Текст книги "The King"

Автор книги: J. R. Ward

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

FORTY-ONE

Beth just had to go and look at herself in the mirror.

Even though she was in a whole new territory of exhaustion, she simply had to get out of bed, stiff-walk across the thick carpet, and zero in on the glowing light over the sinks in the bathroom. As she went along, her body was a contradiction of sore, tense muscles and liquefied, loosey-goosey innards—and her brain apparently had voted to go with the latter: She couldn’t keep a thought in her head, fragments of the previous day and night burping to the forefront, but not having the traction to offer any concrete cognition.

Catching sight of her reflection, she was taken aback: It was as though she were looking at her own ghost—and not because she was pale. Actually, her skin was radiant and her eyes sparkling even though she was bone tired, like she’d gone to Sephora and had her makeup done professionally. Hell, even her hair belonged in a Pantene ad.

No, the specter part was all about the Lanz nightgown she’d put on: flannel, and big as a circus tent, the white-and-pale-blue pattern was like a cloud around her, billowing everywhere.

It made her think of Beetlejuice, the movie. Geena Davis and a lower-BMI, less angry Alec Baldwin stuck in the afterlife, prowling around their house in baggy sheets, about as scary as Casper.

Looking down, she bent over and picked up the drugging kit that had never been used. Rezipping it, she put it back where she’d found it, on the counter between their two sinks.

God, whether it was the aftermath or all the hormones still in her bloodstream, the whole experience was a dreamscape, as hazy a memory as it had been a wrenching, vivid experience.

But what had come before her needing was getting crystal clear. Like someone whose symptoms didn’t tie together until they received a diagnosis, she thought back over the previous four months … and strung together the mood swings, the yearning for a child, the cravings, the weight gain.

PMS, vampire style.

This whole getting-fertile thing had been on its way for a while. She just hadn’t strung together all the signs …

Refocusing on the mirror, she went in for a close-up. Nope, her features were all the same. She just felt as though they should be different.

Like with her transition.

Wrath had helped her through all that as well. And it was funny, as with the needing, she’d had vague weirdnesses for some time before her change had come, too: restlessness, appetite stuff, headaches in the sun.

She had to wonder if finding out she was pregnant was going to be as big as discovering she was a vampire.

Putting her hand on her lower belly, she thought … actually, it probably would be.

For some reason, she went back to waking up after her transition. First thing she’d done was go into the bathroom for the mirror. At least then she’d had fangs to show for all of it. Now, any changes that might be going on were on the inside.

At least her abdomen was still swollen. Although that was more likely just the weight she’d put on thanks to her Breyers diet.

Or she could be pregnant. Like, right now.

As she pictured the guy in the AT&T infinity x infinity commercial, she knew that even though Wrath had serviced her, she’d be crazy to think he’d magically turned a corner in the road and was suddenly going to be all happy-happy about starting a family.

Again, assuming she was pregnant.

Meeting the reflection of her own eyes, she wondered what the hell she’d put into motion. There were things in life you could undo.

This was not one of them—

Her stomach let out a noise like her heart was spelunking down to her butt. Glancing at the thing, she muttered, “Okay, people, let’s all get along.”

With her guts grinding on the food she’d thrown into them, she turned around and walked back for the bed.

Except that was not where she ended up.

Instead, she went into the closet, pulled on a blue bathrobe and shoved her socked feet into a pair of pink UGGs that Marissa had gotten all the females in the house as a joke.

The First Family’s quarters were so sumptuous that Beth didn’t spend a lot of time looking or thinking about the way they were turned out, and as usual, she was relieved as she left them. Yeah, sure, the place was lovely—if you were a sultan. For godsakes, it was like trying to sleep in Ali Baba’s cave, jewels twinkling on the walls and the ceiling—and not fake ones, either.

And no, she’d never gotten used to the gold toilet.

The whole thing was absurd—

Holy crap, she thought as she locked the vault back up behind her. How did anyone raise a kid in that environment?

A kid that was halfway normal, that is.

Heading down the stairs to the second floor, she realized there was another aspect of the whole child thing she hadn’t considered: She’d been so focused on getting one, she hadn’t considered having one in this kind of life.

They’d be a prince or a princess. The former the heir to the throne.

Oh, and P.S., how do you tell a kid his or her father had been shot in the throat by someone who wanted the crown?

