by J. R. Ward
Maybe she was next on that list.
Left to contrast that very real possibility with everything her sister was looking forward to, she considered going to the weight room for a second workout—when the calendar date popped into her mind for no good reason.
Closing her eyes, she felt herself sag.
She had gotten pregnant three years ago on this very night.
When Oskar, the male her sister was going to mate, had serviced her in her needing.
After which, he had promptly left her for different shores, as it were. Naturally, she had never told him that she was with young, and so he had no idea what had happened eleven months later.
As her stomach clenched and she considered throwing up, she thought, God, all of those events, from the pregnancy to the…nightmare…that became of it seemed to have happened to someone else—and a stranger, at that. She was different now than she had been. Stronger. Tougher. More resilient. Getting into the Brotherhood’s training program had been proof of how far she had come, and fighting on the streets of Caldwell was a nightly reminder that she wasn’t backsliding.
She was going to go to that mating ceremony. And she was going to be the maid of whatever the hell.
This was her final test. If she could manage to survive the ritual that united the pair of them for the rest of their lives? Then the fool she had once been was truly well and buried—and the loss that had nearly killed her was finally and forever locked away.
No weakness. No quarter given or taken. Nothing left of what she was…and no more fear that she could be hurt like that again.
Novo looked at the scoreboard that still had the last game’s results on it. Home and Away. Home team had won by ten.
She was going to be fine, she resolved as she headed for the exit.
Oh, and she was absolutely going to forget she knew what Peyton felt like. Abso-fucking-lutely.
The following evening, Saxton materialized over to the Audience House early, taking his form in the back by the Federal mansion’s detached two-story garage. Doggen had come during the afternoon and plowed the blizzard’s snowfall away, but he was careful as he walked over to the kitchen’s entrance. Hot Gucci loafer soles were slicker than greased lightning on anything smooth and icy—and given how perfectly Fritz insisted things had to be done? The driveway and the parking area were like a sheet cake iced by Ina Garten.
As he entered a code and opened the door, he knew he was the first to come into work, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been plenty of people in and out during daylight hours. Indeed, as he shut himself in, there were fresh pastries on silver trays, all carefully plastic-wrapped for freshness, a restaurant-sized coffeepot ready to be plugged in for brewing, and baskets of apples and bananas set to be arranged in the waiting room.
The first audiences wouldn’t convene until eight p.m., but Saxton liked to make sure all the paperwork for each private meeting with the King was in order and that everything would run seamlessly, both for Wrath’s sake and for the subjects’. With as many as twenty different issues a night, there was a lot to keep track of. Certain audiences, like those seeking a blessing for a mating or the birth of a young, were straightforward and went relatively fast. Others, like those concerning the disposition of assets following a death, bloodline disputes, or incidences involving bodily harm, could be quite involved and require much follow-up and monitoring.
Proceeding into the staff corridor, he opened the first door on the right and flipped on the lights. His office was utterly devoid of accoutrement, no paintings or drawings on the walls, no objets d’art on the built-in partner’s desk, nothing but law books on the plain shelves. There wasn’t even a rug. Just two rolling office chairs on either side of the work space, a monitor he could plug his laptop into so he didn’t get eye strain, and a series of locked cabinets containing files that were live.
All of his in-session notation was done by hand as the sound of tapping keys, no matter how soft, drove Wrath absolutely insane. So Saxton took notes with a Montblanc and then transposed them afterward, and there was a measurable benefit to the double-work. For one, he had a hard copy of everything in the event of a computer failure—not that V would allow that with his precious anti-Apple network and equipment—but more importantly, as Saxton typed up his cursive handwriting, he reinforced everything in his own head.
Sitting down, he took his laptop out of his briefcase and hooked it up to the keyboard that had been mounted on a slide under the desk as well as that screen that didn’t give him a headache.
And then he stalled out.
“Come now,” he muttered to himself.
Turning on the Lenovo, he got into his Outlook and was greeted by twenty or so work emails, a flyer from the Met, an ad for 1stdibs, and notices from Sotheby’s paintings department and Christie’s online watches sale.
He ignored all of that.
The bolded line that grabbed his eye and refused to let go was from Blay Lock, and the subject read Follow-up.
It had come in about an hour after Saxton had left the mansion the night before, but he hadn’t been able to open the thing at home. Just the sight of the name made his loneliness condense into an ice-cold spear that nailed him square in the chest—and indeed, he would have much preferred to move the thing into junk mail and pretend he’d never received it. Avoiding his duty unto the law, however, was not an option, not even with his emotions tangled and twisted into this heartache he was so used to—and Blay was clearly seeking a legal opinion on whatever it was.
Calling the message up, it took him a minute to focus on the words that had been typed, and then the first thing he noticed was that there were no spelling mistakes, no grammatical issues, and perfect punctuation within the sentences. But that was Blay. He was a measured and methodical kind of male, who liked to do things properly and to their completion. And sure enough, the way he presented the facts and made the request was logical, respectful…
Saxton frowned as he read the five short paragraphs again.
