Chapter Twelve
“Leelan?”
Beth came back to the present with a jump, and as her eyes focused on Wrath, she was totally confused. Somehow, she was now standing in the open door to Jane and V’s bedroom, having clearly moved across the floor without being aware of walking. As she glanced around, everybody was staring at her.
“You’re looking pale,” V said in a nasally fashion as Wrath’s nostrils flared in that way they did.
She looked at the bite mark on Wrath’s neck. “I’m fine. I’m just…fine.”
Bullshit, she thought.
“When was the last time you ate?” Jane asked. “Food, that is.”
“I’ll take care of her.”
Wrath came over and put his arm around her shoulders, and then George was the eyes for the both of them, the golden taking them back down the hall of diplomas and out through the maze of duffels. Rhage was somewhere around—oh, he was in the kitchen, in front of the open freezer door.
“Why is there only Grey Goose in here,” he muttered as he slapped things shut. “We need Breyers to make a booze line of ice cream—oh, are we going?”
The shot of normal was kind of nice, actually, a palate cleanser to everything in her head, and things were going pretty well as they went out into the Wheel’s corridor. She even made it a couple of yards in the direction of their residence.
But then she stopped short and looked at Rhage. “Will you, ah, will you give us a minute?”
The Brother glanced at Wrath. “Yeah, absolutely. And I think I’ll just head back and hang with V. He’ll feel better if he’s irritated at me. Call if you need anything?”
“Thank you, my brother,” Wrath said as he offered his palm.
After the two went chest-to-chest for a moment, Rhage turned away and disappeared through the residence door.
“What’s wrong, leelan?”
She spun right into her mate’s chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. As she rested the side of her face against his sternum, the steady beat of his heart was so reassuring that just the sound of it lowered her own blood pressure.
The sadness didn’t shift, however.
“She died…” she heard herself say.
A resonant stillness came over the male she had missed so much. “Who died?”
Beth squeezed her eyes shut, except then all she saw was that bloodstained white robe. And the hand that had flopped loosely from the shredded wrist.
“The Chosen who fed L.W. during his transition. Salima. Salima died.”
“Oh, fuck.” He held her more tightly. “I didn’t know…”
“There’s a lot to tell you about the last thirty years.” She eased back and looked up, seeing past the black wraparounds to his eyes. “But that was the worst. At least for L.W.”
There had been other tragedies, affecting other people.
Death had stalked them all, in one form or another.
On that night of their son’s transition, however, it had struck so very close to their home in its characteristic, blasé cruelty, a stray bullet out of destiny’s gun that had done the kind of damage that was remembered for a lifetime by many people.
“I want to say that he was never the same afterward.” Beth put her head back where it had been, over her hellren’s heart. “But the truth is, he changed way before that.”
Wrath cursed under his breath. And then said again, “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Salima was determined to do her duty—I…I remember V urging her to stop. Doc Jane, too. She kept telling us she was fine, and we were all so focused on L.W. that we didn’t take proper care of her.
We are to blame. We needed to look after the both of them, and…
oh, God, we didn’t. Until it was too late.
And what makes this even worse is that L.W.
thought it was his fault, and probably still does.
Or at least, I’m assuming he does. He’s never talked about it. ”
Soft cursing rumbled through Wrath’s big chest. “I should have been there.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say he was.
That she had thought of him. But then she’d been angry again at him afterward—irrationally so.
As if his presence would have prevented the death?
Although maybe it would have. Maybe he’d have been the one to watch that lovely female, who had let herself be used until she was drained.
And it had all happened on her and Wrath’s anniversary.
“There is just too much loss in this world,” she whispered. “Too much pain.”
Under her ear, his heart skipped beats, then settled at a faster rate.
Stress.
“You did so much on your own, Beth. I mean, I know the Brotherhood was there, the rest of everybody, too. But I should have been with you, with you both.”
This time, when she looked up at him, she saw only his gritted jaw and the hard jut of his chin. And that’s when it hit her—in the way the obvious always occurred to the oblivious.
With a crashing blow.
“I’m so sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I owe you an apology—”
“What the hell do you have to be sorry for?” Wrath broke off and then paced around, George guiding him until he stopped. “I should have been there. Maybe if I could have fed Salima. I would have…I would have tried.”
He happened to stop under one of the light fixtures in the ceiling and the hollows under those cheeks, under that jaw, carved out a torment that would eat a lesser male alive.
And didn’t that make her feel even worse.
“I know you would have.” She went to him again, putting her hands on his pecs.
“And that’s what I’m sorry for. I was so…
blinded…by the loss for so many years, that it’s almost a habit to grieve, I realize now.
And I think I’ve been stuck in the mourning, even since you’ve come back.
It’s made me miss the fact that you lost us, too.
I don’t know why that’s just dawning on me right now.
You also lost me, lost L.W., lost all those years. ”
Wrath shook his head sharply. “Whatever, it was only a moment for me. You were the one who carried everything and had to live it all. Alone.”
Beth traced the face that she loved so much with trembling fingertips. God, she had been so unfair to him. “You didn’t abandon us, you didn’t choose to leave…”
What the fuck was wrong with her. Why was this only dawning on her now?
“Never,” he choked out. “I never, ever want to be separated from you. And L.W. is my son, my blood. I will not forsake him.”
She had been mad at the wrong thing. All these years, and right from the beginning. Wrath had gone to the old Audience House to save Fritz, and evil had set the bomb: Her mate had sacrificed himself to protect another. As he always did.
Lash was the one to be angry at. Not her hellren.
Everyone else is out there in the field. All of the Brothers, all of the fighters—and their families shit themselves every night. But you get a pass because you married the King. You are lucky.
As L.W.’s words came back at her, the pattern under her right palm registered with a piercing clarity.
