The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #13)(187)

Was this what it was going to be like? Him going through his nights and days bumping into random things and getting jolted back into the depths of his grief?

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said to her clothes, “without you.”

And he wasn’t just talking about getting dressed.

When there was no reply—but come on, like he expected her ghost to answer?—he took the nearest pants and shirt that he got to, threw them on his body, and walked out. For a good ten minutes, he stood in the center of the room and entertained the temptation to trash everything around him. But his body didn’t have the strength or the coordination, and his emotions couldn’t sustain the boil of the anger he felt.

He looked over at the window Selena had broken. She had been magnificent in her fury, so alive, so …

Holy shit, he was going to drive himself insane.

On his way to the door, he picked up his cell phone out of habit and then stopped in front of the exit to his room. He was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for pitying looks or prying questions. But he thought he’d seen that the shutters were still down?

Yup.

So hopefully the whole Last Meal thing would have been long cleaned up and the doggen retired for their brief rest before the daytime cleaning started up.

He thought he’d seen a seven in the time.

Yeah. Seven something o’clock in the morning, the numbers had said.

Grasping the brass doorknob, he felt like he was back downstairs at the clinic, when he’d gone to leave the examination room after all that time with Selena’s body: this was another portal he was going to have to push himself through.

With a twist of the wrist, he released the mechanism and put some weight into the—

On the bald floor across from his bedroom, iAm was horizontal and out cold in the hallway, his head on the curl of his arm, a half-consumed, fully capped bourbon bottle cozied up to his chest like a loyal dog, his brows down like even in his sleep he was dealing with shit.

Trez took a deep breath.

It was good to know the male was still with him.

But he was not waking the guy up.

Stepping with care so he didn’t disturb his brother, he found himself wanting to take this first trip out into the world on his own.

Down at the bottom of the shallow stairs, he did another brace-yourself with a door latch—and wondered how long it was going to take to get himself over that habit—then he pushed things open.

“…you bunch of photophobic freaks.”

Shaking himself, he frowned.

Lassiter, the fallen angel, was in the doorway to Wrath’s study, hands on his hips, blond-and-black hair pulled back in a braid. “You’d better show some f*cking respect or I’m not going to say one damn thing about what I found out on my little trip to the Territory.”

From inside the room, there were all kinds of muttering.

“No,” Lassiter said, “I want you to say you’re sorry, Vishous.”

It was so weird. Like a camera lens that was suddenly focusing, Trez came back online, his senses sharpening, some shadow of his former self returning.

“I’m waiting.” There was a pause. “Good enough. And I want the remote for the next week—days and nights.”

Incredible grousing, and someone threw something at the guy, the coaster landing on the carpet outside the room.

“Well, if you’re going to get nasty again—”

Following an instinct, Trez dematerialized—at the very instant Lassiter dropped the * act and shot a shrewd glance in the direction of where Trez had been standing.

His presence had been sensed.

But he would not allow that to happen again.

Shadowing along the carpet, he seeped into the study as Lassiter stepped inside, closed the doors and addressed the Brotherhood.

“We got a map?” the angel said.

Being careful to stay out of the way of anyone’s feet, lest they tweak to his altered state, Trez pooled in the corner farthest away from Wrath’s dog. Fortunately, George was sound asleep by his master’s throne.

The Brotherhood clustered around Wrath’s desk as Butch flipped a blue-and-green, three-foot-by-three-foot square of paper out of its folds.

“Here,” the angel said, pointing with his forefinger. “This is where I found it. There’s a retaining wall that runs around the entire property. Dwellings are here and here. The palace … right here. Security is tight, and from what I was able to see, they are gathering their forces.”

Gathering forces? Trez thought.

“We need to get to them first,” Wrath muttered. “First strike is critical. We don’t want them coming into Caldwell.”

What the hell was going on?

“…can’t find this house. No one can find this house,” V said. “But yeah, I’ll stay behind. I don’t like it, but someone needs to be here on a just-in-case.”

Lassiter looked across the desk at the Brother and proved that he could get serious if he had to: “I gotchu. I’ll be here, too.”

There was a split second where the males stared into each other’s eyes. “Good,” V said. “That’s good.”

“Where’s iAm?” Wrath asked.

“Last I saw of him,” Rhage answered, “he was heading upstairs to check on Trez and crash.”