Chapter THIRTY-THREE

Rehvenge didn't get out to see his mother enough.

That was the thought that occurred to him as he pulled in front of the safe house he'd moved her into nearly a year ago. After the family mansion in Caldwell had been compromised by lessers, he'd gotten everyone out of that house and installed them at this Tudor mansion well south of town.

It had been the only thing good that had come of his sister's abduction-well, that and the fact that Bella had found herself a male of worth in the Brother who'd rescued her. The thing was, with Rehv having taken his mother from the city when he had, she and her beloved doggen had escaped what the Lessening Society had done to the aristocracy over the summer.

Rehv parked the Bentley in front of the mansion, and before he got out of the car, the door to the house opened and his mother's doggen stood in the light, huddled against the cold.

Rehv's wingtips had slick soles, so he was very careful as he came around on the dusting of snow. "Is she okay?"

The doggen stared up at him, her eyes misting with tears. "It's getting close to the time."

Rehv came inside, closed the door, and refused to hear that. "Not possible."

"I'm very sorry, sire." The doggen took out a white handkerchief from the pocket of her gray uniform. "Very...sorry."

"She's not old enough."

"Her life has been far longer than her years."

The doggen knew well what had gone on in the house during the time Bella's father had been with them. She had cleaned up broken glass and shattered china. Had bandaged and nursed.

"Verily, I can't bear for her to go," the maid said. "I shall be lost without my mistress."

Rehv put a numb hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. "You don't know for sure. She hasn't been to see Havers. Let me go be with her, okay?"

When the doggen nodded, Rehv slowly took the stairs up to the second floor, passing family portraits in oil that he had moved from the old house.

At the top of the landing, he went down to the left and knocked on a set of doors. "Mahmen?"

"In here, my son."

The response in the Old Language came from behind another door, and he backtracked and went into her dressing room, the familiar scent of Chanel No. 5 calming him.

"Where are you?" he said to the yards and yards of hanging clothes.

"I am in the back, my dearest son."

As Rehv walked down the rows of blouses and skirts and dresses and ball gowns, he breathed deeply. His mother's signature perfume was on all of the garments, which were hung by color and type, and the bottle it came from was on the ornate dressing table, among her makeup and lotions and powders.

He found her in front of the three-way full-length mirror. Ironing.

Which was beyond odd and made him take stock of her.

His mother was regal even in her rose-colored dressing gown, her white hair up on her perfectly proportioned head, her posture exquisite as she sat on a high stool, her massive pear-shaped diamond flashing on her hand. The ironing board she sat behind had a woven basket and a can of spray starch on one end and a pile of pressed handkerchiefs on the other. As he watched her, she was in midkerchief, the pale yellow square she was working on halved, the iron she wielded hissing as she swept it up and down.

"Mahmen, what are you doing?" Okay, obvious on one level, but his mother was the chatelaine. He couldn't remember ever seeing her do housework or laundry or anything of the sort. One had doggen for those things.

Madalina looked up at him, her faded blue eyes tired, her smile more effort than honest joy. "These were my father's. We found them when we were going through the boxes that had been brought over from the old house's attic."

The "old house" was the one they had lived in for almost a century in Caldwell.

"You could get your maid to do that for you." He came over and kissed her soft cheek. "She would love to help you."

"She said as much, yes." After she put her hand on his face, his mother went back to what she was doing, folding the linen square again, picking up the can of starch, misting over the kerchief. "But this is something I must do."

"May I sit?" he asked, nodding at the chair beside the mirror.

"Oh, of course, where are my manners." The iron went down and she started to get off the stool. "And we must get you something to-"

He held up his hand. "No, Mahmen, I've just eaten."

She bowed to him and rearranged herself on her perch. "I am grateful for this audience, as I know the busy nature of your-"

"I'm your son. How can you think I wouldn't come to you?"

The pressed kerchief was placed on top of its orderly brethren, and the last one was taken from the basket.

The iron exhaled steam as she smoothed its hot underbelly over the white square. As she moved slowly, he looked into the mirror. Her shoulder blades were prominent under the silk robe, her spine showing clearly at the back of her neck.

When he refocused on her face, he saw a tear drop from her eye onto the kerchief.

