by J. R. Ward
Lifting her hands, she twisted her wrists so they were palm up, then palm down. The illumination in the room, such as it was, was not coming from her flesh anymore. It was the bathroom light.
Jerking herself to the side, she peered over the edge of the bed.
Payne was no longer lying in a heap. The female must have left—or been carried out?
Her first thought was to go and find Vishous’s sister, just jump up and start searching. Although she hadn’t understood exactly what had transpired between them, there was no doubt that it had cost the fighter dearly.
But Layla stopped herself, as worry for her own well-being took over: Her awareness shifted from the external to the internal, her mind burrowing into her body, searching out and expecting to find the cramping, the warm welling between her legs, the strange lagging aches that rode her bones.
Nothing.
As a room could go silent when all who were within it went quiet, so too could the corporeal form when all its component parts had no complaints.
Shifting the covers from herself, she moved her legs over so that they dangled off the edge of the high mattress. Subconsciously, she braced herself for the god-awful sensation of blood leaving her womb. When there was nothing of the sort, she wondered if the miscarriage hadn’t concluded itself. But hadn’t Havers said that it would be another week?
It took courage to stand up. Even though she supposed that was ridiculous.
Still nothing.
Layla went into the bathroom slowly, expecting at any moment for the onslaught of symptoms to return and take her down to her knees. She waited for the pain to strike, for those rhythmic cramps to come back, for that process to once again establish dominance over her body and her mind.
I don’t know whether it will work, but if you’re willing, I’d like to do what I can.
Layla all but ripped off her clothing, shedding what covered her in a mad dash. And then she was on the toilet.
No bleeding.
No cramps.
Half of her went into a sorrow so deep, she feared there was no bottom to the emotion—in a strange way, during the process of the miscarriage, she’d felt as though she’d still had some kind of connection with her young. If it was over? Then the death was complete—even though logically she knew there was naught that had lived or was capable of survival; otherwise, the pregnancy wouldn’t have terminated itself.
The other half of her was struck by a resonant hope.
What if…
She took a shower quickly, in spite of the fact that she didn’t really know why she was rushing, or where she would go.
Looking down at her stomach, she ran her soapy hands over the smooth, flat stretch of skin.
“Please…anything you want, take anything you want…give me this life inside of me, and you can take anything else….”
She was talking to the Scribe Virgin, of course—not that the race’s mother was listening anymore.
“Give me my young…let me keep it…please….”
The desperation she felt was nearly as bad as the physical stuff had been, and she stumbled out of the shower, drying herself roughly and throwing on clean something-or-others.
From what she’d watched of the television, human women had tests they could take themselves, sticks and whatnot apparently designed to inform them of their body’s procreational mysteries. Vampires had nothing of the sort—at least, not of which she was aware.
But males knew. They always knew.
Bursting out of her room, she hurried in the direction of the hall of statues, praying that she ran into someone, anyone—
Except Qhuinn.
No, she didn’t want him to be the one who figured out whether a miracle had happened…or nothing had changed. That was just too cruel.
The first door she came to was Blaylock’s and she knocked on it after a hesitation. Blay had known about the situation all along. And at his core, he was a very good male, a strong, good male.
When there was no answer, she cursed and turned away. She hadn’t checked the time, but given that the shutters were up and there was no scent of dinner being served down below, it was probably in the middle of the night. No doubt he had gone fighting—
“Layla?”
She wrenched around. Blay was leaning through the doorway of his room, his expression one of surprise.
“I’m so sorry—” As her voice cracked, she had to clear it. “I…I—”
“What’s wrong? Are you—whoa, easy, there. Here, let’s get you to sit down.”
As something came up and caught her bottom, she became aware that he’d settled her on the gold-leafed bench just outside his room.
He knelt down in front of her and took her hands. “Can I get Qhuinn for you? I think he’s—”
“Tell me if I’m still pregnant.” As his eyes peeled wide, she squeezed his palms. “I need to know. Something…” She wasn’t sure whether Payne wanted her to talk about what had gone on between them. “I just need to know whether it’s over or not. Can you…please, I need to know….”
As she started to babble, he put his hand on her upper arm and stroked it. “Calm down. Just take a deep breath—here, breathe with me. That’s it…okay…”
She did her best to comply, focusing on the steady, even tone of his deep voice.
“I want to call Doc Jane, all right?” When she started to argue, he shook his head firmly. “You stay right here. Promise me that you won’t go anywhere. I’m just going to grab my phone. You stay here.”
For some reason, her teeth started to chatter. Odd, as it wasn’t cold.
A second later, the soldier came back and knelt down again. He had his phone up to his ear, and he was talking.
“Okay, Jane’s coming right now,” he said as he put the thing away. “And I’m going to hang here with you.”
“But you can tell, can’t you? You can tell, you can scent it—”
“Shhh…”
“I’m sorry.” She turned her face away, dropping it down low. “I don’t mean to drag you into this. I just…I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. You don’t worry about that. We’re just going to wait for Doc Jane. Hey, Layla, look at me. Look at me.”
