Lover Enshrined (21 page)

Qhuinn had headed around to the back of the house, sticking to the shadows thrown by the hedges, his backpack dragging on the ground. It had been so lovely in the tent. Twinkling lights hung from chandeliers and flickered on tables with arrangements of beautiful flowers and candles. Each and every chair had been trimmed out in satin bows, and there were runners down the aisles between the seating arrangements. He’d imagined the color scheme of everything was turquoise and yellow, reflecting his family’s two sides.

He stared at the faces of the partygoers, recognizing each and every one of them. The whole of his bloodline was there, along with the leading families of the
glymera,
and all of the guests were dressed formally, the females in gowns, the males in tuxedoes with tails. There were young darting between the grown-ups like fireflies and the advanced aged sitting on the sidelines smiling.

He had stood there in the darkness and felt like part of the clutter in the house that had gotten shut away before company had come, another useless, ugly object to be stashed in a cupboard so no one saw. And not for the first time had he wanted to take his fingers and press them into his eye sockets and ruin what had ruined him.

Abruptly, the band had gone quiet, and his father had stepped up to the microphone at the head of the parquet dance floor. As all the guests assembled, Qhuinn’s mother and brother and sister came up to stand behind his father, the four of them glowing in a way that had nothing to do with all the twinkling lights.

“If I may have your attention,” his father had said in the Old Language. “I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the founding families who are here tonight.” Round of applause. “The other members of the Council.” Round of applause. “And the rest of you who form the core of the
glymera
, as well as fill out mine bloodline.” Round of applause. “These past ten years as
leahdyre
have been challenging, but we’ve made good progress, and I know that my successor will take the reins with a firm hand. With the king’s recent ascension, it is even more paramount that our concerns be marshaled and brought forward with appropriate care. Through the Council’s continuing work, we shall see our vision carried outward to the race . . . without regard to meritless dissention from those who do not understand the issues as fully as we do. . . .”

There was resounding approval at this point, followed by a toast to Lash’s father. Then Qhuinn’s dad had cleared his throat and glanced at the three people behind him. In a slightly hoarse voice, he’d said, “It has been an honor to serve the
glymera
. . . and though I will miss my station, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that having more time for my family pleases me to no end. Verily, they are the seat of my life, and I must needs thank them for the lightness and warmth they bring unto my heart each day.”

Qhuinn’s mother had blown a kiss and blinked rapidly. His brother had gone all robin-breasted-proud, with hero worship filling his eyes. His sister had clapped and jumped up and down, her ringlets bouncing with joy.

In that moment, the rejection of him as a son and a brother and a family member had been so complete that no words spoken to him or about him could have added to his cringing sadness.

Qhuinn came out of the memories when his father’s knock landed sharply on his door, the rap of the knuckles breaking the past’s hold, snapping the scene free from his mind.

He hit
send
on the text, put the phone in the pocket of his shirt, and said, “Come in.”

It wasn’t his father who opened the door.

It was a
doggen
, the same butler who had told him he wasn’t to go to the
glymera
’s ball this year.

When the servant bowed, it wasn’t intended as a gesture of specific respect, and Qhuinn didn’t take it that way.
Doggen
bowed to everyone. Hell, if they interrupted a raccoon raiding the garbage, their first move before getting into all the shooing would be the old bend-at-the-waist routine.

“Guess I’m leaving,” Qhuinn said as the butler quickly ran through the hand motions to ward off the evil eye.

“With all due respect,” the
doggen
said, with his forehead still pointed to his feet, “your father has requested your departure from the premises.”

“Cool.” Qhuinn stood up with the duffel bag into which he’d packed his collection of T-shirts and his four pairs of jeans.

As he slung the strap on his shoulder, he wondered how long his cell phone service would be paid for. He’d been waiting for it to get cut off for the past couple months— ever since his allowance had suddenly disappeared.

He had a feeling T-Mobile, like him, was SOL.

