by J. R. Ward
As the towel changed hands, the angel said with gravity, “Time to wake up, Cinderella.”
Tohr was about to point out that it was Sleeping Beauty when a memory came to him as if it had been injected into his frontal lobe. It was the night he’d saved Wrath’s life back in 1958, and the images came to him with the clarity of the actual experience.
The king had been out. Alone. Downtown.
Half-dead and bleeding into the sewer.
An Edsel had nailed him. A piece-of-shit Edsel convertible the color of a diner waitress’s blue eye shadow.
As near as Tohr could figure out later, Wrath had been on foot in pursuit of a lesser and barrel-assing around a corner when the boat of a car had plowed into him. Tohr had been two blocks away and heard the screeching brakes and the impact of some sort, and he’d been prepared to do absolutely nothing.
Human traffic accidents? Not his problem.
But then a pair of lessers had run past the alley he’d been standing in. The slayers had been hauling nut through the fall drizzle like they were being pursued, except there was no one riding their bumpers. He’d waited, expecting to see one of his brothers. None had come pounding along.
Didn’t make any sense. If a slayer had been hit by a car in the company of his cronies, they wouldn’t have left the scene. The others would have killed the human driver and any passengers, then packed their dead up in the trunk and driven off from the scene: The last thing the Lessening Society wanted was an incapacitated lesser leaking black blood on the street.
Maybe it was just coincidence, though. A human pedestrian. Or someone on a bike. Or two cars.
Only one set of squealing breaks though. And none of that would explain the pair of paled-out flip-heels who’d passed him like they were arsonists running from a fire they’d lit.
Tohr had jogged onto Trade and around the corner and caught sight of a human male in a hat and trench coat crouched over a crumpled body twice his size. The guy’s wife, who had been dressed in one of those petticoated, frothy fifties numbers, stood just beyond the headlights, huddled into her fur.
Her brilliant red skirt had been the color of streaks on the pavement, but the scent of the spilled blood hadn’t been human. It was vampire. And the one who’d been struck had long dark hair…
The woman’s voice had been shrill. “We need to take him to the hospital—”
Tohr had stepped in and cut her off. “He’s mine.”
The man had looked up. “Your friend…I didn’t see him…. Dressed in black—he came out of nowhere—”
“I’ll take care of him.” Tohr had stopped explaining himself at that point and just willed the two humans into a stupor. A quick thought suggestion sent them back into their car and on their way with the impression that they had hit a trash can. He’d figured the rain would take care of the blood on the front of their car, and the dent they could fix on their own.
Tohr’s heart had been going as fast as a jackhammer as he’d leaned over the body of the heir to the race’s throne. Blood had been everywhere, leaking fast from a gash in Wrath’s head, so Tohr had shrugged out of his jacket, bit into the sleeve, and ripped off a strip of leather. After wrapping up the heir’s temples and tying the makeshift bandage as tight as he could, he’d flagged down a passing truck, pulled a gun on the greaser behind the wheel, and been chauffeured by the human out to Havers’s neighborhood.
He and Wrath had ridden in the back bed, with him keeping pressure on Wrath’s head wound, and the rain had been cold. A late-November rain, maybe December. Good thing it hadn’t been summer, though. No doubt the chill had slowed Wrath’s heart and eased his blood pressure.
Quarter of a mile from Havers’s, in the ritzy part of Caldwell, Tohr had told the human to pull over and brainwashed him on his way.
The minutes it had taken Tohr to walk to the clinic had been among the longest of his life, but he’d gotten Wrath there, and Havers had closed what had turned out to be a temporal artery slice.
It had been touch and go that next day. Even with Marissa there to feed Wrath, the king had lost so much blood, he hadn’t rebounded as expected, and Tohr had stayed for the duration, sitting in a chair by the bedside. As Wrath had lain so still, Tohr had felt as if the whole of the race were tipping between life and death, the only one who could take the throne locked into a sleep that was only a few firing neurons off a permanent vegetative state.
Word had gotten out and people had come undone. The nurses and the doctor. The other patients who had stopped by to pray over the king who would not serve. The Brothers, who had used rotary phones to call every fifteen minutes.
The collective sense was that without Wrath, there was no hope. No future. No chance.
Wrath had lived, however, waking up with the kind of crankiness that made you sigh in relief…because if a patient had the energy to be that pissy, he was going to pull through.
The following nightfall, after having been out cold for twenty-four hours straight and having scared the shit out of everyone around him, Wrath had unplugged the IV, dressed himself, and left.
Without a word to any of them.
Tohr had expected…something. Not a thank-you, but an acknowledgment or…something. Hell, Wrath was a gruff son of a bitch now, but back then? He’d been downright toxic. Even so…nothing? After he’d saved the guy’s life?
Kinda reminded him of the way he’d been treating John. And his brothers.
Tohr wrapped the towel around his waist and thought about the more important point of the memory. Wrath out there fighting alone. Back in ’58, it had been a stroke of luck that Tohr had been where he had and found the king before it was too late.
“Time to wake up,” Lassiter said.
