by J. R. Ward
“He’s brave, that’s true.”
Among many other things.
As Blay looked out into the hall and pictured those hooded figures clustered around his friend, all he could think of was…what the hell were they going to do to him?
SEVENTY
Qhuinn had no clue where he was.
Before they’d left his room, he’d been given a black robe and instructed to put the hood up, lock his eyes on the floor and keep his hands clasped behind his back. He was not to speak unless spoken to, and it was made clear that how he acted was part of what he’d be judged on.
No being an asshole or a pussy.
He could do that.
Next stop after getting led down the grand staircase had been V’s Escalade; he knew by the tang of Turkish tobacco and the sound of the engine. Short drive, executed slowly. And then he was told to get out, cold air seeping under the hood of his robe as well as the hem.
His bare feet traversed an icy-cold, frozen stretch of earth, and then hit smooth, hard-packed dirt that had no snow on it. Going by the acoustics, it was clear they were heading through a corridor or maybe a cave…? It wasn’t long before he was jerked to a stop, heard some kind of gate was opened, and then found himself on a decline. A little later, he was yanked to a halt a second time, and then there was another whisper, as if one more barrier of some sort was being cleared.
Smooth marble under his bare feet now. And the shit was warm. There was also a mellow light source—candlelight.
God, his heartbeat was loud in his ears.
After a number of yards, he was again pulled to a stop, and then he heard shifting fabric everywhere around him. The Brothers disrobing.
He wanted to look up, see where they were at, find out what was doing, but he did not. As instructed, he kept his head down and his eyes on the—
A heavy hand landed on the nape of his neck, and Wrath’s voice boomed in the Old Language. “You are unworthy to enter herein as you stand now. Nod your head.”
Qhuinn nodded.
“Say that you are unworthy.”
In the Old Language, he replied, “I am unworthy.”
From all around him, the Brothers let out an explosive shout in the Old Language, a disagreement that made him want to thank them for having his back.
“Though you are unworthy,” the king continued, “you desire to become as such this night. Nod your head.”
He nodded.
“Say that you wish to become worthy.”
“I wish to become worthy.”
This time the tremendous shout from the Brothers was one of approval and support.
Wrath continued. “There is only one way to become worthy, and it is the right and proper way. Flesh of our flesh. Nod your head.”
Qhuinn nodded.
“Say that you wish to become flesh of our flesh.”
“I wish to become flesh of your flesh.”
As soon as his voice faded, a chanting started up, the deep voices of the Brotherhood mingling until they formed a perfect chord and a perfect cadence. He did not join in, because he had not been told to do so—but as someone stepped in front of him, and somebody fell in line behind him, and then the whole group started weaving side by side, his body followed their lead.
Moving together, they became one unit, their powerful shoulders shifting back and forth to the rhythm of the chanting, their weight tick-tocking on their hips—the lineup of them beginning to move forward.
Qhuinn started chanting. He didn’t mean to; it just happened. His lips parted, his lungs filled, and his voice joined the others….
The instant it did, he started to cry.
Thank fuck for the hood.
All of his life he had wanted to belong. Be accepted. Be one among a many that he respected. He had wanted it with such a need that the denial of any and all unity had nearly killed him—and he had survived only by revolting against authority, customs, norms.
He hadn’t even been aware of giving up on ever finding this communion.
And yet now here he was, somewhere in the earth, surrounded by males who had…chosen him. The Brotherhood, the most respected fighters in the race, the most powerful soldiers, the elite of the elite…had chosen him.
No accident of birth, this.
To have been considered a curse, but be embraced here and now? Abruptly, he felt as if he were whole in a way that he had never been before—
All at once the acoustics changed, their collective chanting richocheting around, as if they had entered a tremendous space with a lot of loft.
A hand on his shoulder brought him to a halt.
And then the chanting and the movement stopped, the final strains of their voices drifting away.
Somebody grabbed onto his arm and drew him forward. “Stairs,” Z’s voice said.
He went up about six of them, and then there was a straightaway. When he was stopped, it was with his chest and his toes against what seemed to be a marble wall of the same sort of rock the floor was made of.
Zsadist walked off, leaving him where he was.
His heart banged against his sternum.
The king’s voice was loud as thunder. “Who proposes this male?”
“I do,” Zsadist answered.
“I do,” Tohr echoed.
“I do.”
“I do.”
“I do.”
“I do.”
Qhuinn had to blink repeatedly as, one by one, every single Brother spoke up. Every single fucking one of the Brothers proposed him.
And then came the last.
The voice of the king resonated loud and clear: “I do.”
Fuck him, he needed to blink more.
Then Wrath continued, his aristocratic inflection of the Old Language backed up by a warrior’s strength. “On the basis of the testimony of the assembled members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and upon the proposals by Zsadist and Phury, sons of the Black Dagger warrior Ahgony; Tohrment, the son of the Black Dagger warrior Hharm; Butch O’Neal, blooded relation of mine own line; Rhage, the son of the Black Dagger warrior Tohrture; Vishous, son of the Black Dagger warrior known as the Bloodletter; and mine own as Wrath, son of Wrath, we find this male before us, Qhuinn, son of no one, an appropriate nomination unto the Black Dagger Brotherhood. As it is within my power and discretion to do so, and as it is suitable for the protection of the race, and further, as the laws have been reconstructed to provide that this is right and proper, I have waived all requirements of lineage. We may now begin. Turn him. Unveil him.”
