Chapter SEVENTEEN

As night settled in for the duration, Ehlena prayed that she wouldn't be late to work again. With the clock ticking, she waited upstairs in the kitchen with the CranRas and the crushed drugs. She'd been meticulous about cleanup: She'd put the spoon away. Double-checked all the surfaces. Even made sure the living room was ordered properly.

"Father?" she called down the stairs.

While she listened for sounds of shuffling movement and quiet words spoken without sense, she thought of the bizarre dream she'd had during the day. She'd imagined Rehv in the dark distance with his arms hanging to the sides. His magnificent, naked body had been spotlit as if on display, his muscles bunching up in a powerful show, his skin a warm, golden brown. His head had been angled down, his eyes closed as if in repose.

Captivated, summoned, she had walked across a cold stone floor to him, saying his name over and over again.

He had not responded. He had not lifted his head. He had not opened his eyes.

Fear had whistled through her veins and kick-started her heart, and she had rushed to him, but he had stayed ever distant, a goal never realized, a destination never reached.

She had awoken with tears in her eyes and a body that trembled. As the choking trauma had receded, the meaning was clear, but really, she didn't need her subconscious to tell her what she already knew.

Snapping herself out of it, she called down the stairs again, "Father?"

When there was no reply, Ehlena took her father's mug and walked down to the cellar. She went slowly, although not because she was afraid of spilling bloodred CranRas on her white uniform. Every once in a while her father didn't rouse himself and she had to make this descent, and each time she took the steps in this way, she wondered if it had finally happened, if her father had been gathered up unto the Fade.

She wasn't ready to lose him. Not yet, and no matter how hard things were.

Putting her head through the doorway into his room, she saw him seated at his hand-carved desk, shaggy stacks of papers and unlit candles surrounding him.

Thank you, Virgin Scribe.

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she worried over how the lack of light might damage her father's vision, but the candles were going to stay as they were, because there were no matches or lighters in the house. The last time he'd gotten his hands on a match had been back at their old place-and he'd lit the apartment on fire because his voices told him to.

That had been two years ago, and the reason he'd been put on meds.

"Father?"

He looked up from the mess and seemed surprised. "Daughter mine, how fare thee this night?"

Always the same question, and she always gave him the same answer in the Old Language. "Well, my father. And you?"

"As always I am charmed by your greeting. Ah, yes, the doggen has put out my juice. How good of her." Her father took the mug. "Wither goest thou?"

This led to their verbal pas de deux over him not approving of her working and her explaining that she did it because she liked to and him shrugging and not understanding the younger generation.

"Verily I am departing now," she said, "but Lusie shall arrive in a matter of moments."

"Yes, good, good. In truth, I am busy with my book, but I shall entertain her, as is proper, for a time. I must needs get about my work, though." He waved his hand around the physical representation of the chaos in his mind, his elegant sweep at odds with the ragged sheaves of paper that were filled with nonsense. "This needs tending to."

"Of course it does, Father."

He finished the CranRas and, as she went to take it from him, he frowned. "Surely the maid will do that?"

"I should like to help her. She has many duties." Wasn't that the truth. The doggen had to follow all the rules for objects and where they belonged, as well as do the shopping and earn the money and pay the bills and watch after him. The doggen was tired. The doggen was worn out.

But the mug absolutely had to go up to the kitchen.

"Father, please let go of the mug so that I may take it upstairs. The maid fears disturbing you, and I should like to spare her the concern."

For a moment, his eyes focused on her the way they used to. "You have a beautiful and generous heart. I am so proud to call you daughter."

Ehlena blinked fiercely and in a rough voice said, "Your pride means everything to me."

He reached out and squeezed her hand. "Go, my daughter. Go to this 'job' of yours, and come home to me with stories of your night."

Oh...God.

Just what he had said to her way back when she'd been in private school and her mother had been alive and they lived among the family and the glymera like people who mattered.

Even though she knew that by the time she got home likely as not he would have no memory of asking her his old lovely question, she smiled and ate up the tasty crumbs of the past.

