The King

ELEVEN

Wrath hit the compound’s underground tunnel at a hard pace, his shitkickers beating out a thunderous pounding that echoed all around until he was his own marching band. By his side, George was going at triple time, his collar jingling, his paws clipping over the concrete floor.

The trip from the training center to the mansion took two minutes at least, three to four if you were having a convo and strolling. Not this time: George halted him in front of the secured door a mere thirty seconds after they’d left the office through the back of the supply closet.

Mounting the shallow steps, Wrath felt around for the security pad and entered the code. With a cha-chunk like a bank vault unlatching, the lock disengaged and then they were proceeding through a passageway to the next lock point. Clearing that, they emerged into the cavernous foyer, and the first thing Wrath did was sniff the air.

Lamb, for First Meal. A fire in the library. Vishous smoking a hand-rolled in the billiards room.

Shit. He had to disclose to his brother what had happened with Payne in the gym. Hell, technically he owed the guy a rythe.

But all that could wait.

“Beth,” he said to the dog. “Seek.”

Both he and the animal tested and retested the air.

“Upstairs,” he ordered, at the same time the dog started to walk forward.

As they got to the second-floor landing, her scent became stronger—which confirmed they were headed in the right direction. The bad news? It was coming from over on the left.

Wrath strode off down the hall of statues, going past John and Xhex’s room, and Blay and Qhuinn’s.

They stopped before they got to Zsadist and Bella’s suite.

He didn’t need his dog to tell him he’d reached their destination—and he knew exactly whose room they were in front of: Even out in the corridor, the pregnancy hormones thickened the air to such an extent, it was like hitting a velvet curtain.

Which was why his Beth was in there, wasn’t it.

Females don’t keep secrets from males who respect them.

Goddamn it. Do not tell him his mate wanted a kid and was doing something about it without even talking to him.

Gritting his teeth, he raised his knuckles to knock—but ended up pounding on that door. Once. Twice.

“Come in,” the Chosen Layla said.

Wrath swung things wide and knew exactly when his shellan saw him: The smoky smell of guilt and deceit flowed across the room at him.

“We need to talk,” he snapped. And then he nodded in what he hoped was Layla’s direction. “Please excuse us, Chosen.”

There was some conversating between the females, stilted on Beth’s side, nervous on Layla’s. And then his mate was off the bed and crossing over to him.

They didn’t say a word to each other. Not when she closed the door behind them. Not as they walked back down the hall side by side. And when they got to the entrance of his office, he told George to stay outside before shutting the pair of them in together.

Even though he was intimately familiar with the arrangement of the pansy-ass French furniture, he put his hands out, touching the backs of the silk-covered chairs and a delicate sofa … and then the corner of his father’s desk.

As he went around and sat upon his throne, he locked his hands on the great carved arms—and gripped them so hard the wood creaked in protest. “How long have you been sitting with her.”

“With who.”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”

The air stirred in the room, and he heard her footfalls on the Aubusson carpet. As she paced, he could just picture her, her brows down hard, her mouth tight, her arms crossed over her chest.

The guilt was gone now. And in its wake, she was as pissed off as he was.

“Why the hell do you care,” she muttered.

“It is my every right to know where you are.”

“Excuse me?”

He jabbed a finger in her general direction. “She is pregnant.”

“So I noticed.”

His fist slammed down so hard the phone disconnected itself. “Do you want to go into your needing!”

“Yes!” she yelled back. “I do! Is that such a goddamn crime?”

Wrath exhaled, feeling like he’d just gotten hit by a car. Again.

Amazing how hearing his greatest fear spoken aloud was so devastating.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, he knew he had to choose his words carefully—in spite of the fact that his adrenal gland had opened up full-bore and was pumping enough OMG into his system that he was drowning in terror.

In the silence, the phone’s dial tone and then meep-meep-meep-reconnect-me was loud as the curses running through both their heads.

With a shaking hand, he patted around until he found the receiver. Replacing it in the cradle took him a couple of tries, but he got there without smashing anything.

Dear God, it was quiet in the room. And for some reason, he became preternaturally aware of the chair he was sitting in, everything from its hard leather seat, to the carved symbols under his forearms, to the way his lower back was scratched by the relief that rose up behind him.

“I need you to hear this,” he said in a dead voice, “and know that it’s the God’s honest. I will not service you in your needing. Ever.”

Now it was her turn to breathe out like she’d been socked in the gut. “I can’t … I can’t believe you just said that.”

“It is never, ever going to happen. I will never get you pregnant.”

There were few things in life that he knew with greater certainty. The only other that came to mind was how much he loved her.

“Won’t,” she said roughly. “Or can’t.”

“Won’t. As in, will not.”

