Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood 2)

Longer-term solutions evaded him at the moment, but he would find them. She'd become his responsibility when he got her mixed up in his world, and he wasn't going to leave her undefended.

"Trust me on this. Just a couple days."

Mary packed a bag, thinking she was crazy. Heading to God knew where. With a vampire.

But the thing about Rhage was, she had faith in him. He was too honest to lie and too smart to underestimate the threat. Besides, her appointments with the specialists didn't start up until Wednesday afternoon. And she'd taken the week off from work as well as been discharged from the hotline. There was nothing she would miss.

When she came back down to the living room, he turned toward her, swinging the duffel over one shoulder. She eyed his black suit jacket, seeing bulges in it she hadn't thought were significant before.

"Are you armed?' she asked.

He nodded.

"With what?" When he just looked at her, Mary shook her head. "You're right. Probably better that I don't know. Let's go - "

They drove in silence down Route 22 into the dead zone between Caldwell's rural edges and the beginnings of the next large town. This was hilly, woodland country with nothing but long stretches of forest between the occasional rotting double-wide at the side of the road. There were no streetlights, few cars, and a lot of deer.

About twenty minutes after they'd left her house, he turned off onto a cramped one-laner that took them on a gradual ascent. She scanned what the headlights revealed, but couldn't discern where they were. Oddly, there didn't seem to be any identifying features to the forest or the road. In fact, the landscape had a fuzzy quality to it, a buffering that she couldn't explain and couldn't override no matter how much she blinked.

From out of nowhere a set of black iron gates appeared.

As Mary jumped in her seat, Rhage hit a garage door opener, and the heavy gates split in half, allowing them just enough space to squeeze through. Immediately they confronted another set. He put down his window and punched a code into an intercom. A pleasant voice welcomed him and he looked up and to the left, nodding to a security camera.

The second pair of gates parted and Rhage accelerated up a long, ascending drive. When they rounded a corner, a twenty-foot-tall masonry wall materialized in the same conjured-up manner of the first gateway. After going under an archway and passing through yet another set of barricades, they came into a courtyard with a fountain in the middle.

To the right, there was a four-story mansion made of gray stone, the kind of place you'd see in promos for horror films: Gothic, gloomy, oppressive, with more shadows than a person felt safe being around. Across the way, there was a small, one-story house with the same Wes Craven feel.

Six cars, mostly of expensive European flavors, were parked in an orderly fashion. Rhage plugged the GTO into a spot between an Escalade and a Mercedes.

Mary got out and craned her neck up at the mansion. She felt as though she were being watched, and she was. From the roof, gargoyles stared down at her, and so did security cameras.

Rhage came over, her overnight bag in his hand. His mouth was tight, his eyes intense.

"I'm going to take care of you. You know that, right?" As she nodded, he smiled a little. "It's going to be fine, but I want you to stick close by me. I don't want us separated. That clear? You stay with me no matter what happens."

Reassurance coupled with a command, she thought. This was not going to be fine.

They walked up to a pair of weathered bronze doors and he opened one side. After they'd stepped into a windowless vestibule, the great panel clamped shut with a reverberation that came up through her shoes. Directly ahead there was another massive set of doors, these made of wood and carved with symbols. Rhage punched a code into a keypad and there was the shifting sound of a lock coming free. He took her arm firmly and opened the second door into a vast foyer.

Mary gasped. How... magical!

The lobby was a rainbow of color, as unexpected as a garden blooming in a cave. Green malachite columns alternated with ones made of claret marble, the lengths rising up from a multi-hued mosaic floor. The walls were brilliant yellow and hung with gold-framed mirrors and crystal-strung sconces. The ceiling, three stories up, was a masterpiece of artwork and gold leafing, the scenes depicting heroes and horses and angels. And up ahead, centered among all the grandeur, was a broad staircase that ascended to a balconied second floor.

It was Russian-tsar beautiful... but the sounds of the place were not exactly formal and elegant. From the room on the left, hard-core rap music pumped and deep male voices carried. Pool balls cracked into each other. Someone yelled, "Go long, cop!"

A football sailed into the foyer and a muscular man came shooting out after it. He leaped up and just had his hands on the thing when an even bigger guy with a lion's mane of hair slammed into him. The two of them went down to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, sliding hard into the wall.

"I got you good, cop."

"But you don't have the ball yet, vampire."

Grunts, laughter, and juicy curses carried up to that ornate ceiling as the men fought for the football, flipping each other over, sitting on each other's chests. Two more huge guys in black leather jogged out to check on the action. And then a little old man dressed in tails emerged from the right, carrying a bouquet of fresh flowers in a crystal vase. The butler stepped around the wrestling match with an indulgent smile.

Then everything went silent as they all noticed her at once.

Rhage shuffled her behind his body.

"Son of a bitch," someone said.

One of the men came at Rhage like a tank. His dark hair was clipped into a military brush cut, and Mary had the oddest sense she'd seen him before.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Rhage spread his stance, dropped her bag, and brought his hands up to chest level. "Where's Wrath?"

"I asked you a question," the other guy snapped. "What are you doing, bringing her here?"

"I need Wrath."

"I told you to get rid of her. Or do you expect one of us to do your job?"

Rhage met the man chin-to-chin. "Careful, Tohr. Don't make me hurt you."

Mary glanced behind her. The door to the vestibule was still open. And right now waiting in the car while Rhage sorted things out seemed like a really good idea. Stick-together rule notwithstanding.

As she backed away, she kept her eyes on him. Until she bumped against something hard.

She wheeled around. Looked up. And lost her voice.

What was blocking her escape had a scarred face, black eyes, and an aura of stone-cold anger.

Before she could bolt in fear, he took her arm and spun her away from the door.

"Don't even think about running." Flashing long fangs, he measured her body. "Funny, you're not his usual type. But you're alive and pants-pissing terrified. So you'll do fine for me."

Mary screamed.

Every head in the foyer turned. Rhage lunged for her, pulling her away, bringing her tight against his body. He spoke harshly, in the language she didn't understand.

The scarred man narrowed his eyes. "Easy there, Hollywood. Just keeping your little plaything in the house. You going to share her or be selfish like you usually are?"

Rhage looked as if he were about to lash out when a woman's voice cut him off.

"Oh, for God's sake, boys! You're scaring her."

Mary glanced around Rhage's chest and saw a woman coming down the stairway. She looked completely normal: Long black hair, blue jeans, white turtleneck. A black cat was purring like a sewing machine in her arms. As she marched through the thicket of men, they all got out of her way.

"Rhage, we're glad you made it home safely. And Wrath is coming down in a minute." She pointed to the room the men had come out of. "The rest of you head back in there. Go on, now. If you're going to crack some balls, do it on the pool table. Dinner's in a half hour. Butch, take the football with you, okay?"

She shooed them from the foyer like they weren't hard-nosed badasses. The only guy who stayed was the one with the brush cut.

He was calmer now as he looked at Rhage. "This is going to have repercussions, my brother."

Rhage's face hardened and they broke into their secret language.

The black-haired woman came up to Mary, all the while stroking the cat's throat. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be okay. I'm Beth, by the way. And this is Boo."

Mary took a deep breath, instinctively trusting this lone feminine outpost in what was a jungle of testosterone.