A Warm Heart in Winter

by J. R. Ward

  Secondly, I beg of you a favor. I realize that this is an imposition. For certain, if you are reading this, I am gone and you are in pain. It is entirely unfair of me to ask anything of you in your current state, and yet I beg of you this. Please go unto our family home, and into the confines of my former bedroom. There is a loose floorboard where my bureau was. Hidden beneath it is a secret I have kept. There have been times when I nearly broached this matter that I have kept to myself, but in the end, I was too cowardly. I think I also had hope that I would heal enough to be an advocate for mine own interests. Alas, that did not come to pass. You will know what to do.

  Finally, I need you to believe me when I say that our parents chose the wrong son of whom to be proud. I am the failure. You, the paragon. You should be so proud of all you have accomplished, and I wish our sire and mahmen could see you the now. You have proved them all wrong, wholly wrong. You are a Brother. You are a father. You are the mate of a wonderful male. You are everything anyone could have wished for in a son or a brother.

  As Fate would have it, my own Honor Guard, the one that I deserved, came and found me. Those lessers and their hateful master were no less than I deserved, and they killed me many times. In retrospect, I believe part of their interest in me was in the reviving. I, however, intend to finish this night what they started. I am well done with resurrections of all sorts and I welcome the abyss. I am through with the seesaw between life and death.

  I love you. I pray that you will believe me when I say that this choice is mine and mine alone. Perhaps you are angry at me, maybe you are in sorrow. I wish for you neither of these. I am just so tired. I want to sleep.

  With my most sincere love and affection,

  Luchas

  Qhuinn closed his eyes. Then he read it all again. And a third time. By that last go through, he didn’t even see the words. He simply heard his brother’s voice in his head, the sound so missed that his heart skipped beats.

  “Are you…” He took a deep breath. “Are you finished?”

  Next to him, Blay nodded.

  “I’m going to put it away now.” When his mate nodded again, Qhuinn carefully folded up the page and slipped it back into the envelope. “I wish we could have fixed him. I wish… our love had been enough.”

  And he really wished he could have had a conversation about that night he had come home to their parents’ house to learn that he’d been sent away on purpose because Luchas had been going through his transition. That night when he had removed his makeshift belt and strung it up to the shower head. That night… when Blay had arrived in a nick of time.

  “You saved me,” he murmured. “That night. In my shower.”

  There was no need to offer further details. They both knew exactly what evening he was referring to: Sure enough, as he looked over at Blay, his beloved was staring off into the distance. No doubt the male was remembering when he’d had to bust down the bathroom door and manhandle Qhuinn off the shower head.

  “I am so glad you called me,” Blay said roughly.

  “I didn’t. You called me.”

  “Did I?”

  “You seemed to know.” Qhuinn put his hand on Blay’s knee. “You’ve always known.”

  As Blay’s eyes blinked quick, Qhuinn reached for his mate, and then they were stretched out on the bed, their heads on one king-sized pillow, their bodies so close they were ankle to ankle, hip to hip, as they lay on their backs. The letter and its envelope stayed on Qhuinn’s chest, over his heart.

  “I’m sorry my brother was in such pain,” he said. “And I wish…”

  Blay turned on his side, and it was automatic, to reposition things so that the male was lying in the crook of Qhuinn’s arm.

  “You wish you could have stopped him that night?”

  Qhuinn put his free hand over the letter. “I wish I could have told him it gets better. I’ve been where he was. Hopeless, helpless. And now look at where I am. I never could have predicted how my life turned out—I certainly wouldn’t have hoped for even half of the good things that happened to me. Maybe the same was just around the corner for him. Maybe if he’d held on…”

  “We’ll never know,” Blay said sadly. “And neither will he.”

  “I wish I knew that he got into the Fade.”

  “That has to be a cautionary tale—that whole ‘suicide keeps you out of the Fade’ thing has to just be a cautionary tale.”

  Qhuinn frowned at the ceiling. “Does it? It got started for a reason.”

