As the sound of a lightning strike made her ears sting, L.W. screamed and blood went everywhere. Beth lunged forward on a stupid instinct and then caught herself. Underneath V’s hulking body, her son’s right foot changed position, and not because he’d rolled his ankle.
His right thigh was growing, the leg extending down the bed.
And then he screamed again as something else snapped out of alignment, out of joint, out of place.
All she could do was stand there in the corner, holding back her own wailing as tears flowed down her face. There was no stopping this, no way to medicate this away because fate had taken the wheel. The outcome was already written somewhere, already determined, because free will didn’t mean shit and destiny was an avalanche that there was no reversing.
All she could do was pray to Lassiter.
And even that was bullshit because he wasn’t going to intervene. He couldn’t.
At some point, Beth ended up at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped together over her thundering heart, her mouth blabbering as she begged for mercy to no one and nothing in particular, her eyes squeezing shut on the flow of tears.
As piece by piece, her son broke apart.
Chapter Eleven
Not just Tohr, but V, too.
As Beth stepped across a second threshold behind Wrath, she entered a land of books and bags. Shelves ran floor to ceiling around the entire living area, the spines of the countless volumes like a crowd of people, all different sizes, shapes, colors. On the floor, gym duffels were scattered around, various pieces of computer equipment in some, athletic stuff crammed into others. Random jackets were strewn on the sofas and chairs, stacks of old-school files were on the counters in the kitchen—there was no food anywhere—and a pile of shoes by the door mixed shitkickers of various ages and conditions with a rainbow’s worth of Crocs.
“We’re down here,” came the greeting. “My patient is so happy you’re here.”
The mumbling that followed was all V, deep and low, with “fuck” used as a comma.
“Annnnnnd he’s cheerful as a Christmas card,” Rhage commented as he popped a fresh grape Tootsie Pop into his mouth.
“Always glad to see us,” Wrath muttered as he started for the hallway to the bedrooms.
“Wait!” Beth snagged his hand. “The floor’s—”
“A mess. I know.”
The brief smile that was sent her way was nice, but she didn’t buy it. Her mate was tense from lobe to sole, and thank God for George. Somehow, the golden managed to pilot a coursethrough the debris field. For two people who kept their working environments in total order, where V and Jane lived was like a closet on the verge of needing a dumpster and a couple of trips to Goodwill. Was everything clean? Yes, absolutely. Did they care about the space? Nope, not at all.
They were too busy saving lives, each in their own ways: Security and medicine.
The hallway to the bedrooms was likewise cluttered, but at least the crowding was relegated to the walls here. The narrow chute was hung with diplomas in the names of Jane Whitcomb and her alias, Whitney Jayne. Depending on how far the certifications went back, she had varying letters as tagalongs: M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S.
She’d kept studying and learning all these years, honing her skills and her knowledge base in the human world under a blanket of anonymity. As far as her former colleagues knew, she was long dead—and this was also true, but ghosts could do a lot in the real world, and thank God for it. Jane was the surgeon anybody with a mortal wound would want when it came to stitching things back up. And considering how often the Brotherhood and the fighters required her particular skills? It was almost divine intervention that V had fallen in love with her and brought her into the vampire world.
It certainly was divine intervention that she’d stayed in it.
And her resurrection, if that was the term, was one of the few things V had ever thanked his mother, the Scribe Virgin, for.
Down at the end of the corridor, the door into the primary bedroom suite was open, and the great black hole that was revealed was lit by black candles.
“I’m fine, true,” came the cranky greeting before they even got in range.
“That why there’s a bandage holding your brains in?” Rhage tossed back from the living area.
“Fuck off, Hollywood.”
“How we doin’,” Wrath asked as he stepped into the room.
After her mate cleared the jamb, Beth got a gander at what was propped up on the bed, and all she could do was shake her head. V did indeed have a bandage all around his nose, and given the wrapping under his nostrils, it did kind of seem like the thing was trying to hold his gray matter inside the skull where it was supposed to be. But God, the damage. Just like Tohr, the Brother had purple rings around both his eyes, and there was a lot of swelling. Plus, right over the tattoos that marked his temple, there was a gash that went into his black hairline, and he also had a big bruise running over his bare shoulder.
The seat belt, she thought. Holding him in place on impact.
