by J. R. Ward
"We won't know if we don't go."
Mary hesitated. "It could bring up a lot of memories. Are you sure you're ready for that?"
"Location doesn't matter. There is no escape from what I remember. It is with me every waking minute and in my dreams all day long."
As the girl spoke in such a factual way, she didn't miss a stroke of that brush. They might as well have been talking about the schedule of laundry or what was being served down in the kitchen.
"You must miss your mahmen a great deal," Mary prompted.
"So may we please go?"
Mary rubbed her face and felt exhausted. "You can talk about her with me, you know. Sometimes that helps."
Bitty didn't even blink. "May we?"
Annnnnnnd that door remained firmly closed, apparently. Great. "Let me talk to Marissa, okay? I'll go find her right now and see what I can do."
"I have my coat." The little girl motioned to the end of her bed. "And my shoes are on. I'm ready to go."
"I'll be back in a little bit." Mary headed for the exit, but paused at the door. "Bitty, in my experience, people either work things in, work them out, or work them through. The latter is the best option, and it usually comes from talking about the stuff we maybe don't want to discuss."
On some level, she couldn't believe she was addressing a nine-year-old like that. But Bitty certainly didn't express herself like someone under the age of ten.
"What do the other two mean?" the little girl said, still working her brush.
"Sometimes people internalize bad feelings, and punish themselves in their minds for things they regret or think they did wrong or badly. It eats away at you until you either crack and have to let it all out or go crazy. Working out means that you avoid what bothers you by channeling feelings into behaviors that ultimately hurt you or other people."
"I don't understand any of that. I'm sorry."
"I know," Mary said sadly. "Listen, I'll go speak to Marissa."
"Thank you."
Walking out of the room, Mary paused at the head of the stairs and looked back. Bitty was just doing what she had been, running that brush down the ratty hair and avoiding the bald spots.
In all the time she had been in the house, she had never played with any of the toys available downstairs in the communal box: the children, when they first came in, were always encouraged to find one or two that they liked and claim them as their own, leaving the others as joint property. Bitty had been told repeatedly to help herself. Never had.
She had her doll and her old stuffed tiger. That was it.
"Shit," Mary whispered.
Marissa's office was on the second floor, and when Mary went down and knocked on the jamb, Butch's shellan motioned for her to come in even as she talked into her phone.
"--completely confidential. No, no. Yes, you may bring your young. No, free of charge. What was that? Absolutely free of charge. For however long you're here." Marissa indicated for Mary to take a seat, and then held up her forefinger in the universal sign for Hold on, just one second. "No, it's okay--take your time. I know . . . you don't have to apologize for the tears. Ever."
After Mary lowered herself into the wooden chair across from her boss, she reached out and picked up a crystal paperweight that was in the shape of a diamond. The thing was nearly the size of her palm, heavy as her arm, and she smoothed its facets with her thumbs, watching the light refract out of its depths.
Was this ever going to get any easier with that girl, she wondered.
"Mary?"
"What?" She glanced up. "Sorry, I'm all in my head."
Marissa leaned on her elbows. "I totally understand. What's up?"
*
Xcor was removed from the training center at around eight o'clock--and Layla saw it all happen.
As soon as her alarm had gone off after sunset, she had gotten out of bed and propped the door to her room open with one of her slippers--such that as she lay back, she could see a slice of the corridor through the crack. And sure enough, the Brothers had soon moved him, just as she had guessed they would: hearing the sound of many heavy footsteps, she had gotten up and stood to the side so that she could see without being noticed.
Eventually, they had paraded by, and Xcor had been with them, lying prone on a rolling table, a sheet covering him from top of head to tip of foot. As they had passed, she had had to press her hands to her mouth. So many machines with him, clearly keeping him alive. And then there were the Brothers, all of them and each fully weaponized, their massive bodies strewn with deadly daggers and guns.
Closing her eyes and holding onto the door jamb, she'd been consumed by the need to rush out and stop them, to beg for Xcor's life, to pray unto the Scribe Virgin for his recovery and his release. She had even marshalled words in his defense, things such as, "He has not attacked us even though he knows our location!" and, "He has never hurt me, never once in all the nights I met him!" and the ever popular, "He's changed from the traitor he once was!"
All of it had served only to confirm her own guilt--and so she had stayed where she was, listening to them proceed all the way down the hall to the parking area.
As the final door had clanked shut and been locked, she had reiterated to herself that she needed to let it go.
She told herself, forcefully, that Xcor was the enemy. Nothing more. And nothing less.
Lurching forward, she returned to her bed, climbing up upon it and tucking her feet under her. With her heart pounding and her brow and upper lip sweating, she tried to control her emotions. Surely this kind of stress was not good for the young--
The knock on her door brought her head around. "Yes?" she yelped.
Had she been found out?
"'Tis I, Luchas." Qhuinn's brother sounded worried. "May I enter?"
"Please." She hefted herself back onto the floor and re-shuffled herself to the door, opening it wide. "Do come in."
