The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8

by J. R. Ward

  At least when she gave it to others. Turned on herself, it felt selfish.

  So…she was waffling on the date. With her shift ending close to dawn, it wasn’t as if she had time to go home and check on her father first. As it was, she and the male who’d asked her out would be lucky to get even an hour of chatting at the all-night diner before encroaching sunlight put an end to things.

  And yet she had been looking forward to going out with a desperation that made her feel guilty as hell.

  God…how typical. Conscience pulling her one way, loneliness another.

  In the reception area, she beelined for the nursing supervisor, who was at the front desk computer. “I’m so sorry I’m—”

  Catya stopped what she was doing and reached out a hand. “How is he?”

  For a split second, Ehlena could only blink. She hated that everyone at work knew about her father’s problems and that a few had even seen him at his worst.

  Though the illness had stripped him of his pride, she still had some on his behalf.

  She did a quick pat on her boss’s hand and stepped out of range. “Thanks for asking. He’s calmed down and his nurse is with him now. Fortunately, I’d just given him his meds.”

  “Do you need a minute?”

  “Nope. Where are we?”

  Catya’s smile was more grimace than grin, as if she were biting her tongue. Again. “You don’t have to be this strong.”

  “Yes. I do.” Ehlena looked around and kept her wince to herself. More of the staff were coming at her from down the hallway, a ten-strong posse riding shotgun on a truckload of concerned purpose. “Where do you need me?”

  She had to get free of—No luck.

  Soon all but the OR nurses who were busy with Havers had formed a circle around her, and Ehlena’s throat closed up as her colleagues threw out a chorus of how-are-yous. God, she was as claustrophobic as a pregnant female stuck in a hot elevator.

  “I’m fine, everyone, thanks—”

  The last of the staff came over. After expressing her sympathy, the female shook her head. “I don’t mean to bring up work….”

  “Please do,” Ehlena blurted.

  The nurse smiled with respect, like she was impressed by Ehlena’s fortitude. “Well…he’s back in an exam room. Should I get out a quarter?”

  Everybody groaned. There was only one he out of the legions of male patients they treated, and coin bingo was typically how the staff decided who had to deal with him. Farthest from the date lost.

  Generally speaking, all of the nurses kept a professional distance from their patients, because you had to, or you’d burn out. With him, though, the staff stayed separate for reasons other than job-related ones. Most of the females got nervous around him—even the toughest ones.

  Ehlena? Not so much. Yes, the guy had some Godfather in him, those black pin-striped suits and his cropped mohawk and his amethyst eyes throwing off a don’t-f-with-me-if-you-want-to-keep-breathing vibe. And it was true, when you were shut into an exam room with him, there was the impulse to keep your eye on the exit in case you needed to use it. And there were those tattoos on his chest…and the fact that he kept his cane with him as if it were not just an aid for walking, but a weapon. And…

  Okay, so the guy made Ehlena nervous, too.

  And yet she cut through an argument over who got to have the year 1977. “I’ll do it. It’ll make up for my being late.”

  “Are you sure?” someone asked. “Seems like you’ve already paid your dues tonight.”

  “Just let me get some coffee. What room?”

  “I parked him in three,” the nurse said.

  Amid a cheer of, “Attagirl,” Ehlena went to the staff room, put her things in her locker, and poured herself a mug of hot, steaming perk-your-ass-up. The coffee was strong enough to be considered an accelerant and did the job nicely, wiping her mental slate clean.

  Well, mostly clean.

  As she sipped, she stared at the banks of buff-colored lockers and the pairs of street shoes tucked here and there and the winter coats hanging on pegs. In the luncheon area, folks had their favorite mugs on the counter and the snacks they liked on the shelves, and sitting on the round table there was a bowl full of…what was it tonight? Little packs of Skittles. Above the table was a bulletin board covered with flyers for events and coupons and stupid comic-strip jokes and pictures of hot guys. The shift roster was next to it, the whiteboard marked with a grid of the next two weeks that was filled in with names in different colors.

  It was the detritus of normal life, none of which seemed significant in the slightest until you thought about all those people on the planet who couldn’t keep jobs or enjoy an independent existence or spare the mental energy on little distractions—like, say, the fact that Cottonelle toilet paper was fifty cents off if you bought the twelve-pack of the double rolls.

  Taking it all in, she was reminded yet again that going out into the real world was a luck-of-the-draw privilege, not a right, and it bothered her to think of her father holed up in that awful little house, wrestling with demons that existed only in his head.

  He’d once had a life, a big life. He’d been a member of the aristocracy and had served on the council and been a scholar of note. He’d had a shellan he adored and a daughter he’d been proud of and a mansion renowned for its celebrations. Now all he had were delusions that tortured him, and though they were only perception, never reality, the voices were a jail no less ironclad for the fact that no one else could see the bars or hear the warden.

  As Ehlena rinsed out her mug, she couldn’t help thinking of the unfairness of it all. Which was good, she supposed. Even with all she saw on her job, she hadn’t gotten used to suffering, and she prayed she never did.

