by J. R. Ward
Although . . . man, the sex was good. Seemed base and a little crude to put it like that, but it was so very true.
When they’d come up here after their little tête à tête in the tunnel, they hadn’t even bothered with the lights. No time, no time—clothes off, on the bed, going hard. She’d ended up passing out, and sometime later, John must have gotten up to use the loo and left the light on. Probably to make sure she didn’t feel lost if she woke up.
Because that’s the kind of male he was.
There was a click and whirl and the steel shutters began to lift for the night, the darkened sky revealed, her mental gyrations mercifully cut off.
She hated ruminating. Never solved anything and only made her feel worse.
“Hot water is calling us,” she said, forcing her body upright. The delicious aches in her muscles and bones made her want to sleep for days in this big bed next to John. Maybe weeks. But that wasn’t their destiny, was it.
She leaned over and looked down into his shadowy face. After tracing his handsome features with her eyes, she just had to bring up her hand and caress his cheek.
I love you, she mouthed in the shadows.
“Let’s go,” she said roughly.
The kiss she gave him was a sort of good-bye—after all, maybe tonight they finally got Lash, and that would mean an end to moments like this.
Abruptly, John gripped her upper arms, his brows tightening, but then, as if he read her mind and knew all too well the score, he released her.
As she got up and walked away from the bed, his eyes followed her . . . she could feel it.
In the bathroom, she started the water for them and went over to get some towels out of the cupboard.
She stopped as she saw her reflection in the mirror over the sink.
Her body was the same as it had always been, but she thought of the way it felt when she and John were together. She’d gotten so used to thinking of her corporeal form as little more than a weapon, something that was useful and necessary to accomplish things. Hell, she’d fed it and cared for it the same way she looked after her guns and her knives—because that was how she maintained its utility.
In their hours together, John had taught her differently, had shown her that there was profound pleasure to be had from her flesh. Which was something not even her relationship with Murhder had managed to do.
As if he’d been summoned by her thoughts, John came up behind her, his height and shoulder width dwarfing her reflection.
Meeting his eyes, she put her hand to her breast and rubbed her own nipple, remembering how it felt to have his touch there, his tongue, his mouth. The instant she made contact, his body responded, his bonding scent flooding the bathroom, his erection punching out of his hips.
Reaching behind herself, she pulled him against her, his arousal penetrating the wedge formed by her sex and her thighs. As his hips pushed in against her ass, his warm hands circled around her and stroked down her stomach. Bringing his head to her shoulder, his fangs flashed white as he delicately dragged them over her skin to the crook of her neck.
Arching back to him, she stretched way up and ran her hands through his thick dark hair. Although he’d cut it short, it was growing in, which was nice. She preferred it long because it felt so damn good going through her fingers, so silky, so smooth.
“Come inside me,” she said hoarsely.
John swept his hand up and captured the breast she’d stroked for him; then he reached between their bodies, angled himself, and eased into her sex. At the same moment, he ran his fangs across her throat to her vein.
He didn’t need to feed. She knew this. So she was strangely thrilled when he struck because it meant he was doing it just because he wanted to: He wanted her in him, too.
Beneath the overhead lighting, she watched as he took her from behind, his muscles flexing, his eyes burning, his erection pushing in and pulling out, pushing in and pulling out. She watched herself, too. Her breasts were tight at the tips, her nipples rosy, not just because that was the color of them, but because he’d been working on them so much over the day’s hours. Her skin was aglow all over, her cheeks blazing, her lips puffy from the kissing, her eyes low-lidded and erotic.
John broke the seal he’d formed over her vein and his pink tongue came out, licking over the punctures, sealing them up. Turning her head, she captured his mouth with her own, relishing the slick slide of their tongues as their bodies followed the same rhythm down below.
It didn’t take long for the sex to grow urgent and raw, no longer sensual, but powerful. As John’s hips pistoned against her, their bodies slapped and their breath roared. Her orgasm tackled her so strongly that if he hadn’t had a death grip on her hip bones, she would have lost her knees and fallen from him. And just as she came, John’s own shudders rolled through her, the ripples emanating outward from his erection and sweeping through her body . . . and her soul.
And then it happened.
At the pinnacle of their release, her vision flipped into red and went flat—and as ectascy eventually faded, the unsummoned appearance of her bad side was a wake-up call she’d been subconsciously waiting for.
Gradually, she became aware of the growing humidity and warmth from the shower . . . and the twinkling sound of falling water . . . and the thousand points of contact between them . . . and how all things were in shades of blood.
John reached up to her face and touched next to her red eyes.
“Yeah, I need my cilices,” she said.
He brought his hands forward in front of her and signed, I have them.
“You do?”
I saved them. He frowned. But are you sure you have to—
“Yes,” she bristled. “I am.”
The hard expression that tightened his face reminded her of the way he’d been when he’d sprung out of that bed as she’d screamed: Tough. Intractable. All-male. But there was nothing she could do to help him out of his current disapproval. She had to take care of herself, and whether or not he was down with what she did to keep herself in a “normal” bandwidth wasn’t going to change her reality.
