Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood 7)

Beth pressed her mouth to his. "I love you so much."

He laughed and held her to his lips. "You want to show me?"

"After you seal this approval? You got it."

To process the will, they got to play around with the flame and the wax and his royal seal again, but he was in a rush this time, unable to wait a second longer than he had to before getting into his female. His signature was still drying and the seal still cooling when he took Beth's mouth again-

The knock on the doors made him growl as he glared at the sound. "Go. Away."

"I got news." Vishous's muffled voice was low and tight. Which added the modifier bad to what he'd said.

Wrath opened the panels with his mind. "Talk to me. But make it quick."

Beth's shocked inhale gave him an idea of V's expression. "What's happened?" she murmured.

"Rehvenge is dead."

"What?" they both said at the same time.

"I just got the call from iAm. ZeroSum's been bombed into dust, and according to the Moor, Rehv was in it when it went. No way there was a survivor."

There was a dead zone as the implications set in.

"Does Bella know?" Wrath said grimly.

"Not yet."

Chapter SIXTY

John Matthew rolled over in his bed and woke up when something hard poked against his cheek. With a curse, he lifted his head. Oh, right, he and Jack Daniel's had gone a couple rounds, and the aftermath of the whiskey's fists lingered: He was too hot even though he was naked, his mouth was dry as tree bark, and he needed to hit the bathroom before his bladder exploded.

Sitting up, he rubbed his hair and eyes...and succeeded in waking a hangover.

As his head started to pound, he grabbed for the bottle he'd been using as a pillow. There was only an inch of booze left in the bottom, but that was enough to pull a dog-that-bitcha. Ready for relief, he went to unscrew the cap to the Jack and found that he hadn't put it on. Good thing he'd passed out with the bottle upright.

Drinking hard, he pulled the shit down into his belly and told himself to just breathe through the shock waves of nausea that fired up in his gut. When there were only fumes left in the bottle, he let the dead soldier sit on the mattress and looked down his body. His c**k was asleep against his thigh, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd woken up without an erection. Then again, he'd been with...three? four? How many women had there been? God, he had no idea.

He'd used a condom once. With the prostitute. The rest had been bareback pullouts.

In shady images, he saw Qhuinn and him two-timing some of the women, then going solo on others. He couldn't remember what it had all felt like, remembered nothing of the orgasms he'd had, knew none of their faces, barely recalled their hair colors. What he did know was that as soon as he'd come back to this room, he'd had a long, hot shower.

All that shit he couldn't recollect had left a stain on his skin.

With a groan, he shifted his legs off the bed and let the bottle fall on the floor next to his feet. The trip to the bathroom was a real party, his balance so far off that he weaved...well, like a drunk, as a matter of fact. And walking wasn't the only problem he had. Standing over the toilet, he had to brace himself against the wall and concentrate on his aim.

Back in bed, he pulled a sheet over his lower body, in spite of the fact that he felt like he had a fever: Even though he was alone, he didn't want to lie around like some  p**n  star looking for a supporting actress.

Shit...his head was killing him.

As he closed his eyes, he wished he'd turned the light off in the bathroom.

Abruptly he stopped caring about the hangover, though. With terrible clarity, he remembered Xhex straddling his hips and riding him in a fluid, powerful rhythm. Oh, God, it was so vivid, so much more than a just a memory. As the pictures played out, he felt the tight hold of her body on his sex and the hard way she held his shoulders down, reliving that sense of being mastered.

He knew every shift and slide, all the scents, even the way she breathed.

With her, he remembered everything.

Leaning to the side, he picked the Jack up off the floor, as if by some miracle the alkie elves had refilled the f**ker. No such luck-

The scream that lit off next door was the kind someone made when they'd been stabbed deep and hard, and the tearing screech sobered him like he'd been splashed with an ice bath. John grabbed his gun, shot out of bed, and hit the floor running, throwing open the door and racing into the hall of statues. On both sides of his room, Qhuinn and Blay did the same, making the same rushed, ready-to-fight appearance he did.

Down at the end of the corridor, the Brotherhood was standing in the doorway of Zsadist and Bella's quarters, their faces dark and sad.

"No!" Bella's voice was loud as the scream had been. "No!"

"I'm so sorry," Wrath said.

From the knot of Brothers, Tohr looked over at John. The male's face was white and drawn, his stare hollow.

What happened? John signed.

Tohr's hands moved slowly. Rehvenge is dead.

John took a lot of deep breaths. Rehvenge...dead?

"Jesus Christ," Qhuinn muttered.

From the doorway of her bedroom, Bella's sobs tumbled into the hall, and John wanted to go to her. He remembered what that pain was like. He'd been in those horrible, numbing shoes when Tohr had taken off, right after the Brotherhood had done exactly what they were doing now-reporting the worst news that anyone could hear.

He'd screamed the same as Bella had. Wept the same as she was now.

John glanced back to Tohr. The Brother's eyes burned as if there were things he wanted to say, hugs he wanted to offer, regrets he wanted to make right.

For a split second, John almost went to the guy.

But then he turned away and stumbled into his room, shutting the door and locking it. As he sat down on the bed, he braced the weight of his shoulders against his hands and let his head hang down. Banging around in his brain was the chaos of the past, but at the center of his chest was a single, overriding word: No.

He couldn't go there with Tohr again. He'd been through the wringer too many times. Besides, he wasn't a child anymore, and Tohr never had been his father, so that whole daddy-save-me shit didn't apply to the two of them.

The closest they were going to get was fighter-to-fighter.

Shoving the Tohr crap out of his head, he thought of Xhex.

She was hurting right now. Badly.

He hated that there was nothing he could do for her.

Except then he reminded himself that even if there were, she wouldn't have wanted what he had to offer. She'd made that perfectly clear.

Xhex sat on the twin bed in her place on the Hudson River, head hanging low, the weight of her shoulders braced against her hands. Next to her, on the thin blanket, was the letter iAm had given her. After taking it out of its envelope, she'd read it once, refolded it along its pristine creases, and retreated into this small room.

Shifting her head to the side, she looked out through frosted windows to the sluggish, murky river. It was bitterly cold today, the temperature slowing the current of the water down and icing up the rocky shores.

Rehv was such a bastard.

When she'd sworn to him that she would take care of a female, she hadn't thought that vow through well enough. In the letter, he called her on the pledge and identified the female as herself: She was not to come for him, nor endanger the life of the princess in any way. Furthermore, in the event she did anything like that on his behalf, he would not accept her help and would choose to stay in the colony no matter what actions she took in the name of saving him. Finally, he directed that should she go against his wishes and her word, iAm was to follow her to the colony, thus endangering the life of the Shadow.

Mother. Fucker.

It was the perfect endgame, worthy of a male like Rehv: She might be tempted to can her vow, and she might think there was a way to talk sense into her boss, but she already had the burden of Muhrder's life around her neck, and now Rehvenge's. Adding iAm's to the list would kill her.

Plus Trez would go after his brother. Making it an even four.

Caged by the situation, she gripped the edge of the mattress so hard her forearms shook.

The knife got into her palm somehow; only later would she recall that she'd had to stand up and walk naked across the room to her leathers to get it out of its holster.

Back on the bed, she thought of the males she'd lost over the course of her life. She saw Murhder's long dark hair and his deep-set eyes and the scruff he always had on his heavy jaw...heard his Old Country accent and recalled the way he'd always smelled of gunpowder and sex. Then she saw Rehvenge's amethyst stare and his mohawk and his beautiful clothes...smelled his Must de Cartier cologne and relived his chic brutality.