"As always, Father mine. As always."

She left to the sound of shifting pages and the tink-tink-tink of a quill nib on the edge of a crystal ink bottle.

Upstairs, she rinsed out the mug, dried it, and put it in the cupboard, then made sure that everything in the refrigerator was where it needed to be. When she received the text that Lusie was on her way, she ducked out the door, locked it, and dematerialized to the clinic.

As she came in to work, she felt such a relief at being like everyone else, showing up on time, putting things in her locker, talking about nothing in particular before the shift started.

Except then Catya came up to her when she was at the coffeepot, all smiles. "So...last night was...? Come on, do tell."

Ehlena finished filling her mug and hid a wince behind a deep first draw that burned her tongue. "I think 'no-show' would cover it."

"No-show?"

"Yup. As in, he didn't show."

Catya shook her head. "Damn it."

"No, it's fine. Really. I mean, it's not like I had much invested." Yeah, only a whole fantasy about the future that included things like a hellren, a family of her own, a life worth living. Nothing much at all. "It's fine."

"You know, I was thinking last night. I have a cousin who is-"

"Thanks, but no. With my dad the way he is, I shouldn't be dating anyone." Ehlena frowned, recalling how quickly Rehv had agreed with her on that. Even though you could argue that it made him some kind of gentleman, it was hard not be a little annoyed.

"Caring for your father doesn't mean-"

"Hey, why don't I go man the front desk during the shift change?"

Catya stopped, but the female's light eyes were sending plenty of messages, most of which could be filed under, When Is This Girl Going to Wake Up?

"I'll head out there now," Ehlena said, turning away.

"It doesn't last forever."

"Of course not. Most of our shift is already here."

Catya shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant, and you know it. Life doesn't last forever. Your father has a serious psychological condition, and you're very good with him, but he could stay like this for a century."

"In which case I will still have about seven hundred years left. I'll be at the front. 'Scuse me."

Out in the reception, Ehlena took up res behind the computer and logged in. There was no one in the waiting room because the sun had only just gone down, but the patients would start coming in soon enough, and she couldn't wait for the distraction.

Reviewing Havers's schedule, she saw nothing unusual. Checkups. Patient procedures. Surgical follow-ups...

The exterior doorbell chimed, and she glanced at a security monitor. There was a walk-in outside, a male who was huddled into his coat against the cold wind.

She hit the intercom button and said, "Good evening. How may I help you?"

The face that looked up into the camera was one she had seen before. Three nights ago. Stephan's cousin.

"Alix?" she said. "It's Ehlena. How are-"

"I'm here to see if he's been brought in."

"He?"

"Stephan."

"I don't think so, but let me check while you come down." Ehlena hit the lock release and went to the in-house patient list on the computer. One by one she reviewed the names as she released the series of doors for Alix.

No mention of Stephan as an inpatient.

As Alix walked into the waiting room, her blood ran cold the instant she saw the male's face. The vicious dark circles under his gray eyes were about so much more than lack of sleep.

"Stephan didn't come home last night," he said.

Rehv lamented December, and not just because the cold in upstate New York was enough to make him want to go stuntman with the pyrotechnics just to get warm.

Night came early in December. The sun, that fucking work-shy, bone-idle pansy, gave up its efforts as early as four thirty in the afternoon, and that meant Rehv's first-Tuesday-of-the-month date-mares started early.

It was just ten o'clock as he entered Black Snake State Park after a two-hour drive north from Caldwell. Trez, who always dematerialized up, was no doubt already in position around the cabin, making himself scarce and preparing to act as a guard.

As well as a witness.

The fact that the guy who was arguably his best friend had to watch the whole thing was just part of the cluster-fuck carousel, an added ball crusher. The trouble was, after it was all over, Rehv needed help getting back home, and Trez was good at that kind of shit.

Xhex wanted the job, of course, but you couldn't trust her. Not around the princess. If he turned his back for one second the cabin would end up with a fresh new paint job on its walls-of the gruesome variety.

