by J. R. Ward
The interior they walked into was sparse and very clean, with a smooth stone floor and rows of seating, as if people spent much time tarrying in this front room. On the walls, pictures of horses and cattle were framed, many of the animals with ribbons of red and blue hanging from their halters. Over across the way, there was a glass panel with the word RECEPTION embossed upon it in formal gold letters, and there were doors . . . so many doors. Those with a male symbol and a female symbol . . . those with signs such as VETERINARY DIRECTOR . . . and FINANCE . . . and STAFF MANAGER.
“Whatever is this place?” she asked.
“A lifesaver. Come on—we go this way.”
He pushed their way through a pair of double doors and went over to a uniformed human male who was seated behind a desk.
“Hey, Dr. Manello.” The man put down a newspaper that had New York Post in big letters across the top. “We haven’t seen you for a little bit.”
“This is a colleague of mine, Pa—Pamela. We’re just going to see my girl.”
The human man focused on Payne’s face. And then seemed to shake himself. “Ah . . . she’s where you left her. Doc spent a lot of time with her today.”
“Yeah. He called.” Manuel knocked the desktop with his knuckles. “See you in a few.”
“Sure thing, Doc. Nice to meet you . . . Pamela.”
Payne inclined her head. “It is lovely to meet with you as well.”
There was an awkward silence as she straightened. The human man was absolutely struck by her, his mouth slightly parted, his eyes wide . . . and very appreciative.
“Easy there, big guy,” Manuel said darkly. “You can resume blinking at any time . . . like, as in, now. Really. Truly.”
Manuel put himself in between the two of them, and took her hand at the same time, both blocking the view and establishing dominion over her. And that wasn’t all: Dark spices wafted up from him, the scent a warning to the other man that the female being admired was available only over Manuel’s cold, dead body.
And didn’t that make her feel like there was a blazing sun in the center of her chest.
“Come on, Pay—Pamela.” As Manuel tugged at her and the pair of them started walking, he added in a mutter, “Before John-boy’s jaw drops off his face and lands on the sports section.”
Payne skipped once. And then did it again.
Manuel looked over. “That poor guard back there almost has a near-death experience with his badge being shoved down his throat and you’re happy?”
Payne kissed Manuel’s cheek quickly, seeing behind the faux grim on his handsome face. “You like me.”
Manuel rolled his eyes and pulled her over by the neck, returning the kiss. “Duh.”
“Duh,” she mimicked—
Someone tripped over someone’s foot, hard to say who it was, and Manuel was the one who caught them from falling.
“We’d better pay attention,” her male said. “Before we’re the ones who need resuscitating.”
She elbowed him. “A wise extrapolation.”
“Are you smacking my ass.”
Payne glanced over his shoulder. And then slapped his butt—hard. As he yelped, she winked at him. “Indeed. Verily. I am.” Dropping her lids and her voice, she hammed, “Would you like me to do it again, Manuel. Perhaps . . . on the other side?”
As she joggled her eyebrows at him, the sound of his laughter broke out and filled the empty hallway, ringing far and wide. And when they bumped into each other again, he pulled her to a stop.
“Wait, we need to do this better.” He tucked her under his arm, kissed her forehead, and lined himself up with her. “On three, lead with the right. Ready? One . . . two . . . three.”
On cue, they both stretched out their long right legs, and then it was left . . . and right . . . and left . . .
Perfectly in step.
Side by side.
They went down the corridor. Together.
It had never dawned on Manny that his sexy vampire might have a sense of humor. And didn’t that round out her package perfectly.
Ah, hell, it wasn’t just that. It was her wonder and her joy and the sense that she was up for anything. She was absolutely nothing like those fragile, brittle socialites or the pretzel-thin models he’d dated.
“Payne?”
“Yes?”
“If I told you I wanted to climb a mountain tonight—”
“Oh! I would love to! I should love to see a long view from . . .”
Bingo. Although, God, he had to wonder at the cruelty of finally finding his perfect match . . . in someone so fundamentally incompatible.
When they came up to the second set of double doors that led into the clinical part of the horse-pital, he pushed one half wide, and without missing a beat, they turned sideways and shuffled through . . . and that was when it happened.
That was when he fell completely in love with her.
It was her happy chatter, and the bounce in her step, and the icy eyes that shone like crystal. It was the backstory she’d shared and the dignity she showed and the fact that she’d been judged against a standard he’d used to date—and now wouldn’t be able to bear sitting across a dinner table from. It was the power in her body and the sharpness of her mind and—
Christ . . . he hadn’t even thought about the sex.
Ironic. She’d given him the orgasms of his life and they hadn’t even made the top of his I Love You Because list.
He guessed she was just that kind of spectacular.
“Whatever are you smiling for, Manuel,” Payne said. “Perhaps anticipating some future instance of my hand upon your derriere?”
“Yup. That’s exactly it.”
He pulled her in for another kiss—and tried to ignore the pain in his chest: No need to spoil the time they had with the good-bye that was waiting for them. That was going to come soon enough.
Besides, they’d nearly reached their destination.
“She’s over here,” he said, hanging a left and pushing into the recovery-stall area.
