The Beast

by J. R. Ward

  "No. I don't want to lose her--"

  "Hear me out. Bitty's just lost her mother. It's important that she not feel as though we're trying to eclipse anything. I think when we talk to her, we tell her that she's welcome to stay at Safe Place for however long she wants. Or she could come here with us."

  "Can we bribe the kid?"

  Mary laughed in a burst. "What? No!"

  "Aw, come on, Mary. What do you think she'd like? Ice cream? Unlimited T.V. privileges? A pony, for crissakes. Or can I just buy her off with a handbag. Is she that age yet?"

  Mary batted at his chest. "No, you cannot buy her off." Then she dropped her voice. "I think she's an animal lover. When in doubt, we'll play the Boo/George card--with pictures."

  Rhage laughed and pulled his female in for a kiss. "Have you thought about where she could stay in the house? I mean . . . if it actually goes down?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes, but it's going to mean some reorganization. And a move for us."

  "To where? The Pit is full, and Butch and V swear like truckers. They're worse than me."

  "Well, I thought maybe we could ask Trez if he'd be willing to switch rooms with us? We could be up on the third floor in those bedrooms he and iAm use? I mean, both suites are their own spaces and have their own bathrooms, but we'd be so close if Bitty needed us."

  "That's a great idea."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  Holding his Mary against him, he became curiously aware of the great space that surrounded them. In the dim lighting, the gym's contours and corners were mostly obscured in shadow, the bald bleachers, the ropes that hung from the ceiling, the basketball markings on the shiny pine floors nothing but footnotes in the cavernous interior.

  Rhage frowned, thinking there was a metaphor here.

  The world was kind of like this, vast and empty except for who you loved, nothing but a warmer version of space filled with random junk you bumped into. The grounding was your family, your friends, your tribe of like minds. Without that?

  He broke away and started to walk around.

  No pirouettes for him.

  "Rhage?"

  He thought about what she'd said, about those meetings with the social worker, him with his beast, her with her . . . unusual situation. And then he remembered lying on the field of that abandoned campus, him on the ground, her over him, his Mary fighting to keep him alive even though they had an out that in a moment like that was a miracle, indeed.

  When he stopped, it was on the free-throw line. No basketball in his hands, no hoop to shoot it through, no line-ups of teammates and opponents. There was an urgency, though.

  He stared up to where the basket would have been, if the great metal arm with its glass square had been lowered from the ceiling into place.

  "Mary, I want you to promise me something."

  "Anything."

  Looking over at her, he found it difficult to speak, and he had to clear his throat. "If we . . . if you and I end up with Bitty? If we take her in as our own, I want you to promise . . ." The center of his chest began to burn. "If I die, you have to stay here with her. You can't leave her behind, okay? If I go, you stay. I won't have that little girl losing another full set of parents. Not gonna happen."

  Mary put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, lowering her head.

  "I'll wait for you," he said hoarsely. "If I die, I'll wait for you in the Fade just like everyone else does. Hell, I'll watch over the two of you from the clouds. I'll be an angel to you both. But you . . . you have to stay with her."

  Bitty, after all, was going to live longer than he would. That was the way you hoped and prayed it worked. Children succeeded their parents, took their places, walked in future paths carrying on the traditions and the lessons so that that which had been passed down could be passed on again.

  It was immortality for the mortal.

  And that was true whether you birthed your young or opened your arms to them.

  "You stay here, Mary."

  *

  As the implications of Rhage's request started to sink in, Mary felt her heart pound and her body break out in a cold sweat.

  Even though she had confessed a desire to keep him on the planet for exactly the rationale he was laying out, to hear him put it like that? The whole thing made her queasy, returning her to that moment when she'd thought she was going to lose him--even though, at that time, she'd been aware she could go find him in the Fade.

  It was as if he were once more lying there gasping for breath he could not quite catch, bleeding inside his chest, slipping away even as his body stayed before her.

  Then she thought of Bitty in the back of the GTO, crying, lost, alone.