Oh...dearest Virgin Scribe, he thought. I'm not ready.

Rehv plugged his cane into the floor and came over to kneel before her. Turning the stool toward him, he removed the iron from her hand and put it aside, ready to take her to Havers's, prepared to pay for whatever medicine would buy her more time.

"Mahmen, what ails you?" He took one of her father's pressed handkerchiefs and dabbed under her eyes. "Speak unto your born son the weight of your heart."

The tears were without end, and he caught them one by one. She was lovely even in her age and her crying, a fallen Chosen who had lived a hard life and nonetheless remained full of grace.

When she finally spoke, her voice was thin. "I am dying." She shook her head before he could speak. "No, let us be truthful with each other. My end has arrived."

We'll see about that, Rehv thought to himself.

"My father"-she touched the handkerchief Rehv had dried her tears with-"my father...it is odd that I think of him daily and nightly now, but I do. He was the Primale long ago, and he loved his children. His greatest joy was his blood, and though we were many, he had relationships with us all. These handkerchiefs? They were made out of his robes. Verily, the industry of sewing was of favor to me, and he knew this and he gave unto me some of his robes."

She reached over with a bony hand and smoothed the stack she'd ironed. "When I left the Other Side, he made me take a few of them. I was in love with a Brother and certain my life would be fulfilled only if I were with him. Of course, then..."

Yeah, it was the then part of her days that had caused her such pain: Then she was raped by a symphath and fell pregnant with Rehvenge and was forced to give birth to a half-breed monstrosity that somehow she had taken to her breast and loved as any son would have wanted to be loved. And all the while as she was imprisoned by the symphath king, the Brother she'd loved had searched for her-only to die in the process of getting her back.

And those tragedies hadn't been the end of it.

"After I had been...returned, my father called me unto his deathbed," she continued. "Of all the Chosen, of all his mates and his children, he'd wanted to see me. But I wouldn't go. I couldn't bear...I was not the daughter he knew." Her eyes met Rehv's, a deep pleading in them. "I didn't want him to know of me at all. I was befouled."

Man, he knew that feeling, but his mahmen didn't need the burden of that. She had no clue about the kind of shit he was dealing with, and she would never know, because it was self-evident that the main reason he was whoring himself out was so she wouldn't endure the torture of having her son deported.

"When I refused the summons, the Directrix came unto me and said he was suffering. That he wouldn't go unto the Fade until I came to him. That he would stay on the painful brink of death for an eternity unless I relieved him. The following evening, I went with a heavy heart." Now his mother's stare grew fierce. "Upon my arrival at the Primale temple, he wanted to hold me, but I couldn't...let him. I was a stranger with a beloved face, that was all, and I tried to speak of polite and distant things. It was then that he said something which afore now I could not fully understand. He said, 'The heavy soul will not pass though the body is failing.' He was imprisoned by what was unresolved with me. He felt as though he had failed in his role. That if he had kept me on the Other Side, my destiny would have been kinder than what had transpired after I left."

Rehv's throat got tight, a sudden, horrible suspicion parking in his brain's front lot.

His mother's voice was weak but forthright. "I approached the bed, and he reached for my hand, and I held his palm within mine own. I told him then that I loved my born son and that I was to be mated to a male of the glymera and that all was not lost. My father searched my face for the truth in the words I spoke, and when he was satisfied with what he saw, he closed his eyes...and drifted away. I knew that if I hadn't come..." She took a deep breath. "Verily, I cannot leave this earth the way things are."

Rehv shook his head. "Everyone's fine, Mahmen. Bella and her young are well and safe. I'm-"

"Stop it." His mother reached up and grabbed onto his chin, the way she had when he'd been very young and prone to causing trouble. "I know what you did. I know you killed my hellren, Rempoon."

Rehv weighed whether it was better to keep up the lie, but given his mother's expression, the truth was out, and nothing he could say would dissuade her from it.

"How," he said. "How did you find out?"

"Who else would have? Who else could have?" As she released her hold and stroked his cheek, he yearned to feel the warm touch. "Do not forget, I saw this face of yours each time my hellren lost his temper. My son, my strong, powerful son. Look at you."

The honest, loving pride she had for him was something he'd never understood, given the circumstances of his conception.

