by J. R. Ward
So yeah, as painful as it was, it was much more efficient to let Sophy waltz through the preamble. And it made Novo think of those Tums ads where the person eats something that fights back and slaps the crap out of them? Except in this case, it was her new Samsung going straight-up ninja on the side of her head.
"--Mommy and Daddy are so excited for Oskar and me. Anyway, I want you to be my maid of honor."
Wait...say whaaaaaaaat?
A cold flush shot through Novo's body--which was what happened when your prettier-than-you-are sister called to tell you she was mating your ex--and she distracted herself by getting annoyed with Sophy's insistence on referring to their parents by those human titles. Like, really. Do you have to pretend you're human just 'cuz you think it's cool?
And maid of honor? What the fuck? Were they doing a human ceremony and not a proper vampire one?
"Novo? Hello? Did you hear me?"
She cleared her throat. "Yes, I did--"
"I know this must be a shock to you." That voice lowered from Minnie Mouse all the way down to Michelle Tanner. "Novo, I realize this must be awkward. But you're my sister. It wouldn't be my big night without you."
Translation: It wouldn't be even half as much fun if I get the trophy without you being at the award ceremony.
"Novo?"
For a moment, she closed her eyes and imagined speaking from the heart: I already know you won. You got him and you can have him. How about I just stipulate that here and now and we move along?
Oh, and this was not a shock. It wasn't even awkward. In fact, this "happy" announcement was the culmination of exactly what Sophy had set in motion two and a half years ago. The only moderate surprise was that it had taken this long for her to get to the mating.
"Please, Novo. You have to be there."
No, she really didn't. The healthy thing to do was to politely decline the kind frickin' invitation, wish the female well, and pretend that she wasn't actually going to be legally related to the male who'd left her for her sister.
Unfortunately, that felt like a cop-out. A cowardly retreat. The larger part of Novo's makeup, the part that never said die, that refused to be beat, that would take physical amputation over losing face or pride, mandated that she go.
Just to prove to herself she was strong. Unbroken. Whole.
In spite of the tragedy that had happened after Oskar had pulled out of their relationship.
"Novo?"
"Yeah. Sure. I'll do it."
Cue the happy tears. The gratitude. The Cosmo magazine, Insta-gratuitous, Fakebook emotion: all for show.
As her sister started rattling off maid-of-honor duties and bridal-shower details--again, what was with the human bullshit? She was getting mated, not married--Novo shook her head.
"I gotta go."
"Wait, what? You can't. You have a job to do and we need to discuss this. You need to organize my shower and my bachelorette party, and we need to pick out dresses--"
"Bachelorette party? Shower? Sophy, what the fuck is all that?"
There was a pause. "Please watch your language."
Like you're the fucking Queen of England, Novo thought.
"And I never imagined you as prejudicial." Sophy went on the huff. "Humans have traditions that can be adapted around our ceremonies. Why not? They'll make my night more special."
Riiight. Because it's not really about the male you're mating. It's what you can post online for people to see.
"I'll do what I can. But I'm working."
"And you have a responsibility to me as your sister."
"I'm fighting in the war, Soph. Do you even know what that is? It's the pesky thing that's been killing people like you and me for the last couple of centuries. And you want me to get all thought up about a party? Come on."
There was another pause. And the longer it continued, the more Novo wanted to kick her own ass.
If you were smart, you didn't provide a stage for theatrics. But she had rolled the red carpet out with that one.
"I have to go," Sophy said through what sounded like sniffles. "I just...this is my time for joy, Novo. I can't take your negativity. I'll try again with you when I'm ready."
As Sophy cut the connection, Novo dropped the cell phone from her ear. "Why...why couldn't I have been an only child."
Dealing with her sister was like a bad carnival ride: You knew exactly where the turns and the loop-de-loops were, the free falls and the too-tall-for-comfort heights, because you could see them up ahead. And meanwhile, your corn dog and your cherry-flavored slushy were clawing back up your throat.
