Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood 3)

Phury nodded.

"Now stand up and get moving."

Phury rose to his feet and headed for the door. As he walked along he realized he'd had some thought of coming out of this alive. He was vicious good with weapons, and he'd packed a few in hidden places. But this lesser was smart, hog-tying him, trapping him with the life of that civilian female.

As Phury kicked open the theater's side door, he knew without a doubt that he was kissing his ass good-bye tonight.

Zsadist came to by force of will, reaching out through the drug haze and grabbing onto consciousness. With a groan he dragged himself across the bath's marble floor and onto the rug in the bedroom. Clawing his way across the carpet, pushing with his feet, he barely had the strength to will the door open when he got to it.

As soon as he was in the hall of statues, he tried to yell. At first it was only hoarse whispers, but then he got a holler out. And another. And another.

The pounding, running footsteps made him dizzy with relief.

Wrath and Rhage knelt by him and rolled him over. He cut through their questions, unable to follow all the words. "Phury... gone... Phury... gone..."

When his stomach heaved, he lurched back onto his side and threw up. The voiding helped, making him feel a little more clearheaded after it stopped.

"Have to find him..."

Wrath and Rhage were still firing questions, talking fast, and Z thought they were probably the cause of all the buzzing in his ears. Either that or his head was about to explode.

As he pushed his face off the carpet his vision spun, and he thanked God that dose of morphine had been calibrated for Bella's weight. Because he was a mess.

His gut spasmed and he vomited again, losing it all over the rag. Shit... He never had been able to handle opiates.

More feet pounding down the hall. More voices. Someone wiping his mouth with a wet cloth. Fritz. When Z's throat started working up another round of gags, a wastepaper basket was shoved in his face.

"Thank you," he said as he threw up again.

With every heave, his mind was coming back online, his body, too. He stuffed two fingers down his throat to keep himself going. The faster he got that drug out of his system, the sooner he could go after Phury.

That heroic motherfucker... God. He was going to kill his twin for this, he really was. Phury was the one who was supposed to live.

But where the hell had he been taken? And how to find him? The movie theater was the starting place, but they wouldn't have stayed there long.

Zsadist started to do the dry-heave thing, because there was nothing left in his stomach. It was in the middle of the retching that the only solution came to him, and when it did, his stomach rolled from something other than the drug. The way to his twin violated every instinct he had.

More pounding down the hall. Vishous's voice. A civilian emergency. A family of six trapped in their house, surrounded by lessers.

Z lifted his head. Then his torso. Then he was up on his feet. His will, ever the only saving grace he had, came to the rescue again. It threw off more of the drug, focused him, cleared him out better than the vomiting.

"I'll get Phury," he told his brothers. "You go take care of business."

There was a brief pause. Then Wrath said, "So be it."

Chapter Forty-six

Bella sat in a Louis XIV chair, her legs crossed at the ankles, her hands in her lap. A blaze crackled in a marble fireplace to the left, and there was a cup of Earl Grey tea at her elbow. Marissa was across the way on a delicate sofa, drawing a strand of yellow silk up through an embroidery mesh. There was no sound to the movement.

Bella thought she was going to scream -

She leaped up, energized by instinct. Zsadist... Zsadist was close by.

"What is it?" Marissa said.

Pounding on the front door lit off like a drum, and a moment later Zsadist came into the parlor. He was dressed for his business, guns on his hips, daggers strapped on his chest. The doggen right on his heels looked scared stiff of him.

"Leave us," Marissa was told. "And take your servant with you."

As the female hesitated, Bella cleared her throat. "It's okay. It's... Go."

Marissa inclined her head. "I won't be far."

Bella held herself in place as they were left alone.

"I need you," Zsadist said.

She narrowed her eyes. God, those words she had wanted to hear. How cruel that they came so late. "For what."

"Phury took your vein."

"Yes."

"I need you to find him."

"Is he missing?"

"Your blood is in his veins. I need you - "

"To find him. I heard that. Tell me why." The brief pause that followed chilled her.

"The lesser has him. David has him."

Her breath left her lungs. Her heart stopped. "How... ?"

"I don't have time to explain." Zsadist came forward, looking as if he was going to take her hands, but then he stopped. "Please. You're the only one who can get me to him, because your blood is in him."

"Of course... of course I'll find him for you."

It was the chain of blood ties, she thought. She could locate Phury anywhere because he'd fed from her. And after she'd been at Zsadist's throat, he would be able to track her for the same reason.

He put his face right into hers. "I want you to get within fifty yards of him, no closer, we clear? And then you're dematerializing right back here."

She looked him in the eye. "I won't let you down."

"I wish there were another way to find him."

Oh, that hurt. "No doubt you do."

She left the parlor and got her coat, then stood in the foyer. She closed her eyes and reached out into the air, piercing first the walls of the entryway she was in, then the outer structure of Havers's house. Her mind cast out over the shrubs and the lawn and cut through other trees and houses... Through cars and trucks and buildings and across parks and rivers and streams. Out farther still to the farmland and the mountains...

When she found Phury's energy source, a screaming pain assaulted her, as if that were what he felt. As she swayed, Zsadist gripped her arm.

She pushed him away. "I've got him. Oh, God... he's - "

Zsadist grabbed her arm again and squeezed. "Fifty yards. No closer. Are we clear?"

"Yes. Now let me go."

She went out the front door, dematerialized, and took form about twenty yards away from a small cabin in the woods.

She felt Zsadist take shape at her elbow. "Go," he hissed. "Get out of here."

"But - "

"If you want to help, leave so I don't have to worry about you. Go."

Bella took one last look into his face and dematerialized.

Zsadist sidled up to the log cabin, grateful for the cold air that helped him throw off a little more of the morphine. As he flattened himself against a rough-hewn wall, he unsheathed a dagger and peered into one of the windows. There was nothing inside, just some rustic, shitty furniture and a computer setup.

Panic washed through him, a cold rain in his blood.

And then he heard the sound... a thump. Then another.

There was a smaller outbuilding with no windows about twenty-five yards back. He jogged over and listened for only a split second. Then he traded his knife for a Beretta and kicked down the door.

The sight before him was out of his own past: A male chained to a table, pounded raw. A demented psychopath standing over the victim.

Phury lifted his battered face, blood glistening on his swollen lips and beat-to-hell nose. The lesser with the brass knuckles whirled around and seemed momentarily confused.

Zsadist aimed his gun at the f**ker, but the slayer was right in front of Phury: The slightest miscalculation and the bullet was going to drill into his twin. Z dropped the muzzle, squeezed the trigger, and nailed the lesser in the leg, shattering his knee. The bastard screamed and dropped to the floor.

Z went for him. Except just as he got a hold on the undead, another popping sound went off.

The blaze of pain shot through Z's shoulder. He knew he'd been plugged a good one, but he couldn't think about that right now. He focused on getting control over the lesser's gun, which was the same thing the SOB was trying to do to Z's Sig. They struggled on the floor, each trying to get a grip on the other in spite of the blood that was oiling them up. Punches were thrown and hands grabbed and legs thrashed. Both guns were lost in the grappling.

About four minutes into the fight Z's strength started to flag with alarming speed. Then he was on the bottom, the lesser sitting on his chest. Z gave a push, willing his body to throw the weight on it off, but though his mind gave the command, for once his limbs refused to obey. He glanced at his shoulder. He was bleeding out, no doubt because that slug had hit an artery. And that shot of morphine didn't help.