BDB 13 The Shadows (56 page)

“I am most pleased that you called upon me. And I am sorry that I kept you waiting.”

Throe smiled at the female addressing him and indicated the comfortable sofa he’d been sitting on since he arrived on her property. “It has been no hardship. I’ve been warm and dry. Already, you have been as gracious as any hostess could possibly be.”

The aristocratic female smiled, flashing teeth that were as white as the diamonds at her throat. Her wrists. Upon her fingers and earlobes. Standing just inside the modest caretaker’s residence on her huge estate, she looked like a model who’d walked into the wrong photoshoot.

“My mate is unwell,” she said gravely. “I had to attend to him.”

Dressed as she was in a skintight leopard-print cocktail dress, one had to wonder exactly what kind of needs her elderly
hellren
had.

Hardly the sort of thing a
shellan
would wear to tuck an older gentlemale into bed.

More likely, Throe thought, she had dressed to meet him.

“Yes, I recall he was ailing,” he said smoothly. “I’m very sorry.”

“It grieves me so.”

“How could it not.”

“I shall be a widow soon.”

As he nodded in solemn sympathy, he deliberately allowed his eyes to drift down from her black straight hair to her dainty feet.

The last time he’d seen her, it had been here, but there had been far fewer clothes involved—for both of them, as well as his fellow Bastards. She had been lying before the hearth, and he and the soldiers had swarmed over her naked flesh, feeding, fucking. That had been about a month ago, only the most recent of the sessions that had been ongoing for the previous year at regular intervals.

“Is it only you then tonight?” she asked in a husky way.

“Yes, and I must have you know that I am afraid we have parted ways, Xcor and myself. I’m getting out of the fighting.”

“Are you,” she purred. “And where are you staying?”

“I am between residences at this moment.”

“Really.”

“Indeed.”

She came forward, crossing the shallow room to stand within arm’s reach of him. “Dawn is coming soon.”

He sent his stare down her body again. “Is it. Well, then I shall have to go.”

“So soon,” she pouted.

“’Tis only safe.” Idly, he trailed his fingertips up her hip, across her lower belly … down to the juncture of her thighs. Pressing in through the dress, he gave her cleft a little stroke. “So I’m afraid I must end things here—”

“Perhaps you and I may come to an arrangement,” she said.

“Oh?” he said.

“My
hellren
is far older than I. He is my true love, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But because of his advancing age, there are certain needs of mine that he is not capable of fulfilling regularly.”

“I believe you are familiar with my abilities in that regard.”

The female smiled in a feral fashion. “Yes. I am.”

“And it would seem only fair that, were you to offer me room and board, you be compensated in a manner which you deem appropriate.”

The female put one of her stiletto-clad feet on the arm of the sofa and lifted the hem of her dress up to her waist, exposing her bare sex to him. “Perhaps you shall refresh my memory as to your talents first.”

Throe purred in the back of his throat and leaned into her, extending his tongue, licking his way into her slit. As her hips tilted toward him, and her head fell back, he sucked at her clit—

And then stopped. Sat back. “I have one problem.”

“Yes?” she grunted, pulling her head back to level.

“I cannae stay here at this cottage. Not if the Band of Bastards are going to pay you … homage. Surely, on an estate as large as this, there must be other accommodations available?”

She frowned. “You are of the Bluerme bloodline, are you not?”

“I am. Through my
mahmen
’s people.”

“You are a distant relation of my
hellren
’s, then, and it would therefore be rude of us not to offer you shelter. Of course, if you are going to be in the main house, we shall have to purchase you clothing.”

Throe smiled at her. It was just so perfect.

After all, she and her mate had supported the political coup against Wrath—and there was no way they were rejoicing the King’s subsequent disbanding of The Council.

He had his in, as well as his base of operations.

“That would be most acceptable,” he said, slipping his hands around her hips and drawing her back to his mouth.

Against her sex, he murmured, “Now, allow me to demonstrate my affection for your generous nature.”

“I
work alone,” the whore was saying as she went over to her clothes. “I don’t have a pimp. If you want me again, you know where to find me.”

Xcor stared across the cottage’s living area, watching the female dress with an efficiency that was only a second slower than the speed of sound.

The blonde departed without any good-bye, her duty having been discharged, his payment of two thousand dollars having been accepted. As the door shut behind her, he shifted his eyes to the dying fire. He had paid to fuck her any way and anywhere he wanted and he had done so. Repeatedly. He had also taken from her vein.

For which the second thousand had been recompense.

Thanks to his keen hearing, he heard her outside, walking through the leaves. And then her voice drifted through the thin walls of the structure that he had bought for another.

“Yeah, I’m leaving now. Yeah. He was ugly, but he fucks like an animal—”

That was the last he heard, so she must have dematerialized.

His body was naked as he sat on the floor before the hearth, knees up, elbows plugged in, arms dangling. The sweat was cooling on his skin, his fangs still descended from the feeding, his sex flaccid and shrunken and red from the beating it had taken.

The scent of everything he had done lingered in the air, every draw in through his nose a reminder of what his body had wrought.

And with whom.

Hanging his head, he rubbed at his too-long hair, numbly thinking that he should get it cut.

Images played through his mind of him getting that female on all fours and mounting her like a dog. His balls had slapped against her sex as he took her in the ass and he had come so many times, he had left her dripping.

He had tried to make it as dirty as possible—and he had even kissed the female. Everywhere.

He had wanted to stain his very skin with the experience. Change his body. Alter his mind.

Wipe the slate clean.

Instead, as he sat on the hard floor by himself, he found that he had done the opposite. Layla was the only thing he thought of now: her lovely, shy face, those pale green eyes so smart and kind, that body of which he had had only hints. The session with the whore had merely served to dim him down, such that the illumination offered by the one he loved burned all the brighter for the contrast.