The instant the door opened, Payne hesitated, a frown appearing as whinnies and the occasional hoof stamping broke through the hayscented air.
“Farther down.” Manny tugged at her hand. “Her name’s Glory.”
Glory was the last one on the left, but the instant he said her name, her long, elegant neck stretched out and her perfectly proportioned head emerged from the top of her stall.
“Hey, girl,” he said. In response, she let out a proper greeting, her pointed ears pricking, her muzzle pumping the air.
“Merciful fate,” Payne breathed, dropping his hand and going forward ahead of him.
As she approached the stall, Glory tossed her head, her black mane flaring, and he had a sudden vision of Payne getting bitten. “Be careful,” he said as he broke into a jog. “She doesn’t like—”
The instant Payne put her hand on that silken muzzle, Glory went right in for more, bumping against the palm, seeking a proper cuddle.
“—new people,” Manny finished lamely.
“Hello, darling one,” Payne murmured, her eyes going over the horse as she leaned into the stall. “You are so beautiful . . . so big and strong. . . .” Pale hands found a black neck and stroked in a slow rhythm. “Why are her forelegs bandaged?”
“She broke the right one. Badly. About a week ago.”
“May I go inside?”
“Ah . . .” God, he couldn’t believe it, but Glory appeared to be in love, her eyes all but rolling back into her head as she got a good scratching behind the ears. “Yeah, I think it’ll be okay.”
He sprang the latch on the door and they both slipped in. And when Glory went to move back, she hobbled . . . on what had been her good side.
She’d lost so much weight that her ribs were showing like picketfence rails under her coat.
And he was willing to bet when the newness of her visitors dimmed, her burst of energy would fade fast.
The voice mail message from the
doctor had been all too apt: She was failing. That broken bone was healing, but not nearly fast enough, and the redistribution of mass had caused the layers of the opposite hoof to weaken and separate.
Glory extended her muzzle into his chest and gave him a quick shove. “Hey, girlie.”
“She is extraordinary.” Payne patted her way around the filly. “Just extraordinary.”
And now he had another thing on his conscience: Maybe bringing Payne here was not a gift, but a cruelty. Why introduce her to an animal who was likely going to be . . .
God, he couldn’t even think it.
“You are not the only one who is territorial,” Payne said softly.
Manny glanced around Glory’s head. “I’m sorry?”
“When you told me I was to meet a female, I . . . I had hoped she was one with a horse face.”
He laughed and smoothed Glory’s forehead. “Well, she has that, all right.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
As he tried to form the words, he gathered the mane that fell just above the filly’s nearly black eyes.
“Your lack of reply is answer enough,” Payne said sadly.
“I don’t know why I brought you here. I mean . . .” He cleared his throat. “Actually, I know why—and it’s pretty fucking pathetic. All I have is my job. . . . Glory is the only thing that is not my job. This is personal for me.”
“You must be brokenhearted.”
“I am.” Abruptly, Manny looked over the back of his failing horse to the dark-headed vampire who had laid her cheek against Glory’s flank. “I am . . . absolutely destroyed at the loss.”
FORTY
Mere moments after Butch called her, Jane became solid on the terrace of V’s penthouse. As her form took weight within its shape, the night air cold-fingered her hair and made her eyes water.
Or . . . maybe that was just her tears.
Looking in through the glass, she saw everything much too clearly: the table, the lashes, the whips, the . . . other things.
When she’d come here with Vishous before, those trappings of his hard-core predilections had seemed nothing more than a tantalizing and slightly frightening backdrop to the incredible sex they themselves had. But her version of “play” was poodle to his werewolf.
And how clearly did she know that now.
What had Butch used? What kind of shape was her mate in? Was there going to be a lot of blood—
Wait a minute. Where was V?
Passing through the sliding glass door, she . . .
No blood on the floor. Or dripping from instruments. No suspension hooks hanging from the ceiling. Everything was exactly as it had been the last time she’d been here, as if nothing had happened—
A groan came from outside the circle of candlelight, and the sound ripped her head around. Of course. The bed.
As she pierced the veil of darkness, her eyes adjusted and there he was: under a wrap of satin sheets, stretched out flat, writhing in pain . . . or was it sleep?
“Vishous?” she said softly.
With a shout, he came instantly awake, his torso shooting upright, his lids popping wide. Immediately, she noticed that his face was marked by fading scars . . . and there were others across his pecs and abdomen as well. But the expression he wore was what really got to her: He was terrified.
Abruptly, there was a furious flapping as he shoved the covers off his body. As he looked down at himself, sweat broke out across his chest and shoulders, his skin taking on a sudden gleam even in the shadows as he cupped his sex . . . like he was protecting what was left.
Hanging his head, he drew great breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale—
The pattern transformed into sobs.
Curling into himself, his hands sheltering the butcher job that had been done long, long ago, he wept in great heaves of emotion, his reserve gone, his control gone, his intelligence no longer ruler of his realm, but a subject.
He didn’t even realize she was standing next to him.
