Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11) - J.R. Ward Page 0,21

across their cheeks. Human blood, that weak substitute, was not providing enough strength, and his bastards had been living off of it for too long. Back in the Old Country, there had been enough females to be of service when needs must. But e’er since they had come to the New World, they had had to make do.

If this was a trap, he was willing to fight the Brothers. Then again, he had been properly serviced—

Dearest Virgin Scribe, he could not think of that.

Xcor cleared his throat as pain in his chest made it hard to swallow. “Tell the female, first darkness is too early. We shall come instead at midnight unto her. And arrange for human feedings as soon as the night falls. If the Brothers are there, we shall engage with them from a position of relative strength.”

Throe’s eyebrows rose as if he were impressed with Xcor’s thinking. “Aye. I shall do just that.”

Xcor nodded and looked away.

In the silence, the events of the autumn crowded in between them, cooling the frigid December air even further.

That sacred Chosen was always with them both.

“The daylight is coming fast upon us,” Throe said in his perfect accent. “It is time to depart.”

Xcor glanced over to the east. The predawn glow had yet to arrive, but his second in command was correct. Soon…very soon…the deadly light of the sun would rain down, and no matter that it was at its weakest, with the winter solstice so recently passed.

“Call the soldiers off the field,” Xcor said. “And meet them at base.”

Throe typed in some combination of letters into a message that Xcor would not have been able to read. And then the soldier put his phone away with a frown.

“Are you not coming back?” Throe asked.

“Go.”

There was a long pause. And then the other soldier said softly, “Wither thou goest?”

In that moment, Xcor thought of each of his fighters. Zypher, the sexual conqueror. Balthazar, the thief. Syphon, the assassin. And the other one who had no name, and too many sins to count. So he was referred to as Syn.

Then he considered fair, loyal Throe, his second in command.

Perfectly reared, impeccably blooded Throe.

Handsome, comely Throe.

“Go now,” he told the male.

“And what of you?”

“Go.”

Throe hesitated, and in the pause, that night when Xcor had nearly died came back to them both. How could it not have?

“As you wish.”

His soldier dematerialized, leaving Xcor to stand against the wind alone. When he was sure he had been left, he sent his molecules likewise unto the cold gusts, venturing forth to the north, to a meadow that was covered in snow. Taking form, he stood at the base of its gentle hill, staring up at the beautiful tree standing proud and lovely at the apex.

He thought of the soft rise of a female’s breast, of her elegant collarbones, of the most sublime column of a pale neck—

As the wind buffeted his back, he closed his eyes and stepped forward, drawn to return to the spot where he had met his pyrocant.

Where was his Chosen?

Did she still live? Had the Brotherhood taken her life for her kind, generous, unknown gift to the enemy of her king?

Xcor knew he would have died without her blood. Gravely injured during the attempt on Wrath’s life, he had been on the verge of expiration when Throe had take him out to this field and summoned the Chosen and the deed had been done.

Throe had engineered it all. And, in the process, embedded a curse within Xcor’s dark heart.

His ambitions remained as they had been: He intended to wrestle the throne from the Blind King and reign o’er the vampires. There was, however, a critical weakness that dogged him.

That female.

She had been wrongly drawn into the conflict among dagger-handed males, an innocent who had been manipulated and then used.

He sorely worried over her welfare.

Indeed, he had but one regret in his lifetime of evil deeds. If he had not sent Throe into the arms of the Brotherhood, his second in command would not have crossed her path and fed from her himself. And except for that intersection, Throe would not have then later called upon her service, and she would not have come unto them in that field…and Xcor would never have looked into those compassionate eyes.

And lost a part of himself.

He was but a filthy, malformed, sireless cur, a traitor of the order and protection she rightfully lived under. He had not deserved her gift.

And neither had Throe—and not because he