by J. R. Ward
“May I…” Beth’s voice broke. “May I clean up your face?”
Absently, he wiped his cheek and felt wetness. Blood. He was still bleeding. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”
There was a soft shuffle as the two females walked over to the door, then the click of the lock as one of them turned the handle.
“I love you, Beth,” Wrath said quickly.
“I love you, too.”
“It’s…going to be all right.”
With another click, the door shut back into place.
Wrath sat down on the floor right where he was, because he didn’t trust himself to circumnavigate the library to get in a better position. As he settled in, the crackle from the fire gave him some frame of reference…and then he realized he could picture the room in his mind.
If he reached out to the right…yup. His hand brushed against one of the smooth legs of the table by the sofa. He rode the length up to the boxy bottom and patted across the surface of the thing to find…yes, the coasters Fritz kept stacked neatly there. And a small leather book…and the lamp base.
This was comforting. In some strange way, he had felt as if the world had disappeared just because he couldn’t see it. But in fact everything was all there still.
Closing his eyes, he sent out a request.
It was a long while before it was responded to, a long, long while before he was spirited away and found himself standing on a hard floor, beside a fountain that chattered softly. He had wondered if he would be blind here on the Other Side as well, and he was. Still, as with the layout of the library, he knew what the place looked like, even if he couldn’t see it. Over there to the right was a tree full of chirping birds, and in front of him, past the sprinkling fountain, would be the loggia with the columns that was part of the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters.
“Wrath, son of Wrath.” He did not hear the mother of the race approach, but then she levitated around such that her black robes never touched whatever floor was beneath her. “You have come unto me for what purpose.”
She knew damn well why he was here, and he wasn’t playing her game anymore. “I want to know if you did this to me.”
The birds fell silent, as if shocked by his temerity.
“Did what to you.” Her voice sounded the same as it had when she’d appeared at the Tomb with Vishous: distant and disinterested. Which kinda pissed a guy off when he was having trouble making it down his own stairs.
“My fucking sight. Did you take it away from me because I went out to fight?” He ripped his wraparounds off his face and tossed them across the slick floor. “Did you do this to me.”
In days gone by she would have lashed him until he bled for that kind of insubordination, and as he waited to see what came at him, he almost hoped she licked his ass with a lightning bolt.
There was no smiting, however. “What was going to be was going to be. Your fighting had nothing to do with your loss of sight, and neither did I. Now go back to your world and leave me to mine.”
He knew she had turned away, because her voice faded as she headed off in the opposite direction.
Wrath frowned. He’d come expecting a fight, and he wanted one. Instead? He got nothing to engage with, not even a row over his deliberate disrespect.
The radical shift in paradigm was so stark, for a moment he forgot all about his blindness. “What is wrong with you?”
He got no answer, just a door shutting softly.
In the Scribe Virgin’s absence, the birds stayed quiet, the delicate sound of falling water all that grounded him. Until someone else approached.
On instinct, he turned to the footfalls and assumed his fighting stance, surprised to find that he wasn’t as defenseless as he’d thought. In the absence of sight, his hearing filled out the picture that was no longer created by his eyes: He knew where the person was by the rustle of their robing and an odd click, click, click and…shit, he could even hear their heartbeat.
Strong. Steady.
What was a male doing here?
“Wrath, son of Wrath.” Not a male voice. A female one. And yet the impression he had was masculine. Or maybe it was just powerful?
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Payne.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me something, you plan on doing anything with those fists? Or are you just going to stand there?”
He dropped his arms immediately, as it was entirely inappropriate to raise a hand to a female—
The uppercut slammed into his jaw so hard, it whipped his head and shoulders around. Stunned, more out of surprise than pain, he fought to regain his balance. The second he did, there was a whizzing sound and he was pounded again, the next blow catching him under his jaw and kicking his skull back.
That was all she got in with the clean shots, though. His defensive instincts and his years of training responded even though he couldn’t see anything, his hearing functioning as his eyes, telling him where things like arms and legs were. He grabbed a surprisingly thin wrist and wrenched the female around—
Her heel made hard contact with his shin, the pain spearing up his leg and pissing him off as something like a rope swung into his face. He grabbed it and hoped it was a braid attached to the female’s—
Yanking it hard, he felt her body torque backward. Yup, attached to her head. Perfect.
Getting her off-kilter was easy, but man, she was a strong motherfucker. With only one leg supporting her weight, she managed to jump and spin, clipping him in the shoulder with her knee.
He heard her land and start to scramble, but he kept a hold on her hair, reining her in. She was like water, though, always fluid, always moving, hitting him time and time again until he was forced to manhandle her onto the ground and pin her down.
It was a case of brute strength winning out over grace.
Panting, he looked into a face he couldn’t see. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I’m bored.” With that, she head-butted him right in the goddamn nose.
Pain made him feel like he was on a merry-go-round, his hold briefly lessening. Which was all she needed to get free again. Now he was the one on the bottom, her forearm cranked around his throat and pulling back so hard, she must have had a grip on her wrist for greater leverage.