  "Yes," Mary said roughly. "I will stay. For her. For however long she is alive, I'll stay with her."

  Rhage exhaled long and slow. "That's good. That's . . ."

  They met in the middle, each walking toward the other, and when they embraced, she put her head to the side of his heavy chest, hearing his heartbeat right next to her ear. Staring off across the dimly lit gym, she hated the choice she had just made, the vow she had just taken . . . and at the same time, she was so very grateful for it.

  "She can't know," Mary blurted as she pushed back a little and looked up. "Bitty can't know about me--at least not until after she makes her decision. I don't want her fear of being alone coloring the choice she's going to have to make. If she wants to come with us, it has to be because she chooses to freely. All the death in her life can be part of it, but it can't be all of it."

  "Agreed."

  Mary went back to being close to him. "I love you."

  "I love you, too."

  They stood there in the gym for the longest time. And then Rhage switched his hold on her, extending one set of their arms out to the side, and snaking his other around her waist.

  "Dance with me?" he said.

  She laughed a little. "To what kind of music?"

  "Anything. Nothing. It doesn't matter. Just dance with me here in the dark."

  For some reason, tears pricked her eyes as they started to move, swaying at first, the shuffle of their feet over the smooth floor and the rustle of their clothes the only auditory accompaniment. Soon, they found a rhythm, and then he was leading her in a waltz, an old-fashioned, proper waltz that he was far better at than she was.

  Sweeping around the empty space, she discovered that a symphony started to play in her mind, the strings and the flutes, the timpani drums and the trumpets giving majesty and power to their dancing.

  Around and around they went until she was smiling up at him even as a tear fell.

  She knew what he was doing. She knew exactly why he had asked her to do this.

  He was reminding her that the future was unknown and unknowable.

  So if you had the chance . . . even if there was no music and no ballgown, no tuxedo or gala . . . when your true love asked you to dance?

  It was important to say yes.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Vishous stood outside of the gym, looking through one of the steel doors that had the glass windows with chicken wire running through them.

  Rhage and Mary were dancing in the empty space, twirling around, the female's smaller body held tightly and led by her male's much, much larger one. They were looking at each other, staring into each other's eyes. Shit, you could swear there was a quartet or maybe a full orchestra playing in there, the way they moved so well together.

  He wasn't much of a dancer himself.

  Besides, you couldn't waltz to Rick Ross or Kendrick Lamar.

  Taking out a hand-rolled from the ass pocket of his leathers, he lit up and exhaled as he leaned a shoulder on the jamb and continued to watch.

  You had to respect the two of them, he thought. Going after that kid, trying to make a family happen. Then again, Rhage and Mary were always on the same page, nothing ruffling their relationship, everything always perfect.

  Which was what happened when you paired a levelheaded therapist with Br
ad Pitt and Channing Tatum's love child: cosmic harmony.

  God, in comparison, his and Jane's relationship seemed kind of . . . clinical.

  No dancing in the dark for them, not unless it was the horizontal kind--and when was the last time that had happened? Jane had been flat-out at the clinic, and he'd been dealing with all kinds of shit.

  Okay, this was weird. Even though he was not one for envy--it, along with so many emotions, was just a waste of fucking time--he did find himself wishing he was a little closer to normal. Not that he apologized for his kink, or the fact that he was predominantly a head guy, not a heart guy. Still, when he stood like this on the outside looking in at what his brother had, he did feel broken in some unnamed way.

  It wasn't that he wanted to turn into the male version of Adele or some shit.

  Yeah, file that under Good-bye.

  But he did wish . . .

  Oh, fuck, he didn't know what the hell he was going on about.

  Changing gears--before he ended up with a pair of lace panties on--he thought of Qhuinn's daughter, of that tiny little thing that had come back from the dead.

  How had Payne known what to do? Shit, if she hadn't . . .

  Vishous frowned as a memory of Mary surfaced and refused to sink back down. She had been talking about when she had saved Rhage's life . . . when she had moved the dragon around to the center of his chest so his beast could somehow heal the gunshot wound.

