Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

understood, the average vampire female had her first needing about five years after the change, and then every ten years or so thereafter. So by all accounts, they had some time before they had to worry about all this….
    Then again, as a half-breed, there was no way to be sure in Beth’s case. When humans and vampires mixed, anything could happen—andhe did have some reason to be conerned. She had, after all, mentioned kids once or twice before.
    But surely that had to be in the hypothetical.
    “So are you going to hold off on Qhuinn’s induction?” she said.
    “Yeah. Saxton is done updating the laws, but with Layla being where she’s at? Not the right time to bring him into the Brotherhood.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    The two of them fell silent, and as Wrath took the moment to heart, he couldn’t possibly imagine his life without her.
    “Do you know something?” he said.
    “What?” There was a smile in her voice, the kind that told him she had a clue about what he was going to say.
    “I love you more than anything.”
    His queen laughed a little, and stroked his face. “I would never have guessed.”
    Hell, even he caught the surge of his bonding scent.
    In response, Wrath cupped her face and leaned in, finding her lips and taking them in a soft kiss—that didn’t stay that way. Man, it was always like this with her. Any contact at all and before he knew it, he was hard and ready.
    God, he didn’t know how human men handled it. From what he understood, they had to wonder whether their mates were fertile every single damn time they had sex—evidently, they couldn’t pick up on the subtle changes of their females’ scents.
    He’d go fucking insane. At least when a female vampire was in her needing, everyone knew it.
    Beth shifted in his lap, compressing his hard-on, making him groan. And usually, this was the cue for George to be led across to the double doors and temporarily banished. But not tonight. As much as Wrath wanted her, the pall in the house was putting a damper on even his libido.
    And then there was Autumn’s needing. Now Layla’s.
    He wasn’t going to lie; the shit was making him tetchy. Hormones in the air had been known to have a ricochet effect in a house full of females, influencing one and then another and then a third into her needing, assuming she was fairly close to her time.
    Wrath stroked Beth’s hair and retucked his queen’s head into his shoulder.
    “You don’t want to…”
    As she let the sentence drift, he took her hand and lifted it up, feeling the heavy Saturnine Ruby that the queen of the race had always worn.
    “I just want to hold you,” he said. “It’s enough for me right now.”
    Nestling in, she fit herself even more closely to him. “Well, this is nice, too.”
    Yeah. It was.
    And curiously terrifying.
    “Wrath?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Are you okay?”
    It was a little while before he could answer, before he trusted his voice to be calm, and level, and no BFD. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just fine.”
    As he smoothed her arm, running his hand up and down her biceps, he prayed that she believed it…and vowed that what was happening just one door down the hall would never, ever happen to them.
    Nope. That crisis was not anything the pair of them were going to have to deal with.
    Thanks be to the Scribe Virgin.

FORTY-TWO
    L ayla wasn’t sleeping, of course.
    When she’d told Qhuinn to go, she had meant the things she’d said about not wanting to keep up a front with him around. But the funny thing was, even with nobody in the room with her, she didn’t get hysterical. No tears. No cursing.
    She just lay on her side with her arms and legs curled up, her mind receding deep into her body, the constant monitoring of every ache and cramp a compulsion that was making her crazy. There was no changing that, however. It was as if some part of her was convinced that if she could only know what stage she was in, she could somehow have some control over the process.
    Which was, of course, bullshit. As Qhuinn would say.
    The image of him in the clinic, with his dagger at the healer’s throat, was like something out of one of the books in the Sanctuary’s library—a dramatic episode that was part of someone else’s life.
    Her vantage point on the bed, however, reminded her that that was not the case….
    The knock on her door was soft, which suggested it was a female.
    Layla closed her eyes. As much as she appreciated whatever kindnesswas awaiting