Blood Vow

by J. R. Ward

  So yeah, he was crippled and going to remain that way for the rest of his life.

  But what the hell.

  He'd already been crippled before. He was used to this.

  Just as some people were destined to be happy?

  Others simply didn't win that lottery.

  t the end of the evening, as everyone at the Brotherhood mansion came together and took their seats in the dining room, Rhage waited for Mary to give him the cue.

  And when she did, just as the feast of Last Meal was being served, he turned to Bitty, who was next to him. "Hey, will you come with me and your mom for a second? Nothing is wrong, we just need to talk to you about something."

  "Sure!" The little girl was up and at 'em, ready to go. "Uncle Ruhn, I'm going to be right back. You stay with the BABUs!"

  The male blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

  Lassiter leaned in. "Buffoons. She has a speech impediment. It's really sad--"

  Bitty nailed the angel in the arm. "Bad-Ass Big Uncles. And will you stop."

  "Nevaaaaaaaaaaah!" the angel cackled. Before giving Bitty a playful tug on her hair.

  As Bitty skipped out ahead and Rhage drew Mary in against him, he called out, "The library, okay? Bit, we're going in the library."

  "Roger that," she said.

  "You ready?" he whispered to his shellan. As she nodded, he murmured, "It's going to be fine."

  When they were all in there together, he shut the doors. Man, it felt like he was back in his own skin, his own life, his own ocean, swimming freely with the current instead of against it. And Mary was the same way--Dearest Virgin Scribe, it was good to see the light back in his shellan's eyes and the smile on her face.

  And as for Ruhn? The guy was a gem. Quiet, dignified in himself, not a pansy, either. He had insisted on carrying his things up to the guest room he'd been given down the hall of statues. And was already looking for projects to fix, clean, or improve.

  Fritz was going to learn to hate the motherfucker.

  "What is it?" Bitty said--before she got distracted by the Christmas tree. "Oh, my--we need to celebrate your holiday, Mom. But not yet. Ruhn needs presents. We need to...we need to figure out what he likes and I have an allowance. I can get him some myself--but you guys need to, too."

  Mary laughed and drew the girl over to the sofa. "Absolutely, we will."

  "Yay! So what's going on--Father, we need to watch Deadpool with him. He hasn't seen any movies. Like, ever. Not even Jaws. I have a draft list, and I want you to go through it with me. We'll set up a viewing schedule just like we did for me."

  Rhage nodded. "Absolutely. That kind of deficit is more important than literacy."

  Mary put her head in her hands. "You two are insane."

  Rhage put his palm out for a high five and Bit slapped it with her own. "Nailed it," Rhage said. "Now, we need to get serious. Your mom has something she needs to tell you."

  Bitty focused on their Mary. "G'head, Mom."

  Jeez, it felt good to have that word back in their vocabulary.

  In the short silence that followed, Rhage frowned and looked around.

  For some reason, he was aware that they were not alone...and yet no one else seemed to be in the library with them.

  Mary took Bit's hand and smoothed the back of it. "Do you remember when I told you I was sick?"

  "The cancer isn't back?" the girl asked with fear. "You aren't--"

  "No, no. Absolutely not. And that's kind of what I need to tell you."

  "What?...I don't understand."

  In a steady stream of perfectly chosen words, Mary told the story from start to finish. The cancer. Rhage coming into her life. The Scribe Virgin's intervention...and what it meant.

  "You mean...you're immortal?" Bit breathed. "You're like a god or something?"

  "Oh, no. No, no, not a god. Never. That is one job I wouldn't want. But it does mean...well, think of it like this. I get to choose when I go into the Fade. Like, you know how everyone ages along a line? They get older every year? And sometimes bad things happen to them and they get sick or hurt or something?"

  "Yes. As with Father when he was shot. Before his vests. Or...what happened to my mahmen."

  As Mary reached up and stroked the little girl's face, Rhage thought, Oh, my two females. My two perfect females in the firelight...

  "Well, it's not like that for me," Mary said.

  "So you can live as long as I do?"

