The King

TWENTY-THREE

“Speak, healer,” Wrath demanded as he stood over the motionless body of his shellan. “Speak!”

Dearest Virgin Scribe, she looked dead.

Indeed, immediately following his Anha’s collapse, he had carried her back to their mated room, the Brothers going with him, the aristocrats and their worthless social gaming left behind. It was he who had laid his beloved out upon the bedding platform as the healer was summoned, and he who had been the one to loosen her bodice. The Brothers had departed as soon as the trusted physician arrived with the tools of his healing trade, and then it had been only the three of them, the crackling fire, and the scream that rebounded in his soul.

“Healer, what say thou?”

The male looked over his shoulder from his crouch beside Anha. With the black robes of his station flowing to the floor, he rather resembled a giant bird, imminently due to take flight.

“She is dangerously compromised, my lord.” As Wrath recoiled, the healer rose. “I believe she is with young.”

A cold draft hit him, rushing from his head to his feet, wiping out the feeling in his entire form. “She is…”

“With young. Aye. I could tell when I felt her belly. It is hard and distended, and you did say she recently was upon her needing.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “So this is caused by the—”

“’Tis not a symptom of early pregnancy as she is not bleeding. No, I do believe this malaise is accounted for by something different. Please, my lord, let us approach the fire to speak so as not to disturb her.”

Wrath allowed himself to be drawn closer to the banked flames. “Is she ill then with fever?”

“My lord…” The healer cleared his throat, as if mayhap he was worried about a death that had naught to do with the queen. “Forgive me, my lord…”

“Tell me not that you have no explanation,” Wrath hissed.

“Would you prefer I mislead you? Her heart is sluggish, her pallor is gray, her breathing is shallow and intermittent. There could be some internal difficulty that I cannae measure that she is succumbing to. I do not know.”

Wrath shifted his eyes back to his mate. He had never been one to feel fear o’ermuch. Now terror slipped into his skin, possessing him as an evil spirit would, taking him o’er.

“My lord, I would tell you to feed her. Now and for as often as she may take the proceeds of your vein. Mayhap the charge of energy that comes with it with turn this about … certainly, if she has any hope, it is you. And if she rouses, I shall give her fresh water only, no ale. Nothing that will cause a further depression of her systems—”

“Get out.”

“My lord, she is—”

“Leave us—now!”

Wrath was aware of the male stumbling to the door. And well the healer might—a murderous rage was risen in the chest of his King and liable to be directed upon any bodily form within reach.

As the door was shut once more, Wrath approached the bedding platform. “My love,” he said desperately. “Anha, my love, rise unto my voice.”

Back on his knees.

Wrath fell back upon his knees at the floor by her head. Stroking her hair upon her shoulder and down upon her arm, he was of care not to put any weight into his touch.

Measuring her breathing, he tried to will her into deeper breaths. He wanted to return to the night before, when they had awoken together and he had looked into her eyes and watched them sparkle with life. For truth, it twisted his mind to think he could remember with such specificity everything about that moment, that hour, that night, the smells of the meal they ate, and the conversations they had about the future, and the audiences they went down to take in at court.

He felt as though the clarity of the remembrances should have been a door that he could go through and thereby take her hand, and smell her scent, and feel the lightness in the heart that came with health and well-being … and pull her back to the present in that state.

But that was only fantasy, of course.

Unsheathing his ceremonial dagger, he brought the flashing, polished blade up. When his heavy sleeve with its jewels and settings of precious gold got in the way, he tore his fine coat from his torso, pitching it behind him. As it landed with a scraping sound, all those meticulously affixed gems scratching at the hard oak, he slashed the knife edge across his wrist.

Lo, he wished it was his throat.

“Anha, verily, sit up for me. Lift your head, my love.”

Propping her upon his free forearm, he brought the wellspring of his blood to her lips. “Anha, partake from me … partake for me…”

Her lips fell open, but it was not her sweet acquiescence that rendered it such. Nay, it was only the angle of her head.

“Anha, drink … come back unto me.”

As red drops fell into her mouth, he prayed that they somehow proceeded down the back of her throat, and thusly into her veins, reviving her by their purity.

This was not their destiny, he thought. They were to be together for centuries, not parted but a year after meeting. This was not … them.

“Drink, my love…”

He kept his wrist in place until the blood threatened to pool out from her lips. “Anha?”

Dropping his head down onto the back of her cold hand, he prayed for a miracle. And the longer he stayed there, the more he joined her in a state that was but one heartbeat away from death.

If she passed, he was going to go with her. One way or the other …

Dearest Virgin Scribe, this was not them.

Wrath didn’t wake up so much as surface from sleep like a buoy floating up from the depths to bounce on a choppy surface.

