Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  His cousin halted. Looked over his shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me.” On closer goddamn inspection, it was really frickin’ obvious what the guy had been up to. His lips were red and there was a flush on his cheeks that Qhuinn was willing to bet had jack shit to do with the cold weather. “Where the fuck you been.”

  “I don’t believe that’s any of your business, cousin.”

  Qhuinn stalked over the mosaic floor, not stopping until his shitkickers were steel-toed to the guy’s pretty loafers. “You fucking slut.”

  Saxton had the nerve to look bored. “No offense, dearest relation of mine, but I don’t have time for this.”

  The guy pivoted around—

  Qhuinn snapped a hand out and grabbed an arm. With a yank, he brought them nose-to-nose again. And shit, the stank on the guy made him sick to his fucking stomach.

  “Blay is out risking his life in the war—and you’re fucking some random behind his back? Real classy, cocksucker—”

  “Qhuinn, this is not your concern—”

  Saxton tried to shove him off. Not a good idea. Before Qhuinn knew what he was doing, he locked his palms around the male’s throat.

  “How fucking dare you,” he said with his fangs fully bared.

  Saxton slapped both his hands on Qhuinn’s wrists and tried to get free, jerking, pulling, getting absolutely nowhere. “You’re…choking…me….”

  “I should kill you right here, right now,” Qhuinn growled. “How the fuck could you do that to him? He’s in love with you—”

  “Qhuinn…” The strangled voice grew thinner and thinner. “Qh—”

  The thought of everything his cousin had, and everything the guy wasn’t taking care of, gave him super-strength, and he channeled it right into his hands. “What the hell else you need, asshole? You think some strange is gonna be better than what you’ve got in your bed?”

  The force of his onslaught started to push Saxton backward, the guy’s shoes squeaking on the smooth floor as Qhuinn’s shitkickers drove both of them on. Things halted when Saxton’s shoulders slammed into the staircase’s huge bannister.

  “You fucking slut—”

  Someone shouted. So did someone else.

  And then there was a shitload of fast footfalls coming from different directions, followed by a bunch of people pulling at his arms.

  Whatever. He just kept his eyes and his hands locked, the fury in his gut turning him into a bulldog that would…

  Not…

  Let…

  Go…

  TWENTY-SIX

  “So do you think you guys will ever come back to Caldwell?” Blay asked his mother.

  “I don’t know. Your father goes in and out for work so easily every night, and we both like the quiet and the privacy here in the country. Do you think it’s any safer in town now—”

  From out of nowhere, shouts penetrated the closed door of his room. A lot of them.

  Blay glanced across and frowned. “Hey, Mahmen, I’m sorry to cut you off, but there’s something going on in the house—”

  Her voice dropped, fear lacing her words. “You’re not being raided, are you?”

  For a moment, that night at their Caldwell home a year and a half ago came back to him in a fast series of stomach churners: his own mother fleeing in terror, his father taking up arms against the enemy, the house ruined.

  Even though the shouting seemed to be getting worse, he couldn’t get off without reassuring her. “No, no, no, Mahmen—this place is tight as a tick. Nobody can find us, and even if they could, they can’t get inside. It’s just sometimes the Brothers get into arguments—honestly, it’s fine.”

  At least, he hoped it was. Things really appeared to be ramping up.

  “Oh, that’s such a relief. I can’t have anything happening to you. Go take care of things, and call me when you know you’re coming for a visit. I’ll get your room all set, and I’ll make you that lasagna.”

  On command, his mouth started watering. And so did his eyes, a little. “I love you, Mahmen—and thank you. You know, for…”

  “Thank you for trusting me. Now go find out what’s happening, and be safe. I love you.”

  Hanging up, he shifted off the bed and hit the door. The second he was out into the hall of statues, it was clear there was a big-time fight going on in the main part of the house: there were a lot of male voices carrying on, all of which were at a volume that had “emergency” written all over it.

