by J. R. Ward
As they headed down to the second floor, Rhage said, "Bit, you know we're not leaving you, right? It's not appropriate for me to be with you the whole time, but Mary will be, and I'll be in the waiting room or just outside in the corridor--"
When they emerged out of the stairwell, they stopped on a oner.
Right outside of the King's study, there was a group of people waiting: Doc Jane, in her surgical scrubs; Manny, in his white coat; Vishous, dressed for war; and Zsadist, in Adidas, with weapons all over him.
Oh, and Lassiter.
In a hockey mask and football pads.
"Well, this is a sweet send-off," Rhage said as he went to clap hands with his Brothers.
"We're not sending you off." Lassiter pounded his pads. "We're your entourage."
Mary blinked. "I'm sorry?"
Jane smiled and focused on Bit. "We're coming with you."
"Not that the 'rents can't handle it," Lassiter volunteered from behind his mask. "But let's face it, I'm working on my defensive tackle position and this will be good practice. That pencil-necked nightmare of a doctor gets too pokey and I'ma turn him into a splatter painting."
Vishous put both hands up to his face and rubbed hard. Like in his mind, he was throwing a beat-down in the angel's direction, but he knew he couldn't draw blood in front of the girl--and the self-control required was killing him.
"You can stay home," V muttered. "You really can totally f-in' stay the f home, you f'ed-up mother-f'ing f-twit."
Lassiter clasped his breastplate, and swooned like Julie Andrews. "Don't you love it when he can't swear? Warms my cockles--it's like watching a drunk on roller skates try to play dodgeball in the dark--"
Zsadist, who rarely spoke, cut the metaphors off. "We don't want you three going alone. So we're coming with you. Some things you need your family for."
As Rhage cleared his throat like his emotions were getting the best of him, Mary said roughly, "Thank you so much. I really...we really appreciate this."
Z stepped forward to Bit, and if you went by appearances alone, any parent would want the Brother as far away from their child as possible: with his tattooed slave bands and his scarred face and his enormous warrior's body with all those weapons on it, he looked more like an abductor than a loving uncle.
Without saying a word, he put out his hand.
And without missing a beat...the little survivor took the big survivor's palm.
Bitty and Z had always had a special connection. Then again, when you had been forced to endure the cruelty of another for years, there was always going to be a separator between you and the world, no matter how much time had passed or how many good things happened to you since.
That common ground united the pair of them. And although Mary would have wished for something else to bring them together, she was always glad--especially on a night like tonight--that Bitty had Zsadist in her life.
As the pair of them hit the grand staircase, it was as if a bell had been rung and the gates to the race opened, the assembled masses following them down to where Fritz was waiting outside with his black Mercedes.
The great thing about family, Mary mused, was that they showed up.
When it really mattered, your family, be they blood or by choice, were always where you needed them to be, even though they had busy lives and jobs and children of their own.
"Hey," Lassiter said as he opened the way through the vestibule, "will anyone slap a puck around with me to pass the time?"
"No," everybody, including Bitty, shot back.
"But I will slap the f-in' crap out of something else," V said under his breath.
"I love it when you talk dirty to me. Gimme a hug. C'mon, you know you wanna...."
--
Nothing.
Elise knew nothing about where she stood: not whether she was able to keep going to school, or if she were stuck in proverbial jail, or even if she still had a roof over her head.
After she had gone to see Peyton out at the cigar bar, and had the collision-as-meeting encounter with that trainee as she'd been leaving, she'd come home and waited for her father's return. On the bottom step of the carved staircase right across from the front door. Like a lost child.
Three hours later, he had walked in, his head down, his shoulders slumped, his spirit as deflated as a fragile balloon.
He hadn't even looked at her--or even seemed aware that she was in the foyer. He'd just gone directly to his study and closed himself in.
Well...good talk, Dad, she'd thought. Breaking all kinds of new ground, aren't we.
