Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (6 page)

Deep red of hair, and lovely sapphire blue of eye, the fully blooded aristocrat was a fighter for

the Brotherhood, but he was not a brute. No matter how he spent his nights out in the field, he

remained at the compound a mannered, intelligent gentlemale of fine comportment and schooling.

So it was not a surprise that even in his rush, he bent slightly at the waist in formal greeting before resuming his hurry to the grand staircase.

In his descent down to the foyer, Qhuinn’s voice came to her.

I’m in love with someone….

Layla exercised her new habit of cursing under her breath. Such a sad state of affairs between

those two fighters, and this pregnancy was not of aid.

But the die had been cast.

And they were all going to live with the consequences.

As Blay hit the staircase, he felt like he was being chased, and that was nuts. Nobody who was any

threat was behind him. There was no masher in a Jason mask, or sick bastard in a bad Christmas

sweater with knives for fingers, or killer clown…

Just a probably-pregnant Chosen who happened to have spent a good twelve hours fucking his

former best friend.

No prob.

At least, there shouldn’t have been any problem. The trouble was, every time he saw that female,

he felt like he got punched in the gut. Which was another case of crazy. She had done nothing wrong.

Neither had Qhuinn.

Although, God, if she was pregnant…

Blay booted all those happy thoughts to the background as he crossed through the foyer at a jog.

No time to psycho-babble, even if it was just to himself: When Vishous called you on your night off and told you to be out front in your gear in five minutes, it was not because things were going well.

No details had been given during the phone call; none had been asked for. Blay had taken only a

moment to text Saxton, and then he’d thrown on the leather and the steel, ready for anything.

In a way, this was good. Spending the night reading in his room had turned out to be torturous, and though he didn’t want anyone in trouble, at least this pulled him into some activity. Bursting out

through the vestibule, he—

Came face-to-face with the Brotherhood’s flatbed truck.

The thing was kitted out to look authentically human, deliberately painted with red AAA logos

and the made-up name of Murphy’s Towing. Fake telephone number. Fake tagline of: “We’re Always

There for You.”

Bullshit. Unless, of course, the “you” was one of the Brotherhood.

Blay hopped up into the passenger seat and found Tohr, not V, behind the wheel. “Is Vishous

coming?”

“It’s you and me, kid—he’s still working on the ballistics testing of that bullet.”

The Brother hit the gas, the diesel engine roaring like a beast, the headlights swinging in a fat

circle around the courtyard’s fountain and across the lineup of cars parked wheelbase-to-wheelbase.

Just as Blay checked out the vehicles and did the math about the one that was missing, Tohr said,

“It’s Qhuinn and John.”

Blay’s lids dropped shut for a split second. “What happened.”

“I don’t know much. John called V for an emergency assist.” The Brother looked over. “And you

and I are the only ones free.”

Blay reached for the door handle, ready to pop the thing and dematerialize the fuck out of there.

“Where are they—”

“Calm down, son. You know the rules. None of us can be out alone, so I need your ass in that seat

or I’m violating my own goddamn protocol.”

Blay slammed his fist into the door, punching hard enough that the sting in his hand cleared his

head a little. Fucking Band of Bastards, cramping them all—and the fact that the rule made sense just pissed him off even more. Xcor and his boys had proven to be cagey, aggressive, and completely

without morals—not exactly the kind of enemy you wanted to meet up with all by your little

lonesome.

But come on.

Blay grabbed his phone, intending to text John—but he stopped because he didn’t want the guys

distracted by his trying to get details. “Is there anyone who can get to them quick?”

“V called the others. Fighting’s heavy downtown and nobody can break out of it.”

“Goddamn it.”

“I’ll drive as fast as I can, son.”

Blay nodded, just so he didn’t come across as rude. “Where are they and how far?”

“Fifteen to twenty minutes. And out past the ’burbs.”

Shit.

Staring out the window and watching the snow streak by, he told himself that if John was texting,

they were alive, and for godsakes, the guy had asked for a tow truck, not an ambulance. For all he

knew, they had a flat tire or a broken windshield, and getting hysterical was not going to shorten the distance, decrease the drama, if there was any, or change the outcome.

“Sorry if I’m being an ass,” Blay muttered, as the Brother shot onto the highway.

“You do not need to apologize for being worried about your boys.”

Man, Tohr was cool like that.

As it was late, late at night, the Northway didn’t have any cars, just a semi or two, the wired

drivers of which were going like bats out of hell. The tow truck didn’t stay on the four-laner for long.

About eight miles later, they got off at an exit well north of downtown Caldwell, in a suburban area that was known for mansions, not ranches, Mercedes, not Mazdas.

“What the hell are they doing out here?” Blay asked.

“Researching those reports.”

“About
lessers
?”

“Yeah.”

Blay shook his head as they went by stone walls as tall and thick as linebackers, and gates of fine, wrought-iron filigree which were closed to outsiders.

Abruptly, he took a deep breath and relaxed. The aristocrats who were moving back into town

were spooked and seeing evidence of
lesser
activity in everything around them—which did not mean that slayers were in fact jumping out from behind garden statuary or hiding in their basements.

This was not a mortal event. It was a mechanical one.

Blay rubbed his face and slapped the shit out of his inner panic button.

At least until they came out on the other side of the zip code and found the accident.

As they rounded a bend in the road, there were a pair of taillights glowing red at the side—far off the shoulder, and upside down.

The fuck this was just a mechanical problem.

Blay jumped out before Tohr even started to pull over, dematerializing directly to the Hummer.

