Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood 7)

"What is it?" Lash drawled. "You read about how pizza causes high cholesterol or some shit?"

Not that the f**ker was going to live long enough to worry about his coronary arteries.

"It's nothing...nothing, it's nothing."

Grady tossed the paper aside and collapsed into the couch's cushions. As his unremarkable face paled out, he put one hand over his heart, like the thing was doing aerobics in his rib cage, and with the other he brushed back hair that didn't need any help moving away from his forehead.

"What the f**k is wrong with you?"

Grady shook his head, closed his eyes, and moved his lips as if he were talking to himself.

Lash looked down at the computer screen again.

At least the idiot was upset. That was good enough.

Chapter FORTY

The following evening, Rehv walked carefully down the curving staircase of his family's safe house, leading Havers back to the grand door the race's physician had come through a mere forty minutes ago. Bella and the nurse who had assisted were following as well. No one said a thing; there was only the unusually loud sound of footfalls on padded carpet.

As he went, all he could smell was death. The scent of the ritual herbs lingered deep in his nostrils, like the shit had taken shelter from the cold in his sinuses, and he wondered how long it would be before he didn't catch a whiff of it every single time he inhaled.

Made a male want to take a sandblaster and go to town up there.

Truth be told, he was in desperate need of fresh air, except he didn't dare move any faster. Between his cane and the carved handrail, he was managing okay, but after seeing his mother wrapped in linen, he wasn't just numb of body; he was head numb, too. Last thing he needed was to do an ass-over-ears down to the marble foyer.

Rehv took the last step off the staircase, switched his cane to his right hand, and all but lunged to open the door. The cold wind that hustled in was a blessing and a curse. His core temperature went into a free fall, but he was able to take a deep, icy breath that replaced some of what plagued him with the stinging promise of coming snow.

Clearing his throat, he put his hand out to the race's physician. "You treated my mother with incredible respect. I thank you."

Behind his tortoiseshell glasses, Havers's eyes were not professionally compassionate, but honestly so, and he extended his palm as a fellow mourner. "She was very special. The race has lost one of its spiritual lights."

Bella stepped forward to hug the physician, and Rehv bowed to the nurse who had assisted, knowing that she would no doubt prefer not having to touch him.

As the pair went out the front door to dematerialize back to the clinic, Rehv took a moment to stare up into the night. Snow was indeed coming again, and not just the dusting sort of the night before.

Had his mother seen the flurries last evening, he wondered. Or had she missed what had proven to be her last chance to see delicate crystal miracles drift down from the heavens?

God, there were not a countless number of nights for anyone. Not an innumerable host of flurries to be seen.

His mother had loved falling snow. Whenever it appeared, she had gone into the sitting room, turned the outdoor lights on and the inside lights off, and sat there staring out at the night. She would stay for as long as it fell. For hours.

What had she seen, he wondered. In the falling snow, what had she seen? He had never asked her.

Christ, why did things have to end.

Rehv shut out the winter show and leaned back against the stout wooden panels of the door. Standing before him, beneath the overhead chandelier, his sister was hollow-eyed and listless as she cradled her daughter in her arms.

She hadn't put Nalla down since the death, but the young didn't mind. Daughter was asleep in mother's arms, brow tight in concentration, as if she were growing so fast, even in her repose she didn't get a break.

"I used to hold you like that," Rehv said. "And you used to sleep like that. So deep."

"Did I?" Bella smiled and rubbed Nalla's back.

The onesie tonight was white and black with an AC/DC LIVE tour logo on it and Rehv had to smile. It was so not a surprise that his sister had ditched the whole cutesy-cutesy ducky-and-bunny shit for a newborn wardrobe that was kick-ass. And God bless her. If he ever had any young-

Rehv frowned and put the brakes on that thought.

"What is it?" his sister asked.

"Nothing." Yeah, only the first time in his life he'd ever thought about having offspring.

Maybe it was his mother's death.

Maybe it was Ehlena, another part of him pointed out.

"You want something to eat?" he said. "Before you and Z head back?"

Bella glanced up at the stairs, where the sound of a shower running drifted downward. "I would."

Rehv put a hand on her shoulder and together they walked down a hall hung with framed landscapes, and through a dining room that had walls the color of merlot. The kitchen beyond, in contrast to the rest of the house, was plain to the point of utilitarian, but there was a nice table to sit at, and he parked his sister and her young in one of the chairs that had a high back and arms.

"What do you fancy?" he said, going to the fridge.

"You have any cereal?"

He went over to the cabinet where the crackers and the canned goods were kept, hoping that...Frosted Flakes, yes. A big box of Frosted Flakes was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Keebler Club crackers and some Pepperidge Farm croutons.

As he took the cereal out, he turned the box to face him and looked at Tony the Tiger.

Running a fingertip over the lines of the cartoon, he said softly, "You still like Frosted Flakes?"

"Oh, completely. They're my fave."

"Good. That makes me happy."

Bella laughed a little. "Why?"

"Don't you...remember?" He stopped himself. "Why would you, though."

"Remember what?"

"It was a long time ago. I watched you eat some and...it was just nice, is all. The way you liked them. I liked the way you liked them."

He got a bowl and a spoon and the skim milk and brought the lot over to her, making a little place setting in front of his sister.

While she shifted the young around so her right hand was free to work the spoon, he opened the box and the thin plastic bag and started pouring.

"Tell me when," he said.

The sound of the flakes hitting the bowl, the little clapping noise, was all about normal, daily life and it was much too loud. Like those footsteps down the stairs. It was as if the silence of his mother's beating heart had turned the volume up on the rest of the world until he felt like he needed earplugs.

"When," Bella said.

He traded the cereal box for the Hood milk carton and tipped a stream of white into the flakes. "Once more with feeling."

"When."

Rehv sat down as he flipped the spout shut and knew better than to ask her if she wanted him to hold Nalla. As awkward as it was to eat, she wasn't going to let that young go for a while, and that was okay. More than okay. To see her comfort herself with the next generation was a comfort to him.

"Mmm," Bella murmured on the first bite.

In the quiet between them, Rehv allowed himself to go back to another kitchen, another time, way back when his sister was much younger and he was considerably less dirty. He recalled the particular bowl of Tony's best that she didn't remember, the one that she finished and wanted more of, but had had to fight against everything that bastard father of hers had taught her about females needing to be thin and never have seconds. Rehv had cheered silently as she'd crossed the kitchen in the old house and brought the cereal box back to her chair-as she'd poured herself another serving, he'd cried his blood tears and had to excuse himself to the bathroom.

He had murdered her father for two reasons: his mother and Bella.

One of his rewards had been Bella's tentative freedom to eat more when she was hungry. The other had been knowing there would be no more bruises on his mother's face.

He wondered what Bella would think if she'd known what he'd done. Would she hate him? Maybe. He wasn't sure how much she recalled of all the abuse, particularly that which had been done to their mahmen.

"Are you okay?" she asked abruptly.

He rubbed his mohawk. "Yeah."

"You can be hard to read." She offered him a small smile, as if she wanted to be sure there was no sting in the words. "I never know if you're okay."

"I am."