Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(11)
Author: J.R. Ward

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 f**king 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 f**k 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 f**k 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 f**king 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.