A Warm Heart in Winter(56)

And then, when there was finally an easing of the pain to his bereaved male, he spoke up.

“Come on, let’s go back inside. It’s cold out here.”

As he helped Qhuinn to his feet, he wasn’t sure the guy had any clue where he was. Like a zombie, Qhuinn allowed himself to be led away from where his brother had died, his sneakers taking the path they had forged out here into the forest, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes focused in front of him. There was no telling what was going through his mind.

No, that was a lie.

Blay could guess and all of it was bad.

And that was why he was so compelled to get his mate back inside. There was nothing he could do to help with the maelstrom in Qhuinn’s heart and head, but at least he could get him warm and dry.

As they came up to the Tahoe, V materialized in their path from out of thin air and nodded to the SUV. Blay shook his head. Like the Brother had said, they were only a hundred yards out. That was as far as Luchas had made it. Besides, Qhuinn didn’t stop walking, his trudging stride unbroken as he zeroed in on the camouflaged entry to the cave.

When it was time, Blay jumped ahead and held the drape back, and Qhuinn ducked in. Only to stop dead, like he had no clue where to go next.

“Follow me.” Blay hitched an arm through Qhuinn’s and started walking again. “Not much farther.”

The hatch was closed tight, and Blay entered the code and opened things so Qhuinn could keep going. Then he checked over his shoulder. The Brotherhood had closed ranks, but they were holding back, just looking around the draping, not yet venturing in. This was good. Space was good.

Into the tunnel. Pause by the gear, where Blay stripped the parka off Qhuinn and hung it up.

As Qhuinn looked around with seemingly blind eyes, his face was ruddy from the dry heaves, from the cold, maybe from V’s flash of light. He looked utterly lost, a young in the body of an adult.

“I didn’t want him to go.”

“Of course you didn’t—”

“Oh, God, Blay, what if he knew, what if he knew . . .”

“Knew what?”

Qhuinn rubbed his eyes and then stared at his hands like they belonged to someone else. “What if he’d read my mind. I mean, I can’t tell you the number of times I sat at his bedside and thought to myself . . . what kind of life is this for him? How does he keep going? I couldn’t fathom how he handled it. They were hacking parts of him off to keep him alive. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t work his hands. He was down there in that patient room, all by himself.” Those mismatched eyes shifted over. “What if he read my mind? And knew . . .”

“It was not your fault,” Blay said through a tight throat. “You are not responsible for this.”

“But I am. I was the one who told them to take his leg. I was the one . . . maybe I could have done more, helped more.” Qhuinn dropped his face into his palms. “I thought I had more time with him. He was medically stable, so I thought there was time to talk. Time to help. Oh, fuck, this hurts.”

Blay didn’t know what to say. So he reached out and pulled his mate against him. As Qhuinn’s arms came around him and held on, he took that as a good sign. At least the connection between them was still there.

He had a feeling they were going to need it.



The next thing Qhuinn knew, he was in the mansion’s foyer. He didn’t remember the trip back to the grand, formal space, but he sure as shit hadn’t dematerialized his way here—and he was certain about this because: 1) too much steel to get through; and 2) no way he could have concentrated well enough to ghost out.

At this point, he wasn’t sure he could concentrate well enough to take a piss.

With a numb disassociation, he looked around and recognized the malachite columns, the staircase that rose with such great majesty to the second story, the sconces, the ceiling high above with its warriors and steeds. And beneath his feet? The mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom was just as it was supposed to be.

If Luchas had been moved up here, if he’d been given a proper guestroom with beautiful things and a marble bathroom . . . if he’d been treated like a member of the family, instead of an invalid who was nothing but his infirmity . . . would it have made a difference? Would he have held on a little longer?

“Why didn’t I ask him how he was?” Qhuinn turned to his mate. “I should have asked him.”

“You did, many times. I was there for a lot of them.”

“It feels like I didn’t do it enough.”

Every time he blinked, he saw his brother’s remains. Each time he breathed, the pain in his chest got worse. With every beat of his heart, he was boomeranged back to the past and then dragged forward to the present. Images assaulted him, memories battering around his head of him and his brother growing up in that house with their parents and Solange, all the strictures, the discipline . . . and in Qhuinn’s case, the censure. And then there were more recent memories, of him sitting at Luchas’s bedside, the pair of them talking about nothing.

Why had he wasted those opportunities? They’d had two, maybe three, serious conversations where they’d gone deep into how Luchas was feeling about his injuries and what had happened to him. But most of their interactions had been kept on the surface. Safely on the surface.

Because Qhuinn had always thought he’d have more time. Sure, not an endless number of nights and days—it wasn’t like they were immortal—but he hadn’t pressed anything, had respected boundaries that might or might not have been there, had given space and kept things light . . . because he’d assumed there was a future readily available to cover the important things.