God, why hadn’t she thought about any of this?

Which was Wrath’s whole point, wasn’t it.

Stepping out of the staircase, she went to Wrath’s office, only distantly aware of conversation rising up from the foyer.

She was a little surprised that he wasn’t behind the desk. She’d assumed when Fritz had brought up the food that her hellren had gotten sucked into work.

Stepping into the room, she stared at that huge wooden boat of a throne and then squinted, trying to imagine a son—or a daughter—sitting behind it. Because screw the Old Laws: If they had a little girl, Beth herself was going to make sure her hubs changed the rules.

If the British monarchy could do it, so could the vampires.

God … was she really thinking like this?

Rubbing her temples, she recognized that all of this was the tip of the iceberg Wrath had been crashing into—and meanwhile, she’d been Fisher Pricing it in her head, enjoying an internal debate on cloth diapers versus Pampers, what kind of video monitor to buy, and whether or not she liked the new crib styles at Pottery Barn.

Infant and baby stuff. The kind of things she’d watched Bella and Z wrestle with, and purchase, and use.

None of what had been on her radar had been about raising children into adulthood. Which was what Wrath had been focused on.

Suddenly, the pressures inherent in that great carved chair had never seemed so real: Although she had witnessed them firsthand, the true burden of it all didn’t really set in until this moment … as she pictured a child of hers sitting where her mate did every night.

She left the room fast.

There were two other places he would be—in the gym or maybe in the billiards room.

Oh, wait, no one was in there anymore.

At least until they got new furniture.

Man, what a mess this was.

Hiking up the nightgown and the robe, she hit the stairs at a trot—until the jiggling of her internal organs made her nauseous and she had to slow it down.

Crossing over the mosaic depiction of the apple tree, she figured she could ask whoever was in the dining room to—

The moment she came under the arches, she froze.

In spite of the fact that it was not mealtime, the entire household was at the table—and something awful had happened: Her family was like a collection of Madame Tussauds versions of themselves, the bunch of them arranged motionless in the chairs, with faces that had the right features, but expressions that read wrong.

And everyone’s eyes were on her.

As Wrath’s head lifted and angled her way, it was like her transition all over again, when she’d come out of her father’s basement and walked in to find the Brothers at the table. The difference, of course, was that back then there had been surprise in the room.

Now, it was something altogether different.

“Who died,” she demanded.

* * *

Back in the Old Country, Xcor and his Band of Bastards had stayed in a castle that appeared to have risen from the earth, as if the very stones of its construction had been rejected by the dirt, expelled like a tumor. Situated upon a scruffy, otherwise uninhabitable mount, the construction had glowered over the small hamlet of a medieval human town, the fortification not so much regal as resentful. And inside, it had been no less uningratiating: Ghosts of dead humans had wandered the many rooms and the great hall especially, knocking things off heavy tables, swinging cast-iron chandeliers, toppling stacks of burning logs from the fireplaces.

Indeed, they had fit in well there.

In the New World, however … they lived on a cul-de-sac, in a Colonial with a master suite the color of one’s lower intestine.

“We did it! Verily, we have the throne!”

“We shall rule fore’ermore!”

“Huzzah!”

As his fighters congratulated each other and proceeded unto the alcohol, he sat upon the sofa in the living room and missed that castle’s great hall. It seemed more fitting a space to play witness to the history they had set in motion and succeeded at.

Eight-foot ceilings and velour couches just did not make the grade for an event of this magnitude.

Besides, their castle … had formerly been the seat of the race’s First Family. Wrath’s dethronement announced at the very place he had been born and reared would have had such greater resonance.

Mayhap this weak, suburban locale was what was robbing him of the joy his fighters shared.

Except no, it was something else: This fight with Wrath was not over.

There was no way it ended here, like this. Too easy.

Reflecting upon his journey to this moment, Xcor could only shake his head. Before he had come unto the New World, flying across the ocean at night, things had seemed rather much in his control. Following the death of the Bloodletter, he had taken the reins of the soldiers and enjoyed centuries of conflict with the Lessening Society after the Brotherhood had come to Caldwell.

Eventually, however, after all their successes in the field, there had been no one save humans to chase after, and it was difficult to find much sport in those rats without tails.

He had wanted the throne as soon as he had landed because … it was there.

