by J. R. Ward
“He is back home now.” The Omega came forward like a draft, with no evidence that any kind of legs were moving him. “And I am very pleased.”
Conners told his feet to stay put. There was nowhere to run to, nothing to escape—he just had to get through what was going to happen next.
At least he had prepared for this.
“I got some new recruits for you.”
The Omega stopped. “Indeed?”
“A tribute, as it were.” Or more like a defined endpoint to this shit: He had to head out soon, and he’d carefully planned these two events close together. The Omega, after all, was into his playthings, but liked his Society and its purpose of eliminating vampires even more.
“You please me to no end,” the Omega whispered as he closed in. “I do believe we are going to get along just fine…Mr. C.”
FOUR
The Chosen Layla had existed in her own body without any physical compromise for the entirety of her existence. Born in the Scribe Virgin’s Sanctuary, and trained in the rarefied, preternatural peacefulness there, she had never known hunger, or fever, or pain of any note. Not heat nor cold, nor contusion, concussion, or contraction. Her body had been, as with all things in the mother of the race’s most sacred space, always the placid same, a perfect specimen functioning at the highest level—
“Oh, God,” she gulped as she shot out of bed and lurched into the bathroom.
Her bare feet skidded on the marble as she threw herself to her knees, popped the toilet seat, and leaned over to go face-to-face with the bowl’s epiglottal hole.
“Just…do it….” she gasped as the rolling nausea polluted her body until even her toes curled under and grabbed at the floor. “Please…for the Scribe Virgin’s sake…”
If she could just empty the contents of her stomach, surely the torture would relent—
Taking her fore- and middle fingers into her throat, she shoved them in so hard she choked. But that was the extent of it. There was no coordination of her diaphragm, no release of the greasy spoiled meat in her stomach…not that she’d actually eaten that—or anything else—for…how long had it been? Days.
Mayhap that was the problem.
Snaking her arm around her hips, she put her sweaty forehead on the hard, cool lip of the toilet and tried to breathe shallowly—because the sensation of air moving up and down the back of her throat made the impotent urge to throw up worse.
Mere days ago, when she had been in her needing, her body had taken control, the urge to mate strong enough to wipe out all thought and emotion. That supremacy had quickly passed, however, and likewise had the aches and pains from the relentless mating, her skin and bones once again resuming their backseat to her brain.
The balance was tipping back once more.
Giving up, she carefully repositioned herself, placing her shoulders against the blessedly chilly marble wall.
Considering how sickly she felt, her only extrapolation was that she was losing the pregnancy. She’d never seen anyone in the Sanctuary go through this—was this illness what was normal here on earth?
Closing her eyes, she wished she could talk to someone about it all. But very few knew her condition—and for the time being, she needed to keep things that way: Most were completely unaware that she had gone through her needing or been serviced. Autumn’s fertile period had hit first, and in response, the Brotherhood had scattered far and wide as there was no taking chances with exposure to those hormones—for good reason, as she had learned firsthand. By the time people had returned to their normal rooms in the mansion? Her own had passed, and any residual hormonal fluxes in the air had been chalked up by all and sundry to Autumn’s fading time.
The privacy in these two rooms of hers was not going to last if the pregnancy continued, however. For one, her status would be sensed by the others, especially males, who were particularly attuned to that sort of thing.
And two, after a while, she would begin to show.
Except if she felt this bad, how ever could the young survive?
As a vague sensation of tightness settled into her lower belly, like her pelvis was being compressed by an invisible vise, she tried to train her mind on something, anything other than her physical sensations.
Eyes the color of the night sky came to her.
Penetrating eyes, eyes that stared up from a face that was bloodied and distorted…and beautiful even in its ugliness.
Okay. This was not an improvement.
Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards. A traitor against the king, a hunted male who was enemy to the Brotherhood and lawful vampires everywhere. The fierce warrior who had been born of a noble mother who did not want him because of his visage, and an unknown father who had never claimed parentage. An unwanted burden shuffled from home to orphanage until he’d entered the Bloodletter’s training camp back in the Old Country. A remorseless fighter trained therein to great effect; then, in his maturity, a master of death who toured the land with a band of elite fighters first aligned to the Bloodletter himself, and thereafter, to Xcor—and no one else.
The information trail at the Sanctuary’s library ended there because none of the Chosen were updating anything anymore. The rest, however, she could fill in herself: The Brotherhood believed the attempt on Wrath’s life back in the fall had been made by Xcor, and she had further heard there were insurrectionists within the glymera working with the fighter.
Xcor. A traitorous, brutal male with no conscience, no loyalty, no principle save to serve himself.
Yet when she had looked into his eyes, when she had been in his presence, when she had unknowingly fed this new enemy…she had felt like a full female for the first time in her life.
Because he had looked upon her not with aggression, but with—
“Arrest that,” she said aloud. “Stop that right now.”
As if she were a young getting into a cupboard or some such thing.
Forcing herself to her feet, she drew her robe around her and resolved to leave her room and make her way down to the kitchen. A change of scenery was needed, and so was food—if only to give her churning stomach something to expel.
