by J. R. Ward
“Let’s get her out of here,” the one on the left whispered.
As they picked her up, she stayed limp, but cracked one lid. Both were wearing ski masks that had eye and mouth holes.
“Sola! What are you doing?”
Come on, assholes, she thought as they struggled with her arms and her legs. Move it….
They bumped her into the wall. Nearly knocked over a lamp. Cursed loud enough to carry as they humped her deadweight through the living room.
Just as she was about to come to life and help them the hell out, they made it to the front door.
“Sola? I coming down—”
Prayers formed in her head and rolled out, the old, familiar words ones she’d known her whole life. The difference with these recitations was that in this case they weren’t rote—she desperately needed her grandmother to be slow on the dime for once. To not make it down those stairs before they were out of the house.
Please, God…
The bitterly cold air that hit her was good news. So was the sudden speed the men gained as they carried her over to a car. So was the fact that as they put her in the trunk, they failed to tie her hands or feet. They just tossed her in and took off, the tires spinning on the ice until traction was acquired and forward momentum accomplished.
She could see nothing, but she felt the turns that were made. Left. Right. As she rolled around, she used her hands to search out anything she could use as a weapon.
No luck.
And it was cold. Which would limit her physical reactions and strength if this was a long trip. Thank the good Lord she hadn’t taken her parka off yet.
Gritting her teeth, she reminded herself that she had been in worse situations.
Really.
Shit.
“I promise I’m not going to wreck it.”
As Layla stood in the mansion’s kitchen and waited for Fritz to argue, she finished pulling on the wool coat that Qhuinn had gotten her earlier in the month. “And I won’t be gone long.”
“I shall take you then, ma’am.” The old doggen perked up, his bushy white eyebrows rising in optimism. “I shall drive you wherever you wish—”
“Thank you, Fritz, but I’m just going to sightsee. I have no destination.”
In truth, she was stir-crazy from being holed up in the house, and after the further good news from Doc Jane’s most recent blood test, she’d decided she needed to get out. Dematerializing wasn’t an option, but Qhuinn had taught her to drive—and the idea of sitting in a toasty car, going nowhere in particular…being free and by herself…sounded like absolute heaven.
“Mayhap I shall just call—”
She cut him off. “The keys. Thank you.”
As she put out her hand, she leveled her eyes on the butler’s and kept her stare in place, making the demand as graciously but as firmly as she could. Funny, there was a time, before the pregnancy, when she would have caved and given in to the doggen’s discomfort. No longer. She was getting quite used to standing up for herself, her young, and her young’s sire, thank you very much.
Going through the hell of nearly losing that which she wanted so badly had redefined her in ways she was still getting in touch with.
“The keys,” she repeated.
“Yes, of course. Right away.” Fritz scurried over to the built-in desk in the rear of the kitchen. “Here they are.”
As he came back and presented them with a tense smile, she put her hand on his shoulder, even though no doubt that would fluster him more—and, in fact, did. “Worry not. I shan’t go far.”
“Have you your phone?”
“Yes, indeed.” She took it out of the central pocket of her pullover fleece. “See?”
After waving a good-bye, she went out into the dining room and nodded at the staff who were already setting up for Last Meal. Crossing through the foyer, she found herself walking faster as she approached the vestibule.
And then she was free of the house entirely.
Outside, standing on the front steps, her deep breath of frosty air was a benediction, and as she looked up at the starry night sky, she felt a burst of energy.
Much as she wanted to leap off the front steps, however, she was cautious going down them, and also careful striding across the courtyard. As she rounded the fountain, she hit the button on the key fob, and the lights of that gigantic black car winked at her.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, let her please not wreck the thing.
Getting in behind the wheel, she had to move the seat back, because clearly the butler had been the last one to drive the vehicle. And then, as she put the key fob in the cup holder and hit the start button, she had a moment’s pause.
Especially as the engine flared and settled into a purr.
Was she really doing this? What if…
Stopping that spiral, she flicked the right-hand toggle upward and looked to the screen on the dashboard, making sure there was nothing close behind her.
“This is going to be fine,” she told herself.
She eased off the brake, and the car smoothly moved back, which was good. Unfortunately, it went in the opposite direction than she wanted and she had to wrench the wheel over.
“Shoot.”
Some to’ing and fro’ing happened next, with her piloting the car into a series of stop-and-gos that eventually had the circular hood ornament pointed at the road that went down the mountain.
One last glance at the mansion and she was off at a snail’s pace, descending the hill, keeping to the right as she’d been taught. All around, the landscape was blurry, thanks to the mhis, and she was ready to get rid of that. Visibility was something she was desperate for.
When she got to the main road, she went left, coordinating the turn of the wheel and the acceleration so that she pulled out with some semblance of order. And then, surprise, surprise, it was smooth sailing: The Mercedes, she believed it was called, was so steady and sure that it was nearly like sitting in a chair, and watching a movie of the landscape going by.