  “Your brother was a just male of worth. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  When was life guaranteed to be fair, Qhuinn thought.

  He turned his head. Blay was staring off into the distance, his lashes low, his mouth slightly parted, his hair smudged on one side from his having drawn his fingers through it. His cheek, the one that had been cut by that tarp in the storm, was fully healed, nothing marring the smooth skin.

  As Qhuinn remembered the two of them in the garage, him armed with a bandana and thoughts of a gurney, Blay batting his hand away from the minor injury… he felt a striking warmth in his chest.

  The swell of love permeated his body, filling him up from the inside out, replacing the cold numbness that had frozen him in place even as he had moved and breathed and pretended to be among the living.

  With reverence, he stretched over and pressed a chaste kiss to his mate’s forehead. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

  * * *

  As Blay lay beside his mate, he was grateful for a lot of things. For one, there was the fact that he and Qhuinn were actually lying together on their mated bed—and not just in a side-by-side, separated-by-a-duvet-divide sense. And then there was his inclusion in the reading of the letter. He had wanted to be invited into his male’s grief so that he could help in some small way, even if it was just by being witness to the pain—and now it appeared that he had been.

  Considering where the night had started, miracles had been granted.

  And yet he was still feeling like shit. He’d read the note to himself twice, and what stood out to him were not all the reassuring things, the hopes for peace in the midst of the chaos of the choice Luchas had made. It was the reckoning.

  Intrinsic in the words, in the decision, was a vista, a long view on where Luchas had been and where he was—followed by an extrapolation of the future that had provided no relief at all. If anything, the more-of-the-same had no doubt been yet another burden on top of so many others.

  Whether or not it was true, Blay had decided that his conversation, which surely had been one of Luchas’s last, had provided that view. Or at least perhaps the ledge the male had been standing on as he had regarded the valley of his life as it unfurled before him.

  God, if Blay could just go back and not have said a thing. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, but at least he would be free of this sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “—glad you’re here with me.”

  Blay forced himself back into focus. And as he did, he felt Qhuinn’s lips press to his forehead with incredible gentleness. When the male eased back, their eyes met and held.

  You may not be holding me responsible, Blay thought to himself. But I cannot forgive myself.

  “I didn’t want any of this for your brother,” he said sadly. “I only knew him from afar, as you know. I mean, my family was not on the same level of yours socially—”

  “My parents’ level, you mean. I wasn’t on their level, either.”

  Blay shook his head. “You’re better than all of them.”

  “You’re biased.”

  “Not even close.” Blay ran his fingertips over the envelope on Qhuinn’s chest. “And when it came to Luchas, I believe he was a product of his environment, but he wasn’t bad through and through. Some in the glymera were. He was not.”

  “He was the one who stopped the Honor Guard from killing me that night I was jumped. He was with them, and he made them quit the beating. Otherwise, I would have died in t
he middle of that road.”

  Blay frowned. “Your family sent him as part of… but of course they would have. He was the firstborn son.”

  “So having him be a part of it was the best way for them to save even more face after they banished me from the house and removed me from the family bloodline. It proved how serious they were.” Qhuinn frowned. “And you know, I’ve been wondering about something. That black robe Luchas had been wearing? I’ve never known him to have one or wear one before. But somehow he got his hands on it—and I think he wore it because of his guilt over his role in the Honor Guard.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about that night?”

  “He said he was sorry, of course. But I didn’t know it was still a thing for him… I mean, he clearly saw Lash and the lessers as his own version of what he did to me. That had to be the reason he was in that robe. But I wish he hadn’t tortured himself so.”

  Blay nodded. And then said, “Are you going back to your old house? Like he asked?”

  “I don’t know.” Qhuinn frowned and shook his head. “I mean, of course I am. It’s just going to be fucked up to be there. I wonder what it looks like now.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “It’s too close to dawn now. And aren’t you on tomorrow night?”

