by J. R. Ward
“It’s time.” Jack went over to a stack of folded prison garb. “I’m going to ask you to put this on over your backpack.”
“Good idea.” She strapped her things on and then pulled the loose, grungy-colored shirt over her head. “Which way are we headed?”
“Into the main concourse. You’re going to be in the middle of all of us. Keep your head down—”
“And don’t make eye contact. You’ve told me the drill. But what’s the plan? What do I do—”
“You stay in the middle of all of us. We’ll take care of everything else—”
“Which is what, exactly.”
“Keeping you alive.”
Frowning, she stepped up to him and leveled a hard stare. “FYI, I’m in on that job.”
Lucan spoke up. “It’s true. I’ve been there with her.”
When Jack didn’t respond, she thought he was going to blow her off. Or stomp away. But then he rubbed his eyes.
“We’re going to walk you through to the Hive, and we’re timing it so that we get there when the guard shift happens. The Command has private quarters and that’s where the Wall is. These males will help you and me get in there, and once we’re inside, we’ll have only a matter of minutes, so you’ll have to keep up.”
“That’s not going to be a problem,” she said dryly.
As he turned away, she grabbed for his hand. When he pivoted back to her and broke the contact, he had a stern expression on his face, like he didn’t want her getting too personal in front of the others. Or maybe it was more of an “at all” situation.
Whatever. She wasn’t wasting time with lovey-dovey girlfriend crap in this situation.
“Here.” She put the guard’s gun in his palm. “You take this. I’ve got another.”
As they departed the pool, the Jackal instructed Kane to take the front position in the lineup because of all of them, he was the least controversial, the least likely to be noticed by the guards. Mayhem was on the left flank. Lucan on the right.
Nyx was in between the two of them.
The Jackal was right behind her. With the weapon she’d given him in his hand.
Finally, in the wake of their little squadron, quite a bit in the rear, the caboose to their train was Apex. The male would lag at quite a distance, something that was a tactical advantage as well as the kind of thing he would have done anyway. He didn’t get close to anybody, and one might have assumed that that loner habit would have been incompatible with this kind of concerted effort. But Apex loved killing guards. It was his favorite pastime. He wasn’t here for Nyx, or even the Jackal, who he did owe a debt to.
No, he was looking forward to drawing blood—and he often did. If a guard disappeared and no body was found? Chances were Apex had done the deed, and then cooked up the remains and ate them to cut down on the conversation. His success and privacy around these clandestine murders were assured by the prisoner’s code. As vicious and self-serving as most of the people incarcerated were, they never stepped across the aisle to share information like that—plus there was the reality that they were more scared of Apex than the Command’s henchmales. And as for the Command? Had it noticed that it had missing guards? Given the complex schedule, it must have, but it hadn’t retaliated against Apex. Not yet, at any rate.
Including that male in their plan was a gamble. The last thing the Jackal needed was a rogue aggressor on their team. In the end, though, he’d decided that the value the violent fighter brought in a knock-down/drag-out was worth the risk, and in any event, it was too late to change things up now. Apex was already on the hunt.
As they cautiously emerged out of the hidden passage, and walked in a loose configuration deeper into the prison, they came upon a few prisoners shuffling along. And soon, many others. There was always a flow of people going in and out of the Hive. Then again, that was where the black market trading took place. Where many of the hookups started—and some actually occurred. Where people connected for whatever reason, whether it was arguing, fighting, even laughing and card-playing. Or all that sex.
Given what work was like for so many of them, and the bleak existence they groaned through during their off-hours, one could not blame the congregation of the damned. But with all those fallow attention spans, he was worried about attracting notice—and not just from the guards.
Fortunately, Kane, Lucan, and Mayhem were often seen around him. And he had to believe if they kept tight, and Nyx dropped that head of hers, the assumption would be there was Nothing Here, Nothing Here at All.
And no one messed with Apex. So he was a nonstarter in that regard—
As the first waft of the telltale stench hit the Jackal’s nostrils, he assessed it as if for the first time, as Nyx would take it in. The combination of sweat and dirt, sex and corporeal decay, was a stain in the sinuses, the kind of thing you smelled long after you had left the vicinity.
He wanted to take her hand. Just reach forward and touch her in some way so she knew he was right with her.
Instead, he tightened the grip on the gun she had put against his palm.
The noise of the Hive was the next harbinger to register. The low-level, resonant humming was the genesis of the nomenclature, and he thought the reference to bees was apt on another level. The guards were not stupid. A concentration that thick of prisoners was a wasp nest waiting to explode, and they took no chances with any roiling or agitation.
But shifts had to change. Even the Command couldn’t keep those guards working around the clock forever. The Jackal and Nyx had only a sliver of opportunity, the duration of which was not much longer than the blink of an eye. He’d studied the patterns for decades. He knew exactly when it was going to come, and how long it would last, and where they had to go.
Focusing on the female in front of him, he thought of what they’d shared by the pool. What she had given him. Ironic, that the very thing he had demanded of her had created a debt in her favor from him. He would do right by her and honor her need to know the fate of her blood.
