by J. R. Ward
Then again, the SUV wasn’t the only one cursing. Everybody was going George Carlin under the deadweight as they worked to pry free gravity’s hold on all that steel. The laws of physics were possessive, however, and as Blay’s body strained, all his muscles tightening against his bones, he turned his head and shifted his grip—
He was standing next to Qhuinn. Right beside the guy.
Qhuinn’s eyes were focused straight ahead, his lips peeled back from his fangs, his fierce expression the result of total anatomical effort….
It was close to what he looked like when he came.
Holy inappropriateness, Batman. And too bad that fact did nothing to change his thought pattern.
The trouble was, Blay knew from firsthand experience what an orgasm did to the guy—although not because he was one of the cast of thousands who’d been a recipient. Oh, no. Never that. God for-fucking-bid the guy who’d stick his dick in anything that breathed—and maybe some inanimate objects—would ever do Blay.
Yeah, because that discerning sexual palate, which had led to Qhuinn balling everything in Caldwell between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight, had filtered Blay out of the fuck pool.
“She’s…starting to move…” Tohr gritted. “Get under her!”
Blay and Qhuinn snapped into action, releasing their holds, crouching down, shoving their shoulders under the lip of the roof. Facing each other, their eyes met as breath exploded out of their mouths, their thighs going into action, their bodies pitted in a war against all that cold, hard weight—that happened be slippery thanks to the snow.
Their added power was the turning point—literally. An axis formed on the opposite tires, and the Hummer’s four-ton burden started shifted on them, getting lighter and lighter—
Why the hell was Qhuinn looking at him like that?
Those eyes, that pair of blue and green, were locked on Blay’s—and they were not moving.
Maybe it was just concentration—like, he was actually focused only on the two inches in front of his face and Blay just happened to be on the far side of that.
Had to be…
“Easy, boys!” Tohr called out. “Or we’ll flip the damn thing all the way over again!”
Blay let up on the graft, and there was a moment of suspension, a split second where the impossible happened, where an eight-thousand-pound SUV balanced perfectly on the edge of two tires, where what had been excruciating became…exhilarating.
And still Qhuinn stared at him.
As the Hummer landed with a bounce on all fours, Blay frowned and turned away. When he glanced back…Qhuinn’s eyes were exactly where they had been.
Blay leaned in and hissed, “What?”
Before there was any kind of answer, Tohr went over and opened the SUV’s side door. The smell of fresh blood floated over on the breeze. “Man, even if this isn’t totaled, I’m not sure you’re going to want it back. Cleanup in here is going to be a bitch.”
Qhuinn didn’t respond, seeming to have forgotten all about the Allstate Mayhem commercial his SUV was living out. He just stood there, staring at Blay.
Maybe the SOB had stroked out standing up?
“What’s your problem?” Blay repeated.
“I’ll bring the flatbed over,” Tohr said as he started for the other vehicle. “Let’s leave the bodies right where they are—you can dispose of them on the way home.”
Meanwhile, Blay could feel John pausing and looking across at the pair of them—something Qhuinn didn’t seem to care about, naturally.
With a curse, Blay solved the problem by jogging over to the tow truck and walking alongside as Tohr backed the thing up toward the Hummer’s collapsed hood. Going for the winch, Blay unclipped the claw and started to free the cable.
He had a feeling he knew what was on Qhuinn’s mind, and if he was right, the guy had better stay quiet and stay the fuck back.
He did not want to hear it.
FIVE
As Qhuinn stood in the stiff wind and watched Blay hook up the Hummer, loose snow blew up over his boots, the quiet, soft weight gradually obscuring the steel-toed tops. Glancing down, he had the vague thought that if he stayed where he was long enough, he would be completely covered by it, from head to toe.
Weird goddamn thing to come into his brain.
The roaring of the flatbed’s engine brought his head back up, his eyes shifting over as the winch began to drag his ruined ride off the snowpack.
