by J. R. Ward
Only the severity of the situation they were in thanks to the Council's actions kept her from devolving completely into her body's minutiae. And meanwhile, in her heart of hearts, she didn't know whether she hoped she was pregnant ... or hoped she wasn't.
Actually, that was a lie.
Putting her hand over her lower belly, she found herself praying that it hadn't worked. The only thing worse than Wrath losing the throne ... was him finding out he was going to be a father right afterward.
If he was already feeling like he'd lost his parents' legacy, that was going to be like throwing him a boulder to catch while he was barely treading water: Undoubtedly, he was going to feel like he cheated his child, too.
Down at the foyer level, she crossed over into the dining room, and then pushed into the kitchen. God, the eerie emptiness--the galley was usually such an active place, even during the lulls between large household meals. To walk in as the shutters were coming down and have nothing on the stove, in the oven, or on the counters scared her.
Damn ... what was going to happen now?
Was the Brotherhood going to split apart? Where would she and Wrath go? Technically, they shouldn't be staying in those overdone quarters on the third floor if they weren't the First Family anymore.
Actually ... it would be a relief to get out of there.
Although the cause for the relo sucked.
Opening up the Sub-Zero, she saw ... a whole lot of shit she didn't want to eat. But she should be hungry, shouldn't she? She'd only snacked on the stuff Fritz had brought her how many hours ago? And she certainly hadn't eaten anything during the needing.
She needed to pee.
Disappearing into the loo off the kitchen, she took care of business, washed her hands, and gave the refrigerator another try.
Someone had just put a big vat of something on the lower level. A quick peek under the lid and ... cacciatore. Normally an entree well worth tackling, especially because iAm must have been the one who made it. However, a quick whiff got her a big fat no-thanks from her stomach. Same thing when it came to the leftover ham. A plate's worth of Bolognese with linguini in a Tupperware container. Tomato soup ...
Giving the freezer a try, she took out a box of plain Eggos ... then put them back. "Meh."
Ice cream was a total no-go. Just the thought of that heavy-cream stuff made her want to throw up--
She hesitated as she looked down at herself. "Somebody in there?" she said to her pelvis.
Okay, it was official. She'd totally lost it.
After a trip through the pantry, which proved to be like trying to find something edible in the laundry room, for chrissakes, she doubled back to the fridge and made herself take out a Vlasic jar of butter chips.
"It's pickles, people," she muttered. "Pickles. Total cliche here."
Except when she twisted off the lid and looked at the slices dancing in their little pool of sweet brine, she grimaced and had to put them back.
As a last resort, she hit the vegetable drawer--
"Yes," she said in a rush as her hand snapped out for a grab. "Oh, yes yes yes..."
As she carried the bunch of organic carrots over to the knife drawer, she couldn't believe she was about to get it on with all that beta carotene.
She hated carrots. Okay, not completely--if they were in salads, it wasn't like she'd eat around them. But she had never in her life volunteered them out of the fridge.
Standing over the sink, she cut one free, got out a peeler, and made a neat little pile of bright orange strips in the stainless-steel belly. Quick rinse. Cut in the middle. Slice length-wise twice. And voila, crudites.
Crunch. Munch. Swallow.
They were so fresh, they cracked every time she took a bite out of them, and the sweet, earthy taste was better than chocolate.
One more, she thought as she finished her last quarter. Except when she got to the end of number two, she thought ... how about another.
As she worked her way through her third, she thought back to the Council's proclamation. Her motivation for trying to do something was such a no-brainer. Even though her mother's racial identity was not her fault, she still felt responsible for bringing the shit cart to Wrath's front door.
If she could only figure out a way around this ...
On the Council's side, things were evidently moving ahead. An official swearing in of that Ichan guy had been scheduled--and Rehv had found out because, like an idiot, the Council's secretary had failed to take him off their blast e-mail list.
That was taking place at midnight.
She glanced over at the double ovens. The blue digital clock read four fifty-four. So they had nineteen hours.
What the hell could be done in nineteen hours?
Turning back to her stash, she--
The sound of the security system announcing the opening and closing of an exterior door was a surprise. Frowning, she went out by the pantry, pushed through one of the flap doors that the staff used ...
Layla was coming out of the library, looking like she'd been in a car accident: Her hair was windblown, her face white as a sheet, her hands up to her cheeks.
"Layla," Beth called over. "Are you okay?"
The Chosen jumped so high she had to put both arms out to keep steady. "Oh! Oh--ah, yes. Yes, I am. I'm fine, just fine, yes. Thank you." The female abruptly frowned. "And yourself? Are you..."
So many ways to finish that for the female, given what was going on: Are you ... suicidal? Are you ... taking a break between wailing sessions? Are you ... pregnant, too?
"Oh, yup, fine. Yeah, just fine. Yup."
Two could play at the deflection game.
"Well, I'm just heading upstairs. To go to bed. To have a shower, and go to bed." As Layla started taking off her parka, her smile was about as genuine as Courtney Stodden's. "I'll see you at ... well, later. I'll see you later. Bye. Bye for now!"
