"Did I?"
"Have Fritz take you."
As she arched her back, she wanted to stay, but had to be realistic. "Maybe walking around the mall for all that time was a little much."
"Go on, take a rest. I'll be home in a couple of hours and I'll put some shitty television on for us, 'kay?"
"That sounds like heaven."
"Good." He kissed her once. And then seemed to have to do it again. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Fritz!" her husband called out. "Car!"
She made sure to pet George a couple of times and tell him where she was going before she left. And then she was out into the night, getting into the rear of the Mercedes, heading for the mansion.
Letting her head fall back against the seat, she could feel herself already begin to doze off. "I'm afraid I'm not very good company," she said to Fritz.
"Just rest, madam."
"Good idea, Fritz."
As Beth departed, Wrath leaned back in the armchair, and was not at ease in the slightest.
... she died in front of me ...
... held my lifeless son in my hands ...
"My lord?"
"I'm sorry, what?" He shook himself. "What?"
Abalone cleared his throat. "Would you like a break, sire?"
"Yeah. Just gimme a minute." Taking George's halter, he said, "Kitchen."
Walking through the flap door with his dog, he was relieved that Fritz had already left and that the brothers stayed back.
Shit, the minute he'd smelled the pain and sorrow of that civilian, he knew that all had been lost for the male--and not in a material sense. People didn't get into that kind of agony over things. And as usual Abalone knew the full story, but Wrath preferred to let the people tell him the details in person; he wanted to hear things directly from them.
Childbirth had not actually claimed the female's life this time.
A car accident.
Wrath had expected it to be the former, but that was not the way destiny had played out. Nope, the female had lived through the birth and so had the child. They'd been killed by a drunk driver on the way home from Havers's clinic.
The casual cruelty of fate was sometimes a ballbuster on an epic scale.
Unbelievable.
Going over to the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down. He was pretty sure he was facing the windows--not that he could see out of them.
So many stories he'd heard, but this one ... Jesus Christ, it got to him.
He didn't know how long he sat there, but eventually V put his head in. "You okay?"
"Nope."
"You want to reschedule, true?"
"Yeah."
"All right."
"V."
"Yeah?"
"Do you remember that vision you told me about. Where I was looking up at the face in the sky and the future was in my hands?"
"Yeah."
"What..."
Abruptly, he relived that civilian's anguish. "Nah, never mind. I don't want to know."
Sometimes, information wasn't a good thing. If that commoner could have seen the future, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. He would have just spent the remaining time with his female and his young terrified of what was coming.
"I'll clear the decks," the brother said after a moment.
The flap door closed with a thump-bump.
For no apparent reason, he thought of his father and his mother, and wondered what the night of his birth had been like. They'd never spoken of it, but he'd never asked, either. There had always been something else going on--plus, he'd been too young to care about that stuff.
As he tried to picture his own child's arrival, he couldn't imagine the stream of events. It was a hypothetical too emotionally charged to resonate.
But there was one thing that was abruptly crystal fucking clear.
He just wasn't sure how to get around it.
As he stewed on things, memories from the last couple of months filtered into him. Stories and problems, gifts given and received. After all the struggle he'd brought to doing the King's job before, it had been such a revelation to actually love what he was doing.
He hadn't even missed the fighting.
Hell, there had been too many other challenges to confront and overcome: Battles, after all, weren't always waged in the field, and sometimes enemies weren't armed with conventional weapons. Sometimes they were even ourselves.
Finally, he knew exactly why his father had gotten so much out of being on the throne. He totally fucking got it.
And it was funny: The one thing that so many of the people had in common was love for their family. Their mates, their parents, their children; all that seemed to come first.
Always.
Family first.
The next generation ... first.
He thought back to the night his parents had been slaughtered. The one thing they had done before that door had been broken down? Hide him. Keep him safe. Preserve him--and it hadn't been about ensuring the future of the throne. That was not at all what they'd said as they'd locked him in that crawl space.
I love you.
That had been the only message that had mattered when their time had run out.
Not, Be a good King. Not, Follow in my footsteps. Not, Make me proud or else ...
I love you.
It was the tie that bound, even across the divides of death and time.
As he imagined his son coming into the world, he was pretty damn sure one of the first things he was going to say was, I love you.
"Wrath?"
He jumped and turned toward the sound of Saxton's voice. "Yeah? Sorry, just a little in my head."
"I'm finished with all my paperwork from last night and tonight."
Wrath turned back to the windows he could not see. "You worked fast."
"Actually, it's three in the morning. You've been sitting there for about five hours."
"Oh."
And yet he didn't move.
"Most of the Brothers left hours ago. Fritz is still here. He's upstairs cleaning."
"Oh."
"If you don't need anything--"
"There is something," he heard himself say.
"Of course. How can I help?"
"I need to do something for my son."
"A bequest?"
As Wrath started working the whole thing through in his head, he was a little freaked out. God, you'd think that great corners in life should come with a warning sign at the side of the proverbial road, a little yellow number that announced which direction you were going to go in, and maybe offered a "reduce speed" kind of advice.
