There was a pause. And then the voice that came over the connection was not anything like that of the pimple-faced pusher he’d given the cell, the cash, and the last working gun the Society had to.
“I have something you want.”
Mr. C frowned. Very deep voice. Laced with an edge he recognized from the streets, and an accent he couldn’t place.
“It’s not the piece-of-shit phone you’re calling me on,” Mr. C drawled. “I got plenty of those.”
After all, when you didn’t have anything in your hand, your holster or your wallet, bluffing was your only option.
“Well, good for you. Have you plenty of what you sent to me, too? Money? Manpower?”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“I’m your enemy.”
“If you took my fucking cash, you bet your ass you are.”
“Actually, ’tis a simplistic answer to what is a rather complex problem.”
Mr. C burst to his feet, knocking over the bucket. “Where’s my fucking money, and what did you do with my men?”
“I’m afraid they can’t come to the phone anymore. That’s why I’m calling.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Mr. C bit out.
“On the contrary, you are the one at that particular disadvantage—as well as so many others.” When Mr. C was about to snap, the guy cut him off. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to call you at nightfall with a location. You, and you alone, are going to meet me there. If anyone comes with you, I will know, and you will never hear from me again.”
Mr. C was used to feeling disdain for others—came with the job when all you dealt with were two-bit street thugs and strapped drug addicts. But this guy on the other end of the connection? Self-controlled. Calm.
A professional.
Mr. C dialed back his temper. “I don’t need to play games—”
“Yes, you do. Because if you want drugs to sell, you need to come to me.”
Mr. C got quiet. This was either a lunatic with delusions of grandeur, or…somebody with true power. Like, maybe the one who’d been killing off all the middlemen in the Caldwell drug trade over the last year.
“Where and when?” he said gruffly.
There was a dark laugh. “Answer your phone at nightfall, and you’ll find out.”
FORTY-THREE
Layla couldn’t speak as Payne’s words sank in.
“No,” she said to the other female. “No, Havers told me…there is nothing that can be done.”
“Medically, that may well be true. I may have another way, however. I don’t know whether it will work, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to do what I can.”
For a moment, Layla could only breathe.
“I don’t…” She felt the flat plane of her stomach. “What will you do to me?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” Payne shrugged. “In fact, it hadn’t even dawned on me that it might help your situation. But I have been known to heal that which needs healing. Again, I’m not sure whether it applies here. We could try, though—and it won’t hurt you. That I can promise.”
Layla searched the fighter’s face. “Why…would you do this for me?”
Payne frowned and focused elsewhere. “You do not need to know the whys.”
“Yes, I do.”
That profile grew positively cold. “You and I are sisters in my mother’s tyranny—casualties of her grand plan for the way things must be. We were both jailed by her in different ways, you as a Chosen, myself as her blooded daughter. There is nothing I will not do to aid you.”
Layla lay back. She had never before considered herself a casualty of the mother of the race. Except…as she considered her desperation for a family, her sense of rootlessness, her very lack of identity outside of her service as a Chosen…she had to wonder. Free will had led her here to this horrid spot, but at least she had picked the route and the means. As a member of the Scribe Virgin’s special class of females, she had had no such choice, about anything in her life.
Anything at all, really.
She was losing the pregnancy; this was self-evident. And if Payne thought there was a chance of…
“Do what you will,” she said roughly. “And I thank you no matter the outcome.”
Payne nodded once. Then she brought up her hands, flexing them, the fingers flaring wide. “May I touch your stomach?”
Layla pushed down the covers. “Must I take off my shirt altogether?”
“No.”
Just as well. Even the shift of the duvet heralded a further cramping, the minute change in weight cause for— “You are in such pain,” the other female murmured.
Layla didn’t answer as she exposed the skin of her stomach. Clearly, her expression had already said enough.
“Just relax. This shouldn’t cause you any distress—”
As contact was made, Layla jerked her head up. The fighter’s hands were warm like bathwater as they landed ever so softly on her lower abdomen. Soothing like bathwater as well. Strangely soothing, as a matter of fact.
“Does this hurt you?” Payne asked.
“No. It feels…” As another cramping geared itself up, she gripped the sheets, bracing herself— Except the crest of the pain didn’t rise as it had previously, surely as if the sensation were a great, cragged mountain, the top of which had been sheared off.
It was the first relief she’d gotten since it had all started.
With a groan of submission, she let her head go lax, the pillows cushioning a sudden weariness that told her just how much discomfort had been in her body.
“And now we begin.”
All at once, the lamp across the room flickered…and then went out.
Its illumination was soon replaced, however.
From Payne’s gentle hands, a soft glow began to emanate, the warmth of her touch intensifying, that strange, wondrous easing seeming to penetrate beneath the skin, and the muscle, and any bone that was in the way…going directly into Layla’s womb.
And then there was an explosion of sorts.
With a hiss, she gave herself up to the great surge of energy that abruptly burrowed into her, that heat never burning and yet boiling away the pain, lifting the agony up and out of her flesh surely as the steam from a pot rose and drifted away.
But it was not over. A great flush of euphoria sped throughout her body, its golden tendrils pulsating out of her pelvic area and flowing up through her torso to her mind and her very soul as her legs and arms tingled as well.
Oh, great, poignant relief…
Oh, incredible power…
Oh, sweet saving grace.
The healing was still not over, however.
In the midst of the maelstrom, Layla felt a…what was it? A shifting in her womb. A tightening, mayhap? But not a cramping, no, not that. More as if that which had been lagging found a bracing strength.
She became gradually aware that her teeth were chattering.
Looking down her body, she saw that everything was trembling, and that was not all.
Her physical form was glowing. Every inch of her skin was as a shade on a lamp, revealing the light beneath, her clothes acting as frail barriers to that which was streaming from her.
In the illumination, Payne’s face was harsh, as if there were a great cost to her in transferring the wondrous healing to another. And Layla would have moved away, stopped this, if she could have—because the other female began to look positively haggard. There was no way to break the connection, however; she had no control of her limbs, no way of even speaking.
It seemed to last forever, the vital communion between them.
When Payne finally jerked back, breaking the link, she slumped off the bed, landing in a heap on the floor.
Layla opened her mouth to shout. Tried to reach for her savior. Strained against her body’s still-glowing deadweight.
But there was naught she could do.
The last thing that registered before she lost consciousness was her concern for the other female. And then all went dark.
FORTY-FOUR
Qhuinn woke up with a hard-on.