Mine, page 17
He was too scattered to calm himself sufficiently.
A static charge was upon the air, one that emanated from the old woman, and it was not merely agitating the molecules of oxygen, it was in him. The effect was a heightening of his sight, his hearing, his sense of smell, and that information load funneling into his brain was creating a buzzy chaos: The pine boughs were too clear, each needle among the countless numbers a green knife piercing him, the trunks made of sandpaper, and the loose stones on the ground a tactile nightmare, even as he did not touch any of them. Additionally, the perfume that the entity carried was roaring in his nose, as if a meadow in spring with a rushing river beside it was actually inside his sinuses.
And then there were the howls in the air. The wolves’ voices entered his ears and echoed into a cacophony that redoubled until he wanted to cover his head to block it all out.
So no, there would be no dematerializing. He was locked in to whatever was happening next.
“I am glad you came,” she said in her voice of birdsong. “Your long journey ends up here, and I sense you are ready for it all to come to its conclusion.”
The nape of his neck tightened, sure as if a hand had landed hard upon it and was gripping with the strength of a warrior.
“I do not… know what you’re talking about.”
Some symphath manipulator he was. He was not playing chess with her, choosing his words carefully, engineering an outcome he would patiently execute and then enjoy. No, he was on his back foot and then some, stumbling over his words, grappling for logic, lost in his surroundings.
“Yes, you do know that to which I refer.” The smile was calm and ancient. And yet he was not reassured. “But then destiny transcends words, does it not. It transcends everything.”
“Why…” He cleared his throat and indicated the fissure in the boulders behind him. “Is this your… home? The cave?”
“You are welcome to take shelter in it for however long you wish. The male who resides there is on his own journey and far from the mountain.”
“Oh.”
“I saw what you moved in earlier.”
Blade’s left eyebrow started twitching, the spasms causing his vision to disco. “I was not aware I had an audience.”
“I didn’t intend for you to know my presence.” More with that smile. “You brought your most precious possessions. You take care of them so well.”
There was no replying to that. Absolutely not. “I shall move out—”
“Not at all. You are precisely where you are supposed to be. Where you are needed.” The old woman looked over to the rocks. “And you have what you need. For what comes next.”
“There is no next. I am merely here on a little vacation.”
And now seriously reconsidering what he had thought was a private place where he could hide out, determine his strategy against his cousin, and come and go from this base camp as he hunted his prey.
“You are trying to impress her,” the entity said, “but you have at your disposal the ultimate prize to present unto her.”
“Her? I am afraid you have confused me with someone else.”
Now that kindly face registered an authority. “I do not get confused. And you know exactly to what I am referring. You are better at caring for others than you wish to acknowledge, and if you love her as you believe you do, then the decision is an easy one, is it not? Would you not give all of you to the one you love? Sacrifice yourself for them?”
Blade slowly shook his head back and forth.
“Yes,” the entity said. “You would. And you have. All these years, avenging your sister. You have lived no life in service unto her—and you have sought no glory for yourself from her. She is blind to your virtue, and that is your business. It is also your preparation for the true sacrifice that is coming.”
“Again, I think you’ve confused me with someone else.”
“As you wish. Free will is a force in this world. So you will believe what you do—”
“Who are you? The Scribe Virgin?”
The entity laughed, and as she did, her silver hair seemed to move around on its own, an extension of her mirth. “No, I am not her. She is… let us say, we are of relation.”
“I do not understand any of this.”
“Your understanding is not required.” That face, so beautiful even with its lines, grew serious. “The wolven has been shown that you are her future. Give her that. In your heart, it is what you know is right—and the answer to the question you have been asking yourself is yes, there is.”
“I have no question,” he said in a voice that broke.
She regarded him with the telltale sadness that came with pitying a stranger. “Yes, there will be a compensation for your altruism. You will get what you have sought for all your nights.”
“I do not know what you are—”
Now there was laughter. “You asked for me. You prayed for guidance. Did you think someone was not listening? You came up here to my summit, and you stared into my valley, and your heart called out in your torment. So I am here.” That smile returned once again. “I wish you the very best—and remember, you have everything you need with you. Even if you lied to yourself about why you brought it.”
In between one blink and the next, the old woman was gone, and the instant she disappeared, the howling cut off in midstream, as a door would shut on a sound.
Heart pounding, mind swimming, Blade let his head fall back and just tried to breathe. Up above, the clouds had parted in a perfect circle, an oculus created directly over him, certainly by the entity’s strange energy. And now that she had departed, the weather pattern was reclaiming the aperature, and as he regarded the stars twinkling and winking down at him, he felt like they were mocking him—or perhaps he was making everything personal because he felt like the core of the universe had just done a drive-by on him.
And that did make a male feel of special importance.
Whether one appreciated the effort or not.
And he did not.
