The Savior (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #17)

by J.R. Ward

The past was permanent in the same way the future was always just a hypothetical, two ends of a spectrum where one was concrete and the other air, and the instantaneous now, the single real moment, was the fixed point from which the weight of life hung and swung.

Jeez, you go rogue once and slaughter a bunch of humans after they torture your girlfriend, and suddenly you’re a leper.

You weren’t responsible for them and you couldn’t control them, but you were in charge of your response to them.

“You got him?” Murhder asked softly. Her honey-colored eyes shifted up to his. “Yes. I do.” Well, brace yourself, he thought. Because I’m very sure you got me, too.

“When do we ever know what we’re walking into,” he said in a low voice. “Destiny is not a straightaway. It’s cluttered with corners and all of them are dark. We make the turns we do… and find ourselves where we are.”

If you were loved, if you had people who cared about you, you could be by yourself and never feel alone. But if no one cared? You were isolated even in a crowd.

Strength did not exist unless it was tested. And he had been tested before.

Some were in your life for a season. Some were in your life for a reason. And then there was, of course, the third grouping: the lifelong relationships that you carried through all seasons and all reasons.

“I’m so sorry. We’re all so sorry. I wish you’d told us what really happened—we could have worked with you or… whatever, I’m not blaming you for the choice of staying silent. You had your reasons, you were protecting Xhex, and we get that. But we wish we’d known the truth.”

He’d said that there was no right or wrong way to honor the dead. The living could pay their respects in any way they chose. The important thing was that the deceased was sent unto the afterlife on a wave of love. Because it helped the departed souls find peace in their new place.