FIFTY - TWO

When Payne came back to consciousness, she did not open her eyes. No reason to give away the fact that she was aware of her surroundings.

Bodily sensation informed her of her situation: She was on her feet, with her wrists shackled and pulled out to the sides and her back against a stone wall that was damp. Her ankles were likewise tethered and stretched apart and her head had lolled forward into a very uncomfortable position.

When she drew breaths in, she smelled musky dirt, and the voices of males percolated up from the left of where she was.

Very deep voices. Cast with drumming excitement, as if a benefit had fallen into their clutches.

She was it.

As she gathered her strength, she was under no illusions of what they were going to do to her. Soon. And as she drew herself together, she shied away from thoughts of her Manuel ... of how, if these males had their way, they would spoil her many times over before they murdered her, taking what rightly should have been her healer's -

Except she could not and would not think of him. That cognition was a black pit that would suck her in and trap her and render her defenseless.

Instead, she pulled at the threads of memory, melding the images of the faces of her kidnappers with what she knew from the bowls in the Sanctuary.

Why? she wondered. She had not a clue why the one with the ruined lip had set upon her with such hatred -

"I know you wake." The voice was impossibly low and heavily accented and right next to her ear. "Your breathing pattern has changed."

Lifting her lids along with her head, she shifted her eyes unto the soldier. He was in the shadows beside her so she could not see him properly.

Abruptly, the other voices silenced, and she sensed many stares were upon her.

So this was what prey felt like.

"I'm hurt that you remember nothing of me, female." At that, he brought a candle close to his face. "I have thought of you every night since we first met. A hundred and a hundred years afore."

She narrowed her eyes. Black hair. Cruel eyes of dark blue. And a harelip that he had obviously been born with.

"Remember me." It was not a question, but a demand. "Remember me."

And then it came back. The small village on the edge of a wooded glen. Where she had killed her father. This was one of the Bloodletter's soldiers. No doubt they all were.

Oh, she was definitely prey, she thought. And they were looking forward to hurting her before they killed her in retaliation for taking their leader from them.

"Remember me."

"You are a soldier of the Bloodletter's."

"No," he barked, putting his face in hers. "I am more than that."

As she frowned, he just backed off and paced around in a tight circle, his fists cranked tight, the candle dripping wax onto his curled hand.

When he returned front and center afore her, he was in control. Barely. "I am his son. His son. You stole from me my father - "

"Impossible."

" - unjustly - What?"

Into his stuttered silence, she said loudly and clearly, "It is impossible that you are his son."

When her words registered, the blind fury in his face was the very definition of hatred, and his hand shook as he lifted it up over his shoulder.

He slapped her so hard she saw stars.

As Payne righted her head and met him in the eye, she was not going to have any of this. Not his mistaken belief. Not this group of males sizing her up. Not the criminal ignorance.

Payne held the stare of her captor. "The Bloodletter sired one and only one male offspring - "

"The Black Dagger Brother Vishous." Hard laughter echoed. "I have heard well the stories of his perversions - "

"My brother is not a pervert!"

At this point, Payne lost all control, the anger that had carried her through that night she had killed her father coming back and taking over: Vishous was her blood and her savior for all he had done for her. And she was not going to have him disrespected - even if defending him cost her her life.

Between one heartbeat and the next she was consumed by an inner energy that illuminated the cellar they were all in with a brilliant white light.

The cuffs burned away, falling down to the packed dirt floor with a clanking.

And the male before her leaped back and braced into a fighting stance while the others grabbed for weapons. But she was not going to attack - at least, not physically.

"Listen to me now," she proclaimed. "I am birthed of the Scribe Virgin. I am of the Chosen Sanctuary. So when I say unto you the Bloodletter, my father, bore no other male issue, that is fact."

"Untrue," the male breathed. "And you - you cannot have been born unto the Mother of the race. There is none born unto her - "

Payne lifted her glowing arms. "I am what I am. Deny it at your peril."

The male's complexion drained of what color had been in it, and there was a long, tense standoff, as conventional weapons pointed in her direction and she glowed with holy fury.

And then the head soldier's fighting stance relaxed, his hands falling to his sides, his thighs straightening. "It cannae be," he choked out. "None of it ..."

Fool male, she thought.

Kicking up her chin, she declared, "I am the begotten issue of the Bloodletter and the Scribe Virgin. And I say to you now" - she stepped forward to him - "that I killed my father, not yours."

Lifting her palm, she peeled back and slapped him across the face. "And do not insult my blood."

