by J. R. Ward
“I catch you going all Dirty Harry, you’re not going to like what happens.”
John stared into the rushing water. God… Blay, Qhuinn, now Lash. All changed.
Paranoia took root and he looked at Z. What if the transition doesn’t happen for me?
“It will.”
How do we know for sure?
“Biology.” Z nodded at a huge oak tree. “That thing is going to leaf up when the sun hits it. Can’t help it, and the shit’s the same with you. Your hormones are going to kick in hard-core, and then it happens. You can feel them already, can’t you?”
John shrugged.
“Yeah, you can. Your patterns of eating and sleeping are different. So is your behavior. You think a year ago you would have taken Lash down onto the tile and pounded on him until he was breathing blood?”
Definitely not.
“You’re hungry, but you don’t like to eat, right? Restless and exhausted. Short-tempered.”
Jesus, how did the Brother know all that?
“Been through it myself, remember.”
How much longer? John asked.
“Until it hits? As a male, you tend to take after your father. Darius went through his a little on the early side. But you never really know. Some people can be where you are for years.”
Years? Shit. What was it like afterward for you? When you woke up?
In the quiet that followed, the eeriest change came over the Brother. It was like a fog crept in and he disappeared—despite the fact that John could still see every detail of his scarred face and big body clear as ever.
“You talk to Blay and Qhuinn about that.”
Sorry. John flushed. Didn’t mean to pry.
“Whatever. Look, I don’t want you to worry about it. We’ve got Layla lined up for you to feed from, and you’re going to be in a safe environment. I’m not going to let anything bad go down.”
John stared up at that ruined warrior face and thought about the classmate they’d lost. Hhurt died, though.
“Yeah, that happens, but Layla’s blood is very pure. She’s a Chosen. That’s going to help you.”
John thought of the beautiful blonde. And of her dropping her robe right in front of him to show him her body for his approval. Man, he still couldn’t believe she’d done that.
How will I know what to do?
Z craned his neck back and looked at the sky. “Don’t need to worry about that. Your body will take charge. It will know what it wants and what it needs.” Z’s skull-trimmed head came back to level and he glanced over, his yellow eyes piercing the darkness sure as sunlight through a break in the clouds. “Your body is going to own you for a little while.”
Though it shamed him he signed, I think I’m scared.
“Means you’re smart. This is heavy-duty shit. But like I said…I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
Z turned away like he was feeling awkward, and John studied the male’s profile against the backdrop of the trees.
As gratitude welled, Z cut off the thank-you John was gearing up to sign. “We’d better head home.”
Crossing back over the river and heading for the compound, John found himself thinking about the biological father he’d never known. He’d avoided asking about Darius, because he’d been Tohr’s best friend, and anything connected to Tohrment was hard for the Brothers to talk about.
He wished he had someone he could talk to about his dad.
Chapter Eleven
When Jane came awake, her neuropathways were like cheap strands of Christmas lights, flickering randomly, then shorting out: Sounds registered and disintegrated and reappeared. Her body was languid, then tense, now twitchy. Her mouth was dry and she felt too warm, but she shivered.
Taking deep breaths, she realized she was partially sitting up. And had a screamer of a headache.
But something smelled good. God, there was an incredible scent all around her…it was part tobacco, like the kind her father had smoked, and part dark spices, as if she were in an Indian oils shop.
She cracked an eyelid. Her vision was off, probably because she wasn’t wearing her glasses, but she could see enough to know that she was in a dark, barren room that had…Jesus, books stacked everywhere. She also discovered that the chair she was in was right next to a radiator, which maybe explained the hot flashes. Plus her head was kinked at a bad angle, which accounted for the headache.
Her first impulse was to sit up, but she was not alone, so she stayed put: Across the room, a man with multicolored hair was standing over a king-size bed that had a body lying on it. The guy was hard at work doing something…putting a glove on the hand of—
Her patient. Her patient was on that bed, the sheets down to his waist, his bare chest covered by her surgical dressing. Christ, what had happened? She remembered operating on him…and finding an incredible heart anomaly. Then there had been an exchange with Manello in the SICU, and then…Shit, she’d been abducted by the man over the bed, a sex god, and someone who wore a Red Sox cap.
Panic flared along with a good dose of pissed-off, but her emotions couldn’t seem to connect to her body, the surge of feeling diffusing in the lethargy that clothed her. She blinked and tried to focus without drawing attention to herself—
Her lids popped wide.
The guy in the Red Sox hat came in with an astonishingly beautiful blond woman at his side. He stood close to her, and though they weren’t touching, it was clear that they were a couple. They just belonged together.
The patient spoke up in a rasp. “No.”
“You’ve got to,” Red Sox said.
“You told me…you’d kill me if I ever—”
“Extenuating circumstances.”
“Layla—”
“Fed Rhage this afternoon, and we can’t get another Chosen here without tangoing with the Directrix. Which would take time you don’t have.”
The blond woman approached the patient’s bed and sat down slowly. Dressed in a black suit with tailored pants, she seemed like a lawyer or a businessperson, and yet she was wildly feminine with her long, luxurious hair.