The Chosen took to that stairwell like she was being chased, even though there was no one behind her.
As Beth returned to the kitchen, she felt bad that she didn't follow through on the female's obvious distress, but the sad truth was, she had so much on her plate ... there wasn't room left for anyone else's drama-burger with a side of brain-fry.
Back at the sink, she peeled another carrot. Cut it in half and turned it around to--
The solution came to her with such clarity, she nearly sliced the pad of her finger off.
Putting down the knife, she picked up the two halves ... and held them together, finding the puzzle fit that made them seem as if they were one.
Then she deliberately separated them. Reunited them. Separated them.
In both incarnations ... the halves were still carrot.
Throwing the pieces on the counter, she took off at a dead run.
It was a fat round hedge that saved them both.
As Xcor materialized in the front yard of his suburban abode, he had to take a moment to collect himself--even though the sun was threatening in the east.
Talk about close calls ... he'd barely gotten Layla back in time. And even the now, he was not sure he had succeeded.
But he had done his best.
Once it had become obvious that she suffered the same disorientation as he in the mist, he had taken her hand and started her up the hill. He did not ask her for confirmation that the Brotherhood's hidden compound was in fact at the top--for that information, he relied on the same principles that had constructed his far more appropriate lair back in the Old Country.
The higher the position, the more defensible it was.
Hustling her as fast as he could, he had ended up running them straight into a twenty-foot-tall stuccoed retaining wall--a very good sign that they were close to her homestead. The problem was, she'd been too turned about to dematerialize over the damn thing.
Confronted by the choice of right or left, he'd been well aware that upon his decision rested her safety.
On so many levels.
He'd been well
aware that even if he could construct a suitable shelter for them, something capable of shielding them both from the sunlight all day long, her absence would be noted and questioned when she returned at the following sunset. How she would be able to present answers that would not complicate her life irreparably, he did not know.
He had picked to the right--on the theory that he wanted to do right by her, and therefore, that was the direction he would take.
When they'd found that well-trimmed, well-cared-for little bush ... and then a number of its identical siblings, it was clear they were on the trail of the main house. He did not take her all the way. He went far enough to find the first planting bed, and then had released her hand and hissed at her to go--go fast.
He, too, was out of time.
Xcor had watched her hustle forth for only a moment, and then she was lost into the mist, not even the sounds of her footfalls reaching his ears anymore.
It was as if she had disappeared forever.
And as much as a part of him had been tempted to sit and let the sun take him, he had forced himself away, triangling downward until he had tripped over, quite literally, a ploughed drive.
Although he'd only been able to see five feet afore him, the level surface provided him with an opportunity for alacrity unparalleled by the uneven ground. He had run flat-out, gravity in his favor, his only concern that someone would come barreling up the mountain and see him in their headlights.
That had not come to pass. He had made it to the leveling-off part and had eventually broken free of the misted, scrambled landscape.
The sense of dread he'd first experienced upon penetration stuck with him, however. What if Layla hadn't made it inside in time? What if someone had found her and questioned her? What if ...
He had checked his phone to no avail and then been forced to close his eyes, concentrate, and pray that he had enough remaining strength and focus to ghost himself away.
The only thing that had made disappearing possible was that he couldn't die not knowing what had happened to her.
Taking out his phone once again, he had some errant hope that she had called and he hadn't heard the ring in his escape down the mountain. Alas ... no.
Stalking to the colonial's front door, the faint glow in the sky made his skin prickle with warning and his eyes water--which ended as he burst into the house.
To a scene of abject debauchery.
The only thing that would have made it more complete would have been the presence of females. As it was, the air was spiced thick with rum and gin, crowded with hearty laughter, heavy with the kind of male aggression that surged after victory.
"You return!" Zypher called out. "He returns!"
The bellowing would have been loud enough to rouse the neighbors, if there had been any. As it was, it filled the house.
"And we have news," Throe said with satisfaction mildly tinted with drunkenness. "The induction ceremony is at midnight this coming eve. In Ichan's library hall. We have been invited, of course."
The temptation to tell them to go in his stead appealed. But he kept his voice quiet. With naught but a nod, he disappeared upstairs.
Fortunately, his soldiers were used to him retreating into his own counsel--and let him go.
As he shut the bedroom door, the noise below was dimmed, not extinguished; however, he was accustomed to tuning out that group of males.
Going over to the bed, which was a mess of sheets and tangled blankets, he sat down, disarmed, and took out his cell. Cradling it in his hands, he stared at the screen.
There was no way to dial her: Whatever phone she'd used had a scrambled account.
Lying back and looking up at the ceiling, he knew an emptiness that was a revelation.
The idea that she could be dead and he didn't know it hit him so deeply, he felt as if his personality had split in two.
Never to be united again.
FORTY-SEVEN
Where was he?
As Sola loitered in Assail's kitchen, fussing over the few things she'd repacked from upstairs, she kept looking over her shoulder, expecting to find him coming around the corner to try to persuade her to stay.
But he'd already done that, hadn't he.
In the shower.
