The Beloved, page 24
“Thanks, Mom.”
Technically, there wasn’t anything to tell, she reminded herself. L.W. had given her a coat, not an engagement ring. Still, it all felt live-wire fresh, fraught with peril, super exciting. And there was something about sharing a romance with her mother that seemed natural, but admitting it to her father felt…
Well, she just got a case of the sheeps about that kind of conversation.
Pulling a pivot, she tried to be calm about the whole walking out to the front entry. When she came to the door, she hesitated before she opened it, her hand gripping the copper latch and staying put, her breath getting tight in her lungs, that flutter thing turning her heart into a strobe light in the center of her chest.
It was like leaping into a lake on a hot summer night. At some point, you just had to leave the dock planks and fly.
Or you were never going to know the joy of the plunge.
Closing her eyes to make the leap, Bitty yanked open the door, and the way the cold air hit her made her gasp. And then she was extending her running shoe over the threshold, and thinking of the Resolve2Evolve tagline: Be Alive, Do More, Be More.
Boy, had that message been received, and she did feel more alive, and she was going to be more, with L.W.—and oh, God, she just wanted to feel that warmth again. Not from his jacket, though.
From his body—
All the way down at the end of the walkway, standing in the snow by the lantern, the male who was waiting for her turned around and looked up to the porch.
Not black hair, braided down the top of the skull. No harsh brows and stark looks. No tattooed neck or black diamond earrings.
Blond hair. Brilliant, Bahamas-blue eyes. And a worried, hesitant expression.
“There she is,” Rhage said tenderly. “My girl.”
The disappointment was… crushing. And to cover it up, from her father, from herself, Bitty rushed forward, skipping down the little set of stairs and racing down the shoveled walk. Before she was really in range, she leapt into the air, throwing herself forward, knowing that she would be caught and held, captured by her father and kept safe from gravity’s pull and the hard, unforgiving ground.
Rhage did not let her down. He never did.
Those big, strong arms were as they always had been, lifting her up, but holding her carefully, too. And as she looked over his huge shoulder, she pretended that she wasn’t searching the lawn for another male.
A different one.
CHAPTER THIRTY
As dawn arrived and bathed Caldwell in the kind of light that grew and nourished so many living things—but was a straight-up death sentence to a vampire—Wrath transported himself off the planet entirely. Good thing his body didn’t need to leave home to do it. His consciousness—or maybe it was his soul, he didn’t know—went up, up, and away, to a place far from the ground, and yet not in the clouds, either.
Not in the conventional sense, at least.
And given that the Sanctuary didn’t really exist in a physical manner, he’d always wondered how he knew the second he was there. When he’d had his eyesight, that hadn’t been a thing, but now—he just knew. Even before he scented anything, before he felt the strange, bathwater-like air, before he sensed beneath his shitkickers the springy grass… he just knew he was no longer on Earth.
Taking a long draw in through his nose, he smelled the place and saw it in his mind’s eye: The tulips. The went-on-forever lawn. The crystal-clear water of the bathing pool and the fountain in what had been the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters. Even the milky sky overhead and the ring of trees that, if you were to walk into it, just spit you out on the opposite side from which you’d entered.
As his mind puzzle-pieced all of it together, he had to remind himself that everything had color now. Gone were the shades of white and gray. Phury, as the last of the Primales, had Pantone’d the landscape, so that the flowers were pastel and the grass was vibrant and those bathing pools shimmered with blue.
Fucking hell… he was suddenly exhausted. In the way you felt after you’d come home from a long vacation that had been hectic rather than restful.
“Years,” he murmured to himself. “It’s been… decades, hasn’t it.”
Moving his head from side to side, as if he could see, he didn’t understand why he felt the time that he’d lost so acutely here. Down below, what he’d missed had been just a blink, and only as the change of circumstance and landscape had become apparent had the decades measured at all. Up here in the Sanctuary, though, he felt the calendars like he’d lived all those days and all those nights.
So, yeah, it was as though he’d been long and wearily traveled, his shoulders and spine aching, his head thumping to a dull, irregular beat.
Stress was a bitch, wasn’t it—
He stiffened. Then said, without turning around, “You didn’t keep me waiting.”
Lassiter chuckled in that good-natured way of his. “Yup, I’ve turned over a new leaf since you’ve been gone.”
Wrath looked over his shoulder even though it was a why-bother when it came to his eyeballs. “Oh really?”
“You bet your bippy, King of mine. Thirty years later, and I’m a peach. People love me. I’m hardly ever annoying, even to V. And I’ve taken up needlepoint.”
Shaking his head, Wrath had to smile. “You’re such an ass.”
“Of course I am. Especially to V—and really, that’s a public service. He needs the exercise.”
“Personally, I think self-improvement is overrated.”
Lassiter’s laugh cracked like lightning. “Well, I gave it a shot. You have no idea how many books I’ve read since I saw you last. And videos I’ve watched. And seminars I’ve attended. I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but making yourself better is a whole industry.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t taken up that pulpit.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it seriously. I’d be a hit, plus zebra print was overdue for a comeback way before you took your little vacation.”
