by J. R. Ward
God, Bella . . . his darling Bella, no longer his baby sister, now a Brother’s shellan.
The two of them had always had a deep, complicated relationship. In part, it was their personalities, but it was also because she had no idea what he was. No clue either about their mother’s past or what had killed her father.
Or who, was more like it.
Rehv had murdered to protect his sister, and he wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. For as long as he could remember, Bella had been the only innocence in his life, the only purity. He’d wanted to keep her like that forever. Life had had other plans.
To avoid thinking about her abduction by the lessers, which he still blamed himself for, he recalled one of his most vivid memories of her. It had been about a year after he’d taken care of business at home and put her father in the ground. She’d been seven.
Rehv had walked into the kitchen and found her eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes at the kitchen table, her feet dangling from the big-girl chair she’d been sitting in. She’d been wearing pink slippers—the ones she didn’t like but had to put on when her favorites, the navy blue ones, were in the wash—and a Lanz flannel nightgown that had strips of yellow roses separated with blue and pink lines.
She’d been such a picture, sitting there with her long brown hair down her back and those little pink slippers and her brow all furrowed as she chased around the last few flakes with her spoon.
“Why you watchin’me, rooster?” she’d piped up, her feet swinging back and forth underneath the chair.
He’d smiled. Even then he’d worn his hair in a Mohawk, and she was the only one who dared to give him a cheeky nickname. And, naturally, he loved her all the more for it. “No reason.”
Which had been a lie. As that spoon fished around in the sugary milk, he’d been thinking that this calm, quiet moment had been so worth all the blood he’d gotten on his hands. In fucking spades.
With a sigh, she’d looked over at the cereal box, which was across the way on the kitchen counter. Her feet had stopped their rocking, the little piff, piff, piff of the slippers on the chair’s lower rung drifting off into silence.
“What are you looking at, Lady Bell?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he’d eyeballed Tony the Tiger. As scenes of her father had flashed through his head, he’d been willing to bet she was seeing the same thing he was.
In a small voice, she’d said, “I can have more if I want. Maybe.”
Her tone had been hesitant, as if she were dipping her foot in a pond that might have leeches in it.
“Yeah, Bella. You may have as much as you like.”
She hadn’t leaped up out of the chair. She’d remained still in the manner of children and animals, just breathing, her senses threading out through her environment, testing for danger.
Rehv hadn’t moved. Even though he’d wanted to bring the box to her, he’d known that she was the one who needed to cross the glossy red cherry floor in those slippers and bring Tony the Tiger back to her bowl. Her hands had to be the ones to hold the box as another school of flakes got sprinkled into the warming milk. She had to pick up her spoon again and eat.
She had to know that there was no one in the house who would criticize her for getting seconds because she was still hungry.
Her father had specialized in that kind of thing. Like a lot of males of his generation, the piece of shit had believed that females of the glymera needed to be “kept trim.” As he’d said over and over again, fat on the aristocratic female body was the equivalent of dust accumulating on a priceless statue.
He’d been even harder on their mother.
In silence, Bella had looked down into the milk and weaved her spoon through it, making a wake of waves.
She wasn’t going to do it, Rehv had thought, ready to kill that bastard sire of hers all over again. She was still scared.
Except then she’d put the spoon to rest on the plate under the bowl, slipped from the chair, and gone across the kitchen in her little Lanz nightgown. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t seem to look at Tony’s cartoon-vivid puss when she picked up the box, either.
She was terrified. She was courageous. She was tiny and she was fierce.
His vision had run red at that point, but not because his bad side was coming out. As the second serving of Frosted Flakes had been poured, he’d had to go. He’d said something cheery about nothing in particular, walked quickly into the hall bathroom, and shut himself in.
He had wept his tears of blood alone.
That moment in the kitchen with Tony and Bella’s second-best pair of slippers had told him he’d done right: The approval for the murder he’d committed had come when that cereal box had been walked across that kitchen by his darling, beloved, precious little sister.
Returning to the present, he thought of Bella now. A grown female with a powerful mate and a young barely in her body.
The demon she faced now was nothing her big, bad brother could help her with. There was no open grave into which he could throw the beaten, bloody remains of fate. He couldn’t save her from this particular monster.
Time would tell, and that was that.
Until her abduction, he’d never once considered that she might die before him. During those hideous six weeks when she’d been kept by that lesser underground, though, the order of his family’s deaths had been all he could think about. He’d always assumed that their mother was going to go first, and in fact, she’d just now started on the quick decline that carried vampires to the end of their lives. He’d been well aware he’d go next, as sooner or later one of two things was going to happen: Either someone was going to find out about his symphath nature and he was going to be hunted down and sent to the colony, or his blackmailer was going to orchestrate his demise in the manner of symphaths.
Which was to say, out of the blue and viciously creative—
Right on cue, a musical chord came out of his phone. The ring repeated again. And again.
He knew who was calling without picking up. But such were the connections between symphaths.
Speak of the devil, he thought as he answered his blackmailer ’s call.
When he hung up, he had a date with the Princess the following evening.
