The King

THIRTY

His brother’s tears had smelled like summer rain on still-warm asphalt.

As Wrath stalked his way back from the training center, every word that he and Tohr had shared, each syllable, and all the silences in between resonated like aches after a fight: Down to his bones, down to his marrow, he felt the remnants of the conversation they’d had by the pool.

One comment kept coming back to him.

They are as empty without a young as we are empty without them.

It was probably the only thing that really punched past all the fear: For him, waking up without Beth had been the worst kind of revelation—and if that was the way she felt without a baby, then it was going to be a cold-bed overtime for the both of them.

Look at him. He was in a life he hated, and he was one hallucination short of psychotic. He didn’t want that for her—and he knew all too well how being with the one you loved wasn’t enough if you were honestly, fundamentally unhappy.

The problem? The fact that he saw the light about where she was coming from didn’t change all the shit he was worried about. It just made him feel their incompatibility all the more viscerally.

George sneezed.

Wrath switched hands on the halter, leaned down, and patted the dog’s flank. “This tunnel always gets to your nose.”

God, what the fuck was he going to do? Assuming she was going into her needing that was … but maybe he was wrong and that would save them. Although that was for how long? Sooner or later she was going to become fertile.

When George signaled it was time to stop and go up the shallow stairs, Wrath punched in the code, opened the way, and a moment later, they were in the foyer and rounding the base of the grand staircase. First Meal had already been served, the Brotherhood in there talking, the voices deep and loud. Pausing, he listened to the group and thought of that night Beth had transitioned. She’d come up from the basement at Darius’s, and he’d blown his brothers’ minds by taking her into his arms in front of them.

Made sense. Back then, they’d never seen him like that around a female.

And when he’d returned from the kitchen with the bacon and chocolate she’d needed to satisfy her post-transition cravings, the Brotherhood had been down on one knee around her, their heads bowed, their daggers nailed into the hardwood floor.

They had been acknowledging her as their future queen. Even if she hadn’t known it at the time.

“My lord?”

Wrath looked over his shoulder with a frown. “Hey, what’s doing there, counselor.”

As Saxton walked over, his scent was all about the not-good. “I must speak with you.”

Behind his wraparounds, Wrath closed his eyes. “I’m sure you do,” he muttered. “But I have to go to my Beth.”

“It’s urgent. I’ve just come from—”

“Look, no offense, but I’ve backseated my shellan for the last … shit, I don’t know how long. Tonight, she’s coming first. When I’m done, if there’s time, I’ll hitch up.” He angled his head downward. “George. Take me to Beth.”

“My lord—”

“As soon as I can, my man. But not a second sooner.”

With quick efficiency, he and his dog jogged up the grand staircase and headed for the door that led up to the third floor—

From out of nowhere, a lurching sensation made him stumble on his feet until he had to throw a hand out and catch the wall.

The weirdness passed as soon as it hit him, though, his balance righting itself, his shitkickers once again solidly on the floor.

He turned his head left and right, like he had when he’d still had some vision to go by. There was nothing coming at him, however. No one pushing him from behind. No mad gusts of wind blowing in from the sitting room at the other end of the hall. No toys to trip over on the floor.

Weird.

And whatever. He just wanted to get to his Beth—and he sensed that she was upstairs, in their private quarters.

Waiting for him.

As he started up the final staircase, he thought of his parents. From everything he had been told, they had wanted him badly. No discord on that issue. He had been prayed for and worked for and given over to them by fate, or destiny, or luck.

He wished he and his Beth were on the same page like that. He truly did.

As Anha heard her name from a great distance, she felt as though she were drowning.

Sucked down deep into unconsciousness, she knew herself to be summoned, and she wanted to respond to the call. It was her mate, her beloved, her hellren who was speaking unto her. And yet she could not reach him, her will tethered by some great weight that refused to let her go free.

No, not a weight. Nay, it was something introduced unto her body, something foreign to her nature.

Mayhap the young, she wondered with horror.

But ’twas not supposed to be as such. The bairn she had conceived within her womb was supposed to be a blessing. A stroke of luck, a gift from the Scribe Virgin to ensure the next King.

And yet it had been after her needing that she had taken to feeling the illness. She had hidden the symptoms and the worry as well as she could, shielding her beloved from the concern that had bloomed within her. She had lost that fight, however, had fallen to the floor at his side at the festival …

The last thing she had heard clearly was him calling her name.

