Qhuinn looked up, his blue and green eyes searching for, and finding, Blay’s stare. “I’m just trying to figure out how to honor a choice that has broken my heart.”
As the cold wind wandered through the panorama of grief, Blay felt more powerless than he had in his entire life.
“Whatever you want to do,” he said softly, “we support you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Qhuinn was lost, but he wasn’t ungrounded in the fact that his brother’s remains were frozen to the snow. If he wanted to move Luchas, he was going to have to get rough with that body that had been so badly broken. He was going to have to shove and push, yank and pull—and for reasons that he wasn’t clear on, he feared the sound of dead limbs disengaging from the ice.
Then again, was the why of that really such a fucking mystery?
Forcing his brain to work, he tried on the implications of the whole move thing. Like, where would he take Luchas? “Anywhere but here” was fine, except for the total insufficiency of that plan. Sure, he could transport his brother out of this forest, and into the warmth and shelter of the training center, but then what?
It wasn’t like Manny and Doc Jane were going to work some medical magic and revive things. And dead bodies did not rest well at room temperature. As ghoulish as it was, he couldn’t ignore what would happen as the remains warmed up.
He thought back to Selena’s passing, to when Trez had lit that funeral pyre and the flames had consumed his love. Qhuinn had been in the wings for all that. He had never thought he would so soon be on the main stage.
Yet here he was.
As he sat where he was in snow, he was aware of the cold clawing past the parka Blay had put on him, and he had the sense his lack of decision-making was a delay tactic that made no damned sense. It wasn’t like he was waiting to wake up from a nightmare… or for reality to give him another fact pattern.
One that didn’t involve his brother deciding to go out in that storm.
In a quick series of hypotheticals, he imagined Luchas stepping free of the cave. Walking forward. Struggling against the wind, the temperature. He pictured his brother breathing in snowflakes and blinking his eyes against the gusts… fighting for his balance, leaning on that cane.
Given how quickly V had arrived with the SUV, it was obvious that Luchas hadn’t gotten far. But that wasn’t much of a news flash. Luchas had struggled with just walking on level floors.
Staring down at the body, Qhuinn became obsessed with details he would never know. Had Luchas fallen a couple of times and gotten himself back up? Or had he just collapsed here? What had he thought of as he had stared out across the snowy ground? Had there been pain? There must have been. Freezing to death was painful… right?
Or had he been so consumed with ending his suffering that the process of dying had been an afterthought?
Qhuinn would never know. The only thing he was sure of was that Luchas had chosen this. After so much agony, after Lash’s torture, after the months and years since the raids… the male had decided to close the door on hope. On love. On the future.
As a wave of emotion swamped Qhuinn, he knew he couldn’t stay in neutral. He had to deal with this.
And that was when he saw Vishous out of the corner of his eye.
Well,
not all of the male.
Specifically his gloved hand.
When Qhuinn looked up into the diamond-hard stare of the brother, V’s expression was remote. “You sure you want to do that, son?”
“He chose this place. He… picked this. I’m just trying to think of what he’d want.” Qhuinn shook his head. “And although I don’t know much, I’m sure that tearing him up to get him off this ground is not what he would have wished for his remains.”
“I’ll do whatever you want.” V lifted his curse. “But there’s no going back.”
“There’s no going back already.”
“Fair enough.”
Qhuinn blindly reached for Blay, and as always, his mate was right there, clasping that which had been outstretched.
V dropped to his knees. The brother took his time removing his lead-lined glove, tugging the insulation off his fingers one by one. It was as if he were giving Qhuinn all kinds of opportunity to change his mind.
Qhuinn simply watched as the brilliant glow was unsheathed. The energy in V’s palm was so strong, it burned the eye, but he did not look away.