The Beast

by J. R. Ward

  "To a restaurant?" Bitty asked.

  "Yup. TGI Fridays--ever been?"

  "Well, no, actually."

  "So what do you say?"

  Annnnnd this is just one more reason to love him, isn't it, Mary thought.

  Getting out, she popped the top half of her seat and held it forward.

  Bitty looked up at her. "Is that okay, Ms. Luce?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Then yes, please."

  "Great!" Rhage clapped his hands. "Oh, my God, you have to totally get the brownie sundae. It's amazing."

  Bitty stood at the curb for a moment. Then she lifted her hand in good-bye. "Thank you. For the ice cream."

  "Can't wait for dinner!"

  Mary put the seat back into place, leaned in and planted her palm on the still-warm leather from where she'd been sitting. "I'll see you back home?"

  "Mmm-hmm."

  Stretching forward, she kissed him on the mouth. "I love you."

  "Love you, too, my Mary." Rhage tugged her down for another kiss and lowered his voice. "Baths are fun. Did you know that?"

  As a smile hit her face and stayed there, she cocked a brow. "Oh, really?"

  "I think I'll run one and get in it right before Last Meal. Come find me?"

  "Does this mean we're eating in our room again?"

  "God, I hope so."

  She laughed as she straightened out of the car. "I'll be home regular time, okay?"

  "And you know where to find me!"

  As she stepped away, she found Bitty staring back and forth between them. And then the car was roaring and Rhage skidded the tires, leaving tracks.

  Mary laughed. "Such a show-off."

  "What does that mean?"

  "He's trying to impress us with his driving." The pair of them started for the house. "Guys do that. They can't help it."

  Coming up to the front door, Mary entered the code, and as she opened things wide, the scent of chocolate-chip cookies wafted into her nose.

  "Wow. Twice this week with the Toll House."

  She wanted to suggest to Bitty that they follow the sounds of laughter and talking back to the big kitchen and hang out with everyone, but the girl went directly to the stairs. Hoping for some other opening, or chance to talk, Mary followed her up to the second floor, and stopped on the landing in front of her office.

  "You're going to head for the attic?" she said. "I'll be here doing paperwork if you need anything. Or, you know, if you want to go make cookies?"

  Bitty shrugged out of that big, puffy parka. "I think I'll sit in my room. But thank you."

  "Okay. Well, good-night."

  "Good-night--"

  "I'll be here. Until just before dawn."

  "Thank you."

  Mary stayed where she was, in front of the open door to her office, as Bitty went to the stairs--

  It happened so fast. One moment, the girl was walking away. The next, she had turned around and rushed back across the distance.

  Her arms went around Mary quick as a breath and held on for no longer than that.

  And then Bitty was gone, ascending to the attic without sparing another word or glance.

  Mary stood where she was.

  For quite some time.

  *

  Okay, so then that happened, V thought as his words hung in the air between him and Jane.

  You ever think about having kids?

  As his mate went really still and very quiet, he cursed under his breath--but that was not the kind of inquiry you could take back. Even if there was a half-dead enemy lying on a gurney between the pair of you.

  And the two of you were, like, surrounded by a thousand hearts in jars.

  And it was in the middle of a worknight for both parties.

  Holy shit, had that really come out of his mouth.

  Oh, and P.S., he was so hitting Rhage again when he saw the brother next. Even though this wasn't technically Hollywood's fault. All the guy had done was pose the question because, clearly, it was something on his own mind.

  V was still gonna punch him, though.

  "Wow," Jane said slowly. She rubbed her nose and tucked her blond hair back. "That's a surprise."

  "Look, forget I ever said anything--"

  "No, I won't. And are you asking because you want them or because you want to know what I think?"

  "I want to know what you think."

  And yeah, it was maybe weird that it hadn't come up before now, but it had been clear Jane couldn't have any, biologically speaking, when they'd commited to each other, and a lot of shit had been going on since then.

  "Well, how do you feel?" she said.

  "I asked you first."

  "Is this a game of chicken? Or an intimate conversation?"

