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Then he saw Butch's head lift up and heard in his mind the hoarse, erotic moan that broke free of his roommate's lips.
Despising himself, Vishous hammered a shot of vodka and quickly poured another. "My sex life is private, Butch. So are my... unconventional interests."
"I hear ya. No one's biz but yours. One question, though."
"What."
"When the females tie you down, do they paint your toe-nails and shit? Or just do your makeup?" As V laughed in a loud crack, the cop said, "Wait... they tickle your pits with a feather, right?"
"Smart-ass."
"Hey, I'm just curious." Butch's own laughter faded. "Do you hurt them, though? I mean..."
More with the vodka. "It's all about consent. And I don't cross the line."
"Good. Little freaky for my Catholic ass, granted... 'cept, hey, it's whatever gets you off."
V swirled the Goose around in his glass. "So, cop, mind if I ask you something?"
"Fair's fair."
"Do you love her?"
After a while, Butch muttered, "Yeah. Fuck me, but yeah."
As the laptop's screen saver came on, V put his fingertip on the mouse square and interrupted the metastasizing pipes. "What's that feel like?"
There was a grunt as if Butch were rearranging himself and was stiff as a board. "Hell, right at this moment."
V played with the arrow on the screen, making it whip around the desktop. "You know... I like her with you. The two of you make sense to me."
"Except for the fact that I'm a blue-collar human who could be part lesser, I'd say I agree with you."
"You're not turning into a - "
"I took some of that slayer in me tonight. When I inhaled. I think that's why I smelled like one afterward. Not because we'd been fighting, but because some of the evil was - is - in me again."
V cursed, hoping like hell that wasn't the case. "We're going to figure this out, cop. I'm not going to leave you in the dark."
They hung up a little later and V stared at the laptop while swirling the arrow around. He kept up the forefinger workout until he became thoroughly unimpressed with the time he was wasting.
As he stretched his arms over his head, he realized that the cursor had landed on recycle bin. Recycle... Recycle ... to reprocess in order to use again.
What was it with Butch and the inhale thing? Now that V thought about it, when he'd pulled that lesser off the cop, he'd been aware he was breaking some kind of connection between them.
Restless, he took his Goose and glass and went over to the couches. As he sat down and swallowed some more, he looked at the pint of Lag that was on the coffee table.
V leaned forward and grabbed the Scotch. Unscrewing it, he lifted it to his lips and took a slug. Then he brought the Lag to the lip of his glass of vodka and poured. With low-lidded eyes, he watched the swirling combination, seeing the two blend, the vodka and the Scotch both diluted of their pure essence and yet stronger together.
V brought the combo to his lips, tilted his head back, and swallowed the whole damn thing. Then he eased back into the couch.
He was tired... way f**king tired... ti -
Sleep came to him so fast it was like getting slammed in the head. But the shut-eye didn't last long. The Dream, as he was coming to think of it, woke him up minutes later with its characteristic violence: He came to on a scream with a splitting feeling in his chest, as if someone were using a rib-spreader on him. As his heart skipped, then pounded, sweat broke out all over him.
Ripping his shirt open, he looked down at his body.
Everything was where it should be, no gaping wound to be seen. Except the feelings remained, the horrible pressure of being shot, the crushing doom that death had come upon him.
He breathed raggedly. And figured that was it for shut-eye.
He left the vodka behind and lurched over to his desk, determined to get good and intimate with that laptop.
When the Princeps Council broke up, Marissa was totally drained. Which made sense, as dawn was close. There had been a lot of discussion about the sehclusion motion, none of the talk negative, all of it centered around the lesser threat. Clearly, when the vote was taken, not only would it pass, hut if Wrath didn't issue a proclamation, the Council was going to look at it as evidence that the king lacked commitment to the race.
Which was something Wrath's detractors were dying to have come to the forefront. Three hundred years of him passing on the throne had left a bitter taste in the mouths of some of the aristocracy, and they were after him.
Desperate to leave, Marissa waited and waited by the library's door, but Havers kept talking to the others. Eventually, she went outside and dematerialized back home, figuring she'd camp out in his bedroom if she had to in order to talk with him.
As she came in the front door of their mansion, she didn't call for Karolyn as she usually did, but went straight upstairs to her bedroom. Pushing the door open, she -
"Oh... my God." Her room was... a ghost town.
Her walk-in closet was open and empty, not even a single hanger remaining. Her bed was stripped, her pillows gone, along with her sheets and blankets. All of the pictures were down. And cardboard boxes were stacked up against the far wall next to every piece of Louis Vuitton luggage she owned.
"What..." Her voice dried out as she went into the bathroom. The cabinets of which were all barren.
As she stumbled from the bath, Havers was standing by the bed.
"What is this?" She swept her arm around.
"You need to leave this house."
At first all she could do was blink at him. "But I live here!"
He took out his wallet, removed a thick wad of bills, and spread them on the bureau. "Take this. And go."
"All because of Butch?" she demanded. "And how's this going to work with that sehclusion proposal you put to the council? Ghardians have to be around their - "
"I didn't propose the motion. And as for that human..." He shook his head. "Your life is your own. And seeing you with a naked human male who had just engaged in a sexual act - " Havers's voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "Go now. Live as you wish. But I will not sit back and watch you destroy yourself."
"Havers, this is ridiculous - "
"I can't protect you from yourself."
"Havers, Butch is not - "
"I threatened the king's life to ahvenge your honor!" The sound of his voice ricocheted around the walls. "And then to find you with a human male! I - I can't have you near me anymore. I don't trust this anger you bring out in me. It triggers acts of such violence. It - " He shuddered and turned away. "I have told the doggen they are to deposit you wherever you wish to go, but after that, they will return to this household. You will have to find your own."
Her body went completely numb. "I am still a member of the Princeps Council. You will have to see me there."
"No, because I am not required to render you mine eyes. And you assume you will stay on the council, which is doubtful. Wrath will have no cause to deny the sehclusion motion. You will be without a mate and I will not function as your ghardian, so you will have no one to grant permission for your presence to be out in the open. Not even your bloodline can override the law."
Marissa's jaw unhinged. Holy heaven... she would be a total social outcast. A veritable... no one. "How can you do this to me?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "I am tired of myself. Tired of fighting the urge to defend you from choices you make - "
"Choices! Living as a female in the aristocracy I have no choices!"
"Untrue. You could have been a proper mate to Wrath."
"He didn't want me! You knew that, you saw it with your own two eyes! That's why you wanted to have him killed!"
"But now when I think on it, I wonder... why did he feel nothing for you? Perhaps you didn't work hard enough to engage his interest."
Marissa felt a raw fury. And the emotion grew hotter as her brother said, "And as for choices, you could have stayed out of that human's hospital room. You chose to go in there. And you chose to... you could have... not layed with him."
"Is that what this is about? For God's sake, I'm still a virgin."
"Now you lie."
The three words snapped her out of her emotions. As the heat drained away, clarity came, and for the first time, she tally saw her brother: brilliant of mind, devoted to his patients, loving of his dead shellan... and utterly rigid. A male of science and order who liked rules and predictability and enjoyed a precise vision of life.
