Lover Reborn (23 page)

Tohr went back to his own room sometime later. When he got to his door, he found his crutch propped against the panels.

No’One had returned it to him. After he’d left it behind on the Other Side.

Picking the thing up, he went into his room… and half expected to find her naked on his bed, ready for some sex. Which was completely ridiculous—on too many levels to count.

Parking himself on the chaise lounge, he stared at the gown that Lassiter had handled so roughly. The fine satin was bunched up in waves, the disorder creating a wonderful, shimmering display over on the bed.

“My beloved is dead,” he said out loud.

As the sound of the words faded, something was suddenly, stupidly clear: Wellesandra, blooded daughter of Relix, was never filling out that bodice again. She was never going to put the skirting over her head and wriggle into the corset, or free the ends of her hair from the lace-ups in the back. She wasn’t going to look for matching shoes, or get pissed off because she sneezed right after she put her mascara on, or worry about whether she was going to spill on the skirting.

She was… dead.

How ironic. He’d been mourning her this whole time, and yet somehow missing the point that was most obvious. She was not coming back. Ever.

Getting up, he went across and gently gathered up the dress. The skirting refused to obey, slipping out of his hands and jumping back down to the floor—doing what it wanted and taking control of the situation.

Just as his Wellsie had always done.

When he had a moderate handle on everything, he carried the gown over to the closet, opened the double doors, and hung the glorious weight on the brass rod.

Crap. He was going to see it every time he went in here.

Pulling it free, he shifted it over to the other side, so it was in the darkness behind the two suits that he never wore and the ties that had been bought for him not by his mate, but by Fritz.

And then he closed the closet up tight.

Back at the bed, he lay down and shut his eyes.

Moving on didn’t have to involve sex, he told himself. It just didn’t. Accepting the death, letting her go to save her, that he could do without the benefit of… any kind of naked-female thing. After all, what was he going to do? Head out into the alleys, find a whore, and fuck her? That was a bodily function like breathing. Hard to see how that was going to help.

Lying still, he tried to picture doves being released from cages, and waters bursting from dams, and wind blowing through trees, and…

Fucking hell. It was like the insides of his eyelids were playing the goddamn Discovery Channel.

But then just as he was drifting off, the images changed, shifting to water, lazy blue-green water that had no current. Calm. Warm water. With humid air all around.…

He wasn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, but the image turned into a dream that started with a pale arm, a lovely pale arm floating on the water, the lazy blue-green water that had no current. Calm. Warm—

It was his Wellsie in the pool. His beautiful Wellsie, her breasts peaked as she floated, her tight stomach and flaring hips and bare sex licked with wetness.

In the dream, he saw himself breaching the pool, walking down short steps, the water getting into his clothes—

Abruptly, he stopped and looked at his chest.

His daggers were strapped on. His guns under his arms. His ammo belt locked on his hips.

What the hell was he doing? This shit got wet and it was useless—

That wasn’t Wellsie.

Holy shit, that was
not
his
shellan
.…

With a shout, Tohr jacked upright, ripping free of the dream. Slapping his hands on his thighs, he expected to find wet leather. But no, none of it had been real.

His arousal was back, however. And a thought he refused to give credence to surfaced and stank in the back of his mind.

As he stared down at his sex and cursed, the strong length of it made him think of the countless times he’d used it for pleasure and fun… and procreation.

Now he just wanted it to go limp and stay that way.

Settling back against the pillows, sorrow settled on him like a physical weight as he recognized the truth that the angel had spoken. He had not, in fact, let his Wellsie go on any level.

He… was the problem.

F
rom the vantage point behind binoculars, the mansion on the far side of the Hudson River looked enormous, a massive stack-on-stack of floors that sat boldly upon a rocky bluff. On every of its levels, lights glowed through glass panels, as if the thing had no solid walls.

“Quite a palace,” Zypher remarked in the thick, balmy breeze.

“Aye,” came a reply over on the left.

Xcor dropped the binocs from his eyes. “Too much exposure to daylight. ’Tis a roasting waiting to happen.”

“Mayhap he kitted out the basement,” Zypher said. “With more of those marble tubs…”

Given the tone of his voice, the soldier was imagining females of different sorts in water with suds, and Xcor shot him a glare before resuming the watch.

Such a waste this was. Assail—son of one of the greatest Brothers there had ever been—could have been a fighter, a warrior, mayhap even a Brother, but his fallen Chosen mother had forced another path upon him.

Although one could argue if the bastard had had any cock at all, he would have forged his own destiny in pursuits other than those of marble
tubing. As it stood, however, he was simply another useless drain upon the species, a dandy with naught worthwhile to do with his nights.

Although that could all change this evening.

Under these clouded skies, against the backdrop of flashes of lightning, this male was significant, at least for a short time. Granted, the circumstances of his relevancy might cost him his life, but if the history books served their purposes, he could well be remembered for playing a small role in the great turning point of the race.

Not that he knew any of this, of course.

Then again, one didn’t expect chum to be aware it was attracting sharks.

Scanning the rolling grounds once again, Xcor decided the lack of trees and shrubs was the result of the clearing process prior to construction. No doubt an aristocrat would want manicured gardens; the fact that it made the house more difficult to get up close to was not the kind of thing Assail would consider.

The good news was that although it was likely there was steel in the structure of the house—as part of support beams, floor pinnings, roof joists—at least one could get in and out through all that glass.