“Wrath, that’s not fair. You can’t just put that in stone like it’s one of your proclamations.”

“So I’m supposed to lie about how I feel?”

“No, but you can talk about it, for God’s sake. We’re partners and this affects us both.”

“Discussion is not going to change where I’m at. If you want to keep wasting time with the Chosen, that’s your decision. But if the gossip is true, and it does bring on your needing, know that you’ll be drugged to get you through it. I’m not going to service you.”

“Jesus … like I’m some kind of animal who needs to go to the vet?”

“You have no idea what those hormones are like.”

“This. Coming from a male.”

He shrugged. “It’s a verifiable fact of biology. When Layla was in hers, we all felt it throughout the house—even a night and a half after she was over it. Marissa was drugged for years. It’s what’s done.’”

“Yeah, maybe when a female isn’t married. But last time I checked, my name was in your back.”

“Just because you’re mated doesn’t mean you have to have children.”

She was silent for a time. “Does it not even occur to you for a second this might be important to me? And not as in, ‘Oh, I need a new car,’ or … ‘I want to go back to school.’ Or even, ‘How about we have a fucking date once in a while in between you getting shot at and doing a job you hate.’ Wrath, this is the foundation of life.”

And the gateway to death—for her. So many females died on the birthing bed, and if he lost her—

Fuck. He couldn’t even go there in the hypothetical. “I will not give you a young. I could doctor up the truth with a lot of meaningless bullshit and soothing words, but sooner or later, you are going to have to accept—”

“Accept it? Like I got sneezed on by someone with a cold and I just have to resign myself to coughing for a couple of days?” The astonishment in her voice rang out clear as that anger of hers. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“I’m really fucking aware of every word I choose. Trust me.”

“Okay. Fine. Why don’t we put the shoe on the other foot. How about I say … how about this—you’re going to give me the child I want, and that’s just something you’re going to have to get used to. Period.”

He shrugged again. “You can’t force me to be with you.”

As Beth gasped, he had some sense they’d entered a new dimension in their relationship—and not a good one. But there was no going back.

Cursing under his breath, he shook his head. “Do yourself a favor and stop sitting with that female for hours every night. If you’re lucky, it hasn’t worked and we can just forget about all this—”

“Forget about—wait. Are you—are you—have you lost your fucking mind?”

Shit. His shellan didn’t stutter or stumble, and she rarely swore. What a trifecta.

But it didn’t change anything. “When were you going to tell me?” he demanded.

“Tell you what? That you can be a real asshole? How about right now.”

“No, that you were deliberately trying to start your needing. Talk about things that affect us both.”

What would have happened if she’d suddenly gone into her time when they’d been alone together during the day? He might have given in and then …

Not good. Especially if he later found out she’d been marking time with the Chosen for specifically that purpose.

He glared at her. “Yeah, when exactly was that going to come up in conversation? It wasn’t going to tonight, right? Were you saving it for tomorrow? No?” He leaned into his desk. “You knew I didn’t want this. I told you so.”

More pacing: He could hear her every footfall. It was a while before they stopped.

“You know what, I’m going to leave right now,” she said, “and not just because I have to go out tonight. I need to not be around you for a while. And then, when I come back, we’re going to talk this through—both sides of the issue—no!” she ordered as he went to open his mouth. “You don’t say another goddamn word. If you do, I have a feeling I’ll be packing my bags and taking off permanently.”

“Where are you going?”

“Contrary to popular belief, you do not have a right to know where I am every second of the day and night. Especially after this diatribe.”

Cursing again, he popped his wraparounds off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Beth, listen, I’m just—”

“Oh, I’ve listened to you quite enough for the time being. So do us both a favor and stay right where you are. At the rate you’re going, that desk and that hard chair are all you’re going to have, anyway. You might as well get used to them.”

He closed his mouth. Listened to her walk off. Heard the doors slam shut in her wake.

He was about to jump up and go after her, but then he remembered Doc Jane saying something about John Matthew’s MRI at that human hospital. Had to be where she was going—she’d said it was important for her to go with him.

Abruptly, he remembered the seizure, and what had gone down in the middle of it. He’d confronted Qhuinn afterward about what John had tried to communicate to Beth—if something was being said to his shellan, he was going to know the details, thank you very much.

I will keep you safe. I will take care of you.

Okay, file that under WTF. Normally, Wrath had no beef with John Matthew. In fact, he’d always liked the kid—to the point where it was kind of creepy how easily the mute fighter had entered all their lives—and stayed there.

Great solider. Good head on those shoulders. And the lack of a voice wasn’t a problem except for with Wrath because obviously he couldn’t see to read ASL.

Oh, and as for the blood test that said he was Darius’s son? The more time you spent around the kid, the more obvious the connection was there.

