J. Ward - Lover Avenged

“When.”

Rehv sat down as he flipped the spout shut and knew better than to ask her if she wanted him to hold Nalla. As awkward as it was to eat, she wasn’t going to let that young go for a while, and that was okay. More than okay. To see her comfort herself with the next generation was a comfort to him.

“Mmm,” Bella murmured on the first bite.

In the quiet between them, Rehv allowed himself to go back to another kitchen, another time, way back when his sister was much younger and he was considerably less dirty. He recalled the particular bowl of Tony’s best that she didn’t remember, the one that she finished and wanted more of, but had had to fight against everything that bastard father of hers had taught her about females needing to be thin and never have seconds. Rehv had cheered silently as she’d crossed the kitchen in the old house and brought the cereal box back to her chair-as she’d poured herself another serving, he’d cried his blood tears and had to excuse himself to the bathroom.

He had murdered her father for two reasons: his mother and Bella.

One of his rewards had been Bella’s tentative freedom to eat more when she was hungry. The other had been knowing there would be no more bruises on his mother’s face.

He wondered what Bella would think if she’d known what he’d done. Would she hate him? Maybe. He wasn’t sure how much she recalled of all the abuse, particularly that which had been done to their mahmen.

“Are you okay?” she asked abruptly.

He rubbed his mohawk. “Yeah.”

“You can be hard to read.” She offered him a small smile, as if she wanted to be sure there was no sting in the words. “I never know if you’re okay.”

“I am.”

She looked around the kitchen. “What are you going to do with this house?”

“Keep it for at least another six months. I bought it a year and a half ago from a human, and I need to hold it a little longer or I’m going to get screwed on capital gains.”

“You always were good with money.” She leaned down to take another spoonful into her mouth. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Is there someone for you?”

“Someone how?”

“You know…a female. Or a male.”

“You think I’m gay?” As he laughed, she turned brilliant red, and he wanted to hug the shit out of her.

“Well, it’s okay if you are, Rehvenge.” She nodded in a way that made him feel as if she’d patted his hand in reassurance. “I mean, you’ve never brought any females around, ever. And I don’t want to presume…that you…ah…Well, I went to your room to check on you during the day and I heard you talking to someone. Not that I was eavesdropping-I wasn’t… Oh, crap.”

“It’s all right.” He grinned at her and then realized there was no easy answer to her question. At least, to the part about whether he had someone, that was.

Ehlena was…What was she?

He frowned. The answer that came to mind went deep into him. Way deep. And given the superstructure of lies that his life was built on, he wasn’t sure that kind of tunneling was a wise idea: His coal mountain was pretty damn unsteady to have shafts going so far below the surface.

Bella’s spoon slowly lowered. “My God…you have somebody, don’t you.”

He forced himself to answer in a way that would decrease the number of complications. Although that was like taking only one piece of garbage off the pile.

“No. No, I don’t.” He glanced at her bowl. “Do you want some more?”

She smiled. “I would.” As he poured, she said, “You know, the second bowl is always the best.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Bella patted the flakes down with the back of her spoon. “I love you, brother mine.”

“And I you, my sister. Always.”

“I think Mahmen is in the Fade watching over us. I don’t know if you believe in that kind of thing, but she did, and I’ve come to after Nalla’s birth.”

He was aware that they had almost lost Bella on the delivery table, and he wondered what she had seen in those moments when her soul had been neither here nor there. He’d never thought much about where you ended up, but he was willing to bet she was right. If anyone could watch over her decedants from the Fade, it would be their lovely, pious mother.

It gave him comfort and purpose.

His mother was never going to have to worry from up above about her issue. Not on his account.

“Oh, look, it’s snowing,” Bella said.

He glanced out the window. In the light thrown by the gas lamps along the drive, little white dots drifted down.

“She would have loved this,” he murmured.

“Mahmen?”

“Remember how she used to sit in a chair and watch the flakes fall?”

“She didn’t watch them fall.”

Rehv frowned and glanced across the table. “Sure she did. For hours, she would-”

Bella shook her head. “She liked what it looked like after they came down.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked her once. You know, why did she sit and stare out for so long.” Bella repositioned Nalla in her arms and smoothed a hand over the young’s sprinkling of hair. “She said it was because when the snow covered the ground and the branches and the rooftops, she remembered being on the Other Side with the Chosen, where everything was right. She said…after the snow fell, she was returned to before she had fallen. I never understood what that meant, and she never did explain that one.”

Rehv looked back out of the window. At the rate the flakes were falling, it would take a while before the landscape went white.

No wonder his mother had watched for hours.

Wrath came awake in darkness, but it was the delicious, familiar, happy kind. His head was on his own pillow, his back was against his own mattress, his covers were pulled up to his chin, and his shellan’s scent was deep in his nose.

He had been blissfully asleep for a long time; he could tell by how much he needed to stretch. And his headache was gone. Gone…God, he’d been living with the pain for so long, it was only in its absence that he realized how bad it had gotten.

With a massive sprawl, he tightened the muscles of his legs and arms until his shoulder cracked and his spine realigned and his body felt glorious.

Rolling over, he found Beth with his arm, slipping a hold around her waist from behind and curling himself into her so that his face was buried in the soft hair at the nape of her neck. She always slept on her right side, and the whole spooning thing was totally up his alley-he liked to surround her smaller body with his much larger one because it made him feel like he was strong enough to protect her.

He kept his hips back from her, though. His cock was rigid and full of the I-wants, but he was grateful just to lie with her-and not about to ruin the moment by making her feel awkward.

“Mmm,” she said, stroking his arm. “You’re awake.”

“I am.” And then some.

There was a shuffle as she eased around, moving in his arm until she faced him. “Did you sleep well?”

“Oh, yeah.”

When there was a gentle tug on his hair, he knew she was playing with the curled ends, and he was glad he kept it as long as he did. Even though he had to tie the heavy black load back when he went out to fight, and the shit took forever to dry-so long, in fact, that he had to use a hair dryer, which was too frickin’ girlie to believe-Beth loved the stuff. He could remember many a time she had fanned it out over her naked breasts…

Right, slowing that train would be a good plan. Much more of that kind of thing and he’d have to mount her or lose his damn mind.

“I love your hair, Wrath.” In the darkness, her quiet voice was like the touch of her fingers, delicate, devastating.