by J. R. Ward
But at least Butch didn’t seem any more comfortable than he was at their meeting.
“What the hell are you doing here, cop?”
“I wanted to look at the scene again. But I see you’re handy with a paper towel.”
Zsadist glared across the room. “Why do you care about all this? What’s the abduction of one of our females to you?”
“It matters.”
“In our world. Not yours.”
The cop frowned. “’Scuse me, Z, but given your reputation, what’s all this to you?”
“Just doing my job.”
“Yeah, right. Then why are you marking time on her bed? Why’d you spend hours cleaning up her house? And why are you holding that ribbon so tight your knuckles are white?”
Z looked down at his hand and slowly released his grip. Then he pegged the human with a stare.
“Don’t fuck with me, cop. You won’t like what comes back at you.”
Butch cursed. “Look, I just want to help find her, Z. I gotta…It means something to me, okay? I don’t like women getting brutalized. I got some nasty personal history with this kind of shit.”
Zsadist pushed the strip of satin into his pocket and circled the human, closing in on him. Butch sank into a defensive position, waiting for the attack.
Z stopped dead in front of the guy. “The lessers have probably killed her already, haven’t they?”
“Maybe.”
“Probably.”
Z leaned forward and took a deep breath. He could smell no fear coming out of the human even though his big body was tense and ready to fight. This was good. The cop was going to need some balls if he really wanted to play in the Brotherhood’s sandbox of hell.
“Tell me something,” Z muttered. “Will you help me slaughter the lessers that took her? You got the stomach for that, cop? Because…straight up, I’m going to go crazy over this.”
Butch’s hazel eyes narrowed. “They take from you, they take from me.”
“I’m nothing to you.”
“You’re wrong about that. The Brotherhood’s been good to me, and I stick with my boys, you feel me?”
Z measured the male. The aura Butch threw off was all business. Down-to-the-blood business.
“I don’t do gratitude,” Z said.
“I know.”
Z braced himself and extended his hand. He felt the need to seal the pact between them, even though he was going to hate the sensation. Luckily, though, the human’s grip was gentle. Like he knew how hard the contact was for Z to handle.
“We go after them together,” the cop said as they dropped their arms.
Z nodded. And the two of them headed upstairs.
Chapter Fifty-one
Mary waved as the big Mercedes eased to a stop in front of the hospital. She jogged over at such a clip that Fritz was just getting out of the driver’s side as she jumped into the car.
“Thanks, Fritz! Listen, I’ve called Rhage six times and he’s not answering his cell. Is everything okay?”
“All is well. I saw your sire this afternoon.”
She beamed at the doggen. “Good! And as it’s eight o’clock, it’s still early for him to have gone out.”
Fritz put the car in drive and gently eased into traffic. “Is there anything you require—”
She reached across the seat, threw her arms around the little old man, and kissed him on the cheek. “Take me home fast, Fritz. Faster than you’ve ever gone before. Break every traffic law.”
“Madam?”
“You heard me. As fast as you can!”
Fritz was all flustered from the attention, but he recovered quickly and punched the gas.
Mary put her seat belt on and then popped the visor down and looked at herself in the little lighted mirror. Her hands were shaking as she put them to her cheeks, and giggles broke out of her mouth, especially as the car careened around a corner and she was thrown against the door.
When sirens sounded, she laughed even harder.
“I beg your pardon, madam.” The doggen glanced over at her. “But I must evade the police and this might get rather bumpy.”
“Blow their doors off, Fritz.”
The doggen flipped something and all the lights in and outside the car were extinguished. Then the Mercedes let out a roar that reminded her of that ride in the GTO with Rhage through the mountains.
Well, except they’d had headlights then.
She grabbed on to the seat-belt strap and shouted over the din of squealing tires, “Tell me you have perfect night vision or something!”
Fritz smiled at her calmly, as if they were just chatting it up in the kitchen. “Oh, yes, madam. Perfect.”
With a jerk to the left he swerved around a minivan and then shot down an alley. Slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting a pedestrian, he nailed the gas pedal to the floor again as soon as he had a clear path down the narrow street. Darting out the other side, he cut off a taxi, dodged a bus. Even made an SUV the size of the QE II think twice before pulling out in front of him.
The old guy was an artist behind the wheel.
Okay, an artist in a Jackson Pollock kind of way, sure, but amazing nonetheless.
And then he shot into a parking spot. Right on the main drag. Just like that.
The chorus of sirens got so loud she had to yell. “Fritz, they’re going to—”
Two police cars sped right by them.
“One more moment, madam.”
Another cop car went flying down the street.
Fritz eased out and continued at a brisk pace.
“Nice trick, Fritz.”
“With no offense to you, madam, human minds are rather easily manipulated.”
As they sped along, she laughed and fidgeted and tapped her fingers on the armrest. The trip seemed to take forever.
