J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [386]
Qhuinn stared hard at Blay. Blay stared hard at his beer.
“Why don’t you just tell me how to get there,” Blay muttered.
“And how are you going to handle your back?”
Blay took a long suck on his Sam. “Fine. But I want to finish my beer first. And I have to have something to eat. I’m starved.”
“Fine. What kind of food do you want.”
The two were a pair of Joe Fridays, stiff and staying to the facts.
I’ll meet you guys down there, John signed, and turned away. Man, the two of them not getting along upset the whole world order in a way. It was just wrong.
John left through the dining room and was all but jogging by the time he made it to the top of the grand staircase. Up on the second floor, he smelled red smoke and heard opera coming from Phury’s room—the poetic-sounding one he usually played.
Hardly the accompaniment for hard-core marking. Maybe they’d just gone to their separate bedrooms after an argument?
John crept up to Cormia’s room and listened. Nothing. Although the draft drifting out into the hall was perfumed by a lush, flowery fragrance.
Figuring it couldn’t hurt just to see if Cormia was okay, John lifted his knuckles and rapped on her door softly. When there was no answer, he whistled.
“John?” her voice said.
He opened the door because he assumed he was meant—
John froze.
Cormia was lying across her bed on a tangled mess of duvet covers and sheets. She was naked, with her back to the door, and there was blood . . . on the insides of her thighs.
She lifted her head over her shoulder, then scrambled to cover herself. “Dearest Virgin!”
As she snapped the duvet up to her neck, John stood stock-still, his brain trying to process the scene.
He’d hurt her. Phury had hurt her.
Cormia shook her head. “Oh . . . damn.”
John blinked and blinked again . . . only to see his younger self in a grungy hallway after what had been done to him had finished.
There had been things on the insides of his thighs, too.
Something in his face must have alarmed the hell out of her, because she reached for him. “John . . . oh, John, no . . . I’m okay . . . I’m okay—trust me, I’m—”
John turned and walked calmly out her door.
“John!”
Back when he’d been small and helpless, there had been no vengeance to be had against his attacker. Now, as he stalked the ten feet to Phury’s door, he was in a position to do something about his past and Cormia’s present. Now he was big enough and strong enough. Now he could stand up for someone who’d been at the mercy of a person stronger than they were.
“John! No!” Cormia came rushing out of her room.
John didn’t knock. No, there was no knocking. At this moment, his fists were not meant for wood. They were meant for flesh.
Throwing open Phury’s door, he found the Brother sitting on his bed with a blunt between his lips. As their eyes met, Phury’s face had guilt and pain and regret in it.
Which sealed the deal.
On a soundless roar, John launched himself across the room, and Phury did absolutely nothing to stop the attack. If anything, the Brother opened himself up to the pounding, falling back against his pillows as John punched him in the mouth and the eyes and the jaw over and over again.
Someone was screaming. A female.
People came running.
Yelling. Lot of yelling.
“What the fuck!” Wrath boomed.
John heard none of it. He was focused only on pounding the bloody hell out of Phury. The Brother was no longer his teacher or his friend, he was a brute and a rapist.
Blood ran on the sheets.
Which was only fucking fair.
Eventually someone peeled John off—Rhage, it was Rhage—and Cormia ran to Phury. He held her off, though, rolling away.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Wrath bit out. “Can we get a break around here?”
The opera in the background so didn’t match the scene: The majestic beauty was at total odds with Phury’s wrecked face, and John’s shaking rage, and Cormia’s tears.
Wrath wheeled on John. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I deserved it,” Phury said, wiping off his bloody lip. “I deserved it and worse.”
Wrath’s head whipped