The Shadows

by J. R. Ward

  When you were sweating like a pig and couldn't feel the bottoms of your feet from exertion, you didn't want to pat yourself down with a Pomeranian.

  Had he really done twenty-four miles?

  Shit, how long had he been down here?

  Popping off his Beats, he realized that not only had his high-steppers gone numb, but his groin muscles were on fire, and that shoulder he'd injured a good five nights ago was cranked off.

  He ended up parking it on one of the wooden benches that ran down the far side of the room. As his breath gradually came back to him, he felt as if he were surrounded by his brothers even though he was alone: Whether it was the bench press that was still set to the six-hundred-pound load Butch had put it at yesterday or the barbell that Z had been doing curls with or the chin bar that Tohr had been crunching up and down on, he could picture each of the fighters with him, hear their voices, see them walk by, feel their eyes on him as they talked.

  And all that should have made him feel more connected, instead of less so.

  But the reality was, even if the forty-by-sixty-foot space had been crammed tight with all those big bodies, he would still have felt isolated.

  Passing that towel over his face again, he closed his eyes and was transported to a different place, a different time . . . to a memory that he knew now was what he had been trying to put behind him ever since it had threatened to resurface.

  Bella's white farmhouse. That porch of hers, the wraparound one that was so New England cozy you wanted to either vomit . . . or cop a squat and eat some apple pie on the bitch. Him walking out that front door, head hanging like he had been decapitated and only the gristle of his neck was keeping his basketball still on.

  His beloved Mary upstairs in that bedroom, having just told him to fuck off.

  Although, of course, she hadn't been so crude.

  His life had been over as he'd left that house. Even though he'd been ostensibly alive, he had been a dead male walking . . .

  ...until suddenly she had exploded out of that doorway in her bare feet.

  I'm not okay, Rhage. I'm not okay. . . .

  "Why are you thinking like this, buddy." He rubbed that hard towel over his face once more. "Just drop that shit . . . come on, think about something else. . . ."

  Except his brain wouldn't be rerouted. And the next memory was even worse.

  A hospital room, but not one here at the compound, or even at Havers's clinic. A human hospital room, and his Mary was in the bed.

  Shit, he could still remember the color of her skin. Wrong, all wrong. Not just pale, but beginning to go gray.

  To save her, he had done the only thing he could think of, thrown the only Hail Mary he had: He had sought out the Scribe Virgin. Had left that human hospital and gone home to his room, and lowered himself down on cut diamonds until his knees had run red with blood.

  He had prayed for a miracle.

  With a curse, he stretched out on the bench, leaning his torso back on the unforgiving wood while keeping both feet on the floor on either side.

  His Mary wasn't coming home today. She was staying at Safe Place.

  The mother of that child had been taken back to Havers's. After slipping into a coma.

  The staff had decided to keep the young at the house for the day, and Mary wanted to be with the girl.

  God, he remembered that anguish of daylight when Mary had been sick in the hospital. It hadn't been safe for him to be with her during the sunshine hours, and he had been terrified she would die when he couldn't get to her.

  Guess they could drive that young over to see her mahmen if shit came to that. As a pretrans, she could go out even at high noon.

  Staring up at the ceiling, he thought of Trez and Selena. Their date. Their escape from downtown. The fun they'd had evading the human police.

  That was so worth fighting for. All of it.

  His Mary wasn't coming home today, and he didn't know how he was going to make it through the next twelve hours until he saw her in person again. And that was even knowing he could call or text, or Skype with her at any moment for as long as he liked.

  That little girl was probably going to lose her mahmen.

  And Trez was probably going to lose Selena.

  Rhage was pretty sure all of them were praying for a miracle just as he had. And maybe that was what he was having problems with.

  Why had he gotten lucky? Tohr hadn't. Well, yes, the brother had found Autumn, and that was a blessing beyond measure. But as much as he loved that female, his losing Wellsie had nearly killed him.