Of course, she was going only five miles an hour.
The dial went up to one hundred and sixty.
Silly humans and their speed. Then again, if that was the only way one could travel, she could see the value of haste.
With every mile she went, she gathered confidence. Using the dashboard screen’s map to orient herself, she stayed very far from downtown and the highways, and even the suburban parts of the city. Farmland was good—lots of room to pull over and not a lot of people, although from time to time a car would come out of the night, its headlights flaring and passing on her left.
It was a while before she realized where she was going. And when she did, she told herself to turn around.
She did not.
In fact, she was surprised to discover that she knew where she was going at all: Her memory should have dimmed since the fall, the passage of the intervening days, but even more so, events, obscuring the location she was seeking. There was no such buffering. Even the awkwardness of being in a car and having to be restricted to roads didn’t mitigate what she saw in her mind’s eye…or where her recollections were taking her.
She found the meadow she sought many miles away from the compound.
Pulling over at the field’s base, she stared up at the gradual ascent. The great maple was precisely where it had been, its stout main trunk and smaller arterial branches bare of the leaves that had once offered a colorful canopy.
Between one blink and the next, she pictured the fallen soldier who had been stretched out on the ground at its roots, recalling everything about him, from his heavy limbs to his navy blue eyes to the way he had wanted to refuse her.
Bending forward, she put her head on the steering wheel. Banged it once. Did that a second time.
It was not simply unwise to find any gallantry in that denial, but downright dangerous.
Besides, sympathizing with a traitor was a violation of every standard she’d ever had for herself.
And
yet…alone in the car, with naught but her inner thoughts to contend with, she found her heart was still with a male who by all rights and morals, she should have hated with a passion.
It was a sad state of affairs, it truly was.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Trez won the lottery at around ten-thirty that night.
He and iAm had been given front-facing rooms on the third floor of the mansion, opposite the restricted-access suite that housed the First Family. The digs were super-sweet, with en suite baths and huge soft beds, and enough antiques and royalty-worthy accoutrements to give a museum a case of the oh-mans.
But what made the accommodations truly outstanding was the roof they were under.
And not because there was a quarry’s worth of slate keeping the elements out overhead.
Leaning into the mirror over the sink, Trez checked his black silk shirt. Smoothed his cheeks to make sure his careful shave job had been meticulous enough. Jacked up his black slacks.
Relatively satisfied, he resumed the dressing ritual. His holster was next. Black, so it wouldn’t show. And the pair of forties he wore under both arms were well hidden.
Usually he was a leather-jacket kind of guy, but for the last week he’d been breaking out the wool double-breasted overcoat iAm had given him years ago. Slipping it onto his shoulders, he tugged the sleeves sharply, and shook his shoulders back and forth so the folds of black settled correctly.
Stepping back, he regarded himself. No signs of the weapons. And in his fancy-ass dress, there were no clues that his business was booze and prostitutes, either.
Meeting his own eyes in the mirror, he wished he was in a better field. Something classier, like…political analyst or college professor or…nuclear physicist.
Of course, that was all human shit he didn’t give a crap about. But it sure beat what he actually did for a living.
Checking his Piaget watch—which was not the one he usually wore—he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He walked out into his bloodred room, with its heavy velvet drapery and its damask silk walls, his footfalls making no sound across the Bukhara that covered the floor.
Yup, given his most recent…predilection…he liked the way he felt in the decor, in these clothes, with this mind-set.
Of course, the illusion was going to be shattered as soon as he reached his club, but here was where the up-and-up mattered.
Or…might matter.
For fuck’s sake, he hoped to goddamn hell it would finally matter.
His Chosen, the one he’d met up north at Rehv’s Great Camp, and had seen that first night he’d arrived, hadn’t been around. So in a way, he thought as he walked out, all this wardrobe nonsense and appearances stuff had been for nothing much.
He was optimistic, though. Through a series of carefully orchestrated conversations with various household members, he’d learned that the Chosen Layla had been servicing the blood needs of folks who’d had them—but could no longer do so, thanks to her pregnancy.
Blessed event, indeed.
So the Chosen Selena…
Selena. What a great name that was….
Anywho, the Chosen Selena had been coming to take care of these things, and that meant, sooner or later, she had to be back. Vishous, Rhage, Blay, Qhuinn, and Saxton all had to feed regularly, and given the way those boys had been fighting for the past couple of nights, they were going to need a vein.
Which meant she had to come.
Although…damn. He couldn’t say he really appreciated the reason why. The idea of someone else at her vein kind of made him want to go Ginsu on whoever it was.
All things considered, his obsession was a little sad, particularly in its manifestations: Every night for the past week, he’d hung around after First Meal, waiting, looking casual, talking to the godforsaken Lassiter—who was actually not that bad a guy when you got to know him. Matter of fact, that angel was a font of information about the house, and so into his crap TV that he didn’t seem to notice how many questions were clustered around the subject of the females. The Primale. Whether there was any hooking up going on anywhere, with anybody outside of mated couples.
