sofa.
As he tried to breathe, he held her hand hard, and that contact was all that kept him from sobbing like a fucking lightweight.
The world was gone…the world was gone…the world was-
“Wrath,” Mary said, “if you get back to work, it’ll help, and we can make this easier on you in the interim. There are solutions that can make things safer and help you reacclimate to the…”
As she talked, he didn’t hear her. All he could think of was no fighting again, ever. No easy way around the house, ever. No way to get even a blurry impression of what was on his plate, or who was at his table, or what Beth was wearing. He didn’t know how to shave or find the clothes in his closet or see where the shampoo or the soap was. How would he work out? He wouldn’t be able to get the weights he wanted or start the treadmill going or…shit, tie the laces on his running shoes-
“I feel like I’ve died,” he choked out. “If this is the way it’s going to be…I feel like the person I was…is dead.”
Mary’s voice came from directly in front of him. “Wrath, I’ve seen people get through exactly what you’re struggling with. My autistic patients and their parents had to learn to look at things in a new way. But it was not over for them. There was no death, just a different kind of life.”
As Mary spoke, Beth stroked the inside of his forearm, running her hand up and down the tattooed delineation of his bloodline. The touch made him think about the many males and females who had gone before him, their courage tested by challenges from within and without.
He frowned, abruptly embarrassed by his weakness. If his father and mother had been alive right now, he would have been ashamed for them to see the way he was acting. And Beth…his beloved, his mate, his shellan, his queen, should not have to witness him like this, either.
Wrath, son of Wrath, should not be bowing under the weight that was laid upon him. He should be shouldering it. That was what members of the Brotherhood did. That was what a king did. That was what a male of worth did. He should be bearing up under the burden, rising above the pain and the fear, standing strong not just for those he loved, but for himself.
Instead, he was falling down the stairs like a drunk.
He cleared his throat. And had to clear it once more. “I need…I need to go talk to someone.”
“Okay,” Beth said. “We can bring whoever it is to you-”
“No, I’ll get there by myself. If you’ll excuse me.” He stood up and stepped forward…right into the coffee table. Biting back a curse as he rubbed his shin, he said, “Would you just leave me here? Please.”
“May I…” Beth’s voice broke. “May I clean up your face?”
Absently, he wiped his cheek and felt wetness. Blood. He was still bleeding. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”
There was a soft shuffle as the two females walked over to the door, then the click of the lock as one of them turned the handle.
“I love you, Beth,” Wrath said quickly.
“I love you, too.”
“It’s…going to be all right.”
With another click, the door shut back into place.
Wrath sat down on the floor right where he was, because he didn’t trust himself to circumnavigate the library to get in a better position. As he settled in, the crackle from the fire gave him some frame of reference…and then he realized he could picture the room in his mind.
If he reached out to the right…yup. His hand brushed against one of the smooth legs of the table by the sofa. He rode the length up to the boxy bottom and patted across the surface of the thing to find…yes, the coasters Fritz kept stacked neatly there. And a small leather book…and the lamp base.
This was comforting. In some strange way, he had felt as if the world had disappeared just because he couldn’t see it. But in fact everything was all there still.
Closing his eyes, he sent out a request.
It was a long while before it was responded to, a long, long while before he was spirited away and found himself standing on a hard floor, beside a fountain that chattered softly. He had wondered if he would be blind here on the Other Side as well, and he was. Still, as with the layout of the library, he knew what the place looked like, even if he couldn’t see it. Over there to the right was a tree full of chirping birds, and in front of him, past the sprinkling fountain, would be the loggia with the columns that was part of the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters.
“Wrath, son of Wrath.” He did not hear the mother of the race approach, but then she levitated around such that her black robes never touched whatever floor was beneath her. “You have come unto me for what purpose.”
She knew damn well why he was here, and he wasn’t playing her game anymore. “I want to know if you did this to me.”
The birds fell silent, as if shocked by his temerity.
“Did what to you.” Her voice sounded the same as it had when she’d appeared at the Tomb with Vishous: distant and disinterested. Which kinda pissed a guy off when he was having trouble making it down his own stairs.
“My fucking sight. Did you take it away from me because I went out to fight?” He ripped his wraparounds off his face and tossed them across the slick floor. “Did you do this to me.”
In days gone by she would have lashed him until he bled for that kind of insubordination, and as he waited to see what came at him, he almost hoped she licked his ass with a lightning bolt.
There was no smiting, however. “What was going to be was going to be. Your fighting had nothing to do with your loss of sight, and neither did I. Now go back to your world and leave me to mine.”
He knew she had turned away, because her voice faded as she headed off in the opposite direction.
Wrath frowned. He’d come expecting a fight, and he wanted one. Instead? He got nothing to engage with, not even a row over his deliberate disrespect.
The radical shift in paradigm was so stark, for a moment he forgot all about his blindness. “What is wrong with you?”
He got no answer, just a door shutting softly.
In the Scribe Virgin’s absence, the birds stayed quiet, the delicate sound of falling water all that grounded him. Until someone else approached.
On instinct, he turned to the footfalls and assumed his fighting stance, surprised to find that he wasn’t as defenseless as he’d thought. In the absence of sight, his hearing filled out the picture that was no longer created by his eyes: He knew where the person was by the rustle of their robing and an odd click, click, click and…shit, he could even hear their heartbeat.
Strong. Steady.
What was a male doing here?
“Wrath, son of Wrath.” Not a male voice. A female one. And yet the impression he had was masculine. Or maybe it was just powerful?
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Payne.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me something, you plan on doing anything with those fists? Or are you just going to stand there?”
He dropped his arms immediately, as it was entirely inappropriate to raise a hand to a female-
The uppercut slammed into his jaw so hard, it whipped his head and shoulders around. Stunned, more out of surprise than pain, he fought to regain his balance. The second he did, there was a whizzing sound and he was pounded again, the next blow catching him under his jaw and kicking his skull back.
That was all she got in with the clean shots, though. His defensive instincts and his years of training responded even though he couldn’t see anything, his hearing functioning as his eyes, telling him where things like arms and legs were. He grabbed a surprisingly thin wrist and wrenched the female around-
Her heel made hard contact with his shin, the pain spearing up his leg and pissing him off as something like a rope swung into his face. He grabbed it and hoped it was a braid attached to the female’s-
Yanking it hard, he felt her body torque backward. Yup, attached to her head. Perfect.