Blay was the one working the pull, the male standing to the side, carefully monitoring and controlling the speed of the draw so that no undue stress was put on the various mechanical components of this automotive Good Samaritan production.
So careful. So controlled.
In order to seem casual, Qhuinn went over by Tohr and pretended that he, like the Brother, was just monitoring the progress of the lift. Not. It was all about Blay, of course.
It had always been about Blay.
Trying to add to all the nonchalance, he crossed his arms over his chest—but had to drop them down again as his bruised shoulder hollered. “Lesson learned,” he said to make conversation.
Tohr murmured something back, but damned if he heard it. And damned if he could see anything but Blay. Not for a blink. For a breath. For a beat of the heart.
Staring across the swirling snow, he marveled at how someone you knew everything about, who lived down the hall, who ate with you and worked with you and slept at the same time you did…could become a stranger.
Then again, and as usual, that was about the emotional distance, not the same job, under-the-same-roof shit.
The thing was, Qhuinn felt like he wanted to explain things. Unfortunately, and unlike his slut cousin, Saxton the Cocksucker, he had no gift with words, and the complicated stuff in the center of his chest was making that mute tendency worse.
After a final grind, the Hummer was up off the ground on the bed, and Blay started running chain in and out of the undercarriage.
“Okay, you three take this piece of junk back,” Tohr said as flurries started to fall again.
Blay froze and looked at the Brother. “We go in pairs. So I need to leave with you.”
Like he was beyond ready to bounce.
“Have you looked at what we got here? An incapacitated hunk of junk with two dead humans in it. You think this is a play-it-loose situation?”
“They can handle it,” Blay said under his breath. “The two of them are tight.”
“And with you they’re even stronger. I’m just going to dematerialize home.”
In the stretch of silence that followed, the straight line that ran from Blay’s ass up to the base of his skull was the equivalent of a middle finger. Not to the Brother, though.
Qhuinn knew exactly who it was for.
Things moved fast from then on, the SUV getting secured, Tohr departing, and John hopping behind the wheel of the flatbed. Meanwhile, Qhuinn went around to the truck’s passenger-side door, cranked it open, and stood to the side, waiting.
Like a gentlemale might, he supposed.
Blay came over, stalking through the snow. His face was like the landscape: cold, shut down, inhospitable.
“After you,” the guy muttered, taking out a pack of cigarettes and an elegant gold lighter.
Qhuinn ducked his head briefly in a nod, then shuffled inside, sliding over the bench seat until his shoulder brushed John’s.
Blay got in last, slammed the door, and cracked the window, putting the lit end of his coffin nail right at the opening to keep the smell down.
The flatbed did all of the talking for a good five miles or so.
Sitting in between what used to be his two best friends, Qhuinn stared out the windshield and counted the seconds between the intermittent swipes of the wipers…three, two…one…up-and-down. And…three, two…one…up-and-down.
There was barely enough snow loose in the air to require the effort—
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
Silence. Except for
the growl of the engine in front of them and the occasional clang of a chain in back when they hit a bump.
Qhuinn glanced over, and what do you know, Blay looked like he was chewing on metal.
“Are you talking to me?” the guy said gruffly.
“Yeah. I am.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Blay stabbed the cigarette out in the dashboard’s ashtray. And lit another. “Will you please stop staring at me.”
“I just…” Qhuinn put a hand through his hair and gave the shit a yank. “I don’t…I…I don’t know what to say about Layla—”
Blay’s head snapped around. “What you do with your life has nothing to do with me—”
“That’s not true,” Qhuinn said quietly. “I—”
“Not true?”
“Blay, listen, Layla and I—”
“What makes you think I want to hear one word about you and her?”
“I just thought that you might need some…I don’t know, context or something.”
Blay simply stared at him for a moment. “And why exactly do you think I’d want ‘context.’”
“Because…I thought you might find it…like, upsetting. Or something.”
