Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(131)

He was there for quite a while. Much longer than the two secs it took for most people to scrawl their name.

When he sat back up again, Mary covered her mouth with her palm.

“That’s me,” Ruhn said, pointing to the small sketch he’d made of his face. “That is my mark.”

It was an absolutely beautiful rendering of his features. And everyone grew silent.

“It’s all I know how to do,” Ruhn explained.

Saxton pinched the brow of his nose. “No, no … it’s perfectly lovely. And perfectly sufficient.”

Saxton did his thing, notarizing the document, and then the lawyer was standing up. “I shall go file this at the Audience House.”

“Come back, though,” Mary said. “Please? We’re going to have a little welcome party at the end of the night, and you should come if you can.”

The attorney looked at Ruhn briefly. “All right. Thank you, I shall.”

On the bus ride in to the training center, Axe sat in the rear, far away from the others. Peyton, meanwhile, stayed up front, choosing a seat close to the partition that separated them from the butler driver.

Elise’s cousin hadn’t looked back as he’d gotten on the bus. Didn’t look back as they made the trip north.

But he also didn’t get off when they stopped inside the parking area and everybody else went in for class.

“You waiting for me?” Axe said when they were alone.

Now the male turned. “Yes.”

“I don’t need to attack you from behind, you know. I can do that right in your face.”

“I know.” Peyton shifted his legs around and put his elbows on his knees. As he stared straight ahead, his mood was hard to read. “I’m guessing you heard Elise came to see me last night.”

“Oh, she let me know it, all right.”

“I didn’t say anything about you and Novo.”

“Well, good for you. Elise told me how much she hates liars, and considering I’ve never fucked Novo, at least you’re clean on that one.”

“That’s your concern, not mine.”

“Damn fucking right. And I also haven’t been with Novo.”

The long silence was a surprise, but Axe didn’t really care one way or another. “We done here? FYI, I’m not going to cut you or anything. I don’t want anything to fucking do with you, but that hasn’t changed since orientation.”

“Her father called me. She’s moving out of the house. He’s requested that I keep an eye out for her and I’ve agreed to do that.”

Elise was leaving home? Holy shit.

Except then Axe reminded himself that it wasn’t really his business anymore, was it.

“So you got what you want.” Axe got to his feet. “Congratulations. Then again, shit always works out for people like you, doesn’t it—”

Novo came up the short steps and leaned into the bus. “Are you two killing each other or something?”

Axe shook his head. “Nope. We’re good—oh, but he thinks I fucked you three nights ago—or whenever it was we went to the club.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Novo stared at Peyton. “Axe put me up for membership. That’s why he took me there. And it was because I asked him to—oh, and Axe shut me down when I asked him if he wanted to be with me. Turned me down flat. Jesus, Peyton, could you be any more of an asshole?”

Axe walked forward, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. S’all good. Moving on.”

Pushing past Novo, he stepped off the bus, went over to the door that had been propped open, and entered the training center.

As he headed for the gym, where they were going to be sparring, he was aware of a whole lot of things: He was exhausted, for one thing, but he had a feeling he needed to get used to that. He was in pain, but yeah, file that along with the former.

And he was terrified.

In his head, he was monitoring each and every thought he had, checking for signs that he was going to crash and burn as his father had. It was like he was searching for cracks in his foundation, waiting for his superstructure to collapse, anticipating the paralysis that he had watched for years.

He was already crippled on the inside. Surely the outside was going to go, too.

Because the truly pathetic thing? He had bonded with Elise.

Yes, as she had pointed out, it had been only a matter of nights, but—as he had so often heard, and never truly believed—when it came to males and their soul mates? It didn’t take time; it took the right female.

And Elise was right for him even if he was wrong for her.

So yeah, he was crippled and going to remain that way for the rest of his life.

But what the hell.

He’d already been crippled before. He was used to this.

Just as some people were destined to be happy?

Others simply didn’t win that lottery.





FIFTY-ONE


At the end of the evening, as everyone at the Brotherhood mansion came together and took their seats in the dining room, Rhage waited for Mary to give him the cue.

And when she did, just as the feast of Last Meal was being served, he turned to Bitty, who was next to him. “Hey, will you come with me and your mom for a second? Nothing is wrong, we just need to talk to you about something.”