The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4

by J. R. Ward

  As she reached for her jeans, he made a low sound in the back of his throat. “You think I wouldn’t kill to be inside of you this very second?”

  “Go to hell, Zsadist. Go there right—”

  He moved fast as a lightning strike, taking her down hard to the bed, tackling her with his weight.

  “I am in hell,” he hissed, pushing his hips into her. He swiveled them against her core, that massive erection pushing into the soft place he’d just had with his mouth. With a curse, he pulled back, unzipped his leathers…and thrust into her, stretching her so wide it almost hurt. She cried out at the invasion, but tilted her hips up so he could go in even farther.

  Zsadist grabbed her knees and stretched her legs up, balling her under him; then he pounded against her, his warrior body sparing her nothing. She held on to his neck, drawing blood, lost in the grinding rhythm. This was how she’d always thought it would be with him. Hard, heavy, wild…raw. As she orgasmed again, he came with a roar, crashing into her. Hot jets filled her, then spilled out onto her thighs as he kept pumping.

  When he finally collapsed onto her, he released her legs and breathed against her neck.

  “Oh, God…I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said finally.

  “I am very sure about that.” She pushed him aside and sat up, more tired than she’d been in her whole life. “I have to meet my brother soon. I want you to leave.”

  He cursed, an aching, hollow sound. Then he handed over her pants, though he didn’t let them go. He looked at her for a long while, and like a fool she waited for him to tell her what she wanted to hear: I’m sorry I hurt you, I love you, don’t go.

  After a moment he dropped his hand and stood up, arranging himself, zipping up his pants. He went to the door, moving with that lethal grace he’d always walked with. As he looked over his shoulder, she realized they’d made love while he’d been fully armed. Fully dressed, too.

  Oh, but that had only been sex, hadn’t it.

  His voice was low. “I’m sorry—”

  “Do not say that to me right now.”

  “Then…thank you, Bella…for…everything. Yeah, really. I…thank you.”

  And just like that he was gone.

  John stayed behind in the gym as the rest of the class filed out to hit the locker room. It was seven at night, but he could have sworn it was three in the morning. What a day. Training had started at noon, because the Brotherhood wanted to go out early, and there had been hours of classwork on tactics and computer technology taught by two Brothers named Vishous and Rhage. Then Tohr had arrived right at sundown and the ass-kicking had started. The three-hour workout had been brutal. Running laps. Jujitsu. More hand-to-hand weapons training, including an introduction to nunchakus, or nunchucks.

  Those two wooden sticks connected by a chain were a nightmare for John, exposing all his weaknesses, especially his god-awful hand-to-eye coordination. But he wasn’t about to give up. As the other guys left to go shower, he went back to the equipment room and picked up one of the sets. He figured he’d practice until the bus came and then shower at home.

  He started spinning the nunchucks slowly at his side, the whirling sound oddly relaxing. Gradually increasing the velocity, he set them flying at a clip and then switched them to his left. Took them back. Again and again, until the sweat was once more coming out on his skin. Again and again and—

  And he clonked the shit out of himself. Right on the head.

  The blow made him weak in the knees, and after fighting the sag for a moment, he let himself sink down. Bracing himself with his arm, he put a hand to his left temple. Stars. Definitely seeing stars.

  In the midst of all his blinking, soft laughter drifted up from behind him. The satisfaction of the sound told him who it was, but he had to look anyway. Glancing under his arm, he saw Lash standing about five feet away. The guy’s pale hair was wet, his street clothes sleek, his smile cool.

  “You are such a loser.”

  John refocused on the mat, not really caring that Lash had caught him nailing himself in the brain. The guy had already seen that in class, so there was no new humiliation here.

  God… If he could only get his eyes to clear. He shook his head, stretched his neck…and saw another pair of nunchucks on the mat. Had Lash thrown them at him?

  “No one likes you, John. Why don’t you just leave? Oh, wait. That would mean you couldn’t chase after the Brothers. Then what would you do all day?”