Lucky him.
Qhuinn had this long, fucked-up dream that he was at Disney World on a ride with lots of ups and downs. Which was weird, as he’d only seen roller coasters on the TV. ’Cuz you couldn’t get on Big Thunder Mountain if you couldn’t handle the sun.
When whatever ride he was on ended, he opened his eyes and discovered he was in the PT/first-aid room at the Brotherhood’s training center.
Oh, thank fuck.
Obviously he’d gotten cracked in the head while spar-ring with someone during class, and that shit with Lash and the stuff with his family and his brother honor-guarding him had all been a nightmare. What a relief—
Doc Jane’s face appeared in front of his. “Hey, there . . . you’re back.”
Qhuinn blinked and coughed. “Where . . . I go?”
“You had a little nap. So I could take your spleen out.”
Shit. Wasn’t a hallucination. Was the new reality. “Am . . . I okay?”
Doc Jane put her hand on his shoulder, her palm warm and weighty even though the rest of her was translucent. “You did very well.”
“Stomach still hurts.” He lifted up his head and looked down his bare chest to the bandage sashing his waist.
“It would be wrong if it didn’t. But you’ll be happy to know you can go back to Blay’s in an hour. The operation was totally textbook, and you’re already healing well. I have no problem with daylight, so if you need me, I can be at his house in a moment. Blay knows what to watch for, and I’ve given him some meds for you.”
Qhuinn shut his eyes, subsumed by some kind of fucked-up sadness.
As he tried to chill, he heard Doc Jane say, “Blay, you want to come over here—”
Qhuinn shook his head, then turned it away. “Need a m
inute alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
As the door closed quietly, he put a shaking hand over his face. Alone . . . yeah, he was alone, all right. And not just because there was no one else in the room with him.
He’d really enjoyed thinking the last twelve hours had been a dream.
God, what the fuck was he going to do with the rest of his life?
In a flash he remembered the vision he’d had when he’d approached the Fade. Maybe he should have gone right through that damn door in spite of what he saw. Sure as shit would have made everything easier.
He collected himself for a moment. Or maybe more like half an hour. Then he called out in as strong a voice as he could muster, “I’m ready. I’m ready to go.”
Chapter Twenty-four
A house can be empty even when it’s full of people. And wasn’t that a good thing.
About an hour before dawn, Phury lurched around one of the mansion’s countless corners and had to put his hand out to steady himself.
He wasn’t truly by himself, though, was he. Boo, the household’s black cat, was right there with him, padding along, supervising. Hell, the animal was arguably running the show, as somewhere along the line, Phury had taken to following, not leading.
Leading would so not be a good call. His blood alcohol level was way over the legal limit for anything other than brushing his teeth. And that was before you added on the numbing effects of a haystack’s worth of red smoke.
How many blunts? How much hooch?
Well, it was now . . .He had no idea what time it was. Had to be close to dawn, though.
Whatever. Trying to get a tally on the bender would have been a waste of time anyway. Given how fogged-out he was, it was doubtful he could count high enough, and besides, he couldn’t really recall what his hourly rate of consumption had been. All he was sure about was that he’d left his room when the Beefeater had run out. Originally, he’d planned to get another bottle of gin, but then he’d hooked up with Boo and started on this walkabout.
All things considered, he should have been passed out on his bed. He was polluted enough for the lights-out routine, and it had, after all, been his goal. Problem was, even with all the self-medicating, his head was suffering from the 4 Cs of heebie-jeebies: Cormia’s situation. The Chosen responsibility. The clinic’s infiltration. And Bella’s child.
Okay, the last one was a human term. But still.
At least the wizard was relatively quiet.
Phury pushed open a random door and tried to figure out where the cat had led him. Oh, right. If he kept going, he’d hit doggen territory, the vast wing where the staff stayed. Which would be trouble. If he was found wandering there, Fritz would pop an aneurysm on the assumption that the servants had somehow not discharged their duties properly.
As Phury hung a right, the base of his brain started to fire with the need for another hit of red smoke. He was on the verge of turning back when he heard sounds coming down from the third floor’s back stairwell. Someone was up in the movie theater . . . which meant he really needed to beat feet in the opposite direction, because running into one of his brothers would be a bad thing.
He was turning away when he caught the scent of jasmine.
Phury froze. Cormia . . .
Cormia was up there.
Letting himself fall back against the wall, he scrubbed his face and thought of that erotic drawing he’d done. And the hard-on he’d had while working on it.
Boo let out a meow and padded right up to the theater’s door. As the cat looked over his shoulder, his green eyes seemed to read, Go on, getcha ass up there, buddy.
“I can’t.” Try shouldn’t.
Boo didn’t buy it. The cat curled into a sit, his tail flexing up and down as if he were waiting for Phury to get with the program already.
Phury locked stares with the animal in a classic chicken challenge.
He, not the cat, blinked first and looked away.
Giving up the fight, he ran a hand through his hair. Straightened his black silk shirt. Jacked up his cream trousers. He might be totally cooked, but at least he looked like a gentleman.