  Breaking into a jog, he beelined for the second-story balcony—

  When he got a gander at the foyer, he didn’t immediately understand what he was seeing down below: There was a whole knot of people at the base of the staircase, all with their arms reaching forward like they were trying to break apart a fight.

  Except it wasn’t between two Brothers.

  What the fuck? Were they really trying to peel Qhuinn off Saxton…?

  Jesus, the vicious bastard had his hands around his cousin’s throat and was, going by the gray pallor of the other male’s face, about to kill him.

  “What the hell are you doing!” Blay screamed, as he took the stairs at a dead run.

  When he got to the fray, there were too many Brothers in the way—and those were not the kind of males you just elbowed aside. Unfortunately, if anyone was going to get through to Qhuinn, it would be him. But how the hell was he going to get the dumb-ass’s attention—

  There you go, he thought.

  Shooting across the foyer, he broke the glass of the old-fashioned manual fire alarm with his fist and then reached in and pulled the lever down.

  Instantly, noise exploded through the space, the acoustics of the cathedral ceiling acting like a magnifier as the jet-engine-loud alarm went haywire.

  It was like hitting a bunch of fighting dogs with a bucket of water. All the action stopped and heads popped out of the tangle, looking around.

  The only one who didn’t pay any mind was Qhuinn. He was still locked on and squeezing hard.

  Blay took advantage of all the hey-what-is-that and was able to push his way through.

  Focusing on Qhuinn, he shoved his face right into the guy’s grille. “Let him go, now.”

  The moment his voice registered, an expression of shock replaced the cold violence that had marked Qhuinn’s puss—like he’d never expected to have Blay check in. And that was all it took. One simple command from him and those hands released so quick, Saxton dropped to the floor like deadweight.

  “Doc Jane! Manny!” someone called out. “Get a medic!”

  Blay wanted to scream at Qhuinn right then and there, but he was too terrified about Saxton’s condition to waste time on any what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-yous: The lawyer wasn’t moving at all. Grabbing the guy’s beautiful suit, Blay rolled him out flat and went for the carotid with his fingertips, praying he found a heartbeat. When he didn’t, he tilted Saxton’s head back and bent down to begin administering CPR.

  Except then Saxton let out a cough and dragged in a trunkload of air.

  “Manny’s coming,” Blay said roughly, even though he didn’t know that to be true. But come on, someone had to be on the way. “Stay with me….”

  More coughing. More breathing. And the color started to come back into that handsome, refined face.

  With a shaking hand, Blay pushed back the soft, thick blond hair from the forehead he had touched so many times before. As he looked into the fuzzy eyes staring up at him, he wanted to feel something soul defining and life altering and…

  He prayed for that kind of reaction.

  Hell, in that moment, he would have traded both his past and present for it.

  But it was simply not there. Regret, anger on the male’s behalf, sadness, relief…he logged all of those. That was it, however.

  “Here, let me check him out,” Doc Jane said as she put her black doctor’s bag down and knelt to the mosaic floor.

  Blay shuffled back to give V’s shellan some room, but he stayed close
, even though it wasn’t like he could do anything. Hell, he’d always wanted to go to medical school—but not so he could resuscitate ex-lovers because some cocksucking psycho had tried to strangle them in the front goddamn hall.

  He glared up at Qhuinn. The fighter was still being held back by Rhage, like the Brother wasn’t entirely sure the episode was over.

  “Let’s get you to your feet,” Doc Jane said.

  Blay was right on that, helping Saxton up, holding him steady, heading him over to the stairs. The pair of them were silent as they ascended, and when they got to the second floor, Blay took them down into his room out of habit.

  Shoot.

  “No, it’s fine,” Saxton murmured. “Just let me sit down in here for a minute, would you?”

  Blay thought about the bed, but when Sax stiffened as he headed in that direction, he settled for the chaise longue. Helping the male off his feet, he awkwardly stepped back.

  In the silence that followed, violent anger hit him from out of nowhere.

  Now his hands shook for a different reason.

