Free Immortal by J.R. Ward Page A

never stopped turning, and didn’t that make the war so much more real to her.
    Shit, to think of the fun she and Jim could have.
    He could also help her protect all this. Anytime she went away, there was always an undercurrent of fear that something would happen, that she’d get in that elevator, hit the
down
button, and find those doors opening a moment later to a whole lot of nothing. And this was even though she had the best security system in the world: At the moment, it was thanks to a twenty-two-year-old computer programmer from Neuvo-Tec, a company she had “hired” to come here to her “human resources firm” to configure “banks of servers” to properly support her “intranet.”
    Or some shit.
    In reality, she’d created all that fiction just to get the poor virginal sonofabitch and his pathetic pocket protector on her premises. Whereupon she’d metaphorically knocked his socks off with a gold Prada pantsuit and a mile-high pair of Manolos—and then literally knocked his block off by coming at him from behind and overpowering him as he’d checked out the illusion of a computer system. After that, there had been the bloodletting, the ritual, the symbols in the flesh . . . and way-to-go, she had her early-warning system.
    If anyone came in on that first floor above, or tried to get into the elevators? Wherever she was, up here on earth or down there in her Well of Souls, she’d know about it.
    And she could protect her precious possessions.
    Man, it’d be really fucking nice to have a partner in all this. Yeah, sure, her minions were fine when she felt like ordering something around, but they couldn’t think for themselves, andthat got boring quick. Jim Heron was the opposite of compliant—she fought constantly with him, and that was just the hot sauce she was looking for.
    Resuming her promenade, she headed for the back to her bedroom-ish area. Above her, banks of fluorescent lights glowed like fake suns, and soon enough, her rolling stands of hangered clothes overtook the lineup of bureaus. Past her showroom of a wardrobe came her shoes in their floor-to-ceiling cases; her accessory area, where she kept her handbags, scarves, and jewelry; and finally her makeup table, with its mirrors and all her Chanel compacts, YSL liners, and Estée Lauder foundations.
    And then there was her bed, of course. Oh, her bed, with its acres of Porthault and its down comforters and pillows. She’d actually never had sex in the thing before, but how cool was it going to be when she broke the mattress in with Jim?
    A sudden image of Sissy Barten made her clench her teeth.
    Goddamn it, if it was the last thing she did, Jim was going to lie in that bed with his legs spread and his cock hard and ready, and he was going to tell her he loved her and beg her to have sex with him. And when they did get it on? It was going to be total hotness, because she’d know that she had won and he was with her forevermore.
    That was just the way it had to be.
    â€œRight?” she said to her new shoes.
    The good news was that the prospect of putting the twin sparklies in with the rest of her collection was a great de-stresser—except she had to check one more thing first.
    Of all her objects . . . it was the nastiest-looking. Also the most valuable—in spite of the amount of pilfered jewelry she had down here.
    Her real mirror was in the far corner of the basement. And it was tucked away in the darkness not just to keep it safe, butbecause it was fugly and a half: The thing was at least five feet high and three feet wide—maybe it was even bigger. There was scrollwork around all four sides, and from a distance you might have assumed it was a flowery motif or some kind of French fanciness. Up close, though, it was clear that the undulating pattern was a series of tortured bodies, their limbs mangled or missing, their faces distorted in pain. And