When she finally glanced into his blue eyes, she was struck by his kindness. Especially as the male smiled gently.
“I’m glad you came to me,” he said. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll take care of it.”
Staring into that strong, handsome face, feeling the reassurance he offered so generously, sensing the marrow-deep decency of the fighter, she thought of Qhuinn.
“Now I know why he’s in love with you,” she blurted.
Blay went positively white, all the color draining out of his cheeks. “What…did you say…?”
“I’m here,” Doc Jane called out from down by the head of the stairs. “I’m right here!”
As the doctor came running down to them, Layla closed her eyes.
Shit. What had just come out of her mouth.
* * *
Downtown, at the warehouse Xcor had spent the day in, the leader of the Band of Bastards finally emerged into the cold darkness of the night.
He had his weapons on his body, and his phone in his hands.
Sometime during the long daylight hours, the sense that he’d forgotten something had finally resolved itself, and he’d recalled that he’d told his soldiers to decamp from the location. Which explained why none of them came before dawn.
Their new lair was not downtown. And upon further reflection, it had been a miscalculation on his part to try to establish a headquarters in this part of town, even if things had appeared deserted: Too much risk of discovery, complication or compromising circumstances.
As they had learned the night before with that visit from the Shadow.
Closing his eyes briefly, he thought it was odd how events could cascade so far beyond one’s original intentions. If it hadn’t been for that Shadow’s intrusion, he wondered whether he wou
ld ever have been able to track his Chosen. And if he hadn’t followed her to that clinic, he wouldn’t have learned that she was with young…or made his discovery about the Brotherhood.
Casting himself into the brisk wind, he materialized on the rooftop of the highest skyscraper in the city. The gusts were vicious at the high altitude, whipping his full-length coat out around his body, his scythe’s holster all that kept it on his back. His hair, which had been getting longer and longer, tangled and obstructed his vision, obscuring the view of the city stretching out beneath his feet.
He turned in the direction of the King’s mountain, the great rise distant on the horizon.
“We thought you were dead.”
Xcor pivoted on his combat boots, the wind plastering his hair back from his face.
Throe and the others were standing in a semi-circle around him.
“Alas, as I live and breathe.” Except, in truth, he only felt dead. “How fare the new accommodations?”
“Where were you?” Throe demanded.
“Elsewhere.” As he blinked, he remembered searching that odd, foggy landscape, going around and around the base of that mountain. “The new accommodations—how are they?”
“Fine,” Throe muttered. “May I have a word with you?”
Xcor cocked a brow. “Indeed, you appear anxious to do so.”
The pair of them stepped to the side, leaving the others in the wind—and coincidentally, he happened to face the direction of the Brotherhood’s compound.
“You cannot do that,” Throe said over the loud, frosty gusts. “You cannot just disappear for the day again. Not in this political climate—we assumed you’d been killed, or worse, captured.”
There was a time when Xcor would have countered the censure with a sharp rebuff or something far more physical. But his soldier was correct. Things were different between the bunch of them—ever since he’d sent Throe into the belly of the beast, he had started to feel a reciprocal connection with these males.
“I assure you, it was not my intention.”
“So what happened? Where were you?”
In that moment, Xcor saw before himself a crossroads. One direction took him and his soldiers to the Brotherhood, into a bloody conflict that would change their lives forever for good or ill. The other?
He thought of his Chosen being held upright by those two fighters, as carefully handled as cut glass.
Which was it going to be.
“I was in the warehouse,” he heard himself say after a moment. “I spent the day in the warehouse. I returned there distracted, and it was too late to take myself anywhere else. I passed the daylight hours beneath the floor, and my phone had no reception. I came here as soon as I left the building.”
Throe frowned. “It’s well past sundown.”
“I lost track of time.”
That was the extent of information he was willing to give. No more. And his soldier must have sensed that line of demarcation, for although Throe’s brows remained tight, he followed up no more.
“I require only a short tally here and then we shall depart to find our enemies,” Xcor declared.
As he took out his phone, he could not read the screen, but he knew how to check his voice mails. There were some hang-ups—Throe and the others, in all likelihood. And then there was a message from someone he’d been expecting to hear from.
“It is I,” Elan, son of Larex, announced. There was a pause, as if in his head, he was piping in a trumpet fanfare. “The Council is meeting on the morrow at midnight. I thought you should know. The location is at an estate here in town, the owners of which having recently moved back from their safe house. Rehvenge was quite insistent with regard to the scheduling, so I can only guess that our fair leahdyre is carrying a message from the king. I shall keep you fully informed of what transpires, but I do not expect to see you. Be well, my ally.”
As he hit delete, Xcor bared his fangs, and the resurgence of his aggression felt good—a return to normal.
How dare that effete little aristocrat tell him to do anything.
“The Council is meeting tomorrow night,” he said as he put his phone away.
“Where? When?” Throe asked.
