“Ah, right, okay, let’s get you to Doc Jane,” Qhuinn said as he took Layla’s elbow, and made sure the front of his hips was covered by the tails of his leather jacket.
“I’m fine. Honestly—”
“Then that’s just what the good doctor will tell—”
As John opened the door to the place and they all stepped inside, Qhuinn lost his train of thought as a wall of hormones smacked right into him. Looking down at his pelvis, he couldn’t believe he was suddenly about to orgasm.
“Someone’s in her needing,” Layla announced. “I don’t think you two should go in—”
Far down the hall, Doc Jane all but jumped out of one of the examination rooms. “You have to leave—Qhuinn and John, you’ve got to go—”
“Who’s—” Qhuinn had to close his eyes and slow his breathing down: The motion was causing his cock to rub against his button fly, threatening a messy explosion. “Who is—”
As some kind of wave intensified, he lost the ability to speak.
Fuck, it was like he’d just come through his transition and was surrounded by naked females in all-access positions.
“It’s Autumn,” Jane said, running toward them and ushering them back out into the parking lot. “Are you okay, Layla?”
“I’m fine—”
“She needs a quick physical,” Qhuinn mumbled as he turned for the Shadow’s car. “Just came close to passing out. Text me when you’re done, Layla, ’kay?”
John was walking like a scarecrow as well—stiffly and without any coordination. Then again, when you had a baseball bat in your pants, you were hardly going to Fred Astaire around.
As the heavy steel door shut them out, things got a little better, and by the time they had driven through the series of gates, short of a raging hard-on, he was feeling more rational.
“Jesus,” Qhuinn said. “Bottle that shit and the Viagra boys are out of business.”
Behind the wheel, John whistled an agreement.
As the guy drove them around the base of the mountain and approached the main house from the front, Qhuinn squirmed in his leathers.
He hadn’t done much sexually since… well, shit, almost a year ago, when he’d had some private time with that red-haired guy at the Iron Mask. After that, he hadn’t had much interest in anything or anyone, male or female. He didn’t even wake up hard anymore.
Hell, given the length of his dry spell, he’d begun to think that he’d just burned through his allotment of orgasms: Considering how much fucking he’d done after his transition, it sure as shit seemed possible.
But here he was, itching in his seat.
Next door, John was doing the same, moving this way and that. Jacking himself up, pushing back.
When the mansion finally made an appearance out of the mhis, Qhuinn dreaded going inside. There didn’t seem anything even remotely sexy or appealing about heading up to his room alone, jerking off once or twice, and then resuming his vigil in front of a dark TV screen.
I’ve got nothing of my own. Nothing. Even my service can be taken away from me.
Layla was so right about that: Although everyone made him welcome here, the bottom line was, he was allowed to hang because he served a purpose for John, as ahstrux nohtrum.
Like Layla, however, he could be fired.
And as for his future? He was certainly never going to be mated, because he wasn’t going to condemn some female to a loveless union, and he was never going to have any young—although, considering his mismatched eyes, maybe that was a good thing.
Bottom line, he was staring down the barrel of countless centuries with no real home, no true family, no blood of his own.
As he rubbed a hand through his hair and wondered whether there was any possibility his cock would magically deflate… he knew just what that Chosen meant when it came to empty.
SIXTY
Xhex needed intel. Stat.
When Xcor had dematerialized away from her, he’d gone outside the scope of her radar within seconds. And yeah, she had a bead on his direction, but only an asshole wouldn’t camo the way to his hideout.
Sure enough, as she followed what she could of him, she found herself stuck on the shores of the Hudson not far from her house: The trail got cold at that point, and not because the frigid north wind was blowing down the river.
She kicked a random snowdrift and paced around. Retraced her steps back to the theater district. Scanned the rest of the city, going rooftop to rooftop.
Nothing.
She ended up back on top of that building where she’d seen John and the others, stalking around and cursing like a sailor. In the absence of physical clues, she was forced to go with the only other thing she had: the drama outside that dessert place.
Taking out her phone, she texted John and waited. And waited. And… waited.
Did they get ambushed on the way back?
She texted again. Hit up Qhuinn—and got no reply.
Damn it, what if something had happened? Just because Xcor had appeared to leave the city, that didn’t mean he couldn’t cycle around and intersect iAm’s SUV. Meanwhile, she was here chasing her tail like an idiot—
Just as she was about to start another round of near-panicked texting, John hit her back: @ hm safe. Srry wz dwn in clinic.
Dialing back on her chick-out, she took a deep breath and texted back: We need to talk about Layla. Let me come to the house.
It was possible that Qhuinn wouldn’t want to leave the Chosen in her condition, and Xhex didn’t want John to drag his ahstrux nohtrum out just for a meeting.
Instead of waiting for a response, she flashed herself over to the mansion and strode up the steps and into the vestibule. The inner door opened immediately, and Fritz appeared frazzled.
“Good evening, my lady.”
“What’s wrong?”
The butler bowed and shuffled backward. “Oh, indeed. Yes. Whom are you here to see?”
There was a time when that wouldn’t have been a question. “John. Is he at the clinic?”
“Oh… no. No, definitely not there. He is upstairs.”
Xhex frowned. “Is there any problem?”
“Oh, no. Please, madam, go forth.”
Bullshit there wasn’t something going on. She crossed the mosaic apple tree at a jog and took the stairs two at a time. When she got to the second floor, she hesitated.
Even out in the hall, she could catch the scent of sex—a mixed bag of it, actually, suggesting there were multiples going on. Literally.
And didn’t that make her feel like throwing up.
As she approached John’s door, she braced herself for whatever could be on the other side. Layla was trained as an ehros, and Qhuinn had long been up for anything—and maybe this separation had led her mate into the arms of others.
With a dead heart, she knocked loudly. “John? It’s me.”
Closing her eyes, she imagined naked bodies freezing, people looking back and forth, John scrambling to get something to cover himself. There was no reading grids—she was too scattered to pull that off. No sorting through the scents, either—she was having enough trouble staying on her feet because she knew at least one of them was John’s.
“I know you’re in there.”
Instead of the door opening, she got a text on her phone: Am soz—busy. Can I cm find u l8r?
Fuck that and the horse it rode in on.
Xhex grabbed the doorknob, twisted hard enough to break the thing off, and shoved her way—
Holy. Shit.
John was by himself on his bed, lying on top of twisted sheets, his naked body gleaming in the light that bled in from the bathroom. One hand was between his legs, his big fist locked on his thick cock… the other was gripping the headboard for leverage as he worked himself, his teeth bared, the muscles in his shoulders and neck standing out in stark relief as he strained.