by J. R. Ward
"So what are you going to do? I mean, are you going to come back at all? And I'm not just asking because you're my T.A. Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe I can talk to him--"
"No, no. Honestly, that would be..." If her father knew she was actively associating with a human? Maybe thinking of dating him? Chains in the basement. "I don't know. Right now, it's not looking good for me."
--
The problem with figuratively dying in the middle of a training exercise? At the end of the session, you got to experience literal death.
Or as close to it as you could come while still having a damn heartbeat.
Axe let out a groan as he lay flat with his legs raised and held off the floor of an abandoned rooming house. Next to him, Novo was in the same pose, back against the cold concrete, legs extended out with heels six inches off the floor, palms down and by the hips. Every muscle, in both of them, was shaking, to the point where Axe's teeth were knocking together and sweat was pouring off his face.
At least they weren't the only ones getting schooled.
Everyone had gotten "killed," even Craeg.
The Brother Rhage swung his flashlight away from Axe and Novo, the beam falling over to where Paradise and Peyton were doing push-ups, Marine-style...before moving farther on to Boone and Craeg, who were rocking sit-ups.
When it came to stuff like this, the rule was, you went to exhaustion, and no one wanted to no mas first. Even as Axe's body was in a full-on fist of pain, he set his brain free, taking himself back to The Keys, to the scaffolding, to that human female and the audience. He embedded his memory in the particulars, the feel of her under his hands, the taste of her mouth, the driving thrusts of the sex. There was nothing emotional in it; if his last experience before coming to class had been rotating tires on a car, he would have been thinking about wrenches, radials, and hubcaps.
He remembered everything he could and--
The blinding light of Rhage's torch splashed into Axe's face like acid. "Bkdw nbh, koy dwn skfg."
Axe tried to squeeze out a What? but it was like forcing a city bus through a keyhole.
Rhage bent down and spoke slowly. "You can stop, son. You're finished. Everyone else has quit."
It was like releasing a rubber band after you pulled the thing tight. His body let go with a corporeal snap!, all parts of him hitting the floor, the back of his skull included. As pain red-lit his brain, he didn't have the strength to tell his lungs to get pumping. They were either going to or not, and he didn't particularly care one way or another what the result was.
In his mind, he had a passing thought that that was not normal. Not healthy. Not right.
But it was not the first time he'd had such a blase attitude to his own life and death.
Conversation happened above him, Vishous and Rhage talking at the rest of the class, but Axe was too busy with the re-oxygenation process to follow any of it.
When he finally sat up, he found that it was only trainees in the tenement. The Brothers had left.
A lighter flared, and Peyton's face got washed with orange illumination as he lit up a cigarette. "It's one a.m. We need food and a drink. This was a cluster-fuck tonight."
Muttering. Cursing. And then Craeg stuck out a hand to Axe to help him to his feet.
"You coming with us?" the guy said.
"Yeah," Axe heard himself reply. "What the hell."
He was tired, he was hungry, and he was poor--and whenever they went out, Peyton insisted on putting the bill on his AmEx. Good enough equation for Axe, especially as this way, he didn't have to admit to anyone that he survived on ramen noodles when he wasn't eating in the training center's break room.
"Come on," Craeg said at his elbow. "There's always tomorrow night."
"I want to fight now," Axe muttered.
"Hell, yeah. This sucked."
Click, you're dead.
At this rate, the Brotherhood wasn't going to let them engage the enemy for months. Maybe years.
Back out in the alley, nobody was talking much, that refrain clearly playing in other people's heads. At least the cold air felt good, and shit, the snow was really coming down now, the fall so thick the stuff was making it to the ground even in the alleys.
As they headed over to Commerce Street, Axe replayed the cluster-fuck over and over again, imaging himself with his guns out already, better prepared for the ambush, more ready to fight. Next thing he knew, Peyton's favorite after-training haunt had somehow materialized in front of him.
