Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (102 page)

But fuck that. It was old-school to want to honor someone who had put his life on the line so your

own could continue.

The real issue, even apart from the laws, however…was, What would the others think?

That was more likely to put the kibosh on this than any legal snafu.

As night fell hours later, Qhuinn lay naked in tangled sheets, neither his body nor his mind at rest, even as he slept.

In his dream, he was back at the side of the road, walking off from his family’s house. He had a

duffel over one shoulder, a proclamation of disinheritance shoved into his waistband, and a wallet

that was eleven dollars away from being empty.

Everything was crystal clear—nothing denatured due to memory’s faulty playback: from the

humid summer night to the sound of his New Rocks on the pebbles at the shoulder…to the fact that he was aware he had nothing in his future.

He had nowhere to go. No home to return to.

No prospects. Not even a past anymore.

When the car pulled in behind him, he knew it was John and Blay—

Except, no. It was not his friends. It was death in the form of four males in black robes who

streamed out of four doors and swarmed around him.

An Honor Guard. Sent by his father to beat him for dishonoring the family’s name.

How ironic. One would assume that knifing a sociopath who’d been trying to rape your buddy

would be considered a good thing. But not when the assailant was your perfect first cousin.

In slow motion, Qhuinn sank down into his fighting stance, prepared to meet the attack. There

were no eyes to look directly into, no faces to note—and there was a reason for that: The fact that the robes obscured their identities was supposed to make the person who’d transgressed feel as though

all of society was disapproving of the actions he had taken.

Circling, circling, closing in…eventually they were going to take him down, but he was going to

hurt them in the process.

And he did.

But he was also right: After what seemed like hours of defense, he ended up on his back, and that

was when the beating really happened. Lying on the asphalt, he covered his head and his nut sac as

best he could, the blows raining down on him, black robes flying like the wings of crows as he was

struck again and again.

After a little while, he felt no pain.

He was going to die here at the side of the road—

“Stop! We’re not supposed to kill him!”

His brother’s voice cut through it all, sinking in in a way that the pummeling no longer did—

Qhuinn woke up with a shout, throwing his arms over his face, his thighs thrusting up to protect

that groin of his—

No fists or clubs were coming at him.

And he was not at the side of the road.

Willing on some lights, he looked around the bedroom that he’d been staying in since he’d been

kicked out of his family’s home. It didn’t suit him in the slightest, the silk wallpaper and the antiques something his mother would have picked out—and yet at the moment, the sight of all that old crap

someone else had chosen, bought, hung, and kept after made him calm down.

Even as the memory lingered.

God, the sound of his brother’s voice.

His own brother had been part of the Honor Guard that had been sent for him. Then again, that

sent a more powerful message to the
glymera
about how seriously the family was taking things—and it wasn’t as if the guy hadn’t been trained. He’d been taught the martial arts, although naturally he’d never been allowed to fight. Hell, he’d barely been permitted to spar.

Too valuable to the bloodline. If he got hurt? The one who was going to walk in Daddio’s

footsteps and eventually become a
leahdyre
of the Council could be compromised.

Small risk of a catastrophic injury to the family.

Qhuinn, on the other hand? Before he’d been disavowed, he’d been put into the training program,

maybe in hopes that he’d sustain a mortal injury in the field and have the good grace to die honorably for everyone.

Stop! We’re not supposed to kill him!

That had been the last time he’d heard his brother’s voice. Shortly after Qhuinn had been thrown

out of the house, the Lessening Society had gone on a raid and slaughtered them all, Father, Mother, sister—and Luchas.

All gone. And even though a part of him had hated them for all they’d done to him, he wouldn’t

wish that kind of death on anyone.

Qhuinn rubbed his face.

Shower time. That was all he knew.

Getting up on his feet, he stretched until his back cracked, and checked his phone. A group text to everyone announced there was a meeting in Wrath’s study—and a quick glance at the clock told him

he was out of time.

Which was not a bad thing. As he flipped into high gear and hustled into the bath, it was a relief to focus on real stuff instead of the bullshit past.

Nothing he could do about the latter except curse it. And shit knew he’d done enough of that for

twelve lifetimes.

Wakey-wakey, he thought.

Time to go to work.

THIRTEEN

Around the same time Qhuinn was cleaning himself up at the main house, Blay came awake in

the chair in that little underground office. The headache that served as his alarm clock was

not from the port—it was from the fact that he’d skipped Last Meal. But man, he wished the

booze had been behind the pounding in his skull. He could have used the out that he’d been a

total, sloppy, lost-his-mind mess when he’d come down here.

Cursing, he withdrew his legs from the desktop and sat up. His body was stiff as a board, aches

blooming in all kinds of places as he willed on the overhead light.

Crap. He was still naked.

But come on, like the modesty elves would have snuck in and clothed him in his sleep? Just so he

wasn’t reminded of what he’d done?

Putting his shorts on, he shoved his feet into his trainers and then reached for his shirt—before

remembering what he’d used it for.

As he stared at the crumpled folds of cotton and felt the stiff places in the soft cloth, he realized that no amount of rationalization was going to change the fact that he’d cheated on Saxton. Physical contact with someone else was only one way of measuring infidelity—and yeah, that was the biggest

divide. But what he’d done last night had been a violation of the relationship, even though the orgasm had been caused by his brain, not his hand.

