by J. R. Ward
Love.
The difference between someone “loving” somebody versus being “in love” was a curb to the Grand Canyon. The head of a pin to the entire Midwest. An exhale to a hurricane.
Now I know why he…
As Blay sat on the floor of the exam room with Qhuinn’s loose-as-a-goose body in his lap, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what Layla had said next. Had it been “loves you”? In which case, well, yeah, he knew that the guy loved him as a friend and had for decades. And that didn’t change a thing.
Or had it been with the addition of the “in.”
In which case, he was kind of considering taking Qhuinn’s lead and having a little TO on the tile.
“How’s my other patient doing?” Doc Jane asked as Layla collapsed back on the exam table.
“Breathing,” Blay replied.
“He’ll come around.”
One would hope, Blay thought as he focused on Qhuinn’s face—like those familiar features, even though he was out of it, could somehow answer the question one way or the other.
The Chosen couldn’t possibly have said “in love.”
Couldn’t have been it. He simply refused to let two bouts of great sex rewrite someone else’s words.
“Are you sure this is okay?” he heard Layla say to Doc Jane.
“The throwing up? According to what Ehlena told me earlier, it can most certainly be part of the symptoms of a successful pregnancy. In fact, it can be a sign that things are progressing well. It’s the hormones.”
“I don’t have to return to Havers’s, do I?”
“Well, Ehlena’s coming back from visiting her father tonight. So we need to find out how much she’s comfortable treating—and then see where you’re at. I won’t lie…I think this is a miracle.”
“I agree.”
While the females spoke, Blay kept his eyes on Qhuinn’s closed lids. It was a miracle, all right. Straight up—
As if on cue, the guy came around, those thick, dark eyelashes batting as if they were trying to decide how serious he was about staying conscious.
“Layla!” he shouted as he burst upright.
Blay pushed himself backward, letting the guy go. Feeling a little stupid.
Especially as Qhuinn shot to his feet and went to the female.
Blay stayed where he was, settling back against the closed cupboards under the sink, his knees up, his hands on his thighs. Even though it tore him to pieces, he couldn’t help but watch the two of them together, Qhuinn’s dagger hand impossibly gentle as he smoothed the blond hair away from Layla’s face.
He was saying something to her, something soft and reassuring.
Before Blay knew it, he was out in the hall, walking somewhere, anywhere. As hard as it was to accept compassion from Qhuinn…it was downright impossible to witness it being imparted on someone else—even if they more than deserved it.
The idea that Layla had been given in her needing exactly what he’d had for the last two days made his chest ache—but what was worse? It appeared that with her, the pneumatics had served their biological purpose. She was pregnant—and thanks to Payne, he had a feeling she was going to stay that way.
Overall, he’d done the right thing in going to V’s sister the day before. Assuming that that had been the cause of the amazing turnaround. But still, and even though it didn’t make sense, he felt—
“Are you okay?”
He stopped immediately, Qhuinn’s voice a shock. One would figure the guy would have stayed with the Chosen.
Bracing himself, he shoved his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath before turning around.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just figured you two would want some privacy.”
“Thanks for catching me.” The male lifted his palms. “I don’t know what happened in there.”
“Relief.”
“I guess.”
There was an awkward moment. Then again, they had specialized in them, hadn’t they.
“Listen, I’m going to go back to the house.” Blay tacked on a smile and hoped the guy bought it. “It’s good to have a night off.”
“Oh, yeah. Saxton’s probably waiting for you.”
Blay opened his mouth, but then caught the “why” that was about to fly out from between his lips. “Yup, he is. Take care of your girl. I’ll see you at Last Meal, maybe.”
As he strode off and ducked into the office, he knew he was being a coward for hiding behind a nonexistent relationship. But when you had a bad cut, you needed a Band-Aid.
Christ, no wonder Saxton had broken up with him.
What a fucking romantic.
FORTY-EIGHT
As Assail drove through the grand gates of an estate in the wealthy part of Caldwell, he was annoyed. Exhausted. On edge. And not just because he’d been doing cocaine regularly and not eating.
The cottage was over to the left, and he parked the Range Rover grille-first beneath one of the cheerful little windows. He would have preferred to have dematerialized here—so much less complicated. But after he’d dropped the twins off by that Goth club, the Iron Mask, he’d had to face the reality that if he didn’t feed, he was not going to be able to go on.
He hated this. It wasn’t that he minded the money it cost. It was more that he wasn’t particularly attracted to the female—and did not appreciate her attempts to change that.
Swinging his door wide, he got out, and the cold air hitting his face slapped some awareness into him, making him cognizant of just how logy he’d been.
At that very moment, a car went by out on the street beyond, some kind of domestic sedan.
And then the quaint portal of the cottage opened.
Assail’s fangs tingled as the female in between the jambs registered to his senses. Dressed in something black and lingerie-esque, she was ready for him, the heady scent of her arousal marking the air, although that wasn’t what got his lust going. It was her vein, nothing more, nothing less…
Assail frowned and looked beyond the cottage, into the forest that rimmed the estate.