  The guy’s laughter cut off abruptly as a deep voice snarled, “You don’t move, blondie, except to breathe.”

  A huge hand appeared in John’s face and he looked up. Zsadist was standing over him, dressed in full war gear.

  John grabbed hold of what was in front of him out of reflex and was pulled up easily from the floor.

  Zsadist’s black eyes were narrow, shimmering with anger. “The bus is ready, so get your shit. I’ll meet you outside of the locker room.”

  John hustled across the mats, thinking that when a male like Zsadist told you to do something, you did it fast. When he got to the door, though, he had to glance back.

  Zsadist had Lash around the neck and had lifted the guy off the mat so his feet dangled. The warrior’s voice was graveyard cold. “I saw you put him on the ground, and I’d kill you right now for it, except I’m not interested in dealing with your parents. So listen good, boy. You ever do something like that again, I’m going to thumb out your eyes and feed them to you. We clear?”

  In response, Lash’s mouth worked like a one-way valve. Air went in. Nothing came out. And then he pissed in his pants.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Zsadist dropped him.

  John didn’t stick around. He ran to the locker room, grabbed his duffel, and was out in the hall a moment later.

  Zsadist was waiting for him. “Come on.”

  John followed the Brother out into the parking lot to the van, all along wondering how he could thank the male. But then Zsadist paused by the bus and all but shoved him inside. Then he boarded the thing himself.

  Every one of the trainees cringed back into their seats. Especially when Zsadist unsheathed one of his daggers.

  “We sit here,” he said to John, pointing the weapon’s black blade to the first bench seat.

  Yeah, okay. Right. Here is good.

  John squeezed up against the window as Zsadist took an apple out of his pocket and lowered himself down.

  “We’re waiting for one more,” Zsadist told the driver. “And John and I will be your last stop.”

  The doggen bowed low behind the wheel. “Of course, sire. As you wish.”

  Lash slowly came into the van, the red streak around his throat a stain on his pale skin. When he saw Zsadist, he stumbled.

  “You’re wasting our time, boy,” Zsadist said while sliding the knife under the apple’s skin. “Sit your ass down.”

  Lash did as he was told.

  As the van took off, no one said a thing. Especially as the partition closed and they were all locked in the back together.

  Zsadist peeled the Granny Smith in one long strip, the skin inching down until it reached the floor of the van. When he was finished, he draped the green ribbon over his knee, then cleaved off a slice of white flesh and held it out to John on the blade. John took the piece with his fingers and ate it while Zsadist cut a hunk for himself and carried it to his mouth on the knife. They alternated until the apple was nothing but a skinny core.

  Zsadist took the skin and what was left and threw them in the little trash bag by the partition. Then he wiped the blade on his leathers and started to flip it into the air and catch it. He kept this up the whole ride to town. When they got to the first dropoff, there was a long hesitation after the partition opened. And then two of the guys shuffled by quickly.

  Zsadist’s black eyes followed them, and he stared hard, as if he were memorizing their faces. And all the time with the blade, up and down, the black metal flashing, the big palm catching it in the same place
on the handle after every toss—even when he was looking at the guys.

  This happened at each stop. Until John and he were alone.

  As the partition closed, Zsadist slid the dagger into his chest holster. Then he moved to the seat across the aisle and leaned back against the window, shutting his eyes.

  John knew better than to think the male was asleep, because his breathing didn’t change and he didn’t relax at all. He just didn’t want to interact.

  John took out his pad and pen. He wrote neatly, folded the paper, and held it in his hand. He had to say thank-you. Even if Zsadist couldn’t read, he had to say something.

  When the van stopped and the partition opened, John left the paper on Zsadist’s seat, not even trying to give it to the warrior. And he made sure he didn’t look up as he hit the steps and headed across the road. He did stop on the front lawn to watch the van leave, though, snow falling on his head and shoulders and duffel.