But he drew the motherfucking line when any male tried to come between him and his mate, blooded brother or not. He was the one who was going to keep Beth safe and cared for. Nobody else. And he would have confronted John afterward … except the oddest thing was, the kid didn’t seem to know what he’d said either: John wasn’t well versed in the Old Language enough to hold a conversation in it, and yet Blay and Qhuinn had both confirmed that that was what he’d appeared to be mouthing.

But whatever. John was going for some treatment, and on the Beth front, he was ultimately not going to be a problem. This baby stuff, however …

It was a long while before Wrath peeled his clawed hands free of the throne’s armrests, and as he fanned them out, the joints burned.

At the rate you’re going, that desk and that hard chair are all you’re going to have.

What a mess. But the bottom line, granite truth was … he just couldn’t lose her in pregnancy. And as bad as it was to have this rift between them, at least they were both still on the planet and going to stay that way: There was no way in hell he was going to voluntarily risk her life just for some hypothetical son or daughter—who, by the way, assuming they survived into adulthood, was liable to suffer under this royal legacy as much as he did.

And that was the other big part for him. He wasn’t in a hurry to condemn an innocent to all this King crap. It had ruined his life—and that was not an inheritance he wanted to share with someone he would undoubtedly love almost as much as his shellan—

Shifting in the throne, he looked down at himself—and frowned.

Even though he couldn’t see anything, he realized … he had an erection. A throbbing, straining arousal was pushing against the fly of his leathers.

As if it had somewhere to go. Like, now.

Putting his head in his hand, he knew exactly what that meant.

“Oh … God … no.”

“Would you like to feed?”

As the Chosen Selena waited for a response to her question, she did her best to ignore the fact that the incredible dark-skinned male in the bed before her was naked. He had to be. With the sheeting rolled down to his waist, his chest was bare, his chiseled pecs and his roped shoulders illuminated by the soft light in the corner.

It was difficult to imagine why he would bother with anything below the hips.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, what a sight to behold he was. And a revelation—although not because she was ignorant or naive. She might have been sequestered up in the Sanctuary since her birth a century ago, but as an ehros, she was familiar with the mechanics of sex.

Regardless of training, however, the act had not yet been her destiny. The previous Primale had been killed in the raids just after she had matured, and his replacement hadn’t been named for decades and decades and decades. Then when Phury had assumed the mantle, he’d changed everything and freed them all whilst taking a shellan to whom he was monogamous.

She had always wondered what sex was like. And now, looking at Trez, she knew viscerally why females submitted themselves. Why her sisters had primped and prepared for their “duty.” Why they had returned to the dormitory afterward with an incandescence to their skin, their hair, their smiles, their souls.

It was overwhelming to experience this firsthand—

Abruptly, she became aware that he had not answered her.

As he continued to just stare up at her, she wondered if she’d offended him. But how? It was her understanding that he was without a mate: He’d come into this house with his brother, not a shellan, and there was never a female up here in these quarters.

Not that she’d noticed his every move.

Just most of them.

As her cheeks flushed, she told herself that surely he must need a vein after all he had suffered? In fact, the toll of his illness showed in his face … his hard, beautiful face with its almond-shaped dark eyes and prominent, carved lips and high cheekbones and strong, heavy jaw …

Selena lost her train of thought.

“You can’t mean that,” he said roughly.

His words were deeper than usual, and had the strangest effect on her. All at once, that blush on her face bloomed inside her entire body, warming her from the core out, loosening her in way that made her fear her future a little less.

“I do,” she heard herself say.

And this would not be a duty. No, in this quiet, dim space between them, she wanted him—at her neck, not at her wrist—

Madness, an inner voice warned. That was not appropriate, and not just because it blurred the lines of the work she did here in this house.

Closing her eyes, she hated the fact that, by all that was reasonable, she should turn and walk out of the room right now. This male, this resplendent male who was capable of melting even her stiff limbs, was not her future. Not any more than the Primale was—or any male, for that matter.

Her future had been determined even before she had been swaddled in her first robing as a Chosen.

After a long moment, he shook his head. “No. But thank you.”

The rejection made her nauseous. Mayhap he sensed the inappropriate desires on her part? And yet … she could have sworn he felt similarly. He had stopped her by the stairs that one time, and she had been so sure he had wanted …

Well, at least then she’d been in her right mind enough to try to warn him off.

After they’d parted awkwardly, however, the way he’d looked at her had lingered, and that was when she’d begun to watch him from the shadows.

He was not staring at her like that now, though.

And it had all changed for him with her offer. Why?

“You’d better go.” He nodded to the door. “I just need to eat something and I’ll be fine.”

“Have I offended you?”

