FORTY - ONE

Back at the mansion, Qhuinn was pacing around his bedroom like a rat looking for a way out of its cage. Of all the fucking nights for Wrath to hold them penned in.

Fuckin' A.

As he made yet another trip past the open door into the bath, he thought the fact that the quarantine made sense somehow pissed him off even more: Only he and John and Xhex were not hurt at this point. Everyone else had been in that melee and gotten sliced, diced, or shaved in some way.

It was Casa del Heal-the-fuck-up around here.

But come on, the three of them could have been out and about doing payback.

Stopping in front of the terrace doors, he looked over the manicured gardens that were on the verge of getting their spring on. With the lights turned off in his room, he could clearly see the swimming pool with its winter cover stretched over its belly - like the biggest set of Spanx the world had ever seen. And the trees that were still mostly bare. And the flower beds that were -

Blay had been injured.

- still nothing but orderly boxes of dark brown earth.

"Shit."

Rubbing his now-short hair, he tried to negotiate with the pressure at the center of his chest. According to John, Blay had been hit on the head and striped on the stomach. The former was being monitored; the latter had been stitched up by Doc Jane. Neither was life-threatening.

S'all good.

Too bad his sternum wasn't buying the hunky-dory. Ever since John Matthew had told him the news, this goddamn ache had set up shop, mole-ing into him and going Barcalounger on his bronchial tubes.

He literally couldn't take a deep breath.

Goddamn it, if he were a mature male - and given the way he handled things sometimes, that was seriously debatable, if not downright wrong - he would go out into the hallway, march over to Blay's room, and knock on the door. He'd put his head inside, see for himself that the redhead had a heartbeat and was making sense ... and then he'd go about his night.

Instead, here he was, trying to pretend he was not thinking about the guy while he wore a path into his carpet.

On that note, more with the walking. He would have rather gone to the weight room and had a run, but the fact that Blaylock was up here in this wing was like a tether that kept him stuck in the vicinity. Without a larger purpose to pull him away, like going out to fight or ... say ... the house being on fire, he was evidently incapable of breaking free.

And when he found himself in front of the French doors again, he had an inkling why he kept stopping there.

He tried to talk his palm out of hitting the handle.

Didn't work.

Pop went the latch, and slap went the cool air on his face. Stepping out in his bare feet and his bathrobe, he barely noticed the ice-cubecold slate or the draft that shot up his legs and nailed him in the balls.

Up ahead, light streamed out from the double doors of Blay's room. Which was good news - surely they'd close the curtains before they had sex.

So it was probably safe to look in. Right ... ?

Besides, Blay was just coming off an injury, so they couldn't be going Tilt-A-Whirl in there.

Resolving himself to the role of Peeping Qhuinn, he stuck to the shadows, and tried not to feel like a stalker as he tiptoed over. When he got next to the door, he braced himself, leaned in and -

Took a deep, relieved breath.

Blay was alone on the bed, lying all propped up against the headboard, his black robe tied at the waist, his ankles crossed, his feet covered in black socks. His eyes were closed and his hand rested just above his belly, as if he were carefully looking after what was probably still bandaged.

Movement across the way brought Blay's lids up and took his eyes in the opposite direction of the windows. It was Layla emerging from the bathroom, and she was walking slowly. The two exchanged some words - no doubt he was thanking her for the feeding he'd just had and she was telling him that it was her pleasure: not a surprise that she was here. She'd been making the rounds of the house, and Qhuinn had already run into her shortly before First Meal - or what would have been First Meal if anyone had shown.

And as she left Blay's room, Qhuinn waited for Saxton to come in. Naked. With a red rose between his teeth. And a motherfucking box of chocolates.

And a hard-on that made the Washington Monument look stumpy.

Nothing.

Just Blay letting his head fall back and his lids drift down. He looked utterly exhausted and, for the first time, older. That was no recently out-of-transition boy over there. That was a full-blooded male.

A stunningly beautiful ... full-blooded ... male.

In his mind, Qhuinn saw himself opening the door and stepping inside. Blay would look over and try to sit up ... but Qhuinn would wave him down as he walked over.

He would ask about the injury. And Blay would open the robe to show him.

Qhuinn would reach out and touch the bandage ... and then he would let his fingers wander off the gauze and the surgical tape onto the warm, smooth skin of Blay's stomach. Blay would be shocked, but in this fantasy, he wouldn't push the hand away.... He would take it lower, down past the injury, down onto his hips and his -

"Fuck!"

Qhuinn leaped back, but it was too late: Saxton had somehow come into the room, walked over to the windows, and started to pull the drapery shut. And in the process, he'd seen the ass-wipe outside on the terrace who was making like a security camera.

As Qhuinn wheeled around and hotfooted it back for his room, he thought, Don't open the door ... don't open the door -

"Qhuinn?"

Busted.

Freezing like a burglar caught with a plasma-screen under his armpit, he made sure his robe was closed before he turned around. Shit. Saxton was stepping out, and the bastard was also in a robe.

