Lover Enshrined

This is wrong.

It was hard to disagree with himself. All his life he had lived for others. His twin. The Brotherhood. The race. And the whole Primale thing was right out of that playbook. He’d spent his whole life trying to be a hero, and now not only was he sacrificing himself, he was sacrificing Cormia as well.

He thought of her in that room, alone with those bowls and the quills and all that the parchment. Then he saw her up against his body, warm and alive.

Nope, his inner voice said. I’m not doing this.

“I’m not going to do this,” he said, rubbing at both his thighs.

“Your grace?” Layla’s voice came from the other side of the drapery.

He was about to answer her, when in a rush, the burning sensation swept thoughout his body, taking him over, eating him alive, consuming every inch of him. With shaking arms, he reached out to keep himself from falling backward as his stomach knotted.

A strangled sound bubbled up his throat, and then he had to work to draw his breath in.

“Your grace?” Layla’s voice was worried-and closer.

But there was no replying to her. Abruptly, his whole body turned into a snow globe, the inside of him shaking and sparking with pain.

What the…

DTs, he thought. It was the fucking DTs, because for the first time in, like, two hundred years his system was without red smoke.

He knew he had two choices: Poof it back to the other side, find a dealer other than Rehvenge, and keep the addict cord plugged into its current socket. Or bite the fucking bullet.

And stop.

The wizard blinked into his mind’s eye, the wraith standing at the forefront of the wasteland. Ah, mate, you can’t do it. You know you can’t. Why even try?

Phury took a moment to retch. Shit, he felt like he was going to die. He truly did.

All you have to do is go back to the world and get what you need. You can feel better with the strike of a lighter. That’s all. You can make this go away.

The shaking was so bad, Phury’s teeth started to knock together like ice cubes in a glass.

You can stop this. All you need to do is light up.

“You lied to me once already. You said I could get rid of you, and you are so not gone.”

Ah, mate, what’s a wee fib between friends?

Phury thought about the bathroom of that lavender bedroom and what he’d done there. “It’s everything.”

As the wizard started to get pissed and Phury’s body milk-shaked it something fierce, he stretched out his legs, lay down on the vestibule’s cool marble floor, and got ready for a whole lot of going-nowhere.

“Shit,” he said as he gave himself over to the withdrawal. “This is going to suck.”

Chapter Forty-six

John and qhuinn were a couple of yards behind Zsadist as the three of them approached a low-slung modern house. The place was number six on the list of yet-to -be-hit properties, and they stopped in the shadows of a couple of trees at the edge of the lawn.

Standing there, John had a serious case of the creeps. With its sprawling elegance, it was too much like the home he’d had for such a short time with Tohr and Wellsie.

Zsadist looked over his shoulder. “You want to stay here, John?”

When John nodded, the Brother said, “Figured. Creeping me out as well. Qhuinn, you hang with him.”

Zsadist strode through the darkness, checking windows and doors. As he disappeared around the back of the house, Qhuinn glanced over.

“Why is this creeping you out?”

John shrugged. I used to live in something like it.

“Wow, you had it good as a human.”

It was after that.

“Oh, you mean with… Right.”

God, the house must have been built by the same builder, because the facade and the arrangement of rooms was basically the same. Looking at all the windows, he thought of his bedroom. It had been navy blue with modern lines and a sliding glass door. The closet had been barren when he’d arrived, but it had gotten filled with the first new clothes he’d ever had.

Memories came back, memories of the meal he’d had the night Tohr and Wellsie had taken him in. Mexican food. She’d cooked Mexican food and put it all out on the table, big platters of enchiladas and quesadillas. Back then, when he’d been a pretrans, his stomach had been very delicate, and he could remember feeling mortified that he’d only be able to push the food around his plate.

Except then Wellsie had put a bowl of white rice with ginger sauce in front of him.

As she’d taken her chair, he’d wept, just curled his fragile little body into itself and cried for the kindness. After having spent all his life feeling as if he were different, from out of nowhere he’d found someone who knew what he needed and cared enough to give it to him.

That was a parent, wasn’t it. They knew you better than you knew yourself, and they took care of you when you couldn’t care for yourself.

Zsadist came back up to them. “Empty and unsacked. Next house?”

Qhuinn looked at the list. “Four Twenty-five Easterly Court-”

Z’s phone went off with a soft chime. He frowned as he checked the number, then put the thing up to his ear. “What’s up, Rehv?”

John’s eyes shifted back to the house, but then returned to Z as the Brother said, “What? Are you kidding me? He showed up where?” Long pause. “You are fucking serious? You’re sure, you’re one hundred percent sure?” When the Brother hung up, Z stared at the phone. “I have to go home. Right now. Shit.”

What is it? John signed.

“Can you guys cover the next three addys?” As John nodded, the Brother looked at him strangely. “Keep your phone close, son. You hear me?”

When John nodded, Z disappeared.

“Okay, clearly whatever that is, it’s not our biz.” Qhuinn folded up the list and put it in his jeans pocket. “Shall we outtie?”

John glanced back at the house. After a moment, he signed, I’m sorry about your parents.

Qhuinn’s reply was a while in coming. “Thanks.”

I miss mine.

“I thought you were an orphan?”

For a while I wasn’t.

There was a long silence. Then Qhuinn said, “Come on, John, let’s get out of here. We need to hit Easterly.”

John thought for a minute. You mind if we stop somewhere else first? It’s not far.

“Sure. Where?”

I want to go to Lash’s house.

“Why?”

I don’t know. I guess I want to see where this all started. And I want to look in his room.

“How’re we going to get inside, though?”

If the shutters are still on autotimer, they’ll be up, and we can dematerialize through the glass.