As always, Rehv parked in the dirt lot that was around the dark side of the mountain. There were no other cars, and he expected the trails fanning out from the lot's ass to be empty also.

Staring out of the windshield, everything was red and flat to his eyes and though he despised his half sister and hated looking at her and wished that this dirty fucking business of theirs would just stop, his body was not numb and cold, but alive and humming: In his slacks, his hard cock was primed and ready for what was going to happen.

Now if only he could make himself get out of the car.

He put his hand on the door release, but couldn't pull the lever back.

So quiet. Only the gentle, ticking sounds of the Bentley's cooling engine disturbed the silence.

For no good reason, he thought of Ehlena's lovely laughter, and that was what got him to open the door. With a quick lunge, he shoved his head out of the car just as his stomach clenched up tight as a fist and he nearly threw up. As the cold settled his nausea, he tried to get Ehlena out of his mind. She was so clean and honorable and kind that he couldn't bear even having her in his thoughts when he was about to do this.

Which was a surprise.

Protecting someone from the cruel world, from the deadly and dangerous, from the tainted, the obscene, and the revolting wasn't part of his hardwiring. But he'd taught himself to do just that when it came to the only three normal females in life. For the one who had borne him and the one he had raised as his own and the young his sister had recently birthed, he would level all manner of threats, kill with bare hands anything that would hurt them, seek out and destroy even the slightest menace.

And somehow the cozy conversation he'd had with Ehlena in the early hours had put her on that very, very short list.

Which meant he had to shut her out. Along with those other three.

He'd been fine living as a whore, because he exacted an expensive price out of the one he fucked, and besides, prostitution was nothing better than he deserved, considering the way his true father had forced his conception on his mother. But the buck stopped with him. He alone went into the cabin and made his body do what it did.

Those few normals in his life had to stay far, far away from this whole thing, and that meant wiping them out of his thoughts and his heart when he came up here. Later, after he'd recovered and showered and slept, then he could go back to remembering Ehlena's toffee-colored eyes and the way she smelled of cinnamon and how she had laughed in spite of herself when they talked. For now, he shut her and his mother and his sister and his beloved niece out of his front lobe, packing up every memory he had into a separate section of his brain and locking them down.

The princess always tried to get into his skull, and he didn't want her to know anything about those he cared for or about.

When a bitter gust nearly slammed the door on his head, Rehv drew his sable loosely around himself, got out, and locked the Bentley. As he walked to the trailhead, the ground beneath his Cole Haans was frozen, the dirt crunching under his soles, hard and resistant.

Technically the park was now closed for the season, a chain hanging across the widemouthed path that took you past the map of the mountain and the cabins that were for rent. The weather, rather than the Adirondack Park Service, was more likely to keep people away, though. After stepping over the links, he bypassed the sign-in sheet that hung on a clipboard even though no one was supposed to be using the trails. He never left his name.

Yeah, 'cuz human rangers really needed to know what was doing between two symphaths in one of those cabins. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

One good thing about December was that the forest was less claustrophobic in the winter months, its oaks and maples nothing but skinny trunks and branches that let in plenty of the starry night. All around them, the evergreens were having a ball, their fluffy boughs an arboreal fuck you to their now-naked brethren, payback for all the showy fall foliage the other trees had just sported.

Penetrating the tree line, he followed the main trail as it gradually narrowed. Smaller trails broke off on the left and the right, marked with rough wooden signs with names like Hobnob's Walk, Lightning Strike, Summit Long, and Summit Short. He kept on going straight, his breath leaving his lips in puffs, the sound of his loafers on the frozen ground seeming very loud. Overhead, the moon was brilliant, a knife-edged crescent that, with his symphath urges firmly not in check, was the color of his blackmailer's ruby eyes.

Trez made an appearance in the form of an icy breeze rolling down the trail.

"Hey, my man," Rehv said quietly.

Trez's voice floated into his head as the guy's Shadow form condensed into a shimmering wave. MAKE IT QUICK WITH HER. SOONER WE GET YOU WHAT YOU NEED AFTERWARD THE BETTER.

