Black Dagger Brotherhood - Lover Eternal Part 41

"Where?"

"Front bedroom."

Rhage took the stairs two at a time. Only one door was closed, and he didn't knock, just opened it wide. Light from the hall spilled into the room.

Mary was sound asleep on an enormous bra.s.s bed, wearing a sweater and a pair of blue jeans he recognized. A patchwork quilt had been pulled over her legs, and she was half on her stomach, half on her side. She looked utterly exhausted.

His first instinct was to take her into his arms.

He stayed right where he was.

"Mary." He kept his voice impersonal. "Mary. Wake up."

Her eyelashes fluttered, but then she only sighed and moved her head a little.

"Mary."

Oh, for f.u.c.k's sake.

He went over to the bed and bounced on the mattress with his hands. That got her attention. She shot up, eyes petrified until she saw him.

And then she just looked confused.

"What are you doing here?" She pushed her hair out of her face.

"Yeah, maybe you want to answer that first?"

"I'm not at home."

"No, you aren't. You're not where you need to be, either."

She settled back against the pillows, and he became acutely aware of the dark circles under her eyes, the pale line of her lips...

and the fact that she wasn't fighting with him.

Don't ask, he told himself.

Ah, h.e.l.l. "What happened this afternoon?"

"I just needed some time alone."

"I'm not talking about how you ditched Fritz. We'll get to that later. I want to know about the doc's."

"Oh, yeah. That."He stared at her while she fiddled with the edge of the quilt. As she stayed silent, he wanted to scream. Throw things. Burn something down.

"Well?" he forced out.

"It wasn't that I thought you were unworthy."

What the h.e.l.l was she talking about? Oh, yeah, that lovely little attending-her-when-she-was-ill conversation. Man, she was in full avoidance mode.

"How bad is it, Mary. And don't even think about lying to me."

Her eyes met his. "They want me to start chemo next week."

Rhage exhaled slowly. Well, if that didn't just peel the skin right off him.

He sat on the far edge of the bed and shut the door with his mind. "Will it work?"

"I think so. My doctor and I are going to meet again in a couple of days after she talks to some of her colleagues. The biggest question is how much more of the treatment I can handle, so they took blood to check my liver and kidneys. I told them I'll take as much as they can give me."

He rubbed his face with his palm. "Jesus Christ."

"I watched my mother die," she said softly. "It was awful. Seeing her lose her faculties and be in such pain. By the end she didn't look like herself, she didn't act like herself. She was gone except for the body that refused to quit its basic functions. I'm not saying that's where I'm headed, but it's going to be rough."

G.o.dd.a.m.n, his chest hurt. "And you don't want me going through that?"

"No, I don't. I don't want that for either of us. I'd rather you remember me the way I am now. And I'd rather remember us the way we've been. I'm going to need some happy places to go."

"I want to be there for you."

"And I don't need that. I'm not going to have the energy to put up a front. And pain... pain makes people change."

It sure the h.e.l.l did. He felt like he'd aged about a century since he'd met her.

"Oh, Rhage..." When her voice wavered, she cleared it sharply. And he despised her for needing to be in control. "I'm going to...

miss you."

He glanced at her over his shoulder. He knew if he tried to hold her she'd bolt from the room, so he grabbed on to the edge of the mattress. And squeezed.

"What am I doing?" She laughed awkwardly. "I'm sorry to burden you with all this. I know you've moved on and everything."

"Moved on?" he ground out. "How you figure that?"

"The woman last night. Anyway-"

"What female?"

When she shook her head, he lost his temper. "G.o.d d.a.m.n you, can you just answer my question without a f.u.c.king fight? Consider it a pity throw, a novelty. I'm leaving in a few minutes anyway, so you won't have to worry about doing it again."As her shoulders sagged he felt like h.e.l.l for yelling at her.

But before he could apologize, she said, "I'm talking about the woman you took to bed last night. I... I waited for you. I wanted to tell you I was sorry... I saw you go into your room with her. Look, I didn't bring this up to guilt you or something."

No, of course not. She didn't want anything from him. Not his love. Not his support. Not his guilt. Not even the s.e.x.

He shook his head, his voice going flat. He was so tired of explaining himself to her, but he did it out of reflex. "That was the Directrix of the Chosen. We were talking about my feeding, Mary. I wasn't having s.e.x with her."

He looked down at the floor. Then let go of the bed and put his head in his hands.

There was a silence. "I'm sorry, Rhage."

"Yeah. So am I."

He heard a hiccupping noise and shuffled his fingers so he could see her face through a hole. But she wasn't crying. No, not Mary.

