The Chosen

by J. R. Ward

  "She took my young with her when she fucked him--"

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "She's been with Xcor all along. She didn't stop seeing him. She's been consorting with a known enemy of our King while she was pregnant with my young. So yes, it's absolutely within my rights as a sire to pull a gun on her."

  Abruptly, Blay became aware of a growl rising up behind him, and the horrible sound of it reminded him of what he'd heard about the female of the species being more deadly than the male. Glancing over his shoulder, he thought...yup, Layla was clearly prepared to protect her young to the death in this fucked-up parallel universe they'd somehow gotten sucked into.

  Xcor? She'd been seeing Xcor?

  Except he couldn't be sidetracked from the immediate threat.

  "All I care about is that you put the gun down," Blay said evenly. "Put the gun down and tell me what's going on. Otherwise, if you want to shoot her, the bullet's going to have to go through me."

  Qhuinn took a deep breath, like he was having to force himself not to scream. "I love you, but this is not your business, Blay. Get out of the way and let me deal with this."

  "Wait a minute. You've always said I'm the father of these young, too--"

  "Not when it comes down to this. Now get the fuck out of the way."

  Blay blinked once. Twice. A third time. Funny, the ache in his chest made him wonder if Qhuinn hadn't pulled the trigger and he'd somehow missed the discharge.

  Stay focused, he told himself. "No, I'm not moving."

  "Get out of here!" Qhuinn's body started to tremble. "Just get the fuck out of my way!"

  Now or never, Blay thought as he lunged forward and went for the wrist that controlled the gun. As he punched that forearm away with everything he was worth, the weapon discharged repeatedly, and lead slugs went flying--but with a powerful shift, he managed to tackle Qhuinn to the side. The pair of them went down hard to the floor, and he fought to dominate his mate, his momentum rolling the pair of them away from Layla and the young while keeping that gun pointed into the far corner of the room.

  Blay ended up on top, but he knew Qhuinn was going to fix that quick. The gun, he had to maintain control of the--

  All of a sudden, it was arctic time.

  The temperature in the bedroom dropped to below zero so fast that the walls, floor, and ceiling creaked in protest, everyone's breath coming out in puffs, condensation frosting the glass on the windows and the mirrors, any exposed skin goose-bumping up.

  A great roar was next.

  The sound was so loud that it was nearly inaudible, nothing but a pain that pierced through the eardrum and made your head go cathedral bell--and that, even more than the climate change, stopped everyone in the suite, in the hall, in the mansion...maybe in the world.

  Wrath's enormous body dwarfed the doorjamb as he entered the bedroom, his waist-length hair, his black wraparounds, his leather-clad thighs and bulging upper body the kind of thing that would have halted a train in its tracks.

  His fangs were fully descended and long as a saber-toothed tiger's. But he had no trouble talking around them.

  "Not in my fucking house!" He was so loud that the painting next to him vibrated on the plaster wall. "This is not happening in my fucking house! My shellan and my son are here--there are young under this roof. There are young in this fucking room!"

  Across the way, Layla collapsed onto the floor, her bones absorbing the fall with a loud clatter. She kept Lyric and Rhamp from harm, though, cradling them in her lap, while she dropped her head and began to weep.

  Underneath Blay, Qhuinn tried to shove his way free.

  "Not till you let go of the gun," Blay gritted out.

  There was a metal-on-wood clatter as the forty was released and Blay shoved it away. Then Qhuinn broke free and popped up on his shitkickers. He looked like he'd been in a wind tunnel, his black hair all messed up, his eyes peeled wide, his skin flushed in some places, stark white in others.

  "Everyone out of here," Wrath snapped, "except for the three parents."

  Well, at least someone was recognizing his role, Blay thought bitterly.

  Shifting his eyes back to Qhuinn, he found himself staring across the chaos at a male he thought he knew nearly as well as himself.

  At the moment, however? Blay was looking at a stranger. A total frickin' stranger. Eyes that Blay had peered into for hours, lips that he had kissed, a body that he had touched, caressed, entered and been entered by...it was like some kind of amnesia had wiped all of their togetherness away, rendering what had once been an intimate reality into a hypothetical that was so dim, it was nonexistent.