"It is what it is."

SOONER. BETTER.

"We'll see."

Trez cursed him and dissolved back into a cold gust of wind, shooting forward out of sight.

Truth was, as much as Rehv hated coming here, sometimes he didn't want to leave. He liked hurting the princess, and she was a good opponent. Smart, fast, cruel. She was the only outlet for his bad side, and, like a runner starved for a workout, he needed the exercise.

Plus, maybe it was like his arm: The festering felt good.

Rehv took the sixth left, walking on a footpath that was wide enough for only one, and soon enough, the cabin came into view. In the bright moonlight, its logs were a color of something like ros¨¦ wine.

As he got to the door, he reached forward with his left hand, and as he gripped the wooden toggle, he thought of Ehlena and how she had cared enough to call him about his arm.

For a brief, lapsing moment, the sound of her voice in his ear came back to him.

I don't understand why you're not taking care of yourself.

The door whipped out of his hold, opening so fast it slammed against the wall.

The princess stood in the center of the cabin, her brilliant red robes and the rubies at her throat and her bloodred eyes all the color of hatred. With her stark hair twisted up off her neck, and her pale skin, and the live albino scorpions she wore as earrings, she was an exquisite horror, a Kabuki doll constructed by an evil hand. And she was evil, her darkness coming at him in waves, emanating from the center of her chest even as nothing about her moved and her moonlike face remained unmarred by a frown.

Her voice, likewise, was slick as a blade. "No beach scene tonight in your mind. No, no beach this night."

Rehv covered Ehlena up quickly by picturing a glorious Bahaman stereotype, all sun and sea and sand. It was one he'd seen on TV years ago, a "getaway special," as the announcer had said, with people in swimsuits strolling hand in hand. Given its vividness, the image was the perfect jockstrap over his gray matter's 'nads.

"Who is she?"

"Who is who?" he said as he stepped inside.

The cabin was warm, thanks to her, a little trick of molecular agitation of the air that was enhanced by her being pissed off. The heat she generated was not cheery like that from a fire however-more like the kind of hot flash you got along with a case of the shits.

"Who is the female in your mind."

"Just a model from an ad on TV, my dearest bitch," he said as smoothly as she did. Without turning his back on her, he shut the door quietly. "Jealous?"

"To be jealous, I would have to be threatened. And that would be absurd." The princess smiled. "But I think you need to tell me who she is."

"That all you want to do? Talk?" Rehv deliberately let his coat fall open and cupped his hard cock and heavy sac. "Usually you want me for more than conversation."

"True enough. Your highest and best use is for what humans call...a dildo, is it not? A toy for a female with which to pleasure herself."

"Female is not necessarily the word I would use to describe you."

"Indeed. Beloved will do nicely."

She lifted a hideous hand to her chignon, her bony, triple-jointed fingers skipping over the careful construction, her wrist thinner than a handle on a wire whisk. Her body was no different: All symphaths were built like chess players, not quarterbacks, which followed their preference to battle with the mind, not the body. In their robing, they were neither male nor female, but rather a distilled version of both sexes, and this was why the princess wanted him as she did. She liked his body, his muscle, his obvious and brutal maleness, and she usually wanted to be physically restrained during sex-something she sure as shit wasn't getting at home. As far as he understood it, the symphath version of the act was no more than some mental posturing followed by two rubs and a gasp on the male's part. Plus he was willing to bet their uncle was hung like a hamster, and had balls the size of pencil erasers.

Not that he'd ever checked-but come on, the guy was not exactly a paragon of testosterone.

The princess moved around the cabin as if she were showing off her grace, but there was a purpose as she went from window to window and looked out.

Damn it to hell, always with the windows.

"Where is your watchdog tonight?" she said.

"I always come alone."

"You lie to your love."

"Why ever would I want anyone to see this?"

"Because I am beautiful." She stopped in front of the panes closest to the door. "He is over to the right, by the pine."

Rehv didn't need to lean to one side and look out to know she was right. Of course she could sense Trez; she just couldn't be exactly sure where or what he was.