As a strategy, this had been a total failure.

So he would have to find another. Or try this again—yes, he would try again with another or the same or three or four. Money was scarce, but Balthazar and Zypher were so seductive, Xcor was quite sure they could successfully advocate on his behalf.

And then there was always alcohol to help him.

And fighting, which could be an excellent energy drain.

What he would not do was give in to the nearly choking urge to phone Layla and hear her voice, and beg her to see him in spite of what he had told her.

That would only be a further death for him.

The Bloodletter had taught him that part of strength was the elimination of weakness, and over time, with repeated exposure to that Chosen, his emotions had castrated him: He was making choices and finding distractions in things that compromised the integrity of his warrior self.

And somehow she had figured it all out and called him on his truth.

Her knowledge of all he sacrificed for her had been the wake-up call, and only a fool did not abide by that kind of trailhead; he needed to alter this destination she had become for him, turn away from that untenable situation with her, proceed with alacrity back to the clarity he had once possessed.

Because what was their future? Further clandestine meetings here? Such that eventually a Brother followed her due to some infinitesimal slip-up she made or some suspicion she was unaware of garnering for herself? His soldiers and he needed a safe place to rest and recharge during the daylight hours, and he could not compromise that.

What had he been thinking? Bringing her here?

He and his Bastards had not the money to move once again so soon, the lease on the property being a burden upon their meager coffers now that Throe had departed.

At least Xcor sensed he could trust her. She had had nine months to give up the location of the meadow they had always met at, and he still knew where the Brotherhood compound was. It was a mutual
détente
—if she divulged this place, she had to know his next move would be to marshal a full-scale attack on the Brotherhood’s sacred mansion.

Where, if the gossip was true, the King’s firstborn slept in his crib.

No, she would say nothing—

Bing!

The sound of his phone going off cranked his head around. The cellular device was on the floor by the door, in the tangle of his pants.

Jumping across the space, his hands were sloppy as they clawed through the folds, fought against the pocket’s hold, got the glass-fronted plate out.

He had heard nothing back from her concerning the message he had voice-recorded into a text.

Entering a four-digit touch pattern on the number pad, he unlocked the device and went into the text messages. His illiteracy was so pervasive he had to use a text-to-audio translator application in order to receive communications from his soldiers and from her.

But he knew enough to see that whatever had been received was not from the Chosen.

He put the phone away without listening to whatever it was.

The fact that he stalled out, and stood there at the front door as if he were lost, pissed him off.

He could not—he would not—allow this castration to continue. There had been many things in his life that had been more destructive than leaving a female who had not been his to begin with: his mother had been disgusted at his appearance and abandoned him because of his harelip; he had endured unimaginable, sustained abuse at the Bloodletter’s camp; and then there were the centuries of depravity in this war, his unhinged hatred of the world defining him, driving him.

This issue with Layla was not going to break him.

Forcing his feet forward, he went into the bathroom and turned the shower on. The blood the whore had given him was providing him with a physical strength he had not felt since …

No, he couldn’t think of Layla anymore.

He had to shut her out. Shut his emotions down.

It was like a death, he told himself. And Fates knew he was all too familiar with and accomplished in that most definitive currency.

Stepping under the cold spray, he picked up the soap to begin to wash his skin—but then he stopped himself.

No, he needed to keep the stank on his flesh.

The purpose of this shower was solely to wake him out of the post-feeding lethargy that was fuzzing up his brain. After this, he was going to go address his soldiers.

It was time to refocus and renew their efforts in the war.

And resume the natural course of his life.

T
rez replugged into the world on a buzzy, trippy high that was the only arguably positive thing about having a migraine: Following the great storm of pain and nausea, there was always a floaty, post-agony period when you were so fucking grateful not to have an invisible ax buried in half your gray matter anymore that you just wanted to hug the world.

Opening his eyes, he blinked a couple of times and looked at the open door to the bathroom. Where was—

“Are you awake?”

At the sound of Selena’s voice behind him, he shoved his torso up off the mattress and cranked around. “Hey.”

She was over on the chaise longue, reading from a Kindle, the glow from the screen casting her features in soft light.

“How are you feeling?” She put the thing aside and came over.

“Better.” Kinda. Now he was worried about her again. “How are you?”

Had anything changed while he’d been out of it? How long had he—

“No, nothing’s changed. And you’ve been out for about eight hours.”

Ah, so he’d spoken all that.

He took her hand and tried to be subtle about the way he tested how she gripped his palm back, how she sat down on the mattress beside him.

“Is there any particular reason you won’t look me in the eye?” he asked.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, especially not when you’re dodging that question.”

He was being way too direct, but social pleasantries and bullshitting were not his core competencies on a good night.

“I, ah, I went to see Doc Jane.”

Now his blood ran cold as ice. “Why?”

“I just wanted to check in with her.”

“And?”

“She did some tests and…”

At that point, his hearing punched its time card and went on break. “I’m sorry, say that again?”

Maybe if she repeated the words, things would somehow sink in through the alarm bells that were DEFCON 1’ing it in his skull.

“…when we’re ready to see her.”

Trez sat all the way up. Rubbed his face. Looked over at her—while she stared at the carpet. “Go down to the clinic, you mean?”

“And meet with them both. Manny will be there, too.”

“Okay. Yeah.” He glanced at the bathroom. “I need a shower first.”

“There’s no hurry.”

Right, that was not how he felt at all. Pushing himself around her, he got off the bed and padded into the loo, where he turned on the water, used the toilet, and got under the spray. Fast hands with the shampoo and the soap and he didn’t bother shaving.

Out. Drying off. Heading back into the bedroom with a towel around his waist.