As Layla waited for Wrath to speak of her punishment, she could not swallow for the fear and the shame and the regret. Then again, her mouth was so dry, there was nothing to carry down her throat.
Unable to stay still, but incapable of standing up from the bed, she looked away from the harsh figure of her King—only to catch sight of the bullet holes in the plaster high up in the far corner. Nausea rose from her gut, a vile, burning tide. With her anger spent, she couldn’t fathom her previous rage, but she had no doubt of where she had been emotionally. Where Qhuinn had been.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, she was going to throw up.
“I’m not going to have you killed,” Wrath announced.
Layla exhaled as she sagged. “Oh, thank you, my Lord—”
“But you can’t stay here.”
She straightened as her heart began to pound. “And what of the young?”
“We’ll work out some kind of visitation or—”
Bolting upright, she put her hands to her throat sure as if she were actually being strangled. “You cannot separate me from them!”
The King’s visage, so aristocratic, so commanding, offered compassion, but no quarter. “You can’t stay here anymore. Xcor is not going to live through what we’re going to do to him, but Throe has fed from you, and even though it’s been a while, it’s just not safe. We assumed the mhis was strong enough to insulate us, but clearly that’s faulty logic—and a security risk on a catastrophic scale.”
Layla stumbled across and fell to her knees at Wrath’s feet, clasping her hands in prayer. “I swear to you, I never meant for any of this to happen. Please, I beg of you, don’t take my young away from me. Anything else, I shall abide by, I swear!”
Out in the hall, she knew the Brothers had closed in once again and were listening at a discreet distance, and she didn’t care that they were seeing her fall apart. Wrath did, though. He shot a glare over his shoulder.
“Back off—we’re good in here,” he barked.
No, we’re not, she thought. We are not good at all herein.
There was a brief commotion and then there was no one out in the corridor that she could see—and Wrath refocused on her, his deep inhale flaring his nostrils. “I can smell your emotions. I know you’re not lying about what you say and what you believe. But there are times when intent is irrelevant and this is one of them. You need to leave now—”
“My young!”
“—or I shall have you removed.”
As tears fell, she wanted to wail, but there was naught to argue against. He was correct. Xcor had found her and followed her home, and who was to say Throe could not do the same? Even though she had fed that male but once, with her blood being so pure, the tracking effects could last years, decades, maybe longer. Why had she not considered this? Why had not they?
“Are you extinguishing my parental rights?” she said hoarsely.
The horror of losing her young was so overwhelming, she could barely put her fear into words. In all her worst nightmares, she had never thought it would come down to this. She had never once considered that the ramifications would be so devastating.
But then again, when one was going into a head-on collision, one could not possibly catalog with total accuracy the extent of the upcoming injuries—especially if you were in the midst of evasive maneuvers to try to stave off the accident itself.
Fate had placed her here.
Her own choices had, too.
There was no negotiating with either.
“No,” Wrath said abruptly. “I will not cut you off. Qhuinn will hate it, but that is not my problem.”
Layla closed her eyes, her tears squeezing out and tangling in her lashes. “Your mercy knows no bounds.”
“Bullshit. And now you got to go. I have some properties that are secure and I’ll arrange for transport. Start packing.”
“But who will stay with them?” She wheeled around to the bassinets. “My young … oh, dearest Virgin Scribe—”
“Qhuinn will. And then we’ll make arrangements for you to see them.” The King cleared his throat. “This is … how it must be. I have to think of the other young here—hell, right now, I’m wondering if I don’t need to evac every single person in this house. Jesus, why they haven’t attacked already, I don’t fucking know.”
As she imagined not sleeping beside Lyric and Rhamp, not feeding them through the day, not being the one to change them and soothe them and bathe them, she couldn’t breathe. “But only I know what they need, and I—”
“Say your goodbyes, and then Fritz will—”
“What the hell happened here?”
As Wrath pivoted back around, Layla sniffled and looked up. The Primale was standing in the broken doorway, Phury’s brows down low over his yellow eyes, his body strapped with weapons and smelling of the outdoors.
“Are you all right, Layla?” he asked with concern as he entered and stepped around Wrath. “Dearest Virgin Scribe, what—are those bullet holes? Who the hell discharged a weapon here! Are the kids okay?”
“Qhuinn was the one with the happy finger.” Wrath crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “The young are fine, but she needs to leave. Maybe you can help take her out of here?”
Phury jerked toward his leader, his multi-colored hair swinging on his broad shoulders. “What are you talking about?”
