The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4

by J. R. Ward

  The taxi left, and they walked down a perfectly kept sidewalk in a well-maintained, ritzy neighborhood. It was an absurd switch in scenery. From the violence in that back alley, to rolling lawns and flower beds.

  She was willing to bet the people who lived in these houses had never run from the police.

  She glanced back at Wrath, who was slightly behind her. He was scanning around them as if he were looking to get jumped, although how he could see anything with those black glasses on, she had no idea. She just didn’t get why he wore them. Aside from compromising his vision, those flashy lenses were a serious identifying feature. If anyone clapped their eyes on him, they’d be able to describe him accurately in a heartbeat.

  Not that the long black hair and the sheer size of him wouldn’t have done the job well enough.

  She turned her head away. The sound of his boots hitting the concrete behind her was like fists thudding on a solid door.

  “So the cop.” Wrath’s voice was close, deep. “Is he your lover?”

  Beth almost laughed. God, he sounded jealous.

  “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have to. I don’t know you, I don’t owe you.”

  “You got to know me pretty damn well last night,” he said in a low growl. “And I got to know you very well.”

  Let’s not go there, she thought, getting instantly wet between her legs. God, the things that man could do with his tongue.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at a well-kept Colonial. Lights glowed in various windows, making it look inviting and somehow familiar. Probably because homey-looking places were universal. And universally appealing.

  She could use a week in one right about now.

  “Last night was a mistake,” she said.

  “Didn’t feel that way to me.”

  “Then you felt wrong. You felt all wrong.”

  He reached for her before she even sensed he’d moved. She was walking along and then she was in his arms. One of his hands clamped onto the base of her neck. The other pulled her hips tight against him. His erection was a thick rope on her belly.

  She closed her eyes. Every inch of her skin came alive, her temperature soaring. She hated the reaction to him, but like the man, she had no control over it.

  She waited for his mouth to come down on hers, except he didn’t kiss her. He bent his lips to her ear instead.

  “Don’t trust me. Don’t like me. I could give a shit. But don’t you ever lie to me.” He took a deep breath, as if he were drawing her into him. “I can smell the sex coming off you right now. I could take you down on this sidewalk and be up that skirt of yours in a heartbeat. And you wouldn’t fight me, would you?”

  No, she probably wouldn’t.

  Because she was an idiot. Who evidently had a death wish.

  His lips brushed the side of her neck. And then his tongue licked her skin lightly. “Now, we can be civilized and wait until we get home. Or we can get down to it right here. Either way, I’m dying to come inside of you again, and you’re not going to say no.”

  Beth gripped his shoulders through his leather jacket. She was supposed to push him away, but she didn’t. She brought him closer, arching her breasts to his chest.

  A sound of male desperation broke free of him, halfway between a groan of satisfaction and a dark plea.

  Ha, she thought, regaining some power.

  She broke their contact with grim satisfaction. “The only thing that makes this god-awful situation remotely bearable is the fact that you want me more.”

  She kicked her chin up and started walking. She could actually feel his eyes on her body as he followed, as if he were touching her with his hands.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I would kill to have you.”

  Beth wheeled around, pointing a finger at him. “So that was it. You saw Butch and me kissing in the car. Didn’t you?”

  Wrath cocked an eyebrow at her. Smiled tightly. Didn’t answer.

  “Is that why you attacked him?”

  “I was merely resisting arrest.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it looked like,” she muttered. “So did you? Did you see him kiss me?”

  Wrath closed the space between their bodies, menace flowing out of him. “Yeah, I saw. And I hated that he was touching you. Does knowing that get you off? Do you want to nail me a good one and tell me he’s a better lover than I am? It would be a lie, but it would still hurt like hell.”

  “Why do you care so much?” she demanded. “You and I spent one night together. Not even! It was a couple of hours.”

  He clamped his jaw shut. She knew his teeth were grinding by the way the hollows under his cheekbones moved. And she was glad he was wearing the sunglasses. She had a feeling his eyes would have scared the hell out of her.

  When a car passed by on the street, she remembered he was a fugitive from the police, and technically so was she. What the hell were they doing, arguing on the sidewalk…like lovers?

  “Look, Wrath, I don’t want to be arrested tonight.” Like she’d ever thought those words would come out of her mouth? “Let’s just keep going. Before someone finds us.”

  She turned, but he took her arm in a sure grip.

  “You don’t know this yet,” he said grimly. “But you are mine.”

  For a split second, she swayed toward him.

  But then she shook her head. She put her hands up to her face, trying to shut him out.

  She felt marked, and the crazy thing was, she didn’t really mind. Because she wanted him, too.

  Which was not going to win her any prizes in the mental health department.

  God, she needed to take another shot at the last couple of days. If she could only go back forty-eight hours, back to when she was sitting at her desk with Dick doing his leering-boss routine.

  She’d do two things differently. She’d order a cab instead of walking home, so she never met up with Billy Riddle. And the instant she went into her apartment, she’d pack some clothes and go to a motel. So when this leather-clad, drug-lord lothario came looking for her she wouldn’t have been found.