Before anyone came over to him, Qhuinn squared his shoulders, and managed a quick brush under his eyes—so he was a male once more as he was pivoted around and the robe was taken from him—
Qhuinn gasped. He was up on a dais, and the cave that was before him was lit with a hundred black candles, the flames creating a symphony of soft, golden light that flickered over the rough-hewn walls and reflected off the glossy floor.
But that was not what really got his attention: Right in front of him, between him and the tremendous, illuminated space, was an altar.
In the center of which was a large skull.
The thing was ancient, the bone not the white of the newly dead, but carrying the darkened, pitted patina of the aged, the sacred, the revered.
That was the first Brother. Had to be.
As his eyes shifted away from it, he was struck with awe: Down on the floor, looking up at him, were the living, breathing carriers of the great tradition. The Brotherhood stood shoulder-to-shoulder, the naked bodies of the fighters forming a tremendous wall of flesh and muscle, that candlelight playing across their strength and power.
Tohr took Wrath’s arm and led the king up the stairs that Qhuinn himself had just surmounted.
“Back up against the wall, and grip the pegs,” Wrath commanded in English as he was escorted to the altar.
Qhuinn obeyed without hesitation, feeling his shoulder blades and ass hit the stone as his hands brushed a pair of
stout, dowel-like protrusions.
When the king brought up his arm, Qhuinn suddenly knew exactly how each of the Brothers had gotten that star-shaped scarring on their pectoral: An aged silver glove was locked onto Wrath’s hand, barbs marking the knuckles of the thing—and within the fist, was the handle of a black dagger.
With a minimum of fuss, Tohr extended Wrath’s wrist over to the skull. “My lord.”
As the king brought up the blade, the ritualistic tattoos that delineated his lineage caught the glowing light—and then the razor-sharp edge as he scored his skin.
Red blood welled and fell into a silver cup that had been inset into the crown of the skull. “My flesh,” the king proclaimed.
After a moment, Wrath licked the wound closed. And then the huge male, with his waist-length black hair and his widow’s peak and those wraparounds, was led over to Qhuinn.
Even without the benefit of sight, Wrath somehow knew exactly how their bodies were positioned, how tall Qhuinn was, where Qhuinn’s face was….
Because the king snapped out a hold right on Qhuinn’s jaw. Then with brutal force, he shoved Qhuinn’s head back and to the side, exposing his throat.
Now he knew what the fucking pegs were for.
Wrath’s cruel smile exposed tremendous fangs, the likes of which Qhuinn had never seen before. “Your flesh.”
With a lightning-fast strike, the king latched on without mercy, piercing Qhuinn’s vein in a brutal bite and then drawing in a series of ripping pulls that were swallowed one after another. When finally he retracted those canines, he drew his tongue over his lips and smiled like a warlord.
And then it was time.
Qhuinn didn’t need to be told to brace the ever-loving shit out of himself. Bearing down on his hands, he locked his shoulders and his legs, ready to receive.
“Our flesh,” Wrath growled.
The king didn’t hold back. With the same unerring accuracy, he curled up a fist inside that ancient glove and slammed the thing into Qhuinn’s pec, the impact of those barbed knuckles so great, Qhuinn’s lips flapped in the gale that blew up and out of his lungs. Vision went bye-bye-birdie for a little bit, but when it came back, he got a crystal-clear of Wrath’s face.
The king’s expression was one of respect—and a total lack of surprise, as if Wrath had expected Qhuinn to take it like a male.
And on it went. Tohr was next in line, accepting the glove and the dagger, saying the same words, scoring his forearm, bleeding into the skull, striking at Qhuinn’s throat, then hitting as hard as a truck. And then Rhage. Vishous. Butch. Phury. Zsadist.
By the end of it, Qhuinn was bleeding from the wounds at his throat and his chest, his body was covered from sweat, and the only reason he wasn’t on the floor was the bitch grip he had on those pegs.
But he didn’t care what else they did to him; he was going to stay on his feet no matter what. He had no clue about the history of the Brotherhood, but he was willing to bet none of these guys had gone down like a bag of sand during their inductions—and he didn’t mind being the first in some senses, but not in a sacless one.
Besides, so far so good, he guessed: The other Brothers were standing around and grinning from ear to ear at him, like they totally approved of how he was handling shit—and didn’t that only make him even more determined.
With a nod, as if he’d been given an order, Tohr led the king back over to the altar and handed him the skull. Raising the collected blood high, Wrath said, “This is the first of us. Hail to him, the warrior who birthed the Brotherhood.”
A war cry burst forth from the Brothers, their combined voices thundering in the cave; and then Wrath approached Qhuinn. “Drink and join us.”
Roger. That.
