Chapter Twenty-Seven
L.W. should never have fucking left tonight.”
As Shuli repeated that mantra, he paced out of his drawing room, crossed the foyer to the dining room, and looked out the bulletproof windows to the lawn.
With everything dark in the house and the filtering drapes in place, he was able to easily visualize the lane out in front and all the absolutely-nothing going on.
The same was true for the back gardens, and both side perimeters of his property.
All afternoon and into the evening, he’d been roaming the floor plan, staring out the thick glass, searching for trouble and finding nada.
Every second had seemed like the precursor for an attack, but as the no-problems had stretched over the course of hours and hours, a conclusion was starting to form in his head.
Was it possible that Emile and Rolhand had held up under interrogation?
That even after they had been tortured for God knew how long…
they hadn’t revealed anything about where the glymera lived?
He’d imagined they would have kept quiet about their own families’ houses, trading intel on everybody else’s to keep their bloodlines safe.
But with none of the enemy showing up here? Or anywhere else?
It was possible those males had been stronger than anybody knew. Still, he had to stay sharp.
Shuli continued to stare over the snowdrifts, then measured the moon in the clear, starry sky. He wanted lessers to show up here. Wanted to welcome them into the elegant, white interior of the house he’d bought with his dead parents’ money.
And then he wanted to turn the whole goddamn inside into his own version of a Jackson Pollock.
“I’ve called that fucker five times,” Rhamp said from the parlor. “Texted him in code.”
Yeah, the whole code thing, Shuli thought wryly as he went to the next window. They’d devised a way to communicate so the Brotherhood didn’t know what they were saying—not that someone like Allhan couldn’t figure it out if pressed, but it was better than being obvious.
After all, when you were deliberately flaunting an order not to go into the field, covering your tracks only made sense.
“Call that dipshit again,” Shuli said as he paused by the sideboard and leaned in to look at himself in a polished serving platter. “Motherfucker wants lessers. They could well come here tonight to fight. But noooooo, he’s got to go downtown and be—”
The front door opened, and the blast of cold air carried all kinds of blood scent on it.
“Jesus Christ,” Shuli muttered as he raced back to the foyer.
Skidding to a halt, he did a stem-to-stern on the huge male who filled the jambs.
The heir to the throne was looking like someone had used him for target practice.
With a ball-peen hammer. That arrogant face had a bash on one side that was already swelling up, and blood was dripping off the guy’s ear.
The long, straight black hair was tangled, and there were fresh scrapes and street salt on the front of the black jacket and the leathers.
“You should have come in through the escape tunnel,” Shuli groused as he yanked L.W. inside and closed the door. “The Brotherhood has us staked out and they’ve just seen you like this.”
“Like I give a fuck.”
As the fighter went into the parlor to head for his bedroom wing, the limping was not a surprise. The fact that there wasn’t more conversation was also not a shocker—
Wha-BAM!
As L.W. tripped on one of the machine guns that had been tripod’d by the white silk sofa, he got tangled in his own shitkickers, and threw his hands out to stop himself from falling. Rhamp and Shuli both jumped forward to help at the same time, but… everything went to chaos.
Then again, try playing hot potato with something that had the impulse control of an alligator and weighed three hundred pounds.
The harder they tried to catch L.W., the more he fought them off and pinwheeled around, slamming into furniture and tripping over other munitions—
“Not the Mondrian!” Shuli shouted as he went offensive lineman.
He might as well have put himself in front of a train.
The brutal contact knocked all the breath out of him, but at least he saved the painting by playing eight ball in the corner pocket.
And as the impact of their bodies sent L.W.
careening away at an all-wrong angle, Shuli told himself that the other male was going to catch his balance before he—
The fighter ass-over-teakettled like the sofa he ran into was something he never saw coming, and as he back-flatted on the glass coffee table, there was a loud crash and a brilliant shimmer as the top shattered and the legs bowed out.
In the aftermath, they were all breathing hard, and the darkness didn’t help with orientation, so Shuli went over and turned on the lights. After two blinks, he was good to go and Rhamp was clearly the same. L.W., however, sat up slowly—
And put both arms out in front of him to pat the air.
As Shuli watched the male turn his head from side to side, those pale green eyes didn’t focus, the pupils so tiny that they barely registered.
