“He said no.”
Throe frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“He stated he wishes to know none of it. You shall never get an apology from him directly, but he has given you the key to the binds that entangle you, and he will accept no information from you.”
A brief anger shafted through him. Then what had it all been for?
Except… mayhap Xcor hadn’t considered that he’d feel the way he did. And Zypher was right; the idea of not being with those males was… like a death. After all these years, they were all he had.
“If I come back, I could be a security risk. What if I’ve made a secret pact with the Brotherhood. What if they are here.” He motioned around. “Or perhaps waiting elsewhere to follow me?”
Zypher shrugged with complete disregard. “We’ve been trying to meet up with them for months. Such a confluence would be welcome.”
Throe blinked. And then started to laugh. “You people are crazy.”
“Shouldn’t that be ‘we’?” Abruptly, Zypher shook his head. “You would never betray us. Even if you hated Xcor with your whole being, you would never compromise the rest of us.”
That was true, he thought. As for hating Xcor…
He stared down at the box in his arms.
There had been many times over the years when he had wondered at the turns and twists of his fate.
And it appeared tonight he was going to wonder anew at his destiny.
He had been unsure about the course against Wrath, but now that he had seen that Chosen female, he rather liked the idea of o’ertaking the throne and finding her and claiming her for himself.
Bloodthirsty? Yes, indeed—his earlier self would have never thought in such ways. But his newer self had gotten used to taking what he wanted, the cloak of civility having grown threadbare after years without his tending its delicate fibers.
If he could get to Wrath, he could find her again.…
Abruptly, he felt his mouth move and heard his own voice in the wind: “He is going to have to allow me to buy cell phones.”
Xcor stayed home all night long.
The problem was the damage to his forearms. He hated the fact that they had yet to heal, but he was smart enough to know that he could barely use them. Indeed, just gripping the spoon to feed himself soup was proving difficult.
A dagger against an enemy would be an impossibility. And then there was the infection risk.
It was the damn blood thing. Again. Mayhap if he had taken the time to feed from that whore back in the… fates, had it been in the spring?
Frowning, he performed an uneasy addition, one that yielded far too great a sum. No wonder he remained in difficult straits… and good thing he wasn’t completely blood crazed.
Or was he? Thinking back upon what he had wrought with Throe, it was difficult not to judge his actions by that condemning catchall.
With a curse, he hung his head, exhaustion and a strange kind of ennui settling upon his shoulders—
The back door at the kitchen opened, and given that it was too early for his soldiers to return, he knew that it was Zypher with the update on Throe’s departure.
“Was he all right?” Xcor asked without looking up. “Did he get off safely?”
“He is and he did.”
Xcor’s eyes shot up. Throe himself was in the archway, standing tall and proud, his eyes alert, his body strong.
“And he returneth safely,” the male finished in a grim tone.
Xcor immediately refocused on his soup and blinked hard. From a vast distance, he watched as the spoon in his hand shook out its contents.
“Did Zypher not tell you,” he muttered gruffly.
“That I was free? Aye. He did.”
“If you wish to fight, I shall set aside my meal.”
“I don’t know that you’re up to anything but feeding yourself the now.”
Damn sleeveless shirts, Xcor thought as he turned his arms inward so that less of the damage showed. “I could muster if need be. Where are your boots?”
“I don’t know. They took everything I had.”
“Were you treated well.”
“Well enough.” Throe came forward, the boards beneath his feet creaking. “Zypher said you wanted to know none of what I’ve seen.”
Xcor just shook his head.
“He also said that I would never get an apology out of you.” There was a long pause. “I want one. Now.”
Xcor put aside his soup and found himself searching the wounds he had given himself, recalling all that pain, all that blood—which had dried brown on the floorboards beneath him.
“And then what,” he said in a rough voice.
“You’ll have to find out.”
Fair enough, Xcor thought.
Without grace—not that he had any, anyway—he rose to his feet. At his full height, he was unsteady for too many reasons to count, and the off-balance feeling got even worse as he met the eyes of his… friend.
Looking Throe in the face, he stepped up and put out his palm. “I am sorry.”
Three simple words spoken loud and clear. And they didn’t go nearly far enough.
“I was wrong to treat you as I did. I am… not as much of the Bloodletter as I thought—as I have e’er wanted to be.”
“This is not a bad thing,” Throe said quietly.
“When it comes to the likes of you, I would agree.”
“And the others?”
“The others as well.” Xcor shook his head. “That would be as far as it goes, however.”
“So your ambitions have not changed.”
“No. My methods, though… they will ne’er be the same.”
In the silence that followed, he had no clue what he was going to get in return: a curse, a punch, a wretched row. The instability struck him as more than fair.
“Ask me to return to you as a free male,” Throe demanded.
“Please. Come back, and you have my word—though it be worth less than a pence—that you shall be accorded the respect you have long deserved.”
After a moment, his palm was engulfed. “All right then.”
Xcor released a shuddering breath, one born out of relief. “All right, indeed.”
Releasing the fighter’s hand, he bent down, picked up his mostly untouched bowl of food… and offered what little he had to Throe.
“You will allow me to transform communications,” the male said.
“Aye.”
And that was that.
Throe accepted the soup and went over to where Xcor had been sitting. Sinking down to the floor, he put the brass box on the far side of himself and began to eat.
Xcor joined him on the stain of the blood he had shed during the day, and in silence, they completed their reunion. But it was not over, at least not on Xcor’s part.
His regret stayed with him, the heaviness of the burden of his actions altering him forever, like an injury that had scarred over and healed wrong.
Or rather, in this case… healed right.