SEVENTEEN
As night settled in for the duration, Ehlena prayed that she wouldn’t be late to work again. With the clock ticking, she waited upstairs in the kitchen with the CranRas and the crushed drugs. She’d been meticulous about cleanup: She’d put the spoon away. Double-checked all the surfaces. Even made sure the living room was ordered properly.
“Father?” she called down the stairs.
While she listened for sounds of shuffling movement and quiet words spoken without sense, she thought of the bizarre dream she’d had during the day. She’d imagined Rehv in the dark distance with his arms hanging to the sides. His magnificent, naked body had been spotlit as if on display, his muscles bunching up in a powerful show, his skin a warm, golden brown. His head had been angled down, his eyes closed as if in repose.
Captivated, summoned, she had walked across a cold stone floor to him, saying his name over and over again.
He had not responded. He had not lifted his head. He had not opened his eyes.
Fear had whistled through her veins and kick-started her heart, and she had rushed to him, but he had stayed ever distant, a goal never realized, a destination never reached.
She had awoken with tears in her eyes and a body that trembled. As the choking trauma had receded, the meaning was clear, but really, she didn’t need her subconscious to tell her what she already knew.
Snapping herself out of it, she called down the stairs again, “Father?”
When there was no reply, Ehlena took her father’s mug and walked down to the cellar. She went slowly, although not because she was afraid of spilling bloodred CranRas on her white uniform. Every once in a while her father didn’t rouse himself and she had to make this descent, and each time she took the steps in this way, she wondered if it had finally happened, if her father had been gathered up unto the Fade.
She wasn’t ready to lose him. Not yet, and no matter how hard things were.
Putting her head through the doorway into his room, she saw him seated at his hand-carved desk, shaggy stacks of papers and unlit candles surrounding him.
Thank you, Virgin Scribe.
As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she worried over how the lack of light might damage her father’s vision, but the candles were going to s
tay as they were, because there were no matches or lighters in the house. The last time he’d gotten his hands on a match had been back at their old place—and he’d lit the apartment on fire because his voices told him to.
That had been two years ago, and the reason he’d been put on meds.
“Father?”
He looked up from the mess and seemed surprised. “Daughter mine, how fare thee this night?”
Always the same question, and she always gave him the same answer in the Old Language. “Well, my father. And you?”
“As always I am charmed by your greeting. Ah, yes, the doggen has put out my juice. How good of her.” Her father took the mug. “Wither goest thou?”
This led to their verbal pas de deux over him not approving of her working and her explaining that she did it because she liked to and him shrugging and not understanding the younger generation.
“Verily I am departing now,” she said, “but Lusie shall arrive in a matter of moments.”
“Yes, good, good. In truth, I am busy with my book, but I shall entertain her, as is proper, for a time. I must needs get about my work, though.” He waved his hand around the physical representation of the chaos in his mind, his elegant sweep at odds with the ragged sheaves of paper that were filled with nonsense. “This needs tending to.”
“Of course it does, Father.”
He finished the CranRas and, as she went to take it from him, he frowned. “Surely the maid will do that?”
“I should like to help her. She has many duties.” Wasn’t that the truth. The doggen had to follow all the rules for objects and where they belonged, as well as do the shopping and earn the money and pay the bills and watch after him. The doggen was tired. The doggen was worn out.
But the mug absolutely had to go up to the kitchen.
“Father, please let go of the mug so that I may take it upstairs. The maid fears disturbing you, and I should like to spare her the concern.”
For a moment, his eyes focused on her the way they used to. “You have a beautiful and generous heart. I am so proud to call you daughter.”
Ehlena blinked fiercely and in a rough voice said, “Your pride means everything to me.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Go, my daughter. Go to this ‘job’ of yours, and come home to me with stories of your night.”
Oh…God.
Just what he had said to her way back when she’d been in private school and her mother had been alive and they lived among the family and the glymera like people who mattered.
Even though she knew that by the time she got home likely as not he would have no memory of asking her his old lovely question, she smiled and ate up the tasty crumbs of the past.
“As always, Father mine. As always.”
She left to the sound of shifting pages and the tink-tink-tink of a quill nib on the edge of a crystal ink bottle.
Upstairs, she rinsed out the mug, dried it, and put it in the cupboard, then made sure that everything in the refrigerator was where it needed to be. When she received the text that Lusie was on her way, she ducked out the door, locked it, and dematerialized to the clinic.
As she came in to work, she felt such a relief at being like everyone else, showing up on time, putting things in her locker, talking about nothing in particular before the shift started.
Except then Catya came up to her when she was at the coffeepot, all smiles. “So…last night was…? Come on, do tell.”
Ehlena finished filling her mug and hid a wince behind a deep first draw that burned her tongue. “I think ‘no-show’ would cover it.”
“No-show?”
“Yup. As in, he didn’t show.”
Catya shook her head. “Damn it.”
“No, it’s fine. Really. I mean, it’s not like I had much invested.” Yeah, only a whole fantasy about the future that included things like a hellren, a family of her own, a life worth living. Nothing much at all. “It’s fine.”