When they got to the compound’s first set of double gates, she was practically vibrating, she was so excited. And the moment they pulled up in front of the house, she bolted from the car, not even bothering to shut the door.
“Thanks, Fritz!” she called out over her shoulder.
“You’re welcome, madam!” he shouted back.
She burst through the vestibule and bounded up the grand staircase. As she took the corner at the top, going at a dead run, her purse swung out and clipped a lamp. She doubled back and righted the thing before it crashed.
She was laughing out loud as she burst into their bedroom—
Mary careened to a halt.
In the center of the room Rhage was naked and kneeling in a trance on some kind of black slab. He had white binds tied around his neck and wrists. And there was blood dripping onto the rug, though she couldn’t see where it was coming from.
His face looked as if he’d aged decades since she’d seen him.
“Rhage?”
His eyes slowly opened. They were opaque, dull. He blinked at her and frowned.
“Rhage? Rhage, what’s going on?”
Her voice seemed to snap him to attention.
“What are you—” He stopped. Then shook his head as if he were trying to clear a vision. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m cured! I’m a miracle!”
As she ran to him, he leaped out of the way, holding his hands up and glancing around frantically. “Get out! She’ll kill you! She’ll take it all back! Oh, God, get away from me!”
Mary stopped dead. “What are you talking about?”
“You took the gift, didn’t you!”
“How do you…how do you know about that weird dream?”
“Did you take the gift!”
Jesus. Rhage had lost it completely. Shaking, naked, he was bleeding from his shins and white as limestone.
“Calm down, Rhage.” Boy, this was so not how she’d pictured this conversation going. “I don’t know about any gift. But listen to this! I fell asleep while I was getting another MRI and something happened to the machine. It exploded or something, I guess, I don’t know, they said th
ere was some flash of light. Anyway, when they took me back upstairs, they drew some blood and everything was perfect. Perfect! I’m clean! No one has any idea what happened. It’s like the leukemia just disappeared and my liver fixed itself. They’re calling me a medical miracle!”
Happiness poured through her. Until Rhage grabbed her hands and squeezed so hard he hurt her.
“You need to leave. Now. You can’t know me. You have to go. Don’t ever come back here again.”
“What?”
He started pushing her out of the room, and then dragged her when she resisted.
“What are you doing? Rhage, I don’t—”
“You have to go!”
“Warrior, you can stop now.”
The wry female voice halted them both.
Mary looked over his shoulder. A small figure covered in black was in the corner of the room, light glowing from underneath the flowing robe.
“My dream,” Mary whispered. “You were the woman in my dream.”
Rhage’s arms crushed her as they went around her body, and then he thrust her away from him.
“I did not not go to her, Scribe Virgin. I swear, I didn’t—”
“Be at ease, warrior. I know you kept the bargain.” The small figure floated over to them, not walking, just moving through the room. “And all is well. You just left out one small detail about the situation, something I did not know until I approached her.”
“What?”
“You failed to tell me she could no longer bear children.”
Rhage looked at Mary. “I didn’t know.”
Mary nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s true. I’m infertile. From the treatments.”
The black robes shifted. “Come here, female. I will touch you now.”
Mary stepped forward in a daze as a glowing hand appeared from the silk. The meeting of their palms resulted in a warm electrification.
The woman’s voice was low and strong. “I regret that your ability to bring forward life has been taken from you. The joy of my creation sustains me always, and I take great sorrow that you will never hold flesh of your flesh in your arms, that you will not see your own eyes staring at you from the face of another, that you will never mix the essential nature of yourself with the male you love. What you have lost is enough of a sacrifice. To take the warrior from you as well…that is too much. As I told you, I give you life eternal until you decide to go unto the Fade of your own volition. And I have a feeling that choice shall be made when it is this warrior’s turn to leave the earth.”
Mary’s hand was released. And all the joy she’d felt drained out of her. She wanted to cry.
“Oh, hell,” she said. “I’m still dreaming, aren’t I? This is all just a dream. I should have known….”
Low, feminine laughter came out of the robes. “Go to your warrior, female. Feel the warmth of his body and know this is real.”
Mary turned. Rhage was staring at the figure in disbelief as well.
She stepped up to him, wrapped her arms around him, heard his heart beating in his chest.
The black figure disappeared, and Rhage started speaking in the Old Language, words falling from his mouth so fast she couldn’t have understood them even if they’d been in English.
Prayers, she thought—he was praying.
When he finally stopped, he looked down at her. “Let me kiss you, Mary.”
“Wait, will you please tell me what just happened? And who she is?”
“Later. I can’t…I’m not thinking clearly right now. Actually, I’d better go lie down for a minute. I feel like I’m going to faint, and I don’t want to fall on you.”
She threw his heavy arm over her shoulder and grabbed him around the waist. When he leaned on her, she grunted from the weight.
