The Chosen

by J. R. Ward

  "To be honest, this rotator cuff is killing me." He reached across and massaged things for show. "Doc Jane thinks she might have to operate on it to clean out the socket. But don't worry, it's low-grade chronic, not acute, and I'm not on any meds. If anything happens with the piece of meat back there"--he motioned behind himself--"I can handle shit."

  Phury cursed. "Been there. And I'm not concerned about you. I know you'll take care of business. Do you want me to swing by the mansion and see if Z can come hang?"

  "No, Blay's gonna find someone. But thanks."

  For the love of all that was unholy, could they please stop fucking talking. Any second the brother's phone was going to go off with a text or a call to inform him that under no circumstances was Qhuinn to be within three hundred yards of their prisoner--

  "Bye." Phury turned away and lifted a hand. "Good luck with him."

  "He's going to fucking need it," Qhuinn whispered to the brother's retreating back.

  NINE

  In his blindness, Wrath was both more isolated from, and more connected to, the world than those who were sighted: Isolated, because the lack of visual cues from his environment meant he was forever floating in a galaxy of darkness, and more connected because his other faculties were amplified in his perpetual, internal night sky, stars of other information that he orientated himself by.

  So, as he faced off at Layla, and she told him the whole story, he caught and tracked all of her nuances, from the variations in her scent and tone of voice, to every little move she made, to the change in air pressure between them as her mood alternated between anger and sadness, regret and guilt.

  "So Xcor found the compound," Wrath concluded, "by tracking your blood. That's how he did it?"

  There was a slight creak as the bed adjusted to a shift of her weight.

  "Yes," she said softly. "I had fed him."

  "Yeah, that first night. When Throe tricked you into coming out to that field. Or did it happen again after that."

  "It happened again."

  "Your blood was in him," Wrath repeated. "And he followed the signal here."

  "He promised that if I continued to see him, he wouldn't attack the compound. I told myself I was protecting all of us, but the truth is...I needed to see him. I wanted to see him. It was awful, being trapped between my heart and my family. It has been...awful."

  Goddamn it, Wrath thought. There was going to be no easy way out of this.

  "You committed treason."

  "I did."

  Wrath had worked hard to reverse many of the restrictive and punitive Old Laws, abolishing things like blood slavery and indentured servitude, and establishing basic due process for offenses among civilians. But the one thing he had adhered to was that betraying the crown was still punishable by death.

  "Please," she whispered, "do not take me away from my young. Do not send me unto the Fade."

  She was hardly an enemy of the state. But she had committed a very serious crime--and God his head was pounding.

  "Why did you need to see Xcor?" he asked.

  "I fell in love with him." The Chosen's voice was level and lifeless. "I had no control over it. He was always so gentle with me. So kind. He never once made an advance to me--and when I did to him, he pushed me away even though it was well obvious that he...was not indifferent. He just seemed to want to be near me."

  "You're sure he wasn't lying."

  "About what?"

  "Knowing where we stayed."

  "No, he wasn't. I saw him on the property. I met him...on the property." Now she spoke more quickly, a fervent begging entering her voice. "So he has honor--he could have attacked, but he chose not to. He kept his word, even after he told me to go and never see him again."

  Wrath frowned. "You're saying he ended it between the two of you?"

  "He did. He cast me out and deserted the cottage we had been meeting at."

  "Was there any reason he would have done that?"

  There was a long pause. "I confronted him about his feelings for me. I knew he had them, and...but indeed, that was when he threw me out."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "It was right before he was captured. And I know why he ended it all. He didn't want to be vulnerable with me."

  Wrath frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Come on, Layla, don't be naive. You haven't even once considered it was more a case of him finally having mobilized enough troops and intel to marshal an offensive here?"

  "I'm sorry? I don't follow."

