The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,50

your ‘shit,’ as you put it, is important. Whatever is driving you, whatever is causing”—she motioned in a circular pattern, encompassing his entire body—“or caused that void that’s inside of you? I think you used all those women to try to run away from it. I think you fucked those humans for all those years as a distraction—and the fact that you don’t want to acknowledge this? It makes me worried that you’re just going to use me as an even bigger, better way of avoiding yourself. What could be even more seductive or effective if you don’t want to deal with your own issues than one specific female with a deadly disease?”

“Jesus Christ, Selena, I don’t think like that. At all—”

“Well, maybe you should.” She tilted her head, another conclusion hitting her like a ton of bricks. “And I’ll tell you one more truth. Whether I have a thousand nights or two nights? I want them to be with you—but only in an honest way. I don’t want to be your new excuse, Trez. I want you here, I want you with me, but I need it to be real between us. I don’t have the energy or the time for anything less than that.”

In the long silence that followed, she waited for his response. But no matter how awkward things got, she wasn’t recanting a word.

She had said exactly what was on her mind.

Kind of liberating, actually.

SIXTEEN

Abalone was not accustomed to violence. Not in the outside world, and certainly not in the house where his daughter slept and practiced her singing lessons and ate with him.

As Rhage all but air-mailed Throe to the ground in front of Wrath, Abalone smothered a gasp with his palm. It was entirely unmanly to show any kind of shock in front of the Brotherhood, and he prayed that none of them noticed.

They certainly did not appear to. Their concentration was on the blond-haired, simply-dressed male who was, for all intents and purposes, naught but a throw rug before the shitkickers of the King.

Wrath smiled, baring fangs that seemed longer than Abalone’s fingers. “Don’t wait for me to help you up.” As Throe began to pull himself up on his knees, the King tucked his arms over his chest. “And don’t ask for the ring. I’ll be tempted to crack you in the face with it.”

Once he was on his feet, Throe brushed himself off and straightened his shoulders. He wasn’t close to Wrath’s size, but he was far from a lightweight, his body more a soldier’s than the whip-thin figure that males from his class tended to favor.

“I have done nothing to deserve a presentation of your ring,” he said in a low, grave voice.

“Well, what do you know, something we agree on.” Wrath’s wraparound sunglasses tilted toward the sound of Throe’s voice. “So, my boy Abalone says you have something on your mind.”

“I have left Xcor and the Band of Bastards.”

“You want a commemorative stamp,” Butch muttered.

“Can I stamp him with the grille of my car?” Rhage tossed out.

Wrath’s brows tightened over the bridge of those dark glasses, as if he didn’t appreciate his males chiming in. “Change in direction for you, isn’t it?”

“Xcor’s goals are no longer my own.”

“That right.”

“It has been a long time coming.” Throe glanced over his shoulder, and Abalone would have preferred not to be the object of his regard. “As my distant cousin recalls, I am not from soldier stock. Through circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to take advantage of Xcor’s dubious kindness. He required me to repay him with a tenure of service. As you know, having found me bleeding in that alley many, many months ago, his methods for ensuring loyalty are not conversational in nature.”

Ah, yes, that was right, Abalone remembered. Some time ago, Throe had been discovered by the Brotherhood, left for dead with a stab wound to the gut not inflicted by a lesser. In fact, from what Abalone had heard, the male had been injured by the Band of Bastards’ own leader. Throe had been taken in by the Brotherhood who had sought to gather information from him, and then released back out into the world with a message for Xcor.

Word had it that Layla had fed the fighter whilst he had lingered on death’s door, the Chosen offering her vein to one whom she had assumed to be a noble soldier instead of her King’s enemy.

Quite a messy affair it all had been.

Wrath’s nostrils flared as