by J. R. Ward
As he stared down at his sex and cursed, the strong length of it made him think of the countless times he’d used it for pleasure and fun… and procreation.
Now he just wanted it to go limp and stay that way.
Settling back against the pillows, sorrow settled on him like a physical weight as he recognized the truth that the angel had spoken. He had not, in fact, let his Wellsie go on any level.
He… was the problem.
Summer
TWENTY
From the vantage point behind binoculars, the mansion on the far side of the Hudson River looked enormous, a massive stack-on-stack of floors that sat boldly upon a rocky bluff. On every of its levels, lights glowed through glass panels, as if the thing had no solid walls.
“Quite a palace,” Zypher remarked in the thick, balmy breeze.
“Aye,” came a reply over on the left.
Xcor dropped the binocs from his eyes. “Too much exposure to daylight. ’Tis a roasting waiting to happen.”
“Mayhap he kitted out the basement,” Zypher said. “With more of those marble tubs…”
Given the tone of his voice, the soldier was imagining females of different sorts in water with suds, and Xcor shot him a glare before resuming the watch.
Such a waste this was. Assail—son of one of the greatest Brothers there had ever been—could have been a fighter, a warrior, mayhap even a Brother, but his fallen Chosen mother had forced another path upon him.
Although one could argue if the bastard had had any cock at all, he would have forged his own destiny in pursuits other than those of marble tubing. As it stood, however, he was simply another useless drain upon the species, a dandy with naught worthwhile to do with his nights.
Although that could all change this evening.
Under these clouded skies, against the backdrop of flashes of lightning, this male was significant, at least for a short time. Granted, the circumstances of his relevancy might cost him his life, but if the history books served their purposes, he could well be remembered for playing a small role in the great turning point of the race.
Not that he knew any of this, of course.
Then again, one didn’t expect chum to be aware it was attracting sharks.
Scanning the rolling grounds once again, Xcor decided the lack of trees and shrubs was the result of the clearing process prior to construction. No doubt an aristocrat would want manicured gardens; the fact that it made the house more difficult to get up close to was not the kind of thing Assail would consider.
The good news was that although it was likely there was steel in the structure of the house—as part of support beams, floor pinnings, roof joists—at least one could get in and out through all that glass.
“Ah, yes, here is the proud homeowner now,” Xcor growled at the figure of a male striding out into the grand living room.
Not even drapes to hide his presence. It was as if he were a hamster in a cage.
The male deserved to die for being this stupid, and indeed, on Xcor’s back, his scythe began to hum a little dirge.
Xcor increased the binoculars’ magnification. Assail was taking something out of his breast pocket—a cigar. And naturally, the lighter was a gold one. He probably thought fire, like packaged meat, came only from stores.
It was going to be a pleasure to kill him.
Along with the others who would soon show up here.
Indeed, the glymera’s Council had effectively stonewalled Xcor and his Band of Bastards. No invitation to a meeting. No greeting by its leahdyre, Rehvenge. Not even an official response to the letter that had been sent in the spring.
At first, this had frustrated him to the point of violence. But then a little birdie had begun to chirp in his ear, and another path had been revealed.
The best weapon in a war was often not a dagger, a gun, or even a cannon. It was something that was invisible and deadly—yet not poisonous gas. It was something that was utterly weightless and yet had gravity beyond measure.
Information, solid, verified information, from a source inside your enemy’s camp, was atomic-bomb powerful.
His missive to the Council had in fact been received, and what was more, it was being taken seriously. The great Blind King, whilst saying nothing, had immediately commenced meeting with the heads of all the remaining bloodlines—in person, at their places of residence.
Bold move in a time of war—and it proved Xcor’s challenge had a basis in reality: A king did not risk his life like that unless he was out of touch with his subjects and being forced to reconnect.
In retrospect, it was even better than a meeting with the Council. There were a limited number of its members left, and all of them had known abodes. Wrath had already had audiences with the majority, and, thanks to that little birdie, Xcor was well aware of who was left.
Shifting his focus around, he assessed the roof. The porches. The chimney on the near side.
According to Xcor’s source, Assail had arrived back in the spring, assumed ownership of this sieve of a homestead, and… that was all the aristocrats knew. Well, other than the odd notables that the male had brought no one with him—no family, no staff, no shellan—and that he kept to himself. Both were unusual for a member of the glymera, but then mayhap he was waiting to see how things fared in this new environment afore bringing his blood to him and entertaining others of his ilk.…
There had been a younger brother, hadn’t there? Also coddled by that fallen Chosen mother of theirs. Perhaps a half sister of some ill repute?
Behind him, Xcor heard his soldiers stretch, their leather creaking, their weapons shifting. Up above, storm clouds continued to release intermittent flashes of light, with the base drum of thunder remaining as yet in the distance.
He should have assumed from the very beginning that it would come down to this: If he wanted Wrath off the throne, he was going to have to do it himself. Relying on the glymera for anything more than unfounded delusions of grandeur had been a mistake.
