The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,202

even noticed.

Eventually, Trez took a shuddering breath and eased back.

There was a table stand within iAm’s reach, and on it, there was a stack of folded white and blue towels. Snagging one, he put it up toward his brother.

Trez was outside of any Kleenex capability at this point.

The guy scrubbed his face and took a number of deep breaths. Then he sat back in the chair he’d been using and stared ahead.

“I want to go through the preparations,” he said hoarsely.

“You got it,” iAm replied. As the medical staff gave a collective brows-up, he said to them, “I have everything he needs. I put it in the locker room a couple of days ago.”

It had been something he’d done before he’d left to go to the Territory, just in case he didn’t make it back.

Although that had been kind of stupid. If he’d been captured and held there, he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone where to find the shit.

“Is it okay for him to use this room?” iAm asked, even though it wasn’t really a request.

“Absolutely,” Jane said. “He can be assured of privacy.”

“Thank you.” iAm patted his brother’s knee. “I’ll be right back, okay. I’m going to go get the supplies.”

“Thanks, man,” Trez said dully.

iAm got to his feet, and as his knees cracked, he realized he’d spent quite a while crouched on the tile floor.

He couldn’t bear to look at Selena. It was just too damn hard.

Going over to Manny, he hugged the guy in a manly way, and then gave Jane and Ehlena something gentler.

“Thanks for taking such good care of them.”

Manny just shook his head. “Outcome would have been different if we’d been able to do that.”

“Some things…” iAm shrugged. “There’s nothing you can do.”

Heading for the door, he pushed on the panel … and frowned as paint chips came off in his hands. Jesus, the steel had warped, the fit in the frame no longer right.

Outside, there wasn’t, as the saying went, a dry eye in the house.

“What can we do?” the King asked, stepping forward and putting his palm out into thin air.

Approaching Wrath, iAm gave what was offered a shake, and then was surprised to find himself yanked in against that incredibly huge chest. For a moment, he allowed himself to sag into all the strength of the King’s body, to the point where he was quite certain Wrath was holding him up off the floor.

But then he needed to pull it together. There were practicalities that had to be dealt with.

As he stepped back, the group of Chosen in their robes registered, and he felt a special kinship to them as a sibling himself.

“Trez is going to tell you later,” he said, “but she wanted you to know she loved you so much. It was hard, at the end … she couldn’t really communicate. The love for you all was there, though.” He focused on Phury’s yellow eyes. “And you, too.”

“She was a female of great worth,” the Primale said in the Old Language. “A credit to her tradition and duties, and also an individual who mattered for her own special gifts. There is a place in the Fade open to her this night and e’ermore.”

iAm nodded, because he just couldn’t bear to think that the female’s life was just over. That one moment a person was in her body and then … poof! … she was gone as if she had never been, nothing but the translucent, ever-fading memories of others to testify she had, in fact, been born and had lived.

“I have to get something for him. In the locker room.” God, he felt like he was talking through molasses. “It’s for our way of tending to…”

He left the rest of that one just dangling in the breeze.

As he passed by Tohr, he stopped. The male was white as a sheet and shaking in his shitkickers, his dark blue eyes pools of suffering.

“I’m so sorry,” iAm found himself whispering.

“Jesus, why would you say that?” the Brother choked out.

“I don’t know. I have no idea.”

He hugged the male hard, and felt a deeper connection with him. Then he pulled back, squeezed Autumn’s shoulder, and thought, Man, it was going to be a long couple of nights for the pair of them as Tohr processed his PTSD.

The Brother knew exactly where Trez was in this moment.

Rhage was the last of the line-up, and strangely, he seemed to be in the worst shape. At least his Mary was by his side.

“It’s