Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

“I haven’t had much cause to laugh lately,” she heard herself say.

“Talk to me.”

Mae’s eyes went to the empty silver dish, nothing but the residue of her blood and the other ingredients of the spell left. “I’ve lost a lot of loved ones recently. And I’m not going to lose another.”

“Who died. Or is dying.” When she didn’t reply, he shrugged. “Let me guess. Prayers haven’t been working—or you don’t feel like they go far enough. So you’re taking things into your own hands.”

“Do you believe in magic?”

When he didn’t answer, she lifted her eyes to his. He was staring at her with a remote expression.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said softly.

Mae had to look away—on account of a second warm flush that went up her throat and into her face. But surely she was reading . . . everything . . . wrong. A male like him? He was going to go for one of those fight-club women or females, the ones who belonged in the wait line with the others at the parking garage, the ones with the hips and the boobs and the outfits to show those kinds of assets off.

“What would you do to keep someone you loved alive?” she asked to get herself back on track.

No hesitation: “I’d kill anybody. Anything.”

She eyed his jacket, and thought of what was underneath it. “I believe that. But I’m not talking about defending them. What if you could . . . make them live again? What if you had the ability to bring them back, change destiny, take fate into your own hands. Take control of a wrong result.”

There was a long pause, and then his eyes left her. “You’re talking about resurrection.”

“See,” she said. “I told you it’s crazy.”

“It’s not crazy.” His obsidian stare returned to hers. “Unbelievable, maybe, but not crazy.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?”

“What exactly are we talking about here, Mae.”

It was a while before she could answer, before she could choose the right words. And then she lied. “Tallah is all I have left. She’s coming to the end of her life. I can’t let her die. I just . . . you have to understand. I have no one else in this world, and I’m not losing her, too.”

Mae burst up from the chair again. Given that there was nothing left of the tea to tidy, no reason other than her anxiety to move around, she reached across to the silver dish. Picking it up, she went to the sink and rinsed the basin off.

“Sometimes you have to let people go,” Sahvage said softly.

She glanced back at him. “Well, I don’t want to.”

“And you think this Book is your answer. She lives forever after you do what? Wave a wand over her forehead?”

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t intended to be. What’s in the Book.”

As Mae didn’t have a solid answer for that, the flimsiness of her plan, or solution, seemed rickety to a house-of-cards degree.

“It’s going to tell me what to do. To save her.”

“Spells, huh.” He took another drink from the mug. “God, I haven’t heard of shit like this since the Old Country. And as for the immortality stuff, be careful what you wish for. Sometimes, you actually get it.”

“Exactly. I don’t want her to die and she’ll be alive.”

“People aren’t supposed to live forever.”

“I don’t care.”

He laughed in a short rush. “You know, I have a lot of respect for your kind of arrogant aggression. And on that note, how’re you going to find this Book?”

Pulling a dish towel free of the stove handle, she dried the little silver basin. “We already did what you’re supposed to do.”

“Which is?” He held up his forefinger. “Wait, let me guess. Go to a bare-knuckle fight and try to get a guy killed by distracting him as a blood sacrifice. Great plan, and it’s worked so well.”

“You were going to murder that human.”

“No, I wasn’t.” After a moment, he made a meh motion with his free hand. “Okay, fine, maybe I was. But it wasn’t murder. He asked for it, and I’ve always said that other people’s stupid decisions are not my problem. Now what did you do to get the Book. Search Amazon under Hocus-Pocus for Dummies?”

“It was a summoning spell. And I’m quite intelligent, thank you very much.”

Although she felt like she hadn’t been winning many IQ prizes lately.

His eyes narrowed. “So the Book is here.”

“Not yet.”

“When did you do the spell?”

“Right before . . .” She cleared her throat. “Right before you came.”

There was a period of silence. Then he muttered, “And I’ll say it again—you wonder why that shadow showed up?”

Actually, she didn’t. “I think we should double-check your wounds. Just make sure you’re okay.”

“Changing the subject, are we.”

“Not at all.”

Sahvage put his mug to his lips and tilted his head back, finishing the coffee. When he set the empty down on the table, he smiled at her in that way he did—one side of his mouth lifting up, a knowing look in those glossy black eyes.