Then again, he and his shellan had been pregnant months before her needing.
So life did its own thing, didn't it.
"Yeah. Kinda."
SEVENTY-TWO
It was as he had promised.
Wrath was good to the word he had given his shellan. He was, in fact, back at dawn.
As he rode toward home upon his horse, he was exhausted to the point of agony, unable to hold himself up for more than a walking gait. But then again, there was another reason for his slow progress.
Though he had gone out on his own, he did not return as such.
There were six dead bodies being dragged over the ground behind him and his steed, and two more to the rear of his saddle. The former he had tied with ropes at the ankles; the latter were secured to the horse with hooks and netting.
And the others he'd killed had not had enough left of their remains to take with him.
He could smell nothing but the blood he'd shed.
He heard nothing but the muffled rush of the bodies over the dirt of the road.
He knew nothing except that he had murdered each one of them by hand.
The wooded glen he proceeded through was the last distance to be crossed before the castle ... and indeed, as he came out into a clearing, there it was, rising ugly out of the earth.
He did not relish what he had done. Unlike a b
arn cat who enjoyed his duty, the mice he had slain had not been a source of sly happiness for him.
But as he thought of his unborn young, he knew that he had made the world a safer place for his son or daughter. And as he considered his beloved mate, as well as the death of his own father, he was well aware that that which had been uncharacteristic to his nature had been very necessary indeed.
The drawbridge o'er the moat landed in a rush, providing him entrance as if he had been waited for.
And he had been.
Anha ran out onto the planks, the fading moonlight catching her dark hair and her red robes.
He had known her for so little time when judged by the passage of seasons. But through the course of events, he believed they had been together for lifetimes.
The Brotherhood was with her.
Pulling up on the reins, he knew she saw everything as her hands went to her mouth and Tohrture had to take her elbow to keep her upright.
He wished she had not come. But there was no going back now on any of it.
Dismounting, even though he was not even upon the bridge, he left his horse where it was and crossed onto the thick planks.
He thought perhaps she might run from him, but, no, it was the opposite.
"Are you well enough?" she said as she threw herself at him.
His arms were weak as they went around her. "Aye."
"You lie."
He dropped his head into her sweet-smelling hair. "Aye."
At least with her, he did not have to pretend. The truth was, he as yet feared for the future. He may have taken his revenge out on these traitors, but there would be more.
Kings were targets for the ambitions of others.
That was reality.
Closing his eyes, he wished there was a way out of the legacy--and he worried for his future son, if he had one. Daughters had a chance. Sons were cursed.
But he could not change who he was born to be. He just prayed for the courage that had served him this night to come again when it was needed most.
At least now he had proved to himself and his beloved that he was not just a leader in peacetime. In war, he could wield the sword if he had to.
"I love you," he said.
As his mate shuddered against him, he knew she was going to shudder again on the morrow evening--when she saw what he was going to do to the heads of those dead bodies.
Messages had to be sent in order to be received.
"Let us go unto our chamber," he said, tucking her into his chest.
As he nodded to the Brothers, he knew they would take care of his horse--and his prey. There would be time for the beheadings later. Now? He just wanted some sanity amid the madness.
Heading into their castle, she was, as always, his only tether.
"If we have a son," he murmured.
"Yes?" She looked up at him. "What for him?"
Wrath glanced down into the face that stared upon him, the beautiful face that defined his hours as well as his years. "I hope he finds someone like you."
"In truth?" she whispered.
"Yes. I pray for him to be half as lucky as I."
As Anha squeezed around his waist, her voice grew rough. "And for a daughter ... a male half as good as her father."
Wrath kissed the top of her head and continued them onward, through the great hall and up to their chamber, the Brotherhood with them, but keeping a discreet distance.
Yes, he thought, to survive, one must not be alone.
And one must have a partner of worth.
Possess that? And you were richer than any King and queen who e'er roamed the earth.
SEVENTY-THREE
Wrath saw his mother for the first time in three hundred and thirty years that following day.
On some level, he knew it had to be a dream. He had been blind for too long to be seduced into thinking that reality had suddenly changed.
Plus, hello, she'd been dead for centuries.
And yet, as she came to him out of the darkness, she was as alive as he could have wished her to be, moving with ease, wearing a red velvet gown in the old style.
"Mahmen?" he said with wonder.
As he lifted his head, he realized with a shock that it was from his pillow. And shit, this was his room--he could tell by the subtle twinkling of the walls.
His first instinct was to flip over and find--
Beth was right beside him, lying safe and sound under the blankets, her face turned toward him, her dark hair all over the pillow that matched his own. And he could tell by the shape of her belly that yes, she was still pregnant--
Jesus Christ, he could see her.
"Beth," he said roughly, "Beth! I see you, leelan, wake upIseeyouIseeyou--"
"Wrath."
At the sound of his mahmen's voice, he wrenched back around. She was right beside the bed now, her arms crossed, her hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves of that dress.
"Mahmen?"
"I do not know if you shall recall this, but you came to me once."
