The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,43

her lights and let the car roll to a stop. She never felt good about coming here, but after seeing the state Selena was in and knowing what it meant, her heart was even heavier than usual.

Hefting herself out from behind the wheel, she put her hands on her lower back and arched her chest out, trying to loosen the muscles that seemed perpetually engaged—

“You’re early.”

With a gasp, she wheeled around. Xcor was standing mere feet from her rear bumper, and she could tell instantly that something was off about him. It wasn’t that his harsh face looked any different; from the harelip that made him appear as if he were perpetually snarling, to his shrewd eyes and his heavy jaw, all the features were the same. And there wasn’t a change in his skull-trimmed hair, or his long black leather duster, or even his leathers or his combat boots or all the weapons she knew he had on him, but which he always carefully hid from her.

She was unable to pinpoint exactly what the clue was. But her instincts did not lie, and they were never wrong.

“Are you unwell?” she asked.

“Are you?”

She put her hand on her belly. “I am not.”

“What happened last night? Why didn’t you come?”

An image of Qhuinn pacing around the billiards room as she and Blay sat on the sofas came to mind. And then she pictured the three of them down in the training center’s exam room, standing to the side as Selena was assessed and more bad news was given.

“I had a family emergency,” she said. “Well, two, actually.”

“Of what sort?”

“Naught that concerns you.”

“There is little of you that does not concern me.”

Glancing up toward the tree that they usually sat under, Layla shivered. “I—”

“You are cold. We will get in your car.”

In his usual way, Xcor took charge, opening her door and standing aside, a quiet demand. For a moment, she hesitated. In spite of the noble impetus to keep the King and the Brothers safe, she knew in her marrow that no one would ever approve of these meetings, these words, this time spent with the sworn enemy of the Brotherhood.

The one who had plotted Wrath’s demise not once, but twice.

To sit with Xcor in the very car Qhuinn bought for her out of his own good heart was a violation of all the relationships she valued most.

Except she was protecting those she loved, she reminded herself.

“Get in,” Xcor told her.

And she did.

Closing her door, Xcor walked around to the passenger side, and as he knocked on the window and she unlocked his door, she thought of the false human mythology of vampires, where what was supposedly undead had to be invited in before they could cross a threshold.

So far from reality.

Xcor’s soldier-size body took up all the room in the sedan as he sat down in a seat that was overly big for her, even as pregnant as she was. As she inhaled to steady herself, she hated the fact that she liked the way he smelled—but she did. In fact, he always took pains to be clean whenever they met, his skin smelling of a spiced cologne that she desperately wanted to find unattractive.

This was all so much more palatable if she stayed focused on the fact that she was being coerced into the contact, the proximity, this closeness.

Because to be here with him upon freedom of will …

God, why was she so in her head tonight—

“Drive on,” he said. “Please.”

“What?” Her heart began to pound. “Why—”

“It’s no longer safe here. We have to meet in another place.”

“Why?” The reality of how little she knew and trusted him made her realize exactly how isolated they were. “What’s changed?”

He looked over at her. “Please. For your safety. I shall never harm you—you must know that—and thus I say it is not safe for us here anymore.”

She held his eyes for a long moment. “Where shall we go?”

“I have secured another location. Head west. Please.”

When she didn’t move, he put his hand over hers and squeezed. “This is not safe.”

As he released his hold, his eyes never wavered from hers. And a moment later, she watched from a vast distance as she reached forward and hit the ignition button to start the engine. “All right.”

As she put the car in drive, a subtle binging noise started up. “Your seat belt,” she said. “You need to put it on.”

He complied without comment, stretching the belt far, far out to extend over his