On her way out, she did not check her hair or her face in the mirror. Did not fuss over the way her robe fell. Didn’t waste even a moment worrying which of her identical sandals to wear.
So much time she had wasted in the past over the minute details of her appearance.
She would have been much better served studying or training herself for a vocation. But that had not been permitted within the allowed prescription of activity for a Chosen.
As she stepped into the corridor, she took a deep breath, steadied herself, and started to walk in the direction of the king’s study—
Up ahead, Blaylock, son of Rocke, burst out into the hall of statues, his brows down tight, his body clad in leather from the tops of his shoulders to the soles of his tremendous boots. As he strode forward, he was checking his weapons one by one, taking them out of holsters, replacing them, buckling them in.
Layla stopped dead.
And when the male finally looked upon her, he did the same, his eyes growing remote.
Deep red of hair, and lovely sapphire blue of eye, the fully blooded aristocrat was a fighter for the Brotherhood, but he was not a brute. No matter how he spent his nights out in the field, he remained at the compound a mannered, intelligent gentlemale of fine comportment and schooling.
So it was not a surprise that even in his rush, he bent slightly at the waist in formal greeting before resuming his hurry to the grand staircase.
In his descent down to the foyer, Qhuinn’s voice came to her.
I’m in love with someone….
Layla exercised her new habit of cursing under her breath. Such a sad state of affairs between those two fighters, and this pregnancy was not of aid.
But the die had been cast.
And they were all going to live with the consequences.
* * *
As Blay
hit the staircase, he felt like he was being chased, and that was nuts. Nobody who was any threat was behind him. There was no masher in a Jason mask, or sick bastard in a bad Christmas sweater with knives for fingers, or killer clown…
Just a probably-pregnant Chosen who happened to have spent a good twelve hours fucking his former best friend.
No prob.
At least, there shouldn’t have been any problem. The trouble was, every time he saw that female, he felt like he got punched in the gut. Which was another case of crazy. She had done nothing wrong. Neither had Qhuinn.
Although, God, if she was pregnant…
Blay booted all those happy thoughts to the background as he crossed through the foyer at a jog. No time to psycho-babble, even if it was just to himself: When Vishous called you on your night off and told you to be out front in your gear in five minutes, it was not because things were going well.
No details had been given during the phone call; none had been asked for. Blay had taken only a moment to text Saxton, and then he’d thrown on the leather and the steel, ready for anything.
In a way, this was good. Spending the night reading in his room had turned out to be torturous, and though he didn’t want anyone in trouble, at least this pulled him into some activity. Bursting out through the vestibule, he—
Came face-to-face with the Brotherhood’s flatbed truck.
The thing was kitted out to look authentically human, deliberately painted with red AAA logos and the made-up name of Murphy’s Towing. Fake telephone number. Fake tagline of: “We’re Always There for You.”
Bullshit. Unless, of course, the “you” was one of the Brotherhood.
Blay hopped up into the passenger seat and found Tohr, not V, behind the wheel. “Is Vishous coming?”
“It’s you and me, kid—he’s still working on the ballistics testing of that bullet.”
The Brother hit the gas, the diesel engine roaring like a beast, the headlights swinging in a fat circle around the courtyard’s fountain and across the lineup of cars parked wheelbase-to-wheelbase.
Just as Blay checked out the vehicles and did the math about the one that was missing, Tohr said, “It’s Qhuinn and John.”
Blay’s lids dropped shut for a split second. “What happened.”
“I don’t know much. John called V for an emergency assist.” The Brother looked over. “And you and I are the only ones free.”
Blay reached for the door handle, ready to pop the thing and dematerialize the fuck out of there. “Where are they—”
“Calm down, son. You know the rules. None of us can be out alone, so I need your ass in that seat or I’m violating my own goddamn protocol.”
Blay slammed his fist into the door, punching hard enough that the sting in his hand cleared his head a little. Fucking Band of Bastards, cramping them all—and the fact that the rule made sense just pissed him off even more. Xcor and his boys had proven to be cagey, aggressive, and completely without morals—not exactly the kind of enemy you wanted to meet up with all by your little lonesome.
But come on.
Blay grabbed his phone, intending to text John—but he stopped because he didn’t want the guys distracted by his trying to get details. “Is there anyone who can get to them quick?”
“V called the others. Fighting’s heavy downtown and nobody can break out of it.”
“Goddamn it.”
“I’ll drive as fast as I can, son.”
Blay nodded, just so he didn’t come across as rude. “Where are they and how far?”
“Fifteen to twenty minutes. And out past the ’burbs.”
Shit.
Staring out the window and watching the snow streak by, he told himself that if John was texting, they were alive, and for godsakes, the guy had asked for a tow truck, not an ambulance. For all he knew, they had a flat tire or a broken windshield, and getting hysterical was not going to shorten the distance, decrease the drama, if there was any, or change the outcome.
“Sorry if I’m being an ass,” Blay muttered, as the Brother shot onto the highway.
“You do not need to apologize for being worried about your boys.”
Man, Tohr was cool like that.