  They both fell silent. And then at the same time they said, in exactly the same tone: "It's not a priority for me."

  "It's not a priority for me."

  As V laughed, Jane did, too, and he got the impression that as the tension flowed out of his body, something similar was happening for her, her stance loosening, her exhale one of relief.

  "Look," V said, "L.W. and Nalla are cute and all. But I'm interested in them because they're a part of Wrath's and Z's lives, not because I want something like that for us. Unless, you know, it became a big deal for you."

  "Well, I can't have kids. I mean, I'm technically dead." She rolled her eyes. "Can I just tell you, every once in a while, when I say something like that, I get existential whiplash? Like, how the hell did this become my life--not that it isn't a miracle or anything. But jeez."

  "And you're mated to a demi-god."

  "Did you just promote yourself?"

  "Maybe. Can you blame me?" As she laughed, exactly as he'd intended her to, V got serious again. "Adoption is difficult in the vampire race, but it can be an option."

  "True. Very true." Jane shrugged. "But you know, I was never one of those women who planned out her wedding or saw rainbow mobiles over the cribs of babies. Not that I've seen many babies in cribs." She frowned. "Holy crap. I've actually . . . I don't think I've ever seen a baby sleeping in a crib."

  "And you're not a freak because of that. I can tell what you're thinking."

  "Yeah." She rubbed the back of her neck. Then shook herself as if clearing away thoughts that she refused to buy into. "I mean, of course, I'm not. Just because women can be mothers doesn't mean they have to be."

  V had to smile a little. But then he shook his head. "I don't think there's anything wrong with us. And actually, I hate that I just felt the need to say that."

  "Compatibility is the issue. If one of us wanted them and the other didn't? Then that's a problem."

  Jane came over to him and put her hands on his shoulders. And it was funny: Ordinarily he couldn't stand people getting very close to him. Not because of some kind of horrific abuse--although his father's partial castration of him hadn't been a party, granted--but because tons of contact and closeness was just too much sensation for his brain to process.

  With Jane, though, he never felt crowded.

  Same with Butch.

  Maybe because the two of them seemed to understand the overload thing with him.

  "You look worried," she said as she brushed his hair back and traced the tattoos at his temple with her forefinger.

  "I don't want anything to come between us. Ever."

  "That's up to you and me, though, right? So why be anxious?"

  "Rhage and Mary have been going through a time."

  "Over having babies? Are they okay now?"

  "Yeah. I think so."

  "Good." She leaned her head to one side. "And as for you and me? We can't predict the future. No one can. So we talk and we sort things out and we keep going. Together. I can't fathom, right now, a scenario where all of a sudden some biological clock starts ringing and I have a compelling need to do the parent thing. I guess, for me, I don't feel like anything is missing in my life. There are no hollow spaces that require filling. I have you, I have
my work, and I reject the notion entirely that all women are destined to be mothers. Some of us are and some of us aren't, and the awesome thing is, we get to choose. Same goes for men. So yeah, we just keep talking and everything is going to work out--no matter what the outcome happens to look like."

  Vishous stared down from his greater height, and somehow felt smaller than she was. "You always make sense."

  "I don't know about that. But I do try to look at everything from all angles and be logical as much as I can--"

  "I don't think I can be a father, Jane."

  His mate shook her head. "I know where you're going with that. Your parents are not you--and besides, that's the wrong way to put it. The question is, Do you want to be a father?"

  He tried to imagine being weighed down as Wrath and Z were, constantly worrying about some little creature and whether it was killing itself. Yeah, sure, there were good parts to the experience; the joy on his brothers' faces was very real. But, God, the work.

  Was he using that as an excuse, though?

  Whatever. "Definitely not right now. No, I do not want to be a father right now."

  "So that's what we go with. And if it changes, we address it. Same for me."

  "I would never want anything on this planet to hate me as much as I hate my parents."

  There. He said it.

  "Lot of reasons to support that position," Jane whispered as she stroked his face. "And I am so very sorry."

  "Don't tell me I should go talk to Mary about it, okay? I'm not interested in that shit, true?"

