Sometime later, having exhausted himself in the wake of his nursemaid’s departure, Xcor fell to the cold, hard ground outside of the cottage. There was no more breath in his lungs to yell, no more energy to fight the chain that kept him a prisoner, no further urge to rail against being left behind.
As a numb resignation began to settle into his chest, it brought a cooling of his body. No … that was the wind. With an absence of exertion, his temperature was being siphoned by December’s frigid bluster, and he knew he had to take shelter or expire.
Gathering his cloak from the ground, he pulled its filthy weight around himself and permitted his body a moment to shiver. Then he got up on his feet and, stretching as far as he could against his tether, he looked around the corner of the thatched abode. The door was still open and he fancied that he could feel heat emanating from within—that was but a lie, however, a function of memory rather than reality, for the fire had long died down.
His eyes went to the horizon. Through spindled trunk and fluffy pine bough, he saw that dawn was arriving soon, its glow coalescing in the east to chase the darkness away. There would be little warmth to be anticipated from the sun’s ascendance—but no particular concern, either. As a pretrans, he did not have to be concerned about being consumed by daylight. Starvation and thirst, however, were worries that needs must be addressed if he were to survive. With no spare fat stores, and a parched throat, he was not going to last long, especially in winter’s climate.
Xcor attempted one last removal of the leather collar at his throat, and had to abort his efforts readily. He had tried so many times to get it free that there was blood flowing from the claw wounds he’d made and further pulling was too painful.
No one from the village was going to help him. No one had before—
A shifting shadow drew his eyes from the gaining light at the east to the thicket of raspberry bushes before him.
Whatever had moved froze as soon as he turned to it. But then there was a second shadow that came in from the other direction.
Wolves.
Dearest Virgin Scribe … the wolves had found him.
Heart beating fast, Xcor looked around in panic. He had been waiting for them to come unto him, and perhaps they were zeroing in on him now that he had finally fallen silent.
In vain, he searched for some form of weapon, something he could use to protect himself—
The rock that caught his eye was within reach if he leaned into his chain, but it weighed more than he could handle easily as he sought to lift the thing from the ground. Grunting, straining, using the last of his strength, he got it up—
Growling roiled low and quiet from the brambles, and he had the sense that the wolves were toying with him, giving him notice such that mayhap he would run and provide a bit of fun a’fore he was consumed as a morning meal.
Frantic with fear, he backed away—
A twig snapped under the weight of one of the animals. And then another.
No chance to get in to the door and close himself in, no way to climb upon the roof or …
Turning around, he looked up at the dirty window. As the wolves closed in, their chuffing aggression growing louder, Xcor gritted his teeth and hefted the rock o’er his head. With a surge of power that he did not know he possessed, he cast the stone as hard as he could at the single pane.
Glass shattered, and he reared back, putting his arm up to ward off the shards. There was no further time to think. Ignited by the impact, the predators hunting him lunged forth in attack, all yellow eyes and jagged teeth and huge, pouncing bodies.
Xcor jumped up as high as he could, grabbed onto the lower part of the sash, and propelled himself into the cottage—and just as he landed in a bony heap a mere foot away from his pallet, the wolves hit the outer wall with thumps and scratches, their snapping jaws gnawing at his escape hatch, their growls now of frustration.
The door was still wide open.
Pushing himself onto his knees, he scrambled across the bare floor, scattering dirty bowls and utensils—
His tether reached its end before he reached his goal and he was yanked back, his feet continuing forth even as the top half of him stopped dead. And that was when the pack leader appeared in the open jambs. The lupine hunter was the size of a small horse, and its teeth were like daggers interlocked. With its jowls curled back, and its frothing drool puddling at its forepaws, it made the other two seem like young pups.
Smiling. It was smiling at him.
Xcor glanced at the door that was angled into the cottage.
And then he moved so fast that he was unaware of making the decision to act. He flipped onto his front, punched his bleeding palms into the floor, and swung his legs in a circle … catching the open panels with nary an inch to spare.
The door slammed shut and the coarse latching mechanism clicked into place at the very second the massive wolf jumped forward into the air.
The animal hit the wood slats so hard they chattered against the crude iron bars that affixed them in place. But they held. They held firm.
Trembling in terror, Xcor tucked himself up, holding his knees to his chest. Bringing his bleeding hands to his head, he covered his ears as he began to cry, the sound of the wolves echoing loudly in his skull—
And that was when the ghost arrived.
She came unto him through the wall of the cottage, stepping out of that which was solid as readily as one would still air.
Xcor blinked through his tears, regarding the white robing and the long blond hair … and the face that was as beautiful as a dream.
In silence, the specter floated over to stand a’fore him, but he was not afraid. How could anything so lovely hurt him?
And then he realized that the wolves were no more. As if she had sent them away.
I am safe, he thought to himself. With her, and her alone, I am safe …
And the motherfucking Oscar goes to …?
As Vishous re-formed in the forest some distance away from Layla, he nearly lit up a hand-rolled. He had stayed downwind of her on each of the legs she had traveled, and she was so distracted that he doubted she’d notice any kind of flare from his lighter or the end of his cigarette … but nah.
They’d come this far—and they were so close to finishing this, weren’t they.
