Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (105 page)

wouldn’t work, either.

Withdrawing the chemise, she used paper towels from the bath to deal with her problem and

managed to get the denim on. A heavy sweater provided bulk and warmth, and a quick brush out and

tieback of her hair made her look…almost normal.

Leaving her room, she held hard to the cellular device that Qhuinn had given her. She thought only

briefly about calling him, but in truth, what was there to say? He had no more control over this

process than she did—

Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe, she was losing their young.

The thought occurred to her just as she came to the apex of the grand staircase: She was
losing
their young. At this very moment. Here outside of the king’s study.

All at once the ceiling crashed down on her head and the walls of the grand, spacious foyer

squeezed in so tight she could not draw a breath.

“Your grace?”

Shaking herself, she looked down the red carpet runner. Fritz was standing at the foot of the stairs, dressed in his standard livery, his old, lovely face clothed in concern.

“Your grace, shall we go now?” he said.

As she nodded and cautiously started downward, she couldn’t believe it had all been for naught,

all those hours of straining with Qhuinn…the frozen aftermath where she hadn’t dared to move…the

wondering and the worrying and the quiet, treacherous hope.

The fact that she had given the gift of her virginity away for naught.

Qhuinn was going to be in such pain, and the failure she was bringing upon him added

immeasurably to her own suffering. He had sacrificed his own body in the course of her needing, his desire for a young of blood tie prompting him to do something he would not otherwise have chosen to.

That biology had its own agenda did not ease her.

The loss…still felt like her fault.

Hair of the dog that bit you.

Saxton believed that was the crude and yet rather apt saying.

Standing naked in front of the mirror in his bath, he put the hair dryer down and drew his fingers

through things up top. The waves settled into their normal pattern, the blond strands finding a perfect arrangement to complement his square, even face.

The image he regarded was exactly as it had appeared the night before and the night before that,

and yet as familiar as his reflection was, he felt like it was of a different, separate person.

His insides had changed so much, it seemed only reasonable to assume the transformation would

be echoed in his appearance. Alas, it was not.

Turning away and walking out to his closet, he supposed he should not be surprised, either by his

inner upset, or his outer, false composure.

After he and Blay had spoken, it had taken him an hour to move everything from the bedroom he

had stayed in with his former lover back to this suite down the hall. He’d been given these

accommodations when he’d initially come to stay within the household, but as things had progressed

with Blay, his belongings had gradually made their way into that other room.

The process of migration had been incremental, just as his love had been: a case of one shirt here

and a pair of shoes there, a hairbrush one night, and socks the next…a conversation of shared values followed by a seven-hour sexual marathon chased with a tub of Breyers coffee ice cream and only

one spoon.

He had been unaware of the distance traveled by his heart, similar to the way a hiker became lost

in the wilderness. A half mile out and you could still see where you had started, could easily find the way back home. But ten miles and a number of forks in your trail later and there was no going back.

At that point, you had no choice but to marshal the resources to build yourself a shelter and put down fresh roots.

He had assumed he would be constructing this new personal place with Blay.

Yes, he had. After all, how long could unrequited love truly survive? As fire required oxygen to

kindle, so too did emotion.

Not when it came to Qhuinn, apparently. Not for Blay.

Saxton was resolved about not leaving the royal household, however. Blay had been right about

that—Wrath, the king, did need him, and moreover, he enjoyed his work here. It was fast-paced,

challenging…and the egoist in him wanted to be the lawyer who reformed the law the proper way.

Assuming the throne didn’t get overturned and he didn’t lose his head under a new regime.

But you couldn’t live your life worried about things like that.

Withdrawing a houndstooth wool suit from the closet, he picked a button-down and a vest out, and

laid everything on the bed.

It was a sad, rather unattractive cliché to go looking for something nubile and pneumatic to self-

medicate emotional pain with, but he much preferred having an orgasm over getting sloppy drunk.

Also, the pretend-until-you-find-purpose-again maxim did hold water.

And was especially true as he looked at himself all dressed up in the bathroom’s full-length

mirror. He certainly appeared to have it together, and that helped.

Before he left, he double-checked his phone. The Old Laws had been recast per Wrath’s orders,

and now he was on standby—awaiting his next assignment.

He would find out what it was soon enough, he imagined.

Wrath was notoriously demanding, but never unreasonable.

In the meantime, he was going to drown his sorrow in the only kind of six-pack that appealed—

something twentyish, six-foot-ish, athletic….

And preferably dark haired. Or blond.

SIXTEEN

“Someone’s already been by here.”

As Rhage spoke, Qhuinn got out his penlight and shone the discreet beam down onto the

ground. Sure enough, the prints through the snow were fresh, not airbrushed with loose flakes…and

they went directly out into the clearing in the forest. Clicking the light off, he focused on the hunting cabin up ahead that seemed to be abandoned to the cold weather: no stream of smoke curling out of its stone chimney, no glow of illumination—and most important, no scents of anything.