  I don't know how I knew what to do, she had said to him. Or something to that effect.

  He thought of himself confronting his mother as Rhage had been dying, demanding that she do something before he'd stormed off, all pissed and shit. And then he recalled the demand that he'd sent out as he'd worked on the lifeless body of Qhuinn's daughter.

  Shit.

  Leaning down, he stamped out his half-smoked cigarette on the sole of his boot and tossed the butt in the trash.

  Closing his eyes . . .

  . . . he dematerialized up to the courtyard of his mother's private quarters, re-forming in front of the colonnade.

  Instantly, he knew there was something off.

  Looking over his shoulder, he frowned. The fountain that had always run with crystal-clear water . . . was still. And when he walked over to its basin, he discovered that the thing was bone-dry, its pool empty sure as if it had never been full.

  Then he glanced over at the tree that had held the songbirds.

  They were gone. All of them.

  As warning bells started to ring in his skull, he broke out into a run, crossing over to the entry to his mahmen's private quarters. He pounded on the door, but not for long--once again he braced a shoulder and slammed himself into the panels.

  This time, the thing broke free of all its hinges, falling flat as a dead body onto the stone floor beyond.

  "Mother . . . fucker."

  Everything was gone. The bedding platform. The dressing table. The one chair. Even the double-locked cell where Payne had been kept behind drapes was exposed, the white fabric swaths that had hung on runners no longer in place.

  Closing his eyes, he let his senses sweep the room, probing for clues. His mother had just been here. He knew it in his blood, some remnant of her energy source remaining in the space as a scent might linger after someone departed. But where had she gone?

  He thought of the crowd down below in the training center. Amalya, the directrix, had been among them, standing with Cormia and Phury, and all the other Chosen who had come to pray for, and witness, the births.

  The Scribe Virgin had waited until she was all alone before leaving.

  She who knew all, saw all, had deliberately picked a moment of crisis down on Earth, when everyone who might have had reason to be up here was otherwise occupied.

  Vishous bolted out of the private quarters. "Mother! Where the fuck are you?"

  He didn't expect an answer--

  A sound rippled to his ears, emanating from somewhere outside of the courtyard. Following it, he went to the door that opened into the Sanctuary and looked across the verdant land.

  Birds.

  It was the songbirds singing somewhere off in the distance.

  Falling into a jog, he tracked the dulcet harmonies, crossing over the cropped green grass and passing by empty marble temples and dormitories.

  "Mother?" he hollered across the barren landscape. "Mother!"

  *

  "Hi, mahmen, you're awake now."

  As Layla heard the male voice above her, she realized that, yes, her eyes were open, and yes, she was alive--

  "Young!" she shouted.

  A sudden burst of energy had her trying to sit up, but gentle hands eased her back down. And as a flare of pain clawed its way across her lower belly, Qhuinn put his face in front of hers.

  He was smiling. From ear to ear.

  Yes, his eyes were red rimmed, and he was pale and a little shaky, but the male was smiling so widely, his jaw had to hurt.

  "Everybody's okay," he said. "Our daughter gave us a helluva scare, but both of them are okay. Breathing. Moving. Alive."

  A tidal wave of emotion swamped her, her chest literally exploding with a combination of relief, joy, and the afterburn of the terror she'd felt before they'd put her under. And as if he knew exactly what she was feeling, Qhuinn started hugging her, wrapping her in his arms--and she tried to hug him back, but she didn't have the strength.

  "Blay," she said roughly. "Where's--"

  "Right here. I'm right here."

  Over Qhuinn's big shoulder, she saw the other male and wished she could reach for him--and as if he were aware of that, he came in, too, all three of them wrapping up in an embrace that left them wobbly, and yet somehow stronger, too.

  "Where are they?" she asked. "Where . . ."

  The males inched back, and the way Qhuinn looked at Blay made her nervous. "What," she demanded. "What's wrong."

