Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood 3)

He squeezed his eyes shut as the darkness in him shifted and breathed, a beast locked in a cage of medication. Christ, maybe this wasn't a good idea.

But then she was moving on him slowly, crawling up his body, her smell so like the ocean's. He cracked his eyelids to see her face and knew he was helpless to stop the feeding. And he was not going to miss this; he had to let a few sensations come to him. Slipping loose his discipline, he opened the channel to his sense of touch, and it received with greed even with the drug, all kinds of heady information surging through the dopamine fog.

The satin of her gown was soft against his skin, and he felt the warmth of her body mingling with his own heat. Her slight weight was braced on his shoulder and... yes, her knee was between his thighs.

Her mouth parted and her fangs unsheathed.

For a split second the evil in him howled, and he called on his mind in a panic. Thank the Virgin, the damn thing came to the rescue, the rational side of him rushing forward, chaining his instincts, quieting the very sexual need to dominate her.

She wobbled as she leaned down toward his throat, unsteady as she held herself above him.

"Lie on me," he said in a guttural voice. "Lay yourself... upon me."

With a wince she let the lower half of her body sink into the cradle of his hips. Clearly she was worried about bumping up against an erection, and when she encountered nothing of the sort she glanced between their bodies, as if thinking she'd hit the wrong place.

"You don't have to worry about that," he murmured, running his hands up her slender arms. "Not from me." Her relief was so palpable he was offended. "Would laying with me be such a chore?"

"Oh, no, Rehvenge. No." She glanced down at the thick muscles of his chest. "You are... quite lovely. It's just... there is another. For me, there is another."

"You still love Wrath."

She shook her head. "No, but I cannot think of the one I want. Not... now."

Rehv tilted her chin up. "What kind of idiot wouldn't feed you when you needed it?"

"Please. No more talk like that." Abruptly, her eyes fixated on his neck and dilated.

"Such hunger," he growled, thrilled to be used. "Go ahead. And don't worry about being gentle. Take me. The harder the better."

Marissa bared her fangs and bit him. The two sharp penetrations shot through the drug haze, and the sweet pain speared into his body. As he moaned, he thought that he'd never been grateful for his impotence before, but he was now. If his c**k had worked at all, sure as hell he'd have pushed that gown out of the way, parted her legs, and had her nice and deep as she fed.

Almost immediately she pulled back and licked at her lips.

"I'm going to taste different from Wrath," he said, counting on the fact that because she'd fed from only one male, she wouldn't know exactly why his blood hit her tongue in an odd way. Actually, her inexperience had been the only reason he'd been able to help her. Any other female who'd been around a little would know too much. "Go on, take some more. You'll get used to it."

Her head dropped again and he felt the tingling sting of another bite.

He wrapped his heavy arms around her fragile back and hugged her close as he shut his eyes. It had been so long since he'd held anyone, and though he couldn't afford to let in much of the experience, he found it sublime.

As she sucked at his vein, he had the absurd impulse to cry.

O eased up on the truck's accelerator and glided past another high stone wall.

Damn, the houses were huge on Thorne Avenue. Well, not that you could see the mansions from the street. He just assumed that with hedges and ramparts like these, there weren't a lot of split-levels and Cape Cods going on.

When this particular barricade split to allow for a driveway, he hit the brakes. To the left there was a little brass plaque that read, 27 THORNE AVENUE. He leaned forward, stretching for a look beyond, but with the drive and the wall disappearing into the darkness, he couldn't tell what was on the other side.

On a what-the-hell whim, he turned in and proceeded down the lane. A good hundred yards from the street there was a towering set of black gates, and he stopped, noting the cameras mounted on the top of them and the intercom system and the air of keep-out.

Well... this was interesting. The other address had been for shit, just an average house in an average neighborhood with humans in the living room watching TV. But whatever was behind a setup like this was big business.

Now he was curious.

Although infiltrating these barriers would require a coordinated strategy and some careful execution. And the last thing he needed was the inconvenience of tangling with the police just because he'd broken into some highflier's McMansion.

But why would that vampire have pulled this address out of his ass to save himself?

Then O saw something weird: a black ribbon tied to the gate. No, two of them, one on each side, waving in the wind.

Like they were for mourning?

Fixated by his own dread, he got out of the truck and crunched over the ice, heading for the ribbon on the right. It was mounted seven feet off the ground, so he had to stretch up his arm to finger it.

"Are you dead, wife?" he whispered. He dropped his hand and looked through the gates into the black night beyond.

He went back to the truck and reversed down the driveway.

He needed to get past that wall. Had to find someplace to dump the F-150.

Five minutes later he was cursing. Damn it. There was nowhere to park on Thorne that wasn't totally conspicuous. The street was nothing but walls, with barely any shoulder. Fucking rich people.

O hit the gas and looked left. Right. Maybe he could leave the truck down at the bottom of the hill and jog up from the main drag. It was a half mile at an incline, but he could cover the distance quickly enough. The streetlights he'd have to pass under were a bitch, of course, but it wasn't like anyone living on this road could see out from their ivory towers.

His cell phone went off and he answered it with a nasty, "What."

U's voice, which he was beginning to hate, was tense. "We've got a problem. Two lessen were arrested by the police."

O squeezed his eyes shut. "What the hell did they do?"

"They were taking down a civilian vampire and an unmarked patrol car went by. Two policemen engaged the slayers and more cops showed up. The lessers were taken into custody, and I got the call just now from one of them."

"So bail them out," O snapped. "Why are you calling me?"

There was a pause. Then U's tone had the stench of well, duh all over it. "Because you need to know this. Listen, they were packing plenty of concealed weapons, none of which they had permits for, all of which had come off the black market, with no serial numbers on the barrels. No way they're going to get bail in the morning. No public defender is that good. You need to get them out."

O scanned left and right and then turned around in a driveway the size of a football field. Yeah, there was definitely noplace to park around here. He had to go down to where Thorne Avenue dumped out on Bellman Road and leave the truck in that little village.

"O?"

"I have things I have to do."

U coughed as if he were choking back a boatload of pissed-off. "No offense, but I can't imagine anything's as important as this. What if those slayers get into a fight in general holding? You want black blood flowing so that some EMT type figures out they're not human? You have to contact the Omega and get him to call those two home."

"You do it." O accelerated even though he was headed down the hill now.

"What?"

"Reach out and touch the Omega." He came to a rolling stop at the bottom of Thorne and picked left. There were all kinds of cutie-pie, homey-ass shops on the street, and he parked in front of one called Kitty's Attic.

"O... That kind of request needs to come from the Fore-lesser. You know that."

O paused before turning off the ignition.

Terrific. Just what he wanted. More quality time with the bastard master. Goddamn it. He couldn't live with not knowing the fate of his woman any longer. There wasn't time for this Society bullshit.

"O?"

He put his head down on the steering wheel. Banged it a couple of times.

On the other hand, if that contact with the humans down at the police station exploded in his face, the Omega was going to come looking for him. And then where would he be?

"Fine. I'll go see him now." He cursed as he put the truck in gear. Before he pulled out he looked up Thorne Avenue again.