  As the bus disappeared into the gathering storm, Zsadist was revealed standing across the street. The Brother flashed the note, holding it up in the air between his first and middle fingers. Then he nodded once, put it in his back pocket, and dematerialized.

  John kept staring at the spot where Zsadist had been. Thick bundles of flakes filled up the footprints the male’s shitkickers had left.

  With a rumble the garage door opened behind him, and the Range Rover reversed its way over. Wellsie put the window down. Her red hair was coiled up high on her head, and she was wearing a black ski parka. The heater inside the car was going full blast, a dull roar almost as loud as the engine.

  “Hi, John.” She reached out her hand and he laid his palm on hers. “Listen, was that Zsadist I just saw?”

  John nodded.

  “What was he doing here?”

  John dropped his duffel and signed, He rode home on the bus with me.

  Wellsie frowned. “I’d like you to stay away from him, okay? He’s…not right in a lot of ways. Do you know what I mean?”

  Actually, John wasn’t so sure about that. Yeah, the guy was enough to make you think fondly of the bogeyman sometimes, but clearly he wasn’t all bad.

  “Anyway, I’m off to pick up Sarelle. We’ve run into a snag with the festival and lost all our apples. She and I are going to make the rounds of some spiritual folks, see what we can do about this so close to the date. Do you want to come?”

  John shook his head. I don’t want to get behind in Tactics.

  “Okay.” Wellsie smiled at him. “I left you some rice and ginger sauce in the fridge.”

  Thank you! I’m starved.

  “I figured you would be. See you soon.”

  He waved at her while she backed down the rest of the driveway and took off. As he headed for the house, he noticed absently how the chains Tohr had put on the Rover made sharp gouges in the fresh snow.

  Chapter Forty-one

  “Stop here.” O opened the Explorer’s door before the SUV even came to a halt at the base of Thorne Avenue. He angled a quick look up the hill, then shot the Beta behind the wheel a real wake-your-ass-up stare.

  “I want you to circle this neighborhood until I call you. Then I want you to come to number twenty-seven. Don’t head into the driveway, keep going. There’s a corner in the stone wall about fifty yards later. That’s where I want you.” As the Beta nodded, O snapped, “You fuck this up and I’ll put you under the Omega’s feet.”

  He didn’t wait for the slayer to throw out some kind of bullshit, have-confidence-in-me babble. He hit the pavement and ran up the road’s gradual incline. As he jogged he was a mobile arsenal, his body weighed down by the weapons and explosives he’d hung on himself as if he were a paramilitary Christmas tree.

  He went past number twenty-seven’s twin pillars and eyed the driveway that disappeared between them. Fifty yards later he was at the juncture of the stucco wall where he’d told the fool Beta to pick him up. He took three running strides and leaped into the air, all Michael Jordan and shit as he went for the top lip of the ten-foot wall.

  He closed the distance with no problem, but then his hands made contact. The blast of electricity that shot through his body was a real hair curler. If he’d been human still he’d have been toasted, and even as a slayer, the jolt was enough to leave him breathless as he pulled himself up and then plunged down the other side.

  Security lights flared, and he took shelter behind a maple tree, taking out his muzzled gun. If attack dogs came at him he was ready to pop them, and he waited for the barking. There was none. And there was no rush of lights going on in the mansion or the pounding feet of security guards either.

  While he waited a minute longer, he assessed the place. Back of the house was grand, all red bricks and white trim and sprawling terraces with second-floor porches. Garden was a pip, too. God… The annual upkeep on a monster spread like this was probably more than average folks made in a decade.

  Time to close in. He moved across the lawn toward the house in a crouch, running in a cramped shuffle with his gun up in front. When he got in tight with the bricks, he was elated. The window he was next to was fitted with tracks that ran down its long sides, and on the top of the thing there was a discreetly disguised boxy transom.

  Steel retractable shutters. And there was a set on every window and door, it looked like.

  In the Northeast, where you didn’t have to worry about tropical storms and hurricanes, there was only one kind of homeowner who threw those puppies over every slice of glass: the kind who needed to be protected from the sun.

