The Chosen

by J. R. Ward

  But she had a reprieve.

  As she opened things up, Blay and Qhuinn weren't even looking in her direction. They were bent over Lyric's bassinet.

  "--Layla's eyes," Blay said as he reached in and let the young grab onto his finger. "Definitely."

  "She has her mahmen's hair, too. I mean, check out the blond coming in."

  Their love for the little one was incandescent, shining in their faces, warming their voices, tempering their movements so that everything they did was with care. And yet that was not what Layla focused on.

  Her stare locked on Qhuinn's broad palm as it stroked up and down Blay's back. The caress of connection was unconscious on both sides, the proffer and the acceptance both nothing at all and everything that mattered. And as she played witness from across the room, she had to blink fast once again.

  Sometimes kindness and love could be just as difficult as violence to witness. Sometimes, when you were on the outside looking in, watching two in-sync people was a scene from a horror film, the kind of thing that you wanted to look away from, forget about, banish the memory of--especially when you were about to go to bed for the day and facing hours upon hours of being alone in the dark.

  The knowledge that she would never have that special love with anyone was--

  Qhuinn glanced across at her. "Oh, hey."

  He straightened and smiled, but she wasn't fooled. His eyes were going over her like he was profiling her--although mayhap that was not the case. Mayhap that was merely her paranoia talking.

  She was so over living a double life. Yet, in the kind of cruel irony that seemed to be destiny's favorite source of amusement, the price of relieving her conscience would come at the expense of her very existence.

  And how could she leave her young behind?

  "--okay? Layla?"

  As Qhuinn frowned at her, she shook herself and forced a smile. "Oh, I'm very well." She was assuming that had been an inquiry about her well-being. "Just fine, indeed."

  Seeking to prove the lie, she approached the bassinets. Rhampage, or Rhamp, as he was known, was fighting the need for sleep, and as his sister made a cooing sound, his head turned and his hand reached out.

  Funny, even at this young age, he seemed to recognize his station and want to protect her.

  It was the breeding. Qhuinn was a member of the aristocracy, the result of generations of selective pairings, and even though his "defect" of having one blue eye and one green had rendered him beneath contempt in the opinions of both the glymera and his own family, the venerable nature of his bloodline could not be denied. And neither could the impact of his physical presence. At well over six and a half feet tall, his body was braided with great cuts of muscle, his flesh honed by both practice and the actualities of war into a weapon every bit as deadly as the guns and daggers he went unto the field with. The first member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood to be inducted on the basis of merit as opposed to lineage, he had not let the great tradition down. He never let anyone down.

  In fact, Qhuinn was an altogether beautiful male, if in a rather raw way: His face was all angles from his having little to no body fat, and those mismatched eyes stared out from under dark brows. His black hair had been cut short recently, all but shaved on the bottom with the top slicked back, and as a result, his neck looked extra thick. With gunmetal-gray piercings in his ears, and an ahstrux nohtrum teardrop under his eye from when he had served as John Matthew's protector, he caught stares wherever he went.

  Perhaps because people, vampires and human alike, worried about what he might be capable of if displeased.

  Blay, on the other hand, was the opposite, as approachable as Qhuinn was best avoided in a dark alley.

  Blaylock, son of Rocke, had red hair, and skin that was a shade lighter than most in the species. He was every bit as big, but when you were around him, the first impression he made was of intelligence and heart, rather than brawn. Still, no one argued with how impressive he was in the field. Layla had heard the stories, although never from him, as he was not one to boast, create unnecessary drama, or draw attention to himself.

  She loved them both with all her heart.

  And the separation she felt from them was all on her side.

  "Look at this," Qhuinn said as he nodded at the young. "We got two lights-out specials over here--well, one and a half."

  As he smiled, she wasn't fooled. His eyes were continuing to go over her face, searching for signs of exactly what she was attempting to hide. To make his examination more difficult, she backed off.

  "They are good sleepers, thank the Virgin Scribe--er, thank Fates."