Wrath strained to get air down into his lungs. Holy shit, she was going to kill him if she kept this up. She really was.
Deep within himself, deep down into his very marrow, deep into the double helixes of his DNA, the response came. He was not going to die here and now. No fucking way. He was a survivor. He was a fighter. And whoever this bitch was, she was not going to issue him his ticket to the Fade.
Wrath let out a war cry in spite of the iron bar across his neck, and moved so fast he had no idea what he did. All he knew was that a split second later, the female was facedown on the marble with both her arms twisted up behind her back.
For absolutely no reason, he thought of however many nights ago, when he’d popped the arms off that lesser in the alley before he’d killed the fucker.
He was going to do exactly the same to her—
The laughter rippling up from underneath him was what stopped him. The female…was laughing. And not like someone who’d lost her mind. She was honestly having a good time, even though she must have known she was about to pass out from the kind of pain he was going to inflict on her.
Wrath loosened his hold only slightly. “You are a sick bitch, you know that?”
Her hard body quaked under his as she kept on laughing. “I know.”
“If I let you go, are we going to just end up here again?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Strange, but he kind of liked those odds, and after a moment, he released her as he would have a stallion with a bad temper: quickly and with a fast out-of-the-way on his part. As he planted his feet, he was ready for her to come at him again, and sort of hoping she did.
The female stayed where she was,
on the marble floor, and he heard that clicking again.
“What is that?” he asked.
“I have this habit of flicking my ring finger nail against the underside of the one on my thumb.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Hey, are you going to come here again anytime soon?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because that was more fun than I’ve had since…a long time.”
“Who are you again? And why haven’t I seen you here before?”
“Let’s just say She has never known what to do with me.”
It was clear given the female’s tone who the She was. “Well, Payne, I can come back for more of this.”
“Good. Make it soon.” He heard her get to her feet. “By the way, your glasses are right by your left foot.”
There was a rustle and the quiet shutting of a door.
Wrath picked the wraparounds up and then let his legs have a time-out, taking a seat on the marble. Funny, he enjoyed the ache in his leg and the sting on his shoulder and the pounding pulse points of each and every one of his bruises. They were all familiar, part of his history and his present, and what he was going to need in the unfamiliar, frighteningly dark future.
His body was still his own. It still worked. He could still fight, and maybe with practice he could get back to where he had been.
He hadn’t died.
He was still alive. Yes, he couldn’t see, but he could still touch his shellan and make love to her. And he could still think and walk and talk and hear. His arms and legs worked just fine, and so did his lungs and heart.
The adjustment was not going to be easy. One really awesome fight was not going to clear away what was going to be months and months of awkward learning and frustration and anger and missteps.
But he had perspective. Unlike the bloody nose he’d gotten falling down the stairs, the one he had now didn’t seem like a symbol of all he’d lost. It was more like a representation of everything he still had.
As Wrath came back to his form in the library of the Brotherhood’s mansion, he was smiling, and when he got to his feet, he chuckled as one of his legs hollered in pain.
Concentrating, he took two limping steps to the left and…found the couch. Took ten forward and…found the door. Opened the door, took fifteen straight ahead, and…found the balustrade to the grand staircase.
He could hear the meal that was being eaten in the dining room, the soft chiming of silver on porcelain filling the void where chatter usually was. And he could smell the…oh, yeah, lamb. That’s what he was talking about.
As he took thirty-five measured crab steps to the left, he started to laugh, especially as he swiped his face and the blood dripped off his hand.
He knew exactly when they all saw him. Forks and knives dropped on plates and bounced, and chairs scraped backward and curses filled the air.
Wrath just laughed and laughed and laughed some more. “Where’s my Beth?”
“Oh, sweet Lord,” she said as she came to him. “Wrath…what happened—”
“Fritz,” he called out as he fit his queen against him. “Will you make me a plate? I’m hungry. And get me towel so I can mop up.” He squeezed Beth. “Take me to my seat, would you, my love?”
Lots of silence that positively rang with holy-shit-what-is-this.
Hollywood was the one who asked, “Who the hell used your face as a soccer ball?”
Wrath just shrugged and rubbed his shellan’s back. “I made a new friend.”
“Hell of friend.”
“She is.”
“She?”
Wrath’s stomach let out a grumble. “Look, can I join the meal here or what?”
Something about sustenance snapped everyone back in focus, and there was all kinds of talk and bustling, and then Beth was leading him down the room. As he sat, a damp washcloth was put into his hand, and the heavenly scent of rosemary and lamb appeared right in front of him.
“For God’s sake, will you sit down,” he told them as he mopped up his face and neck. When there were all kinds of chair noises, he found his knife and fork and prodded around his plate, identifying the lamb and the baby new potatoes and…the peas. Yup, the roly-polies were peas.
The lamb was delicious. Just as he liked it.
“You sure that was a friend,” Rhage said.
