by J. R. Ward
Man, that grid was totally closed off. Battened down. Draped in self-protection. As if she’d been attacked, somehow.
Now was clearly not the time to push.
“Ah, yeah. Sure. We can go.” Xhex shoved herself off the desk. “Do you want to check in with Tohr before you leave?”
“No.”
Xhex waited for some kind of explanation after that, but none came. Which told her plenty.
“What did he do, Mahmen?”
Autumn lifted her chin, her dignity making her more beautiful than ever. “He told me what he thought of me. Quite succinctly. So at this point, I do believe he and I have nothing more to say to each other.”
Xhex narrowed her eyes, anger curling up in her gut.
“Shall we?” her mother said.
“Yeah… sure…”
But she was going to find out what the fuck had gone down; that was for certain.
SIXTY-THREE
After the shutters rose from their sills, and night whisked away all the light from the sky, Blay left the billiards room, intending to check in with Saxton in the library and then go up to shower for First Meal.
He didn’t make it much farther than the trunk of the mosaic apple tree in the foyer.
Stopping dead, he glanced down at his hips. A pounding erection had punched out of him, the arousal as unexpected as it was demanding.
What the… looking upward, he wondered who else had gone into her needing. It was the only explanation.
“You may not want the answer to that.”
Glancing over, he found Saxton standing in the archway of the library. “Who.”
But he knew. He fucking knew it.
Saxton swept his elegant hand behind himself. “Won’t you come and have a drink with me in my office?”
The male was aroused as well, the slacks of his fine herringbone suit pulled out of shape at the fly—except his face didn’t match the erection. He was grim.
“Come,” he repeated, motioning with his hand again. “Please.”
Blay’s feet went to work, taking him into the chaotic mess that the library had been in since Sax had been given his “assignment.” Whatever it was.
As Blay stepped inside, he heard the double doors click into place behind him, and searched his mind for something to say.
Nothing. He had… nothing. Especially as up above his head, on the ornate ceiling with its plaster molding, a muffled thumping started to sound out.
Even the crystals on the chandelier twinkled, as if the force of the sex was being transmitted through the floor joists.
Layla was in her needing. Qhuinn was servicing her—
“Here, drink this.”
Blay took whatever was offered and threw it back like his gut was on fire and the shit was water. The effect was the opposite of any extinguishing, though. The brandy burned its way down and landed in a ball of heat.
“Refill?” Saxton said.
When he nodded, the snifter disappeared and came back much heavier. After he sucked back number two, he said, “I’m surprised…”
At how awful this felt. He’d thought all the ties between him and Qhuinn had been severed. Ha. He should have known better.
He refused to finish the thought out loud, however.
“… that you can handle this disorder,” he tacked on.
Saxton went over to the bar and poured himself his own tipple. “The detritus is necessary, I’m afraid.”
As Blay walked over to the desk, he circled his brandy in his palm to warm it, and tried to talk in a sensible way. “I’m surprised you’re not doing this more on the computers.”
Saxton discreetly covered his work with yet another leather-bound volume. “The inefficiency of taking notes by hand gives me time to think.”
“I’m surprised you need it—your first instinct is always right.”
“You’re surprised about a lot of things right now.”
Only one, really. “Just making conversation.”
“But of course.”
Eventually, he looked over at his lover. Saxton had settled on a silk couch across the way, his legs crossed at the knee, his red silk socks peeking from beneath his precisely pressed cuffs, his Ferragamo loafers gleaming from regular polishing. He was every bit as refined and expensive as the antique he was perched on, a perfectly elegant male from a perfectly appointed bloodline with perfect taste and style.
He was everything anyone could want—
As that fucking chandelier twinkled overhead, Blay said roughly, “I’m still in love with him.”
Saxton dropped his eyes and brushed at the top of his thigh, as if there might have been a tiny piece of lint there. “I know. You thought you weren’t?”
As if that were rather stupid of him.
“I’m so fucking tired of it. I really am.”
“That I believe.”
“I’m so fucking…” God, those sounds, that muted pounding, that audible confirmation of what he had been ignoring for the past year—
On a sudden wave of violence, he pitched the brandy snifter at the marble fireplace, shattering the thing.
“Fuck! Fuck!” If he’d been able to, he’d have jumped up and torn that goddamn cocksucking light fixture off the goddamn cocksucking ceiling.
Wheeling around, he went blindly for the doors, tripping over books, messing up the piles, nearly knocking himself over on the coffee table.
Saxton got there first, blocking the way out with his body.
Blay’s eyes locked onto the male’s face. “Get out of my way. Right now. You don’t want to be around me.”
“Is that not for me to decide.”
Blay shifted his focus to those lips he knew so well. “Don’t push me.”
“Or. What.”
As his chest started to pump, Blay realized the guy knew precisely what he was courting. Or at least thought he did. But something had come unhinged; maybe it was the needing, maybe it was… Shit, he didn’t know, and he really didn’t care.
