Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(77)
Author: J.R. Ward

Quiet despair.

That was all Qhuinn had as he sat there on the edge of that bed, holding Layla’s hand.

He got up to leave shortly thereafter. She was right, of course. She needed to rest as much as she could, and really, aside from staring at her and making her feel like a freak, there was nothing he could do.

"I’m never far."

"I know that." She brought his fist to her lips, and he was shocked by how cold they were. "You have been…more than I could have asked for."

"Nah. There’s nothing that I’ve – "

"You have done what is right and proper. Always."

That was a matter of opinion. "Listen, I’ve got my phone with me. I’ll be back in a couple of hours just to look in on you. If you’re asleep, I won’t disturb you."

"Thank you."

Qhuinn nodded and sidestepped over to the door. He had heard once that you were not supposed to show your back to a Chosen, and he figured the display of protocol couldn’t hurt.

Closing the door behind him, he leaned back against it. The only person he wanted to see was the one guy in the house who had no interest in –

"What’s going on?"

Blay’s voice was such a shock that he figured he’d imagined it. Except then the male himself stepped into the doorway of the second-floor sitting room. As if he’d been waiting there all along.

Qhuinn rubbed his eyes and then started walking, his body seeking out the very thing he had been praying for.

"She’s losing it," Qhuinn heard himself say in a dead voice.

Blay murmured something in return, but it didn’t register.

Funny, the miscarriage hadn’t seemed real until this moment. Not until he told Blay.

"I’m sorry?" Qhuinn said, aware that the guy seemed to be waiting for an answer.

"Is there anything I can do?"

So funny. Qhuinn had always felt as though he’d come out of his mother’s womb an adult. Then again, there had never been any cootchie-coo crap for him, no darling-little-boy stuff, no hugs when he hurt himself, no coddling when he was frightened. As a result, whether it was character or the way he’d been brought up, he’d never regressed. Nothing to go back to there.

Yet it was in the voice of a child that he said, "Make it stop?"

As if Blay alone had the power to work a miracle.

And then…the male did.

Blay extended his arms wide, offering the only haven Qhuinn had ever known.

"Make it stop?"

Blay’s body started to shake as Qhuinn uttered those words: After all these years, he’d seen the guy in a lot of moods and in a lot of circumstances. Never like this, though. Never…so completely and utterly ruined.

Never like a child, lost.

In spite of his need to keep really and truly far away from any emotional anything, his arms opened of their own accord.

As Qhuinn stepped in against him, the fighter’s body seemed smaller and frailer than it actually was. And the arms that wound around Blay’s waist simply lay against him as if there were no strength in the muscles.

Blay held them both up.

And he expected Qhuinn to pull back quickly. Usually, the guy couldn’t handle any kind of intense connection other than a sexual one for longer than a second and a half.

Qhuinn didn’t. He seemed prepared to stand in the doorway to the sitting room forever.

"Come here," Blay said, drawing the male inside and shutting the door. "Over on the couch."

Qhuinn followed behind, shitkickers shuffling instead of marching.

When they got to the sofa, they sat down facing each other, their knees touching. As Blay looked over, the resonant sadness touched him so deeply, he couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out and stroking that black hair –

Abruptly, Qhuinn curled in against him, just collapsed, that body folding in half and all but pouring into Blay’s lap.

There was a part of Blay that recognized this was dangerous territory. Sex was one thing – and hard enough to handle, f**k him very much. This quiet space? Was potentially devastating.

Which was precisely why he’d gotten the hell out of that bedroom the day before.

The difference tonight, however, was that he was in control of this. Qhuinn was the one seeking comfort, and Blay could withdraw it or give it depending on how he felt: Being relied on was something altogether different from receiving – or needing.

Blay was good with being relied on. There was a kind of safety in it – a certainty, a control. It was not the same as falling into the abyss. And hell, if anyone would know that, it was him. God knew he’d spent years down there.

"I would do anything to change this," Blay said while stroking Qhuinn’s back. "I hate that you’re going through…"

Oh, words were so damned useless.

They stayed that way for the longest time, the quiet of the room forming a kind of cocoon. Periodically, the antique clock on the mantel chimed, and then after a long while, the shutters began to descend over the windows.

"I wish there was something I could do," Blay said as the steel panels locked into place with a chunk.

"You probably have to go."

Blay let that one stand. The truth was not something he wanted to share: Wild horses, loaded guns, crowbars, fire hoses, trampling elephants…even an order from the king himself could not have pulled him away.

And there was a part of him that got angry over that. Not at Qhuinn, but at his own heart. The trouble was, you couldn’t argue with your nature – and he was learning that. In the breakup with Saxton. In coming out to his mom. In this moment here.

Qhuinn groaned as he lifted his torso up, and then scrubbed his face. When he dropped his hands, his cheeks were red and so were his eyes, but not because he was crying.

Undoubtedly his decade’s allotment of tears had come out the night before as he’d wept in relief that he’d saved a father’s life.

Had he known that Layla wasn’t doing well then?

"You know what the hardest thing is?" Qhuinn asked, sounding more like himself.

"What?" God knew there was a lot to choose from.

"I’ve seen the young."

The fine hairs on the back of Blay’s neck tingled. "What are you talking about."

"The night the Honor Guard came for me, and I almost died – remember?"

Blay coughed a little, the memory as raw and vivid as something that had happened an hour ago. And yet Qhuinn’s voice was even and calm, like he was referencing an evening out at a club or something. "Ah, yeah. I remember."

I gave you CPR at the side of the goddamn road, he thought.

"I went up to the Fade – " Qhuinn frowned. "Are you okay?"

Oh, sure, doing great. "Sorry. Keep going."

"I went up there. I mean, it was like…what you hear about. The white." Qhuinn scrubbed his face again. "So white. Everywhere. There was a door, and I went up to it – I knew if I turned the knob I was going in, and I was never coming out. I reached for the thing…and that’s when I saw her. In the door."