Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(65)

He hated that she had been on her own. “So you don’t wish you could go back?”

“Christ, no.”

Wrath exhaled. “I’m glad.”

“I was working for that leering *, Dick, at the paper, doing the jobs of three people, getting nowhere because I was a young woman and the good old boys didn’t have a club—they were in a cabal.” She shook her head. “But you know what the worst of it was?”

“What?”

“I was living with this sense that there was something going on, something important, but I didn’t know what it was. It was like…I knew the secret was there, and it was a dark one, but I just couldn’t reach it. Nearly drove me mad.”

“So finding out you weren’t just a human was—”

“These last months with you have been worse.” She looked over at him. “When I think back over the fall…I knew something was wrong. In the back of my mind, I knew it, I could absolutely sense it. You stopped coming to bed regularly, and if you did, it wasn’t to sleep. You couldn’t settle. You didn’t really eat. You never fed. The kingship always stressed you, but these last couple of months have been different.” She went back to staring at her old apartment. “I knew it, but I didn’t want to face the reality that you might actually be lying to me about something as significant and terrifying as you going out alone to fight.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

Her profile was both beautiful and hard as she continued. “I think that’s part of the head f*ck I’ve got going on now. The whole thing takes me back to the way I used to live every day of my life. After I went through the change and you and I moved in with the Brothers, I was so relieved, because I finally knew for sure what I’d always wondered about. The truth was incredibly grounding. It made me feel safe.” She turned back to him. “This thing with you? The lying? I don’t feel like I can trust my reality again. I just don’t feel safe. I mean, my whole world is about you. My whole world. It’s all based on you, because our mating is the foundation of my life. So this is about so much more than you fighting.”

“Yeah.” Fuck. What the hell did he say?

“I know you had your reasons.”

“Yeah.”

“And I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.” This was spoken with a lift at the end, the words a question, rather than a statement.

“I absolutely didn’t mean to.”

“But you knew it would, didn’t you.”

Wrath put his elbows on his knees and leaned into his heavy arms. “Yeah, I did. That’s why I haven’t been sleeping. It felt wrong not to tell you.”

“Were you afraid I’d refuse to let you go out or something? That I’d turn you in for violating the law? Or…?”

“Here’s the thing…. At the end of every night I came home and told myself I wasn’t doing it again. And every sunset I found myself strapping on my daggers. I didn’t want you to worry, and I told myself I didn’t think it would continue. But you were right to call me on that. I had no plans to stop.” He rubbed his eyes under his wraparounds as his head started to pound. “It was so wrong, and I couldn’t face up to what I was doing to you. It was killing me.”

Her hand went to his leg and he froze, her kind touch more than he deserved. As she stroked his thigh a little, he dropped his sunglasses back in place and carefully captured her hand.

Neither said a thing as they held on to each other, palm-to-palm.

Sometimes words were less valuable than the air that carried them when it came to getting close.

As the cold wind blew across the backyard, causing some brown leaves to crackle by in front of them, the lights went on in Beth’s old place, illumination flooding the galley kitchen and the single main room.

Beth laughed a little. “They put their furniture right where mine was, the futon against that one long wall.”

Which meant they had a full view of the couple who came stumbling into the studio and beelined for the bed. The humans were locked lip-to-lip, hip-to-hip, and they landed on the futon in a messy scramble, the man mounting the woman.

As if embarrassed by the show, Beth got off the table and cleared her throat. “I guess I’d better get back to Safe Place.”

“I’m off rotation tonight. I’ll be at home, you know, all night.”

“That’s good. Try to get some rest.”

God, the distance was horrid, but at least they were talking. “You want me to see you back there?”

“I’ll be fine.” Beth burrowed into her parka, her face sinking into the down collar. “Man, it’s cold.”

“Yeah. It is.” As the time for parting came, he was anxious about where they stood, and fear made his vision fairly clear. God, how he hated the lonely look on her face. “You can’t know how sorry I am.”

Beth reached up and touched his jaw. “I hear it in your voice.”

He took her hand and placed it over his heart. “I’m nothing without you.”

“Not true.” She stepped out of his hold. “You are the king. No matter who your shellan is, you are everything.”

Beth dematerialized into the thin air, her vital, warm presence replaced with nothing but frigid December wind.