Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  The two of them fell silent, and as Wrath took the moment to heart, he couldn’t possibly imagine his life without her.

  “Do you know something?” he said.

  “What?” There was a smile in her voice, the kind that told him she had a clue about what he was going to say.

  “I love you more than anything.”

  His queen laughed a little, and stroked his face. “I would never have guessed.”

  Hell, even he caught the surge of his bonding scent.

  In response, Wrath cupped her face and leaned in, finding her lips and taking them in a soft kiss—that didn’t stay that way. Man, it was always like this with her. Any contact at all and before he knew it, he was hard and ready.

  God, he didn’t know how human men handled it. From what he understood, they had to wonder whether their mates were fertile every single damn time they had sex—evidently, they couldn’t pick up on the subtle changes of their females’ scents.

  He’d go fucking insane. At least when a female vampire was in her needing, everyone knew it.

  Beth shifted in his lap, compressing his hard-on, making him groan. And usually, this was the cue for George to be led across to the double doors and temporarily banished. But not tonight. As much as Wrath wanted her, the pall in the house was putting a damper on even his libido.

  And then there was Autumn’s needing. Now Layla’s.

  He wasn’t going to lie; the shit was making him tetchy. Hormones in the air had been known to have a ricochet effect in a house full of females, influencing one and then another and then a third into her needing, assuming she was fairly close to her time.

  Wrath stroked Beth’s hair and retucked his queen’s head into his shoulder.

  “You don’t want to…”

  As she let the sentence drift, he took her hand and lifted it up, feeling the heavy Saturnine Ruby that the queen of the race had always worn.

  “I just want to hold you,” he said. “It’s enough for me right now.”

  Nestling in, she fit herself even more closely to him. “Well, this is nice, too.”

  Yeah. It was.

  And curiously terrifying.

  “Wrath?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?”

  It was a little while before he could answer, before he trusted his voice to be calm, and level, and no BFD. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just fine.”

  As he smoothed her arm, running his hand up and down her biceps, he prayed that she believed it…and vowed that what was happening just one door down the hall would never, ever happen to them.

  Nope. That crisis was not anything the pair of them were going to have to deal with.

  Thanks be to the Scribe Virgin.

  FORTY-TWO

  Layla wasn’t sleeping, of course.

  When she’d told Qhuinn to go, she had meant the things she’d said about not wanting to keep up a front with him around. But the funny thing was, even with nobody in the room with her, she didn’t get hysterical. No tears. No cursing.

  She just lay on her side with her arms and legs curled up, her mind receding deep into her body, the constant monitoring of every ache and cramp a compulsion that was making her crazy. There was no changing that, however. It was as if some part of her was convinced that if she could only know what stage she was in, she could somehow have some control over the process.

  Which was, of course, bullshit. As Qhuinn would say.

  The image of him in the clinic, with his dagger at the healer’s throat, was like something out of one of the books in the Sanctuary’s library—a dramatic episode that was part of someone else’s life.

  Her vantage point on the bed, however, reminded her that that was not the case….

  The knock on her door was soft, which suggested it was a female.

  Layla closed her eyes. As much as she appreciated whatever kindness was awaiting a response, she would have so much preferred that whoever it was stayed out in the hall. The queen’s brief visit had been taxing, even though she’d appreciated it.

  “Yes.” When her voice didn’t carry farther than her own ears, she cleared her throat. “Yes?”

  The door opened, and at first she didn’t recognize who it was from the shadow that filled the space between the jambs. Tall. Strong. Not a male, though…

  “Payne?” she said.

  “May I come in?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  As Layla went to sit up, the warrior female motioned her to lie down, and then shut them both in together. “No, no, please…be at ease.”

  One lamp had been left on over at the bureau, and in the gentle light, the blooded sister of the Black Dagger Brother Vishous was quite fearsome, her diamond eyes seeming to sparkle out of the strong angles of her face.

  “How ever are you?” the female asked softly.

  “I am very well, thank you. And yourself?”

  The fighter came forward. “I’m very sorry about…your condition.”

  Oh, how Layla wished this was something Phury or the others had not shared with anyone. Then again, her exit from the house had been rather dramatic, the sort of thing that would be cause for concerned questioning. Still, her privacy would have had her avoid this unwelcome, though compassionate, intrusion.

  “I thank you for your kind words,” she whispered.

  “May I sit down?”

  “But of course.”

  She expected the female to rest upon one of the chairs that had been arranged with a sense of decorum. Payne did not. She came over to the bed and lowered her weight beside Layla.

  Compelled to at least appear to be a good hostess of sorts, Layla pushed herself up, wincing as a set of cramps froze her halfway.

  As Payne cursed softly, Layla had to lie back down. In a rough voice, she said, “Forgive me, but I cannot have visitors at this time—no matter how well intended you are. Thank you for your expression of sympathy—”

  “Are you aware of who my mother is,” Payne cut in.

  Layla shook her head against her pillow. “Please just leave—”

  “Do you know?” the female said roughly.