Still, he said, "There is nothing but trees."

"Untrue."

"Afraid of shadows, Princess?"

As she looked over her shoulder, the albino scorpion hanging from her earlobe made eye contact with him as well. "Fear is not the issue. Disloyalty is. I do not abide by disloyalty."

"Unless you're practicing it, of course."

"Oh, I am quite faithful to you, my love. Except for our father's brother, as you know." She turned and lifted her shoulders to her full height. "My mate is the only one apart from you. And I come here alone."

"Your virtues abound, although as I've said, please take more into your bed. Take a hundred other males."

"None would compare to you."

Rehv wanted to throw up every time she paid him a false compliment, and she knew it. Which naturally was why she insisted on saying shit like that.

"Tell me," he said to change the subject, "since you brought up our uncle, how does the motherfucker fare?"

"He still believes you dead. So my half of our relationship remains honored."

Rehv put his hand in the pocket of his sable coat and took out the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cut rubies. He tossed the happy little packy onto the floor at the hem of her robe and removed his fur. His suit jacket and his loafers were next. Then it was his silk socks and his slacks and his shirt. No boxers to take off. Why bother.

Rehvenge stood before her fully erect, feet planted, breath easing in and out of his heavy chest. "And I'm ready to complete our transaction."

Her ruby eyes went down his body and stopped at his sex, her mouth parting, her split tongue running over her lower lip. The scorpions in her ears twirled their clawed limbs in anticipation, like they were responding to her sexual flush.

She pointed to the velvet bag. "Pick this up and give it to me properly."

"No."

"Pick it up."

"You like to bend over in front of me. Why should I rob you of your favorite hobby."

The princess tucked her hands into the long sleeves of her robe and came to him in the smooth manner of symphaths, all but floating over the wooden floor. As she approached, he held his ground, because he would be dead and decayed before he took a step back for the likes of her.

They stared at each other, and in the deep, vicious silence, he felt a terrible communion with her. They were like of like, and though he hated it, there was a relief in being his true self.

"Pick it-"

"No."

Her crossed arms unfurled and one of her six-fingered hands came tearing through the air at his face, the slap hard and sharp as her ruby eyes. Rehv refused to let his head kick back on impact while the cracking sound reverberated loud as a plate breaking.

"I want your tithe handed to me properly. And I want to know who she is. I have sensed your interest in this one before-when you are away from me."

Rehv kept that beach ad pinned to his frontal lobe and knew she was bluffing. "I don't bow down to you or anybody else, bitch. So if you want that bag, you're going to have to touch your toes. And as for what you think you know, you're wrong. There is no one for me."

She slapped him again, the sting flickering down his spinal cord and pulsing into the head of his cock. "You bow down to me every time you come here with your pathetic payment and your hungry sex. You need this, you need me."

He pushed his face closer to hers. "Don't flatter yourself, Princess. You are a chore, not a choice."

"Wrong. You live to hate me."

The princess took his cock in her hand, her graveyard fingers wrapping around him tightly. As he felt her grip and her stroking, he was revolted...and yet his erection wept at the attention even as he couldn't bear it: although he didn't find her attractive at all, his symphath side was fully engaged in the battle of wills, and that was the erotic thing.

The princess leaned into him, her forefinger rubbing over the barb at the base of his arousal. "Whoever that female is in your head, she can't compete with what we have."

Rehv put his hands up to the sides of his blackmailer's neck and pressed in with his thumbs until she gasped. "I could snap your head off your spine."

"You won't." She moved her red, glossy lips over his throat, the crushed-pepper lipstick she wore burning him. "Because we couldn't do this if I were dead."

"Don't underestimate the appeal of necrophilia. Especially where you're concerned." He grabbed onto the back of her chignon and yanked hard. "Shall we get down to business?"

