by J. R. Ward
“It is I,” Elan, son of Larex, announced. There was a pause, as if in his head, he was piping in a trumpet fanfare. “The Council is meeting on the morrow at midnight. I thought you should know. The location is at an estate here in town, the owners of which having recently moved back from their safe house. Rehvenge was quite insistent with regard to the scheduling, so I can only guess that our fair leahdyre is carrying a message from the king. I shall keep you fully informed of what transpires, but I do not expect to see you. Be well, my ally.”
As he hit delete, Xcor bared his fangs, and the resurgence of his aggression felt good—a return to normal.
How dare that effete little aristocrat tell him to do anything.
“The Council is meeting tomorrow night,” he said as he put his phone away.
“Where? When?” Throe asked.
Xcor looked out over the city toward the mountain. Then he turned his back upon that compass point.
“The fine Elan has determined we shall not be there. What he fails to realize is that that will be my choice. Not his.”
As if neglecting to impart an address would keep him away if he desired otherwise?
“Enough conversation.” He strode over to the gathering of his soldiers. “Let us go down onto the streets and engage as warriors do.”
Between his shoulder blades, his scythe started talking to him once again, her voice keen and clear in his mind, her blood-thirsty words like a lover’s entreaty.
Her silence had been strangely unsettling.
It was with no small relief that he dematerialized from the lofty heights of the skyscraper, his iron will training his molecules toward the ground and into the field of engagement. In so many ways, the prior twenty-four hours had felt as though they had been lived by another.
He was back in his old skin now, however.
And ready to kill.
FORTY-SEVEN
Qhuinn was eleven miles into a twenty-mile run on the treadmill when the door to the training center’s workout room opened.
The second he saw who it was, he hopped off onto the side rails and banged on the stop button: Blay was standing in the jambs, his eyes jumping around, his face all fucked-up—and not because someone had beaten him or something.
“What happened?” Qhuinn demanded.
Blay shoved a hand into his red hair. “Ah, Layla’s down in the clinic—”
“Shit.” He jumped off and headed for the door. “What’s wrong—”
“No, no, nothing. She’s just in for a checkup. That’s all.” The guy stepped to the side, clearing the exit. “I figured you’d want to know.”
Qhuinn frowned and stopped where he was. As he scrutinized the other male’s expression, he came to a conclusion that made him anxious: Blay was fronting about something. Hard to pinpoint exactly how he knew that, but then again, after being friends with someone since childhood, you learned to read their minutiae.
“Are you okay?” he asked the guy.
Blay motioned in the direction of the clinic. “Yeah. Sure. She’s in the exam room right now.”
Right, clearly, the topic was closed. Whatever it was.
Snapping into action, Qhuinn jogged down the corridor, and nearly burst through the closed door. At the last minute, though, a sense of decorum pulled him up short. Some examinations of pregnant females involved very private places—and even though he and Layla had had sex, they certainly weren’t intimate like that.
He knocked. “Layla? You in there?”
There was a pause and then Doc Jane opened up. “Hi, come on in. I’m glad Blay found you.”
The physician’s face gave nothing away—and that made him psychotic. Generally speaking, when doctors did that professionally pleasant thing, it was not good news.
Looking beyond V’s female, he focused on Layla—but Blay was who he grabbed onto, snagging a hold on the guy’s arm.
“Stay if you can?” Qhuinn said out of the corner of his mouth.
Blay seemed surprised, but he complied with the request, letting the door shut them all in together.
“What’s going on?” Qhuinn demanded.
Checkup, his ass: Layla’s eyes were wide and a little wild, her hands jittery as they played with her loose, tangled hair.
“There’s been a change,” Doc Jane said with hesitation.
Pause.
Qhuinn nearly screamed. “Okay, listen up, people—if someone doesn’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind all over this room—”
“I’m pregnant,” Layla blurted.
And this is a change how? he wondered, his head starting to hum.
“As in the miscarriage appears to have stopped,” Jane said. “And she’s still pregnant.”
Qhuinn blinked. Then he shook his head—and not as in back and forth, as in how someone would masturbate a snow globe.
“I don’t get it.”
Doc Jane sat on a rolling stool, and opened a chart on her lap. “I gave her the blood test myself. There’s a sliding scale of pregnancy hormones—”
“I’m going to be sick,” Layla cut in. “Right now—”
Everybody rushed at the poor female, but Blay was the smart one. He brought a wastepaper basket with him, and that was what the Chosen used.
As she was heaving, Qhuinn held her hair back and felt a little dizzy.
“She’s not okay,” he told the doctor.
Jane met his eyes over Layla’s head. “This is a normal part of being pregnant. For female vampires, too, apparently—”
“But she’s bleeding—”
“Not anymore. And I did an ultrasound. I can see the gestational sac. She is still pregnant—”
“Oh, shit!” Blay yelled.
For a split second, Qhuinn couldn’t figure out why the guy was cursing. And then he realized…huh, the ceiling had traded places with the wall.