Man, they just weren’t meant to be together, no matter how compatible they could be sometimes.
John withdrew from her core and stepped back, running his fingers down her spine as a kind of a thank-you . . . and given the dark knowledge in his eyes, probably a good-bye of his own. Turning away, he headed for the sh—
“Oh . . . my . . . God . . .”
Xhex’s heart stopped as she looked at him in the mirror. Across his upper back, in a glorious spread of black ink . . . in a declaration that didn’t whisper, but shouted . . . in a billboard-size font with flourishes . . .
Her name in the Old Language.
Xhex wheeled around as John froze. “When did you get that done?”
After a tense moment, his shoulder shrugged and she was captivated by the way the ink moved, stretching and then returning into place. Shaking his head, he reached in to test the warm spray, and then stepped through the glass door, put his back to the running water and grabbed the soap, frothing up the bar in his hands.
As he refused to look at her, he sent a clear message that her name in his skin was none of her business. Which was the same kind of line she’d drawn with her cilices, wasn’t it.
Xhex went up to the glass door that separated them. Putting her hand up, she knocked hard.
When, she mouthed.
His eyes squeezed shut, as if he were remembering something that made his stomach hurt. And then with his lids down, he signed slowly . . . and broke her in half:
When I thought you weren’t coming home.
John made quick work with the soap and the shampoo, very aware that Xhex was standing on the cold side of the glass, staring at him. He wanted to help her out with the surprise and all, but given where things stood between them, he was so not about to throw himself on the sword of all his feelings.
Or the tattoo needle, as it were.
; When he’d asked her about the cilices, she’d been pretty clear about shutting him out—and that had rebooted his brain. Since he’d been injured the night before, they’d fallen back into their sex connection, and that had a way of blurring reality. But no more.
After he was finished with his wash-up, he stepped out of the shower and went past her, nabbing a towel from a brass bar and wrapping it around his hips. In the mirror, he met her eyes.
I’ll go get your cilices, he signed.
“John . . .”
When she didn’t say anything more, he frowned, thinking this was the pair of them in a nutshell: Standing three feet away from each other and being separated by miles.
He left and went into the bedroom, picking up a pair of jeans and pulling them on. His leather jacket had been brought in with him to the clinic the night before and he’d left it there. Somewhere.
In his bare feet, he walked past the marble statues, down the grand staircase, and around the corner to duck through the hidden door. Man . . . going back into the tunnel was a total crusher; all he could think about was Xhex and him together in the dark.
Like a complete nancy, he wished like hell they could return to those suspended moments when nothing existed except their roaring bodies. Down here, their hearts had been free to pound . . . and sing.
Fucking real life.
Sucked ass.
He was striding toward the training center’s entrance when Z’s voice stopped him.
“Yo, John.”
John pivoted around, his bare feet squeaking on the tunnel floor. As he raised his hand in greeting, the Brother came striding down from the mansion’s door and Z was dressed for fighting, his black leathers and muscle shirt something that they would all be wearing before they headed out once again to hunt Lash. With the Brother’s skull trim, and the ceiling lights streaming down across that jagged scar on his face, it was no wonder people were scared shitless of him.
Especially with his stare narrowed like that and his jaw set grimly.
What’s up, John signed as the Brother stopped in front of him.
When there was no immediate reply, John braced himself, thinking, Oh . . . fuck, now what.
What, he signed.
Zsadist exhaled a curse and started to pace around, his hands on his hips, his eyes locked on the floor. “I don’t even know where to frickin’ start.”
John frowned and eased back against the tunnel wall, ready for more bad news. Although he sure as shit couldn’t imagine what it was, life had a way of getting pretty damned creative, didn’t it.
Eventually, Z halted and when he looked over, his stare was not golden yellow, as it usually was when they were home. It was pitch-black. Vicious black. And the male’s face had gone the color of snow.
John straightened. Jesus . . . what’s wrong?
“You remember all those walks you and I used to take in the woods. Just before your transition . . . after you lost it with Lash the first time.” When John nodded, the Brother continued. “You ever ask yourself why Wrath put us together?”
John nodded slowly. Yeah . . .
“It wasn’t a mistake.” The Brother’s eyes were cold and dark as the cellar in a haunted house, shadows making up not just the color of the irises but what lay behind that stare. “You and I have something in common. Do you understand what I’m saying. You and I . . . we have something in common.”
At first John frowned again, not catching the drift—
Suddenly, he felt a cringing blast of cold shiver through his own body, one that reached his marrow. Z . . . ? Wait, had he heard it wrong? Was he taking this wrong?
Except then, clear as day, he remembered the two of them facing off at each other—right after the Brother had read what that psychologist had put in John’s medical record.
You get to pick how you deal with it, because it’s no one else’s biz , Z had said. You never want to say another fucking word on the subject, you’re getting no lip from me.
At that moment, John had been amazed by the Brother’s unexpected understanding. As well as the fact that Z didn’t seem to judge him or view him as weak.
Now he knew why.
God . . . Z?