Rhamp went over silently and knelt down. When he waved a hand right in front of L.W.’s face and the male didn’t flinch, you could watch the guy do the math.
“Can you see me?” Rhamp asked in a low voice.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
L.W. pushed himself up to his feet, stepped on one of the grenades, and rolled his ankle even with the shitkicker. This time, he caught himself, though. Barely.
And then he just stood there. Bleeding, breathing, being angry.
Lost, even though he clearly refused to admit it.
Shuli went across and took the guy’s arm. When L.W. tried to pull free, he shut that shit down quick. “I’m just going to get you to the bedroom.”
“I don’t need—”
“So you want to trip over all the guns in this room? Would that be fun for you? I’m thinking no. So fuck you.”
Shuli got moving, and even though he expected more arguments, L.W.
just followed, down the hall off the parlor, a rabid dog unexpectedly coming to a heel.
When they got to the end, Shuli opened the door and willed on the dimmer for the ceiling light.
The bedroom was as neat and tidy as a military closet, L.W.
’s gear and sets of leathers laid out over the furniture, an all-war decor.
Piloting over the carpet, Shuli dumped the guy on the messy bed, and as he did, he had the thought that there had been a time when he wouldn’t have wanted to stain the Frette sheets and duvet.
Waaaaaaaaaay past worrying about linens at this point.
Putting his hands on his hips, he stared at the male as Rhamp came up behind him. With another quick shot of will, he cranked the intensity of the light fixture up until he had to strain not to blink while his eyes adjusted.
L.W. just stared right at the ceiling, his pupils unchanging, his lids wide open.
“What happened out there,” Rhamp asked in a quiet voice. Like he was running through all kinds of scenarios, none of which were good.
“It’s fine,” L.W. replied hoarsely.
Rhamp shook his head. “Unless you start talking right now, I’m out. If you expect me to keep putting my life on the line for you, you’re going to be honest with me right now.”
“I didn’t ask you to do shit.”
As Rhamp cursed and turned to leave, Shuli slapped a hold on the guy’s arm and jerked him back into place.
“He’s right.” Shuli leaned down and still those pale green eyes didn’t shift to him. At all. “Get talking. What happened.”
Long silence. Then: “A flash went off in my face, and my eyesight hasn’t adjusted yet. Okay, Mom?”
Straightening, Shuli catalogued the black blood on the leather jacket and the red blood on L.W.’s puss. “Enough is enough. You need to get this shit checked out.”
“It was just the flash from the stabbing—”
“You’re going to go to Doc Jane or I’m telling your parents.” Shuli shrugged. “That’s where we’re at—”
“Fuck you—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve redecorated my entire house in bullets and bombs.
I’m waiting for the enemy to show up here, and the property is surrounded by Brothers and Bastards.
You don’t want to admit a weakness, fine.
That’s your choice. But you’re making yourself a liability to me and Rhamp, and I wouldn’t think your ego’d masturbate over that reality.
Do you really want to be that much of a lameass. ”
Rhamp glanced back and forth between them. Then he shook his head like he wanted to punch them both. “This isn’t the first time, is it. That you haven’t been able to see.”
Shuli just kept staring down at the bed. “I’ll let him answer that.”
There was a stretch of silence. After which Rhamp dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. “Great. So that’s a no.”
“Don’t you want to be able to fight,” Shuli said in a low voice. “If there’s some help Doc Jane could offer you, don’t you want it? So you can do what you were born to do.”
It was the best argument anyone could offer the fucker, the only carrot they had—and God knew sticks were a no-go. The hardheaded cocksucker was too mean and numb to be influenced by threats.
L.W. exhaled as if he were staring down a long drop and contemplating a jump. “I’m running out of time.”
“You don’t know that, until you get a medical opinion.” Shuli rubbed his aching fucking temples. “Doc Jane has to keep everything confidential, so she won’t say anything—”
“You believe that?”
“Yeah, I do. You have no idea what I’ve talked to her about.”
Abruptly, Rhamp started pacing around, his brows down so low, they could have qualified as a mustache. “When were you two assholes going to tell me about this.”
L.W. and Shuli answered at the same time: “Never.”