The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8

by J. R. Ward

  At least one of which you dealt with.

  “Actually both were mine.” Her eyes held his. “Did that bother you? Seeing me . . . go to work like that?”

  Her tone suggested she assumed it did and that she didn’t blame him for feeling yucked-out. Except she was wrong.

  Beating back the pain he was in, John shook his head and signed with floppy hands. It’s an incredible power you have. If I looked shocked . . . it’s because I’d never seen one of your kind in action before.

  Her face tightened ever so slightly and she glanced out the window.

  Tapping her on her arm, he signed, That was a compliment.

  “Yeah, sorry . . . just the ‘your kind’ always throws me. I’m half-and-half, therefore I’m neither. I have no kind.” She batted away her words with her hand. “Whatever. While you were passed out, V hacked into the Caldwell PD database with his phone. The police didn’t find any IDs at the scene either, so we have nothing to go on except for that addy from the Civic’s license plate. I’ll bet that . . .”

  As she continued talking, he let her words wash over him.

  He knew all about that “no kind” thing.

  Just one more way they were compatible.

  Closing his eyes, he sent up a prayer to anyone who was listening, asking please, for God’s sake, stop sending him signals that they were right for each other. He’d read that book, seen the movie, bought the sound track, the DVD, the T-shirt, the mug, the bobble-head, and the insider’s guide. He knew every reason they could have been lock and key.

  But just as he was aware of all that aligned them, he was even clearer on how they were damned to be ever apart.

  “Are you all right?”

  Xhex’s voice was soft and closer, and when he cracked his lids, she was practically in his lap. His eyes traced her face and her coiled, leather-bound body.

  Pain and a sense that time was running out for them made him toss out his filter and say what was truly on his mind.

  I want to be in you when we get back to the mansion, he signed. As soon as I get a bandage on this fucking leg of mine, I want in you.

  The flare of her scent in his nostrils told him she was so on board with that plan.

  So at least one thing, aside from his cock, was looking up.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Up on the second floor of Eliahu Rathboone’s plantation house, Gregg Winn had to open the door to his and Holly’s room with two fingers and a prayer that he didn’t dump hot coffee down his leg. He’d filled the pair of mugs in his hands with brew he’d made himself at the “guest” pot on the sideboard in the dining room.

  So God only knew what it tasted like.

  “You need help?” Holly said as she looked up from the laptop.

  “Nope.” He kicked the door shut and headed for the bed. “I got it.”

  “You are so thoughtful.”

  “Wait till you try it . . . I had to jerry-rig yours,” he said, giving the pale one to her. “They didn’t have whole milk, which was what you had yesterday at breakfast. So I went to the kitchen and took half-and-half and some skim, mixed them together, and tried to get the color right.” He nodded to the computer’s screen. “What do you think of those scans?”

  Holly stared down into the mug as she held it over the Dell’s keyboard. She was stretched out on the bed, propped up against the headboard, analyzing the data he’d become obsessed with . . . looking sexy and smart.

  And as if she didn’t trust what he’d given her.

  “Listen,” he said, “just try the coffee—if it sucks, I’ll wake up that proper butler.”

  “Oh, it’s not that.” She ducked her blond head and he heard her sip. The “ahhh” that followed was more than he could have hoped for. “Perfect.”

  Going around the edge of the bed, he settled in beside her on top of the duvet. As he took a drink from his own mug, he decided if his career in TV went tits-up, he might have a future at a Starbucks counter. “So . . . come on, tell me what you think of the footage.”

  He nodded at the screen and what it was showing: The night before, there had been a shot of something walking through the living room and going out the front door. Now, it could have been a guest up for a midnight snack, like Gregg had just been—except for the fact that it dematerialized right through the wooden panels. The thing just disappeared.

  Kind of like the shadow outside her bedroom from the first night. Not that he liked thinking of it. Or that dream of hers.

  “You haven’t retouched this?” Holly said.

  “Nope.”

  “God . . .”

  “I know, right? And the network just e-mailed me while I was downstairs. They’re so on fire, apparently the Internet’s gone nuts over the promos already—all we have to do is pray that thing shows up a week from now when we go live. You sure your coffee’s okay?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s . . . amazing.” Holly glanced up over the rim of her mug. “You know, I’ve never seen you like this before.”

  Gregg leaned back against the pillows and couldn’t help but agree. Hard to know what had changed; there had been a shift inside of him, however.

  Holly took another sip. “You seem really different.”

  Unsure what he should say, he kept it about the work. “Well, I never actually thought ghosts existed.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Nah. You know as well as I do all the fixes I’ve pulled. But here in this house . . . I’m telling you, something is here and I’m dying to get onto the third floor. I had this crazy dream about going up there. . . .” As a sudden headache cut off his thoughts, he rubbed his temple and decided he had eyestrain from having been on a computer for the past seventy-two hours straight. “There’s something up in that attic, I’m telling you.”

  “The butler said it was off-limits.”

  “Yeah.” And he didn’t want to buck the guy too much. They had so much good TV to roll out, it wasn’t like they needed more—and no sense pushing it. Last thing he wanted was to run into trouble with the management this close to airdate.

