Lover Enshrined

When Blay’s mother answered, her voice cracked, but not because the connection was bad. “John? John is-”

“We’re all here,” Blay’s father said. “Keep driving, darling-”

John shook his head, handed the phone over, and signed, What if there’s a tracking device in the van?

Blay’s father muttered a curse. “Darling? Pull over. Pull over and get out of the van. Dematerialize up to the safe house, and call me when you’re there.”

“Are you sure-”

“Now, dearest. Now.”

There was the sound of an engine decelerating. The slam of a car door. Then silence.

“Darling?” Blay’s father grabbed for the phone. “Darling? Oh, Jesus…”

“I’m here,” came her voice. “Here at the safe house.”

Everyone took a deep breath.

“I’ll be right there.”

Other words were said, but Qhuinn was busy listening for sounds of footsteps up the stairs. What if more lessers came? Blay was injured, and the guy’s father looked wiped.

“We really gotta get out of here,” he said to no one in particular.

They went upstairs, put the suitcases in Blay’s father’s Lexus, and before Qhuinn could count one, two, three, Blay and his father were off into the night.

It all went so fast. The attack, the fighting, the evac…the good-bye that was never spoken. Blay just got in the car with his father and took off with their luggage. But what else was going to happen? Now was hardly the time for a long, drawn-out thing, and not just because the lessers had come for a little house tour ten minutes ago.

“I guess we should take off,” he said.

John shook his head. I want to stay here. More are going to come when the ones we killed don’t check in.

Qhuinn looked at the family room, which was now a porch thanks to Blay’s Hollywood-stuntman routine. There was a lot to loot in the house, and the idea that even a box of Kleenex from Blay’s might fall into the Lessening Society ’s hands pissed him off royally.

John started texting. I’m telling Wrath what happened and that we’re hanging here. We trained for this. It’s time we get into the action.

Qhuinn couldn’t agree more, but he was pretty damn sure Wrath wasn’t going to approve.

John’s phone went off a moment later. He read what it was to himself, and then slowly smiled and turned the screen around.

The text was from Wrath. Agreed. Call if you need backup.

Holy shit… They’d joined the war.

Chapter Thirty-five

Rehv parked the bentley at the southeast entrance of Black Snake State Park. The gravel lot was small, big enough for only ten cars, and whereas the other lots were chained off after hours, this one was always open because it had trails to the rentable cabins.

As he got out of the car, he took his cane, but not because he needed it for balance. His vision had gone red about halfway through the drive and now his body was alive and humming, warmed up, with sensation everywhere.

Before he locked up the Bentley, he stashed his sable coat in the trunk, because the car was noticeable enough without twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of Russian fur in plain view. He also double-checked that he had the antivenom kit with him and plenty of dopamine.

Yup. Yup.

He shut the trunk, hit the alarm, and turned to the thick line of shorter trees that formed the park’s outer boundaries. For no good reason, the birches and oaks and poplars around the man-made lot reminded him of a crowd penned in at a parade, all of them packed in tight at the edge of the gravel, their branches overlapping out- of-bounds even as their trunks stayed where they should.

The night was still except for a crisp, dry breeze that was all about fall’s impending arrival. Funny, this far upstate, August could get downright cold, and as his body was now, he liked the chill. Thrived on it, even.

He walked over to the main trailhead, going past an unmanned check-in and a series of signs for hikers. A quarter mile in there was an offshoot into the forest, and he took the dirt path deeper into the park. The log cabin was a mile farther, and he was about two hundred yards away from the thing when a tangle of leaves scampered by his feet. The shadow that carried them forward was tropical-hot around his ankles.

“Thanks, man,” he said to Trez.

I’LL MEET YOU THERE.

“Good.”

As his bodyguard misted across the ground, Rehv straightened his tie for no good reason. Shit knew the thing wasn’t going to stay around his neck for much longer.

The clearing where the cabin was located was awash in moonlight, and he couldn’t tell which of the shadows among the trees was Trez. But that was why his bodyguard was worth his tremendous weight in gold. Even a symphath couldn’t tease him out of the landscape when he didn’t want to be seen.

Rehv went up to the rough-hewn door and paused, looking around. The Princess was here already: All around the ostensibly bucolic spot was a dense, invisible cloud of dread-the kind that kids felt when they looked at abandoned houses on dark, windy nights. It was the symphath version of mhis, and it guaranteed that the two of them wouldn’t be disturbed by humans. Or other animals, for that matter.

He wasn’t surprised she’d come early. He could never predict whether she would be late, early, or on time, and therefore he was never off his game, no matter when she showed.

The cabin door opened with its familiar creak. As the sound went right into the cringe center of his brain, he covered up his emotions with the picture of a sunny beach he’d once seen on TV.

From out of the shadows in the corner of the open space, accented words drifted over thick and low. “You always do that. Makes me wonder what you hide from your love.”

And she could keep guessing. He could not allow her to get into his head. Aside from the fact that self- protection was critical, shutting her out drove her crazy, and that made him glow with satisfaction like a fucking spotlight.

As he closed the door, he decided to play the jilted romantic tonight. She would expect him to be wondering what the hell had happened to their reg/sched and she’d hold him hostage for the info as long as she could. But charm worked, even on symphaths-although naturally in a fucked-up, roundabout way. She knew he hated her and that it cost him to pretend to be in love with her. His grind and chafe at speaking pretty lies would be what would put him in her good graces, not the lies themselves.

“How I’ve missed you,” he said in a deep, intent voice.

His fingers went to the tie he’d just straightened and slowly worked the knot free. Her response was instantaneous. Her eyes flashed like rubies in front of a bonfire, and she did nothing to hide the reaction. She knew it made him sick.

“You missed me? Of course you missed me.” Her voice was like that of a snake, the S’s lingering through long exhales. “But by how much?”

Rehv kept the beach scene in the forefront of his mind, nailing the sucker to his frontal lobe, keeping her out of him. “I missed you to distraction.”

He put his cane aside, shed his jacket, and let loose the top button on his silk shirt…then the next…and the next, until he had to pull the tails out of his slacks to finish the job. As he shrugged his shoulders and let the silk fall to the floor, the Princess hissed for real and his cock swelled.