As she stood to one side, the male cranked his arms around the wheels of his chair, his forward progress slow, but independent. There had been talk of getting him a mechanized one, but this self-directed momentum was part of his rehabilitation, and indeed, it seemed to be working. Sitting with his knees together and his thin body only a little hunched over, he had all of Qhuinn's handsomeness and intelligence, none of his brother's weight and vitality.
It was very sad. But at least he was getting around now--something that had long been an impossibility for him.
Then again, getting tortured by lessers had cost him more than just a finger or two.
When he had cleared the jambs, Layla allowed the panel to shut on its own and once more returned to the bed. Getting up on it, she straightened her nightgown, and smoothed her hair. As a Chosen, it would have been far more appropriate for her to receive a visitor in one of the traditional white robes of her station, but she no longer fit in any of them, for one thing. For another, Qhuinn's brother and she had long past dispensed with any formality.
"I find it rather impressive that I made it down this far anew," he said in a voice that was a monotone.
"I'm glad for the company." Although she would not be telling him why. "I feel . . . rather caged in here."
"How fare you this eve?"
As the question was posed, he did not meet her eyes--but he never did. His gray stare remained pinned four feet off the floor, its direction changing only when he turned his frail body this way or that in his chair.
She had never before been so grateful for another's dysfunction, for his reticence provided her some privacy as she attempted to control her emotions--although she supposed that didn't reflect well on her character.
What did, though, lately.
"I am well. And you?"
"Well, indeed. I must needs attend to my physical therapy in fifteen minutes."
"I know you shall do well."
"How fare my brother's young?"
"Very well, thank you. They are bigger every night."
"You have been much blessed, as h
as he. For that, I am most grateful."
It was the same conversation every evening. Then again, what else did the two of them have that was worthy of any kind of polite discourse?
Too many secrets on her side.
Too much suffering on his.
In a way, they were one of a kind.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The Tomb was the Brotherhood's sanctum sanctorum, a place where new members were inducted, and old members went after they died--and as such, it was protected from intruders through mechanisms both ancient and modern.
The sturdiest of these, after you breached the cave's mouth, further traveled into the earth some distance and proceeded behind a nine-foot-high slab of granite, was a set of iron gates that nobody was going to get through even with an industrial blowtorch.
Unless, of course, you had the key to the lock.
As Rhage and his brothers came up to the fortification with Xcor on the gurney, Z did the honors with the unlocking and Rhage monitored the interior of the cave, his eyes searching through what was revealed by V's glowing palm.
It was against protocol for anyone to enter the space who was not a Brother, but that was his point about beggars and choosers and all that shit. This was the safest, most isolated place to lock up a seriously wounded, treasonous motherfucker until such time as either he came to and was ready to be tortured, or the bastard kicked it and could be burned on the altar as a sacrifice worthy of all the carved names on the marble wall.
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.
Besides, Rhage thought as he began pulling the gurney ahead again, Xcor wasn't going any farther than the ante-chamber.
At least, not while he was still breathing.
Now there was no need for V's portable glow light. Iron-handled torches came alive with a nod from the brother and shadows started to chase one another over the stone floor and up the rows and rows of shelves, the flickering light darting in and about the countless jars, both those which were centuries old and those that had come from Amazon.com.
It was a display of the Brotherhood's triumphs over the Lessening Society, a collection of souvenirs from kills in the Old World and the New.
In that way, it was appropriate to bring Xcor here.
He was yet another spoil of war.
"This is far enough," Vishous announced.
Rhage stopped and locked the wheels with their foot brake as V shifted a massive duffel bag off his shoulder.
"This battery pack is only going to last ten hours," the brother said.
"Won't be a problem." As Lassiter spoke, his entire body lit up from the inside out, the energy replacing the contours of his flesh. "I can recharge it."
"You're sure you're good alone here during the day?" V demanded.
"I can always step out into the sunlight and top myself off. And before you bitch that that dead fish on the table will be momentarily left unattended, I have ways of keeping track of him."
V shook his head. "I'm surprised you're willing to do this. No Time Warner."
"That's what they make phones for."
"I can almost respect you."
"Don't get emotional on me, Vishous. I left the Kleenex at home. Besides, I have the night off now that the hot potato is safely here. Plenty of time to get busy with the whacker."
"Okay, that sounds dirty," someone said.
"No one but his left hand would have him, are you kidding me?" came a counter.
"Hey, Lass, when was the last time you were out on a date?" somebody else drawled. "Was it before the Punic Wars, or right after?"
"And how much did you have to pay her?"
Lassiter went silent, his strangely white eyes growing distant. But then he smiled. "Whatever. My standards are too high for you bunch of assholes."
As a fresh round of joking flared up, nobody actually relaxed. It was as if Xcor were a bomb with an unknown detonator and a debatable length of time before the boom party started.
"Z and I are on first shift," Phury cut in. "And you guys have work to do downtown."
"Call us and we're back here in a fucking instant." V punched himself in the chest. "Especially if he wakes up."
On that note, Rhage stared down at that ugly-ass face, and imagined those lids lifting. Was the Bastard awake in there? And not as in jump-out-and-attack, but as in conscious in the midst of the coma.
