And then it was time.
Qhuinn didn’t need to be told to brace the ever-loving shit out of himself. Bearing down on his hands, he locked his shoulders and his legs, ready to receive.
“Our flesh,” Wrath growled.
The king didn’t hold back. With the same unerring accuracy, he curled up a fist inside that ancient glove and slammed the thing into Qhuinn’s pec, the impact of those barbed knuckles so great, Qhuinn’s lips flapped in the gale that blew up and out of his lungs. Vision went bye-bye-birdie for a little bit, but when it came back, he got a crystal-clear of Wrath’s face.
The king’s expression was one of respect—and a total lack of surprise, as if Wrath had expected Qhuinn to take it like a male.
And on it went. Tohr was next in line, accepting the glove and the dagger, saying the same words, scoring his forearm, bleeding into the skull, striking at Qhuinn’s throat, then hitting as hard as a truck. And then Rhage. Vishous. Butch. Phury. Zsadist.
By the end of it, Qhuinn was bleeding from the wounds at his throat and his chest, his body was covered from sweat, and the only reason he wasn’t on the floor was the bitch grip he had on those pegs.
But he didn’t care what else they did to him; he was going to stay on his feet no matter what. He had no clue about the history of the Brotherhood, but he was willing to bet none of these guys had gone down like a bag of sand during their inductions—and he didn’t mind being the first in some senses, but not in a sacless one.
Besides, so far so good, he guessed: The other Brothers were standing around and grinning from ear to ear at him, like they totally approved of how he was handling shit—and didn’t that only make him even more determined.
With a nod, as if he’d been given an order, Tohr led the king back over to the altar and handed him the skull. Raising the collected blood high, Wrath said, “This is the first of us. Hail to him, the warrior who birthed the Brotherhood.”
A war cry burst forth from the Brothers, their combined voices thundering in the cave; and then Wrath approached Qhuinn. “Drink and join us.”
Roger. That.
With a sudden surge of strength, he grabbed that skull and looked right into the eye sockets as he brought the silver cup to his mouth. Opening the way to his gut, he poured the blood down his throat, accepting the males into him, absorbing their strength…joining them.
All around, the Brothers growled their approval.
When he was finished, he put the skull back in Wrath’s palms and wiped his mouth.
The king laughed deep in his massive chest. “You’re going to want to hang on to those pegs again, son….”
Annnnnnnnd that was the last thing he heard for a while.
Like a lightning bolt coming out of the sky and drilling him right in the head, a sudden burst of energy hit him, overtaking all of his senses. He jumped backward, finding the grips and locking on just as his body started to go into a seizure….
He had every intention of staying conscious.
But alas…sorry, Charlie. The maelstrom was too great.
As his body shook, and his heart flickered, and his mind fizzled like a firecracker, Boom! it was lights-out.
SEVENTY-ONE
“Sola, why you no tell me we have visitors?”
Sola paused as she put her backpack down on the countertop in the kitchen. Even though her grandmother was clearly waiting for an answer, she was not going to turn around until she was sure her expression showed none of the surprise she was feeling.
When she was ready, she pivoted on one boot.
Her grandmother was sitting at their little table, her pink-and-blue housecoat coordinating with the curlers in her hair and the flowered curtains behind her. At the age of eighty, she had the gracefully lined face of a woman who had lived through thirteen presidents, a World War, and innumerable personal struggles. Her eyes, however, burned with the strength of an immortal.
“Who came to the door, vovó?” she asked.
“The man with the”—her grandmother lifted her heavily knuckled hand and encircled her curlers—“dark hair.”
Crap. “When did he stop by?”
“He was very nice.”
“Did he leave his name?”
“So you did no expect him.”
Sola took a deep breath, and prayed that her neutral affect stayed in place in spite of the grilling. Hell, after having lived with her grandmother for how many years, you’d think she’d be used to the fact that the woman was a one-way street when it came to questions.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone, no.” And the idea that someone had come a-knocking made her put her hand on her bag. There was a nine in there with a laser sight and a silencer—and that was a very good thing. “What did he look like?”
“Very big. And the dark hair. Deep-set eyes.”
“What color were they?” Her grandmother didn’t see all that well, but surely she would remember that. “Was he—”
“Like us. He spoke with me in the Spanish.”
Maybe that erotic man she’d been tracking was bilingual—make that trilingual, given his strange accent.
“So did he leave his name?” Not that that would help. She didn’t know what the man she’d been tracking called himself.
“He said you knew him, and that he would be back with you.”
Sola glanced at the digital readout on the microwave. It was just before ten p.m. “When did he come by?”
“Not that long ago.” Her grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “You been seeing him, Marisol? Why you no tell me?”
At that point, everything flipped into Portuguese, their staccato speech overlapping, all kinds of I’m-not-dating-anyone interlacing with why-can’t-you-just-get-married. They’d had the argument so many times, they basically just reassumed their well-practiced parts in this overdone play.
“Well, I liked him,” her grandmother announced as she got up from the table and banged the surface with her open palms. As the napkin caddy with its payload of Vanity Fair jumped, Sola wanted to curse. “And I think you should bring him here for a proper dinner.”
I would, Grandmother, but I don’t know the guy—and would you feel this way if you knew he was a criminal? And a playboy?
“Is he Catholic?” her grandmother asked on the way out.
He’s a drug dealer—so if he is religious, he’s got incredible powers of reconciliation.
“He looks like a good boy,” her vovó said over her shoulder. “A Catholic good boy.” And that was that—for now.
As those slippers scuffed their way across to the stairs, undoubtedly there were all kinds of making the sign of the cross going on. She could just picture it.
With a curse, Sola dropped her head and closed her eyes. On some level, she couldn’t imagine that man being all warm and fuzzy just because a little old Brazilian woman opened the damn door. Catholic, her ass.
“Damn it.”
Then again, who was she to be sanctimonious? She was a criminal, too. Had been for years—and the fact that she’d had to provide for herself and her grandmother didn’t justify all the breaking and entering.
Who did her mystery man support, she wondered as the next-door neighbor’s dog began to bark. Those twins? They’d looked really self-sufficient. Did he have kids? A wife?
For some reason, that made her shudder.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared at the you-could-eat-off-of-it floor that her grandmother cleaned every day.
He had no right to come here, she thought.
Then again, she had visited his place uninvited, hadn’t she—
Sola frowned and lifted her eyes. The window that was framed by those ruffled pink half drapes was jet-black because she hadn’t turned any exterior lights on yet. But she knew someone was there.