He didn't want to leave her. At this moment. Ten minutes from now. Tomorrow, next week, next month. . .
As she curled into him, he snagged a blanket from the side table and draped it over the two of them, even though the combination of their body heat was keeping them pretty damn toasty.
He was well aware of when she fell asleep - her breathing changed and her leg twitched from time to time.
He wondered if she was kicking him in the ass in her dreams.
He had shit to work on; that was for sure.
And no one to go to talk about it - it wasn't like he could ask Tohr for anything more than the advice he'd gotten on the fly tonight. And everybody else's relationships were perfect. All he ever saw at the dining table were happy, smiling couples - hardly the sounding board he was looking for.
He could just picture the response: You're having problems? Really? Huh, that's weird. . . maybe you could call in to the radio or some shit?
The only thing that would change would be whether that was delivered by someone with a goatee, a pair of wraparounds, a mink duster, a Tootsie Roll in his piehole. . . .
He had this moment of peace, though. And he and Xhex could build on it.
They were going to have to.
You were okay with me fighting. Right before we were mated, you said you were cool with it.
And he really had been. But that was before he'd seen her cut right in front of him.
The thing was. . . and as much as it pained him to admit this. . . the last thing he wanted to be was the Brother he admired the most. Now that he had Xhex properly, the idea of losing her and stepping into Tohr's boots was the single most terrifying thing he'd ever faced.
He had no idea how the Brother was getting out of bed every night. And frankly, if he hadn't already forgiven the guy for taking off and disappearing right afterward, he would have now.
He thought of that moment when Wrath and the Brotherhood had come to them in a group. He and Tohr had been in the office here at the training center, with the Brother calling home time and time again, hoping, praying for something other than voice mail. . . .
In the corridor outside the office, there were fissures in the massive concrete walls - in spite of the fact that the damn things were eighteen-inch-thick concrete: Tohr's release of energy from his anger and pain had been so great he had literally exploded himself to God only knew where, shaking the subterranean foundation until it cracked.
John still didn't know where he'd gone. But Lassiter had brought him back in bad shape.
He remained in bad shape.
Selfish though it was, John didn't want that for himself. Tohr was half the male he had once been - and not just because he'd lost weight - and though no one would have shown pity to the guy's face, each and every one of the fighters felt it behind closed doors.
Hard to know how much longer the Brother was going to last out there with the enemy. He was refusing to feed, so he was weakening, yet every night he went into the field, his need for revenge getting sharper and more consuming.
He was going to get himself killed. End of.
It was like triangulating the impact of a car into an oak tree: a simple matter of geometry. You just drew out the angles and trajectories and boom! There was Tohr, dead on the pavement.
Although, shit, he'd probably take his last breath with a smile, knowing he was finally going to be with his shellan.
Maybe that was why John was as stressed about the Xhex thing as he was. He was close to other people in the house, to his half sister, Beth, to Qhuinn and Blay, to the other Brothers. But Tohr and Xhex were his go-to people - and the idea of losing them both?
Fuuuuuck.
Thinking about Xhex in the field, he knew that if she was out there in those alleys, fighting the enemy, she was going to get hurt again. They all did from time to time. Most of the injuries were near misses, but you never knew when that line was going to be crossed, when a simple hand-to-hand engagement would get away from you and you'd find yourself surrounded.
It wasn't that he do
ubted her or her capabilities - in spite of that potshot that had come out of his mouth tonight. It was the odds he didn't like. Soon enough, if you rolled the dice over and over again, you were going to come up snake eyes. And in the larger scheme of things, her life was more important than one more fighter out in the field.
He should have thought about this a little more before going all, Yeah, sure, I'm tight with you fighting. . . .
"What are you thinking about?" she asked in the darkness.