And perhaps he knew that unless he took the crown, he and the Band of Bastards would be hunted: Sooner or later, the Brotherhood would discover their presence and want to exert superiority over them.

Or eliminate them.

Through his efforts, though, those tables had been turned; he had gained power over them and their King. And that’s what was so strange. The sense that he was in some way out of control now was illogical—

As Balthazar let out a whooping laugh and Zypher poured more gin—or was it vodka?—Xcor’s temper lit.

“He has not responded yet,” Xcor cut in.

The group of them turned upon him with frowns.

“Who has not?” Throe asked as he lowered his glass. The others had red plastic cups or were drinking from the bottle.

“Wrath.”

Throe shook his head. “He cannae have one, as legally he is powerless. There is naught he can do.”

“Do not be naive. There will be an answer to our cannon shot. This is not over the now.”

He got to his feet, a restlessness drumming through his body, animating him with twitchy movements he struggled to keep within himself.

“With no disrespect intended,” Throe hedged, “I fail to see what he can do.”

Turning away from the joviality, Xcor said, “Mark my words, this is not over. The question is, on the basis of his reply, may we still sustain.”

“Whither goest thou,” Throe demanded.

“Out. And I shall not be followed, thank you.”

“Thank you” was rather more like “fuck you,” he thought as he dematerialized through the flimsy front door and reappeared upon the lawn.

There were no more houses in this part of the development, the only other structure a pump house for the municipal sewer system.

He tilted his head back and considered the sky. There was no light from the moon, a cloud cover that promised more snow blocking out the illumination.

Yes, in this moment of his triumph, he felt no great joy or sense of accomplishment. He had expected to be … well, happy would be one word for it, although that emotion was not in his lexicon. Instead, he was as empty as he had been when he’d arrived upon these shores and ill at ease to the point of anxiety—

Oh, fuck. He knew the cause of the worry.

It was his Chosen, of course.

Whilst his men enjoyed the illusion of victory, there was only one place he wanted to go—even though it would undoubtedly put his life at risk.

And go unto the north he did.

Traveling upon the frigid night air, his molecules scrambled in a wave to the foot of one of the mountains on the very farthest edge of Caldwell’s territory.

Standing amongst the pines and oaks, his combat boots planted in the crusty snow, he looked up even though he could not see the apex of the mount.

He could not, in fact, see much more than that which was three feet afore him.

The great smudging of the landscape ahead of him was not based on the weather or the terrain. It was magic. Some kind of sleight of hand that he could not understand, but could not question the existence of.

He had followed his Chosen here.

Back when she had gone unto the clinic, and he had been terrified that the Brothers had hurt her in retaliation for feeding him, he had waited for her to emerge from treatment, and followed her here. Indeed, she had been manipulated into providing him with her vein. Had saved his life not through true choice, but a conceit created by Throe—and not for the first time did he regret sending that fighter unto the Brotherhood. If he hadn’t sought to punish the male as such, neither one of them would have e’er met her.

And his pyrocant would have remained unknown to him.

For truth, lack of knowledge of that female’s existence, of her scent and the taste of her blood, of those shattering, stolen moments in that car, would have been such a boon to him.

Instead, it was as if he had taken a saw to his own leg and cut it off.

He had unwittingly volunteered to cross her path.

Staring at the edge of the mist, he braced himself and crossed into the barrier. His skin registered an instant warning, his inner instincts activated by the force field, teased by a rootless feeling of terror. Proceeding forth, his boots crunched through the ground cover, only a slight rise informing him that he was, in fact, beginning the ascent up the mountain.

In this moment of triumph, the only place he wanted to be was with the female he could not have.

FORTY-TWO

Generally speaking, if your husband refused to say a word until the pair of you were behind closed doors and alone?

Shit was not going well.

As Beth heard the double doors of the study shut behind them, she went over to the banked fire and put her palms out to the heat. She was suddenly feeling very cold … especially as Wrath did not go behind the desk and sit down on his father’s throne.

Her hellren settled into one of the two French-blue sofas, and the effeminate little thing let out a very unlady-like protest as his weight landed.

George settled at his master’s feet, the dog staring up as if he, too, were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Wrath just stared straight ahead even though he couldn’t see a thing, his brow tight behind the bridge of his wraparounds, his aura black as his hair.

Turning, she backed her butt into the heat source and crossed her arms. “You’re scaring me.”

Silence.

