Lover Enshrined

and a PS3 on the floor in front of it, and the desk where Blay did his homework was as neat and orderly as all the cards to those gamers were. To the left, there was a dorm-sized refrigerator, a black Rubbermaid trash barrel that kind of looked like a cock, to be honest, and an orange bin for bottles.

Blay had gone green a while ago and was big into recycling and reuse. Which was so him. He gave monthly to PETA, ate only free-range meat and poultry, and was into organic food.

If there had been a vampire UN to intern at, or a way for him to volunteer at Safe Place, he would have done it in a heartbeat.

Blay was the closest thing to an angel Qhuinn had ever come near.

Fuck. He had to get out of here before his father got the whole family kicked out of the glymera.

As he shifted around to try to ease his lower back, he realized it wasn’t all internal injuries that were making him uncomfortable: The envelope his father’s doggen had given him had stayed put in the waistband of his jeans even through the beating.

He didn’t want to see the papers again, but somehow they ended up in his dirty, bloody hands.

Even with his blurry eyesight and his case of the all-over agonies, he focused on the parchment. It was his five-generation family tree, his birth certificate, as it were, and he looked down to the three names on the last line. His was to the left, on the far side of his older brother’s and his sister’s. His entry was covered by a thick X, and underneath his parents’ and siblings’ listings were their signatures in the same heavy ink.

Taking him out of the family required a lot of paperwork. His brother’s and sister’s birth certificates would have to be modified like this, and his parents’ marriage scroll would have to be edited, too. The glymera’s Princeps Council would also need to receive a declaration of disinheritance, the renunciation of parentage, and a petition for expulsion. After Qhuinn’s name was redacted from both the glymera’s roll call and the aristocracy’s massive genealogical file, the Council’s leahdyre would then compose a missive that would be sent out to all the glymera’s families, formally announcing the exile.

Anyone with a mate-able female of appropriate age needed to be forewarned, of course.

It was all so ridiculous. With his mismatched eyes, it wasn’t as if he would have gotten some aristocrat’s name carved in his back anyway.

Qhuinn folded up the birth certificate and returned it to the envelope. As he closed the flap, his chest felt as if it were caving in. To be all alone in the world, even as an adult, was terrifying.

But to contaminate those who had been kind to him was worse.

Blay came through the door with a tray of food. “I don’t know if you’re hungry-”

“I’ve got to go.”

His friend put what he was carrying down on the desk. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Help me up. I’ll be fine-”

“Bullshit,” came a female voice.

The Brotherhood’s private physician appeared out of thin air, right in front of them. Her doctor’s bag was the old-fashioned kind, with two handles at the top and a body like a loaf of bread, and her coat was a white one, just like they wore at the clinic. The fact that she was a ghost was a nonstarter. Everything about her, from her clothes and bag to her hair and perfume, became solid and tangible as she arrived, exactly as if she were normal.

“Thank you for coming,” Blay said, ever the good host.

“Hey, Doc,” Qhuinn muttered.

“And what do we have here.” Jane came over and sat on the corner of the bed. She didn’t touch him, just looked him up and down with an intense physician’s eye.

“Not exactly a candidate for Playgirl, huh,” he said awkwardly.

“How many of them were there?” Her voice wasn’t joking around.

“Eighteen. Hundred.”

“Four,” Blay interjected. “An honor guard of four.”

“Honor guard?” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t understand the race’s ways. “For Lash?”

“No, from Qhuinn’s own family,” Blay said. “And they weren’t supposed to kill him.”

Well, if that wasn’t his new theme song, Qhuinn thought.

Doc Jane opened her bag. “Okay, let’s see what’s doing under your clothes.”

She was characteristically all business as she cut off his shirt, listened to his heart, and took his blood pressure. As she worked, he passed the time looking at the wall, the blank TV screen, her bag.

“Handy… bag… you got there,” he grunted as her hands palpated his abdomen and hit a soft spot.

“Always wanted one. It’s part of my Marcus Welby, M.D., fetish.”

“Who?”

“This hurt, too?” His gasp as she poked him again answered just fine, so he left it at that.

Doc Jane took off his pants, and as he went commando, he quickly pulled some sheets over his privates. She pushed them aside, looked him over professionally front to back, and then asked him to flex his arms and legs. After she lingered over a couple of spectacular black and blues, she covered him again.

“What did they work you over with? Those bruises on your thighs are severe.”

“Crowbars. Big, massive-”

Blay cut in. “Clubs. Had to be those ceremonial black clubs.”

“That would be consistent with the injuries.” Doc Jane took a moment, as if she were a computer processing an information request. “Right, here’s where we are. What’s going on with your legs is undoubtedly uncomfortable, but the contusions should heal on their own. You have no open wounds, and although it appears your palm was knifed, I’m assuming that happened a little earlier, because it’s healing already. And nothing appears broken, which is a miracle.”

Except his heart, of course. To be beaten by your own brother-

Shut it, you pantywaist, he told himself.

“So I’m just fine, right, Doc?”

“How long were you out cold?”

He frowned, that vision from the Fade suddenly swooping down out of his memory like a black crow. God… had he died?

“Ah… I have no idea how long. And I didn’t see anything while I was out. It was just blackness, you know… I was down for the count.” No way he was talking about that little all-natural acid trip. “But I’m good, you know-”

“I’m going to have to disagree with you there. Your heart rate’s high, your blood pressure is low, and I don’t like that belly of yours.”

“It’s just a little sore.”

“I’m worried something’s ruptured.”

Great. “I’ll be fine.”

“And your medical degree is from where?” Doc Jane smiled, and he laughed a little. “I’d like to give you an ultrasound, but Havers’s clinic got hit tonight.”

“What?”

“What?” Blay asked at the same time.

“I assumed you knew.”

“Were there survivors?” Blay asked.

“Lash is missing.”

While the implications of that little news flash sank in, Jane reached into her bag of goodies and took out a sealed needle and a vial with a rubber top. “I’m going to give you something for the pain. And don’t worry,” she said wryly, “it’s not Demerol.”

“Why, is Demerol bad?”

“For vampires? Yes.” She rolled her eyes. “Trust me.”

“Whatever you think sounds good.”

When she was finished shooting him up, she said, “This should last you a couple of hours, but I plan to be back way before that.”