The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #13)(155)

She waited until the door shut behind them. “Did any of that register for you? Like what I’m supposed to do with these?” The pills inside rattled against the plastic as she looked down. “Oh, there’s a label.”

“I remember everything,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Come on.”

He led her back to the office. Back out through the closet. Back into the damp-smelling, went-on-forever tunnel.

“Can I tell you something?”

She glanced up at him. “Of course. And I promise I won’t throw any more lamps—well, not like there are any around at the moment, but still.”

“You can throw anything you want.” He stopped and turned her to face him, brushing her hair back. “You are the bravest person I know.”

She laughed in a burst. “Okay, stop humoring the dead person, all right?”

“I’m serious. And don’t say that.”

“You live with the Brotherhood. They are the bravest people in the race.”

“No,” he whispered.

As he stared down at her, the admiration on his face was … simply stunning. But it was all wrong. “Trez, I’m terrified about everything.” She held up the pills. “I’m scared to take these. I’m scared to go to sleep—”

“You’re very brave—”

“I’m scared to cook you dinner.” She held up her forefinger. “And FYI, you should be, too. I can’t even make toast. Which is bread. In a toaster. How hard is that—and yet I have burned up loaves of the stuff.”

He shook his head. “Courage doesn’t mean you aren’t scared.” He dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her. “God, I love you so much. I love you so deeply. I love you forever.”

Putting her arms around him, she held on hard—and maybe wiped some tears on his shirt. “Fine, you think I’m brave … well, you’re the most romantic male I’ve ever known, seen, or heard about.”

Now he was laughing, and the deep rumble sounded so good against her ear. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.”

Melding her body to his, she said, “There is nothing more romantic on the planet than loving someone with your full heart, even though you know they’re leaving.”

He went still. “How else could a male love a female of worth like you but wholly. Completely. And without a single regret.”

As they stood there in that tunnel, halfway from the compound and halfway to the main house, she thought it was apt that what was on either side of them seemed to go off into infinity. They had but this middle point of the here and now, and they had to make it count.

“I don’t need to mate you in a ceremony,” she said.

“No?”

“We’re living the vows right now.”

“So you’re saying you won’t mate me.”

“Are you asking?” she teased.

“You want me to one-knee it?”

Sinking down to the floor, he took her hands. “Selena, will you be my shellan? My one and only? I don’t have a ring, but we can go get you one—it’s what the humans do. Plus, I don’t know, I kind of want to buy you something expensive.”

Her first instinct was the one she had been trained to have—a demure deferral of the attention, the fuss, the pleasure.

But, in the words of her male, Fuck. That.

“I would love that. I would love everything, a ceremony, a ring, a party, the whole thing.” Opening her heart wide, she let the love in. “Everything!”

“That’s my queen,” he murmured. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

And that was how she ended up … engaged.

As she bent down to kiss him, it seemed utterly bizarre that the pair of them kept ricocheting back and forth between such incredibly opposite emotions. But this situation seemed to amplify the highs and lows, funneling feelings and experiences through a bullhorn until everything was too big to contain.

“So, a ring?” she said against his mouth.

“Yup, a ring.”

He ran his hands around the back of her thighs and stroked up and down. “And maybe a little sumthin’-sumthin’ you can’t get at a store.”

“And what might that be?” she drawled.

“Oh, you know. I’ll just have to show you upstairs…”





SIXTY-ONE


“Yeah, I heard you arguing during the day.”

As iAm spoke, he glanced into the mirror over his bathroom sink. His brother was standing behind him, in the doorway to his bedroom, and the guy was dressed in all black, looking like he was right out of a magazine.

Clearly ready to take his female out again for the night.

“Sounded heavy,” iAm tacked on.

“It was bad for a little while.” Trez came in and sat down on the lip of the Jacuzzi. “But we got through it. I asked her to mate me.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Picking up the can of Barbasol, iAm hit the go button and then patted down his cheeks and chin. “How’s she doing?”

“Okay.”

iAm knew tell the male was lying. The tells were all over the place, but mostly in the way his brother didn’t meet his eyes.