If she'd only held her tongue for another minute and a half, she could have avoided what was going to roll out next. So close. She had been so close. The trouble was that her sister knew nothing of real pain, true sacrifice, actual loss. And that coupled with the narcissism and the histrionics? It was enough to make a sane person want to plate-glass-window their own face.
Looking around the neat, orderly room, Novo found that the past replaced the soaking tubs, padded benches, and shelves full of wraps, braces, and gel bottles.
Oskar had been a blond, too. Just like Peyton. Not as rich as him, however.
And when Novo had first met the male, she had had no idea how bad things were going to get. If she'd had even an inkling? She would have trampled whole neighborhoods to get away--
The door to the PT suite swung open, and Peyton appeared between the jambs with a bottle of liquor in his hand, an arousal in his pants, and the wild look in his eye of someone over the brink. In this current incarnation, the male was something right out of the Bad Idea Catalog.
And what do you know...a blond male with an able body was exactly what she wanted in her virtual shopping cart.
--
As Peyton stood in the doorway to the PT suite, he noticed nothing about the tiled clinical space...and everything about the female sitting on one of the padded tables.
Novo's powerful body was strung tight as a wire, sure as if she were about to jump off or maybe attack something, her hands gripping the edge of the cushioned work surface, her legs dangling free, the muscles of her arms carved around the bones that supported them thanks to all that pressure she was funneling down into her hands.
"Everything okay?" he asked in a guttural voice.
"Gimme."
As she extended her hand, he entertained a fantasy that she was reaching across the room for his hard cock. But no, she was after the Goose. And who was he to deny her?
Especially with that hooded look she was giving him.
"Say please," he drawled.
"No."
A bolt of lust funneled down into his sex and he smiled. "Careful, you'll make me beg."
"I'm waiting."
As he crossed the room, he did absolutely nothing to hide what was going on with his erection, and fuck yeah she noticed, her eyes dropping to his hips and staying there.
"Far be it from me to deny a female," he murmured as he held the bottle out to her.
She drank from the open neck like a boss, swallowing the vodka as if it were Sprite. And when she lowered the bottle, she nodded down at his hard-on.
"Who's that for?"
"You. If you want it."
She took another draw, and he waited for her to tell him, with no small amount of superiority, that she didn't. When all he got was silence, his blood rushed even faster.
"Is that a 'yes'?" he said as he focused on her lips.
"It's not a 'no.' "
"I'll take what I can get."
"Oh, that's right." Novo smiled with her fangs. "You can't have the one you really want and you're stuck here overday with me."
"Fishing for compliments? That's not like you."
"Just stating reality." She took another haul of the vodka. "You're my only option, too. So we're in this together."
"You make me blush with the compliments," he muttered. "No, stop. Really."
"You don't like being used? Hmm, maybe this is a life les
son for all those women and females you fuck at the clubs."
"It's not using someone if there's pleasure involved. Mutual, that is."
Novo laughed in a hard burst. "Is this the part where you tell me you've never had any complaints about your performance? Because that statistic would be a little more impressive if they had any way of reaching you afterward."
"Now, Novo, if you don't play nice, I'm going to take my vodka and my dick elsewhere."
"You're right. If we keep talking, this is not going to happen."
With that, she reached out with her free hand, grabbed the front of his shirt, and yanked him to her mouth, holding him in place as their lips met.
Crashed, was more like it.
There was nothing romantic or tentative or get-to-know-you about the contact. Potent sexual power burst between them, their tongues dueling, sensation overwhelming, instinct shutting down thought. Her taste was wildness and Grey Goose, her scent was heady as weed, and shit, he got to touch her--something he had wanted to do for so long. Bringing his hands to her smoothed-back hair, her neck, her shoulders, his heart pounded and he was ready to get inside of her right then and there--
Had he shut the door tightly?
