Page 159 of Lover Forbidden
Not Dev.
Whatever he was.
Their end had occurred, and now it was up to her to make things “okay.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The following evening arrived with flurries, but oddly warmer temperatures. Not that anyone in the training center knew about either.
“It was a miracle.”
As Blay spoke up, Qhuinn looked over at hishellren. His most favorite redhead on the planet was sitting beside him in the break room, the pair of them holding hands while they’d stared up at a muted TV screen and tracked absolutely nothing about the marathon of the old schoolThe Residentepisodes.
“It was.” He lifted Blay’s wrist to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the veins there. “Doc Jane said she’d never seen anything like it. Guess that shot of epinephrine really worked.”
“You know something, I’m not sure… if I can take much more.” Blay laughed on a short exhale. “Even if it’s good news, my heart needs a break from shocks.”
Nodding his head, Qhuinn kept the rest of his thoughts to himself. There were a lot of questions to be answered, main among them what his daughter and son had been doing in the apartment—although clearly it was owned by that human Lyric had apparently been dating. When he’d pressed Rhamp for details, he’d gotten stonewalled, and he was verycertain his son knew all kinds of things he wasn’t talking about. But whatever. At this point, though, it was still one night at a time. Lyric had somehow survived her gunshot wound, everybody was here safely, and there was only one urn of ashes to be picked up and brought home from the crematorium.
All things considered, Blay had it right. A miracle had been granted, and at least for now, they needed to just be grateful.
He glanced at the clock. “Let’s go check on her?”
When Blay nodded, they got up. There were all kinds of brothers sitting around, and everybody glanced over like they were looking to be given a job: Rhage was eating ice cream, of course, while Z strummed on a guitar. Vishous had two laptops open in front of him, while Tohr and Xcor were at his side like the pair were comparing notes with the guy. Meanwhile, Phury, Xhex, John Matthew, and Butch were playing gin rummy, while Payne and Wrath were down the hall, sparring in the gym. And on the far side of the room, Lassiter was stretched out on two stuffed chairs, the TV remote in his hand. The angel had been the one to pick the show for the binge watch—so really, the distraction could have been much, much worse.
Out in the corridor, Quinn looked down the way to the room Lyric was resting in. L.W., Shuli, and Rhamp had been outside her door all night and into the day, and he had no complaints about their loyalty. At the moment, though, one of the Three Musketeers was missing.
“Hey, boys,” he said as he approached. “Where’s Rhamp?”
“In there with her.” Shuli rubbed his eyes like they were burning from lack of sleep and an existential exhaustion. “We’re getting ready to leave. He wanted to say goodbye—see you later, I mean.”
“Where you going?”
“Oh, you know. Just out. She’s stable, so we’re gonna go food up and have showers back at my place.”
“No field work,” Qhuinn warned. “Everybody’s off rotation. The King’s orders.”
Even L.W. nodded at that, which was a relief. Talk about your wildcards. The heir to the throne had been making everybody nervous for years, and now wasnotthe time for any reminders of that dynamic.
Qhuinn cracked the door. Lyric was sitting up in the hospital bed, and Rhamp was in the chair next to her. The two looked impossibly old, no trace at all of the young they’d once been showing. He was proud of the fact that they were adults, but sad to see the maturity, too.
Their innocence was totally gone now, the final vestiges of it seeming to have been burned away in the last twenty-four hours.
“Let’s give them a moment,” he murmured as he let the door re-close without entering.
Lying on a hospital bed she could barely remember being brought to, Lyric searched her brother’s face and tried to understand what Rhamp was saying to her.
“What do you mean… he was there.”
Sitting next to her on the clinic’s chair, her twin shook his head. “I don’t know what else to tell you. At the moment your whole body bounced back to life… I saw that guy standing over you at your feet, with his palm outstretched. I don’t fucking know.”
With a sense of heartbreak, she thought of being up at the door to the Fade. And what she and hergrandmahmenhad talked about. “Well, it doesn’t matter if he was there or not.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“I think he was the one who brought you back, Lyric.” Her brother put both of his hands forward. “I don’t know what went down between you two, and it’s none of my business, but I wanted you to be aware of what I saw.”
