The Chosen

Xcor stared back at him calmly, without fear or aggression: He was a male who was resigned to his fate, unafraid of whatever was before him, and you had to respect that.

“Tohr. Remember that whole probation thing?”

Tohr nodded absently, not really hearing anything. The thing was, he had wondered, ever since Wellsie had died with his son still in her womb, what it would be like to look into the eyes of a blood relation. The loss of that possibility had been one more thing to mourn.

He had never considered that some night he would meet the stare of his brother.

Xcor spoke softly. “What are you going to do?”

That was when Tohr realized that he hadn’t put his guns down. But before he could rectify that, V said, “FYI, I’ll have you know you’re alive today because of him.”

That got Tohr’s attention and he looked at Vishous. “I’m sorry?”

“I found a little video clip of this motherfucker right here, defending you against a lesser. It’s a real classic. I watched it on a loop for hours today.”

“Wait, what?”

“You remember, when you were trying to turn yourself into a screen door by walking into a shower of bullets? Good times.” V rolled his eyes. “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you friend him on Facebook, and then you can look forward to the day when you get a memories post with him in it. Great stuff. Just so fucking Hallmark. Now either disarm him or get the fuck back into position.”

Tohr knew exactly what craziness V was referring to, remembered precisely the moment when he had ignored his own mortality and all the laws of physics and had stepped out into the enemy’s line of fire.

Frowning, he said to Xcor, “Is this true?”

When the Bastard nodded once, Tohr exhaled. “Why?”

“It is not important now,” the Bastard replied.

“No, it’s everything. Why?”

Xcor looked to V as if trying to sense whether the brother was going to completely lose his patience with all this.

Too late on that, Tohr thought. But fuck it, he might never get this chance again.

“Why?” he demanded again. “We were enemies.”

When Xcor finally answered, his voice was steady and very heavily accented. “You were so brave. You walked out into that gunfire unafraid. Regardless of our positions at the time, I didn’t want a warrior of that courage to be killed in that manner. In honest conflict, yes. But not like that, a sitting duck. So I shot the shooter.”

Tohr blinked and thought of everything he would have missed if he had died that night. Autumn. The chance to be a part of this brokered peace. The future.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move—

No, it was just Lassiter. The fallen angel had come, and that was no surprise. He was like the neighborhood busybody who was looking over the fence anytime there was drama.

Tohr refocused on those navy blue eyes, so like his own. And then he lowered one of his guns and put the other one back in its holster.

Reaching out with his dagger hand, he offered his palm.

Xcor looked down at it.

After a long moment, the Bastard accepted the gesture … and two brothers shook hands for the first time.

Although only one of them knew it.

From Qhuinn’s vantage point in the far corner of the warehouse, he watched things unroll: the Band of Bastards entering the abandoned building, stopping in the middle, listening to V and disarming on his command. All of that was planned. But then Tohr walked forward.

As the brother shitkicker’d his way into the center, everyone else in the whole fucking place held their breath, but Qhuinn didn’t. The brother wasn’t going to be stupid. It wasn’t in his nature for one thing, and for another, he had honor—

“Say what?” Qhuinn sputtered as V started talking and ended up at something about Xcor having saved Tohr’s life.

Oh, he’d witnessed firsthand that little suicidal interlude, that insanity. It was one of those stories that the Brotherhood whispered about when they were drunk and it was three in the afternoon and nobody else was around, an entry in the catalog of the past that made the cost of war trauma so very real.

But what the fuck? How had V gotten footage? A security camera? Some human on the sidelines?

What did it matter—

When a figure materialized from out of nowhere right next to him, Qhuinn nearly pulled his trigger, but the blond and black head of hair was unmistakable.

“Do you want to get shot?” Qhuinn demanded.

In a Darth Vader voice, the angel shot back, “Your weapons are nothing against me.”

“For fuck’s sake—”

All of a sudden, Lassiter’s face was right in front of his, and there was absolutely no jokey-jokey in those strange colored eyes. “Get ready.”

“For what?”

At that moment, Wrath re-formed in the center of the warehouse, right by Vishous. And that was why they’d chosen the vast empty space. Factoring in the King’s blindness, there was nothing to get in his way, nothing to trip him, nothing to make him struggle or look weak by having to rely on the brothers to get him around.

Man, Qhuinn thought as he measured the Bastards’ big bodies. He really didn’t like them so close to the King, even if they were unarmed.

“So this is really going to happen, huh?” Qhuinn shook his head at the Bastards and the Brotherhood standing so closely together. “I never thought I’d see this night, I’ll tell you that.”

When Lassiter didn’t reply, he glanced over. The fallen angel was gone.

Qhuinn refocused and listened, which wasn’t hard. Wrath’s voice carried like a church organ.

“I understand the oath you have is to your leader. That’s fine. But he has sworn allegiance to me, and as such that binds the lot of you. Is there any dissent here?”

One by one, the Bastards spoke a resounding no, and it was obvious by the way Wrath’s nose was flaring that the King was testing their scents.

“Good,” Wrath said. Then he switched over to the Old Language. “I thereby command this assemblage that they shall pledge their oath unto their leader in the presence of the King he has sworn himself unto. Proceed the now upon bended knee with bowed head and faithful heart.”

Without conversation or hesitation, one by one, the Band of Bastards knelt before Xcor, lowering their heads and kissing the knuckles of his dagger hand. And all the time, Wrath stood right next to them, testing the air, searching for, but evidently not finding, any subterfuge.

When it was done, Xcor turned to Wrath.

Qhuinn’s heart pounded as he looked at the male’s face. Although there was quite a distance between them, he traced those features, those shoulders, that body. He remembered the two of them trading punches, going those rounds in the Tomb.

He thought of Layla, pregnant with Lyric and Rhamp.

And then he heard Blay telling him to make it right with the Chosen so they could be right. So their family could be whole. So the past could be viewed with logic, not emotion.

It was with the image of his young squarely in his mind that he watched as Xcor went down on bended knee before Wrath.

Wrath put out the black diamond, the symbol of the throne, the ring that had been his father’s and his father’s father’s before that.

The ring that perhaps L.W. would wear someday.

“Bow your head before me,” Wrath commanded in the Old Language. “Swear unto me your service from this night forward. Let there be no conflict e’er between us.”

Qhuinn took a deep breath.

And then he released it as Xcor lowered his head, kissed the stone, and said, loud and clear, “Unto you I pledge my life and my blood. There will ne’er by any ruler above you for me and mine, ne’er any conflict between us until my grave claims my mortal flesh. This is my solemn oath.”

Qhuinn closed his eyes and lowered his own head.

Just as lessers broke through every door there was.

SIXTY-TWO

The doors of the warehouse opened in quick succession, blam! blam! blam! and the slayers that burst in moved fast.

It was Vishous’s worst nightmare.

And the first thing he did was go for Wrath. With a quick lunge, he tackled the King and covered him with his body.