As the female struck him, Xcor's head whipped so far and so fast to the side that he pulled his shoulder in the attempt to keep the damn thing stuck to his spine. Blood immediately flooded into his mouth, and he spit some of it out before righting himself.

Verily, the female before him was majestic in her fury and her resolve. Nearly as tall as he was, she stared him straight in the eye, her feet planted, her hands in fists she was prepared to use against him and his band of bastards.

No ordinary female, this. And not just because of the way she had dissolved those cuffs.

In fact, as she met his gaze full-on, she reminded him of his father. She had the Bloodletter's iron will not just in her face or her eyes or her body. It was in her soul.

Indeed, he had the very clear sense that they could all fall upon her and she would fight them each and every until the last breath and beat of her heart.

God knew she slapped like a warrior. Not some limp-wristed female.

But ...

"He was my father. He told me that."

"He was a liar." At that, she did not blink. Nor did she duck her eyes or her chin. "I have witnessed within the seeing bowls countless bastard daughters. But there was one and only one son, and that is my twin."

Xcor was not prepared to hear this in front of his males.

He glanced over at them. Even Throe had armed himself, and on each of their faces was impatient rage. One nod from him and they would set upon her, even if she incinerated them all.

"Leave us," he commanded.

Not surprisingly, Zypher was the one who started to argue. "Let us hold her whilst you - "

"Leave us."

There was a beat of immobility. Then Xcor screamed, "Leave us!"

In a flash, they peeled off and disappeared up the stairwell to the darkened house above. Then the door was shut, and footsteps rang out from up above as they paced around like caged animals.

Xcor refocused on the female.

And for the longest time, he just stared at her. "I have searched for you for centuries."

"I was not upon the Earth. Until now."

She remained unbowed as he confronted her in private. Totally unbowed. And as he searched her face, he could feel a glacial shift in the ice fields of his heart.

"Why," he said roughly. "Why did you ... kill him."

The female blinked slowly as if she didn't want to show vulnerability and needed a moment to make sure she put none out. "Because he hurt my twin. He ... tortured my brother, and for that he needed to die."

So perhaps the lore had a veracity after all, Xcor thought.

Indeed, like most soldiers, he had long known the gossiped story of the Bloodletter having demanded for his begotten son to be pinned upon the ground and tattooed ... and then castrated. The tale had it that the wounding had been but partial - it was rumored that Vishous had magically burned through the binds that had held him and then escaped into the night before the cutting had been complete.

Xcor looked over to the cuffs that had fallen from the female's wrists - burned off.

Lifting his own hands, he stared down at the flesh. That had never glowed. "He told me I was born unto a female he had visited for blood. He told me ... she didn't want me because of my ..." He touched his malformed upper lip, leaving the sentence unfinished. "He took me and ... he taught me to fight. At his side."

Xcor was vaguely aware that his voice was rough, but he didn't care. He felt as though he was looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of himself he did not recognize.

"He told me I was his son - and he owned me like his son. After his death, I stepped into his boots, as sons do."

The female measured him, and then shook her head. "And I say unto you that he lied. Look into my eyes. Know that I speak the truth you should have heard long, long ago." Her voice dropped to a mere whisper. "I know well the betrayal of blood. I know that pain which you feel now. It is not right, this burden you carry. But base not a vengeance on fiction, I beg of you. For I shall be forced to kill you - and if I do not, my twin will hunt you down with the Brotherhood and make you pray for your own demise."

Xcor searched into himself and saw something he despised, but could not ignore: He had no memory of the bitch who had born him, but he knew too well the story of how she had cast him out from the birthing room because of his ugliness.

He had wanted to be claimed. And the Bloodletter had done that - the physical disfigurement had never mattered to that male. He had cared only about the things Xcor had had in abundance: speed, endurance, agility, power ... and deadly focus.

Xcor had always assumed he'd gotten that from his father's side.

"He named me," he heard himself say. "My mother refused to. But the Bloodletter ... named me."

"I am so very sorry."

And the strangest thing? He believed her. Once ready to fight to the death, she now appeared to be saddened.

Xcor paced off from her and walked around.

If he was not the son of the Bloodletter, who was he? And would he still lead his males? Would they follow him into battle e'er again?

"I look into the future and see ... nothing," he muttered.

"I know how that feels as well."

He stopped and faced the female. She had linked her arms loosely over her breasts and was not looking at him, but at the wall across the way from her. In her features he saw the same voided emptiness he had within his own chest.

Pulling his shoulders up, he addressed her. "I have no issue to settle against you. Your actions directed unto my" - pause - "the Bloodletter ... were taken for your own valid reasons."

In fact, they had been driven by the same blood loyalty and vengeance that had animated his search for her.