  Vampires lived here.

  The shutters were up because it was night, and O looked inside the house. It was dark, which wasn’t encouraging, but he was going in anyway.

  The question was how to do the breaking and entering. It went without saying that the place was alarmed up the ass and wired for sound. And he was willing to bet that anyone who ran electric current around the top of their fence wasn’t going to ADT it. This was going to be some sophisticated technology.

  He decided his best move was cutting the power, so he went hunting for the main electrical line into the mansion. He found the utilities spinal cord around the back of the six-car garage, nestled in an enclave of HVAC shit that included three air-conditioning units, an exhaust blower, and a backup generator. The main power line’s thick, metal-encased vein came up through the earth and split, plugging into a series of four meters that were whizzing along.

  He put a short-fused load of C4 plastic explosive right at the trunk and then rigged another setup like that at the nerve center of the generator. Stepping behind the garage, he triggered both remotely. Two pops broke out, and the flare of light and the smoke faded quickly.

  He waited to see if anyone came running. No one did. On impulse he peered into a couple of the garage bays. Two were empty; the others had very nice cars in them, so nice he couldn’t even tell what kind one of them was.

  With the juice cut off, he jogged around and cased the front of the house, skirting behind the boxwood hedge that ran down the facade. A set of French doors was perfect for entry. He put his gloved fist through one pane, shattering the glass, and then sprang the lock. As soon as he stepped inside, he started to reclose the door. It was critical that the contacts for the security alarm were in their proper place if an alternative generator kicked in—Holy…Moses.

  Those were lithium-powered electrodes on the doors…which meant the contacts didn’t run on a current. And—shit—he was standing right in the middle of a laser beam. Jesus. This was very high-tech…as in Museum of Fine Arts, the White House, the pope’s bedroom high-tech.

  The only reason he’d gotten into the house at all was because someone had wanted him to.

  He listened. Total silence. A trap?

  O stayed frozen, barely breathing, for a little longer and then made sure his gun was good to go before he silently walked through a bunch of rooms that were right out of some glossy magazine. As he went he wanted to slash the paintings on the wa
lls and yank down the chandeliers and break the spindly legs of the fancy tables and chairs. He wanted to burn the drapes. He wanted to shit on the floors. He wanted to ruin it because it was beautiful, and because if his woman had ever lived here, it meant she was way better than he was.

  He rounded a corner into some kind of living room and stopped dead.

  Up on the wall, in an ornate gilded frame, was a portrait of his wife…and the thing was draped with black silk. Below the painting, on a marble-topped table, there was a gold chalice turned upside down and a square of white cloth with three rows of ten little stones. Twenty-nine were rubies. The last one, in the lower left-hand corner, was black.

  The ritual was different from the Christian shit he’d lived with as a human, but this was a memorial to his wife.

  O’s intestines turned into snakes, seething and hissing in his lower belly. He thought about throwing up.

  His woman was dead.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Phury muttered as he limped around his room. His side hurt like a bitch, and he was trying to get ready to go out, and Butch’s mother-hen impression wasn’t helping.

  The cop shook his head. “You need to go to the doctor, big guy.”

  The fact that the human had a point burned Phury’s ass even more. “No, I don’t.”

  “If you were going to spend the day on the couch, maybe. But fighting? Come on, man. If Tohr knew you were going out like this he’d have your head on a stick.”

  True. “I’ll be fine. Just have to warm up.”

  “Yeah, stretching’s really going to help that hole in your liver. Matter of fact, maybe I can get you some Ben-Gay and we’ll just massage the shit out of it. Good plan.”

  Phury glared across the room. Butch cocked an eyebrow.

  “You’re pissing me off, cop.”

  “You don’t say. Hey, how about this…you can yell at me while I drive you to Havers’s.”

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  “But if I take you, I’ll know you went.” Butch dragged out the Escalade’s keys from his pocket and dangled them in the air. “Besides, I’m a good taxi. Just ask John.”