  "Yes, I can."

  Bitty's eyes got watery. And then she threw her arms around Mary. "So you'll never leave me. I'll never lose my mother."

  Okaaaaay, time for some throat clearing.

  "Never. Ever." Mary held the girl and smiled through beautiful tears. "Not ever. And I didn't want to hide this from you--but I also didn't want it influencing your decision to stay with us?"

  "I just feel lucky. I just feel so lucky." Bitty pulled back and looked at Rhage. "But what about you?"

  "Bulletproof vests, my girl." He sniffed like he had allergies. 'Cuz it wasn't like he was crying or some shit. Nah. "Training and equipment. It's what I told you before, I go out to do my job and intend to come home to my females every night."

  Bitty got quiet for a moment. But then she nodded. "Okay, but you'll be careful--"

  Rhage frowned as something caught his eye.

  A sun spot. On the carpet. By the tree.

  "Lassiter," he called out. "Really?"

  The angel appeared all at once, his blond-and-black hair and his gold hoops and necklaces and earrings creating that aura he always had. Or hell, that glow was probably just him.

  "What I say?" the angel demanded as he Vanna-White'd the three of them. In zebra-striped leggings that were clearly out of Steven Tyler's wardrobe. "Have faith. Believe. And all will be well. What. Did. I. Say."

  Rhage had to laugh. "Fantastic. Another reason for you to be full of it."

  "Greatness is as greatness does." The angel pivoted in a circle and then pulled a Michael Jackson, moonwalking backward until he popped up onto the toes of his shoes. "And I am awwwwwwesommmme."

  Mary and Bitty started laughing, too, and Rhage just sat back and smiled.

  Then he started to think. Okay, so if Ruhn hadn't even seen Jaws, where did they start?

  Probably not there. Or with Jason. Michael. Freddy. The guy wasn't a pussy by any stretch, but for godsakes, you didn't want to make him crap in his pants, either.

  "What's the matter?" Mary asked.

  Rhage rubbed his face and looked at Bitty. "You know, your uncle? We might need to start him off slow with the movies. I don't want to scare the sh--er, crap out of him."

  "Die Hard?" his daughter suggested.

  "Too much."

  "Really, that bad?"

  "Really."

  There was a pause. And then they both said, at the same time, in the same tone of voice: "The Goonies."

  You want to talk about fatherly pride? Rhage mused as he held his hand out for another high five and Bit slapped him a good one.

  There you had it.

  here was something about New Year's Eve that made you want to start fresh.

  Nights later, as Peyton sat on the foot of his bed, in his going-to-get-laid club clothes, he found himself scrolling through his texts. So many invitations, from his boys in the glymera, humans who thought they knew him from the Caldie club scene, females, females...more females.

  And the pings just kept coming through.

  Paradise and Craeg were going to be chilling at her house, and she'd invited him to join them--but also tacked on that she knew he'd be busy painting the town red. Boone was going over there. No one knew where Novo was at.

  Axe certainly hadn't checked in with any updates.

  Peyton put his phone aside and stared across his room. He was uncomfortably sober at the moment, and had every intention of fixing that shit.

  Yup.

  Any moment, he was going to hit the bottle or one of his bongs, and float away in the inside of hi
s skull--just...leave behind the mess that had been stewing in his head for the last while.

  He thought back to him and Axe and the others out on the streets the previous evening, working the blocks of abandoned buildings, instincts prickling, weapons up and ready to go, Brothers with them.

  It was a new phase.

  They were now not trainees, really. More like soldiers in training. If that made sense.

  And Axe always kept it on the DL, never giving a hint of emotion away about anything, strung tight as a piano wire around someone's throat. But man, you could tell he was hurting. He'd lost weight. The bags under his eyes were so big you could have packed for overnight in 'em. And the grim mood was a tangible weight he brought with him into every room, every alley, every bus ride to and from.

  It didn't take a genius to realize Elise was in no better straits. Peyton had seen what she'd looked like when she'd come to him.

  Time and the breakup surely was not improving that.

  Shit, he thought as he rubbed his face. Just...shit.

