J. Ward - Lover Enshrined

Her heart sang. For a split second, her heart was flying in her chest, soaring on gusts of joy. This was what she had wanted, this pledge, this reality-

Her brilliant happiness dimmed as quickly as it flared.

She thought of the images of the fallen, of the tortured, of the cruelly killed. And the fact that there were now how many fighting Brothers left? Four. Just four.

Centuries ago their numbers had been in the twenties and thirties.

Cormia glanced at the bowl in front of her and then at the quill she’d used. There was a very real possibility that at some point in the not-too-distant future there would be no more history to write.

“You need to go to her, to Layla,” she said in a voice that was flat as the parchment she was going to write on. “And you need to go to them.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Yes. I did. But this is bigger than you and me.” She stood up, because if she didn’t move around she was going to go mad. “I’m not a Chosen anymore, not in my heart. But I’ve seen what’s happening. The race is not going to survive like this.”

The Primale rubbed his eyes with a grimace. “I want you.”

“I know.”

“If I’m with the others, can you handle that? I’m not sure I can.”

“I’m afraid… I can’t. That’s why I chose this.” She swept her hand around the room. “Here I can have peace.”

“I can come see you, though. Can’t I?”

“You’re the Primale. You can do anything.” She paused by one of the candles. Staring into the flame, she asked, “Why did you do what you did?”

“About becoming the Primale? I-”

“No. The drug. In the bathroom. You almost died.” When there was no response, she looked over at him. “I want to know why.”

There was a long silence. And then he said, “I’m an addict.”

“An addict?”

“Yeah. I’m proof positive you can come from the aristocracy and have money and position and you can still be a junkie.” His yellow eyes were brutally clear. “And the truth is, I want to be a male of worth and tell you I can stop, but I just don’t know. I’ve made promises to myself and to others before. My words… they don’t hold water any longer with anyone, including myself.”

His word…

She thought of Layla waiting, the Chosen waiting, the whole of the race waiting. Waiting for him.

“Phury… my dearest beloved Phury, live up to one of your promises now. Go and take Layla and bind yourself to us. Give us history to write and to live and to prosper in. Be the strength of the race, as you should be.” As he opened his mouth, she held up her hand to stop him. “You know this is right. You know I am right.”

After a tense moment, Phury got to his feet. He was pale and unsteady as he straightened his robe. “I want you to know… if I’m with anyone else, it’s you in my heart.”

She closed her eyes. She had been taught all her life to share, but letting him go to another female was like throwing something precious on the ground and stomping it to dust.

“Go in peace,” she said softly. “And come back with the same. Even if I cannot be with you, I will never deny your company.”

Phury walked up the knoll to the Primale’s Temple with a foot that felt like it was wrapped in chains. Chains and barbed wire.

God, along with feeling weighed down, his real foot and ankle were burning like he’d stepped into a bucket of battery acid. He’d never thought he’d be glad he was missing half a leg, but at least he didn’t have to feel that shit in stereo.

The double doors to the Primale Temple were closed, and as he opened one side, he caught the scent of herbs and flowers. Stepping inside, he stood in the vestibule, sensing Layla in the main room beyond. He knew she would be as Cormia had been: lying on the bed with bolts of white cloth falling from the ceiling and pooling at her throat so that only her body was visible.

He stared at the white marble steps that led up to the great swath of drapery he would push aside to get at Layla. There were three steps. Three steps up, and then he would be in the open room.

Phury turned around and sat down on the shallow stairs.

His head felt odd, probably because he hadn’t had a blunt in like twelve hours. Odd… as in strangely clear. Christ, he was actually lucid. And the byproduct of the clarity was a new voice in his mind talking to him. A new and different one that wasn’t the wizard’s.

It was… his own voice. For the first time in so long, he almost didn’t know what it was.

This is wrong.

He winced and rubbed the calf he still had. The burn seemed to be traveling upward from his ankle, but at least when he massaged his muscle it seemed a little better.

This is wrong.

It was hard to disagree with himself. All his life he had lived for others. His twin. The Brotherhood. The race. And the whole Primale thing was right out of that playbook. He’d spent his whole life trying to be a hero, and now not only was he sacrificing himself, he was sacrificing Cormia as well.

He thought of her in that room, alone with those bowls and the quills and all that the parchment. Then he saw her up against his body, warm and alive.

Nope , his inner voice said. I’m not doing this.

“I’m not going to do this,” he said, rubbing at both his thighs.

“Your grace?” Layla’s voice came from the other side of the drapery.

He was about to answer her, when in a rush, the burning sensation swept thoughout his body, taking him over, eating him alive, consuming every inch of him. With shaking arms, he reached out to keep himself from falling backward as his stomach knotted.

A strangled sound bubbled up his throat, and then he had to work to draw his breath in.

“Your grace?” Layla’s voice was worried-and closer.

But there was no replying to her. Abruptly, his whole body turned into a snow globe, the inside of him shaking and sparking with pain.

What the…

DTs, he thought. It was the fucking DTs, because for the first time in, like, two hundred years his system was without red smoke.

He knew he had two choices: Poof it back to the other side, find a dealer other than Rehvenge, and keep the addict cord plugged into its current socket. Or bite the fucking bullet.

And stop.

The wizard blinked into his mind’s eye, the wraith standing at the forefront of the wasteland. Ah, mate, you can’t do it. You know you can’t. Why even try?

Phury took a moment to retch. Shit, he felt like he was going to die. He truly did.

All you have to do is go back to the world and get what you need. You can feel better with the strike of a lighter. That’s all. You can make this go away.

The shaking was so bad, Phury’s teeth started to knock together like ice cubes in a glass.

You can stop this. All you need to do is light up.

“You lied to me once already. You said I could get rid of you, and you are so not gone.”

Ah, mate, what’s a wee fib between friends?

Phury thought about the bathroom of that lavender bedroom and what he’d done there. “It’s everything.”

As the wizard started to get pissed and Phury’s body milk-shaked it something fierce, he stretched out his legs, lay down on the vestibule’s cool marble floor, and got ready for a whole lot of going-nowhere.

“Shit,” he said as he gave himself over to the withdrawal. “This is going to suck.”

John and qhuinn were a couple of yards behind Zsadist as the three of them approached a low-slung modern house. The place was number six on the list of yet-to -be-hit properties, and they stopped in the shadows of a couple of trees at the edge of the lawn.