Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  Qhuinn glanced around, noting that Blay and John were on the periphery. “I don’t know.”

  Rhage went for the door—and had the same reaction, recoiling sharply. “What the fuck.”

  “I know, right,” Qhuinn muttered as he stepped back and ran his light around the exterior.

  The two windows on either side of the entrance had been boarded up, and as he walked over and looked down the structure’s flank, the same was true of the ones on that side, as well.

  “Fuck this,” Rhage growled. The Brother took three steps back and then rushed at the door, his heavy shoulder angled like a battering ram.

  And what do you know, the impact splintered the wooden panels—

  All at once, a blinding light seared through the night, illuminating the forest like a bomb had gone off, turning Rhage getting thrown backward into a movie.

  As Blay and John rushed across to do a damage assessment on the fighter, Qhuinn lunged forward, bracing himself as he went for the jambs, expecting to get nailed with a couple hundred volts’ worth of God-only-knows-what.

  Instead, he hit nothing but air, his forward momentum so great he had to tuck into a ball and roll to keep from landing on his face. A breath later, he punched up off the floor and landed in a crouch, gun in one hand, flashlight in another.

  Something smelled bad.

  “Behind you,” Blay said, as a second beam of light joined his own.

  The air inside the cabin was curiously warm, as if there were a heater plugged in somewhere—except that wasn’t possible. No electricity and no gas tank. And no one had been here for a while, going by the undisturbed layer of dust on the floorboards and the delicate, vertical cobwebs that hung from the ceiling as motionless as heavy ropes.

  “What’s that,” Blay demanded.

  As Qhuinn brought his beam around, he frowned. There were a number of what appeared to be oil drums up against the far wall, the grouping clustered together, as if they’d been scared by something and had circled the wagons for self-protection.

  Qhuinn walked over, all the while panning his flashlight in fat circles, and he frowned once more as he got a good look at the large-bore canisters. None of them had lids, and his light seemed to reflect off some sort of oil.

  “What…the hell is this?”

  Leaning over the closest one, he took a deep breath in through his nose, and got a sinus burn full of slayer stench. Going by the way his beam didn’t penetrate the surface of the liquid, he knew it could be only one thing, and you sure as shit couldn’t use it to power a heater or a generator.

  It was the blood of the Omega.

  “Behind you,” Rhage said, as the Brother entered.

  A soft whistle announced that John had come in as well.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Blay muttered as he stood beside Qhuinn.

  Qhuinn put his flashlight between his teeth and reached forward with his bare hand. Just as he made contact with the viscous nasty, something surged within the drum—

  “Fuck!” he shouted, jumping back.

  As his flashlight landed on the floor and rolled to the side, Blay’s beam illuminated what had moved.

  An arm.

  There was someone inside the drum.

  “Jesus Christ,” Blay breathed.

  Behind them, Rhage’s voice barked loudly, “V? We need backup out here. Stat.”

  Qhuinn bent down and snagged his light. Returning it to the oily liquid, he watched as that forearm moved again in slow motion just under the surface, the shift bringing the outside of the wrist and the back of the hand into view….

  Something flashed, the passing glint catching Qhuinn’s eye. Reangling his beam, he bent further over the drum.

  The hand wasn’t right, its joints deformed, all or part of each finger gone, as if put through a grinder….

  That glimmer broke through the cesspool of the Omega’s blood once more.

  It was…a ring?

  “Wait, wait, Qhuinn—you need to pull back—”

  Qhuinn ignored the commentary as he leaned in even farther, getting closer—closer….

  Closer…

  At first, he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He simply couldn’t be looking at a family crest ring.

  But what else could it be? It was on the forefinger, the only digit that hadn’t been hacked off. And it was gold—even through the black oil, the yellow glow was obvious. And the ring itself had a broad face into which was pressed a—

  “Qhuinn,” Rhage said sharply. “Get the fuck away—”

  The arm moved again, the pale hand breaching the surface of the liquid, appearing as a specter’s might from out of the grave, reaching out….