  His phone rang. For like the fiftieth time. Another random calling to get him to come out.

  When he finally picked up his phone, he went into his contacts and dialed a number he'd only phoned once before.

  One ring. Two rings. Three--

  "Hello?"

  He cleared his throat. "Novo? Look--don't hang up, okay?" There was a pause. "Hello?"

  "What?"

  "Listen, I need you to do me a favor."

  "Unless it involves hitting you somewhere with a frying pan, I'm not sure I'm interested."

  "What are you doing tonight?"

  "Nothing with you."

  He flexed his LV loafers. "I need your help."

  "If you're looking for a personality replacement, try eBay. You won't have to be too picky. Anything but Serial Killer would be an improvement."

  Peyton stared at the blank, dark screen of his TV.

  "Hello?" she said.

  "I need you to help me right a wrong. And I'm not fucking with you, I really...I can't do this alone."

  Something in his voice or...he didn't know what...must have gotten through to her. "Are you drunk?"

  "No, and I'm not high, either." He shoved a hand through his hair. "Fuck me, maybe it's part of my problem. But I need to fix this first and then...yeah, whatever."

  "Where are you?"

  "My house."

  "Go down and open your front door." She sounded annoyed. "I'll be there in a minute."

  Peyton left his phone behind. Frankly, he was sick to death of the people in it. And as he went to leave his suite, he passed by a mirror. Checking out his reflection, he saw the same features, same hair, same good looks he had every night of his life.

  And yet he didn't recognize himself.

  Maybe that bullet had given him brain damage, he thought as he opened the door and stepped out.

  'Cuz he hadn't felt right ever since he'd been shot in the head.

  --

  Elise was sitting at her computer, combing the "Apartments for Rent" section of the Caldwell Courier Journal online, when the house phone rang beside her little Tiffany lamp.

  Picking the receiver up, she listened to the butler tell her she had guests and that they were waiting for her in the parlor. "Thank you. I'll be right down."

  As she hung up, it dawned on her that she hadn't even asked who they were. But she didn't really care. Could be cousins. Or, hell, an intervention set up by her father to scare her straight.

  But she wasn't afraid of even that. If she could get through losing Axe, she could get through anything.

  Heading out of her room, she walked down the hall, passing by Allishon's old suite. Nothing had changed. Her uncle was still floating around, trying to find his footing, while his shellan self-destructed in their bedroom. Her father still didn't understand why Elise had to go, what she was doing getting her Ph.D., why she insisted on being such an iconoclast.

  Everything would be okay, he had maintained, if she would just settle down and stop trying to talk about things that simply didn't need to be discussed.

  To his credit, he wasn't telling her he would never see her again.

  But he was sad that she was breaking away.

  And so was she. She was going to miss the family she had been raised in, even if it was so broken that her only chance of living an authentic, halfway self-aware life was outside of it. You couldn't change others, though. Only yourself.

  On that note, she hadn't heard from Axe.

  She hadn't expected to.

  She was surprised she missed him as much as she did, though. Was frustrated by that, actually. The trouble was, the high points of their...whatever it was...had been so high that in quiet moments of reflection, it was impossible not to remember them and mourn.

  It was a process, though.

  Or at least that's what all her fancy schooling had taught her.

  And part of what was going to help her through her grief was that her and Troy's seminar started in a couple of days.

  She was going to make it.

  Because she wasn't going to have it any other way.

  Downstairs, Elise crossed the foyer's marble squares and went over to the parlor--but before she entered the pretty room, she halted.

  "Peyton? And..."

  Okay, it was hard to say the female's name. Hard to look at that incredible body that just seemed to ooze sex appeal.

  "You have a minute?" Peyton said. "We need to talk to you?"

  Elise nodded and made herself walk forward. Peyton was looking great, as usual, his casual suit the kind of thing that had obviously been handmade for him, that open collar and perfect fit making him seem ready for a spectacular New Year's Eve night. Novo, in all her black leather, looked more prepared to fight.

  Or have some hardcore sex.