“You know, I was thinking last night. I have a cousin who is—”
“Thanks, but no. With my dad the way he is, I shouldn’t be dating anyone.” Ehlena frowned, recalling how quickly Rehv had agreed with her on that. Even though you could argue that it made him some kind of gentleman, it was hard not be a little annoyed.
“Caring for your father doesn’t mean—”
“Hey, why don’t I go man the front desk during the shift change?”
Catya stopped, but the female’s light eyes were sending plenty of messages, most of which could be filed under, When Is This Girl Going to Wake Up?
“I’ll head out there now,” Ehlena said, turning away.
“It doesn’t last forever.”
“Of course not. Most of our shift is already here.”
Catya shook her head. “That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. Life doesn’t last forever. Your father has a serious psychological condition, and you’re very good with him, but he could stay like this for a century.”
“In which case I will still have about seven hundred years left. I’ll be at the front. ’Scuse me.”
Out in the reception, Ehlena took up res behind the computer and logged in. There was no one in the waiting room because the sun had only just gone down, but the patients would start coming in soon enough, and she couldn’t wait for the distraction.
Reviewing Havers’s schedule, she saw nothing unusual. Checkups. Patient procedures. Surgical follow-ups…
The exterior doorbell chimed, and she glanced at a security monitor. There was a walk-in outside, a male who was huddled into his coat against the cold wind.
She hit the intercom button and said, “Good evening. How may I help you?”
The face that looked up into the camera was one she had seen before. Three nights ago. Stephan’s cousin.
“Alix?” she said. “It’s Ehlena. How are—”
“I’m here to see if he’s been brought in.”
“He?”
“Stephan.”
“I don’t think so, but let me check while you come down.” Ehlena hit the lock release and went to the in-house patient list on the computer. One by one she reviewed the names as she released the series of doors for Alix.
No mention of Stephan as an inpatient.
As Alix walked into the waiting room, her blood ran cold the instant she saw the male’s face. The vicious dark circles under his gray eyes were about so much more than lack of sleep.
“Stephan didn’t come home last night,” he said.
Rehv lamented December, and not just because the cold in upstate New York was enough to make him want to go stuntman with the pyrotechnics just to get warm.
Night came early in December. The sun, that fucking work-shy, bone-idle pansy, gave up its efforts as early as four thirty in the afternoon, and that meant Rehv’s first-Tuesday-of-the-month date-mares started early.
It was just ten o’clock as he entered Black Snake State Park after a two-hour drive north from Caldwell. Trez, who always dematerialized up, was no doubt already in position around the cabin, making himself scarce and preparing to act as a guard.
As well as a witness.
The fact that the guy who was arguably his best friend had to watch the whole thing was just part of the cluster-fuck carousel, an added ball crusher. The trouble was, after it was all over, Rehv needed help getting back home, and Trez was good at that kind of shit.
Xhex wanted the job, of course, but you couldn’t trust her. Not around the princess. If he turned his back for one second the cabin would end up with a fresh new paint job on its walls—of the gruesome variety.
As always, Rehv parked in the dirt lot that was around the dark side of the mountain. There were no other cars, and he expected the trails fanning out from the lot’s ass to be empty also.
Staring out of the windshield, everything was red and flat to his eyes and though he despised his half sister and hated looking at her and wished that this dirty fucking business of theirs would just stop, his body was no
t numb and cold, but alive and humming: In his slacks, his hard cock was primed and ready for what was going to happen.
Now if only he could make himself get out of the car.
He put his hand on the door release, but couldn’t pull the lever back.
So quiet. Only the gentle, ticking sounds of the Bentley’s cooling engine disturbed the silence.
For no good reason, he thought of Ehlena’s lovely laughter, and that was what got him to open the door. With a quick lunge, he shoved his head out of the car just as his stomach clenched up tight as a fist and he nearly threw up. As the cold settled his nausea, he tried to get Ehlena out of his mind. She was so clean and honorable and kind that he couldn’t bear even having her in his thoughts when he was about to do this.
Which was a surprise.
Protecting someone from the cruel world, from the deadly and dangerous, from the tainted, the obscene, and the revolting wasn’t part of his hardwiring. But he’d taught himself to do just that when it came to the only three normal females in life. For the one who had borne him and the one he had raised as his own and the young his sister had recently birthed, he would level all manner of threats, kill with bare hands anything that would hurt them, seek out and destroy even the slightest menace.
And somehow the cozy conversation he’d had with Ehlena in the early hours had put her on that very, very short list.
Which meant he had to shut her out. Along with those other three.
He’d been fine living as a whore, because he exacted an expensive price out of the one he fucked, and besides, prostitution was nothing better than he deserved, considering the way his true father had forced his conception on his mother. But the buck stopped with him. He alone went into the cabin and made his body do what it did.
Those few normals in his life had to stay far, far away from this whole thing, and that meant wiping them out of his thoughts and his heart when he came up here. Later, after he’d recovered and showered and slept, then he could go back to remembering Ehlena’s toffee-colored eyes and the way she smelled of cinnamon and how she had laughed in spite of herself when they talked. For now, he shut her and his mother and his sister and his beloved niece out of his front lobe, packing up every memory he had into a separate section of his brain and locking them down.