J. Ward - Lover Enshrined

When he’d finally gotten his father into the house, Ahgony ’s eyes had opened, and he’d slapped Phury across the face with a hand as big as a frying pan.

I’d meant to die there, you idiot. There had been a beat of silence; then his father had burst into tears and grabbed him and held him and promised never to try and kill himself again.

Except there had been a next time. And a next time. And a next time. Always with the same exchange at the end.

Phury had done the saving, because he’d been determined that Zsadist would come home to a father.

The wizard smiled. And yet that wasn’t what happened, was it, mate. Your father died anyway, and Zsadist never knew him.

Good thing you took up smoking so that Z got to experience the family legacy firsthand after all.

Phury frowned and looked through the double doors of the bathroom to the toilet. Closing his fist around the bag of red smoke, he started to get up, ready to do some serious flushing.

The wizard laughed. You won’t be able to do it. There’s no bloody way you can quit. You can’t even make it for four hours in the afternoon without getting panicked. Can you honestly imagine never having another smoke for the next seven hundred years of your life? Come on, mate, be sensible.

Phury sat back down on the bed.

Oh, look, he has a brain. What a shock.

His heart was killing him as he finished the lick and twist on the blunt in his hand and put the thing between his lips. Just as he got his lighter out, his phone went off across the room.

Intuition told him who it was, and when he fished the cell from his leathers, he was right. Zsadist. And the brother had called three times.

As he answered, he wished his blunt were already lit. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“I’ve just come back from the Other Side.”

“Okay, well, get your ass down here to the clinic. There was a fight in the locker room. John Matthew started it, we think, but Qhuinn finished it off by knifing Lash in the neck, and the kid’s already gone into cardiac arrest once. They say they’ve stabilized him, but no one knows what’s going to happen. I’ve just tried to call his parents again, but I’m getting voice mail, probably because of that gala. I want you here when they arrive.”

Wrath must not have told Z about the big boot that had been fired up Phury’s ass.

“Hello?” Zsadist snapped. “Phury? You got a problem with me?”

“No.” A quick flip of his lighter top and a stroke of his thumb and he had a flame. As he put the hand-rolled back to his mouth and leaned in, he braced himself. “I can’t come, though.”

“What do you mean, you can’t? My fucking shellan is pregnant and bed-bound, and I managed to get here. I need you as a rep for the training program and a member of the Brotherhood-”

“I can’t.”

“ Jesus Christ , I can hear you smoking up! Put down the fucking blunts and do your goddamned job!”

“I’m not a Brother anymore.”

Pure silence on the phone. Then his twin’s voice, low and almost inaudible. “What.”

It wasn’t a question. More like Z knew the answer, but was hoping for a miracle anyway.

Phury couldn’t give that to his twin. “Look… Wrath removed me from the Brotherhood. Last night. I assumed he’d told you.” Phury inhaled hard and let the smoke roll out from between his lips slow as molasses. He could just imagine what his twin looked like at the moment, RAZR clenched in a fist, eyes black from anger, distorted upper lip curled back.

The snarl that shot into his ear was so not a surprise. “Great. Well fucking done.”

The phone went dead.

Phury dialed Z back and got dumped into voice mail. Also not a surprise.

Shit.

He didn’t just want to smooth things over with Zsadist; he wanted to know what the hell had happened down in the training center. Was John all right? Was Qhuinn? Both of those boys were hot tempered, as all newly transitioned males were, but they had good hearts.

Lash must have done something awful.

Phury smoked his way through the blunt in record time. As he rolled another and lit up, he decided Rhage would hook him up with details. Hollywood was always the source-

The wizard shook his head. You do realize, mate, that Wrath wouldn’t appreciate you getting all into the Brotherhood ’s business. You’re just a houseguest here, you sodding bastard. Not family anymore.

Upstairs in the movie theater, Cormia settled back in a seat that was so comfortable it was as the water in the pool had been, all-encompassing, the palm of a gentle giant.

The lights dimmed and John came down to the front.

He typed something into his phone, then flashed her the screen: You ready?

When she nodded, the dim room was lit up by a massive picture and sound came from everywhere.

“Dearest Virgin!”

John reached over and put his hand on top of hers. After a moment, she calmed and focused properly on the screen, which was suffused in shades of blue. Images of humans appeared and disappeared, the males and females dancing together, their bodies pressing close, their hips gyrating to music.

English writing appeared in a pink color at intervals.

“This is the same as the television?” she said. “It works the same way?”

John nodded just as the English words Dirty Dancing appeared in pink.

Abruptly, there was a machine called a car going down a road through green hills. There were people in the car. A family of humans with a father, a mother, and two daughters.

A female voice came from all around the room: “It was the summer of 1963…”

When John pressed something into her hand, she could barely stand to look away from the screen long enough to see what it was. The thing turned out to be a bag, a small, dark brown bag that was open at the top. He made a motion to take something from it and put it in her mouth, so she dipped her hand in. Little multicolored rounds came out and she hesitated.

They were definitely not white. And even on this side she had eaten only white food, as was traditional.

But honestly, what was the harm?

She glanced around, even though she knew there was no one else in with them, and then, feeling as if she were breaking the law, she popped a few into her-

Dearest… Virgin… Scribe!

The taste made her tongue come alive in a way that made her think of blood. What was this food? Cormia looked at the bag. There were a pair of cartoon characters on the front that looked like the candy. M amp;M’s , the package read.

She needed to eat the whole bag. Right now. It didn’t matter that what was inside was not white.

As she had more and moaned, John laughed and handed her a tall drink that said Coke on the red container. Ice rattled inside, and there was a stick punched through the lid. He lifted his own and took a draw on the stick. She did the same and then went back to her bag of magic and the screen.

A bunch of people were now lined up at the edge of a lake, trying to follow the lead of a pretty blond female as she moved to the right, then the left. The young female, Baby, the one who’d been doing the talking, struggled to get her body going where everyone else’s was.

Cormia turned to ask John a question and saw that he was looking at his phone and frowning as if disappointed.

Something had happened earlier in the evening. Something bad. John was far more grim then she’d ever seen him, but he was also incredibly reserved. Though she wanted to help in any way possible, she wasn’t going to press him.

As someone who kept many things to herself, she understood the importance of privacy.