by J. R. Ward
And wouldn’t that give Mr. D something to pray over.
“But if I had e-mailed you, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of your acquaintance.” Those ruby red eyes swept down Lash’s body. “And that would have been a robbery to my senses.”
The little Texan cleared his throat, like he was gagging on his tongue.
As the disapproving choke faded, the king’s chair started moving up and back soundlessly. “There is something you could do for me however…which would in turn obligate me to provide you with what you are looking for—and it’s locating vampires, isn’t it. That has long been the struggle of the Lessening Society. Finding vampires within their hidden homes.”
The bastard hit the nail on the head. Lash had known where to raid over the summer because he had been to the estates of the ones he’d killed, having attended the birthday parties of his friends and the weddings of his cousins and the balls of the glymera at those mansions. Now, though, what was left of the vampire elite had scattered out of town or to out-of-state safe houses, the addys of which he didn’t know. And civilians? He didn’t have a clue where to start there, because he’d never socialized with the proletariat.
Symphaths, however, could sense others, humans and vampires alike, seeing them through solid walls and underground basement foundations. He needed that kind of insight if he were going to make progress; it was the one thing that was missing from all the tools his father was giving him.
Lash pushed his combat boot into the floor again and fell into the same rhythm as the king.
“And what exactly might you need from me,” he drawled.
The king smiled. “Couplings are our fundamental congregations, are they not. A male and a female bound together. And yet within these intimate relationships discord is common. Promises are made, but not kept. Vows are given and yet discarded. Against these transgressions, measures must be taken.”
“Sounds like you’re talking vengeance, there, big guy.”
That smooth face shifted into a self-satisfied expression. “Not vengeance, no. Corrective action. That a death would be involved…is merely what the situation requires.”
“Death, huh. So symphaths don’t believe in divorce?”
Ruby eyes flashed with contempt. “In the case of a faithless mate whose actions outside of the bed run contrary to the core of the relationship, death is the only divorce.”
Lash nodded. “I get the logic. So who’s the target?”
“Are you committing yourself to act?”
“Not yet.” It wasn’t clear to him exactly how far he was willing to go. Getting his hands dirty inside the colony had not been part of his original plan.
The king stopped rocking and got to his feet. “Think of it, then, and be sure. When you are ready to receive from us what you need for your war, come unto me again and I shall show you the way to proceed.”
Lash stood up as well. “Why don’t you just kill your mate yourself.”
The king’s slow smile was like that on a corpse, rigid and cold. “My dearest friend, the insult to which I most object is less the disloyalty, which I would expect, but rather the arrogant assumption that I would never know the deceit. The former is a trifle. The latter inexcusable. Now…shall I see you to your car?”
“Nope. We’ll walk ourselves out.”
“As you wish.” The king extended his six-fingered hand. “Such a pleasure…”
Lash reached forward and felt electricity lick up his arm as their palms met. “Yeah. Whatever. You’ll be hearing from me.”
SIXTEEN
She was with him…oh, God, she was finally back with him.
Tohrment, son of Hharm, was naked and pressed against the flesh of his beloved, feeling her satin skin and hearing her gasp as his hand went to her breast. Red hair…red hair everywhere on the pillow he’d rolled her back against and on the white sheets that smelled like lemons…red hair wrapped around his thick forearm.
Her nipple was tight against his circling thumb and her lips soft beneath his own as he kissed her deep and slow. When she was begging for him, he was going to roll onto her and take her from above, driving into her hard, holding her down.
She liked the weight of him. She liked the feel of him covering her. In their life together, Wellsie was an independent female with a strong mind and a stubborn streak to rival a bulldog’s, but in bed, she liked him on top.
He dropped his mouth to her breast, sucking her nipple in, rolling it around, kissing it.
“Tohr…”
“What, leelan? More? Maybe I’ll have you wait….”
