Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (168 page)

What did he think was going to happen if he started laying lines on her? She was going to hop up

and throw her legs around his hips?

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, listen, you don’t have to apologize.” He took a step away, because although she was tall, she

was a quarter of his size, and the last thing he wanted was for her to feel crowded. “I just wanted you to know.”

“I…”

Great. Anytime a female had to search her mind for appropriate words? You knew you’d really

put your foot in it.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“No, it’s okay. It’s cool.” He lifted his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s just that I—”

I’m in love with someone else. I’m taken. I’m not interested in you on any level.

“No.” He cut her off, not wanting to hear the specifics. They were just vocabulary for the

inevitable. “It’s all right. I understand—”

“Selena?” came a voice from over on the left.

It was Rhage’s. Shit.

As her head turned in that direction, the light hit her cheeks and lips from a different angle, and they looked every bit as good, of course. He could so stare at her forever….

Hollywood leaned out from the arches of the library. “We’re ready for you—oh, hey, man.”

“Hey,” Trez shot back. “How you been?”

“Good. Little business to take care of.”

Fucker. Cocksucker. Bas—

Trez rubbed his face. Right. Okay. There was no room in this five-bajillion-square-foot house for

that kind of aggression, particularly when it was about a female who he’d met twice. Who didn’t want to know him. While she was doing her job.

“I’m heading out,” he said to the Brother. “I’ll catch you before dawn.”

“Roger that, big guy.”

Trez nodded at Selena and strode off, proceding through the vestibule and dematerializing off to

downtown—where the hell he belonged.

He couldn’t believe he’d waited a week for that; and he should have guessed how it was going to

go.

Feeling like a fool, he reassumed form behind the Iron Mask, in the shadows of the parking lot.

Even out in the back, he could hear the bass beat of the music, and as he approached the rear door, with its scraped paint and well-worn handle, he knew his foul mood was a complication that was

going to have to be managed carefully for the next six or eight hours.

Humans + alcohol x urge to kill = body count.

Not what he or his business interests needed.

Inside, he went directly to his office and ditched his dumb-ass Halloween costume of legitimacy,

removing his fancy coat, as well as the silk shirt, so that all he had on was his black wifebeater and those fine slacks.

Xhex wasn’t in her office, so he waved a greeting at the working girls who were getting ready for

their shifts in the locker room and went out into the land of the great unwashed.

The club already had a critical mass of people, all of whom were wearing dark, stringy clothes

and cultivated expressions of boredom—both of which would be lost for many of them as time wore

on and their livers broke down the chemical makeup of the booze they were drinking and the drugs

they were taking.

“Hi, Daddy,” someone said to him.

Looking over, he found a short, curvy something-or-other staring up at him. With eyes lined with

so much black she might as well have had sunglasses on, and a bustier cinched up tight as a fist, she was like an anime character come to life.

Snooze.

“I’m
blah-blah-blah
. Do you come here often?” She took a sip from the red straw in her drink.

“
Blah-blah-blah
college student
blah-blah
psychology.
Blah-blah-blah?
”

In the corner of his eye, he saw the crowd part, as if they were getting out of the way of a bouncer or maybe a wrecking ball.

It was Qhuinn.

Looking as grim as Trez felt.

Trez nodded to the guy, and the fighter nodded back as he kept going toward the bar.

“Wow, do you know him?” College Student asked. “Who is he?
Blah-blah
threesome maybe

blah-blah
?”

As she tee-hee-hee’d like she was a Very Naughty Girl, Trez swung his eyes back and downward.

On so many levels, the plate of hors d’oeuvres being offered was totally unappetizing.

“
Blah-blah-blahblahblah
.” Giggle. Hip shake. “
Blah?”

Dimly, Trez was aware of his head nodding, and then they were moving into a dark corner. With

every step he took, another part of him shut down, turned off, went into hibernation. But he couldn’t stop himself. He was the junkie hoping that his next hit would be as good as the first had been—and finally bring that relief he was fucking desperate for.

Even though he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Not tonight. Not with her.

Not anywhere in his life.

Probably never, ever.

But sometimes you just had to do something…or go insane.

“Tell me that you love me?” the chick said to him, as she pressed herself against his body.

“Pleeeeeeeeease.”

“Yeah,” he said numbly. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

Whatever.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

Xcor linked his hands and placed them on the glossy tabletop. Beside him, Throe was speaking

in low tones; he himself had remained quiet since they had taken the weight off their feet in

these matching oxblood armchairs.

“This certainly seems persuasive.” His soldier flipped over another page in the set of

documents that had been proffered. “Very persuasive, indeed.”

Xcor looked across at their host. The
glymera
solicitor was built like a pamphlet, so thin that one wondered when he lay out flat whether he presented any verticality a’tall. He also spoke with an

exhausting thoroughness, his verbal paragraphs of small font and crowded, complicated wording.

“Tell me, how comprehensive is this brief?” Throe asked.

Xcor’s eyes went to the bookshelves. They were crammed with leather volumes, and he quite

believed that the gentlemale had read each and every one. Mayhap twice.

The solicitor launched another well thought-out, well-articulated cruise through the English

language. “I would not have turned it over to you both without ensuring that all efforts were made

to…”

In other words, yes, Xcor filled in in his head.