  Blay took her hand. "Listen, we want you to be ready, okay? They're very small. They're really . . . very small. But they're strong. Both Doc Jane and Manny checked them over--Ehlena, too. And we video-conferenced with Havers and reviewed everything with him. They're going to be here for a while on the water ventilators, until their lungs mature and they can breathe and eat on their own, but they're doing great."

  Layla found herself nodding as she swallowed a load of fear back down into her gut. Looking at Qhuinn, she teared up again. "I tried to keep them in--I tried--"

  He shook his head firmly, that blue-and-green stare dead serious. "It was an issue with your placenta, nalla. There was nothing you could have done or not done to prevent it from happening. It was exactly the same thing that happened with Beth."

  She put her hands on her much-flatter stomach. "Did they take my womb?"

  Blay smiled. "No. They got the young out and stopped the bleeding. You can have more young if the Virgin Scribe provides."

  Layla looked down her body, feeling a rush of relief. And also sadness for the Queen. "I was lucky."

  "Yes, you were," Qhuinn said.

  "We were all lucky," she corrected, glancing at them both. "When may I see them?"

  Qhuinn stepped back. "They're right over there."

  Layla struggled to sit up, taking the fathers' arms. And then she gasped. "Oh . . ."

  Before she knew it, she was getting off the mattress, even though it hurt, and in spite of the fact that she was connected to about a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of medical equipment.

  "Shit," Qhuinn said. "Are you sure you want to--"

  "Okay, we're moving," Blay interjected. "We are up and moving."

  With a single-minded focus she had never known before, she didn't pay any attention to anything other than getting over to her young: not the way the males scrambled to organize the rolling monitors, or how much she had to lean on various arms and shoulders, or how much pain her abdomen hollered about.

  The incubators were up against the wall, side by side, separated by about three feet. Brilliant blue lights were
shining down on the tiny little forms, and oh . . . Fates . . . the wires, the tubes . . .

  That was when she got a little light-headed.

  "Don't you love the sunglasses," Blay commented.

  Suddenly, she laughed. "They look like mini-Wraths." Then she got serious. "Are you sure . . ."

  "Positive," Qhuinn said. "They've got a ways to go--but, shit, they are fighters. Especially her."

  Layla inched closer to her daughter. "When can I hold them?"

  "Doc Jane wants us to give them a little time. Tomorrow?" Blay said. "Maybe the night after?"

  "I'll wait." Even though it would be the hardest thing she would ever do. "I'll wait for however long it takes."

  She turned the other way and looked at her son. "Dearest Virgin Scribe, does he look like you, no?"

  "I know, right?" Qhuinn shook his head. "It's just crazy. I mean . . ."

  "What are you going to name them?" Blay asked. "It's time for you two to think of names."

  Oh, indeed, Layla thought. In the vampire tradition, youngs' births were not anticipated by any kind of planning. There were no showers as humans did, no lists of boy names and girl names, no stacks of diapers, racks of bottles, or even bassinettes and booties. For vampires, it was considered bad luck to get ahead of oneself and assume a healthy birth.

  "Yes," she said, refocusing on her daughter. "We must have a naming."

  At that moment, the little tiny infant girl moved her head and seemed to look up, through the sunglasses and the Plexiglas, past the distance between mother and child.

  "She's going to grow up to be beautiful," Blay murmured. "Absolutely beautiful."

  "Lyric," Layla blurted. "She shall be called Lyric."

  Blay recoiled. "Lyric? You know, that's my . . . do you know that's my mahmen's . . ."

  As the male stopped speaking, Qhuinn started to smile. And then he bent down and kissed Layla's cheek. "Yes. Absolutely. She'll be called Lyric."

  Blay blinked a couple of times. "My mahmen will be . . . incredibly honored. As am I."

  Layla squeezed the male's hand. "Your parents shall be the only granhmen and father these young will e'er know. It is fitting that one of their names be represented. And for our son--mayhap we shall petition the King for a Brother's name? It seems fitting, as their sire is a brave and noble member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood."

  "Oh, I don't know about that," Qhuinn hedged.

  "Yes." Blay nodded. "That's a good idea."

  Qhuinn started shaking his head. "But I don't know if--"