"I also know," she whispered, "that you killed your birth father. Twenty-five years ago."

Now, that really got his attention. "You were not supposed to know. Any of this. Who told you about it?"

She took her hand from his face and pointed over to her makeup table, to a crystal bowl that he'd always assumed was for her manicures. "Old habits of a Chosen scribe, they die hard. I saw it in the water. Right after it happened."

"And you kept it all to yourself," he said with wonder.

"And could not any longer. Which was why I brought you here."

That horrible feeling resurged, the result of his being trapped between what his mother was going to ask him to do and his strong conviction that his sister wasn't going to benefit from knowing all her family's dirty, evil secrets. Bella had stayed protected from this nastiness all her life, and there was no reason to do a full disclosure now, especially if their mother was dying.

Which Madalina wasn't, he reminded himself.

"Mahmen-"

"Your sister must never be told."

Rehv stiffened, praying he'd heard her right. "Excuse me?"

"Swear to me you shall do everything in your power to ensure that she never knows." As his mother leaned forward and gripped his arms, he could tell she was really digging her fingers in by the way the bones in her hands and wrists stood out starkly. "I don't want her to carry these burdens. You were forced to, and I would have spared you this if I could have, but I couldn't. And if she doesn't know, then the next generation will not have to suffer. Nalla will not bear the weight either. It can die with you and me. Swear to me."

Rehv stared up into his mother's eyes and never loved her more.

He nodded once. "Look upon mine face and be assured, I so swear it. Bella and her issue shall never know. The past shall die with thee and me."

His mother's shoulders eased under her dressing gown, and her shuddering sigh spoke loudly of her relief. "You are the son other mothers may only wish for."

"How can that possibly be true," he said softly.

"How can it not."

Madalina gathered herself up and took the kerchief from his hand. "I must needs do this one again, and then perhaps you will help me to my bed?"

"Of course. And I'd like to call Havers."

"No."

"Mahmen-"

"I should like my passing to be without medical intervention. None would save me now, anyway."

"You can't know that-"

She lifted her lovely hand with its heavy diamond ring. "I shall be dead before nightfall tomorrow. I saw it within the bowl."

Rehv's breath left him, his lungs refusing to work. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready. I'm not ready...

Madalina was so precise with the final kerchief, lining up its corners carefully, sweeping the iron back and forth slowly. When she was finished, she moved the perfect square over to the others, making sure that everything was lined up.

"It is done," she said.

Rehv leaned on his cane to rise and offered her his arm, and together they shuffled into her bedroom, both unsteady.

"Are you hungry?" he asked as he pulled back the covers and helped her lie down.

"No, I am well as I am."

Their hands worked together to arrange the sheets and the blanket and the duvet so that everything was folded precisely and lying directly across her chest. As he straightened, he knew she would not be getting out of bed again, and he couldn't bear it.

"Bella needs to come here," he said roughly. "She needs to say good-bye."

Her mother nodded and shut her eyes. "She must come now, and please have her bring the young."

Back in Caldwell, at the Brotherhood mansion, Tohr paced around his bedroom. Which was a joke, really, considering how weak he was. Lurched was about all he could pull off.

Every minute and a half he checked the clock, time passing at an alarming rate until he felt as if the world's hourglass had been shattered and seconds, like sand, were spilling all over the place.

He needed more time. More...Shit, would that even help, though?

He just couldn't figure out how to get through what was about to happen and knew more stewing wasn't going to change that. For example, he couldn't decide whether it was better to have a witness. The advantage was that it was even less personal that way. The disadvantage was that if he cracked wide open, there was another person in the room to see.

"I'll stay."

Tohr glanced over at Lassiter, who was lounging on the chaise by the windows. The angel's legs were crossed at the ankles, and one combat boot ticked from side to side, another hateful measure of time.

"Come on," Lassiter said, "I've seen your sorry ass naked. What could possibly be worse than that."

The words were typical bravado, the tone surprisingly gentle-

The knock on the door was soft. So it wasn't a Brother. And given that there was no food aroma working its way under the door, it wasn't Fritz with a tray of eats destined for the porcelain throne.

The call to Phury had worked, evidently.

Tohr started to shake from head to toe.

