As Phury stood on his one leg and his prosthesis, and thought about the days of his existence, and weighed the mettle of his marrow, he came up with only one reply.
“I’m here, aren’t I,” he pronounced. “I’m still standing, aren’t I. You tell me whether I have the fucking strength or not.”
She smiled a little then-though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she smiled.
The Scribe Virgin nodded once. “So be it, then, Primale. So it shall be as you wish.”
She turned and disappeared into her private quarters.
Phury exhaled as though someone had pulled a stopper out of his ass.
Holy. Shit.
He’d just blown apart the whole spiritual fabric of the race. As well as its biological one.
Man, if he’d known where the night was going to lead, he’d have had a bowl of Wheaties before getting off that bedding platform.
He turned and headed back to the Sanctuary. First stop would be Cormia; then the two of them would go to the Directrix and-
He froze as he threw open the door.
The grass was green and the sky was blue…and the daffodils were yellow and the roses were a Crayola rainbow of colors… and the buildings were red and cream and dark blue…
Down below, the Chosen were spilling out of their living quarters, holding their now colorful robes and looking around in excitement and wonder.
Cormia emerged from the Primale temple, her lovely face stunned as she looked around. When she saw him, her hands clamped to her mouth and her eyes started to blink fast.
With a cry, she gathered her gorgeous pale lavender robe and ran toward him, tears streaming down her cheeks.
He caught her as she leaped up to him and held her warm body to his.
“I love you,” she choked out. “I love you, I love you… I love you.”
In that moment, with the world that was his in transformation, and his
He finally felt like the hero he had always wanted to be.
Chapter Fifty-one
Back on the far side, in the Brotherhood’s mansion, John Matthew sat in a stuffed chair across from the bed where Tohr lay sleeping. The Brother hadn’t moved since they’d gotten home hours and hours ago.
Which seemed to be the SOP for tonight. It was like everyone in the house was asleep, a collective, pervasive exhaustion overwhelming them all.
Well, everyone except John. And the angel who was pacing in the guest room next door.
Tohr was on both their minds.
God, John had never expected to feel bigger than the Brother. He’d never expected to be physically stronger. He’d certainly never thought about taking care of the male. Or being responsible for him.
He had all of that going on and more, now, because Tohr had lost sixty pounds, easy. And had the face and body of a male who’d gone to war and been mortally injured.
It was weird, John thought. At first, he’d wanted the Brother to wake up right away, but now he was scared to see those eyes open. He didn’t know if he could handle being shut out. Sure, it would be understandable, given all that Tohr had lost, but… it would kill him.
Besides, as long as Tohr was still asleep, John wasn’t going to break down and sob.
See, there was a ghost in the room. A beautiful, red-haired ghost with a rounded pregnant belly: Wellsie was with them. In spite of her death, she was with them, and so was her unborn child. And Tohr’s
“Is that you?”
John’s eyes shot to the bed.
Tohr was awake and looking across the dim stretch that separated them.
John slowly stood up and straightened his T-shirt and jeans.
Tohr didn’t say anything, just kept looking him up and down.
“You’re D’s size. Big.”
God, that voice was exactly like he remembered it. Deep as the bass note of a church organ and just as commanding. There was a difference, though. There was a new hollowness in the words.
Or maybe that was coming from the blank space behind those blue eyes.
“I’m good.”
“Nah.” Tohr glanced over at the bathroom. “Shit, indoor plumbing. Been a while. And no, I don’t need help.”
It was painful to watch-something out of a future John didn’t think would come for hundreds and hundreds of years: Tohrment as an old male.
The Brother put a shaking hand on the edge of the sheets and dragged them off his naked body inch by inch. He paused. Then slid his legs out so they dangled to the floor. There was another pause before he heaved himself up, his once-wide shoulders straining to bear weight that was little more than that of a skeleton.
He didn’t walk. He shuffled like the advanced elderly did, head down, spine curving toward the floor, hands up as if he expected to fall at any moment.
The doors shut. The toilet flushed with a gurgle. The shower came on.
John went back to the chair he’d been in, his gut empty, and not just because he hadn’t eaten since the night before. Worry was all he knew. Concern the breath he drew into his chest. Anxiety the very beat of his heart.
This was the flip side of the parent/child relationship. Where the son worried about the father.
Assuming he and Tohr still had that whole connection going on.
He wasn’t sure. The Brother had stared at him like he was a stranger.
John’s foot ticked off the seconds, and he rubbed his palms on his thighs. Strange, everything else that had happened, even the stuff with Lash, seemed unreal and unimportant. There was only the now with Tohr.
When the door opened nearly an hour later, he went still.
Tohr was wearing a robe, and his hair was mostly detangled, though the beard was still ragged.
In that loose, unreliable shuffle, the Brother went back to the bed and stretched out with a groan, settling awkwardly into the pillows.
“This is not where I wanted to end up, John. I’m not going to front. This is not… where I want to be.”
As silence stretched, in his mind, he had the conversation he wanted to have with Tohr:
And most important
Instead, he rose to his feet and signed,
