by J. R. Ward
She and Rhage sat down as the doctor went behind her desk.
Before the woman was in her chair, Mary said, “So what are you giving me, and how much can I handle?”
Dr. Della Croce looked up over the medical records and the pens and the binder clips and the phone on her desk.
“I spoke with my colleagues here as well as two other specialists. We’ve reviewed your records and the results from yesterday’s—”
“I’m sure you have. Now tell me where we are.”
The other woman took off her glasses and inhaled deeply. “I think you should get your affairs in order, Mary. There’s nothing we can do for you.”
At four thirty in the morning, Rhage left the hospital in an absolute daze. He’d never expected to go home without Mary.
She’d been admitted for a blood transfusion, and because evidently those night fevers and the exhaustion were also tied to the beginnings of pancreatitis. If things improved she’d be released the next morning, but no one was making any commitments.
The cancer was strong: Its presence had multiplied even in the short time between when she’d had her quarterly checkup a week ago and when the blood test had been taken the day before. And Dr. Della Croce and the specialists all agreed: Because of the treatments Mary had already been through, they couldn’t give her any more chemo. Her liver was shot and just couldn’t handle the chemical load.
God. He’d been prepared for one hell of fight. And a whole lot of suffering, particularly on her part. But never death. And not so fast.
They only had a matter of months. Springtime. Maybe summer.
Rhage materialized in the courtyard of the main house and headed for the Pit. He couldn’t bear to go back to his and Mary’s room by himself. Not yet.
Except as he stood in front of Butch and V’s door, he didn’t knock. Instead he looked over his shoulder at the facade of the main house and thought of Mary feeding the birds. He pictured her there, on the steps, that lovely smile on her face, the sunshine in her hair.
Sweet Jesus. What was he going to do without her?
He thought of the strength and resolve in her eyes after he’d fed from another female in front of her. Of the way she loved him even though she’d seen the beast. Of her quiet, shattering beauty and her laugh and her gunmetal gray eyes.
Mostly he thought of her the night she’d torn out of Bella’s, running out into the coldness on her bare feet, running out into his arms, telling him that she wasn’t okay…. Finally turning to him for help.
He felt something on his face.
Aw, fuck. Was he crying?
Yup.
And he didn’t care that he was going soft.
He looked down at the pebbles in the driveway and was struck by the absurd thought that they were very white in the floodlights. And so was the stuccoed retaining wall that ran around the courtyard. And so was the fountain in the center that had been drained for winter—
He froze. Then his eyes peeled open.
He slowly pivoted toward the mansion, lifting his head up to the window of their room.
Purpose galvanized him and carried him into the vestibule at a dead run.
Mary lay in the hospital bed and tried to smile at Butch, who was sitting in a chair in the corner with his hat and sunglasses on. He’d come as soon as Rhage had left, to guard her and keep her safe until nightfall.
“You don’t have to be social,” Butch said softly, as if he knew she was struggling to be polite. “You just do your thing.”
She nodded and looked out the window. The IV in her arm wasn’t bad; it didn’t hurt or anything. Then again, she was so numb they could have hammered nails into her veins and she probably wouldn’t have felt a thing.
Holy hell. The end had finally come. The inescapable reality of dying was finally upon her. No outs this time. Nothing to be done, no battle to be waged. Death was no longer an abstract concept, but a very real, impending event.
She felt no peace. No acceptance. All she had was…rage.
She didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave the man she loved. Didn’t want to give up the messy chaos of life.
Just stop this, she thought. Someone…just stop this.
She closed her eyes.
As everything went dark, she saw Rhage’s face. And in her mind she touched his cheek with her hand and felt the warmth of his skin, the strong bones underneath. Words started marching through her head, coming from someplace she didn’t recognize, going…nowhere, she supposed.
Don’t make me go. Don’t make me leave him. Please…
God, just let me stay here with him and love him a little longer. I promise not to waste the moments. I’ll hold him and never let him go…. God, please. Just stop this….
Mary started to cry as she realized she was praying, praying with everything she had, throwing her heart open, begging. As she called out to something she didn’t even believe in, an odd revelation came to her in the midst of the desperation.
So this was why her mother had believed. Cissy hadn’t wanted to get off the carnival ride, hadn’t wanted the carousel to stop turning, hadn’t wanted to leave…Mary. The impending separation from love, more than the ending of life, had kept all that faith alive. It was the hope of having a little more time to love that had made her mother hold crosses, and look to the faces of statues, and cast words up into the air.
And why had those prayers focused heavenward? Well, it kind of made sense, didn’t it? Even when there were no more options for the body, the heart’s wishes find a way out, and as with all warmth, love rises. Besides, the will to fly was in the nature of the soul, so its home had to be up above. And gifts did come from the sky, like spring rain and summer breezes and fall sun and winter snow.
Mary opened her eyes. After blinking her vision clear, she focused on the dawn’s nascent glow behind the city’s nest of buildings.