When the heavens were once again fully obscured, he turned away and sought the cave’s entrance. Passing through the rough-hewn corridor with its tight angles and tighter squeeze, he orientated by touch and thereafter emerged into the belly of the space. He had lit a candle upon arriving earlier, and paranoia made him search the bedding platform, the trunks of clothes that were not his own, the old dresser… the spring-fed basin in the back.
He was alone, but that was of no reassurance a’tall. If that entity could emerge from out of nowhere outside, there was no reason she could not find him in here, or anywhere. And though she had not been aggressive, he felt as affronted as if she had put a knife to his throat. To his symphath sensibilities, the amount of information she had on him was alarming—and the kinds of things she knew were utterly devastating.
“And I was not praying.”
On that note, he went across to the table set back upon the rock wall. The candle he had recently lit with his mind was in a holder layered with the melted wax of many previous uses, and he wondered what struggles the rightful owner of the cave had endured…
Next to the fragile source of light, there was a collapsible plastic cage with a screened top. And beside that rested a small container, about the size of a ring box.
Lowering himself down to a wooden chair, he arranged his robing with a precision that was not required. “You are my most precious possession.”
Inside the cage, the albino scorpion showed no reaction. Then again, she was used to him, and had turned to look at him as he had appeared in her window on the world.
She was not the only one of his collection that he had taken with him, but she was the most important—
You are better at caring for others than you wish to acknowledge.
“Shut. Up.”
And yet he could not deny the evidence of that truth. All he had to do was think of those glass cages back in his private quarters and all his careful cultivation of the scorpions therein. For years.
Back when the Princess was alive, she had tasked him with the care and breeding of the arachnids with which she had been obsessed. The post had been titularly a demeaning one, intended to humble him for the disgrace that his bloodline had suffered at his sister Xhex’s behavior.
Indeed, following her forced departure, there had been a campaign against all of them, and there were none who went untainted by the degrading treatment. The immediate family had been most affected, but ultimately any who were related came under the pall—which was why he was so certain of Kurling’s ultimate intent. If the male could prove what Blade had been doing, and then brought back Blade’s head on a stick? Then the male might well rescue himself from the pall—or even be revered.
Rehvenge’s “new era” could only change so much.
“Old habits die hard, my love,” he said as he stroked the glass with his forefinger. “Do they not.”
The scorpion was tiny. Barely bigger than a wasp. And as he considered what was in her stinger, what he had engineered through careful breeding over the previous two decades, he reflected on his uncharacteristic attraction to Lydia.
He may fuck males. But he had always loved deadly females—and like his scorpion, that wolven was a killer.
Unlike Lydia, the arachnid could do something else.
For Daniel.
The ghostly entity had it correct, and he wanted to hate her for the prescient knowledge—in addition to the invasion into his privacy: Unfortunately, having had his interior debate revealed, he now could not ignore the dilemma he had been trying to force down into the basement of his consciousness.
As the keeper of the scorpions, he had been witness to how the Princess had used their venom for all kinds of things: Skin toning. Pain control. Pain infliction. Paralysis. She had had a strange obsession with the elixir, as she had called it, and she had had him test it on himself… and on others.
Of whom some had been humans.
The fact that he had ended up doing to those rats without tails what had been done to his sister had seemed like an appropriate karmic payback to the inferior species: There he was, tracking underground labs and destroying them—while he was experimenting on humans himself. That period in his life had not lasted very long, however. Rehvenge had taken out that triple-jointed female and all her sick perversions.
Which was what happened when you thought a male like that was a toy you could play with forever.
In the aftermath? Blade had stayed with the scorpions… and all the knowledge he had gained remained with him. Including that which he had regarded as wholly irrelevant.
Some of those humans had had cancer. That had been… cured.
As vampires and symphaths did not get the disease, there had been no benefit to the discovery—and he never would have believed then that that throwaway would mean something in his life.
Well, potentially mean something. That was devastating.
Picturing Daniel, so weak and ailing, Blade knew that he was running out of time to emerge as the hero he had no interest in being—and not in terms of delivering his cousin’s head on a stick as a show of revenge, which was what Lydia thought she needed from him.
Indeed, the future she wanted so badly with her mate was in his reach, and his alone.
“But what is in it for me?” he whispered to his scorpion. “Nothing.”
No, that wasn’t true.
Suffering. That was what he got in return, and as pain was a destiny through which he was already slogging, he rather held on to the notion that if that man of hers died, Blade might have a chance with the wolven. And God knew, he was more than willing to be patient and wait out her mourning.
A new mission, to replace the one with the labs that he had completed.
He infinitely preferred that future as opposed to living in a world where true love blossomed next to his heart’s gravestone.
“Fuck that,” he said bitterly.
A symphath’s first interest was always their own, but no male wanted that lonely outcome—and as he shook his head, he knew that he was not going to stray from his course. He had brought his favorite arachnid with him only because, having revealed himself to Kurling’s camera, his personal quarters might be in play, so to speak, and though losing some of the others would be unfortunate, he would not be devastated.
