J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [790]
How in the hell they found such limited activity worth waking up for she hadn’t a clue.
In the sanctuary there was no conception of time, and yet she wished she had a pocket watch or a chiming clock to figure out how late the Blind King was. They had a standing sparring session every afternoon.
Well, afternoon for him. For her, stuck here on this side, everything was perpetually daytime.
She wondered exactly how long it had been since her mother had sprung her from that deep freeze and allowed her some freedom. No way to know. Wrath had started to show up regularly about. . . fifteen times ago and she’d been reanimated maybe . . . well, long before that. So maybe over six months?
The real question was how long she’d been kept under frosted lock and key—but it wasn’t like she was going to ask her mother about that. They weren’t talking at all. Until that “divine” female who’d birthed her was prepared to let her out of here, Payne didn’t have anything to say.
For truth, the silent treatment didn’t seem to be making a difference at all, but she hadn’t expected it to. When your mother-mare was the creator of the race and answerable to no one, even the king . . .
It was rather easy to become trapped in your own life.
As her pace through the fountain intensified and her robing started to get soaked, she leaped out of the pool and jogged around, her fists up in front of her, the punches she threw out pumping the air.
Being the good, dutiful Chosen was not in her hardwiring, and that was the root of all of the problems between her and her mother. Oh, the waste. Oh, the disappointment.
Oh, do get over it, mother dear.
Those standards of behavior and belief were for someone else. And if the Scribe Virgin had been looking for another robed ghost to drift around like a silent draft through a temperate room, she should have picked another sire for her young.
The Bloodletter’s vital makeup was in Payne, the traits of the father carrying through to the next generation—
Payne wheeled around and met Wrath’s falling fist with a forearm block and a scissor kick to his liver. The king was quick to retaliate and the hammering elbow that returned at her was a concussion waiting to happen.
Fast duck had her barely out of the way. Another kick from her sent the king jumping back—though he was blind, he had an unerring ability to know precisely where she was in space.
Which meant he would guess she would come at his flank. Indeed, he was already spinning his weight around, ready to punch her with the sole of his boot around the back.
Payne changed her mind, hit the ground, and swept both of her legs out, catching him at the ankle and throwing him off balance. A quick jog to her right and she was out of the way of his huge, lurching body; another leap and she was latched onto his back as he landed hard, his neck caught in a choke hold within the crook of her elbow. To gain extra leverage, she grabbed onto her own wrist and used her other biceps as she pulled against his throat.
The king’s way of dealing with it? He turtled on her.
His incredible brute strength gave him the power to get his feet under both their weight and rise up. Then it was a jump in the air that had them landing with her underneath, flattened on the marble.
Hell of a bedding platform—she could practically feel her bones bending.
The king was first and foremost a male of worth, however, and in deference to her inferior muscularity, he never kept her down for long. Which irked her. She’d have preferred a no-holds-barred contest of skill, but there were differences in the sexes that were not negotiable and males were simply bigger and therefore stronger.
As much as she resented the fact of biology, there