The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(99)

“Take me,” she ordered him. “Teach me.”





THIRTY


His brother’s tears had smelled like summer rain on still-warm asphalt.

As Wrath stalked his way back from the training center, every word that he and Tohr had shared, each syllable, and all the silences in between resonated like aches after a fight: Down to his bones, down to his marrow, he felt the remnants of the conversation they’d had by the pool.

One comment kept coming back to him.

They are as empty without a young as we are empty without them.

It was probably the only thing that really punched past all the fear: For him, waking up without Beth had been the worst kind of revelation—and if that was the way she felt without a baby, then it was going to be a cold-bed overtime for the both of them.

Look at him. He was in a life he hated, and he was one hallucination short of psychotic. He didn’t want that for her—and he knew all too well how being with the one you loved wasn’t enough if you were honestly, fundamentally unhappy.

The problem? The fact that he saw the light about where she was coming from didn’t change all the shit he was worried about. It just made him feel their incompatibility all the more viscerally.

George sneezed.

Wrath switched hands on the halter, leaned down, and patted the dog’s flank. “This tunnel always gets to your nose.”

God, what the f*ck was he going to do? Assuming she was going into her needing that was … but maybe he was wrong and that would save them. Although that was for how long? Sooner or later she was going to become fertile.

When George signaled it was time to stop and go up the shallow stairs, Wrath punched in the code, opened the way, and a moment later, they were in the foyer and rounding the base of the grand staircase. First Meal had already been served, the Brotherhood in there talking, the voices deep and loud. Pausing, he listened to the group and thought of that night Beth had transitioned. She’d come up from the basement at Darius’s, and he’d blown his brothers’ minds by taking her into his arms in front of them.

Made sense. Back then, they’d never seen him like that around a female.

And when he’d returned from the kitchen with the bacon and chocolate she’d needed to satisfy her post-transition cravings, the Brotherhood had been down on one knee around her, their heads bowed, their daggers nailed into the hardwood floor.

They had been acknowledging her as their future queen. Even if she hadn’t known it at the time.

“My lord?”

Wrath looked over his shoulder with a frown. “Hey, what’s doing there, counselor.”

As Saxton walked over, his scent was all about the not-good. “I must speak with you.”

Behind his wraparounds, Wrath closed his eyes. “I’m sure you do,” he muttered. “But I have to go to my Beth.”

“It’s urgent. I’ve just come from—”

“Look, no offense, but I’ve backseated my shellan for the last … shit, I don’t know how long. Tonight, she’s coming first. When I’m done, if there’s time, I’ll hitch up.” He angled his head downward. “George. Take me to Beth.”

“My lord—”

“As soon as I can, my man. But not a second sooner.”

With quick efficiency, he and his dog jogged up the grand staircase and headed for the door that led up to the third floor—

From out of nowhere, a lurching sensation made him stumble on his feet until he had to throw a hand out and catch the wall.

The weirdness passed as soon as it hit him, though, his balance righting itself, his shitkickers once again solidly on the floor.

He turned his head left and right, like he had when he’d still had some vision to go by. There was nothing coming at him, however. No one pushing him from behind. No mad gusts of wind blowing in from the sitting room at the other end of the hall. No toys to trip over on the floor.

Weird.

And whatever. He just wanted to get to his Beth—and he sensed that she was upstairs, in their private quarters.

Waiting for him.

As he started up the final staircase, he thought of his parents. From everything he had been told, they had wanted him badly. No discord on that issue. He had been prayed for and worked for and given over to them by fate, or destiny, or luck.

He wished he and his Beth were on the same page like that. He truly did.

As Anha heard her name from a great distance, she felt as though she were drowning.

Sucked down deep into unconsciousness, she knew herself to be summoned, and she wanted to respond to the call. It was her mate, her beloved, her hellren who was speaking unto her. And yet she could not reach him, her will tethered by some great weight that refused to let her go free.

No, not a weight. Nay, it was something introduced unto her body, something foreign to her nature.

Mayhap the young, she wondered with horror.

But ’twas not supposed to be as such. The bairn she had conceived within her womb was supposed to be a blessing. A stroke of luck, a gift from the Scribe Virgin to ensure the next King.

And yet it had been after her needing that she had taken to feeling the illness. She had hidden the symptoms and the worry as well as she could, shielding her beloved from the concern that had bloomed within her. She had lost that fight, however, had fallen to the floor at his side at the festival …