A Warm Heart in Winter

by J. R. Ward

  Just as he started to worry, he exhaled in relief and felt like a fucking fool.

  Heading back out into the corridor, he pushed his hands into his track bottoms and whistled a tune as he backtracked his route. Rhage was still doing chin-ups as he went by the weight room, and he said hi to Manny as the surgeon came in through the office.

  The pool was Luchas’s favorite place to go. Made sense. Given the extent of his physical issues, the buoyancy must feel nice, and the way he could move in water was no doubt so much easier than anything for him on land. The amputation of part of his leg had been necessary to save his life, but the prosthesis had been a tough adjustment. He was doing better, though.

  Thank fuck.

  Stepping into the swimming area’s ante hall, Qhuinn sneezed at all the chlorine and stretched his arms over his head. Maybe he’d get in, too—

  As he emerged from the second set of doors, he looked at all the still water, the empty benches, the absolute silence in the floor-to-ceiling tiled space.

  Hurrying over to the bathrooms, he ripped open the door to the males’ side. “Luchas?”

  There were two stalls, and he shoved both their metal panels open. Nothing.

  Back out at the pool, he went over to the edge of the water, heart in his throat. But there was nothing at the bottom, no twisted body that had sunk after drowning.

  There was a logical explanation for where his brother was. There had to be—

  “Shit, you dummy,” he muttered to himself as he went back out into the corridor.

  Luchas was welcome anywhere in the mansion’s complex, free to come and go as he pleased, and Qhuinn kept hoping that part of that “coming” would include showing up for First or Last Meal in the dining room up at the big house. He’d offered to come get the male, to save him a seat, even to provide menus in advance if it would help entice him. So far, it was a no-go, but Qhuinn was going to keep making the invitation.

  Hard sell, though. Luchas was a loner by nature now, very different from who he’d been before. Still, from a physical standpoint at least, he was getting better every night, and he had every medical advantage from not only the species, but the human side, too. Havers was even available for consults.

  So it was going to be fine. Eventually.

  As Qhuinn headed for the classroom section of things, he had to laugh. Reading, writing, and ’rithmetic were not what had been taught here. Try bombs and detonators, poisons and gases, fighting, shooting, defensive driving techniques. He and Blay and John Matthew had been in the first class of trainees, and then a second group had gone through. There would be a third, sometime in the near future.

  Once they figured out exactly what they were fighting now.

  The trainees’ break room was just what its name described, a place for the students, or the brothers and clinic patients, to chill out in, watch a little tube, have a bite to eat. It was also where Luchas ate all his meals.

  Given the time, Qhuinn should have checked there first, but whatever. Pushing his way in, he was totally relieved that—

  No one. Not at the tables. Not by the soda machines or the buffet or the fridges. Not in the armchairs by the TV.

  Qhuinn told himself not to panic.

  But he couldn’t stop his heart from going on a sprint inside his rib cage.

  * * *

  Outside of the library, elbow-deep in fresh snow, Blay fired up the chain saw, the high-pitched whine flaring and receding when he pumped the gas. As the motor settled into a purr, the scents of gasoline and oil were thick, but when the low-level wind changed direction, all of that was wiped clean.

  “You got it?” he said.

  Tohr nodded and leaned into the shitkicker he’d planted on the fallen evergreen’s trunk. “Hit it, son.”

  Blay brought the running blade down on the tree that had broken into the house, the sweet balsam aroma a delicious conifer cologne. As sawdust flew off to the side and the engine sound got loud, the cut went quick, the chain’s barbs making ready work of the job. And when the blade broke through on the far side, the tree shimmied like it was relieved the surgery was done.

  “Good work,” Tohr said as he bent all the way over and took hold of the trunk.

  As Blay cut the motor, the Brother stood the conifer up and they both nodded. The pointed top was a good twenty feet off the ground and Tohr’s body was completely obscured by the fluffy green branches.

