Lover Enshrined (30 page)

Bella had never shown this kind of connection with the Primale. Ever.

Nor, for that matter, had he toward her. Although perhaps that was just out of discretion.

Zsadist said a few quiet words, then left as if he were on the prowl, brows down, heavy shoulders set like beams for a house.

Cormia cleared her throat. “Would you like me to get Fritz for you? Or put your order in for a repast?”

“I think I’d better wait, if Doc Jane’s going to examine me.” The female’s hand crept up onto her belly and moved in slow circles. “Would you like to come back and watch the rest of the shows with me later?”

“If you’d like—”

“Absolutely. You’re very good company.”

“I am?”

Bella’s eyes were impossibly kind. “Very. You make me feel calm.”

“Then I shall be your birth companion. Where I’m from, a pregnant sister always has a birth companion.”

“Thank you . . .thank you very much.” Bella turned away as fear speared into her eyes. “I’ll take any help I can get.”

“If I may,” Cormia murmured, “what worries you most?”

“Him. I worry about Z.” Bella’s eyes swung back. “Then I worry about my young. It’s so strange. I don’t worry about me all that much.”

“You are very brave.”

“Oh, you don’t see me in the middle of the day in the dark. I fall apart plenty, trust me.”

“I still think you are brave.” Cormia put her hand on her flat stomach. “I doubt I could be so courageous.”

Bella smiled. “I think you’re wrong about that. I’ve watched you these past months, and there’s an incredible strength in you.”

Cormia wasn’t so sure about that. “I do hope the examination goes well, and I’ll come back later—”

“You don’t honestly think it’s easy to be what you are, do you? To live under the kind of pressures the Chosen have to? I can’t imagine how you deal with it, and I have tremendous respect for you.”

All Cormia could do was blink. “You . . . do?”

Bella nodded. “Yeah, I do. And you want to know something else? Phury’s lucky to have you. I’m just praying he figures that out sooner rather than later.”

Dearest Virgin Scribe, that was not something Cormia had ever expected to hear from anyone, much less Bella, and her shock must have shown because the female laughed.

“Okay, I’ve made you feel weird, and I’m sorry. But I’ve wanted to say that to the both of you for the longest time.” Bella’s eyes shifted over to the bathroom, and she took a deep breath. “Now I guess you’d better go so I can get ready for Doc Jane and her poking. Love that female, I really do, but man, I hate when she snaps on those gloves of hers.”

Cormia said a good-bye of sorts and left for her own bedroom, deep in thought.

When she turned the corner next to Wrath’s study, she stopped. As if she’d summoned him, the Primale was at the head of the great stairwell, looming large and looking exhausted.

His eyes clung to her.

He must hunger for news of Bella, she thought. “She’s feeling better, but I think she’s hiding something. The Brother Zsadist has just gone for Doc Jane.”

“Good. I’m glad. Thank you for watching over her.”

“It was my pleasure. She’s lovely.”

The Primale nodded; then his eyes traced over her from her hair, which was up high on her head, to her bare feet. It was as if he were reacquainting himself with her, as if he hadn’t been around her for ages.

“What ugliness have you witnessed since you left?” she whispered.

“Why do you ask?”

“You stare at me as if it has been weeks since you saw me. What have you seen?”

“You read me well.”

“About as well as you avoid my question.”

He smiled. “Which would be very well, huh.”

“You don’t have to speak of—”

“I saw more death. Avoidable death. Such a damn waste. This war is evil.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” She wanted to take his hand. Instead, she said, “Would you . . . join me in the garden? I was going to walk among the roses for a bit before the sun comes.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Of course.” She bowed to avoid his eyes. “Your grace.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.” She gathered her robing and walked quickly to the stairs he had just mounted.

“Cormia.”

“Yes?”

As she looked over her shoulder, his eyes bored into hers. They burned in a way that took her back to the two of them on the floor in his bedroom, and her heart leaped to her throat.

Except then he merely shook his head. “Nothing. Just stay safe.”

