The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,89

too. Didn’t put your altogether on as full a display.

He ate fast, but not sloppily, and it was a good call. His brain needed the calories—his body, too, if he were going to bust out of here.

Which was the plan.

“s’Ex,” he demanded when he’d finished. “Go get him.”

With that, he pushed the tray toward the female. As was custom, she bent forward in supplication, her covered forehead nearly ending up in the empty white bowl.

She picked up the tray, straightened her torso, and gracefully got to her feet without wobbling or dropping any of the dishes. Backing out of the cell, she triggered the door by putting the sole of her shoe against a section of the wall. A moment later, because the exit was clearly monitored, someone opened things up remotely—either that, or the exit was footprinted somehow.

And out she went.

As the panel closed with a Star Trek sound, he knew it would have done him no good to overpower her and try to use her as a bargaining chip. s’Ex and his guards would be more likely to negotiate to save a dog.

Pacing around, he pictured his brother beside Selena as she lay on that examination table, under that bright light, her body all contorted, a frozen expression on her face.

God, he should never have done this. Talk about a no-win situation: Trez was going to want to come get him out, but leaving that female when she was ill was going to kill him.

Nothing like throwing gasoline on a fire. Along with about a hundred pounds of dynamite.

Trez had meant every word he’d said about Selena and her freedom of choice.

As he strode through the underground tunnel, heading for the training center’s clinic, he was one hundred on pretty much one and only one thing—well, two, but the fact that he was in love with her was a rock-bottom given. The other thing he knew for sure was that Selena, and Selena alone, was going to decide how her condition was managed, and if anybody tried to strong-arm her in any way? He was going to butt-out them like you read about.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go see Doc Jane.

About his queen.

God, that pet name for Selena was so funny. The instant the sobriquet had come out of his mouth, it had locked in. As if his vocabulary had bonded to that word like his body had bonded to hers.

And she would be the only queen for him. No matter what happened to them, or where he ended up, she would be his reigning female, none other to supplant her place in his heart, his respect, or the utterance of that word.

Dragging his palm over his face, he forced his feet to stay at a walking stride even though a big part of him wanted to run at a full tilt to the clinic. There was no rush, however, at least as far as his female was concerned. Selena was up in his bedroom, naked in his tub, soaking her beautiful body in warm, scented water.

She was not completely pain-free. She hid the lingering stiffness and discomfort well, but the telltales were in the subtle winces of her face, and the jerky manner in which she moved her hands and arms. The bath and some OTC aspirin were going to help, though. And when she had had a good, long soak, she was going to get into his bed for a rest before their “date.”

Her joy at the prospect of their dinner together was contagious. He literally felt warm inside his skeleton, as if her happiness held a kinetic magic that, through his bonding, magnified within his own flesh. Hell, all he had to do was think of her at that breakfast table, grinning over their bowls of oatmeal, or think of the sound of her voice getting all excited about where they were going … and he was sublimely at peace.

There had never been anything close to it for him. Not even the love and commitment he had for his brother came near to the feeling.

In a sick way, he supposed her illness had been good for both him and Selena. He could not fathom how they would have wiped away the bullshit between them so efficiently or completely without …

Hell of a trade-off though, wasn’t it.

As he came up to the training center’s access point, he entered the proper codes, and then passed through the supply closet and into Tohr’s office. The