J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4 - J. R. Ward [476]
After a moment he dropped his hand and stood up, arranging himself, zipping up his pants. He went to the door, moving with that lethal grace he’d always walked with. As he looked over his shoulder, she realized they’d made love while he’d been fully armed. Fully dressed, too.
Oh, but that had only been sex, hadn’t it.
His voice was low. “I’m sorry—”
“Do not say that to me right now.”
“Then…thank you, Bella…for…everything. Yeah, really. I…thank you.”
And just like that he was gone.
John stayed behind in the gym as the rest of the class filed out to hit the locker room. It was seven at night, but he could have sworn it was three in the morning. What a day. Training had started at noon, because the Brotherhood wanted to go out early, and there had been hours of classwork on tactics and computer technology taught by two Brothers named Vishous and Rhage. Then Tohr had arrived right at sundown and the ass-kicking had started. The three-hour workout had been brutal. Running laps. Jujitsu. More hand-to-hand weapons training, including an introduction to nunchakus, or nunchucks.
Those two wooden sticks connected by a chain were a nightmare for John, exposing all his weaknesses, especially his god-awful hand-to-eye coordination. But he wasn’t about to give up. As the other guys left to go shower, he went back to the equipment room and picked up one of the sets. He figured he’d practice until the bus came and then shower at home.
He started spinning the nunchucks slowly at his side, the whirling sound oddly relaxing. Gradually increasing the velocity, he set them flying at a clip and then switched them to his left. Took them back. Again and again, until the sweat was once more coming out on his skin. Again and again and—
And he clonked the shit out of himself. Right on the head.
The blow made him weak in the knees, and after fighting the sag for a moment, he let himself sink down. Bracing himself with his arm, he put a hand to his left temple. Stars. Definitely seeing stars.
In the midst of all his blinking, soft laughter drifted up from behind him. The satisfaction of the sound told him who it was, but he had to look anyway. Glancing under his arm, he saw Lash standing about five feet away. The guy’s pale hair was wet, his street clothes sleek, his smile cool.
“You are such a loser.”
John refocused on the mat, not really caring that Lash had caught him nailing himself in the brain. The guy had already seen that in class, so there was no new humiliation here.
God… If he could only get his eyes to clear. He shook his head, stretched his neck…and saw another pair of nunchucks on the mat. Had Lash thrown them at him?
“No one likes you, John. Why don’t you just leave? Oh, wait. That would mean you couldn’t chase after the Brothers. Then what would you do all day?”
The guy’s laughter cut off abruptly as a deep voice snarled, “You don’t move, blondie, except to breathe.”
A huge hand appeared in John’s face and he looked up. Zsadist was standing over him, dressed in full war gear.
John grabbed hold of what was in front of him out of reflex and was pulled up easily from the floor.
Zsadist’s black eyes were narrow, shimmering with anger. “The bus is ready, so get your shit. I’ll meet you outside of the locker room.”
John hustled across the mats, thinking that when a male like Zsadist told you to do something, you did it fast. When he got to the door, though, he had to glance back.
Zsadist had Lash around the neck and had lifted the guy off the mat so his feet dangled. The warrior’s voice was graveyard cold. “I saw you put him on the ground, and I’d kill you right now for it, except I’m not interested in dealing with your parents. So listen good, boy. You ever do something like that again, I’m going to thumb out your eyes and feed them to you. We clear?”
In response, Lash’s mouth worked like a one-way valve. Air went