As soon as Rhage was lying down flat, he tore off the white sashes at his wrists and neck. It was then that she saw that sparkles were mixed with the blood on his shins. She eyed the black slab. There were chips on it, like glass. Or diamonds? God, he’d been kneeling on them. No wonder he’d been cut raw.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Mourning.”
“Why?”
“Later.” He pulled her down on top of him and held her hard.
Feeling his body under hers, she wondered whether it was possible for miracles to actually happen. And not as in the I’ve-just-had-some-really-good-luck kind, but the mystical, incomprehensible variety. She thought of the doctors racing around with her blood work and her charts. Felt the shock of electricity going through her arm and into her chest as the black-robed figure had touched her.
And she thought about the desperate prayers she’d thrown to the sky.
Yes, Mary decided. Miracles did actually happen in the world.
She started laughing and crying at the same time and drank in Rhage’s soothing response to the outburst.
A little later she said, “Only my mother could have believed this.”
“Believed what?”
“My mother was a good Catholic. She had faith in God and salvation and eternal life.” She kissed his neck. “So she would have believed in all this instantly. And she would have been convinced the mother of God had been under those black robes just now.”
“Actually, that was the Scribe Virgin. Who’s a lot of things, but not Jesus’s mom. At least, not as far as our lexicon goes.”
She lifted her head. “You know, my mother always told me I’d be saved whether I believed in God or not. She was convinced I couldn’t get away from the Grace because of what she named me. She used say that every time someone called out for me or wrote my name or thought about me, I was protected.”
“Your name?”
“Mary. She named me after the Virgin Mary.”
Rhage’s breath caught. And then he laughed softly.
“What’s so funny?”
His eyes were a bright, shining teal blue. “Just that V…well, Vishous is never wrong. Oh, Mary, my beautiful virgin, will you let me love you for as long as I live? And when I go unto the Fade, will you come with me?”
“Yes.” She stroked his cheek. “But does it bother you that I can’t have your children?”
“Not in the slightest. I have you, that’s all that matters.”
“You know,” she murmured, “there’s always adoption. Do vampires ever adopt?”
“Just ask Tohrment and Wellsie. I can already tell they think of John as their own.” Rhage smiled. “You want a baby, I’ll get you one. And you know, I might be okay as a dad.”
“I think you’ll be more than okay.”
When she bent down to kiss him, he stopped her. “Ah, there’s just one other thing.”
“What?”
“Well, we’re stuck with the beast. I kind of bargained with the Scribe Virgin—”
Mary pulled back. “You bargained?”
“I had to do something to save you.”
She stared at him, stunned, and then closed her eyes. He had set the wheels in motion; he had saved her.
“Mary, I had to trade something—”
She kissed him hard. “Oh, God, I love you,” she breathed.
“Even if it means you’re going to have to live with the beast? Because the curse is perpetual now. Set in stone. Forever.”
“I told you, that’s fine with me.” She smiled. “I mean, come on. He’s kind of cute, in a Godzilla sort of way. And I’ll look at it as a two-for-one kind of deal.”
Rhage’s eyes flashed white as he rolled her over and put his mouth on the side of her neck.
“I’m glad you like him,” he murmured, his hands tugging up her shirt. “Because the two of us are yours. For as long as you’ll have us.”
“That would be eternally,” she said as she let herself go.
And reveled in all the love.
Praise for Lover Awakened
“Best new series I’ve read in years! Tautly written, wickedly sexy, and just plain fun. Now here’s a band
of brothers who know how to show a girl a good time.”
—Lisa Gardner, New York Times
bestselling author of Gone
“Lover Awakened is utterly absorbing and deliciously erotic. I found myself turning pages faster and faster—and then I wished I hadn’t, because there was no more to read! The Brotherhood is the hottest collection of studs in romance, and I can’t wait for the next one!”
—USA Today bestselling author Angela Knight
Praise for Lover Eternal
“Like any good thrill ride, the pace changes with a tender story of survival and hope and leaves readers begging for more. Fans of L. A. Banks, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Sherrilyn Kenyon will add Ward to their must-read list.”
—Booklist
Praise for Dark Lover
“A dynamite new vampire series—delicious, erotic, and thrilling! J. R. Ward has created a wonderful cast of characters, with a sexy, tormented, to-die-for hero…. A fabulous treat for romance readers!”
—Nicole Jordan, New York Times bestselling
author of Fever Dreams: A Novel
“An awesome, instantly addictive debut novel. It’s a midnight whirlwind of dangerous characters and mesmerizing erotic romance. The Black Dagger Brotherhood owns me now. Dark fantasy lovers, you just got served.”
—Lynn Viehl, author of Dark Need
Also by J. R. Ward
Dark Lover
Lover Eternal
SIGNET ECLIPSE
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