“And why would that be?”
Qhuinn couldn’t believe the guy wanted him to say it out loud. Much less in front of someone else, even John. “Well, because of, you know.”
Blay leaned in, his upper lip peeling back from his fangs. “Just so we’re clear, your cousin is giving me what I need. All day long. Every day. You and me?” He motioned back and forth between them with the cigarette. “We work together. That’s it. So I want you to do us both a favor before you think I ‘need’ to know something. Ask yourself, ‘If I were flipping burgers at McDonald’s, would I be telling the fucking fry guy this?’ If the answer is no, then shut the hell up.”
Qhuinn refocused on the windshield. And considered putting his face through it. “John, pull over.”
The fighter glanced across. Then started shaking his head.
“John, pull the fuck over. Or I’ll do it for you.”
Qhuinn was vaguely aware that his chest was pumping up and down and that his hands had become fists.
“Pull the fuck over!” he roared as he punched the dashboard hard enough to send one of the vents flying.
The flatbed shot to the side of the road and the brakes squealed as their velocity slowed. But Qhuinn was already out of there. Dematerializing, he escaped through that crack in the window, along with Blay’s frustrated exhale.
Almost immediately, he re-formed at the side of the road, unable to keep himself in his molecular state because his emotions were running way too high for that. Putting one shitkicker in front of the other, he trudged through the snow, his need to ambulate drowning out everything, including the ringing pain in both sets of knuckles.
In the back of his head, something about the stretch of road registered, but there was too much noise in his skull for specifics to break through.
No idea where he was going.
Man, it was cold.
* * *
Sitting in the flatbed, Blay focused on the lit end of his cigarette, the little orange glow going back and forth like a guitar string.
Guess his hand was shaking.
The whistle that went off next to him was John’s way of trying to get his attention, but he ignored it. Which got him slapped in the arm.
This is a really bad stretch for him, John signed.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Blay muttered. “You’re absolutely fucking kidding me. He’s always wanted a conventional mating, and he’s knocked up a Chosen—I’d say this is a great—”
No, here, right here. John pointed out to the asphalt. Here.
Blay shifted his eyes to the windshield only because he was too tired to argue. Out in front of the flatbed, the headlights illuminated everything, the snow-covered landscape blindingly white, the figure walking at the side of the road like a shadow thrown.
Red drops of blood marked the path of the footprints.
Qhuinn’s hands were bleeding from when he’d bashed up the dash—
Abruptly, Blay frowned. Sat up a little higher.
Like puzzle pieces sinking into their proper slots, the random details about where they were, from the bend in the road, to the trees, to the stone wall beside them, came together and completed a picture.
“Oh, shit.” Blay banged his head back against the rest. Closing his eyes briefly, he wanted to find another solution to this, anything other than him going out there.
He came up with a big, fat nada.
As he pushed open the door, the cold rushed into the warm interior of the truck cab. He didn’t say anything to John. No reason to. Things like going out into a snowfall after someone were self-explanatory.
Taking a deep drag, he clomped through the accumulation. The road had been plowed earlier, but that was a much-earlier kind of thing.
Which meant he probably had to act fast.
Here in this rich part of town, where the tax base was as broad as the rolling lawns, you’d better believe that another one of those house-size yellow muni plows was going to come by right before dawn.
No need to play this out in front of humans. Especially with the pair of leaking, dead-and-gones in the Hummer.
“Qhuinn,” he said roughly. “Qhuinn, stop.”
He didn’t yell. Didn’t have the energy. This…thing, whatever it was between them, had gotten exhausting long ago—and this current side-of-the-road showdown was just one more episode he didn’t have the strength for.
“Qhuinn. Seriously.”
At least the guy slowed down a little. And with any luck he was so pissed off, he wouldn’t put all the clues to their location together.
Jesus Christ, what were the chances, Blay thought as he glanced around. It was right about in this next half mile or so where that Honor Guard had done their business—and Qhuinn had nearly died from the beating.
