The Chosen

And yet now, as Xcor found his rhythm and she echoed it with her own, this was a different sort of lovemaking. This was not even about sex, per se.

This was the closest their souls could come to merging, the body parts secondary to their hearts being joined.

Just before she found a bittersweet release, she whispered in his ear, “You’ll be safe out there tonight?”

When he didn’t answer her, she wasn’t sure whether it was because he had started to orgasm … or because he knew he couldn’t promise her that and he didn’t want to lie to her.

At the Pit, Vishous sat back in his padded chair and stared at the image on his computer monitor. The combination of pixels, of the light and dark, the gray and green and deep blue, had taken, ohhhhhh, eight hours to isolate and process to the point where you could see this much of them.

And as he looked at the face of the mystery shooter, the one who had saved Tohr’s life in that alley some time ago, all he could do was shake his head.

“Too fucking weird.”

The features were fairly clear now, but yeah, that distorted upper lip of Xcor’s was the dead giveaway. Without it, you might have struggled to say who it was, as all fighters with short hair, heavy brows, and hard jaw-lines were like dimes in a sock drawer.

Pretty indistinguishable.

But no, you add that hare lip, and you got yourself a traitor. Who actually wasn’t much of a traitor as it turned out—

“Hi.”

As V heard an unfamiliar voice, he snapped his head up. Jane was standing in front of him, her scrubs wrinkled, her Crocs stained with blood, her hair sticking straight up as if it were trying to get away from her brain. She looked worn out, worn down, dragged through a rat hole.

He opened his mouth to say something to her, but then his phone went off.

When he saw who was calling him, he felt the blood rush out of his head.

“You can get that,” she said with a yawn. “I’ll wait.”

V silenced the ringer and heard nothing but his heart pounding. “It’s nothing important.”

Jane went over to the leather couch and collapsed into its far corner of cushions. “I don’t know what to do about Assail. It’s a complete psychotic break. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t want to again.” She rubbed her face. “And I can’t help him. I can’t bring him around. I’ve been out to Havers’s a hundred times, combing through his back cases, talking to his staff and him. Manny’s reached out to people in the human world. All we’re getting is dead ends and it’s killing me.”

She was staring off into space as she spoke, her eyes rapt as if she were replaying conversations in her head, ever searching for an angle or an answer she might have missed.

She rubbed her no-doubt-aching temples. “I can’t tell you how hard this is. Watching the suffering and not being able to do anything about it.”

As V’s cell phone rang again, he nearly knocked the thing on the floor as he went to put it on mute.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get that?” Jane said. “Sounds urgent.”

“What can I do to help you?” he asked.

“Nothing. Just let me go to sleep. I can’t remember the last time I rested.” She looked over at him. “Even ghosts need a recharge as it turns out.”

Even as she said the words, her corporeal form began to disappear, the colors of her eyes and her skin, even the clothes that warmed to her immortal body temperature, fading out.

Disappearing before his very eyes.

She said some other things, and so did he, nothing earth-shattering, everything logistical, like when he was heading out, when she was heading back.

And then she was on her feet again and shuffling over to him. As he looked up from his chair, he saw her lips moving and he told his own to smile in response even though he had no clue what had come out of her mouth.

“Well?” she prompted.

“What?”

“Are you all right? You seem off.”

“Lot going on right now. You know, in the war.”

“Yes, I heard. Payne and Manny were talking about it.”

“You better get to bed before you fall over.”

“You are so right.”

But instead of leaving, she reached out to him and ran her ghostly hand through his hair—and as she did, he thought there was a reason he didn’t like people to touch him.

And that was true on levels other than the literal.

“I love you,” she said. “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to spend much time together lately.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

Vishous extended his gloved hand and took her hand away. Forcing another smile, he said, “You’ve got your work. I’ve got mine.”

“True, and we’re going nowhere.”

He was well aware that she meant that in the reassuring, our-relationship-is-solid kind of way, and as he nodded, he was also well aware that she would take his apparent affirmation in the same vein.

As she wandered off down to their bedroom alone, however, he knew that he was agreeing with the statement in an entirely different way.

And that should have made him sad.

But he felt nothing.

FIFTY-NINE

When someone started to knock on Qhuinn’s door, he was not about to get up from bed to answer the attention-seeker. He had another hour before it was time to go to the meeting in Wrath’s study and most likely get his ass chewed—also maybe get kicked out of the Brotherhood as Tohr had been—and aside from him having managed to get himself showered and dressed, he was too much of a basket case to do anything else.

Like, you know, attempt civil discourse. Or do anything other than breathe.

The knock got louder.

As he lifted his head and bared his fangs, he opened his mouth to issue a fuck-off—

But burst to his feet instead.

Rushing over, he yanked the door wide like there were Girl Scouts with Do-si-dos order sheets on the other side.

Blay was standing there in the corridor looking so edible it was nearly illegal, his body clad in leather and weapons—which happened to be Qhuinn’s favorite outfit on the guy. Other than buck naked.

“Mind if I come in?” he said.

“Yes. I mean, no, shit, please. Yeah, come in.”

Man, if he were any smoother, he’d be a Brillo pad.

Blay shut the door and those beautiful eyes of his went over to the bassinets.

“Do you want to see them?” Qhuinn said, stepping aside, even though he wasn’t in the way.

“Yes, I do.”

Blay walked over, and although he was facing away, Qhuinn could feel the smile on the guy’s face as he greeted one and then the other.

But when he turned around again, he was all business.

Here it comes, Qhuinn thought as he went across and sat on the bed. The answer to the rest of his life. And he knew without being aware of the specific details that this was going to hurt.

Blay reached into his leather jacket. “I don’t want this.”

As he took out the documents that Saxton had prepared, Qhuinn felt his heart drop. He didn’t have much to offer aside from his own goddamn children. If Lyric and Rhamp couldn’t bring the male around, nothing would—

“I love you,” Blay said. “And I forgive you.”

For a split second, Qhuinn couldn’t decipher the syllables. And then, when they did sink in, he was sure he must have heard them incorrectly.

“I’ll say it again. I love you … and I forgive you.”

Qhuinn leaped up and crossed the distance between them faster than a match lighting. But he got strong-armed before he could kiss the guy.

“Hold on,” Blay countered. “I have some things to say.”

“Whatever it is, I agree to it all. Anything, everything, I’m in.”

“Good. Then you’ll make it right with Layla.”

Qhuinn took a step back. And another.

Blay tapped the documents in his open hand. “You heard me. I don’t need any parental rights to be legally granted. You don’t have to pull some showy bullshit like this—although I appreciate the sentiment, and honestly, it did convince me you were really serious about what you said. But you told me you would do anything, and I’m taking you as a male of your word. You’re not going to be right with me until you’re right with Layla.”