Please…God.
Let me stay here with him.
Don’t make me go away.
Chapter Forty-nine
Rhage raced into the house, whipping off his trench coat as he pounded through the foyer and up the stairs. Inside their room he ditched his watch and changed into a white silk shirt and pants. After grabbing a lacquered box from the top shelf of the closet, he went to the center of the bedroom and got down on his knees. He opened the box, took out a string of marble-sized black pearls, and put the necklace on.
He sat back on his heels, laid his hands palm up on his thighs, and closed his eyes.
Slowing down his breathing, he sank into the position until his bones, not his muscles, held him in place. He swept his mind clean as best he could and then waited, begging to be seen by the only thing that might save Mary.
The pearls warmed against his skin.
When he opened his eyes he was in a brilliant courtyard of white marble. The fountain here was working splendidly, the water sparkling as it went up into the air and came down into the basin. A white tree with white blossoms was in the corner, the songbirds trilling on its branches the only splashes of color in the place.
“To what do I owe this pleasure,” the Scribe Virgin said from behind him. “You have surely not come about your beast. There is quite some time left on that, as I recall.”
Rhage remained on his knees, his head bowed, his tongue tied. He found that he didn’t know where to begin.
“Such silence,” the Scribe Virgin murmured. “Unusual for you.”
“I would choose my words carefully.”
“Wise, warrior. Very wise. Given what you have come here for.”
“You know?”
“No questions,” she snapped. “Truly, I am getting tired of having to remind the Brotherhood of this. Perhaps when you return you will recall such etiquette to the others.”
“My apologies.”
The edge of her black robes came into his vision. “Lift your head, warrior. Look at me.”
He took a deep breath and complied.
“You are in such pai
n,” she said softly. “I can feel your burden.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“For this human female of yours.”
He nodded. “I would ask that you save her, if it would not offend.”
The Scribe Virgin turned away from him. Then she floated over the marble, taking a slow turn around the courtyard.
He had no idea what she was thinking. Or whether she was even considering what he’d requested. For all he knew she was out for a little exercise. Or about to walk away from him.
“That I would not do, warrior,” she said as she read his mind. “In spite of our differences, I would not desert you in that manner. Tell me something—what if saving your female meant you would never be free of the beast? What if having her live meant you must remain in your curse until you go unto the Fade?”
“I would happily keep it within me.”
“You hate it.”
“I love her.”
“Well, well. Clearly you do.”
Hope fired in his chest. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if they had struck a deal, if Mary could live now. But he wasn’t going to risk tipping the balance of the negotiation by pissing the Scribe Virgin off with another question.
She smoothed her way over to him. “You have changed quite a bit since we had our last private meeting in that forest. And I believe this is the first selfless thing you have ever done.”
He exhaled, a sweet relief singing in his veins. “There is nothing I would not do for her, nothing I would not sacrifice.”
“Fortunate for you, in a way,” the Scribe Virgin murmured. “Because in addition to keeping the beast within you, I require you to give up your Mary.”
Rhage jerked, convinced he hadn’t heard right.
“Yes, warrior. You understand me perfectly.”
A death chill went through him, stealing his breath.
“Here is what I offer you,” she said. “I can take her out of the continuum of her fate, making her whole and healthy. She will grow no older, she will never be ill, she will decide when she wishes to go unto the Fade. And I will give her the choice to accept the gift. However, as I present the proposal, she will not know of you, and whether or not she consents, you and your world will be ever unknown to her. Likewise, she will not be known by any of those whom she has met, lessers included. You will be the only one who remembers her. And if ever you approach her, she will die. Immediately.”
Rhage swayed and fell forward, catching himself with his hands. It was a long time before he could squeeze any words from his throat.
“You truly hate me.”
A mild electrical shock went through him, and he realized the Scribe Virgin had touched him on the shoulder.
“No, warrior. I love you, my child. The punishment of the beast was to teach you to control yourself, to learn your limits, to focus inward.”
He lifted his eyes to her, not caring what she saw in them: hatred, pain, the urge to lash out.
His voice trembled. “You are taking my life from me.”
“That is the point,” she said in an impossibly gentle tone. “It is yin and yang, warrior. Your life, metaphorically, for hers, in fact. Balance must be kept, sacrifices must be made if gifts are given. If I am to save the human for you, there must be a profound pledge on your part. Yin and yang.”
He put his head down.
And screamed. Screamed until the blood rushed into his face and stung. Until his eyes watered and all but popped out of his skull. Until his voice cracked and faded into hoarseness.
When he was finished, he focused his eyes. The Scribe Virgin was kneeling in front of him, her robes spilling out all around her, a pool of black on the white marble.
“Warrior, I would spare you this if I could.”
God, he almost believed that. Her voice was so hollow.
“Do it,” he said roughly. “Give her the choice. I would rather she live long and happily without knowing me than die now.”
“So be it.”
“But I beg of you…let me say good-bye. One last goodbye.”
