where things really stood between them.
The answer was to get the remains of his sister back. And as soon as he did? He would miss his fellow soldiers in the same manner he ached for his family, but he would take himself out of the Band of Bastards—forcibly if need be. Then perhaps he would put down some roots somewhere else in America—there would be no returning to the Old Country. He might be too tempted to try to revisit his bloodline, and that would not be fair to them.
Toward the end of the night, at around four a.m. judging by the moon’s position, he dematerialized to the rooftop of the skyscraper. He had no weapons on which to draw for protection—but he had no intention of fighting. As far as he had been taught, his sister could not enter unto the Fade without the proper ceremony so he had to live long enough to bury her.
As soon as he did, however…
Up high above the streets and other buildings of the city, in the curiously silent stratosphere where there were no horns or shouts or rumbles of delivery trucks coming in early, the wind was strong and bracingly chilly in spite of the humidity in the air and the warm temperature. Overhead, thunder rumbled and lightning skipped along the underside of storm clouds, promising a wet beginning to the day.
When he’d started his journey with Xcor, he had been a gentlemale better tutored in the fine art of leading a female upon the dance floor—as opposed to engaging in hand-to-hand combat. But he was no longer who he had been.
Accordingly, he stood out in the open without cowardice or apology, feet braced and arms at his sides. There was no weakness in the line of his chin, the contour of his chest, or the straight angle of his shoulders, and no fear in his heart at what might step out to greet him. All of that was because of Xcor: Throe had technically been born male, but it wasn’t until he had run afoul of that fighter that he had truly learned how to live up to his gender.
He would always owe that to the soldiers he had been with for so long—
From behind the mechanicals, a figure stepped out, the wind catching a long coat and blowing it free from a heavy, deadly body.
Instinct and training overrode intent as Throe fell into a fighting stance, prepared to face his—
As the male took a step forward, the light from the fixture above the rooftop door caught his face.
It was not Xcor.
Throe did not ease his stance. “Zypher?”
“Aye.” Abruptly, the soldier lurched forward, and then broke into a run to close the distance between them.
Before Throe knew it, he was encompassed in a rough embrace, held in arms as strong as his own, against a body as big as his own.
“You live,” the soldier breathed. “You are alive.…”
Awkwardly at first, and then with a strange desperation, Throe latched onto the other fighter. “Aye. Aye, I am.”
With an abrupt shove, he was pushed back and examined from head to foot. “What e’er did they do unto you?”
“Nothing.”
Those eyes narrowed. “Be in truth with me, brother. And afore you answer, one of your eyes is still black- and-blue.”
“They provided me with a healer, and a… Chosen.”
“A Chosen?!”
“Aye.”
“Mayhap I should try to get stabbed.”
Throe had to laugh. “She was… like nothing on this earth. Fair of hair and skin and countenance, ethereal, though she lived and breathed.”
“I thought they had been fabricated.”
“I do not know—mayhap I have romanticized it. But she was exactly as rumors describe them—lovelier than any female your eyes have beheld.”
“Do not torture me thus!” Zypher grinned briefly, and then regained his seriousness. “Are you well.”
Not a question—a demand.
“They treated me as a guest for the most part.” Indeed, except for the shackles and the beat-down— although given that they were protecting a precious gem’s virtue, he had to say he approved of what they had wrought upon him. “But aye, I am recovered fully, thanks to their healers.” He looked around. “Where is Xcor.”
Zypher shook his head. “He’s not coming.”
“So you are to kill me then.” Odd that the male would task another with what surely he would relish.
“Fuck, no.” Zypher unshouldered one side of a rucksack. “I am to give you this.”
From out of the pack, Zypher produced a large, square brass box with ornate markings and inscriptions.
Throe could only stare at the thing.
He had not seen it for centuries. In fact, he had not known it had been taken from his family until Xcor had threatened him with it.
Zypher cleared his throat. “He told me to tell you he releases you. Your debt to him is settled and he is returning your dead unto you.”
Throe’s hands shook badly—until they accepted the weight of his sister’s ashes. Then they were steadied.
As he stood there in the wind and drizzle, poleaxed and unmoving, Zypher paced about in a tight circle, his hands on his hips and his eyes on the gravel that covered the skyscraper’s roofing panels.
“He hasnae been the same since he left you,” the soldier said. “This morning, I found him cutting himself to the bone from the mourning.”
Throe’s eyes shot over to the male he knew so well. “Indeed?”
“Aye. He did so all day long. And this night, he has not even gone out to fight. He is back at the safe house, sitting by himself. He ordered everyone but me away, and then gave me this.”
Throe brought the box even closer to his body, holding it tightly. “Are you sure I am the cause for such upset,” he said dryly.
“Very much so. In truth, he is not like the Bloodletter in his heart. He wants to be—and he is capable of much against others that I personally am not. But to you, to us… we are his clan.” Zypher’s stare was filled with candor. “You should come back to us. To him. He shall not act thus again—those ashes are your proof. And we need you—not just because of all you do, but who you have become to us. It has been but twenty-four hours and we are broken without you.”
Throe glanced up at the sky, at the storm, at the violent, churning heavens above. Having once been damned by circumstance, he couldn’t believe he would even consider being damned by consent.
“We will all be incomplete without you. Even him.”
Throe had to smile a little. “Did you e’er think you would say such.”
“No.” The laugh that floated over upon the gusts was deep. “Not about an aristocrat. But you are more than that.”
“Thanks to you.”
“And Xcor.”
“I’m not sure if I’m ready to give him any credit.”
“Come back with me. See him. Rejoin your family. Much as it might pain you this night, you are as lost without us as we are without you.”
In response, Throe could only stare out over the city, its lights like that of the stars that were eclipsed up above.
“I cannot trust him,” he heard himself say.
“He has given you your freedom this night. Surely that means something.”
“We are all facing death sentences if we continue. I saw the Brotherhood—if they were formidable before in the Old Country, that is nothing compared to their resources now.”
“So they live well.”
“They live smart. I couldn’t find them even if I wished. And they have extensive facilities—they are a force to be reckoned with.” He glanced over. “Xcor will be disappointed with what I have learned—which is nothing.”
