by J. R. Ward
“No. I mean, not that we’re aware of. I haven’t seen the contract and neither has she—but our sires do not commonly look out for our interests, if you know what I mean.”
“The only thorny part of this is the Old Laws and how they relate to the financial consideration sometimes paid with regard to matings. I’ll need to go through that. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
Peyton sagged. “Thank you, oh, God, thank you. And listen, on my side, it’s not that the other female is a bad person or anything. It’s just…”
“You love someone else.” The solicitor’s smile seemed old and very, very wise. “I understand completely. The heart wants what it wants.”
“Exactly. And again, thank you, you’re a real lifesaver.”
“I haven’t saved you, yet. But I will. You can trust me.”
“I already feel better about this. I’ve got to go to class now.”
“Be safe,” Saxton offered.
“Promise.”
Out by the reception area, Peyton called for the bus, and cursed when he was told it was going to be another hour. But what could he do—
“Hey,” Blay said, “you looking to go to class? We have a van here and one of our doggen can take you?”
Twice in one night, he thought. Man, things were just going his way. Finally.
“That would be awesome,” he told the fighter. “Just really incredible.”
Because the truth was, as much as he wanted to fulfill his classroom obligations, what he really wanted was to see Novo again. As soon as possible.
And never, ever leave her side.
As Novo sat on her futon and stared straight ahead, there was nothing particularly on her mind, and that was a blessing, she supposed. What she was aware of, however, was that the great weight was back and heavier than ever, that familiar sinking in the center of her chest making it hard to breathe and difficult to move.
Overhead, she could hear people walking around, the humans settling in for the night. A glance at the clock told her it was just after ten p.m., and it was impossible not to think of the time in relationship to classes and what, under normal circumstances, she would be doing—if she hadn’t called in sick.
They were meant to be in the weight room at the beginning of the evening. And then they were going to be in class, and they were supposed to receive their new field assignments.
She was going to have to put in a request that she not be paired with…
She was going to need to go out with only Paradise, Craeg, Axe, or Boone.
Drawing her legs up, she linked her arms around her knees and rested her chin on her wrist. God, how could she have been so stupid—
Nope, she decided. She was done with the self-blame. She was absolutely not going to beat herself up over the fact that some male had turned out to be a shit. And besides, she’d already been through one kind of cardiac rehab. She just needed to look at this as another variation on the theme. Heart was broken. Stitch it up. Get strong again.
It was just that simple.
As she mulled on that imperative for a while, she was aware she was trying to convince herself of a truth she wasn’t sure she believed in, but whatever. It was her only way to realign all of it: Tomorrow evening, at nightfall, she was heading back into the program, and she was going to have her game face on.
There was no way she was quitting just because a romance she should never have started had blown up in her face.
That was a girl move. And she was a female, not a girl.
She was a fighter—
The knock on her door brought her head up. It wasn’t the first of the month, so it couldn’t be the landlord. And it wasn’t Peyton, she could sense that much.
“Yeah?” she called out.
“It’s Dr. Manello.”
With a frown, she got up and went across her everything room. Opening things up, she said, “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“House call.” The human barged in past her. “How we doing?”
For no good reason, she looked out in the hall to see if he’d brought reinforcements. Nope.
Closing them in, she put her braid over her shoulder. “I don’t understand?”
As her surgeon put his little black physician’s bag on the table for two she’d only ever sat one at, she noted that the bottom half of him was in scrubs. The top half was in a down jacket. He had a Mets baseball cap on, and yeah, wow, neon yellow and blue running shoes.
“You call in sick,” he said, “with a complaint that you’re nauseous. So I came to check on you.”
Swallowing her frustration, she shook her head. “Listen, as much as I appreciate the concern, it’s no big deal. I’m just not feeling—”
“You had a significant cardiac injury—”
“That was forever ago.”
“Try days.”
Jesus. It had seemed like another lifetime. “But I’m fine.”
“Well, then, let’s get this over with quickly, shall we?” He pulled out one of her mismatched chairs and spun it around. As he patted the hard seat, he said, “If you’re A-Okay, this won’t take but a moment.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m fine.”
“When did you go to medical school last?” He rolled his eyes. “And by the way, do you have any idea how often I find myself saying that to people around here.”
As the human just stared at her, like he was prepared to stay put until either one of them dropped dead from natural causes, she cursed and marched over.
“This is totally unnecessary,” she muttered as she sat down.
“I hope so. Any vomiting?”
“No.”
“Fever, chills?”
“No.”
“Abdominal pain or pain that radiates down either of your arms?”
“No.”
“Feeling faint or passing out?”
“No.”
Well, at least not since Peyton’s father had dropped the hammer on her in that hallway. Ever since then? Piece of cake.
