“Yeah, okay,” Bricker agreed. “I get that.”
Lucian grunted and turned back to peer at Basil, only to scowl when the young hunter said, “But what about Elvi and Sherry?”
“I wanted to get Sherry away from the scene as quickly as possible. She is not crying,” Basil pointed out. “But she is mortal. Watching a man beheaded and dealing with the aftermath is not a common occurrence for her.”
“Okay, I can see that too,” Bricker allowed, and then glanced from Basil to Lucian and asked, “But what was Elvi’s deal?”
Lucian scowled when the young man settled his gaze on him. It seemed obvious to Basil that his brother had no idea why Elvi was crying, but rather than say so, he simply said, “She is a woman. They don’t need a reason to cry. They just do.”
Sherry released what sounded suspiciously like a snort, her body jerking against his, and then she explained to Bricker, “Elvi is just relieved that Stephanie’s life is no longer in danger. It has been a great strain on her to worry about the girl for so long.”
“Ah,” Bricker said with understanding. But now Lucian was scowling even harder.
“She should be happy now then. Stephanie is safe,” Lucian pointed out.
“She is happy,” Sherry assured him patiently. “That’s why she was crying.”
If anything, that seemed to confuse Lucian more. Shaking his head, he turned to Bricker and said, “You see? It’s as I said, women don’t need a reason to cry. They just do.”
“Yeah, right. You’d best not be suggesting Leigh is the crybaby type,” Bricker said with amusement. “She’s the strongest woman I know. She has to be to put up with you.”
Lucian glowered at the man. “She cried when she was pregnant. A lot. Hormonal, Marguerite called it,” he added morosely, and then shuddered and confessed, “It made me glad we can only have children every hundred years.”
Basil smiled widely. He knew Lucian adored his wife as much as he himself adored Sherry, and it was so damned fine to see him acting like a human again. His smile faded as he tuned into his own thoughts. He adored Sherry?
Yes, Basil acknowledged. He did. At the start, he had simply noted that he couldn’t read or control her, and accepted that she was his life mate. It had been that simple, like A + B = C, his inability to read plus the inability to control, equaled life mate in his mind. End of story. But that was then. Now he’d gotten to know her.
Basil knew Sherry’s ambitions, her determination, even how she’d briefly lost her way. He enjoyed her sense of humor, her intelligence, and her kindness. She had a decency that made the world a better place and a passion equal to his own. She also had courage. In the penultimate moment, when Leo had held her life in his hands, no one could have saved her from him without a high risk of getting her killed instead. Whether she had known that or not, she had not stood as a victim to the man, helpless to his whims and waiting to be saved, but stabbed him in the balls and got the hell away from him. Sherry had saved herself in the end.
Even if no one else had been there, and if Basha had not stepped up to lop off his head the moment Sherry was out of the way, Basil was quite sure Leo would not have got up quickly from the wound Sherry had given him. The man had been about to collapse on the ground screaming in agony when Basha forever silenced him with her sword. Had Sherry been there alone, he was quite sure that she would have had a good deal of time to escape before Leo healed enough to follow. And Basil was damned proud of her. But more than that, he loved her for it. And now he wanted more than for her to accept the turn and agree to be his life mate. He wanted her to love him back. Needed it, even.
“Is my father still out in the alley?” Sherry asked, breaking into his thoughts.
Basil glanced to Lucian at her question and noted that he was staring at him with silent concentration. No doubt Lucian had been listening in on his revelations. He didn’t care. He would be happy to shout from the rooftops that he loved this woman.
“No,” Bricker answered when Lucian simply continued to stare at Basil. “Decker and Anders took him back to the Enforcer house with the others.”
“Oh no. We have to do something.” Sherry began to struggle to rise, and Basil again held on at first, but then he let her go and stood as well. He knew she wanted to find out her father’s last name. She’d probably hoped to ask him before he was taken away.
“Actually, at the moment she is more worried about his ding-dong than his last name,” Lucian growled, proving he had been not only in Basil’s thoughts, and still was, but in Sherry’s as well.
“His what?” Basil asked with a start.
“The punishment for interfering with a married woman,” Lucian reminded him. “They shred his ding-dong. Bricker’s term, not mine, if you’ll recall,” he added with dignity.
Basil glanced around, intending to soothe Sherry, but she’d somehow disappeared during the few seconds he had been distracted.
“Where the hell did she go?” he muttered, moving to the landing between the stairs that led down to the store, and the ones leading down to the door to the alley. Both doors were closed and he had no idea which way she’d gone.
“She dragged Bricker out through the store,” Lucian said calmly, following Basil when he plunged down the stairs. “She intends for him to drive her to the Enforcer house.”
The store appeared empty when Basil came out into it, but he glanced around to be sure. He saw no one, though, so rushed out onto the sidewalk and peered first one way and then the other. Cursing when he didn’t see either Sherry or the young Enforcer, he spun back to the store impatiently and then hurried back to the door and opened it to shout, “Will you hurry up, dammit! Which way is the truck?”
“Relax,” Lucian said dryly. “Bricker will not leave without me. The SUV is—”
“What?” Basil asked when his brother paused with his arm half raised, shock crossing his features.
“The little shit just drove away without me,” Lucian said with amazement.