Breaking the contact, he panted as he looked over his shoulder and willed the panel shut tight and locked--and when he turned back around, she'd put the Goose on the floor and was pulling down her loose nylon workout shorts--
No panties.
Fuuuuuuuck, this was moving fast.
On that note, her hands went to the fly of his slacks, and in the work of a moment, his fine, loose pants fell to his ankles. He was also commando. 'Cuz this was exactly the situation he had hoped to be in. And what do you know, it was cup-runneth-over time: The next thing he knew, her thighs were wide, and she gripped his hips, her nails digging in. With a jerk, she pulled him forward, and he masterminded himself between them, taking his cock and angling--
"Oh...fuck," he groaned as they were joined.
She was so tight and hot, and he felt the sensation all over his body, arching above her as she lay back on the massage table. With his feet on the ground, he couldn't kiss her, but he could start pumping, that was for damn sure. Putting his hands on her hips, he rolled into her again and again, the momentum doubling and redoubling with ever-greater force--
It was hard to say when he first noticed she was just lying there.
For one, his body was all in for the sex, his blood thundering, the sight of his slick shaft penetrating her again and again scrambling what little was left of his blown mind. And as a corollary to all that, he was also having to concentrate on not coming--which was like trying to extinguish a house fire with nothing but your own thoughts. Yet, even in his frenzy, and in spite of the alcohol in his system, he noticed that her lids were closed in the frozen mask of her face, and her breathing was nothing-special as her head moved up and down while he fucked her.
Peyton slowed. Then stopped.
When he just stood there, his lungs screaming for air, the sweat dampening his silk shirt, she opened her eyes. "What's wrong?" When he didn't say anything, her brows lifted. "You finished already?"
Peyton blinked.
And withdrew.
With a curse, he bent down and pulled his slacks back up. "Yeah," he muttered as he redid the fly. "I'm done."
"I didn't think you were a quitter."
He looked away. Looked back at her. "Do you even care who you're with?"
Novo sat up quick. "Are you trying to slut-shame me? For real? 'Cuz if that is not a double standard, I don't know what is."
He picked up the bottle from the floor and managed to take a swig as he straightened. "Nah, I just want the female I'm fucking to do more than lie back and make a grocery list in her head."
"Ohhhh, riiiiight, I didn't perform enough for you." She put a hand over her heart and feigned like she was dying of regret. "I wasn't enough for Peyton, son of Peythone." Abruptly, she dropped the act and focused on him hard. "I thought you were going to take what you could get."
"Guess I don't want it anymore."
"Liar." Novo hopped off the table and he turned away as she pulled her shorts up. "You're such a fucking liar."
"Nope. Not on this one."
"You're not going to cry on me, are you?" she taunted. "Look at you, all lowered head over there."
"I was trying to give you privacy."
"After you were inside of me?"
Peyton headed for the door, taking his Grey Goose with him.
"Coward," Novo muttered.
He didn't reply as he came up to the exit. And as he stepped out, he hated to admit the truth about how he felt.
Weak. So fucking weak.
But for some reason, his feelings were hurt. Which was insane. The plan had been for the two of them to use each other. Fair trade. No emotions, just fucking.
It was his standard currency. So what the hell was his problem?
--
Left to her own devices in the PT suite, Novo felt like picking up the padded massage tables and workbenches and throwing them around the room until there wasn't one piece of equipment or medical supply that hadn't been destroyed at the molecular level. There were problems with that strategy, however. For one, anything with four legs was bolted to the floor. For another, as fucked in the head as she was, she didn't want to deliberately destroy someone else's property.
"Shit," she said as she stared across at the closed door.
Between her legs, a warm hum persisted, and goddamn it, her body still wanted to be where it had been--under Peyton, his sex buried in her own, that powerful penetration of his eclipsing the screaming in her skull. Except he'd been a revelation. In a bad way.