"After you pick up-"

"Not going to happen. I don't bow." With his free hand, he ripped the front of her robe open, exposing the fine mesh weave of the bodysuit she always wore. Spinning her around, he forced her face-first into the door, fishing up through the folds of red satin as she gasped. The weave she wore over herself was soaked in scorpion venom, and as he worked toward her core, the poison soaked in through his skin. Hopefully, he could fuck her for a while with her robes still on-

The princess dematerialized out of his grip and re-formed right at the window Trez could see through. In a shifting rush, her robes left her, removed by her will, her flesh revealed. She was built like the snake she was, sinewy, and altogether too thin, her shimmering bodysuit giving the impression of scales as the moonlight reflected off its interlocking threads.

Her feet were planted on either side of the bag of rubies.

"You're going to worship me," she said, her hand going in between her thighs and stroking her slit. "With your mouth."

Rehv came over and got down on his knees. Looking up at her, he said with a smile, "And you will be the one who picks up that bag."

Chapter EIGHTEEN

Ehlena stood just outside the clinic's morgue, arms banded around her chest, heart in her throat, prayers leaving her lips. In spite of her uniform, she was not waiting in any kind of professional capacity, and the STAFF ONLY sign that was at eye level barred her as much as it would have anyone in regular clothes. As the minutes passed slow as centuries, she stared at the letters as if she'd forgotten how to read. The word staff was on one half of the doors, the only on the other. Big red block print. Underneath the English was a translation in the Old Language.

Alix had just gone through them, with Havers at his side.

Please...not Stephan. Please let the John Doe not be Stephan.

The wail that filtered through the STAFF ONLY doors had her shutting her eyes hard enough to make her head spin.

She hadn't been stood up after all.

Ten minutes later, Alix came out, his face white, the stretch underneath both eyes red from his having wiped away many tears. Havers was right behind him, the physician looking equally heartbroken.

Ehlena stepped forward and took Alix into her arms. "I am so sorry."

"How...how can I tell his parents...They didn't want me to come down here... Oh, God..."

Ehlena held the male's shuddering body until Alix straightened and dragged both hands across his face. "He was looking forward to going out with you."

"And I with him."

Havers put his hand on Alix's shoulder. "Do you want to take him with you?"

The male looked back at the doors, his mouth flattening into a slash. "We're going to want to get started on the...death ritual...but..."

"Would you like me to wrap him?" Havers said softly.

Alix closed his eyes and nodded. "We can't let his mother see his face. It would kill her. And I would do it except..."

"We'll take excellent care of him," Ehlena said. "You can trust us to take care of him with respect and reverence."

"I don't think I could..." Alix looked over. "Is it bad of me?"

"No." She held both his hands. "And I promise you, we'll do it with love."

"But I should assist-"

"You can trust us." As the male blinked quickly, Ehlena gently led him away from the morgue doors. "I want you to go wait in one of the family rooms."

Ehlena walked Stephan's cousin down the corridor to the hallway that had patient rooms running off it. As another nurse passed by, Ehlena asked that he be taken to a private waiting room, and then she returned to the morgue.

Before she entered, she took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Pushing inside, she smelled herbs and saw Havers standing by a body covered by a white sheet. Ehlena's stride faltered.

"My heart is heavy," the physician said. "So heavy. I didn't want that poor boy to see his blooded family like this, but he insisted after he identified the clothes. He had to see."

"Because he had to be sure." It was what she would have needed in the same situation.

Havers lifted the sheet, folding it back to the chest, and Ehlena clapped a palm over her mouth to keep her gasp in.

Stephan's beaten, mottled face was nearly unrecognizable.

She swallowed once. And again. And a third time.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, he'd been alive twenty-four hours ago. Alive and downtown and looking forward to seeing her. Then a wrong choice to go one way and not another and he ended up here, lying on a cold, stainless-steel bed, about to be prepared for his death ritual.

"I'll get the wraps," Ehlena said roughly as Havers took the sheet completely off the body.

The morgue was small, with only eight refrigerated units and two examination tables, but it was well stocked with equipment and supplies. The ceremonial wraps were kept in the closet by the desk, and as she opened the door, a fresh waft of herbs drifted out. The linen strips were three inches wide and came in rolls that were the size of two of Ehlena's fists. Soaked in a combination of rosemary, lavender, and sea salt, they let out a pleasant enough smell that nonetheless made her recoil every time she caught a whiff of it.