The cigar bar was as pretentious as it sounded, the interior done in English Country Estate with all kinds of leather armchairs and a lot of dark, heavy coffee tables and stools. There were no TV screens, though, no human sports flickering in the corners, and the food was good--not that his noodles were much of a standard. The main negative? The human clientele were such arrogant assholes with their Mercedes and their Range Rovers getting valet-parked, and their women-as-accessories girlfriends, but at least the dipshits were so self-absorbed that they couldn't care less about the vampires who mixed in with them.
Although Paradise and Novo got a lot of attention.
And yup, that made the males training with them want to get their weapons back out.
The maitre d' rushed forward to Peyton and started in with the welcoming act. Their regular seating area had been reserved, and Axe took a pass on the ass-kissing session, walking away from the group to the back, where the emergency exit was.
Novo sat down with him and he ordered two Scotches, one for each of them, as the others filed in and deep-seated in the stuffed chairs. There was a low table in middle with a humidor and a series of ashtrays, and soon enough, there were various cocktails and then plates of tapas filling the surface up.
"...gun range tomorrow."
Axe rubbed his face. "What?"
"I said," Novo repeated, "you might want to chill on that club before sessions. You're out of it right now, and you don't want to look bad on the gun range tomorrow."
"What's fucking my head is my shit shab performance tonight." He swirled the liquor in his glass, coating the ice cubes with a wash of Scotch. "Hell, maybe I'd have done better if I had stayed at The Keys awhile longer."
"You going to bring me sometime?" She took a pull off her glass and eased back. "I want to see what it's all about."
His eyes traveled up and down her body. "Yeah, I think you can handle it. Wouldn't say that about most females."
"Sexist much?"
"Females have better standards than males. But you're one of us."
Novo threw her head back and laughed. "I can't decide whether to be offended or not."
"If I order you another Scotch, will that help you--"
It was like a car accident in his head. One second, he was cruising along the deserted highway of his normal state as an oversexed, self-shaming guilt-whore...and the next, all his thoughts, every ounce of cognition, even on his subconscious level, slammed into a five-foot-ten-inch blond female with eyes like an angel, a body right out of heaven, and the unusual combination of a spooked look and a jaw that was forged in iron.
Axe straightened in his seat like someone had jumper-cabled his ass to a Chevy, and everything went tunnel with her the light at the end, the glow around her created by his reaction to her presence--
Peyton got in the way.
That miserable motherfucker had the colossal nerve to stand up and greet whoever it was with a hug. And then he talked to her, his muscular body blocking Axe's view, the back of his head making an excellent target for a bullet or the claw of a hammer or maybe even a falling piano as far as Axe was concerned.
"FYI," Novo said softly, "shooting him is not going to get my second Scotch faster. Because the waiter's going to call the police on you before he gets me my drink."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Axe growled.
Except then he looked down, and--well, hello there, Mr. Shiny--his gun was in his hand and ready to go.
Unlike in the
alley.
Great, now his brain decides to catch up with protocol.
Muttering under his breath, Axe put the damn thing away, and finished off the liquor in his glass. And then he made a show of trying to get the waiter's attention--when what he was actually doing was attempting to lean around Peyton's make-a-better-door-than-a-window routine.
The problem finally got solved when the SOB stepped aside and started making introductions.
But then shit got so much worse.
"This is my cousin," Peyton said to everybody, "Elise."
he way Elise saw it, having already been caught sneaking behind her father's back, it wasn't as if she could get in any worse trouble by going out one last time before the sehclusion hammer fell and she was locked in. Besides, Peyton was going to be with his fellow trainees. What could be safer than joining him?
The bottom line was that he was the only person she could think of to go to. Maybe there was a way out, a way to...she didn't know.
"Let me introduce you," her cousin was saying as he indicated the people sitting in a circle of heavy chairs.
Elise would have preferred to catch him alone, but she wasn't going to miss her chance. Besides, they could always step off into a corner together.