  Abruptly, Layla wanted to cry. She just didn’t have the energy for any conversation at this point—but most certainly not about mahmens. Not when she was losing her own young.

  “Please.”

  “I am birthed of the Scribe Virgin.”

  Layla frowned, the words registering even through the pain, mental and physical. “I’m sorry?”

  Payne took a deep breath, as if the revelation were not something she rejoiced in, but rather a kind of curse. “I am of the Scribe Virgin’s very flesh, born of her long ago, and hidden from the records of the Chosen and the eyes of all third parties.”

  Layla blinked in shock. The female’s appearance up above had been a mystery of sorts, but she had certainly asked no questions as it was not her place to. The one thing she was clear on was that there had never been any mention of the race’s holiest mother having e’er birthed a child.

  In fact, the entire structure of the belief system was predicated upon that not having occurred.

  “How is this possible?” Layla breathed.

  Payne’s brilliant eyes were grave. “It was not what I would have wished. And it is not something I speak of.”

  In the tense moment that followed, Layla found it impossible not to see the truth in what the female spoke. Nor the strident anger, the cause of which one could guess at.

  “You are a holy one,” Layla said with awe.

  “Not in the slightest, I assure you. But my lineage has provided me with a certain…how shall we say it? Ability.”

  Layla stiffened. “And that would be?”

  Payne’s diamond eyes never wavered. “I want to help you.”

  Layla’s hand went to her lower belly. “If you mean get this over with sooner…no.”

  She had her young for such a precious short time within her. No matter how long the pain went on, she was not going to sacrif
ice one minute of what was no doubt her one and only pregnancy.

  She would never put herself through this again. In the future, when her needing hit, she would be drugged, and that was it.

  Once in a lifetime was too much for the loss she was sustaining now.

  “And if you believe you can stop this,” Layla tacked on, “it is not possible. There is naught that any may do.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Payne’s eyes were rapt. “I’d like to see if I can save the pregnancy. If you’ll let me.”

  At the abandoned Brownswick School for Girls campus, Mr. C had taken up res in what had once been the headmistress’s office.

  The cracked sign outside in the hall told him so.

  As there was no heat, the ambient air temperature was exactly that of the great outdoors, but thanks to the Omega’s blood, cold was not a problem. And thank fuck for that: Across the overgrown, snow-covered lawn, in the main dormitory on the ridge, nearly fifty lessers were sleeping the sleep of the dead.

  If those bastards had required BTUs or food, he’d have been shit out of luck.

  But nah, all he had to do was provide them with shelter. Their inductions took care of the rest—and the fact that they needed to unplug from consciousness every twenty-four hours was a relief.

  He needed time to think.

  Jesus Christ, what a mess.

  Compelled by an urge to pace, he went to push his chair back, and then remembered that he was sitting on an overturned drywall bucket.

  “Goddamn it.”

  Looking around the decrepit room, he measured the plaster that was hanging in sheets from the ceiling rafters, the boarded-up windows, and the hole in the floorboards over in the corner. Place was just like the bank accounts he’d found.

  No money anywhere. No ammo. Weapons that could be used for blunt-force trauma, and that was about it.

  After his promotion, he’d been so fucking pumped, full of plans. Now he was staring at a whole lot of no cash, no resources, no nothing.

  The Omega, on the other hand, was expecting all kinds of results. As had been made amply clear during their little “visit” late last night.

  And that was another problem. He hated that shit.

  At least he could do something about the rest of it.

  Stretching his arms over his head and cracking his shoulders, he thanked God for two things: One, that the cell phones hadn’t been cut off—so he could communicate with his men in the field, and had Internet access. And two, that all those years on the street had given him an iron fist when it came to controlling dumb-ass young idiots in the drug trade.

  He had to bring in some paper. Stat.

  He’d had a fucking plan for that, too, sending the Society’s last nine thousand, three hundred dollars off with three of his boys at midnight last night. All those bastards had had to do was make the buy, get the dope, and bring it back here, where he’d cut the shit, then parcel it out to the new inductees for sale on the street.

  Trouble was, he was still waiting for the fucking delivery.

  And he was getting pretty goddamn impatient waiting to find out where either the drugs or his money had gone.

  It was possible the cocksuckers had run off with one or the other, but if that was the case, he was going to hunt them down like dogs and show all of the others what happened when you—

  As his phone rang, he picked the thing up, saw who it was, and hit send.

  “It’s about fucking time. Where the fuck are you and where is my shit.”

  There was a pause. And then the voice that came over the connection was not anything like that of the pimple-faced pusher he’d given the cell, the cash, and the last working gun the Society had to.

  “I have something you want.”

  Mr. C frowned. Very deep voice. Laced with an edge he recognized from the streets, and an accent he couldn’t place.

  “It’s not the piece-of-shit phone you’re calling me on,” Mr. C drawled. “I got plenty of those.”

  After all, when you didn’t have anything in your hand, your holster or your wallet, bluffing was your only option.

