by J. R. Ward
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 sacrifice 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.
In the midst of the maelstrom, Layla felt a…what was it? A shifting in her womb. A tightening, mayhap? But not a cramping, no, not that. More as if that which had been lagging found a bracing strength.
She became gradually aware that her teeth were chattering.
Looking down her body, she saw that everything was trembling, and that was not all.
Her physical form was glowing. Every inch of her skin was as a shade on a lamp, revealing the light beneath, her clothes acting as frail barriers to that which was streaming from her.
In the illumination, Payne’s face was harsh, as if there were a great cost to her in transferring the wondrous healing to another. And Layla would have moved away, stopped this, if she could have—because the other female began to look positively haggard. There was no way to break the connection, however; she had no control of her limbs, no way of even speaking.
It seemed to last forever, the vital communion between them.
When Payne finally jerked back, breaking the link, she slumped off the bed, landing in a heap on the floor.
Layla opened her mouth to shout. Tried to reach for her savior. Strained against her body’s still-glowing deadweight.
But there was naught she could do.
The last thing that registered before she lost consciousness was her concern for the other female. And then all went dark.
FORTY-FOUR
Qhuinn woke up with a hard-on.
He lay on his back, his hips moving on their own, the rolling motion stroking that erection against the weight of the duvet and the sheets. For a moment, as he lingered in that half-awake stage before true consciousness arrived, he imagined it was Blay creating the friction, the male’s palms sliding up and down…in a preamble to some mouth action.
It was when he reached out to bury his fingers in that red hair that he realized he was alone: His hands found only sheets.
In a fit of hope-springs-eternal, he threw out an arm, patting the space next to him, ready to find that warm, male body.
Just more sheets. That were cold.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Opening his eyes, the reality of where he was hit hard and deflated his arousal. In spite of the hookups, those two amazing, pounding sessions, Blay was right now, at this very moment, waking up with Saxton.
Probably having sex with the guy.
Oh, God, he was going to throw the hell up.
The idea that Blay was touching another, riding another, licking and stroking another—his fucking cousin, as a matter of fact—was nearly as unbearable as the Layla shit. The fact of the matter was, courtesy of what had gone down, any attraction Qhuinn had for the guy had been magnified instead of diminished.
Great. Another round of good news.
It was with absolutely no enthusiasm whatsoever that Qhuinn dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom. He didn’t want to turn the light on, had no interest in seeing that he looked like dog shit, but shaving with nothing save touch to go by was not the brightest idea.
As he flicked the switch, he blinked hard, a headache starting to pound right behind both his eyes. No doubt he needed to eat again, but for fuck’s sake, his body’s relentless demands were getting him down.
Starting the water in the sink, he picked up his Edge shaving gel and filled his palm with a little swirl. As he rubbed his hands together to puff the stuff up, he thought about his cousin. He had a feeling, although he didn’t know it for certain, that Saxton would use an old-fashioned brush to suds his jaw and cheeks up. And no Gillette razors for him. Probably had a barber’s thing with a mother-of-pearl handle.
Qhuinn’s father had had one of those. And his brother had been given one with initials on it after his transition.
Along with that signet ring.
Well, good for them. Besides, given that those two were both dead, it wasn’t like they were shaving anymore.
When his face was covered with white, just like the landscape outside, he picked up his regular, pedestrian Mach 3 with its disposable head….
For no apparent reason, he thought maybe he should put a new one on.
Yeah, like a fresh, super-sharp, clean one.
Qhuinn rolled his eyes at himself. Nothing like having your self-worth wrapped up in three little blades and a moisturizing strip. Real fucking logical, that one.
Self-administered ass slap aside, he started rummaging through the drawers under the counters, pulling them out, inventorying all manner of bath and beauty crap that he never used, never looked at.
Pulling out the last drawer, the one closest to the floor, he stopped. Frowned. Bent down.
There was a little black velvet box in there, the kind of thing you put jewelry in. Except he didn’t own any,
and certainly not from Reinhardt’s, that highbrow place downtown. As no one else stayed in his room, he wondered if maybe it had been there since he’d moved in and he’d just never seen it?
Taking the box out, he flicked the lid and—
“Son of a bitch.”
Inside, like they were worth something, were all his gunmetal gray earrings, as well as the hoop he’d always worn in his lower lip.
Fritz must have collected them when cleaning one night, and put them in the box. Only explanation—because Qhuinn certainly hadn’t bothered with them after he’d taken them out one by one. He’d just tossed them in the back of one of the bathroom cabinets.
Qhuinn fingered the steel links, thinking back to when he’d bought them and put them in. His father had been mortified; his mother, too—to the point where she’d excused herself from Last Meal and taken to her private quarters for a full twenty-four hours after he’d waltzed into the dining room wearing them.
The piercing place had told him not to put the hoops in until the studs that had been used to make the holes had had a chance to heal up. But that advice was for humans. Within a couple of hours, everything was good to go and he’d done the swap.
In Blay’s loo, as a matter of fact.
Qhuinn frowned, remembering the moment he’d stepped out into the guy’s bedroom. Blay had been over on the bed, nursing a Corona, watching TV. His head had turned, his expression open and relaxed—until he’d taken a look at Qhuinn.
His face had tightened up ever so subtly. The kind of thing that, unless you knew a person really, really well, you wouldn’t notice. But Qhuinn had.
At the time, he’d assumed it was because the obvi-Goth shit had been a little much for Mr. Conservative. But now, thinking back on it, he recalled something else. Blay had refocused on the plasma screen…and casually taken a pillow and put it on his lap.
He must have gotten hard.
As Qhuinn recast that whole scene in his head, his own sex thickened again.
Except that was a waste of time, wasn’t it.
Staring at those goddamned earrings, he thought about his rebellions and his anger and his fucked-up idea of what he had to have to be happy in life.