As it was late, late at night, the Northway didn’t have any cars, just a semi or two, the wired drivers of which were going like bats out of hell. The tow truck didn’t stay on the four-laner for long. About eight miles later, they got off at an exit well north of downtown Caldwell, in a suburban area that was known for mansions, not ranches, Mercedes, not Mazdas.
“What the hell are they doing out here?” Blay asked.
“Researching those reports.”
“About lessers?”
“Yeah.”
Blay shook his head as they went by stone walls as tall and thick as linebackers, and gates of fine, wrought-iron filigree which were closed to outsiders.
Abruptly, he took a deep breath and relaxed. The aristocrats who were moving back into town were spooked and seeing evidence of lesser activity in everything around them—which did not mean that slayers were in fact jumping out from behind garden statuary or hiding in their basements.
This was not a mortal event. It was a mechanical one.
Blay rubbed his face and slapped the shit out of his inner panic button.
At least until they came out on the other side of the zip code and found the accident.
As they rounded a bend in the road, there were a pair of taillights glowing red at the side—far off the shoulder, and upside down.
The fuck this was just a mechanical problem.
Blay jumped out before Tohr even started to pull over, dematerializing directly to the Hummer.
“Oh, Christ, no,” he moaned as he saw two sunburst patterns in the front windshield—the kind of thing that could only be made by a pair of heads slamming into the glass.
Tripping through the snow, he went for the driver’s-side door, the sweet sting of gas knifing into his nose, the smoke from the engine making him blink—
A high-pitched whistle cut through the night from over on the left. Whipping around, Blay searched the snow-covered landscape…and found two hulking shapes about twenty feet away, clustered at the base of a tree nearly the size of the one the Hummer had gotten hung up on.
Scrambling through the drifts, Blay rushed over and landed on his knees. Qhuinn was sprawled on the ground, his long, heavy legs stretched out, his upper body in John’s lap.
The male just stared at him with those mismatched eyes, unmoving, unspeaking.
“Is he paralyzed?” Blay demanded, looking over at John.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Qhuinn replied dryly.
I think he’s got a concussion, John signed.
“I do not—”
He went flying off the hood of his car and hit this tree—
“I mostly missed the tree—”
And I’ve had to hold him down ever since.
“Which is pissing me off—”
“How we doing, boys?” Tohr said as he crunched over to them, his boots crushing the ice pack. “Anyone injured?”
Qhuinn shoved himself free of John and leaped up to the vertical. “No—we’re all just—”
At that point, the guy’s balance went wonky, his body listing so hard that Tohr had to catch him.
“You go wait in the truck,” the Brother said grimly.
“Fuck that—”
Tohr jerked the guy forward so they were face-to-face. “Excuse me, son. What did you say? ’Cuz I know you didn’t just f-bomb me, did you.”
Okay. Right. Blay knew firsthand that there were few things in life Qhuinn backed down from; that being said, a Brother the guy respected, who was more than ready to finish the job that a pine tree had started, was definitely one of them.
Qhuinn looked over to his ruined SUV. “Sorry. Bad night. And I just got light-headed for a split second. I’m fine.”
In typical Qhuinn fashion, the bastard broke free and walked off, heading to
ward the steaming pile of previously drivable metal like he’d thrown off his injuries by force of will.
Leaving everyone else in his dust.
Blay got to his feet and forced himself to focus on John. “What happened?”
Thank God for sign language; it gave him something to look at, and fortunately, John took his time filling in the details. When the narration was over, Blay could only stare at his friend. But come on, it wasn’t as if anybody would make that shit up.
Not about someone they liked, at any rate.
Tohrment started to laugh. “He pulled a hyslop, is what you’re saying.”
“Not sure I know what that is?” Blay cut in.
Tohr shrugged and followed Qhuinn’s trail through the snow, motioning with his arm toward the wreck. “Right here. This is the definition of a hyslop—precipitated by your boy leaving his keys in the ignition.”
He’s not my boy, Blay said to himself. Never has been. Never will be.
And the fact that that hurt worse than any kind of concussion was something, like so much, he kept quiet about.
Off to the side and out of the glow of the headlights, Blay hung back and watched as Qhuinn crouched down by the driver’s door and cursed softly. “Messy. Very messy.”
Tohr did the duty on the passenger seat. “Oh, look, a matched set.”
“I think they’re dead.”
“Really. What gave that away. The fact they aren’t moving or that this guy over here has no facial features left?”
Qhuinn straightened up and looked across the undercarriage. “We need to roll it and tow it.”
“And here I thought we were going to toast marshmallows,” Tohr said. “John? Blay? Get over here.”
The four of them lined up shoulder-to-shoulder between the sets of tires and dug in with their boots, locking their positions in the snow. Four sets of hands palmed the panels; four bodies leaned into the ready; four pairs of shoulders tightened up.
A single voice, Tohr’s, counted it out. “On three. One. Two. Three—”
The Hummer had already had a bad night, and this right-the-wrong thing made it groan so loudly that an owl was flushed across the road and a pair of deer took flight on bounding hooves through the trees.