  "Xcor has been actively working with the glymera to form allegiances against me. Before and after he put a bullet in my throat." As she gasped, he would ordinarily have stopped. But reality was ignored at one's peril. "If you're going to sack a fortification like this one, you're going to need months and months of surveillance and planning. You're going to require a well-equipped army. You have to gather supplies and equipment. And you're telling me that you didn't consider, even for a moment, that he was continuing to use you just to buy time? And maybe he blew you off because he was finally ready?"

  Her voice became strident. "After he told me to go, I was confused and upset, but I've thought about it. I know what he feels for me is real. I've looked him in his eyes. I've seen the emotion."

  "Don't be romantic, okay? Not in matters of war. That bastard is a stone-cold killer and he used you. You're like everybody else to him. You're a tool to get him what he wants. Take your blinders off, female, and get real."

  There was a long silence, and he could practically hear her thinking hard.

  And then she said in a low voice, "All that aside...what are you going to do with me?"

  --

  As Xcor listened to the voices far down the corridor, he tested his bounds anew even though he knew naught had changed and he was stuck where he was, pinned upon the table. And then he caught the scent of a new male, heard heavy footfalls approaching, sensed an aggression that was downright rageful.

  The time had come. The reckoning was here, and he was not going to live through it.

  Flexing his arms and legs once more, he found his strength at an ebb. But it was what it was. Perhaps that meant he would die faster and that was of measurable benefit.

  The face that came into his line of sight was a well-familiar one, the mismatched blue and green stare, hard features, and black hair identifiers that made Xcor smile a little.

  "You find me amusing?" Qhuinn demanded in a voice flat as a knife blade. "I'd think you'd greet your killer with something other than a grin."

  "Irony," Xcor said roughly.

  "Destiny, motherfucker."

  Qhuinn went for the steel band at Xcor's left ankle, the tugging and pulling making Xcor frown--and as the pressure was released, he strained to lift his head. The Brother went on to remove the one on the right...and then proceeded up higher to the wrists.

  "What...doing..." Under no construct could he fathom why he would be set free. "Why..."

  Qhuinn went around his head and unlocked the last of the binds. "Because I want this to be a fair fight. Sit the fuck up."

  Xcor started to move slowly, bending his arms and then lifting his knees. After having been flat on his back for however long, all of his muscles had atrophied and there was an essential stiffness to his joints that made him think of tree branches snapping. But it was amazing how being on the verge of getting attacked made you break through pain and functional barriers.

  "Are you not"--he grunted as he rose onto his elbows, his vertebrae cracking along the highway of his spine--"even going to ask me..."

  Qhuinn settled into a fighting stance about five feet away, his fists raised, his weight down on his legs. "Ask you what?"

  "Where my soldiers are?"

  Ever since his consciousness had been noted by his captors, all of the wires that had been running between his body and the machines that had kept him alive had been removed, save for the IV in his arm. On instinct, he ripped it out and left the hole to bleed.

  "This
is not about your Band of Bastards."

  With that, the male lunged at him, leading with a right hook that was so accurate and violent that it was like getting hit by a car in the side of the face. With no energy, little coordination, and a naked body that wasn't responding to commands more complicated than those of breathe and blink, Xcor flipped off the table. In mid-air, he reached out to whatever he could grab hold of to stop his fall--and caught the edge of the gurney, pulling it down on top of himself.

  Qhuinn went for the shield, picked it up, and threw the thing over his shoulder like it weighed nothing more than a pillow--and the crash, as it hit the shelves and shattered jars, was loud as a bomb going off in the torch-lit corridor.

  "You motherfucker!" Qhuinn shouted. "You fucking asshole!"

  Xcor felt himself get dragged upright by the hair, and his legs didn't have a chance to fail him--his body went the way of the table, flying through the air, hitting a fresh section of shelving, the jars offering as much cushion as gravel.

  As he landed in a heap, the rock floor cracked his pelvis like glass, or at least it felt that way, and he rolled over onto his back in hopes of providing some defensive protection for himself with his hands.

