by J. R. Ward
“Ah, sorry to have disturbed you,” Qhuinn muttered. “Have a good n—”
“You could have just knocked. From the hall inside.” The words were spoken with an aristocratic inflection that made Qhuinn’s skin tighten up all over. Not because he hated Saxton. It just reminded him too much of the family he’d lost.
“I didn’t want to bother you. Him. Either one of you.”
As a gust curled up against the house, Saxton’s impossibly thick and wavy blond hair didn’t even ruffle—as if every part of him, down to his follicles, was simply too composed and well-bred to be affected by . . . anything.
“Qhuinn, you wouldn’t be interrupting a thing.”
Liar, Qhuinn thought.
“You were here first, cousin,” Saxton murmured. “If you wished to see him, or be with him, I would leave you two alone.”
Qhuinn blinked. So . . . the pair of them had an open relationship? What the hell?
Or wait . . . maybe he’d just done a masterful job in convincing not only Blay, but Saxton, that he didn’t want his best friend for anything sexual.
“Cousin, may I speak candidly?”
Qhuinn cleared his throat. “Depends on what you have to say.”
“I’m his lover, cousin—”
“Whoa . . .” He put his hand up. “That’s so none of my business—”
“—not the love of his life.”
Qhuinn pulled another double blink. And then for a split second, he got sucked into someplace where his cousin bowed out gracefully and Qhuinn more than filled the SOB’s chic shoes. Except whatever . . . there was a big-ass glitch in that fantasy: Blay was through with him.
He’d engineered that result over too many years.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, cousin?” Saxton kept his voice down, even though the wind was rolling and the door was closed. “Do you hear me.”
Okay, this was not a corner Qhuinn had expected to come to tonight . . . or any other evening. Fucking hell, his body was suddenly tingling all over, and he had half a mind to tell his cousin to beat it and go wax his eyebrows or some shit—or better yet move the hell out.
Except then he thought about how old Blay looked. The guy had finally found a stride in his life, and it was criminally unfair for that to be negotiated away out here in the dark.
Qhuinn shook his head. “It’s not right.”
Not for Blay.
“You are a fool.”
“No. I used to be one.”
“I would beg to differ.” Saxton’s elegant hand pulled the lapels of his robe closer together. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d best return to the interior. It’s cold here on the outside.”
Well, wasn’t that an ass-smacker of a metaphor.
“Don’t tell him about this,” Qhuinn said roughly. “Please.”
Saxton’s eyes narrowed. “Your secret is all too well protected. Trust me.”
With that, he turned and went back into Blaylock’s room, the door shutting with a click and then the light getting cut off as those heavy drapes were tugged into place.
Qhuinn rubbed his hair again.
Part of him wanted to bust in and say, I changed my mind, cuz—now get the fuck out of here so I can . . .
Tell Blay what he’d told Layla.
But Blay might well be in love with Saxton, and God knew Qhuinn had fucked his best friend too many times.
Or not, as the case was.
When he eventually headed back to his room—only because it was just too damn pathetic to be out here staring at the ass sides of drapery—he realized his life had always been about him. What he wanted. Needed. Had to have.
The old Qhuinn would have driven a bus through that opening—
On a wince, he tried not to take that turn of phrase quiiiiiiiiite so literally.
The thing was, though, the ridiculous, pansy-ass saying was right: If you loved someone, you set them free.
In his room, he went over and sat on the bed. Looking around, he saw furniture he hadn’t bought . . . and decorations that were gorgeous, but anonymous and not to his style. The only things that were his were the clothes in the closet, the razor in the bathroom, and the running shoes he’d kicked off when he’d come back earlier.
It was just like his parents’ house.
Well, here, people actually valued him. But as lives went, he didn’t have one of his own, really. He was John’s protector. The Brotherhood’s soldier. And . . .
Shit, now that he wasn’t indulging in his sex addiction anymore, that was the end of the list.
Pushing himself back against the headboard, he crossed his feet at the ankles and arranged his robe. The night stretched out ahead of him with a horrible flatness—like he’d been driving and driving and driving through the desert . . . and he had only nights more of the same up ahead.
Months of the same.
Years.
He thought of Layla and the advice he’d given her. Man, the two of them were in the exact same place, weren’t they.
Closing his eyes, he was relieved when he started to drift. But he had a feeling any peacefulness he found wasn’t going to last long.
And he was right.
FORTY-TWO
At Tricounty Equine Hospital, Manny stood still while Glory snuffled around his scrubs, and knew he should probably leave her. But he found that he was unable to separate himself or Payne from the horse.
Time was running out for his Glory and it killed him. But he couldn’t very well leave her to waste away, growing thinner and more crippled with each passing day. She deserved so much better than that.
“You love her,” Payne said softly, her pale hand skimming across the Thoroughbred’s back and going down onto the hip.
“Yeah. I do.”
“She is very lucky.”
No, she was dying, and that was a curse.
He cleared his throat. “I guess we need to—”
“Dr. Manello?”
Manny leaned back and looked over the stall door. “Oh, hey, Doc. How’re you?”
