The King turned back in Lassiter’s direction. “So I guess the rumor was true.”
The angel spoke softly and patted the coffin. “We need what’s in here. Even if it’s not easily controlled.”
“’Scuse me,” Tohr said. “That brother is long dead. So aren’t his personality defects kind of a moot point? Just like anything he could do to help us?”
“It’s not him we’re interested in,” Lassiter countered. “It’s what’s in with him that we’re after.”
“We’re not opening up that coffin here.” Wrath shook his head. “There aren’t a lot of protocols I give a shit about, but if we’re exposing the body of a brother, that’s only happening in one place. Even if he was damned in death.”
Lassiter inclined his head. “I agree.”
As the other Brothers nodded their heads and fell silent, Rehv looked around at their fierce faces, their strong bodies . . . their resolute wills—and felt a deep honor, as an outsider, to witness the living, breathing tradition of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
All of these males, the King included, were part of the venerable history of service unto the race. And though the details and nature of that past were by definition untouchable and immutable, every once in a while, that which had gone before reached forward through the filaments of minutes and hours . . . to touch the present.
Something that had been killed a couple hundred years ago was going to be called into service now. And that was worthy of a moment of silence, of respect.
And there was another reason for the hush that permeated the garage’s cold confines: These coffins were a reminder that those who were here now would sometime in the future be among those who had gone before.
To be mortal meant one had to die.
As a chill that had nothing to do with dopamine rippled through Rehv’s mink-clad body, he thought of his beloved Ehlena—and had to look down at the concrete floor. Absently, he noticed that his Bally loafers, which were woven and black, were the perfect complement to his fine black slacks and the double-breasted jacket under his fur duster.
Normally, he would have been pleased to admire his wardrobe.
Now . . . all he could think of was dressing alone in that walk-in closet he shared with Ehlena. She had had to go into the clinic early. And she had forgotten to kiss him goodbye because she’d been in such a hurry—
A sudden, clawing need in the center of Rehv’s chest drew him backward, away from the assembled. Away from the coffins. Away from the problem that he had brought to the Brotherhood’s front door. Literally.
Slipping back into the house, he moved through both the mudroom and the kitchen, heading out into the foyer. As he came up to the grand staircase, he went around to the side and opened the hidden door.
The subterranean tunnel that connected the Pit, the mansion, and the training center was a straight shot of concrete through the earth, and he made as good time as he could given the way that dopamine he had to take created numbness in his legs and feet. Thank God for his cane.
He emerged through the supply closet into the office, then pushed through the glass door and strode forth into the training center proper.
Following his blood in the veins of his female, he went down to the clinical area and stopped in front of the closed door of an examination room.
Knocking softly, he wanted to break the panel apart with his bare hands—
“Is that my hellren?” came Ehlena’s muffled voice.
Rehv pushed his way in. His beloved female was over at the desk, typing into the computer. Dressed in scrubs, she had a surgical net on her hair, surgical booties on her Crocs, and the tight brows of concentration with which he was well familiar.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at her. And think of that first time he had seen her, in Havers’s old clinic. She had come into an examination room to check him into the system, and he had been . . . obsessed from the start—
Ehlena turned and smiled. “This is such a nice surprise!”
Wordlessly, he walked over and took her into his arms, gathering her up and out of the rolling chair. Closing his eyes, he held on to her.
“Are you okay?” she said as she stroked his back through the mink. “Rehv, what’s wrong?”
“I just had to see you.”
“Did something happen?”
How did he answer that, he wondered, without alarming her. And he wasn’t thinking about the Book, or magic in the wrong hands, or what might be in any of those coffins. No, he was thinking about whether or not love actually survived even the cold hand of death. Ask any romantic and they’d say it was true—hell, if you believed in the Fade, it was true. You got your forever with your soul mate. But if you were a skeptic?