The King was efficient with the story about her and Xcor—and he didn’t use the words betrayal, treason, or punishable by death, but he didn’t have to. All of that and so much more was implied readily—although Wrath didn’t get through the whole story.
Phury cut him off before the end. “So that’s why he came!”
“Xcor was using her, yes—”
“No! Qhuinn! Fuck!” Phury put his fingers to his mouth and whistled so loudly that Layla had to cover her ears. Then he started talking fast. “Qhuinn just came to the sanctum sanctorum! He told me he was taking Lassiter’s place for the day and—shit, he said he was waiting for backup. He didn’t look right, so I figured on my way to the Great Camp, I’d stop by here and make sure that whoever Blay got to cover him was going to go there immediately—”
“No!” Layla shouted. “He can’t be alone with—”
“He’s going to kill Xcor,” Wrath snapped. “Goddamn it—”
Zsadist, Phury’s identical twin brother, slid into the doorway in the process of pulling a chest holster on. “What?”
Wrath cursed. “He’s going to fucking kill him. You two, go now! I’ll get Vishous!”
As the Brothers and the King rushed out, Layla hurried into the hall in their wake. Even though there was nothing she could do—nothing she should do—she was enveloped in the nightmare.
Just as they all were.
At the great gate of the cave, Xcor turned his back on Qhuinn’s limping, bleeding approach and yanked at the bars, putting all his instinct for survival into the pull. To naught effect.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Qhuinn said roughly. “With my bare fucking hands. And then I’m going to eat your heart while it’s still warm—”
Xcor went to turn around and prepare a defense against his attacker—when something flashed in the firelight and froze him where he stood. At first, he couldn’t believe what caught his attention. It was so unexpected that even the prospect of certain death wasn’t enough to distract him.
Closing his eyes, he shook his head and then popped his lids wide as if perhaps that would give him a more accurate view.
On the opposite side of where the gate’s hinges were … there was a lock. And sure as the sun set in the west, there appeared to be a key sticking out of the mechanism.
As the shuffling sound of Qhuinn’s uneven gait grew louder, Xcor reached out a shaking hand and wrenched the heavy piece of old metal one way—and then the other—
The tumbler cranked over and suddenly what had been solid as a rock had a remarkable give to it. Xcor pulled the gate open and stumbled out.
Qhuinn tweaked immediately to the colossal security breach, the Brother cursing and sprinting forward whilst holding his side. But Xcor snatched the key, slammed the weight shut, and discovered, yes—yes!—the mechanism was a double-sided lock.
As the Brother came into range and pitched his heavy body against the iron bars, Xcor shoved the key home, wrenched it in the correct direction and—
Locked Qhuinn inside the cave.
Xcor shoved himself back as the Brother railed against the iron bars and steel mesh, a snarling, cursing horror that was the Grim Reaper bitterly denied and then some.
Landing on his naked ass, Xcor trembled so hard his teeth clapped together.
“—going to kill you!” Qhuinn screamed as his hands clawed at the mesh until they began to bleed. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”
Xcor looked over his shoulder. Fresh air was coming from that direction, and he knew he had no time. Qhuinn most certainly would call for backup as soon as he stopped wrestling with his iron opponent.
Hobbling to his feet, he listed so badly he had to catch himself on the cave wall. “I shall leave the key here.”
His weak and shaky voice cut through the tirade, briefly quieting his opponent.
“I want no part of you or the Brotherhood.” He bent down and put the key on the dirt. “I wish you no harm, no ill will. I covet no longer the throne, nor do I desire for war. I leave this key as a testament to my intentions—and I swear on the female I love with all my soul that I shall never enter upon your premises here or any other place again.”
He started off, dragging a foot behind himself. But then he paused and looked back.
Meeting Qhuinn’s wild, mismatched stare, Xcor spoke with clarity. “I love Layla. And I never once claimed her body—nor shall I. I will never seek her out nor set mine eyes upon her again. You want me to die? Well, I have. For every night she lives with you and your young, I am being murdered for I am not in her presence. So your goal is well-served and accomplished.”
With that, he set upon his departure, praying that somehow he might be able to dematerialize. As his vision began to flicker, however, he had little faith that that would be the case.
His strength was failing him now that the bonded male in him was no longer triggered by a rival. Indeed, there seemed little cause to try to run as he was just going to fall back into the very hands he had been in, but there was naught to be done about that. If he was lucky, they would catch him in the wilderness and shoot him like a wild boar.
But luck had rarely been on his side.