As the head vet strode down to them, his tuxedo was as out of place as a pitchfork in an opera box. “I’m okay—and you’re clearly looking well.” The guy repositioned his bow tie. “The monkey suit is because I’m on my way home from the Met. I just had to stop and see your girl, though.”
Manny ducked out and offered his hand. “Me, too.”
As they shook, the vet glanced into the stall—and his eyes popped when he saw Payne. “Ah . . . hello.”
When Payne offered the man a small smile, the good doctor blinked like the sun had broken through a cloud bank and shone down upon him.
Okaaaaaaaaaay, Manny was so through with bastards staring at her like that.
Putting himself in the way, he said, “Is there any kind of suspension we could get her into? To relieve some pressure?”
“We’ve had her strapped for a couple of hours each day.” As the vet replied, he inched to the side until Manny had to follow with his torso to keep blocking the view. “I don’t want to run the risk of gastrointestinal or breathing problems.”
Bored with the tilting thing, and wanting to spare Payne where the conversation was heading, Manny took the guy’s arm and moved them off to the side. “What’s our next step?”
The vet rubbed his eyes as if to give his mind a second to unscramble. “To be honest, Dr. Manello, I don’t have a good feeling about where we are. That other hoof is foundering, and although I’ve been doing everything I can to treat it, it’s not responding.”
“There has to be something else.”
“I’m so damned sorry.”
“How long until we’re sure—”
“I’m sure now.” The man’s stare was positively grim. “That’s why I came in tonight—I was hoping for a miracle.”
Well, didn’t that make two of them.
“Why don’t I give you some time with her,” the vet said. “Take all you need.”
Which was doctor talk for Sa
y your good-byes.
The vet put his hand on Manny’s shoulder briefly, and then he turned and walked away. As he went, he looked in every single stall, checking his patients, patting a muzzle now and then.
Good guy. Thorough guy.
The kind who would exhaust every single avenue before laying down a stop-loss scenario.
Manny took a deep breath and tried to tell himself that Glory was not a pet. People didn’t have racehorses as pets. And she deserved better than suffering in a little stall while he worked up the courage to do right by her.
Putting his hand to his chest, he rubbed his cross through his scrubs and had a sudden urge to go to church—
At first, all he noticed was the shadows getting stronger on the wall across the way. And then he thought maybe someone had turned the overhead lights up.
Finally, he realized that the illumination was coming out of Glory’s stall.
What . . . the . . .
Skidding around, he recoiled . . . and then had to catch his balance.
Payne was on her knees in the fluffy sawdust, her hands on his horse’s forelegs, her eyes closed, her brows tight.
And her body glowing with a fierce and beautiful light.
Above her, Glory was stock-still, but her coat was twitching and her eyes were rolling back in her head. Little chuffing whinnies rolled up her long neck and came out her flaring nostrils . . . as if she were overcome by a feeling of relief, an easing of pain.
Those injured front legs of hers were softly aglow.
Manny didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. He just held his cross even harder . . . and prayed that no one would interrupt this.
He wasn’t sure how long the three of them stayed as they were, but eventually, it became obvious Payne was straining from the effort: Her body began to vibrate and she started to breathe unevenly.
Manny broke into the stall and pulled her free from Glory, holding her lax body against his, and moving her out of the way in case the horse spooked or did something unpredictable.
“Payne?” Oh, God—
Her eyes fluttered. “Did I . . . aid her?”
Manny stroked her hair back as he looked at his filly. Glory was standing in place, lifting one front hoof and then the other and then going back to the first as if she were trying to figure out what had caused the abrupt comfort. Then she shook herself . . . and went over to nip at the hay that she hadn’t touched.
As that wonderful sound of a muzzle tip working at dry grass filled the silence, he looked back down at Payne. “You did,” he said hoarsely. “I think you did.”
Her eyes seemed to struggle to focus. “I wished not for you to lose her.”
Overcome by a gratitude he didn’t have enough words for, Manny curled her up closer to his heart and held her for a moment. He wanted to stay like that for so much longer, but she wasn’t looking well, and Christ knew who else may have noticed the light show. He had to get them out of here.
“Let’s go to my place,” he said. “So you can have a lie-down.”
When she nodded, he swung her into his arms, and damn if she didn’t feel perfect. As he shut the stall behind them, he glanced over at Glory. The horse was woofing back the hay like the stuff was going out of style.
Holy shit . . . had it really worked?
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said to her, before he strode away, buoyed by an incandescent hope.
Down at the security guard’s station, he smiled as he shrugged at the guy. “Someone’s been pulling double shifts at the hospital. She’s wiped.”
The man rose from his seat as if Payne’s mere presence, even if she were out cold, was enough to get his attention. “Better get her home. You have to take care of a woman like that.”
Too right. “That’s just where I’m headed.”
Moving quickly, he went out to reception and then waited for the buzz to sound so that he could push the final doors open. With any luck, the head vet hadn’t seen a thing—
“Thank you, Jesus,” Manny muttered, as he got his cue and shoved with his hip.