Through the skeletal trees, the rear lights of the car that had just passed by flared red. Then whoever it was turned the vehicle around, the headlights swinging in a fat circle—and then extinguishing.
Immediately, Assail went for his gun. “You go inside. We’re not alone.”
The female promptly canned the come-on and disappeared into the cottage, shutting the door with a bang.
Dematerializing into the woods would have been the best move, but of course, he was too damned starved for that—
Abruptly, the wind shifted direction and came at him, and his nostrils flared.
Assail growled softly—and not in a warning. More like a greeting, of sorts.
As if he would e’er forget that particular combination of pheromones.
His little burglar had turned the tables on him, doing to him what he had done to her the night before. How long had she been on his trail? he wondered, a shaft of respect driving through his chest at the same time he grew frustrated.
He did not like the idea that she might have seen him under the bridge. Knowing her, though, he couldn’t rule that out.
Drawing in a long, slow breath, he caught nothing else of significance. Which meant she was alone.
Information gathering? For whom?
Assail pivoted back around to the cottage and smiled darkly. No doubt once he was inside she would close in…and far be it from him not to give her a show.
He knocked once, and the female opened up again.
“Are we okay?” she asked.
His eyes went over her face, and then lingered on her hair. It was dark. Thick. Rather like his little burglar’s.
“All clear. Just a human with car trouble.”
“So there’s nothing to worry about?”
“Not a thing.”
As relief eased the tension out of her face, he shut them in together and threw the lock.
“I’m so glad you came back to
me again,” the female said, letting the lace-trimmed halves of her satin robe fall back apart.
Tonight she was wearing a black negligee that pushed her breasts high and made her waist look like he could span it with only one of his hands. She smelled overdone: too much hand cream, body lotion, shampoo, conditioner, and perfume marking her body.
He really wished she wouldn’t go to the effort.
With a quick shift of the eyes, Assail checked the position of all the windows. Naturally, none of them had changed: There were two narrow ones on either side of the stone fireplace. A stretch of three panes of glass over the sink. And then that bowed-out section over to the left that was above the built-in seat with its cushions and needlepoint pillows.
His burglar would choose the window to the right of the fireplace. It was out of the glow from the lantern over the front door, and in the lee of the chimney.
“Are you ready for me?” the female purred.
Assail ducked his hand into the inside of his jacket. The thousand dollars in cash was folded once, the ten hundred-dollar bills forming a thin folio.
Moving sinuously, he put his back to the bay window and the fireplace. For some reason, he didn’t want his burglar to see him make payment.
The rest of what was going to happen, however, he very much wanted her to witness.
“Here.”
As the female took the money, he didn’t want her to count it. And she didn’t.
“Thank you.” She stepped back and put the bills in a red pottery jar. “Shall we?”
“Yes. We shall.”
Assail closed in and assumed control, taking the female’s face between his hands, tilting her head back, and kissing her hard. In response, she moaned, as if the unexpected advance was something she not only welcomed, but hadn’t dared expect.
He was glad she enjoyed it. But her pleasure was not what this was about.
Moving her around, he took her over to the sofa that ran down the little cottage’s far wall, pushing her with his body, using his strength to lay her out with her head in the direction of the fireplace. As she reclined, she cast her arms out to the sides, rolling her breasts upward until they strained the satin cups that covered them.
Assail mounted her fully clothed and with his coat on, his knee going between hers, one of his hands reaching down and pulling up that floor-length negligee—
“No, no,” he said as she went to wind her arms around his neck. “I want to see you.”
Bullshit. He wanted her to be seen from the window.
Whilst she complied readily, he went back to kissing her and getting that long skirting out of the way—and the second it was, she split her legs wide.
“Fuck me,” the female said, arching under him.
Well, that wasn’t going to be possible. He wasn’t hard.
But not everyone needed to know that.
In order to appear impassioned, he shrugged his overcoat free of his shoulders, and then with a quick slash of his fangs, he bit through the negligee’s straps, exposing the female’s breasts to the firelight, the nipples going instantly tight atop acres of pale flesh.
Assail paused, as if taken by what he saw. And then he extended his tongue and dropped his head.
At the last moment, just before he started to lick and suckle, he lifted his eyes, focusing on the blackened window on the right, meeting the stare of the woman who he knew was there in the shadows, watching him….
A shot of pure, undiluted lust shot through his body, taking over, replacing higher reasoning as the driver of his actions. The female underneath him ceased to be one of his species that he had bought for a short time.
She became his burglar.
And it changed everything. With a sudden surge, he struck the column of the female’s throat, taking the vein, drawing what he needed…
All the while imagining that the human woman was beneath him.
* * *
Sola gasped—
And ripped herself away from the cottage’s window.
As her back hit the hard, bumpy side of the river-stone chimney, she closed her eyes, her heart pounding against her ribs, her lungs dragging in cold air.
On the backs of her lids, all she saw were the bare-naked breasts laid out before him, his dark head descending, his tongue flicking free of his mouth…and then his eyes lifting and meeting hers.