"Okay, easy, there." Lassiter got up and came over fast. "I want you to park it over here. You're not going to want to do this anywhere near a bed. Come on-no, don't fight me. You know this is the drill. It's biology, not choice, so you need to take the guilt out of it."

Tohr felt himself getting pulled across to a stiff-backed chair that was by the bureau, and right in fucking time: His knees lost interest in their calling, the pair of them falling loose so that he hit the woven seat so hard he bounced.

"I don't know how to do this."

Lassiter's gorgeous puss appeared right in front of his. "Your body's going to do it for you. Take your mind and your heart out of it and let your instinct do what needs to be done. This is not your fault. This is how you survive."

"I don't want to survive."

"You don't say. And here I thought all this self-destructive crap was just a hobby."

Tohr didn't have the strength to lash out at the angel. Didn't have the strength to leave the room. Didn't even have enough in reserve to cry.

Lassiter went over to the door and opened it. "Hey, thanks for coming."

Tohr couldn't bear to look at the Chosen who entered, but there was no ignoring her presence: Her delicate, flowery scent drifted over to him.

Wellsie's natural fragrance had been stronger than that, made not only of rose and jasmine, but the spice that reflected her backbone.

"My lord," a female voice said. "I am the Chosen Selena, here to serve you?"

There was a long pause.

"Go to him," Lassiter said softly. "We need to get this over with."

Tohr put his face in his hands, his head falling loose on his neck. It was all he could do to breathe in and out as the female settled on the floor at his feet.

Through his spindly fingers, he saw the white of her flowing robes. Wellsie hadn't been into dresses all that much. The only one she'd ever truly liked had been the red-and-black gown she'd mated him in.

An image from that sacred ceremony appeared in his mind, and he saw with tragic clarity the moment when the Scribe Virgin had clasped both his and Wellsie's hands and declared that it was a good mating, a very good mating indeed. He'd felt such warmth linked to his female through the mother of the race, and that sensation of love and purpose and optimism had increased a million times over as he'd stared into his love's eyes.

It had seemed as if they had a lifetime of only happiness and joy before them...and yet now here he was on the other side of unthinkable loss, alone.

No, worse than alone. Alone and about to take another female's blood into his body.

"This is happening too fast," he mumbled behind his palms. "I can't...I need more time..."

So help him, God, if that angel said one word about how now was the right moment, he was going to make that bastard wish his teeth were made out of safety glass.

"My lord," the Chosen said softly, "I shall come back if that is your wish. And come back anon if then is not right. And return and return once more until you are ready. Please...my lord, verily I should only wish to help, not hurt you."

He frowned. She sounded very kind, and there wasn't a sultry note to any of the syllables that had left her lips.

"Tell me the color of your hair," he said through his hands.

"It is black as the night and bound tight as my sisters and I could make it. I took leave to wrap it in a turban as well, though you did not ask that of me. I thought...perhaps it would help further."

"Tell me the color of your eyes."

"They are blue, my lord. A pale sky blue."

Wellsie's had been sherry colored.

"My lord," the Chosen whispered, "you need not even look upon me. Allow me to stand behind you, and take my wrist that way."

He heard the rustle of soft cloth, and the scent of the female shifted around until it came from behind him. Dropping his hands, Tohr saw Lassiter's long, jeans-clad legs. The angel's ankles were crossed again, this time as he leaned back against the wall.

A slender arm draped in white cloth appeared before him.

In slow tugs, the sleeve of the robing was gradually lifted higher and higher.

The wrist that was exposed was fragile, the skin white and fine.

The veins beneath the surface were light blue.

Tohr's fangs slammed down from the roof of his mouth and a snarl came out of his lips. The bastard angel was right. Suddenly there was nothing on his mind; everything was his body and what he'd deprived it of for so long.

Tohr clamped a hard hand on her shoulder, hissed like a cobra, and bit the Chosen's wrist down to the bone, locking his fangs in place. There was a cry of alarm and a scramble, but he was gone as he drank, his swallows like fists on a rope, pulling that blood down into his gut so fast he didn't have time to taste it.

He nearly killed the Chosen.

And he knew this only later, after Lassiter finally peeled him free and knocked him out with a punch to the head-because the instant he'd been separated from the source of those nutrients, he'd tried to go for the female again.

