by J. R. Ward
Patting his chest where his phone had vibrated, he murmured, "Guess that's what just came through. What's doing?"
Wrath sat back in his father's great ornate chair, and beside him on the floor, George lifted his boxy blond head in inquiry, as if the dog wanted to know whether they were going somewhere or staying put.
The King reached down and stroked the retriever. "You'll find out soon enough with the others. You got something on your mind, my brother? You came by when V was talking to me earlier."
Rhage glanced around the empty room. "Actually, yeah."
"Talk to me."
The story came out in a rush of sound bites: Bitty, her mom, Mary, him, the GTO--yup, for some reason, the fact that the girl liked his car made it in there. He also explained that he'd had his interview with Rhym, that Mary was having hers, that they needed Wrath's approval.
Blah, blah, blah.
When he ran out of nouns and verbs, he discovered that he'd wandered around and ended up sitting in the chair on the far side of the throne, he and his brother separated by the expanse of desk, all those carved figures and sacred symbols marking the divide between their stations.
And yet he felt as though he and Wrath were one and the same as the male smiled. "You got it, my brother. Whatever you need, it's yours. And if they want to do a site visit, or whatever you call it, the social worker is welcome here. We'll have Fritz bring her in."
Rhage was exhaling a fuckload of tension as Butch and Phury walked in. "Thank you," he said hoarsely. "Thank you so much."
"You've come a long way from being that asshole I once knew and tolerated."
When Wrath extended the black diamond ring of the King, Rhage got up and leaned over to kiss it. "Yeah, we all have--"
Just as he was straightening, someone goosed him so hard in the ass, he nearly face planted all over that desk. Wheeling around, he saw Lassiter smiling.
"Sorry," the angel said. "Couldn't help it."
Rhage bared his fangs. "Lass, seriously, could you be anymore annoying."
The fuck-twit put his forefinger to his chin and tapped as he tilted his head. "Hmm, I don't know. But I'm willing to try."
"I swear to God, one of these days . . ."
Except it was a lie. He wasn't going to do shit. The trouble with the current asshole crown holder was that it was impossible to truly hate him. Not when on a regular basis he proved there was a stand-up guy under all that goddamn, fucking irritation.
The rest of the Brotherhood filed in and took their customary places in the room. As Rhage camped out with Butch on one of the spindly sofas, it took him a minute to realize someone was missing.
Nope, here was Vishous. With Payne at his side.
One look into the pair of grim faces, and Rhage cursed under his breath. And he wasn't the only one.
The doors were shut, and then everyone got dead quiet--
Before something could be said, Zsadist burst into the room and everybody recoiled.
"What the fuck happened to you?" V demanded.
The brother had steam rising up off of him--and not because he was pissed. There was, like, actual smoke curling from the shoulders of his leather jacket and the bottoms of his shitkickers. And, Jesus Christ, the stench--he smelled like burned rubber, bad chemicals, and a three-day-old campsite.
"Nothing," the guy said as he sauntered over to his twin. "Just roasting marshmallows."
"Is that my flamethrower?" somebody asked indignantly.
"How many square feet was the marshmallow," someone else muttered.
"Hey, was it a Stay Puft?" Lassiter cut in.
The King cursed. "Oh, for fuck's sake, did you burn that bitch's house down?"
Well, hello, everyone clearly thought as they went quiet and stared at Z.
"Technically, it was her old man's," Rhage felt compelled to comment. "Assuming we're talking about the cunt who held that blood slave in her basement."
Wrath shook his finger in Rhage's direction. "Hey, no 'See you next Tuesdays' if you're going to be a father. You need to drop that shit right now and get used to it before you bring that little girl into this fucking house."
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd now everyone and their uncle turned around to eyeball him.
Fantastic.
Can we go back and talk about the marshmallow? he thought to himself.
As he hoped for a change of subject, and absolutely nothing like that happened, he shook his head. Wasn't this just like the Brotherhood mansion, where news traveled faster than . . . well, a bonfire, for instance.