It was the pectoral scar from Wrath’s induction into the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
“I hate that bastard Lash,” she growled. “I hate him so fucking much.”
Wrath pulled his shellan into him and wrapped her up tight. If there was any way he could bear the regret and pain she was feeling for her, he would. The anger, too. But all he could do was hold her and be there.
Which was the fucking point of giving up the throne, wasn’t it. He was back, for his mate and their son, and he was damn well going to devote all his time to being what they needed.
Although he knew with L.W., it was going to be a case of whether the fighter would let him in.
“I’m going to make it up to you,” he vowed.
She eased back. “You don’t have to. That’s what is dawning on me. You don’t owe me apologies or anything else. We both lost those years, just in different ways. And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it all out.”
He touched her face, and imagined what she looked like, staring up at him. “Never apologize.”
“I will. Whenever I want.”
Wrath chuckled and lowered his head for a brief kiss. She’d always stood up to him, even from the very beginning—and she was the only person in his life who ever did that.
“I love you—” A shuffle of footfalls cranked his head around. And as he flared his nostrils, he frowned. “V? What the fuck are you doing out of bed—”
“Six civilians,” came the rough reply. “Right off Market, in an alley behind that club, Bathe. Two were abducted, three killed outright, one was mortally wounded and survived long enough to tell what had happened. No human involvement. No calls into our emergency response number. No IDs.”
As Rhage’s scent also registered, an old familiar rage came back with an explosion. “Who found them.”
A third scent registered before the reply hit the airwaves: “I did.”
Allhan. V and Doc Jane’s adopted, absolutely-not-V’s-son-except-the-kid-totally-was son. And the voice was different now, deep and low, the transition survived.
Jesus Christ, what L.W. had been through with the Chosen dying—except there could be no getting derailed by all that right now.
“Tell me, son,” Wrath ordered in as close to a level voice as he could manage. “I want to know everything.”
Others gathered around, coming from both directions in the corridor. The scents were as familiar as his own, and all he could think of as the Brotherhood and fighters encircled him was that they had been here…how many times? Too many to count over the centuries.
He knew the story before the tale was told.
Allhan’s choked words came out in fits and starts: “When I left the club through the emergency exit we use, I found them in the alley…on the east side. The smell…of their blood was so strong. I called for help, just like we’re supposed to do—”
V cut in. “Xcor and Payne were covering the territory and came right away.”
“Right away,” Allhan repeated. “The males had been with Shuli, but he left early. They are—were—his friends.”
Aristocrats. Great. Like the glymera needed another reason to come after the Brotherhood and the throne.
“When you found them, one of them was alive,” Wrath nudged.
“Yes, he died in my arms...and before he went unto the Fade, he told me when they got outside…they smelled slayers, and then heard a clicking sound? They were tasered. Dragged farther down the alley. The killings were quick, and he doesn’t know why two were spared.
I don’t know any of their names, not even his.
He didn’t give it to me before he…I would recognize their pictures, though. Every one of them.”
“I know you would,” V said roughly. “You did everything right.”
Wrath’s head turned from side to side, and he visualized the brothers who were around him in his mind. “And no one’s called anything in? On our emergency response line.”
“Not yet,” Tohr wheezed.
“I did try to find out who they were.” Allhan spoke faster and faster. “As soon as I could, I went back into the club to see if any of their group were still in there, but everybody was gone? Shuli will know—”
“Who’s called that male?” Wrath barked.
“He’s not picking up.” V’s nasally voice spoke up. “I can go over—”
“I’ll go,” Tohr interjected between coughs.
“Oh, fuck that,” someone said. “You two can barely stand—”
“I’m going—”
“—no, I’ll go—”
“You guys are fucking staying home—”
There was an eruption of talk, all the brothers and fighters in the corridor speaking at once, volunteering to head over to L.W.
’s ahstrux nohtrum’s, telling V and Tohr to take a load off, each one of the males and females ready to fight if they had to or console the families if that was what came next.
Wrath closed his eyes behind his wraparounds and pulled Beth in close. Every instinct he had was telling him to jump in, take control, issue orders, and wait for the next phase of dealing with the attack. But he wasn’t going to do it.
He hadn’t traveled across time and space to lose the female at his side. And somebody would step up. Out of the Brotherhood, out of this community of fighters, one of them would. It was how they’d all been bred, how they’d always lived. First and foremost, for the species.
As he remained silent, the cacophony got louder and louder until a kind of critical mass was reached—then it all petered out into a confused silence. And even though he couldn’t see, he knew all of them were looking his way.
The void he was leaving by not being on the throne felt like a cavern in the very heart of Caldwell. And then it dawned on him that V and Tohr probably didn’t even know what he’d said as he’d left the garage. What he’d decided. Some of the others did, though.
Yet nobody said shit at the moment, no doubt it was because they didn’t want it to be true.
“So, who do you want to go,” came the prompt from over on the left.
The feel of Beth against him was a clarifier, but Wrath didn’t need it.
The conflict he’d had with her was the reason for the accident on the Northway tonight.
As a bonded male, he was always going to put her first, and if he hadn’t been on the throne, he wouldn’t have been forced to drop him and his shellan into the shit situation that had led to their argument in the first place.
In which case, two of the Brotherhood’s best assets wouldn’t have almost died. Before another six of the species were taken out by the enemy.
Bottom-line, he could not lose his mate, and without her support when it came to the throne, he couldn’t do the King job anyway.
Opening his mouth to make the formal announcement to everybody, he—
“Wrath. Wrath will go.”
Beth spoke before he did, and as he jerked his head in her direction, she took his hand and squeezed firmly.
“What are you talking about, leelan,” he hissed. “I’m not leaving you—”
“So I’ll go to see Shuli with you.” Her shrug registered as a shift against his ribs. “We go together.”