A Warm Heart in Winter

by J. R. Ward

  “Yes,” Lassiter said, “you do know what to do.”

  After the shoes changed hands, the angel left, a lonely figure it seemed, in spite of his power and influence. Or perhaps… because of it.

  Blay, on the other hand, stayed where he was, staring at what had been on his feet. Overhead, the heating came on, warm, dry air drifting downward onto his hair.

  “I can’t stay here all night,” he said aloud.

  All things considered, the first part of going anywhere else was putting his shoes back on. His socks were still wet, however, having not benefitted from Lassiter’s attentions, and so he wadded them up into soggy fists that he held in one hand. Then he shoved his feet home, the loafers fitting more tightly than they had before.

  Out in the foyer, he discovered that everyone had scattered from the drama. Turning to the grand staircase, he pictured Qhuinn upstairs. He knew where the male would be. He would be with the twins—

  Blay frowned and looked around the base of the stairs.

  A split second later, he fell into a hurried rush.

  The angel was right. He did know what he had to do.

  * * *

  Qhuinn found what he was looking for in the playroom. As he pulled open the door, Layla glanced up from the floor where she was sitting with the kids—and froze while their eyes met.

  “Oh, Qhuinn.”

  She made a move like she was going to get up and hug him, but when he stepped back sharply, she ducked her eyes and hung her head.

  “I’m okay,” he heard himself say as he waved at Lyric, who’d started beaming at him, and then to Rhamp, who was shaking a rattle in his direction. “I just want to be with them for a while, all right? Just me and them.”

  Layla nodded and got to her feet like she was stiff. “Of course. I—ah, a text went out. From Tohr, so… I’m so sorry—”

  “It’s fine.”

  She recoiled—and then tried to hide her reaction. But he couldn’t help her with her awkwardness. He couldn’t even help himself right now—and the “fine” thing was just a door to close on her sympathy, her worry, the burden of the referred pain she was feeling as she confronted a tragedy that really only affected him.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she said.

  “Just give me some time with them.”

  The Chosen pulled the waistband of her jeans higher up on her hips. Then she pushed her blond hair back as her eyes roamed around the cheerful room—and he was grateful she kept her thoughts to herself. He did not want to be mean, but he was raw—and like a wounded animal, he was dangerously unstable.

  “Let me know when you need me back?” she said. Then she shook her head. “Actually, I was going to feed them in about forty-five minutes. Unless you’d like to?”

  “That’ll be good. I mean, forty-five. That’s fine.”

  “Okay.”

  There was a moment of frozen silence, and then Layla went over to the door. As she hesitated to push her way out, he cleared his throat.

  “I’m not going to do anything stupid,” he said roughly. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’ve seen entirely too many dead blooded relations of mine tonight.”

  Her eyes closed. “Oh, Qhuinn. I am so sorry—”

  “Scratch that.” He rubbed his eyes, not because he was getting emotional, but because he couldn’t stop seeing his brother’s face. “Make that for a lifetime. I’ve seen enough dead relatives for a goddamn fucking lifetime.”

  She took a deep breath. “I want you to know something—”

  “Just come back in forty-five minutes—”

  “I took them to see him the night before the storm.”

  Qhuinn blinked. “What? Wait, what did you say?”

  “Lyric and Rhamp. I took them down to see Luchas two nights ago.” Her eyes started to water. “I’d do that from time to time. You know, I mean… I just—he loved seeing them. They sat on his bed, and he played with them, and he smiled at them. They always seemed to make him happy.”

  Rhamp ditched the rattle, rolled over onto his tummy, and hit the ground crawling fast, going for broke toward a big, red inflatable ball in the corner. The kid had the grace of an Army tank, the speed of a motivated turtle, and the fixation of a chess master about to be pawn’d out of a tournament.

  “Thank you,” Qhuinn said softly. “I’m so glad he got to see them one last time.”

  “I’m going to miss Luchas. He was such a sensitive soul. We would talk about books and—”

  Qhuinn put his hand up. “I’m sorry, Layla. I, like, don’t mean to be rude. But I can’t talk about him right now. I’m not even on this planet, actually. I’m just trying to find the floor beneath my feet.” He lifted his soggy sneakers one after another. “Because I can’t feel it—and talking about my brother makes this floating feeling worse.”

  “Okay. Just please know, there are a lot of us here in the house for you to talk to.”

  The door eased shut in her wake, and he looked into Lyric’s beautiful pale green eyes… and prayed his brother had made it into the Fade. Surely, even if the rumor was true about killing yourself, Luchas would be granted an exception for all he had suffered.

  Right?

  Lyric put her arms out, and that was Qhuinn’s cue to scoop—and scoop he did, gathering his daughter up and bringing her to his heart. In response, she made a whole bunch of cooing noises and babbling sounds. She was normally a quiet kid, but in situations like this, when it was just the two of them because her brother was distracted by another one of his missions, oh, she opened up big. It was like she patiently waited her turn, and as such, there was always a backlog of unexpressed opinions and commentary for her to get out.

