And the why—when she really focused on the question—felt wrong, all wrong, and yet she wasn’t going to stop.
At first, the flare of warmth didn’t register in the midst of all her emotions. There was too much in the forefront of her mind, and the temperature change was so very subtle. The heat soon became impossible to ignore, however.
Blinking her eyes, she frowned down at her hands.
She didn’t dare take her palms away to see what was happening underneath. “Rhage? Rhage … are you staying with us?”
The heat quickly became so intense, it radiated up her arms and warmed the air she breathed as she leaned over her mate. And then she felt a thrashing, as if the beast were rolling around—
Without any warning, Rhage threw open his mouth, dragged in a giant inhale, and jerked his torso off the ground, throwing her back on her ass. As her hands went flying, the tattoo was revealed and it was …
The depiction of the dragon had lost its contours, its colors having swirled together and yet remaining distinct, like one of those old-fashioned spin-art things she’d done at fairs when she was little.
She could no longer see the bullet wound.
There was a collective gasp, followed by some serious WTF-ing, and then a number of hallelujahs that were uttered with a Boston accent.
“Mary?” Rhage choked out in confusion.
“Rhage!”
Except before she could reach for him, he began to cough in great spasms, his head locking forward, his distended belly clenching, his jaw extending.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mary said as she reached forward, even though it wasn’t like she could do anything to help. Hell, the medical professionals looked equally confused, and they were the ones with the M.D.s after their names—
Rhage coughed the damn bullet out.
Right into her hand.
With one last, great heave, something came flying from his mouth and she caught the pointed piece of lead on reflex—as Rhage abruptly started breathing in deep, easy draws like nothing had ever been wrong with him.
Turning the thing over on her palm, she started laughing.
She couldn’t help it.
Standing the slug between her thumb and forefinger, she held it up for the Brothers and the docs and the fighters—because Rhage was still blind. And then she straddled her mate’s outstretched legs and took his face in her hands.
“Mary…?” he said.
“I’m right here.” She smoothed his hair back. “And so are you.”
Instantly, he calmed even further, a smile pulling at his mouth. “My Mary?”
“Yes … I’m right here.”
And then, dear Lord, she was crying so hard that she became as blind as he was. But it didn’t matter. Somehow the beast had done the job and—
“Mary, I…”
“I know, I know.” She kissed him. “I love you.”
“Me too, but I’m going to throw up.”
And with that, he moved her gently out of the line of fire, turned to the side, and vomited all over Vishous’s shitkickers.
EIGHT
It was a helluva way to come back from the dead.
As Rhage tossed his cookies all over the place, his brain was nothing but scrambled eggs—
Okay, not a good idea to think of eggs in any form.
Round number two of the abdominal evacs took over his body, contorting him from head to foot, and as he let his guts do the talking, he heard V’s dry voice overhead.
“Not my night,” the Brother muttered. “So not my night with the barfing.”
Huh? Rhage thought, before letting it go. All he really cared about, aside from the fact that he could now breathe and speak again, was his Mary. Sticking his arm out, he went in search of contact with her again—and she grabbed his palm right away, clasping him, holding on, both soothing him and giving him energy.
The instant the connection was made, his confusion started to ebb.
No, that wasn’t exactly right. He had no idea how he’d managed to go from standing in front of the door to the Fade, faced with a choice that he was stunned to be confronted by even though he’d been aware that he’d been dying … to somehow slamming back into his own body and hearing his Mary’s most perfect voice clear as day, without the radio static of fear and pain.
None of that mystery had been cleared up—but he just didn’t give a fuck. As long as his Mary was with him? The rest was shit he could—
“Hurt?” he blurted. “Anyone hurt?”
Had the beast—
“Everyone is fine,” she told him.
“I’m sorry about being sick.” God, the post-party visual blackout was awful—but he’d take it over a dirt nap any night and twice on Sundays as the humans would say. “I’m sorry—”
“Rhage, we need to get you into the RV. And no, I’m not going to leave you—Jane’s just going to check your vitals and then we have to get out of here. It’s not safe.”
Oh, right. They were at the campus, in the battlefield, no doubt sitting ducks—
With an explosion of memory, everything came back to him. The argument with V … the bum’s rush out into the field …
The bullet through his heart.
With his free hand, he slapped against his chest, fumbling around to find a hole, feeling for blood—and finding that though there was a wash of sticky wetness down his torso … there was no discernible wound.
Just a strange patch in the center that seemed to glow with the heat of a banked fire.
And that was when the itching started. Beginning with the area over his heart, it shifted around in a solid patch, tracing over his ribs on one side, tickling under his arm, moving to the center of his back.
It was the beast, getting back into position. But why?
Yeah, file that one at the end of a very long line of huh-whats?
“Mary,” he said into his blindness. “Mary…?”
“It’s all right—let’s just get out of here together, and when we’re safe, I’ll explain everything—or at least tell you what I know.”
Over the next hour, his shellan made good on that promise—but when did she ever let anyone down? She stayed beside him every inch of the way, from when he was hefted onto a gurney and given a bumpy ride over to Manny’s RV … from the rough evac off the overgrown campus to the smooth glide of the paved roads to the highway … from the stop-and-go of the gate system that protected the Brotherhood’s training center … to the at-last arrival and processing into his recovery room at the clinic.
The trip exhausted him—then again, he spent most of it throwing up lesser parts and choking on their foul-tasting black blood. And it was funny: Usually, he suffered through this aftermath part pissed off and ready for the suffering to be over. Tonight? He was so fucking grateful to be alive he didn’t care that he had the world’s worst stomach flu/food poisoning/seasickness thing going on.
You’re going to fucking die tonight!
Damn it, Vishous was always right. Except Rhage had somehow beaten the prediction and come back from the Fade: For some reason, by some miracle, he was back—and he didn’t think it was because the Scribe Virgin had done him a solid. She had already made a lottery-win deposit in his existential account when she’d saved his Mary, and besides, for the past couple of years, the Mother of the Race had been as out of touch as that kooky old relative you’d just as soon have backed off anyway, thank you very much.
So had his brother been wrong? The short answer to that was yup, considering Rhage was currently lying in a hospital bed instead of on some cloud up in the sky.
But why?
“Here,” his Mary said. “I’ve got what you need.”
True on so many levels, he thought as he turned his head toward the sound of her voice. When a series of bubbles tickled his nose, he shuddered in relief.
Plop-plop, fizz-fizz, fuck, yeah.
“Thank you,” he mumbled—because he was afraid that if he tried to enunciate things too much he was going to start hurling again.
He drank everything that was in the glass and sagged back against the pillow—and then the sound of Mary putting the empty down and the feel of her weight on the mattress made him tear up for some stupid reason.