He squeezed Beth’s hand, then released it and gave the command to move forward to George. When he and the dog got to the vestibule, he opened the way through the various doors until they stepped free of the house.
Facing the courtyard, Wrath stood in the cold wind, his hair getting swept out and away from his head. Breathing in, he smelled snow, but felt nothing on his cheeks. Just the promise of a storm, apparently.
George settled into a sit as Wrath searched the sky he could not behold. If it was going to snow, was it cloudy yet? Or were the stars still out? What phase was the moon in?
The yearning in his chest made him strain his dead eyes in an attempt to pull out shapes or forms from the world. It used to work…gave him a headache, but it used to work.
Now he just got the headache.
From behind him, Beth said, “Do you want me to get you a coat?”
He smiled a little and looked over his shoulder, imagining her standing in the mansion’s great portal, the glow of the lights from inside framing her.
“You know,” he said, “this is why I love you so much.”
Her tone was heartbreakingly warm. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t ask me to go inside because it’s cold. You just want to make it easier for me to be where I want to stand.” He shifted around to face her. “To be honest, I ask myself why the hell you stay with me. After all the shit…” He motioned around at the facade of the mansion. “The constant interruptions of the Brotherhood, the fighting, the kingship. My being an asshole about keeping things from you.” He briefly touched his wraparounds. “The blindness…I swear, you’re going for sainthood.”
As she came over, the night-blooming rose of her scent grew stronger even in the stiff breeze. “That’s not it.”
She touched both his cheeks, and as he leaned in to kiss her, she stopped him. Holding his head steady, she lifted his sunglasses off his face and caressed his brows with her free hand.
“I stay with you because, whether you have sight or not, I see the future in your eyes.” His lids fluttered as she brushed gently across the bridge of his nose. “Mine. The Brotherhood’s. The race’s…such beautiful eyes you have. And you’re even braver to me now than ever before. You don’t need to fight with your hands to have courage. Or be the king your people need. Or be my hellren.” She put her palm in the center of his broad chest. “You live and lead from here. This heart…here.”
Wrath blinked hard.
Funny, transformative events were not always scheduled and not always expected. Yeah, sure, your change turned you into a male. And when you went through the mating ceremony, you were part of a whole, no longer just yourself. And the deaths and births around you made you view the world differently.
But every once in a while, from out of the blue, someone reaches the quiet place where you spend your private time and changes the way you see yourself. If you’re lucky it’s your mate…and the transformation reminds you once again that you are absolutely, positively with the right person: because what they say doesn’t touch you because of who they are to you, but because of the content of their message.
Payne nailing him in the face woke him up.
George brought him back his independence.
But Beth handed him his crown.
The thing was, if she could reach him in the mood he was in, she proved that it could be done. You could tap into what others needed to hear when they needed to hear it. The heart was the answer. She proved her own point.
He had ascended to the throne and done some things since then. But in his soul, he had been a fighter stuck in a desk job. Resentment had made him edgy, and even though he hadn’t been aware of it, he had had his eye on the exit every single night.
No sight. No exit.
And what if that was actually…okay. What if those Hallmark motherfuckers were right. Door closes, window opens. What if losing his vision was exactly what he needed in order to be…the true king of the race.
Not just a son bearing the obligations of his father.
If it was true that the loss of sight heightened other senses, maybe his heart was what made up the difference. And if that were true…
“The future,” Beth whispered, “is in your eyes.”
Wrath snatched his shellan to him hard, holding her so close he absorbed her all the way inside his body. As they stood together, united against the winter wind, the darkness in his body was pierced by a warm glow.
Her love was the light in his blindness. The feel of her was the heaven he didn’t need to see to know. And if she had this much faith in him, she was his courage and his purpose, too.
“Thank you for staying with me,” he said hoarsely into her long hair.