  Meanwhile, across the blue-and-yellow padded floor, Rhamp was up on his feet and throwing punches at the ball. Both of the twins were still a little unsteady when walking, but coordinated activity improved Rhamp’s balance.

  And he’d found a helluva rhythm.

  Qhuinn pictured them at five years old. At ten. At fifteen and twenty. At… fifty and a hundred… all their lives ahead of them, adventures to be had, love to be discovered, challenges to best and good fortune to find.

  “Oh, Luchas,” he whispered. “Why couldn’t you have stayed for them…”

  Yet even as that occurred to him, he realized that he was being self-centered. After all, the twins were his young, not his brother’s—

  The door to the playroom opened—and he tried not to glare at whoever it was.

  When he saw it was Layla, Qhuinn closed his eyes in frustration. “I thought you said I’d have forty-five minutes.”

  Layla’s voice was gentle. “You’ve been in here for an hour and a half.”

  His lids popped. And he frowned.

  Sometime in the last, well, ninety minutes, apparently, he’d sat down against the wall. Lyric was face-up in his lap, sprawled across with her feet draped over one side and her back braced against the other. Rhamp, meanwhile, had come over from his red-ball-abusing session and found the crook of Qhuinn’s arm.

  They were both fast asleep.

  Swallowing hard, he watched their chests rise and fall, heard their gentle breaths through parted mouths, felt their warmth against him.

  “I would like to help feed them,” he said in a hoarse voice. “And then after… I think it’s Blay’s and my turn for bath.”

  When there was no reply, he looked up from his young. Layla was standing in the doorway, her hand over her mouth, a tear rolling down her cheek. Behind her, Xcor loomed big as a mountain, silent as the sky. The male’s hand was resting on his shellan’s shoulder, protectively, lovingly. His eyes were dry, but the sadness in them darkened them nearly to black.

  “Yes,” Layla said. “I think it is your turn.”

  Qhuinn glanced down. “They look so comfortable.”

  Xcor’s voice was deep and grave. “That is because they know they are safe with their father.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Blay traveled fas
t through the training center’s tunnel. He actually jogged for part of the way—which he knew was overkill. What he was worried about happening would not happen. It was just paranoia that the already horrible situation they were all in was going to get worse.

  At least he was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen.

  Blasting through the office, he didn’t run into anybody, and this was good. Hopefully no one had gotten to thinking.

  As he came up to the clinical area, he wondered how much time anyone would have had to intervene if somebody had known Luchas had walked out into the storm. Like, if only an alarm had gone off when the hatch had been opened—no, Luchas had used the code. Okay… fine. So if some kind of notice had pinged V’s phone that there had been a departure… maybe Manny and Doc Jane could have been told to run out and turn the male back around.

  Blay jumbled to a halt in front of the last patient room. The door was the same as all the others, made of the same wood that had been properly stained—no particleboard or laminated plastic for the Brotherhood, even in the clinical areas—the exact color as all the others.

  He was never going to be able to look at the door the same again.

  No one else would, either.

  His hand was oddly steady as he opened things up. It was his entire body that was shaking.

  The inside of the room… was exactly as it had always been. The hospital bed was across the way. In the corner, there was a homey stuffed chair and an ottoman, next to which was a side table with a lamp and a book. And that was… it.

  No personal effects. No photographs. Not even a pad and a pen.

  “Where is it, Luchas,” he murmured. “You must have left something for him. You didn’t do that without explaining yourself.”

  Blay went over to the bed, which was made up precisely, with hospital corners Fritz would approve of and a set of pillows that were so centered at the headboard, you’d think a protractor and ruler had been used to put them in place.

  “Where did you get the black robe?” Blay murmured. “And why did you wear it—”

  He stopped.

  Now his hand shook.

  As he reached out to the rolling table, he didn’t pick up the white, business-sized envelope that had been placed in the corner of the tray. He just brushed his finger over the two words written in thin blue ink: “Brother Mine.”

  Blay swiped his face with his palm. Then he looked around again.

  When he refocused on the tray, he saw why Qhuinn would have missed the missive, especially if he’d been in a panic as he’d looked for his brother: The tray was white, the business envelope was white, and just like the pillows, the letter had been lined up precisely in one corner. It was nearly invisible.

  “You okay?”

  He pivoted to the voice. Manny Manello was leaning into the room, the doctor’s face full of grim expectation. Like he’d seen this specific kind of tragedy before and knew what a head job it did on people.

  “Can you—” Blay cleared his throat. “You can make sure no one comes in here, right?”

  “Sure, but what is—”

  “The note.” Blay pointed to the envelope. “It’s for Qhuinn. I don’t want anyone touching it or anything else in here.”

  Manny nodded. “Nobody gets in here but him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What can I do?”

  Blay looked around again. Then he went over to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, a light came on automatically. There was nothing significant on the counter.

  No, that wasn’t true. There was a toothbrush in a holder that would never be used again, a half-filled tube of Colgate that would never be finished, and a bar of soap that would remain forever dry. Towels, which had been folded with care, were stacked on some shelves over the toilet and there were others hanging on rods—and they would all remain untouched by the suite’s previous occupant. The shower, which was just a curtain and a lip, the threshold for entry no more than two inches high, would no longer be turned on by Luchas’s hand, its stool never sat upon by him again, the shampoo and soap forever at the level they had been left.