  “So,” Saxton said hoarsely. “How was your night?”

  “What the hell happened down there?”

  Saxton loosened his tie. Unbuttoned his collar. Took yet another deep breath. “Family tiff, as it were.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Saxton shifted exhausted eyes over. “Must we do this?”

  “What happened—”

  “I think you and he need to talk. And once you do, I won’t have to worry about being jumped like a felon again.”

  Blay frowned. “He and I have nothing to say to each other—”

  “With all due respect, the ligature marks around my neck would suggest otherwise.”

  “How we doin’ there, big guy?”

  As Rhage’s voice registered in Qhuinn’s ear, it was clear the Brother was checking to see if the drama was well and truly over. Not necessary. The instant Blay had told him to cut the crap, Qhuinn’s body had obeyed, sure as if the guy held the remote to his TV.

  Other people were milling around, looking him over, obviously also waiting to see if he showed any inclination to race up after Saxton and resume the death-grip routine.

  “You good?” Rhage prompted.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

  The iron bars across his chest loosened and gradually dropped. Then a big hand clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a squeeze. “Fritz hates dead bodies in the front hall.”

  “But there’s not a lot of blood with strangulation,” somebody pointed out. “Clean-up would have been easy.”

  “Just a floor polish afterward,” another guy chimed in.

  There was a heavy pause at that point.

  “I’m gonna go upstairs.” As the hairy eyeballs started again, Qhuinn shook his head. “Not for a repeat. I swear on my…”

  Well, he didn’t have a mother, a father, a brother, a sister…or a young—although hopefully, that last one was a “yet” kind of thing.

  “I just won’t, ’kay?”

  He didn’t wait for any further commentary. No offense, but a plane crash and a homicide attempt on one of his few remaining relations was enough for the night.

  With a curse, he started for the second floor—and remembered he still needed to do a drive-by with Layla.

  Hanging a right at the top of the stairs, he went down to the guest room the Chosen had moved into and knocked on the door softly. “Layla?”

  In spite of the fact that they were going to have a young together, he didn’t feel comfortable just barging in without an invitation.

  Round two with the knuckles was a little louder. So was his voice. “Layla?”

  She must be sleeping.

  Backing off, he went for his own room, walking past Wrath’s office with its closed doors, and then going down the hall of statues. As he went by Blay’s door, he couldn’t help but stop and stare at the damn thing.

  Jesus Christ, he’d nearly killed Saxton.

  Still felt like following through.

  He’d always known his cousin was a slut—and he hated being right about that. What the fuck was Sax thinking? The guy had the ultimate in his bed every goddamn day, and yet somehow, some random in a bar or a club or the frickin’ Caldwell Municipal Library was better than that? Or even necessary?

  Faithless son of a bitch.

  As his hands cranked into fists and he entertained the idea of kicking his way into that room just to pound Saxton’s face into soup, he nearly couldn’t control the impulse.

  Let him go, now.

  From out of nowhere, Blay’s voice reverberated through his head once again, and sure enough, the violence was unplugged. Literally, between one moment and the next, he went from wild bull to neutral.

  Weird.

  Shaking his head, he walked over to his bedroom, went in, and shut the door.

  After willing on the lights, he just stood there, feet glued to the floor, arms hanging like limp ropes, head lolling on the top of his spine. All about the going nowhere.

  For no apparent reason, he thought of one of Fritz’s beloved Dysons, the thing rolled into a service closet, left in the dark until somebody took it out for use.

  Great. He’d been reduced to the level of a vacuum cleaner.

  Eventually he cursed, and ordered himself to carry on with getting undressed and going to bed. The night had been a ballbuster from the moment the sun had gone down, and the good news was that the sorry mess was finally over: Shutters were in place to keep out the sun. House was getting quiet.

  Time for a REM-sleep reboot.

  As he gingerly took his muscle shirt off and grunted at all the aches and pains, he realized he’d left his leather jacket and his weapons down in the clinic. Whatever. He had extras up here if he needed them during the day, and he could get his stuff brought up before First Meal.

