The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,57

both have a management problem with him. You think I like trusting you? If there were any other option, I’d be getting it in. But like you know firsthand, you got to deal with what life gives you. And I need that goddamn library.”

The s’Hisbe had a long and distinguished history as healers. And as Shadows were, like symphaths, an evolutionary offshoot of vampires, it would seem logical that this Arrest disease might have shown up at some point in his race’s past—and if it did, it would be in that library.

If they were lucky, the healers might have some kind of treatment—at which point, stop number two was going to be the s’Hisbe’s extensive pharmacology vault. The Shadows had been synthesizing drugs from plant and animal material for centuries, titrating all kinds of compounds to deal with diseases and disorders—and as with record keeping, the healers were meticulous about their trials and studies.

His people had brought rationalism into medicine long before humans ushered out mysticism and embraced scientific thinking.

Maybe there was hope. He had to find out.

“I do not want to rely on you,” iAm said roughly. “But I have to. Just like you are going to have to do this for me if you want any chance of getting Trez in line. He will be dead within the hour if that female dies.”

“Female?” When iAm said nothing more, s’Ex cursed. “The two of you are a huge pain in my ass, you know that.”

“I feel the same way about you and your Queen.”

“Ours. You’re a member of the s’Hisbe no matter where you choose to live.”

It was, of course, total bullshit about Trez going back to the Territory and falling in line with that astrological chart of his. That was never going to happen. But iAm had to use whatever leverage there was, and s’Ex was probably drunk enough not to look too closely at the motivation involved here.

And what do you know, it worked.

With a curse, the huge male threw off the covers and got to his feet—and for a moment, iAm checked out those tattoos. Christ. The executioner’s flesh was covered from throat to ankle, shoulder to wrist, with white markings, the only absent places his face and his cock and balls. Even iAm had to be impressed. The “ink” was actually a poison that discolored the skin. Most males prided themselves on withstanding the pain and sickness of a small symbol of their families on the shoulder or the name of a mate over the heart.

The fact that s’Ex had lived through all that was visible confirmation that he was a badass. Or a masochistic psycho.

Leaving the guy to get dressed, iAm went into the living area. As he approached the glass sliders, he looked out over the nightscape of Caldwell: the speckled illumination randomly spaced in the skyscrapers, the twin lanes of red taillights and white headlights wrapping around the curves of the Hudson River, a plane or two blinking high over the horizon.

In and out, he told himself. That was how this had to be.

And if there was a God, he’d be able to find something that would help Selena.

EIGHTEEN

“Turn here?” Layla asked as she leaned into her sedan’s steering wheel.

“Yes. Here.”

She put her directional signal on, and as the Mercedes let out a little chck, chck, chck, she remembered Qhuinn teaching her the where’s and when’s of all the driving business. Safe guess that he never would have thought she’d use the skills to take Xcor anywhere.

“Where are we going?” she asked. The headlights were showing little more than a narrow dirt lane with a lot of autumnal trees choked up tight against the “road.” A short stone wall seemed to keep the arboreal aggression back, although what little shoulder there was was overgrown with brambles and long grass.

“Not far. ’Tis but a few kilometers the now.”

Was this it for her? she wondered. Was this the night when her paranoia turned well-founded, when Xcor took control of the situation in a way that not only harmed her, but her young and Qhuinn—who were both total innocents in all this?

Dearest Virgin Scribe, she needed to get out of—

The headlights swung around and what she saw made her heart stop and her foot pop off the accelerator.

It was a little cottage, which, in spite of the overgrown landscaping, was utterly charming. The front door was painted red, and with its two bay windows and pair of dormers on the second floor, the place seemed