With a sudden surge of strength, he grabbed that skull and looked right into the eye sockets as he brought the silver cup to his mouth. Opening the way to his gut, he poured the blood down his throat, accepting the males into him, absorbing their strength…joining them.
All around, the Brothers growled their approval.
When he was finished, he put the skull back in Wrath’s palms and wiped his mouth.
The king laughed deep in his massive chest. “You’re going to want to hang on to those pegs again, son….”
Annnnnnnnd that was the last thing he heard for a while.
Like a lightning bolt coming out of the sky and drilling him right in the head, a sudden burst of energy hit him, overtaking all of his senses. He jumped backward, finding the grips and locking on just as his body started to go into a seizure….
He had every intention of staying conscious.
But alas…sorry, Charlie. The maelstrom was too great.
As his body shook, and his heart flickered, and his mind fizzled like a firecracker, Boom! it was lights-out.
SEVENTY-ONE
“Sola, why you no tell me we have visitors?”
Sola paused as she put her backpack down on the countertop in the kitchen. Even though her grandmother was clearly waiting for an answer, she was not going to turn around until she was sure her expression showed none of the surprise she was feeling.
When she was ready, she pivoted on one boot.
Her grandmother was sitting at their little table, her pink-and-blue housecoat coordinating with the curlers in her hair and the flowered curtains behind her. At the age of eighty, she had the gracefully lined face of a woman who had lived through thirteen presidents, a World War, and innumerable personal struggles. Her eyes, however, burned with the strength of an immortal.
“Who came to the door, vovó?” she asked.
“The man with the”—her grandmother lifted her heavily knuckled hand and encircled her curlers—“dark hair.”
Crap. “When did he stop by?”
“He was very nice.”
“Did he leave his name?”
“So you did no expect him.”
Sola took a deep breath, and prayed that her neutral affect stayed in place in spite of the grilling. Hell, after having lived with her grandmother for how many years, you’d think she’d be used to the fact that the woman was a one-way street when it came to questions.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone, no.” And the idea that someone had come a-knocking made her put her hand on her bag. There was a nine in there with a laser sight and a silencer—and that was a very good thing. “What did he look like?”
“Very big. And the dark hair. Deep-set eyes.”
“What color were they?” Her grandmother didn’t see all that well, but surely she would remember that. “Was he—”
“Like us. He spoke with me in the Spanish.”
Maybe that erotic man she’d been tracking was bilingual—make that trilingual, given his strange accent.
“So did he leave his name?” Not that that would help. She didn’t know what the man she’d been tracking called himself.
“He said you knew him, and that he would be back with you.”
Sola glanced at the digital readout on the microwave. It was just before ten p.m. “When did he come by?”
“Not that long ago.” Her grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “You been seeing him, Marisol? Why you no tell me?”
At that point, everything flipped into Portuguese, their staccato speech overlapping, all kinds of I’m-not-dating-anyone interlacing with why-can’t-you-just-get-married. They’d had the argument so many times, they basically just reassumed their well-practiced parts in this overdone play.
“Well, I liked him,” her grandmother announced as she got up from the table and banged the surface with her open palms. As the napkin caddy with its payload of Vanity Fair jumped, Sola wanted to curse. “And I think you should bring him here for a proper dinner.”
I would, Grandmother, but I don’t know the guy—and would you feel this way if you knew he was a criminal? And a playboy?
“Is he Catholic?” her grandmother asked on the way out.
He’s a drug dealer—so if he is religious, he’s got incredible powers
of reconciliation.
“He looks like a good boy,” her vovó said over her shoulder. “A Catholic good boy.” And that was that—for now.
As those slippers scuffed their way across to the stairs, undoubtedly there were all kinds of making the sign of the cross going on. She could just picture it.
With a curse, Sola dropped her head and closed her eyes. On some level, she couldn’t imagine that man being all warm and fuzzy just because a little old Brazilian woman opened the damn door. Catholic, her ass.
“Damn it.”
Then again, who was she to be sanctimonious? She was a criminal, too. Had been for years—and the fact that she’d had to provide for herself and her grandmother didn’t justify all the breaking and entering.
Who did her mystery man support, she wondered as the next-door neighbor’s dog began to bark. Those twins? They’d looked really self-sufficient. Did he have kids? A wife?
For some reason, that made her shudder.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared at the you-could-eat-off-of-it floor that her grandmother cleaned every day.
He had no right to come here, she thought.
Then again, she had visited his place uninvited, hadn’t she—
Sola frowned and lifted her eyes. The window that was framed by those ruffled pink half drapes was jet-black because she hadn’t turned any exterior lights on yet. But she knew someone was there.
And she knew who it was.
Breath going short, heart starting to beat fast, she put her hand up to the front of her throat for some reason.
Turn away, she told herself. Run away.
But…she did not.
Assail had not meant to go to his burglar’s home. But the tracking device was still on her Audi, and when it had informed him that she’d returned to the address, he was incapable of not materializing there.
He did not want to be seen, however, so he chose the backyard, and how fortuitous: When his burglar walked into the kitchen, he got a full view of her—as well as her housemate.
