Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (67 page)

flowers in front of.

It was, however, a good reminder. Stressful situations had a way of making even the most rigid of

personalities malleable—for a time. Sadness, shock, intense anxiety…it could all make someone

vunerable and liable to talk in ways they normally wouldn’t simply because they had had all their

defenses knocked to shit. The unusual behavior didn’t signal a sea change, though. It was not

indicative of some kind of religious conversion where, from that day onward, everything was forever different.

Qhuinn was reeling from what was doing with his brother. And any revelations, or heartfelt

statements, that came out of his mouth were undoubtedly a product of the stress the guy was under.

Period.

No, “in” love going on here. Not really. Not permanently. And he needed to fucking remember

that.

“…bones are going to be set?” Qhuinn asked.

Blay shook himself to attention as V lit up a hand-rolled and exhaled away from the two of them.

“He’s got to be stabilized first. Selena’s going to feed him again, and then we’re going to open up his abdomen and do exploratory surgery to find out where the bleeding is. After we see how he’s doing?

We’ll work on the bones.”

“Do we have any idea what happened to him?”

“He’s not real verbal at the moment.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“So we need your consent. He’s not capable of understanding the risks and benefits.”

Qhuinn pushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Of course. Do what you have to.”

V exhaled again, the scent of Turkish tobacco filling the air and reminding Blay exactly how many

hours, minutes, and seconds it had been since he’d last lit up himself.

“You’ve got Jane, Manny, Ehlena, and myself in there. We’re not going to let anything happen to

him, ’kay?” He clapped Qhuinn on the shoulder. “He’s going to pull through. Or the four of us are

going to die trying.”

Qhuinn murmured some thanks at that point.

And then V glanced at Blay. Looked at Qhuinn. Cleared his throat.

Yup, the Brother was doing all kinds of math in his head. Great.

“So you guys just keep hanging here. I’ll come out and update you as soon as I know anything. So.

Yeah.”

The Brother’s brows lifted high on his forehead, the tattoos at his temple distorting as he tamped

out his barely smoked hand-rolled on the sole of his shitkicker.

“Be with you in a few,” he said as he ducked back inside.

In the wake of the Brother’s departure, Qhuinn paced around, eyes on the concrete floor, hands on

his lean hips, weapons that he’d neglected to take off catching the fluorescent light and glinting.

“I’m going to go have a smoke,” Blay said. “I’ll be right back.”

“You can light up here,” Qhuinn cut in. “There’s a seal on the door.”

“I need a little fresh air. I won’t be long, though.”

“Okay.”

Blay strode off in a hurry, gunning for the door at the far end of the corridor that opened into the parking garage. When he got to the thing, he punched his way out and breathed in deep.

Fresh air, his ass. All he got was a noseful of dry, earthy, concrete-y stuff.

At least it was cooler, though.

Fuck.

He’d left his cigarettes in his goddamn jacket. On the floor. Outside of the OR.

As he cursed and stomped around, he was tempted to hit something—but a set of busted knuckles

was just one more thing he’d have to explain to people.

And shit knew the eyeful V had just gotten was more than enough.

Pushing his hands into the pockets of his leathers, he frowned as the one on the right shoved into

something.

Saxton’s lighter. The one the male had given him on his birthday.

Taking the thing out, he turned it over and over in his palm, thinking about everything that had

been said in that corridor.

There had been a time when he would have taken those words and put them on the mantelpiece of

his head and his heart, giving them pride of place that ensured their preciousness stayed with him for the rest of his living days.

There had been so many years when those moments at that cabin and on that cold, hard floor just

now would have been enough to clear away all the conflict, and the strife, and the pain, wiping

everything clean such that he could relate as a virgin would to Qhuinn.

Fresh start.

All not just forgiven, but forgotten.

That was no longer the case.

God, he was probably too young to be this old, but life had a way of being about experience,

rather than calendar days. And standing out here, alone, he was positively geriatric: He was

absolutely, totally, completely fresh out of the optimistic, rose-colored naïveté that came with a

younger person’s outlook on life.

When one believed that miracles were not impossible…but merely unusual.

Thank fuck V had come out when he had.

Otherwise, three little words would have leaked from his mouth. And undoubtedly doomed him in

ways he couldn’t even guess at.

Bad time. Bad place.

For that kind of thing.

Forever.

SIXTY-FIVE

As iAm paced around the apartment, he kept his gun on him—even though it was highly

unlikely that there would be a round two with some naked bimbo jacking her way into his

and his brother’s home-sweet-home.

Goddamn it, he wanted some red smoke. Just to take the edge off.

Because, right now? He was on the edge of violence.

The good news, he supposed, was that he didn’t really have a target, and that was effectively

keeping him in check: That migraine was beating the hell out of his brother. And that poor, used-up woman that had been frog-marched out of here? She was already being tortured on too many levels to

count. Now, the security guard was an excellent candidate—but the motherfucker had gotten off an

hour ago, and iAm wasn’t going to leave Trez in a vulnerable state just so he could issue a correction to an imbecile—

Off in the distance, he heard a whispering through the plumbing pipes.

It was the toilet in Trez’s bathroom being flushed. Again.

And then came the muttered cursing, and the creak of the bed frame as Trez resettled into his bed.

Poor. Bastard.

iAm went over to the huge windows that faced the river, and stopped to stare across the water at

Caldwell’s opposite side. Putting his hands on his hips, he ran through the places they could move to.

Short list. Hell, one of the main benes of the Commodore had been its security; they hadn’t even

bothered with turning the alarm on.

