In the end, though, he just sat on the bed next to the gym bags and put his head in his hands. He wasn’t a pussy to sob like he was at a funeral. Not at all. He just dripped onto his running shoes.
M
anly. Really fucking manly.
But how he appeared to the peanut gallery of his empty condo was as unimportant as his pride, his ego, his cock and balls . . . all of it.
God . . . this wasn’t just sad.
The loss ruined him.
And he was going to carry this pain around with him for the rest of his natural life.
How ironic. Her name had seemed so strange to him at first. Now, it was so very apt.
FIFTY
Payne did not go back to the mansion; she had no interest in seeing anyone who lived there. Not the king, who had given her a freedom that it turned out she did not need. Not her twin, who had advocated on her behalf. And certainly not all the happy, fortunate, blessed couples who lived beneath that regal roof.
So instead of heading north, she re-formed herself on the shores of the waterway that ran beside the tall, glassy buildings of downtown. The breeze was gentler at ground level and carried upon it the chattering sound of the waves licking at the river’s rocky flanks. In the background, the hum from the vehicles surmounting the bridges’ gently curving backs and fading down on their far sides made her feel most keenly the depth and breadth of the landscape.
Surrounded by humans, she was totally alone.
This was what she had asked for, however. This was the freedom she had so dearly wanted and sought with greed.
In the Sanctuary, nothing had changed. But naught had gone wrong, either.
Still, though, she would e’er choose this raw hardship over her former numb insulation.
Oh, Manuel . . .
“Hey, baby.”
Payne looked over her shoulder. A human male was approaching her, having evidently stepped out from behind one of the supports of the bridge. He was weaving, and he smelled like layers upon layers of fermented sweat and dirt.
Without sparing him a greeting, Payne dematerialized farther down the riverbank. There was no reason to scrub him. He was unlikely to remember he’d ever seen her. And no doubt used to drugaddled hallucinations.
Staring at the curling surface of the river, she was not beckoned toward the dark depths. She was not going to hurt herself over this. This was no prison to get trapped in . . . and besides, she was finished with taking a cowardly route out. Bracing her feet upon the earth, she crossed her arms and just existed in the place she stood, time seeping through reality’s sieve unheeded as the stars pinwheeled overhead, changing position. . . .
At first, the scent entered her nose surreptitiously, weaving in and amidst the mix of fresh dirt and wet stone and urban pollution. So initially, she didn’t notice the odor as anything distinctive.
Her brain stem soon came alive in recognition, however.
With a tingle of instinct, her head turned of its own volition, cranking around on the top of her spine. Her shoulders followed . . . then her hips.
That rancid odor was the enemy.
A lesser.
As she fell into a light jog, she felt in her blood an aggression that was not solely tied to her heartache and frustration at what fate had wrought upon her. Closing in on the scent, she was animated by a deep heritage of violence and protection, her limbs and her dagger hand and her fangs prickling. Transformed by deadly purpose, she was neither male nor female, neither Chosen nor sister nor daughter. As she dodged and surmounted the alleys and streets, she was a soldier.
Into an alley she turned, and at the base of it, she found the pair of slayers whose scent had called her forth from the river. Standing together, clustered around what she identified as a phone, they were new recruits, with dark hair and twitchy bodies.
They did not look up as she stopped. Which gave her time to pick up a silver metal disk with FORD marked on it. ’Twas a fine weapon—one she could block with or use to throw.
A moment later, the wind blew up and frothed her robe, pulling it out from her body, and the movement must have caught their eyes, because they turned.
Knives came out. And so did a pair of smiles that made her blood boil.