He wasted no time going over to the car, although getting out his keys while keeping Payne off the ground was a scramble. So was opening her door. But then he put her in the passenger seat, all the while wondering if she was ill. Shit, he had no way of getting into contact with anyone from her world.
Going around and sitting behind the wheel, he thought, Fuck it, he was just going to drive her back to the vampires—
“May I ask something of you?” she said in a slurred way.
“Anything—what do you—”
“May I take your vein for a moment? I find myself . . . curiously depleted.”
Okay, right. Talk about your Johnny-on-the-spots: He locked them in and all but tore off his arm and threw it at her.
Her soft lips found the inside of his wrist, but her bite was not swift, as if she were having trouble summoning the energy. Still, she got the job done and he jumped, the sharp pain nailing him in the heart and making him a little light-headed. Or . . . maybe that was a function of the sudden, overwhelming arousal that shot not just through his balls and into his cock, but raced around his entire body.
On a groan, his hips rolled in the Porsche’s seat and he let his head fall back. God, this felt good . . . the sucking rhythm she fell into might as well have been on his erection—and even though it should have hurt, the pull and swallow registered only as pleasure, a stinging, sweet pleasure that he was damned certain he would die for.
He fell into a blissful state; it felt like centuries that they were linked with her fangs in his flesh. Time had no meaning, and neither did the reality that they were in a parking lot in a car with clear windows.
Fuck the world.
It was only him and her together.
And that was before her diamond eyes opened and looked up at him, locking not on his face but his neck.
Vampire . . . he thought. Beautiful vampire.
Mine.
As that thought coalesced in his mind, he acted on autopilot, shifting his head to the side, offering his jugular to her—
He didn’t have to ask twice. In a great surge, Payne sprang up, all but launching her whole body onto him, her hand shoving into his hair and tightening on his nape. As she held him in her grip, he was utterly immobilized, hers for the taking . . . prey for her predator. And now that she had him, she moved slowly, her fangs dropping to his skin and dragging up the column of his throat, making him stiffen in anticipation of the puncturing and the sucking. . . .
“Fuck!” he barked when she bit him. “Oh . . . yeah . . .”
His hands grabbed onto her shoulders, pulling her even closer. “Take it all . . . take—Oh God . . .oh, shit—”
Something stroked his cock. And given that he knew exactly where his palms were, it had to be her. Shifting around, going straight-up greedy, he gave her as much space to move as he could . . . and move she did, up and down against his straining erection, his hips helping her, countering the strokes.
His breath was loud in the inside of the car as he panted, and so were his moans: It didn’t take long at all until his balls went numb and the tip of his cock tightened up against the mounting pressure.
“I’m going to come,” he groaned. “You’d better stop if you don’t want me to—”
At that, she popped the bow on the scrubs and burrowed inside—
Manny saw motherfucking stars. The instant her skin was against his, he orgasmed like he’d never had one before, his head jacking back hard, his hands digging into her shoulders, his hips bucking like crazy. And she didn’t stop the drinking or the pumping—so just as it had been before, he kept it up with the releasing, the pleasure ramping higher with every spasm through his erection.
It ended way too soon.
Then again, they could have kept at it for a decade and he would have remained starved for more.
When Payne pulled out of him, she eased back and licked her way around the sharp
points of her fangs, her tongue pink against the white. Man . . . that gorgeous glow was back underneath her skin, making her seem like a dream.
Oh, wait, she was one, wasn’t she.
“Your blood is strong,” she said in a husky way as she bent to him again and licked her way up his throat. “So very strong.”
“Is it?” he mumbled. And then he wasn’t sure whether he’d even spoken. Maybe he’d just thought the words.
“I can feel the power coursing through me.”
Man, he’d never been into the SUVs before—the damn things were too clunky and drove like boulders falling down a mountainside—but what he wouldn’t have given for a backseat that you could fit more than a set of golf clubs in. He wanted to lay her out and—
“I want more of you,” Payne murmured as she nuzzled him.
Well, he was still hard as stone even though he’d—
“I want you in my mouth.”
Manny’s head kicked back and he groaned as his cock twitched like it was taking a jog down there. But as much as he wanted her, he wasn’t sure she knew what she was in for. Even the thought of her lips on his—
Payne’s head went down into his lap before he could find the breath to speak, and there was no preamble; she sucked him right down, pulling him in and holding him in her wet, warm mouth.
“Fuck! Payne!”
His hands went to her shoulders, ostensibly to pull her back . . . but she was having none of that. Without coaching, she knew just how to rock him, pulling up and sucking down before licking under his shaft. And then she explored him with a thoroughness that told him she was enjoying it as much as he was, and wasn’t that a turn-on.
Except then he felt her fangs teasing around his head.
He jacked her up fast on that one, capturing her mouth in a hard kiss while he held on to her face and started to lose it all over her hands. But that didn’t last. She jerked out of his palms and went back to where she’d been, catching him in midorgasm, lapping up what his body seemed to have in spades for her.
When the kicking spasms stopped, she pulled back, looked at him . . . and slowly licked her lips.
Manny had to close his lids at that, his erection pulsing to the point of pain.