Xcor looked out over the city toward the mountain. Then he turned his back upon that compass point.
“The fine Elan has determined we shall not be there. What he fails to realize is that that will be my choice. Not his.”
As if neglecting to impart an address would keep him away if he desired otherwise?
“Enough conversation.” He strode over to the gathering of his soldiers. “Let us go down onto the streets and engage as warriors do.”
Between his shoulder blades, his scythe started talking to him once again, her voice keen and clear in his mind, her blood-thirsty words like a lover’s entreaty.
Her silence had been strangely unsettling.
It was with no small relief that he dematerialized from the lofty heights of the skyscraper, his iron will training his molecules toward the ground and into the field of engagement. In so many ways, the prior twenty-four hours had felt as though they had been lived by another.
He was back in his old skin now, however.
And ready to kill.
FORTY-SEVEN
Qhuinn was eleven miles into a twenty-mile run on the treadmill when the door to the training center’s workout room opened.
The second he saw who it was, he hopped off onto the side rails and banged on the stop button: Blay was standing in the jambs, his eyes jumping around, his face all fucked-up—and not because someone had beaten him or something.
“What happened?” Qhuinn demanded.
Blay shoved a hand into his red hair. “Ah, Layla’s down in the clinic—”
“Shit.” He jumped off and headed for the door. “What’s wrong—”
“No, no, nothing. She’s just in for a checkup. That’s all.” The guy stepped to the side, clearing the exit. “I figured you’d want to know.”
Qhuinn frowned and stopped where he was. As he scrutinized the other male’s expression, he came to a conclusion that made him anxious: Blay was fronting about something. Hard to pinpoint exactly how he knew that, but then again, after being friends with someone since childhood, you learned to read their minutiae.
“Are you okay?” he asked the guy.
Blay motioned in the direction of the clinic. “Yeah. Sure. She’s in the exam room right now.”
Right, clearly, the topic was closed. Whatever it was.
Snapping into action, Qhuinn jogged down the corridor, and nearly burst through the closed door. At the last minute, though, a sense of decorum pulled him up short. Some examinations of pregnant females involved very private places—and even though he and Layla had had sex, they certainly weren’t intimate like that.
He knocked. “Layla? You in there?”
There was a pause and then Doc Jane opened up. “Hi, come on in. I’m glad Blay found you.”
The physician’s face gave nothing away—and that made him psychotic. Generally speaking, when doctors did that professionally pleasant thing, it was not good news.
Looking beyond V’s female, he focused on Layla—but Blay was who he grabbed onto, snagging a hold on the guy’s arm.
“Stay if you can?” Qhuinn said out of the corner of his mouth.
Blay seemed surprised, but he complied with the request, letting the door shut them all in together.
“What’s going on?” Qhuinn demanded.
Checkup, his ass: Layla’s eyes were wide and a little wild, her hands jittery as they played with her loose, tangled hair.
“There’s been a change,” Doc Jane said with hesitation.
Pause.
Qhuinn nearly screamed. “Okay, listen up, people—if someone doesn’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind all over this room—”
“I’m pregnant,” Layla blurted.
And this is a change how? he wondered, his head start
ing to hum.
“As in the miscarriage appears to have stopped,” Jane said. “And she’s still pregnant.”
Qhuinn blinked. Then he shook his head—and not as in back and forth, as in how someone would masturbate a snow globe.
“I don’t get it.”
Doc Jane sat on a rolling stool, and opened a chart on her lap. “I gave her the blood test myself. There’s a sliding scale of pregnancy hormones—”
“I’m going to be sick,” Layla cut in. “Right now—”
Everybody rushed at the poor female, but Blay was the smart one. He brought a wastepaper basket with him, and that was what the Chosen used.
As she was heaving, Qhuinn held her hair back and felt a little dizzy.
“She’s not okay,” he told the doctor.
Jane met his eyes over Layla’s head. “This is a normal part of being pregnant. For female vampires, too, apparently—”
“But she’s bleeding—”
“Not anymore. And I did an ultrasound. I can see the gestational sac. She is still pregnant—”
“Oh, shit!” Blay yelled.
For a split second, Qhuinn couldn’t figure out why the guy was cursing. And then he realized…huh, the ceiling had traded places with the wall.
No, wait.
He was passing out.
His last conscious thought was that it was really cool of Blay to catch him as he went over like a tree in the forest.
* * *
In the context of the English language, there were many more important words than “in.” There were fancy words, historic words, words that meant life or death. There were multi-syllabic tongue-twisters that required a sort out before speaking, and mission-critical pivotals that started wars or ended wars…and even poetic nonsensicals that were like a symphony as they left the lips.
Generally speaking, “in” did not play with the big boys. In fact, it barely had much of a definition at all, and, in the course of its working life, was usually nothing but a bridge, a conduit for the heavy lifters in any given sentence.
There was, however, one context in which that humble little two-letter, one-syllable jobbie was a BFD.
