Lover Enshrined (39 page)

Curiously, the one who came over and crouched down in front of him wasn’t John or the queen. It was Wrath. The king suddenly appeared in his watery vision, those sunglasses and that cruel face at total odds with the soft voice that he used.

“Put your head between your knees, son.” The king’s hand landed on his shoulder and gently pushed him down. “Go on now.”

Qhuinn did as he was told, and started to shake so badly that if it hadn’t been for Wrath’s big palm holding him steady, he would have fallen on the floor.

He would not cry. He refused to let one single tear out. Instead, he gasped and he shook and he grew drenched in a cold sweat.

Quietly, so only Wrath would hear, he whispered, “I thought . . . was all alone.”

“Nah,” Wrath answered just as softly. “Like I said, you’re one of us now, feel me?”

Qhuinn lifted his eyes. “But I’m no one.”

“Ah, to hell with that.” The king shook his head slowly. “You saved John’s honor. So like I said, you’re family, son.”

Qhuinn shifted his eyes over to Beth and John, who were standing side by side. Through his unshed tears, he saw the resemblance in their dark hair and deep blue eyes.

Family . . .

Qhuinn steeled his spine, got to his feet, and pulled himself up to his full height. Straightening his shirt and then his hair, he became completely and utterly composed as he walked over to John.

With set, straight shoulders, he put his hand out to his friend. “I’ll lay my life down for you. With or without that piece of paper.”

As the words came out of his mouth, he realized it was the first thing he’d ever said as a full-grown male, the first vow he’d ever taken. And he couldn’t think of a better person to offer it to, except for maybe Blay.

John glanced down, then clasped the palm that was presented to him, his grip firm and strong. They didn’t hug, they didn’t speak.

And I for you
, John mouthed as their eyes met.
And I . . . for you.

“You can ask me about Phury if you want. When you’re finished with that.”

Cormia straightened from the white candle she was lighting and glanced over her shoulder. Bella was lying on her back in the big bed across the room, her thin, pale hand on her rounded belly.

“Really, you can,” the female said with a small smile. “It’ll give me something else to think about. And right now I need that.”

Cormia blew out her match. “How did you know he was on my mind?”

“You have what I call a ‘male brow.’ Which is a frown brought on when you’re thinking about your male and you either want to boot him in the ass or wrap your arms around him and hold him ’til he can’t breathe.”

“The Primale is not mine.” Cormia took the gold incense burner in her hand and moved it three times around the candle. The chant she recited was soft but insistent, calling upon the Scribe Virgin to watch over Bella and her young.

“He doesn’t love me,” Bella said. “Not really.”

Cormia put the burner on a table in the easternmost corner of the room and double-checked that the three candles had good, strong flames.

Past, present, and future.

“Did you hear what I said? He doesn’t love me.”

Cormia squeezed her eyes shut. “I do believe you are wrong about that.”

“He just thinks he does.”

“With all due respect—”

“Do you want him?”

Cormia flushed as what had happened in the movie theater came back to her. She relived the feel of him . . . the power she’d had with his sex in her hand . . . the way his mouth had moved against her breast.

Bella laughed softly. “I’ll take that blush as a yes.”

“Dearest Virgin, I have no idea what to say.”

“Sit with me.” Bella patted the bed next to her. “Let me tell you about him. And why I’m sure that he’s not in love with me.”

Cormia knew that if she went over and listened to how the Primale couldn’t possibly feel as he believed he did, she was just going to get more lost to him.

So naturally she sat down beside to Bella on the comforter.

“Phury’s a good male. A great male. He loves deeply, but that doesn’t mean he’s in love with everyone he cares about. If you two just take a little time—”

“I’m going back soon.”

Bella’s brows went up. “To the Other Side? Why?”

“I’ve been here a long time.” It was too hard to say she’d been passed over. Especially to Bella. “I’ve been here . . . long enough.”

Bella looked saddened. “Will Phury be leaving too?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, he’d have to come back to fight.”

“Ah . . . yes.” Clearly the female didn’t know he’d been removed from the Brotherhood yet, and now was not the time for her to have any unpleasant shocks.

