"John?" she said into a pillow.
Without thinking, he curled around her and smoothed her short hair. The instant he did, she seemed to fall right back to sleep.
A quick look at his watch told him it was four in the afternoon. They'd slept for hours, and if the growl in his stomach was anything to go by, she must be starving as well.
When he was sure she was out like a light again, he slipped free of her hold, and moved around quietly, writing her a quick note before drawing on his leathers and T-shirt.
In his bare feet, he padded out into the hall. Everything was quiet because there was no training here anymore, and that was a damn shame. There should have been shouts of sparring from the gym and the drone of lectures in the classroom and the slam of lockers being shut in the showers.
Instead, silence.
But he and Xhex weren't alone, as it turned out.
When he got to the office's glass door, he froze with his hand on the pull.
Tohr was asleep at the desk. . . well, on it. His head was down on his forearm and his shoulders were slumped.
John was so used to feeling anger toward the guy, it was a shock to have nothing of the sort light him up. Instead. . . he felt a crushing sadness.
He'd woken up next to Xhex this morning.
But Tohr was never, ever getting that again. He was never going to roll over and smooth Wellsie's hair. He was never going to go to the kitchen to bring her something to eat. He was never going to hug her or kiss her.
And he'd lost a baby along the way.
John opened the door and expected the Brother to snap up, but Tohr didn't. The male was out cold. Made sense, though. He'd been busy getting back into shape, eating and working out twenty-four/seven, and the effort was showing. His pants no longer hung off him and his shirts weren't sagging. But clearly the process was exhausting.
Where was Lassiter? John wondered as he went by the desk and into the closet. The angel usually stuck pretty close to the Brother.
Ducking into the hidden door in the supply shelves, he walked through the tunnel toward the house. As he went, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling stretched out far, far ahead of him, giving the impression of a predestined path--which considering how things were going was a comfort. When he came to a shallow set of stairs, he mounted them, entered a code, and went up another flight. Emerging into the foyer, he heard the TV in the billiard room and figured that was where the angel was.
No one else in the house would be watching Oprah. Not without a gun to his head.
The kitchen was empty, the doggen no doubt catching some food in their own quarters before they had to get First Meal made and set for the household. Which was just as well. He really didn't want help.
Moving fast, he snagged a basket from the pantry and filled the bitch up to the gunwales. Bagels. Thermos full of coffee. Jug of OJ. Cut fruit. Danish. Danish. Danish. Mug. Mug. Glass.
He was going for high calories and praying she liked sweets.
On that note, he made a turkey sandwich, just in case.
And for a different reason he slapped together a ham and cheese.
Striding out through the dining room, he headed back for the door beneath the grand staircase--
"Lot of food for two," Lassiter said, his usual smart-ass routine dialed down.
John wheeled around. The angel was in the doorway to the billiard room, lounging against the ornate archway. He had one boot crossed over the other and his arms linked across his chest. His golden piercings glinted, giving the impression there were eyes all over him, eyes that missed nothing.
Lassiter smiled a little. "So you're seeing things from a different angle now, are you. "
As recently as the night before John would have thrown back a fuck off, but now he was inclined to nod. Especially as he thought of the cracks in the hallway concrete that had been caused by the pain Tohr had been through.
"Good," Lassiter said, "and about damned time. Oh, and I'm not with him at the moment because everyone needs to be alone. Plus I got to have my O fix. "
The angel turned away, his blond-and-black hair swinging. "And you can shut it. Oprah's awesome. "
John shook his head and found himself smiling. Lassiter might be a metrosexual pain in the ass, but he'd brought Tohr back to the Brotherhood and that was worth something.