Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (94 page)

You think this is a play-it-loose situation?”

“They can handle it,” Blay said under his breath. “The two of them are tight.”

“And with you they’re even stronger. I’m just going to dematerialize home.”

In the stretch of silence that followed, the straight line that ran from Blay’s ass up to the base of his skull was the equivalent of a middle finger. Not to the Brother, though.

Qhuinn knew exactly who it was for.

Things moved fast from then on, the SUV getting secured, Tohr departing, and John hopping

behind the wheel of the flatbed. Meanwhile, Qhuinn went around to the truck’s passenger-side door,

cranked it open, and stood to the side, waiting.

Like a gentlemale might, he supposed.

Blay came over, stalking through the snow. His face was like the landscape: cold, shut down,

inhospitable.

“After you,” the guy muttered, taking out a pack of cigarettes and an elegant gold lighter.

Qhuinn ducked his head briefly in a nod, then shuffled inside, sliding over the bench seat until his shoulder brushed John’s.

Blay got in last, slammed the door, and cracked the window, putting the lit end of his coffin nail

right at the opening to keep the smell down.

The flatbed did all of the talking for a good five miles or so.

Sitting in between what used to be his two best friends, Qhuinn stared out the windshield and

counted the seconds between the intermittent swipes of the wipers…three, two…one…up-and-down.

And…three, two…one…up-and-down.

There was barely enough snow loose in the air to require the effort—

“I’m sorry,” he blurted.

Silence. Except for the growl of the engine in front of them and the occasional clang of a chain in back when they hit a bump.

Qhuinn glanced over, and what do you know, Blay looked like he was chewing on metal.

“Are you talking to me?” the guy said gruffly.

“Yeah. I am.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Blay stabbed the cigarette out in the dashboard’s ashtray.

And lit another. “Will you
please
stop staring at me.”

“I just…” Qhuinn put a hand through his hair and gave the shit a yank. “I don’t…I…I don’t know

what to say about Layla—”

Blay’s head snapped around. “What you do with your life has nothing to do with me—”

“That’s not true,” Qhuinn said quietly. “I—”

“Not true?”

“Blay, listen, Layla and I—”

“What makes you think I want to hear one word about you and her?”

“I just thought that you might need some…I don’t know, context or something.”

Blay simply stared at him for a moment. “And why exactly do you think I’d want ‘context.’”

“Because…I thought you might find it…like, upsetting. Or something.”

“And why would that be?”

Qhuinn couldn’t believe the guy wanted him to say it out loud. Much less in front of someone else,

even John. “Well, because of, you know.”

Blay leaned in, his upper lip peeling back from his fangs. “Just so we’re clear, your cousin is

giving me what I need. All day long. Every day. You and me?” He motioned back and forth between

them with the cigarette. “We work together. That’s it. So I want you to do us both a favor before you think I ‘need’ to know something. Ask yourself, ‘If I were flipping burgers at McDonald’s, would I be telling the fucking fry guy this?’ If the answer is no, then shut the hell up.”

Qhuinn refocused on the windshield. And considered putting his face through it. “John, pull over.”

The fighter glanced across. Then started shaking his head.

“John, pull the fuck over. Or I’ll do it for you.”

Qhuinn was vaguely aware that his chest was pumping up and down and that his hands had

become fists.

“Pull the fuck over!” he roared as he punched the dashboard hard enough to send one of the vents

flying.

The flatbed shot to the side of the road and the brakes squealed as their velocity slowed. But

Qhuinn was already out of there. Dematerializing, he escaped through that crack in the window, along with Blay’s frustrated exhale.

Almost immediately, he re-formed at the side of the road, unable to keep himself in his molecular

state because his emotions were running way too high for that. Putting one shitkicker in front of the other, he trudged through the snow, his need to ambulate drowning out everything, including the

ringing pain in both sets of knuckles.

In the back of his head, something about the stretch of road registered, but there was too much

noise in his skull for specifics to break through.

No idea where he was going.

Man, it was cold.

Sitting in the flatbed, Blay focused on the lit end of his cigarette, the little orange glow going back and forth like a guitar string.

Guess his hand was shaking.

The whistle that went off next to him was John’s way of trying to get his attention, but he ignored it. Which got him slapped in the arm.

This is a really bad stretch for him
, John signed.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Blay muttered. “You’re absolutely fucking kidding me. He’s always

wanted a conventional mating, and he’s knocked up a Chosen—I’d say this is a great—”

No, here, right here.
John pointed out to the asphalt.
Here
.

Blay shifted his eyes to the windshield only because he was too tired to argue. Out in front of the flatbed, the headlights illuminated everything, the snow-covered landscape blindingly white, the

figure walking at the side of the road like a shadow thrown.

Red drops of blood marked the path of the footprints.

Qhuinn’s hands were bleeding from when he’d bashed up the dash—

Abruptly, Blay frowned. Sat up a little higher.

Like puzzle pieces sinking into their proper slots, the random details about where they were, from

the bend in the road, to the trees, to the stone wall beside them, came together and completed a

picture.

“Oh, shit.” Blay banged his head back against the rest. Closing his eyes briefly, he wanted to find another solution to this, anything other than him going out there.

He came up with a big, fat
nada
.

As he pushed open the door, the cold rushed into the warm interior of the truck cab. He didn’t say

anything to John. No reason to. Things like going out into a snowfall after someone were self-

explanatory.

Taking a deep drag, he clomped through the accumulation. The road had been plowed earlier, but

that was a much-earlier kind of thing.