“Oh, Christ, no,” he moaned as he saw two sunburst patterns in the front windshield—the kind of

thing that could only be made by a pair of heads slamming into the glass.

Tripping through the snow, he went for the driver’s-side door, the sweet sting of gas knifing into

his nose, the smoke from the engine making him blink—

A high-pitched whistle cut through the night from over on the left. Whipping around, Blay

searched the snow-covered landscape…and found two hulking shapes about twenty feet away,

clustered at the base of a tree nearly the size of the one the Hummer had gotten hung up on.

Scrambling through the drifts, Blay rushed over and landed on his knees. Qhuinn was sprawled on

the ground, his long, heavy legs stretched out, his upper body in John’s lap.

The male just stared at him with those mismatched eyes, unmoving, unspeaking.

“Is he paralyzed?” Blay demanded, looking over at John.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Qhuinn replied dryly.

I think he’s got a concussion
, John signed.

“I do not—”

He went flying off the hood of his car and hit this tree—

“I mostly missed the tree—”

And I’ve had to hold him down ever since
.

“Which is pissing me off—”

“How we doing, boys?” Tohr said as he crunched over to them, his boots crushing the ice pack.

“Anyone injured?”

Qhuinn shoved himself free of John and leaped up to the vertical. “No—we’re all just—”

At that point, the guy’s balance went wonky, his body listing so hard that Tohr had to catch him.

“You go wait in the truck,” the Brother said grimly.

“Fuck that—”

Tohr jerked the guy forward so they were face-to-face. “Excuse me, son. What did you say? ’Cuz

I know you didn’t just f-bomb me, did you.”

Okay. Right. Blay knew firsthand that there were few things in life Qhuinn backed down from; that

being said, a Brother the guy respected, who was more than ready to finish the job that a pine tree had started, was definitely one of them.

Qhuinn looked over to his ruined SUV. “Sorry. Bad night. And I just got light-headed for a split

second. I’m fine.”

In typical Qhuinn fashion, the bastard broke free and walked off, heading toward the steaming pile

of previously drivable metal like he’d thrown off his injuries by force of will.

Leaving everyone else in his dust.

Blay got to his feet and forced himself to focus on John. “What happened?”

Thank God for sign language; it gave him something to look at, and fortunately, John took his time

filling in the details. When the narration was over, Blay could only stare at his friend. But come on, it wasn’t as if anybody would make that shit up.

Not about someone they liked, at any rate.

Tohrment started to laugh. “He pulled a
hyslop
, is what you’re saying.”

“Not sure I know what that is?” Blay cut in.

Tohr shrugged and followed Qhuinn’s trail through the snow, motioning with his arm toward the

wreck. “Right here. This is the definition of a
hyslop
—precipitated by your boy leaving his keys in the ignition.”

He’s not my boy, Blay said to himself. Never has been. Never will be.

And the fact that that hurt worse than any kind of concussion was something, like so much, he kept

quiet about.

Off to the side and out of the glow of the headlights, Blay hung back and watched as Qhuinn

crouched down by the driver’s door and cursed softly. “Messy. Very messy.”

Tohr did the duty on the passenger seat. “Oh, look, a matched set.”

“I think they’re dead.”

“Really. What gave that away. The fact they aren’t moving or that this guy over here has no facial

features left?”

Qhuinn straightened up and looked across the undercarriage. “We need to roll it and tow it.”

“And here I thought we were going to toast marshmallows,” Tohr said. “John? Blay? Get over

here.”

The four of them lined up shoulder-to-shoulder between the sets of tires and dug in with their

boots, locking their positions in the snow. Four sets of hands palmed the panels; four bodies leaned into the ready; four pairs of shoulders tightened up.

A single voice, Tohr’s, counted it out. “On three. One. Two.
Three
—”

The Hummer had already had a bad night, and this right-the-wrong thing made it groan so loudly

that an owl was flushed across the road and a pair of deer took flight on bounding hooves through the trees.

Then again, the SUV wasn’t the only one cursing. Everybody was going George Carlin under the

deadweight as they worked to pry free gravity’s hold on all that steel. The laws of physics were

possessive, however, and as Blay’s body strained, all his muscles tightening against his bones, he

turned his head and shifted his grip—

He was standing next to Qhuinn. Right beside the guy.

Qhuinn’s eyes were focused straight ahead, his lips peeled back from his fangs, his fierce

expression the result of total anatomical effort….

It was close to what he looked like when he came.

Holy inappropriateness, Batman. And too bad that fact did nothing to change his thought pattern.

The trouble was, Blay knew from firsthand experience what an orgasm did to the guy—although

not because he was one of the cast of thousands who’d been a recipient. Oh, no. Never that. God forfucking-bid the guy who’d stick his dick in anything that breathed—and maybe some inanimate

objects—would ever do Blay.

Yeah, because that discerning sexual palate, which had led to Qhuinn balling everything in

Caldwell between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight, had filtered Blay out of the fuck pool.

“She’s…starting to move…” Tohr gritted. “Get under her!”

Blay and Qhuinn snapped into action, releasing their holds, crouching down, shoving their

shoulders under the lip of the roof. Facing each other, their eyes met as breath exploded out of their mouths, their thighs going into action, their bodies pitted in a war against all that cold, hard weight—

that happened be slippery thanks to the snow.

Their added power was the turning point—literally. An axis formed on the opposite tires, and the

Hummer’s four-ton burden started shifted on them, getting lighter and lighter—