Pausing by his computer, he turned off The Howard Stern Show, cutting short another round of Baba Booey bashing; then he left his room, stalking past the vaulted wall that retracted whenever Wrath or Beth wanted to come or go from their quarters. Hitting the carpeted stairs, he emerged at the head of the hall of statues.
Or hall of buck-ass naked dudes, as he thought of it.
Rounding to the right, he went by the king’s study, which was closed, and descended the grand staircase into that incredible foyer. On the way down, he bitched about the time, wishing he didn’t have to go. Business was business, however, and—
He was halfway to the mosaic floor below when the female he had wanted to see emerged from the billiards room and headed in the direction of the library.
“Selena,” he called out, going across to the balcony and leaning on all that gold leaf.
As he looked over the drop, her head lifted, and her eyes rose to his own.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
His heart got loud as a war chant in his chest, and his hands automatically went to his coat, making sure that the front stayed closed. She was a female of worth, after all—and he didn’t want to frighten her with his weapons.
Oh, man, she was beautiful.
With her dark hair twisted high off her nape, and her diaphanous robe draping her body, she was far too precious and gentle to be around anything violent.
Or anything like him.
“Hello,” she said with a slight smile.
That voice. Sweet Jesus, that voice…
Trez went on full high-tail, doing a down-and-around at a dead run. “How are you?” he said as he all but skidded to a halt in front of her.
She bowed a little. “Very well.”
“That’s good. That’s real good. So…” Fuck. “Do you come here often?”
He wanted to smack himself in the head. What, like this was a bar? Shit—
“When I am called, yes.” Her head tilted to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You’re different, aren’t you?”
As he glanced at the dark skin of his hands, he knew she wasn’t talking about chromatics. “Not that different.”
He had fangs, for instance—that wanted to bite. And…other things. That happened to be getting aroused just being in her presence.
“What are you?” Her stare was steady and strong, as if she were assessing him on some level deeper than sight or hearing or scent. “I cannot…place it.”
That is not for you.
As his brother’s voice checked in, Trez pushed it aside. “I’m a friend of the Brotherhood’s.”
“And the king’s, or you would not be here.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you fight with them?”
“If they call on me.”
Now her eyes shone with respect. “That is right and proper.” She bowed again. “Your service is laudable.”
Silence cropped up between them, and as he racked his brain for something, anything, he was reminded of all that fucking he’d been doing. Now, that shit he was able to tee up at a moment’s notice. Polite conversation, on the other hand? Talk about your foreign languages.
God, he hated thinking of any of that around her.
“Are you all right?” the Chosen asked.
And that was when she touched him. Reaching out, she put her hand on his forearm—and even though there was no skin-to-skin contact, his body felt the connection all over, his arms and legs stilling, his mind going into a kind of blankness, as if he were in a trance.
“You are…incredibly beautiful,” he heard himself say.
The Chosen’s eyebrows shot up.
“Just being honest,” he murmured. “And I’ve got to tell you…I’ve been waiting to see you all week.”
Her hand, the one that touched him, retracted and rose to the collar of her robing, closi
ng the lapels. “I…”
That is not for you.
As her awkwardness tore through him, Trez dropped his lids, a sense of what-the-hell-was-he-thinking hitting him hard: From what he understood about the Scribe Virgin’s Chosen, they were the purest and most virtuous variety of female on the planet. The polar opposite of his “partners” of late.
What did he think was going to happen if he started laying lines on her? She was going to hop up and throw her legs around his hips?
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, listen, you don’t have to apologize.” He took a step away, because although she was tall, she was a quarter of his size, and the last thing he wanted was for her to feel crowded. “I just wanted you to know.”
“I…”
Great. Anytime a female had to search her mind for appropriate words? You knew you’d really put your foot in it.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“No, it’s okay. It’s cool.” He lifted his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s just that I—”
I’m in love with someone else. I’m taken. I’m not interested in you on any level.
“No.” He cut her off, not wanting to hear the specifics. They were just vocabulary for the inevitable. “It’s all right. I understand—”
“Selena?” came a voice from over on the left.
It was Rhage’s. Shit.
As her head turned in that direction, the light hit her cheeks and lips from a different angle, and they looked every bit as good, of course. He could so stare at her forever….
Hollywood leaned out from the arches of the library. “We’re ready for you—oh, hey, man.”
“Hey,” Trez shot back. “How you been?”
“Good. Little business to take care of.”
Fucker. Cocksucker. Bas—
Trez rubbed his face. Right. Okay. There was no room in this five-bajillion-square-foot house for that kind of aggression, particularly when it was about a female who he’d met twice. Who didn’t want to know him. While she was doing her job.
“I’m heading out,” he said to the Brother. “I’ll catch you before dawn.”
“Roger that, big guy.”