Which meant he probably had to act fast.

Here in this rich part of town, where the tax base was as broad as the rolling lawns, you’d better

believe that another one of those house-size yellow muni plows was going to come by right before

dawn.

No need to play this out in front of humans. Especially with the pair of leaking, dead-and-gones in the Hummer.

“Qhuinn,” he said roughly. “Qhuinn, stop.”

He didn’t yell. Didn’t have the energy. This…thing, whatever it was between them, had gotten

exhausting long ago—and this current side-of-the-road showdown was just one more episode he

didn’t have the strength for.

“Qhuinn. Seriously.”

At least the guy slowed down a little. And with any luck he was so pissed off, he wouldn’t put all

the clues to their location together.

Jesus Christ, what were the chances, Blay thought as he glanced around. It was right about in this

next half mile or so where that Honor Guard had done their business—and Qhuinn had nearly died

from the beating.

God, Blay remembered tooling up that night, a different set of headlights picking out a dark figure, this time bleeding on the ground.

Shaking himself, he gave the name game one more shot. “Qhuinn.”

The guy stopped, his shitkickers planting in the snow and going no farther. He didn’t turn around,

however.

Blay motioned for John to kill the headlights, and a second later all he had to deal with was the

subtle orange glow of the truck’s parking lights.

Qhuinn put his hands on his hips and looked up to the sky, his head tilting back, his breath

escaping upward in a cloud of condensation.

“Come back and get in the flatbed.” Blay took another drag and released the smoke. “We need to

keep moving—”

“I know how much Saxton means to you,” Qhuinn said gruffly. “I get that. I really do.”

Blay forced himself to say, “Good.”

“I guess…hearing it out loud is still a shock.”

Blay frowned in the dim light. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t. And that’s my fault. All of this…is my fault.” Qhuinn glanced over his

shoulder, his strong, hard face set grimly. “I just don’t want you to think I’m in love with her. That’s all.”

Blay went to take a hit off his Dunhill, but didn’t have enough draw in his lungs. “I’m…sorry—I

don’t get…why…”

Well, that was an awesome reply.

“I’m not in love with her. She’s not in love with me. We are not sleeping together.”

Blay laughed harshly. “Bullshit.”

“Dead serious. I serviced her in her needing because I want a young, and so does she, and it

began and ended there.”

Blay closed his eyes as the wound in his chest got ripped open all over again. “Qhuinn, come on.

You’ve been with her this whole last year. I’ve seen you—everyone’s seen you two—”

“I took her virginity four nights ago. No one had been with her before that, including myself.”

Oh, there was a picture he needed in his head.

“I am not in love with her. She is not in love with me. We are not sleeping together.”

Blay couldn’t hold still any longer, so he paced around, the snow packing under his boots. And

then from out of nowhere, the voice of the Church Lady from
SNL
came into his head:
Well, isn’t that
speeeeeeeeeecial.

“I’m not with anybody,” Qhuinn said.

Blay laughed again with an edge. “As in a relationship? Of course not. But do not expect me to

believe that you’re spending your off time crocheting doilies and alphabetizing a spice rack with that female.”

“I haven’t had sex in almost a year.”

That stopped him cold.

God, where the fuck was all the air in this part of the universe?

“Bullshit,” Blay countered in a cracked voice. “You were with Layla—four nights ago. As you

said.”

In the silence that followed, the horrible truth raised its ugly-ass head again, the pain making it impossible for him to hide what he had so diligently been burying for the last few days.

“You were really with her,” he said. “I watched the library chandelier going back and forth under

your room.”

Now Qhuinn was the one closing his eyes like he wanted to forget. “It was for a purpose.”

“Listen…” Blay shook his head. “I’m really not clear on why you’re telling me all this. I meant

what I said—I don’t need any explanation about what you do with your life. You and I…we grew up

together, and that’s it. Yeah, we shared a lot of stuff back then, and we were there for each other when it mattered. But neither one of us can fit into the clothes we used to wear, and this relationship

between us is just the same. It doesn’t fit in our lives any longer. We don’t…fit anymore. And listen, I didn’t mean to get pissy in the truck, but I think you need to be clear on this. You and I? We have a past. That’s it. That’s…all we’ll ever have.”

Qhuinn looked away, his face once again in the shadows.

Blay forced himself to keep talking. “I know this…Layla thing…is a big deal to you. Or I’m

guessing it is—how could it not be, if she’s pregnant. For me? I honestly wish you both well. But you don’t owe me any explanations—and what’s more, I don’t require them. I’ve moved on from childish

crushes—and that’s what I had for you. Back then, it was just an infatuation, Qhuinn. So please take care of your female, and don’t worry that I’m slitting my wrists because you’ve found someone to

love. As I have.”

“I told you. I’m not in love with her.”

Wait for it, Blay thought to himself. Because it’s coming.

This was classic Qhuinn, right here.

The male was incredible in the field. And loyal to the point of psychosis. And smart. And sexual

to distraction. And a hundred thousand other things that Blay had to admit nobody else came close to.

But he had one serious defect, and it wasn’t his eye color.

He couldn’t handle emotion.

At all.

Qhuinn had always run from anything deep—even if he didn’t move. He could sit right in front of

you and nod and talk, but when the emotions got strong for him, he would leave the inside of his skin.

Just check right out. And if you tried to force him to confront them?

Well, that wasn’t possible. No one forced Qhuinn to do anything.

And yeah, sure, there were a lot of good reasons for the way he was. His family treating him like