The fallen angel had been right.

Horrible biology was the ultimate driver, winning over even the stoutest of heart.

And the most reverent of widowers.

Chapter THIRTY-FOUR

When Ehlena got home, she put on a fake face, sent Lusie off, and checked with her father, who was "making incredible strides" in his work. The second she could get free, though, she went into her room to hop online. She had to figure out how much money they had, down to the penny, and didn't think she was going to like what she came up with. After signing onto her bank account, she scrolled through the checks that had yet to clear and tallied up what was due the first week of the month. The good news was that she was still going to get her pay for November.

Their savings account had just under eleven grand in it.

There was nothing left to sell. And no fat on the monthly budget.

Lusie would have to stop coming. Which would suck, because she'd take on another client to fill the spot, so when Ehlena found a new job there'd be a nursing care hole to plug.

Although that was assuming she could get another position. Sure as hell it wasn't going to be in nursing. Getting fired for cause was not what any employer wanted to see on a r¨¦sum¨¦.

Why had she lifted those fucking pills?

Ehlena sat staring at the screen adding and readding all the little numbers until they blurred together, not even the sum of them registering anymore.

"Daughter mine?"

She quickly shut down the laptop, because her father didn't do well with electronics, and composed her face. "Yes? I mean, yes?"

"I wonder if you would care to read a passage or two of my work? You seem anxious, and I find such pursuits calm my mind." He shuffled to the side and gallantly extended his arm.

Ehlena stood up because sometimes all a person could do was accept the direction of others. She didn't want to read any of the gibberish he had committed to the page. Couldn't bear to pretend that everything was okay. Wished that, even if just for an hour, she could have her parent back so she could talk through the bad position she had landed them both in.

"That would be lovely," she said in a dead, elegant voice.

Following him into his study, she helped settle him into his chair and looked around at the sloppy stacks of paper. What a mess. There were black leather binders crammed to the point of breaking. File folders stuffed wide. Spiral-bound notebooks with pages lolling out of their confines like the tongues of dogs. White loose-leaf paper sprinkled here and there, as if the pages had tried to fly away and gotten only so far.

It was all his diary, or so he maintained. In reality, it was just pile after pile of nonsense, the physical manifestation of his mental chaos.

"Here. Sit, sit." Her father cleared off the seat next to his desk, moving over steno pads that were held together with tan rubber bands.

After she sat down, she put her hands on her knees and squeezed hard, trying not to lose it. It was as if the debris in the room were a spinning magnet that made her own thoughts and machinations rotate even faster, and that was absolutely not the help she needed.

Her father glanced around the office and smiled as if in apology. "Such industry for a comparatively small yield. Rather like harvesting pearls. The hours I have spent herein, the many hours to fulfill my purpose..."

Ehlena barely heard him. If she couldn't afford the rent here, where would they go? Was there anything even cheaper that didn't have rats and hissing cockroaches in it? How would her father fare in an unfamiliar environment? Dearest Virgin Scribe, she'd assumed they'd hit bottom the night he'd burned down the proper house they'd been renting. What was lower than this?

She knew she was in trouble when everything got blurry.

Her father's voice continued on, marching across her panicked silence. "I have endeavored to record with faithfulness all that I saw..."

Ehlena didn't hear much more.

She cracked in half. Sitting in the little side chair, swamped by her father's mindless, useless prattle, confronted by her actions and where a bad call had landed both of them, she wept.

It was about so much more than losing the job. It was Stephan. It was what had happened with Rehvenge. It was the fact that her father was an adult who couldn't comprehend the realities of their situation.

It was that she was so alone.

Ehlena held herself and wept, hoarse breaths barking out of her lips until she was too exhausted to do anything but sag into her own lap.

Eventually, she heaved a great sigh and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the uniform she no longer needed anymore.

When she looked up, her father was sitting stock-still in his chair, his expression one of utter shock. "Verily...my daughter."

See, this was the thing. They might have lost all the monetary trappings of their previous station, but old habits died hard. The reserve of the glymera still defined their discourse-so a great wailing session was tantamount to her flipping onto her back at the breakfast table and having an alien bust out of her stomach.

"Forgive me, Father," she said, feeling like an utter fool. "I believe I shall excuse myself."

