Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

and middle fingers into her throat, she shovedthem in so hard she choked. But that was the extent of it. There was no coordination of her diaphragm, no release of the greasy spoiled meat in her stomach…not that she’d actually eaten that—or anything else—for…how long had it been? Days.
    Mayhap that was the problem.
    Snaking her arm around her hips, she put her sweaty forehead on the hard, cool lip of the toilet and tried to breathe shallowly—because the sensation of air moving up and down the back of her throat made the impotent urge to throw up worse.
    Mere days ago, when she had been in her needing, her body had taken control, the urge to mate strong enough to wipe out all thought and emotion. That supremacy had quickly passed, however, and likewise had the aches and pains from the relentless mating, her skin and bones once again resuming their backseat to her brain.
    The balance was tipping back once more.
    Giving up, she carefully repositioned herself, placing her shoulders against the blessedly chilly marble wall.
    Considering how sickly she felt, her only extrapolation was that she was losing the pregnancy. She’d never seen anyone in the Sanctuary go through this—was this illness what was normal here on earth?
    Closing her eyes, she wished she could talk to someone about it all. But very few knew her condition—and for the time being, she needed to keep things that way: Most were completely unaware that she had gone through her needing or been serviced. Autumn’s fertile period had hit first, and in response, the Brotherhood had scattered far and wide as there was no taking chances with exposure to those hormones—for good reason, as she had learned firsthand. By the time people had returned to their normal rooms in the mansion? Her own had passed, and any residual hormonal fluxes in the air had been chalked up by all and sundry to Autumn’s fading time.
    The privacy in these two rooms of hers was not going to last if the pregnancy continued, however. For one, her status would be sensed by the others, especially males, who were particularly attuned to that sort of thing.
    And two, after a while, she would begin to show.
    Except if she felt this bad, how ever could the young survive?
    As a vague sensation of tightness settled into her lower belly, like her pelvis was being compressed by an invisible vise, she tried to train her mind on something, anything other than her physical sensations.
    Eyes the color of the night sky came to her.
    Penetrating eyes, eyes that stared up from a face that was bloodied and distorted…and beautiful even in its ugliness.
    Okay. This was
not
an improvement.
    Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards. A traitor against the king, a hunted male who was enemy to the Brotherhood and lawful vampires everywhere. The fierce warrior who had been born of a noble mother who did not want him because of his visage, and an unknown father who had never claimed parentage. An unwanted burden shuffled from home to orphanage until he’d entered the Bloodletter’s training camp back in the Old Country. A remorseless fighter trained therein to great effect; then, in his maturity, a master of death who toured the land with a band of elite fighters first aligned to the Bloodletter himself, and thereafter, to Xcor—and no one else.
    The information trail at the Sanctuary’s library ended there because none of the Chosen were updating anything anymore. The rest, however, she could fill in herself: The Brotherhood believed the attempt on Wrath’s life back in the fall had been made by Xcor, and she had further heard there were insurrectionists within the
glymera
working with the fighter.
    Xcor. A traitorous, brutal male with no conscience, no loyalty, no principle save to serve himself.
    Yet when she had looked into his eyes, when she had been in his presence, when she had unknowingly fed this new enemy…she had felt like a full female for the first time in her life.
    Because he had looked upon her not with aggression, but with—
    “Arrest that,” she said aloud. “Stop that
right
now.”
    As if she were a young getting into a cupboard or some such thing.
    Forcing herself to her feet, she drew her robe around her and resolved to leave her room and make her way down to the kitchen. A change of scenery was needed, and so was food—if only to give her churning stomach something to expel.
    On her way out, she did not check her hair or her face in the mirror. Did not fuss over the way