But he couldn’t. He nursed at her and stroked her stomach and her hips. As she writhed, he licked up to her neck and raked his fangs across her jugular. He couldn’t wait to feed. For some reason, he was starved for blood. Maybe he’d been fighting a lot.
Her fingers dug into his hair. “Take my vein….”
“Not yet.” The sting of delay was just going to make it better—the more he wanted it, the sweeter the blood.
Moving up to her mouth, he kissed her harder than before, his tongue penetrating her as he deliberately rubbed his cock against her thigh, a promise of another, deeper invasion down below. She was thoroughly aroused, her scent rising up through the lemony sheets, making his fangs pound in his mouth and the tip of his sex weep.
His shellan had been the only female he’d ever known. They’d both been virgins on their mating night—and he’d never wanted anybody else.
“Tohr…”
God, he loved the low sound of her voice. Loved everything about her. They had been promised to each other before they’d been born, and it had been love at first sight the moment they’d met. Destiny had been so kind to them.
He swept his palm down onto her waist, and then…
He stopped, realizing something was wrong. Something…
“Your belly…your belly is flat.”
“Tohr…”
“Where’s the young?” He pulled back in a panic. “You were with young. Where’s the young? Is he okay? What happened to you…are you all right?”
“Tohr…”
Her eyes opened, and the stare he had looked into for over a hundred years focused on him. Sadness, the kind that made you wish you’d never been born, drained the sexual flush from her beautiful face.
Reaching up to him, she put her hand on his cheek. “Tohr…”
“What happened?”
“Tohr…”
The sheen over her eyes and the quaver of her lovely voice snapped him in half. And then she began to drift away, her body disappearing under his touch, her red hair, her exquisite face, her despairing eyes fading so that only the pillows remained before him. Then in a final blow, the lemony smell of the sheets and her naturally clean scent left his nose, replaced by nothing—
Tohr jacked upright off the mattress, his eyes spilling over with tears, his heart aching as if he’d had nails driven into his chest. Breathing raggedly, he clutched at his breastbone and opened his mouth to scream.
No sound came. He didn’t have the strength.
Falling back against the pillows, he wiped his wet cheeks with hands that shook and tried to calm the hell down. When he finally caught his breath, he frowned. His heart was skipping in his rib cage, not so much beating as fluttering, and no doubt because of the erratic spasms, dizziness spun his head in a tight circle.
Pulling up his T-shirt, he stared down at his deflated pecs and his shrunken torso and willed his body to keep failing. The spells had been coming with increasing regularity and strength, and he wished to hell they’d just get organized and help him wake up dead. Suicide was not an option if you wanted to get into the Fade and be with your deceased loved ones, but he was operating under the assumption that you could effectively neglect yourself to death. Which wasn’t technically suicide, like eating a bullet or throwing a noose around his neck or doing a slit-the-wrist special would be.
The scent of food from out in the hallway had him looking at the cl
ock. Four in the afternoon. Or was it morning? The drapes were drawn, so he didn’t know whether the shutters were up or down.
The knock that sounded was soft.
Which, thank fuck, meant it wasn’t Lassiter, who just came in whenever he wanted. Evidently fallen angels weren’t big on manners. Or personal space. Or boundaries of any kind. Clearly the great, glowing nightmare had been booted out of heaven because God hadn’t liked his company any more than Tohr did.
The quiet knock was repeated. So it must be John.
“Yeah,” Tohr said, letting his shirt fall as he pushed himself up on the pillows. His arms, once strong as cranes, struggled under the weight of his wilted shoulders.
The boy, who was no longer a boy, came in bearing a tray heavily laden with food, and a face full of baseless optimism.
Tohr glanced over as the burden was put on the bedside table. Herbed chicken and saffron rice and green beans and fresh rolls.
The shit might as well have been roadkill wrapped in barbed wire, for all he cared, but he picked up the plate and rolled out the napkin and took the fork and the knife and put them to use.
Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. More chewing. Swallow. Drink. Chew. Eating was as mechanical and autonomic as his respiration, something he was only dimly aware of, a necessity, not a pleasure.
