BDB 13 The Shadows (17 page)

“I stayed away,” she said, “because of all this. Not because of you. I don’t care about your past. I just want you to know that.”

Trez began to rub her back, his large palm circling. “Shh. Just try to rest.”

Selena lifted her head. “You need to let me say this. You need to hear it and believe it. I know that you backed off because you thought that I … judged you or something. But I pulled away because of all this, not because you’ve been with a lot of … humans. And not because of your betrothal, either.”

He closed his eyes in a wince. Then shook his head. “I gotta be honest with you. The last thing I want to think about right now is—”

“I don’t think you’re unclean, Trez.”

“Please.
Stop
.”

She took his hand and squeezed, trying to get through to him, feeling a pressure to say everything all at once, get it all on the table. His theory about a thousand nights was a good one for mental health purposes—and he’d come to the same conclusion she had: she didn’t have a date and time stamped on her. But she had lived in this reality since the first episode those many decades ago, and her trajectory for survival was that of a car heading off the road and skidding into a ditch.

There was no living through this.

“I have to get this out, Trez. I’ve waited a long time to talk to you. I’m not losing my chance.”

Dimly, she recognized that she was speaking with more emphasis, feeling more like herself, recovering even further thanks to the gift of his vein.

“You’re a male of worth, and I think I fell in love with you the very first—”

Trez exploded out of the bed, and for a split second, she thought he was going to keep right on going, bursting out through the door and away from her and her dumb-ass illness. And for a moment, he paused in front of the exit.

But then he just started to stalk around the room.

“Why is it so hard for you to accept that?” she wondered out loud. “That you’re a good male. That you’re worth—”

“Selena, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re prowling around this room like you’re being hunted. So I’m pretty sure I’m onto something.”

He stopped and shook his head. “Look, this is about you. This…” He waved his hand back and forth between them. “This is all about you. I’m here for you and your needs, whatever they are. We’re going to keep me out of it, okay?”

Selena pushed herself up higher on the pillow. The strain on her elbows and shoulders made her grit her teeth, and she needed to catch her breath as the pain took its sweet time in fading.

But it was better than being frozen stiff.

When his eyes narrowed with concern, she said, “No, I don’t need Doc Jane. Honest.”

As he rubbed his face, she looked at him properly for the first time. He’d lost some weight lately, his cheeks hollowing out so his jaw seemed even more pronounced, his eyes sunken deeper, his lips appearing fuller. And yet even so, he remained an enormous male of the species, his shoulders three times the size of hers, his chest and abdomen carved with power, ropes of muscle running down his arms and his legs.

He was beautiful. From his dark skin to his black eyes, from the top of his shorn head to the soles of his booted feet.

“You are so very worthy,” she murmured. “And you’re going to have to accept that.”

“Oh, really,” he countered wryly. “I’m not so sure about—”

“Stop it.”

Trez stared across at her and then frowned. “You know, I’m not sure why you’re going on about this. No offense, but you nearly died in that other room. Like, how long ago? Feels like ten minutes. My shit is not important here.”

Selena glanced down at her body. She was wearing a hospital johnny that was pale blue and had little darker blue spirals in a repeating pattern. The thing tied in the back, and she could feel the knots biting in where her bra strap would have been if she were wearing one, and down lower, at the small of her back.

It seemed strange to think that things in her body were functioning with relative normalcy now. And the reality that they wouldn’t keep at it for much longer brought a stunning clarity.

“You know,” she murmured, “I’ve never considered the fact that there might be a good part to having a mortal disease.”

“And what’s that,” he asked tightly.

She swung her stare back to his. “It makes you unafraid to say the things you really mean. Honesty can be scary, unless you have something even more terrifying to measure it against—like the prospect of dying. So I’ll tell you exactly why I think your ‘shit,’ as you put it, is important. Whatever is driving you, whatever is causing”—she motioned in a circular pattern, encompassing his entire body—“or caused that void that’s inside of you? I think you used all those women to try to run away from it. I think you fucked those humans for all those years as a distraction—and the fact that you don’t want to acknowledge this? It makes me worried that you’re just going to use me as an even bigger, better way of avoiding yourself. What could be even more seductive or effective if you don’t want to deal with your own issues than one specific female with a deadly disease?”