  Going for the fly of his leathers, he—

  The door behind him exploded open with such force, it ricocheted off the wall—only to be caught on the rebound by the hard grip of one pissed-off motherfucker.

  Blay was rip-shit as he stood in the jambs, his body trembling with such rage that even Qhuinn, who had faced off with a lot of things in his life, went whoa.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you,” the male barked.

  Are you kidding me, Qhuinn thought. How could the guy not have recognized that foreign scent on his own lover?

  “I think you need to put that to my cousin.”

  As Blay marched forward, Qhuinn moved around the guy to—

  Blay snatched a grab and bared his fangs with a hiss. “Running?”

  In a quiet voice, Qhuinn said, “No. I’m shutting the damn door so no one else hears this.”

  “I don’t give a fuck!”

  Qhuinn thought of Layla down at the other end of the hall, trying to sleep. “Well, I do.”

  Qhuinn disengaged and shut them in together. Then before he could turn around, he had to close his eyes and take a little TO.

  “You disgust me,” Blay said.

  Qhuinn hung his head.

  “You need to get the fuck out of my life.” The bitterness in that familiar voice went straight into his heart. “You stay the hell out of my business!”

  Qhuinn looked over his shoulder. “You don’t even care that he was with someone else?”

  Blay’s mouth opened. Closed. Then those brows dropped low. “What?”

  Oh. Great.

  In the rush of everything, Blay had clearly not clued in to the whys.

  “What did you say?” Blay repeated.

  “You heard me.”

  When there was no reply, no cursing, nothing thrown in terms of punches or objects, Qhuinn turned around.

  After a moment, Blay crossed his arms, not around his chest, but his middle, as if he were vaguely nauseated.

  Qhuinn scrubbed his face and spoke in a broken voice. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry….I don’t want this for you.”

  Blay shook himse
lf. “What…” Those blue eyes focused. “That’s why you attacked him?”

  Qhuinn took a step forward. “I’m sorry…I just…he came in through the door and I caught the scent, and I just lost it. I wasn’t even thinking.”

  Blay blinked, like maybe he was getting confronted with a foreign concept.

  “That’s why you…why the hell would you do that?”

  Qhuinn took another step forward, and then forced himself to stop—in spite of an almost overwhelming need to get close to the guy. And as Blay shook his head like he was having problems understanding all of it, Qhuinn didn’t mean to speak.

  But he did. “Do you remember down in the clinic, well over a year ago…” He pointed to the floor, like, in case the guy had forgotten where the training center was. “It was before you and Saxton first…” Right. No finishing that one, not if he wanted to keep down all that food he’d eaten. “Remember what I told you?”

  As Blay seemed confused, he helped the guy out. “I told you that if anyone ever hurt you, I would hunt them down and leave them for the sun?” Even he heard the way his voice dropped to a menacing growl. “Saxton hurt you tonight, so I did what I said I was going to do.”

  Blay rubbed his face with his hand. “Jesus…”

  “I told you what was going to happen. And if he does that again, I can’t promise you I won’t finish the job.”

  “Look, Qhuinn, you can’t…you can’t be doing that shit. You just can’t.”

  “Don’t you care? He was unfaithful. That’s not okay.”

  Blay exhaled long and slow, like he was tired of carrying a weight. “Just…don’t do that again.”

  Now Qhuinn was the one shaking his head. He didn’t get it. If he were in a relationship with Blay, and Blay stepped out on him? He’d never get over it.

  God, why hadn’t he taken advantage of what he’d been offered? He shouldn’t have run. He should have stayed put.

  Unbidden, his feet took another step forward. “I’m sorry….”

  All of a sudden, he was saying those words over and over again, repeating them with each footfall that brought him closer to Blay.

  “I’m sorry….I’m sorry….I’m…sorry….” He didn’t know what the fuck he was saying or doing; he just had an urgency to repent for all his sins.