  “I am, but I’m sure I can get someone to cover.”

  Qhuinn’s brows lowered. “I want to return to work. I asked Tohr. He said I needed to be cleared.”

  “Medically? Oh, right. Mary.”

  “Yeah.”

  Blay wasn’t going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole—and as much as he wanted to support his mate, he didn’t disagree with the necessity of a mental health check-in. But there was no reason to bring all that up.

  “What can I do to help you?” he said instead.

  “You already are. Just by being here.” As Qhuinn yawned, the male’s jaw cracked, and then there was a long exhale. “I’m suddenly exhausted.”

  “Why don’t you go to sleep?”

  “Are you tired?”

  These were simple questions, simple replies, every-day/every-night stuff. And like the proximity, physical and otherwise, the normal was something to be grateful for, especially as Qhuinn mumbled something about food: He wasn’t ready to go down to Last Meal yet, but maybe after a little nap, they could order something from the kitchen? Or at least that’s what Blay thought his mate was saying.

  “Yes, absolutely,” he murmured in response. “And let me get off your shoulder, it’s going to go numb.”

  Lifting his head, he repositioned the heavy arm he’d been leaning on. As he arranged the limb down at Qhuinn’s side and the male didn’t move, Blay was reminded of the times he’d found Rhamp in a tangle in his crib, face mashed up against the slats, butt in the air, one arm kinked under his body.

  As he brought over the pillow he usually used and crammed it under his ear, he stared at Qhuinn.

  And worried about what Luchas had tucked away.

  If there was one thing Blay had learned about life in Caldwell, there was always another shoe to drop. And a lot of times, it landed on your head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Hands.

  Hands were moving over Blay’s body.

  Wait… maybe it was only one. And he knew whose it was.

  His and Qhuinn’s bedroom was dark, the lights having been willed off at some point, and Blay was lying on his stomach. Next to him, Qhuinn was on his side… and the male’s sensuous palm was traveling across Blay’s lower back and sneaking around his opposite hip. With a groan, Blay rolled to his side, his ass finding the front of Qhuinn’s pelvis—and the erection that was there.

  Maybe this was a dream.

  Maybe this… which he’d missed for so long… was just something his mind had constructed out of sad desperation—

  “Is this okay,” Qhuinn said in his ear.

  “Oh, God…” Blay arched back and rubbed against that arousal. “Please.”

  “I thought I was dreaming.”

  “So did I.”

  They were both fully clothed and lying on top of the covers—where they had been when Qhuinn had meant to take a catnap, and Blay had intended on staying awake and worrying about things he couldn’t change. No more sleeping now, though.

  And for the very best reason.

  As Qhuinn arched over, all bonded male, his lips brushed the side of Blay’s neck, and then came the fangs, slowly going up his jugular. Twisting his torso, Blay turned his head—and then they were kissing proper, all tongues, and moaning, and breath coming fast… while that hand, oh, that hand, found Blay’s erection and started to stroke over the fly of his slacks.

  Overcome, Blay reared back once again, grinding his ass on Qhuinn until the male cursed low.

  “I’m supposed to take it slow,” Qhuinn grunted.

  “Says who?”

  “Oh… fuck…”

  The next thing Blay knew, he was being handled roughly—the way he liked. He was shoved on his back, and then Qhuinn straddled his hips, the male’s massive body looming in the darkness. With an erotic surge, Blay willed on a lamp across the room, and he was not disappointed with what he saw. His mate was fully aroused, Qhuinn’s eyes burning, his face flushed, his huge shoulders blocking out the illumination.

  Oh, and then there was the erection tenting up the front of his track bottoms.

  “I’m going to fuck you,” Qhuinn growled.

  Blay’s eyes rolled back. “Now. God, now—”

  Harsh hands all but demolished his Hermès belt as the thing was whipped out of its loops. And then his fly was treated with no better regard, dragged down roughly with a jerk.

  “Do you give a shit about these pants?” Qhuinn asked harshly.

