The Beast

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.

“I saw the Fade,” he said quietly.

“Did you?” She seemed to shudder, the bed transmitting a subtle tremor from where she sat. “It’s really scary to hear that. What was it like?”

He frowned. “White. Everything was white, but there was no light source. It was weird.”

“I would have found you, you know.” She took a deep breath. “If you hadn’t come back, I would . . . I don’t know how, but I would have found you.”

The exhale he released lasted a lifetime for him. “God, I needed to hear that.”

“Did you think otherwise?”

“No. Well, except for wondering if it was possible. You must have thought the same or you wouldn’t have worked so hard to save me.”

There was a quiet moment. “Yes,” she whispered. “I did want to save you.”

“And I’m glad it worked.” Really, he was. Honest. “I, ah . . .”

“You know that I love you so much, Rhage.”

“Why does that sound like a confession?” He forced a laugh. “I’m just kidding.”

“I really hate death.”

Okay, something was up. And not just about him. She sounded strangely . . . defeated, which was not the affect of a female who had dragged her hellren’s sorry ass back from death’s door.

Like, literally.

Rhage fumbled around to find her hands, and when he took hold of them, they trembled. “What else happened tonight? And don’t say nothing. I can sense your emotion.”

He couldn’t smell it, though. There was too much lesser in his nose and in his digestive tract. You want to talk about fucking GERD?

“It’s not as important as you.” She shifted up and kissed him on the mouth. “Nothing is as important as you.”

Where are you? he wondered to himself. My Mary . . . where have you gone?

“God, I’m tired,” he said into the silence between them.

“Do you want me to leave you so you can sleep?”

“No.” Rhage squeezed her hands and felt like he was trying to tether her to him. “Not ever.”

* * *

In the quiet of the hospital room, Mary found herself studying Rhage’s face as if she were trying to re-memorize the features that she knew darn well were indelibly marked in her brain. Then again, she wasn’t actually dwelling on all that ungodly beauty. She was looking for some courage inside herself. Or something.

You’d think, given her profession, she’d be better in a moment like this.

Tell him, she thought. Tell him about Bitty and her mother, and the fact that you fucked up on your job and you feel like a failure.

The trouble was, all that confession-oriented blabber seemed so selfish considering he’d died only about an hour ago: It was like running up to someone who’d been in a bad car accident and wanting to explain to them how your night had sucked, too, because you’d gotten a speeding ticket and a flat tire.

“I would have absolutely come and found you somehow.” As she repeated the words she’d already spoken, she knew he’d hit the nail on the head—because she did feel like she had something to confess. “Really. I would have.”

Great, now she was sick to her stomach.

Except God, how could she possibly tell him that she’d fought so hard to save him not because of them and their relationship, or even his Brothers and the tragedy his loss would have been to the whole household, but because of someone else entirely? Even if that someone else and all her problems were an arguably noble cause? Even if that third party was a child newly orphaned in the world?

It just seemed like such a betrayal of the two of them and their life together. When you found true love, when you’d been granted that gift, you didn’t make life-and-death decisions based on anybody else’s situations or problems. Unless it was your child, of course—and heaven knew that she and Rhage would never, ever have any children.

Okay, ouch. That hurt.

“What hurts?” Rhage asked.

“Sorry. Nothing. I’m sorry—it’s just been a long night.”

“I know the feeling.” He released her hands and stretched his enormous arms wide, the muscles carving out of his skin and throwing sharp shadows. “Come lay down. Let me feel like a male instead of a slab of meat—I wanna hold you.”