Lover Avenged (44 page)

With a focus and determination that was both foreign and familiar, Tohr headed down toward the grand staircase and paused as he got to the mostly closed doors of the study. He sensed Wrath behind them, but he didn’t really want to interact with anyone.

At least, he didn’t think so.

Why then hadn’t he just called down to the kitchen for an order of food?

Tohr peered in through the slit that was between the doors.

Wrath was asleep at his desk, his long, glossy black hair fanning out over paperwork, one forearm curled under his head as a pillow. In his free hand, he still gripped the magnifying glass he had to use if he wanted to try to read anything.

Tohr stepped into the room. Looking around, he saw the mantelpiece over the fireplace and could just picture Zsadist lounging against it, his scarred face serious, his eyes flashing black. Phury had always been close to him, usually parking it in the pale blue chaise by the window. V and Butch had tended to take that spindly-ass couch. Rhage chose different locales depending on his mood…

Tohr frowned as what was next to Wrath’s desk registered.

The ugly, ratty, avocado green armchair, with patches worn on its leather cushions…was Tohr’s chair. The one his Wellsie had insisted be thrown out because it was a mess. The one he’d put in the office down in the training center.

“We moved it here so John would come back to the mansion.”

Tohr’s head whipped around. Wrath was lifting himself off his arm, his voice as groggy as his face appeared.

The king spoke slowly, as if he didn’t want to spook his visitor. “After…what happened, John wouldn’t leave the office. He refused to sleep anywhere but that chair. What a mess…He was acting out in training. Getting into fights. Eventually, I put my foot down, moved that stinker in here, and things got better.” Wrath turned to the chair. “He used to like to sit there and watch me work. After his transition and the raids over the summer, he’s been out fighting at night and crashing during the day, so he hasn’t been here as much. I kind of miss him.”

Tohr winced. He’d done such a head job on that poor kid. Sure, he’d been incapable of doing anything else, but John had suffered a lot.

Suffered still.

Tohr was ashamed of himself as he thought of his waking up in that bed each morning and every afternoon, John bringing that tray in and sitting while the food was eaten-then staying, as if the kid knew that he was throwing up most of whatever had been served as soon as he was alone.

John had had to deal with Wellsie’s death by himself. Go through his transition by himself. Cross however many first times by himself.

Tohr sat down on V and Butch’s couch. The thing felt surprisingly sturdy, more so than he remembered. Putting his palms on the cushions, he pushed.

“It was reinforced while you were gone,” Wrath said quietly.

There was a long period of quiet, the question Wrath wanted to ask hovering in the air as loud as the echo of clanging bells in a private chapel.

Tohr cleared his throat. The only person he could have talked to about what was on his mind was Darius, but the brother was dead and gone. Wrath was the next person he was closest to though…

“It was…” Tohr crossed his arms over his chest. “It went okay. She stood behind me.”

Wrath nodded slowly. “Good idea.”

“Hers.”

“Selena’s tight. Kind.”

“I’m not sure how long it’s going to take,” Tohr said, not wanting to even talk about the female. “You know, until I’m ready to fight. I’m going to have to spar some. Hit the shooting range. Physically? No clue how my body’s going to rebound.”

“Don’t worry about time. Just get yourself healthy.”

Tohr looked down at his hands and curled up a pair of fists. There was no meat on the bones at all, so his knuckles poked through the skin like a relief map of the Adirondacks, nothing but jagged peaks and hollow valleys.

It was going to be a long trip back, he thought. And even once he was physically strong, his mental deck of cards was still missing all of its aces. No matter how much he weighed or how well he fought, nothing was going to change that.

There was a sharp knock and he shut his eyes, praying it wasn’t one of his brothers. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of returning to the land of living.

Yay. Rah. Whoo. Hoo.

“What’s doing, Qhuinn?” the king asked.

“We found John. Kinda.”

Tohr’s lids popped wide and he shifted around, frowning up at the kid in the doorway. Before Wrath could speak, Tohr said, “Was he missing?”