And then once more.
Evidently, Blay’s parents had moved a number of months ago into a house in a human development out on the very edge of suburbia. Saxton had never been there, of course, as that had been after his time, but he had overheard Blay tell folks that it was beautiful, with a pond out in the back, and a porch, and lots of room. His mahmen was not totally in love with the place, because it was too new, but she was adjusting.
The problem concerned a neighbor of his parents’, an older female who resided on the large tract of land next to the neighborhood. Human developers who were acquiring acreage in the area were pressuring the female to sell her property to them so they could continue to expand and build a golf course and country club complex. But she didn’t want to leave. She was living in the farmhouse that she and her mate had constructed back in the late 1800s and it was all she had left of him and their lives together. According to Blay, she didn’t have too many years left, maybe only a decade or so, and her only wish was to stay where she was. Her granddaughter was worried about her safety, though.
The humans were banging on the door in the daylight hours, harassing her on the phone and through the mail, and sending her packages with threatening papers in them. It had been going on for a good six months and seemed to be escalating, in spite of the fact that the female had made it clear she wasn’t going to move. Blay’s father, Rocke, had even gone over to try to intercede one evening, chasing off a car, but nothing seemed to get through to the humans.
Saxton shook his head. It wasn’t like the female or her family could go to the human police: Hi, I don’t exist in your world technically, but I am bound by your property laws and am having some trouble with trespassers. Can you help me out?
Oh, and don’t mind my fangs.
He could only imagine how worried the family was. Older female, alone, human agitators tormenting her while all she was trying to do was spend the last remaining years she had in peace.
And there
was no telling where this would stop.
Humans were a lesser species, for certain. But they could be deadly.
As Saxton began to form a plan in his head, he tried to ignore the fact that his sense of purpose was contaminated by an irrational desire to be indispensable to Blay; to solve this problem, not just because it was his job, but because it might impress his former lover.
Which, naturally, in this fantasy hypothetical, led to Blay breaking off his bonded relationship with Qhuinn, leaving those two beautiful young behind, and volunteering to run away from Caldwell with Saxton.
Yes, all of that would come from one, perfectly modulated return email.
Well, that and successfully running off those thugs from the male’s parents’ neighbor.
As he rolled his eyes at himself, he started typing.
Romantic delusions aside, he was going to take this to Wrath and see what could be done. At the very least, he could do right by that defenseless older female, and there was consolation in that.
After he hit send, he swiveled around and pulled the venetian blinds up high enough so that he could see out to the snowy landscape. Everything had a thick layer of powder on it, the day having been cold, according to the human online weather reports. In the glow from the other stately homes, the landscape fluoresced blue.
Loneliness was just like winter, he decided. Cold and pervasive, trapping you inside your own head because what was outside was so inhospitable.
Was he never going to be warm again?
—
About three blocks over, in another mansion of similar size and distinction, though of Tudor, not Federal, style, Peyton stepped out of his shower and reached for a monogrammed towel. As he dried himself off, the air in his bathroom was so thick with steam, it was like being in a fogbank, the mirrors veiled with moisture, every breath as much water as it was oxygen, his skin tingling from the heat.
He’d just gotten home from the training center, the bus having dropped the lot of them off at a strip mall a couple of miles away, and he had an hour before he was supposed to be downtown in the field with the Brotherhood. He was hungry, hungover, and tired to the point of exhaustion—and that shower hadn’t done shit to fix any of that.
And then there was his other little issue.
“Goddamn it.”
With a series of nasty jerks, he wadded up the damp towel and threw it as hard as he could across the marble expanse. And then he just stood there, buck-ass naked, his feet planted on the heated floor, his hands locked on his hips so he didn’t start trashing the place.
That…whatever it had been…in the PT room with Novo refused to go away. Every time he blinked, he saw her lying back on that table, her eyes closed, her face as composed as a fucking corpse’s. And the visuals weren’t the worst of it. That cynical, hard voice of hers kept banging around his head, mocking him, calling him out, making him feel like a fool.
After he’d left her, he’d gone to the break room, polished off the last of the vodka, and then headed three doors down to crash in a vacant inpatient bed. Throughout the day, the muffled screams of that psychotic male patient had warred with nightmares that involved Peyton being unclothed and in the midst of stinging wasps. Both had kept waking him up, and it was a toss-up as to which was worse.
When it had finally become dark enough for the bus to depart, he had sat right in front, in the first row of seats—because Novo was always toward the rear. And during the entire trip back toward town, he had been aware of her presence, sure as if her body were a beacon. But he hadn’t heard her say one word.
The good news? He’d been so preoccupied that he’d barely given the mess with Paradise a second thought.
And now he was here, trying to get his head to calm the hell down so he didn’t get himself killed when he went out to engage with the enemy—
The knock on his outer bedroom door was discreet, which told him who it was. Fucking great. “Yes,” he snapped.