Did the SOB know what kind of trouble he was in? Or was the lack of consciousness the last bit of mercy his fate was ever going to give him?
Not my problem, Rhage thought as he took one last look around, seeking out the jars he had brought here and placed on the shelves, the representations of his own kills. So many. He had been at this war for such a long time--so long that he remembered back when Wrath refused to lead, and the only time the Brotherhood came to this mountain was to deliver these containers to the shelves.
So much had changed, he thought.
Now, not only were they all living in Darius's fancy mansion, but they had new members of the Brotherhood. John Matthew and Blay as soldiers. A medical staff and great facilities. Everyone under the same roof--
"--sides, that way I can polish my nails."
Rhage shook himself back into focus as Lassiter's voice registered. "Wait, what?"
"JK." The angel laughed. "I could tell we'd lost you. Dreaming of what you're going to have at Last Meal? I know I am. Three guesses, and the first two that don't have meat in them don't count."
"You're insane," Rhage said. "But I like that in a friend."
Lassiter put his arm around Rhage's shoulders and led him to the gate. "You have such good taste. Have I mentioned that lately?"
After everyone but Z and Phury filed out, Vishous closed the bars and relocked everything. Then they all stood still for a moment. The fine steel mesh that was wrapped around the barrier and soldered into place would prevent Phury and Z from getting free. And wasn't that a ball shriveler.
If something went wrong in there, they couldn't get out.
But Rhage told himself, as probably the rest of his brothers were, that there was no way Xcor was going to be anything other than an inanimate object for the foreseeable future--and even if he did come around, he'd be too weak to go on the offensive.
Still, Rhage didn't like this.
But that was the nature of war. It put you in places you hated.
As a subtle vibration went off in Rhage's pocket, he frowned and took out his phone. When he saw who it was, he accepted the call.
"Mary? Everything okay?"
There was static because the reception sucked so he jogged out to the mouth of the cave. As he stepped out into fresh, cold night air, he could hear just fine--and as his mate talked for a little bit, he made a series of uh-huhs and nodded even though she couldn't see him. Then he ended the connection and looked at his brothers, all of whom were clustered around him like they were wondering if something was wrong.
"Gentlemen, I need to help Mary for a little while. Meet you downtown?"
V nodded. "You take care of what you need to. Check in when you're ready to enter the field and I'll give you a status report and an assignment."
"Roger that," Rhage said, before he closed his eyes and began to concentrate.
Talk about not knowing where you were going to end up.
As he dematerialized, he never would have expected to be heading where he was going. But he was not about to let his shellan down.
Now or ever.
*
A simple little gathering for twelve, Assail thought as he was shown into the lemon yellow drawing room he'd enjoyed so much the evening before.
As his name was announced by the same uniformed butler who'd welcomed him then, he stepped forward such that his two cousins could likewise be introduced to the other nine vampires in the parlor. Or, more accurately, the eight females and one male.
Who was not their hostess's mate.
No, the other entity with a cock and balls was not old, infirmed, or unknown. In fact, surprise,
surprise, it was Throe, the handsome, disgraced former aristocrat who had previously been a member of the Band of Bastards, but who was now, evidently, making some sort of a return into the glymera's prejudicial velvet fold.
In a perfectly fitted tuxedo, as it were. One that was every bit as expensive as Assail's own.
Introductions over with, Naasha made her way across the room, her black satin gown like water flowing over her body at night.
"Darling," she said to him, holding her pale hands out. On her fingers, diamonds winked and glittered with as much charm and lack of warmth as their owner. "You are late. We have been waiting."
As she curtsied, he bowed.
"How fare thee." Even though he did not care. "You are looking well enough."
Her brows twitched at the almost-there compliment. "Just as you were almost timely."
Assail deliberately stroked the back of the sofa. "These are my cousins, Ehric and Evale. Perhaps you will introduce us to your other guests?"
Naasha's eyes flared as he penetrated the gap between cushions with his forefinger. "Ah, yes. Indeed. These are my dearest friends."
The females came forward one by one, and they were a predictable lot, preened and prettied in gowns that had been constructed precisely for their bodies and jewels that had been purchased or passed down to adorn the precious flesh of noble daughters. Two blondes. Another black-haired one. Three with streaked brown locks. And one with thick white hair.
To him, they were simply variations on a theme he had been bored with a hundred years before--and it was entirely possible that, while he had been over in the Old Country, he had mated with some of their ancestors or even closer relations.
"And this is"--Naasha swept her hand toward the far corner--"my special friend, Throe."
Assail smiled at the male and sauntered over. As he offered his palm, he kept his voice low. "Change of company. From Bastards to pedigrees. Not much of an improvement, I fear."
Throe's eyes were sharp as daggers. "A return to my roots."
"Is it truly possible to come back after a defection? As significant as yours was, at any rate."
"My bloodline never changed."
"But your character is a bit wanting, it is not."
Throe leaned in. "This from a drug dealer?"
"Businessman. And what do they call males like you? Gigolos? Or mayhap the term 'whore' is sufficient."
"And why do you think you're here? Certainly not for the pleasure of your social company."
