The King

by J. R. Ward

  "I think we need to get you to the doctor," Jane said.

  "I thought you were one," Wrath bit out.

  "Do we have to?" Beth countered--

  The fact that she started throwing up again pretty much answered things, didn't it.

  As Wrath stood just outside the staff bathroom by the kitchen, he was ready to scream at his lack of vision: There was nothing like having your mate in medical distress to get you good and pissed off that you were blind.

  With his piece-of-shit pupils, he couldn't see her face to get a read on her coloring, her expression, her eyes. And his keen sense of smell? Out the window, too--the vomiting had clogged up his sinuses, making it impossible to tease out any emotional clues.

  The one thing that was working? His ears--so that every new round of sickness went straight into his brain.

  "Okay, let's go," Beth finally said hoarsely.

  "Wait a fucking minute," he barked. "Go where?"

  Jane's voice was level. "To the doctor--"

  "You are a fucking doctor--"

  V's mate put her hand on his forearm. "Wrath. She needs a specialist and we've found one."

  WTF--? Wait a minute. "That does not sound like Havers," he gritted.

  "It's not. She's a human--"

  "Ohhh no, nope, not going to happen--"

  Annnnnd cue another round of heaving.

  Behind his wraparounds, he closed his eyes. "Fuck."

  Against the horrible backdrop of his wife's suffering, Doc Jane started giving him all kinds of very rational reasons that his shellan had to be handled carefully. But, Christ, the idea she'd be going out in the human world, during the day--because hello, the cocksucking shutters just went down ...

  You know what? He really fucking wished life would take him off its shit list. He was getting pretty goddamn sick and tired of unwinnable situations.

  "...half-breed, unknown complications, incapable of making an assessment..."

  He cut through Doc Jane's little speech. "No offense, but I'm not letting my wife go out there without serious-ass backup, and nobody can leave this house right now--"

  "So I'll go with her."

  Wrath glanced over his shoulder at the sound of iAm's voice. His first instinct was to go all bonded-male on the guy and tell the Shadow he had this, thanks. The problem was, he didn't have shit--and only an asshole stood in the way of his mate getting the medical treatment she required.

  Wrath let his head fall back with a curse. "Are you sure she needs this?" he said, not really certain who exactly he was talking to.

  "Yes," Doc Jane answered gravely. "I'm totally sure."

  iAm spoke up again. "Nothing will happen to her on my watch. On my honor."

  He had a feeling the Shadow was offering him his palm--and sure enough, as Wrath reached out blindly--natch--the other male caught hold of it.

  "What can I do for you?" Wrath heard himself say as they shook.

  "Nothing right now. Just let me take her."

  "Okay. All right." Except as Wrath let go and stepped back, he was not at peace with any of this. What other choice did he have, though?

  Shaking his head, he thought, see, this was precisely why he hadn't want a young. This pregnancy shit was not for him.

  What the hell was he going to do if he lost her--

  "Wrath," Beth said weakly. "Wrath, where'd you go?"

  As if she knew he was two thoughts past sanity--heading into the weeds of wigging out.

  "I'm right here."

  "Will you take me upstairs? I think I should try and feed first, and I don't want to do it out in the open."

  "Plus," Doc Jane murmured, "I need to call and see when she can fit us in."

  "Wrath? Take me upstairs?"

  Snapping into action, he went forward and gathered his beloved gently in his arms, lifting her from the floor.

  And what do you know, instantly, he was grounded. Calmed. Prepared to hold his shit together if only to spare Beth the worry over him.

  "Thank you..." she whispered as her head lolled into the crook of his arm.

  "What for?"

  She didn't answer him until George had guided them over to the base of the stairs and Wrath had begun their ascent.

  Her reply was just one word: "Everything."

  SIXTY-TWO

  It was seven twenty-three in the morning when Sola stepped out on her terrace and saw the ocean properly.

  "Almost worth the drive," she murmured to herself.

