All of their nights thus far had been a dance defined by the role of manipulator and victim.
And there had been a perverse safety for her in the position she took.
It meant she could hide behind doing a duty for the Brotherhood.
It meant she could pretend that she was forced into this.
The truth … was far more complicated than that.
An image of him from the night before, standing where he was now before the hearth, made her want to take off her fleece; if she had been hot before, she was now afire.
Xcor looked over his shoulder. As the flickering light filtered over his features, his facial deformity seemed even more prominent. And yet though he might have been ugly to some … he was not to her.
She tried to picture him without his clothes on.
“So,” he taunted. “Would you still come here? And do not worry about hurting my feelings. The very female who birthed me did not want me. I am well familiar with feminine disregard.”
After further silence, he slashed his arm through the air. “I believe that is your answer, then—”
“I would,” she said forcefully. “I would come to see you.”
She found herself putting her hands to her swollen belly, and wishing she could spare her unborn young this reality.
His eyes flared in shock. Then narrowed. “Why.”
His voice was strident, a demand that challenged her to speak some other truth.
“I don’t know why.” She shrugged. “But reasoning doesn’t change the fact, does it.”
There was another long silence.
When Xcor spoke next, it was so softly that she was unsure what he said. But it sounded like, “I wasn’t looking to be transformed.”
She didn’t bother to ask him to repeat whatever it was. No doubt, if he had intended her to hear the words, he would have made things louder.
“Take my vein.”
In issuing the order, she knew there was no going back. Having crossed into this realm that lacked pretense and was all about choice, she was very aware that her destiny was changing. But at least it wasn’t through some random and irrelevant decision to go left or right.
This was conscious. So conscious that it was as if the cozy room in this picturesque little cottage had been bolded with color and infused with scents more vivid than her nose could handle. Her hearing, too, was acute to the point of pain, every crackle from the fire or breath from her mouth or his resonating into some great canyon’s echo.
This time, when he came over to her, it was not fast and it was not with aggression.
His eyes were on her, but they were wary, as if the predator was now in fear of his prey.
Stepping in beside her, Xcor offered his forearm. When she just looked at it, he said, “I saw them once do this. A gentlemale to a female of worth?”
“Yes,” she said roughly. “It is done thusly.”
After she slipped her own arm into his, he led her over to the sofa and sat her down on the worn cushions. Then he turned around and left the room.
“Where are you going?” she called out.
FORTY-TWO
“You have the most beautiful hands.”
As Trez lay in his bed with Selena beside him, they were both naked and totally exposed. The sex had been so heavy-duty, the covers were on the floor, their hot skin only now beginning to cool in the subtle air currents of the dark room.
“You’ve mentioned that before,” she said with a smile.
He made an mmmm-hmmmm in the back of this throat. “I like them on me. I like to look at them. I like the feel of them.”
Smoothing his palm over hers, he felt the contact all over his body. So peaceful, he thought. This was so peaceful.
“I like to see the stars,” she said, after a while. “Through the window over there.”
“Yeah.”
As it was just before five a.m., the shutters were about to come down for the day. With fall getting a grip on not just the weather, but the sunlight, dawn wasn’t arriving until later these days.
“You know, I’ve never had this before,” he heard himself say.
She turned over on her side, propping her head up on the hand he’d been attending to. And like she knew he missed the contact, she gave him her other one to play with.
“Had what?” she asked.
“This kind of quiet.”
During all those years of empty orgasms, he wished he’d known such profound communion was waiting for him. It would have made that nutrition-less gorging totally unnecessary.
“Do you want some music or something?” he asked abruptly, in case he was the only one enjoying the quiet.
“No, this is … perfect.”
At that, he had to twist around and kiss her on the mouth. Then it was a case of resettling back against the pillows and resuming this new kind of hand job … where he traced each of her fingers with his, stretching them up and pulling them out, before playing with the strong, blunt tips.
“I love the stars,” she said as if she were speaking to herself.
“I have an idea about tonight.”
“Do you?”
He threw out another mmmmm-hmmmm. “It’s a surprise. You’re going to need to put off our boat ride, though.”
And he was probably going to want a valium. But she was going to love it.
“Trez?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to do something for me.”
He smiled in the darkness. “Does this involve my tongue, by any chance? Just name the body part, my queen.”
“No.”
The change in her voice stopped him. And for a split second he wanted to say, Please, no. We can talk about it at nightfall. Let’s leave the day hours for the fantasy of forever.
But as always, he could deny her nothing. “What is it?”
Selena took a while to answer, and that probably meant she was choosing her words carefully.
He tried to stay calm. “Take your time.”
“My sisters.” She hesitated. “The ones who have passed … they’re put up in a cemetery. You know, right where you found me?”
That hedgerow, he thought. The one that he had looked through to see those marble statues … which now he feared weren’t made of marble at all.
“Yes, I remember.”
“Don’t let them take me up there.” She took her hand away from him and sat up. As she stared down at him, her long, beautiful black hair poured over her shoulders, covering one of her breasts, touching the skin of her thighs. “They’re going to want to. You’re supposed to pick a position … you know, when the time comes, they can put you in any position you want. Then they plaster over your hair and your face and your body. It’s a ritual. That’s why they’re all different up there—in different poses, I mean.”
Trez rubbed his face. Which did nothing to relieve the lancing pain in his chest. “Selena, let’s not talk about this—”
She grabbed his arm. Hard. “Promise me. I won’t be able to advocate for myself when that time comes. I need you to do that for me.”
Again, he could deny her nothing—and as a bonded male, that not only seemed right, but healthy. Except with this request? It broke him in half to nod.
“All right.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, I’ll make sure of it.”
At once, her body relaxed and she let out an exhale. Then, as she resettled beside him, she shook her head. “I know this is against everything I’ve been taught and all the traditions of my service … but a part of me is paranoid that they’re stuck in there.”
“I’m sorry—what? You mean, your sisters?”
She nodded. “How do we know for a fact that the Fade is real? What if everything we’ve been told is true is actually not? As with everyone else in the Sanctuary, I have always tried to avoid that cemetery—I hate the silence and the stillness inside, and, God, those poor females, some of whom I knew and shared meals with and worked alongside in service to the Scribe Virgin.” She cursed softly. “They’re stuck in that cemetery, not just frozen in their bodies, but forgotten by the rest of us because we can’t stand how we feel when we’re with them. What if they can see us? What if they can hear us? What if time just stretches out into forever with them imprisoned…” Selena shuddered. “I don’t want that. When I go, I want to be free.”
Her eyes returned to the window, to the twinkling stars so high above.
“Every species has a version of an afterlife,” he said. “Humans have Heaven. Vampires the Fade. For Shadows, it is the Eternal. We can’t all be wrong—and each one is a version of the same. So it would seem to make sense that there’s something after all this.”
“But there’s no guarantee—and you won’t know until it’s too late.” She seemed to retreat into herself. “You know, when I’m in the Arrest, I can hear things … when I’m in that place where my body is just … out of my control, I can hear and smell, I can see. My awareness is with me, I am there, but I can’t do anything. As I’ve said before, there’s no greater panic than what you feel when your brain is functioning and nothing else is.”
Don’t lose it, he told himself. Don’t you dare lose it.
You pull your shit together and you be there for her. Right here, right now.