Lover Avenged (41 page)

Madalina looked up at him, her faded blue eyes tired, her smile more effort than honest joy. “These were my father’s. We found them when we were going through the boxes that had been brought over from the old house’s attic.”

The “old house” was the one they had lived in for almost a century in Caldwell.

“You could get your maid to do that for you.” He came over and kissed her soft cheek. “She would love to help you.”

“She said as much, yes.” After she put her hand on his face, his mother went back to what she was doing, folding the linen square again, picking up the can of starch, misting over the kerchief. “But this is something I must do.”

“May I sit?” he asked, nodding at the chair beside the mirror.

“Oh, of course, where are my manners.” The iron went down and she started to get off the stool. “And we must get you something to-”

He held up his hand. “No, Mahmen, I’ve just eaten.”

She bowed to him and rearranged herself on her perch. “I am grateful for this audience, as I know the busy nature of your-”

“I’m your son. How can you think I wouldn’t come to you?”

The pressed kerchief was placed on top of its orderly brethren, and the last one was taken from the basket.

The iron exhaled steam as she smoothed its hot underbelly over the white square. As she moved slowly, he looked into the mirror. Her shoulder blades were prominent under the silk robe, her spine showing clearly at the back of her neck.

When he refocused on her face, he saw a tear drop from her eye onto the kerchief.

Oh…dearest Virgin Scribe, he thought. I’m not ready.

Rehv plugged his cane into the floor and came over to kneel before her. Turning the stool toward him, he removed the iron from her hand and put it aside, ready to take her to Havers’s, prepared to pay for whatever medicine would buy her more time.

“Mahmen, what ails you?” He took one of her father’s pressed handkerchiefs and dabbed under her eyes. “Speak unto your born son the weight of your heart.”

The tears were without end, and he caught them one by one. She was lovely even in her age and her crying, a fallen Chosen who had lived a hard life and nonetheless remained full of grace.

When she finally spoke, her voice was thin. “I am dying.” She shook her head before he could speak. “No, let us be truthful with each other. My end has arrived.”

We’ll see about that, Rehv thought to himself.

“My father”-she touched the handkerchief Rehv had dried her tears with-“my father…it is odd that I think of him daily and nightly now, but I do. He was the Primale long ago, and he loved his children. His greatest joy was his blood, and though we were many, he had relationships with us all. These handkerchiefs? They were made out of his robes. Verily, the industry of sewing was of favor to me, and he knew this and he gave unto me some of his robes.”

She reached over with a bony hand and smoothed the stack she’d ironed. “When I left the Other Side, he made me take a few of them. I was in love with a Brother and certain my life would be fulfilled only if I were with him. Of course, then…”

Yeah, it was the then part of her days that had caused her such pain: Then she was raped by a symphath and fell pregnant with Rehvenge and was forced to give birth to a half-breed monstrosity that somehow she had taken to her breast and loved as any son would have wanted to be loved. And all the while as she was imprisoned by the symphath king, the Brother she’d loved had searched for her-only to die in the process of getting her back.

And those tragedies hadn’t been the end of it.

“After I had been…returned, my father called me unto his deathbed,” she continued. “Of all the Chosen, of all his mates and his children, he’d wanted to see me. But I wouldn’t go. I couldn’t bear…I was not the daughter he knew.” Her eyes met Rehv’s, a deep pleading in them. “I didn’t want him to know of me at all. I was befouled.”

Man, he knew that feeling, but his mahmen didn’t need the burden of that. She had no clue about the kind of shit he was dealing with, and she would never know, because it was self-evident that the main reason he was whoring himself out was so she wouldn’t endure the torture of having her son deported.

