Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (60 page)

it was killing you. I couldn’t not try something. Anything.”

Qhuinn’s lids closed briefly. And then he gathered Blay in an embrace that connected them from

head to foot. “You’re always there for me, aren’t you.”

Talk about bittersweet: The reality that the male was going to form a family with someone else,

with a female, with Layla, bit into the center of Blay’s chest.

It was his curse, in so many ways.

He released his arms from Qhuinn’s back and stepped off. “Well, I hope it—”

Before he could finish, Qhuinn was in front of him yet again, and those blue and green eyes were

burning.

“What,” Blay said.

“I owe you…everything.”

For some reason, that hurt. Maybe because after years of trying to give himself to the guy, the

gratitude was finally earned by helping him have a kid with someone else.

“Whatever, you’d have done the same for me,” he said roughly.

And yet even as he put that out there, he wasn’t sure. If someone attacked him? Well, sure, of

course Qhuinn would back him up. But then again, the tough-edged SOB loved to fight and was a

natural hero—that wasn’t anything about Blay.

Perhaps that was the point of this emptiness. Everything had always been on Qhuinn’s terms. The

friendship. The distance. Even the sex.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Qhuinn asked.

“Like how.”

“As if I’m a stranger.”

Blay rubbed his face. “Sorry. Just been a long night.”

There was a long, tense moment, during which all he could feel was Qhuinn’s stare.

“I’ll go,” the fighter said after a pause. “I guess I just wanted…yeah. Anyhow.”

The sounds of shitkickers headed for the exit had Blay cursing—

The knock on the door was a single one and very loud: a Brother.

Rhage’s voice cut easily through the panels. “Blay? Tohr’s called a meeting to go over tomorrow

night’s territory. You know where Qhuinn is?”

Blay looked across his room at the guy. “No, I don’t.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Qhuinn thought at the interruption. Although in reality, the conversation was over, wasn’t it.

The good news was that at least Rhage didn’t come in. No doubt Blay would prefer the pair of

them not got caught hanging in his room.

Hollywood wrapped things up with, “If you see him, let him know if he wants to attend we’re

convening in five. Totally understand if he’d rather stay with Layla.”

“Roger that,” Blay said in a dead voice.

As Rhage went next door and knocked on Z’s door, Qhuinn rubbed his face. He had no idea what

had gone through Blay’s mind just now, but the way those blue eyes had stared at him had made him

feel as if a ghost had passed over his grave.

Then again, what did he expect? He barged into the room that the guy shared with Saxton, pulled a

major liplock, and then got all mushy over the Payne thing….This was Saxton space. Not Qhuinn

space.

He had a habit of taking things over, though, didn’t he.

“I won’t come in here again,” Qhuinn said, trying to make some kind of amends. “I just wanted

you to know that…I owe you so much.”

Qhuinn went over to the door and leaned in, listening for Rhage’s voice, closing his eyes, waiting

for the hall of statues to be clear.

Jesus, he could be a selfish prick sometimes; he really could—

“Qhuinn.”

His body turned on a dime, sure as if Blay’s voice was a ripcord that yanked him around.

“Yeah?”

The male walked forward. When they were eye-to-eye, Blay said, “I still want to fuck you.”

Qhuinn’s brows popped so high, they nearly landed on the carpet. And instantly, he went hard.

The only trouble was, Blay didn’t seem happy about the reveal. But why would he be? He wasn’t

the kind of male who could two-time someone easily—although clearly Saxton’s lack of monogamy

had cured him of being faithful.

Kind of made Qhuinn want to strangle his cousin again. And the only thing that stopped him from

going and finding the slut was that in this case, the situation worked for Qhuinn.

“I want to be with you, too,” he said.

“I’ll come to your room after dawn.”

Qhuinn didn’t want to ask. Had to. “What about Saxton?”

“He’s gone on vacation.”

Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally. “For how long?”

“Just a couple of days.”

Too bad. Any chance of an extension…for like a year or two? Maybe forever?

“Okay, it’s a—” Qhuinn stopped himself before he finished that with
date
.

There was no sense kidding himself. Saxton was away. Blay wanted to get laid. And Qhuinn was

more than willing to supply the male with what he wanted.

That construct was
not
a date. But fuck it.

“Come to me,” he said in a growl. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Blay nodded, like they’d made a pact, and then he was the one who left first, his body shifting

with aggression as he walked by and went through the door.

Qhuinn watched the guy go. Stayed behind. Nearly shut himself in just so he could pull himself

together.

Suddenly, he was fucked in the head, in spite of the promise that they’d be hooking up in a matter

of hours: That expression on Blay’s face haunted him, to the point where his chest started to ache.

Shit, maybe this current series of hookups was just a further evolution of the bad spots they’d been in before, a new facet of their collective unhappiness.

It had never dawned on him that they weren’t good for each other. That there wouldn’t be, in the

future, some kind of meeting of the minds now that he’d opened himself after all these years.

Curling up a fist, he slammed it into the doorjamb, the imprint of the molding biting back into the heel of his hand.

