by J. R. Ward
Qhuinn muttered under his breath, but when the Brother extended his palm, he clapped his own against it and nodded.
As Tohr took off, jogging down the grand staircase, Qhuinn wanted to go on a cursing spree: a whole evening to himself. Yay.
Nothing like having a date night with a depressive.
Hell, maybe what he should do is go up to the movie theater, throw on some hormone-replacement-therapy patches, and cheer himself up by watching The Sound of Music and painting his toenails.
Maybe Steel Magnolias…Like Water for Coconuts.
Or was that Chocolate, he wondered.
Then again, maybe he could just shoot himself in the head.
Either would work.
* * *
Blay’s family’s safe house was out in the countryside, surrounded by snow-covered fields that undulated gently to forested boundaries. Made of cream-colored river stone, the manor wasn’t grand, but rather cozy, with low-beamed ceilings, plenty of fireplaces that were always lit in the cold weather, and a state-of-the-art kitchen that was the only modern thing on the property.
In which his mom cooked positive ambrosia.
As he and his father emerged from the study, his mother looked over from her eight-burner stove. Her eyes were wide and worried as she stirred the cheese she was melting in a copper double boiler.
Not wanting to make a big deal out of the huge deal that had just gone down in that book-lined room, Blay flashed a discreet thumbs-up at her and took a seat at the rough oak table in the alcove.
His mother put her hand over her mouth and closed her lids, still stirring even as the emotions welled.
“Hey, hey,” his father said as he came up to his shellan. “Shhhhh…”
Turning her to him, he wrapped his arms around his mate and held her close. Even as she kept up with that stirring.
“It’s okay.” He kissed her head. “Hey, it’s all right.”
His father’s stare drifted over, and Blay had to blink repeatedly as their eyes met. Then he had to shield his watery eyes.
“People! For the Virgin Scribe’s sake!” The older male sniffled himself. “My beautiful, healthy, smart, priceless son is gay—this is nothing to mourn!”
Someone started laughing. Blay joined in.
“It’s not like somebody died.” His father tilted his mother’s chin up and smiled into her face. “Right?”
“I’m just so glad it’s out and everyone’s together,” his mother said.
The male recoiled as if any other outcome was unfathomable to him. “Our family is strong—don’t you know this, my love? But more to the point, this is no challenge. This is no tragedy.”
God, his parents were the best.
“Come here.” His dad beckoned. “Blay, come over here.”
Blay got up and went across. As his parents wrapped their arms around him, he took a deep breath and became the child he had once been a lifetime ago: His father’s aftershave smelled the same, and his mother’s shampoo still reminded him of a summer night, and the scent of the baking lasagna in the oven teed off his hungry stomach.
Just as it always had.
Time truly was relative, he thought. Even though he was taller and broader, and so many things had happened, this unit—these two people—were his foundation, his steady rock, his never perfect but never failing standard. And as he stood in the lee of their familiar, loving arms, he was able to breathe away every bit of the tension he’d felt.
It had been hard to tell his father, to find the words, to break through the “safety” that came with not running the risk of having to recast his opinion of the male who had raised him and loved him as no other had. If the guy had not supported him, if he’d chosen the glymera’s value system over the authentic him? Blay would have been forced to view someone he loved in a totally different light.
But that hadn’t happened. And now? He felt like he’d jumped off a building…and landed on Wonder Bread, safe and sound: The biggest test yet of their family structure had not just been passed, but completely triumphed over.
When they pulled apart from the huddle, his father put his hand on Blay’s face. “Always my son. And I am always proud to call you my son.”
As the guy dropped his arm, the signet ring on his hand caught the glow from the overhead lighting, the gold flashing yellow. The pattern that had been stamped into the precious metal was exactly what was on Blay’s ring—and as he traced the familiar lines, he recognized that the glymera had it so wrong. All those crests were supposed to be the symbols of this space now, of the bonds that strengthened and bettered people’s intertwined lives, of the commitments that ran from mother to father, father to son, mother to young.
But as was so often the case with the aristocracy, the value was misplaced, being based on the gold and the etchings, not the people. The glymera cared what things looked like, over what was: As long as shit appeared pretty on the outside, you could have half-dead or wholly depraved going on underneath and they’d still be cool with it.
As far as Blay was concerned? The communion was the thing.
“I think the lasagna’s ready,” his mother said as she kissed them both. “Why don’t you two set the table?”
Nice and normal. Blissfully so.
As Blay and his dad moved around the kitchen, pulling out silverware and plates and cloth napkins in shades of red and green, Blay felt a little trippy. In fact, there was a total high associated with having laid it all on the line and finding out, on the far side, that everything you had hoped for was in fact what you had.
And yet, when he sat down a little later, he felt the emptiness that had been riding him return, sure as if he had stepped briefly into a warm house, but had had to leave and go back out into the cold.
“Blay?”
He shook himself and reached forward to accept the plate full of home-cooked loveliness that his mother was extending to him. “Oh, this looks amazing.”