  "You coming down with us for Last Meal tonight?" he asked in an easy tone.

  Blay straightened. "Fritz said he'd make you anything you like."

  "He is always so kind." She went across to the bed and made a show of lying down against the pillows. "Actually, I got peckish around two so I went to the kitchen and had oatmeal and toast. Coffee. Orange juice. Breakfast for lunch, as it were. You know, sometimes one feels like rewinding the night and starting fresh at the middle."

  Pity that could be done only in a metaphoric way.

  Although...would she really have chosen not to have met Xcor?

  Yes, she thought. She would prefer never to have known of his existence.

  The love of her life, her Blay, her match of the heart and soul...was a traitor. And her emotions for the male had been an open wound into which the bacteria of betrayal had entered and spread.

  Thus now she was here, in this prison of her own making, tortured by the fact that she had consorted with the enemy; first because she had been duped...and then later because she had wanted to be in Xcor's presence.

  They had parted badly, however, him putting an end to their clandestine meetings when she had forced him to acknowledge his feelings. And then things had gone from sad to tragic when he had been caught and taken into the Brotherhood's custody.

  At first, she had been unable to gain information on his condition. But then she had traveled in the way of a Chosen, going unto him and witnessing him near death in a stone corridor filled with jars of every shape and color.

  There had been naught that she could do. Not without coming forward and exposing herself--and even if she did as such, she could not save him.

  So she was stuck here, a ghost haunting a tangled stretch of emotions studded with the poison ivy of guilt and regret, never, ever to be free.

  "--right? I mean..." As Blay continued speaking to her about something or another, she had to force herself not to rub her eyes. "...end of a night when you've just been up here with the young. Which is not to say that you don't like being with them."

  Get out, she willed the two males. Please, just go away and leave me be.

  It wasn't that she didn't want them with the young or that she held some kind of animus unto Lyric and Rhamp's fathers. She just needed to breathe, and every time either one of the fighters stared at her as they were doing the now, that became next to impossible.

  "Does that sound good?" Qhuinn asked. "Layla?"

  "Oh, yes, of course." She had no idea what she had agreed to, but she made sure she smiled. "I'm just going to rest now. They were up a lot during the day."

  "I wish you'd let us help more." Blay frowned. "We're just a knock away."

  "You are both out fighting most nights. Sleep is required."

  "You matter, too, though."

  Layla shifted her eyes to the bassinets, and as she remembered cradling the young in her arms and feeding them, she felt even worse. They deserved a mahmen who was better than her, one uncomplicated and unburdened by decisions that should never have been made, one who was uncontaminated by a weakness for a male who should never have been approached...much less loved.

  "I do not matter at all in comparison to them," she whispered starkly. "They are everything."

  Blay came over and took her hand, his blue eyes full of warmth. "No, you are also very important. And mahmen need time for th
emselves."

  To do what? Ruminate on regrets? No, thank you, she thought.

  "I shall go to my grave without them and enjoy my own company, then." As she realized how grim that sounded, she hurried forth with, "Besides, all too soon they will be grown. It will happen faster than the three of us know."

  There was further conversation at that point, none of which she heard because of the screaming in her head. But then, finally, she was left in peace when the bonded pair departed.

  The fact that she was so glad to see them go was one more sadness to carry.

  Shifting off the bed, she went back to the bassinets, her eyes watering once again. Wiping her cheeks, over and over, she took a tissue out of a hidden pocket and blew her nose. The young were fully asleep, their lids closed, their faces turned to each other as if they were communicating telepathically in their slumber. Perfect little hands and precious little feet, rounded, healthy bellies wrapped in a flannel sheet. They were such good young, cheery and smiley when awake, peaceful and angelic when at rest. Rhampage was gaining weight faster than Lyric, but she seemed heartier than he, fussing less when being changed or bathed, meeting eyes with greater focus.

  As tears dropped off Layla's face and landed on the carpet at her feet, she didn't know how much longer she could do this.