“Use me.” She extended her wrist over the patient’s mouth, hovering it just above his lips. “If only because we need you strong so you can take care of him.”
There was no question who the “him” was. Red Sox looked sicker than he had when Jane had first seen him, and the clinician in her wondered exactly what the “taking care of” involved.
Meanwhile, Red Sox stepped back until he hit the opposite wall. Wrapping his arms around his chest, he held on to himself.
In a soft voice, the blonde said, “He and I talked about it. You’ve done so much for us—”
“Not…for you.”
“He’s alive because of you. So that’s everything.” The blonde reached out as if she were going to smooth the patient’s hair, but then took her hand back as he flinched. “Let us care for you. Just this once.”
The patient looked across the room at Red Sox. When Red Sox nodded, the patient cursed and closed his eyes. Then opened his mouth….
Holy shit. His pronounced canines had elongated. Sharply pointed before, now they were positively fanglike.
Okay, clearly this was a dream. Yup. Because that just didn’t happen to cosmetically enhanced teeth. Ever.
As the patient bared his “fangs,” the man with the multicolored hair stepped in front of Red Sox, braced both hands on the wall, and leaned in until their chests almost touched.
But then the patient shook his head and turned away from the wrist. “Can’t.”
“I need you,” Red Sox whispered. “I’m sick from what I do. I need you.”
The patient fixated on Red Sox, a powerful yearning flashing in his diamond eyes. “Only for…you…not me.”
“For both of us.”
“All of us,” the blond woman interjected.
The patient took a deep breath, then—Christ!—bit into the blonde’s wrist. The strike was fast and decisive as a
cobra’s, and as he locked on, the woman jumped, then exhaled with what seemed like relief. Across the room, Red Sox trembled all over, looking bereft and desperate while the one with the multicolored hair blocked his way without coming into contact with him.
The patient’s head started to move in a rhythm, as if he were a baby nursing at a breast. But he couldn’t be drinking from there, could he?
Yeah, the hell he couldn’t.
Dream. This was all a dream. A loony-bin dream. Wasn’t it? Oh, God, she hoped it was. Otherwise she was stuck in some kind of Gothic nightmare.
When it was done, her patient eased back onto the pillows, and the woman licked herself where his mouth had been.
“Rest now,” she said, before turning to Red Sox. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head back and forth. “I want to touch you, but I can’t. I want in you, but…I can’t.”
The patient spoke up. “Lie with me. Now.”
“You can’t handle it,” Red Sox said in a reedy, hoarse voice.
“You need it now. I’m ready.”
“The hell you are. And I have to lie down. I’ll be back later after I have a rest—”
The door flew open again, light spilling in from what looked like a hallway, and a huge man with black hair down to his waist and wraparound sunglasses on stalked in. This was trouble. His cruel face suggested he might get off on torturing people, and the glare in his eyes made her wonder if he wanted to start in on someone right now. Hoping to avoid his notice, she slammed her lids shut and tried not to breathe.
His voice was as hard as the rest of him. “If you weren’t already assed out, I’d put you on the ground myself. What the fuck are you thinking, bringing her here?”
“’Scuse us,” Red Sox said. There was a shuffle of feet and the door shut.
“I asked you a question.”
“Supposed to come with,” the patient said.
“Supposed to? Supposed to? Are you out of your goddamned mind?”
“Yes…but not ’bout her.”
Jane cracked an eye open and watched through her lashes as the mammoth guy glanced at the one with all the fabulous hair. “I want everyone in my study in a half hour. We need to decide what the hell to do with her.”
“Not…without me…” the patient said, his tone getting stronger.
“You don’t get a vote.”
The patient shoved his palms into the mattress and sat up, even though it made his arms shake. “I get all the votes when it comes to her.”
The towering man pointed a finger at the patient. “Fuck you.”
From out of nowhere, Jane’s adrenaline kicked in. Dream or no dream, she should be counted in this happy conversation. Straightening in the chair, she cleared her throat.
All eyes snapped to her.
“I want out of here,” she said in a voice she wished were less breathy and more ass-kicking. “Now.”
The big man put a hand to the bridge of his nose, popped up the wraparounds, and rubbed his eyes. “Thanks to him, that’s not an immediate option. Phury, take care of her again, would you?”
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked in a rush.
“No,” the patient said. “You’re going to be fine. You have my word.”
For a split second she believed him. Which was nuts. She didn’t know where she was, and these men were clearly thugs—
The one with the beautiful hair stepped in front of her. “You’re just going to rest for a little bit more.”
Yellow eyes met hers and suddenly she was a TV unplugged, her cord yanked out of the wall, her screen blank.
Vishous stared at his surgeon as she slumped down once more in the armchair across the bedroom.
“She all right?” he said to Phury. “You haven’t fried her, true?”
“No, but she’s got a strong mind. We want to get her out of here ASAP.”
Wrath’s voice cracked through the air. “She should never have been brought here.”
Vishous eased gingerly back onto his bed, feeling like he’d been punched in the chest with a cinder block. He wasn’t particularly concerned that Wrath had his leathers in a knot. His surgeon had to be here, and that was that. But at least he could tray-up a rationale.