  Vishous stepped forward into the room. "Weapons check first."

  As Wrath's upper lip twitched, it was clear he didn't appreciate the interruption. There was no arguing with the logic, though.

  V was efficient about the pat-down, stripping Qhuinn first of a couple of knives and another handgun--and then Blay got up, lifted his arms, and spread his legs even though he knew no one was worried about his trigger finger.

  "Done," V announced as he squeezed by the King and went back out into the hall.

  "Tell them to get gone," Wrath snapped.

  "Roger that."

  At the royal command, the crowd disappeared from the doorway, but they didn't go far, their presences lingering as they clearly waited for an aftershock or two. In any event, there was no closing the door. The thing was splintered into a sieve.

  Turning in Qhuinn's direction, Wrath let out a curse, and then demanded, "You want to tell me why in the fuck you discharged a firearm in my house?"

  EIGHT

  As Layla looked up at the three males, she was shaking so badly it was hard to keep her upper body off the floor. What gave her the little strength she had? Lyric and Rhamp were in her lap, the folds of her robe enveloping them and protecting them from the cold in the room, their cries silenced--for now.

  Focusing on the King, she wanted to wipe her eyes, but she wasn't letting go of her young for even a second.

  "She's been seeing Xcor," Qhuinn said, his breath coming in clouds of white. "Behind our backs. This whole time--while she was pregnant. I want her stripped of her rights to see my young, and I want her out of this house. Whether it's because she's been sentenced to death or because she's been banished...that's for you to decide."

  Wrath's cruel and aristocratic face cranked in the Brother's direction. "Thank you for carving out my role in this, asshole. And if you're talking banishment, right now it's you I'm debating that over, not her."

  "You try finding out that Beth has been sleeping with the leader of the Band of Bastards while she's--"

  "Watch yourself," Wrath snarled. "You're walking a line here that you're about to fall the fuck off of. In fact, get out. I want to talk to Layla alone."

  "I'm not leaving my young."

  The King glanced at Blay. "Take him out of here. In a choke hold if you have to--"

  "I have rights!" Qhuinn yelled. "I have--"

  Wrath jacked forward on his hips. "You have only what I fucking grant you! I am your master, fucker, so shut the hell up, get out of this room, and I'll deal with you when I'm good and goddamned ready. I understand that you're up in your head. I'd even be able to respect it if you didn't keep behaving like you run the world. But right now, my only concern is your young, because clearly, they're not on your radar--"

  "How the fuck can you say that--"

  "Because you just turned a gun on their mahmen!"

  Next to Qhuinn, Blay was looking like he had seen death up close and personal, his expression one of distilled horror and sorrow, his hands shaking as he pushed them through his red hair again and again.

  "I am the King, this is my house. Get him out of here, Blay--that is an order."

  Blay said something to Qhuinn that didn't carry. And then Qhuinn marched out of the bedroom, his shitkickers crunching across the iced-over carpet. As he went, Blay stayed with him, like a bodyguard would.

  Ex
cept Blay was more likely to protect others from him.

  When it was only Wrath and her, Layla took a deep breath that hurt. "Permit me to place the young in their bassinets, my Lord?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Do whatever you need."

  Her legs felt like they had no bones in them, and with her fury gone, she feared she was not strong enough to stand and keep both young in safe grips at the same time. It was a struggle to decide which one to put aside gently, and in the end, she carefully set Rhamp down on the Oriental rug. Cradling Lyric in both arms, she struggled to her feet and limped over to the bassinets. After she laid Lyric upon the soft nest, she returned and picked up Rhamp, who had begun to fuss with the absence of his sister. Tucking blankets around them to keep them warm, she steeled herself and faced the King.

  "May I sit?" she whispered.

  "Yeah, you better."

  "There is aught before your feet, my Lord. If you should wish to come further inside."

  He ignored her efforts to help him in his blindness navigate an unfamiliar room. "You want to tell me what the hell's going on here?"

  --

  Qhuinn couldn't remember a goddamned thing.

