Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood 9)

Payne eased her eyes back to the ring of bright fire that hung o’erhead. She wished he would hold her hand or touch her in some way, but she had asked more than plenty of him already.

Lying upon the rolling slab, her body felt all wrong, both heavy and weightless in the same moment, and her only hope was the spasms that tore down her legs and tickled into her feet, causing them to jerk. Surely all was not lost if that was occurring, she told herself.

Except even as she took shelter under that thought, a very small, quiet part of her mind told her that the cognitive roof she was trying to construct would not withstand the rain that hung o’er what was left of her life: When she moved her hands, though she could not see them, she could feel the cool, soft sheeting and the slick chill of the table she was upon. But when she told her feet to do the same . . . it was as though she were in the serene, tepid waters of the bathing pools on the Other Side, cocooned in an invisible embrace, sensing nothing against her.

Where was this healer?

Time . . . was passing.

As the wait went from intolerable to downright agonizing, it was difficult to know whether the choking sensation in her throat was from her condition or the quiet of the room. Verily, she and her twin were alike steeped in stillness—just for very different reasons: She was going nowhere with alacrity. He was on the verge of an explosion.

Desperate for some stimulation, something . . . anything, she murmured, “Tell me about the healer who is coming.”

The cool draft that hit her face and the scent of dark spices that tunneled into her nose told her it was a male. Had to be.

“He’s the best,” Vishous muttered. “Jane’s always talked about him like he’s a god.”

The tone was rather less than complimentary, but, indeed, vampire males did not appreciate others of their persuasion around their females.

Who could it be within the race? she wondered. The only healer that Payne had seen in the bowls was Havers. And surely there would have been no reason to search for him?

Perhaps there was another she had not been witness to. After all, she had not spent a vast amount of time catching up with the world, and according to her twin, there had been many, many, many years transpiring between her imprisonment and her freedom, such as it was . . .

In an abrupt wave, exhaustion cut off her thought process, seeping into her very marrow, dragging her down even harder atop the metal table.

Yet when she closed her eyes, she could withstand the dimness only a moment before panic popped her lids open. Whilst their mother had held her in suspended animation, she had been all too aware of her blank, limitless surroundings and the grindingly slow passage of moments and minutes. This paralysis now was too much alike what she had suffered for hundreds of years.

And that was the why of her terrible request to Vishous. She could not come here to this side only to replicate what she had been so desperate to escape from.

Tears trickled over her vision, causing the bright light source to waver.

How she wished her brother would hold her hand.

“Please don’t cry,” Vishous said. “Don’t . . . cry.”

In truth, she was surprised he noticed. “Verily, you are correct. Crying cures naught.”

Stiffening her resolve, she forced herself to be strong, but it was a battle. Although her knowledge of the arts of medicine was limited, simple logic spelled out what she was up against: As she was of an extraordinarily strong bloodline, her body had begun repairing itself the moment she had been injured whilst sparring with the Blind King. The problem was, however, the very regenerative process that would ordinarily save her life was making her condition ever more dire—and likely to be permanent.

Spines that were broken and fixing themselves were not likely to achieve a well-ordered result, and the paralysis of her lower legs was testament to that fact.

“Why do you keep regarding your hand?” she asked, still staring at the light.

There was a silent moment. Atop all the others. “Why do you think I am?”

Payne sighed. “Because I know you, brother mine. I know all about you.”

When he said not another thing, the quiet was about as companionable as the Old Country inquests had been.

Oh, what things had she set in motion?

And where would they all be when this came to an end?

THREE

Sometimes the only way to know how far you’d come was to return to where you once had been.

As Jane Whitcomb, M.D., walked into the St. Francis Hospital complex, she was sucked back into her former life. In one sense, it was a short trip—merely a year ago, she’d been the chief of trauma service here, living in a condo full of her parents’ things, spending twenty hours a day running between the ER and the ORs.