The Brother held his palm up. “I’m not telling you this to freak you out, and fuckin’ A, I’d have preferred you never know—for reasons I’m sure you get. But I’m bringing it up because of your female’s scream this morning.”
John’s brows pulled tight as the Brother took up pacing again.
“Look, John, I don’t like people in my biz and I’m the last person who wants to talk about crap. But that scream . . .” Z faced off at John. “I’ve thrown too many of those out not to know what kind of hell you gotta be in to holler like that. Your girl . . . she’s got some dark in her on a good day, but after Lash? I don’t need no deets—but I can guess she’s rattled and then some. Hell, sometimes after you’re safe again—it’s almost worse.”
John scrubbed his face as his temples started to pound, and then he lifted his hands . . . only to find he had nothing to sign. The sadness that crushed him took his words away, leaving him with a strange, blank numbness in his head.
All he could do was nod.
Zsadist clapped him briefly on the shoulder and then resumed his back-and-forth. “Meeting and getting with Bella, that was my lifeboat. But it wasn’t the only thing I needed. See, before we were mated proper, Bella left me—she took off and just left my ass for no damn good reason. I knew I had to do something to get my head on right if I was ever going to have a shot with her. So I talked to someone about . . . everything.” Z cursed again and slashed his hand through the air. “And no, not some white coat at Havers’s. Someone I trusted. Someone who was part of the family—who I knew wouldn’t see me as dirty or weak or some shit.”
Who, John mouthed.
“Mary.” Z exhaled. “Rhage’s Mary. We had the sessions down in the boiler room under the kitchen. Two chairs. Right next to the furnace. It helped then and I still go back to her from time to time.”
John could see the logic instantly. Mary had that kind, calm thing going on—which explained how she’d been able to tame not only the wildest Brother, but the son of a bitch’s inner beast.
“That scream tonight . . . John, if you want to mate this female, you gotta help her with that. She needs to talk about her shit because if she doesn’t, sure as fuck it’s going to rot her from the inside out. And I spoke with Mary just now—without using any names. She’s gotten her counseling degree and she said she’s ready to work with someone. If you get a chance and the time is right with Xhex . . . tell her about this. Tell her to go talk to Mary.” As Z rubbed his skull trim, the nipple rings he wore stood out in sharp relief under his black muscle shirt. “And if you want a testimonial, I can tell you on the life of my daughter that your female will be in good hands.”
Thank you, John signed. Yeah, I’ll totally say something to her. Jesus . . . thank you.
“No problem.”
Abruptly, John locked eyes with Zsadist.
As the two held stares, it was hard not to feel part of a unique club that no one would ever volunteer to be associated with. Membership wasn’t sought or desirable or something to crow about . . . but it was real and it was powerful: Survivors of similar wrecks could see the horrors of those jagged shoals in the eyes of others. It was like recognizing like. It was two people with the same tattoo on their insides, the divide of a trauma that separated them from the rest of the planet unexpectedly bringing a pair of weary souls closer together.
Or three, as was the case here.
Zsadist’s voice was husky. “I killed the bitch who did it to me. Took her head with me when I left. You get that satisfaction?”
John shook his head slowly. Wish I had.
“Not going to lie. That helped me, too.”
There was a tight, awkward silence, as if neither of them knew how to hit the reset button and get back to normal. Then Z nodded once and stuck out his fist.
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John knocked those knuckles with his own, thinking, Shit, you never knew what was in someone’s closet, did you.
Z’s eyes glowed yellow once more as he turned away and walked back toward the door that would take him into the mansion and to his family, to his Brothers. In his back pocket, like he’d shoved it there and forgotten about it, was a pink baby’s bib, the kind that had Velcro patches on the straps and a little skull and crossbones in black on the front.
Life goes on, John thought. No matter what the world did to you, you could survive.
And maybe if Xhex talked to Mary she wouldn’t . . .
God, he couldn’t even finish the thought because he feared defining her exit strategy.
Hustling on down into the training center, he headed for the clinic, where he found his jacket and his weapons and what Xhex needed.
As he picked up the shit, his mind was churning over things . . . things in the past, and in the present. Churning, churning, churning . . .
When he got back to the mansion, he beelined up the grand staircase and down the hall of statues. As soon as he walked into his room, he heard the shower running in the bath and had a brief, vivid image of Xhex gloriously naked and slick from the water and the soap suds—but he didn’t go in and join her. He pulled the bed together and laid the cilices at the foot of it, then changed into his fighting gear and left.
He didn’t go to First Meal.
He went down the hall to another bedroom. As he knocked on the door, he had the sense that what he was about to do was a long time in coming.
When Tohr opened up, the Brother was half-dressed—and obviously surprised. “What’s doing?”
Can I come in? John signed.
“Yeah, sure.”
As John stepped inside, he felt an odd sense of premonition. But then when it came to Tohr, he’d always had them . . . that and a sense of deep connection.
He frowned while he looked at the male, thinking of the time they’d spent on that sofa downstairs, watching Godzilla movies while Xhex was out fighting in the daylight. It was funny; he was so comfortable around the guy that being with Tohr was like being alone without the solitude . . .