"This is Craeg--and you know Paradise."
Elise lifted her hand to the female. "Hi, wow, hello."
Paradise was the daughter of the King's First Advisor, a highbred descendant of a Founding Family--and yet she had somehow managed to talk her way out of traditional roles and into the Brotherhood's training program. As a soldier. A fighter.
Maybe she could give some advice?
"That's Boone, Novo...and Axe."
Elise nodded at each of the trainees--until she got to the last one. Then she wasn't sure what she did.
Maybe she had a seizure? Or a spontaneous concussion? Because sure enough, she forgot about everything and everybody the instant she met his eyes, with the cigar bar, the humans around them, and even her reason for coming out disappearing as if someone had hit the world with a dry eraser.
He was extraordinary.
Or maybe...extraordinarily dangerous was more like it.
However she defined the effect of him, she had a sixth sense he was going to change her life.
The male was sitting outside the dim pool of light that fell from the ceiling, shadows blanketing him as if protecting one of their own. He had dark hair, black hair, that was thick and spiky, and a huge body that was arranged like he could spring forward on an attack in the blink of an eye. The tattoos that ran up half of his neck and piercings that marked his left ear and brow made him seem even more sinister. And then there were his clothes, black and draped over him, suggesting there could be weapons underneath.
With his chin dropped to his chest, he was staring at her from under his brows, his pale yellow eyes glowing as they locked on her and her alone.
Her first cogent thought was that he was a predator.
Her second...was that she wanted to be caught.
"Elise?"
As Peyton said her name and stepped in between them, she shook herself. "Sorry, what?"
Her cousin's frown suggested he'd noticed the connection, and--no surprise--he didn't approve. Then again, with the way that male in the corner was looking at her? You didn't have to be a possessive blood relative to not want any female anywhere near the guy.
"Sit next to Paradise, here," Peyton said. "And let's talk."
Boy, it was hot in here, Elise thought as she started to unbutton her coat.
"Elise? Hello?"
Shaking herself, she forced a smile. "I'm sorry. What?"
"Have a seat," her cousin muttered as he pointed to a padded bench that he'd pulled over.
"Right. Yes, of course."
As Elise tried to get her brain back on track, she parked it and glanced at Paradise--whose smile was open and as beautiful as the rest of her was. Which was kind of a surprise. Most females with her sorts of connections were straight-up mean girls.
"So Peyton told me what's going on as we were walking over here." Paradise tucked her legs under herself and leaned on the arm of her chair. "And I won't tell anyone, I promise. But I get it. I so get it."
Elise shook her head and started to parse through what she was prepared to share and what she wanted to keep to herself. Talking about the pathology around Allishon? Not going to happen.
"My father's not a bad male, he really isn't."
"God, of course not. He's just a traditional one, who's worried about his daughter in a troubling world. It's not an issue of good and bad. What it is about is your right to live a life even though you're a female in a rigid social role."
Elise exhaled. "How did you get into the training program at all? I mean, I've heard that they'll allow females, but..."
As she continued to speak, some kind of split-personality thing happened--half of her plugged into the conversation with Paradise, the other part of her right with that male, sensing his body, his presence, his power.
The effect he had on her was nothing like Troy, she thought. With the human in that library, she'd felt as though she was in front of a banked fire, where you kind of thought, Huh, maybe I'll sit here and put my palms out and feel the warmth. Or maybe I'll just stay where I am and admire the view of the flames. Or...what the hell, let me pick up a book and read for a while.
A lot of pleasant, non-threatening, but certainly interested, reflection.
That male in shadows over there? It was more like she was frozen to the bone and starving because she had wandered off a trail in a December snowstorm, and seventeen days later she was still tripping through the drifts, on the verge of collapse, her lungs stinging from a lack of oxygen, her head spinning, her whole body aching...and there, there on the horizon, was an acres-wide bonfire set by a lightning strike in the forest, the flames eating up the landscape, the blaze overwhelming and terrifying, deadly...
