Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(154)
Author: J.R. Ward

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 Seleccion Suprema to arrive, he could feel the eyes of the humans in the club lingering on him.

Come out? Like I’m g*y…

You f**k 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 hadn’t come up – and males certainly weren’t on the menu. Back before the raids, Luchas had been hetero like their father – which was to say strictly the female you were mated to in the missionary position on your birthday and maybe once a year after a festival.

Males, females, men, women, in various combinations, sometimes in public, rarely in a bed at home? Not something Luchas had any frame of reference for.

When Herraduras three and four were slid in front of him, he nodded a thank-you.

Reaching down deep, even though he hated that expression as well as what it meant, he tried to see if there was anything else in and among his reticence to talk to the remaining member of his family about his life. Any shame. Embarrassment. Hell, maybe a little rebellious gotcha that he didn’t want to inflict on his crippled brother…

Qhuinn squirmed in his own clothes.

Well. What do you know.

If he was brutally honest? Yeah, he was a bit tetchy. But it was on the level of not wanting to be looked at funny for yet another reason…as his conservative, probably-virgin of a brother would no doubt do if he was told about the males and the men.

That was it.

Yup. That was all.

I don’t know how to explain it. I just see myself with a female long-term.

He’d said that to Blay a while ago, and had meant every word –

Some kind of emotion curled up inside his gut, twisting things down there, rearranging his bowel and his liver.

He told himself it was the hooch.

The sudden fear he felt suggested otherwise.