The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #13)(71)

Trez leaned in and kissed her quiet, his lips lingering. “No.” He eased back. “It’s … I know what you mean. It’s not crazy, and you’re right. Now is the good part—”

“You are so hot.”

Trez let out another cough. “Damn, female. What are you like.”

“I told you last night—or, jeez, what time is it? Anyway, I told you before, I’m all about honesty now.”

His lids dropped low. “Being straight up suits me just fine. So lemme ask you, if I were to pick you up and carry you into the shower, would you—”

“Get on my knees again under the hot spray and see if you taste as good as I remember?”

The sound that came out of him was not a cough. But it wasn’t a coherent statement, either. It was part growl, part groan, with a little moan thrown in for good measure, like he was getting ready to beg …

It was pretty much the sexiest thing she had ever heard.

“Is that a yes?” she drawled.

He kissed her again, harder this time. Longer, too. Then he pegged her with eyes that were boiling. “Shit, I’m dying over here—”

As Trez stopped himself again, she got thrown by that word herself. When it came to the two of them, one was, in fact, dying. It was her, not him, though.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I won’t say that ever again.”

“It’s all right.” She forced herself to smile. “Let’s wash our cares away—”

“I’m going to find a cure for this,” he said gravely. “I’m not going to let you lose the fight, Selena. I will literally move heaven and earth to keep you beside me—no divide, nothing but our naked skin … our souls.”

Tears speared into her eyes, and she forced them back, willing them to get gone and stay that way. Reaching up to his handsome face, she brushed her fingertips over his features.

“I love you, Trez.”

“God, I love you, too.”





TWENTY-SEVEN


When Layla woke up, she was lying on her side on a much softer surface than the vestibule’s floor. In a panic, she brought her hand to her belly.

Everything felt the same, the hard swelling, the size it had been—but dearest Virgin Scribe, had she injured the young? She could remember getting out of her car, struggling to walk over to the mansion’s entrance, losing consciousness— “Young,” she mumbled. “Young okay? Young?”

Instantly, Qhuinn’s blue-and-green stare was right in front of her. “You’re all right—”

As if she cared about herself right now. “Young!”

With a curse, she thought, why had she ever complained about being pregnant? Maybe this was punishment for her having— “Everything’s okay.” Qhuinn glanced across the room, focusing on someone she couldn’t see. “Fine, just … okay, yeah, fine.”

The relief was so great, tears flooded her eyes. If she had lost their young because she was meeting with Xcor? Because she’d been staring at him while he … did that to his sex?

She never would forgive herself.

With a curse, she wondered why had she asked that male to do those things. It was wrong on so many levels, adding to her guilt when she was already choking on the stuff.

After all, it was so much easier to take the high-road victim role if you were not asking your blackmailer to jerk off.

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

“Are you in pain? Shit, Jane—”

“I’m right here.” The good doctor knelt down beside Qhuinn, looking tired, but alert. “Hi there. We’re glad you’re back. Just so you know, Manny reset your arm. It was broken clean through. We’ve put it in a cast and…”

There was some kind of conversation about her recovery time and when the plaster could come off, but she didn’t pay attention to any of that. Doc Jane and Qhuinn were keeping something from her: Their smiles of reassurance were like photographs of the real thing—perfectly accurate, but flat.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she cut in.

Silence.

As she struggled to sit up, Blay was the one who helped her, gently grasping her good arm and giving her something to push against.

“What,” she demanded.

Doc Jane looked at Qhuinn. Qhuinn looked at Blay. And Blay … was the one who eventually met her eyes.

“There’s something unexpected,” the fighter said. “In the ultrasound.”

“If you make me ask ‘what’ again,” she gritted out, “I’m going to start throwing things, and to hell with my broken arm.”

“Twins.”

As if time and reality were a car that had suddenly had its brakes punched, there was a metaphoric screeching sound in her head.

Layla blinked. “I’m sorry … what?”

“Twins,” Qhuinn repeated. “The ultrasound is showing that you are carrying twins.”

“And they’re both perfectly healthy,” Doc Jane added. “One is significantly smaller, and its development has been delayed, but it appears viable. I didn’t catch the second fetus during your previous ultrasounds because I understand—from a consult with Havers—that vampire pregnancies are different from humans’. There was apparently another fertilized egg that had implanted but did not enter a significant embryogenesis stage until much later—your last ultrasound was two months ago, for example, and I did not see anything at that time.”