“Oh, God, no.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “I just don’t want to…”

She couldn’t catch the rest of whatever he said, because he rubbed his face and muffled the words.

Abruptly, Selena thought about the books she had read in the Sanctuary’s sacred library. So many details of lives lived down here on Earth. So rich and surprising, the nights and days. So vivid the histories, until it had seemed as though she could reach out and touch this other plane of existence. She’d been hungry for this other side, developing an addiction to its stories in all their glory and their sadness: Unlike many of her sisters, who merely recorded what they were shown in the seeing bowls, she had been voracious in her free time, studying the modern world, the words used, the manner in which people conducted themselves.

She had always had the conception that that was as close as she would ever get to having freedom of choice and any kind of destiny.

And that was still true, even after Phury’s liberation.

“Goddamn, female, don’t look at me like that,” Trez groaned.

“Like what?”

He seemed to roll his hips, and when he mumbled something she also couldn’t catch, she breathed deep—and, dearest Virgin Scribe, the scent that was poured of him was nothing short of ambrosia in the nose.

“Selena, you gotta go, girl. Please.”

He arched back into the pillows, his magnificent chest tightening, the veins in his neck standing out. “Please.”

Obviously he was in pain—and she was somehow the cause.

Selena fumbled with her robing to keep it in place as she got to her feet. With an awkward bow, she dropped her head. “But of course.”

She didn’t remember leaving the room or closing the door, but she must have: She ended up out in the hall, standing halfway between the locked vault that led into the First Family’s private quarters and the stairwell that would take her back down to the second floor …

Next thing she knew, she was up in the Sanctuary.

Bit of a surprise, actually. Usually, when she was done with any duty upon the Earth, she would wend her way north to Rehvenge’s Great Camp. She enjoyed the library there—its fictions and biographies were just as gripping, and somehow less intrusive, than the volumes up above in the Sanctuary.

But something in her had taken her to her former home.

How different it was, she thought as she looked around. No longer a bastion of monochromatics—now only the buildings, constructed of pristine marble, were white. Everything else glowed with colors, from the emerald of the grass to the yellow and pink and purple of the tulips to the rushing pale blue of the baths. But the layout was the same. The Primale’s private temple remained close to both the scribing cloisters and the enormous marble library as well as the locked entrance into the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters. Off farther in the distance, the dormitories where the Chosen had had both their repose and their meals were adjacent to the baths and the reflecting pool. And then opposite all of that was the vast treasury with its objects, oddities, and bins of precious stones.

Oh, the irony, though. Now that there was color to please the eye? Everything was empty of life, the Chosen having flown the coop and spread their wings.

No one had any clue where the Scribe Virgin was—nobody dared ask, either.

The absence was strange and disconcerting. And yet welcomed as well.

As Selena’s feet set to walking, it was clear that she had some sort of destination in mind, but she was unaware of it consciously. At least that was not unusual. She was always one to be in her head, usually because she was thinking about what she had watched in the seeing bowls or read in between the spines of those leather-bound volumes.

She was not considering the lives of others at the moment, however.

That dark-skinned male was … well, there didn’t seem to be enough words to describe him in spite of her extensive vocabulary. And the recalled images from just now in his bedroom were like the newly arrived color up here—a revelation of beauty.

Locked in thoughts of him, she kept on strolling, proceeding past the scribing center, down the lawn to the dormitories, and then farther onward until she approached the forested boundary that, if entered, magically spit you out in exactly the same place you had walked into.

It wasn’t until it was too late that she realized where her feet had taken her.

The hidden cemetery was bracketed on all sides by an arbor, the knoll purposely shut off from view by a netting of leaves that was verdant and thick as a vertical lawn. The entryway was likewise obstructed by an arch strung with vine roses and the pebbled path that snaked into the interior was barely wide enough for a single person.

Selena had no intention of going in—

Her feet broke that covenant of their own volition, moving forward as if the servants of some larger purpose.

Within the confines of the bracketing trees, the air was as temperate as ever, and yet a chill went through her.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she hated everything about the place—but mostly the stillness of the monuments: Set up upon white stone pediments, the female forms were in various poses, their graceful arms and legs angled this way and that about their naked bodies. The expressions on the statues were serene, their unblinking eyes gazing upon the afterlife in the Fade, their lips turned up in identical, wistful smiles.

She thought again of the male in that bed. So alive. So vital.

Why had she come here. Why, why, why … to the graveyard—

Her knees buckled at the same time tears broke free of her heart, her weeping taking her to the soft ground, the racking sobs making her throat hurt.

It was at the feet of her sisters that she felt the destiny of her early death freshly.

Over the course of her life, she had assumed all angles of her upcoming demise had been explored.

Being around Trez Latimer told her she was wrong about that.