by J. R. Ward
The dimness was no longer a reassuring camouflage that smudged the fact that they were in an operating room.
It was a reminder that night would fall, if it hadn’t already. And they would have to go their separate ways.
His recovery might buy them an extra twenty-four hours. But courtesy of the Chosen who had given him her vein, he was fully strong and he would be fully recovered very soon. Whether or not John was cured of his infection, Sarah was going to have to go home.
And so was he.
Closing his eyes again, he drew his woman to him and held her even tighter.
This was the longest goodbye he’d ever had. Then again, it was going to last his lifetime.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
As night fell the following day, Sarah wiped the tears from her eyes and knocked on the patient room next to the one she and Murhder had moved into after they’d left the OR. At the moment, her male was taking a shower, and then . . .
Well, she didn’t want to think about that.
“Come in.”
Pushing things wide, she stepped into the room. Over at the bed, a clutch of medical staff in blue scrubs was around John’s head, with Xhex and Tohr on the other side. Everyone was leaning down over the recumbent patient, and the tableau reminded her some of the pietàs she’d studied during her one art history class in undergrad.
I am not part of them, she thought.
But she was involved, and she thought of her work with the war on cancer. Her drugs, her theories and experiments, brought her into countless scenes like this around the country, around the world.
It was important work. Even without Murhder, she had important work to do.
As a hollow feeling sunk in at the center of her chest, she took a deep breath and—
Xhex looked up. Motioned urgently. “You’ve got to see this!”
Sarah gathered herself and went over to the bedside. As she approached, everyone straightened and she had a full view of John. The male looked like he’d run a marathon and then bench pressed a couple of houses: He had dark circles under his eyes, he seemed to have lost forty pounds of body weight, and his face was waxy. But he was smiling. Oh, how he was smiling.
The wound on his shoulder was half the size it had been, the black infection retreating like enemy forces being overrun by a strong defense. In the area where it had previously extended, the skin was puckered, as if it had been burned, but the color was normal—and that ring of healing seemed to be increasing in size before her very eyes—
John extended his long arms, and at first, she was confused who he was reaching for. But then she realized it was her.
The medical staff backed up and smiled as she went to him, bent down and gave him a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re getting better.”
As she straightened, he started to sign and she focused on his hands as they smoothly moved from position to position.
Xhex started to translate, but Sarah stopped her. “He says he owes me his life and he’s grateful.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to repay me anything. I’m just glad the hunch paid off.”
Xhex cleared her throat. “I’m grateful to you, too.”
“Make that three of us,” Tohrment said roughly.
Sarah felt her face get hot. “Like I said, I’m just glad my extrapolation worked out.”
There was conversation at that point, with John looking at Tohrment and signing, the other male smiling and saying that yes, John would be allowed out in the field as soon as he was medically cleared. Then Doc Jane and Manny talked about John’s test results, all of which were trending positively.
Sarah said some things back to everyone. She wasn’t sure exactly what came out of her mouth because it was hard to internalize all of the gratitude that continued to come her way. And then she was very aware of needing to depart before her composure cracked.
As she took her leave, she was also very aware that it was a goodbye instead of a see-you-later situation. But she wasn’t going to bring any of that up. They were all having a profoundly happy moment and there was no reason to darken it. Besides, she didn’t imagine they were going to miss her much after tonight, and no, she wasn’t being mopey. The reality was, she was an outsider, whereas they were family.
Back out in the corridor, she paused by the door to Nate’s room. He was staying in the training center until housing arrangements could be made, which was fine. But she was a little concerned that he didn’t seem to want to leave the four walls he’d been in since he’d arrived at the facility. It wasn’t like she didn’t get it. He had been kept in a small space his whole life in that lab. The room he was in now replicated that experience to some degree. He had to branch out, though.
“You can come in,” his voice said through the door.
She pushed the panel wide. “How did you know it was me?”
Nate touched the side of his nose. “Good sniffer.”
Sarah went over to the bed and took his hand. As she smoothed his big palm, she worried about him as if he were still the young boy she’d assumed he was when she first saw him in that cage.
“I’ll be okay,” he told her.
“The Brotherhood will take good care of you.” She’d just learned what they were all called. “You will not be alone.”
“I wish you could stay.”
“Me, too.”
The next thing she knew, she was giving him a hug.
“I’m scared,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know how to be in the world . . .”
“You’re among friends.” She eased back and put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re stronger than you know. Trust me.”
There were tears on both sides as they fell into silence. And then she had no choice but to hug him one more time and leave.
Outside his room, she took a moment to pull herself together and she thought of something she had heard about friends. Some were in your life for a season. Some were in your life for a reason. And then there was, of course, the third grouping: The lifelong relationships that you carried through all seasons and all reasons.
Murhder stepped out from the room they’d shared.
