For some reason, her teeth started to chatter. Odd, as it wasn't cold.
A second later, the soldier came back and knelt down again. He had his phone up to his ear, and he was talking.
"Okay, Jane's coming right now," he said as he put the thing away. "And I'm going to hang here with you."
"But you can tell, can't you? You can tell, you can scent it - "
"Shhh..."
"I'm sorry." She turned her face away, dropping it down low. "I don't mean to drag you into this. I just...I'm so sorry."
"It's okay. You don't worry about that. We're just going to wait for Doc Jane. Hey, Layla, look at me. Look at me."
When she finally glanced into his blue eyes, she was struck by his kindness. Especially as the male smiled gently.
"I'm glad you came to me," he said. "Whatever's wrong, we'll take care of it."
Staring into that strong, handsome face, feeling the reassurance he offered so generously, sensing the marrow-deep decency of the fighter, she thought of Qhuinn.
"Now I know why he's in love with you," she blurted.
Blay went positively white, all the color draining out of his cheeks. "What...did you say...?"
"I'm here," Doc Jane called out from down by the head of the stairs. "I'm right here!"
As the doctor came running down to them, Layla closed her eyes.
Shit. What had just come out of her mouth.
Downtown, at the warehouse Xcor had spent the day in, the leader of the Band of Bastards finally emerged into the cold darkness of the night.
He had his weapons on his body, and his phone in his hands.
Sometime during the long daylight hours, the sense that he'd forgotten something had finally resolved itself, and he'd recalled that he'd told his soldiers to decamp from the location. Which explained why none of them came before dawn.
Their new lair was not downtown. And upon further reflection, it had been a miscalculation on his part to try to establish a headquarters in this part of town, even if things had appeared deserted: Too much risk of discovery, complication or compromising circumstances.
As they had learned the night before with that visit from the Shadow.
Closing his eyes briefly, he thought it was odd how events could cascade so far beyond one's original intentions. If it hadn't been for that Shadow's intrusion, he wondered whether he would ever have been able to track his Chosen. And if he hadn't followed her to that clinic, he wouldn't have learned that she was with young...or made his discovery about the Brotherhood.
Casting himself into the brisk wind, he materialized on the rooftop of the highest skyscraper in the city. The gusts were vicious at the high altitude, whipping his full-length coat out around his body, his scythe's holster all that kept it on his back. His hair, which had been getting longer and longer, tangled and obstructed his vision, obscuring the view of the city stretching out beneath his feet.
He turned in the direction of the King's mountain, the great rise distant on the horizon.
"We thought you were dead."
Xcor pivoted on his combat boots, the wind plastering his hair back from his face.
Throe and the others were standing in a semi-circle around him.
"Alas, as I live and breathe." Except, in truth, he only felt dead. "How fare the new accommodations?"
"Where were you?" Throe demanded.
"Elsewhere." As he blinked, he remembered searching that odd, foggy landscape, going around and around the base of that mountain. "The new accommodations - how are they?"
"Fine," Throe muttered. "May I have a word with you?"
Xcor cocked a brow. "Indeed, you appear anxious to do so."
The pair of them stepped to the side, leaving the others in the wind - and coincidentally, he happened to face the direction of the Brotherhood's compound.
"You cannot do that," Throe said over the loud, frosty gusts. "You cannot just disappear for the day again. Not in this political climate - we assumed you'd been killed, or worse, captured."
There was a time when Xcor would have countered the censure with a sharp rebuff or something far more physical. But his soldier was correct. Things were different between the bunch of them - ever since he'd sent Throe into the belly of the beast, he had started to feel a reciprocal connection with these males.
"I assure you, it was not my intention."
"So what happened? Where were you?"
In that moment, Xcor saw before himself a crossroads. One direction took him and his soldiers to the Brotherhood, into a bloody conflict that would change their lives forever for good or ill. The other?
He thought of his Chosen being held upright by those two fighters, as carefully handled as cut glass.
Which was it going to be.
"I was in the warehouse," he heard himself say after a moment. "I spent the day in the warehouse. I returned there distracted, and it was too late to take myself anywhere else. I passed the daylight hours beneath the floor, and my phone had no reception. I came here as soon as I left the building."
Throe frowned. "It's well past sundown."
"I lost track of time."
That was the extent of information he was willing to give. No more. And his soldier must have sensed that line of demarcation, for although Throe's brows remained tight, he followed up no more.
"I require only a short tally here and then we shall depart to find our enemies," Xcor declared.
As he took out his phone, he could not read the screen, but he knew how to check his voice mails. There were some hang-ups - Throe and the others, in all likelihood. And then there was a message from someone he'd been expecting to hear from.
"It is I," Elan, son of Larex, announced. There was a pause, as if in his head, he was piping in a trumpet fanfare. "The Council is meeting on the morrow at midnight. I thought you should know. The location is at an estate here in town, the owners of which having recently moved back from their safe house. Rehvenge was quite insistent with regard to the scheduling, so I can only guess that our fair leahdyre is carrying a message from the king. I shall keep you fully informed of what transpires, but I do not expect to see you. Be well, my ally."
As he hit delete, Xcor bared his fangs, and the resurgence of his aggression felt good - a return to normal.
How dare that effete little aristocrat tell him to do anything.
"The Council is meeting tomorrow night," he said as he put his phone away.
"Where? When?" Throe asked.
Xcor looked out over the city toward the mountain. Then he turned his back upon that compass point.