  The Omega’s blood retracted from the surface of the ring, revealing…

  “Qhuinn, I am not playing—”

  Noise exploded in the cabin, filling the air.

  He was completely unaware that it was a shout coming from his own mouth.

  At first, Blay thought that whatever was in the drum had grabbed onto Qhuinn and pulled him in—and that was why Qhuinn screamed. On instinct, he jumped forward and grabbed onto Qhuinn’s waist, throwing out his anchor and yanking back.

  What came out of that drum would haunt Blay’s nightmares for years…decades afterward.

  In fact, what was inside hadn’t latched onto Qhuinn; it was the other way around. And as Blay hauled back, a male form was extracted from the tight squeeze, the Omega’s blood pouring out in rivers, splashing onto the cold wooden planks of the cabin’s floor, hitting Blay’s shitkickers and leathers, drenching Qhuinn.

  Qhuinn had to scramble to keep his grip from slipping off, his gun and flashlight long forgotten, his gloved hands slapping and scratching to keep from losing contact….

  As they hoisted…

  The oil drum fell over onto its side as the male sprawled out flat at their feet.

  No one moved. It was as if they had all stepped in and assumed their positions in a tableau.

  Blay recognized who it was immediately.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  The dead had returned to the living…in a manner of speaking.

  Qhuinn squatted down and touched the male’s shoulders. Then he spoke his brother’s name roughly: “Luchas?”

  The response was immediate. His brother’s hands began to slowly pinwheel, his mangled legs shifting, his naked body trying to move. His skin was bruised all over, the harsh illumination from the flashlights showing every contusion and cut and black-and-blue, the stain of the Omega’s blood gradually receding from the pale skin.

  Dear God, what had they done to him? One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his mouth was lopsided, as if he’d been punched there. As he grimaced, it appeared that his teeth had all been spared, but that was about the only mercy he seemed to have been given.

  “Luchas?” Qhuinn said again. “Can you talk to me?”

  From off to the side, Rhage was on his phone again. “V? We’ve really got a situation. What’s your ETA…what? No, abso no—I need you now….No, you. And Payne.” Hollywood glanced over and mouthed, Do you guys know who he is?

  Blay had to clear his throat, his reply tripping and stumbling out. “It’s his…brother.”

  Rhage blinked. Shook his head. Leaned in. “I’m sorry, what did you—”

  “His brother,” Blay repeated loudly and clearly.

  “Jesus…” Rhage whispered. And then he snapped back into action. “Now, V. Now.”

  “Luchas, can you hear me?” Qhuinn spoke.

  Vishous burst into the cabin a split second later. The Brother was covered in lesser blood and bleeding red thanks to a gash across his face—he was also breathing like a freight train and had a dripping black dagger in his hand.

  The instant he saw what they were all clustered around, he stopped. “What the fuck is that?”

  Rhage quickly made slashing motions across his throat, shutting up any further commentary. Then he grabbed V’s arm and dragged him out of earsho
t. When the pair came back, V was showing no emotion at all.

  “Let me take a look at him,” V said.

  Qhuinn just kept talking at his brother, the words coming out in a steady stream that didn’t make much sense. Then again, as far as anyone had known, the male had been killed in the raids, along with Qhuinn’s mother, father, and sister. So, yeah, this was enough to make even Shakespeare sport a case of the babbles.

  Except…this wasn’t possible, Blay thought. There had been four bodies at the house—and Luchas had been among them.

  Blay should know. He’d been the one to go in and do the identifying.

  He put a hand on Qhuinn’s shoulder. “Hey.”

  Qhuinn’s words drifted off. Then he looked up into Blay’s eyes. “He’s not answering me.”

  “Can you let V take a quick look? We need a medic’s opinion.” And maybe a helluva lot more to answer what the hell was going on here. “Come on, stand over here with me.”

  Qhuinn straightened and pulled back, but he didn’t go far, and his eyes never left his brother. “Have they turned him?” He crossed his arms and curled himself forward. “Do you think they turned him?”

  Blay shook his head, and wished he could lie. “I don’t know.”

