Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

just outside the dining room. Motioning her over, he put his arm around her shoulders, because he could tell she was feeling awkward.
    “This is the Chosen Layla.”
    “Just Layla,” she murmured as she extended her hand.
    In response, Blay’s father bowed deeply, and his mother curtsied.
    “Please, that’s not necessary,” the Chosen started, only to relax when the couple immediately dropped the formality.
    “My dear, Qhuinn has told us the blessed news.” Blay’s
mahmen
beamed. “How ever are you feeling?”
    Score number two for Blay’s ’rents. Qhuinn couldn’t believe how cool they’d been when he’d shared the news of the pregnancy—and they were just as easygoing as ever as they put Layla at ease.
    Man, they had been like this for as long as Qhuinn had known them, uncontaminated by all the
glymera’s
bullshit, unconcerned by thejudgment of the aristocracy, ready to do the right thing at the drop of a hat.
    No wonder Blay had come out so well….
    “He’s heading over,” V yelled from the pitch-black of the billiards room. “We’ve got to scatter, people—right now.”
    “Come with us,” Blay’s
mahmen
said as she tucked Layla’s arm into her own. “You need to make sure we don’t hit any furniture.”
    As they headed off, Layla glanced over her shoulder and beamed. “I’m so excited for you!”
    Qhuinn smiled back. “Thanks.”
    Cue a moment of nausea, he thought, as he turned and faced the entrance into the mansion.
    With the house quiet and the candles still, he waited, feeling numb all over.
    Showtime.

    Okay, this made no sense, Blay thought as he hotfooted it across the courtyard.
    “You look great!” Butch called out from the Pit’s front door.
    He still didn’t understand how he’d ended up in a tuxedo. Butch had laid out some kind of story about needing Blay to model the damn thing for Vishous in hopes of getting the guy to buy one. But that was crazy. Butch could have just thrown on one of the four he owned and paraded around himself.
    Besides, nobody talked V into anything. The Brother was as unpersuadable as a rock.
    Whatever—he just wanted to get this over with so he could head back upstairs—and hopefully find Qhuinn still in bed.
    As he bounded up the stairs to the grand entrance of the mansion, his slick shoes made the salt crackle like a fire, and as soon as he got inside the vestibule, he stamped his feet so the glossy leather didn’t get ruined. Putting his face into the security camera, he—
    The door opened, and at first he didn’t know what he was looking at. Everything was dark—no, that wasn’t true. There was candlelight glowing in every corner of the foyer, reflecting off the gold of the balustrade, and the chandeliers, and the mirrors….
    Qhuinn was standing in the middle of the great space. Alone.
    Blay walked through the threshold on feet that he couldn’t feel.
    His lover and his best friend was dressed in the most beautiful tuxedo Blay had ever seen—then again, that was less about the garment, more about the male who was wearing it: The black jacket set off his spiked hair, the white of the shirt made the male’s tanned skin look luminous, and the cut…was a reminder of how perfect that warrior body was.
    But that wasn’t what really got to him.
    It was those mismatched eyes, the blue and the green, that glowed so beautifully they put the votives to shame. Qhuinn seemed nervous, though, his hands fidgeting, his weight going back and forth in a pair of shiny shoes.
    Blay walked forward, stopping when he was in front of the fighter. And even as his brain started to churn over what all this meant, and began to come to some crazy conclusions, he had to grin like crazy. “You put your piercings back in.”
    “Yeah. I just…I wanted to make sure you knew this was me, you know.”
    As Qhuinn fingered the neat row of gunmetal gray hoops that ran up his ear, Blay leaned in and kissed those lips—and the hoop that was once again in the lower one. “Oh, I know it’s you. It’s all you—but I’m glad they’re back. I love them.”
    “Then they’re never getting taken out.”
    In the beat of silence that followed, Blay thought, Oh, God…was this really…maybe he’d misconstrued—
    Qhuinn got down on one knee. Just dropped right onto the depiction of an apple tree in full bloom.
    “I don’t have a ring. I don’t have anything fancy in my mind or on my tongue.” Qhuinn swallowed hard. “I know this is too early, and that