The Beast

SIXTY-TWO

Rhage was probably crushing Mary with the hold he had on her, but she didn’t seem to notice. Good thing, as he doubted he could have loosened his arms.

All around him, he was both dimly and achingly aware of his brothers, their mates and the Chosen, the household and community standing together in the midst of the tragedy on the far side of a door that was too flimsy to contain all the ensuing grief.

Rhage just couldn’t help thinking about Bitty. God, if he got the chance . . . if he and Mary got the chance, he would never rest from protecting that little girl. Making sure she got the life she deserved, the education she needed to be independent, the grounding to know that she was never without a home, no matter how far away she traveled.

“It’s so awful,” Mary whispered. “So terrible. There’s just been too much death around here lately—”

The door opened wide and Blay exploded out of that OR like he’d been shot from a cannon.

“She’s alive!” he yelled. “They’re both alive! They’re alive! And Layla is stable!”

There was a moment of total silence.

As if everybody who was in the corridor kind of had to reprocess everything, switch to a different track, change to another gear.

“And Qhuinn’s out cold on the floor!”

Later, Rhage would think it was bad timing that the cheering started up right after that little update—but who the fuck cared?

Blay was engulfed in bodies, everyone shouting and crying, hugging and slapping palms, cursing and laughing and sputtering and coughing as details were demanded and given once, twice, many times. There was just so much noise, so much life, and Rhage was right in there with the best of them, feeling like the lottery had been won, the gift given, the semi-trailer truck sailing by instead of striking one of their own.

Doc Jane was the next one out, and she peeled her mask off her face as everyone cheered for her. But unlike the new dad, she was careful to shut the door behind herself, holding it in place.

“Shhhh,” she said with a laugh. “We have a lot of patients in there. I need two gurneys to come through here, can you guys make some room? Oh, thanks, Ehlena.”

The nurse had obviously exited through the other door, and was doing a push-and-pull with the rollers. People milled to get out of the way, but Blay was still getting hugs, which led to a little bit of a delay.

“How can I help?” Rhage asked Doc Jane.

“Well, right now we’re good. Everyone’s okay—we just need to move some patients around.”

Rhage took the doctor’s arm before she turned away. “Are we really out of the woods with the young?”

Those forest green eyes held his. “As much as we can be right now. It’s going to be a long couple of nights, but that water ventilation system of Havers’s saved both their lives. We owe him.”

Rhage nodded and let the female go. And then he was going over to where Mary and Tohr were hugging and waited his turn. He just wanted to feel his shellan against him once more.

As Mary pivoted toward him, he held out his arms. It was so damned good to have her jump into them, and he lifted her off the floor.

“You ready to give it a shot?” he said into her ears. “You ready to be a parent with me?”

“Oh, Rhage.” His shellan’s voice caught. “Oh, I hope so.”

“Me, too.” Putting her back down on the ground, he frowned. “What?”

“Ah . . .” Mary looked around. “Where do you think we can get a little privacy for a sec?”

“Come with me.”

Taking her by the hand, he led her away from the crowd, going past the locker room and the weight room to the entrance to the gym.

“Ladies first,” he said as he held one of the steel doors open.

The security lights softly illuminated the vast space, and the exit signs over the doors glowed red like little hearths.

“I’ve forgotten how big it is in here,” Mary said as she broke away, put her arms out, and circled around, going Sound of Music.

Rhage hung back and just watched her move, her body lithe and beautiful to him, stirring him in places that were going to get greedy fast if he didn’t look away.

“I can turn on some lights,” he murmured, hoping for something to do.

“I like it dim like this. It’s romantic.”

“I agree.”

As his cock kicked behind the leathers he’d thrown on for dinner, he shook his head. Clearly, they had something important to talk about, yet here he was with sex on the brain. Disgraceful.

But, man, she was hot.

And he was juiced from the good news.

And they were alone.

