going to do? No, I don’t know where Lassiter is.”
There was some shuffling, as if they were gathering up supplies.
“No, they want both of us. She’s in labor. The young are coming and it’s too early.”
Layla!
Without thinking, Xcor’s lids popped open. The two fighters had turned away and were leaving, thank the Fates, so they caught him not.
“I’m terrified, too,” the one with the red hair said. “For her, for Qhuinn. And he’ll be fine. He’s going nowhere.”
The sounds of their footfalls decreased until there was a clanking, as if a gate or perhaps some chains were being moved. And then there was a repeat of all that.
Xcor blinked wildly. When he went to sit up, he found that, indeed, he was not going anywhere. There were steel bands at his wrists and ankles, and even around his waist. Moreover, he was too weak to do much more than hold his head up.
Craning around, he saw that he was surrounded by vessels of some description or another … they were jars, jars that were set upon shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. In a cave? And yet there was monitoring equipment keeping tabs on his bodily functions that were of complex and electronic nature.
“Layla…” he said in a voice that cracked. “Layla…”
Collapsing back against the bedding he was strapped down on, his will to escape and go to her was great though he knew not where she was or even where he was. His body had other plans, however. As night eclipsed the illumination of the daytime hours, darkness descended upon him once again.
Owning him.
His last thought was that the female he both loved and feared needed him, and he wanted to be there for her …
FIFTY-SIX
On the way out of TGI Friday’s, Rhage stopped by the hostess stand. Or rather, he was forced to come to a halt because the human woman who had seated him got in his path and wouldn’t move.
“Did you have a good meal?” she said as she pressed something in his hand. “That’s our customer service number. Give us a call and let us know how your meal was.”
The wink she gave him told him all the hell he needed to know and more about what a dial to those digits would get him—and it sure as shit wasn’t going to be a survey.
Not one without kneepads, at any rate.
He put the folded piece of paper back into her palm. “I’ll tell you right now. My wife and I had a wonderful time. So did our … er, friend. Thanks.”
As he pivoted away, he put his arm around Mary and drew her in close. Then he did the same to Bitty before thinking about it.
They left all together, squeezing through the double doors.
Outside, the night had gotten even colder, but his belly was more than full of food and he was really happy—and it was amazing how that kind of mood created its own warmth, independent of the weather.
Hell, it could have been sleeting and he would still have looked up to the dark sky and gone, Ahhhhhhhh.
As they were about to step off the curb and head for the car, a minivan pulled up and a mother and a daughter rushed over together to get in. Man, talk about a gene pool. The two of them had identical brown hair, the tween’s in a ponytail, Mom’s cut jaw-length. They were nearly the same height and both dressed in blue jeans and sweatshirts. Faces had the same bone structure, from the round cheeks and flat forehead to a stick-straight nose that he imagined some humans asked for in plastic surgery offices.
They were neither ugly nor beautiful. Not poor, but not rich. They were laughing, though, in exactly the same way. And that made them both spectacular.
Mom opened the door for the daughter and shooed her in. Then she leaned inside and quipped to the kid, “Ha, I so did win the bet! I totally did—and you’re doing the dishes all week long. That was the deal.”
“Mooooooom!”
The mother shut things on the protest and hopped into the front seat next to what had to be her husband or partner. “I told her, don’t bet against me. Not when it comes to Godfather quotes.”
The guy turned around to the daughter. “No way, I’m not touching this with a ten-foot pole. You know she’s memorized the movie, and yes, the correct wording is, ‘No Sicilian can refuse any request on his daughter’s wedding day.’”
The mother shut