He was dressed in surgical scrubs again, as was she, the default wardrobe doing absolutely nothing to conceal how well he was built, how tall he was . . . how strong his shoulders and heavy his thighs were. She was still having to get used to his short hair, but she found him as handsome as ever.
“Hi,” he said quietly. Like they hadn’t just parted twenty minutes before.
“Hi.”
They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time, but no words came out on either side. And then John’s door opened and Tohrment stepped out, pulling things shut behind himself.
Murhder threw up his hands. “Christ, I’m going, okay. I’m leaving and taking her with me, just like you want, so you can back off as we wait for the car—”
The Brother marched up to him and Sarah stepped back, intending to go for the medical staff when the fight broke out.
Damn it, this was not how she wanted to leave things.
As Tohr came at him like a tank, Murhder fell into his fighting stance. He couldn’t believe, after everything the last twenty-four hours had brought, that the Brother was going to run at him like this—in front of Sarah, right outside from where John was apparently surviving that infection, right next to Nate’s room—
The powerful arms that shot around him did not twist him into a choke hold. They didn’t throw him against the concrete wall. They weren’t a precursor to punches thrown.
Tohr embraced him, bringing him up against a body that was trembling so badly, it was a wonder the male could stand.
“My son . . .” the Brother said hoarsely. “Dearest Virgin Scribe, my son . . . you saved my son.”
The scent of the male’s tears was like the seashore had come into the underground training center, and as Tohr dropped his head on Murhder’s shoulder, the Brother wept openly.
Murhder slowly raised
his hands and put them on the other male’s back. And then he was not just holding Tohr in return, but holding him up as he sagged.
“Your son is all right,” Murhder whispered. “Your son is going to be okay . . .”
The outpouring of the Brother’s relief was so extreme, it was hard to comprehend. But there was no reason to question its sincerity. And Murhder was more than willing to be patient with all the emotion. Even though he and Tohr had had their conflicts lately, how could you not give the guy a break?
Eventually, Tohr eased back. Stepped back. Scrubbed his face.
When he refocused on Murhder, he looked a thousand years old. “I lost one young. I lost . . . one son.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t have withstood losing another. I know John was Darius’s by blood, but he’s mine in my heart.”
“Wait, he’s Darius’s son?”
“Yes.”
“God . . . no wonder.” He thought of the male emerging from the darkness in that alley . . . and how he had mistaken the son for the sire. “He fights like Darius did. And, ah, I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know that you and Wellsie . . .”
Tohr wiped his shirtsleeve over his eyes. “They killed my shellan. The lessers did. And she was pregnant with our son when they put their bullets into her body.”
The strangest feeling came over Murhder, a combination of ice-cold numbness and hellfire passion.
“Oh . . . shit. Tohr . . . I didn’t know.”
“John is the only living son I may ever have. That’s why . . . when I found you out with him in the field when he was injured as he was—that’s why I lost it. I’m sorry about that. My emotions got the best of me.”
Murhder reached out and put his hand on the warrior’s shoulder. “It’s all forgiven. I totally understand.”
Absently, he was aware that Xhex had joined them in the hall. No doubt the symphath had felt the disturbances outside John’s room, and now she was on the sidelines, watching everything.
Down at the far end of the corridor, by the parking area, the steel door opened and Fritz came in, his hoppy little stride as he approached them suggesting that he remained full of youth in spite of his deeply lined face. And his approach seemed to reset the emotions in the group, everyone reining themselves in.
“I have brought the car around for you, sire.” The butler smiled as he stopped in front of Murhder and bowed. “When you are ready.”
“Thanks, Fritz.”
Xhex looked at Sarah. “Do you have everything?”
“Yes. Except I left my backpack in the—”
“I’ll go get it,” Murhder said, and ducked into their room.
There was an awkward moment. And then he was back with her things.
Sarah seemed to force her smile at Xhex. “Doc Jane and Manny know everything I do. Havers is on call to consult if there is any change. But I really think everything’s going to be fine.”
As those names rolled off her tongue—like she’d known the cast of characters for her whole life—Murhder was struck by a profound sadness.
Then there were hugs. Between the two females. Between him and Xhex. Not the doggen, though. Fritz would have fainted at that kind of attention. There were also official words of thanks to Murhder from the King, from the Brotherhood. To Sarah, as well.
Next thing Murhder knew, he and Sarah were walking off alone. Heading for that steel door. Leaving the rest of them behind.
He could feel the stares on his back, but he didn’t turn around.
Instead, he reached for Sarah’s hand. At the same time she reached for his.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
When Sarah and Murhder drove out from the training center, she took solace in the fact that the drive from Caldwell to Ithaca was a good two hours. At least. One hundred and twenty minutes. At least. Seven thousand two hundred seconds.
At least.
And yet, all that time later, as she pointed out her little house on her quiet street, and he pulled into her short stack driveway, and put the fancy Mercedes in park . . . it seemed like the trip had taken only a nanosecond. No longer than a blink or the beat of a heart.