And then Mary did a pirouette and some kind of sashay thing that made his eyes go to her ass and stay there.

Cursing under his breath, he cracked his back and stretched first one arm and then the other.

“Is there something wrong?” God, he hoped not. On a lot of levels. “Mary?”

“Oh, Rhage. Loss is hard, you know?”

The sadness in her voice was like a great eraser, wiping all the erotic right off his mind.

“Is Bitty okay?”

“That’s what she wanted to know.” Mary smiled in a way that seemed mournful. “That’s what Tohr wanted to know, too. Isn’t that what everyone does . . . and yes, she’s all right. She’s just going through a lot.”

“She needs a family.”

Mary nodded. “On the way here, while I was driving, I talked to one of the social workers, the one Marissa has assigned to our . . . case, or adoption petition, or whatever we’re calling it. We’re kind of making up the procedure as we go, but she’s going to talk to you and me separately and then together. About where we are in our lives. How we came to the decision to want to adopt. What our plans are both with, and without, Bitty.”

“What do I need to study to pass that?”

She twirled her way back over to him. “Just be honest. And thoughtful. There are no wrong answers.”

“Are you sure about that? ’Cuz I’m pretty frickin’ sure she’s not going to like my response to ‘Do you have a beast living inside of you?’”

“We talked about that with Marissa, remember? We can’t hide it, but the beast has never hurt me, and it’s never been a threat to anyone in the household—as long as they were not in the field. And I can counter any mortal danger argument with the whole I-can’t-die stuff. No problem.”

God, what in the world made them think this was going to work, he wondered.

“It will kill me if we can’t do this because of my curse.”

“We can’t think like that.” She picked up his hand and kissed it. “We just can’t.”

“Fine, so assume we pass. Whatever that looks like. What then?”

“After that, if we were to follow human procedure, Rhym would come and do a site visit at the mansion. But it’s a little different considering where we live and with who.”

“Whatever, if someone has to come here, I’ll take care of that.”

“Well, let’s see what she wants to do, okay?” Mary tucked her hair back. “And listen, while we were talking . . . Bitty’s been through so much—and so much so recently. I really think it’s better for everyone if we start off in a foster kind of relationship.”

“No. I don’t want to lose her—”

“Hear me out. Bitty’s just lost her mother. It’s important that she not feel as though we’re trying to eclipse anything. I think when we talk to her, we tell her that she’s welcome to stay at Safe Place for however long she wants. Or she could come here with us.”

“Can we bribe the kid?”

Mary laughed in a burst. “What? No!”

“Aw, come on, Mary. What do you think she’d like? Ice cream? Unlimited T.V. privileges? A pony, for crissakes. Or can I just buy her off with a handbag. Is she that age yet?”

Mary batted at his chest. “No, you cannot buy her off.” Then she dropped her voice. “I think she’s an animal lover. When in doubt, we’ll play the Boo/George card—with pictures.”

Rhage laughed and pulled his female in for a kiss. “Have you thought about where she could stay in the house? I mean . . . if it actually goes down?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, but it’s going to mean some reorganization. And a move for us.”

“To where? The Pit is full, and Butch and V swear like truckers. They’re worse than me.”

“Well, I thought maybe we could ask Trez if he’d be willing to switch rooms with us? We could be up on the third floor in those bedrooms he and iAm use? I mean, both suites are their own spaces and have their own bathrooms, but we’d be so close if Bitty needed us.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Holding his Mary against him, he became curiously aware of the great space that surrounded them. In the dim lighting, the gym’s contours and corners were mostly obscured in shadow, the bald bleachers, the ropes that hung from the ceiling, the basketball markings on the shiny pine floors nothing but footnotes in the cavernous interior.

Rhage frowned, thinking there was a metaphor here.

The world was kind of like this, vast and empty except for who you loved, nothing but a warmer version of space filled with random junk you bumped into. The grounding was your family, your friends, your tribe of like minds. Without that?