No, wait.
He was passing out.
His last conscious thought was that it was really cool of Blay to catch him as he went over like a tree in the forest.
In the context of the English language, there were many more important words than “in.” There were fancy words, historic words, words that meant life or death. There were multi-syllabic tongue-twisters that required a sort out before speaking, and mission-critical pivotals that started wars or ended wars…and even poetic nonsensicals that were like a symphony as they left the lips.
Generally speaking, “in” did not play with the big boys. In fact, it barely had much of a definition at all, and, in the course of its working life, was usually nothing but a bridge, a conduit for the heavy lifters in any given sentence.
There was, however, one context in which that humble little two-letter, one-syllable jobbie was a BFD.
Love.
The difference between someone “loving” somebody versus being “in love” was a curb to the Grand Canyon. The head of a pin to the entire Midwest. An exhale to a hurricane.
Now I know why he…
As Blay sat on the floor of the exam room with Qhuinn’s loose-as-a-goose body in his lap, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what Layla had said next. Had it been “loves you”? In which case, well, yeah, he knew that the guy loved him as a friend and had for decades. And that didn’t change a thing.
Or had it been with the addition of the “in.”
In which case, he was kind of considering taking Qhuinn’s lead and having a little TO on the tile.
“How’s my other patient doing?” Doc Jane asked as Layla collapsed back on the exam table.
“Breathing,” Blay replied.
“He’ll come around.”
One would hope, Blay thought as he focused on Qhuinn’s face—like those familiar features, even though he was out of it, could somehow answer the question one way or the other.
The Chosen couldn’t possibly have said “in love.”
Couldn’t have been it. He simply refused to let two bouts of great sex rewrite someone else�
��s words.
“Are you sure this is okay?” he heard Layla say to Doc Jane.
“The throwing up? According to what Ehlena told me earlier, it can most certainly be part of the symptoms of a successful pregnancy. In fact, it can be a sign that things are progressing well. It’s the hormones.”
“I don’t have to return to Havers’s, do I?”
“Well, Ehlena’s coming back from visiting her father tonight. So we need to find out how much she’s comfortable treating—and then see where you’re at. I won’t lie…I think this is a miracle.”
“I agree.”
While the females spoke, Blay kept his eyes on Qhuinn’s closed lids. It was a miracle, all right. Straight up—
As if on cue, the guy came around, those thick, dark eyelashes batting as if they were trying to decide how serious he was about staying conscious.
“Layla!” he shouted as he burst upright.
Blay pushed himself backward, letting the guy go. Feeling a little stupid.
Especially as Qhuinn shot to his feet and went to the female.
Blay stayed where he was, settling back against the closed cupboards under the sink, his knees up, his hands on his thighs. Even though it tore him to pieces, he couldn’t help but watch the two of them together, Qhuinn’s dagger hand impossibly gentle as he smoothed the blond hair away from Layla’s face.
He was saying something to her, something soft and reassuring.
Before Blay knew it, he was out in the hall, walking somewhere, anywhere. As hard as it was to accept compassion from Qhuinn…it was downright impossible to witness it being imparted on someone else—even if they more than deserved it.
The idea that Layla had been given in her needing exactly what he’d had for the last two days made his chest ache—but what was worse? It appeared that with her, the pneumatics had served their biological purpose. She was pregnant—and thanks to Payne, he had a feeling she was going to stay that way.
Overall, he’d done the right thing in going to V’s sister the day before. Assuming that that had been the cause of the amazing turnaround. But still, and even though it didn’t make sense, he felt—
“Are you okay?”
He stopped immediately, Qhuinn’s voice a shock. One would figure the guy would have stayed with the Chosen.
Bracing himself, he shoved his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath before turning around.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just figured you two would want some privacy.”
“Thanks for catching me.” The male lifted his palms. “I don’t know what happened in there.”
“Relief.”
“I guess.”
There was an awkward moment. Then again, they had specialized in them, hadn’t they.
“Listen, I’m going to go back to the house.” Blay tacked on a smile and hoped the guy bought it. “It’s good to have a night off.”
“Oh, yeah. Saxton’s probably waiting for you.”
Blay opened his mouth, but then caught the “why” that was about to fly out from between his lips. “Yup, he is. Take care of your girl. I’ll see you at Last Meal, maybe.”
As he strode off and ducked into the office, he knew he was being a coward for hiding behind a nonexistent relationship. But when you had a bad cut, you needed a Band-Aid.
Christ, no wonder Saxton had broken up with him.
What a fucking romantic.
FORTY-EIGHT
As Assail drove through the grand gates of an estate in the wealthy part of Caldwell, he was annoyed. Exhausted. On edge. And not just because he’d been doing cocaine regularly and not eating.
The cottage was over to the left, and he parked the Range Rover grille-first beneath one of the cheerful little windows. He would have preferred to have dematerialized here—so much less complicated. But after he’d dropped the twins off by that Goth club, the Iron Mask, he’d had to face the reality that if he didn’t feed, he was not going to be able to go on.
