Lover Unbound

'What. Jane's. You want to meet me here? Right now? Yeah. Fuck. Okay, see you in two, Hollywood.' He clipped the RAZR shut. 'Rhage.'

'You think we'll be able to swing a move-in for me?'

'Yeah, I do. Frankly, Wrath would be much more comfortable if you were in our world.' He ran his knuckles down her cheek. 'And so would I. I just never thought you'd give up your life.'

'Not giving it up, though. Living it a little differently, but not giving it up. I mean… I really don't have many friends.' Except Manello. 'And there's nothing tying me down-I was prepared to leave Caldwell for Manhattan anyway. Plus… I'm just going to be happier with you.'

He looked her face over, loving the strong features and the short hair and the piercing forest green eyes. 'I never would have asked you, you know… to blow everything you have here away for me.'

'That's only one of the reasons I love you.'

'Will you tell me the others later?'

'Maybe.' She slipped her hand between his legs, shocking the shit out of him and making him gasp. 'Might show you, too.'

He covered her mouth with his and pushed his tongue into her as he backed her up against the wall. He didn't care if Rhage waited on the front lawn for an extra-

His phone went off. And kept ringing.

V lifted his head and looked through the window by the front door. Rhage was on the front lawn, phone to his ear, staring back. The brother made a show of checking his watch, then flashing his middle finger at V.

Vishous pounded a fist into the Sheetrock and stepped off from Jane. 'I'm coming back at the end of the night. Be naked.'

'Wouldn't you rather undress me?'

'No, because I'd shred that shirt, and I want you sleeping in it every night until you're in my bed with me. Be. Naked.'

'We'll see.'

His whole body throbbed at the disobedience. And she knew it, her stare level and erotic.

'God, I love you,' he said.

'I know. Now run along and kill something. I'll be waiting for you.'

He smiled at her. 'Couldn't love you more if I tried.'

'Ditto.'

He kissed her and dematerialized out front to Rhage's side, making sure some mhis was in place. Oh, great. It was raining. Man, he'd so much rather be cozied up with Jane than out with his brother, and he couldn't help but shoot a short-stack glare at Rhage.

'Like another five minutes would kill you?'

'Please. You start down that road with your female and I'll be here until summer.'

'Are you-'

V frowned and looked at the condo next to Jane's. The garage door was jammed halfway up, the glow of brake lights revealed. There was a slam of a car door then on the breeze the faintest scent of sweetness drifted over, like powdered sugar had been sprinkled in the cold wind.

'Oh… God, no.'

At that very moment Jane threw open her front door and came running out, his leather jacket in her hand, his shirt flowing behind her. 'You forgot this!'

It was a hideous hole in one, a revelation of all the pieces he'd seen only fragments of: The dream had arrived in real life.

'No!' he screamed.

The sequence played out in a series of seconds that lasted centuries: Rhage looking at him as if he were crazy. Jane running over the grass. Him dropping the mhis as fear overwhelmed him.

A lesser ducking out from under the garage door with gun drawn.

The shot made no sound on account of the silencer that was in place. V lunged for Jane, trying to shield her body with his. He failed. She was hit in the back, and the bullet came out the other side, busting through her sternum, going into his arm. He caught her as she fell, his own chest blazing with pain.

As they crumpled to the ground, Rhage tore off after the slayer, not that V really noticed. All he knew was his nightmare: Blood on his shirt. His heart screaming in agony. Death coming… but not for him. For Jane.

'Two minutes,' she said between gasps as her hand flopped onto her chest. 'Got less than two… minutes.'

She must have been hit in an artery and knew it. 'I'm going to-'

She shook her head and grabbed his arm. 'Stay. Shit… not going… to…'

Make it… were the words she was going to say. 'Fuck that!'

'Vishous…' Her eyes watered, her color draining fast. 'Hold my hand. Don't leave me. You can't… Don't let me go alone.'

'You're going to be fine!' He started to pick her up. 'I'm taking you to Havers's.'

'Vishous. Can't fix this. Hold my hand. I'm leaving… oh, fuck…' She started to weep while gasping. 'I love you.'

'No!'

'I love…'

'No!'

Chapter Forty-eight

The Scribe Virgin looked up from the bird in her hand, sudden dread startling her.

Oh… wretched happenstance. Oh, horrid destiny.

It had come. The thing she had sensed and feared long ago, the breakdown in the structure of her reality had arrived. Her punishment was now manifest.

That human… that human woman her son loved was dying at this very moment. She was in his arms and bleeding on him and dying.

With an unsteady arm the Scribe Virgin put the chickadee back on the white-blooming tree and stumbled over to the fountain. Sitting down on its marble edge, she felt the light weight of her robing as if it were heavy chains drawn around her.

The fault of her son's loss was hers. Verily, she had brought this ruination upon him: She had broken the rules. Three hundred years ago she had broken the rules.

At the inception of time she had been granted one act of creation, and accordingly, after her maturity had been reached, one act of creation she had effected. But then she'd done it again. She had borne what she should not have, and in doing so had cursed her begotten. Her son's destiny-the whole of it, from his treatment under his father to the hard, coldhearted male Vishous had matured into to this, his mortal agony-was in fact her castigation. For as he was in pain, so she suffered a thousandfold.

She wanted to cry out for her Father, but knew she could not. Choices that had been made by her were naught of His concern, and the consequences were hers alone to bear.

As she reached through the dimensions and saw what was transpiring unto her son, she knew Vishous's agony as her own, felt the numbing of his cold shock, the fire of his denial, the gut wrenching twist of his horror. She felt, too, the death of his beloved, the gradual chill coming upon the human as her blood leaked into her chest cavity and her heart began to flutter. And then, yes, then, too, she heard her son's mumbling words of love and smelled the rank, fetid fear that poured out of him.

There was naught she could do. She, who had power beyond measure over so many, was in this moment impotent because fate and the consequence of free will were her Father's sole domain. He alone knew the absolute map of eternity, the compendium of all choices taken and untaken, of paths known and unknown. He was the Book and the Page and the indelible Ink.