“Your father asked that I should give you this.” The
doggen
didn’t straighten as he extended his hand and held out a thick, business-sized envelope.

The urge to tell the servant to take the damn thing and airmail it up his father’s ass was close to irresistible.

Qhuinn took the envelope and opened it. After looking at the papers, he calmly folded them up and put them back inside. Stuffing the thing into the back of his waistband, he said, “I’ll just go wait for my ride.”

The
doggen
lifted himself up. “At the end of the drive, if you would.”

“Yeah. Sure. Fine.” Whatever. "You need blood from me, don’t you.”

“If you would be so kind.” The
doggen
held out a brass goblet, the belly of which was lined in black glass.

Qhuinn used his Swiss Army knife, because his hunting one had been confiscated. Streaking the blade across his palm, he made a fist to squeeze some red drops out into the cup.

They were going to burn the stuff when he was out of the house as part of a cleansing ritual.

They weren’t just jettisoning the defective; they were getting rid of the evil.

Qhuinn left his room without looking back and headed down the hall. He didn’t say good-bye to his sister, even though he heard her practicing her flute, and he left his brother alone to continue reciting Latin verses. He didn’t stop by his mother’s drawing room when he heard her talking on the phone, either. And he sure as fuck kept going right by his father’s study.

They were all in on his evac. The proof was in the envelope.

Down on the first floor, he didn’t shut the grand front door loudly. No reason to make a show. They all knew he was leaving, which was why they were all so studiously busy instead of having tea in the family room.

He bet they convened as soon as the
doggen
told them he was out of the house. Bet they had some Earl Grey and sucked back a couple of scones. Bet they breathed a deep, deep sigh of relief, then lamented about how hard it was going to be to hold up their heads after what he’d done to Lash.

Qhuinn wandered down the long, winding drive. When he got to the big iron gates, they were open. After he walked through them, they closed with a clang like they’d booted him in the ass.

The summer night was hot and humid, and lightning flashed off to the north.

The storms always came from the north, he thought, and this was true in both summer and winter. In the cold months, Nor’easters could bury you with so much snow you felt like a—

Wow. He was so rattled, he was talking about the weather with himself.

He put his duffel down on the pavement at the curb.

He supposed he should text Blay now to see if he could, in fact, get picked up. Dematerializing with the weight of his duffel could be tricky and he’d never been given a car, so there you had it. He was going nowhere fast.

Just as he reached for his phone, the thing went off. It was a text from Blay:
U gotta come stay w us. Let me pick u up.

He started to text his boy back, but then thought about the envelope and stopped. Putting the phone in his duffel, he slung the bag full of his shit back on his shoulder and started walking along the side of the road. He headed east, because with the way the road went, the random choice to go left took him in that direction.

Man . . . now he really was an orphan. It was like his inner suspicions had come true. He’d always thought he was adopted or some shit, because he’d never fit in with his family—and not just because of the whole mismatched-eyeball thing. He was cut from different cloth. Always had been.

Part of him wanted to get all fired up angry at getting kicked out of the house, but what did he expect? He’d never been one of them, and taking down his first cousin with a hunting knife, even if he’d been totally justified, was unforgivable.

It was also going to cost his pops big green.

In cases of assault—or murder, if Lash died—if the victim was a member of the
glymera
, they or their bloodline were due a sum, depending on the relative worth of the injured or dead. A young, posttransition male who was the first son of one of the founding families? Only the death of a Brother or a pregnant noble female would be more expensive. And his parents were the payors, not Qhuinn, as legally you weren’t considered an adult until one full year after your transition.

The good thing, he supposed, was that as he was still technically a minor, he wouldn’t be sentenced to death. But even so, he was definitely going to be charged, and life as he knew it was now officially gone.

Talk about your makeovers.
He was out of the
glymera
. Out of his family. Out of the training program.

Short of getting a botched sex change, it was hard to imagine what more could be done to shit on his identity.

