“Glad he showed,” iAm said as he glanced at the shut door of the exam room. Guess they were still cleaning Selena up.
What a fucking night. Day. Whatever it was.
“Yeah.”
iAm checked his watch. Well, whaddaya know. It was eight p.m. After sundown. They’d been here for, like, over twelve hours straight.
“So are you going to tell me what’s on your mind?”
iAm dropped his arm and looked at his brother. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, man.” Trez let out an exhausted curse. “You think I can’t read you? Really?”
iAm paced down a couple of yards. Came back. Went down again.
“More good news, huh,” Trez muttered.
“Yeah.”
“Get it off your chest. At least one of us will feel better.”
“Doubt it.”
“Like shit can get worse?”
“The Queen gave birth.”
“And.”
“Not it.”
Trez closed his eyes and seemed to sag in his own skin. “Unbelievable timing.”
“It’s why s’Ex was calling you. He tracked me down when you didn’t answer and, yeah, there you go.”
Trez blew out his breath. “You know what my fantasy is? It ain’t porn. It’s good news. For once in my fucking life, I’d love to have some good news.”
“They’re in mourning.” When Trez just shook his head, iAm felt like hell all over again. “We have a week, and then…”
“Then they’re going to want their living, breathing dildo back, huh.”
As Trez focused on the closed door of the exam room, he appeared to age before iAm’s eyes, the skin of his face seeming to melt from the bone structure underneath, the corners of his eyes dragging down, his mouth going lax.
“Trez—”
“Tell s’Ex I want to meet with him. I can’t leave now because of…”
“You’re not actually thinking of going back, are you.”
Trez’s stare didn’t leave that closed door.
“Trez. Answer me. You’re not thinking about going back.”
As the silence stretched out, iAm cursed. “Trez? Hello?”
“I’ve got to meet with s’Ex. But it has to be after…” Trez cleared his throat. “Yeah. Afterward.”
iAm nodded because what else could he do? There was no blaming the guy for that kind of prioritization.
Unfortunately, the s’Hisbe was not going to be so understanding. But that was where iAm came in. No way anyone was muscling his brother while this shit with Selena was going on.
He didn’t care what he had to do: Trez was going to be free to care for his female.
Fuck the Queen.
FOURTEEN
Layla felt pursued as she kept a foot on the gas and both hands on the steering wheel of her pale blue Mercedes. Qhuinn bought her the E350 4matic, whatever that meant, about three months ago. He’d wanted something flashier, bigger, faster, but in the end, the little sedan was what she’d felt most comfortable with. And she’d picked the color because it reminded her of the bathing pools up in the Sanctuary.
The farmland on Caldwell’s outskirts rolled out over hill and dale, and she loved these gracious undulating fields that spiked up with corn in July and August, and were shorn down like a male’s beard in the fallow months. She knew all of the landscape by heart now, this route well taken out to one specific rise, one particular meadow, one now-significant tree.
When she came to the base of the short hill, she cut her lights and let the car roll to a stop. She never felt good about coming here, but after seeing the state Selena was in and knowing what it meant, her heart was even heavier than usual.
Hefting herself out from behind the wheel, she put her hands on her lower back and arched her chest out, trying to loosen the muscles that seemed perpetually engaged—
“You’re early.”
With a gasp, she wheeled around. Xcor was standing mere feet from her rear bumper, and she could tell instantly that something was off about him. It wasn’t that his harsh face looked any different; from the harelip that made him appear as if he were perpetually snarling, to his shrewd eyes and his heavy jaw, all the features were the same. And there wasn’t a change in his skull-trimmed hair, or his long black leather duster, or even his leathers or his combat boots or all the weapons she knew he had on him, but which he always carefully hid from her.
She was unable to pinpoint exactly what the clue was. But her instincts did not lie, and they were never wrong.
“Are you unwell?” she asked.
“Are you?”
She put her hand on her belly. “I am not.”
“What happened last night? Why didn’t you come?”