Father Mine (3 page)

Oh, God . . . damn you,
move
.

No . . . wait . . . he had brought the young here. It was his young who cried—and the Mistress was going to find the infant. She was going to find the infant and . . .
Oh, God.

Get the young out. Get the young—

Light poured over him, rocketing him into true consciousness.

He was off his mated bed like he'd been bootlicked by a Chevy, landing in a fighting stance with fists up at his chest, shoulders drawn in steel knots, thighs ready to spring.

Bella slowly eased back from the lamp she'd turned on, as if she didn't want to spook him.

He looked around the bedroom. There was, as usual, no one to fight, but he'd woken everyone up. In the corner, Nalla was in her crib crying, and he'd scared the ever-loving shit out of his
shellan.
Again.

There was no Mistress. None of her consorts. No cell or chains stretching him out on a bedding platform.

No young in his cell with him.

Bella slipped out of bed and went over to the crib, scooping up a red-faced and screaming Nalla. The daughter, however, would have nothing of the comfort offered. The young held its little chubby arms straight out for Zsadist, wailing for its father, tears streaming.

Bella waited for a moment, as if she were hoping this time would be different and he would go over and take the child into his arms and comfort the infant who so clearly wanted him.

Z backed away until his shoulder blades hit the far wall, tucking his arms around his chest.

Bella turned and whispered to her darling one as she went into the adjoining nursery. The door muffled the daughter's whimpering as it slid shut.

Z let himself slide down until his ass hit the floor. “Fuck.”

He rubbed his skull trim back and forth, then let both hands hang off his knees. After a moment, he realized he was sitting as he had back in the cell, his back against the corner facing the door, his knees up, his naked body shivering.

He looked at the slave bands around his wrists. The black was so dense in his skin, so solid, it was like the iron cuffs he'd once worn.

After God only knew how long, the door to the nursery slid open and Bella came back with the young. Nalla was asleep again, but as Bella laid her out in the crib, it was with care, as if a bomb were about to go off at any moment.

“I'm sorry,” he said softly, rubbing his wrists.

Bella put on a dressing gown and went to the door that led out into the hall. With her hand on the knob, she looked back at him, her eyes remote. “I can't say this is okay anymore.”

“I'm really sorry about the dreams—”

“I'm talking about Nalla. I can't say that your shunning her is all right . . . that I understand, that it's going to get better and I'll be patient. The fact is, she is your child as well as mine, and it kills me to see you pulling away from her. I know what you went through, and I don't want to be callous, but . . . everything's different for me now. I need to think in terms of what's good for her, and having a father who won't even touch her? That's not it.”

Z flexed open both his hands and stared at his palms, trying to imagine picking the young up.

The slave bands seemed huge to him. Huge . . . and contagious.

The word wasn't
won't,
he thought. It was
can't
.

The thing was if he did comfort Nalla and play with her and read to her, it would mean she had him for a father, and his legacy was nothing you wanted to saddle a young with. Bella's born daughter deserved better than that.

“I need you to decide what you want to do,” Bella said. “If you can't be her father, I'm leaving you. I know that sounds harsh, but . . . I have to think of what's best for her. I love you and I will always love you, but it's not about me anymore.”

For a moment, he didn't think he'd heard right. Leaving him?

Bella stepped out into the hall of statues. “I'm going to go grab something to eat. Don't worry about her—I'll be right back.”

She closed the door behind her without a sound.

 

When night fell about two hours later, the way that door had shut so quietly was still banging around Z's head.

Standing in front of his closet full of black shirts and leathers and shitkickers, he sought his inner intentions, chasing them around the maze of his emotions.

Sure, he wanted to overcome the head fuck with his daughter. Of course he did.

It was just insurmountable: What had been done to him might have been in the past, but all he had to do was look at his wrists to see that he was still dirtied by it all—and he didn't want that kind of shit anywhere near Nalla. He'd had the same problem with Bella in the beginning of their relationship, and had managed to get over it with his
shellan,
but the implications were more grave with the young: Z was the corporeal embodiment of the kind of cruelty that existed in the world. He didn't want his daughter to know that such depths of depravity existed, much less expose her to their aftereffects.

Fuck.

