"Come in," he said softly.
The Chosen slipped inside silently, and as she turned to him, she looked like hell. Worn-out. A wasteland.
"Sire ..."
"You can call me Qhuinn, you know. Please do, I mean."
"Thank you." She bowed at the waist and seemed to struggle getting herself upright. "I was wondering if I may avail myself once again of your kind offer to ... take your vein. Verily, I am ... depleted and unable to render myself back to the Sanctuary."
As he met her green stare, something percolated deep in his mind, some kind of ... realization that took root and put out sprouts of I-almost-got-it, it's-just-about-to-come.
Green eyes. Green as grapes and jade and spring buds.
"Why ever are you looking at me thus?" she said, drawing the lapels of her robe more closely together.
Green eyes ... in a face that was ...
The Chosen glanced back at the door. "Perhaps ... I shall just go - "
"I'm sorry." Shaking himself, he made sure the covers were at his waist and motioned her over. "Just woke up - don't mind me."
"Are you certain?"
"Abso, come here. Friends, remember?" He held out his hand, and when she got within range, he took her palm and urged her down into a sit.
"Sire? You're still staring at me."
Qhuinn searched her face and then trolled down her body. Green eyes ...
So what about the damn eyes? It wasn't like he'd never seen them before -
Green eyes ...
He swallowed a curse. Christ, this was like having a song in your head that you could remember everything but the words to.
"Sire?"
"Qhuinn. Say it, please."
"Qhuinn."
He smiled a little. "Here, take what you need."
As he lifted his wrist, he thought, Man, she was so damned thin, as she bent down and opened her mouth. Her fangs were long and very white, but delicate. Not like his. And her strike was as gentle and ladylike as the rest of her.
Which the traditionalist in him thought was only proper.
While she fed, he looked at her blond hair that was twisted into a complex weave, and her spare shoulders, and her pretty hands.
Green eyes.
"Christ." When she made as if to pull out, he put his hand on the back of her neck and kept her at his wrist. "It's okay. Foot cramp."
More like brain cramp.
In frustration, he lifted his head and, in lieu of hitting the wall with it, rubbed his eyes. When he refocused, he was staring at the door ...
... Layla had just come through.
Instantly, he was sucked back into the dream. But not about the beating or his brother. He saw himself standing at the entrance unto the Fade ... standing in front of the white panels ... standing with his hand out, about to reach for the knob.
Reality warped and pulled and went taffy-twisted until he didn't know whether he was awake or asleep ... or dead.
The swirl started to form in the center of the door, as if whatever it had been made of had liquefied to the consistency of milk. And from out of the tornadic center an image coalesced and came forward, more as a sound would carry than as if something visual would take shape.
It was the face of a young female.
A young female with blond hair and refined features ... and pale green eyes.
She was staring out at him, holding his eyes sure as if she had captured his face in her small, pretty hands.
Then she blinked. And her irises changed color.
One became green and the other blue. Just like his.
"Sire!"
At first he was utterly confused - wondering why in the hell the young female had called him that. How did she know who he was?
"Qhuinn! Let me seal you up!"
He blinked. And discovered that he had thrown himself against the headboard, and in the process, he'd torn Layla's fangs from his flesh and he was hemorrhaging all over the sheets.
"Let me - "
He strong-armed the Chosen back and sealed his own mouth on the wound. As he took care of himself, he couldn't take his eyes off Layla.
It was waaaaay too easy to overlay that young female's features on Layla's face and find something so much deeper than similarity.
As his heart started pounding, he took a little time out to remind himself that he'd never done the prescient thing. Unlike V, he couldn't see into the future.
Layla moved slowly as she got off the bed, like she didn't want to spook him. "Shall I go get Jane? Or perhaps it would be best if I just left."
Qhuinn opened his mouth ... and found that nothing came out.
Wow. He'd never been in a car accident, but he imagined the curling dread he felt now was probably the way things went when you saw someone blow a stop sign and come gunning for your side door: You triangulated their direction and their speed against your own and came to the conclusion that impact was imminent.
Although he couldn't imagine a world in which he got Layla pregnant.
"I have seen the future," he said from a distance.
Layla's hands lifted to her throat as if she were choking. "Is it bad?"
"It's ... not possible. At all."
As he put his head in his palms, all he could see in the darkness was that face ... the one that was part Layla's and part his.
Oh, God ... save them both. Save ... all of them.
"Sire? You're scaring me."
Well, that made two of them ...
Except it couldn't be. Could it?
"I'm going to go," she said roughly. "I thank you for your gift."
He nodded and couldn't look at her. "You're welcome."
As the door shut shortly thereafter, he shuddered, a cold, bracing fear settling into his bones ... and going right into his soul.
Ironic, really, he thought. His parents had never wanted him to reproduce, and go fig - the idea of shafting Layla with a defective daughter, or even worse, laying his f**ked-up eyes upon an innocent young female, made him embrace his vow of celibacy like nothing else could.
And actually, he should be glad. Of all the destinies he could have seen, this was one hundred percent avoidable, wasn't it.
He just was never going to have sex with Layla.
Ever.
So it was all an impossibility. End of.
Chapter Forty-nine
Manny got back to his condo around six p.m. All told he had spent eight hours at the hospital getting poked and prodded by various people he knew better than members of his extended family.
The results were in his e-mail in-box - because he'd forwarded copies of everything from his hospital account to his personal one. Not that there was any reason to open all those attachments. He knew the notes by heart. The results by heart. The X-rays and CAT scans by heart.
Tossing his keys down on the counter in the kitchen, he cracked the Sub-Zero and wished there were fresh orange juice in there. Instead ... soy sauce packets from the Chinese takeout down the street ... a bottle of ketchup ... and a round tin of some kind of leftovers from a business dinner he'd had two weeks ago.
Whatever. He wasn't all that hungry.
Restless and twitchy, he measured the light in the sky: Still some lingering to the west.
He wasn't going to have to wait long, though.
Payne was going to come back to him after the sun had set. He could feel it in his bones. He was still not sure why she'd spent the night with him or why his memories remained, but he had to wonder if she was finally going to fix that when she got here.
Heading down to the bedroom, his first move was to snag the pillows from the floor and put them back where they belonged. Then he smoothed out the duvet ... and was ready to get packing. Over at his bureau, he started taking out clothes and stacking them on the neatened bed.
Nothing to go back to at St. Francis. He'd resigned in the midst of all the tests.
No reason to stay in Caldwell - if anything, it was probably better that he get out of town.
No clue where he was headed, but you didn't need a destination to leave somewhere.
Socks. Boxers. Polo shirts. Jeans. Khakis.
One advantage to having a wardrobe that consisted mainly of scrubs provided by a hospital was that he didn't have a lot to pack. And God knew he had enough gym bags.
In the bottommost drawer of the bureau, he took out the only two sweaters he owned -
The picture frame underneath them was facing down, the little cardboard kickstand lying nice and flat against the back.
Manny reached out and picked the thing up. He didn't have to turn it over to see who it was. He'd memorized the man's face years and years ago.
And yet it was still a shock to pivot the picture in his hands and look at his father's image.