“Ah, yes, here is the proud homeowner now,” Xcor growled at the figure of a male striding out into the grand living room.

Not even drapes to hide his presence. It was as if he were a hamster in a cage.

The male deserved to die for being this stupid, and indeed, on Xcor’s back, his scythe began to hum a little dirge.

Xcor increased the binoculars’ magnification. Assail was taking something out of his breast pocket—a cigar. And naturally, the lighter was a gold one. He probably thought fire, like packaged meat, came only from stores.

It was going to be a pleasure to kill him.

Along with the others who would soon show up here.

Indeed, the
glymera
’s Council had effectively stonewalled Xcor and his Band of Bastards. No invitation to a meeting. No greeting by its
leahdyre
, Rehvenge. Not even an official response to the letter that had been sent in the spring.

At first, this had frustrated him to the point of violence. But then a little birdie had begun to chirp in his ear, and another path had been revealed.

The best weapon in a war was often not a dagger, a gun, or even a cannon.
It was something that was invisible and deadly—yet not poisonous gas. It was something that was utterly weightless and yet had gravity beyond measure.

Information, solid, verified information, from a source inside your enemy’s camp, was atomic-bomb powerful.

His missive to the Council had in fact been received, and what was more, it was being taken seriously. The great Blind King, whilst saying nothing, had immediately commenced meeting with the heads of all the remaining bloodlines—in person, at their places of residence.

Bold move in a time of war—and it proved Xcor’s challenge had a basis in reality: A king did not risk his life like that unless he was out of touch with his subjects and being forced to reconnect.

In retrospect, it was even better than a meeting with the Council. There were a limited number of its members left, and all of them had known abodes. Wrath had already had audiences with the majority, and, thanks to that little birdie, Xcor was well aware of who was left.

Shifting his focus around, he assessed the roof. The porches. The chimney on the near side.

According to Xcor’s source, Assail had arrived back in the spring, assumed ownership of this sieve of a homestead, and… that was all the aristocrats knew. Well, other than the odd notables that the male had brought no one with him—no family, no staff, no
shellan
—and that he kept to himself. Both were unusual for a member of the
glymera
, but then mayhap he was waiting to see how things fared in this new environment afore bringing his blood to him and entertaining others of his ilk.…

There had been a younger brother, hadn’t there? Also coddled by that fallen Chosen mother of theirs. Perhaps a half sister of some ill repute?

Behind him, Xcor heard his soldiers stretch, their leather creaking, their weapons shifting. Up above, storm clouds continued to release intermittent flashes of light, with the base drum of thunder remaining as yet in the distance.

He should have assumed from the very beginning that it would come down to this: If he wanted Wrath off the throne, he was going to have to do it himself. Relying on the
glymera
for anything more than unfounded delusions of grandeur had been a mistake.

At least he had his in on the Council. In the aftermath, when things got messy, he was going to need the support. Fortunately, there were more people who agreed with him than did not: Wrath was nothing but a figurehead,
and whereas in times of peace that was tolerable, in this era of war and strife it was insupportable.

The Old Ways could keep that male where he didn’t belong for just so long. In the meantime, Xcor would wait for the proper moment, and strike decisively.

It was time for Wrath’s reign to be relegated to a soon forgotten footnote.

“I hate waiting,” Zypher muttered.

“ ’Tis the only virtue that matters,” Xcor shot back.

In the foyer of the Brotherhood’s mansion, everyone was gathering to go out for the night, the males milling around at the foot of the grand staircase, their weapons gleaming on their chests and at their hips, their brows drawn over cold eyes, their bodies mincing about like those of stallions whose hooves could not be stilled.

From the shadows outside the butler’s pantry, No’One waited for Tohrment to come down and join them. He was usually among the first, but of late he had tarried longer and longer—

There he was, at the head of the second-floor landing, clad in black leather.

As he descended, he took the banister casually.

She was not fooled.

He had grown e’er weaker over the last few months, his body wasting away, until it was clear that only his will for vengeance animated him.

He was starved for blood. And yet he obviously refused to yield to that demand of the flesh.

So thus she nervously waited and watched at the beginning of every night and the end: Every sundown she hoped he would come down finally refreshed. Every near-to-dawn, she found herself praying he arrived back alive.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, he—

“You look like shit,” one of his Brothers said.

Tohrment ignored the comment as he went over to stand next to the massive young male who had mated Xhexania. The pair were a team, from what she could tell, and she was grateful for it. The younger had to be a full-breed, in spite of his nomenclature, and she had heard many references to his prowess in the field. Further, that particular fighter was never alone: Behind him, as faithfully as a reflection, was a downright nasty-looking
soldier, one with mismatched irises and a calculation to his stare that suggested he was as smart as he was strong.

She had to believe that both would intercede if Tohrment were in danger.

“Enjoying the view? I’m not.”

She hissed and spun around, her robe’s hem flaring out. Lassiter had come through the pantry without her knowing and was filling the open doorway, his blond-and-black hair and his gold piercings catching the light of the fixture above him.

His knowing eyes were always something to escape from, but at least at the moment, that white stare was not on her.

Crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her hands into the robe’s sleeves, she resumed her own regard of Tohrment. “In truth, I do not know how he is still fighting.”

“It’s time to stop pussyfooting around with him.”