Chapter Twelve #2
Except that wasn’t right. The pair of them just felt sorry for him because he’d created a fictional backstory meant to make people be sympathetic.
Allhan hit the flusher with a shaking hand and grabbed more Kleenex. “I’m okay.”
When he went to stand up, the world tilted and he had to catch himself on the wall. He made it to the sink, though, and immediately reached for his toothbrush.
He glanced into the mirror. “Are y-you okay?”
Vishous was leaning against the doorjamb like the thing was a crutch fitted to his massive body.
“I’m fine, true. And we’re talking about you. How you doing.”
Lowering his eyes, he opened his mouth, intending to I’m-fine back—
“Not g-good,” he heard himself say. “I’m… not good.”
As V stood against the bathroom’s entry, he didn’t see anything except the young male who’d stalled out with an Oral-B in one hand.
Those pale blue eyes that so rarely met anybody else’s stare had dropped to the half-rolled tube of Crest by the sink, and it was like Al wasn’t sure what he was doing. Or even where he was.
Dead bodies in an alley. Two males kidnapped.
And he’d been the one who found the scene?
“I’m really sorry about what you saw,” V said roughly.
“Th-they shouldn’t have… died like that.”
“You’re right. They shouldn’t have.”
After centuries of being in the war, there wasn’t much V hadn’t gone through, but having Al get up close and personal with the carnage was a new level of shit. And he wanted to put his arms around the kid, except neither of them were the hugging type.
Al glanced at the toilet as if his stomach was rolling.
“You want a minute to yourself?” V said roughly.
“Y-yeah…”
“Come to my room when you’re ready.” When Al just nodded, V hated it, but he had to push. “I’ll be waiting.”
Back out in the hall, he moved as quickly as he dared because he wasn’t sure how much time he had before his legs gave out. As if the shit with Al wasn’t enough, Wrath had announced that he’d decided to step down from the throne.
Best. Night. Fucking ever.
Clearly, the fallout with Beth from that visit Wrath had insisted on making to Whestmorel’s house had been a line in the sand for the King, and anybody who loved their shellan could get where he was coming from.
But he could not give up the throne right now.
L.W. was in no way capable of leading the species, and with the aristocracy fielding a whole new lot of conspirators?
Stability at the top was paramount, and that was true even before those six aristocratic males had been attacked by the Lessening Society tonight.
No wonder V felt fucking dizzy. And that was before the detour he’d had to take to convince Tohr to talk some sense into the King.
Down in his own bedroom, he eyed the mattress like it was a skyscraper. Jane was with Tohr, making sure the brother was still good, and there was something totally emasculating about having to call your female just so you could lie the fuck down.
V tackled the shit like… well, a little bitch, actually.
“Fuck—!”
The only good thing he could say about him heaving up his sorry, beat-up ass was that nobody else saw him eat his own pillow.
He was rolling over and feeling like his broken nose was a ticking time bomb to the beat of his heart when Al rushed in.
“C-can I get you anything? Do you need Doc Jane?”
Flopping onto his back, V waved that off with his gloved hand. “She’s dealing with a patient right now. We’re gonna leave them be.”
He did what he could to speak in a chill kind of way. Which was like asking a Belgian Malinois to check his teeth at the door and lay off the biting.
Not in his nature, especially when his nose was a balloon full of pain.
The problem was, Allhan was perpetually a bird about to take flight. Or now that he’d come through his transition, like an airplane about to double-engine down a runway.
Whatever. Enough metaphors.
“I t-tried to help,” Al blurted. “As best I could. But it was too late.”
V lifted his head and waited until the kid met his eyes. “It’s better that you weren’t with them when the attack happened.” The ’Cuz then you’d be dead, too was left unspoken. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Do you think the Brotherhood will find the lessers who did it?”
“There’s a lot of turnover in the Lessening Society, and with how many of those bastards are being inducted every month, every week, I think you gotta just look like any kill is the right one when it comes to slayers.”
Fuck. What was he supposed to say? Syphon and Zypher were particularly manic, stalking around the field, looking for those kidnapped males.
Those two members of the Band of Bastards, as well as all the others, were going to do their damned best, and lessers were going to pay, if only because the entire Brotherhood and all the fighters were riding a fresh wave of hatred.
Not that anybody needed the extra juice.
“What happened to you?” Allhan motioned around his own face. “Like… with your…”
“Fender bender on the Northway. No big deal.”
“Was anybody else hurt?”
“No,” he lied. “We’re all good.”
“Okay.”
As Al went back to staring at his damp Converse, V reached out to the bedside table, opened the drawer, and patted around.
When his fingertips hit the hand-rolleds he’d made the night before, his blood pressure started to go down sure as if he’d already lit up.
It was as he tried to find a lighter that things got complicated—
“I-I, ah, I have to tell you something.” Allhan tripped forward and stuck out a red Bic. “I took this earlier. And one of your cigarettes. I just wanted to know, like, what it was about. The smoking.”
V popped his brows. “Don’t look so guilty, son. There’s plenty of both to go around, and I’m not going to tell you not to, true?”
Thank fuck they weren’t humans, so he didn’t have to worry about the whole cancer thing. Even though he was a live-and-let-live kind of male down to his core, if he knew this kid was doing something dangerous or stupid, he’d have to step in.
And fuck this parenting stuff, by the way. Next thing you knew he was going to be having missionary sex with the lights off and driving a minivan.
Al flicked up a flame. “Here. I can help.”
“Thanks.”
As those pale blue eyes shifted off to the side, V was glad the male was doing the holding. His hand had shaken a little when he’d put the coffin nail between his teeth, and like the chest pain, he’d prefer to keep that to himself.