  He just didn't get it. Unless the Scribe Virgin stepped in again, or someone found a cure . . .

  Why had he and Mary been spared?

  As his brain began to cramp up on that one, he had to shut the thoughts down. He didn't want to go mad down here all by himself.

  Yeah, he thought wryly. 'Cuz it was so much better to share that with your loved ones.

  Scary times. Scary times.

  If deaths came in threes . . . he thought numbly. Who was going to be the third one?

  FORTY-THREE

  As Xcor walked away from the cottage's main room, Layla was prepared to follow him outside and make him feed on what passed for a lawn if she had to. But just as she was about to heft herself off the sofa, she heard the sound of . . . the shower.

  Continuing through on the vertical impulse, she went across and around the corner to stand in front of the closed door of the bathroom.

  ". . . fuck . . ." he muttered on the far side.

  "Xcor?"

  "Leave me be. I shall return in a moment."

  As another curse floated out through the gaps around the doorjamb, she took hold of the latch, and pulled things open.

  Xcor was standing before the sink, his shirt half on and half off, his torso turned at a wrong angle as he tried to get the button down over his head--without hurting the bullet wound in his side.

  "What are you doing?" he demanded. Through the folds of black fabric.

  For a moment, all she could do was stare at his ribbed abdomen, the muscles striated across his belly and cut so deeply they threw shadows. But then there were his hips, hollow and jutting out from under his skin, his combat pants hanging so low only the huge muscles of his thighs were keeping them on.

  He was unbelievably powerful. But also too thin.

  Shaking herself into focus, she said, "I'm going to help you get that off."

  "I can handle it, just--" As he twisted again, he let out a groan of pain.

  Ignoring him, she shut the door so what little heat was boiling up from the shower stayed in the bath. "Stop. You're just going to hurt yourself."

  "I'm fine," he snapped.

  The instant she put her hand on his arm, he went dead still.

  "Let me help you," she whispered.

  The good news was that he'd gotten the bulk of the shirt up over his head. So there was no way he saw her hands shake as she took hold and gently pulled upward, inching it up his arms, revealing to her eyes the fans of muscle that ran down the side of his torso and then the massive bulges of his pectorals.

  His breath panted in and out of him, his chest rising and falling in a pump that got faster as she carried the shirt over his arms.

  Heavy arms. Thick arms that narrowed at the elbow and then at the wrist, but plumped up everywhere else.

  As what had covered him came loose, all she could think of was that he was a killer. A straight-up killer whose body reflected the work that he did.

  "Wait for me out there." He refused to meet her eyes. "I shall not take from you when I am unclean."

  "That's a bad gash there."

  When she touched the warm, pale skin under the angry red stripe on his side, he flinched. But his voice remained strong. "It shall be healed by nightfall."

  "Only if you feed."

  The grunt she got in response was a dismissal if she'd ever heard one. And he followed it up with, "If you do not leave, you're going to see a lot mor
e than my chest."

  "You're injured worse on your leg." She eyed the ever-growing blood spot on those combats.

  His hands went to the zipper of his fly. "Well?"

  As if he were giving her one last chance.

  "Well?" She shrugged. "Do you honestly think I'm going to let you get under that hot water without help? You're white as a sheet. Your blood pressure is obviously low. You're liable to pass out."

  "Oh, for the love of . . ."

  Now he looked at her. And, with quick efficiency, released the fastening at his waist. The top part of the pants fell away. The bottom stuck in place over those thighs.

  But something was revealed.

  And it was . . . erect.

  Xcor cocked a brow. "You can stop staring. I find it hard to believe you are enjoying the view."

  She tried to look away. She did. But her eyes had a mind of their own.

  "You are so big," she breathed.

  He recoiled. As if that was the last thing in the world he'd expected her to say. And when he spoke next, his voice had changed.

  Now, he begged. "Layla . . . Chosen Layla . . . you need to leave."