  “The kids are going to love it.” Blay traded the chain saw for a tree stand. “I’ll just slap this on if you can lift our little friend.”

  Tohr hefted up the tree, and Blay squeezed under on his belly. “Hold on, just getting it—okay, drop it!”

  As the fresh-cut stump end was lowered into the stand’s basin, Blay cranked the screws tight—and marveled that he had developed such a core competency in what was exclusively a human tradition. Who’d have thought he’d end up knowing that it was always better to put the stand on outside of the house?

  “We’re ready,” he said as he crawled out from underneath.

  He would have offered to help, but Tohr was strong enough to just walk the pine-scented albatross into the library. The Brother also knew where it went, setting it down in the corner by shelves that held all the Charles Dickens first editions.

  “Yay!” Bitty said from the boxes of ornaments she was unpacking. “It’s perfect! Thank you, Uncle Tohr.”

  The little girl ran over and threw her arms around the Brother. Which, appropriately, caused the enormous fighter to completely melt.

  “Oh, you are so welcome, baby girl.” Tohr smiled and put his dagger hand on her slight shoulder. “Do you have everything up from the basement?”

  Considering the number of Rubbermaid containers dotting the library’s rug? Which were all the size of twin beds? It was hard to imagine there were any more Christmas decorations left in Caldwell: From the strings of lights to the lengths of garland, and the thousand glass ornaments in red, green, gold, and deep blue, it was quite the inventory.

  “Okay, hold up, Rhamp, gentle. Gentle.”

  At the sound of Layla’s voice, he pivoted around. The twins were on the floor, and both had crawled over to the careful unpacking job that Bitty was doing. Rhamp, naturally, was reaching for a blown-glass ornament that, if he pounded it into the floor, which he was about to do, was going to shatter into a million sharp pieces.

  And his blood on any rug was not the goal. Ever.

  “I got him,” Blay said as he swooped in and hoisted Rhamp out of range.

  Fortunately, the kid loved swooping more than anything, and the giggle he let out was a joy to hear. As chubby hands clapped, that smile was breathtaking. So Blay did it again. And again.

  “You won’t need a workout tonight,” Layla said with a laugh.

  She’d moved Lyric into her lap, and the young was playing with a pack of tinsel, the waterfall of silver lengths a source of great discovery and delight. Mahmen and daughter were wearing matching red, green, and white Orvis sweaters. Rhamp, on the other hand, had on an Iron Man onesie because he hated sweaters. Then again, he was always moving and running and churning. He was rarely still.

  Throw a sweater on that and you’d have a mobile hot-water bottle.

  Swinging Rhamp up and around again, Blay’s eyes took a snapshot of the room. Tohr had pulled his mate, Autumn, in tight to him, and they were staring at each other with the kind of soft smiles that happy couples shared when they thought no one was looking. Phury and Cormia were knee-deep in garland, laughing as he wound a length around her shoulders. Rehv and Ehlena were sharing the sofa, snuggled in together across from the crackling fire.

  And naturally, Fritz had done a drive-by with provisions for everyone: There was eggnog on a silver tray on one of the coffee tables, along with a setup of hot chocolate and candy canes and gingerbread men. Good thing there was so much of it all. Soon, others would join in. It was a communal event, this now-annual tradition of trimming the Christmas tree, and it was especially signif
icant for those in the house who had grown up human.

  And in the future, it was going to be important for the twins and the other current young, Blay realized. They would come to see this as part of their pretrans experience—

  Out past the library’s archway, in the foyer, a figure entered his line of sight.

  It was Qhuinn, dressed in the casual clothes he’d put on just before they’d left their room for First Meal: Same track pants, same My Chem sweatshirt, same Converse All Stars in black and white. But something had transformed him.

  He was too still, for one thing. For another, he wasn’t coming in and joining the happy crowd. And then there was his expression.

  His eyes were burning with emotion.

  Blay looked casually at Phury and Cormia. “Hey, how’d you guys like to hold a young?”

