Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood 10)

finally got a read on the hour: five thirty-eight. The sun was probably just below the horizon, the dusk no doubt lingering in the sky to the east. It would be better to wait for the darkness to truly arrive, but he had no more time to waste - especially given that he wasn't sure what he was doing.

Shifting off his bunk, he rose to his full height, walked across the way and shook the mound of blankets Zypher was under.

"Go 'way," the soldier mumbled. "Still have thirty minutes. . . "

"You need to get the others out of here," Throe whispered.

"Do I. "

"And you must stay behind. "

"Must I. "

"I'm going to try to find a female to feed Xcor. "

That got the soldier's attention: Zypher's head lifted - down at the other end. "In truth?"

Throe shuffled to the foot of the bunk so they could meet eye-to-eye. "Make sure he stays here, and be prepared to drive him to my coordinates. "

"Throe, whatever are you about?"

Without reply, he turned away and began pulling leather upon his personage, his hands shaking from Xcor's treacherous state. . . and the fact that if his prayer was answered, he would be in the company of that female once again.

Glancing down at his fighting clothes, he hesitated. . . dearest Virgin Scribe, he wished he had something with which to clothe himself other than leather. A lovely suit of worsted wool with a cravat. Proper shoes with laces. Underwear.

"Wherever are you going?" Zypher asked sharply.

"It matters not. What I find is the only important thing. "

"Tell me you are taking weapons. "

Throe paused anew. If for some reason this backfired, he might well need armaments. But he didn't want to frighten her - assuming he could in fact reach her somehow and get her to come to him. Such a delicate female was she. . .

Some concealed things, he decided. A gun or two. Some knives. Nothing that she could see.

"Good," Zypher murmured as he began checking his weapons.

Mere minutes later, Throe ascended from the basement, and burst out the kitchen's exterior door -

Hissing and throwing up his forearms, he was forced to jump back into the dark house. With his eyes stinging and tearing up, he cursed and went for the sink, running cold water and splashing it upon his face.

It seemed forever until his phone's display informed him that an exit was safer to attempt, and this time he opened the door with far less bravado.

Oh, the relief of the night.

Leaping out from his confines, he landed upon the good earth and filled his lungs with the cold, damp air of autumn. Closing his still throbbing eyes, he focused himself inward, and spirited himself away from the house, casting his component molecules north and east until he reformed in a field of meadow grass marked in the center with a large, flame-tipped maple tree.

Standing before the great trunk, underneath the red-and-gold leaf cover, he surveyed the landscape with his razor-sharp senses. This bucolic spot was far, far away from the battleground of downtown, and not even close to any compound of the Brothers or outpost of the Lessening Society - at least that he was aware of.

To be sure of his read on the site, though, he waited, as motionless as the big tree behind him, but not nearly as serene - he was prepared to engage with anything and anyone.

Nobody and nothing came upon him, however.

Some thirty minutes later, he lowered himself to sit cross-legged upon the ground, linking his hands together, and settling in.

He was well aware of the peril of this path he was embarking upon. But in some battles, you had to make your own weapons, even if you ran the risk of them blowing up in your face: There was grave danger in this, but if there was one thing you could count on with the Brotherhood, it was an old-fashioned protection of their females.

He'd had the jaw shots to prove it.