  As he went into the second-story sitting room on the far side of the mansion, he tried to piece together the series of events, because it gave him something to do other than screaming: His last moment of crystal clear was of him nearly breaking down the vestibule's door to get into the house. Everything from that split second on--until now as he prowled around the silk sofas and the side tables--was a blank slate.

  And the harder he tried to remember, the more elusive that gap in reality became, as if pursuit made his prey faster.

  For fuck's sake, he couldn't fucking think here. He couldn't...

  Dimly, he was aware of Blay watching him. And then the male was speaking. But all Qhuinn could do was keep pacing, around and around, the territorial urge to protect his young a prime directive that demanded all his concentration.

  What the fuck was Wrath going to do? Surely, the King wasn't going to let Layla--

  From out of nowhere, Blay stood in front of him, the male stone-faced and stiff backed. "I can't do this."

  "Do what?"

  "Be in the same room with you for even a minute longer."

  Qhuinn blinked. "Then leave. I'm unarmed, remember? And there are fifty million pounds of brother loitering around that goddamn bedroom."

  Otherwise, yes, he would still be in there. With his children.

  "You got it," Blay muttered. "I'm going home to check on my mahmen."

  As the syllables hit the tense air between them, it took a minute before Qhuinn's salad of a brain deciphered them. Home...? Mahmen...--oh, right. Her ankle.

  "Okay. Yeah."

  Blay stayed where he was. And then in a low voice, he said, "Do you even care if I come back before dawn?"

  When there was a heartbeat of pause, the male stepped off, shaking his head as he went for the exit. Qhuinn noted the departure--and a part of him knew he should call out, reconnect...stop the leaving. But an even bigger part of him was back in that bedroom, trying to pull out threads of recollection from the white-hot blind spot that had taken him over.

  Jesus...had he really discharged his gun in the mansion? With his young in the room--

  "Qhuinn."

  He refocused across the room. Blay was in the doorway, his eyes narrowed, his jaw set.

  The male cleared his throat. "Just so you and I are clear, I will never be able to get what you just said out of my head. And the same goes for the sight of you with that gun in your hand."

  "That makes one of us," Qhuinn muttered.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I can't remember any of it."

  "That's a fucking cop-out." Blay jabbed a finger in Qhuinn's direction. "You don't get to erase a scene like that by claiming you're pulling a blank."

  "I'm not going to argue with you about it."

  "Then we don't really have much to say to each other."

  When Blay just stared at him, Qhuinn shook his head. "Look, no disrespect, but the lives of my kids are the only thing I'm thinking about right now. Layla isn't who I thought she was, and she--"

  "FYI, you just told me I wasn't a parent." Blay's voice was stilted, like he was trying to keep the hurt out of it. "You looked me in the eye and told me that those kids and their mother were none of my business."

  Some distant echo, deep within the recess of Qhuinn's consciousness, rose up through the still-hot anger. But it was a tie that he couldn't hold onto. All he wanted to do was go back to that bedroom and grab his son and daughter and leave. He didn't care where he went--

  Blay cursed. "Don't wait up for me. I'm not coming back."

  And then Qhuinn was alone.

  Fantastic. Now his relationship was also in the shitter.

  Leaning to the side, Qhuinn looked out through the open doorway, but it was more to try to gauge if there were still brothers in the hall of statues. Yup, the fighters were milling around--but come on, like any one of them would leave? Even with Wrath ordering them away?

  They'd probably sleep outside of that fucking bedroom, protecting a female who didn't deserve it--

  The next thing Qhuinn knew, there was a lamp in his hand, and he was holding the converted Oriental vase like he was an MLB pitcher. And huh, go fig--apparently, he'd decided to throw it at himself: He was standing in front of one of the antique mirrors, his reflection distorted in the old glass.

  He looked like a monster, like some version of himself that had been sausage'd through the cogs of a nightmare, his face as a fist curled up tight, his features compressed until he could barely recognize them. Staring at himself, he knew without a doubt that if he sent this lamp flying, he would trash the entire room, tearing the paintings off the walls, breaking the windows, taking the burning logs in the fireplace and throwing them onto the sofas to make proper blazes.