As Cormia went down the stairs, Phury headed for the hall of statues and the first of the windows that looked out over the back garden.

Going with her to see the roses was so not an option. He was raw right now, stripped of his skin, though he still wore his suit of flesh. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw those bodies in the clinic’s corridor and the scared faces in that medicine closet and the bravery of those who shouldn’t have had to fight for their lives.

If he hadn’t stopped to help Bella up the stairs and then gone to find Zsadist, maybe those civilians wouldn’t have been saved. Sure as hell, no one would have called him as backup, because he wasn’t a Brother anymore.

Down below, Cormia emerged on the terrace, her white robe glowing against the dark gray stone pavers. She drifted over to the roses and bent at the waist to bring her nose to the blooms. He could almost hear her breath going in and the sigh of contentment she’d release as the fragrance registered.

His thoughts shifted from the ugliness of war to the beauty of the female form.

And to what males did with females in between satin sheets.

Yeah, it was a big no on being around Cormia right now. He wanted to replace the death and suffering he’d seen tonight with something else, something alive and warm and all about the body, not the head. As he watched his First Mate lavish her attentions on the rosebushes, he wanted her naked and writhing and slick with sweat underneath him.

Ah . . . but she wasn’t his First Mate any longer, was she.

Shit
.

The wizard’s voice drifted through his head.
Could you honestly have done right by her, though? Made her happy? Kept her safe? You spend a good twelve hours a day smoking. Could you light up blunt after blunt in front of her and have her watch you wilt into your pillows and nod off? You want her to see that?

Do you want her dragging you back into the house at dawn, like you did for your father?

Would you hit her in frustration someday, too?

“No!” he said out loud.

Oh, really? Your father said that to you. Didn’t he, mate. Promised you right to your face that he’d never hit you again.

Problem is, the word of an addict is just that. A word. Nothing more.

Phury rubbed his eyes and turned away from the window.

To give himself a purpose, any purpose, he headed for Wrath’s study. Even though he wasn’t a member of the Brotherhood anymore, the king would want to know what had happened at the clinic. With Z busy with Jane and Bella, and the other Brothers helping out at the new clinic, he might as well make an unofficial report. Besides, he wanted Wrath to know the reason why he’d gone over there in the first place, and reassure the king that he wasn’t disregarding his pink slip.

And then there was the whole Lash issue.

The kid was missing.

The tally of heads at the new clinic and the count of the bodies at the old one had revealed only one abduction, and Lash was it. The medical staff indicated he was alive at the time of the raid, having been resuscitated after his vitals crashed. Which was tragic. The kid might have been a bastard, but no one wanted him to fall into the hands of the
lessers
. If he was lucky, he’d died on the way to wherever they were taking him, and there was a good chance he had, given the shape he’d been in.

Phury knocked on Wrath’s study. “My lord? My lord, you in?”

When there was no answer, he tried again.

He didn’t get any response, so he turned away and headed for his room, knowing damn well he was going to light up and smoke out and take his place once again in the wizard’s bleak kingdom.

As if you could be anywhere else
, the dark voice in his head drawled.

Across town, at Blaylock’s parents’ house, Qhuinn was sneaked in through the back service entrance the
doggen
used. He did his best to limp along, but Blay had to carry him up the servants’ staircase.

After Blay left his room to go lie about where he’d been and what he’d been doing, John took up sentry duty while Qhuinn settled on his buddy’s bed with none of his usual relief. And not just because he felt like a punching bag.

Blay’s folks deserved better than this. They’d been good to Qhuinn all along. Hell, a lot of parents wouldn’t let their kids near him, but Blay’s had been tight from the get-go. And now they were inadvertently jeopardizing their station in the
glymera
by harboring a disowned, PNG fugitive.

Just the thought of it all made Qhuinn sit up with the intention of taking off, but his belly had other plans for him. A sharpshooter went through his gut, like his liver had picked up a bow and arrow and taken aim at his kidneys. With a groan, he lay back down.

Try to stay still
, John signed.

“Roger . . . that.”