The doggen on the other side spoke in a haughty, well-modulated tone. “My Lord, forgive me. But your father wishes for an audience prior to your departure.”
Okay, so one, the butler wasn’t asking for forgiveness, at all. And two, this was a direct order. There was no fucking “wish” involved.
Peyton put his hands on the sink counter and braced his weight on his arms. “Did he say why?” he gritted. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
This was both true and not the point. The only thing guaranteed to make his head fuck worse than it already was? A royal summons from Daddy-o, the agenda of which was either Peyton’s drinking or his drug use. These command performances had been a fairly regular occurrence over the past few years, and they always went sooooooooo well.
And come on. He had been a lot better since he had joined the training program. Well, at least until his cousin Allishon’s murder. He’d fallen off the wagon since then, but who could blame him? He was the one who’d gone to her apartment and seen all of the bloodstains. And yeah, sure, fine, the fact that he was sweating out last night’s vodka at the moment didn’t bode well if he was hoping for a pass on the addiction front—or an at least partially credible counter-argument.
“My Lord?” his father’s butler prompted.
He cursed. “Tell him I have to get dressed first.”
“As you wish.”
Oh, he didn’t wish. Not fucking at all.
A good half hour later, Peyton meandered down to the first floor, and he took his sweet frickin’ time making it over to the closed doors of his father’s study. At any moment, he expected the butler to jump out from the pantry with a stopwatch and—
“He has been expecting you.”
Bingo.
Peyton looked over his shoulder at the hall monitor. The doggen was looming as only an old-school servant of a Founding Family dressed in a uniform could, his average height pumped up to LeBron standards thanks to that holier-than-thou attitude.
“Yeah,” Peyton drawled, “you mentioned that before. That’s why I came down.”
Man, if that doggen’s disapproval was any thicker, it would qualify as a coat of asphalt.
“I shall let him know you’ve arrived,” the butler murmured as he stepped forward and knocked. “My Lord?”
“Send him in,” came the muffled response.
The butler swung open the carved panels, revealing a grand expanse of mahogany, Oriental rugs, leather-bound books, and brass chandeliers. Long and tall, the room had an upper story of shelves accessible by a curved set of brass steps and serviced by a walkway with an ornate rail that went all the way around the second level.
As Peyton looked up at that gold-leafed balustrade, he was reminded of when he’d been young and convinced that a giant king’s crown had been imported from somewhere and installed in the family’s house.
Because he and his bloodline were just that special.
“Peyton. Sit down.”
He shifted his eyes to his father. The male was sitting behind a desk that was as big as a king-sized bed, his back straight, his hands linked on the blood-red blotter. Peythone was dressed in a dark suit and had a tie knotted precisely at his throat, the button-down and the pocket square white. A discreet Cartier watch peeked out from the French cuffs, and the cuff links were gold with Burmese rubies.
When his father indicated the vacant chair across from the desk, Peyton realized he hadn’t moved.
“How are you, Father,” he said as he walked forward.
“I am well. How kind of you to ask.”
“What is this all about?”
“Sit.”
“Actually, I’m good right here.” As he stood to the side of that chair, he crossed his arms over his chest. “What can I do for you?”
“You may sit down.” His father nodded at the silk-covered seat. “And then we can talk.”
Peyton looked around and got absolutely no support from the portraits that hung in front of the books, the softly crackling fireplace, the seating arrangements
of armchairs and side tables.
Grinding his molars, he moved around and slowly lowered himself into the chair. The way he saw it, he might as well face the music, whatever it was—
“Must you wear those clothes in the house.”
Peyton glanced down at himself. The leather jacket, heavy combat pants and steel-toed boots were standard issue in the training program.
If you could only see all the weapons underneath, he thought.
“What do you want from me, Father.”
Peythone cleared his throat. “I think it’s time to discuss your future.”
And what future is that exactly? he wondered. As a feature on Intervention?
When his father went no further, Peyton shrugged. “I’m in the training program. I’m a fighter—”
“We both know that’s a diversion—”
“The hell it is—and you wanted me to go into the program.”
“Because I had hoped it would turn you into—”
“Someone like you? Yeah, ’cuz you’re such a hard-ass.”
“Watch your tone,” his father bit out. “And permit me to remind you that your life is not your own. It belongs to this bloodline you are a part of, and as such, it is incumbent upon me to steer you in the proper direction.”
Peyton leaned forward in the chair. “I am—”
His father talked right over him. “And accordingly, I have someone I would like you to meet. She is from a suitable family, and before you worry, she is widely considered a great beauty. I am confident that that part of all this will be to your liking. If you are smart, you will consider her fairly, without regard to any rebellion you might feel compelled to pursue as a result of my bringing this forth. I have your best interests at heart here, and I implore you to see that.”
Implore? My ass you’re imploring any of this, Peyton thought.
“Of course, if you fail to conduct yourself in a proper fashion”—his father smiled coldly—“I shall be forced to reduce your allowance.”
“I have a job.”