Lover Unleashed

Silly question. Like asking someone if they were prepared for a head-on collision.

“Stoked,” V muttered.

“Just focus on me.”

And V did . . . seeing the flecks of green in the cop’s hazel eyes and the contours of that busted nose and the five-o’clock shadow.

When the human grabbed V’s lower thigh and started lifting, V jacked up against the table, his head kicking back, his jaw straining.

“Easy, there,” the cop said. “Focus on me.”

Uh-huh, right. There was pain, and then there was PAIN. This was PAIN.

Vishous labored for breath, his neural pathways crammed with signals, his body exploding even as his outer skin stayed intact.

“Tell him to breathe,” someone said. Probably the human.

Yeah, that was going to happen. Not.

“Okay, on three I’m going to force the joint back into place—you ready?”

V had no clue who the guy was talking to, but if it was him, there was no way to answer. His heart was jumping and his lungs were stone and his brain was Las Vegas at night and—

“Three!”

Vishous screamed.

The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane’s head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony. . . .

And that was when he knew that he still loved her.

THIRTY-TWO

Up at the mansion, in Qhuinn’s bedroom, there was nothing but a whole lot of silence— which was typical when you dropped a bomb, be it real or metaphorical.

Jesus Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d said the words: Even though only he and Layla were in here, he felt like he’d gone to the top of a building in downtown Caldwell and bullhorned the announcement.

“Your friend,” Layla whispered. “Blaylock.”

Qhuinn’s heart froze. But after a moment, he forced himself to nod. “Yeah. It’s him.”

He waited for some kind of disgust or grimace or . . . even shock. Coming from where he did, he was all too versed in homophobia—and Layla was a Chosen, for godsakes, which made that old-school- glymera bull crap look positively enlightened.

Her beautiful stare lingered on his face. “I think I knew. I saw the way he looked at you.”

Well, that was no more. And . . . “It doesn’t bother you? That he’s another male?”

There was a slight pause. And then the answer she gave him transformed him in a curious way: “Not in the slightest. Why would it?”

Qhuinn had to look away. Because he worried about what was shining in his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

All he could do was shrug.

Who’d have thought acceptance would be as curiously painful as all that rejection had always been.

“I think you’d better go,” he said roughly.

“Why?”

’Cause he was strongly considering a job as a lawn sprinkler, and he didn’t want to go all weeping-willow in front of anyone. Even her.

“Sire, it is all right.” Her voice was rock-solid serious. “I judge you not by the sex of whom you love . . . but by how you love them.”

“Then you should hate me.” Christ, why the hell was his mouth still going? “Because I broke his fucking heart.”

“So . . . he knows not how you feel?”

“Nope.” Qhuinn narrowed his eyes at her. “And he’s not going to, clear? No one knows.”

She inclined her head. “Your secret is safe with me. But I know well the way he regarded you. Mayhap you should tell him—”

“Let me save you from a lesson I learned the hard way. There are times when it is too late. He’s happy now—and he deserves that. Fuck it, I want him to have love, even if I’m just watching it from on the sidelines.”

“But what about you?”

“What about me.” He went to drag his fingers through his hair and realized he’d cut it all off. “Listen, enough with this . . . I only told you because I need you to know that this shit between you and me isn’t about you not being good enough or attractive enough. Honestly? I’m done with being with other people sexually. I’m not doing that anymore. It gets me nowhere and . . . yeah. I’m finished with all that.”

How ironic. Now that he wasn’t with Blay, he was being faithful to the fucker.

Layla came across to him and sat down on the bed, arranging her legs and smoothing her robe with her elegant, pale hands. “I am glad you told me.”

“You know . . . so am I.” He reached out and took her palm. “And I’ve got an idea.”

“Indeed?”

“Friends. You and me. You come here, I’ll feed you, and we’ll hang together. As friends.”

Her smile was incredibly sad. “I must say . . . I always knew you cared not for me in that special way. You touched me with great restraint and showed me things that enraptured me—but beneath the flush of passion that I felt, I knew. . . .”

“You’re not in love with me, either, Layla. You just aren’t. You felt a lot of physical shit, and that made you think it was emotional. The trouble is, body needs a hell of a lot less than the soul does to connect.”

She placed her free hand over her heart. “The sting is there.”

“Because you’ve had a crush on me. That’ll fade. Especially when you meet the right guy.”

God, check his shit out. From slut to camp counselor in a week. Next up: a guest stint on The-fucking-View.

He extended his forearm. “Take my vein so you can stay longer on this side and figure out what it is that you want from life—not what you’re supposed to be or do, but what you want. I’ll even help you if I can. God knows I’m well-versed in being lost.”

There was a long moment. And then her green eyes shifted to his. “Blaylock . . . knows not what he is missing.”

Qhuinn shook his head grimly. “Oh, he’s very aware of it. it. Trust me.”

Cleanup was not a cinch.

As Jane rolled a bucket and mop out from the housekeeping closet, she ran through the reordering that was going to be necessary to get her supplies back where they needed to be: They’d used up a hundred packages of gauze; her needle-to-thread ratio was a joke; they were straight out of wrap bandages. . . .

Opening the door to the exam room with her butt, she swung the pail around using the mop head and then took a breather. There was blood everywhere on the floor, and also down the walls. Wads of red-stained white gauze were the Freddy Krueger equiv of dust bunnies. Three biohazard bags were full to the point of needing an antacid for the bloating.

And a paaaartridge in a pear treeeeeeeeeeee . . .

Confronting the aftermath, she realized that if Manny hadn’t been with her, they might have lost one of the Brothers. Rhage, for instance, could have bled out. Or Tohr—because what had looked like a simple shoulder injury had turned out to be oh, so much more.

Manny had ended up having to operate on him. After he’d finished doing surgery on Vishous.