God, Blay remembered tooling up that night, a different set of headlights picking out a dark figure, this time bleeding on the ground.
Shaking himself, he gave the name game one more shot. “Qhuinn.”
The guy stopped, his shitkickers planting in the snow and going no farther. He didn’t turn around, however.
Blay motioned for John to kill the headlights, and a second later all he had to deal with was the subtle orange glow of the truck’s parking lights.
Qhuinn put his hands on his hips and looked up to the sky, his head tilting back, his breath escaping upward in a cloud of condensation.
“Come back and get in the flatbed.” Blay took another drag and released the smoke. “We need to keep moving—”
“I know how much Saxton means to you,” Qhuinn said gruffly. “I get that. I really do.”
Blay forced himself to say, “Good.”
“I guess…hearing it out loud is still a shock.”
Blay frowned in the dim light. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. And that’s my fault. All of this…is my fault.” Qhuinn glanced over his shoulder, his strong, hard face set grimly. “I just don’t want you to think I’m in love with her. That’s all.”
Blay went to take a hit off his Dunhill, but didn’t have enough draw in his lungs. “I’m…sorry—I don’t get…why…”
Well, that was an awesome reply.
“I’m not in love with her. She’s not in love with me. We are not sleeping together.”
Blay laughed harshly. “Bullshit.”
“Dead serious. I serviced her in her needing because I want a young, and so does she, and it began and ended there.”
Blay closed his eyes as the wound in his chest got ripped open all over again. “Qhuinn, come on. You’ve been with her this whole last year. I’ve seen you—everyone’s seen you two—”
“I took her virginity four nights ago. No one had been with her before that, including myself.”
Oh, there was a pict
ure he needed in his head.
“I am not in love with her. She is not in love with me. We are not sleeping together.”
Blay couldn’t hold still any longer, so he paced around, the snow packing under his boots. And then from out of nowhere, the voice of the Church Lady from SNL came into his head: Well, isn’t that speeeeeeeeeecial.
“I’m not with anybody,” Qhuinn said.
Blay laughed again with an edge. “As in a relationship? Of course not. But do not expect me to believe that you’re spending your off time crocheting doilies and alphabetizing a spice rack with that female.”
“I haven’t had sex in almost a year.”
That stopped him cold.
God, where the fuck was all the air in this part of the universe?
“Bullshit,” Blay countered in a cracked voice. “You were with Layla—four nights ago. As you said.”
In the silence that followed, the horrible truth raised its ugly-ass head again, the pain making it impossible for him to hide what he had so diligently been burying for the last few days.
“You were really with her,” he said. “I watched the library chandelier going back and forth under your room.”
Now Qhuinn was the one closing his eyes like he wanted to forget. “It was for a purpose.”
“Listen…” Blay shook his head. “I’m really not clear on why you’re telling me all this. I meant what I said—I don’t need any explanation about what you do with your life. You and I…we grew up together, and that’s it. Yeah, we shared a lot of stuff back then, and we were there for each other when it mattered. But neither one of us can fit into the clothes we used to wear, and this relationship between us is just the same. It doesn’t fit in our lives any longer. We don’t…fit anymore. And listen, I didn’t mean to get pissy in the truck, but I think you need to be clear on this. You and I? We have a past. That’s it. That’s…all we’ll ever have.”
Qhuinn looked away, his face once again in the shadows.
Blay forced himself to keep talking. “I know this…Layla thing…is a big deal to you. Or I’m guessing it is—how could it not be, if she’s pregnant. For me? I honestly wish you both well. But you don’t owe me any explanations—and what’s more, I don’t require them. I’ve moved on from childish crushes—and that’s what I had for you. Back then, it was just an infatuation, Qhuinn. So please take care of your female, and don’t worry that I’m slitting my wrists because you’ve found someone to love. As I have.”
