“They’re not the root problem.”
John felt a sudden urge to punch a wall.
Abruptly her shoulders dropped, and her eyes, those gunmetal gray eyes, grew stark. “I don’t think you can, John. And neither can I. I’m not going to sit home and wait for you to come back at dawn every night.”
“Good, because I’m not going back to the mansion.” As John felt the blood drain out of his head, she cleared her throat. “You know, that whole bonding thing… I know you can’t help it. I was pissed off when I left, but I’ve been thinking it over ever since then, and— Shit, I know if you could feel different, be different, you would. The reality is, though, we could spend another miserable couple of months figuring that out, and learn to hate each other in the process—and I don’t want that. You don’t want that.”
“No! I don’t know— I mean, fuck.” She threw her hands up. “What else am I going to do? I’m so frustrated with you, with me, with everything—I’m not sure I’m even talking any sense.”
John frowned, finding himself in the same tough spot she was in. Where was the middle road?
“I want to believe that,” she said sadly. “I really do.”
On impulse, he walked around the desk and stood over her. Gripping the armrest, he turned the chair toward him and put out both his palms, offering them to her.
There was no demand. No aggression. She would choose or not choose.
After a moment, Xhex placed her hands in his, and when he pulled her up, she didn’t fight him.
Slipping his arms around her, he brought her close—and then moving with power, he bent her off balance, holding her in his powerful arms, keeping her from the floor.
With eyes boring into hers, he brought their lips together once, briefly. When she didn’t slap him, kick him in the nuts, or bite him, he dropped his head and took her mouth properly, plying her to open for him.
When she did, he melded her body to his and kissed the ever-living shit out of her. One of his hands ended up on her ass, squeezing; the other got clamped on the back of her neck. As a groan came up her throat, he knew he’d proved his point.
Although he had no immediate solution to the bonded-male situation, he knew this connection between them was a for-sure, in a world that had suddenly seemed filled with maybe-not.
He stopped the kiss. He put her back down where she had been sitting. He went to the door.
Good thing for the chair, Xhex thought as the door closed behind John.
Yeah, wow. Whatever her head was cramped up with, her body was as fluid and easy as warm air.
She still wanted him. And he’d made his point. They did fit together—at least like that.
Holy hell, did they fit together.
Shit, what to do now?
Well, one idea… would be to text him to come back, lock them in together, and break in her new office improperly.
She even reached for her phone.
In the end, however, she texted something altogether different.
Putting the phone down, she knew it was up to her and John to find their own future—work it out of the unforgiving, rocky shoals of passing time in a way that fit what they both needed.
She’d assumed that would be fighting side by side with him and the Brotherhood, and so had he.
Maybe that was still the way. Maybe it wasn’t.
As she looked around her office, she wasn’t sure how long she would be here—
The knock that interrupted her was a single strong one.
“Yeah,” she called out.
Big Rob and Silent Tom walked in, looking as they always did—like they were about to drop some hotshot on his head for behaving badly. And as much as she was still focused on John, it was good to have some business-as- usual up in her face. She had spent a lot of nights making sure a club ran smoothly.
This she could do.
“Talk to me,” she said.
Naturally, Big Rob did the obliging. “There’s a new player in town.”
“In what line of business?”
The guy tapped the side of his nose.
Drugs. Wonderful—but hardly a surprise. Rehv had been the kingpin for a decade, and now that he’d departed the scene? Opportunity, like nature, hated a vacuum—and money was a great motivator.
Frickin’ great. The underworld of Caldwell was already a three-legged table from hell; more instability they did not need.
“Who is it?”
“No one knows. He’s come out of, like, nowhere, and just bought half a million in powder from Benloise, in cash.”
She frowned. It wasn’t like she doubted her bouncer’s sources, but that was a lot of product. “Doesn’t mean it’s going to be sold in Caldwell.”
“We just picked up this from a disorderly in the men’s bathroom.”
Big Tom tossed a cellophane packet on the desk. The thing was your standard-issue quarter-ounce serve-up, except for one little detail. It was stamped with a red ink seal.
Fuck…
“I got no idea what that writing thingy is.”
Of course he didn’t. It was a character in the Old Language, one that didn’t have an equivalent in English. Typically it was stamped on official documents, and it represented death.
The question was… who was trying to take Rehv’s place—who happened to be of the race?
“The guy you got this from, did you let him go?” she asked.
“He’s waiting for you in my office.”
Xhex got up and came around the desk. Nailing Big Tom in the arm with a quick punch, she said, “I always did like you.”
FIFTEEN
Up in the Sanctuary, No’One led Tohrment to the library, and expected to leave him to his investigations, whatever they might be. When they arrived at their destination, however, he opened the door for her, and beckoned her forward.
Of course, she stepped over the threshold.
The temple of books was long and thin and tall, built rather on the dimensions of a folio standing on its end. All around, leather-bound volumes, filled with the careful strokes of generations of the Chosen, were set in white marble cases in chronological order, the stories therein nonfictional accounts of lives lived far down below, and witnessed upon water’s transparent screen.
Tohrment stood for a moment, his crutch keeping him stable as he cocked his bandaged foot up.
“What are you looking for?” she asked as she glanced at the nearest shelves. The sight of the volumes made her wonder about the future of keeping the past. With the Chosen exploring the real world, they were not recording as much, if at all. This long tradition could well be lost.
“The afterlife,” Tohrment replied. “Any idea if there’s a section on that?”
“I believe the chronicles are arranged by year, not subject.”
“You ever hear of the In Between?”