Getting to his feet, he was half-dead as he went to the door and opened it a crack. If there was

anyone around, he was going to duck back inside and wait for a clear shot into the corridor: He so

completely did not want to get caught coming out of this empty office, half-clothed and looking like hell. The upside to living at the compound was that you were surrounded by people who cared about

you; the downside was that everybody had eyes and ears, and no one’s business was just their own.

When he didn’t hear voices or footsteps, he exploded out into the hall and started walking briskly, like he’d been somewhere for a good reason and was heading to his room for an equally important

purpose. He had a feeling he’d gotten away with it when he hit the tunnel. Sure, he didn’t usually go shirtless, but a lot of the Brothers or males did when they were coming from the gym—nothing

unusual.

And he really felt like he’d won the lottery when he stepped out from under the mansion’s grand

staircase and got another good dose of empty-bowling-alley. The only problem was that, going by the sounds of china being cleared in the dining room, it must be later than he’d thought. He’d obviously missed First Meal—bad news for his head, but at least he had some protein bars in his room.

His luck ran out as he took the stairs up to the second floor. Standing in front of the closed doors to Wrath’s study, Qhuinn and John were dressed for fighting, their weapons strapped on, their bodies covered in black leather.

No way in hell was he looking at Qhuinn. Just having the guy in his peripheral vision was bad

enough.

“What’s going on?” Blay asked.

We’ve got a meeting now
, John signed.
Or at least, we’re supposed to. Didn’t you get the text?

Shit, he had no idea where his phone was. His room? Hopefully.

“I’ll hit the shower and be right back.”

You might not have to rush. The Brothers have been sequestered for the last half hour. I don’t

have any idea what’s going on.

Next to the guy, Qhuinn was rocking back and forth in his shitkickers, his weight shifting like he

was on a walk even as he went nowhere.

“Five minutes,” Blay muttered. “That’s all I need.”

He hoped the Brotherhood would open those doors by then—the last thing he wanted was to get

stuck passing time anywhere near Qhuinn.

Cursing as he went, Blay jogged down to his room. Usually he took his time getting ready,

especially if Sax was in the mood, but this was going to be a wham-bam, thank you, ma—

As he opened his door, he froze.

What the…hell?

Duffels. On the bed. So many of them he couldn’t see more than an inch and a half of the king-size

duvet—and he knew whose they were. Matching Guccis, in white with the navy blue logo and the

navy blue and red cloth strapping—because according to Saxton, the traditional brown-on-brown

with the red and green was “too obvious.”

Blay shut the door quietly. His first thought was, Holy shit, Saxton knew. Somehow, the guy knew

what had happened in the training center.

The male in question came out of the bathroom with an armful of shampoo, conditioner, and

product. He stopped dead.

“Hi,” Blay said. “Taking a vacation?”

After a tense moment, Saxton calmly came over, put his load down in a travel bag, and turned

back around. As always, his beautiful blond hair was swept off his forehead in thick waves. And he

was dressed perfectly, in another tweed suit with matching waistcoat, a red cravat and red pocket

square adding just the right accent of color.

“I think you know what I’m going to say.” Saxton smiled sadly. “Because you’re far from stupid—

just as I am.”

Blay went to sit down on the bed, but had to recalibrate because there was nowhere to put

himself. He ended up on the chaise lounge, and, with a discreet lean to one side, he tucked the

wadded shirt under the skirting. Out of sight. It was the least he could do.

God, was this really happening?

“I don’t want you to go,” Blay heard himself say roughly.

“I believe that.”

Blay looked across all those duffels. “Why now?”

He thought of the pair of them just the day before, under the sheets, having hard sex. They had

been so close—although if he were brutally honest, maybe that had just been physically.

Take out the
maybe
.

“I’ve been fooling myself.” Saxton shook his head. “I thought I could keep going with you like this

—but I can’t. It’s killing me.”

Blay closed his eyes. “I know I’ve been out a lot in the field—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

As Qhuinn took up all the space between them, Blay wanted to scream. But what good would that

do: it appeared that he and Saxton had gotten to the same difficult corner at the same sorrowful

moment.

His lover looked over the luggage. “I’ve just finished that assignment for Wrath. It’s a good time

to make a break, move out and find another job—”

“Wait, so you’re leaving the king as well?” Blay frowned. “However things stand between us,

you need to keep working for him. That is bigger than our relationship.”

Saxton’s eyes dipped down. “I suspect that is far easier for you to say.”

“Not true,” Blay countered grimly. “God, I’m so…sorry.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong—you need to know that I’m not angry at you, or bitter. You’ve

always been honest, and I’ve always known that things were going to end like this. I just didn’t know the timeline—I didn’t know…until I reached the end. Which is now.”

Oh, fuck.

Even though he knew Saxton was right, Blay felt a compulsive need to fight for them. “Listen, I’ve

been really distracted for the last week, and I’m sorry. But things have a way of regulating, and you and I will get back to normal—”

“I’m in love with you.”

Blay shut his mouth with a clap.

“So you see,” Saxton continued hoarsely, “it’s not that you have changed. It’s that
I
have—and I’m afraid my silly emotions have put us at quite a distance from each other.”

Blay surged to his feet and strode across the fine-napped carpet to the other male.

When he got to his destination, he was relieved to the point of tearing up that Saxton accepted his embrace. And as he held his first true lover against him, feeling that familiar difference in their heights and smelling that wonderful cologne, part of him wanted to debate this break up until they both gave in and kept trying.