“What I do not see here”—Throe turned more pages—“is any notation of counter-opinion.”

“That is because I was unable to find any. The term ‘full-blooded’ has been used in only two

contexts—that of lineage, as in a full-blooded offspring of a given sire or a dam, and that of racial identity. Over time, there has been some minor dilution of the wider gene pool, some contamination

from humans—and yet individuals with distant Homo sapiens blood ties have as yet been construed

by law as being full-blooded provided they go through their transitions. Now, of course, that is not the case of the direct offspring of a human and a vampire. That is a true half-breed. And those

individuals, even if they survive the change, have historically been held to a different standard by the law, with lesser rights and privileges than other civilians. The concern is thus—if the king’s
shellan
is a half-breed, there is a chance that any male offspring of theirs may not go through the transition.”

Throe frowned as if considering the implications. “But within twenty-five years, we shall know

one way or the other—and the royal couple could always attempt to have multiple young.”

Xcor interjected dryly, “You assume we will still be on the planet in two and a half decades. At

this rate, we are nearing extinction as it is.”

“Precisely.” The solicitor inclined his head in Xcor’s direction. “From a practical standpoint,

being a quarter human could be enough to prevent the transition from occurring—there have been

documented incidences of this, and I’m sure Havers could give even more examples. Further, there is among many people of my generation a fear that an offspring with that close a nexus to the human race could in fact prefer a human mate—i.e., go out and seek one unaffiliated with our kind. In which case, we could have a human queen, and that is”—the male shook his head with distaste—“absolutely

untenable.”

“So there are two issues,” Xcor said as he sat back, the chair creaking under his weight. “The

legal precedent and the social implications.”

“Indeed.” The solicitor once again pulled a head bob. “And I believe that the social fears could

be properly leveraged to fill in the gray areas around the relevant portion of the law concerning the king’s offspring.”

“I concur,” Throe murmured as he closed the papers. “The question is how to proceed.”

As Xcor opened his mouth to speak, a strange vibration went through him, cutting off his thought

process, his body becoming a tuning fork struck by some unseen hand.

“Would you care to review the documentation?” the solicitor asked him.

As if he could, Xcor thought grimly. Indeed, one had to wonder what this learned male would

think if he knew the decision maker in all this was an illiterate.

“I am persuaded.” He got up, thinking mayhap a stretch would cure whate’er ailed him. “And I

believe this information should be shared with members of the Council.”

“I have sufficient contacts to call the
princeps
together.”

Xcor went over to a window and looked out, letting his instincts roam. Was it the Brotherhood?

“Do that,” he said with distraction as that hum in his gut increased, creating an urgency he found

impossible to ignore….

His Chosen
.

His Chosen had breached the compound and was close by—

“I must needs go,” he said in a rush as he headed for the door. “Throe, you wrap up here.”

There was a certain commotion behind him, conversation sprouting up from the pair of males in

his wake—about which he cared naught. Breaking out through the front entrance, he regarded the

farmland around him….

And located her signal.

Between one heartbeat and the next, he was gone, his body and will drawn to his female sure as a

dying thief to redemption.

At the Iron Mask downtown, Qhuinn went over to the bar and parked it on one of the leather-topped

stools. All around, the music was pounding, and sweat and sex were already curling into the hot air, making him feel claustrophobic.

Or maybe that was just his headspace.

“Haven’t seen you in a while.” The bartender, a nice-looking female with a rack and a half, slid a

napkin in front of him. “Same as usual?”

“Double.”

“You got it.”

As he waited for his Herradura Selección Suprema to arrive, he could feel the eyes of the humans

in the club lingering on him.

Come out? Like I’m gay…

You fuck men! What the good goddamn do you think it means!

Shaking his head, he really could have used a break: That happy little exchange had been banging

around his head, just underneath the surface of his consciousness, ever since shit had gone down a

week ago. On the whole, he’d done an outstanding job of sublimation…unfortunately, that winning

streak appeared to be over. As his tequila arrived and he downed one shot glass, and then the other, he knew that there were no other distractions he could bring into play, no more putting the

introspection off.

Oddly—or maybe not so oddly—he thought of his brother. He still hadn’t shared anything with

Luchas about the young. It all felt too tenuous: Even though the pregnancy was hanging in and

continuing to look good, it just seemed like an extra layer of drama the guy didn’t need at this point.

And he most certainly hadn’t mentioned anything about his sex life or Blay. For one thing, his

brother was still a virgin—or at least, that had been Qhuinn’s understanding: The
glymera
were far more restrictive about what females could do before mating, and certainly if Luchas had banged a

female casually, it would have been tolerated as long as he didn’t hook up with her long-term. But all of Luchas’s feedings after his transition had been witnessed, so there had been no opportunity there, and the guy’s nights had been heavily scheduled with learning and studying and chaperoned social

events. No chance there.

Somehow going into all the shit Qhuinn had done didn’t seem appropriate. It also, in Blay’s

words, wasn’t that interesting.

Qhuinn scrubbed his face. “Two more?” he called out.

As the bartender hopped right on that, he thought, damn it, he’d assumed the sex he’d had with

Blay had been
really
interesting. And Blay hadn’t seemed bored when it was happening….

Whatever. Back to Luchas. In all those bedside chats he’d been having with his brother, females