  *

  As Xcor stood all but completely naked in front of the female, he couldn't move. And not just because his combats had wedged themselves above his knees and turned into a hobble.

  Layla's green eyes were impossibly wide as they focused on his sex--and stayed there.

  Could this evening go any farther off the rails, he wondered.

  Wait--mayhap he should not offer that kind of opening to the Fates.

  Meanwhile, his cock was loving the attention. The damn thing kicked as if to suggest she should shake and make friends.

  He covered the rigid length up with both his palms, stretching it flat over his lower abdomen. "Layla."

  Instead of doing the reasonable thing and backing away from him in horror and disgust, she bent and grasped the waistband of his combats. Before he could shove her off, his pants were down his thighs and pooling around his ankles.

  "Come, let's get you under the spray."

  She didn't give him a chance to protest. And a second later, his battered and bruised body was under the warm falling water, aching bones and healing scars both screaming and sighing at the impact. With a snap of the curtain, she gave him the privacy he wanted--except the klonk over by the toilet suggested she hadn't departed, but rather had shut the lid and sat down.

  There was no reason not to follow through with the soap and the shampoo, and he tried to be quick about it. Unfortunately, the bullet that had narrowly missed his lung was stinging sure as if there were battery acid upon his flesh. And the soap did not help that.

  The other reason to be fast was that he was acutely aware of both his nakedness and his arousal. The more efficient he was, the sooner he could get dressed.

  No clothes, though. He had no clean clothes.

  Closing his eyes in defeat, he rinsed the suds out of his hair, tilting his head back. Which was a mistake. The water's rush hit his cock, and damned if it didn't feel like hands, her hands.

  Or maybe her mouth--

  The release was not unexpected. It was, however, unwanted. As his erection kicked and his orgasm rolled through him, he gritted his teeth--

  "You don't have to hide it," she said in a husky voice. "I can see the shadow of you."

  "So look away," he groaned as his hips rolled into his ejaculations.

  "I can't."

  Sagging against the tile, he knew he had lost whatever upper hand he had believed he had in the situation. That female had guessed the terrible truth about him. She knew his aims had changed. And she seemed unwilling to keep whatever relationship this was on terms that gave both of them some honor and dignity.

  But at least she didn't know it was all based on her.

  That his life . . . pathetic as it was . . . was based on her now.

  If that came to light, it would be his ruination.

  Xcor twisted the faucet off with a crank, determined to put an end to all of this and send her away just so he could get his defenses properly back in place. Just as he was going to rip the curtain down and put it around himself, the heavy weight of towel was tossed over the pole.

  "For your modesty," she said.

  Was she laughing at him?

  Not bothering to dry himself off, he covered his lower body and pushed the curtain fall back. She was indeed on the loo, the fleece she wore camouflaging her changed shape from the pregnancy.

  Without a word, she pulled her sleeve back again and put out her arm.

  There was a challenge in her eyes.

  "Fine," he snapped, angry at himself. At her. At this new territory they had entered.

  Lowering himself to his knees--because she was right, he was awfully dizzy--he put his fangs to her flesh.

  Starved. He was starved for her.

  And yet he struck as gently as he could.

  At the first taste, he moaned, his body swaying, its weight knocking into the cabinet into which the sink had been mounted. Her blood was a dark wine that made him thirsty instead of satiating his dry throat, and between his legs, his cock kicked again and again.

  He was orgasming into the towel, the pleasure coursing through his veins, his bones, his flesh--

  Mine.

  From out of the depths of him, the urge to take her rose so violently, that he started to act on it, his body on the verge of leaping up and dragging her to the floor so he could mount her.

  Pregnancy or not, he was going to get at her sex and leave his mark inside of her--

  Breaking off the contact, he pushed himself away from her, bracing his feet against that cabinet, the cold porcelain of the tub behind him biting into his shoulders as he went rigid in an attempt to control himself.

  "What's wrong--"

  "Go!" he shouted.

