Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8) - J.R. Ward Page 0,238

a well-intended gesture if you would be mated in it."

"Why is this so important to you."

A female voice interrupted them. "Because he was there at the very beginning."

Xhex wheeled around. In the doorway, standing between the jambs, was a black hooded figure and her first thought was that it was the Scribe Virgin . . . except there was no light glowing beneath the robes. Her second thought was that the grid of this female . . . was a blueprint of Xhex's own.

To the point where it was identical.

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The figure limped forward and Xhex found herself stumbling back and tripping on something. As she went down, she tried to catch her balance on the bed and missed, landing on her ass on the floor. Their grids were absolutely identical, not in terms of emotions, but the construction itself. Identical . . . as a mother's and daughter's would be. The female brought her hands up to her hood and slowly lifted that which covered her face.

"Jesus . . . Christ."

The exclamation came from Tohrment, and the snap of his voice shifted the female's iron gray eyes to him. She bowed in slow reverence.

"Tohrment . . . son of Hharm. One of my saviors." Xhex was vaguely aware of the Brother bracing himself on the trunk, as if his knees had voted to take a holiday on him. But what she was truly concerned with were the features that had been revealed. They were so like her own, more rounded, true . . . more delicate, yes . . . but the bone structure was the same.

"Mother . . ." Xhex breathed.

As the female's eyes swung back, she did the same search-andmemorize routine on Xhex's face. "Verily . . . you are beautiful." Xhex touched her own cheek. "How . . ."

Tohrment's voice was full of shock as he demanded, "Yes . . . how?" The female came forward a little farther with that limp--and Xhex instantly wanted to know who or what had harmed her: Although there was no sense to any of this--she'd been told her true mother had died in childbirth, for godsakes--she wanted no injury to ever befall this sad, lovely creature in the robes.

"The night of your birth, daughter mine, I . . . I did die. But when I sought entry unto the Fade, I was not permitted to pass. The Scribe Virgin, however, in all Her mercies, did allow me sequestering on the Far Side and therein I have e'er stayed, serving the Chosen as penance for my . . . death. I am still in service to a Chosen, and have come here to be on this side to care for her. But . . . in truth, I have arrived unto this plane to finally look upon you in person. I have long watched and prayed for you from the Sanctuary. . . . and now that I see you, I find . . . I am well aware that there is much you would need to consider and have explained and be angered over . .

. But if you should be of an open heart to me, I should like to forge . . . an affection. I can understand if it is too little, too late. . . ." Xhex blinked. As lame as it made her, it was all she could do . . . apart from absorb the female's incredible sorrow.

Eventually, in an attempt to understand something, anything, she tried 498

to pierce the mind of the robed figure before her, but didn't get far at all. Any specific thoughts or memories, like Tohrment's, were blocked from her perception. She had emotional context, but no detail. She knew, however, that the female told the truth.

And though there had been many times she had felt deserted by the one who had birthed her, she wasn't stupid. The circumstances of her conception, given who her sire had been, could not possibly have been joyous.

Horrific was more like it.

Xhex had always felt that she must have been a curse on the mother who had borne her, and so now, meeting the female face-to-face? She felt no acrimony toward the still, tense figure before her.

Xhex got to her feet, and as she stood, she sensed Tohrment's rank despair and disbelief, and knew some of that for herself. But she would not turn away from this opportunity . . . this gift that destiny had given her on the night of her mating.

She