by J. R. Ward
How ironic. Wrath’s own sire’s reading of the wording was going to be what brought the son down.
“The issue for us will be the king himself. He needs to remain breathing—and he needs to not recognize the weakness inherent in his reign and fix it before we can get things in order.”
“You will e-mail my associate the relevant passages, and then you will meet with me.”
“This will take a number of days.”
“Understood. But I expect your call promptly.”
As names were exchanged, and Xcor gave over Throe’s e-mail address, he began to feel a certain buoyancy. If this male was correct? Wrath’s kingship was going to be over without any more bloodshed. And then Xcor would be free to determine the future of the race: As far as he knew, Wrath had no direct family, so if he were removed, there was no one with a strong claim to the throne. Although that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be relations coming out of the woodwork.
Interlopers he could deal with, however. And with the support of the Council? He was willing to bet he could become a populist leader—provided everyone got in line.
Wrath wasn’t the only one who could change the laws.
“Do not waste time with this,” Xcor said. “You have a week. No longer.”
The answer that came back at him was gratifying: “I shall proceed with all haste.”
And wasn’t that a lovely way to end a phone call.
SEVENTY-FOUR
The tunnel that connected the mansion with the training center was cool, dim, and quiet.
As Qhuinn walked through it, he was by himself and glad of it. Nothing worse than being surrounded by happy people when you felt like death.
When he got to the door that led into the back of the office’s closet, he put in the code, waited for the lock to pop, and pushed his way inside. A quick trip past the stationery and pens, and through another door, and he was going around the desk. Next thing he knew, he was in the corridor in front of the weight room, but exercise wasn’t what he was looking for. After what the Brotherhood had done to him, he was stiff and achy—especially in the arms, thanks to having held himself upright on those pegs.
Man, his hands were still numb, and as he flexed his fingers, he knew what arthritis felt like for the first time in his life.
Moving along, he stopped again when he got to the clinic area. As he went to straighten his clothes, he realized he was still wearing only the robe.
He wasn’t going back to change; that was for sure.
Knocking on the recovery room’s door, he said, “Luchas? You up?”
“Come in,” was the hoarse reply.
He had to brace himself before he entered. And he was glad he did.
Lying on the bed with his head propped up, Luchas still looked as if he were on the verge of extinction. The face that Qhuinn had remembered as intelligent and young was lined and grim. The body was painfully thin. And those hands…
Jesus Christ, the hands.
And he thought his ached a little bit?
He cleared his throat. “Hey.”
“Hello.”
“So…yeah. How you been?”
Fucking duh on that one. The guy was staring at weeks of bed rest, and then months of PT—and was going to be lucky if he could ever hold a pen again.
Luchas winced as he tried to lift his shoulders in a shrug. “I’m surprised you came.”
“Well, you’re my—” Qhuinn stopped himself. Actually, the guy was not, in fact, any relation of his. “I mean…yeah.”
Luchas closed his eyes. “I have always, and will always, be your blood. No piece of paper can change that.”
Qhuinn’s eyes went to that mangled right hand, and its signet ring. “I think Father would very much disagree with you.”
“He’s dead. So his opinion is no longer relevant.”
Qhuinn blinked.
When he didn’t say anything, Luchas popped his lids open. “You seem surprised.”
“No offense, but I never expected to hear that come out of your mouth.”
The male indicated his broken body. “I have changed.”
Qhuinn reached over and pulled a chair out for himself; as he sat down, he rubbed his face. He had come here because seeing your previously dead estranged brother was the only remotely acceptable reason for skipping a party thrown in your honor.
And spending the night watching Blay and Saxton together? Not going to happen.
Except now that he was here, he didn’t think he was up to any kind of conversation.
“What happened with the house?” Luchas asked.
“Ah…nothing. I mean, after…what happened went down, no one claimed it, and I had no rights to it. When it reverted to Wrath, he gave it back to me—but listen, it’s yours. I haven’t been inside of it since I got kicked out.”
“I don’t want it.”
Okaaaaaaaaaaay, another big surprise. Growing up, his brother had talked nonstop of everything he’d wanted to accomplish when he was older: the schooling, the social prominence, taking over where their father left off.
Him saying no was like someone turning down a throne—unfathomable.
“Have you ever been tortured?” Luchas murmured.
His childhood came to mind. Then the Honor Guard. But he sure as shit wasn’t going to bust the guy’s balls. “I been knocked around some.”
“I’ll bet. What happened afterward?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did you get used to normal again?”
Qhuinn flexed his sore hands, looking at his own fingers that were all perfectly functional and intact in spite of the aches. His brother wasn’t going to be able to count to ten anymore: Healing was one thing, regeneration another entirely.
“There is no normal anymore,” he heard himself say. “You kind of…just keep going, because that’s all you got. The hardest thing is being with other people—it’s like they’re on a different wavelength, but only you know it. They talk about their lives and what’s wrong with them, and you kind of, like, just let them go. It’s a whole different language, and you’ve got to remember that you can only respond in their mother tongue. It’s really hard to relate.”