  With the sun rising, the vast blue expanse of water melded with the color of the early sky, only the peach clouds of dawn marking the horizon in between the heavens and the earth.

  Settling into a lawn chair, she groaned as every joint she had, and some she didn't know about, let out a holler. Man, she was stiff. Then again, a full twenty-four hours behind the wheel of a car would do that to a girl. And it wasn't just her bones that were aching. Her right calf was spasming as if it were considering a full-on charley horse--in spite of the fact that she'd used cruise control a good eighty percent of the time.

  Wow, the air was soft and nice down here, even in December.

  And the humidity was awesome. Her skin was positively drinking up the moist air--her hair as well, her ponytail already corkscrewing at the end.

  "I go sleep now," her grandmother announced.

  Sola looked back through the screen door. "Me, too. I'll be in soon."

  "No smoking," came the scold.

  "I gave that up two years ago."

  "And you're not doing it again."

  On that note, her grandmother nodded and walked out of the shallow living area.

  Sola refocused on the ocean. Her Miami place was on the fifth floor of an older building, the condo just an unassuming, fifteen-hundred-square-foot space that she'd bought a couple of years ago for all cash and then decorated out of Rooms To Go on the cheap. The complex had a pool and tennis courts, though--and it was mostly dead, what with the holidays approaching and the snowbirds yet to fly down for the rest of the winter.

  Arching her back, she tried to give her spine a little relief. No such luck. She was probably going to need a chiropractor after that drive.

  Good thing she was never going to have to worry about doing it again.

  Shit, that was depressing.

  Putting a hand into her back pocket, she took out her iPhone. No calls. No texts.

  She hadn't thought leaving Assail would hurt this much. And yet, she couldn't say she regretted it.

  What was he doing right now, she wondered. Probably settling in after a night of wheeling and dealing in the dark underbelly of the Caldwell economy.

  Would he go back to that woman? The one she'd watched him fuck?

  Closing her eyes, she breathed in deep a couple of times--and the fact that she could smell the brine in the air helped. She was not up there anymore, she reminded herself. She was not with him anymore--not that they'd really been together.

  So what he did and who it was with? Not her issue.

  Anymore.

  This was going to be okay, she told herself as she put her phone back and stared at the ocean. She had done the right thing ...

  And yet, even still, snapshots of Assail dogged her mind, barging in and taking over the beautiful view in front of her.

  Bending down, she felt around her thigh and then pressed her fingers into the bandage. As pain shot up into her torso and raced her heart, she told herself to remember how she'd ended up here. Why she'd relocated.

  Exactly how her prayers had been answered.

  Yeah, the drive had given her something other than a sore body and a tired brain: all those highway miles had done wonders for her perspective on everything.

  Up north, she'd told herself that her escape had been at her own direction.

  But now, as that sun rose in front of her, the rays streaking out over the water, the dolphins frolicking in the morning waves ... she realized, no. That had been a cop-out.

  Because admitting to herself
that she believed in God was too scary, too crazy.

  Away from everything she had left behind up north, in a neutral territory where she was starting over, she was able to be honest with herself. That prayer she had offered up, that last one, had in fact been answered ... and in coming down here, she was honoring her end of the bargain.

  At great sacrifice, as it turned out ... because she knew it was going to be a long, long time before she was able to stop checking her phone.

  Getting up from the lawn chair, she went back inside, and as she paused to shut the door, she looked at the sliding glass ... and remembered that first floor of Assail's house. And as she picked up the suitcase she'd left just inside the door ... all she could think of was that she'd packed the clothes in it when she'd still been with him.

  Same as when she brushed her teeth: The last time she'd used her toothbrush had been in his upstairs bathroom.

  And as she got into the white sheets, she recalled lying next to him after he'd come to her in the shower and taken her with such incredible power.

  Closing her eyes, she listened to the unfamiliar sounds around her--someone talking loudly in the parking lot out back, the person upstairs running their shower, a dog barking on the other side of the wall.

