Lover Avenged(193)

The piercing memory weakened his knees and he lost his balance, listing to the side until he started to topple off his boots. Beth was the one who caught him and gently eased him over so that when he collapsed it was on a sofa.

As he tried to breathe, he held her hand hard, and that contact was all that kept him from sobbing like a fucking lightweight.

The world was gone…the world was gone…the world was-

“Wrath,” Mary said, “if you get back to work, it’ll help, and we can make this easier on you in the interim. There are solutions that can make things safer and help you reacclimate to the…”

As she talked, he didn’t hear her. All he could think of was no fighting again, ever. No easy way around the house, ever. No way to get even a blurry impression of what was on his plate, or who was at his table, or what Beth was wearing. He didn’t know how to shave or find the clothes in his closet or see where the shampoo or the soap was. How would he work out? He wouldn’t be able to get the weights he wanted or start the treadmill going or…shit, tie the laces on his running shoes-

“I feel like I’ve died,” he choked out. “If this is the way it’s going to be…I feel like the person I was…is dead.”

Mary’s voice came from directly in front of him. “Wrath, I’ve seen people get through exactly what you’re struggling with. My autistic patients and their parents had to learn to look at things in a new way. But it was not over for them. There was no death, just a different kind of life.”

As Mary spoke, Beth stroked the inside of his forearm, running her hand up and down the tattooed delineation of his bloodline. The touch made him think about the many males and females who had gone before him, their courage tested by challenges from within and without.

He frowned, abruptly embarrassed by his weakness. If his father and mother had been alive right now, he would have been ashamed for them to see the way he was acting. And Beth…his beloved, his mate, his shellan, his queen, should not have to witness him like this, either.

Wrath, son of Wrath, should not be bowing under the weight that was laid upon him. He should be shouldering it. That was what members of the Brotherhood did. That was what a king did. That was what a male of worth did. He should be bearing up under the burden, rising above the pain and the fear, standing strong not just for those he loved, but for himself.

Instead, he was falling down the stairs like a drunk.

He cleared his throat. And had to clear it once more. “I need…I need to go talk to someone.”

“Okay,” Beth said. “We can bring whoever it is to you-”

“No, I’ll get there by myself. If you’ll excuse me.” He stood up and stepped forward…right into the coffee table. Biting back a curse as he rubbed his shin, he said, “Would you just leave me here? Please.”

“May I…” Beth’s voice broke. “May I clean up your face?”

Absently, he wiped his cheek and felt wetness. Blood. He was still bleeding. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

There was a soft shuffle as the two females walked over to the door, then the click of the lock as one of them turned the handle.

“I love you, Beth,” Wrath said quickly.

“I love you, too.”

“It’s…going to be all right.”

With another click, the door shut back into place.

Wrath sat down on the floor right where he was, because he didn’t trust himself to circumnavigate the library to get in a better position. As he settled in, the crackle from the fire gave him some frame of reference…and then he realized he could picture the room in his mind.

If he reached out to the right…yup. His hand brushed against one of the smooth legs of the table by the sofa. He rode the length up to the boxy bottom and patted across the surface of the thing to find…yes, the coasters Fritz kept stacked neatly there. And a small leather book…and the lamp base.

This was comforting. In some strange way, he had felt as if the world had disappeared just because he couldn’t see it. But in fact everything was all there still.

Closing his eyes, he sent out a request.

It was a long while before it was responded to, a long, long while before he was spirited away and found himself standing on a hard floor, beside a fountain that chattered softly. He had wondered if he would be blind here on the Other Side as well, and he was. Still, as with the layout of the library, he knew what the place looked like, even if he couldn’t see it. Over there to the right was a tree full of chirping birds, and in front of him, past the sprinkling fountain, would be the loggia with the columns that was part of the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters.