The Chosen

His mother glared down at her foot. “I wish I’d put that damn boot on.”

“Me, too.”

She frowned. “How do I get to the training center clinic? Even if I can dematerialize, I don’t know where its true location is.”

“We can get close and have them pick us up.” Blay stood and looked to the ceiling. Up above, he could hear his father moving around, getting dressed. “Do you think it’ll be better or worse if we go without him knowing?”

“We can text him? Tell him we’re going to be right back. Tell him … we went to the grocery.”

His mother hated lying, but she hated upsetting her hellren more. And Blay had to back her up in this rare instance. His father was going to be a thing about this.

“Let’s go.” Blay took out his phone and started to text Doc Jane. “Do you know that vegetable stand out on Route 9? The one that is housed in the barn?”

Except even as he spoke, he thought of trying to open the porch door and wondered what the hell he was thinking. His mother needed to dematerialize somewhere warm and dry with her ankle. That barn was unheated and probably locked up. It was better than the fucking forest, but really?

What was he thinking?

He lowered the phone with the text halfway done and regarded his mahmen. She had closed her eyes and laid her head back on the tile—and the hand that was on her stomach had contracted into a claw.

The other one was shaking on the floor beside her, her trimmed nails tap-dancing.

“You can’t dematerialize,” he said numbly. “No way.”

“Sure I can.”

But the denial was weak.

And then his father came into the kitchen, a tie half-knotted around his throat, his hair still wet and combed into something Barbie’s Ken would rock, each individual strand well ordered and seemingly frozen in place.

“—video conference with my clients and—Lyric! Oh, my God, Lyric!” As his father ran to his mom’s side, Blay looked toward the door that opened into the garage. His parents started to argue, but he cut right through all that.

“Dad, make my night and tell me your car is four-wheel drive.”

Back at the Brotherhood’s mansion, Qhuinn was doing something that was inconceivable: He was stuffing a black duffel bag full of bottles, formula, and distilled water. Diapers. Wipes. Desitin. Rattles and pacis.

Of course, the whole filling-up-a-bag routine wasn’t a big deal. Usually, though, his gear was more of the Smith & Wesson or Glock and Beretta variety, the kind of thing that came with bullets and laser sights, not Pampers and Evenflo.

The other reason it was strange was because he couldn’t believe he was packing up for his kids to frickin’ leave the house. Without him.

They were so little. And he really didn’t want them around that female at all.

He refused to refer to Layla as mahmen anymore, even if it was just in his head.

But it was what it was. He’d gone up to the Sanctuary with Amalya, the Chosen’s Directrix, and she’d walked him through the bucolic landscape, showing him the reflecting pool and the temples, the dormitory, the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters.

Where Layla would be with his kids.

It had been impossible to argue with the setup. The shit was even safer than what was doing at the mansion, for fuck’s sake, and Amalya had assured him that his children would be able to enter and return without a problem.

And when pressed, she had personally guaranteed him she’d bring back his young. If Layla caused a problem.

A soft knock on the bedroom door brought his head up from the bag. “Yeah.”

Beth came in and she was a lot more toned down. Then again, she’d gotten what she’d wanted. “Looks like you’ve got everything ready.”

He glanced back down at what he’d packed. “Yeah.”

There was a long pause.

“It’s going to be all right, Qhuinn. I’m proud of you for—”

“No offense, but you get to be with your kid twenty-four hours a day—because the person you had the thing with isn’t a liar and a traitor. So you gotta excuse me if your version of ‘all right’ and mine are slightly different.” He stepped back from the foot of the bed. “I’m not allowed to have my ‘all right’—which would be my children staying here in this room while I go out to fight. My ‘all right’ is not being out in the field, defending the race, with half my mind on whether or not Layla is going to give them back to me when she’s supposed to. And my ‘all right’ sure as shit doesn’t involve that female having any contact with them ever again. I don’t need you to be proud of me and I don’t want your fake-ass concern. All I require from you is to baby-sit the two of them while I get the fuck out of this house.”

Beth crossed her arms over her chest and slowly shook her head. “What’s happened to you?”

The words were spoken so quietly, it was clear she was posing them to herself.

“Really. You’re seriously asking that.”

Qhuinn turned away from her and went to the bassinets. He glanced at Lyric and then focused properly on Rhamp, putting his pacifier back in his mouth.

“You be brave up there, my man.” Qhuinn stroked back the thatch of dark hair. “I’ll see you in twenty-four hours. Piece of cake, right?”

Wrong.

It was so fucking hard to turn away. His chest was on fire with a pain that went down into his DNA … especially as his eyes passed over Lyric one last time. He wanted to go to her, but he just couldn’t look at that face.

Couldn’t see it right now.

As he walked by Beth, he kept his eyes straight ahead. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth for even a good-bye. No doubt he’d end up going off on the Queen, and that wasn’t going to help anyone.

Grabbing his weapons and his leather jacket from a chair, he stepped out and closed the door quietly behind himself. He didn’t know exactly when Layla was going to come—after sunset, sure, but that had been a while ago. She was probably due to arrive at any minute—

“You ready for the meeting?”

He looked over his shoulder. Z was coming out of his suite of rooms, and the brother was strapped up and ready to fight, all kinds of metal hanging off him, his yellow eyes narrow and shrewd.

That scar on his face, the one that ran down his cheek and distorted his upper lip, made Qhuinn think of Xcor’s fucked-up mug.

“We got a meeting?” Qhuinn asked as he fished his cell from his leather jacket.

He’d been checking the damn thing solely to see if Blay reached out with a call or a text. A picture. A fucking emoji.

Nothing. And he hadn’t paid attention to anything else.

Well. What do you know. Group text calling the Brotherhood to Wrath’s study. At precisely this hour.

“Guess we do,” he muttered as he put the thing back in the jacket and followed Z.

There wasn’t any conversation between them on the way to the study, and that was just fine with Qhuinn. And as he walked into the meeting, he kept his head down and went over into the corner farthest away from the fire. The last thing he needed was a re-live of the colossal goat fuck that the night before last had been about. Everyone knew the facts, and shit knew they’d all given him a piece of their minds when he’d been locked in the Tomb.

No reason they couldn’t collectively chalk that up to a great time had by all.

Still, the whole him-discharging-a-weapon-in-the-house had some ground left to cover on it. There could always be a rehash on that.

Or maybe there was a door number three, something that had, blessedly, nothing to do with him.

Wrath was seated behind his ornate desk, in the throne that had been his father’s for so many years. And Vishous was right beside him, a hand-rolled lit in his gloved hand, his icy eyes traveling over the assembled. Butch was on the sofa with Rhage, that flimsy French antique looking like it was well over its weight capacity. Z had taken up res next to Phury by the bookshelves. And Rehv was there.

When John Matthew came in, the guy glanced around, and as he saw Qhuinn, he came over. He didn’t sign anything, just eased back against the wall and put his hands into the pockets of his leathers.