Well, he guessed they were all sporting them. Even Layla had been in one.

As Qhuinn faced off at his cousin, he realized he hadn't said more than two words to the guy since Saxton had moved in.

"I just wondered how he was." No reason to use a proper noun - pretty damn obvi who he'd been staring at.

"Blaylock's asleep at the moment."

"He feed?" Even though Qhuinn already knew that.

"Yes." Saxton shut the door behind himself, no doubt to keep the cold out, and Qhuinn tried to ignore the fact that the guy's feet and ankles were bare. Because it meant that chances were good the rest of him was also.

"Ah, sorry to have disturbed you," Qhuinn muttered. "Have a good n - "

"You could have just knocked. From the hall inside." The words were spoken with an aristocratic inflection that made Qhuinn's skin tighten up all over. Not because he hated Saxton. It just reminded him too much of the family he'd lost.

"I didn't want to bother you. Him. Either one of you."

As a gust curled up against the house, Saxton's impossibly thick and wavy blond hair didn't even ruffle - as if every part of him, down to his follicles, was simply too composed and well-bred to be affected by ... anything.

"Qhuinn, you wouldn't be interrupting a thing."

Liar, Qhuinn thought.

"You were here first, cousin," Saxton murmured. "If you wished to see him, or be with him, I would leave you two alone."

Qhuinn blinked. So ... the pair of them had an open relationship? What the hell?

Or wait ... maybe he'd just done a masterful job in convincing not only Blay, but Saxton, that he didn't want his best friend for anything sexual.

"Cousin, may I speak candidly?"

Qhuinn cleared his throat. "Depends on what you have to say."

"I'm his lover, cousin - "

"Whoa ..." He put his hand up. "That's so none of my business - "

" - not the love of his life."

Qhuinn pulled another double blink. And then for a split second, he got sucked into someplace where his cousin bowed out gracefully and Qhuinn more than filled the SOB's chic shoes. Except whatever ... there was a big-ass glitch in that fantasy: Blay was through with him.

He'd engineered that result over too many years.

"Do you understand what I'm saying to you, cousin?" Saxton kept his voice down, even though the wind was rolling and the door was closed. "Do you hear me."

Okay, this was not a corner Qhuinn had expected to come to tonight ... or any other evening. Fucking hell, his body was suddenly tingling all over, and he had half a mind to tell his cousin to beat it and go wax his eyebrows or some shit - or better yet move the hell out.

Except then he thought about how old Blay looked. The guy had finally found a stride in his life, and it was criminally unfair for that to be negotiated away out here in the dark.

Qhuinn shook his head. "It's not right."

Not for Blay.

"You are a fool."

"No. I used to be one."

"I would beg to differ." Saxton's elegant hand pulled the lapels of his robe closer together. "If you'll excuse me, I'd best return to the interior. It's cold here on the outside."

Well, wasn't that an ass-smacker of a metaphor.

"Don't tell him about this," Qhuinn said roughly. "Please."

Saxton's eyes narrowed. "Your secret is all too well protected. Trust me."

With that, he turned and went back into Blaylock's room, the door shutting with a click and then the light getting cut off as those heavy drapes were tugged into place.

Qhuinn rubbed his hair again.

Part of him wanted to bust in and say, I changed my mind, cuz - now get the fuck out of here so I can ...

Tell Blay what he'd told Layla.

But Blay might well be in love with Saxton, and God knew Qhuinn had fucked his best friend too many times.

Or not, as the case was.

When he eventually headed back to his room - only because it was just too damn pathetic to be out here staring at the ass sides of drapery - he realized his life had always been about him. What he wanted. Needed. Had to have.

The old Qhuinn would have driven a bus through that opening -

On a wince, he tried not to take that turn of phrase quiiiiiiiiite so literally.

The thing was, though, the ridiculous, pansy-ass saying was right: If you loved someone, you set them free.

In his room, he went over and sat on the bed. Looking around, he saw furniture he hadn't bought ... and decorations that were gorgeous, but anonymous and not to his style. The only things that were his were the clothes in the closet, the razor in the bathroom, and the running shoes he'd kicked off when he'd come back earlier.

It was just like his parents' house.

Well, here, people actually valued him. But as lives went, he didn't have one of his own, really. He was John's protector. The Brotherhood's soldier. And ...

Shit, now that he wasn't indulging in his sex addiction anymore, that was the end of the list.

Pushing himself back against the headboard, he crossed his feet at the ankles and arranged his robe. The night stretched out ahead of him with a horrible flatness - like he'd been driving and driving and driving through the desert ... and he had only nights more of the same up ahead.

Months of the same.

Years.

He thought of Layla and the advice he'd given her. Man, the two of them were in the exact same place, weren't they.

Closing his eyes, he was relieved when he started to drift. But he had a feeling any peacefulness he found wasn't going to last long.

And he was right.