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.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but took a guess. “There are Chosen here who make themselves available for feeding. Surely he could use one of them?”
“You’d fucking think.”
Standing in concert, their focus wavered for but a moment as Wrath, the Blind King, appeared at the head of the stairs and walked down to the assembled. He was dressed for war, too, and his beloved dog was not with him —he was led now by his queen, the two in such synchronization that they moved with the same posture, gait, poise.
Tohrment had had that once, she thought.
“I wish there was some way of helping him,” she murmured. “I would do anything to see him with aid as opposed to alone in his suffering.”
“Do you mean that,” came a dark response.
“Of course.”
Lassiter put his face in her vision. “Do you
She went to take a step back, but found herself blocked by the jamb. “Yes…”
The angel put his palm out for her to clasp. “Swear to it.”
No’One frowned. “I do not understand—”
“You maintain you would do anything—I want you to swear to that.” Now those white eyes burned. “We’ve stalled out since the spring, and we didn’t have endless time back then. You say you want to save him, and I want you to commit to that—no matter what it takes.”
Abruptly, as if the memory had been purposely put in her mind—perhaps by the angel, more likely by her conscience—she remembered those moments after her birthing of Xhexania, when her physical pain and her mental anguish had been one and the same, the balance finally equalized as the agony in her heart for all she had lost was made manifest in her very core.…
Unable to bear her burdens, she had taken Tohrment’s dagger from his chest holster and used it in a way that had made him scream.
His hoarse cry had been the last thing she’d heard.
Staring up at the angel, she wasn’t stupid, and she was no longer naive. “You are suggesting I feed him.”
“Yeah. I am. It’s time to take this to the next level.”
No’One had to steel herself before she looked back at Tohrment. But as she took in his frail body, she came to a resolve: He had buried her… so surely she could force herself to accept him at her vein in order to give him life.
Assuming he would agree to take what was offered.
Assuming she could make herself.
Indeed, even in the hypothetical, her body trembled at the thought, but her mind rejected the response of her flesh. This was not a male interested in anything from her. In fact, he would be the only male she could safely feed.
“A Chosen’s blood would be purer,” she heard herself say.
“And get us nowhere.”
No’One shook her head, refusing to read anything into that statement. Then she took the angel’s hand. “I shall serve his blood needs, if he comes to me.”
Lassiter bowed ever so slightly. “I’ll take care of that part. And I’m going to hold you to this.”
“You shall not have to. My vow is my vow.”
TWENTY-ONE
Standing in the foyer with his brothers, Tohr had a bad feeling about the way the night was going to go. Then again, he’d woken up from that dream of his Wellsie and the young, the one he had had from time to time, but only truly understood since Lassiter had provided the context. He knew now that the two were in the In Between, huddled under a gray blanket in the midst of a dark gray landscape that was cold and unyielding.
They were gradually moving off into the distance.
The first time he’d had the vision, he’d been able to pick out each individual hair on his
As well as the contours of the tiny bundle she cradled against her heart.
Now, though, she was yards off, the gray ground between them something that he tried to cross, but was unable to cover. And just as dire, she had lost all color, her face and hair now tinted with the gray of the prison she was trapped in.
Naturally, he’d been insane when he woke up.
For fuck’s sake, he’d done everything he could to move on in the last few months: Put the dress away. Gone down for First and Last Meals. Tried cocksucking yoga, transcendental bullcrap, and even gotten on the Internet to
