Silly question. Like asking someone if they were prepared for a head-on collision.
“Stoked,” V muttered.
“Just focus on me.”
And V did . . . seeing the flecks of green in the cop’s hazel eyes and the contours of that busted nose and the five-o’clock shadow.
When the human grabbed V’s lower thigh and started lifting, V jacked up against the table, his head kicking back, his jaw straining.
“Easy, there,” the cop said. “Focus on me.”
Uh-huh, right. There was pain, and then there was PAIN. This was PAIN.
Vishous labored for breath, his neural pathways crammed with signals, his body exploding even as his outer skin stayed intact.
“Tell him to breathe,” someone said. Probably the human.
Yeah, that was going to happen. Not.
“Okay, on three I’m going to force the joint back into place—you ready?”
V had no clue who the guy was talking to, but if it was him, there was no way to answer. His heart was jumping and his lungs were stone and his brain was Las Vegas at night and—
“Three!”
Vishous screamed.
The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane’s head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony. . . .
And that was when he knew that he still loved her.
THIRTY-TWO
Up at the mansion, in Qhuinn’s bedroom, there was nothing but a whole lot of silence—which was typical when you dropped a bomb, be it real or metaphorical.
Jesus Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d said the words: Even though only he and Layla were in here, he felt like he’d gone to the top of a building in downtown Caldwell and bullhorned the announcement.
“Your friend,” Layla whispered. “Blaylock.”
Qhuinn’s heart froze. But after a moment, he forced himself to nod. “Yeah. It’s him.”
He waited for some kind of disgust or grimace or . . . even shock. Coming from where he did, he was all too versed in homophobia—and Layla was a Chosen, for godsakes, which made that old-school-glymera bull crap look positively enlightened.
Her beautiful stare lingered on his face. “I think I knew. I saw the way he looked at you.”
Well, that was no more. And . . . “It doesn’t bother you? That he’s another male?”
There was a slight pause. And then the answer she gave him transformed him in a curious way: “Not in the slightest. Why would it?”
Qhuinn had to look away. Because he worried about what was shining in his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Whatever for?”
All he could do was shrug.
Who’d have thought acceptance would be as curiously painful as all that rejection had always been.
“I think you’d better go,” he said roughly.