Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(67)
Author: J.R. Ward

Xcor’s black heart began beating hard.

Especially as he recognized the second figure: It was the fighter with the mismatched eyes whom he had battled at Assail’s as the king was spirited away.

Both males took out guns and surveyed the landscape.

As Xcor was downwind, and there appeared to be no one else around, he figured there was a reasonable expectation, barring the revelation of his position by his Chosen, that the pair would proceed with whatever they had planned for his female.

In fact, it appeared as if she were being delivered unto a prison.

Over. His. Dead. Body.

She was an innocent in this war, one used for nefarious purposes through no fault of her own – but clearly she was going to be executed or locked within a cell here for the rest of her time upon the earth.

Or not.

He palmed one of his guns.

It was a good night to take care of this business. Indeed, now was his chance to have her as his own, to save her from whatever punishment had been doled out on account of her having unwittingly aided and abetted the enemy. And mayhap the circumstances around her unjust condemnation would make her favorably predisposed toward her enemy and savior.

His eyes closed briefly as he imagined her in and among his bedding.

When Xcor once again lifted his lids, Phury was opening the rear door of the sedan and reaching inside. When the Brother straightened, the Chosen was drawn out of the vehicle…and taken by both elbows, the fighters holding on to her on each side as she was led toward the building.

When Xcor prepared to close in. After so long, a lifetime, he finally had her once more in the vicinity of his person, and he was not going to waste the chance destiny was providing him, not now – not when her life so obviously hung in the balance. And he would prevail in this – the threat to her strengthened his body to unimaginable power, his mind sharpened such that it both raced with attack possibilities and remained utterly calm.

Indeed, there were merely those two males guarding her – and with them, a female who not only appeared weaponless, but did not regard her vicinity as if she were trained for or inclined to conflict.

He was more than mighty enough to take his female’s captors.

Just as he prepared to lunge forth, his Chosen’s scent reached him on the stiff, cold breeze, that tantalizing perfume unique to her causing him to weave in his combat boots –

Immediately, he recognized a change in it.

Blood.

She was bleeding. And there was something else….

Without conscious thought, his body moved itself in close, his form reestablishing corporeal weight and heft at a distance of a mere ten feet, behind an outbuilding set off from the main facility.

She was not a prisoner, he realized, being led to a cell or execution.

His Chosen was having difficulty walking. And those warriors were supporting her with care; even with their weapons out and their eyes searching for signs of an attack, they were as gentle with her as they would have been with the most fragile of blooms.

She had not been ill treated. She was marked not with bruises and welts. And as the trio progressed, she looked up at one male and then the other and spoke as if trying to reassure them – for in truth, it was not aggression tightening the brows of those warriors.

In fact, it was the same terror he felt upon smelling her blood.

Xcor’s heart pounded even harder behind his breast, his mind trying to make sense of it all.

And then he remembered something from his own past.

After his birth mahmen had shunned him, he had been dropped at an orphanage in the Old Country and left for whatever fate befell him. Therein, he had stayed among the rare unwanted, most of whom possessed physical deformities such as his own, for nearly a decade – long enough to form permanent memories of what transpired at the sad, lonely place.

Long enough for him to piece together what it meant when a lone female appeared at the gates, was let in, and then screamed for hours, sometimes days…before giving birth to, in most cases, a dead young. Or miscarrying one.

The scent of the blood back then had been very specific. And the scent upon the cold wind of this night was the same.

Pregnancy was what he had in his nose now.

For the first time in his life, he heard himself utter in absolute agony, "Dearest Virgin in the Fade…"

Chapter Thirty-four

The idea that members of the s’Hisbe were in the Caldwell zip code made Trez want to pack up everything he owned, grab his brother, and RV it out of town.

As he drove from the warehouse to the Iron Mask, his head was so f**ked-up, he had to consciously think of the turns to take, and the stop signs to brake at, and where he was supposed to park once he got to the club. And then after he turned the X5’s engine off, he just sat behind the wheel and stared at the brick wall of his building…for like, a year.

Helluva metaphor, all the going-nowhere in front of him.

It wasn’t like he didn’t know how much he was letting his people down. The issue? He didn’t give a shit. He was not going back to the old ways. The life he led now was his own, and he refused to let the promise he’d been born into cage him as an adult.

Not going to happen.

Ever since Rehvenge had done his good deed for the century and saved his and his brother’s asses, things had turned around for Trez. He and iAm had been ordered to align themselves with the symphath outside of the Territory in order to work off the debt, and that "forcible" repayment had been his ticket to ride, the way out he’d been searching for. And although he did regret sucking iAm into the drama, the end result was that his brother had had to come with him, and that was just another part of the perfect solution he was now living. Leaving the s’Hisbe and coming into the outside world had been a revelation, his first, delicious taste of freedom: There was no protocol. No rules. No one breathing down his neck.

The irony? It was supposed to have been a slap on the back of the hand for daring to go beyond the Territory and tangling with UnKnowables. A punishment intended to bring him back in line.

Hah.

And since then, in the recesses of his mind, he’d kinda been hoping the extent of his dealings with the UKs over the past decade or so would have contaminated him in the eyes of the s’Hisbe, making him ineligible for the "honor" he’d been given at his birth. Soiling him into a permanent freedom, as it were.

Problem was, if they’d sent AnsLai, the high priest, clearly that goal hadn’t been accomplished. Unless the visit had been to disavow him?

He’d have heard from iAm on that, though. Wouldn’t he?

Trez checked his phone. No VMs. No texts. He was in the doghouse with his brother again – unless iAm had decided to f**k all the bullshit and gone home to the tribe.