by J. R. Ward
Not of her.
She released his erection right before he could find his relief from the rising tide of pleasure. And as she took a step back, he protested even though he was frightened of her. But she couldn’t stop now. She couldn’t leave him on the verge . . . could she?
“It’s been fun, Throe. So glad you came looking for me. You showed up just as I needed a way out.”
With that, she tilted her head up. Raising her arms, she bent her knees and propelled herself into a jump.
That took her airborne.
Throe’s scream echoed around the slick walls of the well as the female followed the trail he had lit with his body and soul, her graceful escape taking her up, up, up . . .
. . . and leaving him in her place.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Murhder and John took the stairs two at a time as Vishous stayed down below with the corpse of the male who had been killed by the shadow entity.
The brother seemed to be standing guard over the remains, as if he expected the dead aristocrat to sit back up and have a conversation or something. But Murhder didn’t argue as Tohr assigned the second floor to him and John.
On the top landing, he covered right. John covered left.
There was no more screaming, however. No moaning of someone injured. Nothing moving.
But only the inexperienced would take all that as dispositive. There were countless explanations for why someone would scream and then shut up. Especially if that someone was Throe, who had taken off running up here—
The whistling was soft, the kind of thing that could be generated either by an air vent or someone who was having an asthma attack.
Murhder looked to the right again.
But then John nodded in his direction and Murhder fell in behind the male, the pair of them crossing to the opposite side of the corridor so they went down the wall that was solid, as opposed to the one that had all the door breaks in it. Guns up, instincts on fire, they moved in perfect coordination, and Murhder had to smile, even though it made him a freak.
Except John looked over his shoulder. And winked.
Murhder lost his step.
He hadn’t seen that expression in years. Not since he and Darius had hunted slayers together—and wasn’t it great to see that male of worth live on through his blooded son? All you had to do was look at John and know that D was still alive and well . . . and with the brothers.
Abruptly, the whistling ended, and they both stopped. Without a word of communication, they split and back-flatted on either side of a closed door.
Inexplicably, the panels had a black rim around the jamb, as if there had been a fire inside and smoke had escaped. But there was no heat. In fact, it was noticeably colder here, a draft coming out from under the gap at the bottom. Which explained the sound they’d tracked.
Murhder pointed to himself and John nodded. Then he held up one finger . . . two . . .
On three, John swung around, kicked open the door, and Murhder went in first with his gun up—
“What the fuck,” he muttered as he hauled up short.
The window across the bedroom suite was wide open, the winter night barreling in on a stiff wind, the drapes billowing. And everywhere else, the antique furniture was in disarray, the bureau, the bed, the side tables . . . all crammed in a circle around an old writing desk with a burn mark on it.
John went across and punched open the door to a walk-in closet. When he shook his head indicating it was clear, Murhder proceeded further into the room, zeroing in on that desk as John checked out the bathroom.
Murhder lowered his weapon. The burn mark on the leather blotter was perfectly square, about two foot by one foot.
The size of a book—
A high-pitched whistle sounded out down the hall, and John sent three short bursts in reply. Moments later, Tohr came in with his guns up.
“What happened in here?” the brother said.
“No clue.” Murhder looked around again, searching for . . . fuck knew what. “Did you find Throe—”
Three gunshots went off directly below them on the first floor.
“Shit!” Murhder lunged for the way out. “The shadows are back—”
Tohr caught him and prevented him from leaving. “No. That’s . . . the male who died and did not stay that way.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tohr didn’t reply to that—verbally. Instead, the bald look in the brother’s eye stated plainly that nightmares could come true—and suddenly, Murhder knew without a doubt where John’s injury had come from.
“Shit,” he breathed.
After John had cleared a second closet, he came over to Tohr and Murhder and signed, How many injured downstairs?
“Xcor got shot, but at least it was just through the thigh,” Tohr answered. “I had to hold him back from going after Throe. We’ve also got a female who probably has a dislocated ankle. And then there’s you.”
John looked down at himself in a panic, his brain going a thousand miles an hour into the brick wall of another wound like the one he’d had.
Except then Murhder said, “Huh. What do you know. I got hit.”
The Brother poked at his shoulder, and that was when John started to smell the blood in the air. Sure enough, there was a round bullet hole in Murhder’s leather jacket—and John breathed deeply in relief. Conventional wound. Totally treatable—
Headlights flared across the walls of the room, the beams flashing through the open window.
“Surgical unit is on-site,” Tohr said to Murhder. “Let’s get you down there. You coming John?”
John pointed at the open window and then went over to close it. As the other two left, he gripped the sash and . . .
Leaning out, he looked down to the snow in the side yard. In the otherwise perfectly undisturbed blanket of white, there was a set of tracks that went from just below the window across the property. At the tree line that separated the estate from its splendiferous neighbor, the prints seemed to disappear, but it was hard to know if that was because whoever had made them had dematerialized or just walked into the evergreens.