His favorite, however, he could not spare. Nor her court of daughters.
And she and her direct offspring would be safe here, while he assassinated his cousin. And then they would all wait up here on the mountain whilst nature took its course with one Daniel Joseph.
That scorpion was not here to help Lydia’s one true love survive his dreaded fucking disease.
Not at all.
TWENTY-TWO
The King’s Audience House
Caldwell, New York
WRATH, SON OF Wrath, sire of Wrath, sat back down in his armchair in front of the fireplace in the Audience House’s main room. As soon as his ass hit the cushioned seat, George let out another big shake, his damp ears flopping on his head with a slapping sound, his tail whipping Wrath’s leathers, his paws doing a stompy-stomp on the carpet.
“That was a good roll outside, huh,” Wrath said softly.
As he put his dagger hand down, the golden bumped his head into his favorite palm, and Wrath stroked the wet locks that hung down like hair off George’s ear. God, he loved everything about the dog, even the old rug smell when things were wet. And though he wanted to spend the next fifteen minutes oochie-poo’ing with his best boy—one, that was not something he did in public, and two, the sooner he got through tonight’s calendar of audiences, the faster he could get home to his shellan and his son.
And then oochie-poos-in-private could happen.
Some things, you only wanted your shellan to know about.
Ready to get on with shit, Wrath reangled his face so he was “looking” out into the room. “We ready for the next one or what.”
Over to the right, Saxton cleared his throat, and there was a creak as he got up from his desk chair. “Ah, yes. And I believe I will excuse myself—”
Wrath narrowed his eyes behind his wraparounds. “You all right? What’s going on—”
“Oh, no, Sire. I am very well indeed. It’s just…”
There was a hesitation, and Wrath could imagine his solicitor looking in the direction of the two brothers who were on duty tonight. Qhuinn and Sahvage had been pairing up on schedules lately, the two falling into a team that was proving very effective out in the field of Caldwell’s downtown—and then also here, with these civilian meetings. The rule was that there had to be two brothers in the room, and two more on the premises, at all times.
It was the reasonable thing to do, set up by Tohr, who was the most reasonable of all of the Brotherhood.
And it chapped Wrath’s ass like a bike seat.
“Somebody better get fucking talking,” he commanded. “Why is my lawyer recusing himself.”
There was a brisk knock, and after Sahvage barked out a yup, the scent that entered what had once been the house’s formal dining room was not exactly a surprise—but it wasn’t expected, either.
“Rehvenge,” he said. “What we got.”
The King of symphaths was always welcome. But this was not a friendly little hi-how’re-ya: There were no greetings by the brothers, and Sax being prepared to leave? The only conclusion was that some kind of shit had hit some sort of fan, and everyone else knew what was going on but—
“Saxton, you stay,” he ordered.
“My lord… ah…”
And then two other people came in. As soon as their scents registered, he cursed. This was not going to be a run-of-the-mill civilian dispute. Nope. John Matthew and Xhex shouldn’t have been in this part of town at this time of night: The former was supposed to be out in the field, and the latter was in charge of security for that club down on Market—a full-time job and then some.
Plus what do you know. The tension in them both thickened the air, an astringent tang that changed their normal scents.
“Go,” he said in a low voice to Sax.
“Thank you, my Lord.”
There was a shifting of fine clothes—the male bowing—and then the solicitor took his leave faster than a coin in a slot, the double doors being closed quick.
“Whatever it is,” Wrath announced, “I’m down. Just spit the shit out.”
In the quiet that followed, he imagined all kinds of eyeballs shifting around as the group that remained decided who was going to draw the short stick and drop the bad news. He had the sense that Qhuinn and Sahvage might be in on it, too, because they started pacing, the pair walking back and forth along the windows at the far side of the long space—
“Somebody better start fucking talking. Now.”
At his feet George sat up and put his big, boxy head on Wrath’s thigh. The golden was supposed to help with the lack of sight going on, but over the years, he’d shifted into the emotional support animal crap. Which Wrath didn’t need. He took care of himself.
His dagger hand went to that soft fur, and as he stroked things and fiddled with an ear, his blood pressure eased up a little, his temples not pounding so much—
“I killed three people. Maybe four. Maybe… more.”
As Xhex spoke up, Wrath angled in her direction, relief rolling through him. That was her goddamn job, wasn’t it? Then again, if the unaliving had taken place as part of her employment, there would be no need for all this.
“What were the circumstances.”
“It was at the club.” The female cleared her throat. “They were… dangerous to my customers.”
“And?” Wrath drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “What’s the problem. You handled your business with some humans. As long as you covered your tracks, there’s not a problem—”
“They were vampires. They were… us.”
Wrath’s brows dropped under his wraparounds. Okaaaay, now he got it. “Have the families been notified.”
“The identity of the most recent one—well, ‘ones,’ probably—hasn’t been established yet—”