Which had been a mistake.

They needed someplace safe. Secure. Impregnable.

Especially if his brother continued with the hit-it-and-quit-it shit, and AnsLai kept doing

“diplomatic” drive-bys.

iAm resumed his pacing. It was impossible to ignore the fact that his brother was getting worse.

The sexual stuff had been going on for years—and for the longest time, iAm had just chalked it up to a healthy male’s drive for mating.

Something that he had often thought he lacked.

Then again, his brother had been fucking enough females for the both of them.

In recent months, however, it had become clear that there was an addiction process at work—and

that had been even before the high priest had started showing up. Now that things seemed to be

coming to a head with AnsLai? The s’Hisbe’s machinations were just going to put more pressure on

his brother, and that was going to make him act out even more.

Shit. iAm felt like he was standing in front of a train crossing, triangulating the speed of the

locomotive’s engine with the approach of an oncoming car…and seeing the carnage that was going to

result. The metaphor was also apt when it came to the helplessness he felt because he couldn’t put the brakes on either force: He wasn’t behind the wheel or in the engineer’s seat. All he could do was sit back and watch.

Or scream at the side of the road was more like it.

Where the
hell
could they go—

Frowning, he lifted his eyes up from the view, up past the molding, up to the ceiling.

After a moment, he took out his cell phone and made a call.

When he hung up, he went down to his brother’s room. Opening the door a crack, he said into the

dense, black silence, “I’m going out for a second. Won’t be long.”

Trez’s moan could have meant anything from, “Cool,” to, “Oh, God, not so loud,” to, “Have fun,

I’m going to hang here and hurl some more.”

iAm walked fast. Out of the apartment. To the elevator.

Inside of which, he hit the button marked “P” for “Penthouse.”

When the doors slid open, there were two choices: One direction took him to the Brother

Vishous’s place. The other to his old friend’s.

He strode down and rang Rehvenge’s bell.

When the
symphath
opened up, Rehv appeared as he always was: mohawked, purple-eyed, mink

clad. Dangerous. Little bit evil.

“Hey, my man, how you be,” the male said as they embraced and clapped each other on the

shoulder. “Come in.”

As iAm entered the Reverend’s private space for the first time in a good year or so, he found that

nothing had changed, and for some reason, that was a relief.

Rehvenge went over to a leather sofa and sat down, propping his cane up next to him and crossing

his legs at the knees. “What do you need?”

As iAm tried to put together the right words, Rehv swore a little. “Man, I knew this wasn’t a

social call—but I didn’t expect your emotions to be a fucking mess.”

Ah, yes, the sin-eater way meant that there was no hiding anything from the male.

Still, it was difficult to speak of it all. “I’m not sure you’re aware of what’s been going on with Trez?”

Rehv frowned, his dark brows narrowing that intense, violet stare. “I thought the Iron Mask was

doing good business. You boys in trouble? I’ve got plenty of cash if you need—”

“Business is great. We’ve got more money than we can spend. The issue is my brother’s

extracurricular activities.”

“He’s not into drugs, is he,” Rehv said darkly.

“Women.”

Rehv laughed and brushed that off with the flick of a dagger hand. “Oh, if that’s all it is—”

“He’s completely out of control—and one of them magically appeared in his bed tonight. We got

home and there she was.”

Rehv went back to the frowning. “In your apartment? How the fuck did she get in?”

“The lowest common denominator with a security guard.” iAm paced around the modern room,

dimly noting that the view was, in fact, better from this height. “Trez has been fucking anything that moves for years, but lately he’s been so reckless—not wiping memories, hitting ’em more than once,

not worrying about consequences.”

“What the
hell
is wrong with him?”

iAm turned and faced the half-breed who was the closest thing to family he had outside of his

flesh and blood. Matter of fact, he trusted the guy more than ninety-nine percent of his own bloodline.

“Trez is mated.”

Long silence. “Excuse me?”

iAm nodded. “He’s mated.”

Rehv got up off that couch. “Since when?”

“Birth.”

“Ohhhhhh.” Rehv whistled softly. “So it’s a s’Hisbe thing.”

“He was promised to the queen’s first daughter.”

Rehv was silent for a while. Then he shook his head. “That would make him the future king,

would it not.”

“That’s right. And even though we are a matriarchal society, that is not an irrelevancy.”

“Check us out,” the male murmured. “He and I and Wrath. Quite the trifecta.”

“Well, it’s different for the s’Hisbe, of course. The queen is the one who dictates everything for

us.”

“So what’s he still doing on the outside. With all us UnKnowables?”

“He doesn’t want anything to do with the s’Hisbe.”

“Has he got a choice?”

“No.” iAm glanced over at the wet bar in the corner. “Mind if I have a drink?”

“Are you kidding me? I’d be getting hammered if I were you.”

iAm wandered over, considered his options, and ended up picking a decanter that had a little

necklace reading
Bourbon
around its throat. He went straight up, and as he took a pull off the rim of a cut-crystal glass, he savored the burn over his tongue. “Nice.”

“Parker’s Heritage Collection, Small Batch. The best.”

“I didn’t think you were a big drinker.”

“That’s no excuse for not knowing what you serve your guests.”

“Ah.”

“So what’s the plan?”

iAm tilted his head back, emptied the glass into his mouth and swallowed hard. “We need

somewhere safe to stay. And not just because of the women thing. We had a visit by the high priest

this past week—and given we’re on the outside, that means they’re getting serious back home.