“Yup,” he said, squeezing Beth’s hand. “I’m sure.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
Twenty-four hours in Manhattan was enough to turn even the son of evil into a new male.
Behind the wheel of the Mercedes, with a trunk and backseat full of bags from Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani, and Hermès, Lash was a happy camper. He’d crashed at the Waldorf in a suite, fucked three women—two at the same time—and eaten like a king.
As he got off the Northway at the exit for the symphath colony, he checked the time on his brand-spanking-new gold Cartier Tank, the replacement for that fake Jacob & Co. bling shit, which was so beneath him.
What the hour hand was showing wasn’t so bad, but the date was trouble: He was going to catch shit from the symphath king, but he so didn’t care. For the first time since he’d been turned by the Omega, he felt like himself. He was wearing twill slacks from Marc Jacobs and an LV silk shirt and an Hermès cashmere vest and slipper loafers from Dunhill. His cock was drained, his belly was still full from the dinner he’d had at Le Cirque, and he knew he could go back to the Big Apple and do it all over again in the blink of an eye.
Provided his boys stayed tight in the game.
At least things seemed to be going along okay on that front. Mr. D had called about an hour ago and reported that product continued to move swiftly. Which was a good news/bad news sitch. They had more cash, but their supply was dwindling fast.
Lessers, however, were familiar with persuasion and that was why the last guy who’d been willing to see them for a large buy hadn’t been popped, but nabbed.
Mr. D and the others were going to be working him out, and not in the gym.
Which made Lash think about his time in the city.
The war with the vampires would always be in Caldwell, unless the Brothers chose to move. But Manhattan was one of the drug capitals of the world, and it was close, very close. Only an hour’s drive.
Naturally, the trip down south had been about more than the Fifth Avenue shoppies. He’d spent most of the evening going from club to club, checking the scenes, looking for patterns in who went where—because that would tell you what people were buying. Ravers liked X. Slick, twitchy new money liked coke and X. College kids preferred weed and ’shrooms, but you could also move Oxy and meth to them. Goths and emos were into X and razor blades. And the junkies who were in all the alleys around the clubs were into crack, crank, and H.
If he could make inroads in Caldie first, he could do the same for more return in Manhattan. And there was no reason not to think big.
Turning off onto the dirt lane he’d been down before, he reached under the seat and brought out the spank SIG forty he’d bought the night before on the way down to the city.
There was no reason to change into fighting clothes. A good assassin didn’t need to break a sweat to do his job.
The white farmhouse still sat all lovely amidst the now-snow-covered landscape, a perfect Christmas-card candidate for humans. In the lingering night, pale smoke drifted up out of one of its chimneys, the whiffs catching and amplifying the soft moonlight, creating shadows that scampered across the roof. On the other side of the windows, the golden illumination of candles shifted as if there were a subtle breeze moving throughout all the rooms. Or maybe that was just those damn spiders.
Man, in spite of all the home-and-hearth appearance, the place really was tweaked with dread, wasn’t it.
As he parked the Mercedes by the monastical order sign and got out, snow fluffed over the tops of his brand-new Dunhills. As he shook the shit off with a curse, he wondered why in the hell the fucking symphaths couldn’t have been quarantined in
Miami.
But nooooooooo, the sin-eaters got parked an ass crack away from Canada.
Then again, no one liked them, so the logic did follow.
The farmhouse door opened and the king appeared, his white robes wafting around, his glowing red eyes oddly resplendent. “You are late. By a factor of days.”
“Whatever, your candles are holding up just fine.”
“And my time is not so valuable as wasted wax?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“But your actions, they speak loudly.”
Lash mounted the stairs with his gun in his hand and felt like he wanted to double-check that his fly was up as the king watched his body move. And yet, when he was standing head-to-head with the guy, the current sparked between them again, licking in the cold air.
Fuckin’ A. He didn’t drive that kind of stick. Really, he didn’t.
“So, we going to take care of business?” Lash murmured, staring into those bloodred eyes and trying not to be captivated.
The king smiled and raised his three-knuckled fingers to the diamonds at his throat. “Yes, I do believe we shall. Come this way and I shall take you to your target. He is abed—”
“I thought you only wore red, Princess. And what the fuck are you doing here, Lash?”
As the king stiffened, Lash shifted around, leading with his gun. Coming up the lawn was…a massive male with glowing amethyst eyes and an unmistakable signature mohawk: Rehvenge, son of Rempoon.
Bastard wasn’t at all surprised to find himself on symphath ground. On the contrary, he looked quite at home. As well as pissed off.
Princess?
A quick look over Lash’s shoulder showed him…nothing that he hadn’t seen before. Thin guy, white robes, hair twisted up like a…girl’s, actually.
In this circumstance, it would be nice to have been snowed. Much better to want to fuck a female liar than have to confront the fact that he was a…Yeah, no reason to go there, even in his own mind.
Whipping his head back around, Lash knew the timing of this little weird-ass interruption was perfect. Getting Rehv out of the drug game would free up all kinds of commerce space in Caldwell.