But nonetheless the only source of heat with which to warm her tortured, half-dead, frostbitten body.
Oh, and actually, add a buffet of her favorite foods right in front of the giant hot mess.
With, like, four hundred pounds of Lindt chocolate on it.
And pasta. And champagne.
Yeah, that male was not any kind of pleasant reflection. Not even a choice, really. He was a compulsion to get to the beacon he was sending out.
And to hell with the consequences.
"...talk to your father."
Elise kicked her own butt and replugged into Paradise. "I'm sorry?"
"Your father," the female said. "My father would absolutely speak with him."
"Speak to whom? My sire?"
"What better way to try and change his mind? My father worries about me, and he's from that old-school way of doing things, but he's evolved his thinking. If anyone can talk your father off the cliff? It's him."
"Oh, my God...that would be amazing." Tears made her eyes water. "But why would you--"
Paradise took Elise's hand. "Because I know how hard it is."
The unexpected empathy was a breathtaker, and Elise got jammed up on the kindness. It was so hard to battle alone the glymera and its restrictions on females, so impossible to argue with standards that she hadn't volunteered for and didn't believe in, but that were, nonetheless, running her life. And it wasn't until this moment that Elise realized she had given up before she had even started fighting because there had been no hope, short of running away, of altering her father's legal and social authority over her.
"But he's going to get me declared as sehcluded," Elise said. "If he does that, I'm finished. It's over before it starts."
"When is he making the petition?"
"Right now, I think. He's gone to the Audience House right now--that's the only reason I could leave to come here."
Paradise got her phone out and stood up. "Gimme a minute."
As the female went in search of a quieter place to make a call, Elise wiped her eyes. And when she
took a deep inhale and shifted in her chair, she looked across--
The male was still staring at her, that massive body of his eased back in his seat, his knees spread wide, his drink in one long hand, the other up to his chin, his fingers on his mouth.
Like maybe he was kissing her in his mind.
Elise's body flashed with heat, the blast emanating through her veins in reply to those eyes of his, that erotic way he was lounging, that all-consuming intent he was spotlighting her with. But it was funny. As direct as his stare was and as unmistakable as the erotic tension was? He didn't make a move to come over and talk to her.
Even though she was very sure he was imagining them making love--
"This is all going to work out," Peyton said as he hopped into Paradise's vacant seat. "It's all gonna be fine."
Switching gears--badly--Elise met her cousin's eyes. "Ah...I hope so. And thank you for helping. I didn't know where else to go."
"I told you. Anytime, anywhere, I'm here."
Peyton puffed on his cigar, releasing clouds of gray smoke that drifted over his head. As he motioned with his hand to a waiter, and then circled the empty glasses on the low table, she had the distinct impression he came here often. Then again, maybe he was just sublimely comfortable and confident in the world.
Something to aspire to.
As he joked with the male Paradise had been holding hands with, and then laughed at something the guy said, Elise couldn't help measuring her cousin's face. Peyton was handsome as could be, the kind of guy everyone looked at and wanted to know...but he'd never been happy--at least not that she'd been able to see. And he certainly wasn't now. Underneath the snark and the sexy affect, she sensed he wasn't tracking, an essential detachment separating him from the world.
He was suffering in silence. Mourning alone. Rattled but pretending everything was normal.
What had his ties to Allishon been? Of all the people who could have announced her death to the family, why had it been him?
Had he found her or something?
"How are you?" she asked quietly. "You know, after Allishon's--"
"I'm awesome, are you kidding me?" He shifted forward and tapped the ash off the fat, glowing end of his cigar. "I'm spectacular."
His eyes were empty as he smiled at her, and abruptly, she felt like crying all over again. But if he could be strong, so could she.
And then Paradise was back and sitting down in the lap of the trainee she'd been holding hands with. "My father's going to talk to him right now."
