nothing he’d ever experienced before. And meanwhile, his heart was doing bad things in his chest, its rhythm uneven and way too strong. As his awareness zeroed in on what was going on behind his sternum, he had an image of a boulder bouncing down a rocky hillside, boom!, ba-boom!, ba-ba-boom!—and then dizziness came on him like it was a physical force with three dimensions. As the world spun so badly he keeled over onto his side, he got a terrific close-up of his cousin’s shitkicker.
From a vast distance, he watched Balthazar holler at somebody, and Syn had a thought that his cousin was a good male, in spite of the thief stuff. Sure, the bastard might have a more narrow conscience than most, but that didn’t mean—
A dark-haired guy in surgical scrubs came running over and crouched down.
Well, this was handy. It was Dr. Manny Manello, the human surgeon mated unto Payne, V’s sister.
Syn was so knocked out, he almost greeted the healer. Which was a strange impulse as he was more of a Fuck-off than Cheerio-ol’-chap kind of person. Then again, he wasn’t in his right mind at the moment, and the doctor seemed to agree, shaking his head and holding up his hands as if there was nothing he could do.
Huh, Syn thought. Looked like he might be dying.
Driven by an impulse he couldn’t deny, he forced his arm out and slapped the pavement in front of Balz’s shitkicker. The male’s face immediately came down to level.
Syn started talking. At least… he thought he was talking. He still couldn’t hear anything—his cousin’s ears seemed to be working okay, though. The male’s face went from worried… to confused… to shocked.
Whatever. All that mattered was…
From out of nowhere, the brightest light Syn had ever seen coalesced right in front of him, and even in his delirium, he knew what it was. It was the Fade, arriving to claim him, and somehow, that was the biggest surprise of all. He had assumed he would go unto Dhunhd.
Then again, having just made the acquaintance of the Omega, maybe the evil didn’t want his sorry ass—
As he was bathed in the heavenly illumination, the relief that suffused his body was so complete it was unfathomable. It was as if the sickness inside of him was erased, and in its absence? An exhausted peace and calm, like he had come to the end of a long trial.
But that had been his life. A slog that had seemed infinite on a good night, and a curse on a bad one.
Giving himself up to the death, he waited for the door he had heard about to come through the light unto him… the door that ancient wisdom said you opened and stepped through, finding yourself in an eternity with your loved ones. Would his mahmen be there?
Would Jo be allowed there as a human?
Panic shot through him. He was leaving his female undefended; his death was not going to get her out of danger. Gigante would send someone else to kill her—
All at once, the light retracted, Syn’s vision cleared, and his ears came back online. Looking up, he wasn’t sure what he expected to see… but the Brother Vishous kneeling down with a torch was not it—
Wait. That wasn’t a torch. It was the male’s hand, the one that always had that black leather glove on it.
Maybe the illumination hadn’t been the Fade.
Maybe those rumors about V being the born son of the Scribe Virgin weren’t bullshit.
Maybe he should be nicer to the motherfucker, assuming he didn’t want to be turned into a s’more.
Syn pushed himself off the pavement, and as he cautiously got up on his feet, he expected the world to go around in circles again. It did not. And that was when he realized the Brother must have done to him what he did to Butch.
“You tackled the Omega?” V said. “What the fuck were you thinking, you crazy sonofabitch.”
Vishous punched Syn’s shoulders—and then Syn was being yanked forward against that huge chest, the embrace as unexpected as the Brother breaking into song with “Achy Breaky Heart.”
’Cuz V didn’t like anybody.
Guess if you saved his best friend’s life, it got you on his Good Guy list.
Syn felt himself get set back, and then both of his cousins were talking to him. Everyone was talking to him, the Brothers who were on site and all the other fighters. It was a blur, and he had some thought that they were making a