“Why aren’t you sitting behind the desk,” she said roughly.

“It’s not mine anymore.”

Beth felt all the blood leave her head. “What are you … I’m sorry, what?”

Wrath took off his sunglasses and braced an elbow on his knee as he rubbed his eyes. “The Council has removed me.”

“What the … fuck. How? What did they do?”

“It doesn’t matter. But they got me.” He laughed in a short burst. “Listen, at least now all that paperwork over there? Not my problem. They can govern themselves—have a ball infighting and arguing about stupid bullshit—”

“What were the grounds?”

“You know what’s really fucked-up? I hated doing the job, and yet now that it’s gone…” He rubbed his face again. “Anyway.”

“I don’t get it. You’re the King by blood and the race is ruled by the monarchy. How did they do this?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Beth narrowed her stare. “What are you not telling me?”

He burst up and walked around, having memorized the furniture layout long ago. “This’ll give us more time together. Not a bad thing, especially if you’re pregnant. And hell, if you have a young now, part of what I was all up in my head about is a non-issue—”

“I’m going to find out, you realize. If you don’t tell me, I’ll get someone who will.”

Wrath went over to the desk and ran his hands down the carved edges. Then he fingered the top of the throne, caressing the ins and outs of the wood.

“Wrath. Talk. Now.”

Even with her laying it down like that, it was a long while before he spoke. And when he finally did, his reply was nothing she expected … and as devastating as any piece of it all.

“They based it on … you.”

Okay, time to have a little sit-down.

Going to the same sofa he’d sat in, she all but fell into the soft cushions. “Why? How? What did I do?”

God, the idea that she’d cost him the throne because of something she’d—

“It’s not anything you’ve done. It’s … who you are.”

“That’s ridiculous! They don’t even know me.”

“You’re half-human.”

Well, that shut her up.

Wrath came over and knelt down in front of her. Taking her hands, he held them in his so-much-larger palms. “Listen to me, and you have to be clear on this—I love you, all of you, each and every part of you. You are perfect in every way—”

“Except for the fact that my mother was human.”

“That’s their fucking problem,” he snapped. “I don’t give a fuck about their goddamn prejudice. It doesn’t affect me at all—”

“Noooooot exactly true, is it. Because of me you’re not sitting on that throne anymore, right?”

“You know what? The shit’s not worth it to me. You’re what’s important. You’re what matters. Everything else—everyone else can fuck off.”

She glanced over at the throne. “You mean to tell me you don’t care that your father’s seat is no longer your own?”

“I hated the job.”

“That’s not my point.”

“The past is the past and my parents have been dead for centuries.”

She shook her head. “Does that really matter, though. I know why you stuck with it all—it’s for them. Don’t lie to me—more important, don’t lie to yourself.”

He sat back sharply. “I’m not.”

“Yeah, I think you are. I’ve watched you these past two years. I know what’s motivated you—and it would be a mistake to think all that commitment up and disappears because some third party says you can’t wear the crown anymore.”

“Number one, it’s not ‘some third party.’ It’s the Council. Number two, it’s a fait accompli. What’s done is done.”

“There must be something you can do. Some way around this—”

“Just drop it, Beth.” He got to his feet, his head turning in the vague direction of the throne. “Let’s move ahead—”

“We can’t.”

“Fuck that.”

“It’s one thing if you resigned, or abdicated or whatever the hell it’s called. That’s free choice. But you don’t do well taking orders from other people.” She tacked on dryly, “We’ve discussed this before.”

“Beth, you gotta let this go—”

“Think about the future, a year from now, two years from now … do you mean to say you’re not going to resent me for this?”

“Of course not! You can’t change who you are. It’s not your fault.”

“You say that at this moment, and I believe you—but a decade from now, when you look your son or daughter in the face, you think you won’t resent me a little for cheating them out of—”

“Getting shot at? Criticized by all comers? Placed on a pedestal you don’t want to be on? Hell, no! All that shit is part of the reason I didn’t want a goddamn kid!”

Beth shook her head again. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, locking his hands on his hips. “Do me a favor and don’t make up my own fucking mind for me, okay.”

“We can’t ignore the possibility—”

“I’m sorry, did I miss something? Did some fortune-teller slip you a crystal ball or some shit? Because no offense, you can’t look into the future any more than I can.”

“Exactly.”