As a warrior would, she bowed at the waist, accepting his reversal and the clearing of the air between them. "I am free to go?"

"Yes - but 'tis daylight." When she looked around at the bunks and cots as if imagining the males who had wanted her, he interjected, "No ill shall befall you herein. I am the leader and I ..." Well, he had been the leader. "We shall pass the day upstairs for your privacy. Food and drink are upon the table o'er there."

Xcor made the concessions for modesty and provision not because of the bullshit propriety issues that revolved around a Chosen. But this female was ... something he respected: If anyone was likely to understand the importance of revenge against an insult upon your family, it was him. And the Bloodletter had done permanent damage to her brother.

"Upon nightfall," he said, "we shall take you out from here blindfolded, as you cannot know where we tarry thus. But you shall be released unharmed."

Turning his back on her, he went over to the only bunk that did not have an upper layer. Feeling like a fool, he nonetheless straightened the rough blanket. There was no pillow, so he bent down and picked up a stack of his laundered shirts.

"This is where I sleep - you may use this for your rest. And lest you feel worried for your safety or virtue, there is a gun under each side upon the floor. But worry not. You shall find yourself arriving unto the sunset in safety."

He did not take a formal vow upon his honor, for verily, he had none. And he did not look back as he took to the stairs.

"What is your name?" she said.

"You do not know that already, Chosen?"

"I know not everything."

"Aye." He put his hand on the rough banister. "Neither do I. Good day, Chosen."

As he mounted the stairs, he felt as though he had aged centuries since he had carried the unanimated, warm body of that female underground.

Opening the stout wooden door, he had no idea what he would be walking into. Following his announcement of his status, his males could well caucus and decide to shun him -

There they all were, in a semicircle, Throe and Zypher bookending the group. Their weapons were in their hands, and their faces were death-knell grim ... and they were waiting for him to say something.

He closed the door and leaned back against it. He was no coward to run from them or what had happened down below, and he saw no benefit to padding what had been revealed with careful words or pauses.

"The female spoke the truth. I am not a blooded relation of the one who I thought was my sire. So what say you all."

They didn't utter a word. Didn't look at each other. And there was no hesitation.

As one, they fell down upon their knees, sinking to the floorboards, and bowing their heads. Throe spoke up.

"We are e'er yours to command."

Upon the response, Xcor cleared his throat. And did it again. And one more time. In the Old Language, he pronounced, "No leader has o'erseen stronger backs with greater loyalty than those gathered afore me."

Throe's eyes lifted. "It has not been the memory of your father that we have served all these years."

There was a great whoop of agreement - which was better than any vow that could have been spoken in flowery language. And then daggers were buried in the wooden floorboards at his feet, the hilts clasped in the fists of soldiers who were, and remained, his to send forth.

And he would have left things there, but his long-term plans demanded a revelation and a further confirmation.

"I have a larger purpose than fighting parallel to the Brotherhood," he said in a quiet tone, so that the female on the lower level could hear naught. "My ambitions are a death sentence if discovered by others. Do you understand what I'm saying."

"The king," someone whispered.

"Aye." Xcor looked into each of their eyes. "The king."

None of them glanced away or got up. They were a solid unit of muscle and strength and lethal determination.

"If that changes anything for any of you," he demanded, "you shall tell me now and you shall leave at nightfall, ne'er to return without penalty of death."

Throe broke ranks by dropping his head. But that was as far as it went. He did not get up and walk away, and no one else did either.

"Good," Xcor said.

"What of the female," Zypher said with a dark smile.

Xcor shook his head. "Absolutely not. She deserves no punishment."

The male's brows popped. "Fine. I can make it good for her, instead."

Oh, for chrissakes, he was just too much like the damned Lhenihan. "No. You shall not touch her. She is a Chosen." This got their attention, but he was going to go no further with the revelations. He'd had quite enough of them. "And we are sleeping up here."

"What the hell?" Zypher got to his feet and the rest followed. "If you say she is off-limits, I shall leave her alone, as will the others. Why - "

"Because that is what I decree."

To buttress the point, Xcor sat down at the foot of the door, putting his back in place against the panels. He trusted his soldiers with his life in the field, but that was a beautiful, powerful female down there, and they were rutting, horny sonsabitches, the lot of them.

They would have to get through him to get to her.

After all, he was a bastard, but he was not completely codeless, and she deserved protection she likely did not need for the good deed she had done him.

Killing the Bloodletter?

Now, that had been a favor to Xcor, as it turned out.

Because it meant he did not have to render the liar's demise upon the fucker's ugly head himself.