The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,64

his head to the side and bared his fangs. Sinking his sharp canines into his bulging shoulder muscle, he bit down through his shirt, his face wincing as if in erotic agony.

And then his hips punched forward toward the flames, over and over again as he climaxed.

Backing off, she—

—tripped over a root and fell into nothing but air. Between her big belly and her vital distraction, she tried to twist around and catch herself, throwing out her own hand to prevent herself from hitting the ground hard. Terrified for the safety of her young, she landed in a sprawl, her hip taking the brunt of the impact, her arm getting pinned.

The agony was instant and overwhelming, a sudden surge of nausea making her heave.

Groaning, she stayed perfectly still. “Okay, okay … you’re okay…”

She really had to get out of here now.

Struggling to her feet, she weaved her way over to the car while holding her arm against her body. When it came time to open the driver’s side door, she had to brace the injury on the back window so she had a free hand, and she needed to catch her breath after she was behind the wheel.

Getting the Mercedes started and then turned around nearly made her faint, but she eventually made her way down the lane and out, out, out to the main road.

It was then that she realized that without Xcor’s direction, she had no idea how to get home.

Tears of frustration pooled in her eyes and she envied Xcor’s ability to punch something. If she could have, she would’ve.

But she’d already broken her arm.

Busted knuckles she did not need.

TWENTY

iAm followed s’Ex’s instructions to the letter, waiting a good hour and a half before dematerializing from the condo at the Commodore to the outskirts of the Territory of the s’Hisbe. When he resumed form in the forest, he tracked in about three hundred yards to the river that made a curl around a granite rock formation in the shape of that human president Lincoln’s head.

He found the garb where the executioner had told him to expect it, tucked under the cleft chin of the makeshift face. As he shed his clothes and donned the traditional farshi dress of an unmated servant male from the lower classes, he was surprised to find he felt utterly vulnerable under the loose gray garment.

Of course he kept his dagger and his gun on his body: Relying on s’Ex was a had-to in this situation, but he didn’t trust the motherfucker farther than he could throw the guy.

The Territory was north of Caldwell, on the transitional lands between the peaks of the Adirondack Park and the flat area around Plattsburg. Masquerading as an artists’ colony, the two-thousand-square-acre property was bordered by a substantial concrete wall that was as tall and stout as an oak all the way around. The few humans in the communities around the parcel were long used to the presence of the “artists” and seemed to take a perverse pleasure in protecting the sanctity of the property and the “art” that was being done in their midst.

Which worked for the s’Hisbe.

The irony, of course, was that a mere twenty miles farther north, on the far side of a mountain? The symphaths had established their presence as well.

The proximity made sense. Neither subspecies was in a big hurry to fraternize with anyone else—the sin-eaters didn’t respect humans or other vampires any more than the Shadows did so the more isolated, the better. Accordingly, there had never been any envoys or diplomatic ties between the two nations. They were as separate as two strangers sitting side by side on a bus, asking nothing of each other except to be left alone.

He couldn’t believe he was going back in.

Leaving his own clothes where the ones provided had been stashed, he strode off. The leather thongs on his feet were more like gloves than shoes, and as he traveled over the rough ground cover, he felt the nuances of fallen sticks, random rocks, and uneven earth. The advantage was silence: Except for the occasional snap and pop, he was as quiet as the moonlight that fell from the heavens.

It was not long before he came up to the retaining wall. Rising high, the vast construction was streaked with dirt stains and random vines, and here and there, fallen limbs were cocked at odd angles against its flank.

He wasn’t fooled by the supposedly dilapidated appearance, however, and as he dematerialized up and over, he