All of that was odd, for sure. First of all, if Throe had wanted to leave the scene, he could have just ghosted out. Why open the window? There was no steel mesh. And if the male were injured and therefore couldn’t dematerialize? There would be blood—or the prints would have been messy, indicating a shuffle.
But none of that was what really got John’s attention.
The true weirdness made him rub his eyes and refocus, just to make sure he was seeing things properly.
The footsteps appeared to glow like phosphorus.
John shut the window and strode out of the room. Downstairs, he entered the secured area in what turned out to be a library. Rhage, V, Blay, and Qhuinn were guarding the assembled civilians, all of whom appeared shaken in their formal evening clothes. Doc Jane was assessing each of the guests with Manny no doubt doing procedures as necessary in the mobile surgical unit.
Tohr was talking on his phone, and John waited for the Brother to end the call. “Hey, son, what’s up.”
John indicated the front door with a nod of his head, and the pair of them went out and around to the side yard. There was no reason to point at the tracks. They were still glowing.
“What the hell is this?” Tohr muttered.
The Brother strode forward, getting down on his haunches as he checked out the start of the prints under the second-story window. Then he and John followed them to the tree line, ducking under the pine boughs and looking for signs that they continued through the undergrowth.
Nope.
They ended.
Back out from under, they watched as the glow dimmed. And then disappeared altogether.
“This makes no damn sense.” Tohr got out his phone again and triggered the flashlight. Lowering himself down, he shook his head. “On too many levels to count.”
John bent over and stared at the prints, also.
<
br /> WTF?
Up close, it was clear they weren’t made by loafers or boots, but what they seemed to be from . . . well, it was a case of no damned sense, as Tohr said.
The print had a triangular front pad and a point for the back.
As if whoever had made them had been wearing stilettos.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Back in Ithaca, Sarah was wide awake and busy, busy, busy. Then again, a whole lot of her life was off course from the path she’d set for herself, her ship blown into unfamiliar waters, her map lost overboard, her compass broken.
So yes, she was packing up her house at—what time was it? Ah, one thirty a.m.
She’d tried the whole sleeping thing. First upstairs in her bed with Murhder’s plaited hair underneath her pillow; then two hours later, down on the couch in front of the TV. Neither had worked in the slightest. Eventually, she hadn’t been able to stand herself for one more minute longer.
She was in so much emotional pain, she couldn’t stay still, her body moving, jerking, shifting in whatever position she stretched out in. She missed Murhder so badly it hurt, and she was struck by the fact that it was all so much more painful than the aftermath of Gerry’s death.
By an incalculable degree.
Thus, a Mr. Clean kind of thing had struck her as a productive use of her insomnia. And initially, she’d decided to start with Spic n’ Span’ing the kitchen, on her hands and knees, going all Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest.
Helga, when you polish the floor, you have to move the tree.
God, she couldn’t believe she still remembered that quote.
But when she’d opened the cupboard under the sink for the Bona, she saw a clutter of containers, and steel wool packages, and paper towels. Getting to her feet, she’d ended up going through every drawer, every shelf, each nook and cranny.
Only to become overwhelmed by the amount of stuff she was going to have to organize to move out. And in a way, it was a relief to have a big job, even though compared to most people, she probably didn’t have a ton of extra things. Not like, if she’d had a child—
She’d thought of Nate at that point.
Which was how she’d ended up here on the second floor: She’d tried to leave the mourning for that young male in the kitchen where it had kicked off. Besides, start at the top, work your way down, right?
Except what awaited her upstairs turned out to be worse.
Going through her clothes seemed like a good idea, the out, safe, giveaway decisions the kind of thing that her exhausted, yet wired, brain could handle because, hello, it wasn’t brain surgery. Plus, she’d saved some of the U-Haul boxes she and Gerry had used when they’d moved in up in the attic, so she could bring that whole touch-only-once efficiency to the endeavor.
Feeling like she was back on “a” course, if not “the” course, she pulled down the ladder steps from the ceiling in the hall and walked herself up into the cold, raftered attic of her house.
At which point, she got kicked in the chest again.
Sure, there were empty boxes, the lids unfolded, their bellies open. But there was also one that was closed up.
“Damn it.”
Still standing on the ladder, her body half in and half out of the attic, she told herself to keep with the plan. Get the empties and drop them down. Go to her closet. Organize.
Instead, she ascended the last three rungs, and went over to the box with the taped lid. Before she knew what she was doing—and thereby could block the impulse—her fingers pulled up the masking tape and popped the folded sleeves free.
The box was one of U-Haul’s wardrobe varieties, a dowel running across the top so that you could put hangers on it.
There was only one thing suspended within its four sides. Sometime in the last two years, the jacket to Gerry’s wedding suit had slipped off its hanger and slid down its matching slacks to pool in the bottom.
Sarah closed her eyes and sagged.