  “Well, good for you. Have you plenty of what you sent to me, too? Money? Manpower?”

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  “I’m your enemy.”

  “If you took my fucking cash, you bet your ass you are.”

  “Actually, ’tis a simplistic answer to what is a rather complex problem.”

  Mr. C burst to his feet, knocking over the bucket. “Where’s my fucking money, and what did you do with my men?”

  “I’m afraid they can’t come to the phone anymore. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Mr. C bit out.

  “On the contrary, you are the one at that particular disadvantage—as well as so many others.” When Mr. C was about to snap, the guy cut him off. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to call you at nightfall with a location. You, and you alone, are going to meet me there. If anyone comes with you, I will know, and you will never hear from me again.”

  Mr. C was used to feeling disdain for others—came with the job when all you dealt with were two-bit street thugs and strapped drug addicts. But this guy on the other end of the connection? Self-controlled. Calm.

  A professional.

  Mr. C dialed back his temper. “I don’t need to play games—”

  “Yes, you do. Because if you want drugs to sell, you need to come to me.”

  Mr. C got quiet. This was either a lunatic with delusions of grandeur, or…somebody with true power. Like, maybe the one who’d been killing off all the middlemen in the Caldwell drug trade over the last year.

  “Where and when?” he said gruffly.

  There was a dark laugh. “Answer your phone at nightfall, and you’ll find out.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Layla couldn’t speak as Payne’s words sank in.

  “No,” she said to the other female. “No, Havers told me…there is nothing that can be done.”

  “Medically, that may well be true. I may have another way, however. I don’t know whether it will work, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to do what I can.”

  For a moment, Layla could only breathe.

  “I don’t…” She felt the flat plane of her stomach. “What will you do to me?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest.” Payne shrugged. “In fact, it hadn’t even dawned on me that it might help your situation. But I have been known to heal that which needs healing. Again, I’m not sure whether it applies here. We could try, though—and it won’t hurt you. That I can promise.”

  Layla searched the fighter’s face. “Why…would you do this for me?”

  Payne frowned and focused elsewhere. “You do not need to know the whys.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  That profile grew positively cold. “You and I are sisters in my mother’s tyranny—casualties of her grand plan for the way things must be. We were both jailed by her in different ways, you as a Chosen, myself as her blooded daughter. There is nothing I will not do to aid you.”

  Layla lay back. She had never before considered herself a casualty of the mother of the race. Except…as she considered her desperation for a family, her sense of rootlessness, her very lack of identity outside of her service as a Chosen…she had to wonder. Free will had led her here to this horrid spot, but at least she had picked the route and the means. As a member of the Scribe Virgin’s special class of females, she had had no such choice, about anything in her life.

  Anything at all, really.

  She was losing the pregnancy; this was self-evident. And if Payne thought there was a chance of…

  “Do what you will,” she said roughly. “And I thank you no matter the outcome.”

  Payne nodded once. Then she brought up her hands, flexing them, the fingers flaring wide. “May I touch your stomach?”

  Layla pushed down the covers. “Must I take off my shirt altogether?”
>
  “No.”

  Just as well. Even the shift of the duvet heralded a further cramping, the minute change in weight cause for—

  “You are in such pain,” the other female murmured.

  Layla didn’t answer as she exposed the skin of her stomach. Clearly, her expression had already said enough.

  “Just relax. This shouldn’t cause you any distress—”

  As contact was made, Layla jerked her head up. The fighter’s hands were warm like bathwater as they landed ever so softly on her lower abdomen. Soothing like bathwater as well. Strangely soothing, as a matter of fact.

  “Does this hurt you?” Payne asked.

  “No. It feels…” As another cramping geared itself up, she gripped the sheets, bracing herself—

  Except the crest of the pain didn’t rise as it had previously, surely as if the sensation were a great, cragged mountain, the top of which had been sheared off.

  It was the first relief she’d gotten since it had all started.

  With a groan of submission, she let her head go lax, the pillows cushioning a sudden weariness that told her just how much discomfort had been in her body.

  “And now we begin.”

  All at once, the lamp across the room flickered…and then went out.

  Its illumination was soon replaced, however.

  From Payne’s gentle hands, a soft glow began to emanate, the warmth of her touch intensifying, that strange, wondrous easing seeming to penetrate beneath the skin, and the muscle, and any bone that was in the way…going directly into Layla’s womb.

  And then there was an explosion of sorts.

  With a hiss, she gave herself up to the great surge of energy that abruptly burrowed into her, that heat never burning and yet boiling away the pain, lifting the agony up and out of her flesh surely as the steam from a pot rose and drifted away.

  But it was not over. A great flush of euphoria sped throughout her body, its golden tendrils pulsating out of her pelvic area and flowing up through her torso to her mind and her very soul as her legs and arms tingled as well.

  Oh, great, poignant relief…

  Oh, incredible power…

  Oh, sweet saving grace.

  The healing was still not over, however.