The Scribe Virgin shook her head.
Pain ripped through him, slicing him until he wouldn’t have been surprised to find his body bleeding.
“I beg—”
“It is now or not.”
Rhage shuddered. Closed his eyes. Felt death come to him as surely as if his heart had stopped beating.
“Then it is now,” he whispered.
Chapter Fifty
Butch’s first stop when he got home from the hospital was the mansion’s upstairs study. He had no idea why Rhage had called and told him to leave Mary’s room. His impulse had been to argue with the brother, but the sound of the guy’s voice had been freaky, so he’d left it alone.
The Brotherhood was waiting in Wrath’s room, all grim and focused. And they were waiting for him. As Butch stared at them all, he felt as if he were about to make a report to the department, and after a couple months of sitting on his ass, it was good to be back on the job.
Though he was damn sorry his skills were needed.
“Where’s Rhage?” Wrath asked. “Someone go get him.”
Phury disappeared. When he came back he left the door open. “My man’s in the shower. He’ll be right with us.”
Wrath looked across his desk at Butch. “So what do we know?”
“Not much, although I’m encouraged by one thing. Some of Bella’s clothes were gone. She was a neat type, so I could tell it was just jeans and nightgowns, not the kind of stuff she might have taken to a dry cleaners or something. It gives me hope they might want her alive for a while.” Butch heard the door shut behind him and figured Rhage had come in. “Anyway, both sites, Mary’s and Bella’s, were pretty clean, although I’m going to do one more sweep—”
Butch realized nobody was listening to him. He turned around.
A ghost had walked into the room. A ghost who looked a lot like Rhage.
The brother was dressed in white and had some kind of scarf wrapped around his throat. There were white binds on both his wrists, too. All his drinking points, Butch thought.
“When did she go unto the Fade?” Wrath asked.
Rhage just shook his head and went over to one of the windows. He stared out of it even though the shutters were down and he couldn’t see anything.
Butch, who was floored by the death that had apparently come so fast, didn’t know whether to continue or not. He glanced at Wrath, who shook his head and then got to his feet.
“Rhage? My brother? What can we do for you?”
Rhage looked over his shoulder. He stared at each one of the males in the room, ending on Wrath. “I can’t go out tonight.”
“Of course not. And we will stay in and mourn with you.”
“No,” Rhage said sharply. “Bella’s out there. Find her. Don’t let her…go.”
“But is there anything we can do for you?”
“I can’t…I find that I can’t concentrate. On anything. I can’t really…” Rhage’s eyes drifted to Zsadist. “How do you live with it? All the anger. The pain. The…”
Z shifted uneasily and stared at the floor.
Rhage turned his back to the group.
The silence in the room stretched out.
And then with a slow, halting walk, Zsadist went over to Rhage. When he was standing next to the brother, he didn’t say a word, didn’t lift a hand, didn’t make a sound. He just crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his shoulder into Rhage’s.
Rhage jerked as if surprised. The two men looked at each other. And then both stared out the obscured window.
“Continue,” Rhage commanded in a dead voice.
Wrath sat back down behind the desk. And Butch started to speak again.
By eight o’clock that night, Zsadist was finished at Bella’s.
He poured the last bucket of suds out in the kitchen sink and then put the container and the mop away in the closet next to the garage door.
Her house was now
clean and everything was back where it needed to be. When she came home, all she would see was a whole lot of normal.
He fingered the small chain with little diamonds in it that was at his throat. He’d found the thing on the floor the night before, and after he’d fixed the broken link he’d put it on. It barely went around his neck.
He scanned the kitchen one more time and then took the stairs down to her bedroom. He’d refolded her clothes neatly. Slid the dresser drawers back in place. Lined up her perfume bottles again on the vanity. Vacuumed.
Now he opened her closet and touched her blouses and sweaters and dresses. He leaned in and breathed deeply. He could smell her, and the scent made his chest burn.
Those fucking bastards were going to bleed for her. He was going to tear them apart with his bare hands until their black blood ran over him like a waterfall.
With vengeance throbbing in his veins, he went over to her bed and sat down. Moving slowly, as if he might crash the frame, he lay back and put his head on her pillows. There was a spiral-bound book on top of the duvet and he picked it up. Her handwriting filled the pages.
He was illiterate, so he couldn’t understand the words, but they were beautifully composed, her penmanship curling into a lovely pattern over the paper.
On a random page, he caught the one word that he could read.
Zsadist.
She’d written his name. He flipped through the journal, looking closely. She’d written his name a lot recently. He cringed as he imagined the content.
Closing the book, he returned it to the precise spot it had been in. Then he glanced to the right. There was a hair ribbon on the bed stand, as if she’d whipped the thing off before getting into bed. He picked it up and wound the black satin through his fingers.
Butch appeared at the base of the stairs.
Z shot up off the bed as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. Which, of course, he had been. He shouldn’t be all over Bella’s private space.