A Warm Heart in Winter(60)

Layla’s voice was gentle. “You’ve been in here for an hour and a half.”

His lids popped. And he frowned.

Sometime in the last, well, ninety minutes, apparently, he’d sat down against the wall. Lyric was face-up in his lap, sprawled across with her feet draped over one side and her back braced against the other. Rhamp, meanwhile, had come over from his red-ballabusing session and found the crook of Qhuinn’s arm.

They were both fast asleep.

Swallowing hard, he watched their chests rise and fall, heard their gentle breaths through parted mouths, felt their warmth against him.

“I would like to help feed them,” he said in a hoarse voice. “And then after . . . I think it’s Blay’s and my turn for bath.”

When there was no reply, he looked up from his young. Layla was standing in the doorway, her hand over her mouth, a tear rolling down her cheek. Behind her, Xcor loomed big as a mountain, silent as the sky. The male’s hand was resting on his shellan’s shoulder, protectively, lovingly. His eyes were dry, but the sadness in them darkened them nearly to black.

“Yes,” Layla said. “I think it is your turn.”

Qhuinn glanced down. “They look so comfortable.”

Xcor’s voice was deep and grave. “That is because they know they are safe with their father.”





Blay traveled fast through the training center’s tunnel. He actually jogged for part of the way—which he knew was overkill. What he was worried about happening would not happen. It was just paranoia that the already horrible situation they were all in was going to get worse.

At least he was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen.

Blasting through the office, he didn’t run into anybody, and this was good. Hopefully no one had gotten to thinking.

As he came up to the clinical area, he wondered how much time anyone would have had to intervene if somebody had known Luchas had walked out into the storm. Like, if only an alarm had gone off when the hatch had been opened—no, Luchas had used the code. Okay . . . fine. So if some kind of notice had pinged V’s phone that there had been a departure . . . maybe Manny and Doc Jane could have been told to run out and turn the male back around.

Blay jumbled to a halt in front of the last patient room. The door was the same as all the others, made of the same wood that had been properly stained—no particleboard or laminated plastic for the Brotherhood, even in the clinical areas—the exact color as all the others.

He was never going to be able to look at the door the same again.

No one else would, either.

His hand was oddly steady as he opened things up. It was his entire body that was shaking.

The inside of the room . . . was exactly as it had always been. The hospital bed was across the way. In the corner, there was a homey stuffed chair and an ottoman, next to which was a side table with a lamp and a book. And that was . . . it.

No personal effects. No photographs. Not even a pad and a pen.

“Where is it, Luchas,” he murmured. “You must have left something for him. You didn’t do that without explaining yourself.”

Blay went over to the bed, which was made up precisely, with hospital corners Fritz would approve of and a set of pillows that were so centered at the headboard, you’d think a protractor and ruler had been used to put them in place.

“Where did you get the black robe?” Blay murmured. “And why did you wear it—”

He stopped.

Now his hand shook.

As he reached out to the rolling table, he didn’t pick up the white, business-sized envelope that had been placed in the corner of the tray. He just brushed his finger over the two words written in thin blue ink: “Brother Mine.”

Blay swiped his face with his palm. Then he looked around again.

When he refocused on the tray, he saw why Qhuinn would have missed the missive, especially if he’d been in a panic as he’d looked for his brother: The tray was white, the business envelope was white, and just like the pillows, the letter had been lined up precisely in one corner. It was nearly invisible.

“You okay?”

He pivoted to the voice. Manny Manello was leaning into the room, the doctor’s face full of grim expectation. Like he’d seen this specific kind of tragedy before and knew what a head job it did on people.

“Can you—” Blay cleared his throat. “You can make sure no one comes in here, right?”

“Sure, but what is—”

“The note.” Blay pointed to the envelope. “It’s for Qhuinn. I don’t want anyone touching it or anything else in here.”

Manny nodded. “Nobody gets in here but him.”

“Thank you.”

“What can I do?”

Blay looked around again. Then he went over to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, a light came on automatically. There was nothing significant on the counter.

No, that wasn’t true. There was a toothbrush in a holder that would never be used again, a half-filled tube of Colgate that would never be finished, and a bar of soap that would remain forever dry. Towels, which had been folded with care, were stacked on some shelves over the toilet and there were others hanging on rods—and they would all remain untouched by the suite’s previous occupant. The shower, which was just a curtain and a lip, the threshold for entry no more than two inches high, would no longer be turned on by Luchas’s hand, its stool never sat upon by him again, the shampoo and soap forever at the level they had been left.