Page 15 (1/2)
Back at the brotherhood&039;s ain John Matthew had been due to coo to watch a thew had been due to co had gone wrong
Pacing around a little ht, way too crowded, even though it had no new furniture and she was all alone
Dearest Virgin Scribe, she had too y
It was the Pri, unsatisfied urgency
She stopped by the , put her fingertips to her lips, and remembered the taste of hilorious ecstasy But why had he stopped? That question had been swirling in her head Why had he gone no further? Yes, thewas on his terth of the race, the ruler of the Chosen, free to ignore any and all at his will
The only answer she had s for Bella? Had he believed that he was betraying the one he loved?
It was hard to knoas worse: hi with none of the out at the night, she was sure she was going to go crazy if she stayed in her rooht her eye The gentle waving motion re a peaceful respite from all that was on her mind
Cormia was at her door and out in the hall before she knew she&039;d left her bedroo quickly and silently in her bare feet, she took the grand staircase down to the foyer and crossed the mosaic floor In the billiards rooht before and stepped free of the house
Standing on the cool stones of the terrace, she let her senses reach into the darkness and ran her eyes dohat she could see of the e of the property There see the flowers and trees of the garden except the thick night air
She glanced back up at the lowed in leaded s, and she could see doggenaround There were plenty of folks close by should she need help
She closed the door ed across the terrace to the water
The pool was rectangular and ringed with the sa chairs lass tops Off to one side, there was a black contraption with a white tank Flowers in pots added color
Kneeling down, she ht, probably because the pool&039;s belly was lined in more of the black stone The way it was set up was not like the baths at ho in, and she suspected the depths were substantial You would not get trapped, however At regular intervals on the sides, there were curving handles that you could use to help yourself free of the water
Her toe went in first and then her whole foot, the pool&039;s surface rippling out froement
There were stairs over to the left, shallow steps that were clearly the way you went in She went to them, took off her robe, and walked naked into the pool
Her heart was pounding, but oh, the luxury of the water&039;s soft buffer She kept going forward until she was clothed in a gentle,embrace from breast to heel
How lovely it was
Instinct told her to push off with her feet, and she did, her body slipping forward in a weightless slice Sending her ar the wherever she chose¡ªfirst to the right, then to the left, then down, down, down to the end, where a thin board overhung the water
Finished with exploring, Cor and looked at the sky The twinkling lights above made her think of her place in the Chosen and of her duty to be one a many, a molecule that was part of a whole She and her sisters were indistinguishable within the grand tradition they served: just like this water, seamless and fluid, with no boundaries; just like the stars above, all the sa up at earth&039;s heaven, she had another one of those randohts, only this one wasn&039;t about house design or what someone wore or whether she liked a bit of food or didn&039;t
This one went straight to the core of her and marked her as a sinner and a heretic:
She did not want to be one of many
Not with the Primale Not to him
And not to herself
Across town, Qhuinn sat on his bed and stared down at the cell phone in his palm He&039;d typed out a text that was addressed to both Blay and John, and was just waiting to send the fucker
He&039;d been sitting here for what seemed like hours, but had probably just been one at the most After he&039;d taken a shower to wash Lash&039;s blood off, he&039;d planted his ass down and braced hi
For so he could re for hiing theo to his cousin Sax&039;s in Connecticut for, like, h his transition and was a little wild, so naturally he was Qhuinn&039;s hero And naturally, the &039;rents didn&039;t approve of Sax or his parents¡ªere not all that interested in the glyies
Qhuinn had begged and pleaded and whined and gotten a whole lot of nothing for his efforts And then out of the blue his father had infor south for the weekend
Joy Total fucking joy He&039;d packed up three days early, and when he&039;d gotten in the back of the car after dark and been driven over the border into Connecticut, he&039;d felt like he was king of the world
Yeah, it had been nice of his parents
Course, then he&039;d learned why they&039;d done it
The adventure at Sax&039;s hadn&039;t worked out all that well He&039;d ended up drinking up a storht hours and had gotten so sick off a lethal coermeister and vodka Jell-O shots that Sax&039;s parents had insisted he head ho driven back by one of their doggen had been such the ride of sha to ask the chauffeur to stop so he could throw up sorace was that Sax&039;s folks had agreed not to tell his parents¡ªon the condition that he make a full confession when he was dropped at his front door Clearly, they didn&039;t want to deal with his en had pulled up in front of the house, Qhuinn had figured he was just going to say he felt ill, which was true, and that he&039;d asked to come back home, which was not true and never would be true
Except things didn&039;t go down like that
Every light in the place had been on, andfrom a tent set up out back Candles were lit in every ; people were ood thing we got you back in tien voice "Would be a shaotten out of the car with his bag and not noticed as the servant drove off
Of course, he&039;d thought His father was stepping down as leahdyre of the gly the Princeps Council This was the party to celebrate his work and toof the position to Lash&039;s father
And this hat the staff had been bustling around about for the last couple weeks He&039;d just figured his h another one of her anal, clean-everything periods, but no All the spic-n-span had been in anticipation of this night
Qhuinn had headed around to the back of the house, sticking to the shadows thrown by the hedges, his backpack dragging on the ground It had been so lovely in the tent Twinkling lights hung froements of beautiful flowers and candles Each and every chair had been trimmed out in satin bows, and there were runners down the aisles between the seating arrange was turquoise and yellow, reflecting his family&039;s two sides
He stared at the faces of the partygoers, recognizing each and every one of the with the leading fauests were dressed forowns, thebetween the grown-ups like fireflies and the advanced aged sitting on the sidelines s
He had stood there in the darkness and felt like part of the clutter in the house that had gotten shut away before coly object to be stashed in a cupboard so no one saw And not for the first tiers and press them into his eye sockets and ruin what had ruined hione quiet, and his father had stepped up to the microphone at the head of the parquet dance floor As all the guests assembled, Qhuinn&039;s mother and brother and sister ca in a way that had nothing to do with all the twinkling lights
"If I uage "I&039;d like to take a ht" Round of applause "The other members of the Council" Round of applause "And the rest of you who forlymera, as well as fill out mine bloodline" Round of applause "These past ten years as leahdyre have been challenging, but we&039;ve ress, and I know that my successor will take the reins with a fir&039;s recent ascension, it is even ht forith appropriate care Through the Council&039;s continuing work, we shall see our vision carried outward to the race without regard to meritless dissention from those who do not understand the issues as fully as we do"
There was resounding approval at this point, followed by a toast to Lash&039;s father Then Qhuinn&039;s dad had cleared his throat and glanced at the three people behind hihtly hoarse voice, he&039;d said, "It has been an honor to serve the glyh I will miss my station, I would be re more time for my family pleases me to no end Verily, they are the seat of htness and war unto my heart each day"
Qhuinn&039;s one all robin-breasted-proud, with hero worship filling his eyes His sister had clapped and ju with joy
In that moment, the rejection of him as a son and a brother and a family member had been so complete that no words spoken to hi sadness