  And it was very clear Mr. Spit and Polish didn’t like them.

  “Here, let me show you again . . . this is what really amazes me.” Gregg reached forward and restarted the file so he could watch that figure disappear through the solid door again. “That’s pretty damn incredible, right? I mean . . . did you ever think you’d see something like that?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Something about the sound of her voice brought his head toward her. Holly was staring at him, not the screen, while cradling her mug right to her heart.

  “What?” he said, checking to see if he’d spilled on his shirt.

  “Actually . . . it’s about the coffee.”

  “Bad aftertaste?”

  “No, not at all . . .” She laughed a little and drank some more. “I just never would have guessed you’d remember what kind of coffee I like, much less go to the trouble of making it for me. And you’ve never asked me what I thought about work before.”

  Jesus . . . she was right.

  She shrugged. “And I guess I’m not surprised that you never believed in what you were doing. I’m just glad you do now.”

  Unable to keep the eye contact going, Gregg looked out over their two pairs of socked feet, to the windows on the far side of the room. The moon was barely visible through the lace of the curtains, nothing but a soft glow on the dark horizon.

  Holly cleared her throat. “I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward.”

  “Oh . . . yeah . . . no.” He reached over and took her free hand, giving it a squeeze. “Listen . . . there’s something I want you to know.”

  He felt her stiffen—which made two of them. He was suddenly bracing himself as well.

  Gregg cleared his throat in the thick silence. “I color my hair.”

  There was a tense pause—at least on his part. And then Holly broke into bubbling laughter, the sweet, happy kind that came with relief.

  L
eaning into him, she ran her nails through his falsely dark waves. “You do?”

  “I’m gray at the temples. Really gray. I started doing something about it a year before I met you—have to stay young in Hollywood.”

  “Where do you get it done? Because you’re never rooty.”

  With a curse, he shifted off the bed and went to his suitcase, rummaging around to the bottom of the thing. Flashing the box in question, he muttered, “Just for Men hair color. I do it myself. I don’t want to be caught in a salon.”

  Holly smiled at him so widely, she got crinkles around her eyes. And what do you know, he liked the way they looked. Gave her pretty face some character.

  He glanced down at the box. Staring at the model on the front, all kinds of truths came to him, the kind that he simply couldn’t fight or even argue with. “You know what, I hate Ed Hardy T-shirts. Damn things’ll burn your retinas. And distressed jeans give me the scratch . . . and those square-toed loafers I wear bother my feet. I’m tired of being suspicious of everyone and working for money just so I can spend it ahead of everybody else on something that will be out of style next year.” He tossed the hair color back into his suitcase and liked the fact that it could sit out in the fresh air, so to speak. “Those files? On that computer? First ones Stan and I haven’t doctored up. I’ve been a fake for a long time working in a fake industry doing fake shit. The only thing that was real was the cash, and you know what? I don’t know if that’s going to do it for me anymore.”

  As he got back up on the bed, Holly finished her coffee, put the computer and the mug aside, and draped herself across his chest.

  Best damn blanket he’d ever had.

  “So what do you want to do next?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Not this. Well, I’m kind of getting off on the ghost-hunter stuff, actually. The producer crap? Meh.” Looking down at the top of her head, he had to smile. “You’re the only one who knows about my old-man hair.”

  And he had the weird feeling that the secret was safe with her.

  “It doesn’t matter to me.” She stroked his pec. “And it shouldn’t to you.”

  “How come I never knew you were so smart?”

  Her laugh resonated through his own chest. “Maybe because you were being stupid.”

  Gregg threw his head back and howled. “Yeah, maybe.” He kissed her temple. “Maybe . . . definitely. I’m through with that, though.”

  God . . . he was still unsure exactly what had changed. Well, everything . . . but the precise why was unknown. He felt like someone had set him right, but he couldn’t remember who or where or when.

  His eyes went to the computer and he thought of that shadowy ghost. For some reason, he had an image of a cavernous, empty room on the third floor of this house—and a huge man sitting in a chair with a pool of light hitting only his knees and lower legs.

  And then the man leaned forward . . . into the light—

  The pain in Gregg’s head made him think someone had Basic Instincted his temples, spearing him with a pair of ice picks.

  “Are you okay?” Holly asked, sitting up. “Your head again?”

  He nodded even though the motion made his vision swim and his stomach feel like he’d chugged spoiled milk. “Yeah. Probably I need new glasses. Bifocals, even . . . damn.”

  Holly stroked his hair, and as he stared into her eyes, the agony faded and he felt a strange feeling in his chest. Happiness? he wondered.

  Yup. Had to be. Because in all of his adult life he’d been through the full gamut of emotions . . . and he’d never once felt like this. Whole. Complete. At peace.

  “Holly, you are so much more than I thought you were,” he whispered, brushing her cheek.

  As those lovely eyes of hers grew watery, she said, “And you’ve turned out to be everything I wished you’d be.”

  “Well, hasn’t this been the show of a lifetime, then?” He kissed her slowly. “And I have the perfect ending.”

  “You do?”