Bella’s hand smoothed over her belly. “Has anyone told you why Phury became the Primale? Instead of Vishous, that is.”

"No. I didn’t even know there was a substitution until the Primale was the one who was with me in the temple.”

“Vishous fell in love with Doc Jane right about the time it was all going down. Phury didn’t want them to be parted, so he stepped in.” Bella shook her head. “The thing about Phury is, he’ll always put others before himself. Always. It’s his nature.”

“I know. That’s why I admire him so. Where I am from . . .” Cormia struggled to find the words. “To the Chosen, selflessness is the greatest of all values. We serve the race and the Scribe Virgin, and in doing so we joyfully put the whole before ourselves. It is the highest order of virtue to sacrifice yourself to the greater good, to that which is of more importance than the self. The Primale does that. I believe that is . . .”

“Is . . . ?”

“That is why I respect him so. Well, that and his . . . his . . .”

Bella laughed in a throaty way. “His keen mind, right? It’s clearly got nothing to do with the yellow eyes or all that wonderful hair?”

Cormia figured that if her blush had spoken for her once already, it could do it again.

“You don’t have to answer,” Bella said with a smile. “He is a special male. But back to the selfless stuff? Here’s the thing. If you spend too much time focusing outward, you lose yourself. That’s why I worry about him. And that’s why I know he doesn’t truly love me. He believes I saved his twin in ways he couldn’t. It’s gratitude he feels. Intense gratitude and idolization. But it’s not true love.”

“How do you know this, though?”

There was a hesitation. “Ask him about his relationships with females. You’ll understand.”

“Has he been in love often?” She braced herself for the answer.

“Absolutely, positively no.” Bella’s hand went round and round her belly. “This isn’t any of my business, but I’m going to say it anyway. Save my
hellren
, there isn’t a male I hold in higher esteem than Phury, and I like you a lot. If he continues to stay here, I hope you do, too. I like the way you look at him. And I really like the way he looks at you.”

“He’s passed me over.”

Bella’s head came up. “What?”

“I am no longer the First Mate.”

“God . . . damn.”

“So I really should go back to the Sanctuary. If only to make things easier on whomever he chooses to replace me.”

It was the right thing to say, but she didn’t really believe it. And her feelings showed in her voice. Even she could hear the strain.

Funny, the practice of saying one thing while keeping what she truly thought to herself was a skill she’d honed over the span of her life on the Other Side. When she’d been over there, lying had been as easy and comfortable as the white robe she wore and the proscribed way she did her hair and the rote recitation of ceremonial text.

Now it was hard.

“No offense,” Bella said, “but my bullshit meter is going off.”

“Bullshit . . . meter?”

“You’re lying to me. Look, may I offer you some unsolicited advice?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t allow yourself to get swallowed up and lost in this Chosen thing. If you truly believe what you’ve been taught, then that’s fine. But if you find yourself fighting an inner voice in your head all the time, then it’s not where you’re supposed to be. Being a good liar is not a virtue.”

That was it, wasn’t it, Cormia thought. That was precisely what she had always had to do. Lie.

Bella shifted on the pillows, pulling herself up. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard about me, but I have a brother. Rehvenge. He’s a hardheaded handful, always has been, but I love him and we’re very close. My father died when I was four, and Rehv stepped in as head of the household for my mother and me. Rehv took great care of us, but he also was controlling as hell, and eventually I moved out of the family house. I had to. . . . He was driving me nuts. Jesus, you should have heard the fighting. Rehv meant well, but he’s old-school, very traditional, and that meant he wanted to make all the decisions.”

“He sounds like a male of worth, though.”

“Oh, he absolutely is. But the thing was, after twenty-five years under him, I was just his sister, not me, if that makes any sense.” Bella reached out and took Cormia’s hand. “The best thing I ever did for myself was get away and get to know myself.” A haunted light came into her eyes. “It was not easy, and there were . . . consequences. But even with what I had to go through, I highly recommend figuring out who you are. I mean, do you know who you are as a person?”

“I am a Chosen.”

“And what else.”

“That’s . . . all.”

