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Upstairs in the for room, the food that Tohr ate with the others was all texture, no taste Likewise, the conversation percolating up around the table was just sound without relevance And the people to his left and to his right were two-di more

As he sat with his brothers and the shellans and guests of thewas a distant, hazy blur

Well, al in the vast room that made any impression on him

Across the porcelain and the silver, on the far side of the bouquets of flowers and the curling candelabra, a robed figure sat motionless and self-contained in a chair precisely opposite his own With that hood up in place, the only thing that showed of the female underneath was a pair of delicate hands that, from time to time, cut a piece of meat or forked up some rice

She ate like a bird Was silent as a shadow

And why she was here, he hadn&039;t a clue

He had buried her back in the Old Country Underneath an apple tree, because he had hoped the fragrant blooms would ease her in her death

God knew she had had nothing easy at the end of her life

And yet now she was alive again, having arrived with Payne from the Other Side, proof positive that when it ca was possible

"More laen asked at his elbow

Tohr&039;s stohter than a suitcase, but he was still feeling loose in the joints and sloppy in the head Considering that eating , he nodded

"Thanks, man"

As his plate was refilled with meat, and he volunteered for ive hi to do

Wrath was at the head of the table, the king presiding over everything and everybody Beth was supposed to be in the other armchair at the far end, but instead, and as usual, she was in her hellren&039;s lap As was also typical, Wrath washih he was fully blind now, he fed his shellan fro it so that she leaned in and accepted what he provided

The pride he so clearly had in her, the satisfaction he took frooddamn warmth between the als, as if he were looking forward to getting her alone and sinking into her in a variety of ways

Not the kind of thing Tohr needed to see

Swinging his head around, he caught Rehv and Ehlena sitting side by side, doing the lovey-dovey And Phury and Core and Mary

Frowning, he thought of how Hollywood&039;s fein She&039;d been on the lip edge of dead, only to be pulled back and given a long life

Down in the clinic, Doc Jane was the saood years ahead of her and her hellren

Tohr&039;s eyes locked on the robed figure across froer boiled in his distended storace aristocrat, now going by the naift of life anew by the goddamn mother of the race

His Wellsie?

Dead and gone Nothing but memory and ashes

Forever, he wondered who you had to bribe or blow to get that kind of dispensation His Wellsie had been a female of worth, just like these other three - why hadn&039;t she been spared Why the fuck wasn&039;t he like those otherforward to the rest of his years

Why hadn&039;t he and his shellan been grantedat her

No he was glaring at her

Across the table, Tohrry eyes, as if he resented not just her presence in this house, but the very breath in her lungs and the beat of her heart

The expression did not favor his features Indeed, he had aged so h vae, appeared to be in their mid- to late twenties until just before they died And that was not the only change in hiht loss - no h flesh on his bones, his face marked with hollowed cheekbones and a too-sharp jaw, his sunken eyes sed with shadows above and below them

His physical infir, however He hadn&039;t changed before the meal, and his damp clothes were stained with red blood and black oil, visceral rehts

He had washed his hands, however

Where was his mate? she wondered She had seen no evidence of a shellan - perhaps he had remained unattached all these years? Surely if he had a fe her head further under her hood, she placed her fork and knife to the side of her plate She had no ry for echoes fro she could politely refuse

Tohr as she when they had spent all those ether in that fortified cabin in the Old Country, taking refuge against the cold of the winter, the wet of the spring, the heat of the summer, and the drafts of the autu her belly sith life, a complete calendar cycle in which he and his mentor, Darius, had fed, sheltered, and cared for her

It was not how her first pregnancy should have gone It was not how a fe that the fate she had intended for herself would have e&039;er provided

Arrogant of her to have assuoing back From the moment she had been captured and ripped away from her family, she had been forever altered sure as if acid had been splashed upon her face, or her body had been burned beyond recognition, or she had lost li

But that was not the worst of it Bad enough that she had been tainted at all, but that it had been by a sy?

She had spent those four long seasons under that thatched roof aware that there was ainside of her Indeed, she would have lost her social station if it had been a vampire who had abducted her and cheated her fainity Previous to her abduction, as the daughter of the Council&039;s leahdyre, she had been a highly valuable coht out for ad at special occasions like a fine jewel

In fact, her father had beento soher than that to which she had been born

With terrible clarity, she recalled that she had been tending to her hair when the soft clicking sound froistered

She had put the brush down on her makeup table

And then the latch had been released by someone other than herself