  "You know where she is if you need her. And I don't have to tell you that she would be available to you anytime if you asked." Jane brushed his hair back. "And I have to say this. As awful as your mother can be . . . without her? You and I wouldn't be together."

  He frowned, thinking of when he'd found Jane in that crumpled Audi at the side of the road. None of his life-support measures had done a goddamn thing. She had remained unmoving as he had tried to bring her back.

  For some reason, the image of his mother up on that bedding platform resurfaced and wouldn't be stuffed back down underground. The shit lingered . . . like it was a message of some sort.

  "I really trust you," he heard himself say to his shellan.

  "And I love you, too, Vishous."

  FORTY

  "Okay, I might have thought you were joking about this."

  As his Mary sank down into a Jacuzzi full of bubbles, Rhage reached out through the warm, frothy swirl and ohhhhh, yeaaaaaah, there it was, his mate's body all slippery and smooth, from the curve of her waist to the flare of her hips--and so many other things.

  "Gimme, gimme, gimme."

  Leaning back against the wall of the tub, he pulled her to him, splitting her thighs and settling her right on top of his bobbing, bright-idea cock. He didn't enter her, though. There was time for that later.

  "How long have you been waiting for me?" she asked as she put her arms around his neck.

  "Hours and hours."

  Her breasts were obscured and revealed, obscured and revealed, as the level in the tub recalibrated itself to her presence, and Rhage licked his lips at the sight of her glistening nipples and the bands of suds that remained on her skin.

  It reminded him of a bikini top that had failed in the most miraculous of ways.

  "I thought you went downtown to fight after ice cream?" she said.

  "Oh, I did." He shifted his palms around and cupped her breasts, moving them together while he thumbed those nipples, wiping them free. "Yup."

  Mary moaned in the back of her throat, and she seemed to struggle to collect her thoughts--especially as he lifted her up to his mouth and sucked one of her tips in, flicking it with his tongue. Under the surface, his erection kicked like a bull and his hips surged.

  "What did you say?" he murmured as he moved to her other breast.

  Squeezing her, kneading her, he found himself thinking, yes . . . yes, he remembered this back from their earlier nights, when he couldn't wait to get home and get her naked, when Last Meal was second priority, because his Mary was the only sustenance he really needed.

  "I honestly can't--oh, right, how long did you wait for me."

  "Years."

  "That's"--she gasped--"not possible."

  "Are you kidding me? I got home about ten minutes ago."

  Mary laughed. "And that was forever?"

  "Waiting for you? In this tub alone? Hell, yeah."

  And fighting would not have been a word he'd have used to describe what he'd done in those alleys. More like foot patrol.

  No slayers had been out and about--and that was not a good sign. The question was where the next wave of the Omega's troops was going to come from. Who the Fore-lesser was going to be. How long the lull was going to last.

  The enemy was going to be back. That had been the nature of the war for aeons and aeons. And sometimes the quiet periods were harder to get through than the battles.

  A subtle glint at the window beside them caught his attention. It was the automatic steel shutters coming down to protect the mansion's interior from sunlight.

  And provide privacy, too.

  Using his superior strength, he lifted Mary from the water until one of her knees was on a stack of fluffy white towels next to his head and her other leg was fully extended and propped against the floor of the Jacuzzi. As she balanced herself by holding the molding of the window, her breasts swayed forward.

  So much dripping.

  So much warm water and so many trails of tiny bubbles sluicing off her skin, trickling down her stomach, her hips, her thigh.

  Her sex.

  Extending his tongue, he nestled his face in there, licking at her in a lazy way, wishing he'd not gone with the damn bubbles, because they masked her taste some. Pulling her onto him, he worshiped her with his mouth, hearing her groan his name, feeling her orgasm--

  Something slipped, her foot on the inside of the tub probably, and talk about applecart over; her body went off balance, and he slid down, and the next thing he knew, he was underwater, and she was laughing, and there was a tidal-wave splash out onto the marble.

  "Oh, no!" Mary said. "I'd better clean that up--"

  "Not yet, female."

