Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood 10)

Trouble was, as the acrid scent of the male's agony rose up and filled the room, it was impossible not to feel for him.

Man, he just couldn't fucking take this.

Spiriting himself out into the corridor, he walked alone down the hall of statues to the head of the great staircase. Planting his ass on the top step, he listened to the sounds of the house. Down below, the doggen were cleaning up after Last Meal, their cheerful running commentary like chamber music in the background, all bippity-boppity, busy-busy. Behind him, in the study, the king and queen were. . . "working," so to speak, Wrath's bonding scent thick in the air, Beth's hitched breathing very quiet. The rest of the house was relatively quiet, the other Brothers and shellans and guests retiring for sleep. . . or other things along the lines of what the royal couple were up to.

Lifting his eyes, he focused on the painted ceiling that was high above the mosaic floor of the foyer. Over the heads of the depicted warriors on their fearsome, grimacing steeds, the blue sky and white clouds were kind of ridiculous - after all, vampires couldn't fight during the day. But, whatever, that was the beauty of representing reality instead of being in it: When you had the paintbrush in your hand, you were the god you wished ruled your life, capable of picking and choosing among fate's catalog of wares and destiny's deck of cards to your prolonged and sustained advantage.

Peering into the clouds, he waited for the figure he was looking for to appear, and soon it did.

Wellesandra was seated in a vast, desolate field, the endless gray plain studded with large boulders, the merciless wind blowing at her from all directions. She was not doing as well as she had been when he'd first seen her. Beneath the gray blanket that she clutched to herself and the young, she had grown paler, her red hair fading to a dull stain, her skin going pasty, her eyes no longer any discernible shade of sherry brown. And the babe in her arms, the tiny, swaddled bundle, didn't move as much anymore.

This was the tragedy of the In Between. Unlike the Fade, it wasn't meant to be forever. It was a way station to a final destination, and everyone's was a little different. The only thing that was the same? If you stayed too long, you couldn't get out. No eternal grace for you.

You just transitioned into a Dhund-like nothingness, with no chance of ever getting free of the void.

And these two were reaching the end of their rope.

"I'm doing the best I can," he said to them. "Just hold on. . . fucking hell, just hold on. "

Chapter Eight

The first thing Xhex did when she checked back into consciousness was look for John in the recovery room.

He wasn't in the chair across the way. Wasn't on the floor, propped up in the corner. Wasn't on the bed beside her.

She was alone.

Where the hell was he?

Oh, yeah, sure. He crawled all over her in the field, but then he left her here? Had he even come back for her operation?

With a groan, she considered rolling onto her side, but with all the IV lines in her arm and wires on her chest, she decided not to fight her plug-ins. Well, and then there was the happy fact that someone had drilled a large bore hole in her shoulder. A number of times.

Lying there with a snarl on her face, everything about the room annoyed her. The blow of the heat from the ceiling, the whirring sound of the machines behind her head, the sheets that felt like sandpaper, the rock-hard pillow and the too-soft mattress. . .

Where the fuck was John?

For the love of God, she may have made a mistake mating him. The loving him thing was what it was - no changing that, and she wouldn't want to. But she should have known better than to make things official. Even though the traditional sex roles of vampires were changing, thanks in large part to Wrath loosening up the Old Ways, there was still a load of patriarchal shit surrounding shellans. You could be a friend, a girlfriend, a lover, a coworker, a car mechanic, for fuck's sake, and expect your life to be your own.

But she feared that once your name was in the back of a male - and worse, a full-blooded warrior male - things changed. Expectations shifted.

Your mate started getting up in your face and thinking you couldn't take care of yourself.

Where was John?

Fed up, she shoved herself off the pillows, took out her IV and clipped the end so that the saline and whatever else didn't drip all over the floor. Next she silenced the heart monitor behind her, and then ripped the pads off her chest with her free hand.

She kept her right arm immobilized against her rib cage - she just needed to walk, not wave a flag.

At least she didn't have a catheter.

Putting her feet on the linoleum, she stood up carefully and gave herself props for being such a good little patient. In the bathroom, she washed her face, brushed her teeth, used the loo.

When she came back out, she expected to see John in one of the two doorways.

Nope.

Going around the end of the bed, she took things slowly, because her body was logy from the drugs, the operation, and the fact that she needed to feed - although shit knew, scoring John's vein was the last thing she was interested in. The longer he stayed away, the more she didn't want to see his hairy ass.