But really, how could she have expected anything else?
After an internal debate about the merits of interjecting herself into whatever process he was working through, she'd gone up and gotten into bed. No sleep for her during the day, but that hadn't just been about her father and the sehclusion petition.
She couldn't stop thinking about that male...his tattoos, and his piercings, the way he'd looked at her, what he'd said. She'd spent a lot of time replaying that scene on the sidewalk. In her head? They were still back there in the falling snow arguing, the sexual tension so thick it was like a rope she could pull on.
It was a shock, given the very real issues she was dealing with in her life, that she had any interest at all in making things even more chaotic. But she wished she'd given him her number. She was, however, glad she hadn't--because if he did call her? She would see him again, and what a recipe for disaster that would be.
You didn't need to know the specifics about a male like that to be fully aware he was a Taylor Swift song waiting to happen.
Or worse--
"Enough," she said as she stood up from her bed. "Enough with the stewing."
Her father would be downstairs in his study by now. So it was time to go face the music, as her mother used to say, and talk with him.
As Elise stepped out of her room, she pulled up short. Her father was just emerging from his suite down the hall, and he paused, too.
Clearing her throat, she said, "Father, I--"
He turned away without a word, his hand rising over his shoulder in classic stop fashion. "Not now."
"Then when," she demanded.
Her father did not respond. He simply kept going, striding down the hall to the formal staircase and disappearing on the descent.
Short of throwing herself in front of him, she didn't know how to force him to engage. And even then, he was likely to just Conrail over her.
"Son of a bitch," she hissed.
Maybe it was time to move out. But undoubtedly, he would cut her off, so how would she pay for anything?
The only reason she was able to go to university now was because of scholarships she'd earned. And they didn't cover things like room and board.
A sudden urge to throw something had her turning her head toward an antique side table. That vase of flowers would be perfect, the thin neck at the top fitting easily in her palm, the weight of the water and the imported roses heavy enough to make her feel like she could do some damage, but not enough to hinder distance.
Shifting her eyes across the way, she stared at the closed door of the suite where her aunt and uncle stayed.
Her uncle would be out and about soon, but her aunt was no doubt still sleeping. Usually the female stayed in bed until after Elise got back from uni, rising only long enough to do her hair and makeup before returning to her satin pillows. It was no way to live, but after what had happened to her daughter? And the loss of her son?
Elise cursed...and then found herself on the move.
The next thing she knew, she was standing in front of her dead cousin's door. From a distance, she watched as her hand reached out, clasped the knob, and turned it. When she pushed inside, she caught a whiff of the perfume Allishon had always worn. Poison by Dior--old school, to be sure, but it had fit so well on the female.
Elise had always thought that if the color purple had had a scent, that fragrance would have been it.
With
out a sound, she shut herself in and flicked the light switch.
Illumination bloomed in the room, emanating from the crystal chandelier in the center of the high ceiling. The bed was across the way, strewn with pale blue linens that had white and gold accents, and sporting enough pillows to put a Macy's display in the shade. The walls were papered with handmade Stark, the French scene of peach-and-yellow birds frolicking between blooming fruit trees something you could see down in the gardens during the good months. On the floor, the carpet was thick and of a cream that was so pale, it was nearly white, and the drapes framing the windows were the pale blue of a summer dress and just as diaphanous.
The decor was perfect for a young female of worth.
And yet Allishon's possessions were the off-notes in the room: a black robe that was part priest, part demon worshipper; a crystal skull on the mantel over the fireplace; books with black and blood-red leather covers scattered in the far corner by a tapestry-covered pallet. There were also chunky black boots that were tall enough to go up over the knee...a high-heeled shoe without a mate that had a gun for a heel...black duffel bags filled with God only knew what else.
It was hard not to see the evidence of her cousin's other life like potholes in a perfectly paved road. But how judgmental was that.
"No way to think," she groaned as she rubbed her stiff neck.
