intruder had breached the wall, engaged a number of motion detectors in the backyard, and knocked out the power, Rehv told his people to turn all the interior alarms off. He wanted whoever was there to stay.
As soon as he saw Bella, he was heading straight for home.
"Something wrong?" Marissa asked while he clipped the phone shut.
"Oh, no. Not at all." Quite the contrary.
When the front door knocker sounded, Rehvenge stiffened.
A doggen passed in front of the parlor's doorway to go answer it.
"Would you like me to leave you two alone?" Marissa said.
The mansion's big door opened and closed. Soft voices were traded, one that of the doggen, the other... Bella's.
Rehv pushed into his cane and slowly rose to his feet as Bella appeared in the doorway. She was wearing blue jeans and a black parka, and her long hair was shiny on her shoulders. She looked... alive... healthy. But age Page 245
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showed in her face, new lines of stress and worry bracketing her mouth.
He expected her to race into his arms, but she just stared at him... insulated, unreachable. Or maybe she was just so numb after all she'd been through, she had no reactions left to show the world.
Rehvenge's eyes watered as he plugged his cane into the floor and went to her, rushing, though he couldn't feel the fine rug beneath his shoes. He caught the shock on her face as he pulled her against him.
Sweet Virgin. He wished he could feel the embrace he was giving her. Then it dawned on him that he didn't know if she was hugging him back. He didn't want to force her. He made himself let go.
As he dropped his arms, she clung to him, not moving away, but staying close. He embraced her again.
"Oh... God, Rehvenge..." She shuddered.
"I love you, sister mine," he said weakly, unashamed in the moment for being less of a male than he should be.
Chapter Forty-two
O walked right out the brick mansion's front door and he left the thing wide-open behind him. As he wandered down the driveway, snow swirled in the cold wind.
The sight of that portrait was an echo in his brain that wouldn't let up, wouldn't fade. He had killed his woman.
Beaten her so badly she'd died. God... he should have taken her to a doctor. Or maybe if that scarred Brother hadn't stolen her, maybe she would have lived... Maybe she'd died because she'd transported.
So had O killed her? Or would she have lived if she'd been allowed to stay with him? What if-Oh, fuck it. The search for the sequence of truth was bullshit. She was dead and he had nothing to bury because that bastard Brother had taken her from him. Period.
Abruptly, he caught the lights of a car up ahead. As he got a little closer, he saw that a black SUV had stopped before the gates.
That goddamned Beta. What the hell was he doing? O hadn't called the slayer for a pickup, and that was the wrong place-Wait, the car was a Range Rover, not an Explorer.
O jogged through the snow, staying in the shadows. He was a couple of yards away from the gate when the Rover's window came down.
He heard a female voice say, "With everything that's been going on about Bella, I don't know if her mother will be receiving. But we can at least give it a try."
O stepped up to the gates and took out his gun, hiding behind one of the pillars. He saw a flash of red hair as the female behind the wheel leaned out and rang the intercom. Beside her there was another female in the passenger seat, a short-haired blond. That one said something and the redhead smiled a little, revealing fangs.
As she pressed the intercom again, O spoke loudly. "Nobody's home."
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The redhead looked up, and he leveled his Smith & Wesson at her.
"Sarelle, run!" she screamed.
O pulled the trigger.
John was deep in tactics, and ready to put his head through a plate-glass window from the brain strain, when someone knocked on his door. He whistled without looking up from the textbook.
"Hey, son," Tohr said. "How's the studying?"
John stretched his arms over his head, then signed. Better than the physical training.
"You don't worry about that. It'll come."
Maybe.
"No, really. I was the same way before my transition. All over the place. Trust me, it gets better."