Qhuinn seemed surprised to see him up and about, but the guy gathered himself quickly as Wrath demanded, “Why wasn’t I told he was gone?”

“I didn’t know he was.” Qhuinn came in, and the redhead from the training classes, Blay, was with him. “He told both of us he was off rotation and going to crash out. We took him at his word, and before you fist my balls, I stayed in my room the entire time because I thought he was in his. As soon as I realized he wasn’t there, we went in search of him.”

Wrath cursed under his breath, then cut off Qhuinn’s apology. “Nah, it’s cool, son. You didn’t know. Nothing you could do. Where the fuck is he?”

Tohr didn’t hear the answer for the roar in his head. John out in Caldwell alone? Gone without telling anyone? What if something had happened?

He cut through the conversation. “Wait, where is he?”

Qhuinn held up his phone. “He won’t say. His text is just that he’s safe, wherever he is, and he’ll meet us out tomorrow night.”

“When’s he coming home?” Tohr demanded.

“I guess”-Qhuinn shrugged-“he’s not.”

Rehvenge’s mother passed unto the Fade at eleven eleven a.m.

She was surrounded by her son and her daughter and her sleeping granddaughter and her fierce son-in-law and attended by her beloved doggen.

It was a good death. A very good death. She closed her eyes, and an hour later she gasped twice and let out one long exhale, as if her body were sighing in relief as her soul flew free of its corporeal cage. And it was strange…Nalla woke up at that moment and the young focused not on her granhmen, but above the bed. Her little chubby hands reached high, and she smiled and cooed as if someone had just stroked her cheek.

Rehv stared down at the body. His mother had always believed she would be reborn unto the Fade, the roots of her faith planted in the rich soil of her Chosen upbringing. He hoped that was true. He wanted to believe she lived on somewhere.

It was the only thing that eased the pain in his chest even slightly.

As the doggen began crying softly, Bella embraced her daughter and Zsadist. Rehv stayed apart from them, sitting alone on the foot of the bed and watching the color drain out of their mother’s face.

When a tingle bloomed in his hands and feet, he was reminded that his father’s legacy, like his mother’s, was ever with him.

He stood up, bowed to them all, and excused himself. In the bathroom off the room he stayed in, he looked under the sink and thanked the Virgin Scribe that he’d been smart enough to tuck a couple of vials of dopamine in the back. Turning the heat light in the ceiling on, he took off his sable duster and stripped his Gucci jacket from his shoulders. When the red glow from up above freaked his shit out, because he thought the stress of the death was bringing out his bad side, he shut the thing off, cranked the shower on, and waited until the steam rose up before continuing.

He swallowed another two penicillin pills as he tapped his loafer.

When he could stand it, he rolled up his shirtsleeve and studiously ignored his reflection in the mirror. After he filled a syringe, he used his LV belt to loop around his biceps, pulling the black leather over and holding it against his ribs.

The steel needle slipped into one of his infected veins and he hit the plunger-

“What are you doing?”

His sister’s voice jacked his head up. In the mirror, she was staring at the needle in his arm and his red, rancid veins.

His first thought was to bark at her to get the fuck out. He didn’t want her to see this, and not just because it meant more lying. It was private.

Instead, he calmly pulled the syringe free, capped it, and tossed it. As the shower hissed, he pulled his sleeve down, then put on his jacket and his sable coat.

He turned off the water.

“I’m diabetic,” he said. Shit, he’d told Ehlena he had Parkinson’s. Damn it.

Well, it wasn’t like the two were going to meet anytime soon.

Bella lifted her hand to her mouth. “Since when? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He forced a smile. “Are you okay?”

“Wait, since when has this been going on?”

“I’ve been injecting myself for about two years now.” At least that wasn’t a lie. “I see Havers regularly.” Ding! Ding! Another truth. “I’m managing it well.”

Bella looked at his arm. “Is that why you’re always cold?”

“Bad circulation. It’s why I need the cane. Bad balance.”

“I thought you said that was because of an injury?”

“The diabetes compromises how I heal.”

