Which was why Xcor had taken pains to warn Wrath about the male.

Xcor caressed Layla’s shoulder and marveled again at her effect on him, her ability to cut through the armor of his aggression and hostility and reach the male beneath, the real one.

The one he had lost touch with long ago.

She was his reset, the mechanism of reverse that took him back to who he had been before his destiny had crossed paths with the Bloodletter’s.

An image of that horrible warrior came to his mind as clearly as if he had seen the male the night before, everything from that heavy brow to those penetrating eyes, the jutting jaw and thick neck, the girth and breadth of that massive body. He had been a mesomorph among the huge, a force of nature to shame both the hot fury of summer’s thunderstorms and the explosive, frigid nature of winter’s blizzards.

He had also been a liar.

Whoever Xcor’s sire was, it had not been he. The Bloodletter’s actual progeny had told him that.

Xcor shook his head back and forth on the soft pillow to try to clear his thoughts.

For so long, he had wanted to know who his parents were, something that he supposed was true for most orphans in the world: Even if he was unwanted by them, even if he were to have no relationship with them, he still had a desire to learn their identities.

It was difficult to explain, but he had always felt he was subject to a certain lack of gravity as he moved about the earth, his body possessing an essential weightlessness that, in retrospect, had predisposed him to falling into the Bloodletter’s ideology of destruction, chaos, and death.

When you had no compass of your own, anyone’s would do.

And in his case, the most debased, evil one any could imagine had been that which he had fallen into and embraced.

God, did he have regrets.

The Bloodletter had spoken of training for war, but it had become amply clear that he served his own bloodlust rather than any defense of the species—and still Xcor had gone along with it all: Once he had had a taste of fatherly pride, however perverted it had manifested itself, the approval had become the drug he needed, the antidote to the hole inside of himself.

Except the paternalism had been naught but a chimera, as it turned out. A lie that had taken an unexpected truth to uncover.

With the male’s loss, Xcor had felt as though he had been abandoned a third time: The first had been at his birth. The second had been when the female who had been his nursemaid … or someone else to him … had left. And then the third had been as the Bloodletter’s falsity, undoubtedly constructed to ensure Xcor went with him to his war camp, had fallen away, the news delivered from a source that was undeniable.

V’s blooded sister, Payne, had killed their true father, the Bloodletter.

Killed the lie, too.

But it was all right, Xcor thought. In finding his love? All his questing had ended. He was through pursuing a family that didn’t exist because it had never wanted him. He was over searching for outside sources to fill his inner cistern. He was done assuming any value system other than his own.

And in no longer trying to find that which did not exist? He had discovered the destination he’d always sought within himself, and it felt … good.

It was good to be whole.

It was good to offer himself without reservation or hesitation to a female of worth whom he loved with all that he had in him.

Xcor frowned. But fates, how he was going to leave his Layla? Destiny was what it was, however, and as much as he had improved himself, as fine a track as he was now on … it couldn’t erase his past or the dues he had to pay for all he had done. Nothing could do that.

In truth, he would be e’er unworthy of her. Even if the great Blind King had not mandated him into deportation, he would have volunteered for it willingly.

They just had to make what little time they had left together count.

For a lifetime.

THIRTY-TWO

The following evening, as night came over Caldwell, Blay tried to get out onto the back porch for his first smoke after he’d woken up. The setup was perfect. He had his YETI mug full of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, made by his mahmen from the little bricks you could order online, and his pack of Dunhills—which he was having to ration because he had only six left, and was sporting a Patagonia parka that had more down feathers in it than all the pillows in the house.

Yup, it was a good plan. Caffeine and nicotine were mission critical when you hadn’t slept for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch all day and you didn’t want to bite the heads off of everyone around you.

The problem? When he attempted to open the porch door, he had to put his shoulder into the effort.

And then he got a face full of driving snow.

Recoiling, he cursed and shut things back up. “Holy crap, it’s bad out there—”

The crash from the kitchen was loud and involved something that sounded like a stainless-steel pan or maybe a baking sheet, at least going by the cymbal-like nature of the claaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.

“Mom?” he called out.

Forgetting all about his chemical start-up, he hustled for the other room—

—and found his mahmen down on the tile in front of the stove, her ankle twisted at an unnatural angle, the pecan roll she’d been putting in the oven on the floor, the pan it had been on three feet away from her.

Blay ditched the coffee and pack of cigs on the counter and rushed to kneel beside her. “Mahmen? Did you hit your head? What happened?”

Lyric sat up with a grimace, bracing her body with her elbows. “I just wanted to get this in before your father came down for First Meal.”

“Your head, did you hit your head?” As he pushed her hair out of the way, he prayed he wasn’t going to find all kinds of blood. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

She shoved his hand out of the way. “Blay, I’m fine. For goodness’ sake, I didn’t hit my head.”

He sat back. The female was in her standard mom-jeans, her cheery red sweater and bright white turtleneck making her look like a cross between Santa Claus’s wife and Mrs. Taylor from Home Improvement. And she did seem okay, her eyes tracking him, her coloring good, her affect one of embarrassment, not trauma.

“Blay, I just slipped on the throw rug. I’m all right.”

“Good, because that means I can yell at you. Where the hell is your boot? Why isn’t it on your foot?”

Abruptly, his mahmen feigned light-headedness, fluttering her lashes and throwing out her hands like she couldn’t see. “Is it ten fingers? Twelve?”

When he glared at her, she winced sheepishly. “That boot thing is just so ungainly, and this is such a cramped space. I was going to put it on as soon as I made the eggs.”

“Did you slip—or did your ankle give out?”

When she didn’t say, Blay guessed it was the latter and moved down to her foot. The instant he attempted to even touch the slipper she had on, she hissed and went white as a sheet.

“It’s fine,” she said tightly.

He focused on her thin lips and the way her hands trembled. “I think you’ve dislocated your ankle again. And maybe you’ve broken something, I don’t know.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“You know, those are my three least favorite words. Qhuinn always says them whenever—” He cut that off, and pointedly ignored the way his mom looked at him. “Can you dematerialize? Because I am very sure Doc Jane needs to take a look at this. No, Manny. He’s the bones guy.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary.”

“Why don’t we have Dad decide.” As her eyes flared, he drawled, “Or you could be reasonable and go with me without complaint.”

Lyric’s expression became annoyed, but he knew he had her. Ever since the raids, his father had been a little overprotective of his mate. He seemed to get hysterical at the most ridiculous things—paper cuts, hangnails, a stubbed toe—which meant when Lyric had slipped on the front stoop when going to get the newspaper a couple of nights before, the poor guy had just about lost his damn mind.

And this injury was worse than the first.

“Can you dematerialize?” Blay asked.

“Do you really think it is necessary?”

“You can answer that yourself. How’d you like to try and stand up?”