  She just wanted her pathetic, boring life back. And how ridiculous was that? Considering she’d thought that getting out of it was the only way to save herself only a little while ago.

  “Beth.” His voice had lost most of its edge. “Look at me.”

  She shook her head, only to have her hands peeled back from her eyes.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Yeah, right. There’s probably a warrant being issued for my arrest at this very moment. I’m running around in the dark with the likes of you. And this is all happening because I’m so desperate to know my dead parents, I’m willing to put my life in danger on the remote chance I could learn something about them. I’m telling you, it’s one hell of trip from where I am to ‘okay.’”

  His fingertip stroked down her cheek. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”

  She rubbed her forehead, wondering whether she was ever going to feel normal again. “God, I wish you’d never shown up at my back door. I wish I’d never seen your face.”

  He dropped his hand.

  “We’re almost there,” he said tersely.

  Butch gave up trying to stand and sank to the ground.

  He sat there for a while, just breathing in and out. He couldn’t seem to move.

  It wasn’t because his head hurt, although it did. And it wasn’t because his legs felt weak, although they did.

  He was ashamed.

  Getting beaten by a bigger man wasn’t the problem, although his ego had certainly taken one on the chin.

  No, it was the knowledge that he’d screwed up and endangered a young woman’s life. When he’d called about the weapons pickup, he should have had two officers waiting for him at the door to the station. He’d known that suspect was especially dangerous, but he’d been sure he could handle it him
self.

  Yeah, well, he’d handled jack shit. He’d had his ass kicked. And now Beth was in the company of a killer.

  God only knew what would become of her.

  Butch closed his eyes and put his chin down on his knee. His throat was killing him, but it was his head that he was really worried about. The damn thing wasn’t working right. His thoughts were incoherent, his cognitive processes shot to hell. Maybe he’d gone without oxygen long enough to get brain-fry.

  He tried to pull it together, but only managed to sink deeper into the fog.

  And then, because his masochistic side had terrific timing, the past reared its thorny skull.

  Out of the messy jumble of images clanging around his mind, one popped forward that brought tears to his eyes. A young girl, no more than fifteen. Getting into an unfamiliar car. Waving at him from the window as she disappeared down their street.

  His older sister. Janie.

  Her body had been found in the woods behind the local baseball field the following morning. She’d been raped, beaten, and strangled. Not in that order.

  After she’d been abducted, Butch had stopped sleeping through the night. Two decades later, he still hadn’t picked up the habit again.

  He thought of Beth, looking over her shoulder as she’d run away with the suspect. The fact she’d disappeared with that killer was the only thing that got Butch to plant his feet on the ground and drag his body toward the station.

  “Yo! O’Neal!” José came pounding down the alley. “What happened to you?”

  “We need to get out an APB.” Was that his voice? It sounded hoarse, like he’d been to a football game and screamed for two hours. “White male, six-six, two seventy. Dressed in black leather, wearing sunglasses, shoulder-length dark hair.” Butch threw out a hand, steadying himself against the building. “Suspect not armed. Only because I stripped him. He’ll be restocked within the hour, no doubt.”

  When he stepped forward, he swayed.

  “Jesus.” José grabbed his arm, holding him up.

  Butch tried not to lean on the guy, but he needed the help. He couldn’t make his legs move right.

  “And a white female.” His voice cracked. “Five-nine, long black hair. Wearing a blue skirt and a white button-down.” He paused. “Beth.”

  “I know. She called.” José’s face tightened. “I didn’t ask for details. From the sound of her voice, she wasn’t about to give me any.”

  Butch’s knees wobbled.

  “Whoa, Detective.” José hoisted him up. “We’re going to take this slow.”

  The instant they came through the station’s back door, Butch weaved. “I need to go look for her.”

  “Let’s just chill on this bench.”

  “No…”

  José loosened his hold, and Butch went down like a piano.

  Just as half the freaking precinct came up in a rush. The fleet of concerned guys in dark blue and badges made him feel pathetic.

  “I’m fine,” he snapped. Then he had to put his head between his knees.

  How could he have let this happen?

  If Beth turned up dead in the morning…

  “Detective?” José got down on his haunches, putting his face in Butch’s line of sight. “We’ve called an ambulance.”

  “Don’t need one. Is the APB out?”

  “Yeah, Ricky’s doing it right now.”

  Butch brought his head up. Slowly.

  “Man, what happened to your neck?” José breathed.

  “It was used to hold my body off the ground.” He swallowed a couple of times. “Did the weapons get picked up from the address I called in?”

  “Yeah. We got ’em and the cash. Who the hell is this guy?”

  “I have no fucking clue.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wrath walked up the front steps of Darius’s house. The door swung open before he could reach the brass handle.

  Fritz was on the other side. “Master, I didn’t know you were—”

  The doggen froze as he saw Beth.

  Yeah, you know who she is, Wrath thought. But let’s be cool.

  She was jumpy enough as it was.

  “Fritz, I’d like you to meet Beth Randall.” The butler kept staring. “You going to let us in?”

  Fritz bent down low and bowed his head. “Of course, master. Ms. Randall, it is an honor to finally meet you in person.”

  Beth seemed taken aback, but managed a smile as the doggen straightened and moved from the doorway.

