J.R. Ward: Lover Reborn

Why some people were lucky and others were not seemed the cruelest kind of lottery.

When he finally pulled back, he mopped up his face and then signed, Will you come to Wellsie’s Fade ceremony?

There was no hesitation. “Absolutely.”

Tohr says he would like the two of us to do it together.

“Good, that’s good.”

At that moment, Vishous and Tohr came back out, and both Brothers immediately locked eyes on that case.

“You are fan-fucking-tastic,” V said with a kind of awe.

“Hold your ass-kissing—I haven’t opened it yet.” She held the thing out to the Brother. “Fingerprint lock. I need your help.”

V grinned in an evil way. “Far be it from me to not come to the aid of a lady. Let’s do this.”

As the pair of them took the gun case over to the kitchen counter, John pulled Tohr aside. Nodding at the velvet-covered urn, he signed, Do you need me any further tonight?

“No, son, you stay with your female—I’ve got to go out for a little bit, actually.” The guy stroked the velvet. “I’m going to put her in my room first, though.”

Yeah, okay. Cool.

Tohr hugged him hard and fast, and then went out the door into the tunnel.

From over in the kitchen, Xhex said, “How are you going to— Well, yeah, that’ll work.”

The smell of burning plastic had John twisting around. V had removed his glove and put his glowing forefinger up against the locking mechanism, acidic smoke rising from the contact in nasty curls of dark gray.

“My prints tend to do the job on just about anything,” the Brother said.

“Clearly,” Xhex murmured, her hands on her hips, her taut body bent forward. “You ever barbecue with that thing?”

“Only lessers —and they ain’t good eatin’.”

Staying back, John stared across the way and just… Well, he was just amazed at the female. Who the fuck did shit like this? Going into the B.o.B.’s secured hideout. Rifling through, looking for a rifle, natch. Coming back like she’d done nothing more incredible than order a Starbucks.

As if she sensed his eyes on her, she glanced over.

Opening himself up emotionally, so that there were no barriers at all, he revealed to her everything he was feeling—

“Got it,” V announced, retracting his glowing hand and regloving it.

Turning the gun case toward Xhex, the Brother said, “How’d you like to do the honors.”

Xhex refocused and cracked open what she had brought home, the mangled locking mechanism falling apart.

Inside, there were a pair of rifles nested in black egg-crate padding, along with long-range scopes.

“Bingo,” she breathed.

She’d done it, John thought. He was willing to bet his left nut that one of those guns was going to prove to be the rifle that shot Wrath.

She’d frickin’ done it.

From out of his gut, a massive groundswell of pride rose, warming his entire body, stretching his lips into a smile so wide his cheeks hurt. Staring at his female, and the mission-critical evidence she’d brought into the fold, he was willing to bet he threw shadows, he was beaming so much.

He was just so incredibly… proud.

“Pretty goddamn promising.” V closed up the case. “I’ve got the equipment we’re going to need at the clinic—along with that bullet. Let’s do this.”

“One minute.”

Xhex turned to John. Walked over to him. Took his face in her hands. As she stared up at him, he knew she was reading every bit of everything he had in him.

Rising up onto her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to his and spoke three words he hadn’t expected to hear again anytime soon.

“I love you.” She kissed him again. “I love you so much, my hellren .”

On the other side of the Hudson, down south from the Brotherhood compound, Autumn sat in the cabin in darkness, still occupying the same chair she’d settled into at the beginning of the night. She had long since willed the lights off, and the lack of illumination around her made the snow-covered landscape appear bright as day under the moon’s glow.

From her vantage point, the river was a wide, motionless expanse, even though it was iced in only at its shores.

From her vantage point, she had seen little of the view before her, having dwelled instead on the stages of her life.

Many hours had passed since Xhex had checked in with her, the moon shifting position, the black shadows thrown by the trees pinwheeling around over the white ground. In many ways, time had no meaning, but it did have an effect: The longer she spent mulling over things, the more clearly she saw herself, her earlier realizations no longer a shock, but instead something she steeped herself in.…

Something she began to change herself with—

At first, the dark slash that cut through the wintry vista seemed to be just another shadow cast by a tree trunk at the edge of the property. Except then it moved.

It was alive.

It was… not an animal.

It was a male.

A sudden shot of fear jerked her upright, but her instincts rushed forward and told her immediately who it was. Tohrment.

Tohrment was here.

Her first thought was to go down into the underground retreat and pretend she hadn’t seen him—and considering how he waited on the lawn, giving her plenty of time to identify him, he seemed to be offering her that out.

She was not going to run, however. She’d done enough variations of that to last for several lifetimes.

Rising from the chair, she went to the door that opened toward the river and unlocked it, pushing it wide. Crossing her arms over her chest against the cold, she tilted up her chin and waited for him to come forward.

And he did. With an expression of somber purpose, the Brother approached slowly, his heavy boots crunching through the crusty top layer of the snow. He still looked the same, still tall and broad, with his thick, white-striped hair, and his handsome, grave face marked with lines of distinction.

How odd of her to measure him for some kind of metamorphosis, she thought.

Clearly, she was ascribing her own transformation to anyone and everyone.

As he stopped in front of her, she cleared her throat, easing the tickle of the bitterly frigid air. She did not speak first, however. That was his due.

“Thank you for coming out,” he said.

She just nodded, unwilling to make whatever cursory apology he was about to offer easy on him. No, no more easing his way—or others’.

“I want to talk for a bit—if you have some time?”

Given the way the cold wind cut through her clothes, she nodded and stepped back inside. The interior of the cabin hadn’t seemed particularly warm before; now it was tropical. And cramped.

Sitting back down in her chair, she let him choose whether to stand or not. He picked the former, and did so directly before her.

Upon a deep, bracing breath, he spoke clearly and succinctly, as if he had mayhap practiced his words: “I can’t apologize enough for what I said to you. It was utterly unfair, and unforgivable. There’s no excuse for it, so I’m not going to try to explain it away. I just—”

“You know what?” she cut in evenly. “There’s a part of me that wants to tell you to go to hell… to take your apology, and your weary eyes, and your heavy heart, and never, ever get anywhere near me again.”

After a long pause, he nodded. “Okay. I get that. I can totally respect that—”

“But,” she cut him off again, “I’ve spent all night sitting in this chair, thinking about that candid soliloquy of yours. Actually, I’ve thought of little else since I left you.” Abruptly, she glanced out at the river. “You know, you must have buried me on a night like tonight, didn’t you.”