Coming around to stand in front of her, the doctor took a stethoscope out of his bag and plugged it into his ears. “You’re going to have to lower those arms if I’m going to listen to your heart.”
Gracelessly, she uncrossed things and let her arms flop down—and then he was doing the little disk walk-around over her chest area. As he made a number of mmm-hmm noises, she took that to mean he was finding exactly what she thought.
Which was that absolutely nothing was wrong. Physically, at least.
“Blood pressure time,” he said cheerfully. “Your heart sounds perfect.”
“I know.”
His head popped up in front of her. “You have a terrible bedside manner, you know that?”
“Isn’t that your problem?”
“Touché.”
As the doctor put her through an examination, she resumed staring straight ahead, her mind retreating once again to that place where there was, at least ostensibly, nothing on it. In reality, she suspected her subconscious was plotting against her, planning all kinds of wake-up-screaming shit, scheduling nightmares like they were patients into a dental chair.
“—Novo? Hello?”
She snapped to. “I’m sorry, what?”
Dr. Manello stared down at her for a moment. Then he sank onto his haunches. “You want to tell me what’s really going on here?”
“Like I said, nothing. I just ate something funny.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t remember.” As his expression shifted into seeing-too-clearly territory, she got up and walked around. “Honestly, I’ll be good by tomorrow night.”
“You know, if you need to talk to someone—”
“I absolutely, positively, do not need to talk to anybody.”
“Okay.” He put his hands out. “I’ll back off.”
Dr. Manello reloaded his little black bag, and then he was back at her door. “Call me, though, if you start to run a fever or a
ctually vomit?”
“That is not going to be necessary.” She went over to let him out. “Thank you for coming—”
“I’m worried about you. And not from a medical standpoint.”
For some reason, she thought of that patient down in the clinic, the one who screamed all the time. At least if she lost her mind, she thought, they had some experience dealing with the insane.
But that was not going to be her. She just wasn’t going to have it.
“I’m not,” she told him. “I’m not worried about me at all.”
If she could live through what had come before? Then getting over the reality that Peyton was exactly who she’d thought he was wasn’t going to be a problem. She’d already trained for it.
—
Where the hell was she?
As Peyton walked into the training center’s weight room forty minutes later, he sifted through the various bodies on the machines and the mats…and came up with a resounding no-Novo.
With a frown, he went over to the Brother Qhuinn. “Hey, have you seen Novo?”
“She called in sick. Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
Peyton’s first instinct was to get on a rocket ship and race across town. The problem with that? He had no rocket, and he didn’t know her address—but, wait, he had fed her, hadn’t he.
“Did she say what was wrong?”
“Nope. Just that she was sick to her stomach and staying in. She sounded nauseous, but not at death’s door.”
“Could it be something with her heart? A problem from—”
“I told Manny, so he went out there and checked her. He said it was garden-variety food poisoning or something. It’s not a problem.” The Brother’s blue and green eyes leveled on him. “Can you think of any other issue that might be bothering her?”
“When she left me at nightfall, I—” He clamped his mouth shut. “No, I can’t.”
“Maybe she would appreciate a text or a call from a classmate?” the Brother drawled. “Or a visit after class?”
“Yeah. That’s a real—may I be excused?”
“Yup. Then you gotta work.”
“No problem.”
Peyton hightailed it into the locker room and went to where he’d tossed his duffel on the floor, having not even bothered to put it in a locker. Rifling through his change of clothes and his weapons, he snagged his phone. Nothing from her.
His first call went into voicemail. His second…yup, went as well.
He kept the text short and sweet: Are u ok? Can I bring u anything?
Peyton waited five minutes. And then he had to go back to class.
An hour and a half later, on the break between the weight room and the target range, he checked his phone again. Nothing. So he called. Texted once more.
And then he did the same another ninety minutes later as they transitioned into classroom work. Nothing. Not even after he called again. Texted some more.
What if she had passed out—
He was on the verge of fucking off class and calling for the bus when his phone went off. The text was from her: Fine. See everyone tomoz.
That was it.
His fingers went flying across his phone’s surface, typing out all kinds of I’ll stop by, bring soup, heating pads, etc. etc. etc.
Nothing came back at him.
“You all right?” Craeg asked over at the door out into the corridor. “Everything okay with Novo?”
Peyton cleared his throat. “Ah, yeah, it’s fine. She’s great. She’ll be in tomorrow night.”
Even though phones weren’t allowed outside of the locker room, he put his into his fleece pocket.
What the hell was going on?
Sitting through class was an exercise in torture, but he was relieved that at least he and Novo were paired with Blay and Qhuinn the following evening. They would be the first squad to go back out into the field—like the Brotherhood wanted to do a CTRL/ALT/DEL on the incident in that alley and start the new world order on a good note.