  Qhuinn jumped over him, one boot on each side of his torso. Crouching down, the Brother yelled, "She was with my young! Jesus Christ, you could have killed them!"

  Xcor closed his eyes against a razor-sharp image of Layla with her changing body, the result of another male's offspring--this male's offspring--growing within her. And then worse pictures presented themselves upon his mind...that of her flesh bared to another male's touch, her precious core penetrated by someone other than he, a mating occurring between her and somebody else.

  From out of nowhere, a surge of power enlivened his body, gasoline flooding what had been a dry engine.

  Without conscious thought, he flashed his fangs, the canines descending on their own, his bonding scent flaring against a target that he was going to kill with his bare hands.

  Qhuinn's nostrils flared, and he froze as if stunned.

  "Are you fucking kidding me...you've fucking bonded with her?" The Brother started laughing, throwing his head back--but then abruptly, he cut the levity and sneered. "Well, I serviced her in her need. Think about that, motherfucker. I was the one who took her and eased her pain in the way only a male--"

  The great wild part of any male vampire took over Xcor, ripping off the claustrophobic blanket of weakness, exposing the warrior in his blood, the killer in his marrow.

  Xcor sprung up and hit the Brother with everything he had, tackling Qhuinn and sending them both on a scatter down the opposite wall of shelves, their positions changing one for another as Qhuinn shoved back and punches were thrown. Xcor was by far sloppier and more easily o'erpowered, but he had the bonding on his side, his male need to protect and defend, his innate jealousy, his overwhelming possessiveness providing him with a vital will to attack until he subjugated his competitor.

  As they scrambled, his feet got chewed up on the broken pottery, and he bled from his nose, and one of his legs dragged like dead weight, but he nailed Qhuinn with a head butt and then threw all of his strength into shoving his opponent off. As Qhuinn careened back in the direction of the medical equipment, arms pinwheeling for a stability that could not be found, Xcor leaped forth, intending to land upon the Brother and beat him senseless.

  But like the trained fighter he was, Qhuinn managed to twist whilst in free fall, and somehow righted himself in time to plant his boots and pick up one of the monitors. Slinging the heavy weight in a circle, he cast it upon Xcor, as one might a boulder.

  No time to duck, not with coordination as poor as Xcor's, and the impact cost him his breath and balance, the air forced out of his lungs as the medical device struck him in the side. After a mere beat of recovery, however, he pitched himself into a defensive roll--for Qhuinn had picked up another piece of equipment, this one even larger.

  Qhuinn lifted the ventilator high, and Xcor knew that he provided too large and slow a target for the Brother to miss.

  So he rushed at the male instead of away from him. And at the last second, Xcor dropped flat, punched his palms into the stone floor, and mobilized every single muscle he had to send his lower body on a swinging ride, his bare legs circling round--

  To knock Qhuinn's feet right out from under him.

  As the Brother fell, the ventilator slipped from his hold and went down atop him, the curse and grunt suggesting contact had been made in a vulnerable place.

  Indeed, he curled into himself as if his gut had been compromised.

  Split second. Xcor had a split second to cut through his bonded-male response and analyze the fight with logic. Fortunately, there was not much consideration required. Even with the bonding in his veins, he was going to lose this.

  And when facing an opponent who outmatched you, if one wished to survive, one retreated and to hell with ego.

  The Bloodletter had taught him that. The hard way.

  With Qhuinn torquing onto all fours and clutching his side, Xcor took off on his lacerated feet, tripping and falling over the ruined gurney and careening through the debris field of broken lesser jars and the rank, rotting hearts contained therein. He could not run; his stride was more that of a drunk, pitching him all around, the world spinning even though he was fairly sure that the torches and the shelving were static.

  Fast as he could go. And then even faster.

  He went as quickly as any male who had been immobilized by his enemy for weeks and weeks could.

  Which was to say he was all but out for a saunter. Qhuinn, however, had been badly hurt. A quick glance over the shoulder showed the Brother vomiting blood.