Oh, Jesus, how had he known she was there?
And shit, she was never going to forget the image of that woman splayed out beneath him, that coat of his cast aside, his body surging into the cradle of those slender hips. She could imagine the warmth of the fire beside them, and the even more powerful heat coming off of him—the feel of skin on skin, the promise of ecstasy.
Don’t look again, she told herself. He knows you’re here—
The keening cry of a woman orgasming vibrated out of the cottage, laying waste to the wholesome appearance of the place.
Sola leaned back into the window, peering through the glass again…even though she knew she shouldn’t.
He was inside the woman, his lower body pumping, his face buried in her neck, his arms bowed out to support his heavy upper torso.
He wasn’t looking up anymore. And he was going to be busy for a while longer.
Now was the time to retreat.
Besides, like she really needed to watch?
With a curse, Sola ghosted away from the site, beating feet through the scratchy underbrush, dodging the thin, leafless trees. When she got to her rental car, she jumped in, locked the doors, and started the engine.
Shutting her eyes once more, she replayed the entire scene: her closing in on the cottage, coming up to the window, staying in the shadows thrown by the chimney.
Him standing across the open room, the woman in front of him, her graceful body covered with black satin, her long, dark hair reaching down to the small of her back. He had put his hands to her face and kissed her hard, his shoulders curling as he’d bent down to make the contact with an utterly erotic expression…
And then he’d eased the woman over to the couch.
Even though it killed her to admit it, Sola had felt a stab of irrational jealousy. But that hadn’t been the worst of it: her own body had responded, her sex blooming between her legs sure as if it had been her mouth he was working, her waist his hands were on, her breasts that were up against his chest. And that reaction had only intensified as he’d positioned the woman on that couch, his face marked with dark hunger, his eyes glittering as if what was beneath him was a meal to be eaten.
Watching was wrong. Watching was bad.
But even the threat to her personal safety—and, arguably, her mental heath—hadn’t been enough to get her away from the glass. Especially as he’d reared up and dragged that heavy black overcoat off his shoulders. It had been impossible for her not to picture him naked, seeing his broad chest exposed to the firelight, imaging what his abs would look like curling up tight beneath his skin….And then it had appeared that he’d bitten—bitten, for godsakes—through the spaghetti straps of the negligee’s bodice.
Just as the woman’s goddamn frickin’ perfect breasts were exposed…he had looked at her.
With no warning whatsoever, those glittering, predatory eyes had risen and drilled right into her own, a sly smile lifting the corner of his mouth.
Like the show was just for her.
“Shit. Shit.”
One thing was clear: If he’d wanted to teach her a lesson about spying? Hard to think of a better way—short of making her eat the barrel of a forty.
Sola eased off the shoulder and got onto the road. As the Ford Taurus took ten miles to accelerate to the speed limit of forty-five, she wished she were in her Audi: With her blood still pumping through her veins, she needed some outward expression of the roar trapped in her body.
Some kind of outlet.
Like…sex, for example.
And not with herself.
FORTY-NINE
As Adirondack
Great Camps went, Rehv’s had everything: huge rustic main house sided in cedar shingles and covered with porches. A number of outer buildings, including guest cottages. Lake view. Lotta bedrooms.
After Trez and iAm took form in the side yard, they walked around through the snow to the back entrance into the kitchen. Even in winter, the place gave off a cozy vibe, with all that buttery glow coming through the diamond-paned glass. But not everything was Sugar Plum Fairy time: The wealthy Victorians who had built these compounds as a way to escape the heat and industrialization of the cities during the summers had most certainly not equipped them with laser-sighted motion detectors, state-of-the-art contacts on all windows and doors, and not one, but several, different motherboards controlling a fully integrated, multi-interface alarm system.
Boo-yah.
Trez’s thumbprint on the discreetly mounted pad to the left of the door opened the way into the house’s hub—an industrial-size kitchen that was kitted out with stainless-steel appliances on a level with Sal’s.
Something was baking in the Viking oven. Bread, it smelled like.
“I’m hungry,” Trez remarked as he shut the door. The locking mechanism bolted itself, but he checked anyway out of habit.
Off in the distance, someone was vacuuming—probably a Chosen. Ever since Phury had taken over as Primale, and essentially freed that cloistered group of females from the Far Side, Rehv had been letting them stay at the camp. Made sense. Lot of privacy, especially off-season, plus the remoteness from the city provided a soft transition from, if Trez understood things correctly, the placid sameness of the Sanctuary to the frenetic, sometimes traumatic nature of life on Earth.
It had been a long time since he’d been in the house—not since the Chosen had taken up res, as a matter of fact. Then again, when Rehv had blown up ZeroSum, and ended his role as a drug kingpin, that debt between them had lost some of its repayment traction.
Besides, now that the guy didn’t have to make deliveries of rubies and sex to the princess anymore, there hadn’t been much reason to come north.
Apparently that had changed, however.
“Yo, Rehv, where you at?” Trez hollered, his voice booming.