  With a growl, he put her under him, her buoyancy in the deep tub bringing her up to his body. "Wrap your legs around me."

  As she did, he reached between them and angled himself and then--

  "Oh, yeah," he gritted out.

  They worked together to create the friction, him wrapping his arm around her waist and pumping her up and down, her rocking herself by pushing and pulling with her legs against his pelvis. So good, so tight that he didn't even notice the suds in his face, or the fact that he kept having to readjust his grip on the tub's lip.

  Annnnnnnnd there was one other thing he kind of ignored.

  There might have been some more over-the-gunnels splashing.

  Just as he was starting to come inside of her, as his balls tightened and that sharp-knifed pleasure kicked his cock and made him punch his hips over and over again . . .

  There was the not-so-dulcet sound of pounding out on the bedroom door.

  "Rhage! Yo, Rhage!"

  "Not now," he barked as he continued to pump and Mary's release had her locking tight against him.

  "Rhage! What the fuck!" came another voice.

  "Not now!" he yelled back.

  "Rhage!"

  More pounding. Like, with multiple fists.

  With a last jerk of the pelvis, he went still with a curse. "Mary, I'm so sorry."

  She laughed and put her face into the crook of his neck. "It's not your fault--"

  So much more pounding on the door--to the point where it was clear there were a number of Brothers out there. And as multiple males kept calling his name, he cursed again.

  "You stay here," he muttered.

  Withdrawing his cock, the warm bathwater was a piss-poor substitute for Mary's core, and he was in a really ba
d mood as he stood up and kicked one leg out to put a foot on the marble--

  Three. Fucking. Stooges.

  All three hundred pounds of him went ass-over-elbow, the water on that smooth stone turning the floor of the bathroom into an ice-skating rink. Arms pinwheeling in thin air, body contorting, something in his spine cracking--

  Boom! He didn't so much land as detonate, all kinds of pain lighting off in explosions in his arm, his shoulder, his back, his ass, and one of his legs.

  "Rhage!"

  For a moment, all he could do was stare at the ceiling as he got his breath back. And then Mary's face was in his line of vision.

  "Ouch." And then he sneezed for some reason--oh, right. He had bubbles up his nose--and fuck, that hurt. "I mean, like . . . really ouch."

  Meanwhile, the cast of thousands outside was still going batshit at their door. And yeah, there was a lot of water.

  "Mary, do me a favor?"

  "You want me to get Doc Jane?"

  "Not unless all this wetness under me is my blood," he said dryly. "Can you please put a bathrobe on before they break that door down? I love my brothers, but if even one of them sees you naked, I'm going to kill him. After I get out of traction, that is."

  *

  When Mary was sure that Rhage was fairly okay-ish, she stood up and carefully walked over to where one of Rhage's thick terry-cloth bathrobes was hanging on a hook. She figured he'd like her in that the best because it smelled like him, and it had so much surface area, it would cover her from collarbone to ankle with yards to spare.

  Then she went across to the archway—

  Well, waded across, she amended, as water literally splashed up onto her feet. Shoot, this was out of the realm of towels, and seriously into the wet-vac zip code.

  "This is bad, this is really bad," she said.

  "I'll be fine--ow. Fuck, I think I broke my arm."

  "We're never doing that again. Ever."

  "Sex?!" he sputtered. "What?"

  She pivoted back around to the sight of him buck-ass naked, covered with vaguely pinkish bubbles, in the midst of a giant pool of water, with an expression of total, abject, and enduring horror on his face.

  Mary burst out laughing so hard, she had to reach out and steady herself on the wall. "Oh, my God, I need to stop--"

  "Tell me we're still having sex--"

  "Of course! Just maybe not in the tub with that much water!"

  "Jesus, don't scare me like that. You'll give me a damn aneurysm."

  "You may already have one. And can I let them in now?"

  Rhage grunted as he sat up, the tattoo on his back writhing as if the beast were feeling a little beaten-up, too. "Fine, but I don't know what they're bitching about. Jeez, you spill a little water and everyone has a fucking cow."