  And he wouldn't stop there.

  He wouldn't stop until someone made him, either with lengths of chains or maybe a bullet or two.

  Oddly, his eyes went to the cord that was swinging loose from the lamp's base, the brown tail like that of a nervous dog begging for forgiveness and mercy for something it had no clue it had done.

  Qhuinn's whole body trembled as he put the vase with its silk shade down on the floor.

  Just as he was straightening, he caught sight of a window, and before he could think twice, he went over, cranked it open, and closed his eyes.

  But he couldn't dematerialize. He had nowhere in mind to go, he--

  No, wait--he did have a destination. He absolutely fucking had a destination.

  All at once, he became calm and focused, and as he ghosted out and away from the mansion, he wished he'd been able to play things cooler. If he had, maybe his restitution would have been more obvious sooner.

  As he re-formed, the scent of evergreens was thick in the winter air, and the wind plowed through the pine boughs, making the trees scream. The cave he had come for had an entrance that was hidden by boulders, but if you knew what you were looking for, you had no problem finding its mouth. Inside, he made quick strides to the Tomb's great gates, and as he triggered the granite partition to move aside, he was perfectly composed as he stood at the iron bars, the easy smile on his face like whitewash on a rotting fence.

  "I'm here to relieve," he shouted out as he rattled the ancient metal. "Just like Alka-fucking-Seltzer. Tums. Pepcid. You get the deal."

  He was praying that for once, word did not travel fast in the Brotherhood. That the brother on duty maybe hadn't checked his phone, or maybe everyone back at the house was still so up in their head about the fucking drama that they didn't think to text the person who was on duty here--

  Phury came down the torch-lit hall of shelves, the sound of his shitkickers on the stone floor echoing up among all the lesser jars.

  "Oh, hey," the brother said. "How we doing?"

  In the flickering orange light, there was no suspicion, no alarm on
that face, no narrowed eyes. No hands going for a cell phone to call out for backup. No tension like that warrior body was prepared to defend its position even with the gates in place.

  "We're fantastic," Qhuinn replied as he tried not to focus on how long the guy was taking to saunter the fuck to him. "Other than the fact that I'm covering Lassiter for today."

  Phury stopped at the gate and put his hands on his hips. Which made Qhuinn want to scream.

  "Let me guess," the other brother said. "Golden Girls marathon."

  "Worse. A retrospective on Maude. Bea Arthur is hot, apparently. So you gonna let me in?"

  The Primale started in with the copper key. "He's awake, by the way."

  Qhuinn's heart started pounding. "Xcor?"

  Like they'd be talking about someone else?

  "Not very communicative, but he is conscious. No interrogation, yet. V had to peel Tohr away and then Butch left when I got here." Phury opened the way in and stepped aside. "And you know the policy. There have to be two of us present to work on him--and I can't stay. I've got to meet Cormia up at the Great Camp. Do you have a number two or are we waiting for nightfall to start the fun and games?"

  Ironic, really. Everyone had been worried about Tohr going rogue and taking out his pound of flesh too early.

  But that wasn't going to be the problem, was it.

  Qhuinn released a breath and made sure he didn't rush inside. "Blay was going to come with me, but he has to go see his mahmen."

  As they traded places, Phury handed over the key, which he'd almost put into his pocket. "Oh, sorry--you're going to need this. Yeah, I heard about the fall. How's her ankle?"

  Qhuinn was so distracted by what had been put in his hand that he lost track of the conversation. What the hell had they been--

  "Better," Qhuinn heard himself say as he closed things up and put the key head back into the lock slot. "Anyway, he was going to arrange for coverage."

  "I'd stay if I could."

  Qhuinn watched from a distance as he cranked the ornate handle to the left, throwing the tumblers so that the lock's gears met and grabbed hold--

  "Qhuinn?"

  He shook himself and made a show of affecting a pleasant expression--something his features were generally not familiar with, regardless of the crisis he was currently in.

  "Yeah?"

  "Are you okay? You don't look right."

  Making a show of brushing his hand through his hair and jacking his leathers up, he rolled his shoulder--and wanted to high-five the body part as it let out an obliging crack!