  Actually, they were Blay’s favorite pair. He’d put them on to cheer himself up. “Not at all—”

  Qhuinn’s hands clamped on the two sides and he yanked the front apart, the fabric tearing—

  Before Blay could start begging, Qhuinn’s mouth was right where he wanted it to be, the male sucking his cock, head going up and down, massive arms bowed out on either side. Blay splayed his legs wide and dug his hands into that thick black-and-purple hair. Pumping his hips, he closed his eyes and gave himself up to the pleasure.

  Like the reconciliation and the letter-reading, he hadn’t expected this. And one thing continued to be true. Sex with his mate was the great eraser. Even with how scrambled his brain was, this made everything recede. All he knew was Qhuinn.

  Well, Qhuinn’s mouth, specifically.

  Popping his lids, Blay lifted his head. His shirt was all wedged up his abs, his pants were nothing but the leg parts, and his mate was—

  Blay let out an animalistic sound as Qhuinn’s mouth retracted and the tip of Blay’s erection popped out from between those lips. Then it was a case of that tongue extending and that piercing flashing silver in the low light. The flicking was unbelievable, every slip and tickle going through to Blay’s sac.

  He didn’t last long.

  And that was clearly his lover’s plan. Qhuinn opened wide and sucked it all down, taking the shaft and the head, the orgasms, everything. After the release was over? Blay’s hips kept pumping into that mouth, over and over again.

  Until it was suddenly a very different position.

  Without warning, Qhuinn flipped him over onto his stomach, dragged his hips up, and—

  The contact was wet and slick, and Blay totally fucking lost it. And then the penetration—deep and thick, plunging in and retreating. Driving in again. Pulling out.

  Faster, harder, as Blay kicked the pillows out of the way and bore down into the sex, giving it all up to his mate. To keep himself in place as the onslaught intensified, he gripped the edge of the headboard and worked with the rhythm, hanging on and then pushing back, and hanging on and pushing back.

  The smell of dark spices thickened the air, and sweat slicked his body, and the bed was banging, and—

  Oops
, bedside lamp was on the floor. Fortunately, there wasn’t a crash as it landed on the pillows he’d evicted. It also wasn’t the one Blay had turned on.

  Qhuinn started to growl, and the smacking sounds behind Blay’s body got louder, everything going next level. And then his mate started to come, Qhuinn’s hips locking in, his cock kicking deep, everything slipping into perfect, blissful alignment.

  As Blay closed his eyes and felt his mate’s fangs sink into his shoulder… he prayed that this lasted. All of it.

  Forever.

  And yet even as he reveled in the releases, he still feared the future.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Find a way to cope.

  As Qhuinn stepped out of the Brotherhood’s mansion the following evening, that was his mantra. He’d been saying the words over and over again to himself, ever since he’d woken up, naked and sated, in his mate’s arms. By mutual agreement, Blay had stayed on rotation, and after they’d eaten First Meal in their room, Blay had left along with the other brothers to go out into the field.

  Qhuinn had chilled on his lonesome for a while, just sitting on the bed and holding his brother’s letter. Gathering his courage.

  And now he was here, standing on the front steps of the big house, the cold air in his nose and his lungs, his body braced even though there was barely a breeze and no challenge to his balance. He wasn’t sure he liked where his head was at, his thoughts all disjointed and wired, but he had a feeling that if he waited until he felt more stable about everything… ?

  It was going to be fucking spring before he made this trip.

  Closing his eyes, he thought maybe he wasn’t going to be able to dematerialize. Maybe he was going to have to drive—

  His corporeal form scattered into its component molecules, and he willed himself to travel off the mountain, over the farmland, past the suburbs… to the wealthy part of Caldwell. As he moved through the night air, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he spaced where his old house had been. But like that was possible? Just because you wanted to forget something didn’t mean you could. In fact, usually the converse was true. The more you needed to bury a memory, a place, a person, the more the shit stuck with you.