“Yes, that’s exactly right,” Luchas said slowly. “That’s right.”
Qhuinn scrubbed his face again. “I never expected to have anything in common with you.”
But they did. As Luchas looked over, those perfectly matched eyes met Qhuinn’s fucked-up ones, and the connection was there: They had both been through hell, and that lockstep was more powerful than the common DNA they shared.
It was so weird.
And funny, he guessed tonight was the night for him to find family everywhere.
Except the one place he wanted it.
As silence prevailed, with nothing but the steady beeping of the machinery by the bedside to break up the quiet, Qhuinn stayed for a long while. He and his brother didn’t talk much, and that was okay. That was what he wanted. He wasn’t ready to open up to the guy about Layla or the young, and he supposed it was telling that Luchas didn’t ask if he was mated. And he sure as hell wasn’t bringing up the Blay thing.
It was good to sit with his brother, though. There was something about the people you grew up around, the ones you’d seen throughout your childhood, the folks you couldn’t remember not knowing. Even if the past was a complicated mess, as you aged, you were just glad the sons of bitches were still on the planet.
It gave you the illusion that life wasn’t as fragile as it actually was—and on occasion, that was the only thing that got you through the night.
“I’d better go so you can rest,” he said, rubbing his knees, waking up his legs.
Luchas turned his head on that hospital pillow. “Odd dress for you, isn’t it?”
Qhuinn glanced down at the black robe. “Oh, this old thing? I just threw it on.”
“Looks ceremonial.”
“You need anything?” Qhuinn stood up. “Food?”
“I’m doing well enough. But thank you.”
“Well, you let me know, okay.”
“You are a very decent fellow, Qhuinn, you know that?”
Qhuinn’s heart stopped, and then beat hard. That was the phrase that their father had always used to describe gentlemales…it was the A-plus of compliments, the top of the pile, the equivalent of a bear hug and a high five from a normal guy.
“Thanks, man,” he said roughly. “You, too.”
“How can you say that?” Luchas cleared his throat. “How in the name of the Virgin Scribe can you say that?”
Qhuinn exhaled hard. “You want the bottom line? Well, I’ll give you it. You were the favorite. I was the curse—we were on opposite ends of the scale in that household. But neither one of us had a chance. You were no more free than I was. You had no choice about your future—it was predetermined at birth, and in a way, my eyes? They were my get-out-of-jail, because it meant he didn’t care about me. Did he fuck me over? Yeah, but at least I got to decide what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. You…never had a fucking chance. You were nothing but a math equation already solved when you were conceived, all the answers predetermined.”
Luchas closed those lids again and shuddered. “I keep running it through my head. All those years growing up, from my first memory…to the last thing I saw that night when…” He coughed a little, like his chest hurt, or maybe his heart rhythm went wonky. “I hated him. Did you know that?”
“No. But I can’t say it surprises me.”
“I don’t want to go back in that house again.”
“Then you don’t have to. But if you do…I’ll go with you.”
Luchas looked over once again. “Really?”
Qhuinn nodded his head. Even though he was in no hurry to walk through those rooms and dance with the ghosts of the past, he would go there if Luchas did.
Two survivors, back to the scene of crimes that had defined them.
“Yeah. Really.”
Luchas smiled a little, the expression nothing close to what he’d used to sport. And that was okay. Qhuinn liked it much better. It was honest. Fragile, but honest.
“I’ll see you soon,” Qhuinn said.
“That would be…very nice.”
Turning away, Qhuinn pushed open the door, and—
Blay was waiting for him out in the corridor, smoking a cigarette as he sat on the floor.
As Qhuinn came out of his brother’s room, Blay got to his feet and stabbed his Dunhill out on the lip of the drink he’d been nursing. He wasn’t sure what he expected the fighter to look like, but it hadn’t been this: So tense and unhappy, in spite of the incredible honor he’d been paid. Then again, spending time at your brother’s bedside was hardly a joyous occasion.
And Blay wasn’t stupid. Saxton was back in the house.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said, when the other male didn’t even offer a hello.
In fact, Qhuinn’s blue and green stare went around the corridor, hitting pretty much everything except him.
“So, ah, how’s your brother?” he prompted.
“Alive.”
Guess that was the best they could hope for right now.
And guess that was all Qhuinn intended to say. Maybe he shouldn’t have come down here. “I, ah, I wanted to say congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
Okay, Qhuinn still wasn’t looking at him. Instead, the guy was focused in the direction of the office, like in his mind he’d already walked down to the damn thing and put that closet full of paper supplies to good use—
The sound of Qhuinn cracking his knuckles was loud as gunshots. Then he flexed his hands, spreading the fingers as if they hurt.
“So it’s historic.” Blay went to take another cigarette out of his pack, and stopped himself. “A real first.”
“Been a lot firsts around here lately,” Qhuinn said with an edge.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. It really isn’t relevant.”
