The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(112)
Author: J.R. Ward

When she could only swallow hard, he found himself going still. “You’ll do what.”

With jerky movements, she paced around before him. And as yet, he could not move a single muscle.

“What exactly,” he asked deeply, “will you do?”

She stopped. Raised that lovely chin. Challenged him with her stare and her body, even though she was two hundred pounds lighter than he and utterly untrained.

“You may have me.”

“Is it hot in here—or am I crazy?”

When no one answered her, Beth glanced across the study. Saxton, Rehv, and Wrath were all quiet as they took up space on the matched set of blue sofas. The first two were staring into the dwindling fire, and she didn’t know where Wrath had directed his eyes.

Hell, even though he was in the same room with her, she didn’t have a clue where he was.

Taking off her robe, she put it on the great carved desk and read the proclamation again. The chair she’d chosen was the one Rehv usually took, the soft-seated bergère, she thought he’d called it, off to the side of where Wrath’s throne was.

She refused, in spite of what she held in her hands, to refer to the giant chair as anything but her mate’s.

Looking back down at the parchment, she shook her head at all the symbols that had been so carefully inked. When it came to the Old Language, she was slow with the literacy thing, having to think of the definition of each character before she could string a sentence together. But what do you know—on the second trip through, everything was the same as the first.

Putting the stiff, heavy paper with all its colorful fringe back on the desk, she ran her fingers over the satin lengths that were secured by wax seals. The things were as narrow and smooth as the strips of ribbon used in the hair of little girls, perfect for tying onto a pigtail.

Not that she had baby on the brain or anything.

“So there’s really nothing we can do about this?” she said after a while.

Man, she was hot. Flannel had not been a good choice—either that or it was stress.

Saxton cleared his throat when no one else volunteered to reply. “Procedurally, they have followed the rules. And from a legal perspective, their foundation is correct. Technically, as the Old Laws read now, any offspring of…” More throat clearing. And he glanced at Wrath as if to measure how volcanic things were going to get. “…the both of you would be bound for the throne, and there is a provision concerning the blood of our ruler.”

Her hand went to her lower belly. The idea that a group of people would target her child, even though it was unborn and maybe not even in existence, was enough to make her want to go down to the practice range and squeeze off a couple of clips.

Back when she’d been in the human world, she’d been discriminated against as a woman from time to time, *cough*Dickthe-Prick*cough*. She’d had no experience with any racial stuff, however. As someone who had appeared Caucasian, even though, as it turned out, she was only half-white because she was only half-human, that whole side of things had never been an issue.

Man … to have an opinion about an individual based on characteristics attached to the sperm lottery was nuts. People couldn’t help what sex they were coming out of the womb; nor could they change the composition of their parents.

“That glymera,” she muttered. “What a bunch of ass**les.”

“I’m probably next by the way,” Rehv said. “They know about my ties to you both.”

She focused on the Mohawked male. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I only stayed with the job to help you two and the Brotherhood.” Then he tacked on dryly, “I got plenty on my hands up north to keep me busy.”

That’s right, she thought. It was so easy to forget that he was not only the leahdyre of the Council, but the king of the symphaths.

“And you can’t throw them all out or something?” she asked the male. “I mean, as leahdyre, you can’t—I don’t know, get a new roster of people?”

“I’ll let our good lawyer friend over here chime in if I get it wrong, but it’s my understanding that membership on the Council is determined by family. So even if I did find grounds to boot the f**kers, they’d just be replaced by members of those bloodlines—who’d likely have the same opinion of things. But more to the point, what’s done is done. Even if they were all turned over with new people? The action still stands.”

“I just keep thinking there’s something—”

“Can we stop this now,” Wrath cut in. “I mean, can we just give this bullshit a rest? No offense, but the angles have been looked at, you’ve read the thing they sent over—what’s done is done.”

“I just can’t believe it was so easy.” She stared at the throne. “I mean, one piece of paper and it’s over.”

“I fear for the future,” Saxton murmured. “That value system of theirs is not good for people like me. Or for females. We’d made such progress over the past two years—bringing the race out of the Stone Age. Now? That’s going to be wiped clean—mark my words.”

Wrath burst up. “Listen, I gotta go.”

With long strides, he came over to her, one hand out into the thin air for her to grab onto and pilot him in the last couple of inches.

As she took his palm and pulled him down to her, she leaned her head to one side so he could kiss her jugular, leaned to the other so he could do the same on the left, and then put her lips in the way of his mouth so he could brush her there, too.

And then he and George left.

Watching him go, she hated how drawn he was, how weak, how wasted—although physically speaking that was more what she had done to him during the needing. Mentally and emotionally? Long line of people responsible for that.

Although she was one of those, too.

“There has to be a way,” she said to no one in particular.

God, she prayed her hellren wasn’t heading for the gym. The last thing he needed was more exercise—rest and food was what his body required right now.

But she knew that look on his face all too well.

FORTY-FIVE

Xcor had never been a male of letters. Not merely untutored in literature, he was, in fact, illiterate—and on a regular basis, Throe used words either in English or the mother tongue that he did not understand.

And yet one would suppose, even at his lowest level of ability, that the four one-syllable words just spoken to him—at least, if taken individually—offered no challenge to comprehension.