Page 98 of Lover Forbidden
“No, to explain why I’ve been acting like I have.” L.W. came over to the foot of the bed. “I don’t know how much time I have left to really fight. I want to get to Lash while I still have all my faculties and kill him.”
“Don’t you mean ‘destroy’?” Shuli fiddled with the sleeves of his red satin robe, and thought, hey, at least he wasn’t thinking about how much his body hurt now. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t know if the evil monster can be killed.”
“If that sire of his, the Omega, could be eradicated, he can, too. They’re made of the same shit. That’s why I’m looking for a location. That’s why I’m out there every hour I can be. I’ve got to find him before it’s too late.”
Shuli wagged his forefinger like a librarian. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep this up. Especially if you can’t—”
“I can see well enough. For now.”
And then the two of them just stared at each other.
“You lie,” Shuli said after a moment.
“About what.”
“You’re not trying to explain your behavior. You want me to be your accomplice.”
When eye contact and silence were all he got in return, he laughed in a short burst. “Wow.”
“You’re myahstrux nohtrum. You’re along for the ride.”
“I’m supposed to keep you alive, not be your Robin on some suicide mission.”
“This is not a suicide mission.” L.W. shifted the crutch in front of him and bounced the gray tip on the white carpet like he was pointing to things written on a board. “We’re trained to fight, killing slayers is our directive, and taking out the head of the Lessening Society is possible in pursuit of that goal. We just need to find out where Lash is, figure out how to get at him—and blow him the fuck up.”
“Payback for what he did to your father.” Shuli considered the motivation. “You know, the last time I saw you with the King, I got the impression you didn’t like him very much. Strange calling—revenge for a sire you can’t stand.”
“I don’t want him to stop me.”
“That’s why you hate him? Because you’re afraid he’s going to take your toy away?” Shuli shook his head. “I don’t buy it, but that’s your business. And I will tell you you’re wrong about all this.”
“Who cares? My personal convictions and your opinion are irrelevant to what I’m going to do.”
“Nah, this is not about that fee-fee bullshit.”
“Huh?” L.W. frowned. “Fee-fee—”
“Feelings. Emotion.” Shuli batted the air with his hand. “But I digress, you big, dumb, royal asshole. What you’re wrong about is my part in your grand plan. This is a suicide mission forme, not you. Did you hear what the Brothers were talking about down at the clinic over-day? There’s a plot against your father.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“They’re going to kill that Whestmorel guy. Soon as they find him.”
L.W. shrugged on the side that didn’t have the crutch. “As they should.”
“So what do you think is going to happen to me if I aid and abet the heir to the throne on an undisclosed, rogue mission to get to Lash. That’s treason against the throne because your ass is next in that fancy chair, you dark, brooding idiot. The King and the Black DaggerBrotherhood will absolutely kill me, and that’s true whether you succeed or fail.”
“They spared you last night.”
“They are not going to cut meanyslack on this one.” Shuli shook his head again. “You fucked me off in the field then, I had no control over that. What you’re talking about requires my full participation.”
“No one needs to know.”
“How thefuckdo you think that’s going to work.”
“Because I’m not saying shit, and neither are you.”
Shuli looked around his room, at all the paintings he’d bought with his dead parents’ money just to spite them. He wasn’t sure he even liked the blotchy fucking canvases from an artistic point of view. He’d bought them because they were a fuck-you to those two aristocrats. The truth was, if his brother hadn’t overdosed a year before they’d died, Shuli would have been out on the street without a dime. As it was, the “spare” got the goods by default. Probably because they were so grief-stricken, they forgot about revising their wills.
