Chapter Ten
Sometime later, male voices percolated through Beth’s post-feeding float, and she opened her eyes.
Wrath was talking to someone down in the front of the residence, and she was so logy and satisfied, she lacked the energy to immediately translate the syllables into meaning.
Instead, she stretched good and hard, limbs going every which way, head cranking back, toes curling tight as a ballerina’s.
She’d had a nice long shower maybe an hour ago, and the tightness in her inner thighs made her smile—
“—condition?” Wrath demanded.
“Both are stable,” Rhage reported. “They’ve been fed and they’re back home.”
“I’m going to go see them now.”
With an uncoordinated surge, Beth got to her feet and pulled a robe on over the t-shirt and boxers she’d put herself in after the shower. As she hustled down the hall, she felt all her stress cinch back around her, an iron drape that was cold and bold and heavy—and so very familiar.
“What happened?” she said as she skidded into the living area.
Wrath’s head turned toward her. He was magnificently naked, in the way an animal would be, no self-consciousness, no apology—there was no awkwardness on Rhage’s side, either.
And the enormous bite mark and bruise on the side of his throat was another thing her mate wasn’t covering up.
“I’m just going to go check on Tohr and V,” he said.
She waited. When neither male volunteered an explanation, she pressed. “Why?”
Rhage’s Bahamas-blue eyes dropped to the floor as he stayed quiet. Which was more than fine. It was Wrath she wanted to hear from. Needed to hear from.
What had started as an interruption was now a threshold for them.
And thank God, her hellren inclined his head, as if he recognized exactly the corner they’d come to. “We were in an accident on the Northway en route to the Audience House. A municipal snowplow had stopped, the blizzard was a whiteout, and V and Tohr were in front when we rear-ended the thing.”
Once again, he held her eyes as if he could see her, and in the pause that followed, it was clear he was giving her a chance to probe everything that was behind his steady regard.
Of course, going by the tension in him, he obviously didn’t like talking to her about this kind of stuff, but he was putting what she wanted—what she needed—first.
No more lies. Not even of the not-really-a-fib-but-hedging-to-spare-her variety.
“Are they okay?” And without giving him a chance to answer, she tacked on, “I’m coming, too.”
She braced herself for a fight. Instead, he nodded. “I’m just going to get pants on.”
As he strode off, George got up and trotted after him, the golden’s clip, clip, clip of nails on the pine floor loud in the silence. She glanced at Rhage, and bless him, before she could even try any small talk, he jumped right in.
“He couldn’t dematerialize.” The Brother kept his voice low and his eyes where they were. “When Tohr came to pick him up here. Look, I’m not getting involved in your mated whatever, but I just…we were going to the Audience House and nowhere else, and again, we took the SUV because he couldn’t—”
The words cut off as Wrath came back down the hall with George.
As he went to the door, he opened things and held them wide for her, and she tucked the lapels of her robe close to her neck and hustled out.
Along with Rhage, they all went to the left, and as they arrived at Tohr and Autumn’s residence, she breathed in through her nose and smelled the antiseptics that had been used on whatever wound(s) were going on.
Knock, knock.
“Coming,” Autumn said from inside.
While there was some rustling, Beth glanced at Wrath. His jaw was circling like he was grinding his molars.
When she took his hand, he turned to her, and it was as he was pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist that the door opened.
Autumn, mated of Tohrment, blooded mahmen of Xhexania, was a diminutive, blond-haired female, and as always, she was wearing a formal robing, in the tradition of the Chosen.
With a long braid lying over her shoulder, and her stunningly beautiful face cast in a mask, she looked like a chess piece come to life.
Talk about composure. She was clearly about to lose it, but determined to do what she could to remain intact.
Bowing low first to Wrath, then to Beth, she backed up in that position. “My Lord. My Queen. Tohrment would love to see you both.”
As the female straightened, the fear in her gray eyes was a tangible beam, piercing through Beth’s chest. She knew exactly how Autumn felt, the chronic worry that had bloomed tonight into a nightmare actually lived, the promise of harm that reared its ugly head every time the Brotherhood left to go out into the war coming true.
And biting hard.
To avoid becoming overly emotional herself, Beth glanced around.