“If you don’t get the fuck out of my way, I’m going to bend you over that desk of yours—”
“Prove it.”
Wrong thing to say. In the wrong tone. At the wrong time.
Blay let out a roar that rattled the diamond-paned windows. Then he grabbed his lover by the back of the head and all but threw Saxton across the room. As the male caught himself on that desk, papers went flying, the confetti of yellow legal pads and computer printouts falling like snow.
Saxton’s torso curled around as he looked behind at what was coming at him.
“Too late to run,” Blay growled as he ripped open his button fly.
Falling upon the male, he was rough with his hands, tearing through the layers that kept him from what he was going to take. When there were no more barriers, he bared his fangs and bit down on Saxton’s shoulder through his clothes, locking the male beneath him even as he grabbed those wrists and all but nailed them to the leather blotter.
And then he pushed in hard and let out everything he had, his body taking over… even as his heart stayed far, far away.
The cabin, as Xhex called it, was a very modest accommodation.
As Autumn walked around its interior, there was not much to get in the way of her path. The galley kitchen was nothing but cabinets and countertops. The living space offered little more than a view of the river, with only two chairs and a little table for furnishings. There were only two bedrooms, one with a pair of mattresses, another with a larger, singular sleeping platform. And the bathroom was cramped but clean, with a single towel hanging from the shower rod.
“Like I told you,” Xhex said from the main room, “it’s not much. There’s also an underground facility for you during the daytime, but we have to access it from the garage.”
Autumn came back out from the loo. “I think it’s beautiful.”
“Tha’s okay, you can be honest.”
“I mean what I say. You are a highly functional female. You like things t
o work well, and you don’t like to waste time. This is a beautiful space for you.” She cast her eyes around once more. “All the fixtures that carry water in and out are new. So are the radiators for the heat. The kitchen has plenty of space to cook on, with a stove that has six burners, not four—and is gas powered, so you don’t have to worry about electricity. The roof is slate and thus enduring, and the floors don’t squeak—so I assume the undercarriage is as cared for as everything else.” She pivoted from one corner to the next. “From every angle there is a window to look out of, so you will never be caught unaware, and I see that there are copper locks everywhere. Perfect.”
Xhex took her jacket off. “That’s, ah… very perceptive of you.”
“Not really. It’s obvious to anyone who knows you.”
“I’m… I’m really glad you do.”
“Myself as well.”
Autumn went over to the windows that faced the water. Outside, the moon cast a bright light down upon the snowy landscape, the refracted illumination reading blue to her eyes.
You’re in love with me. Don’t bother denying it—you tell me in your sleep every day.… And you know damn well the only reason I’m with you is to get Wellsie out of the In Between. So don’t I just fit your pattern to a T.
“Mahmen?”
Autumn focused on her daughter’s reflection in the glass. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Do you want to tell me what happened between you and Tohr?”
Xhex had yet to take off her weapons, and as she stood there, she was so powerful, secure, strong… She would bow before no male and no one, and wasn’t that wonderful. Wasn’t that a blessing beyond measure.
“I am so proud of you,” Autumn said, turning around to face the female. “I want you to know that I am so very, very proud of you.”
Xhex’s eyes dropped to the floor, and she brushed a hand through her hair as if she didn’t know how to handle the praise.
“Thank you for taking me in,” Autumn continued. “I shall endeavor to earn my keep for the duration I am here, and contribute in some small way.”
Xhex shook her head. “I keep telling you, you’re not a guest.”
“Be that as it may, I shan’t be a burden.”
“Are you going to tell me about Tohr.”
Autumn regarded the weapons that as yet hung from those leather holsters, and thought the gleam of the gunmetal was very much like the light in her daughter’s eyes: a promise of violence.
“You are not to be angry with him,” she heard herself say. “What transpired between us was consensual, and it ended for… a proper reason. He did nothing wrong.”
As she spoke, she wasn’t sure what she really thought about it all, but she was clear on one thing: She was not going to create a situation where Xhex went after the male with all guns blazing—literally.
“Do you hear me, daughter mine.” Not a question, a command—the first she had ever made that sounded as a parent to a young. “You are not to find cause with him, or speak of this to him.”
“Give me a reason why.”
“You know the emotions of others, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“When was the last time you met someone who had made themselves fall in love with somebody else. Who had willed their feelings in a given direction, when in their natural state, their heart cleaved unto someone else.”
Xhex cursed a little. “Never. It’s a recipe for disaster—but you can still be respectful of the way you phrase things.”
“Gift wrapping one’s words does not change the nature of truth.” Autumn looked back out to the snowy landscape and the river that was partially frozen. “And I would rather know what is real than live a lie.”
There was silence for a while between them. “Is that enough of a ‘why,’ daughter mine.”
Another curse. But then Xhex said, “I don’t like it… but yeah, it is.”
SIXTY-FOUR
Tohr sat in that parking lot for God only knew how long. Had to be at least a night and a day and then maybe another night or two? He didn’t know, and didn’t really care.