And then he was going to get her the hell out of here.
Three nights later, close unto the dawn, Rhage sat back upon Jabon’s guest bed, the covers rolled down to just above his sex, the banding of gauze that covered the wound on his side peeled back. As he studied the contours of the fierce red ring around the surgical slice, he tried to ascertain any minute change to the landscape of infection. Bigger? Smaller? Improved over on the left edge? A little worse upon the right?
Cursing, he re-covered the ugly, angry patch of skin. The damn thing was like another appendage, a third arm that had sprouted and promptly been sprained so that it required constant accommodation. In addition to his infernal monitoring of the snail’s pace of healing, he had to watch how he sat, how he stood, how he walked, how he slept, to avoid upsetting its precious little sensibilities. Indeed, the whinging was rather constant, and he was beyond annoyed by its persistence.
Verily, he had come to feel as though he were in a prison in this mansion, and the key to his cell door was the wound. The warden was Jabon, and his guards were the relentless stream of obsequious doggen. Catered and comfortable did not matter when one could not voluntarily leave a place, and the walls closed in upon him regularly, no matter that they were covered with silk and hung with oil paintings of pastoral sheep and running streams.
Yet surely the tide would soon turn in his favor—and he would have left against the advice of Havers, et al. The trouble was, his legs were loose, his balance unreliable, and in fact, he did feel unwell, even though he was not upon death’s door. No, he was in that purgatory between overwhelming illness and relative health, just infirm enough to have his activities curtailed, but not delirious and flat upon his back such that he was unaware of time’s languorous passing.
He would almost have preferred the latter. For him, the hours crawled, and he was painfully aware of their pernicious laziness.
Returning the sheeting over his abdominals, he grunted as he twisted and reac
hed for the oil lamp on the bedside table. As he extinguished the low-seated flame, he fully reclined and held his limbs in strict stillness to avoid any conversation from his wound. Whilst he became as a statue, frozen save for his breathing, he tried not to dwell on the fact that one night, perhaps sooner or maybe much later, he would be thus for eternity, dead and gone, his soul unto the Fade.
As he contemplated the afterlife, he wondered if it would be thus. An eternal lie-in, every need met, no future to worry about because there was a forever too vast to comprehend ahead of oneself, and that meant one had the present and nothing else. After all, it was the rarity of time that led the mortal to be concerned with things like fate and destiny, and perhaps the relief of that worry and angst was the point of the Fade, the reward for the struggle upon the earth. But after this experience herein? Rhage was not sure how much of a boon would be granted upon one’s last breath. Timelessness struck him as a bore.
If he’d had a shellan, though . . .
Well, if he had found a true love, someone who alit his heart and not just his sex, a female of strength and intelligence to complement him, then the prospect of eternity would have been wholly different. Who wouldn’t wish to be with their beloved forever?
But love for him was like Darius’s communal fantasy.
Never a reality, ever a dream.
That male of worth could build a hundred houses on a hundred hills—the Brotherhood was never going to show up and fill those rooms. Just as Rhage could ever imagine a love that went deeper than sex, but that didn’t mean it was going to come and find him—
The door to the guest room opened, and the slice of light that pierced through the darkness got him right in the aching head.
With a curse, he lifted his forearm to shield his eyes.
“No,” he snapped, “I require naught. Please leave me thus.”
When the doggen did not readily accept the relief of their duties, he lowered his arm and glared into the illumination. “If I must get up to close that door myself, I will not thank you for forcing me unto the effort of rising from this bed.”
There was a pause. And then a female voice, a young female voice, made a reedy inquiry. “Are you unwell then?”
As he recognized who it was, the scent affirming his identification of the voice, he wanted to curse. ’Twas the unmated daughter of fine breeding, the one who had come in with her mahmen and Jabon when Darius had been reviewing the renderings of that mansion.
The one who had curved herself around the archway into the parlor and regarded him with open curiosity.
The one who had taken it upon herself to sit at his elbow at each meal he attended.
Indeed, he had been making an effort to descend unto the dining table for at least First and Last Meal. He had some thought that the activity would speed his healing, and up until this moment, he’d felt as though it was right to force himself to go.
But he had neither the interest nor the energy to deal with what had breached his doorway.
“You are in the wrong bedroom,” he said. “Go now.”
The female took a step forward, the light streaming in from behind her illuminating the outline of her body as it was draped in some diaphanous dressing gown. “But you are ill.”
“I am well enough.”
“Mayhap I can help you.” Her voice was soft. “Mayhap . . . I can make it better.”
As she turned to shut the door—to ensure a privacy that was the very last thing Rhage wanted—he sat up sharply and let out a groan. And then the room was plunged into darkness once more, and he had the sense she was walking over to him.
“No,” he snapped as he willed the door back open.
She froze as illumination flooded in once more. “But, sire . . . do you not find me . . . acceptable?”
“As a meal companion, certainly.” He held the sheets tightly over his chest, a classic pose of virtue that was laughable given his proclivities. “Nothing more than that—”
Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe. Tears.