  When she stuck her hand out, Fritz gasped and looked to Wrath for permission.

  “Go ahead,” Wrath muttered as he shut the front door. He never could understand the strict traditions of the doggens.

  Fritz reached out reverently, clasping her palm in both of his and dropping his forehead to their joined hands. Words in the old language were spoken in a quiet rush.

  Beth was clearly astonished. But then she had no way of knowing that by offering her hand to him, she had paid him the highest honor of his species. As the daughter of a princeps, she was a high-bred aristocrat in their world.

  Fritz was going to be glowing for days.

  “We’ll be in my chamber,” Wrath said when the contact was broken.

  The doggen hesitated. “Master, Rhage is here. He had a…little accident.”

  Wrath cursed. “Where is he?”

  “In the downstairs bathroom.”

  “Needle and thread?”

  “In there with him.”

  “Who’s Rhage?” Beth asked as they started down the hall.

  Wrath paused by the drawing room. “You wait here.”

  But she followed when he walked on.

  He turned around, pointing over her shoulder. “That wasn’t a request.”

  “And I’m not waiting anywhere.”

  “Damn it, do as I say.”

  “No.” The word was spoken without heat. She defied him with total calmness and strength of purpose.

  As if he were no more an obstacle in her path than a throw rug.

  “Jesus Christ. Fine, lose your dinner.”

  As he stalked down to the bathroom, he could smell the blood all the way out in the hall. This was a nasty one, and he really wished Beth weren’t so hell-bent on seeing for herself.

  He pushed the door open, and Rhage looked up. The vampire’s arm was hanging over the sink. There was blood everywhere, a dark pool on the floor, a little pond on the counter.

  “Rhage, man, what’s up?”

  “Sliced and diced. Lesser got me a good one, right through a vein, down to the bone. I’m leaking like a sieve.”

  In a blurry composite, Wrath caught the movement of Rhage’s hand going down to his shoulder and up into the air. Down to his shoulder, up into the air.

  “Did you get him?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Oh…my…God,” Beth said. “Oh, dear God. Is he stitching—”

  “Hey, who’s the cutie?” Rhage said, pausing on the up-stroke.

  There was a strangled sound, and Wrath moved, blocking Beth’s view with his body.

  “Need help?” he asked, even though both he and his brother knew he had nothing to offer. He couldn’t see well enough to close his own wounds, much less someone else’s. The fact that he had to rely on his brothers or Fritz to tend to him was a weakness he despised.

  “No, thanks.” Rhage laughed. “I’m a good little sewer, as you know firsthand. Now who’s your friend?”

  “Beth Randall, this is Rhage. An associate of mine. Rhage, this is Beth, and she doesn’t do movie stars, got it?”

  “Loud and clear.” Rhage leaned to one side, trying to see around Wrath. “Nice to meet you, Beth.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” she said weakly.

  “Nah. This one’s just messy. When you can use your large intestine as a belt loop, that’s when you hit the pros.”

  A croaking sound came out of Beth’s mouth.

  “I’m going to ta
ke her downstairs,” Wrath said.

  “Oh, yes, please,” she murmured. “I’d really like to go down…stairs.”

  He put his arm around her, and he knew how affected she was by the way she melted into his body. It felt so good to have her relying on him for strength.

  Too good, actually.

  “You cool?” Wrath said to his brother.

  “Damn straight. I’m leaving as soon as this is done. Got three jars to collect.”

  “Nice tally.”

  “Would have been more if this little gift hadn’t come by air mail. No wonder you like those stars so much.” Rhage moved his hand around, as if he were tying a knot. “You should know Tohr and the twins are”—he grabbed a pair of scissors off the counter and snipped the thread—“continuing our work from last night. They should be back in a couple hours to report in, just as you asked.”

  “Tell them to knock first.”

  Rhage nodded and had the sense not to follow up with any commentary.

  As Wrath led Beth down the hall, he found himself stroking her shoulder. Her back. Then he curled his hand around her waist, his fingers sinking into her soft flesh. She fit well against him, her head coming up to his chest, resting on his pectoral as they moved together.

  Too comfortable. Too familiar, he thought. Way too good.

  He held on to her anyway.

  And even as he did, he wished he could take back what he’d said to her on that sidewalk. About her being his.

  Because that wasn’t true. He didn’t want to take her as his shellan. He’d been worked up, jealous. Picturing that cop’s hands all over her. Pissed off that he hadn’t killed the human after all. The words had slipped out.

  Ah, hell. The female did something to his brain. Somehow managed to unplug his well-developed self-control and put him in touch with his inner fricking psycho.

  It was a connection he wanted to avoid.

  After all, fits of insanity were Rhage’s specialty.

  And the brothers didn’t need another hair-trigger loose cannon in the group.

  Beth closed her eyes and leaned against Wrath, trying to shut out the picture of that gaping wound. The effort was like blocking sunlight with her hands: Parts of the image kept seeping through. All that bright red, shiny blood, the raw, dark pink muscle, the shocking white of bone. And that needle. Puncturing the skin, pulling the flesh out to a point, breaking through with the black thread—