“When I refused the summons, the Directrix came unto me and said he was suffering. That he wouldn’t go unto the Fade until I came to him. That he would stay on the painful brink of death for an eternity unless I relieved him. The following evening, I went with a heavy heart.” Now his mother’s stare grew fierce. “Upon my arrival at the Primale temple, he wanted to hold me, but I couldn’t…let him. I was a stranger with a beloved face, that was all, and I tried to speak of polite and distant things. It was then that he said something which afore now I could not fully understand. He said, ‘The heavy soul will not pass though the body is failing.’ He was imprisoned by what was unresolved with me. He felt as though he had failed in his role. That if he had kept me on the Other Side, my destiny would have been kinder than what had transpired after I left.”

Rehv’s throat got tight, a sudden, horrible suspicion parking in his brain’s front lot.

His mother’s voice was weak but forthright. “I approached the bed, and he reached for my hand, and I held his palm within mine own. I told him then that I loved my born son and that I was to be mated to a male of the glymera and that all was not lost. My father searched my face for the truth in the words I spoke, and when he was satisfied with what he saw, he closed his eyes…and drifted away. I knew that if I hadn’t come…” She took a deep breath. “Verily, I cannot leave this earth the way things are.”

Rehv shook his head. “Everyone’s fine, Mahmen. Bella and her young are well and safe. I’m-”

“Stop it.” His mother reached up and grabbed onto his chin, the way she had when he’d been very young and prone to causing trouble. “I know what you did. I know you killed my hellren, Rempoon.”

Rehv weighed whether it was better to keep up the lie, but given his mother’s expression, the truth was out, and nothing he could say would dissuade her from it.

“How,” he said. “How did you find out?”

“Who else would have? Who else could have?” As she released her hold and stroked his cheek, he yearned to feel the warm touch. “Do not forget, I saw this face of yours each time my hellren lost his temper. My son, my strong, powerful son. Look at you.”

The honest, loving pride she had for him was something he’d never understood, given the circumstances of his conception.

“I also know,” she whispered, “that you killed your birth father. Twenty-five years ago.”

Now, that really got his attention. “You were not supposed to know. Any of this. Who told you about it?”

She took her hand from his face and pointed over to her makeup table, to a crystal bowl that he’d always assumed was for her manicures. “Old habits of a Chosen scribe, they die hard. I saw it in the water. Right after it happened.”

“And you kept it all to yourself,” he said with wonder.

“And could not any longer. Which was why I brought you here.”

That horrible feeling resurged, the result of his being trapped between what his mother was going to ask him to do and his strong conviction that his sister wasn’t going to benefit from knowing all her family’s dirty, evil secrets. Bella had stayed protected from this nastiness all her life, and there was no reason to do a full disclosure now, especially if their mother was dying.

Which Madalina wasn’t, he reminded himself.

“Mahmen-”

“Your sister must never be told.”

Rehv stiffened, praying he’d heard her right. “Excuse me?”

“Swear to me you shall do everything in your power to ensure that she never knows.” As his mother leaned forward and gripped his arms, he could tell she was really digging her fingers in by the way the bones in her hands and wrists stood out starkly. “I don’t want her to carry these burdens. You were forced to, and I would have spared you this if I could have, but I couldn’t. And if she doesn’t know, then the next generation will not have to suffer. Nalla will not bear the weight either. It can die with you and me. Swear to me.”

Rehv stared up into his mother’s eyes and never loved her more.

He nodded once. “Look upon mine face and be assured, I so swear it. Bella and her issue shall never know. The past shall die with thee and me.”

His mother’s shoulders eased under her dressing gown, and her shuddering sigh spoke loudly of her relief. “You are the son other mothers may only wish for.”

“How can that possibly be true,” he said softly.

“How can it not.”

Madalina gathered herself up and took the kerchief from his hand. “I must needs do this one again, and then perhaps you will help me to my bed?”

“Of course. And I’d like to call Havers.”

“No.”

“Mahmen-”

“I should like my passing to be without medical intervention. None would save me now, anyway.”

“You can’t know that-”

She lifted her lovely hand with its heavy diamond ring. “I shall be dead before nightfall tomorrow. I saw it within the bowl.”

Rehv’s breath left him, his lungs refusing to work. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready. I’m not ready…

Madalina was so precise with the final kerchief, lining up its corners carefully, sweeping the iron back and forth slowly. When she was finished, she moved the perfect square over to the others, making sure that everything was lined up.

