Free Lover Avenged by J. R. Ward Page A

bones and cracked a lot of heads and been the cause of a lot of drug overdoses.
    Ehlena, on the other hand, spent her nights saving people.
    Yeah, they had shit in common, all right.
    His efforts kept her in business.
    How. Perfect.
     
    Outside the clinic in the frosty air, Wrath was chest-to-chest with Vishous.
    “Get out of my way, V.”
    Vishous, of course, was having none of the back-off. Not a surprise. Even before the little news flash about the Scribe Virgin having birthed him, the fucker had been a total free agent.
    A Brother’d have better luck giving orders to a rock.
    “Wrath-”
    “No, V. Not here. Not now-”
    “I saw you. In my dreams this afternoon.” The ache in that dark voice was the kind normally associated with funerals. “I had a vision.”
    Wrath spoke without wanting to. “What did you see?”
    “You standing in a dark field alone. We were all around your periphery, but no one could reach you. You were gone from us and us from you.” The Brother reached out and grabbed hard. “Because of Butch, I know you’re going out into the field alone and I’ve kept my mouth shut. But I can’t let you do this anymore. You die and the race is fucked, to say nothing of what it’ll do to the Brotherhood.”
    Wrath’s eyes strained to focus on V’s face, but the security light over the door was a fluorescent and the glow from the thing stung like a bitch. “You don’t know what the dream means.”
    “And neither do you.”
    Wrath thought of the weight of that civilian in his arms. “It could be nothing-”
    “Ask me when I first had the vision.”
    “-but a fear you have.”
    “Ask me. When I had the vision first.”
    “When.”
    “Nineteen oh nine. It’s been a hundred years since I saw it first. Now ask me how many times I’ve had it this past month.”
    “No.”
    “Seven times, Wrath. This afternoon was the final straw.”
    Wrath broke out of the Brother’s hold. “I’m leaving now. If you follow me, you’re going to find a fight.”
    “You can’t go out alone. It’s not safe.”
    “You’re kidding me, right.” Wrath glared through his wraparounds. “Our race is failing and you want to bust my balls for going after our enemy? Fuck that for a laugh. I’m not getting stuck behind some bitch-ass desk pushing papers while my brothers are out there actually doing something-”
    “But you’re the king. You’re more important than us-”
    “The hell I am! I’m one of you! I was inducted, I drank of the Brothers and they of me, I want to fight!”
    “Look, Wrath…” V assumed a tone that was so reasonable it made a guy want to knock all his teeth out. With an ax. “I know exactly what it’s like not to want to be who you’re born as. You think I get off on having these fucked-up dreams? You think this lightsaber of mine is a party?” He held up his gloved hand as if the visual aid was a value-add to their “discussion.” “You can’t change who you are. You can’t undo the coupling of whatever parents you had. You’re the king, and the rules apply differently to you, and that’s the way it is.”
    Wrath did his best to cop to V’s calm, cool, and collected. “And I say I’ve been fighting for over three hundred years, so I’m not exactly a greenhorn out there in the field. I’d also like to point out that being king doesn’t mean I lose the right to choose-”
    “You have no heir. And from what I hear from my shellan, you shut Beth down when she told you she wanted to try for one when she has her first needing. Shut her down hard. How did she say you put it? Oh…right. ‘I don’t want any young in the foreseeable future…if at all.’”
    Wrath’s breath exhaled in a rush. “I can’t believe you just went there.”
    “Bottom line? You end up dead? The fabric of the race’s society is going to unravel, and if you think that’s going to help in the war, you’ve got your head so far up your ass you’re using your colon as a mouthpiece. Face it,