The five of them closed in, circling the clearing and sidling up with a wide-angle approach. When

there was no defensive reaction from anything, they all mounted the shallow porch and scoped out the interior through the single-paned windows.

“Nada,” Rhage muttered as he went to the door.

A quick test of the handle—and it was locked.

With a thrust, the Brother slammed his massive shoulder into the panels and set the thing flying,

fragments of the locking mechanism falling in a scatter along with splinters of wood.

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” Hollywood shouted as he marched inside.

Qhuinn and John followed protocol and stayed on the porch as Blay and Z filed in and searched.

The woods were quiet around them, but his keen eyes traced those footprints…which, after a

sojourn to the cabin, headed off in a northwesterly direction.

Damn well suggested someone was out here with them, searching the property at the same time.

Human?
Lesser?

He was thinking the latter, given all the shit in that hangar—and the fact that this whole property was remote, and relatively secure because of that.

Although they were gonna want to bring Stanley Steemer into that building for a cleanup first.

Blay’s voice drifted out the open door. “I got something.”

It took all of Qhuinn’s training not to break covenant with surveying the landscape and turn to look inside—and not because he particularly cared about whatever had been found. Throughout their

searching, he’d been constantly checking on Blay, measuring to see if that mood had changed.

If anything, it had only gotten worse.

Soft voices went back and forth in the cabin, and then the three of them emerged.

“We found a lockbox,” Rhage announced as he unzipped his jacket and slid the long, thin metal

container in against his chest. “We’ll open it later. Let’s find the owner of those boots, boys.”

Dematerializing at fifty- to sixty-foot clips, they fanned out through the trees, tracking the prints in the snow, following silently.

They came across the
lesser
about a half mile later.

The lone slayer was marching through the snow-covered forest at a clip that only a human with

Olympic training could have sustained for more than a couple hundred yards. Clothes were dark, a

pack was on the back, and the fact that he was navigating by sight alone was another clue that it was the enemy: Most Homo sapiens would not have been able to move that fast in such little light without battery-powered illumination.

Using hand signals, Rhage orientated the group into a reverse triangle formation that cupped

around the
lesser’s
trail. Continuing to advance along with him, they observed for about a football field’s length and then, all at once, they closed in, surrounded the slayer, and blocked him at

contrasting compass points with gun muzzles.

The
lesser
stopped moving.

He was a newer recruit, his dark hair and olive coloring suggesting that he was of Mexican or

perhaps Italian descent, and he got points for showing no fear. Even though he was looking at a

hurting, he merely calmly glanced over his shoulder, as if to confirm that he had in fact been

ambushed.

“How you doing?” Rhage drawled.

The
lesser
didn’t bother to answer, which was in contrast to what they had been seeing lately.

Unlike the others, this was no young punk to talk smack and flash his gat. Calm, calculating…

controlled, he was the kind of enemy that improved your job performance.

Not exactly a bad thing…

And sure enough, his hand disappeared into his coat.

“Don’t be stupid, my man,” Qhuinn barked, prepared to put a bullet in the bastard at a moment’s

notice.

The
lesser
didn’t stop moving.

Fine.

He pulled his fucking trigger and dropped the bitch.

The instant the
lesser
hit the snow, Blay froze with his guns in place. The others did the same.

In the silent seconds that passed, they kept eyes locked on the downed slayer. No movement. No

response from the periphery. Qhuinn had incapacitated the thing, and it appeared to have been

working alone.

Funny, even if Blay hadn’t heard the shot in his left ear, he’d have known Qhuinn was the shooter

—everyone else would have given the enemy another chance to think things over.

As Rhage whistled in a short burst, that was the cue to close in. The five of them moved like a

pack of wolves over downed prey, swift and sure, crossing the snow with guns up. The slayer

remained utterly still—but there hadn’t been a death in the family, so to speak. You needed a steel dagger through the chest for that.

But this was the desirable state. You wanted them to be able to talk.

Or at least, in a condition to be forced to talk—

Later, when he replayed what happened next…when his mind churned and burned over the facts

obsessively…when he stayed up days trying to piece together how it all rolled out in hopes of

divining a change in procedure that would ensure something like it never, ever went down again…

Blay would dwell on the twitch.

That little twitch in the arm. Just an autonomic jerk seemingly unconnected with any conscious

thought or will. Nothing dangerous. No signal of what was to come.

Just a twitch.

Except then, with a move that was blinking fast, the slayer outted a gun from somewhere. It was

unprecedented—one second he was deadweight on the ground; the next, he was shooting in a

controlled manner in a fat circle.

And even before the popping sounds faded, Blay caught the horrific image of Zsadist taking a slug

right in the heart, the impact strong enough to stop the Brother’s forward momentum, his torso