When she did, he melded her body to his and kissed the ever-living shit out of her. One of his hands ended up on her ass, squeezing; the other got clamped on the back of her neck. As a groan came up her throat, he knew he'd proved his point.
Although he had no immediate solution to the bonded-male situation, he knew this connection between them was a for-sure, in a world that had suddenly seemed filled with maybe-not.
He stopped the kiss. He put her back down where she had been sitting. He went to the door.
Text me when you want to see me again, he signed. I'm giving you your space, but know this: I will wait forever for you.
* * *
Good thing for the chair, Xhex thought as the door closed behind John.
Yeah, wow. Whatever her head was cramped up with, her body was as fluid and easy as warm air.
She still wanted him. And he'd made his point. They did fit together - at least like that.
Holy hell, did they fit together.
Shit, what to do now?
Well, one idea... would be to text him to come back, lock them in together, and break in her new office improperly.
She even reached for her phone.
In the end, however, she texted something altogether different.
We'll figure this out. Promise.
Putting the phone down, she knew it was up to her and John to find their own future - work it out of the unforgiving, rocky shoals of passing time in a way that fit what they both needed.
She'd assumed that would be fighting side by side with him and the Brotherhood, and so had he.
Maybe that was still the way. Maybe it wasn't.
As she looked around her office, she wasn't sure how long she would be here -
The knock that interrupted her was a single strong one.
"Yeah," she called out.
Big Rob and Silent Tom walked in, looking as they always did - like they were about to drop some hotshot on his head for behaving badly. And as much as she was still focused on John, it was good to have some business-as-usual up in her face. She had spent a lot of nights making sure a club ran smoothly.
This she could do.
"Talk to me," she said.
Naturally, Big Rob did the obliging. "There's a new player in town."
"In what line of business?"
The guy tapped the side of his nose.
Drugs. Wonderful - but hardly a surprise. Rehv had been the kingpin for a decade, and now that he'd departed the scene? Opportunity, like nature, hated a vacuum - and money was a great motivator.
Frickin' great. The underworld of Caldwell was already a three-legged table from hell; more instability they did not need.
"Who is it?"
"No one knows. He's come out of, like, nowhere, and just bought half a million in powder from Benloise, in cash."
She frowned. It wasn't like she doubted her bouncer's sources, but that was a lot of product. "Doesn't mean it's going to be sold in Caldwell."
"We just picked up this from a disorderly in the men's bathroom."
Big Tom tossed a cellophane packet on the desk. The thing was your standard-issue quarter-ounce serve-up, except for one little detail. It was stamped with a red ink seal.
Fuck...
"I got no idea what that writing thingy is."
Of course he didn't. It was a character in the Old Language, one that didn't have an equivalent in English. Typically it was stamped on official documents, and it represented death.
The question was... who was trying to take Rehv's place - who happened to be of the race?
"The guy you got this from, did you let him go?" she asked.
"He's waiting for you in my office."
Xhex got up and came around the desk. Nailing Big Tom in the arm with a quick punch, she said, "I always did like you."
Chapter Fifteen
Up in the Sanctuary, No'One led Tohrment to the library, and expected to leave him to his investigations, whatever they might be. When they arrived at their destination, however, he opened the door for her, and beckoned her forward.
Of course, she stepped over the threshold.
The temple of books was long and thin and tall, built rather on the dimensions of a folio standing on its end. All around, leather-bound volumes, filled with the careful strokes of generations of the Chosen, were set in white marble cases in chronological order, the stories therein nonfictional accounts of lives lived far down below, and witnessed upon water's transparent screen.
Tohrment stood for a moment, his crutch keeping him stable as he cocked his bandaged foot up.
"What are you looking for?" she asked as she glanced at the nearest shelves. The sight of the volumes made her wonder about the future of keeping the past. With the Chosen exploring the real world, they were not recording as much, if at all. This long tradition could well be lost.
