Written on the mirror, revealed by the steam, were the words, I love you, Jane.
The quick and the dead are all the same. Everyone’s just looking for home.
And bottom line, without John by her side, everything seemed to be just a big, resounding meh.
And for all he had learned to bandage himself up on the outside, the wound remained just as bad and deep as the moment it had been made – when it became obvious that the one male he wanted above all others was never, ever going to be with him.
With his fantastic mane of multicoloured hair, Phury should have been in Hollywood’s league with the ladies, but he’d stuck with his vow of celibacy. There was room for one and only one love in his life, and it had been slowly killing him for years.
To her, saving grace meant you got to live out your life like a normal person: You were healthy and strong, an the prospect of death was just some far-off, barely acknowledged hypothetical. A debt to be paid off in a future you couldn’t imagine.
He thought about all the holes in him, the blank places, the voids where others felt things. When it came down to it, he was really just a screen, more empty than solid, his emotions blowing through him, only angry catching and holding.
This was the gift of recovery, he thought. The ability to be here in this moment with the female he loved and be fully aware, fully awake, fully present. Undiluted.
United by their clasped hands, they became again the two halves, the light and the dark. The Destroyer and the Savior. A whole.
Sorry, you’re on the ride now, and there’s no getting off in the middle.
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.
The one good thing about the Angels was they always colored within the lines. They had to. Suckers.
Great rationalizations. All of which her adrenal gland middle-fingered and then carried right on.
Look upon me, Mistress. Watch as I wither!
You are the male I might have been. You are the potential I had and lost. You are the honor and the strength and the kindness she needs. You’ll take care of her. I want you to take care of her.
He tasted each one of them. The raw power and majesty of Wrath. The vast strength of Rhage. The burning, protective loyalty of Phury. The cold savagery of Zsadist. The sharp cunning of Vishous.
It was a universal truth among males that anytime you saw a guy get it in the nuts, you experienced a shot of phantom pain in your own croquet set.
Unfortunately, beer was only a short-term answer. And head transplants had yet to be approved by the FDA.
That human, he’s a lesser waiting to happen, in my opinion – nothing less, nothing more.
The pair of them were staring at the computer screen like two dogs watching animal planet: very focused, but incapable of turning up the volume or changing the channel. -Manny and Butch.