“So this is my house,” she said. Stupidly.
Except even as she spoke the words denoting property ownership, she felt like she didn’t recognize anything about the arrangement of windows, the peak of the roof, the bushes which she herself trimmed once a year in August.
Had she really been living here? Had she actually bought the place with Gerry?
God, Gerry. Her life with him was a century ago. Or longer.
“Do you want to come in—”
“Yes,” Murhder said. “I do.”
They got out together and walked up to the front door. She’d cleared the pathway a couple of days before she’d left and there was new snow buffering the previous hard cuts she’d made with her shovel. Opening the storm door, she propped it wide with her hip and started to unzip her backpack.
“I’ve got to find my keys.” She glanced at Murhder. “It’ll just take me a sec.”
“I’ll bet I can open it.”
As she stepped aside and kept rummaging around, she didn’t particularly care if he shouldered the door open and broke all kinds of things in the process. Nothing about the house seemed to matter—
The door opened of its own volition, the lock retracting itself, the wood swinging wide from the jambs. Inside, her alarm started to beep.
“Wow,” she said as she hustled in and went for the kitchen. “You’re very handy.”
The security pad was in the back, by the door into the garage, and as she came up to it, she wondered whether or not she’d remember her code. But then her fingers made the familiar four-digit pattern: 0907. The day she and Gerry had met in a biomechanics class.
Hitting the pound key, the beeping was silenced, and she looked around. Walked around. Was so surprised to be in the house at all.
She’d expected to get arrested when she’d left. Or worse. Who’d have thought what actually happened would be so much more dramatic than either of those anticipations.
Murhder was standing by the front door, which he’d closed, and she wasn’t sure who was following whose example with the taking-in-the-four-walls-and-a-roof routine: He was looking all around at her things.
Sarah shook her head and went over to the sofa. The throw blanket was wadded up from one of her sleepless nights, and she folded it carefully, laying it on the back cushions.
“This is like being in a furniture store,” she remarked as she plumped the pillows.
“I’m sorry?”
She wandered over to the armchair that faced the gas-powered fireplace. “I’ve never been big into decorating or anything. Gerry and I . . .” She cleared her throat. “He and I got that couch with these two chairs and the coffee table when we went to Ashley Furniture. They were having a sale and we both thought it was so much more efficient to buy a room’s worth of stuff. I can remember walking through the store and looking at the displays. It was totally overwhelming and utterly banal at the same time. Eventually, my eyes just glazed over and thank God he happened to stop in front of all this.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Same thing with the bed set. Two side tables. A dresser. Headboard.”
“You’re ahead of me already,” he murmured. “I’ve never bought furniture.”
“Sometimes you luck out.” She couldn’t keep her smile going for very long. “Anyway, coming back here feels just like being in that store. It’s nothing but a space crammed with useful objects I don’t feel connected to. Except . . . I live here.”
When he didn’t say anything, she looked his way. “I’d give you a tour, but . . .”
Murhder came at her on long powerful strides and she was ready for him, lifting her mouth for his kiss, throwing her arms around him. They were desperate and rough with the scrubs they’d borrowed, yanking, pulling, throwing, and then they were on that anonymous couch she’d gotten so many years ago with a different man.
Who turned out t
o be a stranger.
Her hands stroked through Murhder’s downy soft short hair. Then she ran them down to his shoulder blades. Caressed the ridges of muscle that wound themselves like rope around his torso. Gripped his hips.
As she split her legs and offered herself to him, he thrust in hard, going deep, making her cry out.
The rhythm was punishing. Just as she wanted it to be.
She was hoping that if the sex was heavy-duty enough, it would make it impossible for him to erase their last time together.
Murhder felt Sarah arch as he penetrated her core. He was too rough, he knew he was being too rough . . . but he couldn’t stop, and she didn’t want him to. She was talking in his ear, begging . . .
“Harder . . . do me harder.”
He pulled her leg up, and shifted the angle, going even deeper. And as he pounded into her, the sofa moved across the rug, leaving tracks in the nap. Something fell with a crash. Her hair tangled.
She orgasmed. He did. They did together.
He wanted it to last forever. But the sex was over way too soon.
To make sure he didn’t crush her—something he always worried about—he put his weight on the arm of the sofa, and he stroked her hair back. Her honey-colored eyes were sad even as her face was flushed from the pleasure and the exertion.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
As they both became very still and very silent, her eyes searched his face. “Don’t do it. Don’t take my memories from me.”
“I have to—”
“Says who?” she cut in. “I promise I will not reveal anything I saw or learned. I don’t even know where that training center is. I am going to go my own way and will never bother the race again. I swear to it.”
“Sarah . . .”
“Listen to me. If you take my memories, you’re the only one who suffers. That’s not fair. But more than that, if I can’t be with you? Let us be united in our grieving. Let us be together that way.”