  Cormia smiled and put out her arms. “Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

  Rhamp was thrilled to go to her, answering her enthusiasm with a giggle of his own. And Blay took a moment to tweak his son’s nose before he casually walked out of the room, hands in his pockets, an easy smile for anyone to see on his face.

  He dropped the act as soon as he was out of range.

  Striding across the mosaic floor, he said, “What’s wrong?”

  Qhuinn nodded over his shoulder and didn’t start talking until they were in the lee of the grand staircase.

  “I can’t find Luchas.”

  Blay frowned. “What do you mean you can’t find him?”

  Qhuinn’s eyes couldn’t light on any particular thing, his focus shifting over the balustrade, the door down into the tunnel, the floor at their feet.

  “I went to his room to have a visit. Not there. He’s also not at the pool. Not in the break room. Not anywhere in the training center. So I came up here and asked Fritz if he’d seen him in the house? I mean, Fritz knows everything.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He hasn’t seen him.”

  “Did you ask the medical staff?”

  “Manny hasn’t treated him, Doc Jane hasn’t been down there, and Ehlena’s off.”

  Blay rubbed his face. “Okay, there has to be a logical explanation. There just has to be. It’s not like he’s disappeared.”

  When Qhuinn just stood there, the helplessness was as much of a shock as the idea that Luchas was lost somewhere in the Brotherhood’s compound.

  Blay put his hand on the side of his mate’s neck. “We’re going to find him. Do you hear me? We’re going to find him together, all right? I know what to do.”

  Qhuinn nodded. And then he made a strangled noise.

  “Come here,” Blay murmured as he pulled his mate in. “It’s going to be okay. I promise you, it’s going to be okay.”

  Over Qhuinn’s shoulder, Blay noticed that Tohr and Phury had come out of the library. They were hanging back, arms crossed, faces grave. Even though they didn’t know what was wrong, they were prepared to help.

  But that was the nature of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. When Qhuinn joined that ancient tradition, he went from being an orphan to having a full-blown family.

  And they would no more desert him in a time of need than they would cut off their own hands.

  “I know what to do,” Blay repeated firmly.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Qhuinn couldn’t think. But he was aware of following instructions: Go here, sit there, wait for five minutes while V signed into his computer. Other than these very rudimentary functions, however, he was not really connected to anything.

  For example, it was interesting, in a passing, well-what-do-you-know sort of way, to realize that he was in the Pit. Evidently, he’d been set on the leather sofa like a throw pillow, and he was facing the Foosball table. As he considered the way the game was played, his brain coughed up a random memory from just twenty-four hours before: Him spinning the spindles against John Matthew, blithely unaware of what that fountain tarp was going to do, what was going to happen to Balthazar up by that shutter, how Zsadist was going to have to do CPR in the snow.

  As with all of that, he certainly had never anticipated what was happening right now.

  In his peripheral vision, he was aware of V typing on one of his keyboards and then staring at the bank of monitors. Right behind the brother, leaning in over his shoulder, was Blay.

  This was a relief. Qhuinn couldn’t track anything, and there was nobody he trusted more than Blay. His mate would figure everything out and would translate whatever it was to him.

  V pointed at the screen. And then glanced back at Blay.

  Blay straightened, his eyes not leaving whatever image they were talking about. And that was when it became apparent there were other people in the room, too.

  Right beside the pair of them was a lineup of males. Rhage, Butch, Tohr, Phury, Rehv.

  Qhuinn appreciated them showing up for… whatever this was. But their presence was also a huge source of anxiety. Generally speaking, the more brothers and fighters who lingered, the more serious things were.

  “He’s probably down in the training center,” Qhuinn mumbled to himself. To anybody who might be listening.

  To fate, if fate was looking for suggestions about how to resolve Luchas’s disappearance—

  In the end, no one really needed to tell him anything.

  It was the way Blay looked over at him. And how V stayed focused on the monitors, but then turned his head as well.

