Shifting his hand up, he put it over his beating heart just to reassure himself he still had one. Or a bag of skin and a skeleton, as it were. Like this room, really: Without illumination, and essentially empty, just four walls and a ceiling. Was this horrible, aching pain what Blay had felt? Like, after that showdown in his parents' basement - when Qhuinn had been prepared to leave Caldwell, and made it clear that there were gonna be no ties between them anymore? Or maybe after that time they'd kissed in the clinic, and Qhuinn had refused to go any further? Or following that final collision when they had nearly come together, right before Blay's first date with Saxton? There was no reason to lose his soul, too.Īn hour later, maybe two, maybe six, Qhuinn lay naked between cool sheets, staring up in the dark at a ceiling he could not see. He'd long ago lost his heart to that male. Those heated, glossy, mismatched eyes had been the stuff of legend.Īs his voice resonated inside his own skull, he resolved to listen to himself. He couldn't afford to go any deeper in this. Putting his head in his hands, he tried to breathe calmly, think rationally, act reasonably. Up there in that airplane, looking over the dark night, I didn't think I was going to make it. I almost died tonight - that sets a male straight. This was not the kind of thing he wanted to explain to anyone: outside of Qhuinn's room, hard-on obvious, body shaking like he had his own personal earthquake going on. In the recesses of his mind, he prayed that the hall stayed empty. The suffocation in his chest was getting worse, and abruptly his vision was replaced by black-and-white checkerboard squares.įiguring he was about to pass out, he sank down onto his haunches and put his head between his knees. And soon enough, after the shock wore off - maybe at nightfall, maybe next week, maybe a month from now - he was going to go back to his closed-off, hands-off, distant self.Īnd all that effort wasn't doing any good. It was hard to believe it was permanent, however.

Yeah, Qhuinn meant what he was saying in this heady moment - there was no doubting that. This 'eye-opener' was undoubtedly tied to that plane ride, but as with a heart attack victim resuming his piss-poor diet soon afterward, the 'revelation' probably didn't have a long shelf life. The trouble was, he had a feeling this wasn't going to last. Facing death did tend to be followed by a come-to-Jesus chaser. Then again, the turnaround did make some kind of sense. He never surrendered - not his principles, not his weapons, never, ever himself. This submission was the opposite of everything that defined Qhuinn as a male. The male was not only speaking the God's honest as he knew it in his heart he was at peace with laying himself vulnerable like this.īlay closed his lids briefly. And it was honest: Qhuinn's mismatched eyes were without shadows - or doubts.

Black dagger brotherhood book 11