He hated this. It wasn’t that he minded the money it cost. It was more that he wasn’t particularly attracted to the female—and did not appreciate her attempts to change that.
Swinging his door wide, he got out, and the cold air hitting his face slapped some awareness into him, making him cognizant of just how logy he’d been.
At that very moment, a car went by out on the street beyond, some kind of domestic sedan.
And then the quaint portal of the cottage opened.
Assail’s fangs tingled as the female in between the jambs registered to his senses. Dressed in something black and lingerie-esque, she was ready for him, the heady scent of her arousal marking the air, although that wasn’t what got his lust going. It was her vein, nothing more, nothing less…
Assail frowned and looked beyond the cottage, into the forest that rimmed the estate.
Through the skeletal trees, the rear lights of the car that had just passed by flared red. Then whoever it was turned the vehicle around, the headlights swinging in a fat circle—and then extinguishing.
Immediately, Assail went for his gun. “You go inside. We’re not alone.”
The female promptly canned the come-on and disappeared into the cottage, shutting the door with a bang.
Dematerializing into the woods would have been the best move, but of course, he was too damned starved for that—
Abruptly, the wind shifted direction and came at him, and his nostrils flared.
Assail growled softly—and not in a warning. More like a greeting, of sorts.
As if he would e’er forget that particular combination of pheromones.
His little burglar had turned the tables on him, doing to him what he had done to her the night before. How long had she been on his trail? he wondered, a shaft of respect driving through his chest at the same time he grew frustrated.
He did not like the idea that she might have seen him under the bridge. Knowing her, though, he couldn’t rule that out.
Drawing in a long, slow breath, he caught nothing else of significance. Which meant she was alone.
Information gathering? For whom?
Assail pivoted back around to the cottage and smiled darkly. No doubt once he was inside she would close in…and far be it from him not to give her a show.
He knocked once, and the female opened up again.
“Are we okay?” she asked.
His eyes went over her face, and then lingered on her hair. It was dark. Thick. Rather like his little burglar’s.
“All clear. Just a human with car trouble.”
“So there’s nothing to worry about?”
“Not a thing.”
As relief eased the tension out of her face, he shut them in together and threw the lock.
“I’m so glad you came back to me again,” the female said, letting the lace-trimmed halves of her satin robe fall back apart.
Tonight she was wearing a black negligee that pushed her breasts high and made her waist look like he could span it with only one of his hands. She smelled overdone: too much hand cream, body lotion, shampoo, conditioner, and perfume marking her body.
He really wished she wouldn’t go to the effort.
With a quick shift of the eyes, Assail checked the position of all the windows. Naturally, none of them had changed: There were two narrow ones on either side of the stone fireplace. A stretch of three panes of glass over the sink. And then that bowed-out section over to the left that was above the built-in seat with its cushions and needlepoint pillows.
His burglar would choose the window to the right of the fireplace. It was out of the glow from the lantern over the front door, and in the lee of the chimney.
“Are you ready for me?” the female purred.
Assail ducked his hand into the inside of his jacket. The thousand dollars in cash was folded once, the ten hundred-dollar bills forming a thin folio.
Moving sinuously, he put his back to the bay window and the fireplace. For some reason, he didn’t want his burglar to see him make payme
nt.
The rest of what was going to happen, however, he very much wanted her to witness.
“Here.”
As the female took the money, he didn’t want her to count it. And she didn’t.
“Thank you.” She stepped back and put the bills in a red pottery jar. “Shall we?”
“Yes. We shall.”
Assail closed in and assumed control, taking the female’s face between his hands, tilting her head back, and kissing her hard. In response, she moaned, as if the unexpected advance was something she not only welcomed, but hadn’t dared expect.
He was glad she enjoyed it. But her pleasure was not what this was about.
Moving her around, he took her over to the sofa that ran down the little cottage’s far wall, pushing her with his body, using his strength to lay her out with her head in the direction of the fireplace. As she reclined, she cast her arms out to the sides, rolling her breasts upward until they strained the satin cups that covered them.
Assail mounted her fully clothed and with his coat on, his knee going between hers, one of his hands reaching down and pulling up that floor-length negligee—
“No, no,” he said as she went to wind her arms around his neck. “I want to see you.”
Bullshit. He wanted her to be seen from the window.
Whilst she complied readily, he went back to kissing her and getting that long skirting out of the way—and the second it was, she split her legs wide.
“Fuck me,” the female said, arching under him.
Well, that wasn’t going to be possible. He wasn’t hard.
But not everyone needed to know that.
In order to appear impassioned, he shrugged his overcoat free of his shoulders, and then with a quick slash of his fangs, he bit through the negligee’s straps, exposing the female’s breasts to the firelight, the nipples going instantly tight atop acres of pale flesh.
Assail paused, as if taken by what he saw. And then he extended his tongue and dropped his head.