Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood 3)

She would be his forever that way.

As midnight neared, Bella put on a pair of her old blue jeans and that thick red sweater she liked so much. Then she went into the bathroom, pulled the two towels down from the mirror, and looked at herself. Her reflection was of the female she had always seen staring back at her: Blue eyes. High cheeks. Biggish lips. Lots of dark brown hair.

She lifted the edge of the sweater and peeked at her stomach. The skin there was flawless, no longer bearing the lesser's name. She smoothed her hand over where the letters had been.

"You ready?" Zsadist asked.

She glanced up into the mirror. He loomed behind her, dressed in black, weapons hanging off his body. His coal eyes were pegged on the skin she exposed.

"The scars have healed," she said. "In just forty-eight hours."

"Yeah. And I'm glad."

"I'm scared to go to my house."

"Phury and Butch are coming with us. You've got plenty of protection."

"I know..." She lowered the sweater. "It's just... what if I can't bear to go inside?"

"Then we try again another night. However long it takes." He held out her parka.

Shrugging into the thing, she said, "You have better things to do than watch over me."

"Not right now I don't. Give me your hand."

Her fingers trembled as she reached out. She had some vague thought that it was the first time he'd asked her to touch him, and she hoped the contact would lead to an embrace.

But he wasn't interested in hugging. He put a small gun in her hand without even brushing her skin.

She recoiled in distaste. "No, I - "

"Hold it like - "

"Wait a minute, I don't - "

" - this." He positioned the little butt against her palm. "Here's the safety. On. Off. Got it? On... off. You need to be in tight to kill with this, but it's loaded with two bullets that will slow a lesser down long enough so you can get away. Just point and pull the trigger twice. You don't need to c**k it or anything. And aim for the torso, it'll be a bigger target."

"I don't want this."

"And I don't want you to have it. But it's better than sending you in light."

She shook her head and closed her eyes. So ugly this business of life sometimes was.

"Bella? Bella, look at me." When she did, he said, "Keep that in the outside pocket of your coat on the right side. You want it in your business hand if you have to use it." She opened her mouth and he talked right over her. "You're going to stay with Butch and Phury. And as long as you're with them, it is extremely unlikely you will need to use that."

"Where will you be?"

"Around." As he turned away, she noticed he had a knife at the small of his back - in addition to the two daggers on his chest, and the pair of guns on his hips. She wondered how many other weapons he had on him that she couldn't see.

He stopped in the doorway, head hanging low. "I'm going to make sure you don't have to take out that gun, Bella. I promise you. But I can't have you unarmed."

She took a deep breath. And slipped the little piece of metal into her coat pocket.

Out in the hall Phury was waiting, leaning against the balcony. He was also dressed for fighting, with guns and those daggers all over him, a deadly calm radiating from his body. When she smiled at him, he nodded and drew on his black leather coat.

Zsadist's cell phone rang and he flipped it open. "You there, cop? What's doing?" When he hung up, he nodded. "Good to go."

The three of them walked down to the foyer and then out into the courtyard. In the cold air both males palmed guns, and then all of them dematerialized.

Bella took form on her front porch, facing the glossy red door with its brass knocker. She could feel Zsadist and Phury behind her, two huge male bodies full of tension. Footsteps sounded and she looked over her shoulder. Butch was coming up onto the porch. His gun was drawn, too.

The idea of taking her time and easing into her house struck her as dangerous and selfish. She unlocked the door with her mind, then walked in.

The place still smelled the same... a combination of the lemon floor wax she used on the wide pine boards and the rosemary candles she liked to burn.

When she heard the door shut and the security alarm get turned off, she glanced back. Butch and Phury were tight on her heels, but Zsadist was nowhere to be seen.

She knew he hadn't left them. But she wished he were inside with her.

She took a deep breath and looked around her living room. Without any lights on, she only saw familiar shadows and shapes, more the pattern of the furniture and the walls than anything else.

"Everything seems... God, exactly the same."

Although there was a blank spot over her writing desk. A mirror was gone, a mirror that she and her mother had picked out together in Manhattan about a decade ago. Rehvenge had always liked it. Had he taken the thing? She wasn't sure whether to be touched or offended.

When she reached out to turn a lamp on, Butch stopped her. "No lights. Sorry."

She nodded. Walking deeper into the farmhouse, seeing more of her things, she felt as though she were among friends of long acquaintance whom she hadn't seen in years. It was delightful and sad. A relief most of all. She'd been so sure she would get upset...

She stopped when she got to the dining room. Beyond the wide archway at the far end was the kitchen. Dread coiled in her gut.

Steeling herself, she walked into the other space and halted. As she saw everything so neat and unbroken, she remembered the violence that had taken place.

"Someone's cleaned it up," she whispered.

"Zsadist." Butch stepped by her, gun up at chest level, eyes scanning around.

"He... did all this?" She motioned her hand in a sweep.

"The night after you were taken. He spent hours here. Downstairs is neat as a pin, too."

She tried to imagine Zsadist with a mop and bucket, getting rid of the bloodstains and the glass shards.

Why? she wondered.

Butch shrugged. "He said it was personal."

Had she spoken out loud? "Did he explain... why that was?"

As the human shook his head, she was aware of Phury pointedly taking interest in the outdoors.

"You want to go to your bedroom?" Butch asked.

When she nodded, Phury said, "I'm staying up here."

Down in the basement she found everything in order, arranged... clean. She opened her closet, went through her dresser drawers, wandered around her bathroom. Small things captivated her. A bottle of perfume. A magazine dated from before the abduction. A candle she could remember lighting next to the claw-foot tub.

Lingering, touching, sliding back into place in some profound way, she wanted to spend hours... days. But she could feel Butch's increasing strain.

"I think I've seen enough for tonight," she said, wishing she could stay longer.

Butch went first as they headed back to the first floor. When he came into the kitchen, he looked at Phury. "She's ready to head out."

Phury flipped open his phone. There was a pause. "Z, time to go. Start the car for the cop."

As Butch shut the cellar door, Bella went over to her fish tank and peered in. She wondered if she would ever live at the farmhouse again. And had a feeling she wouldn't.

"Do you want to take anything with you?" Butch asked.

"No, I think - "

A gunshot rang outside, the hollow popping noise muffled.

Butch grabbed her and hauled her back against his body. "Stay quiet," he said in her ear.

"Out front," Phury hissed as he fell into a crouch. He pointed his gun down the hall at the door they'd come in through.

Another gunshot. And another. Getting closer. Coming around the house.

"We're out the tunnel," Butch whispered as he muscled her around and pushed her toward the basement door.

Phury tracked the sounds with his gun muzzle. "I got your back."

Just as Butch's hand fell on the cellar door's knob, time compressed into fractals of seconds, men collapsed into nonsense.

The French door behind them smashed open, the wood frame splintering, the glass shattering.

Zsadist took the whole thing out with his back as he was pushed through the thing by some tremendous force. As he landed on the kitchen floor, his skull jacked back and hit the tile so hard it sounded like another gun had gone off. Then, with a horrible yell, the lesser that had thrown him through the door leaped on his chest and the two of them slid across the room, heading right for the cellar stairs.