Even though he could not see her face because of the orientation of the hall lighting, he was well aware of her escalating state of agitation and hurt: The acrid scent of tears emanated from her, much like the delicate fragrance of her arousal, and he truly, utterly wished to be absent of both.
“Forgive me for speaking so rashly,” he muttered. “You are of much virtue and beauty. But I am not what you are looking for.”
The female glanced back at the door, as if she were contemplating another closing attempt—no doubt because she had been ordered to complete this mission or not return to whatever wing she and her mahmen had been put in. Yes, she may desire him, but no female of any breeding would come thus into any male’s room—unless the suggestion had been placed there by an elder relation who saw much benefit to a forced mating ceremony.
“That door is staying open,” he said firmly, “and you are going back to the bedroom you share with your mahmen.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“Return unto your mahmen.” He did his best to keep his exhaustion from making his tone too cutting. “This is not about you, and there is nothing wrong with you. But it is never happening between you and me. Ever. I only like females who are experienced and free of complications. You, my dear, fulfill neither of those requirements.”
Talk about shutting doors—well, certain doors. But he had to make sure she understood there was no future in this.
“You deserve more than what I can give you,” he said, tempering his voice. “So you go and find yourself a nice male from a good bloodline, yes? And leave the likes of me alone.”
At this point, he had no clue what he was telling her. He just wanted her out.
“You are a hero.” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “You fight for the race. You keep us safe. Who could e’er be more worthy than you—”
“I am a soldier and a killer.” And cursed by the Scribe Virgin. “I am not what you’re looking for. You have a wonderful life awaiting you, and you must endeavor to go find it. Elsewhere.”
Out in the hall, a figure passed by, and Rhage whistled.
The Jackal, as the male turned out to be, pivoted and presented his form unto the open doorway. In a dry voice, he murmured, “Somehow I cannot believe this is a situation that requires an audience.”
How wrong you are, Rhage thought. And not because he was an exhibitionist.
“Ellany was just leaving,” he said. “Perhaps you will be kind enough to hold the door open for her.”
Across the tense air, the female lowered her head and sniffled. Then she gathered her gossamer robing unto her breasts and scooted out past the other male.
“Shit,” Rhage muttered as he collapsed back into the pillows. “I cannot wait to get out of here.”
“I must confess,” the Jackal said, “I am unsure how to respond to that. Given the opportunity you just turned down.”
“That is not an opportunity, that is another kind of prison, the warden of which is her virtue, or rather, the loss thereof. And there is no response necessary from you—no, wait. That is incorrect. I bid you, breathe deeply the now.”
The other male glanced down the hallway. Then he looked across to the bed once more. After a long, slow inhale, he nodded.
“There is no evidence of your arousal. If that is what you seek for me to attest.”
“Yes. And I may need you to share this impotence with others, should the need arise.”
“But of course.” The Jackal laughed softly. “A honey trap averted, then.”
“Poor little female. She has been thrown into depths in which to drown thanks to that mahmen of hers.”
“Assets are to be used by the glymera in whatever form they come, be they houses, horses, or daughters. It is their most reliable trait, other than censure.”
“Are you not one among them, though? Your accent belies your status. As do your clothes, and the fact that Jabon has welcomed you herein.”
“That male does cult
ivate quite a crowd of swells, doesn’t he. And as for the mahmen of your half-clothed visitor? She is well-connected unto our host. She has been here before many a time and she does not sleep alone, if you understand my inference.”
Rhage had to smile. He could respect anyone who wished to keep their own details private.
Not that such reticence would prevent him from inquiry.
“You have been here very much often yourself or you would not know this.”
“The mahmen took pains to tell me how often she stayed. However, I learned from another that she is rather hard on her luck, I’m afraid. Hellren passed unexpectedly with gambling debts. I believe she sees the comely nature of that daughter as a lifeboat for the both of them. Jabon accommodates them with some regularity on account of certain . . . preferences, shall we say . . . lavished upon him by the mahmen. I think she will be ultimately disappointed in him, though. However generous he is with his guest bedrooms, I gather he is tightfisted when it comes to cash dispersals.”
“How convoluted it all is.”
“Not really.”
Rhage thought of the daughter. “The sad thing is . . . I cannot recall even her hair color. Nor that of her eyes.”
“She is fair of both. And rather attractive.”
“Ah.” Rhage cocked an eyebrow. “What of you, then? Perhaps you could avail yourself of the opportunity.”
“Never.”
As Rhage just continued to stare across the room, the Jackal once more glanced behind himself to the empty hallway. “Is there something awry?”
“Nothing awry.” Rhage smiled anew. “But I do feel compelled to comment on something.”
“I believe you’ve covered the young female and her first-blooded relation nicely.”
“There are two kinds of people who keep things from others—”
“Well, I must continue on to my own room—”
“Those who have something to hide and those who wish to hide how little they possess.” When the male went to turn away, Rhage put some real volume into his voice. “I want you to know that in either case, I do not judge.”
