Page 43 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

He left the duffle just inside the door, and congratulated himself for the stellar thinking that had made him take a shower before he’d left the clinic: He’d used the chair they provided and the grips on the wall, and that nozzle thingy.

So all he had to do was shuffle across to the king-sized bed and fall face-first onto the fluffy-as-Wonder-Bread duvet. As the thing puffed around him, pressing gently into his wounded body, he turned his head to the side, exhaled, and closed his eyes.

It was so quiet here. No beeping machines. No footsteps of people moving around the clinic. No hushed voices—

Knock.

“I’m good, Willhis.”

Knock-knock.

“I’m all good, Willhis!”

He heard the click of the door opening, and started wrenching around with a struggle. Though he wanted to curse, he held back. The doggen did not deserve to be on the receiving end of his frustration at the entire world.

Okay, the shit was mostly about Lyric. And that human—

Not the butler or another member of the staff.

L.W. stood there in the doorway, balanced on one crutch, still in those hospital scrubs. On his big body, it was like he was wearing a miniature set of them, his ankles showing, his tattooed lower abdomen, too. The shit was also super tight across his chest.

“What’s doing?” Shuli asked.

“Mind if I come in.”

Not exactly a question. But it sure as hell was closer to one than the guy usually got. “Yeah, sure.”

The heir to the throne closed the door and hesitated.

“Okay, you need to tell me what the fuck is going on.” Shuli tapped his temple. “?’Cuz my mind’s going in a lot of bad places, the longer you stand there looking like you have bad news to drop and no idea how to start the fucking conversation.”

Although considering all the fun they’d been having together lately, what could possibly make shit worse. Yes, the Brotherhood had accepted the story that they’d run into lessers and chased them behind that apartment building, but the lie they’d taken up to protect Lyric wasn’t sitting well.

Even though, really, Shuli would have done anything for that female.

L.W. limped in farther, stopping to look at the Rothko above a bureau. “I’ve been thinking.”

“So that’s why I smelled wood burning all day long,” Shuli muttered.

The fighter glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve never understood that expression.”

“Me neither.” Shuli shoved himself backwards, until he could lean against his pillows. “Human vernacular is a playground of nonsense. We can discuss clams that are happy, being on cloud nine, and that whole over-the-moon thing later.”

When L.W. just started limping from painting to painting, Shuli exhaled the flare of pain that had come with the repositioning, and waited. He’d never seen the male so tense.

“Whatever it is,” he found himself saying, “we’ll handle it.”

He couldn’t believe the temerity of the statement. The son of the great Blind King didn’t need help from anybody when he had Wrath in his corner. But clearly this shit was private.

The kind of private that people picked and chose who they shared it with.

“I’ve been a real asshole lately.”

Shuli lifted his brows. “Lately? Try your whole life.”

L.W. glared across the room. “Not when I was a young. I was good then. I was… a good kid.”

Shuli inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I wouldn’t know. But I take it you do.”

That proud, regal head turned back to a yellow and orange canvas. “It wasn’t until I hit my transition that I… changed.”

“Which is what’s supposed to happen.”

There was a long silence. Then L.W. seemed to talk to himself. “It wasn’t that bad, really. Right after. For, like, years, I was okay. I think the compensations started without my even being aware of them.”

The male moved on to the next painting, the one to the left of the white marble hearth that had never had a fire in it. Never would.

He hated the smell of hardwood burning, and then there was the mess.

“Lately, though…”

L.W. shook his head as he walked around to the twinsie canvas on the other side.

“I haven’t been able to keep things right,” he concluded as he turned to face Shuli. “You remember when you told me not to fuck around with Bitty? That she was too good for me.”

“I don’t remember phrasing it like that.”

“That was what you meant.”

“Not really. You’re the King’s son—from a bloodline perspective, you can’t get any better than your station.”

“I’m not talking about family trees. You said she deserved better, and you meant it.”

A strange feeling of foreboding came over Shuli, tightening the back of his neck. “What the fuck are we talking about here. Are you… do we have a psychological issue here. Like, a real one.”

The kind that made people you thought you knew turn out to be the sort of monsters that true crime enthusiasts talked about for generations.

Shuli measured L.W.’s upper body. Even if that leg wound slowed the guy down a little, it went without saying who was going to win if the fucker had a psychotic break right here, right now.

He eyed the duffle bag where the weapons were. He had a nine in the little table next to him, but there was no reaching for it without a big show of movement—and that was before you added in the injury to his own side.

L.W. took a long, slow inhale. “I can smell your fear.”

Okay, so there was no way to respond to that—

“I just… can’t see it properly.”

Shuli got real fucking still. “What are you talking about.”

The heir to the throne was silent for what felt like forever. And then he said in a low voice:

“I’m going blind.”