It was rather like being back in the womb, he supposed. Except his ass was numb and his nose ran from the cold.
As his epic anger faded and his emotions smoothed out, his thoughts became as a band of travelers, passing through sections of his life, wandering around the landscapes of different eras, doubling back for the reexamination of peaks and valleys.
Long fucking trip. And he was tired at the end of it, even though his body hadn’t moved in hours upon hours.
Not surprisingly, the two places most revisited were Wellsie’s needing… and Autumn’s. Those events, and their respective aftermaths, were the mountains most climbed, the different scenes like vistas flashing in an alternating sequence of comparison until they blurred together, forming a pastiche of actions and reactions, his and theirs.
After all the ruminations, there were three resolutions he kept returning to, again and again.
He was going to have to apologize to Autumn, of course. Christ, that was the second time he’d taken a hunk out of her, the first being way back nearly a year ago at the pool: In both cases, his temper had gotten the best of him because of the stress load he was under, but that was no excuse.
The second was that he was going to have to find that angel and do another set of I’m-sorrying.
And the third… well, the third was actually the most important, the thing he had to do before the others.
He had to make contact with Wellsie one last time.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and willed some relaxation into his muscles. Then, with more desperation than hope, he commanded his weary mind to be free of all thoughts and images, empty of everything that had kept him awake for all this time, devoid of the regrets and the mistakes and the pain.…
Eventually the order was complied with, the relentless mental trekking slowing down until all that Lewis-and-Clark cognition shit ceased.
Impregnating his subconsciousness with a single goal, he let himself go into sleep and waited in his resting state until…
Wellsie came to him in shades of gray, in that barren landscape of fog and frigid wind and boulders. She was so far away now that the scope of his vision allowed him to see one of the crumbling rock formations up close—
Except it was not, in fact, made of stone.
None of them were.
No, these were the hunched figures of others suffering as she did, their bodies and bones gradually collapsing in on themselves until they were but mounds to be worn away by the wind.
“Wellsie?” he called out.
As her name drifted off into the limitless horizon, she did not look at him.
Did not appear to even recognize his presence.
The only thing that moved was the cold wind that abruptly seemed to marshal itself in his direction, blowing across the flat gray plain, blowing across him, blowing across her.
As it caught her hair, wisps formed around her—
No, not wisps. Her hair was ashes now, ashes that scattered on the invisible current and came at him, hitting him as dust that made his eyes water.
Eventually that would be all of her. And then none of her.
“Wellsie! Wellsie, I’m here!”
He called out to her to rouse her, to get her attention, to tell her he was finally ready, but no matter how much he yelled, or how much he waved his arms, she did not focus on him. She did not look up. She did not move… and neither did his son.
Yet still the wind blew, taking infinitesimal particles from their forms, wearing them down.
In a gripping fear, he turned himself into a great monkey, caterwauling and jumping all around, screaming at the top of his lungs and flailing his arms, but, as if the rules of exertion applied even in this other world, eventually he lost his energy and fell down onto the dusty groung in a heap.
They were sitting in the same pose, he realized.
And that was when the
paradoxical truth came to him.
The answer was at once all about what had happened with Autumn and the sex and the feeding—and yet had nothing to do with her. It was about everything Lassiter had tried to help him with—and yet none of that. It wasn’t even about Wellsie, really.
It was him. All… him.
In his dream, he stared down at himself, and abruptly, strength came to him with a calmness that had everything to do with the seat of his soul… and the fact that the pathway out of his suffering—and hers—had just been illuminated by the hand of his Maker.
Finally, after all this time, all this shit, all this agony, he knew what to do.
Now, when he spoke, he did not yell. “Wellsie, I know you can hear me—you hang on. I need just a little longer from you—I’m finally ready. I’m just sorry it took me so long.”
He tarried for only a moment longer, throwing all his love in her direction as if it might keep what remained of her intact. And then he withdrew, yanking himself free with a herculean burst of will that had his body jerking out of its position on the concrete floor—
Throwing out a hand, he kept himself from landing on his face, and immediately got to his feet.
As soon as he stood, he realized that if he didn’t take a piss immediately, his bladder was going to explode and take no prisoners with it.
Striding down the ramp, he punched into the clinic and hit the first bathroom he came to. When he emerged, he didn’t stop to check in with anyone, even though he could hear voices elsewhere in the training center.
Up at the main house, he found Fritz in the kitchen. “Hey, my man, I need your help.”
The butler jumped up from the grocery list he was making. “Sire! You are alive! Oh, blessed Virgin Scribe, all and sundry have sought out—”
Shit. He’d forgotten there were implications to going off the grid.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll text everyone.” Assuming he could find his phone? Probably down in the clinic, and he wasn’t going to waste time going back there. “Listen, what I really need is for you to come with me.”
“Oh, sire, it would be my pleasure to serve you. But mayhap you should go unto the king first—all have been so worried—”