Pleasure was a thing of the past…and a torture within his dreams. As he recalled his shellan up against him, naked, in lemony sheets, the fleeting image lit up his body from the inside out, making him alive, and not just living. The strike of his mortal match head faded quick, though, a flame with no wick to sustain it.
Chew. Cut. Chew. Swallow. Drink.
As he ate, the boy sat down in a chair by the closed drapes, elbow on knee, fist on chin, a living, breathing Rodin’s The Thinker. John was always like that lately, always with something on his mind.
Tohrment knew damn well what it was, but the solution that was going to end John’s sad preoccupation was going to hurt the kid like a bitch first.
And Tohr was sorry about that. Very sorry.
Christ, why couldn’t Lassiter have just left him where he’d lain in that forest? That angel could have kept right on going, but no, His Lordship Halogen had to be a hero.
Tohr shifted his eyes over to John and his gaze locked on the kid’s fist. The thing was huge, and the chin and jaw that rested on it were strong, masculine. The boy had turned out to be a handsome guy; then again, as Darius’s son, he’d had a good gene pool. One of the best.
Come to think of it…he really looked like D, a carbon copy, actually, except for the blue jeans. Darius wouldn’t have been caught dead in blue jeans, even fancy designer-distressed ones like the kind John was sporting.
Matter of fact…D had often assumed that exact position when he’d been stewing over life, pulling the Rodin, all frown and churn—
A flash of silver winked from John’s free hand. It was a quarter, and the kid was weaving the coin in and out and around his fingers, his version of a nervous twitch.
Tonight was more than John’s usual silent perching. Something had happened.
“What’s doing?” Tohr asked, his voice a rasp. “You okay?”
John’s eyes shot over in surprise.
To avoid the stare, Tohr looked down, speared some chicken, and put it in his mouth. Chew. Chew. Swallow.
Going by the shifting sounds, John was uncurling himself from his wood-burning routine slowly, as if he were afraid that sudden movements would spook away the question hanging between them.
Tohr glanced over again, and when he waited, John put the quarter in his pocket and signed with economy and grace, Wrath is out fighting again. V just told me and the guys.
Tohr was rusty with American Sign Language, but not that rusty. Surprise lowered his fork. “Wait…he’s still king, right?”
Yeah, but he told the Brothers tonight that he’s going back on rotation. Or I guess he’s been on rotation and kept it to himself. I think the Brotherhood’s pissed at him.
“Rotation? Can’t be. The king’s not allowed to fight.”
He is now. And Phury’s coming back, too.
“What the fuck? The Primale’s not supposed to…” Tohr frowned. “Is there some change in the war? Something going on?”
I don’t know. John shrugged and settled back into the chair, crossing his legs at the knee. Another thing Darius always did.
In the pose, the son seemed as old as the father had been, although that was less about the way John’s limbs were arranged and more about the exhaustion in his blue eyes.
“It’s not legal,” Tohr said.
Is now. Wrath met with the Scribe Virgin.
Questions started to buzz in Tohr’s head, his brain struggling with the unaccustomed load. In the midst of the disjointed swirl, it was hard to think coherently, and he felt as if he were trying to hold a hundred tennis balls in his arms; no matter how hard he tried, ones slipped through and bounced around, creating a mess.
He gave up trying to make sense of anything. “Well, that’s a change…. I wish them luck.”
John’s low exhale pretty much summed it all up as Tohr unplugged from the world and went back to eating. When he was finished, he folded up the napkin neatly and took a final drink from the water glass.
He turned the TV on to CNN, because he didn’t want to think and he couldn’t handle the quiet. John stayed for about a half hour, and when he clearly couldn’t stand being still any longer, he got to his feet and stretched.
I’ll see you at the end of the night.
Ah, so it was afternoon. “I’ll be here.”
John picked up the tray and left with no pause, no hesitation. There had been plenty of both at first, as if each time he hit the door, he hoped that Tohr would stop him and say, I’m ready to face life. I’m going to soldier on. I’m better enough to give a shit about you.
