Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

"Shit... ah..." In the pause, V pictured the king's black eyebrows sinking down behind his wraparounds. "God, I think it was with you. Back in the early nineteen hundreds, wasn't it? Seven bottles of whiskey between the two of us."

"Actually, it was nine."

Wrath laughed. "We started at four in the afternoon and it took us, what, fourteen hours? I was faced for a whole day afterward. Hundred years later and I think I'm still hungover."

V closed his eyes. "Remember just as dawn was coming, I, ah... told you I'd never known my mother? Had no clue who she was or what happened to her?"

"Most of it's fog, but yeah, I recall that."

God, they'd both been so polluted that night. Drunk off their asses. And that had been the only reason V had yakked even a little about what rotted in his head twenty-four/seven.

"V? What's doing? This have something to do with your mahmen?"

V let himself fall back on the bed. As he landed, the pendant in his back pocket bit into his ass. "Yeah... I just met her."

Chapter Four

On the Other Side, in the sanctuary of the Chosen, Cormia sat on a cot in her white room with a small white candle glowing beside her. She was dressed in the traditional white robe of the Chosen, her feet bare on white marble, her hands folded in her lap.

Waiting.

She was used to waiting. It was the nature of your life as a Chosen. You waited for the calendar of rituals to offer up activity. You waited for the Scribe Virgin to make an appearance. You waited for the Directrix to give you duties to perform. And you waited with grace and patience and understanding, or you disgraced the entirety of the tradition you serviced. Herein no one sister was more important than another. As a Chosen, you were part of a whole, a single molecule among many that formed a functioning spiritual corpus... both critical and utterly unimportant.

So woe be the female who failed in her duties lest she contaminated the rest.

But today the waiting carried an inescapable burden. Cormia had sinned, and she was awaiting her punishment.

For a long time she had wanted for her transition to be given upon her, had been secretly impatient for it, although not for the benefit of the Chosen. She'd wanted to be fully realized as herself. She'd wanted to feel a significance in her breath and her heartbeat that pertained to her being an individual in the universe, not a spoke in a wheel. Her change had struck her as the key to that private freedom.

Her change had been given unto her just recently, when she'd been invited to drink of the cup in the temple. At first she'd been elated, assuming that her clandestine desire had gone undetected and yet was fulfilled. But then her punishment had arrived.

Glancing down at her body, she blamed her br**sts and her hips for what was about to happen to her. Blamed herself for wanting to be someone specific. She should have stayed as she had been -

The thin silk curtain over the doorway swept aside, and the Chosen Amalya, one of the Scribe Virgin's personal attendhentes, walked in.

"And so it is done," Cormia said, tightening her fingers until her knuckles stung.

Amalya smiled beneficently. "It is."

"How long?"

"He comes at the conclusion of Her Highness's sequester."

Desperation made Cormia ask the unthinkable. "Cannot it be another of us who is called forth? There are others who want this."

"You have been chosen." As tears were born unto Cormia's eyes, Amalya came forward, her bare feet making no sound. "He will be gentle with thine body. He will - "

"He will do no such thing. He is the son of the warrior the Bloodletter."

Amalya jerked back. "What?"

"Did the Scribe Virgin not tell you?"

"Her Holiness said only that it was arranged with one of the Brotherhood, a warrior of worth."

Cormia shook her head. "I was told earlier, when she first came unto me. I thought all knew."

Amalya's concern drew her brows together. Without a word, she sat on the cot and gathered Cormia to her.

"I do not want this," Cormia whispered. "Forgive me, sister. But I do not."

Amalya's voice lacked conviction as she said, "All will be well... truly."

"What goes on herein?" The sharp voice yanked them apart sure as a pair of hands.

The Directrix stood in the doorway, her stare suspicious. With a book of some sort in one hand and a strand of black worship pearls in the other, she was the perfect representation of the Chosen's proper purpose and calling.

Amalya stood up quickly, but there was no denying the moment. As a Chosen, you were to rejoice in your station at all times; anything less was considered a specius deviation for which you had to render penitence. And they had been caught.

"I shall talk to the Chosen Cormia now," the Directrix announced. "Alone."

"Yes, of course." Amalya went to the door with her head down. "If you will excuse me, sisters."

"You shall progress to the Temple of Atonement, will you not."

"Yes, Directrix."

"Stay there for the rest of the cycle. If I see you on the grounds, I will be most displeased."

"Yes, Directrix."

Cormia squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for her friend as she left. A whole cycle in that temple? You could go mad from the sensory deprivation.

The Directrix's words were clipped. "I would send you there, too, were there not things you need to attend."

Cormia brushed off her tears. "Yes, Directrix."

"You shall begin your preparations now by reading this." The leather-bound book landed on the bed. "It details the Primale's rights and your obligations. When you have finished, you will begin your sexual tutorial."

Oh, dear Virgin, please, not the Directrix... please, not the Directrix ...

"Layla will instruct you." As Cormia's shoulders sagged, the Directrix snapped, "Shall I take offense at your relief that it shall be not I who teaches you?"

"Not at all, my sister."

"Now you offend with untruth. Look at me. Look at me."

Cormia lifted her eyes and couldn't help but draw back in fear as the Directrix pinned her with a hard stare.

"You shall do your duty and do it well or I shall cast you out. Do you understand me? You shall be cast out."

Cormia was so stunned she couldn't reply. Cast out? Cast out... to the far side?

"Answer me. Are we clear?"

"Y-yes, Directrix."

"Mistake this not. The survival of the Chosen and the order I have established herein are of the only significance. Any one individual who obstacles either will be eliminated. Remind you that when you feel the urge to pity yourself. This is an honor and it shall be revoked with attendant consequences by my hand. Are we clear? Are we clear?"

Cormia couldn't find her voice, so she nodded.

The Directrix shook her head, a strange light coming into her eye. "Save for your bloodline, you are wholly unacceptable. As of fact, the entirety of this is wholly unacceptable."

The Directrix left in a whisper of robing, her white silk sheath flowing around the doorjamb in her wake.

Cormia put her head in her hands and bit her lower lip as she contemplated her station: Her body had just been promised to a warrior she'd never met... who was begotten of a brutish and cruel sire... and upon her shoulders the noble tradition of Chosen rested.

Honor? Nay, this was a punishment - for the audacity of wanting something for herself.

As another martini arrived, Phury tried to remember whether it was his fifth? Or six? He wasn't sure.

"Man, good thing we ain't fighting tonight," Butch said. "You're drinking that shit like water."

"I'm thirsty."

"Guess so." The cop stretched in the booth. "How much longer you plan on rehydrating there, Lawrence of Arabia?"

"You don't have to hang - "

"Move over, cop."

Both Phury and Butch glanced up. V had appeared in front of the table from out of nowhere, and something was up. With his wide eyes and his pale face, he looked like he'd been in accident, though he wasn't bleeding.

"Hey, my man." Butch scooted to the right to make room. "Didn't think we'd see you tonight."

V sat down, his leather biker's jacket bunching up and making his big shoulders look positively immense. In an uncharacteristic move, he started drumming his fingers on the table top.

Butch frowned at his roommate. "You look like road-kill. What's doing?"