Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood 2)

"Thanks, Fritz!" she called out over her shoulder.

"You're welcome, madam!" he shouted back.

She burst through the vestibule and bounded up the grand staircase. As she took the corner at the top, going at a dead run, her purse swung out and clipped a lamp. She doubled back and righted the thing before it crashed.

She was laughing out loud as she burst into their bedroom -

Mary careened to a halt.

In the center of the room Rhage was naked and kneeling in a trance on some kind of black slab. He had white binds tied around his neck and wrists. And there was blood dripping onto the rug, though she couldn't see where it was coming from.

His face looked as if he'd aged decades since she'd seen him.

"Rhage?"

His eyes slowly opened. They were opaque, dull. He blinked at her and frowned.

"Rhage? Rhage, what's going on?"

Her voice seemed to snap him to attention.

"What are you - " He stopped. Then shook his head as if he were trying to clear a vision. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm cured! I'm a miracle!"

As she ran to him, he leaped out of the way, holding his hands up and glancing around frantically. "Get out! She'll kill you! She'll take it all back! Oh, God, get away from me!"

Mary stopped dead. "What are you talking about?"

"You took the gift, didn't you!"

"How do you... how do you know about that weird dream?'

"Did you take the gift!"

Jesus. Rhage had lost it completely. Shaking, naked, he was bleeding from his shins and white as limestone.

"Calm down, Rhage." Boy, this was so not how she'd pictured this conversation going. "I don't know about any gift. But listen to this! I fell asleep while I was getting another MRI and something happened to the machine. It exploded or something, I guess, I don't know, they said there was some flash of light. Anyway, when they took me back upstairs, they drew some blood and everything was perfect. Perfect! I'm clean! No one has any idea what happened. It's like the leukemia just disappeared and my liver fixed itself. They're calling me a medical miracle!"

Happiness poured through her. Until Rhage grabbed her hands and squeezed so hard he hurt her.

"You need to leave. Now. You can't know me. You have to go. Don't ever come back here again."

"What?"

He started pushing her out of the room, and then dragged her when she resisted.

"What are you doing? Rhage, I don't - "

"You have to go!"

"Warrior, you can stop now."

The wry female voice halted them both.

Mary looked over his shoulder. A small figure covered in black was in the corner of the room, light glowing from underneath the flowing robe.

"My dream," Mary whispered. "You were the woman in my dream."

Rhage's arms crushed her as they went around her body, and then he thrust her away from him.

"I did not not go to her, Scribe Virgin. I swear, I didn't - "

"Be at ease, warrior. I know you kept the bargain." The small figure floated over to them, not walking, just moving through the room. "And all is well. You just left out one small detail about the situation, something I did not know until I approached her."

"What?"

"You failed to tell me she could no longer bear children."

Rhage looked at Mary. "I didn't know."

Mary nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. "It's true. I'm infertile. From the treatments."

The black robes shifted. "Come here, female. I will touch you now."

Mary stepped forward in a daze as a glowing hand appeared from the silk. The meeting of their palms resulted in a warm electrification.

The woman's voice was low and strong. "I regret that your ability to bring forward life has been taken from you. The joy of my creation sustains me always, and I take great sorrow that you will never hold flesh of your flesh in your arms, that you will not see your own eyes staring at you from the face of another, that you will never mix the essential nature of yourself with the male you love. What you have lost is enough of a sacrifice. To take the warrior from you as well... that is too much. As I told you, I give you life eternal until you decide to go unto the Fade of your own volition. And I have a feeling that choice shall be made when it is this warrior's turn to leave the earth."

Mary's hand was released. And all the joy she'd felt drained out of her. She wanted to cry.

"Oh, hell," she said. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I? This is all just a dream. I should have known..."

Low, feminine laughter came out of the robes. "Go to your warrior, female. Feel the warmth of his body and know this is real."

Mary turned. Rhage was staring at the figure in disbelief as well.

She stepped up to him, wrapped her arms around him, heard his heart beating in his chest.

The black figure disappeared, and Rhage started speaking in the Old Language, words falling from his mouth so fast she couldn't have understood them even if they'd been in English.

Prayers, she thought - he was praying.

When he finally stopped, he looked down at her. "Let me kiss you, Mary."

"Wait, will you please tell me what just happened? And who she is?"

"Later. I can't... I'm not thinking clearly right now. Actually, I'd better go lie down for a minute. I feel like I'm going to faint, and I don't want to fall on you."

She threw his heavy arm over her shoulder and grabbed him around the waist. When he leaned on her, she grunted from the weight.

As soon as Rhage was lying down flat, he tore off the white sashes at his wrists and neck. It was then that she saw that sparkles were mixed with the blood on his shins. She eyed the black slab. There were chips on it, like glass. Or diamonds? God, he'd been kneeling on them. No wonder he'd been cut raw.

"What were you doing?" she asked.

"Mourning."

"Why?"

"Later." He pulled her down on top of him and held her hard.

Feeling his body under hers, she wondered whether it was possible for miracles to actually happen. And not as in the I've-just-had-some-really-good-luck kind, but the mystical, incomprehensible variety. She thought of the doctors racing around with her blood work and her charts. Felt the shock of electricity going through her arm and into her chest as the black-robed figure had touched her.

And she thought about the desperate prayers she'd thrown to the sky.

Yes, Mary decided. Miracles did actually happen in the world.

She started laughing and crying at the same time and drank in Rhage's soothing response to the outburst.

A little later she said, "Only my mother could have believed this."

"Believed what?"

"My mother was a good Catholic. She had faith in God and salvation and eternal life." She kissed his neck. "So she would have believed in all this instantly. And she would have been convinced the mother of God had been under those black robes just now."

"Actually, that was the Scribe Virgin. Who's a lot of things, but not Jesus's mom. At least, not as far as our lexicon goes."

She lifted her head. "You know, my mother always told me I'd be saved whether I believed in God or not. She was convinced I couldn't get away from the Grace because of what she named me. She used say that every time someone called out for me or wrote my name or thought about me, I was protected."

"Your name?"

"Mary. She named me after the Virgin Mary."

Rhage's breath caught. And then he laughed softly.

"What's so funny?"

His eyes were a bright, shining teal blue. "Just that V... well, Vishous is never wrong. Oh, Mary, my beautiful virgin, will you let me love you for as long as I live? And when I go unto the Fade, will you come with me?"

"Yes." She stroked his cheek. "But does it bother you that I can't have your children?"

"Not in the slightest. I have you, that's all that matters."

"You know," she murmured, "there's always adoption. Do vampires ever adopt?"

"Just ask Tohrment and Wellsie. I can already tell they think of John as their own." Rhage smiled. "You want a baby, I'll get you one. And you know, I might be okay as a dad."

"I think you'll be more than okay."

When she bent down to kiss him, he stopped her. "Ah, there's just one other thing."

"What?"

"Well, we're stuck with the beast. I kind of bargained with the Scribe Virgin - "