“Jesus Christ, Selena, I don’t think like that. At all—”

“Well, maybe you should.” She tilted her head, another conclusion hitting her like a ton of bricks. “And I’ll tell you one more truth. Whether I have a thousand nights or two nights? I want them to be with you—but only in an honest way. I don’t want to be your new excuse, Trez. I want you here, I want you with me, but I need it to be real between us. I don’t have the energy or the time for anything less than that.”

In the long silence that followed, she waited for his response. But no matter how awkward things got, she wasn’t recanting a word.

She had said exactly what was on her mind.

Kind of liberating, actually.

A
balone was not accustomed to violence. Not in the outside world, and certainly not in the house where his daughter slept and practiced her singing lessons and ate with him.

As Rhage all but air-mailed Throe to the ground in front of Wrath, Abalone smothered a gasp with his palm. It was entirely unmanly to show any kind of shock in front of the Brotherhood, and he prayed that none of them noticed.

They certainly did not appear to. Their concentration was on the blond-haired, simply-dressed male who was, for all intents and purposes, naught but a throw rug before the shitkickers of the King.

Wrath smiled, baring fangs that seemed longer than Abalone’s fingers. “Don’t wait for me to help you up.” As Throe began to pull himself up on his knees, the King tucked his arms over his chest. “And don’t ask for the ring. I’ll be tempted to crack you in the face with it.”

Once he was on his feet, Throe brushed himself off and straightened his shoulders. He wasn’t close to Wrath’s size, but he was far from a lightweight, his body more a soldier’s than the whip-thin figure that males from his class tended to favor.

“I have done nothing to deserve a presentation of your ring,” he said in a low, grave voice.

“Well, what do you know, something we agree on.” Wrath’s wraparound sunglasses tilted toward the sound of Throe’s voice. “So, my boy Abalone says you have something on your mind.”

“I have left Xcor and the Band of Bastards.”

“You want a commemorative stamp,” Butch muttered.

“Can I stamp him with the grille of my car?” Rhage tossed out.

Wrath’s brows tightened over the bridge of those dark glasses, as if he didn’t appreciate his males chiming in. “Change in direction for you, isn’t it?”

“Xcor’s goals are no longer my own.”

“That right.”

“It has been a long time coming.” Throe glanced over his shoulder, and Abalone would have preferred not to be the object of his regard. “As my distant cousin recalls, I am not from soldier stock. Through circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to take advantage of Xcor’s dubious kindness. He required me to repay him with a tenure of service. As you know, having found me bleeding in that alley many, many months ago, his methods for ensuring loyalty are not conversational in nature.”

Ah, yes, that was right, Abalone remembered. Some time ago, Throe had been discovered by the Brotherhood, left for dead with a stab wound to the gut not inflicted by a
lesser
. In fact, from what Abalone had heard, the male had been injured by the Band of Bastards’ own leader. Throe had been taken in by the Brotherhood who had sought to gather information from him, and then released back out into the world with a message for Xcor.

Word had it that Layla had fed the fighter whilst he had lingered on death’s door, the Chosen offering her vein to one whom she had assumed to be a noble soldier instead of her King’s enemy.

Quite a messy affair it all had been.

Wrath’s nostrils flared as if he were testing the male’s scent. “So what do you expect me to do with this little news flash? No offense, but where you’re at and who you’re affiliated with doesn’t affect my world one way or the other.”

“But learning the location of where the Band of Bastards sleeps would.”

“And you’re going to tell me,” the King said in a bored voice.

“Do you think I’m lying?”

“Ever heard of the Trojan Motherfucker?” V spat. “’Cuz I’m looking at him.”

Wrath’s jaw got tight. “Give us an address if you want. But just as with your political alliances, the B.o.B crib is not high on my list of shit to do.”

“You’re a fool then—”

All at once, the members of the Brotherhood jumped forward, and clearly Wrath’s powerful shout was the only thing that kept Throe’s skin still on his bones.

The King leaned forward and dropped his voice to a pseudo-whisper. “Do yourself a favor, asshole, and play it cool. This bunch of rabid cocksuckers has a serious hearing problem even when it comes to orders from me, and they don’t like you any more than I do. You want to live long enough to see another nightfall? You’ll dial back on that attitude.”

