Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood 6)

Three words came out of her mouth, three impossible words that changed everything: "Yes, I did."

Cormia lifted up her robing and let it fall back into place, thinking of that scroll that was on the floor back at the Temple of the Sequestered Scribes, the one with her sketches of buildings on it, the one she had nowhere to go with.

Now she was the one shaking her head. "I never knew how much I didn't know about myself until I went over to the far side. And I have to believe the others are the same. They must be... it can't just be me who has talents undiscovered or interests unrevealed." She paced around the bath. "And I don't think any one of us doesn't feel like a failure - if only because the pressures are so great that everything elevates to a level of supreme and total importance. One small error, either in a word written incorrectly or a note off-pitch in a chant or a stitch done wrong in a bolt of cloth, and you feel like the whole of the race is disappointed in you."

Suddenly, she couldn't stop the words falling from her lips. "You are so right. This is not working. The purpose of us is to serve the Scribe Virgin, but there's got to be a way of doing that while honoring ourselves." Cormia looked across at Phury. "If we are her Chosen children, doesn't that mean that she wants the best for us? Isn't that what parents want for their young? How is this..." She looked around at the all-pervasive, stifling white of the bath. "How is this the best? For most of us, it's more like a deep freeze than a life. We're in suspended animation even though we move. How... is this best for us?"

Phury's brows went down. "It's not. It's f**king not."

He wadded up the long cloth in his hands and slammed it to the marble floor. Then he grabbed the Primale medallion and tore it off his neck.

He was going to step down, she thought, both elated and disappointed for the future. He was going to step down -

Phury lifted up the heavy weight of gold, the medallion swinging on its length of leather, and she lost her breath completely. The expression on his face was one of purpose and power, not of irresponsibility. The light in his eyes was about ownership and leadership, not ducking or shirking. Standing before her, he was the whole landscape of the Sanctuary, all the buildings and the land and the air and the water: He was not of this world, but the world here itself.

After a lifetime of watching history unfold in a bowl of water, Cormia realized as she measured the medallion being held aloft that for the first time she was seeing history made right in front of her, in live time.

Nothing was ever going to be the same after this.

With that emblem of his exalted station waving back and forth under his fisted grip, Phury proclaimed in a hard, deep voice, "I am the strength of the race. I am the Primale. And so shall I rule!"

Chapter Forty-nine

On the outskirts of caldwell, in the temperate summer night, the Brotherhood was gathered together under a fat, heavenly moon - and wondering what the hell was going on. As the Escalade pulled up next to their tight group, John was amazed to be among them. Popping his seat belt free, he got out as Rhage shut the SUV down. Blay and Qhuinn fell in side by side, and together, the three of them walked over to the Brothers.

The meadow up ahead stretched out between a collar of pine trees, the grass marked by stands of goldenrod and the occasional frothy-mopped milkweed.

Vishous lit one of his hand-rolls, the scent of Turkish tobacco drifting over. "Fucker is late."

"Easy, V," Wrath said under his breath. "I will relieve your ass if you can't stay tight."

"Fucker. Not you, him."

"Butch, chain your boy, would you? Before I muzzle him with a goddamn pine tree."

The glow came from the east, starting out small as the flick of a lighter, then growing big as the sun. As it gathered in the forest, the light was filtered by trunks and branches, and John thought of the nuclear bomb test films he'd seen in school, the ones where the trees and everything were leveled flat after the great burst of illumination.

"Please tell me that shit isn't radioactive," Qhuinn said.

"Nah," Rhage replied. "But we're all going to have tans in the morning."

Butch put his arm up to shield his eyes. "And me without my Coppertone."

Except none of their weapons were drawn, John noted. Although they were tense as cats.

Suddenly, from out of the trees came a man... a glowing man, the source of the light. And there was something draped over his arms, a tarp or a rug or -

"Son of a bitch," Wrath breathed as the figure stopped twenty yards away.

The glowing man laughed. "Well, if it isn't good King Wrath and his band of merry-merry happy-happy. I swear you boys should do kiddie shows, you're so f**king cheery."

"Great," Rhage muttered, "his sense of humor's still intact."

Vishous exhaled. "Maybe I can try to beat it out of him."

"Use his own arm to do it, if you can - "

Wrath glared at the two of them, who shot him back a pair of who-us? stares.

The king shook his head and addressed the lit figure. "Been a while. Thank God. How the hell are you?"

Before the man could answer, V cursed. "If I have to hear all that Keanu Reeves, Matrix, 'I am Neo' kind of shit, my head's going to explode."

"Don't you mean Neon?" Butch shot back. " 'Cause he reminds me of the Citgo sign."

Wrath's head turned. "Shut the f**k up. All of you."

The glowing figure laughed. "So do you want your early Christmas present? Or you going to keep dissing my shit until I decide to take off."

"Christmas? I believe that's your tradition, not ours," Wrath said.

"So, is that a no? Because it's something you've been missing for a while." With that, the glow dissipated, like someone had unplugged the light source.

Standing in the clearing now was a man like any other... well, sort of like any other, given that he was draped in gold chains. There was someone in his arms, a bearded male with a streak of white running through his dark hair...

John's whole body tingled.

"Don't recognize your brother?" the figure said, then looked down at the male he held. "How soon they forget."

John was the one who broke ranks and ran through the long grass. Someone shouted his name, but he wasn't stopping for anyone or anything. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, the wind roaring in his ears, his blood pounding through his veins.

The meadow lashed against his jeans, and the cool August night slapped at his cheeks, and the straining fists his hands had cranked into beat at the air.

Father, he mouthed. Father!

John bounced to a halt and then covered his mouth with his palm. It was Tohrment, but it was a shrunken version of the Brother, as if he had been left out in the sun for months. His face was gaunt, the skin hanging loose from the bones, the eyes sunk deep into the skull. The beard was long and dark, the shaggy hair nothing but a black tangled nest except for the brilliant, snowy white stripe at the front. His clothes were the exact same ones he'd been wearing the night he had disappeared from the training center, all tattered and filthy.

John jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder.

"Easy, son," Wrath said. "Jesus Christ - "

"Actually it's Lassiter," the man said, "in case you forgot."

"Whatever. So what's the price?" the king asked, reaching out to take Tohr.

"I like how you assume there is one."

John wanted to be the person who took Tohrment back to the car, but his knees were knocking so badly he probably needed to be carried too.

"Isn't there a price?" As Wrath accepted his brother's body, the king shook his head. "Shit, he doesn't weigh a thing."

"He's been living off deer."

"How long have you known about him?"

"Found him two days ago."

"Price," Wrath said, still looking at his brother.

"Well, here's the thing." As the king cursed, the man, Lassiter, laughed. "It's not a price, though."

"What. Is. It."

"We're a two-for-one deal."

"Excuse me?"

"I come with him."

"The f**k you do."

The man lost any levity in his voice. "It's part of the arrangement, and believe me, I wouldn't choose this either. Fact is, he's my last chance, so yeah, I'm sorry, but I go with him. And if you say no, by the way, I'm going to level us all like that."