Trez took a step back. “Listen, I—” As his phone went off in his coat, he thought, Perfect timing—and checked it. It was iAm. “’Scuse me. I have to take this. Hey, what you doing, little brother?”
iAm’s reply was soft, like he’d lowered his voice. “We got company.”
Trez’s body tensed. “What kind and where.”
“I’m home.”
Oh, shit. “Who is it.”
“It’s not your betrothed, relax. It’s AnsLai.”
The high priest. Fantastic. “Well, I’m busy.”
“He’s not here to see me.”
“Then he’d better go back where he came from, because I’m otherwise engaged.” When there was nothing but silence over the connection, all he had to do was dub in the ass-kicking. Unable to keep still, he stalked around. “Look, what do you want me to do?”
“Stop running and deal with this.”
“There’s nothing to deal with. I’ll catch you later, ’kay?”
He waited for a response. Instead, the line went dead. Then again, when you expected your brother to clean up your crap, the guy wasn’t likely to be in the mood for a protracted good-bye.
Trez hung up and glanced over at the Realtor. Smiling widely, he walked to her and looked down. Her lipstick was a little too coral for her complexion, but he didn’t care.
The shit wasn’t going to be on her mouth for much longer.
“Let me show you how warm I can make it in here,” he said with a slow smile.
Back at the Brotherhood mansion, up in Layla’s room, a kind of détente had been reached among the various interested parties.
Phury wasn’t trying to turn Qhuinn into a wall hanging. Layla was getting assessed. And the door had been shut so that anything that went down was going to have no more than a quartet of firsthand witnesses.
Qhuinn was just waiting for Doc Jane to speak.
When she finally took her stethoscope off from around her neck, she sat back. And the expression on her face gave him no hope.
He didn’t understand it. He had seen his daughter at the door to the Fade: When he’d been beaten and left for dead at the side of the road by the Honor Guard, he had gone up to God only knew where, had approached the white portal…and had seen in the panels a young female whose eyes had started out one color, and ended up blue and green like his own.
If he hadn’t been witness to that, he probably wouldn’t have lain with Layla in the first place. But he’d been so sure that destiny was spelled out that it had never dawned on him…
Shit, maybe that young was the result of another pairing—somewhere else down the line.
But like he was going to be with anyone else? Ever?
Not possible. Not now that he’d had Blay once.
Nope.
Even if he and his former friend never got between the sheets again, he was never going to be with anybody else. Who could compare? And celibacy was better than second-best—which again, was what would be offered by the rest of the planet.
Doc Jane cleared her throat and took Layla’s hand. “Your blood pressure is a little low. Your pulse rate is sluggish. I think both of these can be improved with a feeding—”
Qhuinn all but jumped on the bed with his wrist outstretched. “I got it—right here. I got—”
Doc Jane put her hand on his arm and smiled at him. “But that’s not what I’m worried about.”
He froze—and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phury do the same.
“Here’s the problem.” The doctor refocused on Layla, speaking gently and clearly. “I don’t know a lot about vampire pregnancies—so as much as I hate to say this, you need to go back to Havers’s.” She put her hand up, as if she anticipated arguments from all corners. “This is about her and the young—we have to get them to somebody who can treat her appropriately, even if, under other circumstances, none of us would darken that guy’s door. And, Phury”—she looked over at the Brother—“you have to go with her and Qhuinn. Your being there will make it easier on everybody.”
Lot of tight lips after that.
“She’s right,” Qhuinn said finally. And then he turned to the Primale. “And you need to say you’re the father. She’ll get more respect that way. With me? He might well refuse to treat her—if she’s fallen, and has gotten fucked by a defective? He could turn us away.”
Phury opened his mouth. Shut it.
It wasn’t like there was much else to say.
As Phury got out his phone and called the clinic to inform the staff they were coming in, his tone of voice suggested he was ready to light the place up if Havers and his crew screwed around.
With that getting sorted, Qhuinn went over to Layla.
In a low voice, he said, “It’s going to be different this time. He’s going to make things happen. Don’t worry—you’re going to get treated like a queen.”
Layla’s eyes were wide, but she kept it together. “Yes. All right.”
Bottom line? The Brother wasn’t the only one ready to throw down. If Havers turned any of that glymera distaste on Layla, Qhuinn was going to beat the ego out of that male. Layla didn’t deserve that shit—not even for choosing a reject to mate with.
Fuck. Maybe it was better that she lose the pregnancy. Did he really want to condemn a child to his DNA?
“You’re coming, too?” she asked him, like she wasn’t really tracking.
“Yup. I’ll be right there.”
When Phury hung up, he looked back and forth between them, his yellow eyes narrowing. “Okay, so they’ll take us the second we get there. I’ll have Fritz get the Mercedes warmed up, but I’m driving.”
“I’m sorry,” Layla said as she stared up at the great male. “I know I’ve let the Chosen and you down—but you did tell us to come to this side and…live.”
Phury put his hands on his hips and exhaled. As he shook his head, it was clear he wouldn’t have picked any of this for her. “Yeah, I said that. That I did.”
THIRTY-TWO
Oh, great unleashed power, Xcor thought as he regarded his soldiers, each of them armed and ready for a night of fighting. After twenty-four hours of recovery following that group feeding, they were chomping at the bit to get out and find their enemies—and he was ready to let release them from the warehouse’s underspace.
There was only one problem: Someone was walking the floor above.
As if on cue, footsteps traversed the wooden hatch over his head.
For the last half hour, they had tracked the progress of their uninvited visitors. One was heavy—a masculine form. The other was lighter—a feminine variety. There were no scents to catch, however; the underground level was hermetically sealed.
In all likelihood, it was just a pair of humans passing through—although why two non-vagrants would waste time wandering around such a decrepit structure on a cold night, he could not guess. Whoever they were, whatever the reason they came, however, he would have no problem defending his squatter’s rights, such as they were.
But there was no harm in waiting. If he could avoid slaughtering some useless humans here? It meant he and his soldiers could continue to use the space undisturbed.
No one said a thing as the walking about continued.
Voices mingled. Low and higher. Then a phone went off.
Xcor tracked the ringing and the conversation that ensued, walking in silence over to the other hatch where the speaker chose to stop. Going still, he listened hard, and caught one half of a very uninteresting conversation that gave nothing away as to the identity of the parties.
Not long thereafter, the unmistakable sounds of sex filtered down.