Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood 6)

"You have made us very happy," Amalya said with a tremor in her voice. She got up and bowed again. "Is there anything we may get you to repay this joy of ours?"

"No, thank you. I'm just going to rest."

She bowed once more, and then was gone like a gentle breeze, departing in a silence that was tragically full of anticipation.

Now he sat up, but only with help from his arms. On the vertical, his head was a balloon, light and full of nothing, bobbing on his spine. "Cormia?"

She stepped out from behind the drapery. Her eyes went down to the scarving, then returned to him. "Do you need Doc Jane?"

"No. I'm not sick. It was the DTs."

"So you said. I'm not clear on what that is, though."

"Withdrawal." He rubbed at his arms, thinking it wasn't over yet. His skin was itching and his lungs were burning as if they needed air, even though they had it.

What they wanted, he knew, was red smoke.

"Is there a bathroom through there?" he said.

"Yes."

"Will you wait for me? I won't be long. I'm just going to wash."

It will be longer than her lifetime before you return cleansed, the wizard said.

Phury closed his eyes, abruptly losing the strength to move.

"What is it?"

Tell her your old mate is back.

Tell her your old mate is never leaving.

And then let's get over to the real world and get what will take care of that tight feeling in your lungs and that itching all over your skin.

"What is it?" Cormia asked again.

Phury took a deep breath. He didn't know much at the moment, barely his own name, and certainly not who the president of the United States was. But he was sure about one thing: If he listened to the wizard anymore, he was going to be dead.

Phury focused on the female before him. "It's nothing."

That didn't go down well in wasteland. The wizard's robes blew up as a wind came barreling in over the field of bones.

You lie to her! I am everything! I am everything! The wizard 's voice was high-pitched and getting higher. I am -

"Nothing," Phury said weakly, hefting himself to his feet. "You are nothing."

"What?"

As he shook his head, Cormia reached out to him, and he steadied himself with her help. Together, they walked into the bath, which was kitted out like any other save for the fact that there wasn't a logo on the toilet. Well, that and there was a stream running right through the back of the room - which he presumed served as the bath.

"I'll be right outside," Cormia said, leaving him to it.

After using the loo, he waded into the stream with the help of a set of marble stairs. The water rushing by was as it had been in the glass, a current precisely the temperature of his skin. Over in a dish in the corner, there was a bar of what he assumed was soap, and he picked it up. It was soft, shaped in the form of a crescent; he cradled the bar in his palms and submersed his hands in the water. The suds that formed were tight and small, a froth that smelled of evergreens. He used it on his hair and his face and his body, breathing in so the scent went down into his lungs -  and hopefully could cleanse them of the centuries of self-medication he'd been sucking in deep.

When he was done, he just let the water run past his itching skin and his aching muscles. Closing his eyes, he shut the wizard off as best he could, but it was tough because the guy was throwing a tantrum of nuclear proportions. In his old life, he would have put opera on, but now he couldn't - and not just because Bose didn't exist on this side. That particular kind of music reminded him too much of his twin... who wasn't singing anymore.

Still, the sound of the stream was lovely, its soft, musical chiming echoing up from the smooth stones as if the noise were skipping from one to another.

Not wanting to keep Cormia waiting, he planted his soles on the riverbed and lifted his upper body out of the rush. The water sluiced off his chest and down his stomach, like soothing hands, and, lifting his arms up, he felt it drop from his fingers and his elbows.

Running down... pouring down... easing down...

The wizard's voice tried to rise up and take over. Phury heard it in his head, fighting for airtime, fighting to find purchase in his inner ear.

But the chiming of water was louder.

Phury drew in a great breath, smelling the evergreen and feeling a freedom that had nothing to do with where his body was, and everything to do with where his head was at.

For the first time, the wizard was not bigger than he was.

Cormia paced around the Primale temple. Not ill. In withdrawal.

Not ill.

She stopped at the foot of the bedding platform.

She remembered being strapped down and hearing a male enter and being utterly terrified. Unable to see, unable to move, and not permitted to say no, she'd lain there at the mercy of tradition.

Each virgin female, after she went through her transition, was presented to the Primale like that.

Surely others must have felt the fear she had. And more would, in the future.

God... this place was dirty, she thought, looking around at the white walls. Dirty with lies both spoken and left to lie intrinsic in the hearts of the females who breathed the still air.

There was an old saying among the Chosen, the sort of ancient stanza that one never knew when one had first heard it. Rightful is the cause of our faith, serene be our countenance of duty, nothing shall harm we the believers, for purity is our strength and our virtue, the parent to guide our child.

There was a wild roar from the bath.

Phury screaming.

Cormia wheeled around and raced into the other room.

She found him naked in the stream, rearing back, his fists clenched, his chest craning upward, his spine straining. Except he wasn't screaming. He was laughing.

His head came around, and when he saw her he dropped his arms, but didn't stop his laughter. "Sorry..." As more of the wild joy bubbled up out of him, he tried to keep it in, but he couldn't. "You must think I'm crazy."

"No..." She thought he was beautiful, his golden skin slick from the water, his hair falling in thick ringlets down his back. "What's funny?"

"Pass me a towel?"

She handed him a bolt of cloth, and didn't look away as he emerged from the stream.

"You ever hear of The Wizard of Oz?" he said.

"Is it a story?"

"Guess not." He secured the wrap by tucking it into itself. "Maybe someday I'll show you the movie. But that's what I was laughing at. I got it wrong. It wasn't an all-powerful Ring-wraith in my head. It was the Wizard from Oz, nothing but a frail old man. I only thought he was terrifying and stronger than I am."

"Wizard?"

He tapped his temple. "Voice in my head. Bad one. The one I smoked to get away from. I thought he was this huge, overwhelming Ring-wraith. He wasn't. He isn't."

It was impossible not to join in Phury's happiness, and as she smiled at him, a sudden warmth suffused her from heart to soul.

"Yeah, it was a big, loud voice that is nothing special." His palm went to his upper arm, and he rubbed at his skin as if it had a rash - except there was nothing that she could see marring its smooth perfection. "Big... loud..."

Phury's stare abruptly changed as he looked at her. And she knew the cause. Heat flared in his eyes as his sex thickened at his hips.

"Sorry," he said, reaching down for another long cloth and holding it in front of himself.

"Did you lay with her?" Cormia blurted.

"Layla? No. I got as far as the vestibule when I decided I couldn't go through with it." He shook his head. "It's just not going to happen. I can't be with anyone but you. The question is what to do now - and for better or worse I think I know the answer. I believe that all this" - he motioned his hand around, as if encompassing everything in and about the Sanctuary - "this can't go on any longer. This system, this way of life, it's not working. You're right, it's not just about us, it's about everyone. It's not working for anyone."

As his words sank in, she thought of the place in the race she had been born into. Thought of the white rolling lawns and the white buildings and the white robes.

Phury shook his head. "There used to be two hundred Chosen, right? Back when there were thirty or forty Brothers, right?" When she nodded, he stared down into the rushing water of the stream. "And now how many are left? You know, it's not just the Lessening Society that's killing us. It's these damn rules we live under. I mean, come on. The Chosen aren't protected here, they're imprisoned. And they're mistreated. If you hadn't been attracted to me, it wouldn't have mattered. You still would have had to have sex with me, and that's cruel. You and the sisters are trapped here, serving a tradition I wonder how many of you actually believe in. Life as a Chosen... it's not about choice. None of you have any. Take your own case - you don't want to be here. You came back because you had no options, didn't you?"