The Beast (Black Dagger Brotherhood #14) - J. R. Ward Page 0,180

together.

He wasn’t much of a dancer himself.

Besides, you couldn’t waltz to Rick Ross or Kendrick Lamar.

Taking out a hand-rolled from the ass pocket of his leathers, he lit up and exhaled as he leaned a shoulder on the jamb and continued to watch.

You had to respect the two of them, he thought. Going after that kid, trying to make a family happen. Then again, Rhage and Mary were always on the same page, nothing ruffling their relationship, everything always perfect.

Which was what happened when you paired a levelheaded therapist with Brad Pitt and Channing Tatum’s love child: cosmic harmony.

God, in comparison, his and Jane’s relationship seemed kind of … clinical.

No dancing in the dark for them, not unless it was the horizontal kind—and when was the last time that had happened? Jane had been flat-out at the clinic, and he’d been dealing with all kinds of shit.

Okay, this was weird. Even though he was not one for envy—it, along with so many emotions, was just a waste of fucking time—he did find himself wishing he was a little closer to normal. Not that he apologized for his kink, or the fact that he was predominantly a head guy, not a heart guy. Still, when he stood like this on the outside looking in at what his brother had, he did feel broken in some unnamed way.

It wasn’t that he wanted to turn into the male version of Adele or some shit.

Yeah, file that under Good-bye.

But he did wish …

Oh, fuck, he didn’t know what the hell he was going on about.

Changing gears—before he ended up with a pair of lace panties on—he thought of Qhuinn’s daughter, of that tiny little thing that had come back from the dead.

How had Payne known what to do? Shit, if she hadn’t …

Vishous frowned as a memory of Mary surfaced and refused to sink back down. She had been talking about when she had saved Rhage’s life … when she had moved the dragon around to the center of his chest so his beast could somehow heal the gunshot wound.

I don’t know how I knew what to do, she had said to him. Or something to that effect.

He thought of himself confronting his mother as Rhage had been dying, demanding that she do something before he’d stormed off, all pissed and shit. And then he recalled the demand that he’d sent out as he’d worked on the lifeless body of Qhuinn’s daughter.

Shit.

Leaning down, he stamped out his half-smoked cigarette on the sole of his boot and tossed the butt in the trash.

Closing his eyes …

… he dematerialized up to the courtyard of his mother’s private quarters, re-forming in front of the colonnade.

Instantly, he knew there was something off.

Looking over his shoulder, he frowned. The fountain that had always run with crystal-clear water … was still. And when he walked over to its basin, he discovered that the thing was bone-dry, its pool empty sure as if it had never been full.

Then he glanced over at the tree that had held the songbirds.

They were gone. All of them.

As warning bells started to ring in his skull, he broke out into a run, crossing over to the entry to his mahmen’s private quarters. He pounded on the door, but not for long—once again he braced a shoulder and slammed himself into the panels.

This time, the thing broke free of all its hinges, falling flat as a dead body onto the stone floor beyond.

“Mother … fucker.”

Everything was gone. The bedding platform. The dressing table. The one chair. Even the double-locked cell where Payne had been kept behind drapes was exposed, the white fabric swaths that had hung on runners no longer in place.

Closing his eyes, he let his senses sweep the room, probing for clues. His mother had just been here. He knew it in his blood, some remnant of her energy source remaining in the space as a scent might linger after someone departed. But where had she gone?

He thought of the crowd down below in the training center. Amalya, the directrix, had been among them, standing with Cormia and Phury, and all the other Chosen who had come to pray for, and witness, the births.

The Scribe Virgin had waited until she was all alone before leaving.

She who knew all, saw all, had deliberately picked a moment of crisis down on Earth, when everyone who might have had reason to be up here was otherwise occupied.

Vishous bolted out of the private quarters. “Mother! Where the fuck