  Before she was aware of moving, she went to the house phone and dialed a four-digit number.

  The doggen she summoned arrived in a moment, and Layla put her social mask in place, smiling at the servant with a serenity she did not feel. "Thank you for watching my most precious ones," she said in the Old Language.

  The nursemaid replied with happy words and sparkling eyes, and it was all Layla could do to withstand the two or three seconds of communication. Then she was out of the room, and traveling on quick, slippered feet down the hall of statues. When she reached the doors at the far end, she pushed them wide and entered the staff wing.

  As with all mansions of its size and distinction, the Brotherhood's home required tremendous servant support, and the doggens' rooms lined a number of corridors, the segregations of age, sex, and job titles forming communities within the larger whole. Within the maze of hallways, Layla chose her direction with no particular thought other than the goal of locating a room that was unclaimed--and she found one some three doors forth from some turn she made. Entering the bare, simple space, she went over to the window, cracked the sash, and closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding and her head was swirling, but as she breathed deep and scented the fresh, cold air...

  ...she ghosted away through the whistling gap she'd created, becoming one with the night, her molecules scrambling forth and heading away from the Brotherhood mansion.

  As usual, the freedom was temporary.

  But desperate as she was, she took it in like oxygen to the suffocated.

  THREE

  Qhuinn was a male's male. And not just because he was a fighter and had a mate who was a dude.

  Yeah, sure, before he'd settled down with his Blay, he'd liked fucking females and women well enough. But then again, his data screen for sexual partners had been set so low that even vacuum cleaners and the occasional tailpipe had been candidates.

  No sheep, though. #standards

  But he couldn't say that females had ever captivated or particularly interested him. It wasn't that there was shit wrong with them or that he didn't respect them in the same way he did anything else rocking the living-and-breathing job descript. They simply weren't his cuppa, as it were.

  On a night like tonight, however, he regretted his lack of experience. Just because he'd done some laps with the opposite in the sack didn't mean he was equipped in any way to deal with what was confronting him now.

  As he and Blay came to the bottom of the grand staircase, he stopped and looked at his mate. In the background, emanating from the billiards room across the foyer, the sounds of deep male voices, thumping music, and ice hitting crystal glasses announced that the Brotherhood pool tournament was already in full swing.

  Qhuinn smiled in a way he hoped looked chill. "Hey, I'll meet you in there, 'kay? I'm supposed to go down and talk to Doc Jane about my shoulder for, like, ten minutes? Shouldn't be long."

  "Of course. Do you want me to go with you?"

  For a second, Qhuinn got lost just staring at his male. Blaylock, son of Rocke, was everything he himself was not: Blay was flawless with a Michelangelo body, a face to die for, and a head of red hair that was thick and shiny as a pony's tail; he was smart, but also levelheaded, which made all the difference; and he was as steady and reliable as a granite mountain, the kind of guy who never wavered.

  In all the ways that mattered, compared to Blay, Qhuinn was the plastic tub to the porcelain bowl, the partial set to the perfect dozen, the crack down the middle to the never-been-broken.

  For some reason, though, Blay had picked him. Against all odds, the disowned, bad-seed son of a Founding Family, the sex fiend with the mismatched eyes, the mercurial, hostile, snarling stray...had somehow landed Prince Charming, and shit, it was almost enough to make you religious.

  Blay was the reason he breathed, the home he'd never had, the sunlight that powered his earth.

  "Qhuinn?" Those iridescent blue eyes frowned. "Are you okay?"

  "Sorry." He leaned in and pressed his lips to the male's jugular. "Distracted. But you do that to me, don't you."

  As Qhuinn eased back, Blay was blushing--and aroused. And that scent was a diversion not easily conquered.

  Except he had a real problem he needed to deal with.

  "Tell the brothers I'll be fast." Qhuinn nodded in the direction of the billiards room. "And I'ma beat their ass."

  "You always do. Even Butch."