Wrath threw up his hands and started in with the stomping. “You don’t get it, you just don’t fucking get it. This is done, it’s zipped up. The vote of no confidence passed—I’m castrated as a ruler, I have no power or authority. So even if there was anything I could do from a legal standpoint? I’m not the person who can change things anymore.”

“So who is?”

“A distant cousin of mine. Real peach of a guy.”

Her hellren’s tone suggested peach of a guy was a euphemism for total fucking douche.

Beth crossed her arms over her chest. “I want to see the proclamation or document—there had to be one, right? I don’t think they’d just leave you a voice mail.”

“Oh, my God, Beth, will you leave this alone—”

“Does Saxton have it? Or did they send it to Rehv—”

“Will you be fucking normal!” he hollered at her. “You just went through your needing! Most females are in bed for a week, why can’t that be you? You want a young, go lie goddamn down—that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m surprised with all that time you spent with goddamn Layla she didn’t tell you…”

As he went on and on, she knew this was just steam being released through vocabulary. But they didn’t have time for him to keep it up indefinitely.

Getting up from her seat, she walked over to him and—

Slap.

As Beth followed through with her palm, the sharp cracking sound faded in the room and her beloved mate shut up.

Staring at him calmly, she said, “And now that I have your attention and you’re not ranting and raving like a lunatic, I’d appreciate your telling me where I can find whatever they sent us.”

Wrath let his head fall back as if he were utterly exhausted. “Why are you doing this.”

Abruptly, she thought of what he’d said to her when her needing had hit and he’d found her trying to get at the drugs.

In a voice that cracked, she replied, “Because I love you. And you either don’t want to acknowledge it, or you can’t see that far into the future, but this really, totally matters to you. I’m telling you, Wrath, this is the kind of stuff that people never get over. And like I said, you want to quit? Fine. That’s your choice. But I’ll be good and goddamned if I’m going to let someone take it away from you.”

He brought his jaw back to level. “You don’t get it, leelan. It’s over.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

There was a long moment … and then he reached out and crushed her to him, holding her so tightly she could feel her very bones bend.

“I’m not strong enough for this,” he whispered in her ear—like he didn’t want anyone to hear that coming out of his mouth. Ever.

Running her hands up his powerful back, she held him just as hard. “But I am.”

* * *

It was forever.

Wrath waited in the hidden room that smelled like earth and spice for forever. In the blackness, his thoughts were loud as screams, vivid as lightning, indelible as an inscription in stone.

And just when he thought it would never happen, that he and his silent, stewing companion would be always in the dark, literally and figuratively, there was a rasping sound and the camouflaged panel began to slide back.

“No matter what occurs,” he whispered to the Brother, “you are not to interfere. I hereby command you thus, and hear me well.”

Tohrture’s response was no louder than a breath: “As you wish.”

The flickering light of a torch cast only shallow illumination, but it was more than enough for Wrath to identify the male: a cleric who was on the periphery of court … but whose father had been a healer for the race.

A keeper of herbs and potions.

The male was muttering under his breath. “…make more in a night’s time. Cannae do that which is impossible…”

As the male went for the worktable, Wrath’s body acted without benefit of his mind. Springing forth from the shadows in a sloppy fashion, he grabbed upon the thin upper arm, putting his strength into the effort without any finesse. In response, there was a high-pitched yelp of surprise, but then that torch swung about and Wrath nearly lost his hold as the open flames flashed close to his eyes.

“Shut the door!” Wrath called out as he attempted to catch the cleric around the waist.

Even though there was no comparison in their sizes, with Wrath twice as big, the cleric’s robes were slippery to hold on to and the thrashing of his prey difficult to control. And that torch was a danger as both sought to control it: With shadows racing across the walls and the cauldron and the table, Wrath found his hands getting burned as he attempted to—

And then the cape he’d used to hide his identity was afire.

As a searing heat flashed up his side and headed for his hair, he jumped back and fumbled for his dagger for to cut the fabric free—except the blade was under his cloak. All he could do was feel the outline of the hilt in its holster.

Leaping back, he went to pull the voluminous wieght fabric o’er his head, but had to retract his hand with a shout of pain. In the next heartbeat, flames were all over him, and though he tried to bat them away, it was like fending off a cloud of wasps. Flailing, blinded by agony and heat, great woofs! of sound bracketing his ears, he realized …

He was not going to emerge alive from this.