The reality, though, was that something evil had come across Allishon's path as she had searched for herself on the wild side. And that was Felixe's point, wasn't it.
Elise frowned as she thought about that trainee with the tattoos. He was everything that her sire was worried about her finding. Except she hadn't met him at university--and that was her point.
"Just as well," she muttered to the vacant room. "I'm not going to see him again."
he Brotherhood's training center was a state-of-the-art, hundred-thousand-square-foot bunker of holy-shit-how-is-this-not-the-government-level facilities and equipment. Located underground, and preceded by a gating system of gradually more secure and intimidating G.T.F.O.s, the place was off-limits to vampires, humans, and lessers.
As well as the trainees who were technically allowed to be in it.
When the "school bus" slowed again at yet another checkpoint, Axe could tell by the angle of the descent that they were getting close to the entrance to the facility. The blackout windows next to him didn't offer much visual, but he imagined the last couple of stop-heres to be like something out of Jurassic Park, all concrete walls that were as tall as the Hoover Dam and topped with miles' worth of barbed wire.
For the last month, the trainees had been meeting at designated locations in and around Caldwell and getting on this nothing-yellow-or-schoolish-at-all tank with its bulletproof body plating, thick-as-your-arm windows, and deep bucket seats.
Yeah, sure, Fritz, the old doggen at the wheel, could have worked for Caldwell Central Schools. But that was about it for comps.
And what do you know. Tonight's ride in from a deserted factory in the old industrial part of town had been about twenty-five minutes of Peyton glaring a hole in Axe's skull.
Good times, good times.
Everyone else was minding their own damn business. Novo had her Beats on up in front. Boone was reading--Kierkegaard's Enten-Eller, whatever the fuck that was. Paradise and Craeg were trading an iPhone back and forth like they were searching for PokeStops on the way and getting bad reception.
Peyton, on the other hand? He apparently had nothing better to do than steam like dog shit laid fresh on a snowbank.
Axe had done a damn good job of ignoring the glares, however, and he intended to keep up the brick wall for the rest of the night--
"I mean it," Peyton snapped.
As Axe let his head fall against the rest, he knew he should have moved farther back when Mr. Boundaries had sat across the aisle from him. Course that would mean he'd be riding in on the rear bumper.
"You made your point last night," Axe muttered. "And I agreed with you, if you remember."
"You didn't say shit."
"Fuck you, and I'll repeat myself now." He turned his head lackadaisically to the male. "I'm not going to touch her."
"Then why did you follow Elise out like that?"
"Fresh air, man. I needed--"
"I'm fucking serious--"
"Hey, I have an idea. Let's not play Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson circa Maine North High School."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Boone spoke up but didn't look up from the row ahead. "The Breakfast Club. Widely considered the best high school film ever made. Filmed at Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1984. Judd Nelson played the role of the stereotypical degenerate--"
"FYI," Axe cut in, "that's my role. You're the wrestler, Pey-pey. The judgmental fuck with the please-daddy complex."
Peyton cocked an eyebrow. "Him"--he motioned to Boone--"I'd expect to know that. You?"
"I haven't been a sex addict my whole life, you know. I used to be a druggie who specialized in nodding out in front of the TV. And will you do us both a favor and drop this shit. I'm not going to bang your pure-as-the-driven-snow cousin. She's not my type."
Okay, fine. He might have spent all day staring at the ceiling, reliving the way she had turned to him on that sidewalk. Looked at him. Spoken to him.
And yeah, there might have been some palm action. But it had been a case of either he took care of the perma-rection he'd developed or he came to class with a baseball bat in his leathers.
But that wasn't about her. Nah. That was just a sign he needed to spend more time at The Keys.
The bus came to a stop, and the ancient butler retracted the partition while opening the door across from his driver's seat. "We've arrived! Have a lovely evening!"
The doggen said the same thing in the same cheerful voice every night, and as Axe got to his feet and walked down and off before anyone else could, he realized it was kind of a ritual. The verbal equivalent of rubbing a rabbit's foot for good luck.
