find V passed out on a lounger.
Instead, Butch walked into a whole lot of heaven-help-us: Vishous was up on the wall that ran around the building, naked, swaying in the wind and... glowing all over.
"Jesus Christ... V."
The brother wheeled around, then stretched his radiant arms wide. With a crazed smile, he slowly turned in a circle. "Nice, huh? It's all over me." He lifted a bottle of Goose to his lips and swallowed good and hard. "Hey, do you think they'll want to tie me down and tattoo every inch of my skin now?"
Page 284
J R Ward: Lover Revealed
Butch slowly crossed the terrace. "V, man... how 'bout we get you down from there?"
"Why? I bet I'm smart enough to fly." V glanced behind himself at the thirty-story drop. As he weaved back and forth in the wind, his illuminated body was startlingly beautiful. "Yeah, I'm so fucking smart I bet I can beat gravity. Wanna watch?"
"V..." Shit. "V, buddy, come down from there."
Vishous looked over and abruptly seemed to sober up, his brows meeting in the middle. "You smell like a lesser, roommate."
"I know."
"Why's that?"
"I'll tell you if you come down."
"Bribes, bribes..." V took another pull on the Goose. "I don't want to come down, Butch. I want to fly... fly away." He tilted his head back to the sky and lurched... then caught himself by swinging the bottle. "Oops.
Almost fell."
"Vishous... Jesus Christ-"
"So, cop... the Omega's in you again. And your blood's black inside your veins." V pushed his hair out of his eyes, and the tats on his temple showed, all backlit by the glow under his skin. "And yet you're not intrinsically evil. How did she put it? Ah... yes... the seat of evil is in the soul. And you... you, Butch O'Neal, have a good soul. Better than what's in me."
"Vishous, come down. Right now-"
"I liked you, cop. From the moment I met you. No... not the first moment. I wanted to kill you when I first met you. But then I liked you. A lot." God, V's expression was nothing Butch had ever seen before. Sad...
affectionate... but most of all... yearning. "I watched you with her, Butch. I watched you... making love to her."
"What?"
"Marissa. I saw you, on top of her, in the clinic." V whipped his incandescent hand back and forth through the air. "It was wrong, I know, and I'm very sorry... but I couldn't look away. You two were so beautiful together and I wanted that... shit, whatever it was. I wanted to feel that. Yeah, just once... I wanted to know what it was like to have sex normally, to care about the person you were coming with." He laughed in a horrible burst.
"Well, what I want isn't exactly normal, is it? Will you forgive me my perversion? Forgive me my embarrassing and shameful deprivation? Fuck... how I degrade us both..."
Butch was prepared to say absolutely anything to get his friend off that ledge, but he truly had the sense that V
was horrified with himself. Which was so unnecessary. You couldn't help the way you felt, and Butch wasn't threatened by the revelation. He somehow wasn't surprised, either.
"V, buddy, we're cool. You and me... we're cool."
V lost that longing expression, his face turning into a cold mask that was utterly frightening given the situation. "You were the only friend I had." More with that god-awful laugh. "Even though I had my brothers, Page 285
J R Ward: Lover Revealed
you were the only one I was close to. I don't do relationships well, you know. You were different, though."
"V, it's the same for me. But can we get you-"
"And you weren't like those others, you never cared I was different. The others... they hated me because I was different. Not that it matters. They're all dead now. Dead, dead..."
Butch had no idea what the hell V was talking about, but the content didn't matter. The past tense being used was the problem.
"I am still your friend. Always your friend."
"Always... funny word, always." V started to bend at the knees, just barely keeping his balance as he sank into a crouch.
Butch moved forward.
"No, you don't, cop. You stop right there." V put the bottle of vodka down and traced his fingertips lightly over the neck of the thing. "This shit's taken good care of me."
"Why don't we share some?"
"Nah. But you can have what's left." Vishous's diamond eyes lifted up and the left one started to expand until it ate up all the white part.