The purpose had been to wipe Oskar out of her head. Replace him with a different model. Make a male who didn't want her--and wouldn't even know the sex was happening--jealous because she was with someone else.
God, that sounded insane. And in any event, it hadn't worked, because she had found herself wanting what she was getting too much: Underneath that composure she'd locked herself down with, she'd been on the verge of an orgasm.
Their bodies had been made to fit together like that.
"Whatever."
Prowling around, she gave herself time to lose the scent of her arousal, and then finally reemerged into the gym proper with what she hoped was a suitable amount of nothing-special-going-on-here. Turned out, she didn't need to worry about a peanut gallery. The place was empty.
As she surveyed the vacant bleachers, the still nets, the empty court, her cell phone started to vibrate in her ass pocket--and when she took the thing out, she already knew who it was. Yup. Her mother. Ready to complain that she had been mean to Sophy, ruining what was supposed to be a joyous time for everyone.
Off in the distance, an eerie scream vibrated through the silence like a premonition of death.
It was that patient, Assail. The one who was locked in that room. She didn't know the details, but could guess by the sound he always made that he had gone insane.
Maybe she was next on that list.
Left to contrast that very real possibility with everything her sister was looking forward to, she considered going to the weight room for a second workout--when the calendar date popped into her mind for no good reason.
Closing her eyes, she felt herself sag.
She had gotten pregnant three years ago on this very night.
When Oskar, the male her sister was going to mate, had serviced her in her needing.
After which, he had promptly left her for different shores, as it were. Naturally, she had never told him that she was with young, and so he had no idea what had happened eleven months later.
As her stomach clenched and she considered throwing up, she thought, God, all of those events, from the pregnancy to the...nightmare...that became of it seemed to have happened to someone else--and a stranger, at that. She was different now than she had been. Stronger. Tougher. More resilient. Getting in
to the Brotherhood's training program had been proof of how far she had come, and fighting on the streets of Caldwell was a nightly reminder that she wasn't backsliding.
She was going to go to that mating ceremony. And she was going to be the maid of whatever the hell.
This was her final test. If she could manage to survive the ritual that united the pair of them for the rest of their lives? Then the fool she had once been was truly well and buried--and the loss that had nearly killed her was finally and forever locked away.
No weakness. No quarter given or taken. Nothing left of what she was...and no more fear that she could be hurt like that again.
Novo looked at the scoreboard that still had the last game's results on it. Home and Away. Home team had won by ten.
She was going to be fine, she resolved as she headed for the exit.
Oh, and she was absolutely going to forget she knew what Peyton felt like. Abso-fucking-lutely.
The following evening, Saxton materialized over to the Audience House early, taking his form in the back by the Federal mansion's detached two-story garage. Doggen had come during the afternoon and plowed the blizzard's snowfall away, but he was careful as he walked over to the kitchen's entrance. Hot Gucci loafer soles were slicker than greased lightning on anything smooth and icy--and given how perfectly Fritz insisted things had to be done? The driveway and the parking area were like a sheet cake iced by Ina Garten.
As he entered a code and opened the door, he knew he was the first to come into work, but that didn't mean there hadn't been plenty of people in and out during daylight hours. Indeed, as he shut himself in, there were fresh pastries on silver trays, all carefully plastic-wrapped for freshness, a restaurant-sized coffeepot ready to be plugged in for brewing, and baskets of apples and bananas set to be arranged in the waiting room.
The first audiences wouldn't convene until eight p.m., but Saxton liked to make sure all the paperwork for each private meeting with the King was in order and that everything would run seamlessly, both for Wrath's sake and for the subjects'. With as many as twenty different issues a night, there was a lot to keep track of. Certain audiences, like those seeking a blessing for a mating or the birth of a young, were straightforward and went relatively fast. Others, like those concerning the disposition of assets following a death, bloodline disputes, or incidences involving bodily harm, could be quite involved and require much follow-up and monitoring.