Death. It was the smell of death.

She took out ten rolls and stacked them in her arms, then returned to where Stephan's body was fully exposed, only a cloth over his loins.

After a moment, Havers came out of a changing room in the back wearing a black robe tied with a black sash. Around his neck, suspended on a long, heavy silver chain, was a sharp-edged, ornate cutting tool that was so old, the filigree work on the handset had blackened nooks within its curvilinear design.

Ehlena bowed her head as Havers said the requisite prayers to the Scribe Virgin for Stephan's peaceful rest within the tender embrace of the Fade. When the doctor was ready, she handed him the first of the scented rolls and they started with Stephan's right hand, as was proper. With every gentleness and care, she held the cold, gray limb aloft as Havers wrapped the flesh tightly, doubling up the linen strip upon itself. When they worked their way up to his shoulder, they moved to the right leg; then it was left hand, left arm, left leg next.

As the loincloth was lifted, Ehlena turned away, as was required because she was female. In the event of a female body, she would not have had to, although a male assistant would have done so out of respect. After the hips were wrapped, the torso was bound up to the chest and the shoulders covered.

With each pass of the linen, the scent of the herbs hit her nose anew until she felt like she couldn't breathe.

Or maybe it wasn't the smell in the air; it was more the thoughts in her head. Had he been her future? Would she have known his body? Could this have been her hellren and the father of her young?

Questions that would never be answered.

Ehlena frowned. No, actually, they had all been answered.

Each one of them with a no.

As she handed another roll to the race's physician, she wondered whether Stephan had lived a full, satisfying life.

No, she thought. He'd been gypped. Totally gypped.

Cheated.

The face was the last to get covered, and she held up Stephan's head as the doctor slowly wound the linen around and around. Ehlena's breath was hard in coming, and just as Havers covered the eyes, one tear left her own and landed on the white wrap.

Havers put his hand on her shoulder briefly and then finished the job.

The salt in the fibers of the linen worked as a sealant so no fluids seeped through the weave, and the mineral also preserved the body for entombment. The herbs served an obvious function in the short term to mask any odor, but they were also emblematic of the fruits of the earth and cycles of growth and death.

With a curse, she went back to the closet and retrieved a black shroud, which she and Havers used to wrap Stephan up. The outer black was to symbolize the corruptible mortal flesh, the inner white the soul's purity and incandescence within its eternal home in the Fade.

Ehlena had once heard that rituals served important purposes beyond the practical. They were supposed to aid in psychological healing, but standing over Stephan's dead body she felt as if that were such bullshit. This was a false closure, a pathetic attempt to contain the exigencies of cruel fate with sweet-smelling cloth.

Nothing but a fresh slipcover over a bloodstained couch.

They stood for a moment of silence at Stephan's head and then pushed the gurney out the back of the morgue and into the tunnel system that ran underground to the garages. There, they put Stephan into one of the four ambulances that were made up to look exactly like the ones humans used.

"I'll drive them both to his parents' home," she said.

"Do you need to be accompanied?"

"I think Alix would do better without any more of an audience."

"You will be of care, though? Not just with them, but your own safety?"

"Yes." Each of the ambulances had a pistol under the driver's seat, and as soon as Ehlena had started working at the clinic, Catya had shown her how to shoot: Without a doubt, she could handle whatever came her way.

As she and Havers shut the ambulance's double doors, Ehlena glanced at the tunnel entrance. "I think I'm going to go back to the clinic across the parking lot. I need the air."

Havers nodded. "And I shall do the same. I find I need the air as well."

Together they walked out into the cold, clear night.

Like the good whore he was, Rehv did everything he was asked to do. The fact that he was rough and unkind was a concession to his free will-and again, part of the reason the princess liked their business.

When it was all over and they were both spent-she from having orgasmed so much, he because the scorpion venom was deep in his bloodstream-those fucking rubies remained where he'd thrown them. On the floor.