  Xcor kept going, a brief optimism spurring him onward. Except then he confronted a problem that was of such magnitude that his inefficiency of forward momentum was rendered moot.

  In the flickering torchlight, he saw heavy gates up ahead that were made of stout iron bars set into the rock of the cave--and they had a mesh of steel set upon them that was so fine that dematerializing was going to be impossible.

  Xcor was panting, bleeding, sweating, and shaking as he came up and tested with his pathetic arms the strength of the barrier. Solid as the cave's walls. Not a surprise.

  Looking behind himself, he saw Qhuinn stand up, shake his head as if to clear it, and find an abrupt focus.

  As a predator does with its prey.

  The fact that there was blood dripping from the male's chin and covering his chest seemed a portent of destiny.

  Alas, he was not going to survive this.

  TEN

  As Layla waited for Wrath to speak of her punishment, she could not swallow for the fear and the shame and the regret. Then again, her mouth was so dry, there was nothing to carry down her throat.

  Unable to stay still, but incapable of standing up from the bed, she looked away from the harsh figure of her King--only to catch sight of the bullet holes in the plaster high up in the far corner. Nausea rose from her gut, a vile, burning tide. With her anger spent, she couldn't fathom her previous rage, but she had no doubt of where she had been emotionally. Where Qhuinn had been.

  Dearest Virgin Scribe, she was going to throw up.

  "I'm not going to have you killed," Wrath announced.

  Layla exhaled as she sagged. "Oh, thank you, my Lord--"

  "But you can't stay here."

  She straightened as her heart began to pound. "And what of the young?"

  "We'll work out some kind of visitation or--"

  Bolting upright, she put her hands to her throat sure as if she were actually being strangled. "You cannot separate me from them!"

  The King's visage, so aristocratic, so commanding, offered compassion, but no quarter. "You can't stay here anymore. Xcor is not going to live through what we're going to do to him, but Throe has fed from you, and even though it's been a while, it's just not safe. We assumed the mhis was strong enough to insulate us, but clearly th
at's faulty logic--and a security risk on a catastrophic scale."

  Layla stumbled across and fell to her knees at Wrath's feet, clasping her hands in prayer. "I swear to you, I never meant for any of this to happen. Please, I beg of you, don't take my young away from me. Anything else, I shall abide by, I swear!"

  Out in the hall, she knew the Brothers had closed in once again and were listening at a discreet distance, and she didn't care that they were seeing her fall apart. Wrath did, though. He shot a glare over his shoulder.

  "Back off--we're good in here," he barked.

  No, we're not, she thought. We are not good at all herein.

  There was a brief commotion and then there was no one out in the corridor that she could see--and Wrath refocused on her, his deep inhale flaring his nostrils. "I can smell your emotions. I know you're not lying about what you say and what you believe. But there are times when intent is irrelevant and this is one of them. You need to leave now--"

  "My young!"

  "--or I shall have you removed."

  As tears fell, she wanted to wail, but there was naught to argue against. He was correct. Xcor had found her and followed her home, and who was to say Throe could not do the same? Even though she had fed that male but once, with her blood being so pure, the tracking effects could last years, decades, maybe longer. Why had she not considered this? Why had not they?

  "Are you extinguishing my parental rights?" she said hoarsely.

  The horror of losing her young was so overwhelming, she could barely put her fear into words. In all her worst nightmares, she had never thought it would come down to this. She had never once considered that the ramifications would be so devastating.

  But then again, when one was going into a head-on collision, one could not possibly catalog with total accuracy the extent of the upcoming injuries--especially if you were in the midst of evasive maneuvers to try to stave off the accident itself.

  Fate had placed her here.

  Her own choices had, too.

  There was no negotiating with either.

  "No," Wrath said abruptly. "I will not cut you off. Qhuinn will hate it, but that is not my problem."

  Layla closed her eyes, her tears squeezing out and tangling in her lashes. "Your mercy knows no bounds."