Christ, Blay thought, he shouldn’t have done this. “Can you look at me? I mean, would it fucking kill you to look at me?”
Those mismatched eyes shot around. “Oh, I saw you, all right. Guess your man’s home. You gonna tell him you fucked me while he was gone? Or you gonna keep that a dirty little secret. Yeah, shhhhhhh, don’t tell my cousin.”
Blay gritted his teeth. “You sanctimonious son of a bitch.”
“Excuse me, I’m not the one with a boyfriend—”
“You are actually going to stand here and pretend you were all out in the open about us? Like when Vishous came out of that room”—he jabbed his forefinger across the hall—“you didn’t jump up like your ass was on fire? You want to pretend that you were all proud that you were fucking a guy?”
Qhuinn seemed momentarily stunned. “You think that was why? And not, oh, lemme think, trying to respect the fact that you were cheating on the love of your life!”
By this point, they were both jacked forward on their hips, their voices careening up and down the corridor.
“Oh, bullshit.” Blay slashed his hand through the air. “That is such total bullshit! See, this has always been your problem. You’ve never wanted to come out—”
“Come out? Like I’m gay?!”
“You fuck men! What the good goddamn do you think it means!”
“That is you—you fuck guys. You don’t like women and females—”
“You have never been able to accept who you are,” Blay bellowed, “because you’re afraid of what people think! The great iconoclast, Mr. Pierced, crippled by his fucking family! The truth is, you’re a pussy and you always have been!”
Qhuinn’s expression was one of absolute fury, to the point that Blay was ready to get hit—and hell, he wanted to have a punch thrown at him just so he could have the pleasure of corking the guy back.
“Let’s get this straight,” Qhuinn barked. “You keep your shit on your side of the aisle. And that includes my cousin and the fact that you fucked around on him.”
Blay threw up his hands and had to pace before he jumped out of his own skin. “I just can’t stand this anymore. I can’t take this with you again. I feel like I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with your shit—”
“If I’m gay, why are you the only male I’ve ever been with!”
Blay stopped dead and just stared over at the guy, images of all those men in bathrooms filtering through his brain. For the love of all that was holy, he remembered each and every one of them, even though Qhuinn no doubt didn’t. Their faces. Their bodies. Their orgasms.
All getting what he’d been desperate for, and denied.
“How dare you,” he said. “How fucking dare you. Or do you think I don’t know your sexual history? I had to watch it for far longer than I cared for. Frankly, it wasn’t that interesting—and neither are you.”
As Qhuinn blanched, Blay started to shake his head. “I’m so done. I’m so over this—the fact that you can’t accept yourself is going to fuck up what’s left of your life, but that’s your issue, not mine.”
Qhuinn cursed long and low. “I never thought I’d say this…but you don’t know me.”
“I don’t know you? I think the shoe’s on the other foot, asshole. You don’t know yourself.”
At that, he expected some kind of explosion, some theatrical, over-the-top, light-up-the-world emotion to roll out of the guy.
He didn’t get it.
Qhuinn just set his shoulders, leveled his chin, and spoke with control. “I’ve spent the last year trying to figure out who I am, dropping the act, getting clean—”
“Then I say you’ve wasted three hundred and sixty-five nights. But like everything about this, that’s on you.”
With a vicious curse, Blay turned and strode away—and he didn’t look back. No reason to. There wasn’t anyone in the corridor he wanted to see.
Man, if the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again a
nd expecting a different result, then he’d lost his marbles years ago. For his mental health, his emotional well-being, and his very life, he needed to put this all—
Qhuinn hauled him around by the arm, the guy’s furious face shoving into his own. “Don’t you walk away from me like that.”
Blay felt a wave of exhaustion tackle him. “Why. Because you have something else to say? Some insight into yourself that’s supposed to put the puzzle pieces together in a way that fits? Some big confession that’s going to right the ship and make everything sunset-on-the-beach perfect? You don’t have that kind of vocabulary, and I’m not that naive anymore.”
“I want you to remember something,” Qhuinn growled. “I tried to make this work between us. I gave us a shot.”
Blay’s mouth dropped open. “You gave us a shot? Are you fucking kidding me? You think having sex with me as a way to get back at your cousin is a relationship? You think a couple of sessions in secret is some kind of love affair?”
“It was all I had to work with.” Those mismatched eyes raked around Blay’s face. “I’m not saying it was a grand romance, but I showed up because I wanted to be with you any way I could.”
“Well, congratulations. And now that we’ve both sampled the goods, I can solidly say that you and I are not meant to be together.” As Qhuinn started cursing up a storm, Blay shoved a hand into his hair and wanted to rip the shit out of his head. “Listen, if it helps you sleep during the day—and I can’t believe this is really going to bother you for longer than a night—tell yourself you did what you could, but it didn’t work out. Myself? I prefer reality. What happened between you and me is exactly what you’ve done with all the other randoms you’ve been with. Sex—just sex. And now we’re done.”
Qhuinn’s eyes burned. “You’ve got me wrong on this.”