“Best lasagna on the planet,” his father said, as he unfolded his napkin and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “Outside piece for me, please.”
“As if I don’t know you like the crunchy parts.” Blay smiled at his parents as his mom used a spatula to get out one of the corner pieces. “Two?”
“Yes, please.” His father’s eyes were riveted on the crockery pan. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
For a while, there were no sounds except for polite eating.
“So tell us, how are things at the mansion?” his mother asked, after she sipped her water. “Anything exciting happening?”
Blay exhaled. “Qhuinn was inducted into the Brotherhood.”
Cue the dropped jaws.
“What an honor,” his father breathed.
“He deserves it, doesn’t he?” Blay’s mother shook her head, her red hair catching the light. “You’ve always said he’s a great fighter. And I know things have been so hard for him—like I told you the other night, that boy has been breaking my heart since the first moment I met him.”
Makes two of us, Blay thought. “He’s having a young, too.”
Okay, his father actually dropped his fork and had to cough it out.
His mother reached over and clapped the guy on the back. “With whom?”
“A Chosen.”
Total silence. Until his mother whispered, “Well, that’s a lot.”
And to think he’d kept the real drama to himself.
God, that fight they’d had down in the training center. He’d replayed it over and over again, going over every word that had been thrown out, every accusation, every denial. He hated some of the things he’d said, but he stood by the point he’d been trying to make.
Man, his delivery could have used work, though. He truly regretted that part.
No chance to apologize, however. Qhuinn had all but disappeared. The fighter was never down at the public meals anymore, and if he was working out, it was not during the day at the training center’s gym. Maybe he was consoling himself up
in Layla’s room. Who knew.
As Blay took seconds, he thought of how much this time with his family, and their acceptance of him, meant—and felt like an asshole all over again.
God, he’d lost his temper so badly, the break finally coming after all the years of back-and-forth drama.
And there was no going back, he thought.
Although the truth was, there never had been.
SEVENTY-SIX
“Hello?”
As Sola waited for her grandmother to answer from upstairs, she put one foot on the lower step and leaned into the bannister. “Are you up? I’m finally home.”
She glanced at her watch. Ten p.m.
What a week. She had accepted a PI job for one of Manhattan’s big divorce attorneys—who suspected his own wife was cheating on him. Turned out the woman was, with two different people as a matter fact.
It had taken her nights and nights of work, and when she’d finally gotten the ins and outs settled—natch—she’d been gone for six days.
The time away had been good. And her grandmother, with whom she’d spoken every day, had reported no more visitors.
“You asleep?” she called up, even though that was stupid. The woman would have answered her if she were awake.
As she backed off and went into the kitchen, her eyes shot immediately to the window over the table. Assail had been on her mind nonstop—and she knew on some level that her little project in the Big Apple had been more about putting some distance between them than any pressing need to make money or further her side career as a gumshoe.
After so many years of her taking care of herself and her grandmother, the out-of-control she felt when she was around him was not her friend: She had nothing but herself to go on in this world. She hadn’t gone to college; she had no parents; unless she worked she had no money. And she was responsible for an eighty-year-old with medical bills and declining mobility.
When you were young and you came from a regular family, you could afford to lose your head in some fucked-up romance, because you had a safety net.
In her case, Sola was the safety net.
And she was just praying that after a week of no contact—
The blow came from behind, clipping her on the back of the head, the impact going right to her knees and taking them out. As she hit the lineoleum, she got a good look at the shoes of the guy who’d struck her: loafers, but not fancy.
“Pick her up,” a man said in a hushed voice.
“First I gotta search her.”
Sola closed her eyes and stayed still as rough hands rolled her over and felt around, her parka rustling softly, the waistband of her pants jerking against her hips. Her gun was taken from her, along with her iPhone and her knife—
“Sola?”
The men working on her froze, and she fought her instinct to take advantage of the distraction and try to assume control of the situation. The issue was her grandmother. The best case was getting these men out of the house before they hurt the older woman. Sola could deal with them wherever they took her. If her vovó got involved?
Someone she cared about could die.
“Let’s get her out of here,” the one on the left whispered.
As they picked her up, she stayed limp, but cracked one lid. Both were wearing ski masks that had eye and mouth holes.
“Sola! What are you doing?”
Come on, assholes, she thought as they struggled with her arms and her legs. Move it….
They bumped her into the wall. Nearly knocked over a lamp. Cursed loud enough to carry as they humped her deadweight through the living room.
Just as she was about to come to life and help them the hell out, they made it to the front door.
“Sola? I coming down—”
Prayers formed in her head and rolled out, the old, familiar words ones she’d known her whole life. The difference with these recitations was that in this case they weren’t rote—she desperately needed her grandmother to be slow on the dime for once. To not make it down those stairs before they were out of the house.