The parking area had a number of vehicles in it, including an RV that was actually a mobile surgical center, a new Hummer that was being bulletproofed, two pickups that sparkled like they were just off the Ford lot, and an earthmover of some CAT variety. There were other levels of graduated asphalt rising upward, but Axe had never bothered with them.
Even if he'd been allowed to drive in, it wasn't like he had a car or any prospects of getting one.
Nope, no whip for him. In his world, there was no money for anything other than the clothes on his back and the human property taxes on the little house his father had built for a female who had never given a shit about him. Oh, and those ramen noodles. Axe's electricity had been turned off again and this time, he wasn't going to bother to pay the bill. He could live in the dark--it was better than crashing at the training center like a homeless human. Besides, gas and sewer were municipal, so he had hot running water, and the fireplaces worked well enough to keep him warm.
He'd survive.
As he approached a steel-reinforced door, he didn't have to wait. It was opened from the inside, the Dhestroyer shoving the heavy weight wide like the thing weighed as much as a sheet of paper.
"Evenin'," the Brother Butch said. "We're in the first classroom."
Axe nodded and walked down the long hall, passing by interrogation rooms and other teaching areas, and then the new lab where they were, literally, blowing shit up.
The classroom they used was your typical set-up--or at least what he'd seen on the TV during his heroin days. There were two rows of long tables with pairs of seats facing an old-fashioned chalkboard. Overhead lights were banks of fluorescents; the flooring was speckled linoleum.
No readin', writin', and 'rithmetic taught here, though.
Try hand-to-hand-combat theory, military maneuvers, basic first aid, group dynamics.
Axe sat in the back and--thank you, God--Peyton parked it down in front. The others settled in, ready for the night.
The Brother Butch closed the door and sat on the desk that was off to the side. He had a Red Sox hat on, a shirt that had a stencil of Big Papi's face on the front, and set of Adidas track pants in black. Running shoes were Brooks and in a pink and red neon.
"Tonight," the Brother said, "we're going to review how badly you each performed in that mock attack. Which should take us eight to twelve hours. Then, if there's time left, we'll keep going with poisons, focusing on aerosols and contact poisons. But first, I have a job opportunity for someone."
Axe frowned.
Money, he thought, would be good.
"The position is one that will require the utmost discretion and tact." The Brother leveled a deadly stare at the group. "As well as an intimate knowledge of personal defense."
--
Rhage absolutely fucking hated Havers's clinic. Yeah, sure, the underground facility was secure, and even though he didn't like the guy, no one could argue with the healer's treatment of his patients. But as Rhage sat in the corridor outside the exam room that Bitty and Mary had been in for, like, a hundred and fifty years, pretty much everything was getting on his nerves.
First of all, he hated the synthetic "clean" smell, that fake lemon disinfecta-stench burrowing into his sinuses. Hell, it was so bad, he kept imagining all kinds of tiny yellow minions with pickaxes and spray bottles of the shit paying personal attention to his nostril regions.
Second, the productive hush of everything bugged the fuck out of him, even though it was arguably a good thing. All the soft-soled shoes shuffling along, the quiet voices, the carts of medical supplies and equipment whispering along the hall.
But the worst thing? He really couldn't stand the attention he got.
It wasn't that the nurses were popping their bodices and going grind-on-it all over his junk, but damn, he didn't need all the lingering glances and the unnecessary multi-walk-bys and the twittering and giggling.
He'd dealt with versions of this all his life--at least since the split second he'd made it through his transition. And pre-Mary, he'd taken advantage of the sexual attention to the point where he didn't leave a reputation so much as a religion of fucking in his wake. Post-Mary, though, he had no interest in other females. In fact, he'd begun to think of his face and body like a sweet-ass whip that his brain drove. His core, his soul, his heart, didn't have anything to do with how he looked.