He was in the pitch dark of his blindness, naturally—and as always, he threw out his arm to the opposite side of the bed—

Crash!

Wrath lifted his head and frowned. Patting around with his hand, he encountered things that felt like books, a coaster, an ashtray.

Firewood burning.

He was not in his room. And Beth was not with him.

Flipping over, he jacked upright, heart skipping in his chest, the arrhythmia making him light-headed. “Beth?”

In the basement of his brain, he recognized that he was in the library downstairs in the Brotherhood mansion, but his thoughts were like worms in wet soil, twisting around incessantly, going nowhere.

“Beth …?”

A distant whimper.

“George?”

Louder whimper.

Wrath rubbed his face. Wondered where his wraparounds were. Thought, yeah, he was on that couch in the library, the one in front of the fireplace.

“Oh … fuck me…” he groaned as he tried to get vertical.

Standing up was flat-out awesome. Head swimming, stomach clenched like a fist, he had to grip the arm of the couch or he was going to timber all over the place.

Lurching through dead space, he didn’t make it to the doors so much as run into them, the hard panels punching back at his chest. Flubbering around for the handles, he popped the latches and—

George exploded into the room, the golden running around in circles, the sneezes suggesting he was smiling.

“Hey, hey…”

Wrath meant to make it back to the sofa, because he didn’t want all the functional eyes in the house seeing him like this—but his body had different ideas. And as he went down on his ass, George took the opportunity to jump right in there, getting throw-blanket close.

“Hey, big guy, yup, we’re both still here…” Stroking the retriever’s broad chest, he buried his nose into that fur and let the scent of good, clean dog work some aromatherapy on him. “Where’s Mom? Do you know where she is?”

Dumb fucking question. She was not here, and it was his own damn fault.

“Shit, George.”

That big tail was banging against his ribs, and that muzzle was snuffling, and those ears were flapping around. And it was good, it was normal—but it didn’t go nearly far enough.

“Wonder what time it is?”

Goddamn … he’d lost it at John and V but good, hadn’t he. And that hadn’t been the half of it. He had some vague memory of trashing the billiards room, flipping all kinds of shit, fighting with anyone who got too close—then it had been nap time. He was pretty sure someone had drugged him, and he couldn’t say he blamed whoever had done it. Short of a tranq-induced lights-out, he didn’t know when he would have stopped.

And he hadn’t wanted to hurt any of his brothers or the staff. Or the house.

“Shit.”

Seemed like that was the extent of his vocabulary.

Man, he should have let Vishous take him in here and tell him what was going on. But at least there were only two places his mate would go. One was Marissa’s Safe Place, and the other was Darius’s old house. And no doubt that was what John had been trying to tell him.

Fuck, he thought. This was not him and Beth. This was not where they were supposed to end up.

Matter of fact, things had always felt like fate with her; from the timing of when she’d come into his life to the completion that she brought to him, everything had always seemed like destiny. They’d had arguments, sure. He was a hotheaded asshole and she didn’t take any of his shit. Duh.

But never this separation. Ever.

“Come on, bud. We need some privacy.”

George hopped off and let Wrath push himself up from the floor. After reshutting the doors, he embarked on a game of find-the-phone. Talk about your emasculations. Hands thrust forward, torso bent, feet shuffling, he bumped into things and felt them up to figure out whether it was a love seat, an armchair, a side table …

The desk seemed like the last fucking thing he ran into, and he discovered where the phone was when his man hand knocked the receiver off its cradle. Putting the thing up to his ear, he finger-tipped around until he located the buttons and then had to recock the dial tone before he could start dialing.

Picturing the ten digits with the pound sign and the star key at the base of the set-of-twelve arrangement, he punched in a seven-number sequence and waited.

“Safe Place, good afternoon.”

He closed his eyes. He’d hoped it was closer to dark because then he could go looking for her. “Hey, is Beth there?”

“No, I’m sorry, she’s not. May I take a message?” As he closed his eyes, the female said, “Hello? Is anybody there?”

“No message.”

“May I tell her who’s calling if she comes in later?”

He briefly wondered what the receptionist would do if he told her who it was. “I’ll find her elsewhere. Thanks.”

As he hung up, he felt George’s big head nudge his thigh. So typical of the dog—wanting to help.

Wrath kept his finger on the toggle, pushing down. He didn’t know if he was ready for another dial tone. If she didn’t pick up at the next number? He was going to have no fucking clue where she was. And the idea that he might have to go to Vishous or John for that kind of information was too shameful to bear.

As he punched in a different sequence, he thought to himself …

I can’t believe this is us. This just isn’t … us.