"Okay, A," he said to the crowd, "I don't know if we can adopt Bitty yet. Two, that holier-than-thou, no-cussing speech would have been a lot more effective if it didn't have 'shit' and an f-bomb in it. And D, yes, Mary and I are trying to become parents, and no, I don't want to talk about it yet. Can we be done."
Lassiter came over. "High five for the Home Alone ref."
"I did it for you, you piece of shit." Rhage clapped palms with the douchebag. "And thanks for your support. Now let's move on to the next crisis. Does anyone want to drop their trousers and admit to having a thong on? Or are we going to get serious and start sharing pedicures."
Wrath spoke up. "Rhage is right. We got problems. V and Payne, take it away."
Instantly, the vibe in the room changed, everybody getting serious as the siblings went over and stood in front of the fire. Man, you could see the family resemblance between them, with that jet-black hair and those diamond eyes. V was a little taller than his sis, broader, too, of course, and then there were those warning tattoos at his temple and the goatee. Payne was no slouch, however, her fighter's body covered in exactly the same leather as her brother's was, her muscled arms and legs making Ronda Rousey look like someone's shrunken grandmother.
"The Scribe Virgin is dead."
As V dropped the bomb, there was a momentary period of silent saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay-whaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Then a shit-ton of gasps and cursing in the room, all kinds of WTF hitting the airwaves.
Vishous put his palms out. "Before you ask any questions, we don't know more than that. I went up to see her, found all of her shit gone, and a missive in the Chosen cemetery. She said she was going to appoint a successor in due time. That's it."
Rhage glanced back and forth between the pair of them. Payne's face was a mask of not-gonna-go-there, like she had been fed up with the drama about two hundred years ago and was peacing out over her mother. V was much the same.
"How can she die if she's immortal?" somebody asked.
Vishous lit up and shrugged. "Look, I don't mean to blow this off, but I got nothing else to offer you all at this point."
Rhage whistled softly and took a Tootsie Pop out of his pocket. As he saw that he'd outed a grape one, he thought, Well, maybe it was all going to work out somehow.
Fuck. Who was he kidding.
*
Down in the training center, Layla was going to the bathroom. Again.
Ever since the young had been born, she felt as though she had been peeing, and sure enough, her body was showing the change of not just having jettisoned the infants' weight, slight though it was, but apparently seven hundred thousand gallons of water.
Unbelievable.
Why hadn't anyone told her about this? Then again, there had been a lot more important things to talk about.
And there still were, she thought grimly as she changed the pad in the mesh underwear she'd been given and got back on her feet. As the toilet flushed, she walked across to the sink and washed her hands with the fragrant French soap that Fritz stocked even the clinic rooms with.
As she emerged, she was waddling on account of the size of the pad she needed, but all in all, she was feeling so much stronger.
"How we doing, little ones?"
Even though she was exhausted, every time she was up and around she paid them a visit, and it was so magical: even through the Plexiglas, they seemed to hear her, recognize her, their little heads turning to her voice.
/> "Lyric, are you breathing better? Yes? I think you are."
The little girl had had some difficulty several hours ago, the ventilation machine increasing its pump automatically in response to a drop in blood oxygen, but now, according to the monitors that Layla found herself reading like a doctor, everything was well.
"And you, Mr. Man? Oh, you're doing very well indeed."
Heading back to the bed, she stretched out and put her hand on her flattening stomach. It was amazing to see the swelling go down by the hour, her body bouncing back thanks to all the feeding she had been doing.
Qhuinn and Blay had been so generous with their veins, to the point that she was convinced she must be bleeding them dry.
There remained a period of recovery ahead for her, however. From what she understood, human women took far longer, even though their pregnancies were shorter--for vampire mothers, it was less in terms of time, but there were still all kinds of things, hormonally speaking and otherwise, that her body needed to do to recalibrate.
Funny, she had wanted her body back. Now? It seemed kind of lonely to just be by herself in her skin.