God, her voice was so gentle, just as he'd remembered--and he almost shut his eyes just so he could memorize the sound. Except no, he wasn't going to get cheated out of one nanosecond of sight.
Wait, what had she said? "I did?"
"I was dying. And you came to me from out of the mist of the Fade. And you told me to follow you home. You made me stop and return with you."
"I don't remember--"
"It is a debt I have owed you for a very long time." Her smile was peaceful as the Mona Lisa's. "And I shall repay it the now. Because I love you so very, very much--"
"Repay? What are you talking about?"
"Wake up, Wrath. Wake up right now." Abruptly, that voice changed, becoming urgent. "Call the healer--you must call the healer if you wish to save her life."
"Save her--Beth's life?"
"Wake up, Wrath. Right away, call the healer."
"What are you--"
"Wrath, wake up."
In a sudden rush, like he'd been catapulted out of REM sleep, Wrath shot upright. "Beth!" he screamed.
"What-what-what-what--"
As he twisted around to his wife, he cursed at the blackness all around him. Goddamn fucking dream, teasing him with what he didn't have.
"What?" Beth cried.
"Shit, sorry, I'm sorry." He reached out and soothed her, soothed himself. "Sorry, fucked-up dream."
"Oh, jeez, you scared me." She laughed and he heard her hit the pillow as if she'd let herself collapse. "Good thing we sleep with the bathroom light on."
Frowning, he turned to the side of the bed where his mother had stood and ... "No, she wasn't really here."
"Who?"
"Sorry." Cracking his neck, he threw his leg over the side of the bed. "I'll be right back."
He gave things a good stretch, and as his spine let out a snap, crackle, pop, he thought fondly of the conversation he'd had with Payne as soon as he'd gotten home. They were going to start sparring again--and not because she was a female.
It was because she was a helluva good fighter and he wanted to get back in the game now.
In the bathroom, he petted George, who was curled up on the Orvis dog bed Butch had given him for Christmas--and then took a piss and had a face wash.
When he got back in bed, he intended to return to lights-out land. Except as he lay flat, he frowned. "Ah, listen ... are you feeling okay?"
His Beth yawned. "Yeah, absolutely. But I'm glad I headed back here when I did--the sleep helped. And lying down feels better--I've got a stiff back from that mall crawl still."
Trying to sound causal, he asked, "When's your next appointment with the doctor?"
"Not till Friday. We're going weekly now. Why do you ask?"
"No reason."
As he fell silent, she curled in against him and let out a sigh like she was re-settling for the duration. He lasted about a minute and a half.
"What do you think about calling the doctor?"
"Cal
ling as in--wait, you mean right now?"
"Well, yeah."
He could feel her recoil. "But why?"
Yeah, like he could tell her anything along the lines of, My dead mom said so. "I dunno. Just, maybe she could give you a checkup or something."
"Wrath, that's not appropriate. Especially considering there's nothing wrong." He felt her playing with his hair. "Is this about that civilian? Who lost his wife and baby?"
"It wasn't during childbirth."
"Oh. I thought that--"
"Maybe we could just call her."
"There's no reason to."
"What's her number?" He reached for his phone. "I'm calling her."
"Wrath, have you lost your mind?"
Fuck it, he'd just do 411.
Beth kept talking at him as he waited for the operator to come on. "Yeah, hi, in Caldwell, New York. The number of Dr. Sam--what's her last name?"
"You've lost your mind."
"I'm going to pay for the visit--no, not you, Operator." As the last name came back to him, he said it and spelled it twice. "Yeah, connect me to the office, thanks."
"Wrath, this is--"
Just as the call went through, Beth went quiet. "Beth?" he asked with a frown.
"Sorry," she said. "My back let out a twinge. You know what? I'm wearing running shoes next time I go walking like that. Now will you hang up and--"
"Yeah, hi, this is a medical emergency. I need Dr. Sam to come to our home, my wife's a patient of hers ... thirty-six weeks ... Symptoms? My wife's pregnant, how much time have you got?"
"Wrath?" Beth said in a small voice.
"What do you mean, you can't--"
"Wrath."
And that was when he shut up ... and knew his mother had been right. Cranking his head toward his wife, he said with dread, "What?"
"I'm bleeding."
The definition of terror changed when things weren't just about you. And nothing was less about yourself than when you were thirty-six weeks pregnant, you felt a welling between your legs ... and it was not your water breaking.
At first, Beth thought she'd lost control of her bladder, but as she moved the blankets aside and shifted positions, she saw something on the sheets.
She'd never seen blood so bright before.
And shit, her lower back was suddenly killing her.
"What's going on?" Wrath demanded.
"I'm bleeding," she repeated.
Things happened so fast at that point. It was almost like being in the back of a speeding car, everything whirring by too quick to catch: Wrath shouting into the phone, another call being made, Doc Jane and V arriving at a dead run. And then faster still, moving, moving, moving, everyone around her, while she felt curiously still and muffled.
When she was transferred onto the gurney, she looked over at where she'd been on the bed and shuddered at the neon stain. It was huge, like someone had poured out a gallon of paint underneath her.