  The words were soft, and backed up with an adoration that made Qhuinn count every one of his blessings.

  Giving in to instinct, Qhuinn got up close again and whispered in the guy's ear, "You may want to food up at Last Meal. I'm going to keep you busy all day long."

  With a quick lick of the throat he intended to work on later, Qhuinn stalked off before he couldn't leave his mate at all.

  Heading around the base of the staircase, he went through a hidden door and down into the tunnel system that connected the components of the estate. The Brotherhood's underground training center was located about a quarter of a mile away from the mansion, and this subterranean pass connecting the two was a broad, concrete expanse lit by fluorescent ceiling panels.

  As he stomped along, his footfalls echoed all around, like his shitkickers were applauding his initiative.

  He wasn't so sure they were right, though. He had no fucking clue what he was doing here.

  The door into the back of the supply closet opened without a sound after he entered the correct code, and then he was passing by shelves of legal pads, printer paper, pens, and other Staples shit. The office beyond presented your typical desk-chair-computer and old-school filing cabinets setups, none of it particularly registering as he punched through the glass door across the way and hit the corridor beyond. With long, impatient strides, he went by all kinds of professional-grade facilities, from the full-size gym and the Dwayne Johnson-worthy weight room, to the locker rooms and the first of the classrooms.

  The clinic portion of the training center had a number of treatment spaces, an OR, and several patient bunks. Doc Jane, V's shellan, and Dr. Manny Manello, Payne's mate, took care of all manner of war-related injuries in it as well as household-whoopsies, and even the pregnancies and deliveries of L.W. as well as Nalla, Lyric, and Rhampage.

  He knocked on the first door he came to, and he didn't have to wait more than a heartbeat.

  "Come on in!" Doc Jane called out from the other side.

  The good doctor was in surgical scrubs and Crocs as she sat at the computer on the far side of the well-equipped clinical space, her fingers flying over the keys as she updated someone's record, her head bent, her short blond hair sticking up like she'd been dragging her hand through it for hours.<
br />
  "One sec..." She punched the enter key and spun herself around. "Oh, hey there, Dad. How are you?"

  "Oh, you know, soaking up the love."

  "Those babies of yours are amazing. And I don't even like kids."

  Her smile was as easygoing as apple pie. Her forest-green eyes, on the other hand, were laser sharp.

  "Thanks to you, they're doing great."

  Annnnnnnd cue the quiet. As the conversation stalled out, he wandered around because he couldn't stay still, checking out the shiny, sterile equipment in the stainless-steel cabinets, inspecting the empty gurney under the operating light, jacking up his leathers.

  Doc Jane just sat there on her little stool, calmly and quietly letting him thrash around in his own head. And when her phone went off, she let it go to voice mail without even checking to see who it was.

  "I'm probably wrong," he said eventually. "You know, what the fuck do I know."

  Doc Jane smiled. "I actually think you're a very smart guy."

  "Not about shit like this." Clearing his throat, he told himself to get on with it--even though Doc Jane didn't seem in a rush, he was annoying himself. "Look...I love Layla."

  "Of course you do."

  "And I want the best for her. She's the mother of my children. I mean, behind Blay, she's my partner because of those kids."

  "Absolutely."

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he cut the pacing and faced off at the good doctor. "I'm not saying I know anything about females. Like, about their moods and shit. Except...Layla's crying a lot. I mean, she tries to hide it from Blay and me, but...every time we go in to see her, I find Kleenex wads in the wastepaper basket, and her eyes are too shiny, and her cheeks are flushed. She smiles, but it never reaches past the surface. Her eyes are...fucking tragic. And...I don't know what to do, I just know it's not right."

  Doc Jane nodded. "How is she with the kids?"

  "Great, as far as I can see. She's totally devoted to them, and they are thriving. Matter of fact, the only time I see her even halfway to happy, it's when she's holding them." He cleared his throat. "So I guess what I'm wondering...asking...whatever, is, like, can't pregnant females, once they're unpregnant, can't they, like..."