J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [20]
Endured was right. V, like the rest of the males in the warrior camp, had been forced to watch his father have sex. The Bloodletter hadn’t distinguished between fighting and fucking and had made no allowances for females’ size or weakness.
The Scribe Virgin began shifting around the room again. “I delievered you unto the camp on your third birthday.”
V became dimly aware of a humming in his head, like a train was gathering speed. Thanks to his parents’ little bargain, he’d been living his life in ruins, stuck dealing with the aftermath of his father’s cruelty as well as the war camp’s vicious lessons.
His voice dropped to a growl. “Do you know what he did to me? What they did to me there?”
“Yes.”
Throwing all rules of etiquette into the shitter, he said, “Then why the fuck did you let me stay there.”
“I had given my word.”
V burst to his feet, his hand going to his privates. “Glad to know your honor stayed intact, even if I didn’t. Yeah, that’s a fair fucking exchange.”
“I can understand your anger—”
“Can you, Mom? That makes me feel so much better. I spent twenty years of my life fighting to stay alive in that cesspool. What did I get? A scrambled head and fucked-up body. And now you want me to breed for you?” He smiled coldly. “What if I can’t impregnate them? If you know what happened to me, you ever think of that?”
“You are able.”
“How do you know?”
“Think you there is any part of my son I cannot see?”
“You…bitch,” he whispered.
A blast of heat came out of her body, hot enough to singe his eyebrows, and her voice cracked through the penthouse. “Do not forget who I am, warrior. I chose your father unwisely, and we both suffered for the mistake. Do you think I remained unharmed as I saw what course your life laid? Think you I watched from afar unaffected? I died every day for you.”
“Well, aren’t you Mother fucking Teresa,” he shouted, aware that his own body had started to heat up. “You’re supposed to be all-powerful. If you’d given a shit, you could have stepped—”
“Destinies are not chosen, they are conferred—”
“By who? You? Then are you the one I should hate for all the shit that was done to me?” Now he was glowing all over; he didn’t even have to look down at his forearms to know that what was within his hand had spread throughout him. Just. Like. Her. “God…damn you.”
“My son—”
He bared his fangs. “You do not call me that. Ever. Mother and son…we aren’t that. My mother would have done something. When I couldn’t help myself, my mother would have been there—”
“I wanted to be—”
“When I was bleeding and torn up and terrified, my mother would have been there. So don’t fly me that sonny-boy bullshit.”
There was a long silence. Then her voice came clear and strong. “You will present yourself to me following my sequester, which starts this night. You will be shown your mate as a formality. You will return when she is suitably prepared for your use, and you will do what you were birthed to do. And you will do it of your own free choice.”
“The hell I will. And fuck you.”
“Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, you will do this because if you do not, the race will not survive. If there is any hope of withstanding the onslaughts of the Lessening Society, more Brothers are needed. You of the Brotherhood are but a handful now. In past epochs there were twenty and thirty among you. Where may yet more come but from selective breeding?”
“You let Butch into the Brotherhood, and he wasn’t—”
“Special dispensation for a prophecy realized. Not the same at all, and well you know it. His body will never be as strong as yours. If not for his innate power, he could never function as a Brother.”
V looked away from her.
Survival of the species. Survival of the Brotherhood.
Shit.
He walked around and ended up by his rack and his wall of toys. “I’m the wrong guy for this kind of thing. I’m not the hero type. I’m not interested