  Elise shook her head at herself and closed them all in. "What...ah, what can I do for you?"

  God, even though she told herself to keep calm, her heart was pounding.

  Novo looked at Peyton. Peyton glanced at the female...and then stared at Elise.

  "You need to know some things. It's about Axe," he said.

  Elise put both hands out like she was warding off an attack. "No, I don't need to know anything about him."

  "Yes, you do."

  "No, I really don't. And unless you've come for some other reason--"

  "I've never had sex with him." Novo's voice was clear, unforced, and calm. "He took me to the club, yes. So I could become a member there. I asked him to do it for me as a favor. I've never once been with that male--and as far as both he"--she pointed at Peyton--"and I are aware, Axe hasn't slept with anybody since that night he first met you."

  Peyton spoke fast, as if he were worried that Elise was going to run out of the room and he was going to lose his chance to say what he needed to. "I know this is not my business, technically, but you kind of made it mine when you came to see me."

  "And I know you found that key of his." Novo nodded at Peyton. "He told me that Axe made like he didn't know what it was. I don't want to speak for the guy, but when you join the club, you're not supposed to talk about it. You're not supposed to reveal to anyone what the key is, where you use it, what it's about. It's a members-only thing, and if you blab, you're out. I'm not saying that's why he didn't tell you about Allishon's. But it's just something you should think about. Before you shoot him in the foot for apparently lying to you."

  Elise's mind started to grind on the information. Even as she didn't want that whole door reopened.

  It had been too hard to shut the damn thing in the first place.

  Peyton came forward, stopping when he was right in front of her. "It's New Year's Eve. I want to start this next year on the right foot.That's why I'm doing this. See, there are some people who feel like I'm an asshole--"

  At that point, Novo muttered under her breath something that sounded like, "Go figure."

  "--and I guess...I'm kind of thinking I'm one
of them." Peyton shrugged. "So yeah, Axe is having a horrible time. He looks half dead. And look, I'm not telling you what to do about this. But you might as well know the truth. What you choose to do or not do...is up to you. He's not perfect...but he's not like me, okay? He's not worthless."

  xe never cashed the check that Elise's father sent him.

  Nope. He just put it on the mantelpiece above the fire, knowing that at some point, he was going to throw it into the flames. Just not tonight. And not last night, either. Or the one before that.

  It kind of felt like his last tie to Elise, and yes, it was pathetic, but that was one bene of living alone--no one else knew the weaknesses of your thoughts, your heart, your little rituals. It was like singing in the shower off-key--nothing you had to share with anybody else.

  Sitting in front of the hearth, he was naked and the back side of him was cold, but he didn't care. He hadn't cared about much since Elise had laid down the hammer--

  The knock on his front door drew his attention from the flames. "Open," he called out, not giving a shit who it was, and knowing that he could get to his gun if he--

  Axe jumped to his feet. Then remembered he was naked, and grabbed a pillow off the old sofa. "Elise?" he said to the closed door. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Her voice was muffled. "Do you, ah...do you mind if I come in?"

  He shrugged. Mostly because his brain had traffic-jammed and rendered him too stoopid to talk.

  Then he remembered she couldn't see him. "Yeah. I mean, sure."

  Next thing he knew, she was stepping inside, closing the door and walking forward slowly, like she was thinking he might change his mind at any moment.

  God...she looked good. Then again, she always looked good. Even when she hated him.

  "Look, I don't know...." She cleared her throat. "I don't know how to say this, so..."

  "G'head. Whatever it is, I'm fine with it."

  She'd already dropped a bomb in the center of his chest. So what if she took his arms and legs off as well? And, yeah, yeah, yeah, he should yell at her and get all righteous and shit over the fact that she'd gotten him wrong. But honestly, he didn't have the energy for it.

  "I'm sorry."

  Axe recoiled. "What?"

  "I'm...listen, I'm really sorry. I might have misjudged you I think...."

  "Wait, what?"

  She started talking and he didn't really follow. Something about Peyton and Novo coming over to her father's house. The key thing. Membership. Not talking. No sex.