J. Ward - Lover Enshrined

“Blay, could you dim the highs? I’m going blind here.”

The night went dark and four car doors opened, with no interior light coming on.

Qhuinn slowly dropped his duffel to the ground. These were males of his species, not lessers . Which, considering he was unarmed, was only moderately reassuring.

The doors shut in a round-robin series of thunch . As another bolt of lightning shot through the sky, he got a gander at what he was facing: The four were dressed in black and had hoods covering their facial features.

Ah, yes. The traditional honor guard.

Qhuinn didn’t run as one by one they took out black clubs; he fell into his fighting stance. He was going to lose this one and lose it big, but damn it, he was going down with two sets of bloody knuckles and the teeth of these boys on the road.

The honor guard surrounded him in classic group-pound fashion, and he circled in place, waiting for the first strike. These were big guys, all his size, and their purpose was to exact physical reparation out of his body for what he’d done to Lash. As this was not a rythe , but repayment, he was allowed to fight back.

So Lash must have lived-

One of the clubs nailed him in the back of the knee, and it was like getting Tasered. He fought to keep his balance, knowing that if he got grounded he was fucked, but someone else took out his other leg with a ripping crack to the thigh muscle. As he landed on his hands and knees, clubs pummeled his shoulders and back, but he lunged and caught one of the guards by both ankles. The guy tried to step forward, but Qhuinn kept his prize, causing a mad shift in the male’s center of gravity. Fortunately, while the bastard went down like an anvil, he was kind enough to take one of his buddies with him.

Qhuinn needed a club. That was his only shot.

In an awesome surge, he made a grab for the weapon of the one he’d throw-rugged, but another club caught him square on the wrist. The pain was like a neon sign reading, Fuckin’ A , and his hand was instantly incapacitated, hanging limp and useless off his arm. Good thing he was an ambidextrous motherfucker. He grabbed the club with his leftie and nailed the one in front of him right in the knee.

Things got fun after that. Standing up was a no-go, so he was lethal quick on the ground, going after their legs and their ’nads. It was like being surrounded by snapping dogs as they rushed up and fell back, depending on where his swing was at.

He was actually thinking he could hold them off when one of them picked up a fist-sized rock and threw it at his head. He ducked just fine but caught the bitch on the rebound from the pavement-right in his temple. He went still for a heartbeat, and that was all it took. They crowded around him, the true beating getting started. Tucking into a ball, he put his arms over his head and protected his vital organs and his brain as best he could while he got good and pounded.

They weren’t supposed to kill him.

They really weren’t.

But one of them kicked him in the small of his back, nailing him directly in the kidneys. As he arched, because he couldn’t help it, he opened up a clean shot to the underside of his chin. Which was where the second kick nailed him.

His jaw wasn’t a good shock absorber-in fact, it was an amplifier, as his lower teeth banged into his upper ones and his skull sucked up the brunt of the impact. Stunned, he went limp, his arms loosening their hold, his defensive position weakening.

They weren’t supposed to kill him, because Lash was still alive if they were doing this. If the guy had died, he would have been taken in front of the king by his cousin’s parents, and they would have argued that he should be put to death even though he was technically a minor. No, this beat-down was just an eye for an eye for a bodily injury. Or at least, that was the way it was meant to be.

Trouble was, they kicked him over onto his back, and then one of them took a running start and planted both his combat boots in the center of Qhuinn’s chest.

His breath shot out of him. His heart stopped pumping. Everything came to a halt.

And that was when he heard his brother’s voice, “Don’t do that again. It’s against the rules.”

His brother… his brother …?

This wasn’t for Lash’s injury, then.

This was from his own family, to recoup the injury to their name.

Qhuinn gasped for air and got nowhere with the inhales as the four argued with one another. His brother’s voice was the loudest.

“That’s enough!”

“Fucking mutant bastard, he deserves to die!”

Qhuinn lost interest in the drama as it dawned on him that his heart still hadn’t started up again-and not even the panic he suddenly felt at the realization kick-started the damn thing. His eyesight went checkerboard and his hands and feet started to numb out.

That was when he saw the bright light.

Shit, the Fade was coming for him.

“Christ! Let’s go!”

Someone leaned down to him. “We’ll be back for you, asshole. Without your fucking brother next time.”

There was a scramble of boots, a lot of doors opening and closing, and then a screech as the car took off. When another approached close on its heels, he realized the lights on him were not the afterlife, but someone else driving down the road.

Lying in the heap he’d been left in, he had some passing thought that maybe he could pound on his own chest. Like pull a Casino Royale and do self-CPR.

He closed his eyes. Yeah, if only he could 007 it… Not a chance, though. He couldn’t get his lungs to work in more than shallow draws and his heart was still nothing but a loose knot of muscle in his chest. The fact that he had no pain anymore was even more worrisome.

The next white light that came to him was like the mist that hung over the road, a gentle and soft fog that bathed him, eased him. As he was illuminated, he went from being terrified to utterly unafraid. This, he knew, was not a car. This now was the Fade.

He felt himself levitate off the pavement and he soared, weightless, until he was at the head of a white corridor. Down at the far end, there was a door he felt compelled to go and open. He walked toward it with growing urgency, and the moment he reached it, he went for the knob. As his hand wrapped around the warm brass, he had some vague thought that once he walked through, that was it. He was in between as long as he didn’t open the door and step into what was on its other side.

Once he was in, there was no going back.

Just as he was about to twist his palm, he saw an image on the panels of the door. It was hazy and he paused, trying to figure out what it was.

Oh… God… he thought, when he realized what he was looking at.

Holy… shit.

Cormia was not in her bedroom or her bath.

As Phury went downstairs to the foyer to look for her, he came to a decision. If he ran into Rhage, he wasn’t going to ask the questions that were on his mind. The shit with the trainees and the lessers and the war was no longer his territory, and he’d better get used to it.

The answers about the Brothers and the trainees were not due to him anymore.

Cormia was his business. She and the Chosen. And it was about damn time he manned up.

Phury stopped short as he got to the dining room’s arch. “Bella?”

His twin’s shellan was sitting down on one of the chairs next to the sideboard, her head bent, her hand on her pregnant belly. She was breathing in little puffs.

She lifted her eyes to him and smiled weakly. “Hi.”

Oh, God. “Hi. Whatcha doing?”

“I’m fine.And before you say…I should be in bed… I’m headed there now…” Her eyes shifted over to the grand staircase. “It just seems a little far away at the moment.”