When a knock sounded, she said, "Come in?"
Visitors were good. Visitors were a respite from the questions buzzing in her head, questions about what she needed to do about Xcor--
Tohrment and Autumn came in with hesitation, and oh, the look on the Brother's face as his deep blue eyes went to the young. Such pain. Such sadness for what he had lost.
And yet he smiled when he glanced at her. "Hello, mahmen. You are looking well."
Layla inclined her head, and smiled back. "You are too kind. Autumn, hello."
As Autumn came forward for a hug, Layla studied Tohr's face as she embraced his shellan, searching for features that linked him with his half brother.
There were so few. But the color of the eyes . . . exactly the same. Why had she not noticed before now?
For both he and Xcor had sprung forth from the same loins.
"I've come to offer you my vein," Tohr said roughly. "I received permission to approach you from your males? But obviously, if you'd prefer to use only them, I understand."
"Ah, no. No, please, and thank you. I've been concerned that I'm taking too much from them."
Tohr's stare returned to the young.
"You can go introduce yourself," Layla said gently.
Autumn went with her male to the incubators, and the two stood for the longest time, looking at the little ones.
"I always wondered what having a blooded brother or sister would be like," Tohr remarked.
Keeping her voice calm, Layla said, "Have you none?"
He shook his head. "My father undoubtedly spread his seed far and wide, as they used to say, but no one's ever come out of the woodwork."
Until now, she thought.
"Tohrment, I need to--"
"But enough about me." He turned around with resolve. "Let us take care of you. As Autumn says, it's a balm to help others."
While the Brother's female smiled and said something, Layla retreated into her own head.
This was not going to hold much longer, she thought as Tohr began to roll up his sleeve.
SIXTY-NINE
The following evening, Mary couldn't decide who to argue with.
And when she picked the thirteen-year-old in the back of the GTO, that was a heck of a commentary on the two-hundred-year-old behind the wheel.
"All I'm saying is that I think we could wait a little bit. You know . . ." Like, a couple of years? ". . . it's going to be hard for you to reach the pedals."
Bitty looked up into the rearview for help. "But he said we could move the seat up, right?"
"Please, Mary," Rhage whined. "Come on, what's the worst that can happen?"
"Don't get me started on that--"
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease," Bitty cut in. "I'll drive carefully."
"Oh, look." Rhage put on his directional signal and turned into a strip mall that had a real estate office on the corner and a bunch of high-class-looking shops in it. "If we go behind here, I'll bet there'll be plenty of room."
"Plenty of room!" Bitty echoed. "Plenty!"
Mary put her head in her hands and shook everything she had back and forth. She knew when she had lost, however, and this was one of those times: The pair of them were not going to let up, and she might as well give in now. It would cut down on greenhouse emissions and global warming from all the hot air.
"You'll go slow," she said into her palms.
"Very!"
"She'll go so slowly, you could walk faster, right, Bits?"
"Absolutely."
All in all, the evening had been a great time, the three of them going to an O'Charley's for dinner before Rhage had to head out and work. Apparently, he had decided it was absolutely crucial to Bitty's development as a living, breathing vampire being to experience every single one of the restaurants in town--and he had set up a schedule for the next fifteen or twenty nights. On it? Places like WW Cousins, the burger joint. Zaxby's. The Cheesecake Factory. Pizza Hut. Texas Roadhouse.
Yes, even McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King.
Bitty, not to be outdone, had taken his phone and created a rating system on the darn thing, the pair of them spending a good half hour with their blond and dark heads together, debating the relative merits of various criteria for some kind of point system.
It was going to be a Dickensian march through trans fat and huge portions.
The good news? Bitty did have to gain weight, and this was as good a redress for that as any.
"Here we go," Rhage announced as if he'd found the cure for IBS. "See? Plenty of space."