She was too strong for that.

He wasn't, though. He had tears in his eyes.

Rhage cleared his throat and blinked a lot. When he glanced over at her again, she was staring at him with a tenderness and sorrow that made him violent.

Oh, great. Now she was pitying him because he was all sloppy and s.h.i.+t. Man, if he didn't love her as much as he did, he would have hated her at this moment.

He stood up. And made d.a.m.n sure his voice was as tough as she was when he spoke. "That alarm system in your house will be wired to us. If it gets triggered, I'll"-he corrected himself-"one of us will come running. Vishous will contact you here when it's up and rolling."

As the silence stretched, he shrugged. "So... bye."

He walked out the door and did not allow himself to look back.

When he got downstairs, he found Bella in the living room. The instant the female saw his face, her eyes popped wide. Clearly he looked as G.o.d-awful as he felt.

"Thanks," he said, though he wasn't sure what he was thanking her for. "And just so you know, the Brotherhood is going to do drive-bys on your house. Even after she leaves."

"That's very kind of you."

He nodded and didn't dawdle. At this point it was all he could do to get himself out the door without splitting wide-open and howling like a baby.

As he walked away from the house and down the lawn a little, he had no idea what to do or where to go. He probably should call Tohr, find out where the other brothers were, link up with them.

Instead he stopped dead in his tracks. Ahead, the moon was rising just above the tree line, and it was full, a fat, luminescent disk in the cold, cloudless night. He extended his arm toward it and squeezed one eye shut. Angling his line of sight, he positioned the lunar glow in the cradle of his palm and held the apparition with care.

Dimly, he heard a pounding noise coming from inside of Bella's. Some kind of rhythmic beat.Rhage glanced behind him as it got louder.

The front door flew open, and Mary shot out of the house, jumping off the porch, not even bothering with the steps to the ground.

She ran over the frost-laden gra.s.s in her bare feet and threw herself at him, grabbing on to his neck with both arms. She held him so tightly his spine cracked.

She was sobbing. Bawling. Crying so hard her whole body was shaking.

He didn't ask any questions, just wrapped himself around her.

"I'm not okay," she said hoa.r.s.ely between breaths. "Rhage... I'm not okay."

He closed his eyes and held on tight.

Chapter Thirty-five.

O lifted the mesh cover off the sewer pipe and s.h.i.+ned a flashlight down into the hole. The young male inside was the one they'd caught the night before with the truck. The thing was alive, having survived the day. The storage facility had worked beautifully.

The center's door swung open. Mr. X walked in, all pounding boots and sharp eyes. "Did it live?"

O nodded and put the mesh cover back into place. "Yeah."

"Good."

"I was just going to take him out again."

"Not right now, you don't. I want you to visit these members." Mr. X handed over a piece of paper with seven addresses on it. "E- mail check-ins are efficient, but proving somewhat unreliable. I'm getting confirmations from these Betas, but when I talk to their squadrons, I hear reports that no one has seen them in days or longer."

Instinct told O to step carefully. Mr. X all but accused him of killing Betas in the park, and now the Fore-lesser wanted him to go check on them?

"There a problem, Mr. O?"

"No. No, problem."

"And another thing. I have three new recruits I'm bringing on. Their initiations are taking place over the next week and a half. Do you want to come? Watching from the sidelines provides quite a show."

O shook his head. "I'd better stay focused here."

Mr. X smiled. "Worried that the Omega might get distracted by your charms?"

"The Omega is not distracted by anything."

"You're so wrong about that. He can't stop talking about you."

O knew there was a good chance Mr. X was f.u.c.king with his head, but his body didn't have the same confidence. His knees loosened and he broke out in a cold sweat.

"I'll start on the list now," he said, going for his jacket and keys.

Mr. X's eyes glinted. "You do that, son, you run right along. I'm going to play with our visitor a little."

"Whatever you like. Sensei."

"So this is home now," Mary murmured when Rhage shut the door to their bedroom.

She felt his arms come around her waist, and he pulled her back against his body. As she glanced at the clock, she realized they'd left Bella's only an hour and a half ago, but her whole life had changed.

"Yeah, this is your home. Our home."

The three boxes lined up against the wall were full of her clothes, her favorite books, some DVDs, a few photos. With Vishous, Butch, and Fritz showing up to help her, it hadn't taken long to pack up some things, get them into V's Escalade, and be driven back to the mansion. Later she and Rhage would return to finish the job. And in the morning she was going to call the law office and quit. She was also getting a real estate agent to sell the barn.