But hope didn’t spring eternal.
When the door was shut, Tohr pulled the sheets off his stick legs and shuffled his feet over the edge of the mattress.
He was ready to face something, all right, but it wasn’t his existence. With a groan and a lurch, he stumbled into the bathroom, went to the toilet, and popped up the porcelain throne’s seat. Bending over, he gave the command and his stomach evacuated the meal without a fuss.
In the beginning, he’d had to cram his finger down his throat, but no more. He just clenched his diaphragm and up it all came, like rats fleeing an overflowing sewer.
“You gotta cut that shit out.”
Lassiter’s voice harmonized with the sound of the toilet flushing. Which so made sense.
“Christ, don’t you ever knock?”
“It’s Lassiter. L-A-S-S-I-T-E-R. How is it possible you’re still getting me confused with someone else? Do I need a nametag?”
“Yes, and let’s put it over your mouth.” Tohr sagged onto the marble and dropped his head into his hands. “You know, you can go home. You can leave anytime.”
“Get your flat ass in gear, then. ’Cuz that’s what’ll do it.”
“Now, there’s a reason to live.”
There was a soft chiming sound, which meant, tragedy of tragedies, the angel had just popped himself up onto the countertop. “So, what are we doing tonight? Wait, let me guess, sitting in morose silence. Or, no…you’re mixing it up. Brooding with soulful intensity, right? What a fucking wild child you are. Whoo. Hoo. Next thing you know, you’ll be opening for Slipknot.”
With a curse, Tohr stood up and went over to turn on the shower, hoping that if he refused to look at the loudmouth, Lassiter would get bored more quickly and move on to ruin someone else’s afternoon.
“Question,” the angel said. “When are we going to cut that rug that’s growing out of your head? Shit gets any longer, we’re going to have to mow it down like hay.”
As Tohr stripped out of his T-shirt and boxers, he enjoyed the only consolation to be had in suffering Lassiter’s company: He flashed the motherfucker.
&nb
sp; “Man, flat ass is right,” Lassiter muttered. “You’re sporting a pair of deflated basketballs back there. Makes me wonder…Hey, I’ll bet Fritz has a bicycle pump. I’m just saying.”
“You don’t like the view? You know the door. It’s the one you never knock on.”
Tohr didn’t give the water time to warm up; he just got under the spray, and he cleaned himself for no good reason he knew of—he had no pride, so he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of his hygiene.
The throwing up had a purpose. The showering…maybe it was simply habit.
Closing his eyes, he parted his lips and stood facing the nozzle. Water licked into his mouth, whisking away the bile, and as the sting left his tongue, a thought walked into his brain.
Wrath was out fighting. Alone.
“Hey, Tohr.”
Tohr frowned. The angel never used his proper name. “What.”
“Tonight is different.”
“Yeah, only if you leave me alone. Or hang yourself in this bathroom. Got six showerheads to choose from in here.”
Tohr picked up the bar of soap and went over his body, feeling the hard, jabbing thrusts of his bones and joints coming through his thin skin.
Wrath out alone.
Shampoo. Rinse. Turn back to the spray. Open mouth.
Out. Alone.
He ended the shower, and the angel was front and center with a towel, all manservant and shit.
“Tonight is different,” Lassiter said softly.
Tohr looked at the guy truly, seeing him for the first time, even though they had been together for four months. The angel had black-and-blond hair that was as long as Wrath’s, but he was no cross-dresser in spite of all the Cher dripping down his back. His wardrobe was straight-up army/navy, black shirts and camo pants and combat boots, but he wasn’t all soldier. Fucker was pierced like a pincushion and accessorized like a jewelry box, with gold hoops and chains hanging from holes in his ears and wrists and eyebrows. And you could bet the mountings were on his chest and below the waist—which was something Tohr refused to think about. He didn’t need help throwing up, thank you very much.