  Blay was the one who came across to the sofa, and he knelt down.

  “You found him,” Qhuinn said quietly. “You found my brother?”

  The sound of his mate clearing his throat was one of the saddest things Qhuinn had ever heard. And yet he refused to let the sorrow sink in.

  “We think he went out,” Blay said.

  “Like in a car? Can he drive?”

  “No, as in… he left.”

  “Who took him out?”

  “Qhuinn… we think he left through the tunnel.”

  As his brain translated the syllables, he came back online. “Wait, what? Why the hell would he do that? And when did he go?”

  “According to the time stamp on the security feed, it was last night. During the storm.”

  A buzzing noise lit off inside Qhuinn’s skull, and it knocked out his hearing for a moment. And then everything became sharp, too sharp. Cutting blade, crystal shard sharp.

  “I don’t understand.” He got up. “This is wrong. I don’t know what you saw—”

  V didn’t argue; he just pivoted one of the screens and pointed at it. The feed was pixelated, but after a pause and recalibration, the contours of the training center’s tunnel came into view. The angle of the camera lens was wide, encompassing a long stretch of the concrete wall and then the terminus of the subterranean passageway. The lineup of outerwear and weapons was to one side, the door out into the escape cave on the right.

  Nothing was happening. The picture was just static—

  The stooped figure entered from the left and moved along slowly. Its gait was uneven and a cane was cocked at an angle, a black robe draping whoever it was from head to toe.

  But like the identity wasn’t obvious?

  “Luchas,” Qhuinn mumbled.

  His brother stopped in front of the heavy steel hatch. Then that head turned toward the parkas and the snow pants.

  “What are you doing?” Qhuinn wiped his brow and fiddled with the sleeve of his sweater. Then he looked at V. “Does he know the code?”

  That question was answered as Luchas put his ruined hand out and punched a series of buttons on the keypad. There was a pause, and after that he opened the heavy steel panel with a struggle, fumbling with his cane, catching his bad balance on the jamb.

  “Put a coat on. What are you doing? Put a fucking coat on!” Qhuinn shouted at the monitor.

  All at once, he remembered that wind. That terrible, howling wind. More than the snow or the cold, those gusts were going to make it impossible for Luchas to stay on his feet.

  “What
the fuck is he doing?” Qhuinn looked at Blay with panic. “I don’t get this.”

  When his mate just stared back at him, those blue eyes held an answer that didn’t bear translating.

  “No.” Qhuinn shook his head. “That’s not what happened.”

  * * *

  It was a parade.

  Or… more like a funeral march.

  As Blay followed Qhuinn down the training center’s tunnel, they were not alone. Everyone who had been in the Pit had joined them, but the Brotherhood was hanging back by a good forty or fifty feet. They seemed to sense what Blay knew for sure. Later, when whatever was happening had actually happened, Qhuinn would be grateful for his Brothers’ support—but at the moment, you couldn’t crowd him.

  Blay himself was waiting to be asked to leave. And yet… not yet.

  With every step he took, he thought of what he’d seen on V’s computer screen, Luchas walking where they were now, God only knew what on the male’s mind. But he must have known what he was doing. He hadn’t hesitated to open the portal, hadn’t looked back as he’d stepped through, had closed things up in his wake as if he never intended to return.

  And in fact, he had not come back.

  Twenty-four hours in the freezing cold? Much less that storm?

  As they came to the end of the tunnel, Qhuinn stopped in front of the escape hatch. Putting his hands on his hips, he looked down at his feet.

  “Let’s put these on.” Blay took two parkas off the hooks. “Come on.”

  He expected an argument. He didn’t get one—which was a bad sign. Instead, he was allowed to dress Qhuinn like he would one of the young, helping arms into sleeves, pulling the body of the jacket into place. He even zipped it up the front.

  He did not make the move to put the passcode into the reader. He just drew his own jacket on and waited.