  SIXTY-ONE

  As Qhuinn stared down at the cabin floor, his brain was firing in a series of disconnected flashes, the concrete notion that his whole family had been wiped out colliding into what appeared to be a very different reality.

  He kept coming back to a night long, long ago, when he’d walked through the front door of his parents’ to find his family sitting together at that dining room table…and his brother getting that ring that was on his now mangled hand.

  You’d think the sight of the guy tortured but alive would be all he’d concentrate on.

  “What’s going on, V?” he demanded. “How is he?”

  “He’s alive.” The Brother shifted his black dagger around and wiped the blade off on his leather-clad thigh. “Son? Son, can you look at me?”

  Luchas just kept staring up at Qhuinn, his perfectly matched pair of beautiful gray eyes bloodshot and crazy wide. His mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out.

  “Son, I’m going to have to cut you, okay? Son?”

  Qhuinn knew exactly what V was going for. “Do it.”

  Qhuinn’s heart banged like a fist against his sternum as the Brother took that black blade and streaked the point down the outside of Luchas’s arm. The guy didn’t even flinch; then again, with what was going on for him? Drop in the bucket.

  Please be red, please be red, please be—

  Red blood welled and seeped out, a brilliant contrast to the staining black oil that he was covered with.

  Everyone let out the breath they’d been holding.

  “Okay, son, that’s good, that’s good….”

  They hadn’t turned him.

  V got up from the floor and tipped his head to the side, motioning for a private convo. As Qhuinn went over, he took Blay’s arm and brought him along. It was just the most natural thing to do. This was serious shit, and he knew he wasn’t tracking—and there was no one else he’d rather have with him.

  “I don’t have a blood pressure cuff or a stethoscope, but I’ll tell you right now—his pulse is weak and erratic, and I’m pretty damn sure he’s in shock. I don’t know how long he’s been in there or what they did to him, but he is alive in the conventional sense. The problem is, Payne’s out of commission.” V’s eyes glowed. “And you two know why.”

  Ah, so he’d spoken with his sister.

  “She’s not going to be able to work her magic,” the Brother continued, “and we’re a million miles from everywhere.”

  “Bottom line,” Qhuinn said grimly.

  V stared him right in the eye. “He’s going to die in the next couple of—”

  “V!” Rhage barked. “Get over here!”

  Down on the floor, Luchas’s battered body was drawing up into itself, his broken hands curling into his palms, his knees cranking in tight, his spine curling toward the cabin’s ceiling.

  Qhuinn jacked over and fell to his knees by his brother’s head. “Stay with me, Luchas. Come on, fight it—”

  Those gray eyes relocked on Qhuinn’s, and the agony in them was so shattering, Qhuinn was barely aware of V rushing over and taking the glove off of his glowing hand.

  “Qhuinn!” the Brother shouted, like maybe he’d said Qhuinn’s name a couple of times.

  He didn’t look away from his brother. “What?”

  “This could kill him, but maybe it’ll get his heart beating right. It’s a bad shot—but it’s the only one he’s got.”

  In the split second before he replied, he felt an overwhelming need for his brother to come through this some way, somehow. Even though he barely knew the guy, and had resented him for years—and then been beaten by him when Luchas had joined that Honor Guard—he hadn’t realized until they were gone how rudderless you were on the planet when there was no blood of yours walking the earth with you.

  Then again, that void was exactly what had spurred him on during Layla’s needing. And what had made him reach for Blay instinctively.

  Love ’em or hate ’em, by blood or by heart, family was a kind of oxygen.

  Necessary for the living.

  “Do it,” he said once more.

  “Wait,” Blay cut in, whipping his belt off and giving it to Qhuinn. “For his mouth.”

  Just one more reason to love the guy. Although it wasn’t like he needed yet another.

  Qhuinn angled the strap into his brother’s open mouth and held it in place as he nodded to V. “Stay with me, Luchas. Come on, now—stay with…”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he tracked that bright white light closing in on his brother’s sternum….

  Luchas’s chest jerked high, his whole body spasming off the floorboards as a brilliant glow shot through him, funneling down his arms and his legs, radiating up to his head. The sound he made was inhuman, a guttural moan that went straight into Qhuinn’s marrow.