“You sure about that? And if I was on a vacation, I’ll pass on R & R for the rest of my mortal existence, thanks.”
“Oh, you’ll get over that. Everyone needs a break sometime, a change of scenery. Like, I’ve heard Disney cruises aren’t half bad.”
“From who—someone who wanted to get rid of you? And make sure you suffer while you’re gone?”
“Now that I think about it—I do believe V was the one who suggested I try a five-day.”
“That checks out.”
All at once, they both fell silent, the pleasantries over and done with, the reconnection established… the real reason for the visit taking the proverbial wheel.
“Let’s walk,” Lassiter said gravely.
Wrath nodded and orientated himself by the soft rustling of the grass next to him. There was nothing to worry about in terms of trip-and-falls. The ground of the Sanctuary was a perfect undulation, no gopher holes, nothing uneven, no rocks.
And he did trust Lassiter not to run him into anything. Which was a vote of confidence in favor of the angel that surprised him. Then again, the Scribe Virgin hadn’t been completely out of her mind when she’d turned the job over to the guy.
“Tell me about the war,” Wrath said in a low voice. “How bad’s it gotten.”
“I’m surprised you’re not asking Tohr.”
“He takes things personally. It would eat him alive to report on losses suffered by our civilians. I’m not putting him through that.”
There was some silence, which was answer enough in and of itself. And then Lassiter said, “They’ve taken excellent care of Beth, you know. Her and L.W. Your shellan and your son were well watched over, every night, all day long, by everyone.”
Wrath felt his chest expand with pride. “That’s my brothers. And my fighters.”
“They’re devoted to her.”
He thought back to the very beginning, when he’d had Beth at Darius’s mansion in town, and he’d walked in to find the Brotherhood down on one knee around her, their black daggers buried in the floorboards, their heads lowered in devotion. Even Zsadist’s.
“She’s worth being devoted to,” he said.
And when he thought about all the pain she’d endured over the last three decades? He wanted to feel Lash’s blood flow, warm and thick, over his bare hands.
“Now tell me about the war,” he growled.
“We’ve been holding the line.”
“Bullshit. I’m hearing about the inductions. They found a site earlier tonight—and it’s been used a lot.”
“Lash is efficient.” The angel’s bitterness was clear. “I’ll give the bastard that.”
“What about the demon? No one’s talking about Devina.”
“I haven’t seen her around for years. Something happened between them, I don’t know what.”
“So one thing broke our way. We don’t need the pair of them working together.”
“Aw, come on, I thought they were just darling.”
“Bonnie and Clyde, the undead version.”
“And I was never on their Christmas card list. Such a disappointment.”
Wrath stopped. “How many have we lost. Civilians, that is. I already know all the brothers and fighters made it.”
Lassiter kept going, but his wander was in a slow circle, like he was tethered to the patch of ground Wrath stood on. He couldn’t totally picture the angel. He’d had Beth describe the male as he currently was, so there was a cobbled-together vision of something tall, covered in gold chains and piercings, with blond hair on the top half of his head and black on the bottom. Edit in some hot pink and zebra print, and maybe a halo? A set of iridescent wings?
It was like if David Lee Roth got canonized.
Eventually, the angel reported with sadness, “We’ve lost too many—and I’m not saying that because even one death at the hands of those slayers is too much. It’s been hundreds. The brothers and the fighters do their very best, and they’ve eradicated a lot of lessers. But Lash is faster than his father with the inductions, and he’s using women now.”
Wrath had a sudden, nearly overpowering urge to go downtown and fight, and the drive brought back the past. In a series of flashbacks from his time in the field, he saw his throwing stars shimmering through the darkness, finding targets, cutting down the enemy so that he could get out his daggers and send them back to their unholy maker, the Omega.
Flexing his hands, he could still feel the metal, cold at first, when he took them out of their slide on his waist, warmer after he’d held them.
Abruptly, he thought about last night and the hours he’d spent in the new Audience House, meeting with his subjects, as if nothing had interrupted him.
“I saw a lot of males and females of worth, yesterday,” he said. “I proclaimed two young, blessed a mating. Released a property.”
“I know you did. Felt good, right?”
Well, except for at the end when he and the Brotherhood had decided to give Nate the fucking boot. And of course everything would have felt fucking great if he could just get out and fight.
He frowned. “I owe your shellan a lot, for filling in for me in my absence. She did an amazing thing for the species.”
“She’s an amazing female. That’s why I mated her—plus she puts up with me.”
“So we know she’s a saint.” Wrath shook his head. “Can you explain something to me?”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
“Why can I feel the time up here so clearly? The decades that have passed?”
There was a pause, and Wrath imagined the angel looking around. “This is the absolute timeline, the universal one, established by the Creator. Down there, everything is relative and subject to manipulation to some extent. Think about all the different lives, the different perspectives, the whole of it a fruit salad of personal destinies colliding in good ways and bad. It’s a fucking mess. Up here, there is clarity because of the absolute nature of moments—and that means that those thirty years are very real. Fudging isn’t allowed in the Sanctuary.”
Wrath put his hand over his heart. “It’s fucking weird, but I miss my mate with an ache up here, like I didn’t see her in forever. Down there, it felt like just a matter of hours.”