"No...wait. You were going to read."

She closed her eyes, her skin tightening up all over her body. On some level, her whole life was defined by his mental pathology, and though for the most part she saw her sacrifices as his due, tonight she was too raw to be able to pretend the crucial importance of something as worthless as his "work."

"Father, I..."

One of the desk drawers opened and shut. "Here, daughter. Take into thy hands more than just a passage."

She dragged her lids open...

And had to lean forward to make sure she was seeing things right. Between her father's two palms was a perfectly aligned stack of white pages about an inch thick.

"This is my work," he said simply. "A book for you, mine daughter."

Downstairs in the Tudor safe house, Rehv waited by the windows in the living room, staring out over the rolling lawn. The clouds had cleared, and a half-assed moon hung winter-bright in the sky. In his numb hand, he held his new cell phone, which he had just clipped shut with a curse.

He couldn't believe that above him his mother was on her deathbed and that at this very moment his sister and her hellren were speeding to beat the sunrise to get here...and yet work was raising its ugly horned head.

Another dead drug dealer. Which made three in the last twenty-four hours.

Xhex had been short and to the point, which was her way. Unlike Ricky Martinez and Isaac Rush, whose bodies had been found down by the river, this guy had turned up in his car in a strip mall parking lot with a bullet through the back of the skull. Which meant that the car had to have been driven there with the body in it: No way anyone would be stupid enough to pop a motherfucker in a place that undoubtedly had security-camera coverage. As the police scanner hadn't reported anything further, though, they were going to have to wait for the newspapers and the morning news on TV tomorrow for more details.

But here was the problem, and the reason that he'd cursed.

All three of them had made buys from him within the last two nights.

Which was why Xhex had interrupted him at his mother's. The drug business was not merely deregulated, but totally unregulated, and the stasis point that had been reached in Caldwell so that he and his high-level broker colleagues could make money was a very delicate kind of thing.

As a big player, his suppliers were a combination of Miami traffickers, New York harbor importers, Connecticut meth labbers, and Rhode Island X makers. They were all businessmen, just like him, and most of them were independents, i.e., unaffiliated with the mob here in the States. The relationships were solid, the men on the other end as careful and scrupulous as he was: what they did was simply a matter of financial transactions and product changing hands, just like any other legitimate segment of the economy. Shipments came into Caldwell to various residences and were transferred to ZeroSum, where Rally was in charge of the sampling and the cutting down and the packaging.

It was a well-oiled machine that had taken ten years to set up, and required a combination of well-reimbursed employees, threats of bodily harm, actual beatings, and constant relationship building to maintain.

Three dead bodies was enough to throw the whole arrangement into the shitter, causing not just an economic shortfall, but a power struggle on the lower levels that no one needed: Someone was picking off people on his turf, and his colleagues were going to wonder if he was doing a discipline or, worse, being disciplined himself. Prices would fluctuate, relationships would be strained, information would get twisted.

This needed tending to.

He had to make some calls to reassure his importers and producers that he was in control of Caldwell and that nothing was going to impede the sale of their goods. But Christ, why now?

Rehv's eyes shifted to the ceiling.

For a moment, he fantasized about giving it all up, except that was just bullshit. As long as the princess was in his life, he had to stay in business, because there was no way in hell he was going to let that bitch take down his family's fortunes. God knew Bella's father had done enough in that direction by making bad financial decisions.

As long as the princess was aboveground, Rehv would remain the drug lord of Caldie and he would make his calls-although not in his mother's house, not during this family time. Business could wait until family had been served.

Although one thing was clear. Going forward, Xhex, Trez, and iAm were going to have to keep an even tighter eye on things, because sure as shit, if someone was ambitious enough to try to knock off those middlemen, they were more than likely going to attempt a run at a fat boy like Rehv. Trouble was, it was going to be important for Rehv to be seen around the club. Showing face was critical during unsettled times, when his contacts in the biz would be looking to see if he was going to run and hide. Better to be perceived as the person who might be doing the killings than a pussy-ass who ducked out of his turf when the going got tough.

For no good reason, he opened his phone and checked for missed calls. Again. Nothing from Ehlena. Still.