As it stood now, he had until dawn to decide where he would go to wait to hear what was going to happen to him. Blay’s would be the obvious choice, except for one big, fat, hairy problem: Sheltering an outcast from the
glymera
would totally H-bomb that family’s social status, so that was a no-go. And John couldn’t take him in either. The guy lived with the Brothers, and that meant his residence was so top-secret he couldn’t have visitors, much less semipermanent overnight guests.

Who’d slaughtered a fellow trainee. And were waiting for their orange jumpsuit.

God . . . John. That shit that Lash had said.

He hoped it wasn’t true, but feared it was.

He’d always assumed John hung back from the females because he was even more socially awkward than Blay was. Now? Obviously the guy had serious issues . . . and Qhuinn felt like an asshole of nightmarish proportions for riding his buddy about sex like he had.

No wonder John had never wanted to take a female to the back when they were hanging at ZeroSum.

Fucking Lash.

Man, no matter what happened as a result of what he’d done with that knife, he wouldn’t change a thing. Lash had always been a bastard, and Qhuinn had spent years wanting to pop the fucker in the piehole. But for jumping on John like that? He really hoped the kid died.

And not just because one less cruel bastard in the world was a good thing.

The reality was, Lash had a big mouth, and as long as he was breathing that information John was not secure. And that was dangerous. There were those in the
glymera
who would regard shit like that as totally emasculating. If John ever hoped to become a full Brother and be respected in the aristocracy, if he ever hoped to get mated and have a family, no one could know that he’d been violated by any male, much less a
human
male.

Shit, the fact that it had been a human made it all astronomically worse. In the
glymera
’s eyes, humans were rats that walked upright. To be overpowered by one of them? Untenable.

No, Qhuinn thought as he walked alone, he wouldn’t change a thing about what he’d done.

Chapter Fifteen

After john cleaned up the locker room’s shower area, he went into the office, sat at the desk, and spent God only knew how long staring at papers and spent God only knew how long staring at papers he should have been shuffling. In the silence, his fat lip throbbed and so did his knuckles, but those were just minor aches in the midst of the dull roar in his head.

Life was just too fucking weird.

The vast majority of it passed at a predictable rate, events flowing by you at or just below the speed limit. Every once in a while, though, things happened in a flash, kind of like a Porsche sucking your doors off on the highway. Shit just came from out of nowhere and changed everything in a heartbeat.

Wellsie’s death had been like that. Tohr’s disappearance had been like that.

Qhuinn’s move on Lash had been like that.

And the horrible thing that had happened to John on the stairwell . . . yeah, that, too.

It was fate’s version of a lead foot.

Clearly Lash’s throat had been destined to be cut at that moment by Qhuinn, and time had sped up so that there could be no interference by anyone or anything else.

Giving up on the paperwork, John left the desk and headed through the back of the closet. As he stepped into the underground tunnel that would take him back to the mansion, he hated himself for hoping that Lash didn’t survive. He didn’t like thinking he was that cruel, and besides, if Lash died, things would be harder on Qhuinn.

He didn’t want his secret to get loose, though.

As he stepped out into the foyer, his phone went off with a beep. It was Qhuinn:
Hav left home. Dont kno hw long fone will work. Will turn self in2 Wrath wheneva he wants.

Shit. John quickly hit his friend back:
Blay’s ready 2 cum & pick u up.

No reply.

He tried again:
Q? W8 4 Blay, don’t leave w/o him. U can stay thur.

John stopped at the base of the stairs and waited for an answer. What he got a minute later was from Blay:
Dont worry, im on Q. Will let u kno wen i hear bck frm him. Worst case? I pick him up.

Thank fuck.

Ordinarily, John would have gone over and met his boys at Blay’s, but he couldn’t face them just yet. How could they not be thinking about him differently? Plus, what had happened to him was going to be tight on their minds, just as it had been for him in the beginning.