Bella’s hand gave a squeeze. “Give
you
some thought, Cormia, and start small. What’s your favorite color? What do you like to eat? Are you an early riser? What makes you happy? Sad?”

Cormia looked across the room at the incense burner and thought about all the prayers she knew, prayers that covered for every eventuality. And the chants. And the ceremonies. She had a whole spiritual vocabulary at her disposal, not just of words but of actions.

And that was about it. Or was it?

She shifted her eyes to meet Bella’s. “I know . . . I like lavender tea roses. And I like to build things in my head.”

Bella smiled and then hid a yawn with the back of her hand. “That, my friend, is a good start. Now, you want to finish
Project Runway
? With the TV on, you’ll feel less awkward about being in your head while you’re with me, and Fritz won’t be here with dinner for another twenty minutes.”

Cormia eased back into the pillows beside her . . . friend. Not her sister, her . . . friend. “Thank you, Bella. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I love the incense. Very calming.”

Bella pointed the remote at the flat screen and pushed some buttons, and Tim Gunn appeared in the sewing room, his silver hair as neat as pressed cloth. In front of him, one of the designers was shaking her head and looking at her partially constructed red dress.

“Thank you,” Cormia said again, without looking over.

Bella just reached out and gave Cormia’s hand a squeeze, and they both focused on the screen.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Lash stumbled out of his parents’ home with blood on both his hands. His knees were unhinged, his stride jerky. As he tripped over his own feet, he looked down. Oh, God, the stuff was on his shirt and his boots, too.

Mr. D popped up out of the Focus. “You hurt?”

Lash couldn’t find any words to answer. Limp and shaky, he could barely stand. “It took . . . so much longer than I thought.”

“Here, now, suh, let’s get you in the car.”

Lash allowed the little guy to take him around to the passenger side and settle him in the seat.

“Whatchu got in your hand there, suh—”

Lash shoved the
lesser
to the side, bent over, and dry-heaved a couple of times over the ground. Something black and oily came out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin. He wiped it off and looked at it.

Not blood. At least, not the kind . . . “I killed them,” he said hoarsely.

The
lesser
knelt down in front of him. “ ’Course you did, and you made your daddy proud. Them bastards ain’t your future. We are.”

Lash tried to stop the scenes from replaying in his head. “My mother screamed the loudest. When she saw me kill my father.”

“Not your father. Not your mother. Animals. Those things were animals in there. Like taking down a deer . . . or, yeah, like a rat, you know? A vermin.” The slayer shook his head. “They wasn’t you. You just thought they was.”

Lash looked down at his hands. The knife was in one. A chain in the other. “So much blood.”

“Yeah, they done bleed a ton, those vampires.”

There was a long silence. Like, one that lasted for a year.

“Say, there, suh, you got like a pool thing ’round this place?” When Lash nodded, the
lesser
said, “ ’Round back?” Lash nodded again. “Okay, we gonna take you there and let you wash up. We got you some fresh clothes in the back of this here car and you gonna put ’em on.”

Before Lash knew it, he was in the estate’s pool house under a shower, washing the remnants of his parents away from his skin and watching the red funnel down the drain at his feet. He rinsed off the knife and the chain as well, and when he stepped out to towel off, he put the stainless-steel link around his neck first.

There were two dog tags hanging off the thing. One was his rottweiler’s last license, and the other the record of King’s final rabies shot.

Lash’s change of clothes went on quick enough, and he transferred his father’s wallet from the soiled pants he’d had on to the clean ones Mr. D had gotten for him. He was going to have to keep using the boots, but the stains were browning up, looking less red, which made it more bearable.

He came out of the pool house and found the little slayer sitting on one of the glass-topped tables by the lawn chairs.

The
lesser
hopped down off it. “You want me to call for the backup now?”

Lash looked at the Tudor. Driving over here, he’d intended to ransack the place. Take anything that was worth a dime. Use a fleet of what the Omega had told him were his troops to strip the place down to its wallpaper and floorboards.

It seemed like the Conan thing to do. The perfect declaration of his new status. You don’t just crush your enemies, you take their horses and burn their huts and hear the lamentations of their women. . . .