The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,157

moved slowly, and at some point, he just gave up on his vision entirely, those eyes of his shutting.

Somehow, she got him up to his room and down on the bed.

“Dark is going to help,” he said, putting his forearm over his face. “And could you bring a wastepaper basket over?”

Hustling around, she turned off all the lights except the one in the bathroom and made sure there was a receptacle right next to his head. “Do you want me to take your clothes off?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

It was not exactly the experience she’d been banking on, but then again, her mood had gotten ruined even before this. And as she did the deed, she was oh, so careful with him, helping him with his jacket, then shucking his boots and socks, and doing away with his slacks.

“I’ma keep the shirt on. I just don’t have the energy for it.” He captured her hand and tugged her into a sit by his hip. “Not the way I’d planned on ending tonight.”

She kissed his palm. “What else can I do for you?”

“Just let me lie here for the next six to eight hours. And don’t worry, like I said, all of this, from the headache to the nausea, is normal. Unfortunately.”

“What causes this?”

“Stress.”

“Do you want me to call iAm?”

“Shit, no. He has too much on his plate already. Actually, I think he’s why I got it.”

“Is there something wrong with him?”

As Trez fell silent, she wanted to press, but he was ill.

“You don’t have to go,” he said.

“I don’t want to disturb you.”

“You won’t.” He rubbed her hand with his own, and his lips, which were the only part of his face showing, broke into a smile. “I love your hands. I’ve told you that, right? They’re so smooth and soft … long fingers…”

As she stayed with him and he ran his fingertips from the inside of her wrist to the base of her fingers, she felt her panic melt away. Nothing felt strange in those joints anymore. So it definitely had been the cold.

A little later he let out a soft moan, his mouth flattening, his body tensing up. And then he began to swallow.

“I need you to go,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry—I don’t want you to see this…”

“Are you sure—”

“Please. Now.”

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she got to her feet. “I’m in the house, okay? I’m not leaving. Call me if you—”

He jerked over onto his side and reached for the bucket. Pausing over the thing, he opened his eyes and pegged her with a frazzled stare. “You need to leave now.”

“I love you,” she said, rushing for the door. “I wish I could help.”

She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her as she slipped out, and just as she shut the door, the sounds of him retching made her wince.

For a split second, she thought she might camp out in the hall beyond his room. But then, as she debated where she was going to sit on the floor, she realized that she couldn’t get her grip off the doorknob.

Her palm had frozen on the brass.

“Of course I am not quitting. Don’t be daft.”

As Assail addressed his cousins in the kitchen of his glass house, he was in a vicious mood—and sinking even deeper into anger upon Ehric’s inquiry.

“But the King—”

“Has no right to interfere in matters of commerce flowing to humans.” He conveniently avoided thinking or commenting upon the conflict-of-interest issue. “And I have no intention of complying with that order of his.”

“So how do we proceed?”

“He will have us followed. That is what I would do were I he. I want the two of you to go activate the warning to my colleague. We’ll suspend operations briefly and reconnoiter.”

“Aye.”

After the pair of them left, he stayed in his kitchen so that whatever Brothers had been stationed around his house would have him in plain view. Taking out his vial of cocaine, he discovered it was, once again, nearly empty, but at least there was enough to tide him over.

When he finished partaking, he went into his study on the other side of his home. It too had glass windows, and he turned on the desk lamp so that they could keep a good eye on him. Sitting down, he looked at the piles of papers he’d made. Investment accounts. Brokerage accounts. Monies in the U.S. and abroad.

Growing, growing, growing.

The fortune at his disposal had turned another corner about a month ago, the laundered money