Evidently satisfied with the resolve he was seeing, Boo trotted away from the door and brushed against Phury’s leg as if he were giving him an attaboy.
As the cat headed off, Phury opened the door and put his Gucci loafer up on a step. Then repeated. And repeated. He used the brass handrail to steady his big body, and tried to justify what he was doing as he ascended. He couldn’t. If you were barely in good enough shape to use Colgate, you absolutely shouldn’t interact with the Chosen female who was no longer officially yours, but who you wanted until your cock ached.
Especially given the news he had to share.
He got to the top of the stairs, rounded the corner, and looked down the gently descending rows of seats. Cormia was in front, her white Chosen’s robe pooling at her feet. Up on the screen images were flickering fast. She was rewinding a scene.
He breathed in. God, she smelled good . . . and for some reason that jasmine scent of hers was especially strong tonight.
The rewinding stopped, and Phury glanced up at the vast screen. Holy . . . Christ.
It was . . . a love scene. Patrick Swayze and that Jennifer woman with the nose were working each other out on a bed. Dirty Dancing.
Cormia leaned forward in the chair, her face coming into view. Her eyes were rapt on what was up ahead, her lips parted, one hand resting on the base of her throat. Long blond hair fell over her shoulder and brushed the top of her knee.
Phury’s body hardened, his erection popping a tent in the front of his Prada trousers, laying waste to the tailored pleating. Even through the haze of red smoke, his sex roared.
But not because of what was on the screen. Cormia was his trigger.
In a flash, he remembered her at his throat, and under his body, and the SOB in him pointed out that he was the Chosen’s Primale, so he made the rules. Even though he and the Directrix had agreed that he would pick another First Mate, he could still be with Cormia if he wanted to, and if she would have him—it just wouldn’t hold the same weight in terms of the ceremony.
Yes . . . even though he would take another to complete the Primale initiation, he could still march down the shallow steps, drop to his knees in front of Cormia, and push her white robing to her hips. He could slide his hands up her thighs and spread her wide and dip down with his head. After he got her good and wet with his mouth, he could—
Phury let his head fall back on his neck. Okay, this was so not helping to slow his roll. And besides, he’d never gone down on a female before, so he wasn’t sure what to do.
Although, he supposed, if he could eat an ice cream cone, the licking and sucking would translate pretty damn well.
As would the gentle biting.
Fuck.
As leaving was the only decent thing to do, he turned away. If he stayed, he wasn’t going to be able to hold himself back from her.
“Your grace?”
Cormia’s voice froze his breath and his steps. And had his cock doing push-ups.
Out of propriety, he reminded his sex that her saying something was not an invitation to act out his on-the-knees, head-between-her-thighs, X-rated fantasy.
Fuck.
The movie theater felt as big as a shoe box as she said, “Your grace, did you . . . need something?”
Do not turn back around.
Phury looked over his shoulder, his glowing eyes casting a yellow wash of illumination down the backs of the chairs. Cormia was spotlit by his stare, her hair catching and holding the rays generated by his urge to come inside of her.
“Your grace . . .” she breathed.
“What are you watching?” he said in a low voice, even though it was perfectly obvious what was up on the screen.
“Ah . . . John picked the movie.” She fumbled with the remote, pushing buttons until the picture froze.
“Not
the movie, Cormia, the scene.”
"Ah . . .”
“This scene you’ve chosen . . . you’ve been watching it over and over again, haven’t you.”
Her reply was husky. “Yes . . . I have.”
God, she was lovely as she twisted around in that chair to face him . . . all eyes and mouth, her pale hair everywhere, the scent of jasmine filling the gap between them.
She was aroused; that was why her natural fragrance was so strong.
“Why this scene?” he asked. “Why did you choose this one?”
As he waited for her to answer, his body strained, his erection throbbing to the beat of his heart. What pounded through his blood had nothing to with rituals or obligations or responsibility. It was straight-out, hard-core sex, the kind that was going to leave them both exhausted and sweaty and messy and probably a little bruised. And to his total discredit, he didn’t care that she was aroused because of what she’d been looking at. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t about him. He wanted her to use him . . . use him until he was drained dry and every inch of his body was utterly limp, even that ever-ready cock of his.
“Why did you pick the scene, Cormia?”
Her graceful hand went back to the base of her throat. “Because . . . it makes me think of you.”
Phury exhaled on a growl. Okay, that was not what he expected her say. And duty was one thing, but man, she didn’t have the look of a female worried about living up to tradition. She wanted sex. Maybe even needed it. Just like he did.
And she wanted it with him.
In slow motion, Phury pivoted toward her, his body suddenly very coordinated, the fuzz from all the red smoke and booze totally blown away.
He was going to take her. Here. Now.
He headed down the shallow steps, ready to claim what was his.
Cormia rose up from her chair, in the midst of the blinding light of the Primale’s eyes. He was a massive shadow as he came at her, his long strides eating up two of the shallow steps at a time. He stopped when he was but a foot away from her, smelling of that delicious smoky scent and also of dark spices.