  Within him, his sexual beast was prowling and ready to have her--and coupled with his blood lust, he knew he could not handle the pair of instincts together. He was liable to chew her wrist off at same time he fucked her raw.

  "Xcor, you have not had much at all--"

  Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and strained. "Get the fuck out of here! If you want your young to live--leave! I will attack you! Go!"

  That got her attention.

  As, no doubt, did the fact that he was still orgasming all over himself, the towel now lost, the jets kicking out and marking his own thighs and belly as his leg muscles trembled at the force he was exerting--to make sure he didn't jump on her.

  "Go!"

  A split second later, she was out of the bathroom; one moment after that she was out of the cottage. And she was in such a hurry, she left both of the doors open, so he saw the headlights of her car come on and watched them circle the scruffy lawn in front before streaking off down the lane.

  It wasn't until he could neither see her red taillights nor hear the crackle of her tires that he eased up even a little on the bracing.

  Gripping his cock, he began to stroke his shaft as he pictured her eyes on him, and heard anew the strange tone she'd used as she had pronounced him sizable.

  He had no interest in masturbating.

  But what he really didn't want was his rational side to completely desert him--such that he went after her through the night, stopping her somewhere unsafe just so he could do what he did not want to do to her.

  No, this way he would stay put.

  Oh, God . . . the way she had looked at him, he thought as he started to come again.

  FORTY-FOUR

  "He said I needed a parka."

  The following evening, as darkness settled over the compound and the shutters rose for the night, Selena looked back and forth between the two coats Fritz was holding up to her. One was red, the other black; both were wool and relatively long.

  "Oh, I'm sorry, mistress." He turned back to the closet in the mud room by the garage. "How about either of these?"

  This time, he offered her a choice
between a puffy waist-length jacket that looked like it was made of dinner rolls, and one that was much longer. Both were black and had little tags that read, PATAGONIA.

  "It's a relatively mild night," Fritz pointed out. "Perhaps the shorter of the two?"

  "Yes, I think you're right."

  Slipping the thing on, she was amazed at how light it was, and after zipping it up, she tested out the two pockets.

  "This is fantastic."

  The butler beamed. "My pleasure. Gloves?"

  "I think I'll just keep my hands in here."

  "As you wish, mistress."

  Heading out into the kitchen, she felt as buoyant as a bubble. Trez had refused to tell her anything about where they were going, and the unknown was like a heady wine, making her head buzz and her body float.

  She hesitated at the flap door into the dining room. The sounds and smells of First Meal were obvious and friendly, the voices ones she knew well, the scents making her stomach rumble. And yet she turned around and headed out the other exit of the kitchen, the one that opened up by the flank of the grand stairway.

  Everyone had been so kind the night before, all the females lavishing such incredible attention and support on her.

  She didn't want to bother them again and didn't really want the extra regard.

  She was feeling a little tired and wanted to save all her strength for the date.

  As she came into the foyer, she saw Trez and Manny standing close together on the far side of the mosaic apple tree in the floor. They were talking intently, each one grave.

  Her heart stopped. Was the physician insisting she stay in? Or was he going to make her go down to the clinic first?

  She glanced behind her and considered bolting. It wasn't going to be underground, though--

  "You need to take care of her," Manny warned.

  "I will. I swear on my brother's life."

  Oh . . . shoot--

  Manny took something out of his pocket. A key fob of some sort.

  Dangling it in front of Trez's face, he said, "She's never been driven by anyone else."

  "Then why are you giving her to me?"

  "Because you need to go in style. You're taking your woman out, you don't need to be in some BMW."

  "You are a car snob."

  Selena frowned. Car? They were talking about--

  Trez whipped around as if he had noticed her scent on the air, and the instant he saw her, he started to smile. "Hey, there, you ready, my queen?"

  Stepping across the vast space, she smiled in return. She'd left her hair down again, because she knew by the way he stared at it, played with it, stroked it that he preferred it that way. And actually, she was not just getting used the style, but coming to like it best as well.