Man, for once, memories of being with him didn't get her juiced. They made her want to cry.
"I no understand why we leave so early," her grandmother announced as she came up from the basement. "It is not even dawn."
Her grandmother was dressed in the yellow version of her house frock, but she was ready for the trip, her good shoes on, her matching handbag hanging off her wrist from its fake leather strap. Behind her, Assail's matched set of guards each had a suitcase--and they did not look happy. Although, come on, they hardly had faces built for the jollies.
"It's a twenty-three-hour drive, vovo. We need to get started."
"We are no stopping?"
"No." She couldn't take the risk with her grandmother in tow. "You can drive in the middle during the day. You love to drive."
Her grandmother let out a sound that for anybody else would have been an F-bomb. "We should stay here. Is nice here. I like the kitchen."
It was not the kitchen the woman was fond of. Hell, her grandmother could cook over a Coleman without blinking an eye--and had.
He's not Catholic, Sola wanted to say. He's actually an atheist drug dealer. Soon to be wholesaler--
What if she was pregnant? she wondered. Because she hadn't taken her pill for two days. Wouldn't that be ...
Nucking futs, as they say.
Shaking herself out of la-la land, Sola zipped the rolling suitcase shut and just stood there.
"Well?" her grandmother taunted. "We go? Or no?"
As if she knew exactly what Sola was waiting for.
Or who, as the case was.
Sola didn't have enough pride left to try to be cool as she looked around again, searching the entry from the dining area, the archway that was used when you came from upstairs or the office, the shallow hall at the head of the basement steps. All empty. And there were no footsteps coming at a dead run, no thumping from overhead as somebody rushed to pull on a shirt and get to the lower level.
Shower time aside, how could he not see her off ...
At that moment, her grandmother took a deep breath and the flat yellow gold cross she always wore around her neck caught the overhead light.
"We go," Sola heard herself say.
With that, she picked up her suitcase and headed for the back door. Outside, a totally lose-it-in-a-crowd Ford was parked close to the house, the rental agreement in the name of Sola's emergency identity.
The one nobody in Caldwell knew she had. And in the glove box, there was another set of documents and IDs for her grandmother.
Using the remote, she triggered the locks to disengage, and opened the trunk. Assail's men, meanwhile, were handling her grandmother with kid gloves, helping her down the stairs, carrying her luggage, and her coat, which she had obviously refused to put on in protest.
As they settled the woman into the passenger seat and her suitcase in the back, Sola searched the rear of the house. Just as before, she expected to see him, maybe running through the main room to get to her before she left. Maybe coming up from the basement and shooting through the mudroom to come out. Maybe skidding around the corner from having been upstairs ...
At that moment, something strange happened. Every window in the house had a sudden shimmer to it, the glass panes between the sills and the flat plates of the sliding doors showing a subtle twinkle.
What the--
Shutters, she thought. There were shutters coming across the windows, the subtle movement the kind of thing you'd miss ... unless you were looking in at the very second it happened. Afterward? It was as if nothing had changed. All the furniture was still visible, the lights on, normal, normal, normal.
Another of his security tricks, she thought.
Taking her time opening her door, she put
one foot in and craned around. The two bodyguards had stood back and crossed their arms.
She wanted to tell them ... but no, they didn't seem like they were interested in carrying a message back to Assail.
They looked downright pissed off now that they'd gotten her grandmother safely into the sedan.
Sola waited for a moment longer, eyes fixed on that open rear door. Through the jambs, she looked at the shoes and the coats in that back hall. So ordinary-looking--well, ordinary for a rich person. But the house wasn't Middle America anything, and not just because it was probably worth five million. Or ten.
Turning away, she slid behind the wheel, closed herself in, and got a good whiff of lemon air freshener. Under which was the faint stinky haze of cigarette smoke.
"I no know why we have to leave."
"I know, vovo. I know."
The tinny-sounding engine jumped to what little life it had and she put the car in reverse. K-turning, she gave that open door one last look.
And then there were no more excuses to linger.
Hitting the gas, she blinked hard as the headlights illuminated the driveway and then the one-lane road that would take them off the peninsula.
He was not going to come after her.
"You make a mistake," her grandmother said on a huff. "Big mistake."
But you don't know the whole story, Sola thought as she came up to a stop sign and hit her directional signal.
What Sola was unaware of, however ... was that neither did she.
Assail watched the departure from the ring of trees behind the rear of his home.
Through the windows of the kitchen, he saw her standing by the table, rifling through a suitcase as if searching for something she was leaving behind.
Out here, my love, he thought. What you have lost is out here.
And then her grandmother made an appearance with the cousins, and it was clear that the female did not approve of the leaving.
Just one more thing to adore about her.
It was also obvious that the cousins were against this. Then again, they had never eaten so well, and they had respect for anyone who would stand up to them.
Not a problem with Marisol's grandmahmen.
As Assail played witness to his female searching about as if she were waiting for him to present himself, there was a small satisfaction in her sadness. But the overriding imperative was to convince his inner beast to let her choose the path she had.