At least he had his in on the Council. In the aftermath, when things got messy, he was going to need the support. Fortunately, there were more people who agreed with him than did not: Wrath was nothing but a figurehead, and whereas in times of peace that was tolerable, in this era of war and strife it was insupportable.
The Old Ways could keep that male where he didn’t belong for just so long. In the meantime, Xcor would wait for the proper moment, and strike decisively.
It was time for Wrath’s reign to be relegated to a soon forgotten footnote.
“I hate waiting,” Zypher muttered.
“ ’Tis the only virtue that matters,” Xcor shot back.
In the foyer of the Brotherhood’s mansion, everyone was gathering to go out for the night, the males milling around at the foot of the grand staircase, their weapons gleaming on their chests and at their hips, their brows drawn over cold eyes, their bodies mincing about like those of stallions whose hooves could not be stilled.
From the shadows outside the butler’s pantry, No’One waited for Tohrment to come down and join them. He was usually among the first, but of late he had tarried longer and longer—
There he was, at the head of the second-floor landing, clad in black leather.
As he descended, he took the banister casually.
She was not fooled.
He had grown e’er weaker over the last few months, his body wasting away, until it was clear that only his will for vengeance animated him.
He was starved for blood. And yet he obviously refused to yield to that demand of the flesh.
So thus she nervously waited and watched at the beginning of every night and the end: Every sundown she hoped he would come down finally refreshed. Every near-to-dawn, she found herself praying he arrived back alive.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he—
“You look like shit,” one of his Brothers said.
Tohrment ignored the comment as he went over to stand next to the massive young male who had mated
Xhexania. The pair were a team, from what she could tell, and she was grateful for it. The younger had to be a full-breed, in spite of his nomenclature, and she had heard many references to his prowess in the field. Further, that particular fighter was never alone: Behind him, as faithfully as a reflection, was a downright nasty-looking soldier, one with mismatched irises and a calculation to his stare that suggested he was as smart as he was strong.
She had to believe that both would intercede if Tohrment were in danger.
“Enjoying the view? I’m not.”
She hissed and spun around, her robe’s hem flaring out. Lassiter had come through the pantry without her knowing and was filling the open doorway, his blond-and-black hair and his gold piercings catching the light of the fixture above him.
His knowing eyes were always something to escape from, but at least at the moment, that white stare was not on her.
Crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her hands into the robe’s sleeves, she resumed her own regard of Tohrment. “In truth, I do not know how he is still fighting.”
“It’s time to stop pussyfooting around with him.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but took a guess. “There are Chosen here who make themselves available for feeding. Surely he could use one of them?”
“You’d fucking think.”
Standing in concert, their focus wavered for but a moment as Wrath, the Blind King, appeared at the head of the stairs and walked down to the assembled. He was dressed for war, too, and his beloved dog was not with him—he was led now by his queen, the two in such synchronization that they moved with the same posture, gait, poise.
Tohrment had had that once, she thought.
“I wish there was some way of helping him,” she murmured. “I would do anything to see him with aid as opposed to alone in his suffering.”
“Do you mean that,” came a dark response.
“Of course.”
Lassiter put his face in her vision. “Do you really mean that.”
She went to take a step back, but found herself blocked by the jamb. “Yes…”
The angel put his palm out for her to clasp. “Swear to it.”
No’One frowned. “I do not understand—”
“You maintain you would do anything—I want you to swear to that.” Now those white eyes burned. “We’ve stalled out since the spring, and we didn’t have endless time back then. You say you want to save him, and I want you to commit to that—no matter what it takes.”
Abruptly, as if the memory had been purposely put in her mind—perhaps by the angel, more likely by her conscience—she remembered those moments after her birthing of Xhexania, when her physical pain and her mental anguish had been one and the same, the balance finally equalized as the agony in her heart for all she had lost was made manifest in her very core.…
Unable to bear her burdens, she had taken Tohrment’s dagger from his chest holster and used it in a way that had made him scream.
His hoarse cry had been the last thing she’d heard.
Staring up at the angel, she wasn’t stupid, and she was no longer naive. “You are suggesting I feed him.”
“Yeah. I am. It’s time to take this to the next level.”
No’One had to steel herself before she looked back at Tohrment. But as she took in his frail body, she came to a resolve: He had buried her… so surely she could force herself to accept him at her vein in order to give him life.
Assuming he would agree to take what was offered.
Assuming she could make herself.
Indeed, even in the hypothetical, her body trembled at the thought, but her mind rejected the response of her flesh. This was not a male interested in anything from her. In fact, he would be the only male she could safely feed.
“A Chosen’s blood would be purer,” she heard herself say.
“And get us nowhere.”
No’One shook her head, refusing to read anything into that statement. Then she took the angel’s hand. “I shall serve his blood needs, if he comes to me.”
Lassiter bowed ever so slightly. “I’ll take care of that part. And I’m going to hold you to this.”