Breath short, heart pounding, soul screaming from the unfairness of it all, he wished he was a different male, a male of the sword, not of the pen, one who could dominate another with alacrity and confidence—

The deluge came from above and it was foul-smelling, foul-tasting—and so viscous, it was more wet wool blanket than liquid. With a hiss and fizzle, and a stench that made his eyes water even more, the flames were gone, the fire out, the mad flailing over.

A great clatter ensued as Tohrture tossed the weighty cauldron aside. “Drink not, my lord! Spit it out if you have partaken!”

Wrath bent over and expelled what had been caught between his lips. And when a rag was shoved into his hands, he was able to clear the dripping sting from his eyes.

Bracing his palms on his thighs, he breathed deeply in hopes that he would stop panting, his exertion making his head spin. Or mayhap that was the smoke. The pain. That mess that had been dumped upon him.

After a moment, he realized that the light had become steady and he glanced in the direction of the illumination. The Brother had captured control of the torch … as well as subdued the cleric, the male down and curled in on himself, his legs flopping about.

“How did you—” A round of coughing cut off Wrath’s inquiry. “What did you wrought unto him.”

“I cut the tendons behind his knees so that he cannot run.”

Wrath recoiled at the thought. But the utility was well apparent.

“He is yours to do with what you will, my lord,” Tohrture said, stepping back.

As Wrath looked over at the cleric, it was hard not to contrast the Brother’s calm demeanor and successful effort with his own frazzled, frothing mess of a self: For Tohrture, the effect had been but the work of a moment to accomplish.

Shuffling over to the compromised male, he forced the cleric onto his back, and there was a slice of satisfaction as those eyes peeled wider when Wrath’s identity became apparent.

“Whom do you serve,” Wrath demanded.

The reply was a sputter that went nowhere, and before Wrath knew what he was doing, he gripped the cleric’s dress and hauled him up off the packed dirt. Shaking him, that loose head flopping this way and that, Wrath was struck by a deep, abiding need to kill.

There was no time to examine the foreign emotion, however.

Dragging the male higher so they were nose-to-nose, Wrath growled, “If you tell me who else, I will spare your young shellan and your son. If I find out there is even one that you leave out? Your family will be bound hand and foot, hung in my great hall by the ankles, and left to expire over time.”

Whilst Tohrture smiled a bloodthirsty grin, the cleric’s face went e’er paler.

“My lord…” the male whispered. “Spare me as well—spare me and I will tell you all.”

Wrath stared into those pleading eyes, watching tears well and fall … and thought about his shellan, his father.

“Please, my lord, show me mercy—I beg of you—show me mercy!”

After a long moment, Wrath inclined his head once. “Proceed.”

In a shaky rush, names came forth, and Wrath recognized them all.

It was the entire composite of his advisers, starting with Ichan and ending before Abalone—who had already proved where his loyalties lay—

The inner vibration of violence began to ratchet up as soon as the final name was uttered and the cleric fell quiet—and the urge to kill would not be denied.

His hand was trembling as it fumbled for the hilt of his dagger, and he withdrew his weapon with herky-jerky motions, the angle wrong for removal, the blade getting caught in its sheath.

But he did manage to free it.

Letting the cleric fall back down to the earth, he clamped a hold on the male’s throat and began to squeeze.

“My lord…” The cleric started to struggle, clawing at Wrath’s wrist. “My lord, no! You vowed—”

Wrath lifted his arm high—

And realized he’d blocked a clear shot at the heart, the jugular, and the major organs with his hold.

“My loooooooooord—”

“This is for mine blood!”

He thrust all of his strength into the downward arc—and was meeting the horrified stare of the cleric as the razor point of the dagger pierced the male’s right eye and proceeded apace into the brain behind it, stopping only when the entirety of the blade was embedded within that skull.

The body beneath his own went into immediate spasms, arms and legs thrashing, the remaining eye rolling back so that only the white showed.

And then all went still except for some minor twitching of the facial muscles and the hands.

Wrath slumped, falling off the now-dead body.

As he regarded the sight of that dagger protruding from a male’s face, he was o’ercome with nausea and had to wrench around, brace his palms on the cool dirt, and vomit until his arms could no longer hold him up.

Rolling to the side, he laid his hot face on the inside of his muck-soaked arm.