And she should leave, Jane thought. He wouldn’t want her to see him this way—not even before everything had fallen apart between them. The male she knew and loved and had mated wouldn’t want any witness to this—
It was hard to say what got his attention . . . and later she would wonder how he had picked that moment just as she was going to dematerialize to look up at her.
She was instantly incapacitated: If he had been pissed off about what had happened with Payne, he was going to hate her now—there was absolutely no going back from this invasion of privacy.
“Butch called me,” she blurted. “He thought you’d—”
“He hurt me. . . . My father hurt me.”
The words were so thin and soft that they nearly didn’t register. But when they did, her heart just stopped.
“Why,” Vishous asked. “Why did he do it to me. Why did my mother? I never asked to be born to the pair of them . . . and I wouldn’t have chosen to be if either had asked me. . . . Why?”
His cheeks were slick with tears that spilled over his diamond eyes, a ceaseless flow he neither noticed nor appeared to care about. And she had a feeling it was going to be a while before the leaking stopped—an inner artery had been nicked and this was the blood of his heart, spilling out of him, covering him.
“I’m so sorry,” she croaked. “I don’t know any of the whys . . . but I know that you didn’t deserve it. And . . . and it’s not your fault.”
His hands uncupped himself and he stared downward. It was a long while before he spoke, and when he did, his words were slow and considered . . . and as ceaseless as his quiet tears. “I wish I were whole. I wish I could have given you young if you’d wanted them and could conceive them. I wish I could have told you that it killed me when you thought I had been with anyone else. I wish I had spent the last year waking up every night and telling you I loved you. I wish I had mated you properly the evening you came back to me from the dead. I wish . . .” Now his shimmering stare flipped up to hers. “I wish I were half as strong as you are and I wish I deserved you. And . . . that’s about it.”
Right. Okay. Now they were both tearing up.
“I’m so sorry about Payne,” she said hoarsely. “I wanted to talk to you, but she’d made up her mind. I tried to work with her, I really did, but in the end, I just . . . I didn’t . . . I didn’t want you to be the one to do it. I would have rather lived with the horrible truth on my conscience for an eternity than have you kill your sister. Or have her hurt herself even more than she was.”
“I know . . . I know that now.”
“And to be honest, the fact that she is healed? It gives me the cold sweats because of the near miss we had.”
“It’s all right, though. She’s okay.”
Jane wiped her eyes. “And I think when it comes to . . .” She glanced over at the wall that was draped in a buttery yellow candlelight that did nothing at all to soften the sharp spikes and even sharper implications of what hung there. “When it comes to. . . things . . . about you and sex, I’ve always worried that I might not be quite enough for you.”
“Fuck . . . no . . . you’re everything to me.”
Jane put her hand over her mouth so she didn’t lose it completely. Because it was exactly what she needed to hear.
“I never even got your name in my back,” V said. “I thought it was stupid and a waste of time . . . but how can you feel like we’re mated without it—especially when every single male at the compound has been marked for his shellan?”
God, she hadn’t thought of that.
V shook his head. “You’ve given me space . . . to hang with Butch and fight with my brothers and do my shit on the Internet. What have I given you?”
“My clinic, for one thing. I couldn’t have built it without you.”
“Not exactly a bouquet of roses.”
“Don’t underestimate your carpentry skills.”
He smiled a little at that. And then grew serious once again. �
��Can I tell you something that I’ve thought every time I’ve woken up next to you.”
“Please.”
Vishous, the one who always had an answer for everything, seemed to get tongue-tied. But then he said, “You’re the reason I get out of bed every night. And you’re the reason I can’t wait to come home every dawn. Not the war. Not the Brothers. Not even Butch. It’s . . . you.”
Oh, such simple words . . . but the meaning. Good lord, the meaning.
“Will you let me hug you now?” she said roughly.
Her mate stretched out his massive arms. “How about I hold you instead?”
As Jane leaped forward and dived into him, she countered, “It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
Instantly, she became fully corporeal without any effort at all, that magical internal chemistry between them calling her into being and holding her there. And as Vishous buried his face in her hair and shuddered like he had run a vast distance and was finally home . . . she knew exactly how he felt.
With his shellan flush against him, V felt like he’d been blown wide-open . . . and then stitched back together.
God, what Butch had done for him. For them all.
The route the cop had gone had been the right one. Horrific and terrible . . . but the absolute right one. And as V held his female now, his eyes searched the space where it had all gone down. Everything had been cleaned up . . . except for a pair of things that were out of place on the floor: a spoon and a glass that was mostly empty of what had to be water.
It had all been an illusion: Nothing had in fact cut him open. And how’d you like to bet Butch had left those two things front and center so that when V woke up and looked over, he’d know the means that had taken him to his end.
In retrospect, it seemed so fucking dumb . . . not the session with the cop, but the fact that V never really thought about the Bloodletter and those years in the war camp. The last time that piece of the past had come up at all had been when Jane had first been with him—and then it had only been because she’d seen him naked and he’d had to explain.
My father didn’t want me to reproduce.
That was pretty much all he’d had to say. And afterward, like a dead body that had rolled over faceup in still water, that shit had sunk down again, resettling on the sandy riverbed of the very core of him.