The princess was sprawled against the windowsill, panting hard, her three-knuckled fingers splayed, likely because she knew they creeped him out. He was across the cabin, as far as he could get from her, weaving on his two feet.

As he tried to breathe, he hated the way the cabin air smelled of dirty sex. Likewise, her scent was all over him, coating him, suffocating him such that even with the symphath blood in his veins, he felt like throwing up. Or maybe that was the venom. Who the fuck knew.

One of her bony hands lifted and pointed to the velvet bag. "Pick. Them. Up."

Rehv's eyes locked on hers, and he shook his head back and forth slowly.

"Better get back to our uncle," he said in a rasp. "I'm willing to bet if you're gone too long he gets suspicious."

He had her on that one. Their father's brother was a calculating, suspicious sociopath. Just like the two of them.

All in the family, as they said.

The princess's robes lifted from the floor and floated over to her, and as they hung in the air beside her, she took a wide red sash out of an inner pocket. Slipping it between her legs, she bound up her sex, keeping what he'd left behind inside of her. Then she clothed herself, covering up the half of the robe he'd torn by making it wrap under the top layer. The gold-or at least he assumed it was gold, given the way it reflected light-belt was next.

"Send my uncle my regards," Rehv drawled. "Or...not."

"Pick...them...up."

"You're either bending over to get that bag, or you're leaving it behind."

The princess's eyes flashed with the kind of nastiness that made murderers so much fun to spar with, and they glared at each other for long, hostile minutes.

The princess cracked. Just as he'd said she would.

To his ever-loving satisfaction, she was the one who did the retrieving, and her capitulation nearly made him come again, that barb of his threatening to engage even though there was nothing for it to lock in against.

"You could be king," she said, holding out her hand, the velvet bag with the rubies lifting from the floor. "Kill him and you could be king."

"Kill you and I could be happy."

"You will never be happy. You are a breed apart, living a lie among inferiors." She smiled, true joy reflecting in her face. "Except here with me. Here, you can be honest. Until next month, my love."

She blew him a kiss with her hideous hands and dematerialized, dissipating in the manner his breath had outside the cabin, eaten up by the thin night air.

Rehv's knees gave out and he collapsed to the floor, landing in a heap of bones. Lying on the rough-hewn planks, he felt everything: the twitching muscles of his thighs, the tickle at the tip of his cock as his foreskin eased back into place, the compulsive swallows which were caused by the scorpion venom.

As the warmth in the cabin leached out, nausea rolled into him on a fetid, oily tide, his stomach curling into a fist, a whole lot of we're-outta-here tightening up his throat. His gag reflex followed orders and he popped open his mouth, but nothing came out.

He knew better than to eat before he had a date.

Trez came through the door so quietly that it wasn't until the guy's boots were in front of Rehv's face that he noticed his best friend was with him.

The Moor's voice was gentle. "Let's get you out of here."

Rehv waited for a break in the heaving to try to push himself up off the floor. "Let me...get dressed."

The scorpion poison was barreling through his central nervous system, jamming up his neuro-highways and-byways, making it so that dragging his body over to his clothes involved an embarrassing display of weakness. The trouble was, the antivenin had to stay in the car, because the princess would have found it, and showing a core weakness like that was like handing over your loaded weapon to the enemy.

Trez clearly lost patience with the show, because he went over and picked up the coat. "Just put this on so we can get you treated."

"I...get dressed." It was whore's pride.

Trez cursed and knelt down with the coat. "For fuck's sake, Rehv-"

"No-" Wild wheezing cut him off and took him flat on the floor, giving him a quick close-up of the knots in the pine boards.

Man, it was bad tonight. The worst it had ever been.

"Sorry, Rehv, but I'm taking over."

Trez ignored his pathetic attempts to fend off help, and after the sable was wrapped around him, his friend picked him up and carried him out like a broken piece of equipment.

"You can't keep doing this," Trez said as his long legs took them quickly to the Bentley.

"Watch...me."

To keep him and Xhex alive and out in the free world, he had to.