“She can help me recover. Havers is complicated because of the Butch sitch.”
Wrath’s stare was level behind his shades. “You think she’ll want to help you after you had her kidnapped? The Hippocratic oath only goes so far.”
“I’m hers.” V frowned. “I mean, she’ll take care of me because she operated on me.”
“You’re grasping at straws to justify—”
“Am I? I just had open-heart surgery because I was shot in the chest. Doesn’t feel like straws to me. You want to risk complications?”
Wrath glanced at the surgeon, then rubbed his eyes some more. “Shit. How long?”
“Till I’m better.”
The king’s sunglasses dropped back onto his nose. “Heal fast, brother. I want her scrubbed and out.”
Wrath left the room, shutting the door with a clap.
“That went well,” V said to Phury.
Phury, in his peacekeeping kind of way, murmured something about how everyone was under a lot of stress, blah, blah, blah, then went over to the bureau to change the subject. He came back to the bedside with a couple of handrolls, one of V’s lighters, and an ashtray.
“Know you’ll want these. What kind of supplies is she going to need to treat you?”
V whipped a list up off the top of his head. With Marissa’s blood in him, he was going to be back on his feet fast, as her lineage was nearly pure: He’d just put high-test gas in his tank.
Thing was, though, he found himself not wanting to heal all that fast.
“She’ll also need some clothes,” he said. “And food.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Phury headed for the door. “You want something to eat?”
“No.” Just as the brother stepped out in the hall, V said, “Will you check on Butch?”
“Of course.”
After Phury left, V stared at the human woman. Her looks, he decided, were not so much beautiful as compelling. Her face was square, her features almost masculine: No pouty lips. No thick lashes. No arching, feminine-wile brows. And there were no big breasts pushing against the white physician’s coat she had on, no wildly curvy ins and outs as far as he could see.
He wanted her like she was a naked beauty queen begging to be served.
Mine. V’s hips rotated, a flush spreading under his skin even though there was no way he should have the energy to get sexed up.
God, the truth was, he had no remorse about kidnapping her. Matter of fact, it was preordained. Just as Butch and Rhage had shown up in that hospital room he’d had his first vision in weeks. He’d seen his surgeon standing in a doorway, framed in glorious white light. She’d been beckoning to him with love on her face, drawing him forward down a hall. The kindness she’d offered had been as warm and soft as skin, as soothing as calm water, as sustaining as the sunlight he no longer knew.
Still, though he might feel no remorse, he did blame himself for the fear and anger in her face when she’d come to. Thanks to his mother, he’d gotten a nasty look at what it was like to be forced into something, and he’d just done the same thing to the one who’d saved his life.
Shit. He wondered what he would have done if he hadn’t gotten that vision, if he hadn’t had his curse of seeing the future speak up. Would he have left her there? Yeah. Of course he would have. Even with the word mine running through his head, he would have let her stay in her world.
But the fucking vision had sealed her fate.
He thought back to the past. To the first of his visions…
Literacy was not of value in the warrior camp, as you couldn’t kill with it.
Vishous learned to read the Old Language only because one of the soldiers had had some education and was in charge of keeping some rudimentary records of the
camp. He was sloppy about it and bored by the job, so V had volunteered to do his duties if the male taught him how to read and write. It was the perfect exchange. V had always been entranced by the idea that you could reduce an event to the page and make it not transitory, but fixed. Eternal.
He’d learned fast and then scoured the camp for books, finding a few in obscure, forgotten places like under old, broken weapons or in abandoned tents. He collected the battered, leather-bound treasures and hid them at the far edge of the camp where the animal hides were kept. No soldiers ever went there, as it was female territory, and if the females did, it was just to grab a pelt or two for making clothes or bedding. Further, not only was it safe for the books, it was the perfect spot for reading, as the cave ceiling dropped to a low height and the floor was stone: Anyone’s approach was instantly heard, as they’d have to shuffle about to get near him.
There was one book, however, that even his hidden place wasn’t secure enough for.
The most precious of his meager collection was a diary written by a male who’d come to the camp about thirty years prior. He’d been an aristocrat by birth but had ended up in the camp being trained due to family tragedy. The diary was written in beautiful script, with big words that V could only guess the meanings of, and spanned three years of the male’s life. The contrast between the two parts, the one detailing events prior to his coming here and the one covering afterward, was stark. In the beginning, the male’s life had been marked with the glorious passing of the glymera’s social calendar, full of balls and lovely females and courtly manners. Then it all ended. Despair, the exact thing Vishous lived with, was what tinted the pages after the male’s life changed forever just after his transition.
Vishous read and reread the diary, feeling a kinship with the writer’s sadness. And after each reading, he would close the cover and run his fingertips over the name embossed in the leather.
DARIUS, SON OF MARKLON.
V often wondered what had happened to the male. The entries ended on a day when nothing particularly significant occurred, so it was hard to know whether he’d died in an accident or left on a whim. V hoped to find out the warrior’s fate at some point, assuming he himself lived long enough to get free of the camp.
