A Warm Heart in Winter(15)

“Not at the moment. Right now they are here, within my reach, every second of every hour. Later, though, I will. I imagine it will be similar to how I worry about Xcor out in the field. So many things can go wrong. A second can change a lifetime forever.”

Z rubbed the back of his neck. “I have to go.”

And yet he did not move.

“What consumes you, friend,” Layla prompted gently.

“I don’t like the vagaries of chance.”

“What’s making you think of fate tonight?”

“Nothing.” Just snowbanks. And children. And stabbings. “Nothing in particular.”

“Are you going to go see your Bella and Nalla? They were in the playroom last time I checked.”

He glanced at the Chosen. “Take care of yourself, and your precious ones.”

“I will. Take care of my beloved out in the field? I don’t know what I would do if . . .”

“I always have Xcor’s back.” He pictured the huge fighter with the disfigured upper lip and the jawline of an I beam. “We all watch after each other. Worry not, Chosen.”

And yet would it be enough, he wondered as he left.

Probably on most nights, sure. But on every night? Every single night? Mathematical probability said no on that one.

And young needed their fathers.

Guess Rhamp and Lyric were lucky in that regard. They had three of them.





Outside of the training center’s OR, Blay sat on the corridor’s concrete floor and leaned back against the concrete wall. The subterranean cold of everything didn’t register and he didn’t pay much attention to how hard everything was against his body. Hard was what was happening on the other side of that closed door. Hard was opening up someone’s insides, seeing a leak that was life-threatening, and being all I-know-how-to-fix-that.

There was a time when he’d thought he would go into medicine. He was getting over that now.

Especially as he imagined what was going on with Qhuinn’s abdomen at the moment. The only thing that made him feel even halfway okay about the knife removal was the fact that the male had had sex on the brain right up until Ehlena had slapped him silly with those EKG wires. Surely that meant something, right?

Blay looked down the hall toward the reinforced steel door that opened into the underground parking garage. Then he glanced down the other way, toward the gym, the Olympic-sized pool, and the target range. He could smell the distant chlorine, and someone was working out in the weight room, the rhythmic metal clanking going on for what seemed like forever. Probably Ruhn. Saxton’s male was a big lifter, even compared to the Brothers.

The guy would have been a great asset out in the field, but he was a certified pacifist now, and considering his history, no one could blame him—

The OR door swung wide, and Manny braced it open with his foot, a vision in blue scrubs and his surgical mask. The fact that he kept his hands behind his back suggested there was blood on those nitrile gloves, and as Blay’s stomach went storm-surge on him, he was determined not to throw up on himself.

“Qhuinn did great, and the knife missed all the expensive real estate.” The surgeon shook his head. “It’s a miracle. As always, someone was watching out for him.”

Blay put his hand over his heart, and as his head swam with relief, he was glad he was sitting down. “Thank you so much. Oh, my God, thank you.”

“Our pleasure. We’re just closing now. You can see him in a little bit.”

As the surgeon ducked back into the sterile area, Blay rubbed his face and shuddered inside his own skin. Images of crystal glasses caught just as they fell off the edge of tables, and of fingers narrowly saved from the bite of car doors, and of land mines missed by millimeters, flashed through his mind. And now, as Qhuinn’s body was set to rights again, Blay’s own part of the healing process could begin. With the mortal danger over, he had to coax his brain back into risk-awareness hibernation: After every narrow-margin save and each near miss, he always had to stuff his panic back in its lockbox.

Otherwise, he’d be perpetually quaking in his boots.

The thing was, they were all at risk, every night they went out into the field—especially with the Omega gone, and the trainees and others seeing a new shadowy threat downtown. At least with the Lessening Society, they’d known what they were fighting—

Shuffling sounds brought his head up.

A hobbling figure in a terry cloth bathrobe was coming down the corridor, its weight braced on a cane, its gait as steady and regular as a case of the hiccups. The head was down; the dark hair, which had begun to thin and go gray, was wet; the scent of chlorine was pervasive.

“Luchas,” Blay said. “How are you?”

Qhuinn’s brother didn’t speak until he was right in front of Blay, and there was effort involved in lifting his head from its permanent loll.

“I am well, and yourself?”

The voice was reedy, but the accent was straight-up glymera, something between high-brow British monarchy and French diplomat.

“I’m okay, and so is your brother.”

Luchas’s gray eyes flared, and he looked to the closed door. “Is Qhuinn unwell?”

As a matter of fact, he’s just recovering from a case of poke-itis.

“He’s going to be fine.”