Okay, at least he had a point. As he hit the brakes, and let the headlights do the talking, the back stretch of asphalt was long and broad, and completely empty but for a couple of Dumpsters: All things considered, there was nothing behind the strip mall but scruffy grass and trees.
"Fine, but I'm getting out of the car." Mary cracked her door. "I've been in two near-misses in the last how long? I'm not risking a third."
As she held the seat up for Bitty, the girl looked grave. "I won't hurt it. I promise."
Mary put her hand on the girl's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "I don't care about the car--"
"What!" Rhage yelped while he got out of his side. "How can you say that?"
Shooing him, she refocused on Bitty. "Just be careful. Go slowly. You'll do great."
Bitty gave her a quick hug--and what do you know, it was something that stopped Mary's heart every time it happened. And then the girl and Rhage were by the driver's seat, talking in that fast way they did, the rapid-fire chatter making Mary's head spin.
Stepping out of the way, waaaaaaay out of the way, she ended up leaning back against the single-story, long-as-a-football-field building, right next to a sign that read, DELIVERIES ONLY. The night was unseasonably warm, so much so that she let her jacket fall open, and overhead, the sky was cloudy, as if God had pulled a woolen blanket over the Earth against the chill of late October.
"Here we go!" Rhage said as he hightailed it around to the passenger side. "Get ready!"
As he waved like he was on the deck of a cruise ship that was about to depart, she waved back and thought, Please, no Titanic here, people.
Fits, starts. Grinding gears. Hopping and skipping--and then Bitty got it. Somehow . . . the girl gathered the reins of that twelve-billion-horsepower whatever-engine under that hood, and she and Rhage were cruising by. At five miles an hour.
Mary found herself jumping up and down and clapping like the kid had graduated medical school with a cure for cancer. "You did it! Go, Bitty!"
God, it felt so good to cheer. To watch a mastery happen. To be a witness as the girl turned the powerful muscle car around at the far end and started back again, waving madly as she passed by once more, her face aglow with happiness as Rhage sat beside her clapping and whistling sure as if Bitty were running a touchdown at the Super Bowl, dunking the
final basket at the NCAA championship, and crossing the Boston Marathon finish line all at the same time.
Here they came once more, gathering speed, until Bitty was shifting into third on the straightaway.
It was . . . magic.
It was . . . family.
It was . . . absolutely, positively everything that mattered and was important.
And then it all went into bad territory.
Bitty and Rhage had just made the turn again and were heading away for the long run to the very far end, when the sound of a bottle being thrown against the pavement brought Mary's head up.
Four or five guys came around the corner--and stopped short like they were as surprised to find anyone back there as Mary was to have her white-picket-fence moment interrupted.
"What the fuck," one of them muttered.
"Wassup, bitch."
Mary crossed her arms over her chest and stared right at them, holding her ground without saying a word. They were your typical fifteen-, sixteen-year-old bunch of nitwits, trying to make like they were gangstas with their low-hanging pants and side-tilt baseball hats--when in reality they might as well have been on a mall crawl by Macy's and the Sunglass Hut. The trouble, though? In a pack, they were like coyotes, dangerous even though they were scrawny.
"How you doin'?" a third drawled.
What, like you're Tony Soprano, you little punk, she thought as they closed in on her. Except, when she saw that one of them had a knife down by his side, she stiffened.
What was worse? The boy who was armed was twitching like he was on something.
By this time, Rhage and Bitty had turned around and were making their way back down, and all Mary could think of was, Please just keep going. Get Bitty the hell out of here.
But, no. The GTO stopped a good twenty feet away, its headlights illuminating Mary and the pack of animals.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, shit, check that ride out," one of the them said.
"I'm taking that whip home--"
The chorus of whistles and curses toned down as Rhage opened the passenger door and rose to his full height. "Mary. Come over here."
Mary started to walk away, but she didn't get far. Next thing she knew, the one with the knife had grabbed her and dragged her back against him, putting that blade to her throat.
"Whatchu gonna do?" the boy blustered. "Huh? Whatchu gonna do?"
