Abruptly, Xcor went on the move again, heading around the building she was up on top of, calling her back into action. With grim intensity, she crunched through the crusted snow of the rooftop, circling with him, jogging by HVAC vents and other mechanicals. When she got to the other side, she—
John Matthew.
Shit, her John was not far. What the hell—
He’d told her he was staying home tonight because he was off rotation.
Who was he out with? Qhuinn had given up his man-whore ways… wrong part of the city for that, anyway. This was the theater district.
Dematerializing to the lip of the building, she looked down. Across the street, at the head of an alleyway, John was standing in the shadows, with Qhuinn and… Layla. Who was up off the ground in the former’s arms, looking like she’d passed out?
Shiiiiit. Lot of drama down there. Big drama—the kind that was threatening to fritz out the Chosen’s emotional grid altogether.
Scattering her molecules, Xhex re-formed in front of John, startling the bunch of them. “Is she okay?”
We’re waiting for Butch, John signed.
“Is he on his way?”
He’s tied up across town on cleanup. But we need him now.
Clearly. Whatever had happened here was deep.
“You can put me down now,” Layla said gruffly.
Qhuinn just shook his head and kept holding her up off the snow.
“Look, iAm’s not far.” Xhex took out her cell and flashed it. “Will you let me call him?”
“Yeah, that’d be good,” Qhuinn replied.
As she hit up the Shadow, she stared at John while the phone rang. “Hey, iAm, how’s you? Yup. Uh-huh—how’d you know? Yeah, I need a set of wheels in the theater district, stat.… You are so the man, iAm.” She ended the call. “Done. ETA is less than five minutes.”
Thank you, John signed.
“What is it?” Qhuinn said as Layla started to stiffen.
Xhex narrowed her eyes on the Chosen’s face as the female’s grid lit up… with arousal. And shame. And pain.
“He’s here,” the Chosen whispered. “He’s not far at all.”
John and Qhuinn instantly went for their weapons—which was a good trick on the latter’s part, given that he still had Layla up in his arms.
Who the hell was she talking about—
“Xcor,” Xhex breathed as she looked in the same direction the Chosen was focusing on. And then connecting the dots, she thought out loud, “Jesus Christ… Xcor?”
iAm picked that moment to pull up in a BMW X5, and a split second later, he was out and holding the door open.
Qhuinn lunged for the SUV, and Layla didn’t put up any fight as she was shoved in there like an invalid.
“Take the vehicle,” iAm told the males. “Use it as your own.”
After an abrupt thank-you from Qhuinn, there was a brief moment of now-what as John looked at Xhex.
Bracing herself for some male chest thumping, she wanted to curse—
We’ll take her back, John signed. You stay here and do what you have to.
Just like that they hopped into iAm’s SUV and off they went.
“Do you need help?” iAm asked.
“Thanks, but nope,” she murmured as she watched the red brakes flare and then disappear around the far corner. “I got this.”
FIFTY-NINE
Xcor had sensed the Chosen female from blocks away. Drawn to her, he had changed direction and headed toward her—until Throe had gotten in the way and argued with him.
Which had been, in a manner of speaking, a good thing. It meant that the male was staying true to his vow to never see her again.
Xcor, on the other hand, had made no such promise—so he had pressed onward, leaving his soldier in the dust. Fates, but he had spent so many days staring up at the cobwebbed beams above his bunk, wondering where she was, what she was doing. How she was doing.
If the Brotherhood ever found out who she had been of aid to in that field, they would be furious—and Wrath, the Blind King, had long been known to live up to his name. Lo, how Xcor still regretted that his second lieutenant had brought her into this mess. She was guileless, an innocent seeking only to help, and they had made a traitor out of her.
She deserved better.
Indeed, it felt insane to pray for his target’s mercy in her case. But he did. He prayed that Wrath would spare her if the truth ever came out…
Closing in on her, he’d dared not get too close… and he found her in the lee of a little café, draped in shadows that, no matter how hard his eyes strained, he could not penetrate.
She was not alone; she was guarded by soldiers—two of them male, one of them female.
Would she sense him? he wondered, his heart beating sure as if he were being chased. Would she tell them he was nearby—
A black vehicle came tearing up to the group, and what got out was something he’d only heard whispers about: Was that a Shadow? An actual living, breathing Shadow?
The Brotherhood had worthy allies, that was for sure—
With speed, his Chosen was carried to the car in the arms of the soldier he had fought with that night at Assail’s.
Xcor bared his fangs, but kept the growl to himself. That another male was touching her made him violent to his core. That she might be injured in some way? Made him terrified to the point of tremors.
In the last moment, just before she disappeared into the backseat, she looked his way.
The moment of connection slowed time down until everything from the snowflakes that were falling to the blink of the neon sign beside her to the speed with which she was dispatched out of sight went into single frames, the photographs taken by his mind one by one.
She was not in a white robe, but rather human clothes that he did not favor. Her hair was still pulled up high above her neck, however, accentuating the spectacular features of her face. And as he breathed in, his sinuses hummed from both the cold and her delicate scent.
It was everything he remembered about her. Except now she was clearly in distress, her skin too pale, her eyes too wide, her hand shaking as she raised it to her throat as if to protect herself.
His fighting palm actually reached forward for her, as if there was something he could do to relieve her suffering, as if he could help her in some way.
It was a gesture that would have to remain forever in the shadows. She knew he was here, and that was probably why they were taking her away.
And she was scared of him now. Likely because she knew he was her enemy.
The two males packed in with her, the taller one getting behind the wheel, the one he’d fought slipping in beside her in the back.
Without his being aware of it, his palm sneaked inside his jacket, and found his gun. The temptation to flash into the path of that vehicle, kill the two males, and take what he wanted was so great, he actually shifted his position down the street.
But he could not do that to her. He was not his fath—he was not the Bloodletter. He would not torture her conscience for the rest of her days with such violence—because surely she would extrapolate and blame herself for the deaths.
No, if he ever had her, it would be because she came unto him of her free will. Which was an impossibility, of course.
And so…he let her go. He stepped not into the path of the motorcar to put a bullet through the forehead of the driver. He did not then rush forth, shoot the one in the backseat, and turn about to kill the female soldier who was, as of this moment, directly behind him by about half a block. He did not infiltrate the vehicle, lock the Chosen in and drive her off to somewhere warm and safe.
Whereupon he would take those dreadful human dressings from her skin… and replace them with his naked body.