  Before she left the locker room, she did a quick check in the full-length mirror next to the door. Her white uniform was perfectly pressed and clean as sterile gauze. Her stockings were without runs. Her crepe-soled shoes were smudge-and scuff-free.

  Her hair was as frazzled as she felt.

  She did a quick pull-free, retwist, and scrunchie-up, then headed out for exam room three.

  The patient’s chart was in the clear plastic holder mounted on the wall by the door, and she took a deep breath as she picked it out and opened it up. The thing was thin, considering how often they saw the male, and there was almost no information listed on the front, just his name, a cell phone, and a next of kin who was a female.

  After she knocked, she walked into the room with confidence she didn’t feel, her head up, her spine straight, her unease camo’d by a combo of posture and professional focus.

  “How are you this evening?” she said, as she looked the patient right in the eye.

  The instant his amethyst stare met hers, she couldn’t have told a soul what had just come out of her mouth or whether he replied. Rehvenge, son of Rempoon, sucked the thought right out of her head, sure as if he’d drained the tank of her brain’s generator and left her with nothing to catch a mental spark off of.

  And then he smiled.

  He was a cobra, this male; he truly was…mesmerizing because he was deadly and because he was beautiful. With that mohawk and his hard, smart face and his big body, he was sex and power and unpredictability all wrapped up in…well, a black pin-striped suit that clearly had been made for him.

  “I’m good, thank you,” he said, solving the mystery as to what she’d asked him. “And you?”

  As she paused, he smiled a little, no doubt because he was fully aware that none of the nurses liked being in the same enclosed space with him, and evidently he enjoyed this fact. At least, that was how she read his controlled, hooded expression.

  “I asked how you were doing?” he drawled.

  Ehlena put his chart down on the desk and took her stethoscope out of her pocket. “I’m very well.”

  “You sure about that.”

  “Absolutely positive.” Turning to him, she said, “I’m just going to take your blood pressure and your
heart rate.”

  “My temperature, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want me to open my mouth for you now?”

  Ehlena’s skin flushed, and she told herself it was not because that deep voice of his made the question seem as sexual as a lazy stroke over a naked breast. “Er…no.”

  “Pity.”

  “Please take off your jacket.”

  “What a great idea. I totally take back the ‘pity.’”

  Good plan, she thought, or she was liable to feed the word back to him with the thermometer.

  Rehvenge’s shoulders rolled as he did what she’d asked him to, and with a casual flick of the hand, he tossed what was clearly a piece of menswear art onto the sable coat he’d carefully draped over a chair. It was odd: No matter what the season was, he always had one of those furs on.

  Things were worth more than the house Ehlena rented.

  As his long fingers went to the diamond cuff link on his right wrist, she stopped him.

  “Could you please roll up the one on the other side?” She nodded toward the wall beside him. “More space for me on your left.”

  He hesitated, then went to work on his opposite sleeve. Taking the black silk up past his elbow and onto his thick biceps, he kept his arm turned into his torso.

  Ehlena took the blood pressure equipment from a drawer and ripped it open as she approached him. Touching him was always an experience, and she rubbed her hand on her hip to get ready. Didn’t help. When she came in contact with his wrist, as usual the current that licked up her arm landed in her heart, James Browning the damn thing until the shimmy-shimmies had her sucking back a gasp.

  With a prayer that this wouldn’t take long, she moved his arm into position for the cuff and—“Good…Lord.”

  The veins running up through the crook of his elbow were decimated from overuse, swollen, black-and-blue, as ragged as if he’d been using nails, not needles on himself.

  Her eyes shot to his. “You must be in such pain.”

  He rolled his wrist out of her grasp. “Nope. Doesn’t bother me.”

  Tough guy. Like she was surprised? “Well, I can understand why you wanted to come in to see Havers.”

  Pointedly, she reached out and rotated his arm back around, gently prodding at a red line that was traveling up his biceps, heading in the direction of his heart.

  “There are signs of infection.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  All she could do was raise her eyebrows. “You ever hear of sepsis?”

  “The indie band? Sure, but I wouldn’t think you’d have.”

  She shot him a look. “Sepsis as in an infection of the blood?”

  “Hmm, you want to lean over the desk a little and draw me a picture?” His eyes drifted down her legs. “I think I’d find that…very educational.”

  If any other male had pulled that kind of line, she’d have slapped them down until they saw stars. Unfortunately, when it was that heavenly bass voice doing the talking and that amethyst stare doing the walking, she didn’t really feel leched upon.

  She felt caressed by a lover.

  Ehlena resisted the urge to V8 her forehead. What the hell was she doing? She had a date tonight. With a nice, reasonable, civilian male who’d been nothing but nice, reasonable, and very civil.

  “I don’t have to draw you a picture.” She nodded down at his arm. “You can see for yourself right there. If you don’t treat this, it’s going to go systemic.”

  And even though he wore fine clothes like every tailor’s dream mannequin, death’s cold gray cloak would not look good on him.

  He held his arm against his tight abs. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  Ehlena shook her head and reminded herself that she couldn’t save people from their own stupidity just because she had a white coat hanging from her shoulders and the letters RN at the end of her name. Besides, Havers was going to see that in all its gory glory when the doctor examined him.