“You shall not have to. My vow is my vow.”
TWENTY-ONE
Standing in the foyer with his brothers, Tohr had a bad feeling about the way the night was going to go. Then again, he’d woken up from that dream of his Wellsie and the young, the one he had had from time to time, but only truly understood since Lassiter had provided the context. He knew now that the two were in the In Between, huddled under a gray blanket in the midst of a dark gray landscape that was cold and unyielding.
They were gradually moving off into the distance.
The first time he’d had the vision, he’d been able to pick out each individual hair on his shellan’s head… and the quarter-moon whites at the tips of her fingernails… and the way the blanket’s rough fibers caught the strange, ambient light…
As well as the contours of the tiny bundle she cradled against her heart.
Now, though, she was yards off, the gray ground between them something that he tried to cross, but was unable to cover. And just as dire, she had lost all color, her face and hair now tinted with the gray of the prison she was trapped in.
Naturally, he’d been insane when he woke up.
For fuck’s sake, he’d done everything he could to move on in the last few months: Put the dress away. Gone down for First and Last Meals. Tried cocksucking yoga, transcendental bullcrap, and even gotten on the Internet to research grief stages and other psychobabble bullshit.
He’d attempted to not think of Wellsie consciously, and if his subconscious burped up a memory, he quashed it. When his heart ached, he pictured those f-in’ white doves released from cages, and dams bursting, and shooting stars, and a bunch of other dumb-ass metaphoricals that belonged on motivational posters.
And still he’d had that dream in shades of gray.
And still Lassiter was here.
It wasn’t working—
“Tohr? You with us,” Wrath barked out.
“Yeah.”
“You sure about that.” After a moment, Wrath’s wraparounds swung back to the rest of the group. “So we do this. V, John Matthew, Qhuinn, and Tohr on me. Everyone else in the field, ready to come in as backup.”
There was a shout of agreement from the Brothers, and then they were all filing through the vestibule.
Tohr was the last through the door, and just as he got to the jambs, something made him stop and look over his shoulder.
No’One had stepped out from somewhere, and stood on the edge of the depiction of the apple tree in the floor, her hood and robe making her seem like a shadow that had suddenly gone 3-D.
Time slowed and then ground to a halt as he met her eyes, some strange pull keeping him where he stood.
In the intervening months since the spring, he had seen her at meals, had forced himself to speak with her, had pulled out chairs and helped to serve her as he did the other females in the house.
But he hadn’t been alone with her, and he’d never touched her.
He felt like he was touching her now, for some reason.
“No’One?” he said.
Her arms unfolded from out of her sleeves and her hands lifted to the hood that covered her face. With grace, she revealed herself to him.
Her eyes were luminous and a little scared, her features as perfect as they had been back in the spring at the Sanctuary. And down lower, her throat was a perfect, pale column of flesh… which she touched lightly with fingertips that trembled.
From out of nowhere, hunger struck him hard, the need reverberating through his body, lengthening his fangs, parting his lips—
“Tohr? What the fuck?”
V’s sharp voice broke the spell, and with a curse, he looked over his shoulder. “I’m coming—”
“Good. ’Cuz the king’s waiting for you, true.”
Tohr glanced back across the f
oyer, but No’One was gone. As if she had never been.
Rubbing his eyes, he wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing. Had he exhausted himself to the point of hallucination—
If he was seeing things, it wasn’t exhaustion, some part of him pointed out.
“Don’t say another word,” he muttered as he brushed past his brother. “Not one goddamn thing.”
As V started talking under his breath, it was obviously a litany of all of Tohr’s faults, real and imagined, but whatever. At least that shit was keeping the fucker’s mouth busy as they strode out toward Wrath, John Matthew, and Qhuinn.
“Ready,” Tohr announced.
None of them needed to about-fucking-time him verbally. Their expressions were loud enough.
Seconds later, the five of them rematerialized on the rolling lawn of a house so big you could keep an army in it. Tragically, only the owner was in residence, because that was all that was left of the bloodline.
They had been to so many houses like this over the last few months. Too many. And the stories were all the same. Families decimated. Hope gone. Those left behind limping, not living.
The Brotherhood did not take for granted that these visits were welcome, even though, naturally, no one turned down the king. And they did not take chances: With their guns in their hands, the formation they assumed as they approached the door was with Tohr in front of Wrath, V to the rear, John at the king’s dagger hand, and Qhuinn on the other side.
Two more meetings like this to go and they could take a breather—
What went down next proved that tits up could happen in an instant.
Abruptly, the world started spinning, the sprawling antique house twisting and turning sure as if it had eggbeaters for a foundation.
“Tohr!” someone barked out.
A hand grabbed him. Somebody else cursed.
“Has he been shot?”
“Motherfucker—”
With a curse, Tohr shoved everyone off of him and regained his balance. “For chrissakes, I’m fine—”
V crawled so far up into his grill, the bastard was practically inside his nose. “Go home.”