The Chosen was up ahead a good thirty yards or so, her white robing standing out in the forest like some kind of a beacon. And whaddaya know, something had caught her attention and she was progressing slowly toward whatever it was, her head tilted downward like she was focused on the forest floor.
He smiled to himself. Oldest trick in the book. Take a person you needed something from, get into their emotions through their brain, flip a bunch of levers—and find the motherfucking bastard you’re looking for because said female leads you right to him: Xcor escapes and disappears. Layla has her blood in his veins. She is feeling guilty, alone, and afraid, an alienated victim of circumstance. V’s job? Lend a supposedly sympathetic ear, offer some understanding in an apparently sincere fashion, and provide her with a blueprint whereby when she stepped onto that porch at the safe house, and caught an echo of herself somewhere out in the world, she followed her impulse to go and help the male she loved.
Had V known for sure that she was going to go and stand in the snow and sniff the air? Nope, but it was a pretty good guess considering how suffocated she’d seemed in that kitchen. Had he given her his phone in hopes that she’d slip it into her pocket and take it with her wherever she went so he could track its GPS on his other cell? Yup. Disappointed that she left it behind? Yup. Made up for it because, as a brother whose own female couldn’t feed him, he had taken Layla’s vein prior to her pregnancy to survive and he could track her if he concentrated? Yup. Followed her here?
#paid
No, he hadn’t been certain that Xcor was even alive. Just like he hadn’t been one hundred that the Chosen would actually go out to the guy if she sensed him. But some dice were worth rolling.
And it looked like his had come up double sixes.
Up ahead, Layla stopped. And slowly sank down to her knees.
Bingo.
Vishous dematerialized closer, taking cover behind a thick oak trunk. And as he focused on the female, he tucked his hand into his leather jacket and locked a grip on the butt of his forty.
She was leaning forward to what seemed like nothing but a snowbank—and V did the same at his tree … which didn’t really help him see any better—
It was not a snowbank. Nope. It fucking moved.
Hey, hey, what do you know: Underneath the frigid cover of snow, there was a barely alive naked male, the drifts having built up around him as the wind had blown against his tucked-in body.
Frowning, V looked up and measured the sky. How in the fuck had Xcor made it through the daylight? Then again, was heavy cloud cover any different from a set of velvet blackout drapes over a window? Any vampire in his right mind would have sought a roof and four walls to shelter through noontime in, but if you were near death already, you no doubt just lay where you landed and prayed to someone, anyone, that you lucked out.
And clearly, Xcor had.
But that Lotto-winning streak was now over, Vishous thought as he dematerialized right up close, ready to bust out and take control of this situation.
And that was when he was able to visualize Xcor’s face.
Gray. It was gray. But the fighter’s eyes were open and he was staring up at Layla as if she were an apparition … a miracle come unto him from the Other Side.
He was crying. Tears were rolling over his sallow skin, and as he reached up to touch her, snow fell from his bare forearm.
Layla captured his hand and brought it to her heart. In a strangled voice, she whispered, “You’re alive …”
Xcor tried to speak, but only a croak came out.
And that appeared to galvanize her. “I have to save you—”
“No.” That was spoken sharply. “Leave me. Go …”
“You’re going to die here.”
“Let me.” Layla tried to talk, but Xcor didn’t let her, his voice reedy and thin. “I am happy now … I shall take your memory with me … unto Dhunhd …”
Layla began to weep over the male, draping herself across his snow-covered form. “No, we can save you, I can save you …”
Whatever, V thought. Time to do his job.
What he was staring at now was just emotional bullshit, irrelevant to the true issues at hand—which hadn’t changed merely because the pair of them were doing a Kate and Leo after the frickin’ boat sank.
Man, thank fuck he was here to make this right, because any other of his brothers might have been swayed by this display. He was of tougher stuff than that, however, and no, it wasn’t that he was angry at Layla or feeling vindictive or even particularly hostile toward Xcor.
Hell, in the bastard’s current state, that would be like wasting time hating a block of dry ice.
No, he was just fixing Qhuinn’s fuckup back at the Tomb when Xcor had somehow overpowered the brother and then locked the fool in: V was going to send Layla back to the safe house, and then he was going to put Xcor down like a dog right here and now.
’Cuz, really, enough with this shit. One bullet through the brain and this waste of energy and focus was going to be over for the Brotherhood. Yeah, sure, they might be able to torture the fucker if they could get him back to viability again by yet another medical miracle. But the Band of Bastards were no dummies. They’d had thirty days to regroup, relocate, and distance themselves from their disappeared leader. Xcor wasn’t going to have any intel worth following up on, and as for Tohr and his right to kill the guy? That brother was already on the edge of madness. Taking out Xcor was just going to drive him further down, not elevate him from where he was at.
Besides, the war was heading to a crisis point. The Lessening Society was collapsing, but the Omega wasn’t going anywhere, not unless someone displaced him by force—and that was Butch’s job, at least according to the Dhestroyer Prophecy: After all these years of fighting, the end was near—and the Brotherhood needed to return to their core function of eliminating the true enemy of the race.
As opposed to getting sidetracked by this also-ran group of vigilantes who had been castrated anyway.
V was making an executive decision on this.
Time to make this all go away, true.
Raising the muzzle of his gun, he stepped out from behind the tree.