  Assail's place had been so quiet.

  "Shit," she said aloud.

  How long was it going to take before she stopped measuring everything by what she had left behind?

  It was just like it had been when her mother had died. For months afterward, the metronome of life had been driven by nuances of her mom: last movie seen together, the things they'd bought at the store just that afternoon, the final birthday present given and received, that Christmas--which, of course, no one had known would be the end of the tradition.

  All of that relentless remembering had gone on for a good year, until each one of the anniversaries, internal and external, had been exhausted. Getting through them had been like punching through a wall each time, but she had done it, right? She had put one foot in front of the other until life had resumed a kind of normalcy--

  Ah crap. She really shouldn't be comparing this walk away from a drug dealer to the mourning of the woman who'd given birth to her and raised her for how long before her grandmother had taken over?

  But there you had it.

  Before Sola finally fell asleep, she ended up reaching out to the bedside table, opening the drawer, and putting her father's Bible under her pillow.

  It was important to keep a tie to something, anything.

  Otherwise? She was terrified she was going to repack that goddamn Ford she'd rented and head right back. And that stupidity simply was not an option.

  After everything that had gone down lately, she really didn't want to know what happened to people who broke an agreement with the big guy.

  And no, she wasn't talking about Santa Claus.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Good thing Beth had never had a hypothetical fantasy about what it would be like to find out she was pregnant.

  As she sat in a perfectly nice waiting room, surrounded by cushy, neutral-toned chairs, magazines about menopause and motherhood, and women who were either in their twenties or fifties, she was very clear that whatever came from this appointment, positive, negative or too-early-to-tell, she would never have cooked up this scenario: Without her husband. Escorted by a Shadow with enough concealed weapons on him to blow up a tank--or maybe an aircraft carrier. Having taken a vein for blood, for chrissakes, some twenty minutes before leaving a house the size and make up of Versailles.

  Yeah, not exactly shit that would get written up in, say ... she picked up the nearest mag. Modern Motherhood, for example.

  Flipping through the colorful pages, she saw all kinds of Happy, Satisfied Mothers holding their Heavenly Angels on Earth as they preached about the sanctity of breast-feeding, the importance of skin-to-skin contact, and making that critical, first postnatal doctor's appointment.

  "I'm going to be sick," she muttered, tossing the propaganda aside.

  "Shit," iAm said as he leaped up. "I'll find the loo--"

  "No, no." She pulled him back down. "I meant, yeah, no, it was just a comment."

  "You sure?"

  "Absolutely. And next time I get annoyed, I promise to just say so. Not throw out a metaphor."

  iAm had to squeeze back into his own stuffed chair: The Shadow was so big, he overflowed the armrests and the back cushion--and he attracted a lot of attention.

  Although not because of his size, necessarily.

  Every single woman who came in, walked by, or worked at reception looked at him--in a way that proved you weren't dead from the neck down even if you were pregnant or your ovaries were winding things up or you were frazzled from ringing phones, lots of patients and tons of paperwork.

  "Have you ever been married?" she asked the guy.

  Absently, he shook his head, those black eyes of his tracing around as if he were ready to defend her with his life.

  Which was awfully sweet, really.

  "Ever been in love?"

  Another shake of the head.

  "Do you want children?"

  Looking over at her he laughed tightly. "Did I hear that you were once a reporter?"

  "Is my who-what-where-why-when coming through again?"

  "Yeah. But it's cool, I got nothing to hide." He crossed his legs ankle to knee. "You know, with everything going on with my brother all these years, I don't ever think like that, you feel me? I gotta get him sorted, and shit knows, that ain't been happenin'."

  "I'm really sorry." She'd heard enough through the household gossip lines to get the gist of their situation. "To be honest, I keep expecting to come down one of these nights and find you both gone."

  He nodded. "Might well happen--"

  "Marklon, Beth?" a nurse called out from an open door across the way.

  "That's me." Getting to her feet, she put her purse up on her shoulder and headed over. "Right here."