“It is done,” she said.

Rehv leaned on his cane to rise and offered her his arm, and together they shuffled into her bedroom, both unsteady.

“Are you hungry?” he asked as he pulled back the covers and helped her lie down.

“No, I am well as I am.”

Their hands worked together to arrange the sheets and the blanket and the duvet so that everything was folded precisely and lying directly across her chest. As he straightened, he knew she would not be getting out of bed again, and he couldn’t bear it.

“Bella needs to come here,” he said roughly. “She needs to say good-bye.”

Her mother nodded and shut her eyes. “She must come now, and please have her bring the young.”

Back in Caldwell, at the Brotherhood mansion, Tohr paced around his bedroom. Which was a joke, really, considering how weak he was. Lurched was about all he could pull off.

Every minute and a half he checked the clock, time passing at an alarming rate until he felt as if the world’s hourglass had been shattered and seconds, like sand, were spilling all over the place.

He needed more time. More…Shit, would that even help, though?

He just couldn’t figure out how to get through what was about to happen and knew more stewing wasn’t going to change that. For example, he couldn’t decide whether it was better to have a witness. The advantage was that it was even less personal that way. The disadvantage was that if he cracked wide open, there was another person in the room to see.

“I’ll stay.”

Tohr glanced over at Lassiter, who was lounging on the chaise by the windows. The angel’s legs were crossed at the ankles, and one combat boot ticked from side to side, another hateful measure of time.

“Come on,” Lassiter said, “I’ve seen your sorry ass naked. What could possibly be worse than that.”

The words were typical bravado, the tone surprisingly gentle-

The knock on the door was soft. So it wasn’t a Brother. And given that there was no food aroma working its way under the door, it wasn’t Fritz with a tray of eats destined for the porcelain throne.

The call to Phury had worked, evidently.

Tohr started to shake from head to toe.

“Okay, easy, there.” Lassiter got up and came over fast. “I want you to park it over here. You’re not going to want to do this anywhere near a bed. Come on-no, don’t fight me. You know this is the drill. It’s biology, not choice, so you need to take the guilt out of it.”

Tohr felt himself getting pulled across to a stiff-backed chair that was by the bureau, and right in fucking time: His knees lost interest in their calling, the pair of them falling loose so that he hit the woven seat so hard he bounced.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

Lassiter’s gorgeous puss appeared right in front of his. “Your body’s going to do it for you. Take your mind and your heart out of it and let your instinct do what needs to be done. This is not your fault. This is how you survive.”

“I don’t want to survive.”

“You don’t say. And here I thought all this self-destructive crap was just a hobby.”

Tohr didn’t have the strength to lash out at the angel. Didn’t have the strength to leave the room. Didn’t even have enough in reserve to cry.

Lassiter went over to the door and opened it. “Hey, thanks for coming.”

Tohr couldn’t bear to look at the Chosen who entered, but there was no ignoring her presence: Her delicate, flowery scent drifted over to him.

Wellsie’s natural fragrance had been stronger than that, made not only of rose and jasmine, but the spice that reflected her backbone.

“My lord,” a female voice said. “I am the Chosen Selena, here to serve you?”

There was a long pause.

“Go to him,” Lassiter said softly. “We need to get this over with.”

Tohr put his face in his hands, his head falling loose on his neck. It was all he could do to breathe in and out as the female settled on the floor at his feet.

Through his spindly fingers, he saw the white of her flowing robes. Wellsie hadn’t been into dresses all that much. The only one she’d ever truly liked had been the red-and-black gown she’d mated him in.

An image from that sacred ceremony appeared in his mind, and he saw with tragic clarity the moment when the Scribe Virgin had clasped both his and Wellsie’s hands and declared that it was a good mating, a very good mating indeed. He’d felt such warmth linked to his female through the mother of the race, and that sensation of love and purpose and optimism had increased a million times over as he’d stared into his love’s eyes.