  When V yanked back his hand, that glowing palm raising high, Luchas dropped like the deadweight he was, his body bouncing, his limbs flapping.

  He blinked rapidly, as if a stiff breeze were blowing into his face.

  “Hit him again,” Qhuinn demanded. When V didn’t respond, he glared. “One more time.”

  “This is fucking nuts,” Rhage muttered.

  V measured the male for a moment. Then brought that deadly hand back into range. “Once more—that’s all you get,” he said to Luchas.

  “Damn straight,” Rhage cut in. “Any more and you could make a s’more out of the son of a bitch.”

  The second shot was just as bad—that battered body contorting wildly, Luchas making that god-awful sound before landing back down in a clatter of bones.

  But he took a deep breath. A big, powerful, deep breath that expanded his rib cage.

  Qhuinn felt like praying, and he guessed he did as he started chanting, “Come on, come on….”

  The mangled hand, the one with the ring, stretched out and grabbed onto Qhuinn’s shirt. The hold was weak, but Qhuinn leaned in.

  “What,” he said. “Talk slow….”

  That hand skipped over his jacket.

  “Talk to me.”

  His brother’s hand locked on the grip of one of his daggers. “Kill…me….”

  Qhuinn’s eyes peeled wide.

  Luchas’s voice was nothing like it had been, nothing but a hoarse whisper. “Kill…me…brother…mine….”

  SIXTY-TWO

  “How you holding up?” Blay asked.

  Standing on the porch of the cabin, Qhuinn breathed in and caught a hint of smoke on the air. Blay had lit up again, and much as Qhuinn hated the habit, he didn’t blame the guy. Hell, if he were into that kind of thing, he’d have busted out the coffin nails, too.

  He glanced over. Blay was staring at him patiently, clearly prepared to wait for a response to
the question even if it took what was left of the night.

  Qhuinn checked his watch. One a.m.

  How long was it going to take the rest of Brotherhood to get here? And was this evac plan they were all rocking really going to work—

  “I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind,” he replied.

  “I’m with you.” Blay exhaled in the opposite direction. “I can’t believe that he’s…”

  Qhuinn stared at the trees ahead of them. “I never asked you about that night.”

  “No. And frankly, I don’t blame you.”

  Behind them, in the cabin, Rhage, V, and John were with Luchas. Everyone had taken their jackets off and wrapped them around the male in hopes of keeping him warm.

  Standing in his muscle shirt and his weapons, Qhuinn didn’t feel the cold.

  He cleared his throat. “Did you see him.”

  Blay had been the one to go back to the mansion after the raids. Qhuinn simply hadn’t had the sac to ID the bodies.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Was he dead then?”

  “As far as I knew, yes. He was…yeah, I didn’t think there was any chance he was alive.”

  “You know, I never sold the house.”

  “So I’d heard.”

  Technically, as a disavowed member of the family, he had had no rights to the property. But there had been so many killed that no one made any claims to the estate, and it had, according to the Old Laws, reverted to the king’s ownership—whereupon Wrath had promptly given it in fee simple to Qhuinn.

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  “I didn’t know what to think when I was told they’d gotten slaughtered.” Qhuinn looked up to the sky. The forecast was for more snow, so no stars were to be seen. “They hated me. I guess I hated them. And then they were gone.”

  Beside him, Blay went very still.

  Qhuinn knew why and a sudden awkwardness had him shoving his hands into his pockets. Yes, he absolutely despised talking about emotions and crap, but there was no keeping the shit down. Not out here. In private. With Blay.

  Clearing his throat, he kept going. “I was relieved more than anything, to be honest. I can’t tell you what it was like growing up in that house. All those people looking at me like I was a walking, talking curse on them.” He shook his head. “I used to avoid them as much as possible, using the servants’ stairs, staying in that part of the house. But then the doggen threatened to quit. Actually, the biggest bene of my getting through the transition was that I could dematerialize out the window of my room. Then none of them had to deal with me.”