  Gregg nodded and put his mouth to her ear. In a soft whisper, he said, “I love you.”

  First time those words had come out of him . . . when he’d actually meant them.

  As she croaked out an “I love you, too,” he kissed her and kissed her some more . . . and felt like he owed the moment to a ghost.

  Turned out his Cupid was a big shadow with a bad attitude. That didn’t exist in the “real” world.

  Then again . . . stranger things had brought people together, hadn’t they. And all that really mattered was that the right pair ended up doing the Hallmark at the end. The means that got them there? Not what ultimately counted.

  Besides, now he might be able to stop with the hair color.

  Yeah, life was good. Especially when you powered-down your ego . . . and had the right woman in your bed for the right reasons.

  He wasn’t letting Holly go this time.

  And he was going to take care of her the right way, just as she deserved for . . . well, forever had a nice ring to it, didn’t it.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Back at the Brotherhood’s private clinic, Xhex stood at John’s side while Doc Jane X-rayed his leg. Once the pictures were up, it didn’t take the good doctor long to come to the conclusion that he had to be operated on—and even Xhex, in spite of her usual panic at being where she was, could see the problem on the X-ray. The bullet was just too close to the bone for comfort.

  While Jane called for Ehlena and then went to change into scrubs, Xhex crossed her arms over her chest and started pacing.

  She could not breathe. And that had been true even before she’d taken a gander at what was doing with John’s leg.

  When he whistled softly at her, she just shook her head and kept moving, making a circle around the room. Turned out the trip by all the stainless-steel cabinets with their glass-front doors and their caged medications wasn’t a big help: Her heart thundered even more in her chest, going all Bon Jovi on her—the pounding so loud her eardrums were getting an aerobic workout.

  God, she’d been struggling since the moment she’d come in here with him. And now he was being cut open and then sewed back together?

  She was going to fucking lose it.

  Although honestly . . . if she tried to be logical about it, that was nuts. One, it wasn’t her body getting worked on. Two, leaving that slug of lead in him was clearly not a good idea. And three . . . helllllllo . . . he was being treated by someone who’d already proven she knew her way around a scalpel.

  Great rationalizations. All of which her adrenal gland middle-fingered and then carried right on.

  Weren’t phobias fun.

  The second whistle was a demand and she stopped opposite John, lifting her eyes to his face. He was cool and relaxed. No hysterics, no freak-out, nothing but calm forbearance of what was coming.

  I’m going to be fine, he signed. Jane’s done this a million times before.

  Jesus Christ, where the hell was all the air in this room, Xhex thought—

  Like he knew he was losing her, he whistled again and held out his hand with a frown.

  “John . . .” When no coherent words came, she shook her head and went back to the pacing. She hated this. She truly hated this.

  As the door swung wide, Doc Jane came back in with Ehlena. The two were in the middle of a conversation about the procedure and John whistled at them. When he held up his forefinger to indicate he needed a minute, the females nodded and ducked out again.

  “Shit,” Xhex said, “don’t stop them. I’ll be all right.”

  As she headed for the door to call the doctor back in, a thunderous sound reverberated through the room. Thinking John had fallen off the gurney, she wheeled around—

  No, he’d punched the stainless-steel table and left a dent in it.

  Talk to me, he signed. And they’re not coming in until you do.

  She had the urge to argue and the vocabulary to do it—just not the voice, evidently. Try as she did, she couldn’t manage to sa
y a thing.

  Which was when he opened his arms to her.

  Cursing herself, she said, “I’m going to man up here. I’m going to so be twenty-one. You’re not going to believe how tight in the head I’m going to be. Really. For real.”

  Come here, he mouthed.

  “Oh . . . hell.” Giving up, she went over and embraced him.

  Into his neck, she said, “I don’t do this medical thing well. In case you haven’t noticed before. I’m sorry, John . . . damn it, I’m always letting you down, aren’t I.”

  He caught her before she could pull away. Holding her in place with his eyes, he signed, You saved my life tonight. I wouldn’t be alive right now unless you’d thrown that blade. So you aren’t always letting me down—and as for this? I’m not worried and you don’t have to watch—go and wait up at the house. It’s going to be over quickly. Don’t torture yourself.

  “I’m not running scared.” Moving quickly so she couldn’t think too much and neither could he, she took his face in her hands and kissed him hard. “But maybe waiting outside is a good idea.”

  After all, she couldn’t very well have Doc Jane stop in the middle to treat some pansy bystander with a case of the vapors. Or a concussion because the idiot had passed out cold on the floor.

  Probably for the best, John mouthed.

  Breaking away, she put one foot after the other to the door and let in Ehlena and Doc Jane. As the physician passed, Xhex grabbed the female’s arm.

  “Please . . .” God, what could she say.

  Doc Jane nodded. “I got him. Don’t worry.”

  Xhex took a shuddering breath and wondered how in the hell she was going to get through the wait out in the hall. Knowing the way her mind worked, she’d have John screaming silently in pain and Doc Jane removing his whole leg as the minutes dragged by—

  “Xhex . . . mind if I suggest something?” Doc Jane said.