Likely by her hands: Even though they had staff, she had been the kind of female who liked to do things herself. Cooking. Cleaning. Folding laundry.
Making their bed at the end of every day.
There wasn't a lick of dust on any of the surfaces, not the dressers, his and hers. . . not the nightstands, his with the alarm clock, hers with the phone. . . not the desk with the computer that they had shared.
Goddamn, he couldn't breathe.
To take a little break from his crucible, he went into the bathroom with the idea of catching up on the oxygen requirements of his body.
He should have known better. She was all over the tiled space, too; just as she was all over the house.
Opening one of the cabinets, he picked up a pump bottle of her hand lotion and read the label, back and front - something he had never done when she'd been alive. He did the same with one of her backup shampoo bottles, as well as a jar of bath salts that. . . yup, smelled just as he remembered, lemon verbena.
Back to the bedroom.
Over to the walk-in closet. . .
He wasn't sure exactly when the shift occurred. Maybe it was as he went through her sweaters that were stacked in the cubbies. Maybe it was as he stared at her shoes in their neat, marching order on the tilted shelves. Maybe it was as he trolled through her blouses on their hangers, or no, her slacks. . . or maybe the skirts or the dresses. . .
But eventually, in the silence, in his aching loneliness, in his perennial grief. . . it dawned on him that this was all just stuff.
Her clothing, her makeup, her toiletries. . . the bed she had made, the kitchen she had cooked in, the house she had made their own.
It was only stuff.
And just as she was never going to fill out her mating gown again, she was never coming back here to claim any of this. It had all been hers and she had worn it, and used it, and needed every bit of it - but it wasn't her.
Say it - say that she's dead.
I can't.
You're the problem.
Nothing he had done in his mourning process had brought her back. Not the agony of reminiscing, not the mindless drinking, not the worthless weak tears or the resistance to another female. . . not the avoidance of this place, or the hours sitting alone with an empty hole in his chest.
She was gone.
And that meant that all of this was just stuff in an empty house.
God. . . this was not at all what he had expected to feel. He had come here to pave over No'One. Instead? All he'd found was a collection of inanimate objects with no more power to transform where he was at than they could walk and talk on their own.
Although, considering where Wellsie was, the idea that he had been looking for a way to stop the connection with No'One was craziness. He should be rejoicing at the idea he was thinking of another female.
Instead, it still felt like a curse.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Back at the Brotherhood mansion, No'One sat upon the bed she shared with Tohrment, her robe lying on the duvet next to her, her shift covering her flesh.
Silent. So silent this room was without him.
Wherever was he?
When she had returned herein following her work down in the training center, she had expected to find him waiting upon her, warm and mayhap asleep upon the duvet. Instead, the covers were all arranged, the pillows ordered at the headboard, the extra comforter, the one he used to warm himself, still folded neatly at the foot of the mattress.
He had not been in the weight room, the pool, or the gym. Nor had he been in the kitchen when she had stopped briefly to gather a refreshment for herself. Or the billiards room or library.
And he had not appeared for First Meal, either.