Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(190)

“We’ve trained him using a shirt of yours. He knows your smell.”

There was a long, long period of silence, and then Wrath shook his head. “I don’t know if I’m a dog person. Besides, what about Boo—”

“He’s right here,” Beth said. “He’s sitting next to George. He came downstairs as soon as the dog entered the house, and he hasn’t left George’s side since. I think they kind of like each other.”

Damn it, even the cat wasn’t on his side.

More silence.

Wrath slowly sheathed his dagger and took two wide steps to the left so he could clear the desk. Walking forward, he stopped in the center of the study.

George whimpered a little, and there was that quiet ringing of a harness again.

“Let him come to me,” Wrath said darkly, feeling as if he were getting squeezed and not liking it in the slightest.

He heard the animal approach, the padding of paws and the chinking of the collar moving closer, and then…

A velvet-soft muzzle nudged at his palm, and a rasping tongue licked quickly over his skin. Then the dog ducked under his hand and eased up against his thigh.

The ears were silky and warm, the nap of the animal’s fur curling slightly.

It was a large dog with a big, boxy head. “What kind is he?”

“A golden retriever. Fritz was the one who picked him.”

The doggen spoke up from the door, as if he were afraid of entering the room, given how tense things were. “I thought it was the perfect breed, sire.”

Wrath felt along the dog’s flanks, finding the harness that went around his chest and the handle that the blind person would hold on to. “What can he do?”

Mary spoke up. “Anything you need. He can learn the layout of the house, and if you give him the command to take you to the library, he will. He can help you get around the kitchen, answer the phone, find objects. He’s a brilliant animal, and if you two are a fit, you and he can be as independent as I know you want to be.”

Frickin’ female. She knew exactly what had been bothering him. But was an animal the answer?

George whined softly, as if he desperately wanted the job.

Wrath let go of the dog and stepped back as his whole body started to shake. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I don’t know if I can…be blind.”

Beth cleared her throat a little, as if she were choking up because he was.

After a moment, Mary, in her kind, firm way, said the hard thing that needed to be said: “Wrath, you are blind.”

The unspoken so-deal-with-it resonated in his head, throwing a spotlight on the reality he’d been limping through. Sure, he’d stopped waking up every day hoping his vision would come back, and he’d been fighting with Payne and making love to his shellan so he didn’t feel physically weak, and he’d also been working and keeping up with the king shit and all that. But none of it meant things were fantastic: He was hobbling around, running into shit, dropping crap…clinging to his shellan—who hadn’t been out of the house for a month because of him…using his brothers to get him places…being the kind of burden he resented.

Giving this dog a chance didn’t mean that he was all gung ho about being sightless, he told himself. But it might help him get around on his own.

Wrath turned so that he and George were facing the same direction, then stepped in close to the dog. Leaning to the side, he found the handle and clasped it.

“Now what do we do?”

After a shocked silence, as if he’d surprised the shit out of his peanut gallery, there was some discussion and demonstration, only a quarter of which he heard and absorbed. Evidently, though, it was enough to go with, because he and George were soon taking a trip around the study.

The handle had to be adjusted up to its limit so that Wrath didn’t have to list to the side to hold on, and the dog was much better at the whole deal than his charge was. But after a while, the two of them headed out of the study and down the hall. Next trip was hitting the grand staircase and coming back up.

Alone.

When Wrath returned to his office, he faced the group that had gathered—and it was now a big one, as each of his brothers, as well as Lassiter, had apparently joined Beth and Fritz and Mary. Wrath caught the scent of each of them…and there was a f*ckload of hope and worry in the breeze as well.

He couldn’t blame them for the way they felt, but he didn’t like the attention. “How’d you pick the breed, Fritz?” he said, because he needed to fill the silence and there was no reason to ignore the pink elephant in the room.

Or the blond dog, as it were.

The old butler’s voice quavered, as if he, along with everyone else, were struggling with emotion. “I, ah…I chose him…” The doggen cleared his throat. “I chose him over the Labradors because he sheds more.”

Wrath’s blind eyes blinked. “Why would that be a good thing?”

“Because your staff enjoys vacuuming. I thought this would be a lovely gift for them.”

“Oh, right…of course.” Wrath chuckled a little, and then started to laugh. As the others joined in, some of the tension drained out of the room. “Why didn’t I think of that.”

Beth came over and kissed him. “We’ll just see how you feel, okay?”