  Taking a deep breath, Blay caught the faded scents of cleanliness and habit.

  Death was so strange. When it claimed its prey, there was a hard stop to the heart, the lungs, the body itself. But the artifacts of a person had a kind of kinetic motion that kept them going forward, at least for a little while. Clothes, shoes, medicines, bath products, subscriptions to things… all of that detritus of life was like loose objects in a car that had hit a brick wall, still banging around the interior.

  Until they were dealt with, given away, put to use by someone else, thrown out, canceled.

  Life should be more permanent than a tube of toothpaste with three inches left in its belly, he thought.

  Blay rubbed the ache in the center of his chest. Then again, that was what the heart was for. The dead were immortal in the souls of those they left behind, and the payment for that permanence was pain.

  As his phone went off with a text, he turned back to Manny. “Just make sure no one gets in here, okay? Please.”

  Manny placed his right hand over his sternum. “You have my word.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Qhuinn was sitting by the side of the tub when he heard the bedroom door open and close. The footfalls that came across the Persian carpet were soft, and there was a hesitation before Blay leaned inside the marble expanse.

  The sight of that red hair and those blue eyes, of the clothes that Qhuinn had watched the male put on earlier in the night, of his mate’s expression of wary sadness, made a wave of emotion crest. But he fought the feelings back, stopping the weakness by recalling that when the dressing had occurred, when he had enjoyed the sight of his mate’s naked body in the walk-in closet… everything had been different.

  The world had been totally altered.

  Luchas had been dead for nearly twenty-four hours then frozen in the snow in that black robe. Just no one had known it yet.

  Abruptly, Qhuinn had a chilling thought. How many other horrible truths were lurking around the corners of time, waiting to jump out into his path and ruin his sense that life was okay? Disease, an errant bullet in the field, someone else’s choices that cratered his own—

  Lyric let out a string of babble, and Blay’s stare went over to her.

  “It’s our bath night,” Qhuinn said roughly. “I didn’t want you to miss it.”

  “I am so glad you texted me.”

  Blay kicked off his loafers and came in on bare feet. Lowering himself down at the other end of the tub, he cupped some water and poured it over Rhamp’s shoulders.

  “Have you done shampoo?” he asked.

  Even as the question was posed, Qhuinn knew his mate was already well aware of the answer. Blay would have smelled the Aveeno if it had been used… but sometimes, when there was too much to say, words were hard to come by.

  So you just tossed some out there because it was the best you could do.

  “No, not yet.” Qhuinn nodded at the baby wash. “Do you want the bottle?”

  “Sure.”

  Qhuinn passed the thing over. “Where did your socks go?”

  “What?” Blay looked at his feet. “Oh. Um… they’re around somewhere.”

  “You never wear socks in the summer with those shoes. In the winter, you always do.”

  “I was unaware of being so consistent.”

  “It’s one of your best traits.” Qhuinn patted the water with his palm in front of Lyric, and in response, she mimicked him. “And not one of mine. I’m sorry I pushed you away. Down in the foyer.”

  “There’s no need to apologize.”

  “Yes, there is. I just… I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  However, he had no regrets about lashing out at the angel. Every time he thought about Luchas’s choice unfairly locking the male out of the Fade, he felt that fury threaten to return.

  “It’s okay,” Blay said as he flipped the baby blue
top open. “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now.”

  “Neither can I.” Lyric grabbed his thumb and played at the surface of the tub with his hand. “Sorry, that makes no sense, does it. I mean… I’m not even sure where I am at the moment. That’s why it’s good to have bath time. I know bath time.”

  The Aveeno made a whoopee cushion noise as Blay squeezed the bottle over Rhamp’s head, and the young laughed and reached for it.

  “Close the top and let him have it,” Qhuinn said. “Let’s see what he does with the thing.”

  Sure enough. Right in the mouth.

  “Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. Should have seen that coming.”

  “I don’t think it can hurt him,” Blay hedged.

  “Neither do I.”

  Blay sat up on his knees and got with the washing program, sudsing up that dark cap of hair, rinsing things with the soft pitcher that was pink. Then it was time for the washcloth, Rhamp’s sturdy little body getting a vigorous scrubbing.

  “She took them to see him,” Qhuinn murmured.

  “Huh?” Blay doused the kid with more water, pouring it over Rhamp’s shoulders. “What was that?”

  “Layla took them to Luchas.”

  Blay paused. “She did… ?”

  Qhuinn nodded. “Bless her. She’s a good female. Xcor is a lucky male.”

  “He is.” Blay lowered the pitcher. “Did she say anything about… how he was?”

  * * *

  Blay’s heart pounded as he searched his mate’s face. In the back of his mind, he answered his own question in ways that only made him feel worse. Frankly, he was shocked that he was even here, surprised that Qhuinn had texted him and asked him to come up, grateful beyond measure that he was even in the same room with the male.

  He’d expected to be totally shut out. That was how Qhuinn usually operated.