After he’d died, his parents had insisted on coming over from Germany to claim the body and visit the house which they had not yet seen in person. Sarah had invited them to go through Gerry’s things, thinking that they would want to keep a few of his belongings. She had left the house to give them some privacy—and returned an hour later to find that they had packed up all his clothes and anything that he had had with him through college.
She’d had the sense that his mother had viewed this as a service to Sarah. A way of tidying up the mess that his death had caused in all their lives.
The only thing the woman could have done to keep herself in one piece.
Sarah had known that he still had a few things at work, little mementos on his desk. She figured she would keep them, and then she had pictures on her phone, her computer. Her memories. Plus, how did you fight with someone’s mother over their socks, for godsakes.
So she had let it go, and they had taken everything with them, including his laundry out of the clothes hamper. She’d never forgot those suitcases they’d bought at Target. It had been kind of sad to think that all of Gerry’s worldly possessions could fit into three medium-sized Samsonites. Then again, he’d been a thinker. Possessions had not been a priority for him.
It had been a surprise a week later, then, to go into the closet in their bedroom and find his wedding suit tucked behind her one long dress, two dress blouses, and her own interview suit that she’d last had on when she’d come for an on-site visit to BioMed.
Gerry’s mom had missed the jacket and slacks because everything else of her son’s had been in his bureau outside.
Sarah had put the matching set away up here a couple days later. It wasn’t that she’d wanted to forget him. It was the wedding. The almost-made-it reality of that ceremony and reception had been too painful, although not because she was mourning the fact that they’d never made it to the altar due to his death.
It was more that she hadn’t been sure they were going to make it if he’d lived.
And so . . . up here.
In this box.
Hanging from a dowel on a Macy’s hanger.
She took the hanger out and smoothed the slacks. There had been a Black Friday sale the day after Thanksgiving, and she’d made him go to the mall with her to take advantage of the savings in the men’s department. He hadn’t even owned an interview suit. He’d gone to BioMed in jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt with a hole in the sleeve. Then again, when you were a genius and people were not hiring you for your sartorial sense, what did all the navy blue and the lapels and the pinstriped ties in the world matter.
Gerry could be odd. Disinterested in things other people normally did.
A pain in the ass, to be honest.
But God, his brain. He had had the most magnificent brain. And as she thought about what he had been like, she realized that his intelligence had been a huge part of his appeal to her. He’d been an outlier as sure as a male model was, an unusual combination of attributes that resulted in a spectacularly special human being.
Except boy, the shopping trip. That excursion had been the first tip-off that things were really bad between them. Or rather . . . the first tip-off that was a conscious thought of hers instead of a weighty feeling she had resolutely ignored.
He’d never worn the suit, obviously. Had barely tried it on before they’d had to come back here so he could return to his study, his computer, his work.
Running her hand down the slacks, she found the fine wool smooth. There were no cuffs yet on the bottoms of the legs because they’d needed to get it fitted, but she’d known better than to try to get him to wait until the in-store tailor had been done with another customer.
There would be time, she’d told herself.
Nope. No time.
With a curse, she bent down into the box and picked up the jacket, pulling it out—
Something dropped to the bare floorboards.
An envelope.
Nate had no idea where he was or what he was doing.
Okay,
he was outside in the woods somewhere and it was cold. Oh, so very cold. He had on a borrowed parka that was puffy as a cloud. Borrowed shirt and pants that were huge in terms of size and yet fit him. Borrowed underwear. Borrowed boots.
He had been out here for now three hours and forty-five minutes. Give or take.
So in a way, he had grown used to how much he didn’t like looking around. Too much of a vista, and everything was overwhelming: the spindly trees, the fluffy trees, the spiky undergrowth, the sense that there was an incalculable distance to be traveled in any direction. And he really didn’t like looking up at the vast sky above: The incalculable number of little pinpoints of light shining through a dense blackness made him worry he was going to fly off the earth and get lost up there.
And the smells. The complex bouquet of earth, animal, and air was just too much for his brain to handle. His heart was pounding like he was being chased, he was too hot under the parka, his eyes were darting everywhere and making him dizzy.
Then again, he had been working hard.
As his eyes watered, he brushed at them with impatience. The cold dry wind. Yes, that was it.
He absolutely was not crying. From fear of how big the world was. From anger that he had been cheated out of twenty years of his life. From sadness that he was out here for his mahmen.
“They should arrive soon,” a female voice said. “Any minute.”
Nate looked over his shoulder. Xhex, the female who had been kept in the same lab as his mahmen, stood with her back to the wind. Her short hair was smudged by the gusts, moving this way . . . another way. She was dressed in black leather, and her face was grim.
He wondered, if his mahmen had survived for another two decades, whether she would have turned out to be as tough as this female clearly was. Or would she have remained as he remembered, kind, gentle, but scared.
He wanted to ask what Xhex recalled about his mahmen and the lab, but he had a feeling he didn’t want to know. He’d seen enough for himself. He’d had enough done to him.