"The afterlife," Tohrment replied. "Any idea if there's a section on that?"
"I believe the chronicles are arranged by year, not subject."
"You ever hear of the In Between?"
"Of what?
He laughed with a hard edge as he hobbled forward and began inspecting the stacks. "Exactly. We got the Fade. We got Dhund. Two opposite ends that I assumed were the only choices when you die. I'm looking for any evidence that there's another option. Damn it... yup - these are chronological, not by subject. Is it different elsewhere?"
"Not that I'm aware."
"Any index system?"
"Only by decade, I believe? I am not an expert, however."
"Shit, it could take years to go through all this."
"Perhaps you should speak with one of the Chosen? I know that Selena was a scribe - "
"No one needs to know about this. It's about my Wellsie."
The irony of that phrasing seemed lost upon him. "Wait... there is another room."
Leading him down the center aisle, she then took him left, into what was essentially a vault. "This is the most sacred place - where the lives of the Brotherhood are kept."
The heavy doors resisted the invasion, at least when she tried to open them. Before Tohrment's strength, however, they yielded to reveal a tight, tall room.
"So she kept us locked away," he said dryly as he inspected the names on the spines. "Look at these...."
He drew out one of the volumes and cracked the spine. "Ah, Throe - father of the current Throe. Wonder what the old man would think of who his son's in bed with."
As he replaced the volume, she made no bones about staring at him, his brows tight in concentration, his strong yet refined fingers handling the books with care, his body leaning into the shelving.
His dark hair was thick and glossy, and cut very short. And that white stripe in front seemed shockingly out of place - until she thought of his tired, haunted eyes.
Oh, those eyes of his. Blue as the sapphires in the Treasury - and just as precious, she supposed.
He was very handsome, she realized.
Funny, the fact that he was in love with someone else made it possible for her to even assess him on that level: With him feeling as he did for his shellan, he was... safe. To the point where she no longer felt awkward that he had seen her unclothed. He would never regard her with anything sexual. That would be a violation of his love for Wellesandra.
"Is there anything else in here?" he said, bending low while balancing on the crutch. "I just see... biographies of Brothers..."
"Here, allow me to help."
Together they went through it all, and found no reference volumes pertaining to heaven or hell. Just Brother after Brother after Brother...
"Nothing," he muttered. "What the f**k is a library good for if you can't find anything in it?"
"Perhaps..." Gripping the lip of a shelf, she awkwardly bent downward, tracking the names. Finally, she found what she was looking for. "We could search your own."
Crossing his arms over his chest, he appeared to gird himself. "She'd be in there, wouldn't she."
"She was a part of your life, and you are the subject."
"Pull it."
There were several devoted to him, and No'One slid the most current one out. Cracking the spine, she flipped past the lineage declaration in the front, and scanned through the various pages that were focused on his prowess in the field. When she got to what had been written last, she frowned.
"What does it say."
In the Old Language, she read aloud the date and then the notation: " 'Upon this eve, he did lose his mated shellan, Wellesandra, who was with young, from the earth. Subsequently, he extricated himself from the communal society of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.' "
"That's it?"
"Yes."
She turned the book around so he could read for himself, but he slashed his hand through the air. "Jesus Christ, I get ruined, and that's all they wrote."
"Perhaps they were being respectful of your grief." She put the book away. "Surely that is best kept private."
He didn't say anything further, just stood there, pitched against the crutch that kept him up on his feet, his angry eyes locked on the floor.
"Talk to me," she said softly.
"Fucking hell." As he rubbed his eyes, the exhaustion radiated out of him. "The only peace I have in this whole nightmare is that my Wellsie's in the Fade with my son. That's the one thing I can live with. When I get crazy, I tell myself she is safe, and better I go through the grief than her - better that I'm the one doing the missing down here on earth. 'Cuz, hey, the Fade is supposed to be all peace and love, right? Except then that angel comes along and starts talking about some kind of In Between - and now, suddenly, my single solace is... poof! And to top it off? I have never heard of the place and I can't verify it - "
"I have an idea. Come with me." When he just stared at her, she wasn't about to take no for an answer. "Come."