He broke away and started to walk around.

No pirouettes for him.

“Rhage?”

He thought about what she’d said, about those meetings with the social worker, him with his beast, her with her . . . unusual situation. And then he remembered lying on the field of that abandoned campus, him on the ground, her over him, his Mary fighting to keep him alive even though they had an out that in a moment like that was a miracle, indeed.

When he stopped, it was on the free-throw line. No basketball in his hands, no hoop to shoot it through, no line-ups of teammates and opponents. There was an urgency, though.

He stared up to where the basket would have been, if the great metal arm with its glass square had been lowered from the ceiling into place.

“Mary, I want you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

Looking over at her, he found it difficult to speak, and he had to clear his throat. “If we . . . if you and I end up with Bitty? If we take her in as our own, I want you to promise . . .” The center of his chest began to burn. “If I die, you have to stay here with her. You can’t leave her behind, okay? If I go, you stay. I won’t have that little girl losing another full set of parents. Not gonna happen.”

Mary put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, lowering her head.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said hoarsely. “If I die, I’ll wait for you in the Fade just like everyone else does. Hell, I’ll watch over the two of you from the clouds. I’ll be an angel to you both. But you . . . you have to stay with her.”

Bitty, after all, was going to live longer than he would. That was the way you hoped and prayed it worked. Children succeeded their parents, took their places, walked in future paths carrying on the traditions and the lessons so that that which had been passed down could be passed on again.

It was immortality for the mortal.

And that was true whether you birthed your young or opened your arms to them.

“You stay here, Mary.”

As the implications of Rhage’s request started to sink in, Mary felt her heart pound and her body break out in a cold sweat.

Even though she had confessed a desire to keep him on the planet for exactly the rationale he was laying out, to hear him put it like that? The whole thing made her queasy, returning her to that moment when she’d thought she was going to lose him—even though, at that time, she’d been aware she could go find him in the Fade.

It was as if he were once more lying there gasping for breath he could not quite catch, bleeding inside his chest, slipping away even as his body stayed before her.

Then she thought of Bitty in the back of the GTO, crying, lost, alone.

“Yes,” Mary said roughly. “I will stay. For her. For however long she is alive, I’ll stay with her.”

Rhage exhaled long and slow. “That’s good. That’s . . .”

They met in the middle, each walking toward the other, and when they embraced, she put her head to the side of his heavy chest, hearing his heartbeat right next to her ear. Staring off across the dimly lit gym, she hated the choice she had just made, the vow she had just taken . . . and at the same time, she was so very grateful for it.

“She can’t know,” Mary blurted as she pushed back a little and looked up. “Bitty can’t know about me—at least not until after she makes her decision. I don’t want her fear of being alone coloring the choice she’s going to have to make. If she wants to come with us, it has to be because she chooses to freely. All the death in her life can be part of it, but it can’t be all of it.”

“Agreed.”

Mary went back to being close to him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They stood there in the gym for the longest time. And then Rhage switched his hold on her, extending one set of their arms out to the side, and snaking his other around her waist.

“Dance with me?” he said.

She laughed a little. “To what kind of music?”

“Anything. Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Just dance with me here in the dark.”

For some reason, tears pricked her eyes as they started to move, swaying at first, the shuffle of their feet over the smooth floor and the rustle of their clothes the only auditory accompaniment. Soon, they found a rhythm, and then he was leading her in a waltz, an old-fashioned, proper waltz that he was far better at than she was.

Sweeping around the empty space, she discovered that a symphony started to play in her mind, the strings and the flutes, the timpani drums and the trumpets giving majesty and power to their dancing.

Around and around they went until she was smiling up at him even as a tear fell.

She knew what he was doing. She knew exactly why he had asked her to do this.

He was reminding her that the future was unknown and unknowable.

So if you had the chance . . . even if there was no music and no ballgown, no tuxedo or gala . . . when your true love asked you to dance?

It was important to say yes.