She was probably just busy at the clinic, all caught up in the hustle. Of course she was. And it wasn't like the facility was in danger of being sacked. It was in a remote location and had plenty of security, and he would have heard something if anything bad had happened.

Right?

Damn it.

With a frown, he checked his watch. Time for two more pills.

He headed into the kitchen and was drinking a glass of milk and popping more penicillin when a pair of headlights hit the front of the house. As the Escalade pulled up in front and its doors opened, he put his glass down, plugged his cane into the floor, and went to greet his sister and her mate and their young.

Bella was already red-eyed as she came in, because he'd made it clear what was going on. Her hellren was right behind her, carrying their snoozing daughter in his huge arms, his scarred face grim.

"Sister mine," Rehv said as he took Bella into his arms. While holding her loosely, he clapped palms with Zsadist. "I'm glad you're here, my man."

Z nodded his skull-trimmed head. "Me too."

Bella pulled back and wiped her eyes quickly. "Is she up in bed?"

"Yeah, and her doggen is with her."

Bella took hold of her daughter, and then Rehv led the way upstairs. At the bedroom doors, he knocked on the jamb first and waited as his mother and her faithful servant got prepared.

"How bad is she?" Bella whispered.

Rehv looked down at his sister, thinking that this was one of the few situations where he could see himself not being as strong for her as he wanted to be.

His voice was hoarse. "It's time."

Bella's eyes squeezed together just as their mahmen said in a wobbly voice, "Come in."

As Rehv opened one side of the doors, he heard Bella's sharp inhale, but more than that he sensed her emotional grid: Sadness and panic intertwined with each other, doubling up and redoubling until a solid box was formed. It was a footprint of feelings that he saw only at funerals. And didn't that make tragic sense.

"Mahmen," Bella said as she went to the bedside.

As Madalina held her arms out, her face was suffused with happiness. "My loves, my dearest loves."

Bella bent down and kissed their mother's cheek, then transferred Nalla's weight with care. As their mother didn't have the strength to hold the young, a spare pillow was positioned to support Nalla's neck and head.

Their mother's smile glowed. "Look at her face... She shall be a great beauty, indeed." She lifted a skeletal hand toward Z. "And the proud papa, who looks after his females with such strength and fortitude."

Zsadist came over and clasped what was extended to him, bowing down and brushing her knuckles with his forehead, as was custom between mothers and sons-in-law. "I shall always keep them safe."

"Indeed. Of that I am well sure." Their mother smiled up at the fierce warrior who seemed totally out of place among the lace draped around the bed-but then her strength lagged and she let her head fall to the side.

"My greatest joy," she whispered as she stared at her grandchild.

Bella eased a hip onto the mattress and gently rubbed her mother's knee. The silence in the room became soft as down, a cocoon of quiet that eased over all of them and relieved the tension.

There was only one good thing in all this: An easy death that happened in the right order was as much a blessing as a long, easy life.

Their mother hadn't had the latter. But Rehv was going to keep his promise and make sure the peace in this room was kept well after she was gone.

Bella leaned into her daughter and whispered, "Sleepyhead, wake up for Granhmen."

When Madalina brushed the young's cheek softly, Nalla awoke with a coo. Yellow eyes as bright as diamonds focused on the old, lovely face before her, and the young smiled and reached out chubby hands. As the infant gripped her grandmother's finger, Madalina lifted her gaze and peered up over the next generation at Rehv. In her stare, she begged him.

And he gave her exactly what she needed. Putting his fist over his heart, he bowed ever so slightly, taking his vow once more.

His mother blinked, tears trembling on her lashes, and the wave of her gratitude reached him in a rush. Although he couldn't feel the warmth of it, he knew by the way he could allow his sable duster to fall open that his core temperature had just risen.

Knew also that he would do anything to keep his promise. A good death wasn't just quick and painless. A good death meant you were leaving your world in order, that you passed unto the Fade with the satisfaction that your loved ones were well cared for and safe, and that although they had to go through the mourning process, you were certain you had left nothing unsaid or undone.

Or nothing said, as was the case here.

It was the greatest gift he could give the mother who had raised him in a manner better than he deserved, the only way he could repay the circumstances of his cruel birth.

Madalina smiled and released a long, grateful breath.

And all was as it needed to be.