Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood 3)

"Don't I always? Look, I have to go to Havers's myself tonight, but only long enough to get my prosthesis refitted. I'll have Rhage keep an eye on things until I get back."

"You do that. We're not going to lose that female on our watch, we clear? Jesus Christ... that twin of yours would drive anyone right off a cliff, you know that?" Wrath stalked out of the room.

Phury looked back down to the pallet and imagined Bella lying there next to Zsadist. This was all wrong. Z didn't know a fricking thing about warmth. And that poor female had spent the last six weeks in the cold ground.

It should be me in there with her. Washing her. Easing her. Caring for her.

Mine, he thought, glaring at the door the singing was coming out of.

Phury started for the bathroom, suddenly pissed off beyond belief. The territorial anger lit his chest up like a bonfire, teeing off a blaze of power that roared in his body. He clamped his hand on the doorknob - and heard that beautiful tenor changing tune.

Phury stood there, shaking. As his anger slid into a yearning that frightened him, he put his forehead on the jamb. Oh, God... no.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find another explanation for his behavior. There wasn't one. And he and Zsadist were twins, after all.

So it would make sense that they would want the same female. That they would end up... bonding with the same female.

He cursed.

Holy shit, this was trouble - of the bury-your-dead variety. Two bonded males tied to the same female were a lethal combination to begin with. Make that two warriors and you had the potential for serious injury. Vampires were animals, after all. They walked and talked and were capable of higher reasoning, but fundamentally they were animals. So there were some instincts that even the smartest brain couldn't override.

Good thing he wasn't quite there yet. He was attracted to Bella and he wanted her, but he hadn't descended into the deep possessiveness that was the calling card of a bonded male. And he hadn't caught the bonding scent coming off of Z, so maybe there was hope.

They'd both have to get away from Bella, though. Warriors, probably because of their aggressive natures, bonded hard and quick. So hopefully she would leave soon and go back to her family, where she belonged.

Phury peeled his hand off the doorknob and backed out of the room. Like a zombie he walked downstairs and headed outside to the courtyard. He wanted the cold to slap some clear thinking into him. Except all it did was make his skin tight.

He was about to light a blunt of red smoke when he noticed that the Ford Taurus, the one Z had hot-wired and driven Bella home in, was parked in front of the mansion. It was still running, forgotten in all the drama.

Yeah, that was not the kind of lawn sculpture they needed. God only knew what kind of tracking device was in it.

Phury got into the sedan, threw the thing into gear, and headed out.

Chapter Nine

As John stepped free of the underground tunnel, he was momentarily blinded by brightness. And then his eyesight adjusted. Oh, my God. It's beautiful.

The vast lobby was rainbow vivid, so colorful he felt like his retinas couldn't take it all in. From the green and red marble columns to the multihued mosaic floor to the gold leafing everywhere to the -

Holy Michelangelo, look at that ceiling.

Three stories up, paintings of angels and clouds and warriors on great horses covered an expanse that seemed as big as a football field. And there was more... All around the second floor there was a gold-leafed balcony that had panels inset with similar depictions. Then there was the grand staircase with its own ornate balustrade.

The proportions of the space were perfect. The colors luscious. The art sublime. And it wasn't Donald Trump rent-a-royalty. Even John, who didn't know anything about style, had this funny sense that what he was looking at was the real deal. The person who had built this mansion and decorated it knew his stuff and had the money to buy top-drawer everything: a true aristocrat.

"Sweet, isn't it? My brother D built this place in 1914." Tohr put his hands on his hips as he glanced around, then cleared his throat briskly. "Yeah, he had fabulous taste. The best of the best for him."

John measured Tohr's face carefully. He'd never heard that tone of voice come out of the man before. Such sadness...

Tohr smiled and urged John forward with a hand to the shoulder. "Don't look at me like that. I feel like an unwrapped sausage when you do."

They headed for the second floor, walking up dark red carpeting so lush it was like stepping on a mattress. When John got to the top, he looked over the balcony at the lobby's floor design. The mosaics coalesced into a spectacular depiction of a fruit tree in full bloom.

"Apples play a role in our rituals," Tohr said. "Or at least, they do when we observe them. Not a lot of that's been going on lately, but Wrath's convening the first winter solstice ceremony in a hundred or so years."

That's what Wellsie's been working on, right? John signed.

"Yeah. She's handling a lot of the logistics. The race is hungry to get back to the rituals, and it's about time."

When John didn't look away from the splendor, Tohr said, "Son? Wrath's waiting for us."

John nodded and followed, going across the landing to a set of double doors marked with some kind of seal. Tohr was just lifting his hand to knock when the brass handles turned and the interior was revealed. Except no one was on the other side. So how had the things opened?

John glanced in. The room was cornflower blue and reminded him of pictures from a history book. It was French, wasn't it? With all the curlicues and fancy furnishings -

John suddenly had trouble swallowing.

"My Lord," Tohr said, bowing and then walking forward.

John just stood there in the doorway. Behind a spectacular French desk that was way too pretty and way too little for him, there was a massive man with shoulders bigger than even Tohr's. Long black hair fell straight from a widow's peak, and that face... the hard composite of it spelled out do-not-fuck-with-me. God, the wraparound sunglasses made him look positively cruel.

"John?" Tohr said.

John went to Tohr's side and hid a little. Yeah, it was a pansy thing to do, but he'd never felt smaller or more dispensable in his life. Hell, next to the power of the guy in front of them, he was almost convinced he didn't actually exist.

The king shifted in his chair, leaning onto the desk.

"Come here, son." The voice was low and accented, the r stretching out quite a while before its word ended.

"Go on." Tohr gave him a nudge when he didn't move. "It's all right."

John stumbled over his feet, making it across the room with absolutely no finesse. He halted in front of the desk as if he were a rock that had rolled to a stop.

The king rose and kept rising until he seemed tall as an office building. Wrath had to be six-foot-seven or more, and the black clothes he wore, particularly the leathers, made him even larger.

"Come behind here."

John glanced back to make sure Tohr was still in the room.

"It's okay, son," the king said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

John moved around, his heart beating like a mouse's. As he tilted his head and looked up, the king's arm stretched out. The insides of it, from wrist to elbow, were covered with black tattoos. And the designs were like the ones John had seen in his dreams, the ones he'd put on the bracelet he wore...

"I'm Wrath," the man said. There was a pause. "You want to shake my hand, son?"

Oh, right. John reached out, half expecting his bones to be crushed. Instead he just felt steady warmth as they made contact.

"That name on your bracelet," Wrath said. "It's Tehrror. Do you want to go by that or John?"

John panicked and glanced back at Tohr, because he didn't know what he wanted and didn't know how to communicate that to the king.

"Easy, son." Wrath laughed softly. "You can decide later."

The king's face suddenly snapped to the side, as if he'd focused on something out in the hall. Just as abruptly a smile stretched his hard lips into an expression of total reverence.

"Leelan," Wrath breathed.

"Sorry I'm late." The female voice was low and lovely. "Mary and I are so worried about Bella. We're trying to figure out how to help her."

"You two will find a way. Come meet John."

John turned to the door and looked at a woman -

White light suddenly took the place of his vision, just wiped out everything he saw. It was like being hit with a halogen beam. He blinked, blinked, blinked... And then from out of the infinite nothing, he saw the woman again. She was dark-haired, with eyes that reminded him of someone he'd loved... No, not reminded... hers were the eyes of his... What? Of his what?