. "How long have you been here?"
"Since you left--was it last night? You need more liquor up in here. When can you bring it? And I want some females."
iAm's first instinct was to tell the guy to go screw. Natch. But he needed something from the bastard.
"I can make that happen," he said.
s'Ex closed his eyes and rolled his hips under the sheets. "When."
"You gotta do something for me first."
Those lids lifted slowly, and the black eyes glittered. "It doesn't work like that."
"Actually, it does."
"Fuck you."
"Fuck you." iAm held that gaze steadily. "I need to get into the palace."
s'Ex shut his piehole. Then he shoved his tremendous torso upright, the covers falling down, pooling at his waist. In the light from the bathroom, the tattoos that covered every inch of his flesh glowed like they were fluorescent against his dark skin.
"Not what I thought you'd say," he murmured. "Without a gun to your head."
"What I need from you is a guaranteed out."
"So you're going to steal something."
"I just want access to the library."
"Lot of recreational reading out here in the human world."
"And I need to go now."
s'Ex stared at him for a while. And then he yawned like a lion, great fangs flashing as his jaw cracked from the strain.
"Now," iAm said.
"The palace is closed for mourning."
"You got out."
s'Ex made a noncommittal noise. "What kind of information are you looking for?"
"Not relevant for your purposes."
"The hell it isn't
."
"Look, I need to go now, and I have to be back before dawn. This is an emergency. I'm not asking to stroke you."
s'Ex frowned. "Like I said, the palace is closed."
"So you're going to have to sneak me in."
"Why the fuck do you think I'm going to help you."
iAm smiled coldly. "Get me in and out, and you're fucking that Queen of yours."
"Ours. And if I want to screw her, all I have to do is slide into her bed."
"You think you can still stand to do that now?"
"Don't romanticize me," s'Ex said grimly.
iAm shrugged. "Whatever. Bottom line is, you're never going to get Trez at this point. I've got to try to help him."
If Selena died? Everybody was going to lose him. Shit, all iAm had to do was think of his brother bolting from that exam room, racing out into the corridor with a gun up to his temple, ready to pull the trig.
s'Ex stared up at him for the longest time. "What the hell is going on?"
"I'm giving it to you straight. Your interests and mine are aligned. I don't want my brother dead and neither do you. We'll fight over what happens to him at the end of this, but right now? You need me to get him through a certain crisis."
"Put a definition on 'crisis.'"
iAm looked away. "Someone who's close to him is sick."
"Not him, though?"
"No."
"You?"
"Do I look sick." iAm met the executioner's eyes again. "Look, you and I both have a management problem with him. You think I like trusting you? If there were any other option, I'd be getting it in. But like you know firsthand, you got to deal with what life gives you. And I need that goddamn library."
The s'Hisbe had a long and distinguished history as healers. And as Shadows were, like symphaths, an evolutionary offshoot of vampires, it would seem logical that this Arrest disease might have shown up at some point in his race's past--and if it did, it would be in that library.
If they were lucky, the healers might have some kind of treatment--at which point, stop number two was going to be the s'Hisbe's extensive pharmacology vault. The Shadows had been synthesizing drugs from plant and animal material for centuries, titrating all kinds of compounds to deal with diseases and disorders--and as with record keeping, the healers were meticulous about their trials and studies.
His people had brought rationalism into medicine long before humans ushered out mysticism and embraced scientific thinking.
Maybe there was hope. He had to find out.
"I do not want to rely on you," iAm said roughly. "But I have to. Just like you are going to have to do this for me if you want any chance of getting Trez in line. He will be dead within the hour if that female dies."
"Female?" When iAm said nothing more, s'Ex cursed. "The two of you are a huge pain in my ass, you know that."
"I feel the same way about you and your Queen."
"Ours. You're a member of the s'Hisbe no matter where you choose to live."
It was, of course, total bullshit about Trez going back to the Territory and falling in line with that astrological chart of his. That was never going to happen. But iAm had to use whatever leverage there was, and s'Ex was probably drunk enough not to look too closely at the motivation involved here.
And what do you know, it worked.
With a curse, the huge male threw off the covers and got to his feet--and for a moment, iAm checked out those tattoos. Christ. The executioner's flesh was covered from throat to ankle, shoulder to wrist, with white markings, the only absent places his face and his cock and balls. Even iAm had to be impressed. The "ink" was actually a poison that discolored the skin. Most males prided themselves on withstanding the pain and sickness of a small symbol of their families on the shoulder or the name of a mate over the heart.
The fact that s'Ex had lived through all that was visible confirmation that he was a badass. Or a masochistic psycho.
Leaving the guy to get dressed, iAm went into the living area. As he approached the glass sliders, he looked out over the nightscape of Caldwell: the speckled illumination randomly spaced in the skyscrapers, the twin lanes of red taillights and white headlights wrapping around the curves of the Hudson River, a plane or two blinking high over the horizon.
In and out, he told himself. That was how this had to be.
And if there was a God, he'd be able to find something that would help Selena.
EIGHTEEN
"Turn here?" Layla asked as she leaned into her sedan's steering wheel.