What the hell was he going to do when she got to be old enough to look up into his face and ask him why he was scarred and how he'd gotten that way? What would he do when she wanted to know why he had black bands on his skin? What was her uncle Phury going to reply when she asked him why he was missing a leg?

Z dragged on a shirt and a pair of leathers, then pulled on his chest holster of daggers and opened the gun closet. As he took out a pair of SIG Sauer forties, he checked them quickly. He used to palm nines—shit, he used to fight with nothing but his bare hands. Ever since Bella had come into his life, however, he'd been more careful.

And this, of course, was the other part of his brain twist. He killed for a living. That was his job. Nalla was going to have to grow up worrying about him every night. How could she not? Bella did.

He shut the gun closet and relocked it, then tucked the muzzles into his hip holster, checked his daggers, and pulled on his leather jacket.

He glanced over to the crib where Nalla was still sleeping.

Guns. Blades. Throwing stars. Christ, the infant needed to be surrounded by rattles and plush teddy bears.

Bottom line was, he wasn't cut out to be a father. Never had been. Biology, however, had jacked him into the role, and now they were all chained to his past: As much as he couldn't imagine living without Bella, there was no fathoming how he could be the dad Nalla deserved.

With a frown, he pictured Nalla's coming-out party, something all females of the
glymera
had one year after their transitions. The daughter always had the first dance with her father, and he saw Nalla dressed in a flowing red gown, her multicolored hair up, rubies at her throat . . . and himself with his fucked-up face and his slave bands peeking out of the cuffs of his tuxedo.

Great. Helluva picture.

Cursing, Z went to the bathroom, where Bella was getting ready for the evening. He was going to tell her that he was heading out on a follow-up from the night before and that as soon as he was finished, he'd come home and they would talk. As he looked around the corner, though, he stopped dead.

In the mist that lingered from her shower, Bella was drying off her body. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, her long neck exposed, her creamy shoulders working this way and that as she made quick work with the terry cloth across her back. Her breasts swayed, catching his eyes, hardening him.

Fuck him, but as he watched her, all he could think about was sex. God, she was beautiful. He'd liked her rounded by the pregnancy, and he liked her as she was now, too. She'd thinned out quickly after Nalla's birth, her stomach as tight as it had been before, her hips regaining their lean contours. Her breasts were bigger, though, the nipples a deeper pink, the swells heavier.

His cock punched into his leathers, a criminal wanting out of jail.

As he rearranged himself, he realized he and Bella hadn't been together since well before the birth. The pregnancy had been difficult, and afterward Bella had needed time to heal and had been rightfully consumed with taking care of her infant.

He missed her. Wanted her. Thought she was still the most spectacularly erotic female on the face of the planet.

Bella dropped her robe on the counter, faced the mirror, and stared at herself. With a grimace, she leaned forward and prodded at her cheekbones, her jawline, under her chin. Straightening, she frowned and turned to the side, sucking in her stomach.

He cleared his throat to get her attention. “I'm about to go out now.”

At the sound of his voice, Bella scrambled to get her robe. Pulling it on quickly, she tied the sash and dragged the lapels in close to her throat. “I didn't know you were there.”

“Well . . .” His erection deflated. “I am.”

“Are you leaving?” she said as she unwrapped her hair.

She hadn't even heard his words, he thought. “Yeah, I'm about to go out now. I'm going to be reachable, though, as always—”

“We'll be fine.” She bent over and started rubbing her hair dry, the towel's flapping loud to his ear.

Even though she was only ten feet away, he couldn't reach her. Couldn't ask her why she hid herself from him. Was too afraid of what the answer might be.

“Have a good evening,” he said roughly. He waited a moment, praying that she would look up at him, smile at him a little, give him a kiss on his way out into the war.

“You, too.” She flipped her hair up and reached for the hair dryer. “Be safe.”

“I will.”

 

Bella flicked on the hair dryer and picked up her brush to look busy as Z turned and walked out. When she was sure he had to be gone, she stopped the pretense, turning off the dryer and letting it fall to the marble counter.

Her heart ached so badly, she was sick to her stomach, and as she stared at her reflection, she wanted to throw something at the glass.

The two of them hadn't been together, as in
been
together, since . . . God, it must have been four or five months ago, before she'd started spotting.