John’s phone went off, and the guy took it out of the pocket of his A & F jeans. As he read whatever it was, Qhuinn thought back to the three of them going to the mall to shop and him fucking that manager in the dressing room.

Everything had changed since then. The whole world was different now.

He felt years older, not days.

John looked up with a frown.
They want me to come home
.
Something’s up.

“Take off then . . . I’m cool here.”

I’ll come back if I can.

“No worries. Blay’ll keep you looped.”

As John left, Qhuinn looked around and remembered all the hours he’d spent lying on the bed in this room. Blay had a sweet crib. The walls were paneled in cherrywood, which made it seem like a study, and the furniture was modern and sleek, not that stuffy antique crap all the members of the
glymera
collected along with ass-wrenching rules on social etiquette. The king-sized bed was covered with a black quilt and had enough pillows to get you comfortable without girling you up. The plasma screen high-def had an Xbox 360, a Wii and a PS3 on the floor in front of it, and the desk where Blay did his homework was as neat and orderly as all the cards to those gamers were. To the left, there was a dorm-sized refrigerator, a black Rubbermaid trash barrel that kind of looked like a cock, to be honest, and an orange bin for bottles.

Blay had gone green a while ago and was big into recycling and reuse. Which was so him. He gave monthly to PETA, ate only free-range meat and poultry, and was into organic food.

If there had been a vampire UN to intern at, or a way for him to volunteer at Safe Place, he would have done it in a heartbeat.

Blay was the closest thing to an angel Qhuinn had ever come near.

Fuck.
He had to get out of here before his father got the whole family kicked out of the
glymera
.

As he shifted around to try to ease his lower back, he realized it wasn’t all internal injuries that were making him uncomfortable: The envelope his father’s
doggen
had given him had stayed put in the waistband of his jeans even through the beating.

He didn’t want to see the papers again, but somehow they ended up in his dirty, bloody hands.

Even with his blurry eyesight and his case of the all-over agonies, he focused on the parchment. It was his five-generation family tree, his birth certificate, as it were, and he looked down to the three names on the last line. His was to the left, on the far side of his older brother’s and his sister’s. His entry was covered by a thick X, and underneath his parents’ and siblings’ listings were their signatures in the same heavy ink.

Taking him out of the family required a lot of paperwork. His brother’s and sister’s birth certificates would have to be modified like this, and his parents’ marriage scroll would have to be edited, too. The
glymera
’s Princeps Council would also need to receive a declaration of disinheritance, the renunciation of parentage, and a petition for expulsion. After Qhuinn’s name was redacted from both the
glymera
’s roll call and the aristocracy’s massive genealogical file, the Council’s
leahdyre
would then compose a missive that would be sent out to all the
glymera
’s families, formally announcing the exile.

Anyone with a mate-able female of appropriate age needed to be forewarned, of course.

It was all so ridiculous. With his mismatched eyes, it wasn’t as if he would have gotten some aristocrat’s name carved in his back anyway.

Qhuinn folded up the birth certificate and returned it to the envelope. As he closed the flap, his chest felt as if it were caving in. To be all alone in the world, even as an adult, was terrifying.

But to contaminate those who had been kind to him was worse.

Blay came through the door with a tray of food. “I don’t know if you’re hungry—”

“I’ve got to go.”

His friend put what he was carrying down on the desk. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Help me up. I’ll be fine—”

“Bullshit,” came a female voice.

The Brotherhood’s private physician appeared out of thin air, right in front of them. Her doctor’s bag was the old-fashioned kind, with two handles at the top and a body like a loaf of bread, and her coat was a white one, just like they wore at the clinic. The fact that she was a ghost was a nonstarter. Everything about her, from her clothes and bag to her hair and perfume, became solid and tangible as she arrived, exactly as if she were normal.

“Thank you for coming,” Blay said, ever the good host.

“Hey, Doc,” Qhuinn muttered.

“And what do we have here.” Jane came over and sat on the corner of the bed. She didn’t touch him, just looked him up and down with an intense physician’s eye.