  Jesus, talk about nausea: At the prospect of going in to actually meet the doctor, she thought, okay, now she really was going to throw up again--

  The nurse smiled and stepped back, motioning to a little triage room behind her. "I'm just going to get your weight and blood pressure in here."

  "Can you hold this?" she asked iAm, holding out her Coach bag.

  "Yup."

  As he took her purse, the nurse paused and pulled a head-to-toe on the Shadow. Then she flushed brilliant red, and had to clear her throat. "Welcome," she said to him.

  iAm just nodded and kept scanning the back area. Like maybe a matched set of ninjas was going to jump out of an exam room or something.

  Beth had to smile as the nurse refocused and got into the business of taking vitals.

  After that was done, the woman escorted them down a hallway that had a dozen or so numbered rooms opening off of it. As they went along, the decor was the same brown and cream of the waiting room, with similar kinds of glass mounted, fake-textured "art" doing its best to give a noninstitutional feel to a place filled with medical equipment, and people in scrubs and white coats.

  "In five, please," the nurse said, once again standing to the side.

  As iAm passed by her, she took an extra step back, her eyes widening as if she liked the way he smelled.

  The nurse shook herself and came in, closing the door. "If you could sit on the exam table, that would be great. And you can be anywhere you'd like, sir."

  The Shadow chose the seat right across from the entry, staring at the door as if he were daring somebody, anybody to come through it.

  With another smile, Beth had to wonder what the nurse would think if she knew he was prepared to jump anyone he didn't like the looks of. And kill them.

  Maybe cut them up and put them into a stew.

  God, she hoped it really had been chicken in that soup ...

  "Ms. Marklon? Hello?"

  She shook herself. "Oh, sorry, what?"

  The history part of things
went fast, because before her transition she'd been perfectly healthy, and it wasn't like she was going to tell them that a mere two years ago, she'd become a vampire.

  Duh.

  "And how far along do you think you are?" came the eventual question.

  "I have no idea whether I'm even pregnant, to be honest. It's a possibility, though, and I am having a lot of nausea--I just want some reassurance everything's okay."

  "Have you taken an over-the-counter test?"

  "No. Should I have?"

  The nurse shook her head. "We can do a blood test here if the doctor wants one. And as for the nausea, if you are pregnant, a lot of women get morning sickness that's more like all-day sickness in the first trimester--and yet it's all perfectly fine."

  "Good Lord, I can't believe I'm talking like this."

  The nurse just smiled and finished writing in the chart.

  "Okay, now, if you'd like to change into this gown." A paper square was placed in her lap. "I'll send the doctor in."

  "Thanks."

  The door shut behind the nurse with a click.

  "I can't leave you," iAm said as he got up, turned around and faced the wall--and put his head in his big hands. "But I would strongly suggest that you do not tell your husband you got naked with me in the room. I like my arms and legs just where they are, thank you very much."

  "I agree."

  As she made quick work of getting out of her clothes and into that flimsy gown, she really wanted Wrath with her. And actually, it was a good lesson for how much his presence calmed her out. They were so rarely apart, it was easy to forget what he meant to her, especially when things got stressful.

  Annnnnd then it was a case of hurry up and wait.

  "So if you were going to get married, what kind of woman do you want?"

  iAm glanced over at her. "Can't we talk about baseball or something?"

  Oh, crap. "Or guy, as the case might be. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."

  He laughed again. "I'm not gay."

  "So what would she be like?"

  "Man, you don't quit, do you?"

  Now it was her turn to laugh. "Listen, I'm sitting here, freezing cold in this paper doily, about to be told that I have the flu and shouldn't have bothered coming in. Do me a solid and get my mind off my reality, will you?"

  iAm sat back in his chair. "Well, like I said, I haven't really given it a lot of thought."

  "Can I set you up with someone--"

  "No," he barked. "Nooooooooo. No, no, no, back right off the edge of that ledge, girlie."