Tugging on his arm, she drew him out of the vault and back into the main part of the library. Then she went deep into the stacks, ticking down the dates of the volumes, locating the most recent ones.
"What was the day when she..." When Tohrment gave her the month and day again, she pulled out the appropriate volume.
Leafing through, she felt his looming presence above her - and was not threatened. "Here - here she is."
"Oh... God. What."
"It just says... yes, the same as it was noted in your volume. She was lost from the earth... wait a moment."
Going backward, then forward, she traced the histories of the other females and males who had died on that date: So-and-so passed unto to the Fade... unto the Fade... unto the Fade....
When No'One looked up at him again, she felt a moment of true fear. "In fact, it does not say she is there. The Fade, that is."
"What do you mean - "
"It just says that she is lost. It does not say that she is in the Fade."
Deep in the cold, gritty heart of Caldwell, Xcor tracked a single lesser.
Traveling over a park's dead, scratchy grass, he moved silently behind the undead, scythe in hand, body poised for striking. This was a stray, one who had broken from the pack that he and his band of bastards had attacked earlier.
The thing was obviously injured, its black blood leaving a trail that was, as it turned out, eminently obvious.
He and his soldiers had killed all its colleagues back in the alleys; then they had taken some souvenirs upon Xcor's command, and he had split off to find this lonesome deserter. Throe and Zypher, meanwhile, had gone back to the tattoo shop to organize the females for feeding, and the cousins had returned to base camp to tend their battle wounds.
Mayhap, if the women were dispatched with suitable alacrity, they could find another squadron of the enemy before dawn - although squadron was the wrong word. Too professional. These current recruits were nothing like the ones in the Old Country back in the heyday of the war there; fresh from their inductions, these hadn't even paled out, and they didn't seem to be well organized or capable of working together during an engagement. Further, their weapons were largely of the street variety: box cutters, switchblades, bats - if they had guns, the pistols were mismatched and often ill shot.
It was a cobbled-together army the strength of which appeared to be mainly in numbers. And the Brotherhood could not beat them? Such a disgrace.
Refocusing on his prey, Xcor began to close the distance.
Time to finish this work. Get fed. Go back out.
The commons they had entered was down by the river, and rather too well lit for Xcor's tastes. Too out-upon-the-open as well: Dotted with picnic tables and round fifty-five-gallon drums for trash disposal, it didn't offer much in the way of shelter from prying eyes, but at least the night was cold enough to drive the humans with any credibility indoors. There would always be transients around, of course. Fortunately, they tended to stay in their own worlds, and if they didn't, no one would pay them any mind.
Up ahead, the lesser was on a concrete pathway that, instead of leading him to safety, was just going to deliver him to his demise - and he was ready for his final act. He was beginning to list from side to side, one arm throwing out uselessly for balance that would remain elusive, the other locked on its midsection. At this rate, it was going to drop to the ground soon, and where was the fun in that -
A sob broke through the muted sounds of the night.
And then another.
It was crying. The goddamn thing was crying like a female.
Xcor's wave of anger rose so fast, he nearly choked. Abruptly, he resheathed his scythe and took out his steel dagger.
Once a matter of business, now this was personal.
At his will, the sidewalk's lights on their long-necked poles started to go out one by one both in front of and behind the slayer, the darkness closing in until finally, through even his weakness and pain, he noticed that his time had come.
"Oh, f**k... no..." The thing spun around in the illumination of the last lamp. "Christ, no..."
His face was stark white, as if he had stage makeup on, but it was not because he had been a slayer long enough to turn pale. Young, only eighteen or twenty, he had tattoos around his neck and down his arms, and if memory served, he'd been fairly competent with a knife - although it had been obvious during hand-to-hand that that was more instinct than training.