Please, God…
The bitterly cold air that hit her was good news. So was the sudden speed the men gained as they carried her over to a car. So was the fact that as they put her in the trunk, they failed to tie her hands or feet. They just tossed her in and took off, the tires spinning on the ice until traction was acquired and forward momentum accomplished.
She could see nothing, but she felt the turns that were made. Left. Right. As she rolled around, she used her hands to search out anything she could use as a weapon.
No luck.
And it was cold. Which would limit her physical reactions and strength if this was a long trip. Thank the good Lord she hadn’t taken her parka off yet.
Gritting her teeth, she reminded herself that she had been in worse situations.
Really.
Shit.
* * *
“I promise I’m not going to wreck it.”
As Layla stood in the mansion’s kitchen and waited for Fritz to argue, she finished pulling on the wool coat that Qhuinn had gotten her earlier in the month. “And I won’t be gone long.”
“I shall take you then, ma’am.” The old doggen perked up, his bushy white eyebrows rising in optimism. “I shall drive you wherever you wish—”
“Thank you, Fritz, but I’m just going to sightsee. I have no destination.”
In truth, she was stir-crazy from being holed up in the house, and after the further good news from Doc Jane’s most recent blood test, she’d decided she needed to get out. Dematerializing wasn’t an option, but Qhuinn had taught her to drive—and the idea of sitting in a toasty car, going nowhere in particular…being free and by herself…sounded like absolute heaven.
“Mayhap I shall just call—”
She cut him off. “The keys. Thank you.”
As she put out her hand, she leveled her eyes on the butler’s and kept her stare in place, making the demand as graciously but as firmly as she could. Funny, there was a time, before the pregnancy, when she would have caved and given in to the doggen’s discomfort. No longer. She was getting quite used to standing up for herself, her young, and her young’s sire, thank you very much.
Going through the hell of nearly losing that which she wanted so badly had redefined her in ways she was still getting in touch with.
“The keys,” she repeated.
“Yes, of course. Right away.” Fritz scurried over to the built-in desk in the rear of the kitchen. “Here they are.”
As he came back and presented them with a tense smile, she put her hand on his shoulder, even though no doubt that would fluster him more—and, in fact, did. “Worry not. I shan’t go far.”
“Have you your phone?”
“Yes, indeed.” She took it out of the central pocket of her pullover fleece. “See?”
After waving a good-bye, she went out into the dining room and nodded at the staff who were already setting up for Last Meal. Crossing through the foyer, she found herself walking faster as she approached the vestibule.
And then she was free of the house entirely.
Outside, standing on the front steps, her deep breath of frosty air was a benediction, and as she looked up at the starry night sky, she felt a burst of energy.
Much as she wanted to leap off the front steps, however, she was cautious going down them, and also careful striding across the courtyard. As she rounded the fountain, she hit the button on the key fob, and the lights of that gigantic black car winked at her.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, let her please not wreck the thing.
Getting in behind the wheel, she had to move the seat back, because clearly the butler had been the last one to drive the vehicle. And then, as she put the key fob in the cup holder and hit the start button, she had a moment’s pause.
Especially as the engine flared and settled into a purr.
Was she really doing this? What if…
Stopping that spiral, she flick
ed the right-hand toggle upward and looked to the screen on the dashboard, making sure there was nothing close behind her.
“This is going to be fine,” she told herself.
She eased off the brake, and the car smoothly moved back, which was good. Unfortunately, it went in the opposite direction than she wanted and she had to wrench the wheel over.
“Shoot.”
Some to’ing and fro’ing happened next, with her piloting the car into a series of stop-and-gos that eventually had the circular hood ornament pointed at the road that went down the mountain.
One last glance at the mansion and she was off at a snail’s pace, descending the hill, keeping to the right as she’d been taught. All around, the landscape was blurry, thanks to the mhis, and she was ready to get rid of that. Visibility was something she was desperate for.
When she got to the main road, she went left, coordinating the turn of the wheel and the acceleration so that she pulled out with some semblance of order. And then, surprise, surprise, it was smooth sailing: The Mercedes, she believed it was called, was so steady and sure that it was nearly like sitting in a chair, and watching a movie of the landscape going by.
Of course, she was going only five miles an hour.
The dial went up to one hundred and sixty.
Silly humans and their speed. Then again, if that was the only way one could travel, she could see the value of haste.
With every mile she went, she gathered confidence. Using the dashboard screen’s map to orient herself, she stayed very far from downtown and the highways, and even the suburban parts of the city. Farmland was good—lots of room to pull over and not a lot of people, although from time to time a car would come out of the night, its headlights flaring and passing on her left.
It was a while before she realized where she was going. And when she did, she told herself to turn around.
She did not.
In fact, she was surprised to discover that she knew where she was going at all: Her memory should have dimmed since the fall, the passage of the intervening days, but even more so, events, obscuring the location she was seeking. There was no such buffering. Even the awkwardness of being in a car and having to be restricted to roads didn’t mitigate what she saw in her mind’s eye…or where her recollections were taking her.