  “Fine, but let’s take your reading on the other arm. And I’m going to have to ask you to take your shirt off. The doctor’s going to want to see how far up that infection goes.”

  Rehvenge’s mouth lifted in a smile as he reached for his top button. “You keep this up and I’ll be naked.”

  Ehlena looked away fast and wished like hell she found him sleazy. She could sure use an injection of righteous indignation to help fend him off.

  “You know, I’m not shy,” he said in that low voice of his. “You can watch if you like.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Pity.” In a darker tone, he added, “I wouldn’t mind you watching me.”

  As the sound of silk moving against flesh rose up from the exam table, Ehlena made busywork going through his chart, double-checking things that were absolutely correct.

  It was weird. From what the other nurses had said, he didn’t pull this lothario stuff with them. In fact, he barely talked to her colleagues, and that was part of the reason they were anxious around him. With a male this big, silence read as menacing. Fact of life. And that was before you added the tat/mohawk chaser.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  Ehlena pivoted around and kept her eyes pinned on the wall next to his head. Her peripheral vision, however, worked just fine, and it was hard not to be grateful. Rehvenge’s chest was magnificent, the skin a warm golden brown, with muscles that were defined even though his body was relaxed. On each of his pecs he had a five-pointed red star tattooed on the upper part, and she knew he had more ink.

  On his stomach.

  Not that she’d looked.

  Right, because actually, she’d been gawking.

  “Are you gong to examine my arm?” he said softly.

  “No, that’s for the doctor.” She waited for him to say, “Pity,” again.

  “I think I’ve used that word enough around you.”

  Now her eyes shifted to his. It was the rare vampire who could read his own species’ minds, but somehow it didn’t surprise her that this male was among that small, rarified group.

  “Don’t be rude,” she said. “And I do not want you to do that again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ehlena slipped the cuff around his biceps, plugged her stethoscope into her ears, and took his blood pressure. With the little piff-piff-piff of the balloon inflating the sleeve until it was tight, she felt the edge in him, the tense power, and her heart tripped over itself. He was particularly sharp tonight, and she wondered why.

  Except that was not her business, was it.

  As she released the valve and the cuff let out a long, slow hiss of relief, she took a step back from him. He was just…too much, all the way around. Especially right now.

  “Don’t be frightened of me,” he whispered.

  “I’m not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely positive,” she lied.

  SIX

  She was lying, Rehv thought. She was definitely frightened of him. And talk about a pity.

  This was the nurse Rehv hoped he would get each time he came in. This was the one who made these visits even partially bearable. This was his Ehlena.

  Okay, so she wasn’t his in the slightest. He knew her name only because it was on the blue-and-white pin on her coat. He saw her only when he came to be treated. And she didn’t like him at all.

  But he still thought of her as his, and that was just the way of it. The thing was, they had something in common, something that crossed species lines and eclipsed social stratifications and bonded them together even though she would have denied it.

  She was lonely, too, and in the same way he was.

  Her emotional grid had the same footprint his did, Xhex’s did, and Trez’s and iAm’s did: Her feelings were surrounded by the disconnected void of someone separated from her tribe. Living among others, but essentially apart from it all. A shutout, a castaway, one who had been expelled.

  He didn’t know the whys, but he sure as
fuck knew what life was like for her, and that was what had first gotten his attention when he met her. Her eyes and her voice and her scent had been next. Her intelligence and quick mouth had sealed the deal.

  “One sixty-eight over ninety-five. That’s high.” She ripped the cuff’s lip free with a quick jerk, no doubt wishing it were a strip of his skin. “I think your body’s trying to fight off the infection in your arm.”

  Oh, his body was fighting something off, all right, but it had fuck-all to do with whatever was cooking in his needle sites. With his symphath side battling the dopamine, the impotent state he usually existed in when fully medicated had yet to report in for work.

  Result?

  His cock was stiff as a bat in his slacks. Which, contrary to popular opinion, was actually not a good sign—especially tonight. Coming off that convo with Montrag, he was feeling hungry, driven…a little crazy from the inner burn.

  And Ehlena was just so…beautiful.

  Although not in the way his working girls were, not in that obvious, over-the-top, injected, implanted, sculpted way. Ehlena was naturally lovely, with fine small features and that strawberry blond hair and those long, lean limbs. Her lips were pink because they were pink—not from some eighteen-hour, glossy, frosted grease coat. And her toffee-colored eyes were luminescent because they were yellow and red and gold all mixed together—not from a whole lot of paint-by-numbers shimmery shadow and slathered-on mascara. And her cheeks were flushed because he was getting under her skin.

  Which, even though he sensed she’d had a hard night, didn’t bother him at all.

  But that was a symphath for you, wasn’t it, he thought with derision.

  Funny, most of the time he didn’t care that he was what he was. His life as he’d always known it had been a constantly shifting mirage of lies and deceptions and that was that. Around her, though? He wished he were normal.

  “Let’s see what your temperature is,” she said, bringing an electronic thermometer over from the desk.

  “It’s higher than usual.”

  Her amber stare flipped up to his. “Your arm.”