“You should care about Xcor,” Throe said, undeterred. “He is capable of anything, and the soldiers who fight under him suffer from the same single-minded devotion to him that your males show you.”

Wrath chuckled a little, the sound somehow more evil and deadly than the naked aggression the Brothers had just shown. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Abalone?”

Abalone let out a squeak and jumped forward. “Yes, my lord.”

“Do you plan on letting this male stay with you? Relation to relation?”

“No, I told him he must leave this night.”

“Don’t kick him out on my account. It doesn’t matter to me whether he stays or goes.”

Abalone frowned—and had to wonder if he was getting a demotion. “My loyalty is to you and you alone. He is tainted in mine eyes no matter what he says his affiliations are.”

Wrath made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, and realigned his face toward Throe. “You say Xcor’s priorities are not your own.”

“Aye.”

“And you do not intend to pursue his goals.”

“Nay, I do not. Very definitely, nay.”

There was a pause where Wrath’s nostrils flared as if he were testing the male’s scent.

“Very well then.” Wrath nodded at his private guard. “Let’s get out of here. I have real work to do.”

Nobody moved. Not the Brothers. Throe. Certainly not Abalone, who was feeling as though his loafers had been nailed to the floor.

“V,” the King snapped. “Let’s get out of here.”

There was an awkward moment, and then the Brother Vishous and the Brother Butch stepped in beside the King. Standing close to his shoulders, they promenaded out with Wrath, Zsadist falling in behind the group.

The others stayed behind, clearly guarding Throe until the King was safely gone from the property.

“Abalone,” Wrath said as he stopped at the front door.

At the sound of his name, Abalone scurried out of the library and across the foyer, his heart pounding. He had long been aware of how much he loved his King, but the idea that he would lose his vocation as well? Helping civilians meet with and find aid was—

“No, you’re not fired,” Wrath whispered. “For fuck’s sake. What would I do without you?”

“Oh, my lord, I—”

“Listen up, Abalone. I want you to let him stay here for as long as he likes. I’m not buying any of this bullshit. He might well have left Xcor and the Bastards, but I don’t trust him, and I’m a male who believes in keeping my enemies close.”

“Of course, my lord. Yes, yes, of course.” Abalone bowed even though a sudden unease shocked through his system. “I shall do anything and everything you wish.”

As if the King once again read minds, Wrath said, “I know you’re worried about your daughter. Until this sorts out, why don’t you let her stay at my audience house? She can have a chaperone, and security is monitored twenty-four/seven there.”

V stepped in close. “We got two different underground tunnels leading out from the basement suites, and we’ll send our
doggen
over to take care of her. She’ll be perfectly safe.”

Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe, Abalone thought.

Except then he reflected that Paradise
was
getting antsy, and not because she was in love or anxious to be mated. She was a young, vibrant female with so much going for her, and yet as an aristocrat, her options were limited.

Perhaps getting her out of the house for a bit would be beneficial.

And he certainly didn’t want her around Throe.

Torn between parental concern, a duty to his King, and sadness that his one offspring was in fact growing up, he found himself nodding through a surge of nausea. “Yes, please. I believe she will enjoy that.”

“I’ll personally make sure she’s safe,” Zsadist said, inclining his head once, as if he were taking a vow. “I got a daughter. I know where you’re at.”

Yes, Abalone thought. He had heard that the Brother Zsadist, in spite of his most fearsome affect, was in fact a settled family male with a beloved young of his own.

Suddenly, Abalone felt better, and bowed low to the scarred fighter. “Thank you, sire. She is my most precious love.”

“Good. Settled.” Abruptly Wrath’s face changed positions, as if he were staring over Abalone’s shoulder toward the library. “Xcor is predicable in his brutality, a real old-schooler right out of the Bloodletter’s playbook. But the final salvo against my throne was a tactical one involving the law and my beloved half-breed Queen. That’s the way an aristocrat fights. Xcor didn’t pull that plan out of his ass—it had to have been something cooked up by Throe. Only explanation there is. So he may in fact be done with Xcor, but even though he wasn’t lying in anything he said in there? We’re not going to know where his allegiances truly lie for a while.”