As pain flared and then thumped, for some reason, he thought of punching that flatbed’s dashboard

and screaming to get out. Felt like that had been a lifetime ago.

But he wasn’t turning back. If sex was what he could have, he was going to take it. Besides, what

Blay had done for Layla?

Surely that meant something. The guy had cared enough to change the course of Qhuinn’s entire

life.

Not that Blay hadn’t done that long ago.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Assail took form beside a babbling brook that remained ice-free thanks to its constant

movement.

The house before him was one he had been to only one prior time, a brick Victorian with

the period’s quintessential gingerbread motifs marking its porches and doorways. So quaint.

So homey. Especially with those long four-paned windows made of leaded glass, and the curls of

smoke lazying out of not one, but three of its four chimneys.

Which seemed to indicate its owner was back home for the night.

Fine timing, as it were: Dawn was coming soon, so it was logical to batten down one’s personal

hatches for the sun. Secure one’s environment. Prepare for the hours that one needed to stay inside to protect oneself from harm.

Assail stalked across the pristine snow, leaving tracks with deep tread. No loafers for this job.

No business suit, either.

No Range Rover for his burglar to follow.

Coming up the side lawn, he went over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the very receiving

room into which the master of the house had, not so very long ago, welcomed certain members of the

Council…along with the Band of Bastards.

Assail had been numbered among the males at that meeting. At least until it had become clear that

he had to remove himself or get drawn into precisely the kind of discourse and drama he was

uninterested in.

At the glass, he looked inside.

Elan, son of Larex, was at his desk, a landline telephone up to his ear, a brandy snifter at his

elbow, a cigarette smoldering in a cut-crystal ashtray beside him. As he leaned back in his leather club chair and crossed his legs at the knees, he appeared to be in a state of relaxation and self-satisfaction akin to that of postcoital bliss.

Assail made a fist, the black leather of his glove creaking ever so subtly.

And then he dematerialized into the very room, re-forming directly behind the male’s chair.

On one level, he couldn’t believe that Elan didn’t fortify his abode with greater security—a fine

steel mesh over the windows and within the walls, for example. Then again, the aristocrat clearly

suffered from a lack of appropriate risk assessment—as well as an arrogance that would grant him a

greater sense of safety than he actually possessed.

“…and then Wrath shared a story about his father. I must confess, in person, the king is quite…

ferocious. Although not enough to change my course, naturally.”

No, Assail was going to take care of that.

Elan leaned forward and reached for the cigarette. The thing was screwed onto one of those old-

fashioned holders, the kind that females tended to use, and as he brought the end to his lips to take a drag, the tip extended out past the edge of the chair.

Assail unsheathed a shiny steel blade that was as long as his forearm.

It had e’re been his preferred weapon for this sort of thing.

His heart rate was as steady as his hand, his breathing even and regular whilst he loomed behind

the chair. With deliberation, he stepped to one side, positioning himself so that his reflection

appeared in the window opposite the desk.

“I am not aware whether it was the entire Brotherhood. How many of them are left? Seven or

eight? This is part of the problem. We do not know who they are anymore.” Elan tapped his cigarette, the small stack of ash falling into the belly of the ashtray. “Now, whilst I was at the meeting, I

instructed a colleague of mine to be in touch with you—I beg your pardon? Of course I gave him your number, and I resent the tone in your— Yes, he was here at the meeting at my home. He is going to—

No, I shan’t do it again. Shall you cease interrupting me? I think so, yes.”

Elan took a drag and released the smoke in a rush, his annoyance manifested in his breath. “May

we move on? Thank you. As I was saying, my colleague shall be in touch with regard to a certain

legal provision which may help us. He has explained it to me, but as it is rather technical, I assumed you would wish to question him yourself.”

There was a rather long pause. And when Elan spoke next, his tone was calmer, as if placating

words had soothed the ruffled feathers of his ego. “Oh, and one last thing. I took care of our little problem with a certain ‘business-minded’ gentlemale—”

Assail deliberately curled up his fist.

As that leather once again let out its quiet sound of protest, Elan straightened in his seat, his

crossed foot returning to the floor, his spine stretching upward such that his head appeared over the back of the chair. He looked left. Looked right.

“I must needs go—”

At that moment, Elan’s eyes went to the window across from him, and he saw the reflection of his

killer in the glass.

As Xcor stood in an insulated room with a proper heating system, he had to admit he preferred

Throe’s newest choice of living quarters over that warehouse dungeon they had been in previously.

Mayhap he would thank the Shadow who had intruded, if their paths e’er crossed anew.

Then again, perhaps the sense of warmth in his body was his temper flaring, and not a function of

good, operational ductwork: The aristocrat on the other end of his cellular phone was testing his last nerve.

He did
not
want to be contacted by anybody else on the Council. Managing one member of the

glymera
was quite enough.

Although he typically took a pacifying approach with Elan, his wrath licked out. “Do not give my

number to anyone else.”

Elan and he went back and forth a bit, the aristocrat’s own ire rising.