“You can bring her up with you, you know. This place isn’t just for you and me.”
“This is not a conversation I wanted my leelan to hear.”
“She’s heard it before. My Rahvyn was the face of you, but Beth was in charge, all along.”
As a fresh wave of aggression hit him, Wrath cursed under his breath and got to the point.
“I need you to give me my eyesight back.” When there was no reply—because clearly Lassiter was choosing words carefully—he slapped a grip on the angel’s forearm. “Don’t give me that non-interference bullshit. You’ve helped before and I need your help now. You’ve got to give me my eyes so I can go out and fight.”
The angel broke away, and the sound of him pacing around again in the grass that was always the same cropped height, always with the perfect blades, was soft as a brush of cloth over skin.
“I need my eyes, angel, and you can give them to me. You have to do this for me. I’m the King, goddamn it. I command you—”
“You remember how the Omega got access to all the vases?” Lassiter cut in. “The evil got a nice juice right at the end so it could keep fighting. You know why he got the location to the Tomb and those shelves with all those hearts? It happened because my predecessor got over-involved and was punished. We’re not rolling those dice with the Creator again. Fuck knows what Lash would be granted. And besides, you can’t go out and fight, Wrath.”
“The fuck I can’t—”
“We just plugged a thirty-year absence with my mate. I’m not doing that again to Rahvyn—and besides, there’s no way we’re winning the lottery twice in a row and saving your ass by hiding you in time like that. It was a one in a million—”
“Rahvyn resurrected Nate. If I get into trouble, she can do the same to me—”
“Never again with that.” Lassiter’s voice got very low. “My shellan is out of that line of work. That male is out of control because of what Rahvyn did to save him. It’s eaten her alive, the way he turned out, so no, she’s not going to ruin anybody else’s life by saving them. That card is no longer available to you or anyone else.”
Wrath grit his molars. “You have the power to help me and you know how high the stakes are—”
“I already have helped you, asshole. You know that dog you love so much? You want to ask yourself why he’s still alive thirty years later? How about all the humans in the lives of your fighters? You think I’m not already walking the line by making sure they don’t age?”
Wrath cursed again. “Fine, I’ll just go out and fight blind—”
Suddenly, Lassiter’s voice was right in front of him. “No, you won’t. You’re not doing that shit. You’re going to be what we need you to be, on that throne—”
Wrath shoved the angel away. “I need to fight!”
“Then do it from where you sit! Do you think you’re not out there with the Brotherhood already? They fight for you, for your family, for the species you are in charge of. You are their ruler, you are more important than combat.”
“For three decades, they needed me and I wasn’t there. They were hurt, and I wasn’t there. They killed our enemy, and I wasn’t there. And now I’m back and I’m still sitting on the sidelines—”
“You’re doing what you need to do. We have fighters, we have soldiers. We need a leader—and fuck you, dickhead, you’re it. Show a little self-control, would you? There’s only room for one half-cocked idiot between the pair of us, and I’m not giving up my day job being a douchebag. So that leaves you being the reasonable adult in the room, you’re welcome.”
Before Wrath could respond, Lassiter continued intently, “You were born to lead. Not because of who your sire was.” There was a subtle poke on Wrath’s chest, right where the star scar of the Black Dagger Brotherhood had been punched into his left pec. “You’re a leader because of who you are. Be that male for us. Don’t let the anger get away from you. I’m telling you right now, your wrath will be the death of us all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The key ring was the key, and thank God he hadn’t left it anywhere, but had taken Mickey’s open-sesame with him when he’d stolen his change of clothes.
As Evan limped down the street, he wasn’t sure which one he was on. He was orientating himself with peephole views of the bridges, and knew that if he kept going, sooner or later the triangulation would occur.
And it did.
The walk-up he’d been searching for was sandwiched between Needle, a tattoo and piercing parlor, and a rare book dealer, and like the rest of the mixed-use neighborhood, the apartment building wasn’t much to look at from the outside. It was well-maintained, however, with no windows broken, the steps shoveled, and nothing crumbling at the roofline or on the corners. As he took out the key to the vestibule, he remembered when Mickey had first rented the place secretly. His cousin had been so proud, and Evan had been impressed because that’s what had been expected of him. The truth was, he’d thought it was nothing to brag about.
Then again, Mickey had always been about the moving-up thing. All his life, the guy had had a knack for amplifying shit. Like, this apartment was a penthouse, even though it was only on the top floor of a run-down place and just the same as all the other units. Like, even though they were only trusted with baggies, he made it seem that bricks were what they were dealing. Like, even though Uncle had despised them both, Mickey was the guy’s favorite out of the two of them.
Like, even though that outsider enforcer was getting the real wet work, Uncle was saving Mickey for something special…
Coming back to the present, Evan pushed the key in and turned it, thinking that this really was an old place with all this analog entrance shit instead of facial recognition. As the dead bolt released, there was a clunking sound, and then he was in the shallow space where the mailboxes were. The steps up to the second door were perma-dirty, wedges of grime in the right angles at each level, the foot traffic scuffs indelible now.