"Yes. Here."
She put her directional signal on, and as the Mercedes let out a little chck, chck, chck, she remembered Qhuinn teaching her the where's and when's of all the driving business. Safe guess that he never would have thought she'd use the skills to take Xcor anywhere.
"Where are we going?" she asked. The headlights were showing little more than a narrow dirt lane with a lot of autumnal trees choked up tight against the "road." A short stone wall seemed to keep the arboreal aggression back, although what little shoulder there was was overgrown with brambles and long grass.
"Not far. 'Tis but a few kilometers the now."
Was this it for her? she wondered. Was this the night when her paranoia turned well-founded, when Xcor took control of the situation in a way that not only harmed her, but her young and Qhuinn--who were both total innocents in all this?
Dearest Virgin Scribe, she needed to get out of--
The headlights swung around and what she saw made her heart stop and her foot pop off the accelerator.
It was a little cottage, which, in spite of the overgrown landscaping, was utterly charming. The front door was painted red, and with its two bay windows and pair of dormers on the second floor, the place seemed to be all wide-eyed and smiling. There was also a big fluffy tree to the left with golden leaves the color of sunrises she had seen only on TV or in books and magazines, as well as a slate walkway that led up to its welcoming visage.
"Do you like it?" he asked stiffly. As if he were afraid of the answer.
"Maybe this is naive," she whispered. "But it looks like nothing bad could ever happen in there."
"It is the caretaker cottage of the main house. The latter, which is down that lane there, has been abandoned, but an old doggen lived here up until a month ago." He glanced over at her. "Let us go inside."
She got out without turning the engine off, but Xcor took care of that, reaching over and silencing the purr as she walked in front of headlights. As the illumination was cut off, she saw that there were candles glowing inside of the house--or at least that was what she assumed was creating the flickering golden light.
At the door, she touched the paint. It was well-weathered, cracked but not chipped. Candy-apple red, she thought. And no doubt, it had been a high gloss when it had first been applied.
"Open," he told her. "Please."
The latch was made of brass that was old and worn, but polished in the places where hands had gripped. A subtle creak was released as she pushed at the surprisingly heavy panels, but the sound was more a chipper greeting than anything sinister.
It wasn't candles. It was a fire.
The living space was open and paneled in a reddish wood, the hearth made from river stone of various sizes, shapes, and colors. The floor was bare, with wide panels that talked as she walked over them, chattering as if they had missed having company. Breathing in, she smelled the sweet smoke of the fire and an underlying clean, woodsy scent.
There was a slouchy couch off to the side of the hearth, positioned such that if you sat upon it, you could see out the bay window. The thing was slipcovered in a collection of quilts, the blankets laid one upon another, the swatches and colors so variable, the conglomeration formed its own unique pattern. There was also a big stuffed chair, some old-fashioned books in short shelves, and a circular braided rug that brought everything together.
"The kitchen is through here," Xcor said as he closed the front door.
She wal
ked past him, his huge body too still, his eyes refusing to meet hers. The bathroom was modest and equipped with a stall shower, toilet, and a sink. The stairs up to the second floor were steep and narrow and carpeted with a worn runner. And the kitchen on the far side was filled with ancient appliances interspersed with stretches of countertop.
Layla pivoted around. "How long have you had this?"
"As I said, the caretaker died a month ago. She was a doggen who took care of us, with no kin of her own." He turned away and began to remove his heavy coat. "The family she looked after lived in the big house, but were killed in the raids. She stayed on the property because she had nowhere else to go. The lessers did not come back, so she lived."
Xcor turned away and began to disarm, his broad shoulders flexing as he removed the halter that kept his daggers in place upon his chest. Next, he unbuckled the holster at his hips, his elbows shifting around, the leather strap coming loose.
For some reason, she noticed the body under the clothes he wore, how his muscles bunched and released under that thin black cotton shirt, how his pants stretched across his thighs, his calves, his backside.
He was talking to her, slowly, in measured syllables, but she didn't hear what he was saying.
Xcor pivoted back around. Stared at her. Fell silent.
"Do you not wish to stay?" he said in a low voice.
"Why did you bring me here."
He cleared his throat. "I cannot abide your being pregnant out in the cold on the nights that we meet. Not when you are this far along."
From out of nowhere, she felt a flash of warmth. And she didn't think it was the fire.
"Come." He stepped back against the door, flattening himself. "It is warmer in here."
She walked up to him. And then kept going.
Taking a seat on the chair, she pulled down her robing. Wrapped her coat around herself. Looked into the flames.
Xcor stalked across the room, closing all the drapes before easing his body down on the sofa.
"Thank you," she heard herself say. "This is much more comfortable."
"Aye."
The silence stretched out between them. It was strange: In the field, with the vastness of the sky above and the rolling meadow around, she had not been so keenly aware of him. Within these four walls, however, his presence seemed to be amplified, any movement he made, whether it be breathing or blinking, registering a thousandfold.
There was a curious awkwardness between them, the fire's cheery conversation failing to relieve the growing heaviness in the house.