At the rate things were going, it would be the first chance he got to see her.
When the end of the night finally came, Peyton all but trampled people to get on the bus—which was stupid. It wasn’t like that was going to get him off the property any faster. And Christ, could the butler drive any slower down the mountain?
He didn’t track any of the conversation that happened around him, and people seemed to recognize he was in extremis, leaving him alone.
The second that bus stopped, he was at the door, but as he spilled out into the night, he realized he didn’t know where he was going. Closing his eyes, he sent his instincts forth as his fellow trainees took off one by one.
He located the signal of his blood to the west. And not far away.
Traveling in a scatter of molecules, he re-formed in front of a four-story walk-up in a meh part of the city. It wasn’t a dump, but it was certainly not a candidate for Architectural Digest. In the basement…he could sense her in the basement. But how to get in?
As if on cue, a human opened the outer door to its vestibule, and Peyton took the seven steps three at a time. “Hey! Can you catch the inside—”
“No prob.” The guy leaned back and kept the inner door open. “You forget your key?”
“My girlfriend’s.”
“Been there. Later.”
“Thank you.”
Peyton walked inside and looked around. There had to be a way to get to the lower level—there. In the far corner.
No one else was around, and so he could just will it unlocked—shit, why hadn’t he thought about that on the outside?
Well, because his brain was fucking jacked, thank you very much.
Going over, he tried that mental trick out—but it didn’t work on what proved to be a copper deadbolt. So clearly, there were vampires living among these humans.
He thought about calling her, but things were so weird, he had a feeling Novo wasn’t going to let him in. Maybe that was paranoia, though. Who the fuck knew—
The door swung wide and he jumped back. As he saw who it was, he nearly hugged her. “Novo! It’s you!”
“What are you doing here.”
The tone of her voice was as lifeless as a computer’s approximation of same, and she was pale as a ghost, her eyes dead.
“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out.
She took a sharp step back. “I’m fine. What are you doing here.”
“What’s wrong? What…I don’t understand what’s going on?”
“I wasn’t feeling well. I am better now. I’ll be back in class tomorrow. I told you.”
Her hair was plaited and over her shoulder, her jeans and sweatshirt nothing unusual, her feet in Adidas shower shoes with thick socks on—as if she were just in for a cozy night at home. Her eyes, though. They were as matte as old river stones.
“Where are you?” he blurted. “What—”
Her hands came up. “Okay, I’m done. I want you to leave. I didn’t invite you here, and I resent the fact that you used my feeding from you as a way to hunt me down.”
“Hunt you down? Excuse me?”
“You heard it right. I don’t want you to come here ever again.”
Peyton ground his molars a couple of times. “Okay, let’s back up here. As far as I knew, when you left my bed at nightfall, everything was cool between us. And now you’re acting like I’m some kind of stalker. I think you owe me an explanation—”
Her laughter was harsh. “Oh, I owe you, huh. Riiiiiight. Because everything has to be about you.”
“What are you talking about?” He could feel his voice getting loud, but he couldn’t stop it. “What is wrong with you?”
“Me? Nothing is wrong with me. And nothing is wrong with you, either. You’re getting mated soon to a nice female from a good family, so all’s right in your world. Congratulations—hey, maybe you two and my sister and Oskar can double-date as newlyweds.” She clapped her hands together. “Yay! Selfie time!”
A pair of humans, a man and a woman, came down the stairs over on the left, and the fact that they were laughing and holding hands was a real kick in the balls.
Peyton stepped to the side to let them pass, and he waited until they were all the way through the vestibule to speak.
“It’s not what you think.”
Novo laughed again. “Really? Just how many ways do you believe this scenario is open to interpretation—or do you assume that because I’m just a piece-of-shit civilian that I would be nothing but grateful to be your hot, kinky side-piece for the rest of my life.”
Peyton took another step back. And then a third. “So you’ve made your mind up. You’ve decided everything, huh.”
“The math is not that hard. And I’m a very smart female.”
“FYI, you haven’t let me say one word about any of this.”
“Why would I. Your version isn’t going to matter to me at all. It’s only air, not substance. Just like you.”
Peyton felt that one go right through the center of his chest. And in the aftermath, he looked down at the floor. Dimly, he noticed the carpet was damp, the result of people coming in from the cold with snow on their boots and shoes.
He thought of how she had let him hold her through the night.
He had been so convinced he was finally in her heart.
But he should have known better.
Maybe at a different time in her life they could have had a better chance. A relationship with her, though, was going to be like running a marathon on a broken foot. There were accommodations that could be made, conversations to re-engender trust, reassurances and reexaminations to make sure she was comfortable, but over time, the fundamental weakness that she would never really trust him was going to break down the overall effort.