The layout of the residence was exactly the same, but here, there was evidence of life well lived: Photographs, paintings, some of the pottery that Autumn liked to do, as well as the world’s ugliest avocado green armchair, which had been imported from the office at the training center.
Beth went over and hugged the female. “I’m really sorry. I wish I’d known. I would have come right away.”
“I know you would.” They pulled back. “He was just transported here. Let me take you down.”
As the female limped off down the hall, Wrath urged George forward and Beth followed them to the sleeping quarters.
Oh…no, she thought as she caught a look into the bedroom.
She was not prepared for the condition the Brother was in.
A lot of his face was bandaged, his neck, too, and there was an oxygen feed plugged into his nostrils.
If she hadn’t known it was Tohr, only the white streak in the front of his dark hair would have identified the patient as her hellren’s most trusted second-in-command.
“Is that my King,” came the croak.
“It is,” Wrath said as he went over with his dog. “Beth’s here, too. Rhage’s out in the hall. How you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been on a three-night bender and the Advil hasn’t kicked in yet.” Swollen lids opened a crack. “But I’m glad to be home—how’s V?”
“He’s doing better,” Autumn said gently as she shuffled around to the other side. “Remember? I just told you.”
“Oh…that’s right.” The Brother went to lift a hand, and then gave up and just pointed in the direction of his head. “Things are still coming back online.”
When Wrath eased down on the edge of the bed, George settled at his feet. “You’ll be better by tomorrow night.”
“Fucking plows. Fucking snow. I’d move to Florida…but I hate the heat.”
Exhaustion dragged down every syllable, but Tohr was fighting it.
Even as his brows got tight, and it was obvious that he was struggling to draw in a deep breath, he was rallying for his King.
A quick glance in Autumn’s direction, and it was obviously the same for the female.
She was blinking fast to keep tears from falling, but she was not going to let herself break down.
Beth understood how that felt—and it wasn’t hard to imagine what the next twelve hours were going to be like for the female.
Autumn was going to pace around the residence, debating when and if to tell Doc Jane about some symptom or another, checking and rechecking and check-check-checking again on her mate until she felt like she was losing her mind.
Because she was losing it.
And Doc Jane would be doing the same with Vishous.
And then after they were healed, maybe tomorrow night or the night after that or the week after that, it would be Blay worrying about Qhuinn, or John Matthew pacing next to Xhex in a hospital, or…
any one of the other mates. Or maybe it would be worse.
Maybe it would be someone walking the kind of unbearable, grief-filled road she herself had been on for thirty years, only this time with no magic relief at the end because their mate was truly dead…
from an attack out in the field, or an accident while fighting, or the bullet from an aristocrat with delusions of the thronal variety—
Instantly, the past came forward and dragged Beth down, pulling her back to a night and a day when she had been in Autumn’s exact position, standing over a bedside with no idea what was going to happen to someone she couldn’t live without…
Phone, where was her phone, where did she put her fucking—?
The damn thing was in the same pocket she always put it in—ass cheek, left side. As she pulled the cell out, she dropped it on the floor, and while she bent down to pick the Samsung up, she took L.W.’s hand.
“I’m right here, I’m right here—”
Her son turned his head in her direction, and as their eyes met, she had a moment of paralyzing terror.
His pupils were nothing but pinpricks, and between one blink and the next, all she could see were his father’s.
Wrath’s had been just like that, but blindness was the least of their worries now.
They had to get L.W. through the change. Then they’d talk about the 20/20 stuff.
“What we got, true?”
As the words jumped out of her phone, she looked at the screen in confusion. Oh. She’d put the call through to Vishous.
“It’s L.W.” She squeezed her son’s hand and then backed away and lowered her voice. “It’s time.”
God, she was shaking.
“I’m coming with Jane,” the Brother said. “Salima will be there momentarily. I have your location, just tell him to hold on.”
“Hold on,” she said roughly as she went back over to the bed.
She kept the phone out even after V ended the connection because putting it back in her pocket seemed like cutting a vital cord to help. Even though there were limits to what all the best medical care in the world could offer—
The sound of the door opening out by the living area brought her head around. Surely, it couldn’t be them already?