Swallowing, she tasted the familiar thick wine of his blood, but the rushing power that came with imbibing from his vein did not follow.

The sickness was claiming her, piece by piece, robbing her of faculty and function alike.

She was going to die from whate’er this was.

Good-bye—she wanted to say good-bye to Wrath. If she could not reverse this, at least she could bid him sweet love as she went unto the Fade.

Summoning the dredges of her life force, she pulled against the rope that locked her unto her passing, yanking with desperation, praying for the strength she needed to see him one last time.

In response, her eyelids lifted slowly and only partway, but yes, she saw her beloved, his head bowed, his body collapsed beside their bedding platform.

He was weeping openly.

Her mind commanded her hand to reach out, her mouth to open and speak, her head to turn unto him.

Nothing moved; nothing was uttered.

The only thing that came of it was a single tear that gathered itself at the corner of her eye, plumping up until it lost hold of her lash and slipped down her cold cheek.

And then it was done, her lids re-closing, her good-bye given, her strength done for.

At once, a white fog boiled up from the corners of the black field of her vision, the wafting rolls of it replacing the blindness that was wrought upon her. And from out of its curls and strange illumination, a door arrived to her, coming forward as if birthed from the cloud.

She knew without being told that if she opened it, if she reached out for the golden knob and opened the portal, she would be welcomed unto the Fade—and there would be no going back. She was also aware of a conviction that if she did not act within a prescribed time, she would lose her chance and become lost in the In Between.

Anha did not want to go.

She feared for Wrath without her. There were so few to be trusted at court—so many to be feared.

The legacy left by his father had been a rotten one. It had just not been evident at the start.

“Wrath…” she said unto the fog. “Oh, Wrath…”

The yearning tone in her voice echoed around, rebounding in her own ears as well as the white-on-white landscape.

Looking upward, she had some hope that the Scribe Virgin would appear in robed splendor and take pity on her.

“Wrath…”

How could she depart the Earth when so much of her would be left behind—

Anha frowned. The door before her seemed to have moved back. Unless she had imagined it?

No, it was retreating. Slowly, inexorably.

“Wrath!” she shouted. “Wrath, I don’t want to leave! Wraaaaaaaaaath—”

“Yes?”

Anha screamed as she wheeled around. At first, she had no idea what was confronting her: It was a little boy of mayhap seven or eight, black of hair, pale of eye, his body so painfully scrawny, her immediate thought was that she must feed him.

“Who ever are you?” she croaked. And yet she knew. She knew.

“You called me.”

She put her hand upon her lower belly. “Wrath …?”

“Yes, mahmen.” The young focused on the door with eyes that seemed ancient. “Are you going to cross unto the Fade?”

“I have no choice.”

“Untrue.”

“I am dying.”

“You do not have to.”

“I am losing the fight.”

“Drink. Drink of what is in your mouth.”

“I cannot. I cannot swallow.”

The cadence of their words was increasing, faster and faster, as if he knew she was running out of time … and by extension, he was, too.

Those eyes of his, such a pale green … and there was something strange about them. The pupils were too small.

“I cannot drink,” she repeated. Dearest Virgin Scribe, her mind was muddled beyond measure.

“Follow me and you will be able to.”

“How?”

He held out his hand to her. “Come with me. I shall take you back home, and then you will drink.”

She looked to the door. There was a pull to it, a draw that made her want to reach out and complete the cycle that had started as soon as she had fainted unto the floor.

But what she felt toward her son was stronger.

Turning away, she gave the portal her back. “Return me to your father?”

“Yes. Back to him and to me.”

Walking forward, she clasped the warm palm of her son instead of the knob of the door, and lead her on he did, escorting her out of the white fog, away from the death that had come for her, toward …

“Wrath?” she whispered into the darkness that claimed them both.

“Yes?”

“Thank you. I did not want to go.”

“I know, mahmen. And someday, you will repay me thus.”

“I will?”

“Yes. And all shall be well—”

She didn’t hear the rest of what he said: Just as a suction had pulled her under, a sudden explosion propelled her outward, the push hitting every part of her at the same moment. And then a great wind hit her in the face, stripping her hair back, rendering her breathless.

Anha knew not where she would end.

All she could do was pray that what had come to her was in fact her progeny … and not some demon to mislead her. The only thing worse than not going back would be to be cheated of an eternity with those whom she loved …

“Wrath!” she screamed into the maelstrom. “Wraaaaaaaaaaath…!”