“Oh, right.” She nodded sadly. “I wish I’d known.”

As she stared up at him with her big blue eyes, he hated lying to her, but all he had to do was think of his mother’s peaceful face.

Rehv put his arm around his sister and led her out of the bathroom. “It’s no big deal. I’m on it.”

The air was cooler in the bedroom, but he knew this only because Bella wrapped her arms around herself and hunkered in.

“When should we do the ceremony?” she asked.

“I’ll call the clinic and have Havers come out here at nightfall and wrap her. Then we have to decide where to bury her.”

“At the Brotherhood compound. That’s where I want her.”

“If Wrath will let the doggen and me come, that’s fine.”

“Of course. Z’s on the phone with the king now.”

“I don’t think there’s much of the glymera left in town who’d want to say good-bye.”

“I’ll get her address book from downstairs and put together an announcement.”

Such a factual, practical conversation, illustrating that death was indeed part of living.

When Bella let out a soft sob, Rehv pulled her against his chest. “Come here, sister mine.”

As they stood together with her head on his chest, he thought of the number of times he’d tried to save her from the world. Life, however, had happened anyway.

God, when she had been small, before her transition, he had been so certain he could protect her and take care of her. When she was hungry, he made sure she had food. When she needed clothes, he bought them for her. When she couldn’t sleep, he stayed with her until her eyes closed. Now that she had grown up, though, he felt like his repertoire was restricted to nothing but placations. Although maybe that was the way it worked. When you were young, a good lullaby was all you needed to ease the stress of the day and make you feel safe.

Holding her now, he wished there were such a quick fix for grown-ups.

“I’m going to miss her,” Bella said. “We weren’t very much alike, but I always loved her.”

“You were her great joy. Always.”

Bella pulled back. “And you as well.”

He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Would you and your family like to have a rest here?”

Bella nodded. “Where do you want us?”

“Ask mahmen’s doggen.”

“Will do.” Bella gave his hand a squeeze that he couldn’t feel and left his room.

When he was alone, he went over to the bed and took out his cell phone. Ehlena never had texted him the night before, and as he retrieved the clinic’s number from his address book, he tried not to worry. Maybe she had done the overday shift. God, he hoped she had.

Chances were small something bad had happened. Very small.

But he was calling her next.

“Hello, clinic,” came the voice in the Old Language.

“This is Rehvenge, son of Rempoon. My mother has just passed, and I need to make arrangements for her body to be preserved.”

The female on the other end gasped. None of the nurses liked him, but they had all adored his mother. Everyone did-

Everyone had, that was.

He rubbed his mohawk. “Is there any way Havers could come out to the house at nightfall?”

“Yes, absolutely, and may I say on behalf of all of us, we are deeply aggrieved at her passing and wish her safe passage unto the Fade.”

“Thank you.”

“Hold a moment.” When the female came back on, she said, “The doctor will come immediately after sundown. With your permission, he will bring someone to assist-”

“Who.” He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it being Ehlena. He didn’t want her to have to deal with another body so soon, and the fact that it was his mother’s might make it even harder on her. “Ehlena?”

The nurse hesitated. “Ah, no, not Ehlena.”

He frowned, his symphath instincts triggered by the female’s tone. “Did Ehlena make it in last night?” Another pause. “Did she?”

“I’m sorry, I cannot discuss-”

His voice dropped to a growl. “Did she come in or not. Simple question. Did she. Or not.”

The nurse became flustered. “Yes, yes, she came in-”

“And?”

“Nothing. She-”

“So what’s the problem?”

“There isn’t one.” The exasperation in that voice told him it was happy interactions like this that were part of what made them all dislike him so much.

He tried to make his voice more even. “Clearly there is a problem, and you’re going to tell me what’s doing or I’m going to keep calling back until someone talks to me. And if no one will, I’m going to show up at your front desk and drive every single one of you insane until a member of the staff cracks and talks to me.”

There was a pause that vibrated with you-are-such-an-asshole. “Fine. She doesn’t work here anymore.”